Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Again, more on this later...but something on my mind...
Nothing really unique here but thinking about the "end of the Protestant Ethic." Might be good to consider the variety of cultural forms and ojects, way they play to different classes and ethnicities. Stereotype of the rich business person who doesn't have time to "live" vs. the noble impoverished who have learned how to enjoy life. What this does is, in addition to the structural social problems and the way it is transferred through the family, is to keep people doing what they are doing. Allowing for the letter never arriving at its destination and the variety of media available in the culture...
Nothing really unique here but thinking about the "end of the Protestant Ethic." Might be good to consider the variety of cultural forms and ojects, way they play to different classes and ethnicities. Stereotype of the rich business person who doesn't have time to "live" vs. the noble impoverished who have learned how to enjoy life. What this does is, in addition to the structural social problems and the way it is transferred through the family, is to keep people doing what they are doing. Allowing for the letter never arriving at its destination and the variety of media available in the culture...
Friday, August 27, 2004
on bus today...
more on this when I am less busy, but went on bus today, late again, feeling a bit angry and entitled. it was late yesterday as well and I was at the stop for an hour, at school an hour later than I needed to be, etc.
As I sat on bus, reading PEOPLE's History, realized what was going on. It was her first day driving this route.
doing it to make more $$ driving the long routes
people came forward to help
one after the other to gude her through
this was in her interest, and they were advocating for themselves.
Not about Americans but about people--but it is about making a country where people can help themselves, each other and the institutions in which they relate.
As I thought about it, compared it to a few weeks ago, getting off the bus when driver was wrong about the route, doing myself, the others on the bus, the driver and ultimately Metro itself a disservice because of my deference and interest in helping only myself in getting off the bus.
Lippmann--model of communication and of reading the news is the atomized, individual reader, trying to take it all in. But we don't experience the news that way, do we?
Still, more and more, even on the internet, I find that our communcation is strained
more on this when I am less busy, but went on bus today, late again, feeling a bit angry and entitled. it was late yesterday as well and I was at the stop for an hour, at school an hour later than I needed to be, etc.
As I sat on bus, reading PEOPLE's History, realized what was going on. It was her first day driving this route.
doing it to make more $$ driving the long routes
people came forward to help
one after the other to gude her through
this was in her interest, and they were advocating for themselves.
Not about Americans but about people--but it is about making a country where people can help themselves, each other and the institutions in which they relate.
As I thought about it, compared it to a few weeks ago, getting off the bus when driver was wrong about the route, doing myself, the others on the bus, the driver and ultimately Metro itself a disservice because of my deference and interest in helping only myself in getting off the bus.
Lippmann--model of communication and of reading the news is the atomized, individual reader, trying to take it all in. But we don't experience the news that way, do we?
Still, more and more, even on the internet, I find that our communcation is strained
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Mystic River
(On the off chance that anyone ever comes across this and hasn't seen the film and wants to see the film, it's probably going to spoil it for you. Then again, Jill says that everytime I talk about a movie I spoil it. ho hum.)
The film begins with a familiar plot device that seems to plod along throughout the film and is almost a distraction to the story. Robbins' character, Dave, is obviously troubled, having flashbacks of when he was abducted and abused as a child. The film wants us to understand this it is just unclear why. The only thing we know is that we can't trust him, that we should suspect him of something and, most likely, we should suspect him of killing his old friend Jimmy's daughter. We don't really understand why he would do it, but, hey, he's a fucked up guy: why not him?
The rest of the film is a well scripted drama with characters all dealing with their own kind of sadness, a dance where we can see the way they unfold in new ways through their interactions. A sign of a good scriptwriter who knows the most important thing is to have more depth to a character than the script will ever use. It wasn't nearly as depressing to watch as I thought it would be simply because, despite the deep anguish you see Sean Penn's character in, the methodical way in which he goes about finding is daughter's murderer gives it an edge. To some viewers, this edge may be very familiar--and even comforting: it is the edge we are told it is good to have when a loved one is wronged. It is the edge that comes naturally to the vigilante, the man who takes matters into his own hands when the police can't be trusted, well respected in his community because he is a man of action. He is, in a word, the prototypical Clint Eastwood hero: the cowboy, the rebel cop, the ubermensche who does what needs to be done: when he tells the corpse of his daughter that he will kill the person who did this, you still aren't completely sure how to read it, but you ultimately accept at least the sentiment and don't think it would be all that bad if he did do the dirty work.
And then there is the police officer, in this case, Kevin Bacon, who seems also to be the prototypical Example of the Establishment. He has left the old neighborhood, forgotten the rules, and seems to drag his feet when it means his old friend might be the one to end up guilty. His partner says as much and his response each time seems so defensive that you have to wonder if he is overcompensating for being secretly soft on crime. Though you see him doing the work to find this killer--much more so than the goons that Penn has running around--you are meant to wonder if he is really up to the task.
In the middle of this, of course, are the women, supporting characters at best for most of the film (though I think it could be argued they provide the starkest poles of the ambiguity the film ends with). Linney, as Penn's wife, has very few scenes where she says more than two words: in the first, she seems naggy, not all that deep, another prototypical character: she's that kind of wife. Gay Hardin is much more complex. She has a moral and ethical quandry that is central to the film and, for the most part, you think you know what she should do: she should do the right thing and tell someone that she believes her husband killed Penn's daughter. I had my doubts about whether she should have told Penn, but at the moment, you're sure she should tell someone. And it seems like the film wants you to understand, at that moment, that Penn is better equipped to handle the problem than Bacon. Bacon has the problem of red tape, of getting the right evidence to nail Robbins even if he did believe it: Penn has no such limits on his ability to dispense justice. It is, again, a theme that runs through many other Eastwood films.
But then there is the problem of the gun. The gun belongs to the father of Penn's daughter's boyfriend. Katie and (whatever his name is) planned on running away together and getting married. And, from the one scene we have with them, there is little doubt that is the case. The gun doesn't really make sense and I found myself trying to figure out how Tim Robbins ended up with the this other guy's gun.
And, of course, this is where the Eastwood legacy gets overturned a bit. First off, the goons have come up with little of their own information. They have basically followed in the footsteps of the cops who "for once are doing their job" and have pieced together the case against Robbins. At this moment we have little doubt ourselves that he did it and though there is a bit of bourgeois discomfort with these thugs taking care of business, it must be done for the movie to close. But this time, the thugs are wrong. They have found some information--information they didn't like, but believed anyway (he's a fucked up guy: why not him?) and began to take action. The Establishment, could have been trusted, in this case, and one less person would have been dead.
All of this seems to revolt against the Eastwood doctrine which says that institutional, social order can't be trusted to do what men alone can do better. Penn has killed the wrong man and as he did so, justice was being peacefully meted out across town, his daughter's killers safe behind bars. If the film had ended here, I would begin to wonder what to make of this seeming transformation. Are we really to believe that there are time when men can be too blinded by what they want to see that it helps to have some sort of objective process, with proper channels, checks and balances, by which we should work?
When Penn kills Robbins, he isn't doing it because he thinks Robbins has killed his daughter. On a certain level he knows that there is room for doubt. It is a forced forced confession. Penn has put into motion the wheels of vigilante justice and can't stop them. The thugs who are also convinced that Robbins did it will not easily let the evening end with him alive. Penn forces a confession: Robbins complys, but can't tell him the thing he really wants to know. Robbins can't tell Penn why he killed his daughter because he didn't do it, so instead he tells him about what he was thinking when he saw Katie in the bar. He probably truthfully did have a feeling of envy about the youthfulness she and her friends were enjoying. By this time we know he didn't do it; we know that Penn and his street justice are "wrong," that they've got the wrong guy. But we also remember why we tought he did it in the first place so when he begins talking to Penn about the way things might be different if he hadn't been the one in the car--something we know Penn has thought about because he mentions it earlier in the film. When Penn kills him he does it because, hey, he's fucked up: why not him? but, more importantly, because Robbins represents a source of guilt Penn would be better off without. So Robbins is dead, unjustly.
