The Ranting Mute

2009-04-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like dating to convince someone of how much American woman have been oppressed over the years. I don't know if they have to be so heavy-handed; they wear their suffering on their sleeves. Many of them are terrorized by anything not approved by the etiquette police of Cosmo and Redbook and Oprah.

Weren't woman supposed to be the radical force in society after liberation, perhaps up to and including the ease at sympathizing with Third World countries due to feverish, mutual yearnings to shake off the honkie-imperialist yoke. Fat white woman dating black men so they could share crib notes on white male oppression. Let me clue you in girls: its wrong to judge someone on the color of their skin; its not wrong to be prejudiced against public health hazards like upsizing your human carcasses to super-sized sow.

To those with higher-than-average-incomes and fake boobs-at least your giving something back.

Your adopting the same "whatever it takes" model of laissez-faire ethics so prevalent in the post-caring economy. Lies and breasts: the bigger the better. However like our bald, testicular
Nazi shadow, prevarication must be cleansed by hygiene-all backs and vaginas must be dipiliated. We must all have the innocent smooth skin of the baby; who ever heard of Eve sporting a super-bush?

Ok, so blacks were sold out for a place at the Mandarin bankers table; Women sold their moral capital for the right not to be called "baby" on their way up the ladder to middle-mangement. Yeah, lots of people sell out in the valley of the green Manna-so what? Why should fish walk to work?

White males are still leading the traitor brigade: Senator Evan "fucking" Bayh just co-sponsored a bill to starve Iranians of their european oil supplies, all in the interests of his "America first" AIPAC handlers; all the while contradicting the entire legacy of his father-who championed the disadvantaged-by throwing out the specter of "nationalization" of the banks and "socialization" of health care. Evan isn't too concerned about AIPAC personnel going on trial for espionage, and one in his own party, Jane Harman, Democrat from California, caught on FBI tape offering a Quid Pro Quo to the AIPAC traitors; nor the fact that his own healthcare is taxpayer funded.

Maybe all men really are dogs; but real men with a conscience are definitely not blue-dogs. That's why everyone hates the Klan-way too goddamned honest. One thing all corruption and corruptees have learned over the last 50 years; if your heart is on your sleeve, burn your sleeve...

2009-04-11T10:19:00.001-07:00

Just a heard a woman in Wal-mart talking about her relatives down in Arkansas-how they just missed the Tornadoes. I'm always amazed these days how small the death tolls are relative to the level of destruction; obviously much better warning systems have greatly improved survivability. Prediction is the key to mitigating all violence.

Looks like mother nature is a simpleton compared to humanity: we are nowhere near being able to predict violence in human beings; the rash of recent rage shootings have caught everyone off guard, and though we know economic downturns have a hand in pushing some over the edge, what final crossed-line morphs us into people hunters is anybody's guess.
If only we had a national weather service for stormy minds...

2009-04-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

I am starting to run into some old friends, and per usual, they are always displaced from the path I assumed they would travel. Its hard for anyone with any type of spark to follow a purely linear path to some idealized goal of self-fulfillment. I know a math-major from a major university, who straight-out of school decided to become a ski instructor in California; an art major who is now in real estate. The crappy economy is somewhat to blame, and the fact that enjoyable livings are still not all that common; neither are intellectually stimulating jobs. To sling the muck of modern life means many menial jobs with shitty benefits and global competition for those jobs; sellers of their labor are desperate and buyers of that labor are paranoid, and frequently antagonistic too, the idea of the low-lifes banding together like the abused hookers they are for strength and solidarity. Perhaps international unions are in order; why should only transnational corporations be allowed free travel across borders. How about the working man, however vague that concept is right now!

I go into this heated discussion, wondering how long liberal arts educations will continue to produce bright people with degrees that can't be employed in the economy? Obviously not every program can have the liquidity of an Engineering degree; education that prepares you to be a citizen, must first of all prepare you to be able to make a living. Who gives a shit about Art in a bread line?(probably more than we know).

I just turned 50; my time to start reevaluating all of my priorities, short and long-term, that still exist in my media fragmented, addiction addled mind. Times relentless nocturne has lulled my libido into hibernation; my willpower is looking toward death with a hope for positive anguish-maybe fear is a way to rekindle passion; why not pursue what I always wanted to do-be an artist?

I've turned that way, but like my friends above, I doubt straight passage-our lives follow the convolutions of our brains...

2009-04-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

Everything that claims too, or actually does, control or seriously mitigate pain is addictive; and this includes the ugly formulas of rationalization used to suppress a guilty conscience, or to deny one has an addiction.

Pain killer addiction is commonplace; because on top of the pain blocking factors, the drugs deliver euphoric feelings, which require ever higher doses to maintain, leading eventually to with drawl symptoms (pain reliever-caused pain) unless proper dosages are maintained. Not too surprising that a creature with built in pain-reduction chemicals(endorphins) would be susceptible to opiate abuse, or any other drug that temporarily suspends either endogenous, or extraneous negative stressors.

The "experts" are now talking about video game addictions (ten percent of players) and sexual addictions (masturbation leading to rotator cuff injury). There are even pain addicts, getting their fix with needles / piercings and the cane of former cheerleaders turned dark mistresses
with cat-o-nine pom-pons. Perhaps anyone who has a lifetime vocation or hobby is indeed addicted to their fascination; perhaps addiction, like the money that attracts people like shit seduces flies, is necessary for civilization?

2009-04-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

Ive been in an active forum about gun control; many right-wing fantasies of government utilizing bans on assault weapons as a stepping stone to a police state. God knows I share their paranoia about the government to some extent, but I don't think any gun ban is immanent, and there are good reasons not to ban weapons from the governments perspective. It would simply bankrupt the country to a point of no return to have a war on guns-we have way too many wars to handle as it is....

Besides, given the Obama stimulus bill, does it make any sense to go about banning a tool that provides so many people jobs. Without armed robberies, shootings, and home invasions, much less police might be needed, furthering the unemployment situation. They might all go into the military; then we could afford to send soldiers everywhere including Pakistan if necessary.

No, we need guns to stay sober...

2009-04-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Looks like the liberal mandate is pretty much been sabotaged by "moderate" Democrats led by Evan Bayh. His fathers legacy of helping those nasty Blue Collar workers has been dumped in favor of populist rhetoric masking conservative inclinations toward public services. The Democrats won in name only; seems like the Senate is populated with ideological transvestites, who would be Republicans in a more transparent milieu, and rather rightward Republicans at that, given the seismic shift to the right in ideology over the last 30 years...

Looks like were stuck with a banking bailout incapable of even considering temporary nationalization; instead we get a deal where the public assumes 90 percent of the risk in buying mortgage garbage, which the people who fucked us can later sell for hefty returns. At any rate, its reported by Krugman and others, that the strategy they are pursuing is shadowing-to a frightening degree-what the Japanese did prior to their "lost decade." Unfortuantely, Barack has put into place a barrage of Clintonian bureaucrats, some of the same involved in the original laissez-faire financial orgies deregulating the markets and repealing Glass-Stengal.

Those who do not remember the past, are usually Americans...

2009-03-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

All media outlets are blaring in stentorian tones about the latest Obamination:Socialism! You hear the cry from the pages of Time, and from such iconical Right-Wing luminaries as Rush "Vicodin" Limbaugh,
and the ever effervescent Newt "Contract with Bank of America" Gingrich, who went even further, stating the Obama administration is the closest attempt yet at "European" socialism (a very distinct variety, not akin to African socialism).

Since the people who helped wreck America, might indeed have some insight into who is now wrecking America, let us sequester our more rational faculties temporarily, and against better judgement, take these reactionary economic hooligans seriously. Is "Obama administration" just another way of saying Eugene Debs or the Socialist Workers Party?

What are Socialists normally concerned with? Socialized Medicine would be high on the Agenda; no plans for that, unless you believe Medicare is socialized medicine, which it isn't. The actual running of Medicare is contracted out; and the Medicare program is being cut, not strengthened.

How about Socialists well known opposition to all wars? Eugene Debs being jailed for sedition during WWI seems a fair place to start. Have you ever known a pacifist American government-ever? Sending 17,000 additional troops to that infamous tribal-wasteland in hopes of turning Islamic/tribal guerillas into Blue Dog Democrats, won't land Obama an Op-ed in In These Times. All American power these days seems predisposed to intervention, for imperial as well as diversionary reasons.

Anybody heard of Obama's cabinet pushing for international trade unions?

The right will continue-its not very subtle but highly effective-tactic of calling the slightly-moderate the dangerously left-wing, in hopes of preventing a long overdue correction by the progressive sector of our country. You know what: I'd trust gay, immigrant dope-smokers over AIG oligarchs anyday. So would most Americans if they had the guts to listen to their inner reason, instead of the stoned ventriliqest dummy of the popular press that passes for opposition in this country...

Viva the socialistic specter!

2009-03-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Weathers been strangely unlike March: mid-60s, clear skies and gentle breezes. usually, its spitting cold rain with gusty winds and a flurry or two until April; like the last gasp of a worn-out fighter, we get an eclectic combination of winter punches until that season resigns itself to the corner. Right now I hear the classic trill of the cardinal outside my window; buds are blossoming quicker than acne.

Which reminds me of this economy: Sure, I've jostled with the- increasing- masses in the aisles of Wal-Mart; yes my neighbor is still unemployed, and my other neighbors kid made several rounds through the fast-food strips without landing anything, but it sure seems to be remarkably benevolent around here, considering the financial atrocities executed from on high. There have not been a plethora of foreclosures in this working-class neighborhood, and though this is partly attributable to financial eyes not exceeding stomach assets, you do wonder if this is the calm before the real financial March hits the stage.

2009-03-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

No supercomputer could tabulate the times I've been told in this strip of Bible belt to give myself "over to God" to relieve my burden, to have faith in Jesus Christ, and all my torment would go away. I realize most of these people are sincere; Most of them have genuine faith that Christianity is true and heaven and God are the goal of human existence. I cannot blame anyone for wanting to transcend this mortal flesh, just shy of 80 years now seems a temporal rip-off, a brief tease in the textures and tastes of consciousness before fate flips life's switch to off. Without a guide-few want to travel to a land without maps in the chimeric vehicle of their soul.

Regardless of my sympathies for the reasons behind human faith, can our aversion to death be enough to sustain our faith, and how do we know whether our faith is due to fear of the unknown, or a genuine feeling that in the design of nature, in the wisdom of The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, in the moments when an invisible hand seems to pluck doomed beings from natures murderous whimsy, we see with our inner eye a divine light cast forth by the creator? Is faith just the shadow of fear?

I have been in the company of those whose Christian faith put them at ease when contemplating their imminent demise; they conclude God's plans for their lives make their premature deaths necessary, and that God can mold the clay of misfortune into infinite opportunity. It's very hard to argue with a serenity like this, rarely obtained in benign circumstances, much less desperate ones. God must be helping them; how else to explain the glassy surface of thoughts waters? Can people really convince themselves of something they know deep down is false; can they have total faith in a lie? They certainly can be duped; the mystery is in knowing how much is suppression of their own misgivings secondary to a need for faith, and how much deceptive power resides within the lie itself.

I can clearly see why faith is healthy for you; there have been studies directly correlating frequency of religious activity with mental and physical well being.
It is very difficult for me to imagine that my life and my being are permanently erased upon death; that my life is but once and never again, and that I will never see those I have cared for again, on this side or any other. I am not proud of my skepticism concerning deity, or any other supernatural phenomena-I would very much like a God or gods to watch over me. As time passes, the end is looming ever larger, like enormous thunderheads rising before a cold front; and there is no shelter other than diversion, keeping busy and reminding myself there is still plenty of distance being-alive and been- alive. Hopefully I wont run out of these mental circuses, and I know if there is a God, and he requires above all else the casting off of all other idols which give the illusion of permanent salvation, the hardcore cynic within might clear a viable path to that which cannot deceive...

2009-03-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

I have been reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair; it seems to me the American "Candide" except for one very regrettable quality-it happens to be very close to the reality of turn-of-the-century working class expendibility. The real horror of our success is the complete making of all the human blood meal that when into those golden towers and those pipping hot meat Frisbees; those at histories bottom rungs didn't live to see the fruits of their efforts-the average life span was in the 40s.

Sinclair's visceral descriptions of workers losing fingers and limbs on the killing floors that wind up in the finished product; his description of freezing working conditions, that necessitate workers burying their hands in hot cow-carcass to keep from freezing, is something too remote for a society ruled by the Dictator of "now" to think about or perhaps, even to believe. Besides they were always free to leave (and starve)

Back then, it was an employers paradise, and if you didn't like the deplorable conditions, there was always another immigrant to take your place, and as we all know, the price and subsequent value of something, including human beings, starts to plunge with a large increase in supply. There were unions forming to give this working fodder some leverage, but there were plenty of industrial spies to blacklist those with the audacity to strive beyond subsistence existence.

In the novel, the main character, who has come from Lithuania, is a big, hardy individual, who ends up losing his entire family to overwork, disease, accident, and misfortune. His family buys a house on terms they do not understand; a house that is supposed to be new but is in fact recycled over and over, a game of sale and eviction that benefits the owners and exploits the buyer, a buyer who inevitably fails in a system where the pace and conditions of the work go beyond the capacity of human endurance. The killing of these people becomes an indirect function of a plants efficiency and an ironic commentary on the ultimate purpose of the slaughterhouse, where the cattle at least get a-relatively- quick death. The dead have given their all by definition.

We have come a long way since then, though financial tricksters continue to goad the working class into signing contracts they do not understand; there are still sweatshops, especially in the overseas factories, places where the labor laws
are given lip service, and the fear of being on the street without access to housing or food is very palpable, even with the modern safety net of workers comp and unemployment; and God knows there is still a very large section of the business class, who believe unionization is akin to communist infiltration, and who use the vast pool of seething global labor to threaten their employees.

A complicated war is ensuing, and has been for quite some time, between the haves and have-nots; not just in terms of monetary compensation, but also in terms of access to the corridors of power, and access to enough education to meander confidently through the technical maze of this high speed info-circus.
Class consciousness may have been successfully diffused by decades of high profile think tanks and mouthpieces of corporate propaganda, but the current crisis cannot help but demonstrate the chasm between power and impotence.

The belly may prove to the underclass what Sinclairs novels were attempting to teach in more civilized fashion...

2009-03-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

Who is there to talk with anymore? Couples are freaked by finances unless your rich enough to cruise, and does talking give the highly mobile a sufficient buzz for the time lost? We know God is dead unless we need him for political purposes or to heal the impossibly sick; he"s wonderful at giving rationales for killing others-still good for that.

Hard for the generations to talk with one another; each brought up in an appreciably different environment, all with separate cultural references; and youths distance from death-sans the wars we like to kill them with-doesn't lend the seriousness necessary for the jaded older brain.

Besides, individuality in America has always consisted of ways to break any feeling of solidarity among different groups, and age is as good a partition as race or religion. The genius of the Apple Pie Syndicalists, is their placing primary importance on freedom as an abstract concept, completely divorced from economic and other lower necessities. We come together in the idea of freedom-black and white, rich and poor-and fall apart when the idea is translated into human action. but it doesn't matter because perfect ideas don't have diseases that cant be treated without insurance; they don't sprout ghettos or kill themselves in despair. The idea that freedom can be separated from the conditions that make it possible, makes it impossible for the majority of people to have conditions to achieve it.

The pharmaceutical companies, aided by insurance, have chosen to believe drug therapy is the way for most mental problems-in this case, talk is NOT cheap. Can't even unwind with your therapist unless your blessed with miracle insurance. If it's all just chemistry, why aren't we called test tubes?

Nobody has time to talk anyway; they are all extraordinarily busy, and real communication takes time, not just to exercise your transmandibular joint, but also to think. Work and money overwhelm everything in America; everything we say we believe in from family to God is lost and displaced in the frenzy of work and education; we even say that God WORKS miracles, that a relationship isn't working. we all know the lowest of the low don't work. All dreams ride on the magic carpet of bills...

The English language itself is being murdered by stupid presidents, silly technology that lets you send hosts of acronyms to your buddies, lack of proper thought which should precede speech, and the tendency of Americans to think a good education, unlike every other goddamn thing in the known capitalist universe, does not depend on money. Heavy intercourse and mass immigration by foreign speakers has not facilitated fluency.

Last, but definitely not least, is the veritable tsunami of print encountered in the global media milieu; how do you talk with others when words and images are swarming all of their senses like flies on rotting fruit? You have to truncate and abbreviate and what finally comes out is more suited for a scanner than for a human being. You have a semantic Darwinian phenomenon where words compete in the jungle of the attention span...

"Can I have a word with you" may become a vestigial colloquialism...

2009-03-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

Human beings without hope are like politicos without enemies-completely lost. Once you've totally lost faith in the future, you might as well cash it in. Isn't that what our current debacle is all about? everybody retracts like landing gear from spending or investing or lending because they don't believe the future will reward such behavior; who wants to advance toward, much left live in, a dead landscape with no hint of animation?

