Saturday, October 30, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Yes, We Got Fooled Again!
As mid-terms approach, here's an appraisal of Obamerica, 2008-present:
The Good: George W. Bush stopped being President.
The Bad: January 21, 2009 - Present.
The Ugly: Afghan surge, 55 days of silence on the Gulf Oil Disaster, opposition to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," opposition to Prop 19, scapegoating teachers, empowering Republicans, condescending to the American people (for the sake of personal sanity and organization, I will stop there).
Two years ago the big worry was that Obama would lose to McCain-Palin, or that if he won, he'd get Martin Luther King-ed (assassinated). As these epic nightmares subsided, they deferred to a more realistic, insidious, and chronic nightmare.
The Agenda Remains the Same.
No, that's not the echo of Robert Plant from 1971, that's me, today, and you know I'm right. No matter what happens, what approach is taken, bold or patient, working within the system or rebellious activism, America is the land where nothing changes, where nothing good is ever going to happen again.
Let me skip around now since I'm too angry to be systematic about this. Last week, a front-page NY Times article reported gross discrepencies in arrests for marijuana possession for Black males compared to whites, even though statistics show whites use marijuana as much if not more than Blacks. So what does attorney general Eric Holder do? His best Bush-Cheney hardass authoriarian imitation, declaring that the White House will, by god, prosecute marijuana offenses in California, the democratic process be damned. May I ask how such a move is either politically practical or socially desirable? One, such a position is conservative, and Americans voted for Obama presumably because they were tired of conservatism and the widespread misery, failure, and destruction it has left in its wake in the name of abstract principles, like morality, "small government" and patriotism. But conservatives hate Obama's guts, and no matter how much he tries to mimic them or "work with" them, their undying mission in life is to live to see the day he is no longer President, period.
Okay then. Sometimes politicians do things knowing the consequences will work against them politically, but such moves are socially desirable, e.g. "the right thing" to do. LBJ has been quoted as saying that he was turning over the entire South to the Republicans when he signed the Civil Rights Act into law during the 1960s. He knew both he and his party would suffer politically as a consequence of formally endorsing Civil Rights by using his executive powers to make civil rights the law, but it was (and still is) the right thing to do.
The NY Times article on racist enforcement of marijuana laws likened them to Jim Crow laws, and the comparison is not only valid but impossible to ignore. The law, generally speaking, is a menace to society more often than it is an asset; the law and justice are not the same thing, and the law undermines justice more often than the law upholds justice. Any rebuttal to this point amounts to circular reasoning. As King wrote in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" there are just laws and unjust laws. The former apply to everyone equally, the latter only to a specific group.
Cannabis prohibition is an unjust law on at least two levels. As the NY Times article makes clear, its enforcement effects discrimination against blacks. It also discriminates against all recreational cannabis users, who unlike those who indulge in alcohol, nicotene, gambling, and "vices," cannot do so without risk of arrest and the attendant punishments and disgrace. So we have a legal system that says the drinker can drink, the nicotene-head can blaze down nicotene joints, the gamblers can blow their life savings out on the river boat, but cannabis users can't light up. Thus, cannabis prohibition is an unjust law because it's a law that apply only to one group and not everyone. Either vices are legal or they aren't. It prohibits indulgence in one group's vice but says it's OK for the other groups to indulge in their vice. If we really want to stop drugs, we have to stop all of them, and end all drug use, not just the drug use that drunks aren't interested in while they pour more money into slot machines and puff on nicotene joints.
Opposing Prop 19, then, obviously alienates liberals, progressives, and whatever other social groups that overlap in the venn diagram of people who are fans of the herb. But it also is NOT the right thing to do. Prohibition works against civil rights, equality, fairness, and justice. It is a bad law, driven by racism, perpetuated by a welfare system for police and the criminal justice system, and sustained by hate-mongering ignorance and hypocrisy.
The height of this hypocrisy is Obama himself, a (half-) black man who wouldn't have come within light years of a public water fountain, muchless the Oval Office, if the previous generation of Black leaders (King, et al.) had the conservative, status quo mentality Obama lives and governs by. The country is in economic dire straights. We have an overcrowded, overflowing prison system into which we put way more money than we do our failing and underfunded education system (see Kristoff's NY Times piece, 2010, Oct. 28 (and no, my failure to provide the link isn't because I'm stoned and unmotivated. If you don't want to find the article yourself, what have you been smoking? I'm a writer, not a filing cabinet.)).
Perpetuating Prop. 19 is neither socially desirable, nor politically practical. Continuing cannabis prohibition has no justification in either democratic principles or empirical study of its effects on individuals and society when compared with the effects of the above mentioned legal vices. The only rationale for opposing Prop 19 is to posture for the arch-conservative establishment that thinks Obama is a Kenyan socialist cousin of both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and perpetuate the hate-mongering strong-arm police state we have lived in for the last thirty years. Perpetuating the status quo seems a puzzling politicial move for a President who got elected on the platform of "change."
From the standpoint of the institutional racism prohibition perpetuates, Obama's opposition to Prop 19 is a disgrace not even his White House predecessor could match. This political move betrays the essence of conservatism: not wanting for others what you want for yourself. Obama is where he is today thanks to the passionate progressive politics of the previous generation. But unlike the icons of that era, Obama does not want the next generation of Americans in general and Blacks in particular to live in a more just, equal, and democratic world than the one he came of age--and rose to power--in. Yet, in taking this position, he achieves nothing poltically pragmatic--he will never be conservative enough for the conservatives who hate him. Thus, his tenure as President is marked by perpetuating socially undesirable oppression, discrimination, and fiscal blindness with no political pragmatism to reap. When you're failing as both an idealist and pragmatist, it might behoove you to consider that adhering to some ideals--like the social courage that made it possible for a (half-) black man to be President--is a practical thing to do, especially in politics.