Robbins, for his part, is also being punished for taking the law into his own hands. He has a much better excuse, but certainly not one that would hold up in court. This desparation which makes it impossible for him to confess is not a small part of the plot--and is, perhaps an underlying reinstatement of the Eastwood ethos: Robbins as an unlikely Dirty Harry, taking care of a child molester that had been out of jail three time before. yet he doesn't believe either system, the street or the establishment, would be willing to understand this predicament. Granted he's a fucked up guy, but still he's right, right?
The last scenes of the film increase this ambiguity even more and the characters are shown in their true colors in the end. Bacon, though he seems to be a decent cop through most of the movie, operates with the sort of realpolitik we've come to expect of law enforcement: yeah he knows that Penn murdered Robbins but neither the street nor the establishment would help him prove it. He is happy that his wife has returned and, perhaps, also relieved that the guilt of Robbins is gone. The system is broken, but it isn't just the one in the Police Station. Power, restrictions, assumptions all come into play whenever people begin handing down judgements and punishments, whether in a courtroom or on a riverbank behind the local bar. Penn is just another part of this system. Though Bacon and his partner (Fishburne) did solve the case, the success is sullied by his actions after the case is closed. He makes no move to even attempt to hold Penn accountable and shows no remorse when Gay Hardin walks down the street, looking for some justice of her own.
This interpretation, ambigous as it is, certainly seems to redeem all the fascist, cowboy tendencies of earlier epics. The subtleties and the simple fact that it was difficult to have any idea who actually committed the crime, that the viewer was shaken by their inability to have shown the true culprit, make the riding off into the sunset of the cowboy an untenable ending. So instead there is a stalemate, a face off between Bacon and Penn where both of them concede that nothing will be done about Robbins death. If it was only up to the men, the film seems to end with this realpolitik as its final chord. But Laura Linney and Marsha gay Hardin simultaneously destabilize these positions and, in an even more subtle way, reinstate the Eastwood doctrine in a new, feminized way.
Linney's last scene is the only place that we get to see who she is and her reading of events is ultimately the last of the film. She basically tells Penn that it doesn't matter if he was right or wrong, it was the thought behind the action, the fact that he would be willing to kill on behalf of his family, that was important. This, in itself, is enough to wrap things neatly into a new package. True, it could be said to challenge some assumptions about women being the keepers of the moral flame. When Penn tells her he's killed, we expect her to act like Gay Hardin does earlier: with supportive, sympathetic horror. But instead, she simply brushes it aside, saying that he killed for a noble cause even if it ended up being a bit overzealous. this is, of course, that same eastwood fascism, repackaged for the era of the "fuck for freedom" movement and the drawing of the statue of liberty, draped in a flag, holding a baby and a gun saying "nothing should get in the way of a mother and her children." It is a new kind of law that says we all must join together to combat evil wherever it may be--and even if we sometimes kill the wrong guy at the time, he was fucked up: why not him? and, more importantly, you have proven yourself to be a dependable defener of your family, and that, Linney says, is all that matters.
This would be enough to make the final moments of the film seem more like a traditional Eastwood ending. But there is more. Within this little speech, Linney firmly places the blame for Penn's misunderstanding on the person who gave him this "intellegence:" "why would someone say that about her husband?" With disdain and disbelief, Linney makes us all feel better about having believed that Robbins was a murderer because, deep down, Gay Hardin wasn't loyal, she didn't stand by her man, and she made all of us doubt his innocence. She was the weakest person in the story and, though she may have told us what we wanted to hear at the time, it's ultimately her own fault for not having faith in her man. All of this goes a long way to making the final moments, when she tearfully wanders through the crowd of the parade, looking for a consoling glance from the people who loved her days ago, almost justified. Even her own son won't look at her and, as the camera pans around and lands on her from time to time, it asks us if we really feel sorry for her. Had she been loyal and never questioned the authority of her husband, she wouldn't be in this mess. In that regard, for all its hearfelt questioning and seemingly deep moral inquiry, and, most importantly, its ambiguity about the best way to get justice, it seems to be quite conservative in its final notes.
(On the off chance that anyone ever comes across this and hasn't seen the film and wants to see the film, it's probably going to spoil it for you. Then again, Jill says that everytime I talk about a movie I spoil it. ho hum.)
The film begins with a familiar plot device that seems to plod along throughout the film and is almost a distraction to the story. Robbins' character, Dave, is obviously troubled, having flashbacks of when he was abducted and abused as a child. The film wants us to understand this it is just unclear why. The only thing we know is that we can't trust him, that we should suspect him of something and, most likely, we should suspect him of killing his old friend Jimmy's daughter. We don't really understand why he would do it, but, hey, he's a fucked up guy: why not him?
The rest of the film is a well scripted drama with characters all dealing with their own kind of sadness, a dance where we can see the way they unfold in new ways through their interactions. A sign of a good scriptwriter who knows the most important thing is to have more depth to a character than the script will ever use. It wasn't nearly as depressing to watch as I thought it would be simply because, despite the deep anguish you see Sean Penn's character in, the methodical way in which he goes about finding is daughter's murderer gives it an edge. To some viewers, this edge may be very familiar--and even comforting: it is the edge we are told it is good to have when a loved one is wronged. It is the edge that comes naturally to the vigilante, the man who takes matters into his own hands when the police can't be trusted, well respected in his community because he is a man of action. He is, in a word, the prototypical Clint Eastwood hero: the cowboy, the rebel cop, the ubermensche who does what needs to be done: when he tells the corpse of his daughter that he will kill the person who did this, you still aren't completely sure how to read it, but you ultimately accept at least the sentiment and don't think it would be all that bad if he did do the dirty work.
And then there is the police officer, in this case, Kevin Bacon, who seems also to be the prototypical Example of the Establishment. He has left the old neighborhood, forgotten the rules, and seems to drag his feet when it means his old friend might be the one to end up guilty. His partner says as much and his response each time seems so defensive that you have to wonder if he is overcompensating for being secretly soft on crime. Though you see him doing the work to find this killer--much more so than the goons that Penn has running around--you are meant to wonder if he is really up to the task.
In the middle of this, of course, are the women, supporting characters at best for most of the film (though I think it could be argued they provide the starkest poles of the ambiguity the film ends with). Linney, as Penn's wife, has very few scenes where she says more than two words: in the first, she seems naggy, not all that deep, another prototypical character: she's that kind of wife. Gay Hardin is much more complex. She has a moral and ethical quandry that is central to the film and, for the most part, you think you know what she should do: she should do the right thing and tell someone that she believes her husband killed Penn's daughter. I had my doubts about whether she should have told Penn, but at the moment, you're sure she should tell someone. And it seems like the film wants you to understand, at that moment, that Penn is better equipped to handle the problem than Bacon. Bacon has the problem of red tape, of getting the right evidence to nail Robbins even if he did believe it: Penn has no such limits on his ability to dispense justice. It is, again, a theme that runs through many other Eastwood films.
But then there is the problem of the gun. The gun belongs to the father of Penn's daughter's boyfriend. Katie and (whatever his name is) planned on running away together and getting married. And, from the one scene we have with them, there is little doubt that is the case. The gun doesn't really make sense and I found myself trying to figure out how Tim Robbins ended up with the this other guy's gun.
And, of course, this is where the Eastwood legacy gets overturned a bit. First off, the goons have come up with little of their own information. They have basically followed in the footsteps of the cops who "for once are doing their job" and have pieced together the case against Robbins. At this moment we have little doubt ourselves that he did it and though there is a bit of bourgeois discomfort with these thugs taking care of business, it must be done for the movie to close. But this time, the thugs are wrong. They have found some information--information they didn't like, but believed anyway (he's a fucked up guy: why not him?) and began to take action. The Establishment, could have been trusted, in this case, and one less person would have been dead.