These are the times that tax our faith in God, if we have any left, and in our neighbors, if they haven't been evicted from their property...

2009-03-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

I used to work at a skilled nursing facility equipped with a lockdown Alzheimer's unit. You entered through a thick wooden door with a small window in the middle of it: heavy-duty deadbolt, secure metal door frame, key-only lock. Nobody was leaving who shouldn't be leaving.

As you would likely suspect, it was not a place to reverse ones pessimistic outlook for the human condition. No improvements, nowhere to go but the grave. Often there were several wandering endlessly in the halls; like moribund rats who never tire of their maze, or have finally realized the trails of shiny linoleum are the only landmarks left in the ruins of their consciousness.

There were violent aspects of this disease: one time, while giving a patient a breathing treatment, they grabbed the nebulizer and my hand and we wrestled rather vigorously for several minutes; I was surprised at the strength of this withered but wiry man, there was a lot of life and protest still in him however mis-directed...

They used to have people come in to perform: a singing guitarist, or the activities director would lead everybody in sing-along with a stereo. One time, I swear to god, they played "Please Release Me Let Me Go" to a large contingent of slumping residents, unaware of this particular diversion into the blackest humor, this tasteless, self-referential morsel without intended sarcasm yet cruel and funny to my ears.

Why all this seems the perfect metaphor for the country at this time is anybody's guess...

2009-02-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

Cest La vie-my last stab at the elusive happiness of glorious romantic union has been obliterated. I gave a very old and dear friend of mine, someone I have known for 35 years, a promise ring for her birthday; she appeared rather stunned, but I thought she welcomed this out-of -left-field overture. I have always loved her; I still find her cute; why not go all the way to matrimony?

Ah, there is the erotic rub-why not? This is a person who is funny, talented, and uniquely feminine with traces of the old world and the new. A bitter demon now and again barks from her heart-shaped face; she has had a genuinely awful time with devious and cruel males. Will I be the target of her retributions; Will I be the available symbol to burn in the effigy of her minds eye, everything she despises about the violent sex?

I should be willing to risk a little emotional abuse for the one I love; erotic Rome with beautiful, if disillusioned females, is not built in a proposal. I want the best for all; I am holding my breath like all the world around us; and Buufett says Americas best days are still ahead...

But Ol' Warren didnt have his best girl tell him two phone calls a week were being "too needy."
Thank God my financial desperation is overwhelming the sexual; like a cruel dictator the people welcome for toppling an even crueler dictator (or so they think). Too bad I dont employ a full-time life counselor who can differentiate between the backlash of male menopause and true desire.

I think this girl, like the upcoming depression, is the real thing...

2009-02-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

It is amazing-and sobering-how money rules virtually every facet of our lives. Divorces often happen for financial reasons; so do murders. Only the fastest parallel processors can negotiate the many intricate pathways modern man has developed to lease, sell, and rent his soul to the pimp with the deepest pocket. Why even venture into unregulated credit default swaps?

Perhaps one of the joys of having children, is knowing that your love for your child is not dependent-most of the time-on how promising they are as future economic engine of America. Even the terrorists, those lofty radicals bent on bartering earthly explosions for celestial mass-coitus, are often promised payment to families. When crazy radicals are bought and sold, who can we trust anymore?

We see what happens when a scarcity of money strips our cardhouses of their rhinestones: mass withdrawl symptoms similiar to coming off nicotene-anxiety, irritability, and downright panic.

Where do you go to dry out and wean-Appalachia?

2009-02-18T18:17:00.001-08:00

What really interests me about the right these days is their moral relativism, the very thing they use to spew invective over, when practiced by the Left of course, that awful harbor of free love and socialist doggerel. When moral relativism is practiced by the Right-our deficits, a matter of honor; your deficits treason-it becomes a question not of ethics but a question of tactics, because a war against the absolute evils of liberalism cannot, under any circumstances, be expected to have the luxury of allowing law, fairness or honor. War is about winning and nothing else. If the war is about generating a new class of virulent hypocrisy-mission already accomplished.

Stimulie

2009-02-15T06:40:00.000-08:00

Just read yesterday the depth and reach of the omnipotent tax cuts: around 400 dollars for me, which should provide me with two months heat, or a nanosecond of a timeshare in Miami, or a discount 9mm when criminal escalation bursts completely beyond the police's ability to haul it back to earth. One problem with the cuts, besides their bread-crumb nature, is you have a choice whether to spend them or not, which is not so when you are paying for infrastructure improvements. At least theoretically, the contractors have to build stuff and provide jobs when you pay them-theoretically.

I think the GNP deficit created by Bushification, is not sufficiently addressed in this bill, if CBO numbers are to be believed, and its apparent how much was stripped out of the original bill by the "centrists" in the supposed interests of the taxpayers. Why wasn't the right concerned about the deficit in all the years they had control, wasn't it Dick Cheney who said "...deficits don't matter..."?

Can too little be rectified in the future, or will it be a springboard for the righteous anger of the Republicans, as they attempt to filibuster another decade into oblivion and blame the liberals
for not approaching the problem with fiscal responsibility-massive budget busting tax-cuts.

This is the stuff of the black humor-a fetish called Fiscal Sadism.

2009-02-14T06:48:00.000-08:00

Want to see the penultimate example of misogyny? Don't read the Marquis De Sade, or the Bob Guccione story. All of its right there online in Cosmo magazine, a psychic potpourri of feminine degradation that Makes the Japanese acts in Manchuria look like a radical feminist tract. If you truly love your gal, youll start a bonfire with one years subscription of this glossy clinic on mindless humiliation.

The Tax-Cut Zombies

2009-02-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of deja vu lately: the Republicans, almost unilaterally, are suggesting a systematic tsunami of tax cuts, A.K.A The Demint Amendment. Exactly how the Republicans can complain about budget deficits while being so adept at creating massive ones, is only understandable to people with like-minded ideological inflexibility--tax-cut zombies all.

I live in a- very-solid working class community, and I really doubt anyone would take a minuscule tax cut and go on a shopping spree at Nordstroms, or even Wal-Mart. We have several empty homes from abandonment/repossession; these are incomes that need to pay-off bills of stuff already bought, and do not want to take on anymore unnecessary spending. If novel and creative approaches to the current economic crisis were money, no company on the planet is as bankrupt as the Republican party. Why the hell does anyone want to take any major initiatives from a party that systematically bankrupted the planet after 8 years? Barack himself has said this; and why should we want any of their suggestions-they haven't changed or modified any of their positions one iota, and are petrified ideological fossils attempting to utilize Tax-cuts to dismantle government and democracy, unless the government concern augments their friends or the defense industry. If suicide is patriotic, call the party of reactionary regurgitation George Washington...

WMD Revisted

2009-02-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

Dick Cheney-crypto-fascist master of reactionary babble-has chimed in about Obama's Homeland Security policies. Seems the Dickster is worried that Obama and his bleeding-heart friends will make America more vulnerable by sidelining torture of prisoners and illegal detentions.

"These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek" he stated in an interview in his new suburban home. He also warned of "ultimate catastrophe"
and the great probability of a nuclear or biological strike against the United States. If the Constitution-shredders were so effective at combating terrorism via obviating the rule of law in favor of executive whim, why is there "...a high probability of such an attempt"? Shouldn't all of that waterboarding force detainees to gurgle out information on the nefarious schemes between
bouts of nasal over-hydration?

But of course Dick and his fellow Republicans have never been much on explanation-they like the hypnotizing repetition of mantras stoked with fear to work there wonders. The party itself
is nothing but a weapon of mass destruction, both economic and political. We should change the acronym in honor of Mr. Cheney to mean- White Male Dickhead.

Lo, how the mightys pants have fallen

2009-02-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

Poor Ted Haggard: one day, at the pinnacle of the Evangelical movement; the next, apologizing to the world for patronizing a-gay- prostitute. His wife stuck with him through all of this; I guess that does demonstrate a greater than average dedication to monogamy (or self-destruction, which is kind of a Christian value too)

But Ted was just following the dictates of his own conscience through all of this-he was loving the least of mine, directly and with gusto. I mean, how many normal people ever express the desire to help the down and out gay prostitute, who combines two of the most despised characteristics within the Christian, not to mention virtually every other, world? Here's a guy who took his activism to the streets, or in this case, the hotel rooms.

Sure, he's a hypocrite, unlike most of the people in the media. How about leaving him alone fella's? After all, your typical media person has a great admiration for prostitutes, because imitation has always been the sincerest form of flattery...

D.I.Y

2009-01-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

Just reading some unknown authors description of how to commit suicide with tricyclics: how to be sure of taking the lethal dose and what tricyclics effects are on cardiac cells. They even suggested-in addition to the drug ingestion-zipping yourself into a body bag to guarantee suffocation if the cardiac effect wasn't sufficient. The Internet is indeed a fountain of useful information...

Updike

2009-01-28T05:59:00.000-08:00

John Updike passed away the other day. the poet of Pennsylvania dutch country, and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Rabbit Series, had been battling lung CA. Not only was Updike a lapidary craftsman of the english sentence, but an astute and sensitive coroner, performing splendidly detailed autopsies of so many post-mortem aspects of damaged, modern love.

I think, like the Vietnam Backdrop of Rabbit redux, all battles of the sexes were to him reminiscent of Vietnam (which Updike, iconoclastically, supported); amidst the lover
purportedly supporting you lay an erotic Vietcong, as merciless as the Black Widow that feeds upon the male after mating...

The last book I read of his was Terrorist; though parts of the plot seemed improbable- especially the dissuading of the young terrorist by his Jewish guidance counselor-few were capable of Updikes detailed portraits of post-industrial decay, or his facility with Nabokovian names: the big black high school bully, who picks on the alienated future terrorist, is named Tylenol. Oy Vey!

All the pages of this prolific Harvard man of lettrs, left to us like an elegant winter storm, piling high into the night...

A CURSORY GLANCE

2009-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

Had an interesting talk with a liquor store owner I know down the street. His idea: government buyout of peoples toxic mortgages, and forgiveness of a certain percentage -perhaps all-of the total deemed necessary to fiscally stimulate the ecomany.Hmmmmmmm

Hopefully, the Obama inauguration is not like the typical marriage ceremony-the highlight of the relationship. It would certainly be nice to have public funds invested in PUBLIC works, long term infrastructure repair is long overdue, and there are certainly tangible benefits in terms of employement and rekindling areas for business redevelopment, definitely more tangible than the 350 billion Paulson seems to have sprinkled on his former beggar-buddies turned Oligharchal pilferers.

He does appear to be honoring his committments in the monetary black hole that is Iraq, I would like to think for reasons other than just infusing more firepower in Afghanistan, though Bush's lethal drone program does contiue into Pakistan unabated. Killing them softly...

Little Runaway

2009-01-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

We see in Americans atitudes toward death-the great equalizer-their attitudes toward equality. Not big fans...

Dated

2009-01-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've been hitting the Internet dating sites lately, mostly to divert my attention from the impending domestic apocalypse. The Internet dating scene is pretty much what you expect, the desperate mixed in with jokers and spammers, but always a shining diamond or two amidst the lonely riff-raff...

Whatever the qualities of the people in these virtual communities, there is a certain economic sense to it-you can meet without driving and paying for gas, and you don't have to take a virtual person out for dinner. Don't we all pretend for the maintenance of our long discredited values, that conversation and personal qualities are more important than looks, and that nasty little voice of survival shouting down anything and everything not concerned with the dollar. The great relative poverty of now enhances dating on the cheap, seen simultaneously as entertainment and getting another shoulder to cry on in these desperate times

There is a terrific variety of these sites scattered through cyberspace: Searching for an immediate bang? Want a young starving foreigner? Looking for somebody short or disabled? Beached whale in a dress got your fancy? They are all here, but you have to be careful-some of the sites will sign you up for porn with the infamous small print and checked mark box, and many if not most offer free trials that turn into very expensive memberships automatically. Be wary of anything that claims "for your convenience" it will automatically rebill you.

I have to admit I've gotten of sewing my verbal oats on these sites, and meeting people who I would be wary of approaching in real life because of shyness or revulsion. Its also a hell of a lot easier clicking on a block button than it is getting a restraining order.

Perhaps the biggest negatives in these sites, at least the ones that are relatively honest, are the large amount of deception employed by people, up to and including fake photos and photos from 10 years back; and always the that earthy little erotic standby, the cam-girl who "cant wait to talk with you." I always know who the phonys are by their enthusiasm, which probably explains why I'm using these vicarious devices instead of the real deal. Not enough enthusiasm from my side or the fairer sexes; when you reach 50 years old, why waste all your metabolism and energy gearing up for something only the movies still show-American romance, which is about as oxymoronic as saying "conscientious Republican."

Don't Get Sick, period.

2009-01-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

In the U.S.A-Usurious States of Scamerica-my mother pays a hefty premium each month for "supplemental" insurance to cover what Medicare does not cover (which is plenty). Unfortunately for her, her recent hospital stay, to the tune of 19,000 dollars, makes it necessary to have another supplemental policy to augment the supplemental policy: she still owes over 1000 dollars. This is always a treat for people, but for the fixed income set, it can start to get ruinous. Social Security doesn't keep up with inflation; only thing that does is the defense budget...

It would be nice if they would at least itemize the bill, so I could fruitlessly bitch at the insurance company about what coverage they don't deem "essential." Perhaps she is just meeting her deductible, which I'm sure is plenty high; the bill is murky and confusing; they love to take your money with little explanation. Guess pretty much everybody is mimicing those high flying robber-barons in the stony canyons of Wall Street...

The Belly and the Beast

2009-01-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

Everyone is concentrating on the submarining employment numbers; like a sinkhole emerging beneath formerly solid ground, double-digit unemployement is probably imminent-especially if you count the numbers who have given up looking. With the great diversion of the aching belly in place, it's time to slip a major foreign policy decision by the goalie of public outrage: will it be Iran, the last of a three-pronged attack by the Israeli lobbyists and co-conspirators, guranteeing a future of endless reprisal and bloodletting, all in the name of security? Just what are Israeli interests? Do they exceed the interests, not only of the non-Israeli's in the riegion, but of the Jews themselves? Has Israel become a mythical beast that must be fed sacrifice after sacrifice to assuage it's insatiable thirst? We are going into a realm north of logic now; how do you reason with such affairs?

Gaza

2009-01-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

You've got to hand it to Israel: they don't seem to care or notice that the court of world opinion is appalled by their recent actions; image after image of dead, bleeding children has not slackened their resolve one iota. Perhaps they believe that no price is too high to pay-in other peoples blood-for the illusory gift of total security. No matter the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War and the blowing up of the King David Hotel and on and on has brought no relief whatsoever from continuing misery and insurrection and growing Resistance and abject squalor-no counter-demonstration is possible, no evidence is enough, because the Arabs have become the Jews of the Jews: below human status, and therefore not entitled to the same considerations and rights that apply only to the human species.

thought

2009-01-07T21:44:00.000-08:00

Thought for the day: Maybe a society like ours requires that people not hold their beliefs too rigidly; perhaps it requires they not hold on to them amidst certain challenges. For when jihadists plant their bombs, they are telling us death before dishonor; belief is more powerful and more honorable than preserving human life-it has more value than human life. If we were to approach this type of fevered ideological pitch, would we not be in constant civil war, socially politically and intellectually? Our technology requires that we suspend our individual beliefs to a great extent so that we can be further integrated; everyone fitting in is anathema to the free spirit

2008-12-30T10:23:00.000-08:00

I have had this conversation innumerable times with the Israeli ass-kissers, and it starts out something like this:" What do you expect the Israelis to do? Sure they are killing civilians in their attempt to quell mortar and rocket attacks on their civilian population, but its Hamas and the others who are cynically utilizing human shields in attempts to gain world support and sympathies....what do you expect them to do???" I always find this response extremely interesting, as though if you get in a bar fight, the only way to quell further violence, is not only to kill the guy who sucker-punched you, but any surrounding males in the general vicinity who might get ideas. As they say in the rawer recesses of the net, WTF!?

Any of these brilliant anal-ists ever hear of special forces? I thought that was the new thinking in obviously asymmetrical warfare. going in and targeting the aggressors, without seriously alienating the populace by killing large quantities fo their children. what are they suppose to do? Not give Hamas reasons for further violence. No matter what Hamas does, the population at large of poverty stricken Palestinians is a victim of well, as most poor populations are, as they dont have the resources to confront, much less control, the "terrorists." You dont usually push around people with weapons, nor does your average citizen feel comfortable with voting them out, on fear of retribution. On the other had, if you say their would be no price for your average Palestinian to boot them out, then they must be pretty lazy terrorists-just ask the Taliban. Terror is all about intimidation.

