Dr. Grandpa St. Rote, Samurai, Margrave, 'aj
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Wed, Apr. 23rd, 2008, 12:26 am
Since most of you on my friends list are acquainted with the Marxist analysis of the environmental crisis, or some other analysis roughly equivalent to it, I’ll spare you the displeasure of having to see it restated in a crude, inferior form on your friends list. Instead, and primarily for those unfamiliar with that Marxist analysis, I give you two links which summarize it quite well. 1. Environmental Debate: “Do you have to be Red to be Green?” by the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party. 2. Inconvenient Truths About Environmentalism by the International Communist Current. So that's my Earth Day gift to my friends list. I hope you like it. 1. In other news, the Huffington Post contained a blog posting today that somehow managed to be stupider than their usual fare. Film director Nora Ephron argued that "this is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men." She continues on, saying that white men are all-powerful because... they make up an electorate so large that it can select who wins. We'll get to the problems with her argument in a minute, but let me first say that I don't take anything like this seriously anymore. It's another example of a rich, powerful white woman bashing white men who are, in many cases, less influential, less affluent, and less educated than them. If I wanted to engage in the same kind of scurrilous racism as Ephron, I'd point to her and say it's another rich Jew, powerful in the media, whining about her invented oppression. I don't think she'd like that. At any rate, let's consider some things. First, anyone who uses "white men" as a pejorative is an idiot. Usually it's a liberal white middle class woman whose own privileged background has taught her to ignore or disregard class. Zweig, in The Working Class Majority, notes that 46% of the working class is white men and that while the job of janitor is the largest and second largest occupational category for hispanics and blacks respectively, it's also the sixth largest employment category for white men. Conversely, if salaried manager is the #1 category for white men, it's also #6 for white women, #7 for Hispanic men and #8 for African Americans. So, yes, there's a degree of disparity between white men and everyone else -- but to portray all white men as socially superior to everyone else is to make some, I feel, unwarranted assumptions about the nature of class. In Pennsylvania, according to Ephron, white men can choose between a black male and a white female. True. But if you add class to the equation, you'll see that white proletarian men are choosing between a bourgeois black man and a bourgeois white woman vying for the job of the representative of the oppressing class who will represent and repress them, to use Marx's phrase. Puts it in a slightly different light, eh? Now, probably the white working class will go with Hillary. Ephron and her liberal elite ilk will spin this as proof of whites' racism. Here they are actually injecting class into their analysis, since obviously they don't mean the white middle class -- which has voted heavily for Obama. They mean the working class. Now, Hillary isn't any better of a choice than Obama or any other politician, but she's the one that took the time to talk to them and to address their concerns. These are people living with economic insecurity, with their jobs disappearing or disappeared. They can't afford to vote for "hope," for somebody without any semblance of experience or a plan. And while Obama has been praising Ronald Reagan and cozying up with the center-right, Hillary has stuck more or less to the issues the traditional working class base of the democratic party cares about. If white workers break for Hillary, it has far more to do with class than with defending their "white privilege." I think that explains the white working class's aversion to Obama. (It would be interesting to see how the black working class compares to the black middle class when it comes to Obama versus Hillary). What, then, is behind the white middle class's support for Obama? Why have affluent, educated, urban whites voted for Obama? For part of that demographic, it's simply because he's the moderate. But almost by definition affluent, educated urbanites are liberal bunch; why has it swung for Obama? Frankly, I think white guilt explains a bit of it. Who wants to be the target of vitriol like Ephron's? Vote for the black and you'll never have to feel bad, I figure their reckoning goes. At least until the "feminists" find out you're a traitor for not voting for Hillary! ( one more rant )3. My gray cat Shadow was put to sleep last week. As much as I cared for her, I don't feel bad about it now. She had incurable cancer that, by the time it was diagnosed, substantially lowered the quality of her life. (Basically, she had a tumor on her mandible that made it difficult to keep her mouth shut. Spit ran out of her mouth and she couldn't lap it back in. I can't say whether she was in pain, but she had lost most of her skittishness in the last few days, preferring to be by people and in places she never would have.) The manner of her death was humane and could possibly even be said to be pleasant for her. And death itself isn't anything I should feel bad for her about. As a matter of fact, she doesn't exist anymore! When she died, I choked up, some tears came down, but I didn't feel like I cried enough. I think that was the last time I felt very emotional about her death. Now I don't miss her in the least. I don't feel guilty about that, either. Anyway! I'm not universally cold or uncaring. I just wasn't very close to her. I do feel bad about one thing, and that is not making more of an effort to make her last days better. I've rationalized my failure as a result of my feeling that once she was dead nothing about her life would matter, but maybe I was just lazy too. The one thing I did do before she was taken to be put down was to pet her some and take some last pictures to remember her by. Thinking back on that, I guess it turned out nicely because our other cat, who she's known all her life, sat beside her a last time. Even Bera came down and managed to squeeze in for a last photograph of the three pets together:  Not to sound like Bob Barker, but please do spay and neuter your pets. Shadow was one of the lucky strays that found a home, albeit after an early separation from her mother and a traumatic kittenhood that left an indelible scar upon her psyche. I have more pictures of and text about Shadow at this old entry.
Mon, Mar. 31st, 2008, 07:18 pm
News, volume #1
A couple months ago I made a pair of custom feeds on Google News that shows stories with the term socialism in the text. It's done two things for me, mostly: first, it's taught me to shrug my shoulders whenever the word socialism is used in some strange way. I used to feel like banging my head on the desk before when the left used it to describe some capitalist society with high taxes and social spending, but now, with google news showing me every small town newspaper editorial that uses the term, I've realized it's just best to give up combating the ignorance of both the left and the right on that front. In the end, there's more important things than semantics to worry about. That leads to my second point: to keep track of the stupidity I uncovered on google news, I created an aptly-named "important news articles" bookmark folder. Some of these articles exemplify the misuse of the word socialist, but most of them are substantially more import and interesting. So let's go through what I've found to be "Important news articles" over the last few months. These first ones pertain to the "socialist" states of Cuba and Venezuela and the recent "left turn" in South American politics:Chavez to farmers: Sell within Venezuela or it's 'treason'Chavez said it cost some $3.7 million and is being relaunched as a "socialist business" by the state. ... he threatened to take control of banks that fail to meet state-imposed requirements to set aside nearly a third of all loans for agriculture, mortgages and small businesses at favorable rates.