All of this seems to revolt against the Eastwood doctrine which says that institutional, social order can't be trusted to do what men alone can do better. Penn has killed the wrong man and as he did so, justice was being peacefully meted out across town, his daughter's killers safe behind bars. If the film had ended here, I would begin to wonder what to make of this seeming transformation. Are we really to believe that there are time when men can be too blinded by what they want to see that it helps to have some sort of objective process, with proper channels, checks and balances, by which we should work?
When Penn kills Robbins, he isn't doing it because he thinks Robbins has killed his daughter. On a certain level he knows that there is room for doubt. It is a forced forced confession. Penn has put into motion the wheels of vigilante justice and can't stop them. The thugs who are also convinced that Robbins did it will not easily let the evening end with him alive. Penn forces a confession: Robbins complys, but can't tell him the thing he really wants to know. Robbins can't tell Penn why he killed his daughter because he didn't do it, so instead he tells him about what he was thinking when he saw Katie in the bar. He probably truthfully did have a feeling of envy about the youthfulness she and her friends were enjoying. By this time we know he didn't do it; we know that Penn and his street justice are "wrong," that they've got the wrong guy. But we also remember why we tought he did it in the first place so when he begins talking to Penn about the way things might be different if he hadn't been the one in the car--something we know Penn has thought about because he mentions it earlier in the film. When Penn kills him he does it because, hey, he's fucked up: why not him? but, more importantly, because Robbins represents a source of guilt Penn would be better off without. So Robbins is dead, unjustly.
Robbins, for his part, is also being punished for taking the law into his own hands. He has a much better excuse, but certainly not one that would hold up in court. This desparation which makes it impossible for him to confess is not a small part of the plot--and is, perhaps an underlying reinstatement of the Eastwood ethos: Robbins as an unlikely Dirty Harry, taking care of a child molester that had been out of jail three time before. yet he doesn't believe either system, the street or the establishment, would be willing to understand this predicament. Granted he's a fucked up guy, but still he's right, right?
The last scenes of the film increase this ambiguity even more and the characters are shown in their true colors in the end. Bacon, though he seems to be a decent cop through most of the movie, operates with the sort of realpolitik we've come to expect of law enforcement: yeah he knows that Penn murdered Robbins but neither the street nor the establishment would help him prove it. He is happy that his wife has returned and, perhaps, also relieved that the guilt of Robbins is gone. The system is broken, but it isn't just the one in the Police Station. Power, restrictions, assumptions all come into play whenever people begin handing down judgements and punishments, whether in a courtroom or on a riverbank behind the local bar. Penn is just another part of this system. Though Bacon and his partner (Fishburne) did solve the case, the success is sullied by his actions after the case is closed. He makes no move to even attempt to hold Penn accountable and shows no remorse when Gay Hardin walks down the street, looking for some justice of her own.
This interpretation, ambigous as it is, certainly seems to redeem all the fascist, cowboy tendencies of earlier epics. The subtleties and the simple fact that it was difficult to have any idea who actually committed the crime, that the viewer was shaken by their inability to have shown the true culprit, make the riding off into the sunset of the cowboy an untenable ending. So instead there is a stalemate, a face off between Bacon and Penn where both of them concede that nothing will be done about Robbins death. If it was only up to the men, the film seems to end with this realpolitik as its final chord. But Laura Linney and Marsha gay Hardin simultaneously destabilize these positions and, in an even more subtle way, reinstate the Eastwood doctrine in a new, feminized way.
Linney's last scene is the only place that we get to see who she is and her reading of events is ultimately the last of the film. She basically tells Penn that it doesn't matter if he was right or wrong, it was the thought behind the action, the fact that he would be willing to kill on behalf of his family, that was important. This, in itself, is enough to wrap things neatly into a new package. True, it could be said to challenge some assumptions about women being the keepers of the moral flame. When Penn tells her he's killed, we expect her to act like Gay Hardin does earlier: with supportive, sympathetic horror. But instead, she simply brushes it aside, saying that he killed for a noble cause even if it ended up being a bit overzealous. this is, of course, that same eastwood fascism, repackaged for the era of the "fuck for freedom" movement and the drawing of the statue of liberty, draped in a flag, holding a baby and a gun saying "nothing should get in the way of a mother and her children." It is a new kind of law that says we all must join together to combat evil wherever it may be--and even if we sometimes kill the wrong guy at the time, he was fucked up: why not him? and, more importantly, you have proven yourself to be a dependable defener of your family, and that, Linney says, is all that matters.
This would be enough to make the final moments of the film seem more like a traditional Eastwood ending. But there is more. Within this little speech, Linney firmly places the blame for Penn's misunderstanding on the person who gave him this "intellegence:" "why would someone say that about her husband?" With disdain and disbelief, Linney makes us all feel better about having believed that Robbins was a murderer because, deep down, Gay Hardin wasn't loyal, she didn't stand by her man, and she made all of us doubt his innocence. She was the weakest person in the story and, though she may have told us what we wanted to hear at the time, it's ultimately her own fault for not having faith in her man. All of this goes a long way to making the final moments, when she tearfully wanders through the crowd of the parade, looking for a consoling glance from the people who loved her days ago, almost justified. Even her own son won't look at her and, as the camera pans around and lands on her from time to time, it asks us if we really feel sorry for her. Had she been loyal and never questioned the authority of her husband, she wouldn't be in this mess. In that regard, for all its hearfelt questioning and seemingly deep moral inquiry, and, most importantly, its ambiguity about the best way to get justice, it seems to be quite conservative in its final notes.
Friday, August 20, 2004
http://www.aejmc.org/
sounds like an interesting org--and had a conference on Blogging earlier this summer
Two sites to look at for the viz cult class
http://www.silentscream.org/
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/abortion/silentscream.HTM
sounds like an interesting org--and had a conference on Blogging earlier this summer
Two sites to look at for the viz cult class
http://www.silentscream.org/
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/abortion/silentscream.HTM
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
The New York Times New York Region Just Keep It Peaceful Protesters New York Is Offering Discounts
The Mayor of NY seems wise to the tactics--though still missing the point. Nevertheless, it is a bit humorous to see his "welcome, peaceful political activists" campaign.
The Mayor of NY seems wise to the tactics--though still missing the point. Nevertheless, it is a bit humorous to see his "welcome, peaceful political activists" campaign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/opinion/17tue1.html
It is interesting the way that the ghosts of the 60s protest movement are coming back to haunt us. This editorial of the NYT today is trying to keep the FBI from continuing down the same old path they went down in the 1960s--in which the tactics they used to infilitrate protest movements were so illegal that few of the cases against actual criminal activities could be prosecuted and little of the information that they gathered was useful.
On the other hand, Todd Gitlin (SDS pres in 1963-64) and John Passacantando have warned the protesters themselves to keep it clean: "Protesters who spell "Bush" with a swastika, who smash windows, fight the police or try to block Manhattan commuters might as well stay home and send their contributions to the Republicans."
The extremism of both of these sides is the best evidence around that Bush is bad for the health of the country. And it makes me appreciate Kerry's moderation all the more. For a while I was bothered because it didn't seem like there would be any drastic change in the system itself with the election of Kerry. Now I feel that, after watching Bush for the past four years, revolutionary extremist agendas are difficult to get consensus for without lying about what you are doing to most of the people most of the time. That is no way to run a country.
For the FBIs part, I am sure they are caught up in the neo-cold-war logic of us vs. them and are therefore more interested in quelling dissent of any kind, regardless of what totalitarian practices they have to use to do so. At the same time, I am sure that these protesters--or those who may be planning some of the more "violent" protests--feel that they also have an enemy to protect themselves from and that the "legal" means (which, as of late, are becoming confined to a thinner and thinner area of practice) are no longer effective. On both counts, however, it seems that people in the US don't like to see violence and they don't like to hear about the Feds infringing on civil liberties; no one is really worried about these activities as being "terrorist" thus the battle is really over hearts and minds (especially for those of us who may be protesting). As much as I cringe at Gitlin (aka Uncle Todd) I do think he is probably right that violent protest will only help Bush--and I wouldn't put it past the GOP to have people out there trying to make things violent so that it will look worse.