So the Palestinian people (and calling them that is a whole other big fat can of worms) are trapped, by Israel who punishes them out of all proportion to their contributions to terrorism against Jews, and by the arab world in general, who obviously loves to use their suffering as an object lesson for the necessity of obliterating Israel for the Caliphate to return. I have to tell you, as bad as cancer is, if I had to choose between the war the Palestinians have to fight, and the war the cancer survivor has to fight, it would be pretty easy.

One could just hint to the Jews that its time for a Palestinian state, combined with a refusal at any retaliation, in order to regain the moral high ground of a people who were furiously prosecuted in this and the previous century thoughout much of the world just for who they were.
Its time for the Jews, some of the most brilliant people in our history, to start seeing the Jews in others...

The Lord Helps Those Who Deny They are Helped

2008-12-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

I have definitely uncovered a truism concerning my family that I had never really ruminated about before, but which came to light rather clearly in all the Christmas dinner conversations and conviviality: there are two economic tiers in my extended clan, and invariably, those with the artistic bents are in the lower tier. This is not surprising; its generally reflected in the world at large. Thankfully, the more potent financially among us have not taken to-fanatically- absorbing the lesson of American culture, that those more financially blessed, should act financially stressed in exact proportion to their blessing. We have our problems like everyone, but the rhetorical equivalent of financial squid-ink isn't one of them.

Yes, We Have No Bambinos

2008-12-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

My friend complains-we are both solidly middle-aged now-that everyone just assumes she has kids. I don't know if this means she has the frazzled. burned out appearance of your typical female multi-tasker, or she seems a natural with children. It certainly is irritating at this point in time, for those without spouses and children, to be continually, if obliquely reminded, of our failures in the love and reproductive categories. Cogent lesson as to why people flee others to roost with their own kind. How can either of us maintain friendly banter with anybody, doing a self-indulgent monologue concerning the sui generis nature of their miracle children?

Considering the legions of talentless slobs that manage to propagate and procreate, I don't think either she or myself should feel especially diminished for not having domestic family bliss. At least we haven't gone off the rationalizing deep end and claimed there is nothing to marriage and children-nothing but bankruptcy, resentment and sexual battles. At times, we both feel we missed the boat;whether it was a function of our appeal-or lack thereof-or simply how the reproductive roulette spins, is anybody's guess. My friend believes she is grossly unattractive to the male species-she is actually quite adorable and unique-but forgets a great lesson: we are all ultimately judged by those we find attractive in some way; and evolution has not prevented us from being attracted to sociopaths, demagogues, users, losers, snoozers and abusers, among many other fickle vermin littering the panorama of human psychology. What the fuck does love know about human worth?

So neither of us is getting banged on a regular basis; we can't go see our sons at college, and have never bragged about our children's real, and mythical, accomplishments. We do and are actively worrying about our futures: who will take care of us when we become old and burdened, who will be the second cord "that is not easily broken." There are statistics showing the life-lengthening benefits of both monogamy and religion; either find someone to love, or some God to worship, or both. Not easy when your loners and agnostic...

We will both remain fairly isolated; we might very well have shortened lives. We will continue to be noticed as unmarried and childless, if and when we are noticed at all. But we are still the best of friends, and have been that way for over 35 years, and continue to be there for each other through the good times and the bad, which somehow doesn't count without an official registrar recording a silly ceremony followed by rice and expensive food. All of our married friends might shake their heads at our moonlight sexual soliloquy's, but when the hormonal smoke clears, our relative unpopularity has saved us from broken marriages, visitation rights hearings, child support payments, ball and chain metaphors, and dating duels that often last for years of approach/avoidance engagements, and family criticism sessions that rival communist purges. Why don't these silly fucks look into the mirror before asking about others tolling, sexual bells?

2008-12-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

Global-what word has more implications, both positive and negative. To the business oriented, it connotes potential customers without end (and also potential competition for those customers). To those upset and angered by corporations that jump borders to break rules and act as though they were sovereign entities answering to no one, the word "global" is a euphemism gutting labor laws an dodging environmental issues. The answers and the problems dance uneasily within the same concept.

Many years ago, I had a boss who would utilize the word constantly, as in "we have to think more globally" meaning to see the big picture, as though our little department could somehow transport itself magically to the elevated perspective of more cosmopolitan species. Ironically and treacherously, she like many of the One- Worlders, tended to favor the country of herself over more inclusive geographies.

Many traditional industries in America are being gutted by the sheer volume and availability of cheap labor overseas; humanity like oil, tends to go down in value when profuse. There has been a glaring dishonesty when it comes to employment prospects in the global economy, with no

human observer believing there is any certainty concerning Amercans being able to compete

against billions of others, when and if those others have the institutions of learning and the infrastructures to develop rapidly as both China and India and Brazil have done, no certainty whatsoever when everyone is in the ball game. After all, America is a microcosm of the world, so the world can't be a total loser.

Here is where Left and Right get all tangled up in ideological inconsistencies: the Left's desire for

Planet Rainbow is contradicted by its desire for more justice for American workers-there is absolutely no possibility that tsunamis of immigrants breaking the geographical dikes do not lower wages for the least advantaged American worker, any more than Russia getting rid of its gold reserves doesn't lower the price of gold. The Rights nativist leanings, seem to contradict it's free market principles; good fences don't make good laissez-faire neighbors.

Nationalism's parochial pirhana; Globalisms liquidation of the very concept of "place", the world turned into a blizzard of economic stem cells, every square inch of space containing within itself the capability of being and producing what any other square inch can, the epiphany of interchangeability...

Remember the movie where the hero pursues the villain so doggedly, and with such purity of purpose, that he eventually adopts the modus operandi of the villain, and begins to understand the enemy from within, perhaps even dabbling in an inkling of empathy? Somewhere World Wars and Leviathan are laughing

Sole Brother

2008-12-15T08:14:00.000-08:00

Everyone is talking about the RPS (rocket propelled shoe) hurled at Bush yesterday by a disgusted Iraqi journalist. Bush was notable for his calm demeanor after the incident, as well as his sharp reflexes in ducking, not one, but two volleys hurled his way.

Perhaps everyone has completely misinterpreted the gesture. Perhaps the journalist was mounting a last ditch effort to imbue an oblivious man with a soul...

Obamanation

2008-12-10T05:57:00.000-08:00

The Republicans simply cannot break away from their great benefactor: Satan. The House Minority Whip is already raising questions about the possibility of impropriety concerning Obama, and any relationship he MAY have had with the disgraced Illinois governor. Doesn't matter if Obama is accused of anything, this is another opportunity for mayhem.

There is a large contingent of Republicans that are simply, by their very nature, traitors not only to this country, but to the very idea of civilized society. In a healthy democracy without corruption, many of them would become soap buddies of the governor...

2008-12-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

I believe it was Joseph Schumpeter, the great Austrian economist, who claimed the average man is convinced there are conspiracies by higher-ups that keep him in his place; he never wants to take ultimate responsibility for his successes or failures (I'm sure he would have applied this thesis equally to woman had they been a substantial part of the work force). At a time when the economy is sinking faster than Palin's legitimacy, let us revisit Mr. Schumpeter's thesis to see if it bears any fruit.

The much maligned-with good reason-media have fairly squarely placed the blame of the financial crisis with the titans of Wall Street. No surprise and seemingly accurate. 6o Minutes had their little dig concern credit-default swaps and the implication of that 60 trillion dollar market; WaMu is one in a long line of banks fat with toxic mortgages, and the public's outrage over CEO compensation- regardless of performance- has become de rigeur to include in the basic kit of "what went wrong." Revocation of Glass-Steagall and other "free market" radicalism, does surface in leftist-wonkish circles, but nobody in the big media is giving a Paul Krugman-like presentation with actual statistics and graphs-and the explanations beneath-concerning our tanking times.

Bush and his buddies have been blasted in the alternative media; in the mainstream media he comes off as incompetent but not especially morally culpable. Nobody expects him to do anything his last two months, and he is pretty much obliging (anything positive that is). Obama is chided by Barney Frank for not running a country he is not officially in charge of yet. Everything is going to be placed in his hands, including the blame if things get worse...

Why does everyone forget that the American people voted Bush in for two terms; that's e-i-g-h-t agonizing years, and even if you don't count the Gore/Bush boondoggle as a win for Bush, you have to admit it should have never been close, and mostly reflects the deep suspicion your average American has of higher education (just why they spend all that money to send their kids to these bank vacuums they distrust is a mystery to me). Anti-intellectualism is very deep rooted in America, and you needn't be a sociologist to fathom this. The Left's great mistake in the 60's was to assume that the people would rise in indignant anger once the facts were known. The unfortunate problem was that many of the facts uncovered, told a rather different story about American values and purposes than the John Wayne narrative in the popular media; the even more deplorable fact concerned the Nihilistic Leftists that decided America's crimes invalidated ALL of America's accomplishments, and why would you resuscitate a patient you have diagnosed as Satan??

You cannot simply reverse the concerted effort of 3 decades-plus of disinformation from think tanks, continual demagogic finger pointing (strange how the people are never responsible in a democracy!; even stranger that the poor should always be held accountable, but not the rich);
and collective political decisions made by a populace with more money than social wisdom.

There are many admirable things about the majority of the American population; but they are slow to warm to political culpability, as though they believe "we the people" is a euphemism for
subtle puppet-masters that bend the collective will to serve a minority constituency, that those who know better have long assumed many average people believe they are lifetime members of...

Shhhhhhhhhh

2008-12-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

Once, in the middle of winter, I drove to this reservoir with some friends, several miles off campus; when we arrived, it was eerily calm, in this place associated with summer, various stages of undress, and people growing gardens of carcinomas while floating lazily over the sun-blinding water. The entire lake had frozen solid; one vast, milky shelf, rimmed with bald trees, so quiet breath itself seemed to have the volume of speech...

I had never encountered this kind of chapel-quiet so close to civilization, and never thought, on this planet of burgeoning humanity, I would ever encounter it again. Until now...

No matter the actions of the high and mighty, waving money and promises; no matter the secret Santa's trying to alleviate another broken Christmas; or even the palpable blessings of family and friends, nothing can lend music to the devastating silence of social contracts broken, of the entire planet being slowly bled to death by a gang of solipsists, that found the concept "others" too abstract to warrant serious consideration...

No Good deed Goes

2008-12-03T11:39:00.001-08:00

I just got back from the hospital an hour ago; things have been awfully exciting lately, and not in a good way. I went shopping with my mother day after Black Friday; we decided on the day after due to herds of bargain-bots scouring the consumer landscape the day before. We thought it would be safer for my mother too, who had a bad back. Didn't want her to become the victim of another consumer related stampede...

So we managed to drag our Christmas-wearied asses out of bed and get there relatively early, as my mother must take her time, and we still thought there would be plenty of mayhem, recession or no. The parking lot at J.C. Penny looked relatively promising, and as we got out and headed for the door, the sidewalk in front of the main entrance appeared almost empty.

As I opened the outer front door to let my mother through, she disengaged my arm and went through to the vestibule. A woman in a wheel chair was patiently waiting inside the store while a man held the inner door open for her. She graciously waved my mother through; I held the outside door open for awhile longer, and felt chivalrous and all holy as she rolled through the opening and thanked me. I walked through and and as my hand reached for the metal sleeve of the inner door, I saw that my mother had, in those very brief seconds I had assisted another, crumpled to the ground. I guess this is why Republicans so consistently denigrate selflessness and consideration-maybe they have a point after all...

Obama in the House

2008-11-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Malcolm X on the "House Negro."

If you’re afraid of black nationalism, you’re afraid of revolution. And if you love revolution, you love black nationalism. To understand this, you have to go back to what the young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro back during slavery. There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good because they ate his food - what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved the master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house-quicker than the master would. If the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro...

His point? The House Negro has a kind of permanent Stockholm syndrome: he identifies with his victimizer, even to the point of being enthusiastic about his captivity. A sadomasochistic

relationship made possible by the fact of black people being alienated and separated from Africa-what else or who else can they identify with than the master? There are no other choices.

Does Obama really fit this description? Is he a slave in the masters house, or at the very least, a slave to a certain ideology? Does being raised by a white mother constitute a death sentence

concerning his "true" black nature, what Amira Baraka would later call the "sweet meat" of his feelings? It is all question-begging at this point. I have known European Negroes, American Negroes etc, each partially molded by the culture they grew up in, just like everyone else is -partially- a function of their environment. Obama will not get physically beaten for his choices though I suppose the radical black nationalist crowd will assume that if he decided to go along this route-black nationalist-he would be confined to a ghetto with regular beatings from the resident city plantation masters called the police. There are a fair degree of professors in Black Studies, and other programs, that might disagree. Besides that, is their really a dominate white ethos in America to mimic anymore. I thought that was what the "culture wars" were all about? Old conservative ways of the country vs progressive city ways; which way is supposedly more white or more indicative of the master: the future or the past?

In the above closed ideological universe, only a radical black nationalist has broken free of his masters chains; or at the very least, a radical. But wait!! Isn't black nationalism, like Kwanzaa, a theory propagated by black intellectuals who are more "integrated" and in debt to "white" power structures? Was "nationalism" created by Black people? Theories? Propaganda in support of these theories? Was not Franz Fanon, author of "Black Skin, White Mask" himself the possessor of a fine French education?

Wanting Obama to abandon his Centrism in favor of a more radical approach, does not mean he has become any less a "House Negro." Leftist houses are very white; liberation is numero uno into terms of importance in the commercial lexicon. Perhaps, for the labelers, the charge of"House Negro" is an oblique way of saying "not white enough."

The New White Secessionists

2008-11-17T05:04:00.000-08:00

Apparently, there is has been a record number of post-electoral "hate-related" crimes, from spray painted bigotry to burning crosses across the land, concentrated in the Deep South. The article, gleaned from the Yahoo news desk, does go on to say that most incidents were "juvenile pranks" without serious repercussions; what it doesn't say is how many incidents of this sort were recorded prior to the election in the same time period.

Many of these pranksters may have secessionist folk as parents; perhaps the apple falls closely to the tree. Those who might resent an Obama victory and the new global Leviathan are not terribly difficult to understand. They believe there government has sold out the white working-man to global capitalism; they believe liberals and Hollywood have destroyed traditional values (I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not this a roundabout form of anti-semitism); they believe the Ten Commandments should be on the courthouse steps; Gun rights are vital; gay rights undermine marriage (by showing us how happy gay people are? what a wonderful alternative it is?); they definitely distrust the U.N as the portal to a "one world" dictatorship (that damned Wendall Wilkie!); they probably fall on a continuum from fairly relaxed on integration to separate, and not particularly, equal. No abortion unless they are liberal parents; conception begins at birth.

The strange thing about this value system: never once does it assume the culprit might be capitalism and technical advancement itself-that which changes everything changes values too. There always has to be a culprit-the Liberal. What these paranoid Pete's fail to mention: Communism and socialism come from the loins of Capitalism, and why shouldn't a civilization that is continuously involved in revolutionizing everything from communications to modes of production, not want to revolutionize values as well?

The bottom line: you can secede from America with great difficulty; you can't secede from history...

Fear of a Black Planet?

2008-11-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

Obama did better among whites than either Kerry or Gore, though he was not favored by a white majority-no democrat has been since LBJ. A simple conclusion would be: Since the civil rights movement of the 60's, Liberals have become the new niggers (at least at the federal level).

The Long March

2008-11-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

I just read in the Star today where some of the ancient ruins of Babylon, ruins containing a fairly intact Ziggurat, were cracked by bomb percussion in the first Gulf War; this follows yesterdays report that Tin Pan Alley will be imploded to make way for much-needed high-rises. Were pumping in-via the global, multi-tenacled causeway-tons of alien species without competition into americas waterways. The voracious Asian Carp, may chow down on native species of Lake Michigan if we cannot stop their rapid assent via the Mississippi...

Goes to show you there are some drawbacks to technical development besides global warming.

Civilizations shadows draw deeper and more nuanced with each advancement; we simply hope our time is a temporary glitch on the long road of reasons applied miracles. We never had the wisdom of evolutions structure; eons of weeding out losers to balance with nuance the earths ecology. Nobody or thing has time to adapt, hence our reliance on chemical balance via SSRI's, and an over-reliance on the police, both global and local, to mitigate the more wrenching aspects of capitals electric migrations. How long will it be before were dropping iceberg-sized blocks of bicarb into the acidic oceans?

Kind of ironic not having the time to contemplate, whether or not the final ticks of the cosmic clock approach.

Til Gay Do Us Part

2008-11-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

California gays and lesbians are in an uproar over California banning gay marriage; and what seemed an oasis to them must seem haunted by the last vestige of christian-right anger.

Pretty difficult to be criticized for promiscuous behavior and the desire for monogamy, but one thing moral hypocrites excel at is contradiction...

Black man in The White House

2008-11-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

Black people everywhere are beaming with pride; the seemingly impossible has happened: A black man in THE WHITE HOUSE. The veterans of the civil rights movement have cheeks laced with tears-a dream has materialized.

