Is the NetRoots Pathetically Ineffective? Discuss.

One of the favorite epithets NetRooteviks love to throw around is: "This isn't the '60s anymore! Demonstrations don't work! Give it up!" when people take to the streets. This has become the standard, almost rote response of the NetRoots whenever Americans take to the streets for any reason, though when the good folks in Wisconsin took to the streets and occupied public property (like the Capitol in Madison) for weeks on end, the NetRoots scolds sat on their hands fearful of saying anything too outré about the people in the streets freezing their nuts off in protest.

Of course all the marching and chanting and carrying signs and all the occupations of public property that went on and are still going on through the Midwest did not stop the Walkers and the Kasichs and their ilk from ramming through their programs of restricted rights and slashed budgets for the masses (while heaping favors on the High and the Mighty) in Legislature after Legislature. By now, much of it is "settled law," and even if the Rightist bums who are doing this are eventually thrown out of office (a big IF), their programs, restrictions, and slashed budgets will continue on for the most part.

The demonstrations demonstrated two things: the People are pissed. And they are all but powerless.

NetRooteviks, of course, believe that the People are just 'doing it wrong'. The correct way to oppose the Man is to write a superabundance of furious blog posts and tweets, fill elected officials' inboxes with endless streams of sternly worded emails, and back candidates who flatter your ego.

Except for the fact that that doesn't work either, it sounds all modern and wireless and shit, and it is certainly less... physically challenging (shall we say) than getting out in the streets with signs and giant puppets and other icky 'protest' things like silly chants. Hey hey, ho ho... What do we want... when do we want it...

The sorry fact is that protest from the left doesn't work (in this country), no matter how it's done.

Netrootevik 'gaming' is equally as ineffective as marching and carrying signs. Our Rulers decoupled from the masses quite some time ago, and these days, they really do not care what the People think or want. They love the attention they get from the NetRoots as much as they thrive on the hatred of those in the streets. But they don't care -- at all -- what either marginal interest group "wants."

They believe they don't have to.

And for the most part, they are right. The High and the Mighty can pretty much do what they want -- as long as it fits with the Rightist program of the Government's Stakeholders and Owners. That's all that's necessary.

What absolutely cannot be done under any circumstances is changing the Government's direction toward actually recognizing and serving the Public Interest.

NetRooteviks assembling in Minneapolis may rail and rage all they want about the Imperial White House and its horrible policies. They may keen their laments about the loss of civil liberties, the indifference of Congress, the continuing looting of the Lesser People by the MOTUs, and on and on, but it will have no effect on the Ruling Class.

So they announce their goal is to get their candidates inside the Palace Gates and run things.

How's that working out?

Actually, their real goal is the same as all other institutional interests: Self-Perpetuation. And what that means in context is to ineffectively rail and rage against The Powers That Be -- forever.

Those who march and carry signs may be just as ineffective, but they don't do what they do (for the most part) in order to advance their own careers or to raise their own profiles, nor do they do it to raise money for their online business ventures. They don't do it to perpetuate their chosen form of activism, either. They do it to actually force -- or at least influence -- necessary changes in and by Government.

In other words, the ineffectiveness of the NetRoots and Demonstrators may be similar but the motivation is quite different.

No, this is not the '60s anymore, but so what? The 1960's did not invent the public protest march, nor were marches that much more effective then than they are now. The changes that came about due to the liberationist and communitarian activism of the 1960's happened because of cultural and social factors that no one and no one interest caused or controlled.

The NetRoots wants changes that it cannot quite articulate, and it is no more unified in interest or motivation than any previous activists were.

Right now, nothing at all works to alter the demands of our Governing Class. They are operating completely independently of the People, and they like it like that.

What we can do about it has yet to be discovered -- or rediscovered as the case may be.

Hysteria Redux

Jeebus.

The entire left-o-sphere is in a hysterical frenzy about AARP based on a story in the Wall Street Journal that implies the venerable old-folks insurance and lobbying outfit is now OK with cutting Social Security benefits -- as long as the AARP gets a seat at the table and helps in the decision making process about who gets cut, how and when.

Somehow, everyone has forgotten that the Wall Street Journal is a Murdoch paper now, and its "news" is more and more inclined -- shall we say -- toward what's favorable to Murdoch's interests in taking over the world.

In fact, AARP has not said, and apparently has not agreed to, what the WSJ article implies.