It is interesting the way that the ghosts of the 60s protest movement are coming back to haunt us. This editorial of the NYT today is trying to keep the FBI from continuing down the same old path they went down in the 1960s--in which the tactics they used to infilitrate protest movements were so illegal that few of the cases against actual criminal activities could be prosecuted and little of the information that they gathered was useful.
On the other hand, Todd Gitlin (SDS pres in 1963-64) and John Passacantando have warned the protesters themselves to keep it clean: "Protesters who spell "Bush" with a swastika, who smash windows, fight the police or try to block Manhattan commuters might as well stay home and send their contributions to the Republicans."
The extremism of both of these sides is the best evidence around that Bush is bad for the health of the country. And it makes me appreciate Kerry's moderation all the more. For a while I was bothered because it didn't seem like there would be any drastic change in the system itself with the election of Kerry. Now I feel that, after watching Bush for the past four years, revolutionary extremist agendas are difficult to get consensus for without lying about what you are doing to most of the people most of the time. That is no way to run a country.
For the FBIs part, I am sure they are caught up in the neo-cold-war logic of us vs. them and are therefore more interested in quelling dissent of any kind, regardless of what totalitarian practices they have to use to do so. At the same time, I am sure that these protesters--or those who may be planning some of the more "violent" protests--feel that they also have an enemy to protect themselves from and that the "legal" means (which, as of late, are becoming confined to a thinner and thinner area of practice) are no longer effective. On both counts, however, it seems that people in the US don't like to see violence and they don't like to hear about the Feds infringing on civil liberties; no one is really worried about these activities as being "terrorist" thus the battle is really over hearts and minds (especially for those of us who may be protesting). As much as I cringe at Gitlin (aka Uncle Todd) I do think he is probably right that violent protest will only help Bush--and I wouldn't put it past the GOP to have people out there trying to make things violent so that it will look worse.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6678-2004Aug16.html
Another former Bush fan--at least in so far as he was carrying out the Liberal version of the New American Century--decides to ditch. Though I don't know how much I agree with his assessment that there were only two options about how to deal with Baghdad, but he is right, like Andrew Sullivan a few weeks ago, that even if you believed in the ends of the US war on Iraq, the means left much to be desired.
Perhaps Iraq would have been a disaster no matter what. But there's a thinly veiled racism behind such views, implying that Iraqis are savages genetically disposed to produce chaos and anarchy. In fact, other nation-building efforts over the past decade have gone reasonably well, when well planned and executed.
A bit over the top here, but there is obviously racism from top to bottom in this war--the basic premise of it in even Zakaria's understanding, is that the people of Iraq wanted and needed liberation, but were afraid of being liberated AND that Saddam is so very different than all the responible, reasonable white folks in the world that he couldn't be allowed to have any more of the big scary guns we'd been selling him. As for nation building, I would like for him to give some concrete examples of when that has worked and in what context.
Here is where he seems right in essance, though his use of corporate philosophy as opposed to political science is telling.
"Strategy is execution," Louis Gerstner, former chief executive of IBM, American Express and RJR Nabisco, has often remarked. In fact, it's widely understood in the business world that having a good objective means nothing if you implement it badly. "Unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they're pointless," writes Larry Bossidy, former chief executive of Honeywell.
Another former Bush fan--at least in so far as he was carrying out the Liberal version of the New American Century--decides to ditch. Though I don't know how much I agree with his assessment that there were only two options about how to deal with Baghdad, but he is right, like Andrew Sullivan a few weeks ago, that even if you believed in the ends of the US war on Iraq, the means left much to be desired.
Perhaps Iraq would have been a disaster no matter what. But there's a thinly veiled racism behind such views, implying that Iraqis are savages genetically disposed to produce chaos and anarchy. In fact, other nation-building efforts over the past decade have gone reasonably well, when well planned and executed.
A bit over the top here, but there is obviously racism from top to bottom in this war--the basic premise of it in even Zakaria's understanding, is that the people of Iraq wanted and needed liberation, but were afraid of being liberated AND that Saddam is so very different than all the responible, reasonable white folks in the world that he couldn't be allowed to have any more of the big scary guns we'd been selling him. As for nation building, I would like for him to give some concrete examples of when that has worked and in what context.
Here is where he seems right in essance, though his use of corporate philosophy as opposed to political science is telling.
"Strategy is execution," Louis Gerstner, former chief executive of IBM, American Express and RJR Nabisco, has often remarked. In fact, it's widely understood in the business world that having a good objective means nothing if you implement it badly. "Unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they're pointless," writes Larry Bossidy, former chief executive of Honeywell.
Monday, August 16, 2004
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush's Own Goal
Krugman here on the prisoners of the american dream and the way Bush capitalizes on this in his skewed tax plan and his neo-liberal phantasy of an "ownership society:"
"The political problem with a policy favoring investment returns over wages is that a vast majority of Americans derive their income primarily from wages, and that the bulk of investment income goes to a small elite. How, then, can such a policy be sold? By promising that everyone can join the elite. "
Certainly this is obviously the tactic being used by the Bush, borrowed wholesale by the neoliberals that populate his silly little circle of performative economists. There is a local connection here at GMU, at least to the theory behind his seemingly beautiful "ownership soctiety" wherein, as Bush says, "I understand if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America." The Institute for Humane Studies here at GMU has its own version of this oversimplified illumination of the neo-classical economists, involving cute fuzzy bunnies--which, of course, is something no one should be afraid of, right? The idea, as with Bush's logic, is that people will only keep from squandering natural resources if they are allowed to own them. In the game, you are invited (along with two computerized rival poachers) to play two versions, the first where the bunnies are held in common by the public, the second when they are privately owned.
In the first version, the round only ends when all of the bunnies are gone, thus it is over very quickly and it is in your interest to kill as many as you can b/c if you don't someone else will. And, of course, there are no other social or political factors involved that might restrain you from taking as many as you can.
In the second version, you own a certain number of bunnies. There is not an explanation of how you came to own them or who you might have dispossessed of bunnies in order to do so. You just own them and are invited to see how much better the game goes when you have the incentive to not kill all the bunnies you own because then they will reproduce and you will have an unbelievable bounty of bunnies since each year the remaining bunnies you have will all reproduce (b/c they're bunnies).
In classic classical logic, there is no discussion of how this will play out if you are competing in the sale of your bunnies with a massive corporation who has bought out all of the other bunny owners, has bought up much of the land and is colluding with the mortgage company you have paid for your high-tech bunny raising equipment (which must be used in order to raise the bunnies they want on our modern market). The giant bunny corporation has the power to flood the market or otherwise control the bunny market so that you are pretty much forced to either sell all your bunnies to them or to work for them in some capacity, ending rather quickly, the little utopia of the "ownership society" since, in fact, only a handful of major bunny production corporations control the entry into the market. There is no way for consumers to effectively control this via the elegant and useless mechanism of supply and demand b/c if they want bunnies, there are very few choices and, besides, they only want name brand bunnies anyway because that's what they see on TV. It is, indeed, a fantastic society for the people who are owners; it would just be nice if there were a few more of them. Unfortunately, in such an ownership society, the only role for government is to make sure that the owners qua owners are never threatened. If you used to be an owner, that's your problem and it is your own fault that you sold out and now have to work for Bugs Inc. or whatever the name of that corporation is. And if you had tried, at any point, to join together with the other bunny raisers and keep your culture and lifestyle from being destroyed, you probably would have been branded socialists and, ironically, as enemies of the "ownership society" despite the fact that you were the original owners.