Price controls and promoting small business and a national market? Meet Chavez the Jacobin, Chavez the anachronism. Cuba opens tourist hotels to citizens
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuba will allow its citizens to stay in hotels previously reserved for foreigners, the latest in a series of decisions to lift bans on goods and services that the average Cuban can't afford. Nicaraguan leader calls Obama's campaign 'revolutionary'"It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.
Ortega deserves two awards: one for dumbest statement ever, and another for hypocrisy, as you'll see below. Daniel Ortega's two faces of economic changeSuch has become the pattern with Ortega. One day he is denouncing yanqui tyranny, and the next he is shaking hands with U.S. investors who are building a massive free-trade textile plant north of Managua. At one moment he preaches the importance of socialist revolution, yet behind the scenes his government is signing free-trade accords with Panama and Taiwan and negotiating with international lending institutions. There's been an abundance of articles on global warming in the last year and a half. For a keen reader, every one of them should show that Capitalism's fight against global warming is either a quixotic struggle or artful posturing, depending on how Pollyanna that reader is. I'll show you what I mean:Madison Avenue Sells S.U.V.’s. Can It Sell Climate Action?Now Mr. Gore is going Madison Avenue. He and a team are launching a three-year, $300-million climate ad campaign aimed at recruiting 10 million fervent followers willing to push for everything from strict laws capping emissions to aggressive programs for boosting energy efficiency.
Earth has 300 million dollars for the ad campaign to save itself -- Microsoft has 945 million dollars to sell XBOX 360s. But the real flaw in Gore's effort is that saving the planet is a desire that has to be cultivated in everyone individually when 95% of those people have no say over how society operates. The coal-burning power plants can pollute so long as the conscience of their owners is unmoved, but you, if you feel a need to save the Earth, you use a recycled toothbrush! What Did Bill Clinton Mean By "We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Global Warming?"The only way we can do this [reduce carbon emissions while not being outpaced economically by China and India] is if we get back in the world's fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work." Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a ‘Clean’ Fuelthe ribbon of oil and grease being released by the plant — it resembled Italian salad dressing — was 450 times higher than permit levels typically allow, and that it had drifted at least two miles downstream. ... The discharges, which can be hazardous to birds and fish, have many people scratching their heads over the seeming incongruity of pollution from an industry that sells products with the promise of blue skies and clear streams. Studies Say Clearing Land for Biofuels Will Aid WarmingClearing land to produce biofuels such as ethanol will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels, two scientific studies show. Finally, let's conclude with some of those strange editorials on socialism I was promising you: How to use your tax rebate
I understand that the "rebate" is designed to stimulate the economy and pull us away from a possible recession, but it sounds a little like socialism to me – and that's just the opposite of capitalism. Corporate socialismHe's at it again in his book, "Free Lunch," in which he goes after what he calls "corporate socialism." He particularly questions subsidies of retail corporations. Mortality Socialism: We Should All Live Exactly The Same Number of YearsThe New York Times on Sunday accidentally introduced a new concept to readers: mortality socialism. For those unfamiliar ... the Times feels that something has to be done to make sure that everybody's life expectancies are exactly the same regardless of income, wealth, or lifestyle. CPM -- crypto-capitalistsSocialists of India, unite! You have nothing to lose except a few crypto-capitalist super-pragmatic Marxists. ... The only hope the Indian masses have is the socio-economic freedom from feudal-colonial submissiveness. New socialist organization hopes to spark change on campus"We need socialism now, economically speaking," Currie said. "Socially speaking, we're not equipped to handle it [at this time]. People aren't ready for the idea that socialism will tax you out the nose. If we tax higher, more people will have better things."
Currie said socialism will not completely level out the economic playing field, but it would narrow the gap between classes.
"At the very least, we won't have people starving; we won't have people homeless," Currie said. That's all.
Mon, Feb. 18th, 2008, 10:42 pm
I trust you had a good Presidents' Day. Between the bickering, on the one hand, and the reading and gaming on the other, my day averages out to be good, though poorly used. At any rate, it's Presidents' Day and if we're going to talk about anyone's day, we should talk the days of those whose lives were ruined by Presidents. And since Presidents' Day is in fact only the informal name of what's actually Washington's Birthday, let's limit our inquiry into the evil, wicked ways of only our first President. And, to focus even further, let's pass over the terrible things he did that are, unfortunately, the standard practice of American presidents. Washington was an illegal land accumulator, a fearsome landlord, an Indian butcher, and pretty much an iron-fisted American aristocrat, eager to put the rabble down whenever necessary. Specifics aside, the tenor of his character and his crimes should probably come as a surprise only those whose knowledge of American history was gleamed only from a middle school textbook. Those things - killing Indians, exploiting Farmers, etc. -- are bad, but among presidents they're hardly unusual. No, probably the most shocking of Washington's misdeeds is that he routinely killed puppies: It was a common belief at the time, based on the appearance of puppies of different coloration and size, that a litter could have more than one sire. While that can happen, it is a rare event; most of the variation arose because dogs were not being consistently bred to close relatives to create a uniform appearance, as they wold come to be just a few decades later. Washington achieved relative uniformity by drowning puppies that did not match his conception of what his hounds should look like.
