I’m really quite fascinated by how “western” and familiar the Colonel’s children really are. They could show up at any party of Charlie Sheen’s and no one would notice the difference.
And it is amazing how common it is among the children of the mighty. Consider the sons of Kim Jong-il and Saddam Hussein. (One of the former, Kim Jong-nam, famously lost his father’s favor by sneaking into Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland. They say that when he was stopped by the Japanese authorities, he was dressed in universal-world-kid fashion, with a gold chain and black slacks.)
One wonders if it isn’t inevitable. Given the temptations of the world, we succumb. Or, to put it another way, Baron Acton was right, but incomplete. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But consumer goods… those too have power, and those too can be corrupting. And just as absolutely.
(Now that I have confessed my own failures, let me turn to our national, American elites…)
I am going to argue that our American elites—the bankers, the lawyers, the Wall Streeters, all the rest—should be paying very close attention to Libya. Or, more particularly, to the Children of Colonel.
I confess, I knew almost nothing about Gadhafi’s children prior to the current revolution. I suspect that very few of us did. For a long while, they were sort of invisible. Oh, I’m sure Gadhafi’s sons, daughters, and potential heirs were known in governmental and diplomatic circles, but to the average American they were as little visible as ghosts in the noonday sun. One simply didn’t think of them.
But, they existed all the same. And now, we learn that they’ve been playboying it up around the world for decades. We get stories of champagne parties on Caribbean islands where big name entertainers are paid millions for a song or two. Like the sons of Kim Jong-il and Saddam Hussein, they have lived the lives of princes, consuming much, and producing little.
And the frightening thing is how familiar they seem. When you look at Gadhafi and his family, and you look past the trappings of revolution, the uniforms, the colorful “native” garb displayed at ceremonies, and all the rest of it…you find they look pretty much like our own privileged classes. You watch them on TV or the net, and they are in the same business suits and corporate casual attire. They have the same fashionable hair cuts. They drive the same expensive cars. They attend the same schools. They party on the same islands and sleep with (or try to, anyway) the same models and movie stars.
They are, we belatedly discover, simply one more variety of the global, international, jet-setting, rootless, world elite.
Something which, by the by, may explain much of how and why it was so easy for our leaders to forgive Gadhafi for so much, so quickly. It explains why a short few years after the Lockerbie massacre, Tony Blair stood smiling beside him, George W. Bush sent Condoleezza Rice to woo him, and our companies and corporations pressed in upon him almost hysterically, like Teenyboppers around a rock star.
It was because they recognized one of their own.
Which brings me to my point …to why I say our elites should be paying very close attention to international affairs.
Gadhafi is falling.
He may not be dead yet. In the end, he may manage to turn Tripoli into a kind of fortress city-state, separate from the rest of Libya. There, he and his heirs might hang on for a while yet.
But, in the end, he’s finished. The expense of holding on to power will vastly exceed his revenues. The very best he can hope for is to be a marginal figure, squatting Hitler-like in his bunker, and watching the empty hours pass.
Why do I stress that? Why do I say that our own privileged classes should note well his passing? Because they should keep in mind that if he can go, they can go.
Of course, no one in America is in Gadhafi’s league. No one has shot protestors recently, nor bombed and strafed innocent civilians. But, still our elites have not behaved well of late. They have done much to bankrupt the nation. They have outsourced and off-shored. They have been indifferent to the fate of their countrymen.
And if they keep on as they have done…laying off and cutting back, reducing men and women to drones and drudges, pretending that they do this only because of the inevitable laws of economics and that they have no choice in the matter … then, ultimately, they, too, will face consequences.
Like Gadhafi, they may survive. But they must ask themselves, now, before it is too late…will accounts received be equal to expenditures? Will it really be profitable to practice repression when a few compromises might defuse the ticking bomb?
Or, to put it another way, how comfortable are they, really…
I have, like everyone else, been watching with bated breath while Libya fights its civil war. I, like most people, am of course rooting for the revolution. I hope that Gadhafi is gone before too much longer. (Although, alas, it is possible that he will endure for quite a while yet, hanging on, like a disease that cannot quite be cured, or a wound that will not heal.)
Yet, I must confess, Libya’s war has forced me to rethink some of my ideas. It has forced me to confront a few of my own failings…
Specifically, I have been watching while populist despots around the world—Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez—have stepped up to the plate to defend their friend and contemporary, Gadhafi, that hero of the revolution, who blew up airplanes and machine gunned his own people.
Castro, Chavez, etc. have said they will not abandon him in his hour of need. When pressed, they trot out the old creaking clichés about American and Western imperialism. (Perhaps only Gadhafi’s delusion that his people “love” him, and that the revolt is fueled by drugs and Osama Bin Laden, exceeds the sheer lunacy Castro’s proclamation that the crisis was an American invention meant to prepare the way for a NATO invasion of the Middle East.)
Which means that they are, indeed, birds of a feather. Which means, in turn, that those of us who are or were liberals… like me…have to wonder a bit about our support for such figures. And let us face it. We did support them. In our heart of hearts we admired the man on the white horse who came in the name of The People and turned out all the rascals.
But what if the man on the horse himself proves a rascal? Or, worse, a monster? And The People hate him more than words can say? Are we not somewhat guilty of supporting evil?
I am, thus, made uncomfortable. I am, thus, humbled.
This video experiment is based on a short piece of mine, "on an island otherwise invisible,” which appeared in Chapter Seven of The Anemone Sidecar. You may see the original here: http://ravennapress.com/anemonesidecar/chapters.html
I don't know why, but the video seems a little cropped to one side here on blogspot. To see it in full, you might want to go to full screen mode, or hop over to my Youtube account at
As you know, I teach at Northeastern. Well, the other day, one of my students past or present (I don’t know which one), nominated me for the school’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
(Cheer!)
Except, it turns out that the award is only open to full time employees. I, like most of the people who now teach at Universities, am a part timer, or, as they say, “a member of adjunct staff.”
(Argh!)
So, if you’re reading this, and you’re the student who nominated me, thank you humongously.
If, however, you’re reading this, and you’re the official who aced me outta the running for being a part time employee…well, gee, golly..
Would you mind terribly if I admitted to hoping you get rectal Gonorrhea? In your left nostril?
I’ve not said anything yet about this new book on “tiger mothers.” I don’t plan to do so now, either.
Except for one little observation.
You know…and I know… everyone knows…
If the same book had been written not by a rich, successful, female Asian-American Yale Law professor but rather by a working class white woman in a trailer park…
She’d be in jail for child abuse before you could hum three verses of "Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer."
So, like everyone else in the known universe, I’ve been watching with real fascination while the peoples of the Middle East suddenly began turning out their dictators. First, it was Tunisia, then Egypt, and now half the nations of the Arab world (plus Iran!) are in the midst of People Power-style rebellions. Some will succeed, others will doubtlessly fail, but that the rebellions are happening at all is amazing.
Also, like everyone else, I’ve wondered what it all means. I’ve come up with a few random thoughts, which (out of the goodness of my heart) I’ll share with you…
1) People Power rocks. We’ve seen it, now, in the Philippines in '86, Eastern Europe '89, and Russia after that....now the Arab world. (Of course, Russia is now fairly authoritarian, but it is still a far cry from Stalin's USSR.)
So, could this be the beginning of an age of People Power? An age when states the world over will be shaped, re-shaped, and then re-re-shaped by exactly such manifestations of the popular will? If so, is it a new form of democracy? One in which the population really does "vote with its feet"?
So far, these have been genuine revolutions. Most revolutions aren't. Most of the time they are disguised coups in which one segment of the elite seizes power from another segment of the elite (even Lenin's revolution was just exactly that. A group of middle class and upper class intellectuals moved into a power vacuum).
But not so here. In Tunisia, in Egypt, and now in Libya, this really is the people in the streets. That suggests we are entering an age when ordinary folk the world over will increasingly be the significant political actors, at least in moments of crisis. Yes, the elites and their administrators will always run things, but they will have to do so with at least one eye on the public. In other words, a lot of places will be less like Greece under the colonels, and more like France after '68.
2) Our own elites need to be paying attention. That's not because I expect a People Power revolution here (although, if we don't get our jobless rate down below 10%, and soon, there may be one). But, even so, the Middle Eastern revolutions are important because they are going to reshape the way our "allies" and dependents will behave. We, or, rather our elites will have to learn to treat them with respect rather than as banana republics.