But at least the neo-classical dimwits have a simple way of telling you what you should believe. Along these lines, here is a final "money" quote from Krugmann about the still not dead plan of privatizing social security:
Social Security is, basically, a system in which each generation pays for the previous generation's retirement. If the payroll taxes of younger workers are diverted into private accounts, there will be a gaping financial hole: who will pay benefits to older Americans, who have spent their working lives paying into the current system? Unless you have a way to fill that multitrillion-dollar hole, privatization is an empty slogan, not a real proposal.
In 2001, Mr. Bush's handpicked commission on Social Security was unable to agree on a plan to create private accounts because there was no way to make the arithmetic work. Undaunted, this year the Bush campaign once again insists that privatization will lead to a "permanently strengthened Social Security system, without changing benefits for those now in or near retirement, and without raising payroll taxes on workers." In other words, 2 - 1 = 4.
My favorite part, of course, is the Orwellian reference "2-1=4." The problem is really that these people would like to be able to sum up everything with an equation. As teleological as my own little description is, they would really like to believe that all of economic life can be described in this way. Maybe someday we will be able to, but before that is possible, people should know the likely outcome of their choices over the long term and that is something about which, save the imperative that people save for the future, this economic theory doesn't bother itself.
Krugman here on the prisoners of the american dream and the way Bush capitalizes on this in his skewed tax plan and his neo-liberal phantasy of an "ownership society:"
"The political problem with a policy favoring investment returns over wages is that a vast majority of Americans derive their income primarily from wages, and that the bulk of investment income goes to a small elite. How, then, can such a policy be sold? By promising that everyone can join the elite. "
Certainly this is obviously the tactic being used by the Bush, borrowed wholesale by the neoliberals that populate his silly little circle of performative economists. There is a local connection here at GMU, at least to the theory behind his seemingly beautiful "ownership soctiety" wherein, as Bush says, "I understand if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America." The Institute for Humane Studies here at GMU has its own version of this oversimplified illumination of the neo-classical economists, involving cute fuzzy bunnies--which, of course, is something no one should be afraid of, right? The idea, as with Bush's logic, is that people will only keep from squandering natural resources if they are allowed to own them. In the game, you are invited (along with two computerized rival poachers) to play two versions, the first where the bunnies are held in common by the public, the second when they are privately owned.
In the first version, the round only ends when all of the bunnies are gone, thus it is over very quickly and it is in your interest to kill as many as you can b/c if you don't someone else will. And, of course, there are no other social or political factors involved that might restrain you from taking as many as you can.
In the second version, you own a certain number of bunnies. There is not an explanation of how you came to own them or who you might have dispossessed of bunnies in order to do so. You just own them and are invited to see how much better the game goes when you have the incentive to not kill all the bunnies you own because then they will reproduce and you will have an unbelievable bounty of bunnies since each year the remaining bunnies you have will all reproduce (b/c they're bunnies).
In classic classical logic, there is no discussion of how this will play out if you are competing in the sale of your bunnies with a massive corporation who has bought out all of the other bunny owners, has bought up much of the land and is colluding with the mortgage company you have paid for your high-tech bunny raising equipment (which must be used in order to raise the bunnies they want on our modern market). The giant bunny corporation has the power to flood the market or otherwise control the bunny market so that you are pretty much forced to either sell all your bunnies to them or to work for them in some capacity, ending rather quickly, the little utopia of the "ownership society" since, in fact, only a handful of major bunny production corporations control the entry into the market. There is no way for consumers to effectively control this via the elegant and useless mechanism of supply and demand b/c if they want bunnies, there are very few choices and, besides, they only want name brand bunnies anyway because that's what they see on TV. It is, indeed, a fantastic society for the people who are owners; it would just be nice if there were a few more of them. Unfortunately, in such an ownership society, the only role for government is to make sure that the owners qua owners are never threatened. If you used to be an owner, that's your problem and it is your own fault that you sold out and now have to work for Bugs Inc. or whatever the name of that corporation is. And if you had tried, at any point, to join together with the other bunny raisers and keep your culture and lifestyle from being destroyed, you probably would have been branded socialists and, ironically, as enemies of the "ownership society" despite the fact that you were the original owners.
But at least the neo-classical dimwits have a simple way of telling you what you should believe. Along these lines, here is a final "money" quote from Krugmann about the still not dead plan of privatizing social security:
Social Security is, basically, a system in which each generation pays for the previous generation's retirement. If the payroll taxes of younger workers are diverted into private accounts, there will be a gaping financial hole: who will pay benefits to older Americans, who have spent their working lives paying into the current system? Unless you have a way to fill that multitrillion-dollar hole, privatization is an empty slogan, not a real proposal.
In 2001, Mr. Bush's handpicked commission on Social Security was unable to agree on a plan to create private accounts because there was no way to make the arithmetic work. Undaunted, this year the Bush campaign once again insists that privatization will lead to a "permanently strengthened Social Security system, without changing benefits for those now in or near retirement, and without raising payroll taxes on workers." In other words, 2 - 1 = 4.
My favorite part, of course, is the Orwellian reference "2-1=4." The problem is really that these people would like to be able to sum up everything with an equation. As teleological as my own little description is, they would really like to believe that all of economic life can be described in this way. Maybe someday we will be able to, but before that is possible, people should know the likely outcome of their choices over the long term and that is something about which, save the imperative that people save for the future, this economic theory doesn't bother itself.
'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation (washingtonpost.com)
a short summary/intro from near the beginning of the article on why a pesticide that has possibly caused hermaphrodite frogs is still able to be used:
"Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption."
It's a tricky thing to do, even if it is true. Who really knows how much genetic mutation is too much? It is a bit goofy, though, coming from a crowd who claims they don't want to go around playing God. Anyway, crazy how a few extra sentences in a regulation can make all the difference. Though I am sure there is more to this story, it is certainly something to be concerned about--and is just one more example of a drastic change slipped in under the post-9/11 radar by the Bush administration in the interest of combatting all those nasty scientists out there who, unfortunately, are more concerned with the possible genetic mutations in frogs (and maybe, even, someday, humans) than with the ever more important goal of making it possible for a pesticide company to make a buck. If only they could get their priorities straight. Why, they are almost as bad as the terrorists!
a short summary/intro from near the beginning of the article on why a pesticide that has possibly caused hermaphrodite frogs is still able to be used:
"Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption."
It's a tricky thing to do, even if it is true. Who really knows how much genetic mutation is too much? It is a bit goofy, though, coming from a crowd who claims they don't want to go around playing God. Anyway, crazy how a few extra sentences in a regulation can make all the difference. Though I am sure there is more to this story, it is certainly something to be concerned about--and is just one more example of a drastic change slipped in under the post-9/11 radar by the Bush administration in the interest of combatting all those nasty scientists out there who, unfortunately, are more concerned with the possible genetic mutations in frogs (and maybe, even, someday, humans) than with the ever more important goal of making it possible for a pesticide company to make a buck. If only they could get their priorities straight. Why, they are almost as bad as the terrorists!
The New York Times > Opinion > About That Iraq Vote
A very good editorial in the NYT which takes Kerry to task not because he has changed his mind, but because he doesn't seem willing to give us the long version of that story, instead trying to justify earlier positions based on the logic and evidence of the present. My favorite point in the editorial though, which I made in an essay I have yet to type up, is that
"The Republicans have made much of this record; the Kerry campaign is haunted by replays of the theme song from the old TV show "Flipper." Mr. Bush, however, has a far more dangerous pattern of behavior. On issues from tax cuts to foreign policy, the president tends to stick stubbornly to his original course even when changing events cry out for adaptation. His explanations seem to evolve every day, but his thinking never does."
It would be nice to have a leader who was capable of complex thought. He wouldn't have to use it everyday, just in times of crisis or when the future of the country and/or the world relies upon it.