- Mark Derr, A Dog's History of America, page 77. Grim, though at least it rational. It wasn't done for fun or malice, but to improve his kennel. It was this same thoroughgoing efficiency that ordered him to have adult dogs killed as well: Washington took a draconian approach toward unwanted dogs. ... Washington complained about the constant loss of sheep and other livestock to marauding dogs. He then told Whiting to killy any dog that killed sheep on his plantation and to kill strays that had no apparent purpose or owner. He further declared that, based on his observations of the control slaves exercised dogs ... they must raise and keep dogs only to steal livestock. He closed with a "a positive order, that after saying what dog, or dogs shall remain, if any negro presumes under any pretense whatsoever, to preserve, or bring one into the family, that he shall be severely punished, and the dog hanged."
Ibid., pages 84-85. Anyway, I realize that killing and enslaving people is probably worse than killing dogs. I just thought it was an interesting aspect of the man that I don't think people would have considered. On the other hand, if you're a crazy liberal, maybe it's not worse. Indians, after all, are animals just like herons, orangutans, and turtles. There's a simple way to solve this problem of puppy-killing presidents. Simpler than drowning-proof puppy suits. It's called socialism and it's the end of politics. Tue, Feb. 5th, 2008, 01:46 am
To those who are considering making the trip out to the polling booths and caucuses tomorrow: stay home. Your candidate -- and the will your choice once you read this -- is not to be found in the ranks of either party holding nomination contests tomorrow. In fact, you won't find him in a party at all. He's Mel Moench and he's "not another corporate candidate."  In a contest dominated by the Baracks and Mitts comes a refreshing candidate with a regular name: Mel. Mel Moench. In a contest shaped by money, entrenched political interests, and the media's king-making comes a simple fellow without the glamor and glibness of the major contenders: Mel Moench. Mel Moench is the only candidate to state his positions on every issue without first considering the polling numbers. In his own words, Mel believes he is applying for a job. Instead of telling you what you want to hear, he lists his qualifications and what he'll bring to the table and then lets YOU, the American people, decide. He's not going to go to the convention and name his running mate and cabinet picks to stir up media attention -- he's not even going to a convention (and anyways, he's already picked who will fill those positions). He's not a Washington insider. I'm couldn't tell you if he's even ever left Minnesota. He doesn't have career politicians or policy experts to advise him. Instead, he reached out to prospective advisers in true democratic, American fashion: through an advertisement in the Minneapolis Star Tribune's classifieds (no email queries, please). What kind of policies will these everyday joe advisers come up with? Well, needless to say, Mel Moench has a fresh take on things. Established wisdom and common sense? -- phooey! Mel is the only candidate willing to take principled stances on the following issues:Crime
"A 'World Crimes' Category should be added/strengthened to include people who create computer viruses, people who hire computer hackers, and merchants of child pornography. (see Crime section) I believe that these special crimes against all of humanity should carry the death sentence. ... I would go as far as requesting approval for precision air strikes to enforce the "virus" law outside the US. (See also “World Crimes” section) Note that computer viruses are threats to anyone with a computer and internet connections--and the number is rapidly growing."
"Push for death penalty for all 50 states. Eliminate "Death Row" and execute sentence immediately after it is handed down from the judge and jury. I believe "Death Row" classifies as cruel and unusual punishment--as the authors of our Constitution had originally intended. (See Illegal Immigrant section above as well)"
"Build more barracks-style prisons to save money."
Pit bull dogs
"I would favor national legislation requiring wwners of Pit Bull dogs to post $100,000 bond to be able to keep them (Law enforcement and military would be exempt.) "
Immigration
"Any non-US citizen apprehended illegally crossing the southern US border will be immediately returned to Mexico. If this is impossible for some reason, they should be transported to special holding areas pending their return. (See Opportunity Zone section) Other options for illegal aliens may include helping construct/maintain the US-Mexican border fence system."
"Work with Mexico to establish an 'Opportunity Zone' inside Mexico's northern border or US southern border for illegal aliens/deportees. Allow/encourage a community/economy to exist within this controlled space. Establish a section of this zone to house volunteers for US border construction. Food, medical services, some education, and mandatory English classes should be provided. Further options for illegals may include military service in combat zones."
"If any non-US citizen is convicted of a crime, they should be sent to a special part of the 'Opportunity Zone' pending deportation. Illegal aliens convicted of a second felony should be treated similar to a terrorist and should face the death penalty."
"I favor instituting a significant "freedom tax" for the first 7 years of US residency for legal immigrants as well as 2 weeks of community service. This community service could be similar to the military or to help construct the US border fence."
Health Care
"Encourage 'eye exercises' as well as physical education in schools--similar to the Chinese system."
"Emphasize/stress TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) treatments such as acupuncture and other illness prevention techniques. "
"Repeal laws that limit or discourage herbal remedies such as saw palmetto and astralagus. (Saw palmetto is more widely prescribed/used in Britain than pharmaceuticals for prostate issues.)"
Gay Marriage and Homosexuals
"Gays can enter into contractual relationships of similar vehicles (such as 'unions' or 'personal corporations'), but not specifically called marriage."
" I believe that TV/Media programming should voluntarily limit news/program coverage with homosexual content to roughly the same percentages as in the general population. This policy is intended to both avoid endorsement AND prejudice at the same time."
Transportation
Create an expanded system of point-to-point "speed shuttle" service from nodes on the light rail and railroad system. 'Speed shuttle' vehicles should move faster than ordinary traffic by using the same white light signal system as emergency vehicles to stop traffic as it approaches an intersection. Additional and flexible pickups could be called in with a credit card system with quick opening doors similar to the underground subway system. Driver’s license requirements must include a test of understanding North, South, East, and West directions. I'm sure by now you'll all realize what a good idea it is to stay home tomorrow. Why pick another party's candidate when your vote already is pledged to Mel Moench? I'll add that he ran before for the state legislature as a Democrat.
