Late Night Musings: The Morning After

When you’re obsessed with politics and current events and activism, you run the risk of becoming a shrill, histrionic, schadenfreud-ish, diatribic crank, and I think what saves me from becoming more insufferable than I am ordinarily is that I regularly have the fascinating conversations with people that restore my calm.

A writer friend of mine wrote this prose-poem piece drawing comparisons between the hazing at the Glennbrook North High School and the larger themes of war, dominance, sexism, and isolation. He’s an activist and a very gifted writer, but for some time he’d been struggling with putting his rather abstract fury at the war into a concrete piece of writing. The images he had were too small. In the details of the hazing he saw everything that is wrong in the world right now: the false idea in the world that through violence and the endurance of violence comes legitimacy and control, the exclusion of women and their need to create their own context of struggle and triumph, the glorification of the worst.

One thing that we realized in our talk was that while images of the war were censored and sanitized, the video of the hazing was shown and re-shown everywhere. It’s a paradox in this country that we have such fetish for reality TV and while we watch “Cops” and “Worst-case Scenario” and “Girls Gone Wild” we can’t bring ourselves to watch the reality of war. Reality is only fun if it’s a freak show.

Are we hypocrites when we denounce hazing without examining how we legitimize violence? People talk very earnestly about violence in movies, music, video games, and on television but they fail to recognize how complicit we are in the idea of violence. Stories of struggle and triumph are stiff with it. It’s the war hero syndrome. In every way we send out the message a life of violence is more real than an ordinary life. Isn’t that the point of hazing, not merely to create a bond, but a bond based on having survived something horrible? Even those who don’t participate are complicit because we accept that this is the way things are.

This true of most cultures not just ours. And it’s an idea that’s been around forever. But pacifism is nearly as old if not older. It’s not realistic to seek to eradicate violence in the world. Aggressive tendency is more complicated than that, and there are always going to be people who revel in it. But I think that to glorify can be changed. I think that reducing state sanctioned violence can go a long way—not the distance—but a long way, towards making war less of a viable option. More importantly I think, people won’t seek legitimacy through ultimately pointless and tragic acts, and people not inclined to violence will feel more included.

This is just me working through some thoughts swimming around in my head. I have no real epiphany or solution. I’m just sick and tired of this culture of death and martyrdom that seems to pervade everything that’s going on right now.

UPDATE: I can't post the piece because it's still in the draft stages and I don't yet have permission.

So this has been something of a teeth-grinding week news-wise--with the lusciously funny exception of the Texas Killer Ds. Still, the details of how the Republican Storm Troopers are behaving are enough to make you wish the state would just up and secede. Josh has a good round-up of the details.

Note to Democrats:When the wife-bashing starts you know you have a winner. Regarding the Kerry campaign, I'm pretty well on my way to concluding that my own muddled opinion of him really doesn't matter. What matters right now is getting someone who can drive home to the voters that the current White House occupant is an empty suit. Not hard really if we can get our collective asses in gear.

It's official. Because of Jayson Blair I am forced to cross JOURNALIST off my list of prospective alternative careers. Come on, people. Whenever the debate heats up around reparations or affirmative action, I always hear some cranky white person saying something along the lines of, "Hey don't blame all white people for racism." Fine. So one incompetent and deceptive black journalist shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us.

Anyway, Herbert still rules.

Apparently they don't have enough to do (via Media Whores).

Republicans in Washington and Austin, Texas apparently used a Homeland Security Department agency to track Texas Democratic legislators who left the state to block passage of a GOP-backed Congressional redistricting bill.

This is the same Homeland Security Department that is supposed to be making America safe from foreign terrorists. It's the agency we were told would never be used for domestic political purposes.

But today's edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center, in Riverside, California, became involved in the Republican search for 51 Democratic state representatives who went to Ardmore, Oklahoma to break a quorum of the House and block action on the redistricting bill.

Here's what the Star-Telegram reported: "The agency received a call to locate a specific Piper turboprop aircraft. It was determined that the plane belonged to former House Speaker Pete Laney." Laney is one of the Democrats who is fighting against the redistricting bill.

The newspaper said, "Laney's plane proved to be a key piece of information because, (Republican House Speaker) Craddick said, it's how he determined that the Democrats were in Ardmore. 'We called someone, and they said they were going to track it. I have no idea how they tracked it down,' Craddick said. 'That's how we found them.'"

