Saturday, April 29, 2006
Aurelius phones it in.
Today began as an exciting day. My cousine was getting married to a guy who strongly resembles Billy Bob Thorton, and Cindy and I were looking forward to a night of dancing and conversing with the assembled family. As a bonus, this particular subset of the family/friends had never seen my groovy, retro, blue pin-striped suit, so after buying a new shirt last night I was feeling totally happening.
I can't have gained any size around the middle. The crotch of that suit must have shrunk at the dry cleaners.
After enduring several hours with my balls in a polyester vice, I was done. Ow, ow, ow.
I'm now in pajama bottoms, slippers, and a Schell Firebrick All Malt Vienna Style Lager. I'm sure I'm going to be tender for days.
I can't have gained any size around the middle. The crotch of that suit must have shrunk at the dry cleaners.
After enduring several hours with my balls in a polyester vice, I was done. Ow, ow, ow.
I'm now in pajama bottoms, slippers, and a Schell Firebrick All Malt Vienna Style Lager. I'm sure I'm going to be tender for days.
Friday, April 28, 2006
When Men have Honor
Normally, I like to write my blogs with the open style of writing that uses 'one' and 'their' versus 'him' and 'his.' It's a minor concession to the viewpoint that women are our equals. I've always had a tendency to try to get on the good side with Feminism. More pragmatically, as a fisherman for love, it pays to throw the widest net possible. No point pissing off a percentage of my potential 'friends' right from the get go. Besides, women who have the common sense and self-esteem to stand up for their gender are the only ones I can tolerate for extended periods.
Honor, however, has a long tradition within the male-dominated 99.99% of human history. Can chicks posses it? Sure, but today I'm blogging testosteronesque.
Chivalry, Bushido, the rugged individualism of our archetype Cowboy; our societies have benefited from and cultivated a meme in our culture where personal honor is paramount. A samurai would rather commit seppuku - a ritual means of cutting open his own stomach that during some periods would require hours to die - than take an action which would dishonor himself, his lord, or his family name. Troubadors sang poems of noble kings who would release a dangerous enemy from prison because of a technical obligation to his word to a woman under chivalry. Over and over, novels, television, and films present us with heros who refuse to do some dastardly deed even under the direst of duress. "No," says spiderman, "I will never join the Dark Side!"
I could easily get sidetracked here on the many differences between morality and honor. In tribal regions all over this planet a rape victim will be killed by her own family over honor. I want to stay focused on the concept of a man who belives in a code of conduct that is greater than himself and his own ego. A concept where a man stands up and fights, too often giving his life, because he refuses to be intimidated or conjoled.
As one great man put it, "We're all going to die. The only question is, do you want it on your feet, or on your fucking knees?"
One man with honor is formor chief consul to President Richard Nixon, John Dean. During the insanely chaotic era of Vietnam, watergate, and Henry Kissinger, a man named Daniel Ellsberg acted on his own demands of honor, and leaked to the media about 8000 pages of information on Vietnam and the military's assessment of this war that became known as 'the Pentagon Papers.' At first, Nixon didn't care too much, he thought the leaked information made the dems look worse, but then Mr. Kissinger whispered into his ear that such a leak would make him look weak. Tables were pounded upon, federal charges were leveled, and the plumbers were dispatched.
Soon, Mr. Ellsberg was in court facing a prison term that he would still be serving today, when John Dean came forward with information to support him. For him, it came down to the President of the United States of America asking him to lie - and he was not going to do that. He was not going to perjure himself for anybody. Mr. Dean served prison time for his participation in that illegal cover up. He choose not to protect himself, but to stand up for his personal honor.
Many of the fundies in this country hold on to this pleasant little myth that 'the Truth will always rise up in the end.' The Weaver of Lies can only obscure the Pure Light of Truth for so long - and more shit like that, it plugs into their need to constantly reinforce the belief that their dogma is right, and it's super for keeping them receptive to authority figures. Yet this is not the case.
I have no doubt that Nixon would have survived watergate if Mr. Dean towed the line and merely said nothing as they ground Ellsberg into the ground. A President who lied to the American People about the expansion of a war into Laos and Cambodia. A President who kept and 'enemies list' and spied on everyone. He could have drifted right on through it.
Take Reagan for example. 29 of his officials were convicted, including his national security advisor and chief of staff, in a series of scandals from Iran-Contra to HUD loot machine. But loyal soldiers like Oliver North jumped on those grenades, choose to lie to congress, and far too many of our fellow citizens have no Idea what Iran-Contra was all about. (Hint: it might be important for a citizen to know about this in relation to our war in the Middle East, the problems with immigration, or the War on Drugs.)
The neo-cons in Washington learned a lot of lessons from watergate. They learned to vet their minions by the standards of personal loyalty over a loyalty to the country, the constitution, or their own personal honor.
Men who don't have honor, who won't stand up for what they believe in are shit.
Honor, however, has a long tradition within the male-dominated 99.99% of human history. Can chicks posses it? Sure, but today I'm blogging testosteronesque.
Chivalry, Bushido, the rugged individualism of our archetype Cowboy; our societies have benefited from and cultivated a meme in our culture where personal honor is paramount. A samurai would rather commit seppuku - a ritual means of cutting open his own stomach that during some periods would require hours to die - than take an action which would dishonor himself, his lord, or his family name. Troubadors sang poems of noble kings who would release a dangerous enemy from prison because of a technical obligation to his word to a woman under chivalry. Over and over, novels, television, and films present us with heros who refuse to do some dastardly deed even under the direst of duress. "No," says spiderman, "I will never join the Dark Side!"
I could easily get sidetracked here on the many differences between morality and honor. In tribal regions all over this planet a rape victim will be killed by her own family over honor. I want to stay focused on the concept of a man who belives in a code of conduct that is greater than himself and his own ego. A concept where a man stands up and fights, too often giving his life, because he refuses to be intimidated or conjoled.
As one great man put it, "We're all going to die. The only question is, do you want it on your feet, or on your fucking knees?"
One man with honor is formor chief consul to President Richard Nixon, John Dean. During the insanely chaotic era of Vietnam, watergate, and Henry Kissinger, a man named Daniel Ellsberg acted on his own demands of honor, and leaked to the media about 8000 pages of information on Vietnam and the military's assessment of this war that became known as 'the Pentagon Papers.' At first, Nixon didn't care too much, he thought the leaked information made the dems look worse, but then Mr. Kissinger whispered into his ear that such a leak would make him look weak. Tables were pounded upon, federal charges were leveled, and the plumbers were dispatched.
Soon, Mr. Ellsberg was in court facing a prison term that he would still be serving today, when John Dean came forward with information to support him. For him, it came down to the President of the United States of America asking him to lie - and he was not going to do that. He was not going to perjure himself for anybody. Mr. Dean served prison time for his participation in that illegal cover up. He choose not to protect himself, but to stand up for his personal honor.
Many of the fundies in this country hold on to this pleasant little myth that 'the Truth will always rise up in the end.' The Weaver of Lies can only obscure the Pure Light of Truth for so long - and more shit like that, it plugs into their need to constantly reinforce the belief that their dogma is right, and it's super for keeping them receptive to authority figures. Yet this is not the case.
I have no doubt that Nixon would have survived watergate if Mr. Dean towed the line and merely said nothing as they ground Ellsberg into the ground. A President who lied to the American People about the expansion of a war into Laos and Cambodia. A President who kept and 'enemies list' and spied on everyone. He could have drifted right on through it.
Take Reagan for example. 29 of his officials were convicted, including his national security advisor and chief of staff, in a series of scandals from Iran-Contra to HUD loot machine. But loyal soldiers like Oliver North jumped on those grenades, choose to lie to congress, and far too many of our fellow citizens have no Idea what Iran-Contra was all about. (Hint: it might be important for a citizen to know about this in relation to our war in the Middle East, the problems with immigration, or the War on Drugs.)
The neo-cons in Washington learned a lot of lessons from watergate. They learned to vet their minions by the standards of personal loyalty over a loyalty to the country, the constitution, or their own personal honor.
Men who don't have honor, who won't stand up for what they believe in are shit.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Why Democrats suck
Last night on my way home from work I flipped the station to AM 950 - our local Air America - to see what the fledgling democratic propaganda machine was up to. I know that's not the proper use of the word propaganda, but anyways this guy fields a call from a woman who is pro-impeachment. His response was something like this:
"Look, George Bush is not going to be impeached. Don't you think that we need to take our mind off of that sort of pie-in-the-sky fantasy and focus on the upcoming elections? We need to be out there knocking on doors and capitalizing on Bush's low approval rating. We need to associate Bush and the failure in Iraq with 'Brand Republican' so that we can win back some seats this November, blah, blah, blah, 'Brand Republican', blah, blah, blah, '08"
This is the sort of thinking that really pisses me off. I just wanted to call up and yell at the guy, 'you want to turn the Iraq war and Bush's erratic presidency into a marketing opportunity! That's why you loose, dumbass, they are way better at that then you are! '
I understand that there will always be a place for this sort of pragmatic evaluation in the world of national politics, especially in an electoral system system designed to be gamed. I simply don't respect someone who chooses to indulge in that thinking right now.
Impeached or asked to resign by all the right people, I don't care. I'd say there is plenty of movement amongst the old-school conservatives that W needs to go away. This democratic yahoo is advocating leaving the wound open for a few more months, hoping that infection sets in and his party can get to play doctor. There is a time for partisanship and a time for citizenship. Time to put what's good for the country and the world, ahead of what's good for your political allies.
Sure, the democrats have a tough row to hoe if they want to win back either legislative body this fall. They blew it in the media game ever since Reagen deregulated, and will never have the legions of evags who will vote against gays and abortion. Too damn bad.
The sixty odd percent strongly disapprove rating is not being powered by people who want to see democrats regain control so they can 'moderate' their politically connected little asses off. This movement, this gnawing sense of resentment has overcome an immensely biased pro-Bush, pro-corporations media. They seriously wonder if their right to vote means anything anymore after Diebold machines and surgical deletions from voter rolls. They doubt the validity of dozens of 'investigations' into White House affairs - some even have sizable doubts about how 9/11 went down. They cannot believe the corruption, with no-bid contracts being given to corporations with such obvious ties to the administration. They see an Iraq where our nation's honor has been tossed aside as our military's civilian leadership shrugged off any sense of obligation to international law. They want to see something done about it.
Aside from Conyers and Feinstein, I don't see too many democrats who seem to get it. George Bush was such an inept Wizard, that we have all gotten too good of a glance behind the curtain. The sorry state of our democracy; with the baleful influence of money and political favors, a worthlessly complacent media, the countless times we've been lied to and talked down to by this administration. We ain't gonna go back to standing in awe at the power and wisdom of Oz. We want something real this time.
Where is the sense of urgency? In the next few months we will almost certainly be involved in a military conflict with Iran. I might be wrong, but the best reach-around George can give his fundemantalist core is to expand the 'crusade' and further fuel their fascination with the 'end times.'
Iraq will continue to fester. Hundreds more of our best soldiers will be killed or maimed for life. Our taxpayer money will continue to be handed over in huge gobs to corporations with absolutely zero fucking oversight. The Middle East and South America will continue to solidify relations seeing the U.S. as a common enemy.
It will take us generations to grasp the full impact of George W. Bush's destructive influence on our country.
If a democrat runs for office this fall and does not promise to advance an impeachment agenda and fully support subpeona power investigations into the dozen of scandals surrounding the White House, I will not vote for them. I'll vote third party, I'd rather vote for a fucking libertarian before I support another John ("I'm not George Bush. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not reading off a teleprompter") Kerry.
Give me some cantidates who seem to care.
"Look, George Bush is not going to be impeached. Don't you think that we need to take our mind off of that sort of pie-in-the-sky fantasy and focus on the upcoming elections? We need to be out there knocking on doors and capitalizing on Bush's low approval rating. We need to associate Bush and the failure in Iraq with 'Brand Republican' so that we can win back some seats this November, blah, blah, blah, 'Brand Republican', blah, blah, blah, '08"
This is the sort of thinking that really pisses me off. I just wanted to call up and yell at the guy, 'you want to turn the Iraq war and Bush's erratic presidency into a marketing opportunity! That's why you loose, dumbass, they are way better at that then you are! '
I understand that there will always be a place for this sort of pragmatic evaluation in the world of national politics, especially in an electoral system system designed to be gamed. I simply don't respect someone who chooses to indulge in that thinking right now.
Impeached or asked to resign by all the right people, I don't care. I'd say there is plenty of movement amongst the old-school conservatives that W needs to go away. This democratic yahoo is advocating leaving the wound open for a few more months, hoping that infection sets in and his party can get to play doctor. There is a time for partisanship and a time for citizenship. Time to put what's good for the country and the world, ahead of what's good for your political allies.
Sure, the democrats have a tough row to hoe if they want to win back either legislative body this fall. They blew it in the media game ever since Reagen deregulated, and will never have the legions of evags who will vote against gays and abortion. Too damn bad.
The sixty odd percent strongly disapprove rating is not being powered by people who want to see democrats regain control so they can 'moderate' their politically connected little asses off. This movement, this gnawing sense of resentment has overcome an immensely biased pro-Bush, pro-corporations media. They seriously wonder if their right to vote means anything anymore after Diebold machines and surgical deletions from voter rolls. They doubt the validity of dozens of 'investigations' into White House affairs - some even have sizable doubts about how 9/11 went down. They cannot believe the corruption, with no-bid contracts being given to corporations with such obvious ties to the administration. They see an Iraq where our nation's honor has been tossed aside as our military's civilian leadership shrugged off any sense of obligation to international law. They want to see something done about it.
Aside from Conyers and Feinstein, I don't see too many democrats who seem to get it. George Bush was such an inept Wizard, that we have all gotten too good of a glance behind the curtain. The sorry state of our democracy; with the baleful influence of money and political favors, a worthlessly complacent media, the countless times we've been lied to and talked down to by this administration. We ain't gonna go back to standing in awe at the power and wisdom of Oz. We want something real this time.
Where is the sense of urgency? In the next few months we will almost certainly be involved in a military conflict with Iran. I might be wrong, but the best reach-around George can give his fundemantalist core is to expand the 'crusade' and further fuel their fascination with the 'end times.'
Iraq will continue to fester. Hundreds more of our best soldiers will be killed or maimed for life. Our taxpayer money will continue to be handed over in huge gobs to corporations with absolutely zero fucking oversight. The Middle East and South America will continue to solidify relations seeing the U.S. as a common enemy.
It will take us generations to grasp the full impact of George W. Bush's destructive influence on our country.
If a democrat runs for office this fall and does not promise to advance an impeachment agenda and fully support subpeona power investigations into the dozen of scandals surrounding the White House, I will not vote for them. I'll vote third party, I'd rather vote for a fucking libertarian before I support another John ("I'm not George Bush. I'm not going to change anything. I'm not reading off a teleprompter") Kerry.
Give me some cantidates who seem to care.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Wherefor the Soul?
I'm going to take a mental break from the fact that U.S. forces are already in Iran, that I can listen to the 'news roundup' on 95% of the radio programs - the one's that even carry news - and hear three quotes from Mr. Bush that all have been carefully edited to make him appear both articulate and competent; or the fact that this immigration 'debate' is so slanted and filled with racism as to be a national disgrace. Nope, today I'm going to flee into the realm of philosophical abstraction and ponder the existence of the soul.
During my catholic upbringing, we were inculcated with the notion that the soul is the part of ourselves that God has created to make up the spiritual part of our existence. Prior to our parents' failure with the rhythm method, this invisible soul resided in a special place in Heaven called the 'Luft' (I think) until an angel came down and bestowed it upon us at the nanosecond of conception.
I began to bore of catholic mythology by about 4th grade, but even as I considered paganism and lycanthropy as alternatives, I never abandoned the notion that we have a soul. As a child I felt things very intensely; feelings came from the soul, seemed good enough for me. I loved reading as a kid. Books on mythology, the Dragonlance series, the Gor series, Mack Bolan 'the Executioner', the Survivalist series, the list goes on and on. The point is, I indulged an already over-active imagination.
By my junior high days I discovered philosophy. The long winded writing styles of these victims of intropection fascinated me. I love writing where the concepts being defined require whole chapters - before the concepts can be analysed or compared! I always felt that what was being discussed in these books, what Descartes referred to as 'the very best conversations with the wisest of men', was the soul. Greater levels of understanding were out there to be unlocked, and I wanted to grasp at that.
The fact that so many philosophers had been oppressed by the Church or some other instituion probably also lead me to identify with them as the 'good guys.' Ironic how christianity teaches some of us to honor the sacrifice of Jesus at the hands of an ignorant mob, then turns on a dime and does the same thing to so many intellectuals.