Equally puzzling and bigoted is the Obama administration's opposition of a court ruling overturning "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military. What good does this achieve? Again, this move is neither socially desirable nor politically pragmatic. It perpetuates discrimination and degrading treatment of the LGBT community--which supported Obama in 2008--and alienates a demographic that it would seem politically pragmatic to keep in good favor.
And what has been the political gain of Obama's betrayal of his own race and the other progressive, oppressed groups that ardently supported him in 2008? Mitch McConnell's pledge that the top priority for the next Congress will be to make sure he is a one-term President.
Meanwhile, Obama and his cronies just issued a statement to educators, reminding them that they are required by federal law to intervene in the kind of bullying that recently drove a Rutgers student to commit suicide, a nationally-publicized tragedy that has brought to light other instances of suicides by young gay people hanging themselves. The vitriol of homo-haters -- and haters in general -- points to the futility of Obama's attempts at pragmatism, and the great cost in suffering Americans incur because of his inability to put his words and ideas into action. Regardless of his intentions, those of us who need to see the results the most are not seeing any results that would come from a socially desirable agenda. Thus, his pragmatism is a lost cause, and social progress has been stalled for yet another two years of human existence -- maybe not a long time if you're Obama, but certainly a long time if you're a gay teenager, or a black man in jail for a joint.
I'm sorry to tell you, but Obama is a smug jerk. He has used all of these people -- progressives and oppressed groups of all sorts -- to catapult him to realize a personal dream, and now that he's a member of the club, these people aren't cool enough to hang with him anymore. What does he tell John Stewart? "Change takes time. It doesn't happen overnight." Well now, that's inspiring and insightful isn't it? The country is stumbling through the aftershocks of thirty years of conservatism, and Obama wants to cater to the conservative establishment that hates him while telling the rest of us that the change we haven't seen for those thirty years takes time. What does he think we think "thirty years" is? The temperature? As always, Obama's demenour on the Daily Show was smug and reserved, a personality that in no way reflects either the passion of progressives or the urgency of people who's lives teeter on the edge of desperation. He was on the Daily show for one reason and one reason only: his own political interest. As soon as he walked off that set, everyone connected to the Daily Show ideology instantly became useless to him.
Society does not go in cycles like a washing machine. Society is organic. Like anything organic, societies can and do grow old and die. The telltale sign of anything dying is something that cannot recover from what ails it; it cannot revitalize itself; it cannot change because it has become exhausted and thus resigned to being set in its ways, never to go beyond its current status.
I wish I had a pragmatic political strategy for what to do about Obama's betrayal. Maybe it would be worth the short-term agony of deliberately working against the Democrats who have betrayed us and letting the Republicans regain power as a means of conditioning the Democrats to realize that if they ever want to get elected and hold onto power again, they must be a liberal party. The only reason anyone votes for them is they don't want a conservative party in power.
But I think 2000-2008 was already enough suffering and humiliation for a lifetime, so here's a somber thought: there may be no winning move. It's checkmate, and unless you're the King, you're fucked . . . no matter what.
That bit of nihilism aside, whatever approach you take to this coming Tuesday's elections and the American era that continues to unfold at this grim point in history, I would say that you can't expect change from others until you demand it from yourself.
The Good: George W. Bush stopped being President.
The Bad: January 21, 2009 - Present.
The Ugly: Afghan surge, 55 days of silence on the Gulf Oil Disaster, opposition to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," opposition to Prop 19, scapegoating teachers, empowering Republicans, condescending to the American people (for the sake of personal sanity and organization, I will stop there).
Two years ago the big worry was that Obama would lose to McCain-Palin, or that if he won, he'd get Martin Luther King-ed (assassinated). As these epic nightmares subsided, they deferred to a more realistic, insidious, and chronic nightmare.
The Agenda Remains the Same.
No, that's not the echo of Robert Plant from 1971, that's me, today, and you know I'm right. No matter what happens, what approach is taken, bold or patient, working within the system or rebellious activism, America is the land where nothing changes, where nothing good is ever going to happen again.
Let me skip around now since I'm too angry to be systematic about this. Last week, a front-page NY Times article reported gross discrepencies in arrests for marijuana possession for Black males compared to whites, even though statistics show whites use marijuana as much if not more than Blacks. So what does attorney general Eric Holder do? His best Bush-Cheney hardass authoriarian imitation, declaring that the White House will, by god, prosecute marijuana offenses in California, the democratic process be damned. May I ask how such a move is either politically practical or socially desirable? One, such a position is conservative, and Americans voted for Obama presumably because they were tired of conservatism and the widespread misery, failure, and destruction it has left in its wake in the name of abstract principles, like morality, "small government" and patriotism. But conservatives hate Obama's guts, and no matter how much he tries to mimic them or "work with" them, their undying mission in life is to live to see the day he is no longer President, period.
Okay then. Sometimes politicians do things knowing the consequences will work against them politically, but such moves are socially desirable, e.g. "the right thing" to do. LBJ has been quoted as saying that he was turning over the entire South to the Republicans when he signed the Civil Rights Act into law during the 1960s. He knew both he and his party would suffer politically as a consequence of formally endorsing Civil Rights by using his executive powers to make civil rights the law, but it was (and still is) the right thing to do.