3) Also, sort of on the same note, there are potentially three big losers here. The first two are obvious, the US and Israel. The US will never have quite the same sort of leverage in the Middle East again. Israel is losing important (if usually covert) connections. But, in the long run, I don't think it will hurt the average American much. It might even improve relations with the Arab world once we're no longer backing tyrants. (Israel...I'm not so sure about.)
The third big loser might be unexpected: Iran. I am convinced that this is going to wound the dominant parties there rather badly.
Egypt's was a secular revolution, just as was the one in Tunisia. Which means that it is no longer just the Islamists who are fighting the system. In fact, the Islamists have failed time and time again to topple even one Arab government. Now, the secularists have brought down the biggest of all.
This is not to say that the Islamists couldn't seize power in Egypt. However, they have lost forever the image of being the only effective popular force in the Arab world.
5) When I say that the US could suffer because of the Revolution, I mean it. This might spell the end of the age of cheap (or, at least, less expensive) oil.
On the other hand, that might also mean that we finally have to sit down and come up with alternatives to the oil-economy. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
6) And finally…
Another reason our elites should be watching closely: the rich and powerful have acted in recent years as though they didn’t need to bother their pretty little heads about old fashioned things like nations. They were the new Global people who went wherever profits were highest and the hotels were most luxurious. If America got difficult, no problem, they'd just head for somewhere else -- which is why expats pack the beaches of Dubai, and companies like Halliburton fill its office towers.
But, guess what? Dubai is now shaking in its Guccis. Increasingly, there is no high ground, no favored place where the rich and powerful can go when things get hot elsewhere. Trouble will follow them. They can neither run nor hide.
If we're lucky, they'll be bright enough to see that.
Something else on my mind. I've recently run across the concept of the "motion comic." This is a new thing. It is like a comic, but electronic. It includes graphics, but also some "limited" animation, plus voice and music.
The big names, as you would expect, in motion comics are the major comic book companies -- Marvel for example. Though, I suppose that could change. New players always coming into the world.
What confuses me, though, is that motion comics are being sold as a completely new medium -- not cartoons, not graphic novels, but something alien and new,
Yet, when I look at them (and there are a bunch on the web), I'm struck by the fact that their "limited" animation looks pretty unlimited to me. Yes, they don't move all the time, but they boast at least as much animation as a lot of the TV cartoons I watched in my long lost boyhood. They have at least as much some of the Hanna-Barbera productions (take a look at Space Ghost) and a 'ell of a lot more than, say, "Space Angel."
If you haven't seen Space Angel, by the way, it is worth a glance, if only for the sheer weirdness of it (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Angelf). The Angel is sort of an interstellar policeman and secret agent who's always rushing about saving the universe.
A product of Cambria Productions, the show was a mix of cartooning and live action. So, for example, rather than drawing a moving mouth when a character spoke, the animators filmed an actor's lips and then pasted those on the face of the cartoon.
It was truly bizarre, and in retrospect, one of the creepier things I've ever watched on TV. Yet, I'm embarrassed to say I was a big fan at the time. Of course, I was four years old, but, still…
Anyway, my point is that I wonder if motion comics are really a separate art form, or merely the first step toward animation. Meaning that, eventually, the graphic novel and the comic, per se, will ultimately merge completely with full motion cartoons.
Two questions for the Rich and the Powerful. Plus a comment.
The comment: in case you’ve missed it, there’s a new genre out there…in film, and TV, and books. I call it “Tales of Off-Shoring Blues.”
These are stories of ordinary, average Americans who find themselves without jobs, without hope, and without dignity when suddenly some CEO or corporate executive decides that it will increase his or her bonus by a few cents more if they move the factory or the office to India, or China, or Mexico.
Right now, for instance, there’s a new movie in the theaters. It’s called “Company Men.” It’s all about a bunch of guys who get downsized, and then we watch as they wither, as their self-esteem collapses, their sense of themselves of as men declines, and they struggle to find a place in a new and alien world which holds them in contempt.
It’s supposed to be quite good. The critics all love it. I’m told the men in the story do come to terms with their plights. Or at least some of them do. Sort of. But I don’t think I’ll be able to go see it. It would cut a little close to the bone for me. I’m employed (if somewhat underemployed) at the moment, but I’ve been there. And I know a lot of other people who are there still.
What interests me about this new genre, though, is that it succeeds because it taps into something deep and powerful in the culture. It resonates with people because they know it is saying something true.
Specifically, they know that they are being hurt. They know that they are being stripped of their dignity. They know that their increased rates of suicide and heart attack are not accidental. They know that, in some place, even in middle class suburbs, children are starting to go hungry.
Or, to put it another way, they know they are being murdered. Not with guns and knives. Not quickly. But murdered all the same. Slowly. With a thousand, thousand humiliations and deprivations.
So, now my two questions to the Rich and Powerful.
First, if you continue your present course of action…if you keep downsizing and off-shoring and not making any effort to create jobs for Americans…if you keep letting them die…
What do you think will happen when Americans then quite rationally decide that it is either you or them? That they cannot survive if you continue to rule?
And, second, if that should occur…
How long do you think you can run? How well do you think you can hide?
Material from Politico.com, The Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news sources may be found on the websites of the respective publishers. It is used here solely for illustrative purposes and is reproduced under the doctrine of fair use.
And while we're on the subject...another New York Times article. This one headlined, "Rep. Giffords Critical After Ariz. Attack."
By this time, you know all the details so I won't go into them. But, what interests me most about this story is that Giffords had been subject to considerable abuse from the Right. If people in the Tea Party and people in GOP didn't exactly call for her to die, they didn't exactly go out of their way to suggest otherwise. They branded her a traitor, and a villain, and a conspirator, and more...
And, as one would expect, eventually, a lunatic took them seriously. And used a gun.
Now, of course, the GOP and others will say, Oh, My, How Terrible. And Extend their Deepest Sympathies. And maybe suggest that the shooter was, in fact, driven mad by growing up in a liberal America.
But, in the end, in the end...
You cannot call for violence, and then act shocked and surprised when it happens.
Fascinating article at New York Times which asks the question "Corporate Profits Are Booming? Why aren't jobs?"
Answer: because it is not in the short term interest of certain members of our national elite to let them bloom.
But the kicker is "short term." In the long...well, that's another story entirely.
The line in this article which says it best, I think, comes near the end. It reads, "Some economists, conservative and liberal, divine forbidding portents in all of this. If profits and employment no longer rise and fall together, they worry, then an already strained social compact will grow yet more frayed."
And everyone seems to have a fix to flog—more money or less, crush teachers unions, merit pay, charter schools, and on, and on, and on. A hundred different solutions battle it out. Some, like the libertarian proposals to abolish the Department of Ed, will probably always remain in the realm of fantasy. Others actually have money behind them. Thus, the Republicans had their "No Child Left Behind." The Democrats have their "Race to the Top."
In theory, all these are very different. However, at least as I read the various proposals, they actually have a lot in common. They hold as an unstated but dominant belief that schools should prepare children to be white-collar employees of some large business entity.
But is that wise?
Let's think about how hiring has changed over time. In the 1950s, the norm was the massive industrial corporation with large numbers of workers on an assembly line and a smaller but still respectable number of white-collar employees in "the office."
Except that's not the way it stayed. All businesses seek to reduce their operating costs. One way to do that is to cut staff. So, in the second half of the twentieth century and the first years of this, American corporations did just that. They automated. Or, they went offshore. And we had a wave of blue-collar layoffs.
But, we reassured ourselves, there'd always be white-collar jobs. Surely, corporations would always hire managers, clerical workers, and accountants.
Except they didn't. Starting in the 1970s, corporate America famously flattened and mid-level staffers became an endangered species. Today we've got far fewer white-collar employees, and those who remain are working much harder.
And now… it's Upper Management's turn.
I predict we'll see the same process there. Some of the functions of top management are going to go offshore, or, believe it or not, be automated. If you don't think that's possible, then consider the following: the majority of trades on Wall Street today are carried out not by brokers, but by computers. It's called "Algorithmic Trading."
I'm not saying that we'll have a business version of the Terminator taking over the world. Corporations will always be run by human beings. But, it is also true that the natural evolution of corporations is away from employees. It is always in their interest to hire as few people as possible.
If so, then teaching our children to be cubicle denizens is idiotic. It is more likely that they will find jobs in small businesses and/or be self-employed. Which means we need to be training young people to be small-scale entrepreneurs. They don't need MBAs. They need basic business skills, like bookkeeping and salesmanship.
