Friday, October 16, 2009
Al From: Right-Wing Infiltrator
Al From was the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, the organization that ostensibly tried to lead the Democratic Party in a more conservative, business-friendly direction. But From always served primarily as an agent of the right-wing, a thought confirmed by From's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing for Obama to give up on the public option. It would be better if From, Mickey Kaus, Peter Beinart, and people like them just moved out of the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Glenn Beck Cries for a Return to the 70's?
I only watched this once, but Glenn Beck seems to be crying for a return to the 1970's. Beck refers to the seventies as a simpler time and I guess he was right.
Just like George W., Richard Nixon committed a number of crimes as he sought to concentrate power. But the seventies was a simpler time and Nixon was removed from office.
Just as people opposed the Iraq War, they opposed the Vietnam War. But the seventies was a simpler time and the United States just withdrew from Vietnam.
But Glenn Beck doesn't want to go back to the real 1970's.
That's when the forces of socialism were really gaining strength in the U. S.
I should know. I was trying to help them.
What Beck wants instead is the iconic commercials of the 1970's like that Joe Green Coke commercial or the Paul Anka Kodak commercial.
Of course, the 70's was much like the 60's in that teenagers like me were telling their parents that the wisdom of the Depression and WWII no longer applied to the prosperous consumer society of the post WWII era.
Beck refers to that as America as disobeying its parents and going to the "wrong kind of party." Maybe he should have thrown in a couple of lyrics from "American Pie" on "the devil's only friend" about the Stones and "the Sergeants refuse to yield" about the Beatles.
"Do you recall what was revealed/the day the music died?"
Well, I joined millions of other Americans in disobeying my parents and going to plenty of the wrong kinds of parties with the wrong kinds of people and listening to the wrong kinds of music.
God, it was great.
But who really wants to go back? The fact is that the 70's was followed by almost 30 years of greed, corruption, and stupidity of the right. Democrats and liberals participated, but the period from the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 to the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was dominated by the party at the house of Ronaldus Magnus.
And now we've got to figure a way to get out of it.
Hopefully, we won't be as dumb as they were.
Just like George W., Richard Nixon committed a number of crimes as he sought to concentrate power. But the seventies was a simpler time and Nixon was removed from office.
Just as people opposed the Iraq War, they opposed the Vietnam War. But the seventies was a simpler time and the United States just withdrew from Vietnam.
But Glenn Beck doesn't want to go back to the real 1970's.
That's when the forces of socialism were really gaining strength in the U. S.
I should know. I was trying to help them.
What Beck wants instead is the iconic commercials of the 1970's like that Joe Green Coke commercial or the Paul Anka Kodak commercial.
Of course, the 70's was much like the 60's in that teenagers like me were telling their parents that the wisdom of the Depression and WWII no longer applied to the prosperous consumer society of the post WWII era.
Beck refers to that as America as disobeying its parents and going to the "wrong kind of party." Maybe he should have thrown in a couple of lyrics from "American Pie" on "the devil's only friend" about the Stones and "the Sergeants refuse to yield" about the Beatles.
"Do you recall what was revealed/the day the music died?"
Well, I joined millions of other Americans in disobeying my parents and going to plenty of the wrong kinds of parties with the wrong kinds of people and listening to the wrong kinds of music.
God, it was great.
But who really wants to go back? The fact is that the 70's was followed by almost 30 years of greed, corruption, and stupidity of the right. Democrats and liberals participated, but the period from the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 to the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was dominated by the party at the house of Ronaldus Magnus.
And now we've got to figure a way to get out of it.
Hopefully, we won't be as dumb as they were.
The Limbaugh Farce
Jason Whitlock is right that the whole Rush Limbaugh trying to buy the NFL's St. Louis Rams idea was just a publicity stunt. Everybody involved--Limbaugh himself, projected major partner Dave Checketts, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell--all know that Rush Limbaugh could never be part of an NFL ownership group. As his brief career as a MNF broadcaster made clear, Limbaugh's racial obsessions would generate enormous bad publicity, cost the NFL much of its good will, and drive down TV ratings and attendance.
Who knows why former NBA executive Dave Checketts agreed to be part of this farce? Maybe he's a really good friend of Limbaugh's. Maybe he was using the "Limbaugh controversy" to attract another deep-pockets partner for his proposal. Perhaps nobody will ever know. But it should be clear that Limbaugh himself joined the proposal so he could leak his participation to the media, start a controversy, and bump up his ratings. Limbaugh has a hard-core fan base, but casual listening to his program is driven by his notoriety and a good chunk of that notoriety is rooted in his reputation for racism. Teasing the idea of NFL ownership (and that's all it ever was--a tease) was a good way for Limbaugh to publicize his Today interview, smoke out a response from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and draw comments from black athletes like Donovan McNabb. That's the kind of thing that drives ratings and justifies Limbaugh's $400 million contract.
And the "controversy" was a total win for Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh got his name out in the mainstream media, the ensuing "controversy" drew the attention from non-conservatives, and Limbaugh's core audience was once again entertained by the "outrage" of blacks and liberals.