The NY Times article on racist enforcement of marijuana laws likened them to Jim Crow laws, and the comparison is not only valid but impossible to ignore. The law, generally speaking, is a menace to society more often than it is an asset; the law and justice are not the same thing, and the law undermines justice more often than the law upholds justice. Any rebuttal to this point amounts to circular reasoning. As King wrote in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" there are just laws and unjust laws. The former apply to everyone equally, the latter only to a specific group.
Cannabis prohibition is an unjust law on at least two levels. As the NY Times article makes clear, its enforcement effects discrimination against blacks. It also discriminates against all recreational cannabis users, who unlike those who indulge in alcohol, nicotene, gambling, and "vices," cannot do so without risk of arrest and the attendant punishments and disgrace. So we have a legal system that says the drinker can drink, the nicotene-head can blaze down nicotene joints, the gamblers can blow their life savings out on the river boat, but cannabis users can't light up. Thus, cannabis prohibition is an unjust law because it's a law that apply only to one group and not everyone. Either vices are legal or they aren't. It prohibits indulgence in one group's vice but says it's OK for the other groups to indulge in their vice. If we really want to stop drugs, we have to stop all of them, and end all drug use, not just the drug use that drunks aren't interested in while they pour more money into slot machines and puff on nicotene joints.
Opposing Prop 19, then, obviously alienates liberals, progressives, and whatever other social groups that overlap in the venn diagram of people who are fans of the herb. But it also is NOT the right thing to do. Prohibition works against civil rights, equality, fairness, and justice. It is a bad law, driven by racism, perpetuated by a welfare system for police and the criminal justice system, and sustained by hate-mongering ignorance and hypocrisy.
The height of this hypocrisy is Obama himself, a (half-) black man who wouldn't have come within light years of a public water fountain, muchless the Oval Office, if the previous generation of Black leaders (King, et al.) had the conservative, status quo mentality Obama lives and governs by. The country is in economic dire straights. We have an overcrowded, overflowing prison system into which we put way more money than we do our failing and underfunded education system (see Kristoff's NY Times piece, 2010, Oct. 28 (and no, my failure to provide the link isn't because I'm stoned and unmotivated. If you don't want to find the article yourself, what have you been smoking? I'm a writer, not a filing cabinet.)).
Perpetuating Prop. 19 is neither socially desirable, nor politically practical. Continuing cannabis prohibition has no justification in either democratic principles or empirical study of its effects on individuals and society when compared with the effects of the above mentioned legal vices. The only rationale for opposing Prop 19 is to posture for the arch-conservative establishment that thinks Obama is a Kenyan socialist cousin of both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and perpetuate the hate-mongering strong-arm police state we have lived in for the last thirty years. Perpetuating the status quo seems a puzzling politicial move for a President who got elected on the platform of "change."
From the standpoint of the institutional racism prohibition perpetuates, Obama's opposition to Prop 19 is a disgrace not even his White House predecessor could match. This political move betrays the essence of conservatism: not wanting for others what you want for yourself. Obama is where he is today thanks to the passionate progressive politics of the previous generation. But unlike the icons of that era, Obama does not want the next generation of Americans in general and Blacks in particular to live in a more just, equal, and democratic world than the one he came of age--and rose to power--in. Yet, in taking this position, he achieves nothing poltically pragmatic--he will never be conservative enough for the conservatives who hate him. Thus, his tenure as President is marked by perpetuating socially undesirable oppression, discrimination, and fiscal blindness with no political pragmatism to reap. When you're failing as both an idealist and pragmatist, it might behoove you to consider that adhering to some ideals--like the social courage that made it possible for a (half-) black man to be President--is a practical thing to do, especially in politics.
Equally puzzling and bigoted is the Obama administration's opposition of a court ruling overturning "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military. What good does this achieve? Again, this move is neither socially desirable nor politically pragmatic. It perpetuates discrimination and degrading treatment of the LGBT community--which supported Obama in 2008--and alienates a demographic that it would seem politically pragmatic to keep in good favor.
And what has been the political gain of Obama's betrayal of his own race and the other progressive, oppressed groups that ardently supported him in 2008? Mitch McConnell's pledge that the top priority for the next Congress will be to make sure he is a one-term President.
Meanwhile, Obama and his cronies just issued a statement to educators, reminding them that they are required by federal law to intervene in the kind of bullying that recently drove a Rutgers student to commit suicide, a nationally-publicized tragedy that has brought to light other instances of suicides by young gay people hanging themselves. The vitriol of homo-haters -- and haters in general -- points to the futility of Obama's attempts at pragmatism, and the great cost in suffering Americans incur because of his inability to put his words and ideas into action. Regardless of his intentions, those of us who need to see the results the most are not seeing any results that would come from a socially desirable agenda. Thus, his pragmatism is a lost cause, and social progress has been stalled for yet another two years of human existence -- maybe not a long time if you're Obama, but certainly a long time if you're a gay teenager, or a black man in jail for a joint.