And we ought to re-value the trades. Let's face it, right now, it is lot easier for young people to make money repairing cars or fixing plumbing than it is for them to get entry-level positions in big companies.
Finally, maybe most of all, we ought to promote creativity in students—a proven business advantage, and something that will be difficult or impossible to automate or outsource any time soon.
And to make this happen, our schools are going to have to change—root and branch.
But we're going to have to change with them. We've got some major values to shift. We've got to do some re-defining of the word "success." We're going to have to get used to the idea that being a solvent plumber is better than being a bankrupt white-collar worker.
Until we do that, education in America will continue to be a problem. All the reforms proposed by Right, Left, and Center will fall short.
And our Race to the Top? All too likely a mad dash, confused and stumbling, without a goal, without a map…
Into the abyss.
*
Special Note: I'm off to New Mexico in a couple of days. So, I won't be posting an Xcargo next week or the week after. But, in the meanwhile, have a great holiday, and I'll see you in January 2011.
Twenty-eleven? Oy. How did that happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that 1975 was impossibly far away in the future?
So I see that Wikileaks is now under attack from many different vectors. PayPal (among others) is now refusing to work with the group. Meanwhile, its founder, Julian Assange, has arrested for rape.
Not good news for Wikileaks. But, come, let us confess, if that's the worse that happens to the organization and its members, then they will be almost impossibly lucky. The simple fact of the matter is that they have seriously angered governments the world over. Not just the US, but everyone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is gunning for them.
If anything, this is a lesson in the realities of great power politics. If Wikileaks had confined itself to embarrassing the United States, and a few other liberal democracies, the group would have been relatively safe. Oh, there is a certain danger in tweeking the nose of Uncle Sam, but you can usually get away with it. Americans (ditto Brits, Scandinavians, Germans, the Swiss, and so on) hate it when you say bad things about them, but they'll tolerate it because of their own traditions of fair play and free speech.
Besides, they are subject to much scrutiny from the world. If they should do anything… shall we say?... untoward, then the globe fairly quickly spots the "made in USA" label on the side of the box. Thus, even if they wanted to take serious action against you, they may think twice just because of the PR angle. (The Bay of Pigs was bad enough the first time around.)
This is not true, however, for most of the rest of the world. Many is the government for whom toleration is a quaint concept, and who can operate much further out of the limelight. And Wikileaks.well, Wikileaks has published American diplomatic cables which contain material dangerous to dozens of different states.
The moral of the story, of course, is that if you are going to take on an Evil Empire, pick one that's well-behaved. The Sheep you can stuff in a wolf's skin, and proclaim a public enemy, is so much easier to deal with than the real thing.
I've been reading a number of articles lately about the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment …not just in the USA, but around the world. From Switzerland to Japan, there are calls for "them" to be sent back where they came from. All too often there's a touch of racism (or a truckload of it) in the appeals.
Note, this is all happening when the economy is down. And here's the dirty secret of human nature: Times are good, we are open and accepting. Times are bad: the recruiting office of the Waffen-SS is around the corner.
So, note to Liberals and Others who'd like to make the world a better place. Want people to be less bigoted? Enrich them.
The task of the Left, everywhere, and, indeed of everyone of good will, is to create jobs, reduce prices, and give people a sense of purpose, dignity, and wellbeing.
I saw the other day that Sarah Palin's reality TV show has been losing viewership in great hordes. People are just not watching it any more.
Well, I'm not terribly fond of Palin. But, discounting that, I wonder if her program wasn't doomed from the beginning.
Reality TV is an odd entity. It seems to be most successful when it shows us people doing things of which we disapprove, but which we secretly wish we could do...like have sex in exotic places, or spend vast amounts of money on things that we don't need, or live the lives of celebs.
And, well, Palin and her crew didn't do any of those things. Or, if they did, they did so off camera.
So, how can the network fix the situation? They can recast. Replace the boring real people with actors. Best bet to play Sarah Palin? Pam Anderson. No connection with anything genuine, of course. But envision her shooting wolves in full "Barbed Wire" get-up.
I read the other day that one of the Democratic party strategists is suggesting that his party take more of a lead from the GOP. They need, he suggests, to be tougher and far less moral.
Not a bad idea. But, really, I'm not sure the Dems can manage it. I mean, who do they have that really match the malice and cunning of, say, a Karl Rove?
Which I suggest they need to bring in outside talent. Someone, say, like Terminator. But with more metal and fewer morals.
After that, it might almost be something like a fair fight.
I'm online and reading an article about how one of the big newspapers has hired a famed blogger to write for it.
Sigh. Grumble. Kvetch.
I've been blogging for years. In fact, I had an ezine (an emailed publication) before there was a Web. My explosive-cargo or Xcargo (now explosive-cargo.blogspot.com has been around in one form or another since 1990.
But, does anyone hire ME to pontificate at major newspapers? Noooooo.
Of course, one might suggest that a slight total lack of talent may play some small role in all this. But we shan't listen to such base canards. Nor malevolent mallards. No. That would be foul. Or fowl. Six of one.
So, instead, I shall simply sit here and whimper. And pout. I do that quite well. It's when my little lower lip trembles that I'm particularly heart-breaking.
Saw the article the other day by Dave Johnson on how the very wealthy caused our current, massive deficit and by extension our current Recession and joblessness. His argument, which is buttressed by an amazing number of statistics, is that the mega-rich (what I call the 1%) forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels.
But, they and everyone else (but mostly them) continued to demand social services. The result was a government that supported itself by borrowing, hoping against hope that when the bill came due there would be money from somewhere to pay it off..
So, now that day is here, but our fairy godmother has declined to show up with magic wand and debit card.
The result? The 1%ers continue to insist on No New Taxes…for them. Meaning the cost of their decades of irresponsibility is shifted to us, the middle class. We pay for it with joblessness, higher prices, and the general decline in our standard of living.
Did the mega-rich cause the deficit?
Well, let's see, they forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels, but then demanded that the government provide them with social services, and so Washington had to borrow like mad, and, now, here we are, with the wolf at the door…
So, did they cause the deficit?
Does a bear sh— …er…seek a moment of solitary contemplation in the woods?
I saw recently that the Republicans have at least temporarily blocked legislation that would have provided hot meals to thousands of needy children. It was to have been part of a program that had the support of, among other people, Michelle Obama.
In a word, cripes. Why doesn't the GOP just hang out a big sign that reads, "Hi, We hate widows, orphans, and small fuzzy puppies" and be done with it?
Ah well. It's a PR disaster but at least it's in time for Christmas. Should make a great factoid for all those op-ed writers doing stories about the season …and Scrooge.
Here's to Tiny Tim, y'all. And God bless us, every one.
So, in light of Thanksgiving, I guess I'll mention one thing I'm thankful for. Specifically, I'm thankful that my family and I are not that bad off. We're employed. Maybe not as well paid as we'd like. But, we've got jobs. And that's not the case for a lot of folks these days.
And, while I'm on that topic, I'd like to ask you a question. Ready? Great. Here it comes:
Do you know anyone…ANYONE at all…who has lost their job because an illegal immigrant was willing to do it cheaper?
Need to think about it a little? Fine. Take your time. One. Two. Three. Okay…pencils down. Do not turn the page.
You haven't, have you? Or, at least, I'd bet that’s the case. I'd bet you don't know a single person who's lost or didn't get a job because some guy named Juan did the frogman routine across the Rio Grande and offered to take that chemical engineering spot (or whatever) for less than minimum wage.
In fact, I'll go further. I'll bet that you have never even MET someone who has lost a job to an illegal immigrant. Ever. I certainly haven't.
But, would you like to know who I HAVE met?
I've met lots, and Lots, and LOTS of people who have lost their jobs because of out-sourcing and off-shoring. I've met them by the score. Men and women whose jobs up and walked away because some MBA in a distant office decided that things could be done cheaper, without regulation, in some place far removed from American shores. I've met them among my friends. Among my former co-workers. Among my students (I teach adult ed). Among my family.
And I'm pretty sure you've met people like that, too. You may be one of them.
But, have you noticed? No one talks about that. Or, at least, very few people in power do.
Oh, we hear an awful lot about those nasty, nasty illegal immigrants. We're going to hear more about them, now that the House is in the hands of its new owners. And we'll probably see new laws written to keep "them" out. Who knows? Maybe we'll even build that Great Wall of Mexico that people like Jan Brewer keep talking about. Maybe it will have fences and guard towers and, someday, land mines. Maybe it will be the great construction project of the century…the one and only public works project that Tea Partiers and Libertarians will support.