It's a tried and true formula, Limbaugh's done it a million times, and it worked yet again. Last week was yet another great week to be Rush Limbaugh.
The rest of the media got some crumbs too. CNN's got to fill up 24 hours of news and the Limbaugh "controversy" handed them at least one "Breaking News" item. That gave HuffPost reporter Jason Linkins an opportunity to file a "we're offended" post when Wolf Blitzer cut off some Ariana Huffington commentary to announce that Limbaugh had been dropped from the Checketts proposal. Jason Whitlock got a great article out of the issue as well.
See, everybody wins. Of course, Limbaugh was dropped from the proposal, but that was always beside the point.
Who knows why former NBA executive Dave Checketts agreed to be part of this farce? Maybe he's a really good friend of Limbaugh's. Maybe he was using the "Limbaugh controversy" to attract another deep-pockets partner for his proposal. Perhaps nobody will ever know. But it should be clear that Limbaugh himself joined the proposal so he could leak his participation to the media, start a controversy, and bump up his ratings. Limbaugh has a hard-core fan base, but casual listening to his program is driven by his notoriety and a good chunk of that notoriety is rooted in his reputation for racism. Teasing the idea of NFL ownership (and that's all it ever was--a tease) was a good way for Limbaugh to publicize his Today interview, smoke out a response from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and draw comments from black athletes like Donovan McNabb. That's the kind of thing that drives ratings and justifies Limbaugh's $400 million contract.
And the "controversy" was a total win for Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh got his name out in the mainstream media, the ensuing "controversy" drew the attention from non-conservatives, and Limbaugh's core audience was once again entertained by the "outrage" of blacks and liberals.
It's a tried and true formula, Limbaugh's done it a million times, and it worked yet again. Last week was yet another great week to be Rush Limbaugh.
The rest of the media got some crumbs too. CNN's got to fill up 24 hours of news and the Limbaugh "controversy" handed them at least one "Breaking News" item. That gave HuffPost reporter Jason Linkins an opportunity to file a "we're offended" post when Wolf Blitzer cut off some Ariana Huffington commentary to announce that Limbaugh had been dropped from the Checketts proposal. Jason Whitlock got a great article out of the issue as well.
See, everybody wins. Of course, Limbaugh was dropped from the proposal, but that was always beside the point.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
bell hooks in Morehead
African-American feminist author bell hooks is speaking at Morehead State University in Morehead, KY. Some quick notes to put hooks in context.
1. The period from the end of WWII to the present has been one of the most exciting periods of world intellectual history--every bit the equal of Classical Greece, the first bloom of modernism, and the "long Victorian century" from the 1840's to Moses and Monotheism. One of the privileges of my life was growing up intellectually in an era when such fundamental things were being done.
2. Much like Freud can be seen as the last intellectual giant of the Victorian century, bell hooks can be seen as one of the last of the great pioneering figures of the post WWII era. Claude Levi-Strauss still lives, but bell hooks is one of the last figures from that era who is still creating at a high level. Born in 1952, hooks started publishing in the late 1970's and has relentlessly pushed forward. Lacan, Foucault, and Baudrillard all died. Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva couldn't sustain their initial bursts of creativity. However, the fire in bell hooks kept burning and has gotten brighter over time.
4. African-American thought has had universal significance at least since the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano and hooks has built on African-American traditions of thinking about love, redemption, and transformation in profound ways. Her The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love is a fundamentally important in her sympathetic critique of patriarchy and her books on love serve as a standing refutation to Plato's warnings about love in the Republic. Her rejection of Plato is just as decisive as the rejection of Plato in Machiavelli. In addition, her rejection of Machiavellian virtu is just as important as Machiavelli's isolation of masculinity as a foundational concept in The Prince.
5. W. E. B. DuBois wrote that he sits "with Shakespeare and he winces not." Of course, that comment was always overdrawn in a way. I'm sure Shakespeare sat in London taverns with any number of farmers, tradesmen, and small-time actors and didn't wince any more than Karl Marx. Still, it will be good to hear a talk by someone who's in the same league as DuBois and Shakespeare--bell hooks.
1. The period from the end of WWII to the present has been one of the most exciting periods of world intellectual history--every bit the equal of Classical Greece, the first bloom of modernism, and the "long Victorian century" from the 1840's to Moses and Monotheism. One of the privileges of my life was growing up intellectually in an era when such fundamental things were being done.
2. Much like Freud can be seen as the last intellectual giant of the Victorian century, bell hooks can be seen as one of the last of the great pioneering figures of the post WWII era. Claude Levi-Strauss still lives, but bell hooks is one of the last figures from that era who is still creating at a high level. Born in 1952, hooks started publishing in the late 1970's and has relentlessly pushed forward. Lacan, Foucault, and Baudrillard all died. Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva couldn't sustain their initial bursts of creativity. However, the fire in bell hooks kept burning and has gotten brighter over time.