(Note to conservative bloggers: obviously, Aurelius has a fascination with oppressed writers. When you flame all over his comment section, you only feed his ego as he compares himself to another Rousseau. . .)
So, I obsessed on Renee Descartes, and did all sorts of 'thought experiments' into my early twenties regarding his Mind/Body definitions. I would refer to myself as a 'dualist' when others where 'luthern'. I had great '80s hair, with the left side of my head my natural curls hung down to the shoulder, while the right side was trimmed short - 'to express the duality of man' Yeah, scared off a few complimentary advances with that one-liner. I even came damn close to getting, 'Congito ergo sum' tatooed accross my chest, unfortuanately lettering was damn expensive.
It seemed to me that Descartes dualism made a whole lot of sense. What I defined when I thought about myself, that was the Mind. Obviously, I had a soul and it only made sense that this soul was immortal and could not be affected by the lowly world of the material, the Body. I still lumped all my imagination and sometimes overwhealming emotions into the realm of the Mind. I had a creation myth where primative creatures captured the soul, in a similar way that primordial ameobas absorbed smaller lifeforms and incorporated them into unique organelles. . .
I'll skip over my fascination with behaviorism, and the modern understanding of the brain that does not require a ghost at the controls of the machine. Suffice to say that I still hate the fuckers who made me think about that stuff. Some of my childish fantasy dies every time I ceed that such a model makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Where I'm interested in being at this point in the post deals with the notion of the soul as 'perfect.' How many consider the fact that the soul they were born with is the same soul that they will die with? Over the last few years I've become haunted with the notion that our souls do not just alter over time with the occassional tragedy or revelation. They are the treasured collection in our minds of every Idea, thought, and experience that helps to deliniate what is me from what is the outside world. The soul is still the lockbox in our heart where we keep those beliefs that we are willing to kill or die for. Isn't it?
Saw 'Silent Hill' last Friday. Aside from the fact that lame-ass critics will always dis a 'movie based on a video game,' and hold a grudge when they don't get a pre-screening; as we left that movie the scores of teenagers we were forced to endure the presence of during the flick all thought it sucked. At least the ones busy vocalizing (which seemed to be all of them, all at once) did not get it, did not understand the whole 'land of the living, land of the dead' thing.
It wasn't that complicated. There were a half-dozen myths that might have been referenced by the movie, and these kids not have been reading about Orpheus in school that week.
Certain spiritual communications - the effort by one soul to make an impression on another, overcoming the barriers of the flesh - requires the most sacred collections of thoughts/feelings to be bundled up in words and spoken accross the void to another. They then unpack this bundle of words, and hopefully those combinations reference the same emotions and understandings inside their inner world. Here is where liberals have an article of faith, we believe that every human being has some common stuff in their souls, that such moving communication be possible even accross boundries of race or culture.
I guess I'm stabbing at the notion that our souls need to be cultivated. We need to study art and science, mythology and pop T.V., cuz every single source can be the words and the references that another soul might use to bundle up part of what means something to them as they try to share it with you.
Final example: I'm a huge fan of the musical works of Rodger Waters. On his 'Radio KAOS' album, there is a song title 'Home' that just gets me in the belly every time I hear it. One reference, is '. . . could be a little someplace by a bend in the river, could be something your old man handed down . . . everybody's got someplace, they call home.' Only last week at the library did I see a list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century and had a disappointing moment as I checked off the half-dozen I've read. 'A Bend in the River' is a book by somebody important, it was in the top fifty. I'd never read it, but Water's is referencing it in his song - I'd bet my sideburns. So if I had read that book, and placed some of its content into the vault of my soul, his song would have even more meaning for me as that line would be a key that would unlock even more meaning as I heard it.
My own understanding of the soul has grown and developed over time. I have now come to see the absorption of culture as a means of 'improving the high' I get when I have a chance to partake of spiritual communion. I don't claim to have it all figured out, this is just where I be right now.
Thanks for taking the time to suffer through some of my seeking.
During my catholic upbringing, we were inculcated with the notion that the soul is the part of ourselves that God has created to make up the spiritual part of our existence. Prior to our parents' failure with the rhythm method, this invisible soul resided in a special place in Heaven called the 'Luft' (I think) until an angel came down and bestowed it upon us at the nanosecond of conception.
I began to bore of catholic mythology by about 4th grade, but even as I considered paganism and lycanthropy as alternatives, I never abandoned the notion that we have a soul. As a child I felt things very intensely; feelings came from the soul, seemed good enough for me. I loved reading as a kid. Books on mythology, the Dragonlance series, the Gor series, Mack Bolan 'the Executioner', the Survivalist series, the list goes on and on. The point is, I indulged an already over-active imagination.
By my junior high days I discovered philosophy. The long winded writing styles of these victims of intropection fascinated me. I love writing where the concepts being defined require whole chapters - before the concepts can be analysed or compared! I always felt that what was being discussed in these books, what Descartes referred to as 'the very best conversations with the wisest of men', was the soul. Greater levels of understanding were out there to be unlocked, and I wanted to grasp at that.
The fact that so many philosophers had been oppressed by the Church or some other instituion probably also lead me to identify with them as the 'good guys.' Ironic how christianity teaches some of us to honor the sacrifice of Jesus at the hands of an ignorant mob, then turns on a dime and does the same thing to so many intellectuals.
(Note to conservative bloggers: obviously, Aurelius has a fascination with oppressed writers. When you flame all over his comment section, you only feed his ego as he compares himself to another Rousseau. . .)
So, I obsessed on Renee Descartes, and did all sorts of 'thought experiments' into my early twenties regarding his Mind/Body definitions. I would refer to myself as a 'dualist' when others where 'luthern'. I had great '80s hair, with the left side of my head my natural curls hung down to the shoulder, while the right side was trimmed short - 'to express the duality of man' Yeah, scared off a few complimentary advances with that one-liner. I even came damn close to getting, 'Congito ergo sum' tatooed accross my chest, unfortuanately lettering was damn expensive.
It seemed to me that Descartes dualism made a whole lot of sense. What I defined when I thought about myself, that was the Mind. Obviously, I had a soul and it only made sense that this soul was immortal and could not be affected by the lowly world of the material, the Body. I still lumped all my imagination and sometimes overwhealming emotions into the realm of the Mind. I had a creation myth where primative creatures captured the soul, in a similar way that primordial ameobas absorbed smaller lifeforms and incorporated them into unique organelles. . .
I'll skip over my fascination with behaviorism, and the modern understanding of the brain that does not require a ghost at the controls of the machine. Suffice to say that I still hate the fuckers who made me think about that stuff. Some of my childish fantasy dies every time I ceed that such a model makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Where I'm interested in being at this point in the post deals with the notion of the soul as 'perfect.' How many consider the fact that the soul they were born with is the same soul that they will die with? Over the last few years I've become haunted with the notion that our souls do not just alter over time with the occassional tragedy or revelation. They are the treasured collection in our minds of every Idea, thought, and experience that helps to deliniate what is me from what is the outside world. The soul is still the lockbox in our heart where we keep those beliefs that we are willing to kill or die for. Isn't it?
Saw 'Silent Hill' last Friday. Aside from the fact that lame-ass critics will always dis a 'movie based on a video game,' and hold a grudge when they don't get a pre-screening; as we left that movie the scores of teenagers we were forced to endure the presence of during the flick all thought it sucked. At least the ones busy vocalizing (which seemed to be all of them, all at once) did not get it, did not understand the whole 'land of the living, land of the dead' thing.
It wasn't that complicated. There were a half-dozen myths that might have been referenced by the movie, and these kids not have been reading about Orpheus in school that week.
Certain spiritual communications - the effort by one soul to make an impression on another, overcoming the barriers of the flesh - requires the most sacred collections of thoughts/feelings to be bundled up in words and spoken accross the void to another. They then unpack this bundle of words, and hopefully those combinations reference the same emotions and understandings inside their inner world. Here is where liberals have an article of faith, we believe that every human being has some common stuff in their souls, that such moving communication be possible even accross boundries of race or culture.
I guess I'm stabbing at the notion that our souls need to be cultivated. We need to study art and science, mythology and pop T.V., cuz every single source can be the words and the references that another soul might use to bundle up part of what means something to them as they try to share it with you.
Final example: I'm a huge fan of the musical works of Rodger Waters. On his 'Radio KAOS' album, there is a song title 'Home' that just gets me in the belly every time I hear it. One reference, is '. . . could be a little someplace by a bend in the river, could be something your old man handed down . . . everybody's got someplace, they call home.' Only last week at the library did I see a list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century and had a disappointing moment as I checked off the half-dozen I've read. 'A Bend in the River' is a book by somebody important, it was in the top fifty. I'd never read it, but Water's is referencing it in his song - I'd bet my sideburns. So if I had read that book, and placed some of its content into the vault of my soul, his song would have even more meaning for me as that line would be a key that would unlock even more meaning as I heard it.
My own understanding of the soul has grown and developed over time. I have now come to see the absorption of culture as a means of 'improving the high' I get when I have a chance to partake of spiritual communion. I don't claim to have it all figured out, this is just where I be right now.
Thanks for taking the time to suffer through some of my seeking.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Why Welfare?
Last night I was having a discussion with my good friend B,- where he made reference to
both mowing lawns and changing oil as ‘jobs that you could train a monkey to do.’ We
have a strike going on around here where some of the auto dealership mechanics are
refusing to work in opposition to management devising a new classification of mechanic,
‘light duty’ or some shit.
What B- was saying was that someone who changes oil for a living does not deserve to
earn $20 dollars an hour. There is little intellectual capacity required, thus the labor
should not be valued. I’m afraid he is starting to drift towards some of the comforting
mythologies of the middle class, towards the modern bourgeois. The notion that most
human beings are stupid and could not do the intellectual work that he does.
I’ve met many human beings in my life. I don’t believe that the human capacity for
learning and comprehension varies that much within our species. Sure we have some
retardation and fetal alcohol syndrome, but for at least 80% of the population the
differences in the processor speeds be negligable. Most guys doing roofing could do
computer programming with the proper training and support. The fact is, toilets will
always need to be cleaned. Roofs will always need to be installed.
And why do we assume that someone who changes oil for a full-time job deserves our
disapprobation? Perhaps the reasonable take on the matter is that these guys are eager to
learn more and improve their skillset - and modern auto repair is as least as complicated as
any programming language - but the management would like to keep them ignorant and
pay them poverty wages. Instead of having a system where someone works their way up,
helping the masters and the journeymen while doing the apprentice work that needs to be
done, they create an entire caste that does nothing but the repetitive motions of oil
changes until they don’t fucking care if a lexus drives off sans oil plug.
And why not $20/hour? If a man has children, then $20.00 an hour is about what it
takes in this society. Right now, we live in a society that believes in the welfare state. If
that man and his family are below the poverty level, then you will be paying the difference
in one tax or another. Property taxes to fund the public schools, or to put more cops on
the street. Yep, more cops on the street is in a direct relationship with the payment of a
living wage and the success of a welfare state.
Here’s the rub: I know a lot of folks these days want to say we should just do away with the
notion of the welfare state all together and ‘if they don’t want to work then they can grind
their teeth under the consequences, our society has winners and losers - I’m not going to
feel bad about being a winner.’ There are two major ways to understand a welfare state,
each is equally valid. The first be that we are successful, and out of the kindness of our
hearts we provide some safety net for the less fortunate. This is noble and moral. The
second is that our expenditures into welfare is the modern equivalent of ‘protection’ money
paid to the mob. If you don’t want to give a fuck about other people because it is the right
thing to do, accept that this 'tax' will be taken from you at gunpoint in an ally uptown.
If you want to believe that you deserve you high paying job at Catapillar because you are so
smart, then you have to accept that many members of the ‘lower classes’ have superior
physical strength, agility, and conditioning, not to mention a callous understanding of
violence. You back a dog into a corner; you don’t want to face that dog. You create a
social structure that gives a man no options for peaceful survival - you create crime and
you are specialized in writing code and sitting on your ass, not beating another man’s head
in. . .
There are too many in this society who want to buy into this notion that crime is done by
evil people (or worse, those people) and that the only solution to crime is incarceration for
life where hopefully they will find Jeezus and overcome the demons in their hearts. This is
so childish. This is about how far the majority of Americans have thought it out to.
As our population grows, there will always be the fraction of a percentage who are just
fucked up Jeffery Dahmer types. Can’t do much about them but hope that a successful
social structure will see the red flags and intervene quickly. Drugs will also continue to be
a problem, but as my friend Lamont once put so eloquently, ‘drugs are an escape, why is it
that so many people want to escape from reality all the time.’ Could grinding poverty and
the smoldering rage of an unjust system lead one to that? Or maybe a society that spends
4 plus hours a day in the fantasy escape of television has no moral fucking authority to
judge. Young people take risks all the time, that's the fuel for the evolution machine.
Regardless if you want to consider supporting the welfare state as an act of charity or
supplication to extortion, one really needs to consider the alternatives. One out of every
four children in this country lives below the poverty line. The poverty line is pretty
fucking low. Sure, we could contine along the road to a nation where there is no social
safety net, where those who slip out of the dwindling middle class either end up in prisons,
or working in one. Our country already locks up a larger percentage of our population
than any other nation except for China. Maybe Satan has infected every one of their
souls. Or maybe they just don’t feel like they have chance, they can’t find a job that pays
shit. They can’t seem to find a path to respect - instead one feels the sawing at one’s
manhood in the insinuations that ‘any monkey could do that work.’ Why not a gang,
where respect is taken and earned? Why not say ‘fuck you,’ to a society that does not
want to devote a fair percentage of its wealth into a national healthcare system or fair,
living wages. Why not go out with a band, instead of a whimper? Why not crime?
As the First Liberal sayeth, ‘you reap what you sow.’
both mowing lawns and changing oil as ‘jobs that you could train a monkey to do.’ We
have a strike going on around here where some of the auto dealership mechanics are
refusing to work in opposition to management devising a new classification of mechanic,
‘light duty’ or some shit.
What B- was saying was that someone who changes oil for a living does not deserve to
earn $20 dollars an hour. There is little intellectual capacity required, thus the labor
should not be valued. I’m afraid he is starting to drift towards some of the comforting
mythologies of the middle class, towards the modern bourgeois. The notion that most
human beings are stupid and could not do the intellectual work that he does.
I’ve met many human beings in my life. I don’t believe that the human capacity for
learning and comprehension varies that much within our species. Sure we have some
retardation and fetal alcohol syndrome, but for at least 80% of the population the
differences in the processor speeds be negligable. Most guys doing roofing could do
computer programming with the proper training and support. The fact is, toilets will
always need to be cleaned. Roofs will always need to be installed.
And why do we assume that someone who changes oil for a full-time job deserves our
disapprobation? Perhaps the reasonable take on the matter is that these guys are eager to
learn more and improve their skillset - and modern auto repair is as least as complicated as
any programming language - but the management would like to keep them ignorant and
pay them poverty wages. Instead of having a system where someone works their way up,
helping the masters and the journeymen while doing the apprentice work that needs to be
done, they create an entire caste that does nothing but the repetitive motions of oil
changes until they don’t fucking care if a lexus drives off sans oil plug.
And why not $20/hour? If a man has children, then $20.00 an hour is about what it
takes in this society. Right now, we live in a society that believes in the welfare state. If
that man and his family are below the poverty level, then you will be paying the difference
in one tax or another. Property taxes to fund the public schools, or to put more cops on
the street. Yep, more cops on the street is in a direct relationship with the payment of a
living wage and the success of a welfare state.
Here’s the rub: I know a lot of folks these days want to say we should just do away with the
notion of the welfare state all together and ‘if they don’t want to work then they can grind
their teeth under the consequences, our society has winners and losers - I’m not going to
feel bad about being a winner.’ There are two major ways to understand a welfare state,
each is equally valid. The first be that we are successful, and out of the kindness of our
hearts we provide some safety net for the less fortunate. This is noble and moral. The
second is that our expenditures into welfare is the modern equivalent of ‘protection’ money
paid to the mob. If you don’t want to give a fuck about other people because it is the right
thing to do, accept that this 'tax' will be taken from you at gunpoint in an ally uptown.
If you want to believe that you deserve you high paying job at Catapillar because you are so
smart, then you have to accept that many members of the ‘lower classes’ have superior
physical strength, agility, and conditioning, not to mention a callous understanding of
violence. You back a dog into a corner; you don’t want to face that dog. You create a
social structure that gives a man no options for peaceful survival - you create crime and
you are specialized in writing code and sitting on your ass, not beating another man’s head
in. . .