Like all dreams, we must collectively temper this hope with realism; we must ground the volley of smiles and joy with the realization that no man, of any color, can quickly undo years of neglect of the public sector, nor ultimately neutralize the most persistent vestiges of racism. The truly hopeful are those who need never lie their way out of reality, for fear that the clarity of our vision will give birth to monsters beyond our power to defeat. If nothing else, the last 30 years have taught us the dangers of perverse optimism. Its no morning in America yet...

But there is a new hope; a child of modest liberation has been born in a manger of ashes. War is still with us; yet we have the pride of knowing we chose character over skin. Poverty shadows

the middle-class, but our president rose from even humbler beginnings, and urges us to echo these aspirations..

I am so weary of seeing black faces weeping over another slain child, so tired of tragedy as being a way of life most often reserved for the disadvantaged. Can we not now begin to re-imagine a future where we are not separated by what we cannot change, but brought together by what we can change? I for one, have never been a determinist. If the past is truly prologue, we are nailed to the future like Christ to the cross. But the cross was not the final act...

Congratulations Mr. Obama, and America. One light down and a thousand yet to reach.

Decision 08

2008-11-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

Today we decide the direction of the country, and economically, there is a fairly clear choice; in foreign policy, both are still frozen in the past, and would require ramping-up troops in Afghanistan, and putting American boys in harms way for another futile war that stokes the terrorist cauldron, not to mention murdering god-knows-how-many innocent civilians with collateral damage. I am hoping Barack will be a little less trigger happy than Mac-the-Knife, but who knows until were called into actual battle?

I expect no miracles: one thing the Bush administration has done, is to demonstrate that people will desire the presidency no matter how likely their failure and how daunting their task, and I suppose one should, to some extent, appreciate any man willing to sacrifice his mental health in attempting to rectify the effects of "Oligarchs Gone Wild."

A few of the unknowns: will the young finally show up, or will they cynically go AWOL in a battle that harvests their future to maintain the corrupt political organs of the present?; will race have the final say over conscience or good sense in the public wilderness of the voting cubicle?; a mandate or squeaker, voter fraud or squeaky clean?; will Israel decide to bomb Iran if Obama wins??

History will be made regardless, and I have to believe more in the possibilities of stars, than the probabilities of pyres...

Malkin's Blacklisting

2008-11-01T13:50:00.001-07:00

Just got finished perusing Michelle Malkin's blog, focusing on Obama playing the race card. Some commentators on the site referred to Obama's socialist leanings, and his Black Liberation Theology.

Michelle, being of Filipino descent, and having a sense of humor as well-developed as Imelda Marcos, doesn't seem to comprehend the irony of announcing Obama is half-black; there is no such thing as half-racial profiling, or half-lynching, and that black men of substance and ambition have an enormous ladder of preconception to overcome, perhaps slightly heftier than she has had, and perhaps Barack, and blacks collectively, were not the first or the primary causes of thinking half-black men are totally black. Writings that should be satire often are not.

If the right didn't think repeating Obama's middle name over and over (just happens to be the last name of The Monster of the Middle East) would have any nasty racial overtones, perhaps they were also unaware of the anti-immigrant sentiment the tying of Barack to Khalidi, A professor at Columbia university, a Palestinian and pro-PLO spokesman (so they rant). They served on the board of a non-profit together. They are playing the race card; it just doesn't happen to be primarily black-its Arab! they figured out the red-necks don't need to be stoked any further, this modern incarnation of the Goebbels brigade has their hearts and minds already.

Let's pursue this logic a little further, shall we? Since association is prima facie solid evidence of guilt, then it stands to reason, that U.S. consumers are mass murderers for supporting Chinese industry, the same China behind the Khmer rouge, behind the running over of students with tanks, the same china, still Communist China, that has committed Genocide against the Tibetans (real Genocide). Wal-mart is apparently guilty of mass human rights violations...

I find it interesting, to say the least, that the Republican Party, a party that believes in terrorism as a primary constituent of U.S. foreign policy, and that has repeatedly said we have the right to violate any and all sovereign countries borders in pursuit of "terrorists", should question anyone's association with anyone.

But in Michelle and the Republicans case, no untoward associations are needed...

P.S. I am not condemning thoughtful Republicans like Hagel and Dick Lugar...

2008-10-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

The election scene these days has much in common with the Pink Sheet stock market: A non-stop parade of endless half-truths, followed by a glut of bombastic pumping intended to push an imaginary company-or political program-temporarily over the top. Politicians, like market makers, rarely show the hand they are actually holding; this gives them all the power-the dealer always wins in the end.

The boards of Pink sheet companies are usually ripe with all sorts of excuses for failed promises; tremendous speculation always follows a stock tanking, a high percentage of which attempts to put a fairly positive and reassuring spin on things, no matter how worthless the company is or inane the product they peddle.

Such is the case with the populace regarding Democrats and Republicans; they continue to fail us in one way or another, and we either retreat to paralyzing cynicism-which in the stock market is called a "basher", or we try to explain away there shortcomings with phrases like "he has to do that to get elected" or "he really believes in what he is saying" no matter how toxic to the planet or populace his beliefs are (personally, I would prefer an inconsistent dictator over a consistent one).

The Democrats have not done the job they were elected to do; they let the Presidents war go through, or at the very least gave him the authority for it; they have refused to impeach a President who has made a mockery of the constitution, and a mass grave site of two formerly sovereign nations (if you want to call Afghanistan a nation at all; more like a camp site for ancient blood feuds, though I guess being invaded by the Soviets and British and Americans might make me a little testy too); they have managed to consistently avoid fielding a candidate for president not beholden to the Cuban lobby, the Israeli lobby, the defense industry, and the general idea of America as a corrupt cop with a huge chip on its shoulder. How do they know the man in the street wouldn't vote for a more radical candidate?; none ever gets a porn stars chance in heaven...

In Pinkie land, you can at least make a killing while the 99.5 percent of companies that are probably not legitimate, or horribly manipulated by unscrupulous market makers, go through

the Bipolar gyrations of being the next Exxon, followed by being the next Iraq...

Who believes, anytime soon, the vast swath of the American people taking the bus to save their lunch, will have any chance whatsoever of making a living, much less a killing, with the poisonous McCain, or the elegant but conciliatory Obama?

2008-10-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

I just noted that virtually all states with the heaviest illegal immigration problems, which include Texas, tend to go solidly Republican, even though the economic differences would seem to warrant a vote for Democrats. Searching around the net for explanations, other than Tom delays gerrymandering or the illegal immigration issue, Texas seems to still have the Alamo mentality, and worries that the Democrats want to steal there guns and replace God with Karl Marx and charles Darwin. I should add, just from a logical point of view, when you have a population that has a high percentage of poor people, you usually have a lot of non-voters by definition, and most illegal immigrants are shy going downtown to register. The republicans may talk tough on illegal immigration, but it definitely benefits their election results (even though its only correlational and not necessarily causative). Things may be changing though, except for Texas...

2008-10-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Watched a special Frontline, "Heat", about global warming, the state of the planet now, what we have to do to reverse course, and what we are currently doing to reverse course. As usual, the most frustrating aspect of the show is how reticent America is, relative to Europe and Japan, in embracing alternative energy sources, given the pressure of lobbyists (big surprise).

It's pretty embarrassing to realize what a boondoggle ethanol is, one of the only alternative fuel technologies we have embraced, and it's production is completely driven by short-term political considerations, instead of environmental ones. Indiana is big in the biofuel sector; unfortunately, there is a tremendous shortage of actual places you can pump the ethanol, which tends to disperse its practicality quotient, not to mention increasing the price of grain fro an already hungry world...

The show goes into depth over the coal issue, how it continues to generate over half the electricity in the U.S., and how effective the lobbyists and Senators they are in promoting coal, up to and including preventing the coal generating plant near the Capitol from switching to natural gas! Time and again, the coal companies push the concept of clean coal, which through carbon dioxide capture eliminates coals carbon footprint. What the companies fail to mention: nobody knows what to do with the carbon dioxide after they have captured it (sound like the nuclear industry?) Imagine them injecting it underground, and the gas resurfaces in someone's house and asphyxiates them ( a real possibility, and OK-by-me if it's the White House).

The show points out that North Dakota alone, has much more wind power available than all of Germany, yet the Germans are generating much more electricity with these limited resources.

T. Boone Pickens is starting up a large wind farm, all with his own money; the startup costs are less than what the Iraq war cost per day.

We are going to need to explore every practical technology; the program however, seemed a little bias toward the energy production factor, and little mentioned was the energy efficiency factor. Making all cars on the road get 40mpg, changing all lights to LED, decent mass transit, these would go along way in reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and our fixing our kilowatt addiction. Gas is plummeting in price already from conservation; too bad the lesson had to be learned by recession and 4 dollar-a-gallon gasoline...

Hard to know if any of these programs would be enough though: the news just reported that 300,000 troops, that's a 3 with 5 zeros, are mental casualty's due to the current Iraq war. Since they are sending them back to the front on medication, which I gathered is technically against the Pentagons stated policy, it looks like we'll need plenty of juice to shock them back from catatonia once the drugs stop working, though I have a feeling the lights will never go out in their nightmares-no energy crisis there.

Water and War

2008-10-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Our kind-not in the camel family-can go without water a few days, and food-depending on how stout we are-for several weeks. Many believe money is societies water; how do you survive without earning it, or at least being subsidized?

People who are screaming about tax cuts and job losses are really yelling "water, water" in a metaphorical sense. Since everyone has a right and an obligation to survive, money is the highest priority. Besides, if your dead or incapacitated, how could you preserve and foster more lofty goals of giving to others in need, or mitigating violence in the streets or overseas? As Keynes famously said "we are all dead in the long run." We need to know what to do right now in order to survive; hopefully this gets easier as we accumulate experience and money, but it never goes away.

This provides an out for the fact that people are much more concerned about the economy, than about how America projects it's power in the world. The Iraq war has been off the radar screen for some time, partially because of decreasing violence, and partially because policy wonks and politicians think attention spans for overseas ventures is pretty short. This makes pro-war people believe, if they can get through the first couple of years, they will be home free to do what they will do, with any moral outrage or citizen backlash. Nothing like an unchecked Pentagon to remind us that rarely is a connection made between economics and war; the present conflict, according to Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, will be costing us 3 trillion (he goes beyond mere outlays and considers lost productivity in the private sector, opportunity costs, etc). People are raging about a 700 billion dollar bailout (on top of other short term bailouts of failing institutions); they haven't made a peep about this toxic caviar called war. Of course nobody dies in the bailout either, or becomes an amputee; but this only happens to "other peoples" sons anyway. It must be nearly impossible to admit your son was killed or injured, and it wasn't necessary (to say the least).

As long as the American people-overall-remain underfunded-the war on workers will take center stage, with foreign entanglements-seemingly-too far off to matter...

P.S. No actual money was harmed in taking the photograph above

2008-10-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

On the Far Westside of Indy, a couple of topless dancers are bring suit against their employers-Dancers West in this case, for treating them like independent contractors, not paying them a salary (no hourly wage whatsoever-tips only), and having them pay all sorts of fees on top of that. Their argument is that the business controls all aspects of their jobs, as they would a regular employee, so they should be treated as such...

Good for the girls: this arrangement is kind of a microcosm of how America's workers, and especially illegal aliens, are treated; squeezing them like exsanguinated turnips for every corpuscle of work. In this case, the girls actually have to pay a fee just to dance, not to mention giving a cut of their wages to the D.J. and bartender.

The biggest boobs aren't on the dance floor, they're running the place...

2008-10-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

What a time to turn 50-midlife crisis drowned-out by late empire crisis. Death has a way of running in echoing parallels, but who notices ones waning reflection amidst the soul dampening of methodical national suicide. I have the inventors of credit default swaps to thank for diverting my attention away from my shrinking libido and onto our collectively shrinking hopes for upward mobility.

Everyone came silently from the crevices of my attention: my sisters from Kentucky and North Carolina, my nephew from Dayton, and my nieces from University of Kentucky and Cincinnati, respectively. I had no clue as to the birthday festivities, perceptual faculties numbed as they are by the Lidocaine of time. Stupidity can lend an air of sorely needed mystery to our steroidal rat race...

Though we call each other frequently between the scattered waves of e-mail, this party was a time for news about the most distantly flung units of our nuclear families. My nephew from New York, who writes for the Village Voice, is apparently voting for McCain, not so much for his

superlative qualifications, but as a short-term antidote to the abomination of Obama-nation. It's very hard for me, being a Hoosier, to understand a place that saturated with pro-Obama supporters. the very fact that its close here is as much a historical event as my fiftieth...

May the next fifty be devoid of the scourges of Nationalism, the skewed predation of winners and losers, and the divide and conquer mentality of the leaders that have turned us more into a collective of mutually exclusive interests, than a nation under,or not under, God.

I still see a few obstinate tongues of flame amidst the drowned expectations of the populace.

Derailing Economic engine

2008-10-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

Armed robberies are up substantially in Indianapolis, and we are heading for another dubious record. The economy is blamed, and the news last night said a different sort of robber is beginning to be seen: citizens not normally tied to violent felonies. Wonder if this will be spreading across the country; what do you do if the stock market just tanked your retirement? You ain't gonna make it up at Wal-mart. There may well come a point where human life hangs in the balance, and the anti-gun control crowd finally becomes-regretfully-prophetic...

Best Third World Nation-Period.

2008-09-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

Just read an article in the Christian Science Monitor about Iraqi refugees in Michigan, many yearning, but unable to go back to Iraq. You see, some of them are well educated, and had visions of professional jobs with good pay here; instead they found a landscape littered with menial tasks for minimal pay. Many couldn't go back anyway, as Iraq has largely been "cleansed" along sectarian lines, something the media never mentions in contributing to the decreasing level of violence. At least in Iraq, there is a tiny possibility of emerging democracy...

The financial crisis has been done to death, my pennies of thought will be brief. Exactly how may I ask, do you estimate the price of something absolutely nobody wants. Don't we usually give it away? God knows the canyons of wall street owe us plenty from the last bailout; how about giving the government an equity stake for liquidity promises, or perhaps the dangerous specter of temporary socialism could rear its ugly head, None should worry if it does; this government never pays any attention to its own regulations anyway...

Carmel Apple

2008-09-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

I was up in Carmel, Indiana the other day, attempting to attend a birthday party that was to be held on the following day (middle-age is the pervert, senility, opening its raincoat for one psychic flash of the ugly future). Suffice it to say the birthday boy didn't get his present.

Carmel is one of those cities that used to be a sleepy town; ex-urbanization turned it into one of those "best places to live"we constantly read about: upscale and clean with oodles of synthesized charm. The brick downtown is a pleasant walk, and the extensive roundabouts coming into the city give it an air of progress. Many of the movers and shakers of Indianapolis live here.

Luckily for me, they had blocked off Main Street that day to hold an art fair; I cut my losses and wandered for a while. Despite the lavish setting, the fair was pretty much the standard for these affairs: lousy fine art, really nice ceramics and jewelry. A stage at the end of the street, had a continually revolving troupe of Asian dancers.

Slowly it dawned on me of my relative discomfort here, which had nothing to do with peoples attitude-they were friendly-the weather, or anything else I could immediately discern. Then I realized: very few black people, or Hispanics; the smattering of the non-white I did see were mostly Asian, very prosperous looking. The type that get robbed when visiting America. A few well-healed Middle Easterners as well. . .

The only person who asked me for directions-thereby being the only person who approached me directly- was a young black woman cruising around and looking for parking; I told her I wasn't a native either, and she smiled like lost people usually do. My anxiety was tempered slightly...

I wouldn't have believed it, but once I crossed back into Marion county and continued south to my Westside home, I breezed through a couple of areas of less than stellar reputation, places where recent immigrants are setting up grocery stores and nail boutiques; where malls that use to be inhabited by predominately white clientele have lost all their major anchor stores and exist as retail ghost towns selling gold jewelry and gold teeth. Rather than rolling up my windows and having the cellphone thumb on 911, I noticed to the contrary how relaxed I was becoming, "diversity" roiling around me like an ethnic melange. Reverse discrimination, or white-flight from white-flight??

The Propaganda, the Mommaganda, and the Babyganda

2008-09-24T18:56:00.001-07:00

Do "The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" or whatever in hell their name was, ever regret smearing John Kerry? Good Ol Mr. Alternative Energy, T. Boone Pickens, funded that ad hominem hit-squad. He is all about alternative energy yet he helps get Dubya elected. Real foresight huh?

Their should be a reality program arranged like a Communist show trial entitled "Elected Sociopath," where members of the Bush administration blurt out sins, both real and imagined, and the audience tries to decipher truth and deception. If the audience has guessed the true nature of the depositions more often than not, at the end of the show, George Bush and Dick Cheney are led down Wall Street for a ticker tape parade consisting of torn-up mortgages. They are then tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity, after which, they must participate in a modernized version of the Auto De Fe during halftime at the Super Bowl. Details can be worked out as quickly as the 700 billion dollar reward for excellence in hypocrisy.