4. African-American thought has had universal significance at least since the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano and hooks has built on African-American traditions of thinking about love, redemption, and transformation in profound ways. Her The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love is a fundamentally important in her sympathetic critique of patriarchy and her books on love serve as a standing refutation to Plato's warnings about love in the Republic. Her rejection of Plato is just as decisive as the rejection of Plato in Machiavelli. In addition, her rejection of Machiavellian virtu is just as important as Machiavelli's isolation of masculinity as a foundational concept in The Prince.
5. W. E. B. DuBois wrote that he sits "with Shakespeare and he winces not." Of course, that comment was always overdrawn in a way. I'm sure Shakespeare sat in London taverns with any number of farmers, tradesmen, and small-time actors and didn't wince any more than Karl Marx. Still, it will be good to hear a talk by someone who's in the same league as DuBois and Shakespeare--bell hooks.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
I wrote Dreams of My Father
Conservative blogs have gone back to flogging the idea that Bill Ayers wrote Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father. Today's angle is that some right-wing blogger caught up with Ayers in an airport and he "confessed" to the dirty deed.
But they're wrong, wrong, wrong.
Bill Ayers didn't write Obama's books. Bill Ayers didn't even write his own book.
I did.
That's right. I wrote Dreams of My Father.
I also wrote The Audacity of Hope, the Philadelphia speech on race, the big speech in Germany, and the acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. The inauguration speech--mine. So was the heart-melting proposal speech Barack gave Michelle when he asked her to marry him. You should have seen his teleprompter work for that one. All those responsibility speeches Barack gives his cute kids--I wrote those too.
Being the genius behind Barack Obama has been tough. Sure, the royalty checks are unbelievably large and I get to live on one of those island paradises. In fact, I live right next to Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame.
And yes, I really like those fruity drinks.
But money isn't everything. Pleasure isn't everything either.
I want fame too.
I want everybody to know what a genius I am.
I want paparazzi outside my door. I want my washboard abs in all the tabs. I want my divorce lawyer to be a household name and I want my own cute kids on the cover of People when they go into rehab.
I want it all and I want it now. I want to be Brad, Angelina, and Oprah Winfrey all rolled into one.
And this is how I'm going to do it.
My work on Barack's third book, Born in Qom Not Kenya, is going to be the ultimate reality television show. I'll be broadcasting everything I draft, write, or scribble while I'm in the bathroom. All the exultation, all the pain, all the brillians will be live for everybody to see. Every nonsense phrase, doodle, rejected sentence--every effort I make to maximize the importance of each momentous word--will be available to the public "in real time." The public wants to see genius at work. I'll be working on Obama's next book 24/7 and it will all be brought to you live.
It will be the biggest thing ever--bigger than the Bible, bigger than Jesus, bigger even than the Beatles.
And everybody will know that the real brains behind Barack Obama is not Bill Ayers--it's me.
But they're wrong, wrong, wrong.
Bill Ayers didn't write Obama's books. Bill Ayers didn't even write his own book.
I did.
That's right. I wrote Dreams of My Father.
I also wrote The Audacity of Hope, the Philadelphia speech on race, the big speech in Germany, and the acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. The inauguration speech--mine. So was the heart-melting proposal speech Barack gave Michelle when he asked her to marry him. You should have seen his teleprompter work for that one. All those responsibility speeches Barack gives his cute kids--I wrote those too.
Being the genius behind Barack Obama has been tough. Sure, the royalty checks are unbelievably large and I get to live on one of those island paradises. In fact, I live right next to Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame.
And yes, I really like those fruity drinks.
But money isn't everything. Pleasure isn't everything either.
I want fame too.
I want everybody to know what a genius I am.
I want paparazzi outside my door. I want my washboard abs in all the tabs. I want my divorce lawyer to be a household name and I want my own cute kids on the cover of People when they go into rehab.
I want it all and I want it now. I want to be Brad, Angelina, and Oprah Winfrey all rolled into one.
And this is how I'm going to do it.
My work on Barack's third book, Born in Qom Not Kenya, is going to be the ultimate reality television show. I'll be broadcasting everything I draft, write, or scribble while I'm in the bathroom. All the exultation, all the pain, all the brillians will be live for everybody to see. Every nonsense phrase, doodle, rejected sentence--every effort I make to maximize the importance of each momentous word--will be available to the public "in real time." The public wants to see genius at work. I'll be working on Obama's next book 24/7 and it will all be brought to you live.
It will be the biggest thing ever--bigger than the Bible, bigger than Jesus, bigger even than the Beatles.
And everybody will know that the real brains behind Barack Obama is not Bill Ayers--it's me.
Monday, October 05, 2009
The Fiery Bloom of Autumn
The weather is starting to cool and the green in the trees seems to be growing lighter in color as the leaves prepare to change. Around Morehead, the leaves usually turn into a burnt orange or a fiery red. The burnt orange calls to mind the University of Texas Longhorns but it's the red that reminds me more of my favorite UT graduate, the late Nancy Peterson. The red leaves seem to glow with a special intensity before they fall off. In the same way, Nancy had a special energy, an especially ferocious grip on life, during the years she had cancer. I miss a lot of things about Nancy, but I especially miss the fiery red glow of her last years.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
That "Jesus Left Christianity" Post
On TPM, there's a post on Jesus leaving Christianity that was written by William K. Wolfrum during the 2008 election campaign.
