MAY FIRST IS MAY DAY
The real Labor Day

From Wikipedia:

May Day

The holiday is most often associated with the commemoration of the social and economic achievements of the labor movement. The May 1st date is used because in 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions demanded an eight-hour workday in the United States, to come in effect as of May 1, 1886. This resulted in the general strike and the U.S. Haymarket Riot of 1886, but eventually also in the official sanction of the eight-hour workday.

May Day is designated International Workers Day. It is indeed a thoroughly international holiday; and the United States is one of the few countries in the world where pressure from local working classes has not led to an official holiday. In the 20th century, the holiday received the official endorsement of the Soviet Union; celebrations in communist countries during the Cold War era often consisted of large military parades and shows of common people in support of the government.

There is some suggestion that Labor Day in the United States was created specifically to avoid commemoration of May Day. The adoption of May Day by communists and socialists as their primary holiday cements official resistance to Labor Day and similar non-May Day celebrations, which they view as being controlled by the ruling class. (See Loyalty Day.)

Click here for the rest.

Yes, everywhere else in the world, May 1st is the day for thinking about issues affecting workers, but in America, it's "Loyalty Day." Figures.

From WorkingForChange:

Bring back May Day!

It took another entire generation of struggle, but by 1912, federal workers were granted the eight-hour day; and in 1917, while America was desperate for the cooperation of unions in the war effort, the Eight Hour Act became law. And there, one would think, the matter was settled.

Okay, quick: Do you actually work only eight hours in a day? Only 40 hours in a week? Five days?

Not very many of us, any longer.

And

Ultimately, though, the eight-hour day was never about money. It was about having time for the rest of our lives. I can't begin to count the number of people I've talked with over the years who, when laid up or laid off or otherwise taken out of their daily grind, blurt out some statement along the lines of "I can't believe how much my job interferes with my life!" That's both because a lot of us don't like our work, and, even more importantly, but increasingly, that's all we have time for. No time for family, for friends, for relationships, for travel, for study, for hobbies, for our community, for the stuff that makes life fun. And worthwhile.

Click here for the rest.

It strikes me that this last statement is self-evident, but I am continually confounded by the fact that so many Americans just don't get it. We don't work simply to survive: we work so that we may have enjoyable, meaningful lives. The best statement I've ever heard about this comes from my favorite education film, Dead Poets Society:

Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse." That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

How can you contribute your verse if your existence is nothing but an endless cycle of work and rest? We all must work, as Karl Marx observed long ago, but work cannot be our only reason to live. We cannot be human beings if our purpose is to be nothing but cogs in gigantic corporate machines. I think that, more than anything else, this concept has become the most important of issues to me: how are we going to live our lives?

Here's what I had to say about May Day a couple of years ago.

¡Vive la revolución!

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Toads keep exploding in German pond

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists have no explanation for what's causing the combustion.

Both the pond's water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.

"It's absolutely strange," she said Wednesday.

Click here for the rest.

Toads, like other amphibians, are generally considered to be the coal mine canaries of the environment. That is, because amphibians have such thin skins, they are extraordinarily susceptible to pollution and toxins--when frogs and toads start dying off or mutating weirdly, it's a pretty good indicator that their surrounding environment is in trouble. But exploding? This is damned bizarre. I have no idea what to make of it, but it seems worth noting.

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DeLay Must Go

From the Nation:

Tom DeLay should resign as leader of the House Republican majority. If he doesn't, Republicans should have the decency to remove him. He's been rebuked unanimously four times by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee--which he then proceeded to purge and disembowel. Three of his political associates are under indictment in Texas for raising illegal corporate campaign contributions. He's luxuriated in lavish junkets on the tab of crooked lobbyists and foreign agents. He's given "family values" a new meaning by paying his wife and daughter $500,000 from his PACs for part-time work. And one of his cronies, "Casino Jack" Abramoff, who is under investigation for bilking Indian tribes and pressing them to donate to the GOP, says DeLay "knew everything" about what was going on.

Click here for the rest.

Obviously, I really despise DeLay and the crooked, cash infected politics for which he stands. But stepping away from that for a moment, it occurs to me that simply removing one man won't change the way the people's business is done in Washington. Liberals thought they had achieved victory when Nixon resigned the Presidency over thirty years ago, but they were wrong to celebrate. Taking down Tricky Dick was just what the corrupt system needed to convince people that things had changed when, in fact, they had not. So, of course, the corruption has only gotten worse. Nailing DeLay is the right thing to do. But if we really want to end forever the feeding trough on the Potomac, the whole campaign finance system must be completely revamped: corporate cash has no place in a democracy. Until that goal has been achieved, we should expect many more Tom DeLays in the years to come.

In fact, there are many more Tom DeLays in office right now, both Republican and Democrat.

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Alabama Bill Targets 'Gay' Books

And this isn't simply referring to Blue Boy magazine, either. From KUTV.com courtesy of Orcinus:

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.

Click here for the rest.

This is no surprise, seeing as how it's happening in Alabama. Still, it's quite disturbing. It's one thing to simply target gay themes, which is also wrong, but quite another to target gay authors, writing about subjects that have nothing to do with homosexuality. It takes a step beyond the usual content based censorship and moves into new and frightening territory: this bill is proclaiming that people shouldn't read what people have to say simply because of who they are. It is also very ironic that under this proposed law libraries couldn't offer, say, The Glass Menagerie, but would still presumably be able to stock copies of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf.

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TV DAY AT REAL ART

A couple of articles about television, most definitely not like the kind you'll find in Entertainment Weekly.

First from the Nation, news on the right-wing assault against PBS:

Republican Broadcasting Corporation

For the first time in its 38-year history, the CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for "evidence of bias." All new PBS funding agreements are conditioned upon the network following "objectivity and balance" requirements for each of its programs.

Last January, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings denounced the cartoon rabbit Buster, of "Postcards from Buster" fame, for visiting a lesbian family in Vermont. The decision to slash in half the popular investigative show NOW after Bill Moyers' departure, and the addition of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Tucker Carlson (who has since left for MSNBC) to the programming line-up proves just how far right PBS has moved in an attempt to appear fair and balanced. "This is the first time in my thirty-two years in public broadcasting that CPB has ordered up programs for ideological instead of journalistic reasons," Moyers told The New Yorker last year.

A majority of the CPB's eight-member board--chaired by Ken Tomlinson, a good friend of Karl Rove--are now Republican appointees.

Click here for the rest.

I guess PBS is now headed toward a sort of Fox News for the intellectually inclined. That's almost funny. Almost. Ha.

Next, from AlterNet, an meditation on the meaning of all those inspirational stories brought to us by Oprah:

The Oprah Society

It's inspiring to watch someone beat the odds. If you see the deck is stacked, their triumph is especially sweet. Day after day, in our made-for-TV society, that's what we're shown: inspiring exceptions--women and men who, by some miracle, overcome insurmountable barriers. They often weep as we do when we hear their tales of woe. Indeed, whether it's addiction or affliction, layoffs or payoffs, their stories are meant to convince us "Hey, they made it, why can't we?"

From yesterday's daytime gabfests to today's reality shows, somehow in America, the insurmountable became the inevitable. We went from counting on a family-sustaining job to expecting a pink slip. We've seen whole towns rust and millions lose decent jobs. We've seen still others trapped in jobs that fail to provide the basics of a decent life. Meanwhile, there aren't enough reality show makeovers to transform whole blocks--let alone entire towns--or get us all college diplomas or decent jobs.

Click here for the rest.

Really, despite her eternal cuteness, what Oprah often brings us are Horatio Alger stories for our neo-gilded age. Of course, it's quite true that some individuals do, indeed, embody the rags-to-riches American dream. But that's only a very few people when compared to the millions who deal with the Wal-Mart economy every day of their lives, with no real hope of doing better. The net effect of these inspiring TV stories is essentially to blame the unsuccessful for being unsuccessful: "if they can do it, you can, too; so, if you don't, it's because you didn't try hard enough." It's all a bunch of crap. Cute crap, where Oprah is concerned, but crap nonetheless.

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In today's Washington, drug of choice is money

From the Houston Chronicle, former Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright on how cash is destroying democracy:

The root of all evil, Scripture warns, is the love of money. It is addictive. The narcotic, supplied gladly by those who want something from presidents and lawmakers, feeds a habit that demands more and more massive fixes.

Fifty years ago, in my own first race for Congress, I raised and spent less than $35,000. Last year, in an adjoining district, the expenditures of two competing candidates amounted to more than $4 million each.

When Nelson Rockefeller spent an estimated $12 million running for the GOP presidential nomination in the 1960s, that sum was considered scandalously high. Candidates last year made it look pitifully small. In 2000, George W. Bush reportedly raised and spent in excess of $200 million.

Congress members of both parties tell me that nowadays they are forced to engage in continuous, year-round fund raising. One confessed to me last year that he spent approximately three hours of every working day on the telephone, begging donations from wealthy contributors.

Who lost? The public, that's who. Those who thought their taxes were buying the wisdom, experience, energies and full-time service of legislators.

Click here for the rest.

Stolen elections aside, this is, in a nutshell, why I believe that we no longer live in a democracy.

(Technically, we've never lived in a democracy; we have always been a republic: nonetheless, our republic no longer represents the will of the people.)

The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans--this has been going on for a long, long time. Money has trumped the ballot box, and we're all suffering because of it. Who says crime doesn't pay?

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Bush people are optimistic because they are oblivious

From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle, Princeton economist Paul Krugman on White House delusions:

Since November's election, the victors have managed to be on the wrong side of public opinion on one issue after another: the economy, Social Security privatization, Terri Schiavo, Tom DeLay. By large margins, Americans say that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and Bush is the least popular second-term president on record.