I do believe that we as a country, can get through this crisis, provided we do not blame who is actually responsible, but find, with the help media-savvy provocateurs, some completely irrelevant group of people without any power. Sex offenders won't do for this; no published studies in the economic journals correlating lack of banking liquidity with masturbating to illegal porn. The Mexicans are off limits; they showed up en masse to protest anti-illegal immigrant legislation, and a slew of small businesses would have their own liquidity problems, should we piss them off too much. Liberals still make true believers foam out of their supply-side mouths, but they are gathering power on the sidelines, ready to launch a major offensive against corporate malfeasance, until it dawns on them that a trio cannot successfully storm the U.S. Capitol...

No, the budgetary crisis must be blamed on the downtrodden, the despairing, the war ravaged, the damned. In other words, from a country recently liberated by Uncle Sam. What better way to gracefully exit Iraq: "We'll be damned if those bastards who tanked the economy are going to get any more of our help! Let's save the earnest instruments of democracy for countries who are serious about reform! Those shitheads have a budgetary surplus, and they want the American taxpayer to continue rebuilding Iraq! What an outrage, as if they expect monetary compensation for the killing of hundreds of thousands in a quarter of the time Saddam took; no appreciation for efficiency..."

Yep, when those refugees from Shiite democracy start trickling in, let us remind them, in the best tradition of knee-jerk retaliation, that outside whipping boys are as necessary to modern democracy as guns are for sincere diplomacy. If it wasn't them, it would be someone else, perhaps the rich, struggling with the masses howls of execration, and as we have learned time and again, personal responsibility is a virtue so expensive, the rich cannot afford it...

The Working Class

2008-09-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

I live in what is commonly called a "working class neighborhood." The kind of neighborhood that is continually pandered to by both Democrats and Republicans, the Democrats less successfully due to their excessive "elitism." See, this is the "real" America that cares about core American values: God and family and pregnant, unmarried teenagers; Helping neighbors in time of need; volunteering to get their asses removed in pointless conflicts for the good of armchair pussy-warriors who find war so glorious they aren't worthy of participation. The republicans lie to think of themselves these days as the party of the working man, while the Democrats are the party of effete East-coast liberals. that's why the Republicans consistently fuck the working man by giving away the farm to their corporate buddies and pet ideological fixations. Only the working man is honorable enough to admit his life isn't particularly glorious or worth living, and all he/she would do with their money would be to fritter it away on meaningless entertainment like NASCAR, or a bumper sticker for their trucks with a picture of Calvin pissing on Barack Obama's Harvard Degree. All those silly sissies in the biggest metropolitan areas want FREE health insurance, and eternities of vacation to concoct perverse sex education schemes, not to mention the bizarre notion of a living wage. The grizzled pioneers that forged this continent and continue to honorably limp through Americas deindustrialization don't need those elitist tricks of better jobs, guaranteed health care and pensions. they love god and family so much they never think of those elitist notions of money and getting ahead of mere subsistence. Those are fer eastern folk...

The working class truly does have some of the qualities ascribed to it; they really are the ones most likely to help you in a crisis, though I really doubt your average city dweller will give you the finger if you're bleeding in the gutter and ask for a kleenex. The "mean streets" aren't that mean yet. The Right-wing consistently wins elections by not reminding the working man of all the ways he has fucked up in the past, by not rubbing his nose in the proverbial historical mud; like the communists, the hero of their story is someone they wouldn't want to be in direct contact with, but must worship at a distance, lest the corrupting influence of their more privileged lives infect the purity of working values. They also know, unlike Marx, that the average man thinks his interests are in the class he aspires too. The Right's current crop of wars are just NASCAR on steroids; their current incarnation of bankrupting the country just reinforces family values-what the fuck else can you afford to do but be with your family?

For the record, the working class can really be assholes sometimes. Not to impugn an entire category of society, but most in my neighborhood have yelping, working class dogs that find silence elitist, not to mention the constant buzz-saw of illegally piped Harley's to flip grandma's dentures into the fishbowl. Some are still rednecks; some will not vote for Obama because he's (sort of) black. They display too many flags in the back of trucks, and have too many bumper stickers chock full of jingoistic nonsense. Many are poorly informed and extremely reactionary when it comes to certain core topics: Taxes, guns, the military. They have not figured out, or do not want to know, that the average man may in fact have a better life in much of Europe. They distrust the rich they follow, but follow nonetheless; ultimately they must respect what their forced to swallow.

They have worked their asses off, and are on average, much friendlier than many professionals I have known, and have many talents that are vital to the operation of our country. Perhaps, in the final analysis, they aren't corrupt enough to negotiate through the murky world of corporate malfeasance. Too good to understand. That's a nice thought, and hopefully not an epitaph...

The Jokerette

2008-09-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

Sarah the Lion-hearted has now been interviewed, and has truly unique ways of saving the country from those decadent, liberal Obama-ites. Make government more efficient and cut taxes! God knows how many more young men will have the honor of having their limbs trimmed away with the surge of cash for death this maverick will bring.

Calling her a victory for the woman's movement is like trying to save social security by encouraging smoking. Gee, hope I haven't stolen her next idea...

You Haven't Changed a Bit

2008-09-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

There is something incredibly strange about America. We seem to yearn for every conceivable gadget, every new fad or pop-philosophy, every damn craze that comes down the pike, simply because they are new. We really like the idea of change; some people hang out at airports just to have the feeling of getting away. People change jobs these days more often than they get married. To Americans, a destination is just another launch point; stasis is about old age and death...

Yet when it comes to politics, we don't seem to be able to risk anything. War comes and we are patriotic cheerleaders until things go badly; bankruptcy comes, we completely forget about war, and listen to the wealthy establishment talk tax cuts and new jobs, the exact same people who had just bankrupted us. The American people put up with enormous amounts of malfeasance and high crimes and pathological liars in the interests of patriotism-and the soldiers who fight our purportedly patriotic wars get screwed by the very same people screwing us, who argue endlessly with them like a ruthless insurance company, about whether they are truly entitled to disability pay. Is this Stockholm syndrome? Are we sympathizing with our tormentors?

Of course, everyone works these days and has no time to research, much less digest, the issues.
Ignorance goes with the familiar because it knows nothing else, and it doesn't help that we have been inculcated with a vision of life outside the office as entertainment. and those with truly serious visions of the future often talk in specific details about complex issues and are not usually too entertaining. We greatly prefer a ringmaster over a professor; many seem to want the leadership of jocks and the beautiful, as though returning to high school might alleviate the responsibility of repairing a country, that has been raped over the last 40 years by a toxic brew
of shrill reactionary politics with corporate solipsism. The corporate world isn't afraid of change; they changed government from a belief in alleviating, for the average citizen, some of the crueler effects of the market economy, to a belief in cradle to grave corporate welfare. Privatize the profits and socialize the risks. The rich want government off the backs of the people so they can break them.

Maybe this is the source of the average citizens true aversion to revolution: the only groundbreaking change most know, is from each according to his weakness; too each according
to lack of need. Placate the powerful with subservience; or next revolution, they may decide to take it all...

Keep Them Barefoot and Vice President

2008-09-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin is the new celebrity in town; sort of like Sheriff Buford Pusser in "Walking Tall" except when she cleaned up corruption, nobody tried to kill her. Maybe we can call her Sheriff Buford Pussy or a sexy member of Charlie's Evangelicals...

It is interesting than when Obama is drawing crowds and winning rave reviews, he's a celebrity with no substance who cares more about promoting his career than the nation. When Sarah Palin makes one appearance, drives thousands wild and gets a higher percentage of male approval than female, that has nothing to do with style over substance, she's just a woman who "tells it like it is" and flawlessly combines family virtue with "Pit-bull" prosecutorial toughness. No hypocrisy here...

Not too many states here in the lower 48 have less population than the city of Indianapolis; very few get the majority of their revenue from oil production. But if a herd of caribou ever befouls my lawn, I'll let this political Bambi with fangs bid on their eradication...

Thought experiment

2008-09-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

Imagine for a second the strategists for the McCain camp, thinking they must do the radical nomination act to compensate for a radically regressive program-why not go all the way and pick a black lesbian?

Anyway, these people are running a little scared; Obama's speech was well received, the Democratic convention, while not exactly Woodstock, definitely succeeded in presenting a resurgent unity. Both Clinton's were sufficiently convincing in their endorsement of Obama
to warrant anxiety for Republicans utilizing the time-tested divide and conquer philosophy.
Not to mention that goddamn Gustav trumping their time to shine. People might trust McCain over Obama in foreign affairs (forgetting the fact that a man who has suffered as tremendously as McCain has in the hands of the enemy, might be the least objective voice in the matter when in comes to dealing with foreigners in general); but they trust Obama more on economic matters, and they care more about the economy than our foreign adventurism.

So, if he is likely to lose, they know they will have on their hands someone, with at least the potential, to engage the Iranians in direct talks about nuclear capabilities and intentions. Furthermore, it's difficult to assess whether the general public would buy another panic attack over WMD; so far, our financial ship is sinking faster than Iran's nuclear star is rising. Bush, or whoever really runs the White House is briefing on this hypothetical scheme, and decides to hit Iran now, thereby creating a two pronged effect:

1). Screw whoever wins the presidency with an impossibly volatile situation;

2). Create enough blowback to necessitate the knee jerk warriors having long-term employment in the national security business.

(As of this writing, Dutch intelligence has announced suspension of operations against Iran, in belief that the U.S. will hit the operative targets they are involved with, sometime in the next 30 days)

2008-08-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

A bone thrown to disaffected Hillary supporters in the form of Governor Palin from Alaska. Will Hillary's horde really embrace a pro-life NRA member? The taming of the conservative wing was expected; attempting to kill two birds with such a light-weight stone is pretty insulting...

At Home and Abroad

2008-08-29T06:22:00.000-07:00

Obama's speech last night was well-crafted-alternating between measured outrage and appeals to our higher natures. It was designed to appeal to progressives who want genuine change, and to traditionalists yearning for a simpler and purer patriotism. No question he held 84,000 Democrats in the grip of his carefully tailored vision, yet for those with a keen ear for flat notes, with a desire to soberly analyze how this man can reestablish the international standing of the United States post Iraq War, one must be struck by the amount of dangerous foreign police cliches spouted, even if quickly and somewhat under the radar.

Making the world safe for Israel, and standing up to Iran; both crept into the speech in relatively hushed tones, as a kind of afterthought, as though they were givens without the need of further analysis- our national responsibility. However much rhetorical salve Obama has layered on the wounded horse of discredited diplomacy, he keeps inching backwards to confrontation with Iran, and complete immunity for Israel.

Combine this with Joe Biden as his veep, who co-authored legislation for the introduction of US troops into Serbia during the Balkans war, and was initially, like most other chortling clones, pro-war see a not so subtle pattern of expediency completely supplanting principle. Biden has
prinicipled moments of opposing Bush's Post 9/11 assault on fundamental rights, including calling for the closing of Guantanamo in 2005. However, note this excerpt from an interview with Shalom TV:

And there is this inextricable tie between culture, religion, and ethnicity that most people don’t fully understand–that is unique and so strong with Jews worldwide.
When I was a young Senator, I used to say, “If I were a Jew I’d be a Zionist.”
I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.

Whatever else you might attribute to these words, they don't appear to be ambiguous. Obama has shown a more conciliatory, statesmanlike orientation in his past, before he was goaded into
a warrior stance by the manhood-is-military crowd. Let's hope after the election, if he wins, he might be a little homesick for the anathema of subtlety, in the saber rattling that passes for American foreign policy...

2008-08-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Democratic convention is underway; unity appears to rein, and no Clintonites as yet have forcefully argued the podium for anything but the candidacy of Barack Obama. As much as party unity is necessary for victory in November, it would be nice to see a little genuine protest in the carefully scripted mass spectacles the conventions have become. I have heard political old-timers nostalgic for the days of volatile political conventions.

Of course, why should the convention reflect something the candidates are not? Has Barack Obama taken any major detours from the status quo, since winning the nomination? Hasn't he repeatedly mitigated his stances on a host of things from withdrawal from Iraq to Offshore drilling.

Michael Tomaskey of The Guardian:

So we've now plunged into the turbid waters of the age-old expediency versus principle debate. Three times now in the space of a week, Barack Obama has departed from what would seem to be liberal principle: his refusal to accept public financing for the general election, his decision to vote for a bill that gives American telecoms retroactive immunity from prosecution for cooperating with the Bush administration's surveillance initiatives and his statement siding with the supreme court's conservative minority that on Wednesday voted to permit the death penalty for child rapists. Denunciations are ringing across the blogosphere.

Michael goes on to defend Baracks strategy; after all, what good can you do the country sitting on the sidelines, another casualty of principles to rarefied and haughty to appeal to the average American? Having a clear conscience is easy if you never have to sully yourself in the real world of compromise, where competing interests often do not coincide with the interests of the whole.

Who knows? Maybe Barack will turn out to be a pathological liar, who starts reigning in Israel, decreasing defense spending, and stops blaring alarmist propaganda about a nuclear-armed Iran
(How about Pakistan?). This would be a true change of pace, a refreshing take on an old theme:
the truth shall set you free, delivered by a liar with a higher cause than power...

2008-08-21T06:11:00.001-07:00

Regarding a McCain presidency:

I do not recommend lightly the course I have called on the president to pursue, said Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who is leading the charge as the resolution's principal sponsor. I know, as should anyone who votes for this resolution, that if Americans die in a land war with Serbia we will bear a considerable share of the blame for their loss.

The administration did not request this authorization from Congress.

McCain, a candidate for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination, was one of the earliest voices to say that the U.S. must win this military action at all costs and to call on the Clinton Administration to prepare for the possibility of deploying ground troops.

Combine this with McCain's bellicosity toward Russia (ignoring who actually started the latest conflict, and glossing over the fact that his primary foreign policy adviser was a paid lobbyist for Georgia), and we see a pattern starkly emerging: McCain likes the military option, and doesn't think much of diplomacy in any situation, much less Iraq. Add an endorsement by veteran Iraq
War cheerleader Joseph Lieberman, A.K.A. The Israeli Surrogate, and what are you ultimately left with? A man who jokes about bombing Iran; A man who frequently confuses who Iran is supposed to be supporting (not Al Qaeda John); A man known to have a temper, being advised by shifty hawks with ulterior motives, who put other countries interests before America's.

Looks like Project for the New American Century's WWIII may be closer than we think...

Abortion for Dummies

2008-08-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

Nobody is really against abortion, they just pretend to be, to facilitate their self-image of being a moral crusader or superman to the fetus-set. After all, murder has been illegal for quite awhile
(except when committed by the state); the legality of any act doesn't curtail it much if there is sufficient demand for it, and a readiness to pay some black marketeer sufficiently to induce them to take the risk. Why anyone believes the best avenue to eliminate abortion is making it illegal, is because they value feeling good about themselves over actual results. One sees this whenever
moral trumpeters gather in the public square and substitute repression for reasoned social action. One has to conclude, that for the moral legislation crowd, repression is a familiar way to deal with most problems. Its amazing they haven't noticed that even the gulag could not exterminate religion-the gulag! Only Europeans know how to do that-give people a decent, interesting life; a well educated mind doesn't need the diversion of the supernatural to give purpose and order to life.

There's another way of thinking about this: Mr. and Mrs. social conservative, would you really want to execute that murderer, or shoot that terrorist, or character-assassinate that liberal, if you had the chance to abort them first before they could generate any of their socially divisive activity? Isn't prevention worth a pound of cure? Isn't the new self-defense gospel prevention by preemption? Actually, there is a way for responsible terrorists and liberals to keep down their numbers, called birth control. But some socially conservative pharmacists don't want to dispense these; contraception goes against the grain of their moral beliefs. Strange how social conservatives disappear when people choose to prematurely end a painful and debilitating life, because their moral system says to them it lacks dignity and purpose.

Lots of poor people out there probably wish they were fetuses right now; at least the pompous conscience of the pseudo-conservatives would pretend to care about them-I mean, it's not their fault that they were born, thereby eliminating their chances of being worthy of respect. I haven't heard the right pouring their heart out over pregnant woman being killed in war either; perhaps abortion providers should advertise that they are providing the service to "establish democracy."

Maybe the right would still be too pro-life too understand the suspension of principles in favor of a lofty goal; fetuses are to them what cows are to Hindu's. Yet what strange births emanate from these fetal fanatics: born-again war freed by the blood of Jesus, no longer under law, and forgiven are the multiplying sins of lying to the people, spying on the people, killing innocent people. Freed of the old god of congress (polytheistic); liberated by the new god of the executive (monotheistic,"no other god before him").