With these things in mind, it should be clear that Jesus wouldn't be caught in a West Hollywood coffeeshop any more than he would have taken in a corporate junket to Barbados or run for president as a Democrat. Who would Jesus have preferred in this world? The same people he preferred in the ancient Jewish territories--the absolute bottom of society. Jesus would have identified with dying Aids patients covered with lesions, the gay kids being kicked out of their families and beaten by their peers, psychotic homeless people shuffling from grate to grate, the inmates at all our super-max prisons, and all the desperate crack, heroin, and OxyContin addicts. These are the people Jesus viewed as blessed. These are the people Jesus viewed as models for his own suffering and self-sacrifice. These are the people Jesus wanted his disciples to emulate. Everyone else was damned.
It's not Jesus wouldn't have come to America, but he would have found his home in all of the "Other Americas" that dot our landscape. The people in the West Hollywood coffee shops are just as much strangers to those Other Americas as Rush Limbaugh. Jesus would have damned them just as much as he would damn Dick Cheney. The only difference is that Dick Cheney knows he would have been damned and is probably glad there's no god to hold him accountable.
. . . [I]n an announcement that has left his followers shaken, the Christ himself has come forward to announce that he is leaving Christianity, effective immediately. The reasoning: The 2008 Republican Platform. Reached for comment at a West Hollywood coffee shop, Christ said that he couldn't deal with a world that so misinterpreted his words and actions.I should emphasize that I'm not myself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, or someone who's very enthusiastic about Jesus in any way, shape, or form. Many of the ideas in the New Testament are worthy of respect and the texts have a great deal of moral depth. But the doctrine is so bizarrely self-abnegating that it can't really be taken seriously. People can complain about "actually existing" Christians not really following Jesus, but seeing salvation in such enormities of suffering as the story of Lazarus or the invocation to "turn the other cheek" is too much for any society like our own that does not have a primary commitment to inflicting and suffering pain. Nobody with half their sanity could believe in the Jesus of the New Testament. So, "Christians" have softened his edges, forgotten his crazed disgust for most of what's human, and made Jesus seem more "normal" according to our visions of normality. The only way anybody could be a Christian is to follow "our" version of Jesus and that's just as true on the left as the right.
With these things in mind, it should be clear that Jesus wouldn't be caught in a West Hollywood coffeeshop any more than he would have taken in a corporate junket to Barbados or run for president as a Democrat. Who would Jesus have preferred in this world? The same people he preferred in the ancient Jewish territories--the absolute bottom of society. Jesus would have identified with dying Aids patients covered with lesions, the gay kids being kicked out of their families and beaten by their peers, psychotic homeless people shuffling from grate to grate, the inmates at all our super-max prisons, and all the desperate crack, heroin, and OxyContin addicts. These are the people Jesus viewed as blessed. These are the people Jesus viewed as models for his own suffering and self-sacrifice. These are the people Jesus wanted his disciples to emulate. Everyone else was damned.
It's not Jesus wouldn't have come to America, but he would have found his home in all of the "Other Americas" that dot our landscape. The people in the West Hollywood coffee shops are just as much strangers to those Other Americas as Rush Limbaugh. Jesus would have damned them just as much as he would damn Dick Cheney. The only difference is that Dick Cheney knows he would have been damned and is probably glad there's no god to hold him accountable.
Conservatives Beware on Polanski
Two agreements with conservatives on Roman Polanski.
First, Polanski needs to be brought back to the United States to face sentencing on the watered down charges in relation to his rape of a 13 year old girl and be prosecuted for his flight from justice.
Second, Hollywood and the arts community are profoundly wrong in defending Polanski. People like Whoopi Goldberg make themselves look like the world's biggest hypocrites for their mealy-mouthed rationalizations for not treating Polanski as the rapist he is.
But conservatives also have a problem in their attacks on Polanski. If Roman Polanski is not too important to escape justice, why do they keep arguing that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their accomplices are so important that they shouldn't be investigated let alone indicted, tried, and forced to spend the rest of their miserable lives paying for their crimes against humanity.
Ok, maybe I was getting a little overly enthusiastic there. But the world won't come to an end if Dick Cheney pays for his crimes any more than it will come to an end if Roman Polanski pays for his.
First, Polanski needs to be brought back to the United States to face sentencing on the watered down charges in relation to his rape of a 13 year old girl and be prosecuted for his flight from justice.
Second, Hollywood and the arts community are profoundly wrong in defending Polanski. People like Whoopi Goldberg make themselves look like the world's biggest hypocrites for their mealy-mouthed rationalizations for not treating Polanski as the rapist he is.
But conservatives also have a problem in their attacks on Polanski. If Roman Polanski is not too important to escape justice, why do they keep arguing that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their accomplices are so important that they shouldn't be investigated let alone indicted, tried, and forced to spend the rest of their miserable lives paying for their crimes against humanity.