I'm sorry to tell you, but Obama is a smug jerk. He has used all of these people -- progressives and oppressed groups of all sorts -- to catapult him to realize a personal dream, and now that he's a member of the club, these people aren't cool enough to hang with him anymore. What does he tell John Stewart? "Change takes time. It doesn't happen overnight." Well now, that's inspiring and insightful isn't it? The country is stumbling through the aftershocks of thirty years of conservatism, and Obama wants to cater to the conservative establishment that hates him while telling the rest of us that the change we haven't seen for those thirty years takes time. What does he think we think "thirty years" is? The temperature? As always, Obama's demenour on the Daily Show was smug and reserved, a personality that in no way reflects either the passion of progressives or the urgency of people who's lives teeter on the edge of desperation. He was on the Daily show for one reason and one reason only: his own political interest. As soon as he walked off that set, everyone connected to the Daily Show ideology instantly became useless to him.
Society does not go in cycles like a washing machine. Society is organic. Like anything organic, societies can and do grow old and die. The telltale sign of anything dying is something that cannot recover from what ails it; it cannot revitalize itself; it cannot change because it has become exhausted and thus resigned to being set in its ways, never to go beyond its current status.
I wish I had a pragmatic political strategy for what to do about Obama's betrayal. Maybe it would be worth the short-term agony of deliberately working against the Democrats who have betrayed us and letting the Republicans regain power as a means of conditioning the Democrats to realize that if they ever want to get elected and hold onto power again, they must be a liberal party. The only reason anyone votes for them is they don't want a conservative party in power.
But I think 2000-2008 was already enough suffering and humiliation for a lifetime, so here's a somber thought: there may be no winning move. It's checkmate, and unless you're the King, you're fucked . . . no matter what.
That bit of nihilism aside, whatever approach you take to this coming Tuesday's elections and the American era that continues to unfold at this grim point in history, I would say that you can't expect change from others until you demand it from yourself.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 37
Links and notes:
We start with a continuation of the Facebook argument. [UPDATE] Dave has taken the plunge and is on Facebook (as is this podcast and Alan)!
eBook sales in general and by title (Kindle). (Free downloads: #2 Sherlock Holmes, #7 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #9 Pride and Prejudice, #28 The Art of War, #31 Common Sense, #37 War and Peace. Paid downloads were pretty much a match with the NY Times bestseller list.)
Even Kitty Hates new t-shirt coming soon.
Juan Williams fired for not following the rules that all NPR employees must follow.
Fox News gives Juan Williams a three year $2 million contract.
NPR has a code of ethics and an ombudsman. Fox News does not.
MOpod zoo:
The new kitten, Ida:
The Rangers advance to the World Series proving that once W is gone things get better.
The Pot Book on Science Friday.
Fort Knox was burning explaining the smoky quality of the full moon.
"Grandma Got Run Over by a King Float"
Alan On The Spot:
Kentucky v Georgia: Georgia win by 3Rangers v Yankees: Texas win by 2
Giants v Phillies: Phillies go to the World Series
Murray High v whoever: Murray will lose by two.
Calloway High v whoever: CCHS destroyed.
Auburn v LSU: LSU by six.
True Colors: Tea Baggers Assault Move On Activist
How long until there are Tea Party arm bands worn by bands of wandering thugs?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Linky Dinks
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
"America Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
On September 28 I attended a hearing on proposed federal regulation of coal industry practices here in Kentucky. I received my number--can't remember what it was--took a seat in a large conference room at the Seelbach in downtown Louisville, and waited for my turn, rehearsing my speech to the EPA panel at the head of the room while one speaker after another went up to the mic and spoke their mind. I was impressed by most of the speakers. Mainly I admired the courage of the citizens from rural E. Kentucky who are directly and adversely affected by the toxic pollution that coal industry practices leave behind for people who's lives are already difficult enough. A big challenge in public and professional communication is the courage, the character to speak out in the first place.
As it turned out, the evening had a plot twist in store for me. Just as I had gotten all of my eloquent and passionate points arranged in my head, the speaker who went right before me changed the mood of the whole hearing. He was a businessman, an advocate of big coal, opposed to federal regulation of Kentucky's coal industry.
Everything this person said and represented made my blood boil. He read off a piece of paper, which meant he had no grasp of the truth--he could not speak from the heart because he knew if he did he would say something else. That's why people read statements off a piece of paper. Either you know what you're talking about and you know you're being honest or you don't and you're not. He was an older man, who no doubt had read off a piece of paper like this for many years, lining his pockets. There's nothing wrong with getting older--I'm doing it myself--but this man represented everything bad about being old: set in his ways, mired in a cognitive rut that looks at the world and human society in rigid, unchanging ways, all about himself and his interests, completely closed off to the fact this is a new century, a new millenium, full of babies and children who will grow up and live in the awful mess people like him have left behind, a man totally uncaring about a future he will not be a part of. There is not even a single cell in this man that wants to explore, learn, or discover. In the words of Bob Dylan, this man is "busy dyin'."
Everything this person said was a re-hash of sound-bites and cliches from the Reagan era--an era that still has a vice-grip on American economic practice and thinking, hence the economic meltdown in which we are still mired . . . and may be mired until the end of time, as long as the values that put big-coal come first and America last continue to prevail. His statement to the EPA panel was Reaganomics 101: you can't regulate industry too much or industry will suffer and profits will dwindle. Industry provides jobs, and families have to have jobs. Too much regulation (read: any regulation) stifles productivity and hurts industry profit which in turn means no jobs.
But the thing this man said that sent me from mere eye-rolling disgust to blood-boiling fury was that federal regulation of Kentucky's coal industry on top of the state regulation it's already under "would amount to regulatory overkill."
Overkill? OVERKILL?!!!