But that doesn't matter. What matter are perceptions, and in this case, Murdoch and his tools have come up with a doozy of a perception: AARP is OK with cutting Social Security benefits, and with that domino falling, cuts are inevitable. Hahahahah.

Murdoch and his tools have been fiercely attacking AARP from the right for years; now, apparently they have decided it's time to go after AARP from the left. And it is working beautifully. There hasn't been this much unholy hollering on the left since the last time some libertarian or rightist tool stirred that pot.

AARP's statement is that its position on SS has not changed, and apart from the implied change in the WSJ piece, there is no evidence that it has.

Take issue with AARP's position, by all means, but don't do it based on the kinds of innuendo and misdirection that all Murdoch rags (including the WSJ) are notorious for.

Please.

Breitbart is laughing at you.

The Hidden Hysteria

Journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger was set to be in Santa Fe next week for a speaking engagement and the U.S. premier of his latest film, The War You Don’t See. - photo courtesy carlton television

My, my, my. Sometimes I regret getting the high speed internet here in New Mexico. When we only had dialup, it hardly mattered what was going on among the internet denizens, since I couldn't visit very many sites -- given slow loading and all -- and I couldn't fret too much over this or that, either.

But after the old laptop died, I decided to have Qwest do their thing, and sure enough, at the appointed hour the newer wireless enabled laptop -- that I can take all over the house and outside and everything -- fired right up and with only the slightest jiggling, connected to the now "blazing fast" internet. Oh. Dear. Now I could go pretty much anywhere on the WWW, just as fast as I pleased, and I could even see streaming videos for the first time at this house. (Needless to say, I had to watch local Albuquerque boy Neil Patrick Harris host the Tonys... Somehow I know that show business bug will never leave me...)

While that's pleasing, what I notice is that I spend way too much time surfing the internet now that it goes fast, compared to the very limited time I spent (mostly emailing; old-fashioned, right?) on dial up. So I run into all sorts of things that get me more or less annoyed, astonished or OUTRAGED!!!!™.

Such as for example the psyops video I posted yesterday. I wouldn't have seen it at all if it hadn't been posted at Willyloman's Place (much as I would not have seen the recent Adam Curtis series if "Willy" (Scott) hadn't posted them.) But if I didn't have the high-speed, I couldn't have watched them.

And then I got to thinking: what has been gained now that I have watched them? They confirmed what I either already knew or believed on the one hand, and they expanded on those core beliefs on the other, throwing new information or additional information into the mix. On one level, this is good. On another, I'm not so sure.

The question I ask is, "What can you do now that you know?" That's always the dilemma, isn't it?

Willy (Scott) has been going on about the recent psyops use of straight male bloggers (somehow this relates to Neil Patrick Harris's opening number for the Tony's but I won't go there yet) to impersonate lesbian female bloggers being abused horribly by the Dastardly Syrian Regime. This has to be one of the more bizarre uses of sockpuppetry in recent times, but it should be clear to anyone by now that "sockpuppet armies" are deployed all over the internet.

False identities are as much a feature of the internet as cute cats, porn and racy stuff of all kinds, and endless argument over trivia. Sockpuppetry is supposed to be one of the worst things internet users can engage in, and yet it is so common as to be routine, and it should be expected.

I myself have a number of identities on the internet, though I tend to use only one pseudonym at each site. I cannot think offhand of any site at all where I have used more than one at a time, and for the most part, I've consolidated other identities under the Ché Pasa banner and use it consistently. Of course it is not my real name, but on the internet that hardly matters. By using a consistent pseudonym, one is essentially establishing an internet identity that is as solid as almost anything you'd establish with a bank or utility company, or, for that matter, among friends and relations.

But a pseudonym and a sockpuppet are hardly the same thing. There are sites I'm familiar with where the "discussion" -- such as it is -- is primarily a factor of perhaps half a dozen or fewer people "and their armies of sockpuppets" holding forth, picking at one another's scabs and arguing endlessly over nothing. And getting nowhere. Of course, when it is the same person using different sockpuppet identities the "argument" is really a pretense. There is no real argument, in other words. And of course there are the plants, whether from political parties or from other unnamed shadowy interests, who attempt to hijack or "guide" discussion in preferred ways or simply state the Talking Points of the day. It's just a fact of life in internet fora, as it has been for ages. You deal with it -- or not as the case may be. You reach the point where it doesn't really matter, because in this country, at any rate, the internet is primarily a matter of entertainment, not action or even education.