Sat, Jan. 19th, 2008, 01:35 am
Rambling
I don't know the god damn first thing about hipsters. Only that I hate them and want them all to die. I'll tell you why below, but I'm sure the best way to kill them all is with this: 
Wheeled Balrog pulled by VikingsThis hipster-killing contraption is best suited for taking out parades and carnivals -- basically anything with a road and people on either side. Since hipsters hate parades and carnivals, let's find a street with lots of thrift shops. I wrote a poem that describes how it best functions and the feelings it gives me: I like to sit
and think
of that thing
speeding down a street like a chariot
with the balrog whipping left and right Anyways, I hate hipsters because they're just fucking rich white kids (and sometimes black kids or asian kids or mexican kids or whatnot) that think they're really special. They think they're special because they like music that, say, Pitchshifter or Metacritic tells them to like. They pretend this stuff is really underground, but it's not. Because 50% of young people are hipsters and listening to the same shit. And that shit is what they call "indie music," regardless of how very much this music is formulated to find audiences. What's worse is that these hipster bands take names like "To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie" [sic] and so on. They also try to dress distinctively, but in a picture of a local hipster band that I saw, like 80% (4 out of 5, or 5 out of 6!) of the band members where wearing those flimsy, overpriced shoes they call "chuck taylors." what idiots. We've already established that they like shitty music (I didn't mention that all this music has a lot of poorly strummed guitar and whiny vocals with teenager lyrics) and like to dress alike. Another aspect of their dress I hadn't mentioned is that they spend a lot of money and time to look bad. Sometimes they shop at thrift stores, but more often than not they hit up the local mall when they don't think anyone will be looking. But I am. I always am. I'm like Heimdall, or Hrothgar's warden in Beowulf: Now saw from the cliff a Scylding clansman,
a warden that watched the water-side,
how they bore o’er the gangway glittering shields,
war-gear in readiness; wonder seized him
to know what manner of men they were.
Straight to the strand his steed he rode,
Hrothgar’s henchman; with hand of might
he shook his spear, and spake in parley. f'shiz. I watch for 'em just like that when I read the Scene section of the paper. On the matter of dress, I'll add that these villains sometimes wear non-prescription eyeglasses. It's impractical and vain. And it's offensive. It's like going in blackface, I suppose, only not racist. But they are racist. Bryon Crawford's blog quotes one hipster, who organizes hipster parties where "the worst of black culture" is mocked, as saying: "I'm throwing this party, and it's obvious that I'm white and I'm kind of appropriating this culture but in an ironic way, kinda poking fun at myself and my origins and white people in general. I'm trying to kill the whiteness inside." Lame, man. If we further examine their politics, so far as they exist, it can be said that hipsters are liberals. They put Democratic candidates pins on their messenger bags. That's bad enough, but to some of these liberals, it looks even cooler to be a "socialist." Of course, they're still liberals, so we'll just call them leftists. If they can't find on campus a Trotskyist offshoot of the Society for Creative Anarchism like Socialist Alternative, they become "anarchists" and infest ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) anarchists and talk about shitty music and shitty musicians like that guy who raped that girl (or so I heard) but got away because he had anarcho-cred. OR they became Maoists. Every Maoist in the "first world" is a rich white person = just about a fact. 
A hipster "socialist" would cry if they saw this happening.Also, in accordance with my new LJ profile, it is now illegal to be a hipster and remain on my friends page. As far as I know, that doesn't apply to any of you. Nor, I suspect, would a hipster ever add me.
Thu, Dec. 6th, 2007, 08:07 pm
some severely disjointed notes
Michael Zweig's The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret addresses a phenomenon I've noticed but couldn't convincingly account for. Whether this is an explanation or a restatement of the situation, I don't know, but here it is: In the 1960s even much of the radical left became estranged from the working class. No better symbol of this estrangement exists than the day in 1970 when construction workers beat up demonstrators who had gathered at New York's City Hall to protest the war in Vietnam as it escalated into Cambodia. Images of the City Hall beatings were broadcast around the world and became emblematic of the mutual hostility supposedly between all unionized workers and all student activists. ...
Much was made at the time of the reactionary worker, enemy of social progress, or, from the other side, the patriotic worker, true to the American cause, standing against the communist foe. With anticommunist leadership, the labor movement moved to the right. As class-conscious workers' voices were silenced, the simple-minded right-wing characterization of the working class was more easily picked up by the media and came to dominate the thinking of many young sixties student radicals. They, in turn, often came to think of themselves as outside the long tradition of progressive intellectuals' support for the working class.
The new movements of the sixties developed radical critiques [sic] of society and in their analyses often challenged capitalism itself. But, for many, the working class came to be identified as only reactionary white men. Activists in these movements, and those who developed social theories to understand and guide them, often dismissed the working class as a backward, hostile enemy, and recast politics solely in terms of race and gender. Radical politics of the 1970s and 1980s were increasingly dominated by identity politics.