Ok, maybe I was getting a little overly enthusiastic there. But the world won't come to an end if Dick Cheney pays for his crimes any more than it will come to an end if Roman Polanski pays for his.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Sure Michael Moore is an annoying blowhard
But who cares. His documentary films have a lot of great material and present a left perspective that's censored from the mainstream media. That's what matters.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Sparkman Murder: Riehl World Smearing
With the rise of DailyKos and contemporary progressivism, being tough-minded has become just as big among the left as the rest of American society. We might prefer Clint Eastwood or The Wire, but we like violent authority just as much as our friends on the right.
Of course, if anybody still had inclinations toward soft utopianism, they would be disabused by familiarity with the right-wing smear machine. Much as the left unselfconsciously embraces authoritarian violence, the right has shown itself to be fundamentally Godless. Nothing is sacred for the right-wing smear machine. Kids, war heroes, troops in Iraq, marriage, religious figures, mom--it's all been subject to vicious smears. If Michelle Malkin thought smearing apple pie would advance the conservative cause, she'd do it in a heartbeat. Rosy red carcinogens anyone? The "Obama Joker" poster was a big moment of conservative triumph because the right had finally broken the "racism taboo" and brought a racist image of Obama before the public. One of the right-wing commenters on this blog was so happy about this that he or she wanted "Obama/Joker" made into a postage stamp.
And now it's starting with Bill Sparkman, the part-time census worker who was murdered in Clay County, KY this week. Dan Riehl of the Riehl World View blog is floating the idea that Sparkman was a child sex predator and that he was somehow murdered in revenge for something linked to pedophilia. Riehl's evidence for that nasty little affront to the dead man's memory--exactly none. But who on the right really cares? Given that Sparkman's murder might become a cause celebre on the left, the right had to take him down one way or another. So Riehl puts out the idea that Sparkman could have been a "child sex predator" as a way to suggest that the lynching of Sparkman might somehow have been a "justified homicide."
I have to admit to being initially shocked by the nasty of Riehl's little smear campaign. Maybe I'm not as tough-minded as I think I am. In the final analysis, Riehl's trying to finish off the murder of Bill Sparkman by lynching his public reputation just as much as Sparkman's murderers lynched his living body.
Shouldn't be any surprise there. Lynching is as a conservative tradition as mom, apple pie, and church on Sunday.
Update: I see that responses to the Dan Riehl smear have appeared on Daily Kos. Good for them.
Of course, if anybody still had inclinations toward soft utopianism, they would be disabused by familiarity with the right-wing smear machine. Much as the left unselfconsciously embraces authoritarian violence, the right has shown itself to be fundamentally Godless. Nothing is sacred for the right-wing smear machine. Kids, war heroes, troops in Iraq, marriage, religious figures, mom--it's all been subject to vicious smears. If Michelle Malkin thought smearing apple pie would advance the conservative cause, she'd do it in a heartbeat. Rosy red carcinogens anyone? The "Obama Joker" poster was a big moment of conservative triumph because the right had finally broken the "racism taboo" and brought a racist image of Obama before the public. One of the right-wing commenters on this blog was so happy about this that he or she wanted "Obama/Joker" made into a postage stamp.
And now it's starting with Bill Sparkman, the part-time census worker who was murdered in Clay County, KY this week. Dan Riehl of the Riehl World View blog is floating the idea that Sparkman was a child sex predator and that he was somehow murdered in revenge for something linked to pedophilia. Riehl's evidence for that nasty little affront to the dead man's memory--exactly none. But who on the right really cares? Given that Sparkman's murder might become a cause celebre on the left, the right had to take him down one way or another. So Riehl puts out the idea that Sparkman could have been a "child sex predator" as a way to suggest that the lynching of Sparkman might somehow have been a "justified homicide."
I have to admit to being initially shocked by the nasty of Riehl's little smear campaign. Maybe I'm not as tough-minded as I think I am. In the final analysis, Riehl's trying to finish off the murder of Bill Sparkman by lynching his public reputation just as much as Sparkman's murderers lynched his living body.
Shouldn't be any surprise there. Lynching is as a conservative tradition as mom, apple pie, and church on Sunday.
Update: I see that responses to the Dan Riehl smear have appeared on Daily Kos. Good for them.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Iran, Sex, and the Weenie Conservative
Talking Points Media has a story on Republican Senators Kit Bond of Missouri and Jon Kyle of Arizona calling for "regime change" in Iran.
Of course, they don't actually want anything of the sort.
What the American right wants with Iran is a new round of tense brinksmanship. They want fierce denunciations of Iranian president Ahmadinejad, 24/7 chest-beating about the "Persian threat," and opportunities to snear at Iranian wimpiness. The right also wants an opportunity to talk about smart bombs, drones, and battlefield technology, use "bunker-busting" field nukes on Iranian facilities, and speculate about the inevitable Israeli attack.
For the weenies on the American right, all of this is about sex and the sexual satisfaction they derive from the denunciations, chest-beating, and weapons talk. In other words, talking about Iran has the same value for the guys on the right as porn or pro-wrestling (are they really that different?). Feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon defines pornography as the "eroticizing of domination" and that's precisly what the right does with Iran. It eroticizes the specter of its own domination over the Iranians. If we ever did bomb the Iranians, millions of guys on the right would sigh happily and light up a cigarette in triumph.