You've been in a room where for two hours one mother after another gets in front of the panel and reports that her children have brain tumors or other serious, deadly health problems because of the toxins released by big coal, and you're going to use a term like "overkill" for a metaphor? If you think regulatory "overkill" is a problem, how would you like to wake up with a tumor wrapped around your bleeding brain?
So when it was my turn to take the podium, I was shaken with anger, watching this man troll out of the auditorium, not about to stick around and hear anyone respond. There I stood. Should I just go with what I'd rehearsed in my head? I couldn't do that. For one, I was so emotionally shaken-up I couldn't quite remember the tidy rhetorcial arrangement of points I was going to make. More important, I myself could not speak from the heart and tell the truth if I didn't say something in response to this vapid, sociopathic mantra I've heard too many times. I took a deep breath, looked up at the panel, their eyes fixed on me, then turned to the doorway where the man was walking out, and spoke.
"Give me a break," were my first words, directed at the previous speaker. I felt good that I said that even though there was no resounding applause from the audience and the faces of the panelists remained locked in solemn institutional objectivity. As far as they were concerned, I was another number, and my three minutes to speak were already underway. I did my best to recollect what I'd rehearsed. Then my opening line came back to me.
"America is its own worst enemy."
That was, and still is, the gist of my point--and since I made it at the hearing, it rings truer in my heart every sad day that passes. Any nation that blows up its own mountains, poisons its own rivers, permeates its communities with toxic waste, and dooms its future generations to disease and ruin is a nation at war with itself. That is the grave danger of any nation jacked up on the frenzy of war: once the passion for war sets in, there is no way to stop out, and if there is no way to stop it, there is now way to live with purpose in the absence of an enemy. Once this happens there is no turning back--war becomes chronic, the need for enemies becomes habituated, and the most readily available enemy is always the people next door, thy own neighbor.
A country always at war is a country that has become its own worst enemy.
Last week my podcast colleague and I railed in dumbfounded rage against the decision of the Obion Co., TN fire department to sit there and watch a man's home burn to the ground with three family pets inside because the man failed to pay a $75 fee for fire protection. When you stand there and watch someone's house burn down, that is an act of war. And that is not just that man's house burning down--that was America. That was an American target left in smouldering ruin. Nothing like this incident of hate-mongering insanity illustrates how mainstream Americans say they love their country but hate Americans. They love 'America' as an ideological abstraction that conveniently stands for whatever their self interests are at the moment, but as soon as America has a face, they hate it, and they are literally at war with that face. If you love your country, you love your fellow countrymen. All of them. You don't have to agree with them, invite them to your Christmas party, or let your kids play with theirs. But if you hate the guts of everybody you think is not like you are or who does something you disagree with such hostility that you pridefully watch their house burn to the ground when the means to put out the fire are readily-available, you have declared America your enemy. And in doing so, whether you realize it or not, you have become your own worst enemy.
In the 21st century, America's greatest enemy is not terrorism, it's not illegal immigrants, it's America itself. This enemy represents the gravest threat because there is no protection from it. When you become your own worst enemy, there is no one to trust, no refuge to take, because the territory that was once yours is now your enemy's. When the means of protection--like a local fire department--turn on the people they ought to be protecting, there is no way to fight back. Becoming your own worst enemy is at once suicide and surrender.
When you remove the tops of mountains with explosives, you are literally using weapons of mass destruction to erase your own country. You cannot have "America" without its land, its people, its culture, its families, its children, its future. Mountain top removal and the poisoning of America's waterways is a destruction of everything earthly and human that make America what it is.
There is no hope for a collection of people who insist on putting anything--especially out-right antagonism and indifference toward each other--ahead of their own collective well being. I read just today that a retired teacher from Obion Co., TN said she was glad the local authorities let this man's house burn to the ground since she feels people "must suffer the consequences of their actions." That says it all. Her fellow American suffering is the most important thing of all, not saving his home, his pets, or the area from a dangerous threat. What do we call someone we want to suffer, someone who's home we want to see burn to the ground? The enemy. This was a domestic version of shock and awe. This man and his home have no worth or value to anyone beyond a $75 monetary payment. Thus, he is worthless. No, he is less than worthless, for he is worthy of punishment in the form of endorsed destruction of his home.
In America the only thing that unites us is our collective desire to see one another suffer. The tireless need to punish other Americans comes first, before anything caring, sensible, or civilized. Why should the priority of an entire nation be on punishing itself? Why should the immeasurable suffering of Americans be the measure of our unity and prosperity?
How can you fight back when you're destroying yourself from the inside out, your mountains leveled, your land and water poisoned, your homes burned to the ground--the topography of a defeated enemy?
As it turned out, the evening had a plot twist in store for me. Just as I had gotten all of my eloquent and passionate points arranged in my head, the speaker who went right before me changed the mood of the whole hearing. He was a businessman, an advocate of big coal, opposed to federal regulation of Kentucky's coal industry.
Everything this person said and represented made my blood boil. He read off a piece of paper, which meant he had no grasp of the truth--he could not speak from the heart because he knew if he did he would say something else. That's why people read statements off a piece of paper. Either you know what you're talking about and you know you're being honest or you don't and you're not. He was an older man, who no doubt had read off a piece of paper like this for many years, lining his pockets. There's nothing wrong with getting older--I'm doing it myself--but this man represented everything bad about being old: set in his ways, mired in a cognitive rut that looks at the world and human society in rigid, unchanging ways, all about himself and his interests, completely closed off to the fact this is a new century, a new millenium, full of babies and children who will grow up and live in the awful mess people like him have left behind, a man totally uncaring about a future he will not be a part of. There is not even a single cell in this man that wants to explore, learn, or discover. In the words of Bob Dylan, this man is "busy dyin'."