What's going on? Actually, it's quite simple: Bush and his party talk only to their base — corporate interests and the religious right — and are oblivious to everyone else's concerns.

The administration's upbeat view of the economy is a case in point. Corporate interests are doing very well. As a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, over the last three years profits grew at an annual rate of 14.5 percent after inflation, the fastest growth since World War II.

The story is very different for the great majority of Americans, who live off their wages, not dividends or capital gains, and aren't doing well at all. Over the past three years, wage and salary income grew less than in any other postwar recovery — less than a tenth as fast as profits. But wage-earning Americans aren't part of the base.

Click here for the rest.

From Merriam-Webster Online:

obliv·i·ous
Function: adjective
1 : lacking remembrance, memory, or mindful attention
2 : lacking active conscious knowledge or awareness -- usually used with of or to

Personally, instead of "oblivious," I'd say "just don't care." Either way the effect is the same.

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Remember the Raise?

From the Washington Post courtesy of This is not a compliment:

Time was when wage increases tracked gains in productivity and profitability -- but that time is long gone. Since 2001 yearly productivity growth has averaged 4.1 percent, while wages and benefits have grown on average by just 1.5 percent. No longer does a rising tide, as John Kennedy famously pronounced, lift all boats. We are now in the 11th quarter of the current recovery.

Averaging all the recoveries from 1947 through 1982, at this point -- the 11th quarter -- private-sector wages and salaries had risen by 18.2 percent, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute. By the 11th quarter of the Clinton recovery of the early '90s, however, wages and salaries had grown by just 7.4 percent. And in the current Bush recovery, they've increased by an anemic 4.5 percent. In the new American economy, rising tides don't raise boats; they swamp them.

Click here for the rest.

Rising tides being good for boats is the central premise on which virtually all moderate and conservative economic arguments are based. If that's no longer the case, and I'm pretty sure it's not, then, to riff on another cutesy economic slogan, what's good for Wall Street is most definitely not good for Main Street. "Free trade" is killing us. The only question is how bad it's going to get before the peasants take up their pitchforks and storm the Bastille. Hopefully, it won't get so bad before America comes to its senses. Hopefully.

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THE PRESIDENT'S BALD MAN FETISH

I can't say whether there's any political angle to this, but it is pretty weird, so it's worth a mention, at least. Apparently, the President has a thing for bald men's heads.

Look:

And this is just one of many photos of our Great Leader copping a feel off some shaved man-scalp. Go check out the collection at JuliusBlog, courtesy of Eschaton. Like I said, I don't know if this means anything at all--it's simply weird. However, as Atrios of the above mentioned Eschaton blog has speculated, there is a certain bald-headed male prostitute named Jeff Gannon, a.k.a. James Guckert, who has seemingly had free access to the White House over the past couple of years. One wonders...

Mmmm. Jeff Gannon's hot man-scalp. Is this what turns on George? I truly hope so.

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CHRISTIAN "FUNDAMENTALISTS,"
FREE MARKET "FUNDAMENTALISTS,"
JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR HYPOCRISY

From Noam Chomsky's Blog:

"Doctrinal Fictions" of Free Trade, Debt, and Deficits

…The US multinational establishment never favored free-trade. The economy relies very heavily on a dynamic state sector to socialize cost and risk, a radical violation of market principles. The Uruguay Round (WTO) rules crucially include extreme protectionist elements designed to guarantee monopoly-pricing power to multinationals, in radical violation of free trade theory (the excuses that are given, in terms of R&D, quickly collapse under analysis). The Reagan administration virtually doubled import restrictions, violating free-trade mechanisms far more than Europe, according the analysis of the GATT secretariat. And on, and on.

Click here for the rest.

Since nobody with any real power actually believes in "free market fundamentalism," or more simply "neoliberalism," one wonders how such a concept is used so often to justify the most Draconian of economic policy decisions. The answer is simple. Most people's eyes glaze over whenever they start hearing about economic theory; neoliberalism, on its face, sounds pretty feasible to people who don't feel like digging deeply enough to see its contradictions. Ultimately, "free market fundamentalism" ends up serving as a pseudo-intellectual justification for stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, and in this case, "poor" means everybody who isn't independently wealthy--it's pretty wild how so many people not only accept it, but love it, because "free trade" is simply "the way things are." Sheesh!

From WorkingForChange:

The moral bankruptcy of fundamentalism

But to honor conservative Christians with the title of being "Bible believing" is off the mark. They're fundamentalists all right -- market (not Christian) fundamentalists, obsessed with sexual ethics.

Given "Bible-believers'" deafening silence over a bankruptcy bill that subjects the working-poor to market discipline while doing nothing to hold unethical lending institutions accountable, and their low-key support for the permanent repeal of the estate tax, is blasphemy against the spirit embodied in the very Bible they claim as their guide.

And

So while these passages are anti-Communist insofar as private property is acknowledged by the God of the Bible, the scripture advocates for periodic, massive redistribution of wealth to even out the playing field, recognizing the human propensity to use the power wealth affords to exploit the poor, as the book of Proverbs discusses in scripture after scripture.

Click here for the rest.

Christian fundamentalists' embracing of "free market fundamentalism" is an amazing phenomenon for which I have no glib explanations. Jesus was pretty far to the left in many ways, and that's pretty clear when you read the Bible. How is it, then, that so many Christians, often covered in "What Would Jesus Do?" paraphernalia, believe exactly the opposite of what their Lord preached? This is Orwellian double-think at its most bizarre, and it's pretty creepy because, for so many people, it turns love into hate: "suffer the little children" becomes simply "make the children suffer."

Jesus!

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CLINTON IMPEACHMENT: REVENGE FOR NIXON

From an ABC7Chicago interview with Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde courtesy of Eschaton:

The veteran republican is also admitting for the first time that the impeachment of Clinton may have been in part political revenge against the democrats for the impeachment proceedings against GOP President Richard Nixon 25 years earlier.

"Was this pay back?" asked Andy Shaw.

"I can't say it wasn't. But I also thought that the Republican Party should stand for something, and if we walked away from this, no matter how difficult, we could be accused of shirking our duty," said Hyde.

Click here for the rest.

I always knew that the Republican drive to impeach Clinton was crazy, but revenge for Nixon? That's just totally nuts. For God's sake, I had a major argument with my older brother about this; he was totally convinced that getting rid of old Bill was the right thing to do--the whole thing really dragged the country through the sewers. And now we find out it was revenge for Tricky Dick? I'm truly amazed.

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Economy would not be hurt by emission limits, study says

From the AP via Climate Ark:

Mandatory limits on all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases would not significantly affect average economic growth rates across the country through 2025, the government says.

That finding by the Energy Information Administration, an independent arm of the Energy Department, runs counter to President Bush's repeated pronouncements that limits on carbon dioxide and other gases would seriously harm the U.S. economy.

Bush has proposed ways of slowing the growth rate in U.S.-produced greenhouse gases and methods to reduce emissions of methane internationally.

But he rejected U.S. participation in the Kyoto international treaty negotiated by the Clinton administration — a pact that is intended to mandate reductions in emissions.

Click here for the rest.

I had suspected that this was true, and even if it was not, the long term economic costs of global warming would certainly outweigh any short term costs incurred by reducing emissions. Yet another non-surprise: the Bush administration was lying about the Kyoto treaty--after all, without their own legitimate studies, how could they know? But then, we already know that that the current White House is pretty much built on lies. About everything. What's surprising is that the White House allowed one of its own agencies to perform this study in the first place.

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EDUCATION: CHICKEN OR EGG?

Okay, I’m back. Sorry for the delay. I probably could have kept posting here and there, but it’s been quite nice to take a break. Anyway, our show is open, and every single report I’ve heard is that it’s pretty great. More on that later, once I’m able to link to a review or two. For now, I am going to once again defend my radical views about public education.

My last post of any substance was commenting on a Z Magazine article about education that pretty much echoes a lot of my own personal views on the subject. That is, public education does more harm to our country than good. I pretty much expected my buddy Kevin, who is now a high school teacher himself, to post a reply on the Real Art comment board—this is a debate we’ve been having for a couple of years now. But he really went to town this time, and posted four comments in a row, and I feel like he raised some really good points. Furthermore, I got a couple of other comments that are also thought provoking enough to warrant a response. So here goes.

First off, a friend from the Theatre Department at LSU, Desiree, opens up the comment thread with this statement:

On the whole, yes, you're probably right. But there are exceptions. I have had more than one grade school teacher that encouraged her students to challenge her and each other. These teachers inspired and spurred me on to my greatest passions and pursuits.

I guess it goes to show you what education could be.

Quite right. There are literally thousands of individual exceptions to my notion that education, as an institution, is fatally flawed. Indeed, most people in the field tend to be idealists and truly believe that they are doing good work. Some of them are. Sadly, they are few and far between. It is my belief that such idealism ultimately takes a back seat to bureaucratic and institutional concerns. That is, day to day and moment to moment pressures coming down on teachers from administrators and parents, along with hierarchical organizational structures and large class sizes tend to overwhelm true educational concerns: for the vast majority of teachers, discipline and order become the primary concern. Learning, by default, becomes a secondary concern. Some teachers are able to withstand these pressures, by whatever means, and are able to get their students to actually think about themselves and the world. How these educators avoid insanity is beyond me. I tried for six years to swim upstream and nearly drowned. By the time I was in my final year, it had become completely clear to me that the institution was far more interested in paperwork and an orderly classroom than it was interested in expanding teenagers’ horizons. I hope my former students remember me in the way that Desiree remembers her teachers, but who can really know?

Well, there’s this comment left by my former student, Steve:

Hey Reeder,

I just wondered how your life is treating you. I hope everything is going well for you, and I agree with your ideas on school.