But what would the right do after we bombed the Iranians. Kim Jong-Il is sick and I'm not sure Hugo Chavez would provide the same satisfaction.
Of course, they don't actually want anything of the sort.
What the American right wants with Iran is a new round of tense brinksmanship. They want fierce denunciations of Iranian president Ahmadinejad, 24/7 chest-beating about the "Persian threat," and opportunities to snear at Iranian wimpiness. The right also wants an opportunity to talk about smart bombs, drones, and battlefield technology, use "bunker-busting" field nukes on Iranian facilities, and speculate about the inevitable Israeli attack.
For the weenies on the American right, all of this is about sex and the sexual satisfaction they derive from the denunciations, chest-beating, and weapons talk. In other words, talking about Iran has the same value for the guys on the right as porn or pro-wrestling (are they really that different?). Feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon defines pornography as the "eroticizing of domination" and that's precisly what the right does with Iran. It eroticizes the specter of its own domination over the Iranians. If we ever did bomb the Iranians, millions of guys on the right would sigh happily and light up a cigarette in triumph.
But what would the right do after we bombed the Iranians. Kim Jong-Il is sick and I'm not sure Hugo Chavez would provide the same satisfaction.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Murder of Bill Sparkman: We'll All Be Found Guilty
The man pictured above, Bill Sparkman, was the part-time Census worker who was murdered in Clay County, KY, a couple of weeks ago. Although he resided in Prestonsburg, Sparkman looks very familiar to me and Mrs. RSI and we may have seen him several times around Morehead. Sparkman's body was found nearly naked (except for socks) in a cemetery. He was bound up with duct tape and left hanging by a rope with "fed" written across his chest and his Census identification "duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder."
--
According to the coroner, Sparkman died from asphyxiation, but it hasn't been determined yet whether Sparkman died from hanging in that particular spot or whether he was killed and then moved to the cemetery to be displayed. Either way, the killing was designed to evoke memories of lynching. Either Sparkman was lynched with a great deal of terrifying ceremony of being stripped, bound, trussed, and hanged or his body was staged to imitate a lynching. Every killing is barbaric--even when it has military justification. But lynching is a particularly sick form of killing that functions as a kind of "terrorist ceremonial" designed to intimidate some sort of target population.
--
But who is being targeted in Sparkman's case. Does the lynching and the scrawling of "fed" across Sparkman's chest mean that the lynching was motivated by the anti-government sentiment associated with Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann? Or was the murder motivated by a more diffuse anti-government or anti-Obama sentiment? After the election, there was lots of chatter about assassinating Obama in this part of Kentucky. It's conceivable that someone decided to go after a much easier target in Bill Sparkman. Perhaps the murder of Bill Sparkman had something to do with the marijuana or meth business instead. At this point, there isn't enough information to come to a conclusion.
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One thing that seems certain though is that the murder of Bill Sparkman is going to produce another spasm of Appalachian stereotyping. Here's Richard M. Benjamin of HuffPost:
Is Sparkman, the late cancer survivor and single dad, the human victim of this deep anti-government sentiment pulsing in America? Or a working-class casualty in a sordid, pedestrian crime in Methland, USA?
Meth and OxyContin are just as pervasive in this area as cocain and crack are in other parts of the country. My kids know meth and pill addicts among their classmates and at least a couple of teachers have been arrested for drug offenses over the last five years. The stereotyping means that nobody in Eastern Kentucky or any part of Appalachia is able to escape the stain of these addication no matter how uninvolved they are with the drugs or how much they accomplish in their lives. It's like my students, my kids, and their friends have a "Methland" tattoo inked into their skins whether they like it or not. The stereotyping of Appalachians is not as pervasive or damaging as the stereotyping of African-Americans, and therefore not as much of a burden. But people feel the stereotyping all the same and it makes everything more difficult.
--
I doubt that anyone in this area is going to escape the stain associated with the murder of Bill Sparkman.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wishing the U. S. Was More Normal
Matthew Yglesias writes from Germany that "one of the oddest things about being in Germany during an election campaign is that I’m pretty sure I have right-of-center views relative to German politics."
But we're the weird ones, not the Germans.
Matthew Yglesias is a liberal blogger who counts as part of the left-wing of the Democratic Party in the U. S. As a blogger for ThinkProgress and journalist for several left-wing news outlets, Yglesias is as wired into the left-wing media establishment as he can be. But Yglesias would still be a conservative in Germany. Probably in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and the Scandanavian countries as well.
That means the U. S. has a conservative left, a very conservative middle, and an ultra-conservative right.
Really, we could stand to be more like the rest of the advanced industrial world.
But we're the weird ones, not the Germans.
Matthew Yglesias is a liberal blogger who counts as part of the left-wing of the Democratic Party in the U. S. As a blogger for ThinkProgress and journalist for several left-wing news outlets, Yglesias is as wired into the left-wing media establishment as he can be. But Yglesias would still be a conservative in Germany. Probably in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and the Scandanavian countries as well.