Everything this person said was a re-hash of sound-bites and cliches from the Reagan era--an era that still has a vice-grip on American economic practice and thinking, hence the economic meltdown in which we are still mired . . . and may be mired until the end of time, as long as the values that put big-coal come first and America last continue to prevail. His statement to the EPA panel was Reaganomics 101: you can't regulate industry too much or industry will suffer and profits will dwindle. Industry provides jobs, and families have to have jobs. Too much regulation (read: any regulation) stifles productivity and hurts industry profit which in turn means no jobs.
But the thing this man said that sent me from mere eye-rolling disgust to blood-boiling fury was that federal regulation of Kentucky's coal industry on top of the state regulation it's already under "would amount to regulatory overkill."
Overkill? OVERKILL?!!!
You've been in a room where for two hours one mother after another gets in front of the panel and reports that her children have brain tumors or other serious, deadly health problems because of the toxins released by big coal, and you're going to use a term like "overkill" for a metaphor? If you think regulatory "overkill" is a problem, how would you like to wake up with a tumor wrapped around your bleeding brain?
So when it was my turn to take the podium, I was shaken with anger, watching this man troll out of the auditorium, not about to stick around and hear anyone respond. There I stood. Should I just go with what I'd rehearsed in my head? I couldn't do that. For one, I was so emotionally shaken-up I couldn't quite remember the tidy rhetorcial arrangement of points I was going to make. More important, I myself could not speak from the heart and tell the truth if I didn't say something in response to this vapid, sociopathic mantra I've heard too many times. I took a deep breath, looked up at the panel, their eyes fixed on me, then turned to the doorway where the man was walking out, and spoke.
"Give me a break," were my first words, directed at the previous speaker. I felt good that I said that even though there was no resounding applause from the audience and the faces of the panelists remained locked in solemn institutional objectivity. As far as they were concerned, I was another number, and my three minutes to speak were already underway. I did my best to recollect what I'd rehearsed. Then my opening line came back to me.
"America is its own worst enemy."
That was, and still is, the gist of my point--and since I made it at the hearing, it rings truer in my heart every sad day that passes. Any nation that blows up its own mountains, poisons its own rivers, permeates its communities with toxic waste, and dooms its future generations to disease and ruin is a nation at war with itself. That is the grave danger of any nation jacked up on the frenzy of war: once the passion for war sets in, there is no way to stop out, and if there is no way to stop it, there is now way to live with purpose in the absence of an enemy. Once this happens there is no turning back--war becomes chronic, the need for enemies becomes habituated, and the most readily available enemy is always the people next door, thy own neighbor.
A country always at war is a country that has become its own worst enemy.
Last week my podcast colleague and I railed in dumbfounded rage against the decision of the Obion Co., TN fire department to sit there and watch a man's home burn to the ground with three family pets inside because the man failed to pay a $75 fee for fire protection. When you stand there and watch someone's house burn down, that is an act of war. And that is not just that man's house burning down--that was America. That was an American target left in smouldering ruin. Nothing like this incident of hate-mongering insanity illustrates how mainstream Americans say they love their country but hate Americans. They love 'America' as an ideological abstraction that conveniently stands for whatever their self interests are at the moment, but as soon as America has a face, they hate it, and they are literally at war with that face. If you love your country, you love your fellow countrymen. All of them. You don't have to agree with them, invite them to your Christmas party, or let your kids play with theirs. But if you hate the guts of everybody you think is not like you are or who does something you disagree with such hostility that you pridefully watch their house burn to the ground when the means to put out the fire are readily-available, you have declared America your enemy. And in doing so, whether you realize it or not, you have become your own worst enemy.
In the 21st century, America's greatest enemy is not terrorism, it's not illegal immigrants, it's America itself. This enemy represents the gravest threat because there is no protection from it. When you become your own worst enemy, there is no one to trust, no refuge to take, because the territory that was once yours is now your enemy's. When the means of protection--like a local fire department--turn on the people they ought to be protecting, there is no way to fight back. Becoming your own worst enemy is at once suicide and surrender.
When you remove the tops of mountains with explosives, you are literally using weapons of mass destruction to erase your own country. You cannot have "America" without its land, its people, its culture, its families, its children, its future. Mountain top removal and the poisoning of America's waterways is a destruction of everything earthly and human that make America what it is.
There is no hope for a collection of people who insist on putting anything--especially out-right antagonism and indifference toward each other--ahead of their own collective well being. I read just today that a retired teacher from Obion Co., TN said she was glad the local authorities let this man's house burn to the ground since she feels people "must suffer the consequences of their actions." That says it all. Her fellow American suffering is the most important thing of all, not saving his home, his pets, or the area from a dangerous threat. What do we call someone we want to suffer, someone who's home we want to see burn to the ground? The enemy. This was a domestic version of shock and awe. This man and his home have no worth or value to anyone beyond a $75 monetary payment. Thus, he is worthless. No, he is less than worthless, for he is worthy of punishment in the form of endorsed destruction of his home.
In America the only thing that unites us is our collective desire to see one another suffer. The tireless need to punish other Americans comes first, before anything caring, sensible, or civilized. Why should the priority of an entire nation be on punishing itself? Why should the immeasurable suffering of Americans be the measure of our unity and prosperity?