Don't have the unwanted in the first place-birth control, and more birth control. To those who have moral qualms over this, they should know, that in fact, they are pro-abortion...

2008-08-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

Pastor Rick Warren is going to grill the candidates soon. The Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life, and evangelical superstar and pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. According to Wiki, its the fourth largest church in America, which, given today's propensity of corporation-sized houses of worship, makes it a very big church indeed. Why anyone with a brain in their skull should give a shit about this event is not easy to explain.

Seems like the gospel of corporate Chrisitianity includes vetting candidates based on their attitudes toward core evangelical concerns. What's wrong with that you say? Seems like what any town hall meeting might do, right? After all, though we say were all in this together, we still would like to believe that all are better served by adhering to our values and principles. On the other hand, what is the probability that either candidate will say anything that even hints of smearing sacred beliefs?

Is John McCain going to choose Saddleback Church to boldly stride out of the closet? Is Barack Obama going to openly pray for a Fatwa to be issued condemning all evangelical ministers as proper targets for Jihad? In the glaring of these ideological tight-asses, is there any room for the horrific gray hue of dangerous shadows? Is this not a religious parroting test masquerading as healthy engagement?

If Dubya has not convinced you of the stupidity of mixing religion with politics, you simply can't be convinced. Mr. Warren continues to stress how misunderstood evangelicals are, how they are branching out into concerns beyond abortion, school prayer and homosexual marriage. They are now concerned about preserving God's creation and ending poverty. Newsflash: the liberals that you are constantly berating have been doing that for the last 40 years. Don't expect a reward for being so slow...

Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Be in Communist Chiner

2008-08-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Last night, I watched a little of the Olympics opening ceremonies-I was enthralled and a little appalled that they resembled nothing so much as a North Korean military parade, or something out of Leni Riefenstahl. After the opening mass salvo, with thousands of drummers in rigid formation, manipulating lights and moving in synchronized fashion somewhere between Tai Chi and Kung fu (not to mention twirling glo-sticks like a giant rave), things settled down a bit from mass spectacle, but I realized something then and there: totalitarian regimes, both fascist and communist, display there propaganda in very cinematic terms, as though everything they do in public could be displayed in an IMAX theater. How easily the military parade metamorphisizes into the opening of a sports spectacle!

Makes you wonder about all the directors and movie executive who choose a panoramic, bigger- than-life to frame their artistic visions: are they all just closet dictators leaking their fantasies of control?

Disaster du jour

2008-08-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

Ever think you might know more about what affects you personally than a so-called expert residing in an office building who probably thinks of the middle of the country the way he thinks of
Borneo-strange and difficult to psychically access ? Lots of things bother me that have not crossed the desks of the major media outlets, not to mention the purportedly more regional sensitivities of the local outlets. If your not complaining about rising gas, Barack Obamas elitism, or the rapidly inflating prostrate about to turn your bladder into a broken levee, you are out of luck. Its time to broadcast a more personalized line of inner and outer demons; a world whose inhabitants have the same problems invariably will need the same solutions-think of Beijing's factories, Walmart's shelves, and an 800 toll-free customer service number with a waiting time that necessitates life extension techniques. I don't want my blow jobs coming from a one-world vacuum; Id much rather blame local Jewry for the undermining western civilization than "world Jewry."

Everyone usually thinks political differences consist in how ones program relates to the critical issues of our time. Perhaps they should be looking at who and how those critical issues are framed in the first place. Those who create and control the debate, control what political institutions react to, which is a clever and not so visible way of assuming command.

The Body Inhuman

2008-08-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

An exhibit has arrived here in Indianapolis: human bodies preserved in a new way are shown in incredible detail, whole body and major organs. There is some controversy concerning how the bodies were procured. There is no doubt that they are from mainland China; after that things get a little murky, to say the least.

So far, there have been no discernible protests in Indianapolis, as most find it highly educational and very worthwhile, even at a price of 18 dollars for children and 22 dollars for adults. It's not hard to imagine why people do not get offended, for they cannot know what befell the "specimens" before they were objects of human taxidermy; and the exhibit flatly states it cannot guarantee they were not prisoners. Prisoner in China can be anyone who pissed off the state, or who is genuinely a criminal. But the bodies were unclaimed, and if you have nobody to speak up for you, how valid a human could you have been in the first place?

I am very interested in viewing anatomy displayed so, relatively, realistically. I have every motivation to go as a health professional. But I am not going; there will be another exhibit in the fall at the state museum, utilizing people who clearly gave their consent. I'm not decided on the afterlife; I'm not convinced I have been afforded salvation as of yet. But one thing I do remember: In every movie where they want to make a horrible example of someone, hoping to instill fear in the populace, they display them cruelly dissected-in real life too-and posed in humiliating ways. These specimens are posed in dignified positions, so say exhibit participants, yet what dignity is there is being dissected and reconstituted after death, with no say so in the process, and the horrifying possibility of someone who dared defy a totalitarian state the humiliation of another trial by voyeurism...

The local news channel briefly interviewed a Bio-ethicist concerning the exhibit; he thought that without a compelling interest for why this had to be shown, it was immoral to do so, given the shady history of the "specimens." If he is correct, what compelling interest could there possibly be in this exhibit? Nearly identical to the State Museums coming up, yet without any moral qualms about the joyful jingles of the register, one can conclude some think anything is for sale, including the right to a dignified burial...

Dumb and Dumber

2008-07-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

The conservatives in this country have been ridiculing the public schools for longer than I care to remember. Despite both of my sisters being public school teachers, and knowing they are doing excellent jobs, I find further offences in their universal critique about lack of competition, lazy teachers protected by powerful unions, and, of course, the scourge of liberal values.

There are definitely some valid claims made: the focus on self-esteem instead of core curriculum, and god knows, the pet peeve of most teachers everywhere: the demand for higher test scores; the demand that everyone test at the same level; and the demand that they do it without adequate money. Many teachers think education has become nothing but preparation for a endless parade of competency tests-liberal education and critical thinking skills, not to mention the creativity so purportedly prized by the entrepreneurial class, is dead...

Funny thing is, the last 8 years of George Bush has brought us the greatest emphasis on standardized tests as the gold standard of educational advancement; George Bush is the cheerleader for a complete centralization of the modern American mind. Believe me, it didn't need any more prodding in that direction.

Perhaps the conservatives are, in the final analysis, completely right about public education. After all, we have just gone through 8 years of Dubya, and the recent polls show Obama and McCain running neck and neck. A well-educated populace would never buy the fairy tale of supply-side economics; nor would they likely vote in the shadow of someone who has shown real virtuosity in dismantling the American dream ...

The Obama Drama

2008-07-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Another tsunami of outraged opinion has risen to wash over our ears; sensibilities were shaken violently by a recent New Yorker cover showing Obama in Osama-like Garb, with Michele his machine gun toting side kick. Those who take the New Yorker, or know the meaning of the word "satire," immediately recognize the image as a satirical realization of all the innuendos and fear mongering that have been hurled at the Obama campaign.

Nothing could be further from the truth! Those dastardly liberals, who have relativistic standards and hold nothing absolute have smeared a presidential aspirant! It doesn't matter what the intention was, it plainly inappropriate, tasteless and offensive. so says the moral intelligentsia, as well as the Obama campaign staff. But there reaction makes very good sense indeed...

Nobody with any real power appreciates the satirist, because one of the primary functions of satire is to expose the irrationality of our fears, and to give feet of clay to the false idols we exalt in attempts to ground our wandering attention spans. True sleepers disdain all but the most melodic alarms...

Fuck-up Feith

2008-07-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

Anybody else have a terrific problem with Douglas Feith(or any other Neo-Con) being interviewed, and blaming absolutely everything that went wrong on political players other than himself, and continuing to maintain that Saddam Hussein was taken out as an act of self-defense?

Do these people have no shame whatsoever? They have fucked up every step from conception to execution, yet still believe we should listen to them, and the major media still give them a platform to babble their ideological, self-serving nonsense, while the bodies-albeit at a slower pace for now-continue piling up (another two dozen gone when we accidentally bombed a wedding party in Afghanistan recently). They have no idea how to get out, when to get out, or if we can ever really get out, and they are already planning for a very long term deployment of troops in Iraq. As reported by the U.K. Independent, Bush wants at least 50 bases kept open and operational "and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government." If these are the experts, I hate to see what the amateurs would do...

I am intentionally being naive of course: the Neo-Cons probably always wanted a quagmire, or at the very least, a stalemate in Iraq. That way, they could blame outside forces (i.e. Iran), that ironically enough, they have aided and abetted in displacing the former power brokers in Iraq, and launch another preventive strike for the U.S. of I. Failure is to their final vision another cloud of political ink that will make the sun of empire burst forth that much brighter when China is finally subdued...

The Change of Murder

2008-07-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Heraclitus noted that you cant step into the same river twice. Thomas Wolfe knew you could not return home. Everyday, the river of now gets flooded by the non-existent clouds of the future, and drains almost imperceptibly into the past. How the future, which does not exist, can effect the present, is something that God, given his dubious existence and continual presence, could probably answer. All is fire; history is ash, and up ahead, another spectral herd of timber waits for the giant maw of cremation to bury it forever...

One begins to deliberate purely in metaphysical terms these days; we no longer step into the same country twice; freedom, plenty, happiness--they all seem bizarrely abstract, headstones of categories of things long past and locked into the future of a simpler and less morally ambiguous time.

We know shrill fundamentalism is nothing but fear of change picking up the barrel of a gun; the open mind of the 60's was a function of relative wealth, a profound comfort in American power so sure of itself it could promote the radical questioning of its very foundations and still survive. How successful is any system, including capitalism, that is capable of teaching and selling programs for, its own elimination? To some this is the wide breadth of a profoundly confident spirit; to others, a form of suicide so self-deluded it characterizes itself as daring intellectual adventure.

Didn't the world change forever with the first murderer Cain? Did he not found the first city?
The murderer is always on the run; those things that speak to the honest citizen, from bald propaganda to the next electoral fiasco or book on personal finance, are not for the murderer. In permanent exile from everything holding barbarism at bay, he is a pirate on the uncivilized seas of his own artful camouflage and deception. Not real even to himself lest one honest slip unmask his attempts at a normal life, he is an exile in his own country.

Nobody is coming back from Iraq the same: used warriors or clueless citizenry...

Patriot Games

2008-07-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

John McCain on the patriot:

" The patriot must not just accept, but in his or her own way protect the ideals that gave birth to our country: to stand against injustice and for the rights of all and not just one's own interests. The patriot honors the duties, the loyalties, the inspirations and the habits of mind that bind us together as Americans."

Sounds lofty, healthy, and honorable enough; I guess the devil is in the execution (or executive).

Were the framers interested in prolonged foreign entanglements, without sufficient cause and with no withdrawal in sight; spying on people without probable cause; detention with writ of habeus corpus; torturing POW's; cheerleading for a foreign country and the truly hideous idea of tax cuts for the wealthy during time of war!? If not, why hasn't John McCain denounced George Bush, and his unconstitutional oligarchy of war-loving draft dodgers as virtuoso America loathers?

If the last administration has "the habits of mind that bind us together as Americans," then America has become one big apocalyptic kool-aide party, and patriotism is the cyanide of freedom.

I cant drink to that...

2008-07-02T04:47:00.001-07:00

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Graduation Party

2008-06-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

My nephew is having his graduation party this weekend; he is going to the University of Kentucky on a full scholarship to study engineering. He was a national merit scholar finalist, was on the schools academic team, yet still managed to go to the prom and have a-relatively-normal teenage life from all accounts.

It is nice having someone in the family who is my complete opposite in this regard. If high school is the beginning of adulthood, where one mimics and mirrors the activities of adults in work and play, then I was clearly announcing to the world that I wanted no part of a normal adult life; I would fight with every ounce of my being to be permanently alienated-death before maturity.

It was idiotic of me in some ways not to take advantage of the education afforded me; after all, if you loathe your fellow classmates, and think the people of Appalachia are cosmopolitan sophisticates in comparison, that just gives you the opportunity of burrowing like a termite into the cellulose of knowledge. There will forever be compensatory mechanisms to young sexual frustration; why not make them productive?

In High School, I was on the tennis team for about 3 minutes; I was as popular with girls as a yeast infection. When one did attempt to win my favor, I was too socially retarded to interpret the flirtation rituals, or perhaps I saw ulterior motives of teasing beneath even the most earnest gestures of goodwill. Whatever the case, I was a sexual monk addicted to solitary confinement, only to wean off it in college, with the help of psychotropic lubricants...

I am constantly being reminded by the so-called intelligentsia-an oxymoron if there ever was one-about how lazy young people are, how they are unwilling to work for anything, and thats why illegal immigrants are pouring in. Yes, our progeny are unwilling to work for the wages third world inhabitants find satisfactory; they might feel a tad uncomfortable attempting to send their children to college on minimum wage, while the CEO's and Hedge Fund managers squeeze every last drop of blood from this turnip economy.

Of course, to people on the coasts, my nephew and others like him, do not exist. That is fine by him and by me; the hope of America is not to be found among money-hypnotized white trash, or ideologically addled war-addicts; the people who keep America running are usually too busy to propagandize against the many for the few. Real ability does not diminish others to elevate itself; failure always does. Why have we sabotaged so much in terms of economy, peace and freedom, if we were not in some way jealous of the future??

I'm happy for you nephew; you should have an exciting life trying to compensate for our pettiness and shortsightedness. May the challenge make you shine.

Earth Needs Gas

2008-06-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe everybody is going to burn in hell for their overindulgent narcissism tinged with self-help rationales. Maybe gay rights is the theological straw that broke a conservative deity's back. The problem is: where is hell going to get the fuel?

Should they start buying on the open market, and trust OPEC and others to pick up the pace given the possibility of lofty prices wreaking havoc on the economy; should they start producing their own fuel, is this technically feasible and sufficiently practical to provide significant relief?
Would a certain sector of the economy sacrifice subsidies for the good of the Hades, if it were found that hell could produce ethanol more efficiently with sugar? Can they switch to something they already have, like electric pitchforks or battery operated horns? How about just saving the stuff, torturing more souls per unit flame? Should they start drilling where hell is, literally, frozen over?

It would be a shame if America did not take the global lead in utilizing the oil crisis for constructive purposes: weaning off petroleum addiction. Unfortunately, the idea that certain commodities are a fundamental right dies hard in engine heaven or hell...

freedumb?

2008-06-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

Why do so many with the mania of overthrowing power consider individual liberty such a formidable obstacle to their goal? Perhaps the same reason why so many distrust collective power and the possibility of genuine majority rule: each taken to their logical extreme, ends in dictatorship.

The irony and power of the lone individual representing everyman and no man, is that all subjects can live out vicariously through him, what it would be like to be an individual without the customary restraints imposed upon the average man in the interests of society. The dictator is a spoiled brat who need not follow logic or reason; his will alone is sufficient to move the gears of the world. He is capricious, arrogant, unreasonable, unpredictable. He is the grievance of the everyman run amok over every other locus of power.

He murders intellectuals, which everyman sees as being elitist; he expropriates businesses and properties everyman perceives as ill-gotten gains; he purges foreigners from the country, which everyman believes are invaders displacing the natives. See a familiar pattern emerging?

What are the real differences between dictatorships of the right, and dictatorships of the left. One historical difference: the left had a well elaborated and systematic ideology that dealt with the origins of exploitation, as well as the solution to that exploitation, the inheritance of the earth by the exploited. The ceaseless flow of history has an internal dynamic as well which explains how social systems evolve: thesis and antithesis. history is the continual transcendence of the latters internal contradictions...

The right, of recent history, has mostly been a purely reactionary force i.e., anti-communist, or anti-foreign or both. In America, its metamorphisized from anti-communist to anti-immigrant, though the two are not exclusionary. Not only an aversion to foreigners, but foreign ideas: e.g.,socializsed medicine, International law, evolution (for the Christian right).

In America, all this talk of left and right dictatorship is a bit simplistic: there are left-wing right wingers and right-wing left-wingers, and perhaps further gradations within these categories. Political success and ideological purity are not good bedfellows; everyone follows the political current to some degree or drowns. But America is not ultimately ruled by Dictatorships of the left or right, but a Democracy which is nothing more than the technique of how to gain political power. No surprise in a world that worships the at the altar of technical progress.

It is strange to contemplate, but nevertheless possible, that the current administration with its dismal approval rating forged from disdain for any law or rights that obstructs or mitigates executive power, may be, by the radical nature of its hubris and belief that will power triumphs over reason, the best warning we will ever have, why radical darkness should not appear too radical. Those who sold war to the nation and tax cuts to the struggling classes, failed to win favor by the glaring failures of their policies.

The buffoon who would be dictator is soon history; and so is the idea of a plausible dictatorship being run by a commoner in military clothing. The secret of the American rich is that most people fear the masses (an inkling of their won dangerous conformity?), and therefore sympathize with the elites continuing ability, to milk the national udder of a very sick cow before the townspeople awake to the end of the spigot...