That means the U. S. has a conservative left, a very conservative middle, and an ultra-conservative right.
Really, we could stand to be more like the rest of the advanced industrial world.
Support for ObamaCare Up
The teabaggers peaked too early. According to an CBS/NY Times poll, support for the public option is up 5 points since the end of August and stands at 65%. That's formidable. Conversely, opposition to the public option is down 8 points.
Obama/Ayers Rears It's Papier-Mache Head
One of the great signs that progressives are winning the health care battle is that Ron Radosh of Pajamas Media has an item on the old "Bill Ayers wrote Obama's book" idea. Radosh works his way through "exciting new analogies" between the Obama and Joe Klein's Primary Colors and "wonderful new revelations" from a book by one Christopher Anderson.
And it all adds up to . . . well, nothing.
Dreams of My Father is in fact a powerful memoir and there is no evidence that Bill Ayers ever wrote anything as interesting as Dreams of My Father himself, let alone ghost-write it for Obama. If somebody was a ghostwriter at all, it would be much more likely that Obama would have ghost-written Ayers' books rather than the other way around.
Maybe Barack Obama is the "real author" behind all those books by Glenn Beck as well.
And it all adds up to . . . well, nothing.
Dreams of My Father is in fact a powerful memoir and there is no evidence that Bill Ayers ever wrote anything as interesting as Dreams of My Father himself, let alone ghost-write it for Obama. If somebody was a ghostwriter at all, it would be much more likely that Obama would have ghost-written Ayers' books rather than the other way around.
Maybe Barack Obama is the "real author" behind all those books by Glenn Beck as well.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Conservative Gulags: A Response to the Crisis
I've been thinking about all the poor conservatives who think that Barack Obama is a Stalinist, that Obama's going to set up "re-education" camps, or that he's taking "away" American freedoms by talking about "doing the right-thing" on health care.
According to Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner:
It's also hard to understand what Tapscott sees as Stalinist in "ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it." Is Tapscott saying that "voting" on these bills in democratically-elected representative bodies is an exercise in "Stalinism?" I didn't know that Uncle Joe was that excited about representative bodies like the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Still, I feel the pain of people like Tapscott, Michael Ledeen, Mark Levin, and all the other conservatives who view Barack Obama as a "clear and present" danger to the freedoms of Americans. Political life has been so unfair to conservatives. George Bush was a boob, the Iraq War was a dud, all those blow-dried Republican politicians had scandals and now the "crisis" of conservatism has arrived. Obama is president and the Democrats have big majorities in the House and the Senate. They're proposing a lot of far-reaching legislation. What's a serious conservative to do to meet the seriousness of the moment? How can they symbolize the imminent danger they feel for the Republic? Of course, the tea-parties have been effective and Chuck Norris' idea for "Tea-Party" American flags is pure genius. But the crisis is upon us. So conservatives need to do something more.
And I think I've hit on it.
Conservatives should create their own "gulags" to symbolize the future they believe that Obama and the Democrats are moving us toward. There's plenty of places where this could be done. There's still a lot of wide open space in the interior of Alaska. Wealthy patrons on the right (you know who you are) could create a camp with primitive barracks, armed guards, barbed wire, forced labor factories, and the rest of the paraphernalia of a concentration camp. So what if it gets to 80 or 90 below with the wind chill in interior Alaska, conservatives are tough. They also could get tips from Lena Wertmuller's Seven Beauties on how to set up a proper camp.
Then prominent conservatives could move to the camp in a dramatic representation of what's going to happen to them under the Obama administration. Given that the camp would have no internet, no laptops, no Blackberry's, and no personal electonic devices in general, conservative writers wouldn't be able to write anything. But what "real conservative" wouldn't sacrifice their writing careers for the sake of manifesting the "real truth" about Obama administration tyranny? Likewise, what conservative wouldn't be willing to give up their high-paid, cushy lives in liberal bastions like New York or Washington for a more authentic stint as a political prisoner? Conservatives want something more authentic anyway. They're tired of living the sham life of democracy in Obama's America. Setting up an elaborate prison system for themselves would be the best way for prominent figures on the right to "keep it real."
Ok! There are some conservatives who would not be into the "roughing it" part of a concentration camp. Given the racial purity of Rush Limbaugh's white heritage, he has very sensitive skin. So Limbaugh wouldn't want to do this kind of thing. But I'm sure Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Michael Ledeen would be all for it. Maybe Chuck Norris could serve as commanding officer for their barracks.
It would be like Hogan's Heroes.
Of course, Alaska isn't the only place where conservatives could confine themselves to concentration camps. Idaho and Montana are excellent locations. Likewise, there's no reason why conservatives couldn't suffer political persecution out in the Mojave Desert. Maybe conservatives could increase their sense of authenticity by imprisoning themselves on one of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River during the winter and then "summer" in a desert facility. The right could even set up a chain of prison camps where Tea Party activists could spend some hard time preparing for the hard times to come.
I think Henry David Thoreau (almost a Founding Father!) wrote someplace that jail was the only place for a free man. Conservatives can bring that fundamental truth to life by creating conservative political prisons and volunteering to serve some hard time behind the walls.