A very good editorial in the NYT which takes Kerry to task not because he has changed his mind, but because he doesn't seem willing to give us the long version of that story, instead trying to justify earlier positions based on the logic and evidence of the present. My favorite point in the editorial though, which I made in an essay I have yet to type up, is that
"The Republicans have made much of this record; the Kerry campaign is haunted by replays of the theme song from the old TV show "Flipper." Mr. Bush, however, has a far more dangerous pattern of behavior. On issues from tax cuts to foreign policy, the president tends to stick stubbornly to his original course even when changing events cry out for adaptation. His explanations seem to evolve every day, but his thinking never does."
It would be nice to have a leader who was capable of complex thought. He wouldn't have to use it everyday, just in times of crisis or when the future of the country and/or the world relies upon it.
Friday, August 13, 2004
W Ketchup� | All Ketchup is not created equal
Here is the reason that democrats get clobbered: these OCD Republicans think of everything--even marketing a brand of ketchup so that the proceeds from Heinz (i.e. Kerry's wife's company) don't fund "Teresa Heinz and her liberal causes, such as Kerry for President."
My favorite part about this add is the implicit appeal to xenophobia (which is always charming in whatever context): "The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in one flavor: American."
It is also really amazing to look at the amount of press it has received.
Here is the reason that democrats get clobbered: these OCD Republicans think of everything--even marketing a brand of ketchup so that the proceeds from Heinz (i.e. Kerry's wife's company) don't fund "Teresa Heinz and her liberal causes, such as Kerry for President."
My favorite part about this add is the implicit appeal to xenophobia (which is always charming in whatever context): "The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in one flavor: American."
It is also really amazing to look at the amount of press it has received.
McSweeney's: The Future Dictionary
of America
Last summer abouth this time, Eggers and Co. seemed to be determined to simply and somewhat quitely blaze their own path in the culture wars. They didn't seem to be consciously remaining nuetral; just attempting to change the entire terms of the debate.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/13/CM280047.DTL
They certainly have effected some changes at the cultural level and now it seems that these changes are being made at a more overtly political level as well. With the release of the "Future Soundtrack for America" and the "Future Soundtrack for America" they are consciously using their cultural capital to move change in a positive direction.
This is, I think, a very exciting development and if I had world enough and time (and more importantly enough money) I would certainly be buying and reading everything they produced. It is reassuring to see this happening. It is energizing to know that we are not alone. Things must change. And I am firmly convinced that if there isn't positive change in this country, whoever ends up sitting in that office on Penn, there will have to be some sort of popular revolt. The ISAs are getting flimsy, new ones are being constituted and unless the state figures out how to match the material reality to the cultural consciousness then it will only be able to retain its control via the fascist RSAs it has waiting in the wings. Or perhaps nothing at all will happen; we will all simply bow again to the powerful, let them go to war as they please.
It is absurd in a way that the problems of the country are so focused on the person in the oval office. Obviously the executive branch has power and that power is most obviously extended since it sprouts from one source. But there was no resistance in congress worth talking about, all the senators and reps approved this ridiculous excuse for a security/?/humanitarian mission. Why no outrage over those elections? Why no discussion of their responsibility and our own culpability in the fantastic re-election of a republican congress at Bush's mid-term? It's laughable and stupid how quickly we forget.
But I digress...the essential thing to stress is that the election, as important it is, is far from the only thing that we have to think about. We need a broad cultural change. And it isn't enough to restate the old diatribes of the past thirty years, to warm over the culture wars that the Republicans think they are fighting.
They want abortion illegal. I understand the principle of fighting this. Its fascist, patriarchal, and an infringement on women's civil liberties in the most fundamental and intimate of ways. But why not introduce and support a bill that makes abortion illegal--that plays to their moral base--but which expands welfare and employment programs, makes sex education programs based on science not ideology, offers day care subsidies and gives universal healthcare coverage to every American? If you're going to be patriarchal, after all, might as well go all the way. If they want to take care of women and tell them what to do with their bodies, they have to go all the way. How will they look when they reject this bill, the bill they have claimed to be fighting for all along, when they say, well, we care about women and we care about their children, but we aren't all that interested in helping them out once we've made them do what we tell them to about their children. Suddenly the wolf is no longer a sheep. HE (because he is a he in this case) is exposed. When they have to turn down the bill based on the complex part of their ideology that says everything else except women's bodies should be governed by the free market, their bleeding heart base will have no choice but to see they've been played.
They want to keep gay marriage from happening. Fine. Just introduce a bill that says the US government will no longer mingle in affairs of the heart or of the church: there will no longer be a category of citizens called "married." It will simply be some sort of cultural activity, sort of like joining a book club: membership migh have its benefits, but none of them will be sanctioned by the state. This certainly will make any benefits accruing to gay couples because there will simply be no way in which married people get any special benefits (this will be helped along by the whole universal health care bill passed above.) This bill will have the same effect as the GOP's pitiful attempt at amending the constitution: it is simply there to affect their base. Only this time, it isn't there to play to the base of the party presenting the bill, but to play to the opposing party's base, to show them that, not only are their representatives far from representing their interests, but that the opposite party isn't beyond compromise: they just aren't going to give something for nothing.
If they want the free market to be the only regulator of prices and the health of corporate entities, that, in the case of national parks, etc., communities should be able to decide what is done with their land and resources, then let them de-regulate every industry in the country, but increase mandatory sentances for any form of corporate fraud to ten year, make any form of tax subsidies or government bailouts illegal (free market, right) and pass anti-lobbying measures whereby anytime a lobbyist is in contact with a politician, an elected representative of a popularly recognized citizen oversight group must be present. They say we should give people in Alaska the right to decide what is done with the wildlife refuge there: fine, lets let them decide. And if the people of Alaska decide to make a withdrawal from their supply of the public wealth of the nation, well lets just make sure that the rest of us are given some sort of reimbursement: any citizen from Alaska that wants to visit any other national park in the country will have to pay a higher price to make up for their deduction. Fair enough, right.
All of that could backfire if it is done wrong, but if you could get enough people behind it and you made, for instance, the restrictions on abortion contingent on the receipt of benefits, i.e. women who might have had an abortion would only be prevented from doing so if they got their health care coverage, then it might be a good tactic for a large strategy of creating revolutionary change and a widespread re-consideration of what the role of the state is. In short, there needs to be a discussion about fundamentals not just culture wars. I feel like, on some level, McSweeney's and Eggers are working towards this goal, even if it is unstated. I also think that all of us would do well to be less polarized about these debates. The truth of the matter is that even if Kerry wins in the fall, we will all have to work very hard--together with the people who didn't vote for him--to carve out a viable future for America. I hope we are all up to the task.
of America
Last summer abouth this time, Eggers and Co. seemed to be determined to simply and somewhat quitely blaze their own path in the culture wars. They didn't seem to be consciously remaining nuetral; just attempting to change the entire terms of the debate.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/13/CM280047.DTL
They certainly have effected some changes at the cultural level and now it seems that these changes are being made at a more overtly political level as well. With the release of the "Future Soundtrack for America" and the "Future Soundtrack for America" they are consciously using their cultural capital to move change in a positive direction.
This is, I think, a very exciting development and if I had world enough and time (and more importantly enough money) I would certainly be buying and reading everything they produced. It is reassuring to see this happening. It is energizing to know that we are not alone. Things must change. And I am firmly convinced that if there isn't positive change in this country, whoever ends up sitting in that office on Penn, there will have to be some sort of popular revolt. The ISAs are getting flimsy, new ones are being constituted and unless the state figures out how to match the material reality to the cultural consciousness then it will only be able to retain its control via the fascist RSAs it has waiting in the wings. Or perhaps nothing at all will happen; we will all simply bow again to the powerful, let them go to war as they please.