Your Friendly Newswriter,
Steven $$$$$.

PS. Just in case, I was in your intro to drama class at sterling a long time ago.

I am remembered, at least.

Anyway, on to Kevin’s comments:

So basically school shows students what the working world is like. You are either willing to do what you are told (in which case you will make a comfortable living without much thinking about...anything), you go against what is expected without thinking about the consequences (in which case you will not be able to accomplish anything that you want to), or, you pay attention to the system and figure out how to adhere to your beliefs without living an impoverished life.

Are you still proposing that it would be better if schools hid the reality of the work-place from the students so that the first time they experience it is after graduation?

I agree that school shows students what the working world is like. The problem is that, increasingly, the working world no longer provides the “comfortable living” to which Kevin refers. Perhaps thirty years ago, most Americans could expect some kind of real economic payoff for becoming the kind of drone that schools prefer, but not today. Of course, there are always exceptions, always true-to-life Horatio Alger stories. I’m talking about most people, however, and what most people should now expect is living paycheck to paycheck, without health insurance or retirement benefits, always one bad stroke of luck away from financial disaster. Schools are preparing children for lifelong struggle and servitude, and poverty in old age if they’re lucky enough to get there. Furthermore, the schools are laughingly ill prepared to equip students with the skills needed to make any real money in the free market economy: entrepreneurialism and investment are not required subjects.

If society trains its students to become drones and slaves, then that’s what society gets. I don’t so much suggest that schools hide the reality of the work-place, so much as train students to truly see reality. That is, to think for themselves. The contemporary American work-place clearly does not value individual thought.

More from Kevin:

Or are you an idealist that believes that the world will quickly change once these "reforms" are put in place? I see public school as a place where you learn how the world works. Yes, you get slapped down for going against the grain, but this is the same thing that happens to adults. School is where you decide that you would rather go with the flow and avoid conflict, but is also where you learn how to get your point across REGARDLESS of society's slapping down process.

I am an idealist, which I must admit, but I’m not so foolish as to believe that the status quo would “quickly” change simply because of reforming only one sector of society. Indeed, the wealthy elites who control society would not give up power without a major fight. Of course, such a fight is unlikely if most people have been conditioned to do as they are told and to let others think for them.

I understand Kevin’s point here, that all the emphasis on discipline and order trains people to deal with a working world that thrives on such ideas. It simply seems to me that the working world has become so bleak, so utterly without hope, that there is no longer any substance to such an argument. I’m reminded of cattle being force-fed until they are slaughtered and eaten by people rich enough to afford steak.

Still more from Kevin:

Public schools mirror the communities that they exist in, due to the fact that they are controlled by extremely localized districts. Therefore there is no overall mandate stating how ALL students will be socialized by schooling. This evil socialization that you speak of exists in the communities that control each school and actually starts at the dinner table, church, and jobsite; not in the classroom. The classroom is perhaps the first place that young people have the chance to see a varying viewpoint (as mentioned by Desiree above).

Ah, but Kevin forgets the central point of my argument: the indoctrinating of children into the culture of obedience and authority comes not from any conscious decision on the part of individual administrators or school board members, but from an overall national consensus that schools should be organized in the way that they are. That is, the problem is with the institution itself. I’ve written about this at length previously (see link above), but I’ll try to summarize. The school hierarchy – principal, assistant principals, department chairmen, teachers, students – was, quite literally, borrowed from the 19th century Prussian public school model, which was consciously militaristic in nature—this model strongly emulates military structure. That’s all been forgotten now, but the structure remains and it has a huge impact on how schools function; discipline and order are embedded as major priorities within that structure. Everybody simply accepts it because they cannot or don’t want to consider alternatives. Other factors outside of local control compound the problem. For instance, funding limitations tend to make class sizes large, which magnifies the effect of class disruptions and ups the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy with which teachers must contend. Learning, as an end, must necessarily become a secondary concern. Order triumphs. This pattern is repeated in varying degrees throughout the entire country.

And Kevin’s final comment:

Schools are definitely used as a means of passing on and enforcing norms, but it is naive to think that you can somehow change education before changing the culture that runs the schools. If the schools were changed first, they would turn out students that had no idea of how to move about in the world, much less how to undermine or change it.

That first sentence is actually a really good point. It is very unlikely that the schools will change unless society changes as well. Of course, one could say much the same thing about the environment or wealth disparity: does that mean I shouldn’t criticize the schools yet? Should I wait until we approach utopia before I start to vent to the few people who read my blog? Well, no. I see injustice and have to speak out, even if nobody hears or cares. Perhaps these ideas, which are by no means unique to me, might catch on, might become a new meme, which could serve as a catalyst for the social change of which Kevin speaks.

On the other hand, Kevin’s statement makes me wonder what came first: authoritarian society or authoritarian schools. This isn’t a silly question. Turn of the century education reformer Horace Mann sold the Prussian school model to the captains of industry as exactly what they needed for the creation of a large docile workforce for their factories. Once upon a time in this nation, people didn’t value doing what they were told—see Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for an exhaustive list of examples. It is only under corporate capitalism that Americans are expected not to think too much about their own interests, to trust that their superiors know what’s best. Agrarian America was quite different. There’s certainly a strong argument one could make that the schools played a key role in making society the way it is now. Maybe changing the schools would change society.

As for the second sentence of Kevin’s last comment, I offer that it is naïve to think that the schools do anything at all to equip students to undermine or change society. Indeed, Kevin’s “[moving] about in the world” is really all about working at Wal-Mart for seven bucks an hour without benefits. What kind of life is that?

I give the last word to my buddy Matt, who commented:

I think what Kevin's trying to say is "Schools don't indoctrinate People. People indoctrinate People."

But, because this is my blog, I’ll change Matt’s last word to the second to last word, and give myself the last-word privilege:

...well, for that matter, guns don't kill people, either...

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I'll be back tonight, hopefully, after the show opens.

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Guest Blogger Miles

Ex-Hitler Youth Joseph Ratzinger elected pope

AFP - Two key US Jewish lobby groups cautiously welcomed the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope, despite his membership of the Hitler Youth movement during World War II.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center congratulated German-born Ratzinger on becoming Pope Benedict XVI, saying it hoped the conservative cleric would pursue the late Pope John Paul II's outreach to the Jewish community.

"I am cautiously optimistic that because he was a close confidant of John Paul II that he will continue pursuing his achievements," the Los Angeles-based center's founder and head Rabbi Marvin Hier told AFP.

"Even if he would want to reverse what John Paul II did, I don't think he could," Hier said pointing out that he still had differences with aspects of the new pontiff's conservative theology.

John Paul II had "reached out across the abyss of 2,000 years to launch dialogue and reconciliation with other great religions, including Judaism," he said.

But the rabbi also pointed out that the 78-year-old Ratzinger was conscripted into Adolf Hitler's Nazi youth movement.

"As a child, he grew up in an anti-Nazi family. Nonetheless he was forced to join the Hitler Youth movement during the Second World War," Hier said.

"There's been no evidence to show that he committed any crimes or has been implicated in crimes, but clearly joining the Hitler Youth is not something you want to boast about on your CV.

"It is ironic that you have two popes who were on opposite sides of that world conflict: John Paul II, who worked as a Nazi slave labourer; and the new pope, who was conscripted into the Hitler Youth and wore the other uniform," Hier said.

I've heard a lot worse than "ex-Hitler Youth" to describe this guy, so I'll update as I get more info on his background and ideologies.

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TECH WEEK BEGINS
Real Art Goes Dark
(for a few days)

I don't recall if I've mentioned it here, but I'm in my first Equity show. That is, I'm in a union play. It's a pretty big deal to me if only for that. The cherry on top this fabulous dessert, however, is that one of the actors in the show is Clayton Corzatte, a professional actor with a kickass resume going back decades. He's won an Obie (like the Oscars, but for off-Broadway stuff), and he was nominated for a Tony (also like the Oscars, but for Broadway stuff) back in the 60s. He's also worked with Katharine Hepburn, Burt Lahr, Uta Hagen, and Helen Hays. Did I mention that he's great? And well known? Just check out this Google search.

So, anyway, I'm all a-twitter about this. It's a huge show with a huge cast and lots of technical aspects, so I'm expecting these tech rehearsals to pretty much go on for hours on end. I suppose I should mention that the play we're doing is You Can't Take It with You, by Moss Hart and George Kaufman, written in the late 1930s--it's a fabulously funny script, with a wonderful anti-materialism message. I've only got a small part - I'm onstage for all of four minutes - but I get to play the scene I'm in directly opposite of Corzatte, and it's a kickass scene. I'm an IRS agent (which is appropriate given what day this is) trying to find out why a weird, free-thinking family refuses to pay taxes.

Okay, I'm gushing now, but like I said, this is a big deal to me. The real reason for this post is that I don't know if I'm going to have any blogging time for the next few days, so I'm tentatively announcing no new posts until the show is up and running.

You hear that, Miles? Maybe you can fill in until Tuesday or Wednesday. But who knows? Maybe I'll have some time to sneak away and post a little something--my pal Kevin made some good points on the comment board for my education post from yesterday. I'd like to post his comments on the main page, and give a little response if I have time. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.

Anyway, because it's bad luck in the theater to say "good luck," tell me to "break a leg," instead.

(Fade lights. Exit Ron. Roll the Real Art theme song.)

(Blackout.)