There are too many in this society who want to buy into this notion that crime is done by
evil people (or worse, those people) and that the only solution to crime is incarceration for
life where hopefully they will find Jeezus and overcome the demons in their hearts. This is
so childish. This is about how far the majority of Americans have thought it out to.
As our population grows, there will always be the fraction of a percentage who are just
fucked up Jeffery Dahmer types. Can’t do much about them but hope that a successful
social structure will see the red flags and intervene quickly. Drugs will also continue to be
a problem, but as my friend Lamont once put so eloquently, ‘drugs are an escape, why is it
that so many people want to escape from reality all the time.’ Could grinding poverty and
the smoldering rage of an unjust system lead one to that? Or maybe a society that spends
4 plus hours a day in the fantasy escape of television has no moral fucking authority to
judge. Young people take risks all the time, that's the fuel for the evolution machine.
Regardless if you want to consider supporting the welfare state as an act of charity or
supplication to extortion, one really needs to consider the alternatives. One out of every
four children in this country lives below the poverty line. The poverty line is pretty
fucking low. Sure, we could contine along the road to a nation where there is no social
safety net, where those who slip out of the dwindling middle class either end up in prisons,
or working in one. Our country already locks up a larger percentage of our population
than any other nation except for China. Maybe Satan has infected every one of their
souls. Or maybe they just don’t feel like they have chance, they can’t find a job that pays
shit. They can’t seem to find a path to respect - instead one feels the sawing at one’s
manhood in the insinuations that ‘any monkey could do that work.’ Why not a gang,
where respect is taken and earned? Why not say ‘fuck you,’ to a society that does not
want to devote a fair percentage of its wealth into a national healthcare system or fair,
living wages. Why not go out with a band, instead of a whimper? Why not crime?
As the First Liberal sayeth, ‘you reap what you sow.’
Friday, April 21, 2006
Hummers, Earth Day, and the Middle Finger
If I were a great intellectual like Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh, and if I could use my influence on the masses to make just one single change to our society, it would deal with the trinity in my title.
I'd like to see Earth Day taken out of the equation, with beautiful liberals flipping the bird to Humvee drivers everywhere, everyday. Earth Day, where we supposedly sit back and ponder the meaning of life and the spirit of giving, seems esp. ap propos.
Heres my two reasons:
1. They are excessive, the very top of the pyramid scheme where people supposedly will respect you cuz you got lots of money and big stuff. I remember watching a T.V. special on the Humvee (actually just a damn ad for the thing included into the nightly newscast - you know how that crap works) where the saleman sitting the the passenger seat explained how 'people just give you a bit more respect at intersections when you're in one of these. . .' Well, nuts to you buddy. You want to feel powerful? Start going to the gymn. Or learn a second language, cuz I hear knowledge is power. . .
B. It's still the fucking oil, stupid. The Hummer has to be the least efficient machine on the road today. When will people start to realize that oil is a limited commodity? Even if you don't believe that at some point our species will have reached the end of our stash - party over - one has to be able to grasp the fact that we can only extract so much out of the ground with our current technology and infrastructre. Thus we consider it a commodity, and it has a fluctuating market price. Sure, Mr. Humvee Driver might be able to pay any amount for gasoline, but that does not mean that burning it like you stole it is a moral choice. Anybody remember those bumper stickers that implied driving your SUV alone was like car pooling with Osama?
Our nation's most radical enemies are funded with oil money. Our dependance on oil guides a foreign policy where we support repressive regimes with guns and money to insure 'stability' of oil production. Even our own fucking president has told us that we are 'addicted to oil.' To stretch that metaphor, Humvee drivers are those guys who can put a string up one nostril and pull it out the other. When we tear through oil reserves the price goes up to something like $70 a barrel. Poorer country cannot afford to import any oil at that rate, so fuel that runs their transportation infrastructre, the gas they put into an ambulance, becomes scarce. Thus it becomes even more difficult for them to put together a working economy and lift the majority of the planet's population out of poverty.
Some folks don't believe this is their problem or responsibility. Some of us feel that once you understand systems and develop a soul, you begin to take responsibilty for the world you inhabit. Humvee drivers are in the vanguard of the group that wants to piss away Mother Earth's greatest treasure, the incredibly cheap / efficient fuel found in oil. Tommorow, on Earth Day, I say we give 'em the one finger salute!
I'd like to see Earth Day taken out of the equation, with beautiful liberals flipping the bird to Humvee drivers everywhere, everyday. Earth Day, where we supposedly sit back and ponder the meaning of life and the spirit of giving, seems esp. ap propos.
Heres my two reasons:
1. They are excessive, the very top of the pyramid scheme where people supposedly will respect you cuz you got lots of money and big stuff. I remember watching a T.V. special on the Humvee (actually just a damn ad for the thing included into the nightly newscast - you know how that crap works) where the saleman sitting the the passenger seat explained how 'people just give you a bit more respect at intersections when you're in one of these. . .' Well, nuts to you buddy. You want to feel powerful? Start going to the gymn. Or learn a second language, cuz I hear knowledge is power. . .
B. It's still the fucking oil, stupid. The Hummer has to be the least efficient machine on the road today. When will people start to realize that oil is a limited commodity? Even if you don't believe that at some point our species will have reached the end of our stash - party over - one has to be able to grasp the fact that we can only extract so much out of the ground with our current technology and infrastructre. Thus we consider it a commodity, and it has a fluctuating market price. Sure, Mr. Humvee Driver might be able to pay any amount for gasoline, but that does not mean that burning it like you stole it is a moral choice. Anybody remember those bumper stickers that implied driving your SUV alone was like car pooling with Osama?
Our nation's most radical enemies are funded with oil money. Our dependance on oil guides a foreign policy where we support repressive regimes with guns and money to insure 'stability' of oil production. Even our own fucking president has told us that we are 'addicted to oil.' To stretch that metaphor, Humvee drivers are those guys who can put a string up one nostril and pull it out the other. When we tear through oil reserves the price goes up to something like $70 a barrel. Poorer country cannot afford to import any oil at that rate, so fuel that runs their transportation infrastructre, the gas they put into an ambulance, becomes scarce. Thus it becomes even more difficult for them to put together a working economy and lift the majority of the planet's population out of poverty.
Some folks don't believe this is their problem or responsibility. Some of us feel that once you understand systems and develop a soul, you begin to take responsibilty for the world you inhabit. Humvee drivers are in the vanguard of the group that wants to piss away Mother Earth's greatest treasure, the incredibly cheap / efficient fuel found in oil. Tommorow, on Earth Day, I say we give 'em the one finger salute!
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Somewhere between hurt and pissed
I just watched an hour of Democracy Now! on realplayer while I surfed blogmad.
I had listened to a bit of it during my lunchbreak today, but to watch the program (audio + visual = powerful event) just broke through and got to me.
Amy Goodman spent her entire hour interviewing various persons involved in the recent case against Blackwater. Remember those four contractors who had their bodies burned and displayed in Fallujah that precipitated the U.S. Military dropping the hammer on that city? The mother of one of those men was on her show.
I'm so filled up I can barely type. I bet I've seen more images of the war on the ground in Iraq than a Fox New's viewer sees in a fucking year.
And fuck you. Fuck you to all you neo-cons, all you 'peace through strength' bitches, all you dumb-fucks who listen to right wing talkshow hosts and whine about how 'the media ain't telling the happy stories in Iraq.' Fuck you.
If you support the war in Iraq than you have a motherfucking obli-fucking-gation to view at least an hour of this sort of footage every week. These guys who are dying over there are not clone troopers, they ain't some combination of polygons in some fucking Tom Clancy 'glorify the military' video games. They are real fucking guys who have hours of family video of them rock climbing and playing with their kids. You better fucking watch it, you fucking owe them that.
The link is here. I'd love some comments, but you neo-conned better watch the footage before you go regurgitating talking points. In America we are citizens; citizens have responsibilities as well as privledges. During Vietnam these images would have been on your T.V. every night, now you have to go out of your way to see them - but you better fucking see them if you want to claim that your ball's swing free.
I had listened to a bit of it during my lunchbreak today, but to watch the program (audio + visual = powerful event) just broke through and got to me.
Amy Goodman spent her entire hour interviewing various persons involved in the recent case against Blackwater. Remember those four contractors who had their bodies burned and displayed in Fallujah that precipitated the U.S. Military dropping the hammer on that city? The mother of one of those men was on her show.
I'm so filled up I can barely type. I bet I've seen more images of the war on the ground in Iraq than a Fox New's viewer sees in a fucking year.
And fuck you. Fuck you to all you neo-cons, all you 'peace through strength' bitches, all you dumb-fucks who listen to right wing talkshow hosts and whine about how 'the media ain't telling the happy stories in Iraq.' Fuck you.
If you support the war in Iraq than you have a motherfucking obli-fucking-gation to view at least an hour of this sort of footage every week. These guys who are dying over there are not clone troopers, they ain't some combination of polygons in some fucking Tom Clancy 'glorify the military' video games. They are real fucking guys who have hours of family video of them rock climbing and playing with their kids. You better fucking watch it, you fucking owe them that.
The link is here. I'd love some comments, but you neo-conned better watch the footage before you go regurgitating talking points. In America we are citizens; citizens have responsibilities as well as privledges. During Vietnam these images would have been on your T.V. every night, now you have to go out of your way to see them - but you better fucking see them if you want to claim that your ball's swing free.
Racial Violence
Is it just me, or is racism on the rise in this country?
I guess I absorbed a bit too much Sesame Street and 'Why can't we all just get along' when I was a kid. Sure I heard some racist jokes and insinuations from family and friends, but a good, liberal, catholic education and a media steeped in political correctness overruled that. I'm introspective enough to realize that as a human being all never be completely free of prejudice - our brains have limited processing power, and some decisions have to be made without time for careful consideration. I am proud, however, to be a member of what may be the first generation in our species to embrace the notion that the color of a person's skin don't mean shit.
This is a novel notion in our world of Ideas. One has only to read the Old Testament to see how a nomadic culture treated outsiders, how conquered rivals were exterminated rather than assimilated. As the author John Norman has said, 'the word for stranger is also the word for enemy.' Compound this xenophobia with the contempt and violence inherit in the class structures that ruled (and for the most part still does) all major civilizations for the last few thousand years. That's a lot of generations raised to only feel empathy and care about human beings who look very similar to them, and possess the same social status, and chances are a fair amount of the same genes.
In our country, I think the real kernal of evil that sprouted into racism was the combination of duty and self-esteem that combined in what I call the 'overseer' phenomenon. Most of this country was a slave economy for a few hundred years, and the 'fathers' who ran a plantation could only beat and torture so many men, women, and children (always best to get to them young), personally. Thus a class of whites found employment as 'overseers.' You could think of them as the birth of 'white trash.' They didn't have the huge mansions and pretentious social graces, they lived in the time's equivelent of a trailer park, and probably had some issues with providing food and other resources to their family. They were paid to brutalize.
These overseers were also victims of the class war, largely denied property ownership by the misfortune of birth and a consolidation of wealth. Yet they were also turned against the slaves (which from a perspective of history we might see as their allies in oppression.)
Too often when a man has to watch his family edure hardships which he is incapable of ameliorating, his sense of worth as a provider and a father suffers. He envys the master of the plantation, yet understands on too many levels that he will never been in that position. Enduring such gnawing lack of self-worth is difficult; for a man who whips and tortures to death other men for a living, this self-esteem problem is solved by further dehumanizing his victims. 'At least I'm white,' becomes a part of their self-esteem, a thought which is reinforced to push out the painful thoughts about a daughter dying from the flu, or living in a shack with a dirt floor.
These thoughts bother me, but I think they are legitimate.
Thus the 'Redemption' and the anti-Civil Rights Movement were driven by a form of racism that cannot stand to see other races on the same footing as themselves, for this is not just a change to society, but a deterioration of the mental constructs they use to support their own sense of self-worth.
The vast majority of human beings have had to endure an existence where they have been unable to accomplish anything of value in their lives before they died. From the peasants, to the serfs, to the slaves, to the sundry lower classes that have just barely scraped by; ones's greatest accomplishment would have been procreation. Our culture glorifies possession and accomplishment, if your skin color is sold to you as an accomplishment, as a source of pride - too many of our fellow sentient beings have too little to be proud of.
For reasons I do not completely understand, far right governments tend to bring these racist Ideals up to the forefront. Many bloggers rip into political correctness, but one cannot deny that it was at least an attempt to push racism back further from the mainstream of our society. Now we have discussions on 'illegal aliens' that are but thinly veiled racist propaganda. Fox News, according to some memos, has a standing policy to air any program that makes rev. Jesse Jackson look foolish. The GOP has been using the most advanced computer models possible to redistrict the South so that black democrats have locked in seats, and white southern dems lose out - to rebrand themselves in the South as a white man's party.
And the economy's getting worse every day. Real wages for the working class have dropped every year for the last five years. Financial concerns just lead into a bit more of the 'fuck em, I got to worry about myself' mentality, translated into evag as, 'Gawd helps those who help themselves.' A loss of social status and privledges always triggers some of the worse behavior in people, grr
So we see the glaring racial disparities highlighted by Katrina, both before and now in the policies after. We have that rape case involving that lacross team, and several recent acquittals of white police officers for truly savage beatings by all white juries. The violent Right, the types that get swastikas tatooed on thier foreheads, have attempted to carry out at least 60 terrorist attacks in this country since they bombed Oklahoma City in '95. We don't hear much about them in the corporate press, but I'd say some wack job trying to buy C-4 and Sarin gas is a problem that needs to be dealt with - regardless of his wearing a turban or Nazi armband.
I guess I absorbed a bit too much Sesame Street and 'Why can't we all just get along' when I was a kid. Sure I heard some racist jokes and insinuations from family and friends, but a good, liberal, catholic education and a media steeped in political correctness overruled that. I'm introspective enough to realize that as a human being all never be completely free of prejudice - our brains have limited processing power, and some decisions have to be made without time for careful consideration. I am proud, however, to be a member of what may be the first generation in our species to embrace the notion that the color of a person's skin don't mean shit.
This is a novel notion in our world of Ideas. One has only to read the Old Testament to see how a nomadic culture treated outsiders, how conquered rivals were exterminated rather than assimilated. As the author John Norman has said, 'the word for stranger is also the word for enemy.' Compound this xenophobia with the contempt and violence inherit in the class structures that ruled (and for the most part still does) all major civilizations for the last few thousand years. That's a lot of generations raised to only feel empathy and care about human beings who look very similar to them, and possess the same social status, and chances are a fair amount of the same genes.
In our country, I think the real kernal of evil that sprouted into racism was the combination of duty and self-esteem that combined in what I call the 'overseer' phenomenon. Most of this country was a slave economy for a few hundred years, and the 'fathers' who ran a plantation could only beat and torture so many men, women, and children (always best to get to them young), personally. Thus a class of whites found employment as 'overseers.' You could think of them as the birth of 'white trash.' They didn't have the huge mansions and pretentious social graces, they lived in the time's equivelent of a trailer park, and probably had some issues with providing food and other resources to their family. They were paid to brutalize.
These overseers were also victims of the class war, largely denied property ownership by the misfortune of birth and a consolidation of wealth. Yet they were also turned against the slaves (which from a perspective of history we might see as their allies in oppression.)
Too often when a man has to watch his family edure hardships which he is incapable of ameliorating, his sense of worth as a provider and a father suffers. He envys the master of the plantation, yet understands on too many levels that he will never been in that position. Enduring such gnawing lack of self-worth is difficult; for a man who whips and tortures to death other men for a living, this self-esteem problem is solved by further dehumanizing his victims. 'At least I'm white,' becomes a part of their self-esteem, a thought which is reinforced to push out the painful thoughts about a daughter dying from the flu, or living in a shack with a dirt floor.
These thoughts bother me, but I think they are legitimate.
Thus the 'Redemption' and the anti-Civil Rights Movement were driven by a form of racism that cannot stand to see other races on the same footing as themselves, for this is not just a change to society, but a deterioration of the mental constructs they use to support their own sense of self-worth.
The vast majority of human beings have had to endure an existence where they have been unable to accomplish anything of value in their lives before they died. From the peasants, to the serfs, to the slaves, to the sundry lower classes that have just barely scraped by; ones's greatest accomplishment would have been procreation. Our culture glorifies possession and accomplishment, if your skin color is sold to you as an accomplishment, as a source of pride - too many of our fellow sentient beings have too little to be proud of.