According to Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner:
History - and the words of progressives themselves - suggest not long. Consider New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's telling admiration for the communist thugs who run the Chinese government:
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonabley enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."
There are certain problems with Tapscott's argument--for instance, the idea that Thomas Friedman is a "progressive." Most of the big-name progressive bloggers like Glenn Greenwald and Digby have more respect for Rush Limbaugh than they have for Friedman. They might limit themselves to slapping Friedman around for a little light work before they move on to something important, but they essentially view Friedman as a punching bag. The way that Friedman constantly urged the American people to give the Bush administration six more months in Iraq became such a joke that progressives derisively refer to six-month time periods as "Friedman units." And then there was the "suck on this" episode in which Friedman tried to sound "Dick Cheney tough" but came off as super-pathetic instead of super-macho.That in a nutshell is the totalitarian temptation that plagues all who would use the power of the state to impose their vision of the good society on the rest of us.
It's the ever-present Stalin whispering in the progressive ear: "Ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it. Do it now while you have the power!"
It's also hard to understand what Tapscott sees as Stalinist in "ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it." Is Tapscott saying that "voting" on these bills in democratically-elected representative bodies is an exercise in "Stalinism?" I didn't know that Uncle Joe was that excited about representative bodies like the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Still, I feel the pain of people like Tapscott, Michael Ledeen, Mark Levin, and all the other conservatives who view Barack Obama as a "clear and present" danger to the freedoms of Americans. Political life has been so unfair to conservatives. George Bush was a boob, the Iraq War was a dud, all those blow-dried Republican politicians had scandals and now the "crisis" of conservatism has arrived. Obama is president and the Democrats have big majorities in the House and the Senate. They're proposing a lot of far-reaching legislation. What's a serious conservative to do to meet the seriousness of the moment? How can they symbolize the imminent danger they feel for the Republic? Of course, the tea-parties have been effective and Chuck Norris' idea for "Tea-Party" American flags is pure genius. But the crisis is upon us. So conservatives need to do something more.
And I think I've hit on it.
Conservatives should create their own "gulags" to symbolize the future they believe that Obama and the Democrats are moving us toward. There's plenty of places where this could be done. There's still a lot of wide open space in the interior of Alaska. Wealthy patrons on the right (you know who you are) could create a camp with primitive barracks, armed guards, barbed wire, forced labor factories, and the rest of the paraphernalia of a concentration camp. So what if it gets to 80 or 90 below with the wind chill in interior Alaska, conservatives are tough. They also could get tips from Lena Wertmuller's Seven Beauties on how to set up a proper camp.
Then prominent conservatives could move to the camp in a dramatic representation of what's going to happen to them under the Obama administration. Given that the camp would have no internet, no laptops, no Blackberry's, and no personal electonic devices in general, conservative writers wouldn't be able to write anything. But what "real conservative" wouldn't sacrifice their writing careers for the sake of manifesting the "real truth" about Obama administration tyranny? Likewise, what conservative wouldn't be willing to give up their high-paid, cushy lives in liberal bastions like New York or Washington for a more authentic stint as a political prisoner? Conservatives want something more authentic anyway. They're tired of living the sham life of democracy in Obama's America. Setting up an elaborate prison system for themselves would be the best way for prominent figures on the right to "keep it real."
Ok! There are some conservatives who would not be into the "roughing it" part of a concentration camp. Given the racial purity of Rush Limbaugh's white heritage, he has very sensitive skin. So Limbaugh wouldn't want to do this kind of thing. But I'm sure Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Michael Ledeen would be all for it. Maybe Chuck Norris could serve as commanding officer for their barracks.
It would be like Hogan's Heroes.
Of course, Alaska isn't the only place where conservatives could confine themselves to concentration camps. Idaho and Montana are excellent locations. Likewise, there's no reason why conservatives couldn't suffer political persecution out in the Mojave Desert. Maybe conservatives could increase their sense of authenticity by imprisoning themselves on one of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River during the winter and then "summer" in a desert facility. The right could even set up a chain of prison camps where Tea Party activists could spend some hard time preparing for the hard times to come.
I think Henry David Thoreau (almost a Founding Father!) wrote someplace that jail was the only place for a free man. Conservatives can bring that fundamental truth to life by creating conservative political prisons and volunteering to serve some hard time behind the walls.
The Brave Geese of Morehead
Once again, I hear the brave geese of Morehead, flying north for the winter. Of course, it just might be that the geese know something about global warming.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Miss Tween Takes a Break
Miss Tween RSI and I had an almost serious talk about her love life today. Having gone through three boyfriends in the last week, Miss Teen thought it would be a good idea if she was grounded from "dating" for awhile.
I couldn't have agreed more.
Anyway, Miss Teen's original idea was to be banned until the end of October, but I talked her into extending the ban until the end of the year.
She seemed relieved.
I couldn't have agreed more.
Anyway, Miss Teen's original idea was to be banned until the end of October, but I talked her into extending the ban until the end of the year.
She seemed relieved.
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