It is absurd in a way that the problems of the country are so focused on the person in the oval office. Obviously the executive branch has power and that power is most obviously extended since it sprouts from one source. But there was no resistance in congress worth talking about, all the senators and reps approved this ridiculous excuse for a security/?/humanitarian mission. Why no outrage over those elections? Why no discussion of their responsibility and our own culpability in the fantastic re-election of a republican congress at Bush's mid-term? It's laughable and stupid how quickly we forget.
But I digress...the essential thing to stress is that the election, as important it is, is far from the only thing that we have to think about. We need a broad cultural change. And it isn't enough to restate the old diatribes of the past thirty years, to warm over the culture wars that the Republicans think they are fighting.
They want abortion illegal. I understand the principle of fighting this. Its fascist, patriarchal, and an infringement on women's civil liberties in the most fundamental and intimate of ways. But why not introduce and support a bill that makes abortion illegal--that plays to their moral base--but which expands welfare and employment programs, makes sex education programs based on science not ideology, offers day care subsidies and gives universal healthcare coverage to every American? If you're going to be patriarchal, after all, might as well go all the way. If they want to take care of women and tell them what to do with their bodies, they have to go all the way. How will they look when they reject this bill, the bill they have claimed to be fighting for all along, when they say, well, we care about women and we care about their children, but we aren't all that interested in helping them out once we've made them do what we tell them to about their children. Suddenly the wolf is no longer a sheep. HE (because he is a he in this case) is exposed. When they have to turn down the bill based on the complex part of their ideology that says everything else except women's bodies should be governed by the free market, their bleeding heart base will have no choice but to see they've been played.
They want to keep gay marriage from happening. Fine. Just introduce a bill that says the US government will no longer mingle in affairs of the heart or of the church: there will no longer be a category of citizens called "married." It will simply be some sort of cultural activity, sort of like joining a book club: membership migh have its benefits, but none of them will be sanctioned by the state. This certainly will make any benefits accruing to gay couples because there will simply be no way in which married people get any special benefits (this will be helped along by the whole universal health care bill passed above.) This bill will have the same effect as the GOP's pitiful attempt at amending the constitution: it is simply there to affect their base. Only this time, it isn't there to play to the base of the party presenting the bill, but to play to the opposing party's base, to show them that, not only are their representatives far from representing their interests, but that the opposite party isn't beyond compromise: they just aren't going to give something for nothing.
If they want the free market to be the only regulator of prices and the health of corporate entities, that, in the case of national parks, etc., communities should be able to decide what is done with their land and resources, then let them de-regulate every industry in the country, but increase mandatory sentances for any form of corporate fraud to ten year, make any form of tax subsidies or government bailouts illegal (free market, right) and pass anti-lobbying measures whereby anytime a lobbyist is in contact with a politician, an elected representative of a popularly recognized citizen oversight group must be present. They say we should give people in Alaska the right to decide what is done with the wildlife refuge there: fine, lets let them decide. And if the people of Alaska decide to make a withdrawal from their supply of the public wealth of the nation, well lets just make sure that the rest of us are given some sort of reimbursement: any citizen from Alaska that wants to visit any other national park in the country will have to pay a higher price to make up for their deduction. Fair enough, right.
All of that could backfire if it is done wrong, but if you could get enough people behind it and you made, for instance, the restrictions on abortion contingent on the receipt of benefits, i.e. women who might have had an abortion would only be prevented from doing so if they got their health care coverage, then it might be a good tactic for a large strategy of creating revolutionary change and a widespread re-consideration of what the role of the state is. In short, there needs to be a discussion about fundamentals not just culture wars. I feel like, on some level, McSweeney's and Eggers are working towards this goal, even if it is unstated. I also think that all of us would do well to be less polarized about these debates. The truth of the matter is that even if Kerry wins in the fall, we will all have to work very hard--together with the people who didn't vote for him--to carve out a viable future for America. I hope we are all up to the task.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com
What to say about this.
Much more to be said about this:
http://www.fthevote.com/process.php
but I'm not going to be the one to say it, at least not today.
What is more interesting to me is the Carbon Defense League, the group that has started FTV, which sounds like some sort of oil company lobby, but is actually a sort of anarchist art ensemble btu with very practical projects. Though it does seem like the feds are still not too happy with the kinds of work they are doing, already arresting a few of the artists under terrorism charges. Yippee! nothing ever changes!
What to say about this.
Much more to be said about this:
http://www.fthevote.com/process.php
but I'm not going to be the one to say it, at least not today.
What is more interesting to me is the Carbon Defense League, the group that has started FTV, which sounds like some sort of oil company lobby, but is actually a sort of anarchist art ensemble btu with very practical projects. Though it does seem like the feds are still not too happy with the kinds of work they are doing, already arresting a few of the artists under terrorism charges. Yippee! nothing ever changes!
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Weather Underground--Main Page
Watched The Weather Underground last night. After the first viewing, my first thought was that it would be a good film to show in class to talk about a variety of issues. It first and foremost provides a less sanitized understanding of both the social situation and the popular(?) response of the 1960s. Normally this era is spoken about with simple platitudes and commonplaces--or not spoken about at all: I am reminded of the student in Unit III last year who, when writing a history research paper on events in the 1960s, claimed that there simply wasn't much written about that time period because "everyone was so drugged out they don't remember anything."
For that, this film at least gives a bit of a greater understanding of what was going on (though I don't actually know what was going on, just trying to piece it together myself 40 years after the fact.) Either way, it seems like a fairly important bit of history, however one feels about it. There are certainly parallels today with other "revolutionaries" like Tim McViegh and his Turner Diary reading National Alliance pals who want to overthrow the overly "colored" government of America, redistribute wealth "back" to the white population. In fact it is sometimes striking to see the way that some of their rhetoric seems to gel fairly well, depite the fact that the latter are overtly racist--even praise racism as a positive attribute--and see Leninism (or Bolshevisim) as another part of a Jewish led conspiracy to take over the world from "white civilization," both of which are tenets exaclty the opposite of those espoused by both the SDS and the "Weatherpeople" (as Todd Gitlin refers to them, in his politically correct way).
But here is where I think the film fails to be anything more than a simple propaganda film for the Weathermen. While it certainly introduces some compelling arguments about a different kind of society and problems with this one, there is this elephant in the room that no one is really talking about. P. Smith always tells me that Americans will readily believe many Marxist ideas as long as you don't call them that. This is almost surely true with most Liberal Americans, and even some of the Neo-liberals, so long as one doesn't see the state as a vehicle for those changes. It is also probably true that you could read many of the tenets of traditional conservatism without callnig it as such and get as many people in agreement. In both cases, however, it seems to do little good to provide the ideologies as if you just came up with them. The film makes only passing references to what the FBI called the Weathermen's "Marxist-Leninist conception of armed struggle." If the goal of the film was to inform people about the movement, to clarify its place in history and not just provide a somewhat redeeming explanation of its actions, this seems like an essential element to include.
By obscuring the Leninist and Maoist background of this movement it really does a disservice to history in a variety of ways. First off, many of the national liberation movements that are discussed in the film as the revolutionary context in which this takes place were motivated by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movements. Of course, if we were all being honest, these ideas wouldn't be a challenge to Modernity and the enlightenment that produced the revolutions in the US, France and elsewhere--the US Revolution being the 0nly revolution in the history of the world that we can use as an example of the "right" kind of revolution. The irony of history is that in the place of these Marxist-Leninist-Maoist traditions which were actually strongly in the western tradition, we are now facing a decidedly anti-modern version of revolution in the Whabbist Islamists. (I'm sure that there is more to it than just being anti-modern, but that is the party line here in the USA.)
Nevertheless, by leaving out this detail, by almost wholly obscuring the communist background of these movements--not only in their theory, but also in the co-presence of many other similar movements--the film removes it from that tradition of struggle, which, for better or worse, seemed to be coming to fruition at that historical moment. It also makes it seem like all of these movements were solely motivated by the historical circumstances that existed at the time. Though this is true to an extent--and the film certainly begins to show the energy of the moment, if only from a certain perspective--it is surely the ideas espoused by "Professional revolutionaries" in almost every country struggling for independence that motivated the particular direction of that struggle.