For reasons I do not completely understand, far right governments tend to bring these racist Ideals up to the forefront. Many bloggers rip into political correctness, but one cannot deny that it was at least an attempt to push racism back further from the mainstream of our society. Now we have discussions on 'illegal aliens' that are but thinly veiled racist propaganda. Fox News, according to some memos, has a standing policy to air any program that makes rev. Jesse Jackson look foolish. The GOP has been using the most advanced computer models possible to redistrict the South so that black democrats have locked in seats, and white southern dems lose out - to rebrand themselves in the South as a white man's party.
And the economy's getting worse every day. Real wages for the working class have dropped every year for the last five years. Financial concerns just lead into a bit more of the 'fuck em, I got to worry about myself' mentality, translated into evag as, 'Gawd helps those who help themselves.' A loss of social status and privledges always triggers some of the worse behavior in people, grr
So we see the glaring racial disparities highlighted by Katrina, both before and now in the policies after. We have that rape case involving that lacross team, and several recent acquittals of white police officers for truly savage beatings by all white juries. The violent Right, the types that get swastikas tatooed on thier foreheads, have attempted to carry out at least 60 terrorist attacks in this country since they bombed Oklahoma City in '95. We don't hear much about them in the corporate press, but I'd say some wack job trying to buy C-4 and Sarin gas is a problem that needs to be dealt with - regardless of his wearing a turban or Nazi armband.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The Fable of the Two Rich Men
There once was a dark pestilence upon the land, and few Healers possessed a great enough gift to combat it. One such healer lived in a far off village, and many afflicted traveled for many days to reach her services. Often this was a journey without return, for dispite her great Talents and Compassion, the Healer could not cure all.
In her large hut there were many rooms, some rooms for those recovering from the illness, some for those who would not recover. Finding himself in one of the latter chambers, an aging man motioned for some menials to move his cot over next to the room's only other occupant. The illness affected much of the respitory system, but with effort they were able to converse.
"Fate is a cruel whore," the first man began, "for in my town I am the richest man. Now I shall die here alone, cut down by illness while yet in my prime."
The second man replied, "In my town I am also one of the richest men. Yet I shall not curse Fate, she's been like a wild mare for me - spirited and unpredictable, yet she has carried me far."
At this the first man shifted uncomfortably, partly from the pain of his bedsores, partly at the thought of expending his final breaths in discussion with a fucking poetical wussy. For a moment he considered directing himself to be returned to his corner, but decided to press on.
"If there is one consolation to my life," the first man continued, "It would be that although I have worked so hard, I have much to give my son. I can die easy, knowing that he will lead a long a successful life. On every transaction I made, I made sure that I came out on top. Some folks say I tried to own everything in the town - I say I diversified my assets. If the fields dry up and cut into the profitability of my ranching, we still have our mining and our casino. Every farmer for three days ride comes to our grainery for seed each spring, and after thirty years of feast and famine I've hooked every damn one on my line of credit. There is not a business in town that I don't either own outright or the owners ain't in my debt a year's profits. . . heh . . . heh . . . heh." He paused for a moment to have a bit of a wheezing fit, "Yeah, maybe Fate is a horse - then I rode her hard and fast. My boy could drink the next thirty years away and still not find bankruptcy at the bottem of a bottle. Hell, kinda hope he does. . . "
"I've heard about you," the second man responded after a time, "Seems Fate. . . seems she held back one last surprise for me. . . seems I get to leave this world lying next to a fucking fool."
The first man's hot temper flared one last time, "Didn't you hear me! I said I'm wealthy and my son's gonna get it all," his exclamation evident more in the strain upon his windpipe than an increase in volume. His outburst triggered another coughing, wheezing fit. After several minutes his breathing normalized, he realized Death was standing just behind him. "Enh," he finally continued, "I think Fate's a mule - and the fucking thing's standing on my fucking chest."
"One foot on your chest, one foot on my belly"
"You think we gonna be looking down on our families by tommorow morning?"
"Nah, I'd be nice, but I'm not bet'n on it."
"Me neither, them's just stories to tell children, I'm man enough to face death alone." They layed there for a few more minutes, then the first man pressed on. "So if you ain't a crazy, why you say I'm a fool? I've left plenty for my family - that's the best immortality I can think of."
The second man had known this question was coming, part of him wanted to save his dying companion some pain - a larger part wanted to be right. "Fate also gave me much, you could say I was 'blessed' or whatever. Instead of using the cycles of the harvest to trap the local farmers under a mountain of credit, we organized a community system where each farmer shares the profits and the risks. I heard about how you used the law and some goons to break up your miners from try'n to form a union. My son helped organize our union - we've had three men die in that mine in my entire life - how many died in your mine last year? We forged a partnership with the mercantilists on main street, they make a fair profit and sell goods to the workers at a reasonable price. Not a company story like you got in your town, where those poor bastards owe you more money than they could work off in another fifty years. 'Some of us make more, some less, but we all put money into the community chest', me boy came up with that slogan. Always liked it." He had to rest for a minute, his guts were hurting something awful. "Like when some man's wife be about to give birth - he ain't got to worry about pay'n some doctor or midwife - we all pay a little to run a small clinic. He's just got to worry about his woman, an that's enough worry'n"
"I thought you said you were rich like me. Your boy's a union miner?"
"We is rich, but not like you. If we did get to sit up in a cloud and watch our boys, who knows what Fate might hand them. But if tragedy struck and my family lost everything - I know my community would work together to get them back on their feet and productive again. You have beaten your community down into a bunch of starved dogs. Starved dogs gonna turn on your kids first sign 'o weakness."
The first man thought about it for a minute, coughed up some more blood and replied, "Enh, your full of shit." With those words, he died.
The second man smiled, perhaps finding one last iota of wisdom and understanding from his discussion. It had distracted him from the terrible agony in his stomach. Later that night, his life also came to an end.
In her large hut there were many rooms, some rooms for those recovering from the illness, some for those who would not recover. Finding himself in one of the latter chambers, an aging man motioned for some menials to move his cot over next to the room's only other occupant. The illness affected much of the respitory system, but with effort they were able to converse.
"Fate is a cruel whore," the first man began, "for in my town I am the richest man. Now I shall die here alone, cut down by illness while yet in my prime."
The second man replied, "In my town I am also one of the richest men. Yet I shall not curse Fate, she's been like a wild mare for me - spirited and unpredictable, yet she has carried me far."
At this the first man shifted uncomfortably, partly from the pain of his bedsores, partly at the thought of expending his final breaths in discussion with a fucking poetical wussy. For a moment he considered directing himself to be returned to his corner, but decided to press on.
"If there is one consolation to my life," the first man continued, "It would be that although I have worked so hard, I have much to give my son. I can die easy, knowing that he will lead a long a successful life. On every transaction I made, I made sure that I came out on top. Some folks say I tried to own everything in the town - I say I diversified my assets. If the fields dry up and cut into the profitability of my ranching, we still have our mining and our casino. Every farmer for three days ride comes to our grainery for seed each spring, and after thirty years of feast and famine I've hooked every damn one on my line of credit. There is not a business in town that I don't either own outright or the owners ain't in my debt a year's profits. . . heh . . . heh . . . heh." He paused for a moment to have a bit of a wheezing fit, "Yeah, maybe Fate is a horse - then I rode her hard and fast. My boy could drink the next thirty years away and still not find bankruptcy at the bottem of a bottle. Hell, kinda hope he does. . . "
"I've heard about you," the second man responded after a time, "Seems Fate. . . seems she held back one last surprise for me. . . seems I get to leave this world lying next to a fucking fool."
The first man's hot temper flared one last time, "Didn't you hear me! I said I'm wealthy and my son's gonna get it all," his exclamation evident more in the strain upon his windpipe than an increase in volume. His outburst triggered another coughing, wheezing fit. After several minutes his breathing normalized, he realized Death was standing just behind him. "Enh," he finally continued, "I think Fate's a mule - and the fucking thing's standing on my fucking chest."
"One foot on your chest, one foot on my belly"
"You think we gonna be looking down on our families by tommorow morning?"
"Nah, I'd be nice, but I'm not bet'n on it."
"Me neither, them's just stories to tell children, I'm man enough to face death alone." They layed there for a few more minutes, then the first man pressed on. "So if you ain't a crazy, why you say I'm a fool? I've left plenty for my family - that's the best immortality I can think of."
The second man had known this question was coming, part of him wanted to save his dying companion some pain - a larger part wanted to be right. "Fate also gave me much, you could say I was 'blessed' or whatever. Instead of using the cycles of the harvest to trap the local farmers under a mountain of credit, we organized a community system where each farmer shares the profits and the risks. I heard about how you used the law and some goons to break up your miners from try'n to form a union. My son helped organize our union - we've had three men die in that mine in my entire life - how many died in your mine last year? We forged a partnership with the mercantilists on main street, they make a fair profit and sell goods to the workers at a reasonable price. Not a company story like you got in your town, where those poor bastards owe you more money than they could work off in another fifty years. 'Some of us make more, some less, but we all put money into the community chest', me boy came up with that slogan. Always liked it." He had to rest for a minute, his guts were hurting something awful. "Like when some man's wife be about to give birth - he ain't got to worry about pay'n some doctor or midwife - we all pay a little to run a small clinic. He's just got to worry about his woman, an that's enough worry'n"
"I thought you said you were rich like me. Your boy's a union miner?"
"We is rich, but not like you. If we did get to sit up in a cloud and watch our boys, who knows what Fate might hand them. But if tragedy struck and my family lost everything - I know my community would work together to get them back on their feet and productive again. You have beaten your community down into a bunch of starved dogs. Starved dogs gonna turn on your kids first sign 'o weakness."
The first man thought about it for a minute, coughed up some more blood and replied, "Enh, your full of shit." With those words, he died.
The second man smiled, perhaps finding one last iota of wisdom and understanding from his discussion. It had distracted him from the terrible agony in his stomach. Later that night, his life also came to an end.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Merry Easter!
No time to blog today. Off to hang with my brother and his darling daughter, then off to the family's get-together. Holidays are swell.
Sure am glad I'm an atheist, the church parkinglot accross the street is overflowing with theists representing the entire spectrum of piety. What a good time, being jammed into a building with a bunch of other folks while some preacher lectures ya on how you should be in this building every weekend, not just on Christmas and Easter. Combine that with a bunch of middle-age haus-fraus chatting too loudly with their companions about how they are here every week and blah, blah, blah. . .
I'm off to socialize, and try to engage my extended family on a variety of topics; except, Politics, Religion, The Nature of Reality, The Media, The Economy, or Why I'm Still Single.
See ya on the other side.
Sure am glad I'm an atheist, the church parkinglot accross the street is overflowing with theists representing the entire spectrum of piety. What a good time, being jammed into a building with a bunch of other folks while some preacher lectures ya on how you should be in this building every weekend, not just on Christmas and Easter. Combine that with a bunch of middle-age haus-fraus chatting too loudly with their companions about how they are here every week and blah, blah, blah. . .
I'm off to socialize, and try to engage my extended family on a variety of topics; except, Politics, Religion, The Nature of Reality, The Media, The Economy, or Why I'm Still Single.
See ya on the other side.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Conspiracy Theories . . .
The internet has no upper limit on the number of conspiracy theories lurking within it. On any given day, I might stumble accross a Martin Luther King website created by the KKK that 'investigates' his nightly raping of white women, or website devoted to the notion that UFO's are not extra-terrestrials - they are demons and all of Washington D.C. was set up to worship Satan. I've seen countless pages detailing the inconsistencies of 9/11, online seances, and even a service that will evaluate the content of one's website numerologically to determine if you are good or evil (they provide a percentage value for this.)
Certainly some of these are tongue and cheek. Others are certainly the work of delusional shut-ins, who a blazed out crackwhore would have the good sense to pull her children away from. That's the internet for ya.
The combination of conspiracy theories that are really hot right now has to be the Illuminati. Dollar bills pass through my hands with various icons circled and websites listed; even nationally syndicated talk radio hosts get an illuminati obsessed caller about once a week. I've heard that there is a rather popular book, 'The Di Caprio Code' or something like that, where the star of 'Titanic' is revealed to be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. I might be wrong, I should read more about it.
Illuminati 'researchers' usually get into a world-view where a small cabal, usually of European businessmen or Jews, pulls the strings by which the entire global economy is run. From the intoduction of the euro, to the subliminal messages of submission that are contained in every toothpaste ad; oh, what a tangled web they weave. . .
While I personally have rarely seen an example of the temperance of the ruling class, I have no doubt that ambition and a lust for power motivate many - they would rule the world with an iron fist if they could. I just doubt that the context of secret societies be where these machievellian transactions take place.
The prime example of leaders in power who act in a manner that fulfills the fears of conspiracy nuts is the Cold War. In the 'Great Game', as its participants affectionately dubbed it, the ideological seductions inherit in an 'us vs. them' game moved many from a desire to act in their own self-interest and into the realm of the true believer. We had to win the Cold War, and we had to win every single battle in between. Any and all actions were justified in the war, be it loony exploding cigar plots or the widespread development of ideological and sociological propaganda. This is a real world example of individuals who sought to manipulate world opinion by any means necessary.
These are the types whose calculus told them that the civil rights movement must be tolerated, as the images of blacks being fire hosed in the streets was just too damaging - the reds just made too much use of it in their propaganda machine. To these fucks such events have no moral values whatsoever, they don't evaluate based on right or wrong; decisions come down to effectiveness.
Perhaps some of my readers are unaware that the Voice of America is the propaganda arm of the U.S. State Department, whose purpose is to 'put America's best foot forward'. That's why it cannot be broadcast domestically, cuz hitting citizens with that shit is suppose to be illegal. It is interesting how many individuals go from the Voice of America to the board at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Washington Post reported the Pentagon is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of al-Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Some military intelligence officials believe the campaign may have exaggerated Zarqawi's importance and helped the Bush administration link the Iraq war with the September 11 attacks. The propaganda effort has also been reportedly used to build sentiment against non-US foreigners in Iraq. One military briefing was entitled: "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response." Another document lists "U.S. Home Audience" as a target audience for the campaign. (DemocracyNow!, Tuesday Headlines)
The guys who did whatever it took to win the cold war did not just hang up their hats and go home to their families. The writer Jacques Ellul has said that propaganda, once unleashed upon the world, will never go away - it will evolve to exploit every advance in the sciences of sociology and psychology, every advance in the technology of mass communications.
That shit is suppose to be illegal. We are suppose to be an informed electorate who make rational decisions in the selection of our leaders, and then hold them accountable for their actions.
I think I need to learn how to play the fiddle. . .
Certainly some of these are tongue and cheek. Others are certainly the work of delusional shut-ins, who a blazed out crackwhore would have the good sense to pull her children away from. That's the internet for ya.
The combination of conspiracy theories that are really hot right now has to be the Illuminati. Dollar bills pass through my hands with various icons circled and websites listed; even nationally syndicated talk radio hosts get an illuminati obsessed caller about once a week. I've heard that there is a rather popular book, 'The Di Caprio Code' or something like that, where the star of 'Titanic' is revealed to be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. I might be wrong, I should read more about it.
Illuminati 'researchers' usually get into a world-view where a small cabal, usually of European businessmen or Jews, pulls the strings by which the entire global economy is run. From the intoduction of the euro, to the subliminal messages of submission that are contained in every toothpaste ad; oh, what a tangled web they weave. . .
While I personally have rarely seen an example of the temperance of the ruling class, I have no doubt that ambition and a lust for power motivate many - they would rule the world with an iron fist if they could. I just doubt that the context of secret societies be where these machievellian transactions take place.
The prime example of leaders in power who act in a manner that fulfills the fears of conspiracy nuts is the Cold War. In the 'Great Game', as its participants affectionately dubbed it, the ideological seductions inherit in an 'us vs. them' game moved many from a desire to act in their own self-interest and into the realm of the true believer. We had to win the Cold War, and we had to win every single battle in between. Any and all actions were justified in the war, be it loony exploding cigar plots or the widespread development of ideological and sociological propaganda. This is a real world example of individuals who sought to manipulate world opinion by any means necessary.
These are the types whose calculus told them that the civil rights movement must be tolerated, as the images of blacks being fire hosed in the streets was just too damaging - the reds just made too much use of it in their propaganda machine. To these fucks such events have no moral values whatsoever, they don't evaluate based on right or wrong; decisions come down to effectiveness.