UPDATE: Okay, I spoke too soon. I'm not even called tomorrow--I guess they're just working Acts II and III; my little scene is in Act I. I've still got some scene work for class to keep me busy, however, but maybe I can get to Kevin's comments on Saturday. But I know I'll be wildly busy Sunday.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie and Phil in Slumberland



Paz Stands Alone



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Why School Sucks

From Z Magazine via ZNet:

And this is why school sucks. Rather than do what it pretends to—educate, foster curiosity, expand our intellects, and promote diversity—compulsory schooling segregates people on the basis of how well they’re willing to do what they’re told. Licensed professionals who have successfully learned what they were supposed to are placed in charge of safeguarding the status quo by passing on screened knowledge that doesn’t require examination as much as acceptance. The majority of what we’ve been led to accept as education is little more than a social engineering exercise designed to replace our inherent curiosities with information that’s been sanitized for our own protection. Or the protection of our future employers.

Compulsory schooling is at its best when diluting intellects in preparation for lifetimes of subservience to corporate masters. Especially in low-wage service sectors, employers aren’t looking for a workforce of individuals who can readily recognize when they’re being screwed over through things like stagnant wages and increasingly crappy health insurance. The easiest people to control are the ones who haven’t been taught which questions are the most important ones to ask in the first place.

Compulsory schooling defines good citizens as those who play by the rules, stay in line, and do as they’re told. Learning is defined by how well we memorize and regurgitate what someone else has deemed we need to know. Creativity is permitted within the parameters of the guidance of licensed professionals whose duty it is to make sure we don’t get too wacky with our ideas or stray very far from the boundaries of normalcy. Rather than trust people to pursue their own innate curiosities, compulsory education replaces self-exploration with the type of structure designed to reward subservience while cultivating fear.

Click here for the rest.

Hey, that's what I've been saying for some time now. It's nice to get a little validation of my wacky ideas. School really does suck, and we're all quite doomed until people get over their cherished myths about how wonderful and important "education" is. What really sucks is that my ideological brethren, liberals, tend to buy into the public school myths even more than conservatives. I'll die a happy man if I never see another "education" glorifying film like Teachers or Mr. Holland's Opus or even an episode of Boston Public ever again--Dead Poet's Society, on the other hand, is okay because the only teacher actually interested in learning gets sacked at the end; that's pretty real if you ask me. Public schools must be recreated from the ground up, not simply "fixed." But as long as virtually everybody gets tears in their eyes whenever they talk about how important the schools are, nothing's going to happen.

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A GOOD LEFT-WING ARGUMENT FOR TAX REBELLION

From WorkingForChange:

People laugh off collection agency bills simply because they don't want to (or can't) pay, but quake in terror of the IRS when the money isn't just going to a private business -- it's going, in large quantities, to an institution now dedicated at the highest levels to enriching its patrons even if it means killing you. We are volunteering to buy the bullets for our own firing squads.

Why does virtually everybody volunteer?

This isn't a Freemen or Posse Comitatus-type question of the legitimacy of taxation. Quite the opposite; it's specifically because portions of everyone's labor should contribute to the collective well-being of the community (rather than, say, Warren Buffett's net worth) that our current tax system is ethically bankrupt. The issue here is where the money is going, how it's being spent, and how the spending decisions are made. People struggling to pay the rent, who can't afford health care, have no job security or retirement prospects, can't find affordable daycare, college, or anything in between for their kids, and so on, are tithing 30 percent or more of our income to people who often pay little or nothing, reap a disproportionate share of public benefits, and already have enough yachts and private luxury jets to get by.

There are a few folks saying no.

Click here for the rest.

Even though conservative anti-tax arguments tend to sound populist ("get the government off the people's backs" and all that crap), generally, a true populist position is that paying taxes is good: taxes are what we owe for the social benefits provided by the government, such as roads, the courts, police and military protection, Social Security, etc. Of course, that's in an ideal world. The above linked essay makes a pretty compelling argument that pretty much turns that view on its head. There are, indeed, many benefits that average Americans receive from the government, but it appears these days that those benefits are paid for by only a fraction of our tax dollars, and those benefits are shrinking. So where is the lion's share of our tax money going? Why, to the rich, of course, whether they're down-home oil men from Texas, usurious bankers from New York, or low-key defense contractors from California. And that kind of pisses me off. I don't know if I'm ready to become a tax resister myself, but this is certainly an idea to chew on.

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Guest Blogger Miles

Real Art signs up for the draft!

Dear student,

Per Federal Regulations, regardless of citizenship, males must have registered for Selective Service between ages 18-25 to receive Federal Student Aid. Your registration or exempt status could not be confirmed when your FAFSA was processed. Therefore, provide a copy of your Selective Service Registration Card or documentation of your exempt status. To contact Selective Service call 847-688-6888 or visit their website; www.sss.gov.

Ten minutes and a hundred curses against my own government later:

Congratulations, Mr. Pequeno. You are now registered with Selective Service.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier to take when I have to submit my application. It feels like I'm dedicating myself to a government that dedicates little to me. True, this is for my application for financial aid, but submitting my name to the draft board is a pretty heavy price to pay. If I were actually asked (or told) to secure another Fallujah, I'd gladly take a seat in Huntsville.

Oil > educated work force > citizens' rights

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TWO FROM EMPHASIS ADDED

If Emphasis Added isn't on your daily short list for internet surfing, you're missing out: Rob Salkowitz is quite the armchair philosopher, and, even when I disagree with him, I'm often delighted by simply following his train of thought to conclusions that certainly haven't occurred to me, and usually haven't occurred to anyone else, either. These two posts I'm linking to are no exception. Take a gander:

Bright Lines, Dim Bulbs

Schwartz makes a convincing case that the number and complexity of choices we face in all aspects of our lives is diminishing rather than enhancing our sense of satisfaction. If this is true in relatively trivial areas like buying jeans or selecting wireless phone service, where the issues are compartmentalized, straightforward and low-stakes, it’s a thousandfold times more true in public policy issues that demand our attention as citizens in a democracy.

As communication and media technology draw us all closer into the workings of government, many people feel obliged to have opinions on a wide range of subjects, including many that are far outside our personal expertise or experience. Having informed opinions (or opinions that can pass as informed) on large, complicated subjects is a full-time job: take it from me (and not on the scanty evidence provided here on EA; forming perspectives on social trends actually is part of my job). For those who can’t spare the cycles but wish to remain engaged, having a fairly rigid and general ideological framework is a practical option. The fact that the framework occasionally produces some absurd opinions is a relatively small price to pay.

The conservative movement has been far more canny about recognizing this cognitive revolt against complexity than progressives. Conservative media obliges its consumers with a ready-made stream of opinions and fake facts to back them up, as well as reinforcement for the general idea of having a “moral sense of right and wrong” (e.g., rigid ideological framework and low tolerance for ambiguity). Since conservatives control most aspects of society and government these days, this satisfying degree of intellectual simplicity is now reinforced by an increasingly fervent sense of group identity, and in some cases rewarded by the blandishments of power.

Click here for the rest.

Despite the old conservative slogan, "Vote Democrat; it's easier than thinking," the reverse is actully true for many Americans. Let's face it: conservatism's stark black and white representation of reality (you're either for America or against it) is extraordinarily appealing to rank-and-file citizens as actual reality grows ever more complex. Indeed, I recall how seductive such thinking was to me for about a week after 9/11. I was so completely blown away, so awe-struck, that my initial reaction was to support what ultimately became our pointless invasion of Afghanistan--I simply couldn't see any other way than violence. It took an anarchist student of mine to remind me of what was actually going on, that imperialistic US foreign policy had gotten us into this situation in the first place, and more of the same would only make the situation worse. Of course, I was already liberal, already knew how the media and politicians routinely warp the truth for their own ends. It was easy for me to come to my senses. The real problem is figuring out how to get human beings who desperately want a simple world to embrace the opposite.

Drugstore Cowboys

One small symptom of the outbreak of collective insanity in Bush’s America that recently caught my eye is a small number of pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills on “moral grounds.”

And

The whole idea that women should be able to have sex and not get pregnant (that is, face no practical consequences for their sinnin’) threatens to completely derail the undercurrent of sexual anxiety that provides the emotional charge to social conservatism.

Really, it’s hard to say what’s gone wrong in their wiring, but there are some folks who just can’t abide the idea of other people having wild sex unless it’s encumbered with the dour baggage of guilt, sin, shame and the obligation to procreate within the confines of marriage. Maybe they don’t like to consider the possibilities. Maybe they’re more comfortable with the anxieties they know (e.g., guilt) than the anxieties that await in a world of broader sexual choices. Perhaps they understand, even better than liberals, that the collapse of sexual repression portends changes to many other institutions of traditional authority, which threatens their entire conception of life and the world.

Whatever it is, when you scratch the surface of any cultural issue of importance to the far right, it doesn’t take long to tap into this vein of hysteria. Abortion, homosexuality, teaching of sex ed in schools, feminism, preoccupation with sexual material in media, and objectionable aspects of the modern urban-cosmopolitan lifestyle – each a complex issue with its own cluster of ancillary concerns – are all bound together in the mind of the far right in a unified field of prudery and disapproval.

Because of the tendency of the right to link these together and label them, rather perversely, “morals” and “family values” issues, it’s been difficult to formulate a response to the entire movement without sounding like an advocate for dope, guns and f*cking in the streets.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, Salkowitz is right to label this "hysteria." I recall a couple of Southern Baptist mothers years ago talking about what films they were allowing their elementary aged children to see. I remember one line in particular, "Oh, that's just rated 'R' for violence, not sex." To which the other mother replied, "Well, violence is okay." Pretty wild, huh? Obvioulsy, the gratuitous glorification of violence is not okay, but when compared to the evils of sexuality, violence looked pretty good to these women. Of course, that makes no sense at all.