Beverly Hills Bukkake

2008-06-09T04:31:00.000-07:00

Does anyone even remotely have a sense of how many times both the left and right have talked about "justice" for some group or someone?? Justice for crime victims (on the right); justice for working people(on the left). Sometimes they use "justice" in terms of compensation; other times its a very nebulous concept involving everything from broadcasting a peoples horrible plight to mass mobilization of do-gooders to reverse a perceived injustice. But they are always-both sides-talking about injustice, not from the viewpoint of the actually aggrieved;but only from the viewpoint of the "conscience of the world" from which they happen to be the quintessential example. Sure, its always about control: its also about self-preservation. should justice be done by the wronged, they might want revenge in exact proportion to harm inflicted. Which would often be catastrophic for the accused, especially in relation to foreign adventurism by the big powers; one mans pleasure is another's torture...

Whenever the lingering echoes of "justice" reverberate for the oppressed or the unfortunate, some unduly skeptical people always want to know why, in this world of ulterior motives and spineless affirmation of winners, would anyone want to jump to the defense of the downtrodden, especially when one considers that life is almost always a zero sum game. Aren't losers supposed to lose, given their limitations and incompetence at solving their own problems? If we bailout those inept at self-sufficiency, we will have a natural increase in birdbrains, and place a greater burden upon the successful to keep bailing them out, thus diverting much attention from the project of advancing the race. Bend down to one and we're all bent...

To both the right and the left, justice is predominantly associated with fairness; in the case of the left, fairness would be compensation and/or assistance from the rich to the poor, reparations for using exploitative methods including violence to undermine constitutional rights and equitable distribution of wealth. To the right-the old right or "Paleoconservatives"-fairness is giving everyone an equal shot at wealth and success, without the skewed coercion of government or the unscrupulous acts of individuals utilizing violence and fraud to gain economic advantage. To each according to their honest effort and ability. No robbing Peter to pay Paul...

There are more radical strains on the ideological continuum which take freedom and egalitarianism to very purified and austere heigths: We are born klutzes or ballerinas, none of us earning or working for our genetic endowment, so much of our ability depending upon those twisted strands of instructions, that the only possible way to level the playing field so distorted
by natures random favoritism, is to procreative assistance to those less genetically fortunate.
Develop a public sperm banks, a national ovum repositorys. By IQ and income, balance the genetic equation: upper 10 percent of distribution give to 90th percentile; upper 20 to 80th etc...
Robbing rich Peters to pay pauper Pauls...

Would we have those hot-headed revolutionaries unwilling to give legal channels there extended benefit of the doubt, robbing sperm banks left and right, until the Elmers Glue-of-life was running in the storm drains, the cities glistening from space with the socialistic-sauce of prick-pudding?

It's Better than Beverly Hills Bukkake...

Its All Greek to Me

2008-06-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

I read a letter to the editor of our local paper, concerning the relationship between homosexuality and the decline of empires. According to the writer--who came from a well-heeled part of town--history has shown that homosexuality contributed greatly to the decline of the Greek and Roman empires. There were high levels of male homosexuality in both the Greek and Roman empires, both -eventually-declined, therefore, homosexuality caused, or partially caused, the decline.

I don't believe she was suggesting that they became homosexuals in the later stages of their empire, and thereby began the slide into the abyss. I know of no credible historian that cryptically decoded the sacking of Rome by the vandals as an anti-gay hate crime...

I recall with unusual clarity, notes written by a student in the margin of one Socratic dialog:"Queers!" This students anti-gay slant was aimed particularly at Socrates; guess really brilliant Greeks were gay long before the destruction of the city-states. Why doesn't anybody correlate extraordinary brilliance with homosexuality? The Greeks were marvels of mathematics , philosophy and architecture: Is anyone suggesting homosexuality caused a great civilization?

I know San Francisco has a sizable gay population; therefore, one would assume it should be in a rapidly declining state, just cataclysm shy of a social Pompei. It seems to be holding its own as a political trailblazer, as well as a cultural and business epicenter. I don't know if my heart will ever truly reside there-but I'd sure as hell rather bear San Francisco's worst than the best of theocratic, sexual astringency...

Say No to Medication

2008-05-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

It's rather ironic that a society which continually deplored the Baby-Boomers experimentation with drugs is now trying to ply them with every conceivable elixir to stave off inevitable death. A pill to make you shit more; a pill to thin the blood while your bowels reboot; and a continual plea to smooth aging skin and wake up permanently hibernating penises...

Of course, modern commercials cannot just sell you a product; they have to sell you an entire way of being. Men that used to pee like geysers are now fishing for marlin without a care in the world (they get all the fucking social security, why shouldn't they be happy?); men who couldn't get it up and get it on are now laughing easily with their wives-divorce was immanent until a cavalry of erections blew in and saved the day...Grandma is now a carefree motorcycle mama on the back of her grandsons bike; she wears adult pampers now, she is free to pursue more romantic ventures, like rumbling with a group of bikers on blood thinners.

The Hippies have come full-circle: It was not enough to take the mind on a "magical mystery tour;"now every organ in the body from the genitals to the to the brain must be swept away
on the transformative ambulance masquerading as the yellow submarine. but don't get on board until your certain your prostate has been adequately shrunk.

2008-05-25T14:05:00.001-07:00

Yes, many brave men (and woman) have died serving their country in time of need; who in America is not aware of the part war has played in our history, at the very least, they know our military is preeminent. Countries that maintain a military standing as advanced as ours, will always look for occasions upon which to exercise their expertise...

Why should Memorial day be only for the soldiers that have prosecuted wars; how about those who died innocent citizens, caught in the geopolitical intrigues which the top dogs decide must always be settled with forces other than their own physical presence. Given the outlandish hypocrisy of the war-crazed -fighting vicariously is synonymous with cowardice- the least they could do is honor the innocent victims that were guilty of no other crime than getting in the way of a megalomaniacs vision...

The "peaceniks" who sacrificed to save innocents have all but been forgotten: Even Martin Luther King, is solely remembered for his civil rights work, and very little for his fiery tirades against the Vietnam War or economic injustices at home.

Who ever mentions the 3 nus and one lay missionary who were brutally abducted, raped, and murdered in El Salvador in 1980, while our leaders continued to stoke the civil war with millions of dollars in military aid to the generals? Alexander Haig had outrageously suggested, that perhaps they had been caught in a crossfire between opposing forces. The first victim of war is the truth...

My father, who died last year, was in the Merchant Marine at the end of World War II, was a cold warrior for several years with the intelligence services (against a genuinely evil empire that did have the military capability to inflict major damage to our country, and still does), and was, for a long time, an independent with both conservative and liberal tendencies depending on subject matter. I remember-vividly-an argument we had about Chinese communism, when I was a political child of 23. We were yelling with such volumes we scared my sister half to death; I think she thought we were about to-literally-throttle each other, but we both ,eventually, ran out of intellectual ammunition. I was on the side of the Chinese communists: that the West had no right to impose their scheme of things on the east, especially in the context of the Opium Wars. Luckily, you have the right to naivete, especially at age 23, but I don't remember my father mentioning this particular lapse in judgment in any subsequent discussions.

What my father did do, especially in his later years, was to become a vociferous and continual critic of our collective desire to implement war, not as the ultima ratio, but as the predominant form of diplomacy. He came to see the entire American enterprise as dangerously veering away
from decency and responsibility; like a teen car thief racing through a neighborhood deaf and dumb to the possibilities of killing children.

It is a shame my father had to die, with the war machine lead by President Bush still in full throttle. Death is inevitable; Government sponsored wars are not. Here's a toast to both my father and Jean Donovan (American nun in El Salvador), witnesses and dreamers of better lives than our political choices seem to deserve.

Noise and the Hood

2008-05-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

Certain primates, among other animals, let out ear-splitting warnings when confronted with danger. A human corollary to this is the gun shot in the air, a warning to advance no further.
Amplified sound has been used to negotiate with criminals, as well as to disseminate concert sounds to a large audience. there are myriad and legitimate uses of of intentional loudness...

Their is another species of primate however, that appears to indulge in mindless hyper-sonics for the sole purpose of amusement, and a childish stab at attention grabbing. One of the most egregious is known as the Harley rider. Harley's, which come out of the factory quiet, are fitted with pipes that make them reset peoples teeth within a ten block radius. Imagine a chainsaw on steroids performing a heavily amplified concert.

The mystery is to how and why damaging their own and others hearing increases the enjoyment of riding a motorcycle: Has mass man induced so much anonymity in your average fellow that the only way toward identity is beating the crowds ear drums with an internal combustion hammer? Do these dim creatures believe peace and quiet is a type of appeasement, which offends the military virtues? Perhaps the increasing rarity of things made in America drives one to advertise in a highly visible and offensive way, that good ol' American know-how is still highly capable of inducing blood pressure changes at a distance?

whatever the ultimate motivation, the burly Harley with chain saw chorus seems a phenomenon of middle age males (at least in these parts); so it has something to do with that fuzzy syndrome of aging panic called male menopause. Yet there is a parallel and even more prevalent noise factory called the "boom car," which is the acoustic equivalent of mad bombing, done to maximize bass output and rumble through each neighborhood the boomer drifts through. This is exclusively practiced by the young; often white suburban/exurban children, who have cloned this behavior from outlaw media culture (not to mention being a more aggressive update of 70s stereo vans. Certainly the originators of hip hop culture and their disciples utilized this as a form of protest: "I boom therefore I am," but the hijacking of every aggressive black pose by white wannabees, probably has its origins in that never-ending scourge of suburbia and exurbia-boredom.

There are laws against this, seldom enforced as the police have more vicious fish to fry; perhaps some older Americans look at booming as another form of the anguished cry, and given the future they will be leaving their progeny, have empathy for these base-inflected complaints.
In the face of Iraq and mounting deficits, falling dollars and fleeing jobs, not to mention energy costs that my make suburbia and cruising the technical equivalent of Dom Perignon, one could easily argue that the meekness of booming is what's truly shocking...

Westward Homo!!

2008-05-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

The news is in: California, that bastion of promiscuity and Ultra-liberal legions of leftist libertarians, has legalized the abomination of desolation: gay marriage. As we speak, the call is going out to the pro-family reactionary forces, to reconstitute the drive to limit marriage legally to heterosexual couples. Makes sense to me. Heterosexual marriage should be a monopoly; it sure couldn't stand up to any competition. Its the Microsoft of cultural institutions: Kill or be killed...

One of the old reactionary activist arguments is bound to resurface again with vigor: this is the first step in a constitutional amendment banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since Necrophiliacs and child molesters, among other moral miscreants, have differing sexual orientations, this is leading to that slippery slope of allowing and vindicating their harmful perversions. Yeah, right...What happens between two consenting adults has little to do with what happens between a living and a dead body, not to mention someone who cannot legally consent. Of course, their are some mental Lilliputians who believe molestation of boys equals homosexuality; which is an interesting argument, when contemplating the fact that the majority of molestation is heterosexual!

I know you could lay down coherent and reasonable arguments in favor of homosexual rights until you've hyperventilated and passed out and still not convince those who believe it is a sinful abomination. If one has to explain to others why, in a pluralistic society, you must defend those
who engage in consensual practices, consistent with the non-interference with the rights of others to their own consensual practices, your society is imperfectly pluralistic (and perhaps educationally shabby).

There is controversy concerning biblical treatment of homosexuality; some contending that you can't be gay and Christian. Let us accept this: Homosexuality is incompatible with Christianity.
Marriage existed before Christianity; therefore, homosexuality is not incompatible with marriage. those homosexuals who believe the church should change in this arena, are left to fight the good fight. but this fight within the church is irrelevant to the question of marriage in general: those opposed to gay and lesbian marriage, would definitely not be for it simply by keeping it out of the church, any more than they would approve of sodomy by keeping it out of Orange county and Colorado Springs!

Go westward young gay man!

Collective Blindness

2008-05-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Suppose you had just died, were whisked-off to heaven immediately, and found yourself looking down upon the Middle East, no longer fearing the repercussions of any lucid analysis, no longer fearing the label "terrorist-lover" or "antisemitic" because you're already dead and risen; you're remarkable capabilities concerning objectivity has come after life, yet better late than never. what do you see?

You see an Iraq led by people who were dissidents backed by Iran during Hussein's reign; You see an America getting ready to bomb an Iran that is no credible threat to America, being that America has installed pro-Iranian Shiites in government! Iraq was never a threat to America either: no weapons of mass destruction, outside of the republican parties war councils, were ever found!

Since you are in heaven now, without fear of lying humanities repercussions, you can say it loud and clear: only Israel is threatened by an Iran that's allied with Hezbollah; only Israel was threatened by a Hussein that lobbed a few ancient missiles their way during the First Gulf War.
We know the size and power of AIPAC; what size and power does the peace movement have?
If these are not Israeli proxy wars, and Israel is not the mover and shaker, how come nobody but the purported "lunatic" fringe of the far right can dare whisper the Israeli connection. All and I mean all of the major candidates up to and including the primaries have been unwavering in their bellicose support for Israel, including Clinton's famous "obliterate" remarks. they may not agree on much, but they know which way the winds blow in Washington concerning the anointed kingdom...

Don't believe me?? Show me any major presidential candidate in the last 30 years not to support Israel; only Cuban expatriates in Miami get a similar nod...Of course I am very old fashion: I thought it was AMERICAN foreign policy. One word of caution to Homo-Zion; if America tanks through unsustainable conflicts in multiple theaters, who you gonna call up for the next murderous round???

P.S. To those robots wanting automatically to ascribe these notes to a rabid anti-semite, I have a very simple answer for you. The Likudnik way of life has pretty much dominated the scene since the founding of Israel 60 years ago...Is Israel secure? Perhaps the accusers are covering
up by bellicose labeling the alarming suicide note they have written in the blood of anyone who would dissent from them. Freedom of thought, to any cult, is equivalent to death.

Let there be no misunderstanding: given the plight of the Jews from Masada to the Holocaust, I see no other reasonable course of action save the establishment of Israel. I believe it would have greatly enhanced America to let as many Jews settle here as wanted to come here. America put on quotas; I know I know. I merely have to defend the greatness of the Jewish people, to believe in the great things they have accomplished, and to fight vociferously against the reactionary elements who believe me must assent to every action of Israel in order to absolve ourselves of collective guilt over the Jew-hating West...

The New Hoosier Hysteria

2008-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

O Boy! Today, Indiana steps out of the long shadow of useless primaries into the light of meaningful electoral dialog with the nation. What we want will be heard; we finally have some clout. Honestly, I cannot remember a time in Indiana when people actually seemed excited about a presidential primary. I used to work them in the the late 80's and early 90's and often you would be ready to take a siesta by 3 p.m., the afternoon was emptiness between the morning and evening trickle. It was difficult to obtain precinct workers; most were retirees...

This primary our attention spans and our staying power have been substantially upgraded. The motivational psychologists were right: people do have to believe they are meaningful to the whole project, to get the best response form them. Hillary has made one hundred stops; Barack has kept pace, and the whirl-wind of political fervor seems to have rubbed off on more regional elections as well. There is going to be a serious challenger for Dan Burton's congressional spot! that in and of itself should cause celebration. Indiana has enough problems with lost manufacturing jobs; we don't need Burton's moronic persona to further goad the public into thinking we're outcasts of the American dream...

Will the Hoosier wallflower at last become the belle of the political ball? Not likely, but it sure is fun getting in the door to waltz with the big boys.

"Out Damned Persian Spot"

2008-05-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

Barack has been permanently blacklisted by some over the reverend debacle. Here's Hilary:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

This was on television to a national audience. Ill give her this, she isn't jockeying for an honorary degree from Tehran University. Why threatening an entire country with obliteration is playing second-fiddle to a church affiliation might tell you more about the current American zeitgeist than
any sociologist...

George Bush and the United Methodist Church

2008-04-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Since commentators have been hammering Obama on his membership in Reverend Wrights church, which to them literally entails that Obama is chock-full of the same purportedly anti-American mischief as Reverend Wright, why not pursue a cursory glance at Dubya's faith and church and see if he inevitably has acted along the lines of its basic tenets. Bush has been a member of the United Methodist church since the late 70s; surely this constitutes an endorsement of it's basic principles. Surely an individual as staunchly independent as Dubya pretends to be wouldn't let the lifetime membership of his wife sway him, would he?