Perhaps some of my readers are unaware that the Voice of America is the propaganda arm of the U.S. State Department, whose purpose is to 'put America's best foot forward'. That's why it cannot be broadcast domestically, cuz hitting citizens with that shit is suppose to be illegal. It is interesting how many individuals go from the Voice of America to the board at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Washington Post reported the Pentagon is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of al-Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Some military intelligence officials believe the campaign may have exaggerated Zarqawi's importance and helped the Bush administration link the Iraq war with the September 11 attacks. The propaganda effort has also been reportedly used to build sentiment against non-US foreigners in Iraq. One military briefing was entitled: "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response." Another document lists "U.S. Home Audience" as a target audience for the campaign. (DemocracyNow!, Tuesday Headlines)
The guys who did whatever it took to win the cold war did not just hang up their hats and go home to their families. The writer Jacques Ellul has said that propaganda, once unleashed upon the world, will never go away - it will evolve to exploit every advance in the sciences of sociology and psychology, every advance in the technology of mass communications.
That shit is suppose to be illegal. We are suppose to be an informed electorate who make rational decisions in the selection of our leaders, and then hold them accountable for their actions.
I think I need to learn how to play the fiddle. . .
Thursday, April 13, 2006
It's still the oil,
I had to take another crack at Kevin Phillips excellent book, 'American Theocracy.' Seems in my hurry to get to the four chapters grouped under 'Too Many Preachers', I had only skimmed the first three regarding oil. To this day, he claims, important people look at maps of the Middle East that don't have the lines of national borders drawn upon them, but square divisions that demarcate oil reserves and the internation corporations which lay claim to them. These sort of maps have existed since the '20s. These were the maps that Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group employed in that notoriously secret meeting in 2001.
Here is a block quote from Phillips' elucidating the matter:
Well, that region of the world has been either under attack, crushing sanctions, or recovering from either for about the last hundred years. Still, that comparision between the 2,300 wells in Iraq and the million in Texas really got my attention.
Oh, and I read a few neo-conned bloggers lately who have been making the silly arguement that, since oil production in Iraq has gone down since we invaded, that must mean that oil was not our primary objective. First, that implies that our military force and strategists are omnipotent, capable of molding reality into whatever outcome they desire. Without a doubt, the U.S. military is as close to omnipotence as any fighting force has ever been. Those who oppose the will of the U.S. military must either be true believers or completely backed into a cornor, cuz they are going to become martyrs to their cause. Yet, unquestioned superiority on the battlefield does not lead to an easy occupation. Thus the fact that we have not yet secured the oil infrastructure to the levels necessary for increased production may not be salient. In fact, I would argue that this point supports my second observation. The oil under Iraq is not called 'reserves' for nothing. So what if the oil is not flowing out and cash in right now? That oil's not going anywhere (unless the Kuwaiti's start that horizontal drilling again.) If it is worth $50 dollars a barrel today, it will be worth $70 a barrel in five years. That's where the permenent military bases come in.
Every day that Iraq starves for oil revenue is another good day for the oil conglomerates. If you had to choose which society you were going to bargin for a percentage of the oil profits, would you want a stable, educated society where these issues were well discussed and understood? Or would you rather deal with a group of fractious tribes whose priorities revolve around escaping murder and murdering those who have wronged you - groups who can easily be turned against each other for an edge in the technology of death? I believe Nigeria made a bit of a stir in the news a few weeks ago, having reached the fifty-year anniversary of petroleom extraction from their country. While the value of oil removed was somewhere in the hundreds of billions, Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries in the world. I'd say there was a corporate strategy there.
[ * Leonardo Maugeri, "The Virgin Oil Fields of Iraq.' Newsweek, July 5, 2004. ]
Here is a block quote from Phillips' elucidating the matter:
What these maps left unsaid was how relatively untouched - or at least untapped- the Iraqi fields were. But Cheney's team would presumably have studied the history of Iraqi oil output. Since the turn of the twentieth century, later explained Leonardo Maugeri, a senior vice president at the Italian oil and gas company ENI, "Only 2,300 wells have been drilled in Iraq, compared with about 1 million in Texas. A large part of the country - the western desert area - is still mainly unexplored. Iraq has never implemented advanced technologies - like 3-D seismic exploration techniques or deep and horizontal drilling - to find or tap new wells. Of more that 80 oilfields discovered in Iraq, only about 21 have been at least partially developed . . . [I]t is realistic to assume that Iraq has far more oil reserves than documented so far - probably about 200 billion barrels more."* Not a few geologists suspected that the former Mesopotamia might have more left than Saudi Arabia. (p. 77)
Well, that region of the world has been either under attack, crushing sanctions, or recovering from either for about the last hundred years. Still, that comparision between the 2,300 wells in Iraq and the million in Texas really got my attention.
Oh, and I read a few neo-conned bloggers lately who have been making the silly arguement that, since oil production in Iraq has gone down since we invaded, that must mean that oil was not our primary objective. First, that implies that our military force and strategists are omnipotent, capable of molding reality into whatever outcome they desire. Without a doubt, the U.S. military is as close to omnipotence as any fighting force has ever been. Those who oppose the will of the U.S. military must either be true believers or completely backed into a cornor, cuz they are going to become martyrs to their cause. Yet, unquestioned superiority on the battlefield does not lead to an easy occupation. Thus the fact that we have not yet secured the oil infrastructure to the levels necessary for increased production may not be salient. In fact, I would argue that this point supports my second observation. The oil under Iraq is not called 'reserves' for nothing. So what if the oil is not flowing out and cash in right now? That oil's not going anywhere (unless the Kuwaiti's start that horizontal drilling again.) If it is worth $50 dollars a barrel today, it will be worth $70 a barrel in five years. That's where the permenent military bases come in.
Every day that Iraq starves for oil revenue is another good day for the oil conglomerates. If you had to choose which society you were going to bargin for a percentage of the oil profits, would you want a stable, educated society where these issues were well discussed and understood? Or would you rather deal with a group of fractious tribes whose priorities revolve around escaping murder and murdering those who have wronged you - groups who can easily be turned against each other for an edge in the technology of death? I believe Nigeria made a bit of a stir in the news a few weeks ago, having reached the fifty-year anniversary of petroleom extraction from their country. While the value of oil removed was somewhere in the hundreds of billions, Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries in the world. I'd say there was a corporate strategy there.
[ * Leonardo Maugeri, "The Virgin Oil Fields of Iraq.' Newsweek, July 5, 2004. ]
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
This is a damn shame
When I heard this story yesterday I felt like I had been stabbed. That's hyberbole, of course, I've cut myself plenty of times when I worked in the kitchens, but never had the experience of a cold, shaft of stainless steel sliding between my ribs. Emotional pain can be so intense, and unlike physical pain, often no rational cause can be indentified. These thoughts be dangerous ones, and if one dwells upon them too long, one might not find their way back to a swell spring day. Yet a boxer who has never taken a punch can't expect to be in fighting shape, a seeker must not shirk back too reflexively from the sorrows of empathy.
Anthony Soltero helped organized and lead his schoolmates in one of the countless walk-outs that occured in his native California and all over the country this March. On March 30th, a vice-principle took him aside and allegedly told him that there would be consequences for his actions as a protest leader. He would not be allowed to attend the school dance. He would not be allowed to attend graduation. He was going to spend 3 years in prison. His parents were going to be fined and investigated.
The fourteen year old boy called his mother when he got home in a terrible state. She told him that they would talk about it when she got home from work. When she got home, she found his note and his body. He had taken his own life.
I know that no amount of liberal education reform will ever eliminate the tragedy of teen suicide. The hormones get to racing and their insides still have not cooled. Public schools can be one of the destructive social environments that an American will endure it their entire life. It still fucking sucks.
I had a good friend who hung himself in a detention room his junior year. The only memory I have of him that makes any sense of it is a Boy Scout summer camp we had attended years before. Ryan was an adopted kid, and a fair number of the older boys took to calling him a nigger and chasing him around throwing sticks and rocks. By the time I became aware of what was going on, he had climbed about thirty feet up into a tree; crying but safe from projectiles. My balls hadn't dropped yet, I didn't know what to do, eventually an adult scout leader yelled at him to quit screwing around and get down. I've always thought that's what happened to him again later, he just got overcome - he felt like he was stuck in a tree with nowhere to go.
I afraid many a young person has spent their last few hours on earth were filled with the same wracking anguish.
I suppose I could condemn the Vice Principle who blew such pollution up the young man's ass. I'm certain he did not act with the intention of driving him to suicide. He simply had a powerful impetus to 'restore order' to the school, perhaps a bit of personal dislike for what he assumed the pro-immigrent rallys were all about. Between the endless cop shows, and that schlock Keifer Sutherland keeps lending his name and talent to; American's have no shortage of images wherein a figure with authority leans upon someone, 'leverages' then into compliance by threatening what they fear. Images of power, how they seduce. . .
I think this story gets under my skin cuz I have some small inkling of what it's like to be attacked for what you believe in. I also suffered from a bit of the nervous shakes from time to time in school. Even these days, once in a while a novel social situation makes me forget my groovy arrogance and start slipping into a bad place. So I can empathize - and empathy can hurt. If I didn't consider the sum value of their life experiences to be insuffient, on a day like today I could almost envy those who have grown callous against the suffering of those who are not of their family or race (or is it those who have not grown to be open to the suffering of so many others?)
I hope I didn't cross any lines with this posting. My sincerist condolences to any of his family members who might ever come accross this blog. I just tried to be honest.
I beginning to think that I have no right to blog about someone who I have never met at a time like this . . . maybe I should just delete this one . . .
Anthony Soltero helped organized and lead his schoolmates in one of the countless walk-outs that occured in his native California and all over the country this March. On March 30th, a vice-principle took him aside and allegedly told him that there would be consequences for his actions as a protest leader. He would not be allowed to attend the school dance. He would not be allowed to attend graduation. He was going to spend 3 years in prison. His parents were going to be fined and investigated.
The fourteen year old boy called his mother when he got home in a terrible state. She told him that they would talk about it when she got home from work. When she got home, she found his note and his body. He had taken his own life.
I know that no amount of liberal education reform will ever eliminate the tragedy of teen suicide. The hormones get to racing and their insides still have not cooled. Public schools can be one of the destructive social environments that an American will endure it their entire life. It still fucking sucks.
I had a good friend who hung himself in a detention room his junior year. The only memory I have of him that makes any sense of it is a Boy Scout summer camp we had attended years before. Ryan was an adopted kid, and a fair number of the older boys took to calling him a nigger and chasing him around throwing sticks and rocks. By the time I became aware of what was going on, he had climbed about thirty feet up into a tree; crying but safe from projectiles. My balls hadn't dropped yet, I didn't know what to do, eventually an adult scout leader yelled at him to quit screwing around and get down. I've always thought that's what happened to him again later, he just got overcome - he felt like he was stuck in a tree with nowhere to go.
I afraid many a young person has spent their last few hours on earth were filled with the same wracking anguish.
I suppose I could condemn the Vice Principle who blew such pollution up the young man's ass. I'm certain he did not act with the intention of driving him to suicide. He simply had a powerful impetus to 'restore order' to the school, perhaps a bit of personal dislike for what he assumed the pro-immigrent rallys were all about. Between the endless cop shows, and that schlock Keifer Sutherland keeps lending his name and talent to; American's have no shortage of images wherein a figure with authority leans upon someone, 'leverages' then into compliance by threatening what they fear. Images of power, how they seduce. . .
I think this story gets under my skin cuz I have some small inkling of what it's like to be attacked for what you believe in. I also suffered from a bit of the nervous shakes from time to time in school. Even these days, once in a while a novel social situation makes me forget my groovy arrogance and start slipping into a bad place. So I can empathize - and empathy can hurt. If I didn't consider the sum value of their life experiences to be insuffient, on a day like today I could almost envy those who have grown callous against the suffering of those who are not of their family or race (or is it those who have not grown to be open to the suffering of so many others?)
I hope I didn't cross any lines with this posting. My sincerist condolences to any of his family members who might ever come accross this blog. I just tried to be honest.
I beginning to think that I have no right to blog about someone who I have never met at a time like this . . . maybe I should just delete this one . . .
Monday, April 10, 2006
Does anyone know a sure-fire way to beat a traffic ticket?
So this morning my alarm went off at 5:45 so I could drag my ass fifty miles to the very edge of the suburban housing bubble and have my day in court. Nope, I was not defending myself from the charges of Sedition and Blasphamy, just a dipshit allegation of having rolled through a stop sign.
Perhaps I did roll through some worthless stop sign in some shitty little development of McMansions in the 'burbs. Perhaps I did not.
From careful observation of a traffic court in suburbia, however, I can't help but be overcome with the notion that I am simply having $132.00 extorted from me. I watched a dozen folks shuffle up before that judge and plead 'guilty but with an explanation', Judge Smiley ordered them to proceed, and almost without exception they were assured that the charges would not go on their permenent record (oh, yeah. . .) but they would still have to shell out the franklin and change.
I saw several good 'ole boys offer as an explaination the particular circumstances of an ice storm along with empty roads, and the decision to roll through a stoplight as opposed to locking the wheels and risking a loss of control. As the one young man said, 'I thought I made the right call,' and he fucking did. As a native Minnesotan I can tell you, it is always better to be in control of your truck than out of control. A stoplight is just a red light, if there is no cross traffic than it should not compel you to risk a loss of control.
What I should have done is talk to a prosecutor. They were both attractive women. I could have locked them into my wolf blue eyes, rumbled their world with my voice, and told my tale with eloquence and some seductive confidence. Ehn, it would have been a crap shoot, but it wouldn't have cost me anything to try it.
Instead I plead 'Not Guilty.' Seemed to me that once you said 'Guilty' you were fucked, they were going to get your 132 no matter what. That was it, as soon as I said that, he scoffed about how I could 'try my luck' and they had me out of that courtroom before I knew it. I was an abberation, an bad example, who didn't just surrender all rights and shell out the money.
I've written a few times lately about the power of social situations and the effect they can have on the human body. A court be a solid example. Even with a solid understanding of how the novelty of the situation and the focus of about a hundred people on the back of my head were stimulating me; my best belly breathing and centering techniques could not prevent my heart from pounding and my Arm & Hammer Ultra Max Active Sport deodorant from failing. I'm glad that was just a trial run, I could not have performed perfectly in such a situation.
So no I've got a month before my 'trial' before another judge. What's the fucking point? That's a question that's been trailing me for several days. I missed a day of work and burned over a quarter tank of gas to show up today, so paying the $132 would have been the smart move as 'opportunity costs' go. I just can't fucking do it. I know that cop was just filling a quota, and he pulled over a guy who didn't look like he owned one of those houses in that neighborhood to do it. Multiple circumstances involved in my traffic stop had me convinced I was going to simply get a warning right up until that donut wrangler mumbled something, handed me a ticket and shuffled off. He knew he was fucking me. He knew it, I knew it, and now the American People know it. That judge probably knows it too, but why the fuck should he care? I know I've got a personal code of honor, but I don't see too many other males with one these days. The case will come down to my word vs. the officers, why would he not choose the side that will gain him another coin in the county's coffers?
In Minnesota the cities and the counties have been getting fucked by the 'belt-tightening' that our dumbass governor is imposing to try to look like he's a Presidential Contender. They lean on their cops to generate a bit more revenue, and this one guy decides to stick it to me - maybe cuz he's envious of my sideburns - and help out his monthly numbers a bit. So I get stuck, and there's nothing I can do about it. There is no reason why a judge will favor me over an officer of the law, so I get bilked?!?
I might be wrong here, but I always thought that the reason for traffic laws was to create a safer driving environment, to try to minimize the deaths, injuries, and property damages that occur when clever simians propel themselves and a ton and a half of steel at hundreds of feet per second thanks to the magical energy within the hydrocarbon oil. Murder is not wrong because you broke a law written somewhere about murder, it's wrong because you have deprived another of their fucking life. You have wronged another person in the most heinous way. Our liberal democracy is based on protecting peoples Rights, not slavishly obeying laws. We have laws to protect rights, not just for the sake of having laws. Traffic rules, the weakest of the misdemeanors, are not on the books because Americans are supposed to be worthless sheep who sit at a red light in the middle of the night for five minutes in desolate isolation because we live to obey. Stop lights are damn useful during rush hour, so that we can attempt to preclude damage to some other American's life and property. When there is obviously no risk to either, the spirit of America is only degraded when one sits there impotently for nor reason.
grr.
Perhaps I did roll through some worthless stop sign in some shitty little development of McMansions in the 'burbs. Perhaps I did not.
From careful observation of a traffic court in suburbia, however, I can't help but be overcome with the notion that I am simply having $132.00 extorted from me. I watched a dozen folks shuffle up before that judge and plead 'guilty but with an explanation', Judge Smiley ordered them to proceed, and almost without exception they were assured that the charges would not go on their permenent record (oh, yeah. . .) but they would still have to shell out the franklin and change.