Well, it does make a kind of sense when one factors in the notion that sex is powerful on a deep, elemental, psychological level; it's easy to fear power, and fundamentalist Christianity stokes that fear into a roaring blaze. And since straight people realized that HIV isn't just for homosexuals anymore, such thinking has entered the public consciousness in weird ways. As Dr. Cindy Kistenberg, a cultural rhetoric professor who once taught me, wrote in her book AIDS, Social Change, and Theater, the 1990's gave rise to a new unspoken paradigm for modern American sexuality: sex=sin=death. Because of our country's Christian dominated history, everybody "knows" that sex is sinful, and the Bible tells us that "the wages of sin is death." AIDS, which can, indeed, kill people who have had sex, came along and seemingly proved the equation, albeit in the backs of people's minds.

So people simply don't think clearly about sexuality; their minds are clouded by religious banter, weird fears, and psycho-emotional artifacts of childhood. Most people wouldn't agree with the statement, sex=sin=death, but most people probably feel that way deep in their hearts, or at least fear that it's true. That's why we have one majorly fucked up public discourse on sexuality.

Therefore, as a public service, I will unashamedly say what needs to be said. Sex is good. We should all have sex if we want to. We should be respectful to others, and we should be safe and intelligent about it, but we are human beings and sex is what either random evolution or the Lord God Almighty intended for us to do. So, go have sex! And, taking care not to harass anybody, talk shamelessly and often about it. This is the only way to combat America's strange sexual hysteria. It's therapy for the masses. Really, glorifying human sexuality is not only fun, but downright subversive in a good way.

We had learned that back in the 60s, but somehow it's all been forgotten.

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AMERICAN HEALTH CARE SHAFT

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Drug costs rising twice as fast as inflation

"We are disappointed that brand name manufacturers have failed to keep their price increases in line with inflation despite consumer appeals for them to hold the line," AARP chief Bill Novelli said in a statement. "Much more needs to be done to slow down spiraling drug pricing."

The 7.1 percent hike, slightly higher than 2003's 7.0 percent jump, continues a trend of increasing drug prices. Since the end of 1999, prices of more than 150 popular name-brand drugs have risen an average 35.1 percent, nearly three times the 13.5 percent inflation rate over that period, the report said. In 2004, inflation was 2.7 percent in 2004.

Click here for the rest.

Note that the rate of price increase over inflation is cumulative in nature. That is, drugs are not only becoming more expensive than everything else, year by year they're becoming waaay more expensive than everything else. This has very real consequences in people's lives--indeed, my failed experiment of becoming a high school teacher was all about getting good prescription insurance; alas, the cure was worse than the disease, and now I pay out of pocket for my daily meds. Good thing my folks are helping me out with expenses while I'm back in school. Of course, most Americans don't have well-to-do bourgeois parents to mooch from, and they're essentially shit out of luck. Obviously, that's unjust. Unfortunately, there is no help on the horizon, as this new Paul Krugman essay from the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle illustrates:

Health care crisis is real, also politically inconvenient

Those of us who accuse the administration of inventing a Social Security crisis are often accused, in return, of do-nothingism, of refusing to face up to the nation's problems. I plead not guilty: America does face a real crisis — but it's in health care, not Social Security.

Well-informed business executives agree. A recent survey of chief financial officers at major corporations found that 65 percent regard immediate action on health care costs as "very important." Only 31 percent said the same about Social Security reform.

But serious health care reform isn't on the table, and in the current political climate it probably can't be. You see, the health care crisis is ideologically inconvenient.

Click here for the rest.

And, as the essay later shows, it's ideologically inconvenient because the only solutions that actually have any chance of working defy the fundamentalism of the free market. That is, government must take over the health care system, but Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, simply cannot stomach the thought. All they can offer are half-baked bullshit plans about "medical savings accounts," or "managed competition." It's all bullshit, but our leaders are neck deep in it: they don't even understand reality anymore. Meanwhile, people you know are sick or injured or in debt because of medical bills.

"Promote the general welfare," my ass.

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NO WMD'S, NO REASON FOR INVASION: We Told You So

From AlterNet:

Last week, the "Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" issued what may be the last in a series of in-depth reports by U.S. government on the "intelligence failures" surrounding the invasion of Iraq.

Wade through the close to 3,000 pages of these reports and one conclusion is inescapable: those of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq were right on every count.

We knew that the Bush administration's case of war was no more than a mish-mash of evasion, misdirection, and outright lies -- and we didn't need the vast resources of these investigative commissions to figure it out. The evidence – be it in the form of intelligence leaks, news reporting (though less often in the U.S. and rarely on the front page), or congressional testimony -- was out in the open for all to see.

Click here for the rest.

It all became clear to me, well before the invasion, when I compared US foreign policy towards North Korea to how the White House was dealing with Iraq. The Koreans straight-up admitted that they had nuclear weapons, and we treated them to more diplomacy. Iraq, on the other hand, insisted that they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction at all, so we rattled the hell out of our sabers. This was weird. Clearly, North Korea was the same kind of threat that Bush said Iraq was: their non-fiction nukes could easily be given to terrorists who might then use them on America. Why were we treating them so differently? Obviously, the answer is that the US simply doesn't invade countries with weapons of mass destruction; the risks are too great. Consequently, Iraq must not have had WMDs.

Of course, there were also numerous reports in the foreign and left-wing press during the run up to the invasion that strongly questioned the credibility of Bush's "intelligence" about Iraq's supposed WMDs. There was no "intelligence failure." The White House lied, lied, lied. And millions of people throughout the world, demonized by no-neck, redneck, inbred, idiot warmongers, knew it at the time. It's now pretty much an established fact that Iraq had no WMDs when we invaded, that there was no justifying reason to go to war. What kills me is that most Americans don't seem to give a shit.

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DeLay's Backers Launch Offense

From the Washington Post:

Allies and friends of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) have concluded that public attention to his ethics is unlikely to abate for months to come, and they plan to try to preserve his power by launching an aggressive media strategy and calling in favors from prominent conservative leaders, according to Republicans participating in the strategy sessions.

The Republicans said the strategy combines leaks from DeLay allies about questionable Democratic trips and financial matters; denunciations of unfavorable news stories as biased, orchestrated rehashes; and swift, organized responses to journalists' inquiries.

And

Officials working with DeLay said he is trying to lock in support by sowing the message that an attack on him is an attack on the conservative movement, and that taking him out would be the Democrats' first step toward regaining control of the House and Senate. These officials said they believe the attacks are part of a strategy by Democrats, aided by watchdog groups funded by liberals, to use the ethics process to try to regain power.

Click here for the rest.

So. It's going to be a fight. Well, bring it on, you heartless scumbag! Fighting this is only going to keep the whole thing on the front pages for months to come. Right now the biggest threat to the Conservative Movement isn't the panty-waisted Democrats; it's the arrogance of Tom DeLay. The big question about all this is if Donkey Party is able to overcome their traditional hesitancy and political incompetence enough such that it really is a fight. This is a massive blunder on the part of DeLay and his GOP loyalists, a gift dropped in the laps of Capitol Hill Democrats. But will they do anything with it?

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DeLay called on to step down as majority leader

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Private GOP tensions over Tom DeLay's ethics controversy spilled into public today, as a Senate leader called on DeLay to explain his actions and one House Republican demanded the majority leader's resignation.

"Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.

DeLay, R-Texas, who was admonished by the House ethics committee last year, has been dogged in recent months by new reports about his overseas travel funded by special interests, campaign payments to family members and connections to a lobbyist who is under criminal investigation.

Click here for the rest.

Well, this gives credence to my buddy Kevin's view that the GOP is going to give DeLay the Trent Lott treatment for the good of the party. But DeLay, always the arrogant bastard, may try to put up a fight. He's certainly got the balls, money, power, and political allies to do so, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did. Of course, if he puts up a fight we can expect this whole mess to be continuing to bubble over well into the Congressional election season next year. That'll make the Republicans look pretty bad.

How's this for a fantasy scenario? The DeLay scandals, and his battle to retain his position give the Democrats just enough of a boost to take back both houses of Congress in November of '06. Drunk on their success and newfound power, desperately wanting payback for what the Republicans did to Clinton, Democrats in the House impeach Bush for war crimes, and the Senate convicts him. Suddenly, Dick Cheney is the President. Then they impeach him.

Heh, heh, heh.

Yeah, I know. It could never happen.

Or could it?

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An Economy On Thin Ice

From the Washington Post, an essay by Alan Greenspan's predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve board, Paul Volcker:

The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can't go on indefinitely. I don't know of any country that has managed to consume and invest 6 percent more than it produces for long. The United States is absorbing about 80 percent of the net flow of international capital. And at some point, both central banks and private institutions will have their fill of dollars.

I don't know whether change will come with a bang or a whimper, whether sooner or later. But as things stand, it is more likely than not that it will be financial crises rather than policy foresight that will force the change.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, when Reagan-era conservatives are sounding the same red alerts about the economy that radical left-wingers are sounding, I think it's time for everybody to start freaking out.

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The Economic Tsunami

From CounterPunch:

There are a number of signs that the economy is close to meltdown-stage. Even with cheap energy, low interest rates and $450 billion in borrowed revenue pumped into the system each year, the economy is still barely treading water. This has a lot to due with the colossal shifting of wealth brought on by the tax cuts. Supply-side, trickle-down theories have been widely discredited and Bush's tax cuts have done nothing to stimulate the economy as promised. Now, with oil tilting towards $60 per barrel, the economic landscape is changing quickly, and shock-waves are already being felt throughout the country.