But what we won't hear from the new, improved House of Representatives is much talk about the real causes of unemployment—like the fact that American jobs are flowing overseas at a record rate. On that, somehow, our masters and commanders will remain silent.
Why? To answer that, you have to ask another question—i.e., who is to blame for the situation? For the out-sourcing, and off-shoring, and "right-sizing," and all the other reassuring euphemisms for lay-offs and poverty? Who profited from it?
Well, certain members of the American elite, that's who. The people whose profits soared when production was taken offshore to places where wages were tiny and unions non-existent. The corporate managers whose "compensation packages" improved with every layoff and firing. The Wall Street wonders whose portfolios grew yet more morbidly obese each time a plant closed or a city died.
Or, to put it another way, those who benefit from our looming national bankruptcy are the very people who poured vast sums of money into the last election. And who now own the Republicans, manipulate Tea Party activists, have the majority in the House, may soon dominate the Senate, and are already planning to put another George W. into the White House in 2012. (Surely they have already selected the next empty-headed photogenic figure that they shall wheel onstage and automate as our Commander and Chief.)
Is it any wonder that such people are so vocal about "Illegal Immigrants?" It is the classic magician's technique of misdirection. We focus on a few Latinos, and miss the vastly greater harm that our own national elites have inflected upon us. We concentrate obsessively on the paper cuts of illegal immigration, and so don't notice the fact that we are being slowly eviscerated.
And you have to admire their technique. What they are doing is terrible. It may, someday, be classified as treason. But, they do it so very, very well.
But, of course, that brings up yet another question…something else to ponder.
To wit: that Wall? The Great Wall of Mexico that Jan Brewer et al would build? Is it to keep "them" out?
Well, today, I'm going to be posting a number of little odds and ends. They're not quite Depth Charges ("the lowest form of explosive-cargo") but they're close. So, let's call them "Brother Bacon's Squibs And Crackers."
(You'll recall that the thirteenth century monk, Roger Bacon, included in his notes one of the first known recipes for gunpowder.)
So, here we go…
*
I saw in the news this morning that Hillary Clinton has ruled out a run for president.
Sad, but inevitable. She would have made a excellent president. But, circumstances ruled against her. Indeed, her greatness is best evidenced by her principled decision NOT to run in 2010. Doing so would have vastly hurt her party.
So, as some let praise her. As some people claimed that her husband was the first "African-American President," so let us remark that she was the first female president of the nation...
Only, like Tilden a century ago, she was too patriotic to take the White House, knowing it would harm the nation.
*
So, I read in the news that Donald Trump has said that Sarah Palin is a lightweight, that Obama isn't any better, and he's considering running for president in 2012.
Yes. You read that right. Donald ("You're Fired") Trump. For president. That is, of the United States. Running against Sarah ("Moose Killer") Palin.
For some strange reason I'm reminded of a poem. Something about Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Can't imagine why that image is coming to mind.
Must be 'cause I'm just so dang literary.
"Exclusive: Donald Trump Says Presidential Run 'Could be Fun,' Decision by June" at blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/11/trump-presidential-run-could-be-fun-decision-by-june.html.
*
Oh, here's another one that's fun.
I've read on the U.S. News and World Report site that Wall Streeters, Investment Bankers, CEOs and big corporate business types are running really scared …because of the election.
No kidding.
You see, here's the thing. The top 1% of the American population which owns pretty everything any more spent a whole heck of a lot of money (much of it secretly) to put "fiscal conservatives," Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Ayn Randers, and Laissez Fairies into office. They've done everything they can to cripple the Obama administration short of violence (and I'm not sure that they didn't consider going beyond even that. Remember all the Gun-totting crackpots that showed up in protest marches right after he was elected?)
So, now, they've got what they want…
Except, they're also starting to realize the price of that. They have basically sold themselves to people who, as God is their witness, want to reduce Washington to a broad spot in the road and "free the economy."
Ah, but as the 1%-ers know perfectly well, a completely unregulated economy, without any management what so ever, leads pretty inevitably to things like hyperinflation, Recessions, Depressions, market crashes, violence in the street and…well, all manner of stuff that can just spoil your whole day. Or several days. Maybe your life.
So, folks, you who looted the public coffers, who out-sourced and downsized and deindustrialized and put into joblessness…this is the government you wanted.
I wonder, will you survive it?
Give me your guess.
Source: 4 Fresh Fears About Washington Wrecking the Economy, finance.yahoo.com/news/4-Fresh-Fears-About-usnews-2195640786.html?x=0
*
What's the line in the Bible? Sow the wind?
But, then, 1%ers probably don't read the Bible. Has all those depressing bits. About eyes of needles. And people who just won't fit through 'em.
*
So I see that now President Obama is now being criticized by the Right for writing a children's book that doesn't say Sitting Bull was a terrorist.
For the Right to say such a thing is ridiculous, of course. But, come, let us confess. It was inevitable. The state of political discourse in this country has become so vicious that Obama could not praise motherhood and Apple pie without Fox News announcing that he had a Oedipal Fruit Fetish.
I say a lot of hard things about the 1%ers, and I mean them.
But, I'm not terribly fond of socialism either. I think it tends to come in two forms: Swedish and Soviet.
The first kind is run by bureaucrats, technocrats, social engineers, and other folks who are just so gawdamn smug your wanna strangle 'em. The second kind, at least in its early stages, is run by intellectuals, would-be intellectuals, wanna be intellectuals, and other beard and sandal-types of the sort that show up in college towns and pontificates a lot.
The worst part about the first sort of socialism is that it is damn dull. But you don't have to worry about dullness when you get the other sort. Its leaders tend to be people like Lenin, and Trotsky, and Mao—-people full of energy, with fascinating intellects and enormous charisma.
Though, they do have the unfortunate habit of thinking of other people as abstractions ("The People," "The Workers," "The Proletariat"). And then, once they're power, millions of such two-legged abstract concepts…die, in the gulag, or the camps, or in the Revolution.
So, here's my advice. If you find yourself in a society that seems to be moving toward the first sort of socialism, invest in Prozac.
If you find yourself in the second…keep shooting until you empty the clip. Then, use the rifle butt to club the body until it stops twitching.
Today I need to apologize. I need to humbly...oh, so humbly...beg for forgiveness. I mean, beg. Because, you see, I've said something really foolish and utterly wrong.
Here it is: as you know, I've been writing a lot about how America is now basically owned by and governed for about 2% of the population, the "mega-rich" who got Ronald Reagan & Co. to transfer vast amounts of the nation's wealth from us to them.
Well, I'm wrong.
I've looked at the numbers and discovered that it isn't 2%. It is more like 1%.
So, to the top 1%...the mega-bankers and mega-lawyers and mega-CEOs who have vacuumed every penny out of the public's pocket...the Wall Street Brokers who "broke" the economy and then used bail-out money to give themselves obscene bonuses...the Off-Shorers and Out-Sourcers who plunged us into a "post-industrial, service-based economy" of mass unemployment and national decline...
I'm sorry.
I'm terribly, terribly sorry I grossly underestimated just how rare and strange you are.
The news is that Lisa Murkowski has won the Alaska Senatorial race as a write-in candidate.
To which I say, Oh, Lord, Thank You, Jesus.
Conservative, Liberal, GOP, or Dem-donkey...you gotta admit that the idea of Joe ("Nuke A News-Reporter For Christ") Miller in the Senate was just about as chilling and slightly less fun than an ice water enema...
While we're at it, here's another fun little news item.
You know how the Fed is bending over backwards (and then some) to make cheap money available to big corporations so that they'll finally start spending and investing and hiring and maybe get Americans back to work?
Well, according to a recent article on Bloomberg, the aforesaid big corporations and are (wanna guess? Huh? Wanna?) investing it outside of the US. The cash is flowing in a major gauge pipe right overseas.
Right.
Is it just me? Or does that feel a little like somebody just shoved a knife between our shoulder blades?
But, of course, it is a well-made knife, with an excellent bone handle, and a blade of the finest Swedish steel.
I've heard it said that most of the nation's resources are now controlled by about 2% of the population. (Yes, the middle class, as you knew it, is gone. We're all peons, now.)
Well, here's an interesting an article by Robert Scheer on someone in that top 2%, Sandy Weill, former head of Citigroup and the man credited with arranging the legislation that deregulated the banking industry....and got us into our present kettle of fish.