Yet on the campuses, despite the anticapitalist and anti-imperialist talk, the working class tended to disappear from the map, replaced in the theories of many radical opinion leaders by a combination of race and gender. This has happened in one of two ways. Sometimes the working class has come to mean White Men. This is most often the case among those stuck with the images of workers on the construction sites of the sixties and seventies. Other times, in the triumvirate "race, class and gender," class has come to mean "the poor," who are in turn said to be Women and Minorities. In these formulations, white men are either irrelevant or the enemy, and white working class men are stripped of their legitimate standing among those who suffer wrongs in this capitalist society. This type of politics is a recipe for alienation and anger among white men, dividing the working class and creating needless hostility towards the justifiable demands of women and minorities. Zweig notes that that among those who haven't forgot the existence of white proletarians, probably liberals have done the most to stereotype workers: The media attack on workers has not been the work of conservative political forces alone. In a process paralleling the retreat from the working class by sixties radicals, liberal media personalities have also abandoned or stereotyped workers. The television show that most lampooned the working class in the 1970s and 1980s was produced by Norman Lear and starred Carroll O'Conner, both active and influential in liberal political circles. All in the Family's Archie Bunker was the worker-as-reactionary-white-male, disrespecting his wife from opposing the anti-war, anti-racist ideas of his sin-in-law, whom he called Meathead. Although Meathead was from a working class family, he was never presented as another way for us to think aobut workers. He had progressive ideas; he became a student. Archie's buffoonery give him a certain charm, perhaps, but in the popular culture of the time he served to dismiss the working class as a serious or reasonable force. Note that these perceptions don't necessarily reflect reality. Zweig, through official statistics, paints a picture of the working class as heterogeneous. For instance, while the largest occupational category for white men was salaried managers, this category was also in the top ten for black men, Hispanic men, and white women. Truck driving was the #1 category for black men and #2 for white men (this includes my father!) Zweig writes that "the privileged titles usually appear higher and more often for whites, especially men, but there's no shortage of awful jobs for white folks either." One can see the New Left's abandonment of the working class in the U.S. as a process parallel to its exchaning of Lenin and Stalin for Mao and Che. For the latter, the peasantry became the revolutionary agent (to bring around the development of capitalism) rather than the working class; in the U.S., as the working class was written off by the left as reactionary or complacent, revolutionary potentiality was transferred to "oppressed nations" and other groups that didn't constitute social classes. If the U.S. working class could be explained away as the consequence of discrimination, it was easy to see the majority of the American population as bourgeois. Thus the world was divided into imperialist and proletarian countries. In the "imperialist" countries, the working class, insomuch as it exists (which the Maoists deny), it is irretrievably bound to capital by its unwillingess to part with the comfortable life it enjoys thanks to the high wages paid by companies earning "superprofits" in the Third World. Anyone who thinks seriously on this will realize it's pablum. A member of the British communist group Wildcat hit the nail on the head when condemning Lenin's notion of a labor aristocracy: "What infantile, petit-bourgeois rubbish! The ruling class in all countries pay workers as much as they think they have to, calculated from a) the need for workers to stay alive and, to a greater or lesser extent, healthy, b) the shortage or otherwise of workers capable of doing the job, and c) the class struggle. Where does a wage rise gained by struggle end and a bribe begin?"As a situationist group on the 60s said, for all the left's prattle about imperialism, they miss a fundamental point: "The ideology of anti-imperialism makes but a partial critique of imperialism by seizing only upon one of its fragments, failing to recognize the colonization of everyday life by capital the world over; the most significant colony of the U.S. being the U.S. itself."At any rate, Zweig's book raises some interesting points and, surprisingly, attempts to define class in a more sophisticated manner than most of his bourgeois peers. On the other hand, these moments of lucidity are drowned in his inability to see the true function of unions. Far from the working class's "only form of organization," unions are capital's best weapon for domesticating the working class. (For the record, every one of my immediate family members, myself included, is in a union. My father belongs to the IBT, my mother to SEIU, and my brother and I belong to the UFCW.)
Tue, Nov. 27th, 2007, 02:54 am
I'm approaching two months without a blog entry. That might be a personal record. Anyway, I scored quite a few deals at Goodwill today, namely a 1958 hardcover edition of T.H. White's Once and Future King tetralogy, in very good shape, and for only a dollar; a book advocating Eugenics, whose dust jacket reviews came from a previous Russian translation; a book on the Irish language that I bought with half a mind to read and half a mind to resell; and lastly, an A to B USB cable that I paid 7 dollars for. A ripoff, but much more reasonable than the 35 dollars the Radio Shack next door wanted for their "premium" cables. Which brings me to my next point: why pay more for "premium" digital cables? If a digital cable made of yarn and trash bags could work, it would work every bit as well as one made with gold connectors and emblazoned with the Monster logo. Oh well. Some people deserve to be ripped off. Case in point: parents willing to bid 500 or 600 dollars on a Nintendo Wii on eBay. I'm excited to see what these desperate, shallow parents will pay for the Wiis I procured the other night during the 20 minutes Amazon had them in stock. Now to segue from my commercial (ad)ventures to matters political. For the most part, I feel despairingly isolated especially amongst those whose politics are supposed to be so close to mine own. From the so-called anarchists I hear about repairing bicycles and cooking vegan meals, on the revolutionary import of having sex with lots of different people, and on blaming corporations or the 'tyranny of brands' for the worlds problems. From the so-called marxists, and the more serious anarchists, I hear about the necessity to end U.S. imperialism (i.e., to open up a country to the imperialism and colonialism of its own bourgeoisie), the progressive role of state capitalism (though for most this is a revolutionary end in itself), the value and necessity of unions, and so on. For 95% of "socialists," that's what it's all about. That 95% is called the left. (Words are tricky things. Although some communists may use the term in some fashion to describe themselves -- left communists, for instance -- none actually use it to claim membership to the actual 'left' and thereby make common cause with Stalinist, social democrats, and so on. What's really important here is that communists have nothing to do with the left in the historic sense. "Left" was a term that arose to describe the radical factions of the bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries. Where communists attack the political and economic program of the bourgeoisie -- hence Bordiga's statement that "Marxism in fact demolished medieval idealism, bourgeois liberalism and utopian socialism with a single blow" -- leftists further it. Thus one of Chomsky's ill-considered statements is to the effect that council communism and anti-Leninist marxism is an inheritor of classical liberalism, to paraphrase.)In such a position of encirclement, with the enemies having the numbers, it's easy to despair. Yet here and there there's a ray of light., something to tell you that you're not alone and never were. That the same battle between revolutionaries and bourgeois recuperators is as old as socialism itself, and that it hasn't been lost yet. Just such a welcome reminder was one of the books I recently read, William Morris's News from Nowhere. More clearly and directly than any socialist work of the 19th century (even better than that of the early Marx, who envisions such a world, but obscures it in his philosophical language), News from Nowhere expresses what has been called the 'communist tendency in history:' "the search for a world where there will exist neither laws, nor property, nor the State, nor discrimination which divides people, nor wealth which distinguishes some people from others, nor power which oppresses some of them." The rest of this post will be a collection of some of my favorite passages from News from Nowhere. (It helps to know that the narrator is like a socialist Rip Van Winkle, waking up 100 years into the future and in a socialist society.) ( here they are )P.S. I just finished Robert V. Daniels preface to his Documentary History of Communism. It was extremely refreshing -- but more on that in the future. ETA: Read the words of the idealistic young bourgeois from Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks and compare it to the politics of the left. The resemblance cannot go unnoticed. "'We are the bourgeoisie -- the third estate, as they call us now -- and what we want is a nobility of merit, nothing more. We don't recognize this lazy nobility we now have, we reject our present class hierarchy. We want all men to be free and equal, for no one to be someone else's subject, but for all to be subject to the law. There should be an end of privileges and arbitrary power. Everyone should be treated equally as a child of the state, and just as there are no longer any middlemen between the layman and his God, so each citizen should stand in direct relation to the state. We want freedom of the press, of employment, of commerce. We want all men to compete without any special privileges, and the only crown should be the crown of merit."