And

Just as the economy cannot float along with sharp increases in oil prices, so too, Bush's profligate deficits threaten the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. This is much more serious than a simple decline in the value of the dollar. If the major oil producers convert from the dollar to the euro, the American economy will sink almost overnight. If oil is traded in euros then central banks around the world would be compelled to follow and America will be required to pay off its enormous $8 trillion debt. That, of course, would be doomsday for the American economy. But, a recent report indicates that two-thirds of the world's 65 central banks have already "begun to move from dollars to euros." The Bush plan to savage the dollar has been telegraphed around the world and, as the New York Times says, "the greenback has nowhere to go but down". There's only one thing that the administration can do to ensure that energy dealers keep trading in dollars: control the flow of oil. That means that an attack on Iran is nearly a certainty.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, virtually no one, on the left or the right, is talking about Iraq in these terms. It appears that the occupation of Iraq is simply one part of a very high stakes economic game being played by weird neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologues who couldn't care less about the impact their high rolling has on ordinary Americans. Or Iraqis, for that matter. "Freedom for Iraqis," "No blood for oil," these slogans don't even come close to making understandable what's actually going on: this isn't about simply controlling oil; it's about controlling the world economy, and cleaning up the financial mess caused by Republican initiatives to destroy domestic social programs, with oil. If the analysis in the above linked essay is correct, the US is in Iraq forever, or at least until the oil runs out, because at this point, the elites don't have a choice--if the US doesn't control world oil supplies, the US economy crashes and burns, taking numerous elites down with it. All you and I can do is sit on the sidelines and hope that when America becomes a third world nation, which will happen regardless of the oil situation, we still have food to eat.

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YANQUI GO HOME
Demonstrators demand U.S. to leave Iraq

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Tens of thousands of supporters of a militant Shiite cleric filled central Baghdad's streets today and demanded that American soldiers go home, marking the second anniversary of Baghdad's fall with shouts of "No, no to Satan!"

To the west of the capital, 5,000 protesters issue similar demands in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, reflecting a growing impatience with the U.S.-led occupation and the slow pace of returning control to an infant Iraqi government.

And

Protesters burned the U.S. flag as well as cardboard cutouts of Bush and Saddam. Three effigies representing Saddam, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair — all handcuffed and dressed in red Iraqi prison jumpsuits that signified they had been condemned to death — were placed on a pedestal, then symbolically toppled like the Saddam statue two years before.

Others acted out reports of prison abuse at the hands of American soldiers. Photos released last year showing U.S. soldiers piling naked inmates in a pyramid at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison have tarnished the military's reputation both here and around the world.

Click here for the rest.

Well, it sounds like they're glad Saddam Hussein is gone, but that they equate President Bush with the former bloody dictator. It's pretty clear: they don't want us there; they don't think we've brought them freedom; they don't love us, and want us out right now. Of course, they're right. The invasion was illegal, sold to the US public with lies, and is completely imperialistic in nature. Bush is a war criminal on a scale that probably dwarfs that of the dictator he has replaced. The US really ought to pull out right now, but that's not at all likely--see the post above for the major reason why.

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The Passion of the Tom, or fear and loathing in D.C.?

Maureen Dowd fires a shot across Tom DeLay's bow. From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

But there's some skittishness in the party leadership about the Passion of the Tom, the fiery battle of the born-again Texan to show that he's being persecuted on ethics by a vast left-wing conspiracy. Some Republicans are wondering whether they need to pull a Trent Lott on Tom DeLay before he turns into Newt Gingrich, who led his party to the promised land but then had to be discarded when he became the petulant "definer" and "arouser" of civilization. Do they want DeLay careering around in Queeg style as they go into 2006?

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist joined Cheney in rejecting DeLay's call to punish and possibly impeach judges — who are already an endangered species these days, with so much violence leveled against them. "I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," Frist said. "I respect that."

Of course, Frist and the White House still want to pack the federal courts with right-wing judges, but they don't want it to look as if they're doing it because Tom DeLay told them to or because of unhappiness at the Schiavo case.

No matter how much Democrats may be caviling over the House Republicans' attempts to squelch the Ethics Committee before it goes after DeLay (the former exterminator who pushed to impeach Bill Clinton), privately they're rooting for DeLay to thrive. They're hoping to do in 2006 what the Republicans did in 1994, when Gingrich and his acolytes used Democratic arrogance and ethical lapses to seize the House.

Click here for the rest.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Paz



Frankie



Phil



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Free Market Energy Policy

From Rob Salkowitz over at Emphasis Added:

There’s one policy of the Bush Administration that I have enthusiastically supported, and that’s their refusal to release any of the strategic oil reserve to help lower energy prices for US consumers. Now, as crude prices soar into uncharted territory and analysts are suggesting that the “peak oil” scenario is in sight if not here already, it’s even more important to hold the line, despite the short-term disruptions to the economy.

And

It is only market forces which can make alternative energy a reality. Most alternative energy sources – wind, solar, fuel cell, geothermal, liquid coal, even safe nuclear fission – are technologically viable but not price-competitive with cheaper fossil fuels.

I know a lot of lefties argue that alternative energy is being scuttled by industry conspiracies and requires government support. I think it’s simpler than that. Right now, fuel cells cost about 40-45 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to 25 or 30 cents for reasonably-priced fossil fuel. But fuel cells are getting cheaper by the minute and oil is getting more expensive. Once those lines cross, you can be sure we will see fuel cells coming on the market in a big way. No one understands this better than OPEC, which has in the past acted hastily to bring oil prices down if they rose to a point where serious capital investments started moving into exploration of alternatives, or exploitation of new fossil fuel areas. This is the first time they are letting prices rise to a “natural” market level in the United States – perhaps because there is nothing they can do to bring prices down any further.

Kicking a drug habit often involves days or weeks of painful withdrawal symptoms. Kicking our oil habit will be the same.

Click here for the rest.

This makes good sense. I’ve spoken with Greenpeace activists who seem to be shooting for a strategy of causing a change in American consciousness in order to facilitate the end of fossil fuels and other pollutants. But I don’t think that’s going to happen: our culture is heavily propagandized into the zombie pleasures of consumerism by a constant barrage of advertising—I don’t believe that all the zealous environmentalists in the world can effectively fight such forces. Indeed, I just read last night a really cool Ibsen play, An Enemy of the People, which illustrates well how difficult it is for a minority to try to change the thinking of the majority. I support their efforts, but I’m afraid that environmentalists are not going to succeed. Salkowitz is probably right. We’re not going to get off the fossil fuels until the economic powers that be decide that we must. Consequently, expensive gasoline is a good sign.

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IN DEFENSE OF U2
Guest Blogger Paul

Just to bring you up to speed, a few weeks back I casually dropped a comment about how I thought that musician, composer, and producer Brian Eno had ruined U2, which spawned this exchange between me and my buddy Paul. He gets the final word:

I guess I sort of have a love/hate relationship with U2. I got into them when War came out, and was very surprised by the new sound Eno brought in for Unforgettable Fire. I love their most beautiful passionate work, but hate when they do anything else that makes me feel foolish for loving them so much. I used to have a theory that they do 3 albums, then change styles (Boy, October, War, all Steve Lillywhite produced) (The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum) (Auchtung Baby, Zooropa, Pop). Rattle and Hum could have been a decent album, but it's lack of focus reminds me of the White Album, and their Dylan cover (All Along The Watchtower) is just embarassing. I was glad, at first, when they went to the more European style of Auchtung Baby; Zooropa was good, but seemed like a less focused version of it's predecessor. By the time they made Pop, I was real sick of them, and what I saw as a smarmy self-parodying style. And the songs on that one were extra weak. I was very pleasantly surprised with All That You Can't Leave Behind, but the new album (featuring only one song co-produced by Eno) sounds like a watered down version of All That You Can't Leave Behind. Still, it has moments of greatness.But I guess what I still respect about them, is they keep trying new things. It must be really difficult to still make passionate music in today's music industry, and I'm just glad they haven't started recording whole albums of covers or a live album with a symphony orchestra (always signs that the end is near for any band). I also worship at the altar of Springsteen, and his work has fallen off over the years, too.

I did catch Springsteen inducting U2 in the rock and roll hall of fame, and it was funny, because he gave them much shit for selling out and doing that ipod commercial. His best line was something like: "Bono has one of the most naked messianic complexes in rock and roll. And believe me, it takes on to know one." But the best line of the night was something Chrissy Hynde said about how hard it is to be totally honest onstage. She was trying to make the point that she, as an artist, doesn't play for herself, but for the audience. Only she is part of that audience. So here's the quote, it was so good, and kind of applied to something I was thinking about my own performance, I had to write it down:

"What I might not want to reveal, is exactly what I, as an audience, might want to see."

I think it's funny that as wildly liberal as I am and as much as I would love to see Tom DeLay hit by a cement truck, what really gets me going was one little U2 comment...keep up the good work...

Did you ever hear any of Eno's "Passengers?" It features U2 with Luciano Pavarotti and some other almost dance type-stuff. Not the kind of thing I want to listen to very often, but still interesting.

And you had to go mention Steely Dan, another band I have strong feelings about...but that will wait until another day.

Hmmm. I may end up having to do an "In Defense of Steely Dan" post someday. Ah well. I'm going to go steal that "Passengers" song off the internet!

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BLOGGER WAS DOWN

Blogger was down from last night until around eleven this morning. Consequently, I didn't get to post yesterday. The next two posts, above, are what I had put together for last night.

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House Republicans give support to DeLay

Of course they do. From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

House Republicans expressed strong support for Majority Leader Tom DeLay today, dismissing persistent Democratic criticism of the Texan as evidence of partisan politics.

"I don't see any wavering of the support for the leader. I think a lot of members think he's taking arrows for all of us," said Rep. Roy Blunt, third-ranking among GOP leaders.

Blunt and others spoke out on DeLay's behalf as Democrats leveled a new charge — that the ethical controversy surrounding him was distracting from congressional efforts to tackle pressing problems.