Most entertaining to me are the posters on "lefty" political sites who insist that they "will never vote for a Democrat again!!!!111" "I'm so mad at these damn, dirty, Dems, I'm going to vote straight Republican ticket this time!" Sure, right. The whole point of this kind of post -- the only point, really -- is to plant the seed in otherwise loyalist Dems and relatively swayable Indies that the answer to their disappointment with the Dems (and who isn't disappointed except the Dem consultants?) is to vote R. That'll show 'em! I laugh to scorn.

Obviously it works sometimes, such as the 2010 elections when Dems and Indies stayed home in droves rather than vote for the ever-so-disappointing Dems, thus ensuring a rather spectacular R victory in election after election.

This is all routine online political psyops. It's done all the time.

But while I was checking out various sites this morning I came across something that struck me as pernicious (not that the psyops just described isn't also pernicious.)

It was a reference to "censorship" by the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe for the cancellation of John Pilger's appearance (scheduled for today) to discuss media and war, and to premier his new film "The War You Don't See."

Pilger himself went into full hysterical mode in an Open Letter to Noam Chomsky -- that'll get the civil liberties base riled, ne? -- over the shocking treatment he had endured:

What is deeply disturbing about the ban is that it happened so suddenly and inexplicably: 48 hours before David Barsamian and I were both due to depart for Santa Fe I received a brief email with a 'sorry for the inconvenience' from a Lannan official who had been telling me just a few days earlier what a 'great honor' it was to have the US premiere of my film at Lannan, with myself in attendance.

And then he goes on:

Neither David Barsamian nor I have been given a word of explanation. All my messages to Lannan have gone unanswered; my calls calls are not returned; my flights were cancelled summarily. At the urging of the New Mexican newspaper, Patrick Lannan has issued a one-sentence statement offering his regrets to the Lannan-supporting 'community' in Santa Fe. Again, he gives no reason for the ban. I have spoken to the manager of the Santa Fe cinema where 'The War You Don't See' was to be screened. He received a late-night call. Again, no reason for the ban was forthcoming, giving him barely time to cancel advertising in The New Mexican, which was forced to drop a major feature.

There is a compelling symbol of our extraordinary times in all of this. A rich and powerful individual and organization, espousing freedom of speech, has moved ruthlessly and unaccountably to crush it.

Oh. Well. I see.

The issue is not the cancellation. The issue is the lack of an explanation. There is apparently not even the courtesy of letting Pilger know sotto voce why his appearance is being canceled.

This would be considered somewhat irregular in a show business context: usually the reason for the cancellation of an appearance or a show is noted somewhere by someone, if not necessarily publicised. That the featured individual has just gone back to rehab, for example, may not be stated, nor may the fact that some mucky-muck behind the scenes had a spat with the featured individual be made clear, or so on and so forth, but a reason of some sort is usually provided. In this case, there was apparently nothing at all forthcoming from Lannan, just: "Bye!" No show, no story. Nothing.

According to Pilger's Open Letter, not even the local paper could get a reason out of Lannan.

All very odd. And so Pilger, who claims to be friends with Patrick Lannan -- who ordered the cancellation personally -- went into hysterics, which in turn caused mass hysteria among observers, over what they saw as and thought was "censorship."

The absence of any explanation at all from Lannan was the unresolved issue. So yesterday, Patrick Lannan issued a rather snotty statement that explained that after months of promotion, the Foundation had only sold 152 tickets to the event at the Lensic, and the Foundation (ie: Patrick Lannan) did not believe it was worthwhile to present the event to so few people. Canceling Pilger's appearance at the Lensic meant canceling the American film premier at another venue in Santa Fe as well. Too. Bad. Harrumph. "The Foundation will have no further comment on this issue." Good. Bye.

Having been presented with this sort of dilemma myself on occasion when I was a producer of events and shows, and having canceled a couple of them for similar reasons, I'm nevertheless stunned at Lannan's apparent venom and lack of any explanation to the talent, let alone to the public, until long after all hell had broken loose.