This is excerpted for The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church:

Health is a condition of physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being, and we view it as a responsibility—public and private. Health care is a basic human right. Psalm 146 speaks of the God “who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.” The right to health care includes care for persons with brain diseases, neurological conditions or physical disabilities, who must be afforded the same access to health care as all other persons in our communities. It is unjust to construct or perpetuate barriers to physical or mental wholeness or full participation in community.
We encourage individuals to pursue a healthy lifestyle and affirm the importance of preventive health care, health education, environmental and occupational safety, good nutrition, and secure affordable housing in achieving health. We also recognize the role of governments in ensuring that each individual has access to those elements necessary to good health. Countries facing a public health crisis such as HIV/AIDS must have access to generic medicines and to patented medicines without infringing on a pharmaceutical company's patent/licensing rights. We affirm the right of men and women to have access to comprehensive reproductive health/family planning information and services which will serve as a means to prevent unplanned pregnancies, reduce abortions and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

This is the Basic book of principles for the United Methodist church and is taken directly from their website. Makes you believe your reading a private excerpt of Dubya's diary doesn't it?
Believe me, it gets worse for Dubya the further we move into the church’s principles, especially the economic ones, that call-for example- for the prevention of wealth concentration. It actually seems a rather complete survey of everything George Dubya doesn’t believe. It seems to be a wing of socialist-sissy environmentalists. I don’t recall anyone warning us of this possibility after
noting his church affiliation. Perhaps George engineered this economic collapse in order to necessitate a heavy government hand nationalizing key industries in one lightning thrust of the socialist calvary…

In other words, don’t count your church affiliation principles before they hatch…

The "Persian" Gulf

2008-04-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

To the Bush administration, war is the thing with feathers. Nothing as wimpy as dialogue or negotiation can hope to accomplish much in the face of radical terror; kill or be killed, says the great bastion of freedom and democracy.

Now we have the Pentagon announcing for "potential military courses of action" against Iran. Sure we're a little bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this should not be construed by the enemy to mean we have lost all military flexibility for further action, we are not "out of combat capability."

Though the Pentagon continues aim its bellicose rhetoric directly toward Iran, mostly for supplying Shiites with munition and training, the solution still lies in other means of coercion, including "diplomatic, financial and international pressure.” Why a world that wants nothing to do with our incursion into Iraq would want to risk interrupting Persian oil supplies, not to mention sending your average Iranian into spasms of nationalism, is not explored. Unlike Bear-Stearns, no bailout seems forthcoming...

The Exploitation of the Idea of "Small-Town" America

2008-04-21T18:19:00.000-07:00

We here in the loony boonies know the shifty fellers up top in D-town be badgering us something terrible concerning authenticity...Authenticity is the key to everything. You don't want a painting that looks exactly like a Renoir-you want a Renoir, period. Ditto concerning the dues you pay before seeking the nations highest office: Better to be a totally clueless schmuck who tanked every challenge, than some elitist snob with a fancy education and tendencies at erudition and/or irony.

The "authentic" American masses are those simple folk who look to God and family as integral parts in helping alleviate the tribulations of those that toil with their bodies, and don't flee north when defending their country. God, Guns and NASCAR, not necessarily in that order.

Yes. Absolutely there is truth in the above, the black-velvet Elvis painting of sociology. However, as many empirically oriented folks might point out, America is changing so durn fast, you better take every broad social description with a bolder of sodium chloride. It isn't your fathers small town.

The sad truth: City slickers like to bypass the failings of of the "conservative" resurgence and global capitalism and move to the hinterlands to escape crime, immigrants, and other big city
maladies. Often they don't seem to mind or notice their small towns go the way of the buffalo in the exodus of hopeful whites. Hopeful to return to clean air and more space, greatly constricting both with their need for new roads and other infrastructure, not to mention another combustion engine farting into the farm air. The criminals begin to realize where all the money is going; just follow the unaffordable cars to the homes about to be foreclosed. hell the thieves probably think their doing them a favor by cleaning the house out before the move from shame.

Go to any library in a small town and look at the archives of the paper: you'll see a host of gruesome accidents over the years and a few suicides as well. Mostly derived from crushing boredom, which has been alleviated somewhat in recent history. There has to be something thriving about a small town these days or it pretty much turns to dust and a pizza parlor. When you talk with somebody in Uzbekistan and they understand some of your modern cultural references, its difficult to believe that small town folk are really that sequestered form the problems gnawing at your city dweller. High prices follow the dirt roads; soaring fuel rockets off toward the hinterland.

If America has become a ripoff, that appears to be relatively easy to understand, and pretty difficult to swallow, for the hick or the cosmopolitan, regardless of their sophisticated world weariness or apple-pie naivete.

George Wills Defense of the "Small Town"

2008-04-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Baracks "elitist" exhaust, is accumulating like Midwestern coal-fired soot, and beginning to rain out acid over the Northeast.

George Will, that bastion of small-town conservatism, is appalled by Barack's implications that ""their primitivism, superstition and bigotry are balm for resentments they feel because of Americas grinding injustice." I am awfully thankful for Georges elaboration of Barack's hidden meaning; as I am from the heartland, and would never have come close to gleaning all that from his gaffe...Mercifully, George condenses Barack's dense condescending:...'he said they "cling" to guns, religion and "antipathy to people who aren't like them" because of "frustrations."'

Interesting. You see, the liberal politician is one who is always promising everything to everyone, and always being two-faced to the electorate while playing elitist power politics behind their backs and hijacking the country in the name of think-tank syllogisms. Right. Barack sure is slick: " Hey middle America, You're a bunch of goddamn bigots who act like racist white militia because your frustrated at being too stupid to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps in the greatest country in the world.

O, wait a second. He didn't say that in Middle America, he said it in SAN FRANCISCO, the Sodom and Gomorrah of the West, where sodomy meets with socialism, and leftist agents of Beijing plan another massive increase in the minimum wage, not to mention legalizing marijuana smoking before the SAT's...

This is the interesting thing about the right (there has to be something). They talk about the elitist liberals and their stereotyping of middle-America as a bunch of bible-thumping yahoos
ventilating abortion clinics with AK-47's, then they turn around and typecast virtually everyone who does not agree with them on foreign policy as unpatriotic; everyone who doesn't agree with them on health care is for socialized medicine (is that a recognized sin anyway?); All who don't attend church regularly are amoral barbarians bent sacking the erotic Rome of their daughters bodies; Feminists destroy families and have castration fetishes concerning men; people against the death penalty have no concern for the victims of brutal crime. On and On and on ad infinitum they go, reducing the complexity of the middle and left-spectrum of American politics to the crudest buzz words of political expediency. But they sure get offended if anyone notices their latest miserable act of manipulating the working man in the guise of sympathy(that is best felt at a distance of course). Seems to me George, you might just want to settle down in Middle America, rather than get an M.A. at Oxford and a PhD. at Yale, then move to Washington D.C.
But then, your former wife says consistency is not your strong suit...

But then, George and the right, have always been the victims of the liberal mafia, and when fighting such an overwhelming force bent on liquidating all individuality and corrupting all youth, anything-literally anything-goes.

Reading George you realize that the rules of decency and fair play must be suspended by those chosen to bring the torch of liberty to the next generation. Unfortunately for them, the victims of their righteousness have been paying attention to their hypocrisy, and I'm sure when revenge
arrives like the hordes at the gates of Vienna, it wont be overly concerned as the sandy foundations of their principles are blown back into the reactionary desert that begat them...

Bravo Hofstadter! (I know George: His theories and erudition is condescending, while your pretensions are sincerely humble and our primarily aimed at factory workers, short-order
cooks, and people from Muncie with Downs Syndrome).

Obamas Unforgivable Gaffe

2008-04-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

The selfless defenders of public dignity have alerted us to another linguistic blaspheming of the working-class man, Barack Obama's (private??) remarks concerning the "bitterness" of many small town people in America. Lovely to be told by the reactionary intelligentsia, just how "elitist" and "out of touch" Barack really is; they are, after all, the professionals concerning that subject.

Here, laid before you, a Harvard-trained, uppity black man's condescending attitude toward
Middle-America:

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”

I will temporarily suspend the narrative to permit a moment of righteous derision!

The following are a mid-westerners (30 plus years) interpretations of these purportedly divisive and insulting remarks. I live in a working class neighborhood and might very well die in one (infinitely preferable to rotting in the aseptic atmosphere of a "retirement community").

Barack was clearly saying this: when people become frustrated and attacked by difficult to define forces, they immediately cling to the familiar, and immediately blame the unfamiliar. The entire process of globalization is extremely complicated, with multiple players and villains, and it is difficult to understand culpability for the good and the bad that goes along with it, which is why people tend to blame what they can actually see-which is immigrants, flooding into neighborhoods where before there were working class white Americans with regular, well paying manufacturing jobs. They don't have direct access to CEOs; they don't have the financial expertise to untangle the labyrinth of the modern financial system; immigrants stand as a visible and convenient whipping boy...

Seems to me he is just reiterating a truism: people don't blame who is responsible, they blame who is available(think Iraq). If people want to tag someone with the elitist label for telling them a somewhat unflattering truth about themselves, they no longer want to be helped.

I wager it is wiser to first behold the mote within our own small-town Midwestern eyes, before reaching to remove those in the cosmopolitan corridors of power (who put them there?)

Bush's War

2008-03-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Watched "Bush's War" on PBS: nothing groundbreaking, though the cumulative effect of the entire series convinced me how convoluted the etiology of this tragedy was and is...

Strangest of all, is the arrival of the imperial vice-president, who seems to have the presidents ear exclusively when it comes to the really big decisions with lasting impact. Rice, the National Security Adviser, seems to expend the majority of her energy attempting to be heard above the roar of Cheney and Rumsfeld; she doesn't have any real role at all until she is given the assignment of reigning-in Bremer during the "occupation" phase.

There is-and continues to be-a civil war between the Pentagon and State Department; Colin Powell's only major victory seems to be going through the diplomatic motions for the U.N., and delivering the flaw-riddled speech that had journalists fawning and those in-the-know shaking their collective heads. His "resignation" seemed inevitable from the start; the broken Iraq Mr. Powell predicted we would "own" ends up breaking him as well...

Who has forsaken whom?

2008-03-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Easter has come and gone. None of my friends-with a few very passionate exceptions-have much interest in Jesus Christ or his resurrection. I would like to think they are too appalled by the continuing transgressions of a political elite headed by a supposed Christian, to ever lay claim to the exhausted church and its receding promises. Where are the Christians when you need them? Where are the inheritors of Jesus Christ legacy when history calls for peacemakers to combat the militant couch-warriors? I know there have been protests; I know there have been witnesses and soldiers willing to testify about the wars true nature, its costs and its burdens can only come alive in the context of lives snuffed and suffering borne. But the most passionate protests to the atrocity of this conflict have not come from Christian quarters; and the burden of seeding peace in the soil of mindless violence should fall heavily upon Christians, for what state should the people of faith fear?

Only with the resurrection is their any hope in Christianity; and there can be no resurrection without the Crucifixion. Many "moderns" probably reject hope through violence, regardless of
its origins; or more accurately, they believe in a loving God who could not perpetrate any acts of violence, regardless of the reasons. Why exactly extend your faith only to something that conforms to your understanding; shouldn't the supernatural ultimately be unfathomable?

Most people I know would never move into a neighborhood without checking out the inhabitants first. The only broker mediating before eternity in this version is Christ, and the view he gives of the heavenly neighborhood is pretty sketchy. People these days tend to want their heavens fleshed out with inordinate amounts of blingy detail; their churches must deal out salvation with hefty doses of social support in the form of child care and emotional support groups.

Maybe the problem with Easter and the promise of Christ is akin to the lottery: In ages of uncertainty everything must be upfront, not meted out over an extended period. Any eternity promised must be "in an hour."

Israel

2008-03-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Israel is on the war path again: Palestinian rockets across the border have welcomed another incursion into Gaza, replete with air strikes and "collateral damage." An Israeli human rights group reports, that within the last 4 years, 13 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket attacks; 1000 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied territories in retaliation. Israel remains the predominant symbol of western imperialism to the Arabs; the majority of the West thinks of it as another bulwark against Arab hegemony in the region, as well as those powers who utilize the Arabs as proxies.

Palestinians have internal divisions to deal with: Most liberation movements have factions disagreeing on the appropriate level of violence to achieve their ends, and Fatah and Hamas are no different. Certainly the same could be said for internal divisions within Israel: Some prominent Jewish-American advocates of Israel, by being incapable of faulting her and accusing anyone who does of rabid anti-semitism, indirectly give carte-blanche to unlimited military force, often with greater zeal than many Israelis. But of course the American Jews already have a country to live in; how easy it is to be a vicarious cheerleader for bloodshed.

Those who believe Israel is a concoction of western imperialism, and would not have even been necessary if the U.S. had not interrupted large quantities of immigrating Jews by severe quotas -not to mention South Africa's Aliens Acts designed to limit Jewish immigration in response to Nazi Ascendancy-are certainly a minority in America. More likely Western historical guilt plays a predominate role in current U.S policy, which is masked adroitly as divine mandate. Why any country should be granted immunity for any conceivable action, while simultaneously touting their democracy and free society as proof of their legitimacy, is a question not asked in political circles fearing the anti-semitic label...

The Jews have been disproportionate contributors to everything that makes the West worth defending-why should they be forgiven for bailing on those values? (shouldn't they know better than your average reactionary schmuck?)

Through a Republican Darkly

2008-03-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

Calling all political autopsy wonks: can anyone fathom the long-term behavior of John McCain? Why exactly has he forgiven the Bush administration that once insinuated he was mentally ill? OK, forgiveness might be reasonable, but welcoming an endorsement? Bush's approval rating has remained consistently beneath the cellar, is McCain attempting to show his lack of ulterior motivation and the purity of his patriotism ?

The Bush administration views greenhouse gas emissions as another form of freedom of speech; regards torture as a question of expediency; thinks tax cuts during wartime are to be applauded as we grow our way to supply-side Nirvana. Perhaps the media, by clinging to John McCain's reputation as an honorable dissident among republican yes-men, may have missed the ideological boat when it comes to an overall assessment of the Senator.

Surely McCain understands that posturing himself as an expert at handling the nations fragile international standing, will be rather useless in the face of bankruptcy and mounting debt, Medicares looming insolvency, not to mention the dive bombing dollar and skyrocketing commodity prices. Do people really care or believe that you can have viable international security while starving and wandering the streets looking for a free clinic??

John, better stop promising them victory in Iraq and concentrate, at least to some extent, on populist discontent with the economic order. Greenbacks before Green zone should be your mantra...

(Demonstrating how the war in Iraq is accelerating economic insecurity would not be in the best interests of a Super-hawk with the testosterone of illusory victory coursing through his senior veins)

Cant We Stop Hurting Each Other?

2008-03-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Ohio primary is beginning to recede, and the pundits tell us that exit polls demonstrated the economy was numero uno in the minds of Buckeye voters. One can further deduce form this that they may trust Hillary a tad more in economic matters than Barack; maybe her route will be particularly pleasing to a manufacturing state that has been devastated by job flight via outsourcing.

One of the primary tactics both candidates have utilized to show their "solidarity" with blue collar workers is opposition to NAFTA. Hilary is accused-by Barack- of trying to distance herself from an agreement she once praised, while Barack is accused-by Hillary- of manufacturing misleading statistics about job loss in the Buckeye state. Regardless of the obvious brown-nosing of two prosperous individuals toward those of lesser economic fortunes, their main problem in criticizing NAFTA is the lack of consistent portrayals as to its net effect on the U.S. economy.

One of the dirtier tricks to prevent clarity in this debate is to claim net job gain, without simultaneously investigating the types of jobs created vs the types of jobs lost. There are certainly jobs out there to replace the manufacturing jobs; only immigrants escaping poverty or recently released ex-cons could possibly believe most service jobs are a viable way to support ones family.

Meanwhile, while the candidates all promise to reverse the course of America 180 degrees in the time it takes to get a bartenders license, the dollar continues to fall as precipitously as a politician accused of sexual impropriety. The real estate bubble continues to pop like small weapons fire in a growing guerrilla war, and none dare say that our primary problem might be, like in so many other countries from Mexico to Nigeria, the corruption of our leaders and so-called leading citizens...

Giving a Hand

2008-03-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

I was looking at my fingers the other day, thinking about all the things and people they have touched, all the buttons they have pushed, all the words they've tapped out on keyboard. Even a few years playing scales and memorizing music which now seems long ago. Hard to think of where I'd be had I been born with flippers; impossible to imagine civilization altogether without the dexterity of hands and an opposable thumb.

Part of this concerned reflection upon the young men and woman who are sacrificing life, and even more often limb, in operation Iraqi freedom. What prospects for employment does a returning vet have without arms? Even a missing hand or foot is a terrible hardship, especially if one were a gifted artist, athlete or musician. Probably the smallest cost of war is in the dollars flushed down the productive drain to serve death. Human loss is beyond all sensible costs to tally.

Yet our politicians have asked the young repeatedly to sacrifice life and limb, several times in the last half-century, even though there was no direct threat to the mainland-all done to service the alarmist predictions of hygienic intellectuals who never visited a battlefield. Guess to them the love of war stops at actual service. After all, were they to get killed, how many future wars would the globe be deprived of? How many artificial limb makers would lose their jobs; what would become of research into the ultimate bionic limb?