The Interdiction and Coordination center "falls under the auspices of the Homeland Security Department," the Star-Telegram reported

Tom Tomorrow's head just exploded.

"Man, this must've been a pretty shitty year for peacemakers."

While Nero fiddles...

When President Bush hit a long, low drive on the golf course this weekend with the snowcapped Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background, it was one more sign that major combat operations in Iraq were over. True, it never hurts to visit what will be an important swing state in the 2004 election, of which more later, but Mr. Bush's two days in the high desert air were his first extended downtime since the bombing of Baghdad and showed that the White House was ready to have him seen engaged in some postwar R & R

...Rome burns.

Busy chasing off Saddam, the president and vice president had told us that Al Qaeda was spent. "Al Qaeda is on the run," President Bush said last week. "That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. . . . They're not a problem anymore."

Members of the U.S. intelligence community bragged to reporters that the terrorist band was crippled, noting that it hadn't attacked during the assault on Iraq.

"This was the big game for them — you put up or shut up, and they have failed," Cofer Black, who heads the State Department's counterterrorism office, told The Washington Post last week.

Of course, the other way of looking at it is that Al Qaeda works at its own pace and knows how to conduct operations on the run.

Al Qaeda has been weakened by the arrest of leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But Osama, in recent taped messages, has exhorted his followers to launch suicide attacks against the invaders of Iraq. And as one ambassador from an Arab country noted, the pictures of American-made tanks in both Iraq and the West Bank of Israel certainly attracted new recruits to Osama.

The administration's lulling triumphalism about Al Qaeda exploded on Monday in Riyadh, when well-planned and coordinated suicide strikes with car bombs and small-arms fire killed dozens in three housing complexes favored by Westerners, including seven Americans.

Belated Speakeasy Run-down

Overall the Speakeasy over at Women And Children First was fun if a little insular. The problem with having events like these is that they tend to turn to commiseration fests, and it's easy to get bogged down in simply talking about how much things suck. I think I'm ready for the next step.

One thing that was said was that we don't put value on fiction anymore and that while fiction literature isn't effective for immediate political actions it's an important tool for learning how to empathize. Rosellen Brown had particularly interesting story about a judge who read her books because she thought if she was going to be a good judge, she needed to understand the people coming into her courtroom. Empathy is in short supply these days. We expect that presidents read the histories and biographies. What about the classics?

Anyway here's my plug to the writers on the panel:

Aleksandar Hemon

Rosellen Brown

Sara Paretsky.

The Great Texas Escape

Moving with exceptional stealth and tactical coordination, more than 50 Democratic state lawmakers in Texas packed their bags and quietly slipped out of the state under cover of darkness late Sunday and early today.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry immediately dispatched police to track down the missing legislators, arrest them and bring them back to do the state's business -- even asking neighboring New Mexico if the Texas Rangers were empowered to make arrests there. (New Mexico's attorney general -- a Democrat -- said no.) But all signs were that the legislators were on the lam -- some, perhaps, fleeing to Mexico -- putting them beyond the reach of Lone Star justice and of GOP ambitions.

And thus the Onion-ing of America continues. Read this whole story and I guarantee you'll laugh at least three times; Once at the high covert-ops drama, once at the Repubs sputtering indignation, and once for the irony of the Dems finding a backbone by turning tail and running.

I wasn't going to touch the Jayson Blair-New York Times scandal but I think I'd be remiss if I didn't say a few of things.

1) Journalistic Fraud? In our Liberal Media? I am shocked.

2) Don't let him be Black. Don't let him be Black....Noooo!

P.S. The fact that he is Black and the fact that he is incompetent are quite possibly mutually exclusive. God knows he's not the first young hotshot of dubious ability to be in a top position in media.

Yes, You're Paranoid. Yes, You're Being Followed

A lot of you (okay maybe 3 of the 5 people that read this blog) are probably unaware of the rather heated debate between various liberals about the circumstances surrounding the 9/11 attacks. I don't want to get into the particulars of the theory because they take too long. The question I have is why are we so quick to dismiss conspiracy theories?

For one the label "conspiracy theorist" has all sorts of yucky hermetical, X-File-ophile, grassy knoll-ish connotations. And when you are a discontented liberal with a clear-cut polical agenda to pursue, you don't want that image. You want to be taken seriously.

For another, the rational mind has a tendency to dismiss the irrational. It's too horrible/outrageous/ill-conceived to be true therefore it must be false. This is totally understandable. It's good to trust rationality. The mistake is the assumption that rationality, or at least your version of rationality, is a widespread state of mind.