How can you fight back when you're destroying yourself from the inside out, your mountains leveled, your land and water poisoned, your homes burned to the ground--the topography of a defeated enemy?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Alan is Learning
Nothing is more gratifying for a teacher like myself than those rare and epic breakthroughs, when seemingly impregnable barriers to cognitive development finally crumble, slowly at first, and then collapsing against a bursting stream of knowledge, a fresh current that has been unlocked from the depths. Last week proved to be my latest rewarding moment, when news of the Obion, TN fire crew watching a resident's house burn to the ground because he didn't pay a $75 fee triggered an epiphany for Alan. He now realizes that America's biggest problem is that the majority of Americans are hate-mongering assholes, not that are simply just "stupid." Firemen know how to put out fires. They didn't put this guy's fire out because the are hate-mongering pricks. They were punishing the ill-fated home owner because he didn't pay his fee rather than put the fire out and deal with the issue (if at all) afterward. A clear example of how America's raging hate has blinded it to being able to put first things first. Put it on the guy's tab for Christ's sake. There were pets in there. These devil worshipers should convicted for animal cruelty and certainly never be entrusted with putting out fires again. This is the firefighter version of American health care, where just sitting there and watching people not get the help they need in the name of money is apparently the measure of success. In coming weeks I look forward to Alan affirming his breakthrough. As much as he pays attention to what is going on, it won't be hard for him to do that. Let's give my MOpod colleague a round of applause.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 35
episode 35 10/8/2010
Show notes and links:
Coal ash spill.
Pakistan. [not "kinder" pass, Khyber Pass]
Le Show (Harry Shearer)
Military and oil.
"Membrane Dynamic" (I was close - AM)
Your house burned while the fire department watched? HATE HATE HATE HATE
read the comments and tell me we're not a nation of hateful mother fuckers.
Internet doomed.
Dark fiber.
Greater Tuna
Waterboarding is torture.
Alan On The Spot last week:
Kentucky v Ole Miss: 16-45 35-42
Murray v Reidland: 21-27 49-7
CCHS v whoever: Lakers win by less than three points. 31-25 Lakers
Arizona Cardinals v San Diego: lose by less than 7 10-41
Will UK students be camped out for UK tickets: yes yes
Saints v Panthers: win win
Commonwealth Games.
Fed may ask any question of applicants for employment, perhaps.
Show notes and links:
Coal ash spill.
Pakistan. [not "kinder" pass, Khyber Pass]
Le Show (Harry Shearer)
Military and oil.
"Membrane Dynamic" (I was close - AM)
Your house burned while the fire department watched? HATE HATE HATE HATE
read the comments and tell me we're not a nation of hateful mother fuckers.
Internet doomed.
Dark fiber.
Greater Tuna
Waterboarding is torture.
Alan On The Spot last week:
Kentucky v Ole Miss: 16-45 35-42
Murray v Reidland: 21-27 49-7
CCHS v whoever: Lakers win by less than three points. 31-25 Lakers
Arizona Cardinals v San Diego: lose by less than 7 10-41
Will UK students be camped out for UK tickets: yes yes
Saints v Panthers: win win
Commonwealth Games.
Fed may ask any question of applicants for employment, perhaps.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Glenn Beck, the Ogre-fuck that Keeps on Fucking
[This is one of those posts that I keep starting, erasing, and re-writing (like the post about the Republican mayor and fire chief allowing a man's home to burn to the ground) because it's mostly cursing and little sense. Hopefully I've overcome that. - AM]
Glenn Beck is dangerous. He is inciting violence and hatred. How close to coming right out and telling people to kill other people do you have to get to be guilty of incitement in this country? Apparently there is no "close." You can't suggest that someone is guilty and should be executed and be guilty of a crime, you have to actually tell someone directly to kill that person. Glenn Beck has encouraged the assassination of our President* (though he will deny it), he has encouraged the bombing of abortion clinics (again he'll deny it), and he's encouraged attacks on institutions he thinks help poor people like ACORN or the Tides Foundation. Now in each of these cases he (and his associates) did not actually say "assasinate the President," "bomb abortion clinics," "shoot Dr. Tiller," "film nonsense at Acorn clinics and then edit to appear incriminating," or "attack the Tides Foundation with multiple firearms" but his rhetoric implies, without a doubt, that these are things that should be done. He even encourages his listeners to listen to what he is saying "between the sentences." But since he doesn't explicitly say these things he cannot be tried for the crime of causing them to happen.
Beck's rhetoric inspired the real life shoot-out on I-580 in San Francisco between Byron Williams and the police. Williams is an ex-felon that heard what Beck was telling him "between the sentences." From the SFGate story:
*Blowing his dog whistle as hard as he can Beck has insinuated the "Left" will assassinate Obama [1, 2, 3] (read: if you kill him we'll blame the hippies) and recently he's decided that he and his Tea Party followers are on Obama's list of people to assassinate [1, 2, 3](read: protect me from the evil Kenyan!).
And just in case you still have doubts about Glenn Beck, there's this.
Glenn Beck is dangerous. He is inciting violence and hatred. How close to coming right out and telling people to kill other people do you have to get to be guilty of incitement in this country? Apparently there is no "close." You can't suggest that someone is guilty and should be executed and be guilty of a crime, you have to actually tell someone directly to kill that person. Glenn Beck has encouraged the assassination of our President* (though he will deny it), he has encouraged the bombing of abortion clinics (again he'll deny it), and he's encouraged attacks on institutions he thinks help poor people like ACORN or the Tides Foundation. Now in each of these cases he (and his associates) did not actually say "assasinate the President," "bomb abortion clinics," "shoot Dr. Tiller," "film nonsense at Acorn clinics and then edit to appear incriminating," or "attack the Tides Foundation with multiple firearms" but his rhetoric implies, without a doubt, that these are things that should be done. He even encourages his listeners to listen to what he is saying "between the sentences." But since he doesn't explicitly say these things he cannot be tried for the crime of causing them to happen.