- Morton in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, page 134. Vintage International, 1993. Emphasis mine.
Thu, Oct. 11th, 2007, 10:00 pm
Billy Bragg's version of the Internationale
Like Solidarity Forever, that fiery anthem of industrial warfare that today's trade unions have outgrown but won’t give up (and which has been co-opted by bourgeois political parties looking to embellish their credentials), the revolutionary message of the Internationale and the practice and ideology of those who lay claim to it were separated by a huge chasm -- that is, until Billy Bragg redid the song so that Social democrats and reformed Stalinists could have something to really relate to. I think a side by side comparison of Billy Bragg’s 1990 version with a 1910 English translation of a German version illustrates that point beyond the need for further explanation. Yet I shall comment for those interested.
Arise you damned of the earth,
you prisoners of starvation!
the right like a volcanic glow
is about to erupt with force.
Clean out the oppressor!
Arise, you army of slaves!
Bear your nullity no longer
Become everything--unite!
Chorus:
Peoples, hear the signal!
Arise, for the last battle
The International
Fights for the Rights of Man!
No higher being can save us,
No God, no Kaiser, nor tribune
Saving us from misery
we ourselves alone must do!
Empty phrase: "Rights of the poor!"
Empty phrase: "noblesse oblige!"
Dependent, servile they call us,
Bear that shame no longer now!
Chorus
In town and country, you workers,
We are the strongest of parties.
Push the loafers aside!
This world must be ours;
Our blood shall no more feed
the crows and mighty vultures!
Only when we've driven them out
will the sun forever shine!
- Luckhardt's 1910 lyrics |
Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all
Chorus:
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race
Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We'll live together or we'll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We've but one Earth on which to live
And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by like and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above
- Billy Bragg's 1990 version |
( comments )Anyway, what do you guys think? How does it compare? My position, in short, is that Bragg stripped the song of its revolutionary and proletarian elements. Class disappears from the song, as does any notion of revolution.
Mon, Oct. 1st, 2007, 09:42 pm
Games for Windows (and Computer Gaming World before it) has long had a column called "Tom vs. Bruce," for which the namesakes are pitted together in a recent game. The column recollects the action and banter of that match. This month they played Combat Mission: Shock Force, which "covers a fictional United States invasion of a middle-eastern country focusing on US Stryker Brigades." As Bruce Geryk (evidently a neurosurgeon) notes, the game's setting was mulled over long and hard by the development team, and players "even get a disclaimer stating that this game doesn't advocate war with Syria." Which, Geryk adds, is a "conclusion I only think you could draw if you live in a leftist panic hive." (True.) Anyway, what's funny is that this Geryk is pretty good at dishing out insults, but he's apparently quite craven when it comes to things nearer to his heart. Look. Bruce: Here's the deal: I'm kind of having a hard time with this. Not the strategy ... But I'm not so keen on watching U.S. troops get shot at in the streets of a Mideast town. I don't zoom in to watch the infantry animations, even though they're clearly impressive ... because it's jarring and unpleasant to watch American soldiers get hit ... even when they're obviously just computer models.
Tom: If it's in poor taste, it's unfair to single out Combat Mission: Shock Force, which is at least making a serious attempt to model the dynamics of what's going on in the real world. ...
Bruce: Yeah, Tom is right. Plenty of games let you control the SS Das Reich Panzer Division, or elements of some equally repugnant military formation -- maybe at Normandy or the Ardennes -- and shoot at computer representations of American soldiers.
...
Bruce: I'm not going after that hotel. ... the odd fact is that I really, really don't feel comfortable giving a bunch of U.S. soldiers--virtual though they may be--orders to rush some building ... and then for the rest of the game I'm going to have to look at knocked-out American vehicles and the resulting KIAs. If the guys at Battlefront were trying to make a role-playing game a hundred times more emotionally involving than the best elf-pretending simulator from BioWare, they succedded. How weak.
Fri, Sep. 21st, 2007, 12:31 am
[Liberalism] works in increments, over time, after hard labor, without fireworks or easy dramatics or people getting hurt. Without your sexy revolutions and all the pain and hatred they bring. It only works." "Ah, Nadia." He put his arm over her shoulders, and they started walking again toward base. "Earth is a perfectly liberal world. But half of it is starving, and always has been, and always will be. Very liberally." - Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
"They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists." Engels.On Authority, 1872.
My mood lately ^. Fuck, I really need to start writing down the ideas for blog entries that seem come to me all the time. I guess they leave just as easily. Any requests? No? I figured.
Mon, Sep. 3rd, 2007, 10:21 pm
Labor Day? How many of the workers Labor Day supposedly celebrates are left now that Wayne Root's Millionaire Republican: Why Rich Republicans Get Rich--and How You Can Too has been out for almost two years? Too many, I suspect, given the insidious attacks on self-reliance and individual responsibility being made by the unions into which so many American workers are forced. You see, anyone who tries hard enough can be rich. And not trust-fund or George Soros rich, but Republican rich. Rich like this:  How do you get rich like that? Well, Wayne Root never really hands you his formula for success. After all, it's the liberal worker who "has no confidence in his own ability and looks to Big Brother to save him--wehther it be a big corporate boss, a union boss, or a government boss." To become rich, then, you actually have to take Mr. Root's inspirational advice to heart and then apply it to your own world. I really suggest all Americans read his book. It's only $2.59 for a brand new paperback copy through Amazon. If you're still not convinced, let me share with you a few of the most inspiring, wisest passages from Mr. Root's opus: "Admit it--you want to become rich. You want it badly. We all do! I'm here to bring out the Millionaire Republican that's in all of us."