WTF? Lannan has been in the presenting business for a long time and should know the basics of how you handle problems like this positively and productively. If it had been me, assuming I was contractually obligated to pay the talent no matter what (which appears to be the case here), I would have gone ahead with the presentation, no matter how few tickets were sold, and I would have eaten any losses (which in this case are substantially more than just the talent fees), because I believe the event was more important than sales, and I would have papered the house if I had to. To cancel based on lack of sales, for something like this, is really very strange. And to do so without any explanation at all is truly bizarre.

Is this a case of official interference? I have no way of knowing. Is Pilger's hysteria warranted? That's hard to say. The failure is Lannan's, for not explaining anything at all until long after the damage was done. And then only explaining partially and publicly, and still apparently not to Pilger personally and directly.

This is just not how you do these things.

So while it may not warrant hysteria, it is a mystery that needs some further exploration.

Nevertheless, apparently these sorts of things are common enough on the "controversial speaker" circuit that one really does have to wonder about the Hidden Hysteria of suppression of ideas and speech by The Powers That Be.

If this were the Soviet Union, in other words, one would assume official interference. But it's not. So what is really going on?

This is True

Long, so here's the URL: http://youtu.be/KWVsK5QIbEE

As far as it goes, this film is interesting and illuminating, pulling back the curtain on the ways of Our Betters. Of course, it only goes so far, and it is interesting that it only goes up to the pinnacle of the Consumer Society; it doesn't deal with the Crash (though it had already happened when the film was put together) and it doesn't deal with the End of Consumerism, the era we're living in now. Nor, interestingly, does it deal with the primary economic endeavors of Our Rulers, which is to say: Gambling, stealing from one another, stealing from us, stealing from the rest of the world, and War. Our Rulers, in other words, do not operate within the context of that Consumer Society/Economy the rest of us once did -- until it all fell to pieces. They are instead parasitic upon it. And now that it is largely gone, they're just parasites. Why do they continue to rule us then?

Other films in the series are also available at the YouTube link.

There is a problem, though. "Pulling Back the Curtain" -- which these films seek to do and actually do do relatively well -- becomes an end in itself. Potentially a very rewarding one. But knowing what goes on behind that curtain isn't even necessarily useful information if your aim is actually to change things for the better. In fact, knowing how the High and the Mighty "really are" and what they "really do" is pretty useless unless it is combined with or superseded by determined and relentless forward movement toward a Better Future, and that is not really a part of the package being sold as "Pulling Back the Curtain," no matter who is doing it. When curtain pulling becomes its own entrepreneurial industry -- as it has -- then what we're really dealing with is Show. Spectacle. Entertainment.

And who controls that? To what object?

You see how this goes? Wheels within wheels, ne?

(Picked this up at Willyloman's Place. Always an intriguing resource. And no, I'm not in to Truthing... ;-)

In "Dignity" -- and the Weiner Thing

As I was driving east on the Interstate, I was listening to the radio as I tend to do when on the road, mostly NPR, and there were a lot of stories about Anthony Weiner and his predicament with regard to his Democratic colleagues calling for his resignation from Congress over what he's done -- and all those icky pictures and text messages and whatnot. On the other hand, polls suggest his constituents do not universally condemn him nor his actions and that the majority want him to stay in office.

Most of the public condemnation of Weiner so far seems to be rooted in prudery and traditional American Puritanism. Denouncing (and being obsessed with) other people's sex lives is the predominant amusement of prudes and Puritans, as everyone else in the world seems to understand.

But as I listened to the stories about the calls for Weiner to resign, little of it was focused on his sex life or on his lies about it. Unlike the public hysteria -- which of course is whipped to a frenzy by the media -- the official calls seemed to have much more to do with something unstated: Weiner had violated the Dignity of his office and the institution in which he served, not by engaging in "inappropriate sexting" with women on the internet, but by doing it... publicly. It's not that they do these things, in other words, or that they lie about it, but that it becomes public through their own fault and inattention to detail or through the prying of people like Breitbart.

The public hysteria (to the extent there really is any) has to do with Weiner's "appalling" actions and his hypocritical lying about it. Yet the lies are relatively mild, certainly not uncommon in such situations (typical in fact). He certainly isn't lying the nation into war, for example. Or using constant lies to justify murder like the Israelis do.

And if news reports we've been getting for a couple of years now are correct, the "appalling" things that Weiner is accused of doing and has admitted are almost routine among young people (high-school through college age) and are not uncommon at all among Weiner's own age cohort of 40-somethings. Prudes and Puritans, of course, will always obsess on these things and condemn them in public figures. They seem to live for these incidents, don't feel fully alive unless they can denounce the sexual behavior of someone else.