The problem with this particular conspiracy theory is that when the rational mind picks through the evidence, separates the wheat from the chaff, it can't help but think the unthinkable. But since the label of "conspiracy theorist" acts like a big red C sewn to the chest, the information is never shared.

My opinion on this particulary theory? It's entirely probable, nay likely even. Stranger and more diabolical things have happened. I'm vain enough to hate being wrong so I'm going to stop short of saying yes it's all true. More to the point, I think skeptics should be a little open to the fact that something far-out might be true, and even if it's not, the conspiracy theorists aren't wrong to wonder.

Britain says no to Fox.

Julian Petley, chairman of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, called on the ITC to act against Fox News: "I'm not in favour of censorship, but Murdoch would like to do with British television news what he has done with newspapers, which is to force people to compete on his own terms.

"So if we allow into Britain the kind of journalism represented by Fox, that would bring about a form of censorship ."

This event brings two of my favorite things together, literature and politics.

Time: Wednesday, May 7, 2003 7:30 PM
Location: 5233 N. Clark
Title of Event: Speakeasy’s Speak Out: A Forum On the Relationship Between Reading, Writing, and Political Dissent

I'm probably the last lefty in the blogosphere to post something on Bush's AWOL past, but it's worth posting as many places as possible.(via Atrios)

The short version: In May 1968 the silver-spoon son of a U.S. congressman jumped to the top of a long waiting list despite mediocre scores on his pilot-aptitude test and was allowed to enlist in the Guard, a common way to avoid being drafted into combat in Vietnam.
In May 1972 he sought a transfer from Houston, where he flew F-102s on weekends, to a unit in Montgomery, Ala. There, he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of a friend of his father's and, records indicate, blew off his military obligations.
Bush failed to take his annual flight physical in 1972 so Guard officials grounded him, the story went. He never flew again and received an early discharge to go to graduate school. His final officer-efficiency report from May 1973 noted only that supervisors hadn't seen him or heard from him.
Bush's campaign biography obscured or misrepresented these details. In the summer and fall of 2000, his spokesmen offered various and evolving explanations for what Democrats said represented a far bigger "character issue" than any of the windy exaggerations of their candidate, Vice President Al Gore.

Chris Matthews is a blowhard (yes I know redundant) and Jon Stewart should have handed his ass to him last night on The Daily Show. In Jon's defense I can't imagine it was easy to get a word in edgewise, and he did manage to point out that MSNBC is pretty much whoring itself in order to keep up with Fox. Still, he should have challenged Matthews on this stellar bit vis a vis Bush's "Top Gun" revival last week.

Imagine Joe Lieberman in this costume, or even John Kerry. Nobody looks right in the role Bush has set for the presidency-commander-in-chief, medium height, medium build, looks good in a jet pilot’s costume-or uniform, rather-has a certain swagger, not too literary, certainly not too verbal, but a guy who speaks plainly and wins wars.

Yeah, who cares if some of the Democrats are actually veterans when George has the body I always wanted?

...John Kerry entered the Navy after graduation, becoming a Swift Boat officer, serving on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He received a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart for his service in combat.

What a moron.

In response to this piece I invite writer, and fellow Chicago resident, Mr. Wexler to check out these local venues.

The Guild Complex

The Neighborhood Writing Alliance

The Poetry Center

Women and Children First

He could also take a look at the Chicago Reader which advertises readings and open mics throughout the city.

I also want to add that for Newsweek to run such a weak and facetious piece is pretty damn cynical. They're not really all that interested in whether poetry is dead or not. If they were interested in poetry at all they would publish it.

Georgians plan whites-only prom party

For those of you who read this headline and immediately checked the date to make sure you weren’t stuck in a time warp to 1959, I offer this rather simplistic theory of why this is happening here and now, albeit in the South which is still working through the trauma of Reconstruction. Forget for a moment the issues of race and sex that keep phrases like “interracial dating” and words like “miscegenation” in our vocabulary. Forget the recent bitterness of Georgia’s state flag. Forget the socioeconomic realities that keep race a part of the debate. Forget the likes of Trent Lott and Jesse Helms who still can’t quite let go of segregation. Forget all the history, all the angst, all hashing and rehashing.

It’s quite simple really. White kids are too embarrassed to dance around black kids.