So, if you're wondering what to expect from our new masters, read the piece to which I've linked below. It's all about Mr. Weill's nifty new mansion, purchased while people all over the country are being kicked out of their homes by robo-signers.
Makes me feel just all warm and fuzzy.
Or maybe that's nausea. Hard to tell. Well, six of one.
Added a hit counter to my blog. Kinda disconcerting, though. I've run the Blog for years, and the mailing list before it even longer. But, since I've just started recording hits, it looks like my page has been viewed only 90 times.
I want to draw your attention to an advertisement.
It's not a bad ad. It's not misleading. I'm not about to launch off into another tedious tirade about Lies-From-Madison-Avenue.
But it is an ad that concerns me all the same.
You've probably seen it. It's been in a lot of the glossy print publications. At the top there is a large photo of a number of women—I believe they may be of the Tuareg people, but I'm not sure. Below that there is, on the left, the name of the sponsoring company, and, on the right, the following: "0.3% of Saharan solar energy could power Europe."
And that's what worries me.
Here's why. It lends itself to a kind of thinking that I encounter a lot among our decision-making elites. Specifically, it suggests that the energy crisis is a simple problem with a simple cure. All we have to do is [insert preferred solution here] and everything will be fine.
But there's the rub. That's not true.
Let's just take this ad. Again, I have no quarrel with the company that ran it. But that "0.3 %" which seems so quick and easy, is troubling.
There are a lot of unanswered questions behind that little number three. First, three tenths of a percent of the "solar energy" which falls on the Sahara might indeed power all of Europe, but can we catch it? What sort of collectors are we talking about? Are these solar cells? Mirrors focusing light on a boiler? Either way, what sort of efficiency is involved? Are the solar cells capable of turning 100% of all the energy that falls on into usable electricity? Last time I checked, the best of them does about 10%. That's good, but it isn't 100%.
But, let's say for the sake of argument that we can capture .3% of all the light that falls in the Sahara. Or that .3% is all we need even given the efficiencies of current technologies. If so, what does that mean in terms of construction? Do we put flat panel collectors or mirrors over .3% of the whole desert? The Sahara is about 3.3 million square miles. My math isn't good, but I believe that translates out to being about ten thousand square miles. For comparison, Rhode Island is about a thousand square miles.
Okay, let's say we are really going to cover all that territory with mirrors or panels. How are we going to pay for it? And, once we've done it, how are we going to keep them upright in a sandstorm? How are we going to maintain them? How are we going to keep them clean? Each time they get dusty, after all, their efficiency drops. Are we going to employ millions of Berbers to dash about the desert with squeegees?
Let's say we've got those problems licked. There are still lots of others to worry about—like, how do we store the energy we get? How do we transmit it? How do we protect the installations from sabotage? Particularly given the political instability of the region?
And on, and on, and on.
Now, this is not to say that these problems couldn't be dealt with. In fact, I notice that European scientists have indeed looked at all the issues and pronounced a Saharan solar facility "the size of Wales" quite feasible.
But it won't be a quick fix or a cheap one. And the same is true for any solution to the energy crisis that we can conceive. Clean nukes, controlled fusion, wind turbines, tidal power, rooftop solar…whatever.
But no one in power seems to be saying that. What we hear instead is that oh-so-seductive "all we have to do is X…" and everything will be just ducky.
Which is scary.
We are going to have to deal with the energy crisis. It isn't going to be easy. It is going to cost us big money. It is going to take a long time. Our standard of living is going to decline until we're finished. But it has to be done…for our children's sake, if not our own.
And having our leaders pretend otherwise is dangerous if only because it lulls us into the belief that we can delay action until some convenient time in the future.
But there will never be a convenient time.
So, let us act. Let us demand that our leaders confront reality and be honest about it. Let them know that they must speak the hard truth, or we will find someone who can.
We cannot survive anything else. We cannot again descend, again, into the delusions…the pleasant but deadly dreams…of a .3% solution.
So I've been watching the news story about the Carnival cruise ship that ended up floating helplessly for three days (see below). Believe it or not, I have a slight connection to this story.
Years ago, my parents took my family and me on a Carnival cruise. They wanted to give us something we would always remember.
We did. The cruise turned out to be a disaster. The food was bland, the staff unfriendly, the toilets worked but not well, the entertainment was crude, and there was very little to do other than smoke, drink, or gamble...none of which we did.
You couldn't even see the ocean. The ship was set up to focus all your attention on the casino. There were translucent plastic shields between the decks and the outside. That meant there was no place where you could sit and simply watch the waves.
My poor parents were aghast. And, I must confess, I've never had warm feelings about Carnival again.
This is a very cool young person's novel by a very talented writer. It's only available for pre-order as of this date, but if you're looking for a gift for a son, daughter, nephew, niece, whatever, then I'd say that you'd be hard pressed to go wrong with this one.
Well, I'm going to post here another one of the oped pieces I'm submitting to newspapers around the country. It's kind of a fool's errand 'cause, let's face it, newspapers are in pretty deep trouble at the moment. They've got way more pages than they've got ad revenue to support them, so farming out a few hundred words to a non-staffer (even if the aforesaid non-staffer is giving his stuff away for free) is a non-starter.
Still, because I'm stubborn, and not too damn bright, I keep trying.
This week I'm showing you something that I've been sending around only to newspapers in New England. That's cause I've given it a New England slant. But, frankly, that's a bit of a scam. What I say about New England here is true for the whole country.
Here's my schitick: I'm convinced that America is in serious trouble. I mean, BIG time trouble. I think that if we don't do something, and something dramatic, then we're in for very hard times.
I think MOST of our problems (but not all) stem from the economy. I think that we have basically lost the capacity to pay for our own needs.
Why? Two major reasons. Energy is number one. So long as we keep importing oil, and so long as oil keeps going up in price, everything gets a little more expensive every day. We are, in effect, slowly bleeding to death.
But problem number two, every bit as bad, is "de-industrialization"—that is, the process by which our economic elites moved all our industrial production overseas, and left the rest of us to rot.
I'm very serious about this. I am convinced that de-industrialization was the worst thing to happen to us as a society since the 1930s. Oh, we've had foreign wars that have been more destructive in terms of loss of life. But, if we restrict ourselves to just internal developments, then the loss of our industrial capacity (and the pay checks that went with it) is pretty darn awful. I'd say that in recent history, only the Great Depression can match it. And before that? Perhaps the Civil War.
Oh, and by the way, if things keep going as they are now, I'm not sure that the last Civil War will be the only one we'll ever fight.
So, I'm writing articles and oped pieces in which I try to encourage people to do what I think needs to be done to save the country. I know that sounds alarmist and fantastically arrogant, but…I'm saying it all the same.
And in particular I'm saying that we need to develop new, cheap forms of energy. I don't know what those will be (I'm a big fan of fusion myself, but I could be wrong), but whatever it is, we need them, and we need them very soon.
The other thing I think we need to do is re-industrialize. We need to build factories again.
Yes, I know that sounds insane. And I know also that when and if we build them, they probably won't employ as many people as the old, smokestack industries did. In fact, I suspect they won't employ many people at all. They'll be automated. We'll invest heavily in industrial robots.
But even so, automated industries will give us something to stand on. They'll provide the foundation on which the rest of our so-called "post-industrial" businesses will base themselves.
At least that's what I believe. For more of my logic and my arguments, I offer the piece I've pasted below.
Once you've read it, if you like, tell me what you think.
mjt
[head] The New New England and the Post-Post-Industrial Economy
[by] Michael Jay Tucker
I'm about to say something crazy.
Here it comes: New England can and should lead the nation in re-industrialization. Moreover, we should automate and invest massively in robots.
I warned you it would sound crazy. But, bear with me.
Everybody knows that America was once the leading industrial nation of the globe. Everybody also knows that it isn't any more. It was cheaper and easier to offshore. Which was fine because we thought we'd still have employment via service-based businesses. We thought everyone could be a white-collar worker in the post-industrial economy.
Except…now, it looks like we're in the post-post-industrial economy. Service businesses aren't hiring much and those that are aren't paying particularly well. Worse, as anyone who has ever called tech support can testify, we've found that service-based employment can itself be offshored.
So what do we do about it?
Answer: Re-industrialize. We build factories again…automated factories…using as many industrial robots as possible.
Why? First, because the technology is now available. Where, before, there was something a little bit science fiction about it, now we know how to automate plants to the nth degree. Japan has been using industrial robots to compensate for its aging workforce for decades.
Second, robots provide the ultimate in low-cost labor. They don't take raises and they don't want benefits. They would allow the nation to successfully compete with any labor force on earth, no matter how underpaid.