Beck's rhetoric inspired the real life shoot-out on I-580 in San Francisco between Byron Williams and the police. Williams is an ex-felon that heard what Beck was telling him "between the sentences." From the SFGate story:
"He hasn't been able to get a job because he's an ex-felon and nobody will hire him," [Williams's mother Janice Williams] said.
She said her son, who had been a carpenter and a cabinetmaker before his imprisonment, was angry about his unemployment and about "what's happening to our country."In two separate jailhouse interviews Williams states that Glenn Beck told him what was "really" going on. The "news" he was watching was the hate mongering Glenn Beck and the Fox News family of hate mongers. But there is no legal way in this country to inform Mr. Beck that his rhetoric is inspiring violence and that if it happens again he will go to prison for incitement. Apparently we have no recourse against this horrible, horrible man for his crimes against humanity and our country. But smoke a joint in public and go to prison. Yep, that's American justice for you.
Williams watched the news on television and was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items," his mother said. [emphasis added - ED]
*Blowing his dog whistle as hard as he can Beck has insinuated the "Left" will assassinate Obama [1, 2, 3] (read: if you kill him we'll blame the hippies) and recently he's decided that he and his Tea Party followers are on Obama's list of people to assassinate [1, 2, 3](read: protect me from the evil Kenyan!).
And just in case you still have doubts about Glenn Beck, there's this.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Nazi Teabagger Alert
Thursday, October 7, 2010
A Mess of October Ogre-oids To Upset Your Stomach
Ogre-fuck Number 1:
The perfect hypothetical example of why libertarianism is a giant vat of stupid has always been the fire department. You would think we would've learned back in the 19th century that private fire companies that only served paying customers was a bad idea, but apparently one asshole Republican mayor in Obion County Tennessee decided it was a good idea. One man who didn't pay the $75 fee for fire coverage watched his home burn to the ground as the fire department put out the fire in his neighbor's field. Both the fire chief and the mayor should be taken out and hung from the nearest tree until they are dead. Anyone that would watch their neighbor's home burn to the ground is a worthless son of a bitch and society would be better off without them.
Ogre-fuck Number 2:
Containment pond ruptures in Hungary.
Ogre-oids:
-[Jim] DeMint [R-SC] said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn't be in the classroom.
-News Corp. gives $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce (basically a GOP entity).
-Northern Hemisphere winter 2010 2nd hottest in 130 years, summer 4th hottest in 131 years. Yes, Virginia, the earth is getting warmer.
The perfect hypothetical example of why libertarianism is a giant vat of stupid has always been the fire department. You would think we would've learned back in the 19th century that private fire companies that only served paying customers was a bad idea, but apparently one asshole Republican mayor in Obion County Tennessee decided it was a good idea. One man who didn't pay the $75 fee for fire coverage watched his home burn to the ground as the fire department put out the fire in his neighbor's field. Both the fire chief and the mayor should be taken out and hung from the nearest tree until they are dead. Anyone that would watch their neighbor's home burn to the ground is a worthless son of a bitch and society would be better off without them.
Ogre-fuck Number 2:
Containment pond ruptures in Hungary.
Ogre-oids:
-[Jim] DeMint [R-SC] said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn't be in the classroom.
-News Corp. gives $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce (basically a GOP entity).
Fox is having it both ways right now as a news organization and political campaign. With $2 million direct from their corporate treasury invested in the defeat of Democratic candidates, it is an insult to actual journalists that the network is treated as anything other than a research, fundraising, and communications arm of the Republican Party. They don't belong in the front row of the White House briefing room, they belong at RNC headquarters. -Media Matters VP Ari Rabin-Havt
-Northern Hemisphere winter 2010 2nd hottest in 130 years, summer 4th hottest in 131 years. Yes, Virginia, the earth is getting warmer.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 34
Links for episode 34:
Mutilated bodies again.
Fisher Price has massive recall for reasons including potential genital bleeding.
War an abstraction for most.
Austin "Jack" DeCoster: The Salmonella King.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Postcards From the Pledge | ||||
| ||||
Attacks increase in "Green Zone."
Alan on the Spot last week:
Kentucky at Florida: 44-13 48-14
Alabama at Arkansas: 17-16 24-20
Murray High v Trigg Co.: 36-9 29-3
Calloway Co. High School v whoever: The pain continues. CCHS lost
Saints win lost
This week:
Kentucky v Ole Miss: 16-45
Murray v Reidland: 21-27
Calloway Co High School v whoever: Lakers win by less than three points.
Arizona Cardinals v whoever: lose by less than 7
Will UK students be camped out for UK tickets: yes
Saints: win
Saturday, October 2, 2010
NPR Begins the Slide to Irrelevance
I hate marketing people. They have convinced themselves that what they're doing is A) important and B) helps while in fact they are engaging in make believe and draining money and resources from every entity that employs them. Why the fuck do State Universities have marketing departments? Because their leaders went to business school and in business school they are taught marketing is important. Marketing is bad. Anyway, I've written a letter about a recent marketing study that is bound to destroy NPR if taken seriously (which it will be).
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