I understand completely the reason for not highlighting this aspect. And I am ambivalent about the effect that it would have had overall. By not including a discussion of Marxism-Leninism, one therefore doesn't have to go to the trouble of explaining it as an ideology. This, of course, would surely be necessary if the discussion was to be of any value to a contemporary audience. The past century has produced a common sense--both through the ideological apparatuses of capitalism and the astounding repressiveness of much of the communist world-- about Marxism that is so aversive to even considering it as a theory or an idea in itself that to introduce it as something that seemed like a legitimate idea at the time would necessitate another 30 minutes of explanation. This explanation, in order to be effective, would have to include the historical successes and failures of both nominally communist and capitalist nations; it would have to make clear the stakes of the struggle; it would, in effect be an whole other movie. And, as much as the film seems to be giving the Weathermen too fair of a shake, it wouldn inevitably come off as a communist propaganda film to American audiences if it tried to mention Marxism as anything other than the greatest (or now second greatest) evil the world has ever known.
Of course this understanding was also present at the time and would explain much of the FBI's crazed and unlawful (gestapo? dictatorial?) actions in pursuing these dissidents. They somewhat correctly believed that these students had ties to the world communist struggle (though they might have had ideological ties, there don't seem to be any material ties) and, again, ironically, seemed ready to quell dissent in anything other than a "free speech zone" kind of way with surprising amounts of surveillance, suppression and even murder, maknig their difference from the communist police one of only degrees. But pointing out that this group was ostensibly communist and the FBI was operating with a Cold War mentality does much to illuminate why they felt it so necessary to go to these extreme measures. Not only does this help us to understand those actions, but it also serves as a warning to us today when there are already roundups of Muslims and still Daniel Pipes, a widely read columnist and a member of the presidentially-appointed board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, wrote just yesterday (quoting from an article of "late 2001:"
"Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers."
Militant Islam is the enemy; even its slickest adherents need to be viewed as such.
Watched The Weather Underground last night. After the first viewing, my first thought was that it would be a good film to show in class to talk about a variety of issues. It first and foremost provides a less sanitized understanding of both the social situation and the popular(?) response of the 1960s. Normally this era is spoken about with simple platitudes and commonplaces--or not spoken about at all: I am reminded of the student in Unit III last year who, when writing a history research paper on events in the 1960s, claimed that there simply wasn't much written about that time period because "everyone was so drugged out they don't remember anything."
For that, this film at least gives a bit of a greater understanding of what was going on (though I don't actually know what was going on, just trying to piece it together myself 40 years after the fact.) Either way, it seems like a fairly important bit of history, however one feels about it. There are certainly parallels today with other "revolutionaries" like Tim McViegh and his Turner Diary reading National Alliance pals who want to overthrow the overly "colored" government of America, redistribute wealth "back" to the white population. In fact it is sometimes striking to see the way that some of their rhetoric seems to gel fairly well, depite the fact that the latter are overtly racist--even praise racism as a positive attribute--and see Leninism (or Bolshevisim) as another part of a Jewish led conspiracy to take over the world from "white civilization," both of which are tenets exaclty the opposite of those espoused by both the SDS and the "Weatherpeople" (as Todd Gitlin refers to them, in his politically correct way).
But here is where I think the film fails to be anything more than a simple propaganda film for the Weathermen. While it certainly introduces some compelling arguments about a different kind of society and problems with this one, there is this elephant in the room that no one is really talking about. P. Smith always tells me that Americans will readily believe many Marxist ideas as long as you don't call them that. This is almost surely true with most Liberal Americans, and even some of the Neo-liberals, so long as one doesn't see the state as a vehicle for those changes. It is also probably true that you could read many of the tenets of traditional conservatism without callnig it as such and get as many people in agreement. In both cases, however, it seems to do little good to provide the ideologies as if you just came up with them. The film makes only passing references to what the FBI called the Weathermen's "Marxist-Leninist conception of armed struggle." If the goal of the film was to inform people about the movement, to clarify its place in history and not just provide a somewhat redeeming explanation of its actions, this seems like an essential element to include.
By obscuring the Leninist and Maoist background of this movement it really does a disservice to history in a variety of ways. First off, many of the national liberation movements that are discussed in the film as the revolutionary context in which this takes place were motivated by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movements. Of course, if we were all being honest, these ideas wouldn't be a challenge to Modernity and the enlightenment that produced the revolutions in the US, France and elsewhere--the US Revolution being the 0nly revolution in the history of the world that we can use as an example of the "right" kind of revolution. The irony of history is that in the place of these Marxist-Leninist-Maoist traditions which were actually strongly in the western tradition, we are now facing a decidedly anti-modern version of revolution in the Whabbist Islamists. (I'm sure that there is more to it than just being anti-modern, but that is the party line here in the USA.)
Nevertheless, by leaving out this detail, by almost wholly obscuring the communist background of these movements--not only in their theory, but also in the co-presence of many other similar movements--the film removes it from that tradition of struggle, which, for better or worse, seemed to be coming to fruition at that historical moment. It also makes it seem like all of these movements were solely motivated by the historical circumstances that existed at the time. Though this is true to an extent--and the film certainly begins to show the energy of the moment, if only from a certain perspective--it is surely the ideas espoused by "Professional revolutionaries" in almost every country struggling for independence that motivated the particular direction of that struggle.
I understand completely the reason for not highlighting this aspect. And I am ambivalent about the effect that it would have had overall. By not including a discussion of Marxism-Leninism, one therefore doesn't have to go to the trouble of explaining it as an ideology. This, of course, would surely be necessary if the discussion was to be of any value to a contemporary audience. The past century has produced a common sense--both through the ideological apparatuses of capitalism and the astounding repressiveness of much of the communist world-- about Marxism that is so aversive to even considering it as a theory or an idea in itself that to introduce it as something that seemed like a legitimate idea at the time would necessitate another 30 minutes of explanation. This explanation, in order to be effective, would have to include the historical successes and failures of both nominally communist and capitalist nations; it would have to make clear the stakes of the struggle; it would, in effect be an whole other movie. And, as much as the film seems to be giving the Weathermen too fair of a shake, it wouldn inevitably come off as a communist propaganda film to American audiences if it tried to mention Marxism as anything other than the greatest (or now second greatest) evil the world has ever known.
Of course this understanding was also present at the time and would explain much of the FBI's crazed and unlawful (gestapo? dictatorial?) actions in pursuing these dissidents. They somewhat correctly believed that these students had ties to the world communist struggle (though they might have had ideological ties, there don't seem to be any material ties) and, again, ironically, seemed ready to quell dissent in anything other than a "free speech zone" kind of way with surprising amounts of surveillance, suppression and even murder, maknig their difference from the communist police one of only degrees. But pointing out that this group was ostensibly communist and the FBI was operating with a Cold War mentality does much to illuminate why they felt it so necessary to go to these extreme measures. Not only does this help us to understand those actions, but it also serves as a warning to us today when there are already roundups of Muslims and still Daniel Pipes, a widely read columnist and a member of the presidentially-appointed board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, wrote just yesterday (quoting from an article of "late 2001:"
"Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers."
Militant Islam is the enemy; even its slickest adherents need to be viewed as such.
This is the ideological climate that we live in today and it isn't all that different from that in which the weathermen and the black panthers were operating. And it seems that this repression on the part of the FBI had as little to do with the actual ideologies employed by these militants than it was a simple response to their militancy. And this militancy was only a problem in so far as it was gaining popular support. In that regard, it is as much a warning of things to come as it is a document of what was going on in the 1960s and 70s. In other words, I think that, with the proper background, this film could surely be included in one of the weeks of Unit III--perhaps the one on ideology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)