Third, because every time a robot manufactures something here, that's an item that's not manufactured overseas. So, the money required to produce it stays here, in the United States. That's a little mercantilist, yes, but, at the moment, we need every dime we can get.
Fourth, because while it is true that automated factories do not hire many people, they do hire some. More, they provide a foundation for the rest of the economy. They become or create clients for service-based businesses—everything from PR firms to design shops.
And, finally, now is the perfect time for it. A generation ago, mass automation would have been impossible. Unions would have quite rightly objected. But, now, most of our factories are already gone. The people who worked in them are already unemployed. We have nothing left to lose.
So, the time is now for America to become, again, a manufacturing nation.
And New England is where it should start. We already have expertise in the profitable production of robots, as witness I-Robot, Kiva Systems, and dozen recent startups in the field. And, we have the brainpower necessary. There are robotics labs in schools from Maine to Rhode Island. Given all of that, New England can and should take the lead.
Besides, it's fitting. New England was where industrialization began in America. And it was here, too, where America first de-industrialized, as mills fled to cheaper climes.
Now New England should guide the nation back…to industry, and to prosperity.
We've got a tradition to uphold.
#
Author's Bio
Michael Jay Tucker has been writing about science and technology since the early 1980s. He was on the staffs of such magazines as Mini-Micro Systems, Computerworld, UnixWorld, SunExpert, and Datamation. Today, he teaches English and History at Northeastern and Cambridge College.
America owes a great debt to the Tea Party, conservatives, and the Right in general. They have given us the greatest gift of all— i.e., laughter.
Let us confess it…let us say it loud…they are greatest comedians of the century. Slapstick, low comic, pratfall, Three-Stooges-style, pie-in-the-face buffoons admittedly…. but comedians all the same.
Consider, just this week we had Joe Miller, that clown prince of Alaska, the man who's got a million of 'em, hold a public forum which he then announced was private and so his security detail jumped a local reporter and held him against his will, even though that was about as illegal as peddling methamphetamine lollipops and hash brownies down at your local PTA bake sale.
Then we get full-color pix and vids on youtube of the whole skit. And, by golly, there's Miller's goon-squad looking like a bunch of stubble-headed Matrix dwellers from Planet Zork. I mean, the costuming alone was brilliant!
But that wasn't all. Next we learn that the Death Star Storm-troopers are from a private security firm, Drop Zone Security Services, which…it turns out…doesn't have a license.
Ah, but hold on, that's not the punch line. 'Cause then we discover Drop Zone is owned by William F. Fulton, who also happens to be a local commander of the Alaska Citizens Militia, an ultra-right strong arm group. And, oh, by the way, the Alaska Citizens Militia's founder is Norm Olson, who previously founded the Michigan Militia…which, in turn, hosted a meeting which happened to be attended by Terry Nichols, the guy who helped the late Timothy McVeigh kill all those people in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Amazing! You'd need half a dozen sit-coms plus several years' worth of soap operas to come up with a plot this convoluted. Yet the Right invents it all without even breaking a sweat. I stand in awe.
But, mind you, we're not talking any one hit wonder. These people manage this kind of comedy consistently. Every day! Why, think about Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's Tea Party/Republican/Nutcase candidate for Senate. Consider how she proclaimed in the middle of a debate, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" And, oh! The way she said it! With that utterly adorable little look of absolute bewilderment! You could almost think she really meant it. Not even the great female comedians of the twentieth century, like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, did it any better.
And there are so many others—Sharon Angle and her "Dearborn's Dominated By Muslims" shtick (which I think is every bit as good as Jeff Foxworthy's "You May Be A Redneck"), and Jan Brewer with her sure-fire "Illegal Aliens Are Going To Get Your Mama."
So, all in all, I adore these people. They just keep getting funnier every time. But, I do have a small critique. I think their acts could use just a little tuning.
So, here's my message to 'em: Guys and Gals on the Right…you know I love your work…but pull back, just a little, from complete craziness. Because, if you don't, well, you come off as a total maniac. And that's not funny.
I'm shopping a shorter version of the material below to op-ed pages at various newspapers. So far, no one has taken the bait. But, you never can tell…
In the meantime, here it is, submitted for your approval.
[head] What isn't being said
By Michael Jay Tucker
It is what they don't say that freaks me out.
I mean the debate in Washington (and everywhere else) on the current Recession. Like you, and probably like everyone else in America, I've been watching while Right, Left, and Center battle about it. It's rather awe-inspiring, really. Economists and scholars and pundits and people who look really, really good on Fox TV are slugging it out big time, and all of knows exactly What Is To Be Done.
But, have you noticed? They all disagree with one another, very loudly. Some of them invoke Ayn Rand, others Baron Keynes, but no matter what their ideological orientation, they are united on a single premise. To wit, they hold the Recession is (for lack of a better word) a managerial issue. Their underlying assumption is that the crisis was brought about by unwise policies on the part of someone in office—the Republicans under George W. Bush by failing to properly police Wall Street, or the Democrats under Barack Obama through deficit spending (which seems somewhat improbable, given that Recession began before Obama's election, but that's beside the point).
But, this is followed by an equally fascinating corollary—i.e., that having been created by one set of policies, the Recession can be made to go away again by the imposition of another, wiser set. Once we reduce taxes or increase them, introduce more regulation or less of it, things will "get back to normal."
In other words, everyone in the debate—everyone!—seems to hold that our current crisis is subject to bureaucratic pressure, and that the proper group of experts could end it by changing the regulatory environment of the economy.
That's comforting, because it seems to give us the power over our situation. We just keep trying to various solutions on offer—Republic, Democratic, Tea Party, Socialist Workers, whoever—until one of them works. And surely, they can't ALL be wrong. Can they?
But…what if they are? All wrong, that is.
What if the Recession has nothing to do with policy? What if it in fact reflects material, structural problems in the nation as whole? And nothing we can do—no matter who's Chairman of the Fed, no matter how much we fiddle with capital gains or impose new regulations on Wall Street—is going to change things? What if, in short, we're screwed?
For instance, let's talk about energy costs. There are other problems as well (like de-industrialization) but, for the moment, let's just stick with energy.
It doesn't take a genius to notice that energy costs have been going up consistently for the last half century.
Which is a problem, because our society is based on fuel. Consider food. Any time you eat, you eat fossil fuels. You were able to ease your hunger because our society has the oil, gas, coal, or whatever to power the pumps that irrigate our fields, the tractors that harvest our crops, the trucks and trains that carry that food to our cities, and the freezers and stoves that we use to preserve and cook it. Oh, and by the way, once we've eaten it, we need still more pumps, and still more energy, to carry it all away again…or else we drown in our own sewage.
Which means, in turn, that each time energy costs go gone up, so too does the cost of everything we use that energy to produce, refine, transport, or prepare. Which is pretty much everything. And, so, every time energy costs go up, we get a little poorer.
And, it has only just begun. You can argue about whether we've reached "peak oil production," but what is undeniably true is that we've pumped out all the oil that was easy, safe, and convenient to get. From now on, we're going to get our fuels from places that are hard to reach, politically unstable, or just flat out dangerous. Oil is going to go get more expensive, and everything else is too.
And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Not…that is… until we can push energy prices back down.
I'm not sure how we're going to do that. Maybe we'll invent a 100% efficient solar cell. Maybe we'll get clean nukes. Maybe we'll finally get fusion power up and running. But, until we do, things are going to be hard. We will only know the sort of prosperity we knew in the 1950s and the 1960s when the cost of energy is, again, measured in fractions of cents, rather than multiples of dollars.
Which is what scares me. Nothing I've said here is a secret. We all know this.
But, have you heard anyone say it? I mean, among the People Who Know Best? Our Leaders? Our elites? Have you heard any of them say, "Here's the grim reality: if we are to survive, we must invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. It is going to take time and money. We will have to develop basic technologies and build considerable infrastructure. We will solve the problem eventually, but it may be twenty years before we even start to see results, and over that period there were be far fewer resources to do other things. It isn't going to be pleasant, but that's the choice we've got."
No. We haven't heard them because they haven't said it.
I certainly haven't heard them say this. And that scares me to death. Because someone…some man or woman among them…needs to say these things to us, and needs to say them soon.
The alternative, and I fear it is all too likely, is that we awaken one morning to discover that the sun, in fact, has not arisen. And we are condemned, forever, to that famous darkling plain, wondering only which ignorant army will claim us next.