But if the news is right, "sexting" is so common as to be almost universal among the young using social media.

I'm old, and the idea of doing something like that -- sending racy pictures of myself and ribald text messages to people I don't know (or even people I do know!) -- is something that doesn't occur to me. It's just not something I would do, but I think that has more to do with the era I grew up in than any particular shock at the lewdness of it all.

After all, I came up in the '50's and '60's, and the truth is, casual nudity and semi-public sex was not exactly uncommon. Even in the repressed '50's, same-sex nudity in all kinds of situations was expected, in some cases required, and sex, though never mentioned in polite company, was hardly uncommon (!). As part of "modernity", parental and child nudity at home (under the right circumstances, in the bathroom, for example) was widely practiced, and if anything, all kinds of sexuality were quite possibly more widely practiced and accepted (more or less in private, to be sure) than they are now.

"Sex," for the most part, wasn't a public issue in the 1950's because it wasn't discussed. But there was plenty o' sex.

In the liberationist 1960's we didn't have the technology to practice "sexting", and I'm not sure that many people would have done it anyway. Communitarianism along with liberationism wouldn't really allow something like virtual online "sex" such as sexting to substitute for the real thing. I don't think it is entirely a matter of technology, either. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that to even think of sexting, one must be relatively isolated from other people. And back in those days, that kind of isolation was rare. "Community" was a very important concept, and people -- perhaps -- were more connected with others then than they are now.

Then there's the whole "40-something" malaise. Weiner is one of those 40-somethings, but there are lots and lots of others in that age cohort coming into their own, and many of them seem to have, how to put this, "issues."

I think it comes from the fact that these are the offspring of my generation, and all things considered, there's going to be rebellion of some sort. If I'm right, and sexting is simply not something many people in my generation would do -- even if they could -- then doing that would be something generational rebels would be more likely to do.

On the other hand, casual public nudity and even public or semi-public sex was something people in my generation would engage in, probably more than 40-somethings would. It was an act of rebellion in my generation, whereas sexting is rebellious for 40-somethings.

Of course if the practice originated with an even younger generation, how will they rebel against their parents values when the time comes?

Ultimately, these questions are irrelevant to the Weiner Thing -- at least from the Congressional leadership standpoint. They want him gone, not so much for what he has done, but for the violation of the Dignity of his office and the institution his actions represent.

Many of us would agree that our public institutions -- especially Congress -- have no dignity left. They are embarrassments almost by definition, and the notion that any congresscritter's sexual indiscretions could violate the "dignity" of a body that has none is absurd.

But that's us. For them, nothing is more important than their belief in their own moral dignity and standing. When the image they have of themselves is sullied -- by sexual exploits becoming public especially -- they react the way they are doing. And as we've seen over and over (Bill Clinton, anyone?), their shocked, shocked reaction and their huffy denunciations just make them look silly.

The Smoke

Arrived at our place in New Mexico yesterday afternoon.

You may have heard that the smoke from the Wallow fire on the Arizona/New Mexico border is being blown east and north by the wind. Yes, yes it is. I could see the bank of smoke on the eastern horizon all the way from Holbrook while I drove east on I-40. I stopped at the New Mexico welcome center just over the state line, and I could see tongues of smoke creeping over the fancy mesa against which the center is set. Driving on, the smoke became thicker and thicker until by Gallup, the smoke was heavy, acrid, and very close to the ground. And Gallup is some 150 miles north of the north edge of the fire.

The smoke was thick, almost like a heavy, yellowish fog, all the way to Grants/Milan. The worst was where it was mixed with blowing dust. Then it thinned and rose somewhat, such that in some areas it almost seemed like the air was clear -- except for the yellowish gunk on the horizon. So it was all the way to Albuquerque and beyond. In fact, going over the Tijeras Pass, the sky was clear blue, the first of that I had seen since entering New Mexico, but just over Sedillo Hill, once again you could see thin but obvious smoke relatively high in the air.

A couple of years ago, much of the forest cover on the east side of the Manzanos not far from our place burned, with much structural damage, evacuation of thousands, and ruined mountainsides for miles and miles. It was a terrible fire, but it was confined to the mountainsides, and the wind was not too bad, so the smoke rose relatively straight up in the air and dissipated.