I saw several good 'ole boys offer as an explaination the particular circumstances of an ice storm along with empty roads, and the decision to roll through a stoplight as opposed to locking the wheels and risking a loss of control. As the one young man said, 'I thought I made the right call,' and he fucking did. As a native Minnesotan I can tell you, it is always better to be in control of your truck than out of control. A stoplight is just a red light, if there is no cross traffic than it should not compel you to risk a loss of control.
What I should have done is talk to a prosecutor. They were both attractive women. I could have locked them into my wolf blue eyes, rumbled their world with my voice, and told my tale with eloquence and some seductive confidence. Ehn, it would have been a crap shoot, but it wouldn't have cost me anything to try it.
Instead I plead 'Not Guilty.' Seemed to me that once you said 'Guilty' you were fucked, they were going to get your 132 no matter what. That was it, as soon as I said that, he scoffed about how I could 'try my luck' and they had me out of that courtroom before I knew it. I was an abberation, an bad example, who didn't just surrender all rights and shell out the money.
I've written a few times lately about the power of social situations and the effect they can have on the human body. A court be a solid example. Even with a solid understanding of how the novelty of the situation and the focus of about a hundred people on the back of my head were stimulating me; my best belly breathing and centering techniques could not prevent my heart from pounding and my Arm & Hammer Ultra Max Active Sport deodorant from failing. I'm glad that was just a trial run, I could not have performed perfectly in such a situation.
So no I've got a month before my 'trial' before another judge. What's the fucking point? That's a question that's been trailing me for several days. I missed a day of work and burned over a quarter tank of gas to show up today, so paying the $132 would have been the smart move as 'opportunity costs' go. I just can't fucking do it. I know that cop was just filling a quota, and he pulled over a guy who didn't look like he owned one of those houses in that neighborhood to do it. Multiple circumstances involved in my traffic stop had me convinced I was going to simply get a warning right up until that donut wrangler mumbled something, handed me a ticket and shuffled off. He knew he was fucking me. He knew it, I knew it, and now the American People know it. That judge probably knows it too, but why the fuck should he care? I know I've got a personal code of honor, but I don't see too many other males with one these days. The case will come down to my word vs. the officers, why would he not choose the side that will gain him another coin in the county's coffers?
In Minnesota the cities and the counties have been getting fucked by the 'belt-tightening' that our dumbass governor is imposing to try to look like he's a Presidential Contender. They lean on their cops to generate a bit more revenue, and this one guy decides to stick it to me - maybe cuz he's envious of my sideburns - and help out his monthly numbers a bit. So I get stuck, and there's nothing I can do about it. There is no reason why a judge will favor me over an officer of the law, so I get bilked?!?
I might be wrong here, but I always thought that the reason for traffic laws was to create a safer driving environment, to try to minimize the deaths, injuries, and property damages that occur when clever simians propel themselves and a ton and a half of steel at hundreds of feet per second thanks to the magical energy within the hydrocarbon oil. Murder is not wrong because you broke a law written somewhere about murder, it's wrong because you have deprived another of their fucking life. You have wronged another person in the most heinous way. Our liberal democracy is based on protecting peoples Rights, not slavishly obeying laws. We have laws to protect rights, not just for the sake of having laws. Traffic rules, the weakest of the misdemeanors, are not on the books because Americans are supposed to be worthless sheep who sit at a red light in the middle of the night for five minutes in desolate isolation because we live to obey. Stop lights are damn useful during rush hour, so that we can attempt to preclude damage to some other American's life and property. When there is obviously no risk to either, the spirit of America is only degraded when one sits there impotently for nor reason.
grr.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The neo-cons play 'Wag the Mexican'
I've been hesitant to weigh in on the issue of immigration. I've been secretly thrilled to witness a movement amongst latinos in this country. If they begin organizing on the scale they've succeeded with in some of the South American nations, our established and entreanched leaders will have a real challenge on their hands. I've been greatly pained, however, by the subtle consistancy with which this debate is being used to cultivate the Hydra of Evil. She whose hideous heads answer to 'xenophobia','racism', and that fucking 'sense of entitlement' the Right likes to baste their followers in.
It is a complicate issue. I myself have first hand experience with being surgically cut from a workforce by the influx of illegal labor. For a good part of the ninties, I worked in the kitchens - not bad work for a guy who wanted to work part-time and write part-time (and party all the time. . .) During the beginning, the stainless steel workplace was a shiny example of diversity. I learned the trade from guys in their forties who were raising a family on a cook's income. I didn't want to do it for my entire life, but I felt like I always had something I could fall back on. 'The world will always need restaurants, a good cook will never starve.'
By the turn of the century, illegals were everywhere, working for four, five bucks an hour less than the rest of us. Even better yet, when one of them got bled out or burned bad - then it was time for a manager to look a little closer at 'dem papers. Adios, amigo. Worker's comp claims rapidly approached zero. I understand this phenomenon has taken place in all sorts of industries, from meat packing to construction. Desperate labor is the glorious sword Excaliber in the ruling classes' righteous war against unions and working man.
So there is a problem, the situation can be 'tweaked', yet this is not a problem from the point of view of business. So the factions within the GOP that used to set the agenda, the 'country club republicans' not the 'preacher republicans', did not seem to have much of a motive for changing the status quo. 'Cheap labor with no rights', those fuckers mumble that in their sleep when they're having a wet dream.
But then this little thought popped into my head. A bit of a mental memory where some of the rediculous rhetoric the folks like Newt Gengrich and Jesse Helms leveled at President Clinton during his intervention in the Balkans to try to preclude a bit of genocide. He was 'wagging the dog', using our military and placing our brave lads at risk for nothing put the chance to distract the American people from his legal troubles at home. He didn't give a fuck about the Bosnians or the Serbs, he just wanted to look cool in his flight suit as he wrapped himelf in the mantel of Commander in Chief.
I didn't believe it then, but the attack by the republicans was valid. I believe that in the Herr Goebbels 'Propaganda and Manipulation of the Masses for Dummies' book I got, 'wag the dog' theory gets covered in chapter three. Right after the chapter on creating an 'enemy inside, enemy outside' mentality, but before the chapter on the means to incorparate the religious authority into the will of the state. Certainly, even in this world of 24 hour newscycles and shitloads of op ed pieces, a society can ony focus on a few major issues at a time (except during a Presidential Election, where we can't even focus on one.)
So the same shitheads who teleconference those fucks at FOX News everyday to discuss how the events of the day shall be 'handled' - 'homicide bombers' rather than 'suicide bombers', 'thugs' instead of 'rebels', you know the deal - have decided to 'Wag the Mexican' to distract Americans from the glaring problems this administration has created and fucked up.
The occupation of Iraq remains the Number One issue in this country! We've blown a huge wad of cash, had thousands of American soilders maimed and killed, fucking wacko fanatics all over the world are learning that American soilders are not invincible - they can be fought and they can be killed, we've helped degrade the notion of international law, and we've seen more death and torture than I can stand. I don't know who in the world doesn't think that the neo-con hawks had Iraq in the sights from day one, and they 'sold' this war to the American people with the use of advertising agencys and some selective declassification of questionable intel. We've even seen how the administration was willing to target a man's wife as a shitty form of payback for questioning their will.
The 'reconstruction' (fuck, I just can't say that with enough contempt) of Iraq, like the 'reconstruction' post-Katrina has just been a marvelous blue-print into how ruling class fuckers like this administration think government is suppose to work. Taxes are extorted from the working men and women of this country, on the wages you earn and the wealth you try to accumulte. Sure the top quintile gets taxed too, but not at near the rates we endure, and personally, I don't think the taxation of one's investments - capital gains - should even be discussed in the same context as the taxation of one's labor. This tax revenue then gets funneled into projects like the Iraq war, where a handful of politically connected corporate conglomerates are given contracts without any form of bidding whatsoever and guarantees of certain level of profitability. For the most part, at this point Haliburton totally half-asses the services they've been contracted to provide and billions of dollars just fucking disappear. In Iraq, according to a U.S.A Today report, only a third of the projects scheduled have been completed. While 77,000 jobs have been created in the country, the administration promised 1.5 million when Bush and Co were out babbling on about their 'Marshal Plan.' The CEO's and principle investors of these corporations make off like bandits, giving themselves huge bonuses with the cash that just last fall was taxpayer money. They take their huge windfalls, 'invest' it in the campaigns of their local republicans and the cycle continues. It's a fucking load of shit.
The Iraq war is an open sore that needs the attention of some competent, principled leadership. Is that leadership in the democratic party? I haven't fucking seen it, but that don't change the need. Iraqi's will keep dying and the corruption will keep right on spreading until someone steps up.
The utter incompetence, and willingness to insist on a privatization model when a quarter of the country is blasted back to the stone age; a President who took the Air Force One redeye to fly back to Washington to sign a pandering Terri Schaivo bill, but who took over a week to realize Katrina had been a bad thing. . .
Let's not forget this whole 'Scooter' Libby case and the fucking shell game of classified, de-classified that was perfected during Iran-Contra to weasal out of accountability. Some fact or figure that shines a light on the administrations incompetence or deliberate wrongdoing, well, that's classified, you can't have that. Something that might boster their standing in the polls, even if it will be exposed for the schlock it is in a matter of weeks, well that's something the public need to see. 'Oh, you want to investigate someone for lying to congress or illegally selling arms to a terrorist state? I'm sorry, but you'll have to throw that case out since all the evidence you'd need to prove it has been fucking classified.' National security trumps domestic laws. The people would rather have security than liberty.
This shits' out of control. Everybody knows it. The plurality of the population that does not worship George W as a biblical figure and will grit their teeth and send their sons off to fight against the infidels, this segment of the population wants Bush removed and the government reformed right fucking now. Every poll says that, and when the republicans lose the majority this fall, they will loose the immunity from serious investigation that has cloaked their crimes and ethical lapses for over the last five years. Tom DeLay's resignation speech was peppered with references to the horror which the loss of the majority will rain down upon them. They must get a muzzle back on the American People, and to do it they'll just start shouting and wagging the Mexican.
It is a complicate issue. I myself have first hand experience with being surgically cut from a workforce by the influx of illegal labor. For a good part of the ninties, I worked in the kitchens - not bad work for a guy who wanted to work part-time and write part-time (and party all the time. . .) During the beginning, the stainless steel workplace was a shiny example of diversity. I learned the trade from guys in their forties who were raising a family on a cook's income. I didn't want to do it for my entire life, but I felt like I always had something I could fall back on. 'The world will always need restaurants, a good cook will never starve.'
By the turn of the century, illegals were everywhere, working for four, five bucks an hour less than the rest of us. Even better yet, when one of them got bled out or burned bad - then it was time for a manager to look a little closer at 'dem papers. Adios, amigo. Worker's comp claims rapidly approached zero. I understand this phenomenon has taken place in all sorts of industries, from meat packing to construction. Desperate labor is the glorious sword Excaliber in the ruling classes' righteous war against unions and working man.
So there is a problem, the situation can be 'tweaked', yet this is not a problem from the point of view of business. So the factions within the GOP that used to set the agenda, the 'country club republicans' not the 'preacher republicans', did not seem to have much of a motive for changing the status quo. 'Cheap labor with no rights', those fuckers mumble that in their sleep when they're having a wet dream.
But then this little thought popped into my head. A bit of a mental memory where some of the rediculous rhetoric the folks like Newt Gengrich and Jesse Helms leveled at President Clinton during his intervention in the Balkans to try to preclude a bit of genocide. He was 'wagging the dog', using our military and placing our brave lads at risk for nothing put the chance to distract the American people from his legal troubles at home. He didn't give a fuck about the Bosnians or the Serbs, he just wanted to look cool in his flight suit as he wrapped himelf in the mantel of Commander in Chief.
I didn't believe it then, but the attack by the republicans was valid. I believe that in the Herr Goebbels 'Propaganda and Manipulation of the Masses for Dummies' book I got, 'wag the dog' theory gets covered in chapter three. Right after the chapter on creating an 'enemy inside, enemy outside' mentality, but before the chapter on the means to incorparate the religious authority into the will of the state. Certainly, even in this world of 24 hour newscycles and shitloads of op ed pieces, a society can ony focus on a few major issues at a time (except during a Presidential Election, where we can't even focus on one.)
So the same shitheads who teleconference those fucks at FOX News everyday to discuss how the events of the day shall be 'handled' - 'homicide bombers' rather than 'suicide bombers', 'thugs' instead of 'rebels', you know the deal - have decided to 'Wag the Mexican' to distract Americans from the glaring problems this administration has created and fucked up.
The occupation of Iraq remains the Number One issue in this country! We've blown a huge wad of cash, had thousands of American soilders maimed and killed, fucking wacko fanatics all over the world are learning that American soilders are not invincible - they can be fought and they can be killed, we've helped degrade the notion of international law, and we've seen more death and torture than I can stand. I don't know who in the world doesn't think that the neo-con hawks had Iraq in the sights from day one, and they 'sold' this war to the American people with the use of advertising agencys and some selective declassification of questionable intel. We've even seen how the administration was willing to target a man's wife as a shitty form of payback for questioning their will.
The 'reconstruction' (fuck, I just can't say that with enough contempt) of Iraq, like the 'reconstruction' post-Katrina has just been a marvelous blue-print into how ruling class fuckers like this administration think government is suppose to work. Taxes are extorted from the working men and women of this country, on the wages you earn and the wealth you try to accumulte. Sure the top quintile gets taxed too, but not at near the rates we endure, and personally, I don't think the taxation of one's investments - capital gains - should even be discussed in the same context as the taxation of one's labor. This tax revenue then gets funneled into projects like the Iraq war, where a handful of politically connected corporate conglomerates are given contracts without any form of bidding whatsoever and guarantees of certain level of profitability. For the most part, at this point Haliburton totally half-asses the services they've been contracted to provide and billions of dollars just fucking disappear. In Iraq, according to a U.S.A Today report, only a third of the projects scheduled have been completed. While 77,000 jobs have been created in the country, the administration promised 1.5 million when Bush and Co were out babbling on about their 'Marshal Plan.' The CEO's and principle investors of these corporations make off like bandits, giving themselves huge bonuses with the cash that just last fall was taxpayer money. They take their huge windfalls, 'invest' it in the campaigns of their local republicans and the cycle continues. It's a fucking load of shit.
The Iraq war is an open sore that needs the attention of some competent, principled leadership. Is that leadership in the democratic party? I haven't fucking seen it, but that don't change the need. Iraqi's will keep dying and the corruption will keep right on spreading until someone steps up.
The utter incompetence, and willingness to insist on a privatization model when a quarter of the country is blasted back to the stone age; a President who took the Air Force One redeye to fly back to Washington to sign a pandering Terri Schaivo bill, but who took over a week to realize Katrina had been a bad thing. . .
Let's not forget this whole 'Scooter' Libby case and the fucking shell game of classified, de-classified that was perfected during Iran-Contra to weasal out of accountability. Some fact or figure that shines a light on the administrations incompetence or deliberate wrongdoing, well, that's classified, you can't have that. Something that might boster their standing in the polls, even if it will be exposed for the schlock it is in a matter of weeks, well that's something the public need to see. 'Oh, you want to investigate someone for lying to congress or illegally selling arms to a terrorist state? I'm sorry, but you'll have to throw that case out since all the evidence you'd need to prove it has been fucking classified.' National security trumps domestic laws. The people would rather have security than liberty.
This shits' out of control. Everybody knows it. The plurality of the population that does not worship George W as a biblical figure and will grit their teeth and send their sons off to fight against the infidels, this segment of the population wants Bush removed and the government reformed right fucking now. Every poll says that, and when the republicans lose the majority this fall, they will loose the immunity from serious investigation that has cloaked their crimes and ethical lapses for over the last five years. Tom DeLay's resignation speech was peppered with references to the horror which the loss of the majority will rain down upon them. They must get a muzzle back on the American People, and to do it they'll just start shouting and wagging the Mexican.
Conspiracy Theories
. . .
Friday, April 07, 2006
The Evag Push-Back
Lately I've been filled with the powerful spirit of revolution. I've gotten all caught up in some of the exciting details of web design, and hopefully I'll have enough time in the next week to revamp the Atheist Seeker image as well as complete my taxes (I'd hate to have to choose one over the other.)
I'd also say that I've been like a spiritual surfer, catching a slice of the wave within our media that's crashing 'gainst the shores of evagelikalism. Just yesterday alone, I caught Kevin Phillip's on my local public radio station, flipped past a two-part History Channel skit on the Anti-Christ, read an article on just how unbelievably corrupt Ralph Reed is, and laughed along with John Stewart - "those 100 million evangelicals who you don't want to offend, but wouldn't ever want to have a conversation with" ; some tipping point has been reached and now the secular media will try to humiliate the evags back into submission. Like with right-wing radio, the target smeared on evags encourages members of the group to come up with the next great rip, similar to how such radio program's callers have been perfecting the blowjob joke for the last six years.