"Liberals think I should be ashamed of my aggressive nature, my unbridled passion for wealth, my remarkable rags-to-riches story. But I am not!"
"Most (if not all) of the millionaires I know have struck out far more often than they've succeeded. But you're probably only aware of their one big hit, the grand-slam home run that put them on the map and into the pages of Forbes, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, or on CNBC. (I've been featured or quoted in all four--sorry, I just couldn't resist telling you that.)"
"Growing up on the rough-and-tumble streets of New York, I'd been gambling on football since the age of thirteen. I also knew that I loved talking about both gambling and sports. I realized at that moment that if I could do anything in the world, I would predict the winners of major sporting events on national television."
"I begged, pleaded, and cajoled fifty of my nearest and dearest friends and relatives to write laudatory letters to the Daily News sports editor about Wayne Root. Of course, I coached them a bit on what to say--'What a story! We want to see more of Wayne Root' was how most of the letters started."
"Now, terming it a 'column' might be considered a slight exaggeration--it was actually a three-by-four-inch box that contained my NFL predictions each Sunday. They called me 'The Yuppie Wonder.'"
"Back to the copy machine. I made hundreds of copies of my first column, along with a press release announcing that 'Wayne Root, the world's greatest sports prognosticator, is hired by America's largest newspaper.'"
"It was soon after this last disaster that I was forced to declare personal bankruptcy. Within months, my first marriage was over as well. My wife announced she was leaving me for another man. Ouch!"
"The show was aimed at a young, hip, urban audience, and Binkow made it clear that I fit the bill perfectly."
"That, of course, was before I became a self-made millionaire by selling my handicapping picks to sports gamblers on TV. ... Once again, I had proben my critics, naysayers, and detractors wrong--dead wrong."
"Even more than the money, I was leaving behind an amazing lifestyle. ... The rest of the week, I was paid to sit poolside at my Malibu estate watching football and counting my money. How many sane people in the world would risk everything to leave that life? Only a Millionaire Republican would!"
"... within weeks, the Internet revolution imploded and the stock market crashed (in April of 2000)..." < / facetiousness > ETA: One of his children is named Remington Reagan. The others are Hudson and Dakota. Wed, Aug. 1st, 2007, 11:59 pm
Requesting advice.
A while back, before Atlantic Book Warehouse closed its Mall of America location, I picked up a sad little book called The Wisdom of Karl Marx. Rather than actually delve into Herr Doktor Marx's wisdom, those behind this book instead assembled powerful quotations on matters as diverse as bachelors, communist specters, communist workmen, repairmen, huckstering, Shakespeare, sight, Sexual relations, and so on. And clocks. Here are examples of a typical entry: MERCENARY TROOPS
Mercenary troops on a large scale appeared first among the Carthaginians.--Ltr. to Engels.
WEAR AND TEAR
Wear and tear is first of all a result of use ... Wear and tear is furthermore caused by the action of natural forces.--C. 2. Needless to say, this book is a boon for academic "Marxists" whose connection to Marxism is in reality relegated to epigraphs, but for the rest of us the value of this book is pretty limited. Realizing that my 90 cent purchase would never be used, I put The Wisdom of Karl Marx on both PaperBackSwap and BookMooch, hoping to eventually convert it into a science fiction paperback or just about anything. When it was requested last week on PaperBackSwap, I thought I'd check the profile and the book-list of the requester to see if he had anything I myself would be interested in requesting. What I found on his profile set my mind in motion: Greetings, and God bless.
I study the Bible and related materials because that is the defining element in my life. I study social psychology, particularly in it's application as a weapon by the Bolshevik sappers in the governmental, cultural and legal institutions of the west. (Can we say "weapons grade sociology", boys and girls?) I study history and law because they're interesting and they shed more light upon the previous two subjects. I read science fiction to de-pressurize from reading all those excruciatingly dull Marxist social psychologists. Ok, cool, so the guy's a right-wing nutjob. That's not going to stop me from sending him the book in order to earn a credit. But I have to do something. What can I send along to piss this guy off? I have an idea, but I'm interested in hearing what you folks have to suggest. Fri, Jul. 20th, 2007, 11:21 pm
spoiler facts:
Harry Potter's entire story, in the end, in the second epilogue, is revealed to be a daydream of J.K. Rowling as she sits down to write the actual Harry Potter series. The bitch Roseanne'd us! But she left the door open for another series. Purely devilish or devilishly clever?
Thu, Jul. 12th, 2007, 01:33 am
I pass time at work by lying to a gullible coworker. The lies, which I am sharing below, aren't particularly imaginative, but they are funny if you keep in mind that somebody out there was willing to believe them virtually without question. I have told this fellow - that Joey Lawrence was initially cast for the role Edward Norton played in American History X,
- that a woman we work with who he has a crush on broke up with her fiance. His mind went into overdrive, his thought process going something like this: "She smiled at me today. I may have to ask her out on MySpace. Speaking hypothetically, of course, maybe she broke up with her fiance for me." Aahahahahahaha. To this day, he insists that prefacing his wild fantasy with "hypothetically" means he didn't really believe it. NO. FAIL.
- that Maypo, the cat whose name I wrote in for every office in the 2005 local elections, won the race for County Coroner, thus causing a county-wide hunt for this mysterious "Maypo."
- that my dad accepted a job as a curator of a Chicago meatpacking plant-turned-museum (my dad is a local driver for a beer distributor).
- that my dad's favorite sport is cricket. I forgot about this for many months until our conversation turned to some topical matter concerning cricket, which is when he asked what my dad's opinion was, whereupon I burst into laughter directed at him.