You may have noticed that I've not commented on Christine O'Donnell, the Republican –qua-Tea Party– qua anti-masturbation-qua-witchcraft candidate for Senate from Delaware.
Perhaps you've wondered why I've been so silent.
Well, because…blush, stammer…I'm outclassed. She's already so weird that, um, well, there's no way I can make fun of her. She's already delivered, and exceeded, any punch line I could invent.
Sigh.
Guess she's just WAY outta my league.
*
But I am kinda mad at her. I mean, she's just soooo easy.
I wanna snarl at her something like, "For Christ's sake, woman. Stop handing it out for free. At least make Jon Steward work a little bit for his money."
*
Darker thoughts.
I also haven't commented on her, and a lot of other stuff, partly because everyone else already had. She'd been all over the blogsphere, and more important, she'd been all over the mass media.
Which meant that by the time I could get something written and posted, the rest of the world would have moved on to some other concern. Anything I said would already be old news.
But, increasingly, that's true for all of us. In the age of the Internet and cable TV, ordinary people (that would be me) can no longer really comment on major events or issues. By the time we become aware of them, the video pundits, the sponsored bloggers, the Think Tank Op-Eders, and Others Who Know Best have already swarmed over it, stripped it to the bone, digested it, and excreted their so opinions thoroughly that we don't have a ghost of a chance.
Any ideas we might had have on our own…well…sorry. Individual opinion is obsolete.
*
This shouldn't be news to any of us.
When the net first came out, it took the media by surprise, and a number of writers, bloggers, filmmakers, etc. could slip into the gap. But, now, the networks have gotten their Internet act together and moved in. For any ordinary blogger, like thee and me, there are a hundred others with high profile sites supported by established media outlets and content producers.
Thus the reality of American discourse. Our elites happily give us free speech…because, of course, they know no one will listen.
I didn't post about 9-11. I won't post now about it.
I won't because I feel sometimes that the whole, horrible thing has been lost from public view. We no longer discuss the event itself, if we ever did. Instead, we use it. The Right uses it to demonize Muslims (and thus, in the process, strike at their real target, American Liberals). The Left uses it to object to America's Middle East policy (and thus, in the process, strike at their real target, American Conservatives).
Only the Middle makes no sound.
Which is very much to the credit of the Moderates (and increasingly, I admire them). After all, someone must remember the dead…and observe a minute of silence…when, it seems, no one else will bother.
I have recently become aware of the movement led by some hard right Republicans and others to make being a Muslim a crime in America. I had not heard of this one until I caught it on TV.
I was stunned—it is, after all, a direct assault on freedom of religion in America. But, what I found fascinating was that some of the people behind the movement are Jewish.
That seems odd. Oh, I can understand it, what with the threat to Israel and all, and the more or less open incorporation of crude, Nazi-style anti-Semitism in Jihadist ideology. Yet, even so, to make a religion illegal in America…? Do we really want to set that precedent? And who would be next?
First they came for the Muslims…
*
Another thing that fascinates me is how many of the most energetic leaders of the current anti-Muslim movement are, in fact, young, conservative women. By that I don't mean the old faithfuls…Palin, Ann Coulter…but rather a harder edged bunch, people like blogger Pam Geller, who combines Ayn Rand with anti-Islamic activism, and Laurie Cardozza-Moore, who led the opposition to that mosque in Tennessee. (Carodozza-Moore later got her fifteen minutes of fame, and more, by appearing in the Daily Show's coverage of the story.)
Note to feminists.
You've worked for decades to get women into politics…to "feminize power."
Well…
Was this really what you had in mind?
*
BTW, you can see more on Carodozza-Moore's time on the Daily Show here:
I suppose I'll take some heat for my comment on the move to make Islam a crime in America. It is, after all, fairly unlikely. It is the kind of thing that a few fringe figures suggest to get a few headlines…and then gets promptly and properly forgotten.
Yet, I do worry. You see, at least some reports seem to suggest that similar ideas are reasonably common in the theoretically mainstream Tea Party Movement (see, for example, here: www. huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-rehab/tea-party-official-corres_b_693579.html).
Which, as I say, makes me worry. Fringes are not fixed. They tend to move about at the gentlest puff of wind. I feel some real terror that I may some morning awaken to find this baring down on me, like the Flying Dutchman, or the ghost ship in The Ancient Mariner…
Cursed, inexplicable, crewed by wraiths and furies…and impossible to escape.
Have decided to break up the New Mexico chapter into two or more chapters, and to do something similar with the other sections of the book (not one chapter on New York but two, etc.)
Now all I have to do is rewrite the proposal and the outline to reflect that. And sell the agent on the idea.
Still fighting the New Mexico Chapter. It is now 35 pages long and not half finished. I have to figure out some way of shortening it without losing it in the process. Again, wish me luck.
I am a rationalist. But, there is a deep, dark, infantile part of me that can't quite help believing in magic, and particularly curses. That part of me feels, wholly irrationally, that some people can, somehow, reach through the ether or whatever and harm others…their malevolence projecting across space-time like some toxic radiation.
And I must further confess that the same, childish part of me feels their malice. It feels, or pretends to feel, their hatred, projecting across a higher dimension.
To reassure that childish part of me, I envision a wall constructed there…in that higher dimension…made of some weightless but impenetrable material, not constraining or immobilizing me but psychically opaque to them …existing between them and me and shielding me from their enmity, or even reflecting it back in their direction.
It is, as I say, childish and irrational. But…the child … or the Id…is powerful. If its conception of the universe is not proved by evidence or logic, then at least it can be comforted in moments of distress. Better the Wall than drinking.
*
I wonder, now that you have read about my Wall, and perhaps envisioned it, will your energies add to its strength?
Whether it does or not, if you now wish to also envision my three professors having public diarrhea or otherwise being humiliated and discomforted while in full view of large numbers of people…
Just re-read the entry from a while back about hell and professors. Should I have followed my own advice in dealing with the committee of that program from which I was forced to leave? Which, I suppose, is another way of asking to what degree did their personal animosity and not their professional concern direct their actions?
At first, I wasn't certain that it had at all. I thought that it had been entirely my fault. (And I am, admittedly, a difficult person at times.)
But then I remembered an interesting incident. The head of the program was a large and billowing man who was a noted authority in a particular field. I'll not identify him, just as I will not name the other two members of my committee, but suffice to say that he was well known and something of a star in the academic world.
I had admired him, at first. I thought he was quite remarkable…though I found his comments on my papers less than useful. He had a great dislike of anything smacking of informality, or indeed of popular culture. Once, when I compared a certain nineteenth century figure to a video game developer he just about took my head off.
But I thought we were on good terms…or at least, functioning professional terms, until my two other committee members sent me a letter telling me that they refused from hence forward to work with me on my Ph.D. Dissertation. On the advice of my mentor at another university, I then sent this man an email saying that I seemed to have inadvertently alienated these two committee members and asking him what was now possible.
He wrote back an angry note in which he said he could not believe that anyone on my committee was refusing to work with me for any personal reason. Rather, he said, I had failed to understand the nature of "genuine scholarship."
Much later, when I had left the program, I began to be a bit suspect of his disinterest. I remembered that in my email to him I had said that I had alienated my other committee members, but I hadn't accused them of any personal animosity. You can be alienated from someone, particularly in a professional setting, yet not hate them as an individual.
Why, then, had he been so quick to assume that was what I meant? Why had he been so eager to defend himself, and the other committee members, from an accusation which I had not actually made?
Maybe… maybe because…because it was true? Because personal animosity WAS part of the equation? Because their treatment of me WAS unfair and unjust, and very personal? And he knew it? And he attacked me before I could raise the possibility? Did he, in other words, protest too much?
The more I've thought about it over these past few years, the more I've wondered if that wasn't exactly the case. Of course I cannot say for certain, much less prove it, but I've begun to suspect my exit from that particular university was as much a product of their personal dislike as it ever was of my failure to practice "true scholarship."
And the source of that dislike? Why they hated me? Well, who can say? But, I'm guessing it was precisely the thing that I found offensive in my own students: that I was not sufficiently deferential. As I admitted before, I can be a difficult person, and I have the habit of saying openly (and with force) what it would be wiser not to say at all—that such-and-such a book is badly written, that so-and-so is a pompous and vapid idiot, that this-or-that idea is politically correct but utterly foolish.
In other words, I suspect I did not properly pucker before the proffered asses. And this, alas, spelled my demise.