As anyone who reads my rants already knows, I've got no problem ripping into the born agains and their belief system. I've been doing it consistently on my, and others, blogs since way before it was cool.
I also believe that any honest assement has to lay the lion's share of responsibility for Bush's crimes at the doorstep of the suburban mega-churches. Obviously, every one of us American's has to shoulder some of the burden of that tragic war, yet without the evag's blind support to a man who didn't seem to me to have any redeeming qualities 'cept the ability to ape the behaviors of a born again he would not have won re-election or felt he had the support to violate international law and attack Iraq.
Evag's have a remarkably developed capacity for the selective absorbtion of information. They spend more time in the emotionally gratifying confines of their community than a commited pothead can spend high. They ridicule mainstream (secular, liberal) media and cleave to the 'christian' media empires that have been extensively developed over the last few decades. Without a diversity of opinion, they are far too easily manipulated by the cynical science of mass communications. Just look at the Abramoff, Scanlon, Reed trinity. Folks who truly believe that Noah and his progeny are the only humans to survive Yaweh's wrath, or who see a 'debate' on evolution as anything but a small fraction of %1 of 'scientists' who are using their media structure to make a buck - these folks can't participate with any usefulness in the complex debate over the future of our country.
This fable of the Anti-Christ really troubles me. All of what I consider to be the evils of the world require the dehumanization of others. You can't own slaves until you turn them into farm animals in your mind. You can't exterminate a native society until you have convinced yourself they are merely primitive pests. You can't be a member of a 'master' race until all other races are 'proved' to be inferior. The anti-christ image has been used to dehumanize groups for well over a thousand years. Christians vs. muslims, muslims vs. christians, both faiths vs. jews, christians vs. other christians, christians vs. pagans, ect., ect.
Now we have this highly detailed image of the antichrist that most evags can define with frightening consistency. A definition that don't bode well for the future of the planet. He'll come out of the United Nations, he'll bring Peace to the Middle East, he'll move us towards a world government.
A cabal of wealthy oil men intent of expanding the power of their own corporate interests and fuck anybody who gets in their way will certainly pander to a notion that sees the U.N. in such a light. International law, if it were ever enforced, might curtail American Empire. Neo-con ideology and antichrist myth sync up perfectly here. They never miss a chance to diss the U.N. or the silly notion that the U.S. might ever have to respect international law.
As for Peace in the Middle East? Yeah, that's just great. . . anybody who does work hard to try to resolve some of those issues and help improve the lot of those millions who suffer there - that person may talk peace but we know in his heart he's an evil, demon possessed, threat to the world. grr
In resolution, however, I want to just say that while I observe this push-back against the power of the evags, my voice has and shall continue to join in that secular chorus; this alone is not a solution. All cults revel in their persecution fantasys. One way to strengthen the bonds of community, bonds that pulsate with the endorphins of group membership, is to focus on an external enemy who wish to disrupt that bond. The portion of the bible they stole from the jews is all about persecution and times of trial. While the rest of America needs to be woken up to how radically fundamentalist these people are - too many of them do not base their descisions nor their interpetation of reality on . . . well, on reality. Kevin Phillips wrote a whole book on how an evag lust for a great war between Christ and the AntiChrist in the middle east contributed greatly to Bush's crusade in Iraq.
If we openly criticise them they will withdraw even further. They will spend even less time interacting with non-evags, and their media will take every critique out of context and use it to justify the 'war on Christians.'
On a day like today I need to remind myself that every single one of them is a sentient human being. The same pleasures I feel when I write something I'm proud of, or I share some love with my woman - evags have the same pleasures, they just unlock them and reference them in other ways. They have the same mind I do, capable of the same logical computations and flights of glorious imagination. We need to reach out to them and build bridges.
Perhaps we'll never be able to re-integrate them into liberal society until we achieve a culture that can provide the pleasures and the security that an evag fantasy does. Of course, a rant on the collapse of culture in the T.V. society will have to wait for another day.
I'd also say that I've been like a spiritual surfer, catching a slice of the wave within our media that's crashing 'gainst the shores of evagelikalism. Just yesterday alone, I caught Kevin Phillip's on my local public radio station, flipped past a two-part History Channel skit on the Anti-Christ, read an article on just how unbelievably corrupt Ralph Reed is, and laughed along with John Stewart - "those 100 million evangelicals who you don't want to offend, but wouldn't ever want to have a conversation with" ; some tipping point has been reached and now the secular media will try to humiliate the evags back into submission. Like with right-wing radio, the target smeared on evags encourages members of the group to come up with the next great rip, similar to how such radio program's callers have been perfecting the blowjob joke for the last six years.
As anyone who reads my rants already knows, I've got no problem ripping into the born agains and their belief system. I've been doing it consistently on my, and others, blogs since way before it was cool.
I also believe that any honest assement has to lay the lion's share of responsibility for Bush's crimes at the doorstep of the suburban mega-churches. Obviously, every one of us American's has to shoulder some of the burden of that tragic war, yet without the evag's blind support to a man who didn't seem to me to have any redeeming qualities 'cept the ability to ape the behaviors of a born again he would not have won re-election or felt he had the support to violate international law and attack Iraq.
Evag's have a remarkably developed capacity for the selective absorbtion of information. They spend more time in the emotionally gratifying confines of their community than a commited pothead can spend high. They ridicule mainstream (secular, liberal) media and cleave to the 'christian' media empires that have been extensively developed over the last few decades. Without a diversity of opinion, they are far too easily manipulated by the cynical science of mass communications. Just look at the Abramoff, Scanlon, Reed trinity. Folks who truly believe that Noah and his progeny are the only humans to survive Yaweh's wrath, or who see a 'debate' on evolution as anything but a small fraction of %1 of 'scientists' who are using their media structure to make a buck - these folks can't participate with any usefulness in the complex debate over the future of our country.
This fable of the Anti-Christ really troubles me. All of what I consider to be the evils of the world require the dehumanization of others. You can't own slaves until you turn them into farm animals in your mind. You can't exterminate a native society until you have convinced yourself they are merely primitive pests. You can't be a member of a 'master' race until all other races are 'proved' to be inferior. The anti-christ image has been used to dehumanize groups for well over a thousand years. Christians vs. muslims, muslims vs. christians, both faiths vs. jews, christians vs. other christians, christians vs. pagans, ect., ect.
Now we have this highly detailed image of the antichrist that most evags can define with frightening consistency. A definition that don't bode well for the future of the planet. He'll come out of the United Nations, he'll bring Peace to the Middle East, he'll move us towards a world government.
A cabal of wealthy oil men intent of expanding the power of their own corporate interests and fuck anybody who gets in their way will certainly pander to a notion that sees the U.N. in such a light. International law, if it were ever enforced, might curtail American Empire. Neo-con ideology and antichrist myth sync up perfectly here. They never miss a chance to diss the U.N. or the silly notion that the U.S. might ever have to respect international law.
As for Peace in the Middle East? Yeah, that's just great. . . anybody who does work hard to try to resolve some of those issues and help improve the lot of those millions who suffer there - that person may talk peace but we know in his heart he's an evil, demon possessed, threat to the world. grr
In resolution, however, I want to just say that while I observe this push-back against the power of the evags, my voice has and shall continue to join in that secular chorus; this alone is not a solution. All cults revel in their persecution fantasys. One way to strengthen the bonds of community, bonds that pulsate with the endorphins of group membership, is to focus on an external enemy who wish to disrupt that bond. The portion of the bible they stole from the jews is all about persecution and times of trial. While the rest of America needs to be woken up to how radically fundamentalist these people are - too many of them do not base their descisions nor their interpetation of reality on . . . well, on reality. Kevin Phillips wrote a whole book on how an evag lust for a great war between Christ and the AntiChrist in the middle east contributed greatly to Bush's crusade in Iraq.
If we openly criticise them they will withdraw even further. They will spend even less time interacting with non-evags, and their media will take every critique out of context and use it to justify the 'war on Christians.'
On a day like today I need to remind myself that every single one of them is a sentient human being. The same pleasures I feel when I write something I'm proud of, or I share some love with my woman - evags have the same pleasures, they just unlock them and reference them in other ways. They have the same mind I do, capable of the same logical computations and flights of glorious imagination. We need to reach out to them and build bridges.
Perhaps we'll never be able to re-integrate them into liberal society until we achieve a culture that can provide the pleasures and the security that an evag fantasy does. Of course, a rant on the collapse of culture in the T.V. society will have to wait for another day.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Soumaya Ganoushi
Got a little extra time this morning so clicked on Aljazeera.net after boring with the NYT, google news, and the products of my own mind. (A madblog angel bestowed mad credits on me last night, so I'm in a temporary reprieve from the four digit fandango - thanks Babs!)
There is a fascinating article on their homepage regarding the replacement of Zarqawi in Iraq. Seems like the resistance is consolidating.
Then there is this editorial by Soumaya Ganoushi. I'd say she's a voice we should all hear.
Aside from evags who willfully live with an understanding of the world that should bore a twelve year old, nothing gets me more worked up than these right wing bloggers who yap on and on about 'liberals' when they don't have a fucking clue what the movement is all about. I mean, come on, how credulous do you have to be to let someone like Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly explain the theory of liberalism? That's like asking a meth cook about the potential long term side effects of methamphetamine use. 'Oh, you say it's all good and the media be just lying about meth? Well, sell me an eightball then!'
This woman's editorial really seems to capture, from a muslim's perspective, what I think remains the major choices facing liberalism today. Nice to see the discussion is taking place somewhere.
Oh, and one final question to the righties who blog: How many times do you think you've mentioned Bill Clinton's blowjob in your blogging career? Is it once a day? Three times a week? Talk about oral fixation. . .
There is a fascinating article on their homepage regarding the replacement of Zarqawi in Iraq. Seems like the resistance is consolidating.
Then there is this editorial by Soumaya Ganoushi. I'd say she's a voice we should all hear.
Aside from evags who willfully live with an understanding of the world that should bore a twelve year old, nothing gets me more worked up than these right wing bloggers who yap on and on about 'liberals' when they don't have a fucking clue what the movement is all about. I mean, come on, how credulous do you have to be to let someone like Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly explain the theory of liberalism? That's like asking a meth cook about the potential long term side effects of methamphetamine use. 'Oh, you say it's all good and the media be just lying about meth? Well, sell me an eightball then!'
This woman's editorial really seems to capture, from a muslim's perspective, what I think remains the major choices facing liberalism today. Nice to see the discussion is taking place somewhere.
Oh, and one final question to the righties who blog: How many times do you think you've mentioned Bill Clinton's blowjob in your blogging career? Is it once a day? Three times a week? Talk about oral fixation. . .
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Kanye West
I'd like to preface this entry with a bit of a rolling tale on how I came to this posting. Like most whites, I'd never heard of Kanye West until he made his statements regarding Mr. Bush during that Katrina fundraiser where Michael Meyers was left looking so out of touch with reality. Of course, the mainstream media exploded over the issue, but I was too busy being outraged over a FEMA payola program that's paying some appropriately connected corporation like $100 per square of roofing while that same fucking corporation is paying their illegal workers like $2 dollars per square to do the actual fucking work. Sometimes the corruption of the current administration seems so outrageous that it just can't be really happening.
Then Kanye West is on the cover of Rolling Stone, but I don't pick up that issue. I just didn't. Next I see a bit on the 'Mind of Mencia' program and realize that Kanye West be the artist behind the 'I ain't say'n she's a gold digga' song. That song rocks.
So I go onto the internet tonight and I hit his website. I watch the gold digga tune. I dance in my chair and maybe wake Cindy up in the next room. He's got one other song available for streaming, something called 'Diamonds.'
Damn. Check that tune out. I guess too much of my consciousness just bought into the prevailing propaganda concept that Mr. West is an opportunitst who decided to trash Bush to get a bit more media time. I like rap and hip hop, but I certainly don't have my finger on the pulse of the culture. I'd never realized how tuned in Mr. West is.
Personally, I've got a multitude of reasons for refusing to ever marry my beloved girlfriend. Above even the disdain I feel for how 'marriage' is being used to attack homosexuals, I hate the way the institution works in our country. The basic groundrules having been set down by the DeBeers corporation in order to sell more diamonds. Yeah, I'm sorry but that's right; putting a diamond on the finger of your lover has nothing to do with any sort of tradition (a ring is traditional, a diamond is not) and everything to do with an advertising campaign. It's a true testimony to the power of advertising, that in a generation, everyone will just assume that without a diamond, a wedding is incomplete.
A shiny rock that ain't good for much other than cutting glass and industrial drilling became the symbol of timeless love in our country. Increase demand . . . we all know what that means. So all of western Africa gets totally fucked over, children get their hands chopped off and dictators get sold weapons all to insure certain companies get to keep the rights to mine these shiny rocks. Kanye West's video has a scene where a good ole fashioned white 50's couple exchanges rings only to have the woman's hand begin spurting blood all over the place.
It's a powerful image.
Wake the fuck up people. The media tells you that your engagement ring should cost two months worth of your salary. That two month salary - enhanced exponentially by the poverty factor - goes directly into feeding and arming some murderous army in Africa. Charles Taylor is in the news right now, if you wanted to learn about how these systems work you could do so in a matter of clicks and hours; it's not that complicated, it's been happening on this planet for hundreds of years.
A diamond is just a fucking rock, a mineral. It has nothing to do with Love. If you Love your partner than LOVE THEM. Be in Love! It has nothing to do with a shiny rock. Shiny rocks only get children killed, they have no value to us. Mr. West's video has some of those images in it. I'm going to pick up a few of his CD's this week, I think he might have a lot more going on than the mainstream press wants to deal with.
Great, now I've attacked the institution of marraige and implied that every diamond is a conflict diamond. grr
Then Kanye West is on the cover of Rolling Stone, but I don't pick up that issue. I just didn't. Next I see a bit on the 'Mind of Mencia' program and realize that Kanye West be the artist behind the 'I ain't say'n she's a gold digga' song. That song rocks.
So I go onto the internet tonight and I hit his website. I watch the gold digga tune. I dance in my chair and maybe wake Cindy up in the next room. He's got one other song available for streaming, something called 'Diamonds.'
Damn. Check that tune out. I guess too much of my consciousness just bought into the prevailing propaganda concept that Mr. West is an opportunitst who decided to trash Bush to get a bit more media time. I like rap and hip hop, but I certainly don't have my finger on the pulse of the culture. I'd never realized how tuned in Mr. West is.
Personally, I've got a multitude of reasons for refusing to ever marry my beloved girlfriend. Above even the disdain I feel for how 'marriage' is being used to attack homosexuals, I hate the way the institution works in our country. The basic groundrules having been set down by the DeBeers corporation in order to sell more diamonds. Yeah, I'm sorry but that's right; putting a diamond on the finger of your lover has nothing to do with any sort of tradition (a ring is traditional, a diamond is not) and everything to do with an advertising campaign. It's a true testimony to the power of advertising, that in a generation, everyone will just assume that without a diamond, a wedding is incomplete.
A shiny rock that ain't good for much other than cutting glass and industrial drilling became the symbol of timeless love in our country. Increase demand . . . we all know what that means. So all of western Africa gets totally fucked over, children get their hands chopped off and dictators get sold weapons all to insure certain companies get to keep the rights to mine these shiny rocks. Kanye West's video has a scene where a good ole fashioned white 50's couple exchanges rings only to have the woman's hand begin spurting blood all over the place.
It's a powerful image.
Wake the fuck up people. The media tells you that your engagement ring should cost two months worth of your salary. That two month salary - enhanced exponentially by the poverty factor - goes directly into feeding and arming some murderous army in Africa. Charles Taylor is in the news right now, if you wanted to learn about how these systems work you could do so in a matter of clicks and hours; it's not that complicated, it's been happening on this planet for hundreds of years.
A diamond is just a fucking rock, a mineral. It has nothing to do with Love. If you Love your partner than LOVE THEM. Be in Love! It has nothing to do with a shiny rock. Shiny rocks only get children killed, they have no value to us. Mr. West's video has some of those images in it. I'm going to pick up a few of his CD's this week, I think he might have a lot more going on than the mainstream press wants to deal with.
Great, now I've attacked the institution of marraige and implied that every diamond is a conflict diamond. grr
Thoughts on Blog Mad
Last night 'bout the hour of the jackel, my sleep-partner poked her head into my room to ask me why I was still (semi) active.
"I've got to view more mad blog sites," I mumbled, "I'm down under ten credits again. . ."