Smoke bothers me. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I used to smoke cigarettes; quit about 15 years ago. (Used the nicotine patch, worked like a charm, was smoke free within a week, and have never had any desire for a cigarette since. The relief was wonderful!)

But when first I came to New Mexico, I was a heavy smoker, and it didn't occur to me that the altitude here might have an effect on me -- and other smokers -- with predictable results.

Indeed. I've only been to Taos once, a very long time ago now. I used to hate going to Santa Fe, and I loudly despised the town, the people, the idiocy of it all. I was relatively OK in Albuquerque, but if I went up the Sandias too far, all that crabbiness I felt in Santa Fe would return. At the time, I didn't connect the nastiness of my mood swings in New Mexico -- or at high elevations anywhere else -- with smoking. I didn't occur to me.

But after I quit, we were having lunch at a cafe on the Albuquerque Plaza, sitting outside, it was a beautiful day. And the table next to us was occupied by a couple, both of whom were smokers. They hated everything. Just everything was wrong, and they were complaining constantly. I thought, "Hm, where have I seen this before?" Of course, I was like that at one time. And I'd seen the same effect among smokers up in Santa Fe. If anything, it was worse there.

The problem is simple: smokers from lower elevations (and our house in California is barely above sea level) can't breathe in the rarified air of the high desert, which means most of New Mexico. The higher the elevation, the worse it gets for smokers. Sometimes they try to "breathe" by smoking more -- which makes the condition worse.

And that physical phenomenon -- which smokers may not recognize at all -- has a profound effect on mood and attitude. Once you recognize what's going on, you may be able to compensate, either by laughing at yourself when you get all crabbified, or by cutting back on smoking while you're in the high desert. Or by quitting altogether.

I've become so sensitive to smoke since I quit smoking cigarettes that even a burning fireplace can cause a physical reaction in me similar to an allergy attack. So when there's smoke in the air like there is here -- even the small amount there is today (predictions are for it to get thicker later in the day due to wind changes) -- I tend to sneeze and cough and whatnot. I can deal with it, though, because I know what's going on.

But I've often thought that one of the things New Mexico should offer at its welcome centers and rest stops is counseling for smokers: let them know that they will be at a relatively high altitude in most of New Mexico, very high in some areas, and that high altitude has a stronger physical effect on smokers from lower altitudes than on non-smokers. Smokers may feel unaccountably moody, cranky, and even angry for no apparent reason. They may lash out or complain incessantly or feel very depressed. Sometimes, they can control their own moods by understanding that their moods are connected with breathing difficulties they're having -- but not necessarily recognizing -- at high altitudes. Recommendation is to take it very easily while at high altitudes, move slowly, cut back on or stop smoking, and to realize that your unaccountable crabbiness is due to your own breathing difficulties at high altitudes, not necessarily something intrinsically AWFUL about the people and places you are visiting.

Have a nice day! ☺

Funny

Well, for days now, the front page at dKos (where my UID -- under another screen name -- is 501, and it would have been lower except I wasn't able to access the site after Markos's Grand Transition to Scoop back in 2003, anyway....) has been absolutely dominated by... Republicans.

This happens over there from time to time, and the excuse is always that the Rs are "doing something." They're on teevee, so they have to be talked about. Criticized. Laughed at. Denounced. Whatever.

But it is always intriguing to me when supposed "lefty" sites become absolutely and completely obsessed with Republican officials and their candidates to the point where there is essentially no room at all (at least not among the Front Pagers) to bring up or discuss Democrats (unless they are being hounded and denounced by their own side, ie: Weiner) or positive and progressive policies and programs.

Nope. Gotta spend all that time on the Rs.

Message: Rs Own You.

True enough I guess...

However, today on the dKos Sidebar Rec List, Happy Rockefeller has a really good essay (I despise the term "diary") "The Failure of Liberalism," which I do recommend highly. The discussion that goes with it is also illuminating. It's not as harsh as Chris Hedges might be, but it is a reasonable and legitimate exploration of how American Liberals have retreated into preserving the status quo rather than leading the quest for Something Better.

Парад Победы

This is really very moving. Most Americans have probably never seen anything quite like it.