Which means I'm confronted with a disturbing question. How do I tell my own students not to do what I do, but rather tell their professors what they want to hear?
Or, to put it another way, how do I explain that Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, with all its pettiness and cruelty, is actually terrifyingly understated?
Still working on the book. A while back, I even told my parents about it. I even sent them a couple of chapters to read. They liked them. Or at least said they did.
It was not easy for me to reveal my work to my mom and dad. It is very unlike me. I never show anyone my material, or talk about it, until after it is finished.
But, this time, I didn't do that. This time, I emailed it to them. I suppose it was because they are getting on in years, and a part of me desperately wants them to know that I'm not just fooling around…that I'm really writing something that might be important…that I might, finally, get published. And not just by technical magazines. But published by real publishers that someone other than a few engineers and public relations people might read.
I want to make them proud of me, at last, while they're still here.
There's something sick in that. They already ARE proud of me. Or, so they've told me, anyway.
But, I simply cannot believe them. I cannot believe I deserve their pride. Or anyone's. Least of all my own. My accomplishments seem too few. My failures too many.
As I say, it is sick. Neurotic. But, come, confess, you have felt the same way now and then. We all have.
It is what we feel the moment we realize that aspiration remains as boundless as ever, but life…our own or that of others…is finite.
Tomorrow I plan to start work on my chapter about New Mexico. I'm intimidated. Difficult subject for me in general and, in some ways, I'm still finding my way into this project. Worse, I find myself unmotivated after just finishing long weeks of teaching.
8:00 am -- Getting ready for work. A little worried. I have to confront two students on the quality of their work. It is a difficult problem because on one level there is work is just fine. On the other, it is impossible.
Let me explain. Most of my students this term are Chinese. They came to the US for a special three term program which, if they pass it, gets them into a certain American University as a freshman, no questions asked.
These two young women are good students, in their way. But, they come into class and zone out. They do homework for other classes, flirt with the boys, talk to each other…
When they turn in their work, it is usually pretty good. They do halfway decent essays on American history. But, there's the rub. The essays are based entirely on what they learned in high school in China. Everything they write is from a strictly Chinese perspective. In fact, even their exams sound as though they were carefully copied, word for word, from a very Marxist Chinese textbook. Thus, the U.S. Civil War was a clash between progressive elements from the American bourgeoisie and reactionary Southern feudalists. The Cold War was a conflict between Russia and America, in which China was simply a bystander, except when forced to protect itself from U.S. imperialism in the Korean War.
And there's nothing particularly wrong with writing in this way. But, there is nothing of me in it, either. There is no sign that they have heard my lectures, read my notes, or even looked at the assigned readings. It is as though they have somehow been wholly absent from my class.
So, I face the interesting problem of explaining to them that their work is good…but it is also good evidence that they have spent four months ignoring me.
1:00 pm—now back. The students were humble, even contrite, when I talked to them about the problem. I encouraged them to, in future, actually include material from their classes in their homework.
I wonder if they will follow my advice. Alas, they seem to me the sort of person more likely to smile and say yes, while continuing to do exactly what they had done before.
For their sake, I hope I'm wrong. They are about to begin their freshmen year, and, once in "real" college, they will encounter many professors who are far less tolerant than I am.
Simply put, academics are a lot like lovers. They can forgive an honest error. But, ignore them…?
Summer term is coming to an end. I've graded all the book blue books for one class and about half of them for another. I still have just under 40 research papers to read, and 18 short reports from yet another class.
Students, of course, dread finals and papers and other assignments. But you have no idea how much we, your instructors, share your terror.
My editor continues to intrigue me. I discovered that he has never heard of the Algonquin Round Table.
If you haven't heard of it, don't worry. There is no reason why you should. It was a group of writers, wits, critics, and editors who regularly met around a "round table" at the Algonquin hotel in New York in the 1920s. Their number included Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Franklin Pierce Adams, Heywood Broun, and so on. In their time, they were very famous. Though, today, they tend to be little known. Alas, they wrote and talked about their own times, and…like all those who address their present…sometimes fail to reach their future.
But that HE hadn't heard of them is astonishing. It means that he made it through English classes at several prestigious prep schools, as well as an important American college, and never once had his instructors refer to them. That's unnerving, because they were important. They helped establish the modernist style, and any time you read creative non-fiction today, you read something that was directly affected by the Round Tablers.
Yet, under the direction of his professors, my friend was ignorant of them. Moreover, he was clearly irritated when I mentioned them in my chapter on New York City, as though he suspected me of inventing them, or of wasting the reader's time with someone impossibly obscure.
Concerns me. I wonder who else has been, or will be deleted from the public memory by the academic elite? By Those Who Know Best? Will my children's children be permitted to read Shakespeare, Jane Austin, George Sand, Charles Dickens, Edger Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, George Orwell, William Faulkner, Truman Capote…?
All these were, of course, writers of genius. But they did not address the concerns of full professors (with tenure). Ergo, they are not worthy of study, and shall be cast into the outer darkness, unlamented, and unremembered for all eternity.
As a person, I like him very much, and I think he is a talented writer in his own right. But, in some ways he is the wrong man to work with me. For one thing, he is very young, and like a lot of young people who have recently graduated from the best of American schools, he has been taught to believe that the author has no right to appear in his own works. In other words, the letter "I," is forbidden. To write "I thought," or "I believe," or "I felt," or even "I experienced" is considered most offensive.
Yet, I am at my best when I am most self-referential. At heart, I am a diarist, a journalist (in the original meaning of the word, in the sense of one who keeps a personal journal), and, yes, a blogger.
Thus I am troubled. I fear that if the book gets published, it will actually be inferior to what I write about it…that what follows the title page will be less than what appears here, in Xcargo…to be know only to a few. By, in other words, I who write this, and you …you few and dear …who read it.
*
Actually, on looking at that last sentence, I feel an odd comfort. There are not many people who have read Xcargo from its beginnings as an ezine to its present status as an odd entry in the blogsphere.
There is something pleasant in that. In your presence, my readers, I feel that I am in a very select group…among friends… even something akin to family.
You're recall I'm writing a book on American travel. One of the things which troubles me about the process is that my agent has put me to work with a young editor.
This is new for me. I have worked with editors before, but not one employed by an agent. It seems that in the new world of modern book publishing, the publishing company doesn't do much editing. In fact, I'm told that it does very little other than purchase the right to distribute a document that is largely already (as we used to say) "camera ready," that is, ready to go directly to the press.
The model now seems to be rather like that of the movie industry, where "movie companies" basically don't make movies. Rather, they obtain the rights to films that have been produced, created, and even financed by other firms.
I'm not sure this is a good thing. What does it say about us that the corporations that, in theory, determine our literature could (in theory) actually be staffed entirely by illiterates? Or the proverbial million monkeys, picking manuscripts at random?
Just got back from teaching class. It went well enough, but I'm giving them their final blue book exam in the morning. I'm always on edge about that. Sometimes I think I care more about my students doing well on their tests than they do. I know that if they fail my test, then it is because I have failed them. Thus, their F is evidence of my inferiority.
So I'm back. I've been trying to get the time and the energy to post to Xcargo again for ages. But, well, I just haven't had either.
Here's the story: as you know, I am (among other things) a writer. Recently, I've managed to sign with an agent. That's a hard thing to do. It used to be said that it was easier to get a book published than it was to get an agent to represent it. I'm not sure it is still true (book publishing is a very strange business) but, still, I'm delighted that I have finally gotten—as they say—"representation."
I'm working on a book for the agent that is basically a travel essay combined with a popular history of several major regions in the United States. (I'll tell you more about it as time goes on.) She is very optimistic about it. I wish I were as confident.
Right at the moment, I'm doing my research on the American Southwest, one of the areas I'm going to be writing about. It isn't going to be easy for me. I grew up, of course, in Albuquerque, and that city (along with Santa Fe) will play a major role in the chapter. And, frankly, I have mixed feelings about the place. It was the town in which I experienced a very unhappy adolescence—and before that a not terribly much more pleasant childhood.
Oh, I love Albuquerque …in my way… and there are parts of the city that are beautiful and fine. Yet, I cannot escape the fact that it is also the place where I spent a lot of time being lonely, or bored, or afraid, or sick…or some combination of all those things at once.
I suppose, in a way, it is a little bit like being the child of some very lovely, very gentle mother…who, now and then, exploded into murderous fury. A woman not evil, but subject to a kind of unhappy madness…
One can never forget the loveliness and the gentility. But, neither, can one escape the memory of the madness.
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