Playing Catch-up

It's been a pretty busy week for me and I haven't felt much like writing in my down time. I've also reached a point media saturation where I'm almost afraid to write for fear that I'll just end up spurting out a few Alterman/Dowd-isms instead of actually hashing out a theory of my own.

My deepest desire, my number one Amazon wishlist pick these days is that I live long enough to see the day when Washington isn't run by old rich white men. You look at all the problems today. war, recession, misogyny, racism, and all them have one thing in common; the paranoia of old rich white men.

Being old and white and male isn't necessarily bad. Nor is being just old, old and white, old and male, or old and rich. But the combination of being old, white, rich, and male allows for too many bad elements to come together; greed, paranoia, narrow-mindedness, and power. Old rich white men are dangerous for their several reasons. The first is their age makes them tend to have a throwback narrow and paranoid frame of mind. In addition be being bigoted and vicious they've lived too long to have their minds changed. This pretty much means that we are stuck with their phlegm coated rantings until they die. If they are lucky enough to alse be rich then they are more influential and less open to attack. Think Richard Melon Scaife. Scary. The being white part has a few different aspects to it. Rich white men have a vested interest in instilling their own paranoia onto middle and working class white men. Since they can't relate to them on a real slice of life level, they create a sense of kinship based on being white and then foster the fear that the white man is somehow being sidelined. Norman Mailer explains part of this phenomenon:

He [the white American male] had been taking a daily drubbing over the past 30 years. For better or worse, the women’s movement had had its breakthrough successes and the old, easy white male ego had withered in the glare. Even the mighty consolations of rooting for your team on TV had been skewed. There was now less reward in watching sports than there used to be, a clear and declarable loss. The great white stars of yesteryear were for the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and half-gone in baseball. Black genius now prevailed in all these sports (and the Hispanics were coming up fast; even the Asians were beginning to make their mark). We white men were now left with half of tennis (at least its male half), and might also point to ice-hockey, skiing, soccer, golf, (with the notable exception of the Tiger) as well as lacrosse, swimming, and the World-Wide Wrestling Federation — remnants and orts of a once-great and glorious centrality.

The sense of centrality is key to this argument. It's the only-child complex played out in the larger socio-political arena. Not only does it cultivate this fear of having what is yours taken away from you, it also protects you from the guilt of trampling on the rights of "others."

Over the past 18 months, the U.S. government has bought access to data on hundreds of millions of residents of 10 Latin American countries -- apparently without their consent or knowledge -- allowing myriad federal agencies to track foreigners entering and living in the United States.

Minorities, women, gays, foreigners all of these in grasping for the 10-20% of resources are the enemy because that gain for them is seen as a loss for CEOs who see that 100% as theirs. Nevermind creating more opportunities. This world just ain't big enough for all of us.

It's no accident that Viagra receives more attention than female contraception. It's no accident that in the year 2003 we are still debating the legality of sodomy. It's not simply callousness that allows Justice Scalia to joke about Black Voting Rights Why worry about other people's lives when your comfortable lifestyle is in danger of being made slightly less comfortable because a Democrat might make your fat cat friends pay their fair share of taxes so that some urban school can hire more teachers and reduce class sizes?

If there was any sort of cosmic justice in the universe every bigoted paranoid old rich white man would end up with a gay son or a daughter living in sin with a Puerto Rican Marxist. At the very least we can take comfort in the fact that despite their wealth and privilege, they can't lead very happy lives. The incontinance alone is enough to make anyone curse the world, and they'll likely die miserable and spiritually alone. Far be it for little old me to hope that they go to hell, so I won't. But I would like St. Peter to at least backhand them across their pruny toothless mouths before grudgingly admitting them through the pearly gates.

Greg Palast Reading and Book Signing
Sunday, May 4, 2003
2:30-4:00 p.m.
Healing Earth Resources
3111 North Ashland
Chicago, IL

Hertzberg weighs in on Santorum's puppy fetish.

This Is SO Wrong

Okay, this week I've learned more about the sexual neurosis of Republicans than I ever wanted to know. Kos has been following the weirdness that is Santorum's messed up libido. Then I stumbled on this piece of nauseating news.

Paging Lorenzo Lamas.

Daily Show survives.

"The Daily Show" has increased its audience by 10 percent over the past year, mostly among viewers aged 18 to 34, who hadn't shown much interest in topical humor before, Hilary said.

"It's a unique show that has brought something different to comedy and news coverage," Hilary said.