Click here for the rest.

The line of thinking I've been following on the left side of the blogosphere is that this typical, lockstep support for DeLay is a good thing. Because there is so much of a mainstream media buzz about DeLay's corruption, because most Americans were opposed to his meddling in the Schiavo affair, Republican support for their House Majority Leader undermines Republican credibility in general. The idea is that the GOP could conceivably be revealed as the bunch of lying criminals that it is if it persists in backing DeLay. My buddy Kevin thinks that this analysis is a bunch of bullshit, that DeLay will be given the Trent Lott treatment, allowing the GOP to continue to rape the world, and he's probably right. But it's nice to dream the occasional impossible dream. I mean, it's possible. Right?

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Sheriff used official records to locate critic

Orange County's sheriff used driver's license records to contact a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper citicizing his staff's use of Taser stun guns and describing him as fat.

Some say Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary violated federal privacy law when he had his aides use the records to get the address of Alice Gawronski. He sent her a letter accusing her of slander.

It is illegal to access a driver's license database to obtain personal information, except for clear law-enforcement purposes, under the U.S. Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

"I recently read your slanderous remarks about the Orange County Sheriff's Office in the Orlando Sentinel," Beary wrote Gawronski on March 23. "It is unfortunate that people ridicule others without arming themselves with the facts before they slander a law enforcement agency or individual."

Click here for the rest.

Not only is this against the law and a rank abuse of police power, but it's also downright creepy in a Ray Liotta kind of way. The thought that the police could track down people who are simply doing their duty as citizens, speaking out on important public issues, sends a chill in the direction of free speech itself. This big-boy sheriff wasn't simply responding to an argument, which he could have easily and more effectively done by sending a letter to the editor himself: he was essentially letting this woman know that he knows where she lives!!! That'd make me think twice about criticizing my large-living, down-home, local constabulary, for sure. Badges, grudges, and guns are not at all a good mix, let me tell you.

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TWO FROM COUNTERPUNCH

First, an essay on the sinister side of anti-depressants by famous communist Alexander Cockburn:

Death, Depression and Prozac

The minute the high command at Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Prozac, saw those news stories about Weise you can bet they went into crisis mode, and only began to relax when Weise's websurfs of neo-Nazi sites took over the headlines. Hitler trumps Prozac every time, particularly if it's an Injun teen ranting about racial purity. How many times, amid the carnage of such homicidal sprees, do investigators find a prescription for antidepressants at the murder scene? Luvox at Columbine, Prozac at Louisville, Kentucky, where Joseph Wesbecker killed nine, including himself. You'll find many such stories in the past fifteen years.

By now the Lilly defense formula is pretty standardized:self-righteous handouts about the company's costly research and rigorous screening, crowned by the imprimatur of that watchdog for the public interest, the FDA. And of course there's the bogus comfort of numbers; if Lilly's pill factory had a big sign like MacDonald's, it could boast Prozac: Billions Served.

Click here for the rest.

Next, an essay by former Reagan era conservative Paul Craig Roberts on how "outsourcing" is literally destroying the US economy:

The Job Arbitragers

A country that permits its manufacturing and its technical and scientific professions to wither away is a country on a path to the Third World. The mark of a Third World country is a labor force employed in domestic services.

Many Americans and almost every economist and policymaker do not see the peril. They confuse outsourcing with free trade, and they have been taught that free trade is always beneficial.

Outsourcing is labor arbitrage. Cheaper foreign labor is being substituted for more expensive First World labor. Higher productivity no longer protects the wages and salaries of First World employees from cheap foreign labor. Political change in Asia has made it easy to move First World capital and technology to cheap labor, and the Internet has made it easy to move cheap labor to First World capital and technology. When working with First World capital and technology, foreign labor is just as productive-and a lot cheaper.

This is a new development. It is not a development covered by the case for free trade.

Click here for the rest.

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The Archon of Amble

My dear old friend Shane, who often comments here at Real Art, has finally put his toes in the blogging water. I've been waiting for this since he mentioned that he might do so over a year ago. And it is now time. Here's a bit from his very first post:

The Temple of Enui

Welcome. New to the temple? Please leave your tribute in the urn.

I have been meaning to get into this process for some time now, and haven't had the time or the motivation to get it together. But I've had a day. A day so whacked it qualifies as revelation. An epiphany, if you will. But I will ease into that later...

Memory. Mortality. These things plague me. These things comfort me. That which makes my life so precious to me yet so inconsequencial. Memory: that ineffabe quality that makes me who I am and the world for me unique. There is no other world like mine. Or yours. Mortality: the birthright of every living thing and the end of self. Death: now there's an epiphany for you...

I'm rambling. But I intend to do so. The way to "cheat" mortality is to disceminate your view of the world to others, to let it, even in a small way, inform the shape of the world. Let your memories live in others to enrich the world you stayed in for a while.

Click here for the rest.

Shane is one of the more brilliant slackers I've known over the years--of course slack and brilliance often walk hand in hand; when you see how screwy our culture is, why bother? Fortunately, the new medium of the new millenium, that is, blogging, has offered an ideal form for Shane to make his observations known to the world. Go check him out. You'll be missing out if you don't.

I also need to mention that Shane is as big of a science fiction and comics fan as I am. He knows old Star Trek even better than me. That, at the very least, makes a regular cruise by his blog worthwhile. After all, "Archon" is a reference to...that's right; you guessed it, old Star Trek.

"I'm not joking, Lee!"

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COMMUNISM AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

"Religion is the opium of the people." Karl Marx

"God is the state; the state is God." Leon Trotsky

Fidel Castro Pays His Respects to the Pope



I guess communism ain't what it used to be.

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CONSERVATIVE FREAK OUT
GOP Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) says
violence against judges is understandable

From AMERICAblog courtesy of Eschaton:

At 5PM today on the Senate floor, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) gave an astounding account of the recent spate of violence against judges, suggesting that the crimes could be attributed to the fact that judges are "unaccountable" to the public. Sources on the Hill went and pulled the transcript of what Cornyn said, and it read:

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]

Click here for the rest.

Of course, this is all in the context of the Terri Schiavo thing. Remember Tom DeLay's threats last week against the judges who ruled on the case? Cornyn, another insane Texas Republican, has just upped the ante by quite a bit: he's saying that violence against judges is understandable because of liberal "judicial activism;" that comes very close to endorsing the recent acts of the lunatic in Chicago who killed a judge's family and the rapist who shot up the court room in Atlanta. Of course, these two events were obviously personally, rather than politically, motivated. But that's not stopping the crazy conservatives from trying to find a link.

Atrios over at Eschaton is already calling for Cornyn's resignation, and I don't think such a thing is so absurd. I'm pretty outraged myself--personally, I'd like to see Cornyn's head on a plate, metaphorically speaking, of course. But crazy statements like this make the post below, which speculates about a possible turning of the tide in American conservative dominated politics, all the more plausible. Right now it seems that the Republicans' worst enemy is not the toady, eager to please, whining Democrats. Right now the Republicans' worst enemy is themselves. I'm glad somebody's fighting the good fight.

More on this story from the Washington Post, again courtesy of Eschaton, here.

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WILL TOM DELAY TAKE DOWN THE GOP WITH HIM?
The Lizard King's Soft White Underbelly Is Now Exposed

The left wing of the Blogosphere has been abuzz this weekend with speculation about recent events concerning scandal ridden House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. So I've got a couple of links here to keep Real Art readers up to date on what's been going on.

First, on Friday Democrats were quick to fire back at DeLay's veiled threat against the Federal judges who recently decided against Terri Schiavo's parents. From the Houston Chronicle:

Democrat says statements about the Schiavo
case were threats that violated the law

A Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey suggested Friday that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay broke the law when he assailed federal judges involved in the Terri Schiavo case.

"Threats against specific federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a member of Congress," Sen. Frank Lautenberg wrote in a letter to DeLay that he shared with the media. "Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well."

DeLay's office did not return telephone calls seeking comment Friday.

And

Lautenberg and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said DeLay's comments were particularly reckless in the aftermath of the recent killing of a Georgia judge and the killing of a federal judge's husband and mother in Chicago.

"Our nation's judges must be concerned for their safety and security when they are asked to make difficult decisions every day. That's why comments like those you made are not only irresponsible, but downright dangerous," Lautenberg wrote in his letter. "You owe them — and all Americans — an apology for your reckless statements."

Click here for the rest.

Nice to see some Democrats with balls these days. But it's not simply Democrats who have DeLay in their sights: he seems to be losing support from his own constituents, in what has been considered a "safe" district for many, many years now. Again from the Houston Chronicle:

DeLay is losing support, poll finds

Yet 49 percent said they would vote for someone other than DeLay if a congressional election in the 22nd District were at hand; 39 percent said they would stick with him.

"There seems to be no question that there has been an erosion in support for the congressman," said John Zogby, whose polling company, Zogby International, performed the survey. "He is posting numbers that one would have to consider in the dangerous territory for an incumbent. And he isn't just an incumbent, he is a longtime incumbent."

And

The poll findings come as the tough-as-nails DeLay slogs through one of the roughest years of his two decades on Capitol Hill.

He was admonished three times by the House ethics committee, questions have been raised about the financial backing for some of his overseas trips, and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, is investigating the political fund-raising tactics of a political action committee DeLay helped set up.

And

On the Schiavo issue, DeLay consistently has stated that his constituents backed his decision to lead Congress into the dispute over whether to continue nourishment to the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.

"Everywhere I went (in the district) people were ... very supportive of the efforts to try and save her," DeLay said Wednesday at Sugar Land Regional Airport.