- that the universe was ending in 50 years, and that if he saw a slow-moving wall of white (nothingness), he'd better run in the opposite direction if he wanted a few more moments of existence.
- that I shouted out "Hymen tourist!" at Norm Coleman at a political rally.
- that I once told a kid on the playground that a bat bit him and that the unnecessary rabies treatment forced his family into debt and eventually into selling their house, which forced them to move to a trailer park in some rural town not far from here.
- that he must've lost his boxcutter (which I took from his sheath as I stood near him) in the toilet; he checked for it there twice before I finally gave it back to him.
Mon, Jun. 25th, 2007, 11:41 pm
rip dawg u'll be missed
(image courtesy of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) otimus)Please post this to any entry that memorializes him. It's not that he shouldn't be remembered or mourned because he killed his family; this image needs to be posted for the simple reason that it'll piss off some people. Get to it! Thu, May. 31st, 2007, 02:17 am
The "dream" (virtual chat room) I made in Furcadia. I can't wait to figure out how to get people into it so I can abuse them and herd them into my concentration camp's pen.
Thu, May. 24th, 2007, 12:52 am
Music Organization 101: a subject dear to my atrophied, fat-blockaded heart.
Read this if it's something you want help with or are plain interested by it (as I would be). Otherwise ignore it. I should be blogging regularly soon.
Part I: The ProblemToo few people know how, or take the time, to properly organize their digital audio files. This FAILURE is made more inexcusable when those poorly titled and tagged files are made available for (illegal) downloading. Aside from perpetuating the problem by spreading bad files and lowering the standards of audio organization among computer users, the prevalence of badly organized music just illustrates the depth of this problem. If "hardcore" digital audio enthusiasts can't learn to organize their music, who can? You can. But first, consider the confusing array of "standards" for file organization that I've come across lately.  There you can see that even at the folder level, these albums aren't uniformly organized. Album titles; partial album titles; band names and album titles; band name, location, album title; partial title followed by partial year -- a whole variety of ways of titling folders, but none of these really work. Things are revealed to be even worse when you look inside these folders. Take this one, for instance:  What's this? Lacking track numbers, the files are left to be organized in alphabetical order. If you want to listen to it as an album, you can't. You can only listen to the tracks that were on the album as they're currently ordered. Not good, not good. Worse still, everything's lower-case and spaced by underscores -- a really unpleasing aesthetic effect. So far, this is all really bad. It's hard to find what you're looking for, and the lack of uniformity and rational organization must be frustrating to orderly minds. But above all else, poor organization is most problematic in the playlist. Consider these two playlists. The files in the left playlist were sorted by path and filename, meaning that the files were arranged alphanumerically first by path to the files -- so that all the files in a folder would at least be grouped together -- and then by alphanumerical order of the files in the folders. Thus the files in F:\unsorted mp3s\01-Celtica (1994) (Cruachan) come before the files in F:\unsorted mp3s\63°nord (Triakel) regardless of the actual name of the band, etc. The list on the right takes into accoutn filename alone. In a improperly organized music collection, what a mess this leads to!   Really, if you can accept playlists like that you should be shot. I'm sure you all know that. I'm sure you all have some organizing your music so that you can navigate through it with some ease. But I have to tell you, you may very well be going about it completely wrong. There is one correct way and it is rarely used, from what I can tell. Part II: SalvationThe ONLY PROPER DIGITAL AUDIO ORGANIZATION method has at a bare minimum one requirement: A COMPLETELY RATIONAL FILE NAMING SYSTEM. That is enough to organize all your music first by artist and then by the date of the release. But in order to quickly and simply access those albums, there is a second necessary component: a proper folder structure. First, the file naming system. You could get the same effect -- proper alphanumeric ordering -- in a variety of ways, but the only file naming standard that makes sense is as follows 1: Artist - [year] Album - Track Number - Track Titleor, for example, Yes - [1974 ]Relayer - 01 - The Gates of DeliriumWhy does this make the best sense? First, because when you organize by filename the playlist will show all your mp3s ordered first by band (Absu before Budgie), then by the album's year of release (1970's Fragile before Relayer -- but all tracks from an album together) and finally by track number (track 1 before 2 before 3...). This alone would be enough, but when you want to listen to a single album, you can't be expected to sort through 8,000 songs in your music file until you find those six songs and then clumsily select them all. You need a rational FOLDER system. There are two basic levels of folders in this system: the band folder and the album subfolder. See below:  Because you'll probably often be looking through these folders to select the album you want to hear, it makes sense to once again put the year before the album title, so that in explorer/whatever you can see the album folders themselves arranged by year. This should not, however, have any impact on the arrangement of files in the playlist, whether they're arranged by filename alone or file and path. ( Part III: other things, including how to actually do this )
Thu, May. 3rd, 2007, 09:57 pm
Happy birthday, girl.
Tue, May. 1st, 2007, 10:44 pm
Happy May Day
Coming soon to a society near you: Proletarian Dictatorship. Rated PG.Gerd Arntz is the Richard Scarry of proletarian art. it's a shame I didn't whip my Major paper into presentable shape in time for May Day, but it's due tomorrow anyway, so you'll see it soon enough.
Fri, Apr. 20th, 2007, 11:24 am
I'm going to share the following short story about my brother for three reasons. First, I need to procrastinate. Second, I need to blog. Third, I was just reminded of it when I found a bunch of porn DVDs stashed in his bulging portable CD player. Anyway, was shelving "greens" when an Asian woman of about 40-50 (so I'm told) came over to buy some celery or something. She was just a few feet away when Luke turned to this guy  and said "I'd fuck her!" Right after that, Luke's coworker mentioned that some of the product was falling on the floor. Luke said, "Wouldn't be the first time." The woman said, "Wouldn't be the last time, either. I have great hearing, boys," and walked off. He didn't want his boss to know ... because he doesn't want people to think he likes older ladies. FYI: The above-pictured lad apparently refused to help a black customer without getting reprimanded. He also warns on his myspace, " don't get on my bad side lol or ill run your black ass over!!"
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