"Fuck that fucking shit," she replied, "All you ever fucking do is sit there and fucking blog. Since you signed onto that site your up til three every night . . . we never just sit around and talk anymore."
"Baby," I knew it was late, so I tried to be patient, "If I expect others to read my blog, I have to read theirs. If you really want to tell me about your day at work, why don't you get your own madblog - then I'll glance at it for 25 seconds, click on the little 'thumbs up' and then move on."
Will blogging cost Aurelius his longest stable relationship to date? Will his woman realize that she doesn't own him, that his soul belongs to the world? Or will blogmad reconfigure their ratio to something less brutal than 1:1?
In theory, I think the 1:1 concept makes a lot of sense. Like the political correctness movement, however, it might not be the right fit for every single member of the blogosphere. Some folks love to surf the blogs of the internet, perhaps they have a take on employment that has them sitting at a computer all day long, and blogmad makes a great structure for viewing a wide variety of folks' stuff. Others prefer to take a fair amount of time to plan out each of their posting (maybe even spellcheck them - not me, when I give it to ya, I give it to ya raw.) These are the folks who include nicely cropped photos, or back up thier political statements with hyperlinks to reference sources. Just like in one's sex life, in blog life diversity makes things interesting.
I'm occupying a poorly defensible middle-ground. I often spend upwards of ninety minutes on a single posting. I can really type good, I'm just often paused at the end of a phrase waiting for the right combination of words to fall like tetris in me brain. I'd say that also contributes to the unpredictable style I am so infamous for. So if I get home from work at 7, completely ignore my woman and my cat, spend two hours blowing off steam on this site, decide that I don't need to eat three meals a day, then spend another two hours surfing blogmad - 1 cred every 25 seconds, that's roughly sixty creds an hour if I don't get distracted (and I love to get distracted) - now it's after midnight and I'm still barely breaking even on madblog.
My cat is already starting to ignore me. If I wasn't so damn ruggedly handsome, I'd worry about Cindy stepping out on me.
Plus, I don't like the way I'm interacting with folks' blogs either. I'd like for folks to visit this site, read a bit, have a profound spiritual experience where they realize that dogmatic constructs are largely used to control/exploit populations; the true terrors and joys of consciousness transcend the simplified old-fashioned religions, bookmark me and move on. Lately, when I've been surfing all I'm doing is scanning their site until the counter runs down, then clicking away. I rarely have time for a rapidly typed comment, and I sure as hell ain't gonna click on an advertisement and lose my one credit.
. . .
"I've got to view more mad blog sites," I mumbled, "I'm down under ten credits again. . ."
"Fuck that fucking shit," she replied, "All you ever fucking do is sit there and fucking blog. Since you signed onto that site your up til three every night . . . we never just sit around and talk anymore."
"Baby," I knew it was late, so I tried to be patient, "If I expect others to read my blog, I have to read theirs. If you really want to tell me about your day at work, why don't you get your own madblog - then I'll glance at it for 25 seconds, click on the little 'thumbs up' and then move on."
Will blogging cost Aurelius his longest stable relationship to date? Will his woman realize that she doesn't own him, that his soul belongs to the world? Or will blogmad reconfigure their ratio to something less brutal than 1:1?
In theory, I think the 1:1 concept makes a lot of sense. Like the political correctness movement, however, it might not be the right fit for every single member of the blogosphere. Some folks love to surf the blogs of the internet, perhaps they have a take on employment that has them sitting at a computer all day long, and blogmad makes a great structure for viewing a wide variety of folks' stuff. Others prefer to take a fair amount of time to plan out each of their posting (maybe even spellcheck them - not me, when I give it to ya, I give it to ya raw.) These are the folks who include nicely cropped photos, or back up thier political statements with hyperlinks to reference sources. Just like in one's sex life, in blog life diversity makes things interesting.
I'm occupying a poorly defensible middle-ground. I often spend upwards of ninety minutes on a single posting. I can really type good, I'm just often paused at the end of a phrase waiting for the right combination of words to fall like tetris in me brain. I'd say that also contributes to the unpredictable style I am so infamous for. So if I get home from work at 7, completely ignore my woman and my cat, spend two hours blowing off steam on this site, decide that I don't need to eat three meals a day, then spend another two hours surfing blogmad - 1 cred every 25 seconds, that's roughly sixty creds an hour if I don't get distracted (and I love to get distracted) - now it's after midnight and I'm still barely breaking even on madblog.
My cat is already starting to ignore me. If I wasn't so damn ruggedly handsome, I'd worry about Cindy stepping out on me.
Plus, I don't like the way I'm interacting with folks' blogs either. I'd like for folks to visit this site, read a bit, have a profound spiritual experience where they realize that dogmatic constructs are largely used to control/exploit populations; the true terrors and joys of consciousness transcend the simplified old-fashioned religions, bookmark me and move on. Lately, when I've been surfing all I'm doing is scanning their site until the counter runs down, then clicking away. I rarely have time for a rapidly typed comment, and I sure as hell ain't gonna click on an advertisement and lose my one credit.
. . .
Monday, April 03, 2006
The Fucking Iraq War
When the cultural infection known as Beetlemania first got a hold on our country, the young members of the Fab Four spoke to the journalists as they got off the plane. 'We are strongly opposed to all war, especially the war in Vietnam. We think about it every day,' John Lennon was supposed to have said.
He was also a man who did not have a problem with the rediculously childish taboo on vulgarity.
His professed daily ponderings haunt me. Even though my own capacity for mass commuication pales exponentially compared to his; am I doing enough? This whole immigration thing popped up and now all of a sudden nobody is talking about Iraq anymore. (Not like all that many people were talking about it before.) I started a rant about Iraq last week, and then never finished it so that I could get diverted by the crusade against fundamentalism. Greater thinkers than myself have been spinning their tires on that hopeless cause for hundreds of years.
Fucking wacko christians are killing dozens every year and seriously damaging the psyche - and thus the quality of spiritual life - in millions others. They prey upon children without remorse, and do more to derail the progress of the women's rights movement and the Ideal of social justice than any other institution. Yet, these specific religions I fight against pre-date my existence by hundreds of years; the destructive trend within them predates civilization by thousands. What's the fucking point? They sure seem to be stronger now than ever. How many of my ideological ancestors merely threw fuel on the fire of their fanaticism? When one of their number does happen to hear the odd criticsm, it just feeds their endless 'persecution' S & M fantasy. Mel fucking Gibson?!? Oh, they're all so fucking persecuted. . .
In Iraq dozen are being murdered every day, and millions live in seriously shitty conditions. Perhaps the only true statement Colin Powell has made in the last twenty years, 'you break it you bought it.' Well, the country that I pridefully claim citizenship in fucking broke it, and now the only stock this man owns be a little tiny share of fucking Iraqi War Inc..
This is what I should be blogging about every day.
Last week I blew a blood vessel on all the obvious bullshit that got us into this war. I got to come clean, when the war did start I had this little thought that, if the small number of dictators in the world who also happen to be sitting on unbelievable quantities of fiercely contested natural resources took a lesson from Saddam - treat your people badly and we'll use that as an excuse to take you out and steal your resources - well, that's gonna be a marginal step towards the improvement of the human species. Hey, I dislike the fact that international law means nothing, but we all know it means nothing. If atrocities are used to justify removing a dictator well that seemed to be a good thing.
Unfortunately, and also un-fucking-believably, the vast majority of Iraqis will tell you that life was way better under Saddam. Now I know that a diminishing percentage of my poor fucking fellow American's think that somehow the media is only focusing on the 'bad' news in Iraq, but shit has got to be a fuck of a lot worse now for anybody to want to go back to the days of rape rooms and genocide. It's worse.
Uncle Saddam was a fucking dictator. His main concern was staying in power, the main concern of most fucking dictators. Sure a few folks got tortured, raped, and murdered either as a mistake or as an example, but most folks who were not concerned with trying to overthrow him (or rise to power in the baath party) did not live in unrelenting fear of his sadistic wrath. He was strong enough to cow the radical elements of Islam (that's why Osama Bin Laden wanted him dead) and enforce a secular society. Iraqi's had a healthcare system most of us in America would envy, women and homosexuals enjoyed a fair amount of tolerance for the middle east.
Now Iraqi's have no Idea who to trust or what not to do. The U.S. occupying force, worried about public reaction to Vietnam-era casualty rates, does not have a quarter of the boots on the ground necessary to secure the peace. In this power vacuum, multiple groups are taking their shot at power emulating the tactics that Uncle Saddam taught them so well in all his decades of fucking oppression. That means daily kidnappings and deathsquad murders. At Salon.com, Riverbend writes a moving piece about the weekly trip to the city morgues. A family member was abducted over a month ago, when will his mutilated body find its way to the tepid chambers of a morgue. Deathsquads are so common, that Iraqi television is warning against capitulating to Iraqi Security Forces which do not contain American Troops - most of the rest are just out there rounding up their racial enemies and torturing them to death.
I'm worn out. I guess I've always accepted this fantasy where anti-war actions like the one's the Beetles took were some how hip and cool back in the sixties. Our species is fascinated by violence (I watched Paul Rogan moderate the IFC in a rerun last night) , those who stand against the tide of patriotic bloodlust must always feel like I feel now. Fuck.
He was also a man who did not have a problem with the rediculously childish taboo on vulgarity.
His professed daily ponderings haunt me. Even though my own capacity for mass commuication pales exponentially compared to his; am I doing enough? This whole immigration thing popped up and now all of a sudden nobody is talking about Iraq anymore. (Not like all that many people were talking about it before.) I started a rant about Iraq last week, and then never finished it so that I could get diverted by the crusade against fundamentalism. Greater thinkers than myself have been spinning their tires on that hopeless cause for hundreds of years.
Fucking wacko christians are killing dozens every year and seriously damaging the psyche - and thus the quality of spiritual life - in millions others. They prey upon children without remorse, and do more to derail the progress of the women's rights movement and the Ideal of social justice than any other institution. Yet, these specific religions I fight against pre-date my existence by hundreds of years; the destructive trend within them predates civilization by thousands. What's the fucking point? They sure seem to be stronger now than ever. How many of my ideological ancestors merely threw fuel on the fire of their fanaticism? When one of their number does happen to hear the odd criticsm, it just feeds their endless 'persecution' S & M fantasy. Mel fucking Gibson?!? Oh, they're all so fucking persecuted. . .
In Iraq dozen are being murdered every day, and millions live in seriously shitty conditions. Perhaps the only true statement Colin Powell has made in the last twenty years, 'you break it you bought it.' Well, the country that I pridefully claim citizenship in fucking broke it, and now the only stock this man owns be a little tiny share of fucking Iraqi War Inc..
This is what I should be blogging about every day.
Last week I blew a blood vessel on all the obvious bullshit that got us into this war. I got to come clean, when the war did start I had this little thought that, if the small number of dictators in the world who also happen to be sitting on unbelievable quantities of fiercely contested natural resources took a lesson from Saddam - treat your people badly and we'll use that as an excuse to take you out and steal your resources - well, that's gonna be a marginal step towards the improvement of the human species. Hey, I dislike the fact that international law means nothing, but we all know it means nothing. If atrocities are used to justify removing a dictator well that seemed to be a good thing.
Unfortunately, and also un-fucking-believably, the vast majority of Iraqis will tell you that life was way better under Saddam. Now I know that a diminishing percentage of my poor fucking fellow American's think that somehow the media is only focusing on the 'bad' news in Iraq, but shit has got to be a fuck of a lot worse now for anybody to want to go back to the days of rape rooms and genocide. It's worse.
Uncle Saddam was a fucking dictator. His main concern was staying in power, the main concern of most fucking dictators. Sure a few folks got tortured, raped, and murdered either as a mistake or as an example, but most folks who were not concerned with trying to overthrow him (or rise to power in the baath party) did not live in unrelenting fear of his sadistic wrath. He was strong enough to cow the radical elements of Islam (that's why Osama Bin Laden wanted him dead) and enforce a secular society. Iraqi's had a healthcare system most of us in America would envy, women and homosexuals enjoyed a fair amount of tolerance for the middle east.
Now Iraqi's have no Idea who to trust or what not to do. The U.S. occupying force, worried about public reaction to Vietnam-era casualty rates, does not have a quarter of the boots on the ground necessary to secure the peace. In this power vacuum, multiple groups are taking their shot at power emulating the tactics that Uncle Saddam taught them so well in all his decades of fucking oppression. That means daily kidnappings and deathsquad murders. At Salon.com, Riverbend writes a moving piece about the weekly trip to the city morgues. A family member was abducted over a month ago, when will his mutilated body find its way to the tepid chambers of a morgue. Deathsquads are so common, that Iraqi television is warning against capitulating to Iraqi Security Forces which do not contain American Troops - most of the rest are just out there rounding up their racial enemies and torturing them to death.
I'm worn out. I guess I've always accepted this fantasy where anti-war actions like the one's the Beetles took were some how hip and cool back in the sixties. Our species is fascinated by violence (I watched Paul Rogan moderate the IFC in a rerun last night) , those who stand against the tide of patriotic bloodlust must always feel like I feel now. Fuck.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
My letter to Senator Norm Coleman
Dear Honorable Senator:
My email is in regards to the efforts of the democratic Senator from Wisconsin to censure the President of the United States for his sundry criminal acts. Dispite the fact that Mr. Bush has an approval rating that is at an all time low and continuing to trend downward, and recent polls place support for a censure at over 25% amongst your own party, the moderate and ethical members of leadership still appears to find this issue anathema.
Mr. Bush's spying program concerns me. It seems like every day I hear of another group that has been warned about what they say in public, or revelations that another religious group has been infiltrated by federal spys. As one example, the revelation that the Quakers have been spyed upon with such vigilance in the last few years. A small percentage of the cargo that enters our ports is checked for radioactive material, but the F.B.I has the resources to send undercover agents to monitor the fucking Quakers!?!
As their religious movement has been fervishly devoted to pacifism for the entire history of our nation, perhaps they should be somewhere lower on the list of homeland security threats.
These spying actions, such as the video taping of every latino protester, are obviously designed to supress dissent, not protect anybody.
In addition, Mr. Bush's expansion of the use of 'signing statements' as when he decided he had to support the changes to the Patriot Act or Senator McCain's anti-torture legislation, but then signed a statement after making each bill law that made it clear he felt he could ignore key parts of said laws if it contradicted his views on 'national security.' These signing statements are a clear mockery of the seperation of powers.
Thankyou sir, for your time. This is Liberty vs. tyranny; whenever one decides to dig their heels in and fight - that decision is America. Personally, I see you as a politician whose main concern lies in personal advancement and the quid pro quo exchange of favors for contributions. Still, you took an oath to uphold the constitution, maybe that means something to you.
Sincerly,
---
Now I know in my heart of hearts that Mr. Coleman will never see this letter. Even if he did, he's not going to pay any attention. Letter writing is only one small part of the progressive movement, but it's the part I'm more good at.
My email is in regards to the efforts of the democratic Senator from Wisconsin to censure the President of the United States for his sundry criminal acts. Dispite the fact that Mr. Bush has an approval rating that is at an all time low and continuing to trend downward, and recent polls place support for a censure at over 25% amongst your own party, the moderate and ethical members of leadership still appears to find this issue anathema.
Mr. Bush's spying program concerns me. It seems like every day I hear of another group that has been warned about what they say in public, or revelations that another religious group has been infiltrated by federal spys. As one example, the revelation that the Quakers have been spyed upon with such vigilance in the last few years. A small percentage of the cargo that enters our ports is checked for radioactive material, but the F.B.I has the resources to send undercover agents to monitor the fucking Quakers!?!
As their religious movement has been fervishly devoted to pacifism for the entire history of our nation, perhaps they should be somewhere lower on the list of homeland security threats.
These spying actions, such as the video taping of every latino protester, are obviously designed to supress dissent, not protect anybody.
In addition, Mr. Bush's expansion of the use of 'signing statements' as when he decided he had to support the changes to the Patriot Act or Senator McCain's anti-torture legislation, but then signed a statement after making each bill law that made it clear he felt he could ignore key parts of said laws if it contradicted his views on 'national security.' These signing statements are a clear mockery of the seperation of powers.
Thankyou sir, for your time. This is Liberty vs. tyranny; whenever one decides to dig their heels in and fight - that decision is America. Personally, I see you as a politician whose main concern lies in personal advancement and the quid pro quo exchange of favors for contributions. Still, you took an oath to uphold the constitution, maybe that means something to you.
Sincerly,
---
Now I know in my heart of hearts that Mr. Coleman will never see this letter. Even if he did, he's not going to pay any attention. Letter writing is only one small part of the progressive movement, but it's the part I'm more good at.
