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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Sunday, April 10, 2005
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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Friday, April 08, 2005
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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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 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.
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 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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Wednesday, April 06, 2005
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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Tuesday, April 05, 2005
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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Monday, April 04, 2005
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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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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Sunday, April 03, 2005
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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Friday, April 01, 2005
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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Thursday, March 31, 2005
TOM DELAY'S VEILED THREATS
AGAINST DOCTORS AND JUDGES
From U.S. Newswire, courtesy of Think Progress, courtesy of Eschaton:
"Mrs. Schiavo's death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo's friends in this time of deep sorrow."
And that's pretty much the whole statement. If you want to see it as published on U.S. Newswire, click here.
God, what a nut.
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005
TOM DELAY IS MEAT
From MSNBC courtesy of Eschaton:
By melodramatically linking his own destiny with that of Terri Schiavo, DeLay didn’t help himself. He made himself look vulnerable and scared – which is all his enemies needed to convince themselves to step up their attacks. If you want to watch a passion play, fine. But don’t cast yourself in the lead.
This is a city dedicated to ambition, but also to the occasional ritual (and largely ineffective) cleansing. The goal of the truly power-hungry is to find new routes to the top without antagonizing a critical mass of the trampled and the angry. DeLay succeeded for quite some time; that time might be about to end. True, Republicans control both chambers of Congress. But just because DeLay won’t be subpoenaed to testify on the Hill doesn’t mean he is safe.
Why? First, a federal grand jury, which is deep into an investigation of fundraising and influence peddling by DeLay’s friends and former staffers in town. The probe may never reach DeLay himself; indeed, he’s not the focus of the probe. But in the court of politics, guilt by association can add up to … guilt. The roster of people close to him has gotten long and, therefore, conspicuous.
Click here for more.
The moment that DeLay becomes more of a liability than an asset to the Republicans, they'll cast him off as quickly as they did Trent Lott--as Hunter S. Thompson might have said, in D.C. the smell of fresh blood emboldens the cannibals, and DeLay's small scratches may very well be starting to hemorrhage. Of course, as the excerpt above observes, DeThroning DeLay will not mean the end of GOP rule, but it will be nice to see him eaten by his own tribe. I can't wait. I really do hate him.