But nearly 69 percent of people in the poll, including substantial majorities of Democrats and Republicans, said they opposed the government's intervention in the longstanding family battle.

Click here for the rest.

So the ethics violations coupled with the investigation of DeLay's fundraising in Austin opened the door, but his leading the charge to meddle in the Schiavo case, which was obviously a ploy to draw focus away from his legal troubles, is what's freaking out his own voters. For the first time ever, the former exterminator from Sugar Land is vulnerable. I say we slit him open like an Aztec sacrifice, myself: here's hoping the do-nothing Democrats pump countless dollars into the election in '06.

But what does this mean in terms of national politics? This is the question that's making internet liberals short of breath. From Hullabaloo courtesy of Eschaton:

"It's a Sicilian message. It means
Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."

This Tom DeLay mess is really getting interesting, isn't it? While I appreciate the "don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes" strategy, after some thought I've decided that it's probably a good idea for the Democrats to put pressure on Delay right now. As a matter of fact, I think it will ensure that the wingnuts continue to support him and that he stays in the news and in his post well into the 2006 election cycle. Nothing will make the radicals more vociferously defend their wounded leader than a bunch of Democrats attacking him. And I think that we want the extreme rightwing to be defending Tom DeLay, especially the Randall Terrys and the James Dobsons, as often as possible.

We especially want to see those guys on Fox News. A lot. And here's why. Something happened during the Schiavo circus, I think, and it was something significant. But it wasn't that the nation saw that politicians were all a bunch of craven opportunists. They already knew that. It was that the Republican professional class, the libertarians and some common sense types saw FOX News and talk radio as being full of shit for the first time. I have nothing but a handful of anecdotes to back that up, but I think Schiavo may turn out to be the first big tear in the right wing matrix.

Click here for the rest.

It just may be that the whole Schiavo thing, engineered by DeLay, is starting to freak out a substantial number of Republicans. Republicans who may be starting to see that everything conservative leaders say isn't true. Indeed, former Republican senator John Danforth wrote an editorial essentially saying that the religious right has hijacked the GOP, and that hijacking is pulling the party away from its traditional values.

This may all just be a bump in the road, and the Republican Party could hold power for decades to come. But there are cracks in the wall, and this could instead be the beginning of the end. I mean, it's amazing that DeLay might lose his own district a year and a half from now, and it's even more amazing that saner Republicans might mount a drive to kick out the fundamentalists. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. I can only hope.

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FAREWELL JOHN PAUL II

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A fierce enemy of communism, John Paul set off the sparks that helped bring down communism in Poland, from where a virtual revolution spread across the Soviet bloc. No less an authority than former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said much of the credit went to John Paul.

But his Polish roots also nourished a doctrinal conservatism — opposition to contraception, abortion and women priests — that rankled liberal Catholics in the United States and western Europe.

A man who had lived under both the Nazis and the Soviets, he loathed totalitarianism, which he called "substitute religion." As pope, he helped foster Poland's Solidarity movement and bring down Communism. Once it was vanquished, he decried capitalist callousness.

During World War II, he appeared on a Nazi blacklist in 1944 for his activities in a Christian democratic underground in Poland. B'nai B'rith and other organizations testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.

While the pope championed better relations with Jews — Christianity's "older brothers," as he put it — the Vatican formally recognized Israel in 1993. He also met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and urged the Holy Land's warring neighbors to reconcile.

John Paul was intent on improving relations with Muslims. On a trip to Damascus, Syria, in May 2001, he became the first pope to step into a mosque.

Click here for the rest.

On the one hand, I despised his traditional Catholic sexism and lunatic opposition to birth control. But I have to give the man his due: he accomplished great things and was truly a symbol of peace, the true and correct position for a follower of Christ. I was thrilled, in fact, by his opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. And his criticisms of capitalism...well, you'd never hear talk like that coming out of his American Protestant fundamentalist counterparts. It's strange to me, but I find myself saddened by his death.

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FANTASTIC GORE VIDAL INTERVIEW

An excellent delving into the mind of my favorite aristocrat, from the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

On the media

Well, they have been transformed, by design, by corporate America, aided by the media, which belongs to corporate America. They are no longer citizens. They are hardly voters. They are consumers, and they consume those things which are advertised on television. They are made to sound like happy consumers. Listen to TV advertising: This one says, "I had this terrible pain, but when I put on Kool-Aid, I found relief overnight. You must try it too." All we do is hear about little cures for little pains. Nothing important gets said. There used to be all those talk shows back in the '50s and '60s, when I was on television a great deal. People would talk about many important things, and you had some very good talkers. They're not allowed on now. Or they're set loose in the Fox Zoo, in which you have a number of people who pretend to be journalists but are really like animals. Each one has his own noise--there's the donkey who brays, there's the pig who squeals. Each one is a different animal in a zoo, making a characteristic noise. The result is chaos, which is what is intended. They don't want the people to know anything, and the people don't.

On the Clinton impeachment

If I were he, I would have called out the Army and sent Congress home...They went beyond anything in the laws of impeachment. They have to do with the exercise of your powers as president, abuses of power as president. He wasn't abusing any powers. He was caught telling a little lie about sex, which you're not supposed to ask him about anyway, and he shouldn't have answered. So they use that: oh, perjury! Oh, it's terrible, a president who lies! Oh, God--how can we live any longer in Sodom and Gomorrah? You can play on the dumb-dumbs morning, noon, and night with stuff like that.

On the Democrats

Well, the media is on the other side. The media belongs to the big money, and the big money, their candidates, their party, is the Republican Party as now constituted. So everybody is behaving typically [in media]. What isn't typical is a Democratic Party that has also sold out. There are just as many lobbyists and propagandists there as on the other side. They're never going to regain anything until they remember that they're supposed to represent the people at large, and not the very rich.

But they need the very rich in order to be able to run for office, to buy television time. I'd say if you really want to date the crash of the American system, the American republic, it was in the early '50s, when television suddenly emerged as the central fact of American life.

On public education

Now here we are a global power, and nobody knows where anything is. I loved geography when I was a kid. It's really the way to get to know the world. The success of Franklin Roosevelt was that he was a great philatelist. He collected stamps, and he knew where all the countries were and who lived in them. Now we have people who don't know where anything is. I remember a speech Bush gave in which he was reaching out not only to the "Torks" but the "Grecians" at some point. We live in total confusion time.

There is also something in the water--let us hope it was put there by the enemy--that has made Americans contemptuous of intelligence whenever they recognize it, which is not very often. And a hatred of learning, which you don't find in any other country.

Click here for the rest.

God, I love Gore Vidal.

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More Sex, Please

From AlterNet, an essay on how the gay marriage movement is affecting the overall gay rights movement:

We differ in one important way: We have sex with people of the same gender, at least a portion of the time. And that's the part that freaks most straight people out.

Rather than confront this cultural barrier, we try to cover it up like a blemish on otherwise perfect skin. We chose our language carefully: We have an "orientation" that is by no means a choice. We build "committed" relationships. We urge "tolerance" and "acceptance" rather than provoke cultural change.

Legal equality is a worthy goal, all the more so for those at the lower end of the economic ladder who can't afford to tell the boss to fuck off when he demands they dress like ladies or gents. But it's also a goal that will remain elusive as long as we opt out of the sex wars. We must convince America to celebrate rather than hide from the fact that we all have sex, of all different sorts—to champion the idea that hetero or homo, missionary or doggy-style, it's all good. For until the country stops dividing sex by what's natural or perverted, we'll never get our rights—civil or otherwise.

Click here for the rest.

I, too, am all for equality, but am also somewhat troubled by the enormous emphasis that the gay community has placed on gaining the right to marry.

Long ago I decided that gay rights are, in reality, sexual rights, rights for everybody. When culture, business, or the government, whatever, tells gay people that they can be punished for having sex with one another, it is clearly giving itself the authority to police everyone's sexual practices, gay and straight alike. It just so happens that, at the moment, straights are given much more societal freedom with their sexuality than gays: however, as long as it is deemed acceptable to punish one group for their sexuality it is likely that whenever the cultural tide turns other groups could be punished, too. If that sounds silly, bear in mind that adultery is still illegal for people in the military. Illegal, not simply against the rules or policy, and servicemen are still prosecuted for it. It's also clear in post 9/11 America that culture and values can change overnight. Consequently, today's persecuted gay could be tomorrow's persecuted swinger or even serial monogamist. Gay rights are the same as straight rights; they're sexual rights.

With this in mind, I've looked to the gay community for many years as the vanguard for the protection and extension of sexual freedoms--since the rise of AIDS, the gay community has also been on the cutting edge of sex education and sexual health. Understand that I fully support the right for gays to marry: however, this movement also represents the gay community's shift away from extending and protecting sexual rights and toward the concept of inclusion and assimilation, which, I must admit is not a bad thing in and of itself. But the long and the short of this is that the drive for social acceptance has come at the expense of the drive to change society for the better. Indeed, this shift has been coming for a long time. The first evidence of the gay community's abandonment of an agenda of social change was during the 80s when a movement began to keep the drag queens and leather men away from gay pride celebrations--the idea behind this was that the big flamers alienate mainstream society, which was (and still is) believed by many to be counterproductive.

So my question is, if the gay community is no longer interested in protecting and extending sexual rights, who is? Certainly not the pornography industry. Their mission is profit oriented, and therefore exploitative--they don't care as long as they're making a buck. Obviously not the churches, who want to completely control human sexuality. Clearly not the government. My fear is that it is the gay marriage movement, rather than the drag queens and leather men, that is counterproductive.

It's also something of a bummer to feel like I've lost my gay sex heroes. Real heroes are in short supply these days.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

King Phil



Phil-as-Spock, Fascinated by Frankie



Paz-in-the-Box



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