The video is of the opening of this year's Annual Victory Parade, May 9, celebrating the Allied victory over the Axis powers in Europe. There are some 20,000 troops from Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union, and from all over Europe and from the United States, too -- the most ever gathered for a Victory Parade they say -- marshaled on Red Square to be reviewed by the Defense Minister and the Colonel General of the Armed Force before marching in parade before the assembled dignitaries arrayed in front of and beside Lenin's Tomb -- which has been decoratively covered by a Russian Federation themed shroud in honor of the day.

A number of things: there seems to be somewhat more Soviet imagery than I recall seeing in previous Victory Day Parades held since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Defense Minister greets the troops: "Товарищи!" "Comrades!" I like it. He and the Colonel General are swanned around the Square in Soviet Era parade cars. While this may seem retro, it's actually good because most of the veterans of the Great Patriotic War on the reviewing stands were Soviet citizens. You cannot have a Victory Parade on Red Square without acknowledging the Soviet Union was the victor and it is the Soviet Union's victory that is being celebrated.

It's interesting how the modern Russian Federation integrates Soviet imagery -- and avoids some of it, too -- in these annual events, and it is interesting to see how it changes over time.

Here's a video of the 1945 Victory Parade, Uncle Joe Stalin officiating. It is quite different, yes, and yet not that much different at all:



For Americans, WWII was all about US fighting the perfidious Nazis and Japs. I'm of the Post War/early Cold War generation, and there was little or no acknowledgement of the Soviet sacrifice and ultimate victory over the Nazis. But they were the ones who took the brunt of the War, losing tens of millions of troops and civilians, seeing almost the entire European portion of the nation destroyed. As bad as the situation was in post War Europe, it was much worse in the Soviet Union. Of course, we learned nothing about this in the 1950s; the Soviets were our blood enemies, and their suffering during and immediately after the War was simply not mentioned. I didn't really learn of it until I was in college.

And then, so much of the anti-Communist propaganda we'd been fed throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s made a kind of inverted, sad sense. And it was then that some of us began to realize that the Soviets were not a threat to the United States, and that their "chiding" -- shall we say -- of America's civil rights and other failures and criticism of American impulses toward Imperialism were actually tonics that helped Americans find ways to improve.

We don't have that Soviet mirror any more, and the current Russian Federation version of it is hardly of the caliber of the former Soviet Union.

I've spoken with some of the survivors of the Great Patriotic War, men and women who came to this country mostly as religious refugees from the Soviet Union. When they think back on what they lived through, what they survived, how they did it, who they fought, they have immense and justifiable pride in what they were able to do against all odds, and when it came to that War, they were without question loyal and patriotic Soviet citizens. Even if later their Republic (most of those I've interviewed were Ukrainians) would rebel.

The shame was that the Better World that was supposed to rise after the Victory began to fall apart almost immediately and for too many, it has become or is becoming a nightmare.

We deserve better.

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My sort of half-assed translation of the Defense Minister's statement to the troops:

"Greetings Comrades!" They respond something like: "Greetings, Comrade Defense Minister!" He then says something like, "Felicitations on the Anniversary (66th? couldn't quite make it out) of Victory in the Great Patriotic War!" Then the troops commence to roar. You don't see that every day.

Momentary Change of Pace -- "Escalona"

"Escalona" is a 1991 Colombian telenovela that I think I first saw maybe in 1993 on Telemundo, and I'm pretty sure it was the first telenovela I followed all the way through from first episode to last. Of course it was performed in idiomatic Colombian Spanish which can be very difficult for someone more used to Mexican Spanish to keep up with -- for one thing, it is spoken very fast and for another lots of word endings are dropped.

The star is Carlos Vives, a Colombian actor and song stylist. His name is generally spoken "Carlo Bibé" in the Colombian dialect. He's from Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia, and in the program he plays a highly expressive and heightened version of the life of Rafael Escalona ("Rafa E'calona"), master of the vallenato form. Vallenato refers to a style of music characteristic of Valledupar and the Magdalena Department of Colombia, which Rafa Escalona popularized throughout the region. The musical style hasn't really penetrated much north of the Columbia and Panama, though you do hear it from time to time in the United States -- Gloria Estefan tried to popularize it here. I did see Carlos Vives when he did an American tour soon after the release of his album of classical vallenato music called "Clasicos de la Provincia." It was a huge hit, and his show in San Francisco was a delight -- and very well attended, a full house, but the site wasn't that big.

I've seen quite a bit of Hispanic "magic realism" drama, but nothing quite approaches what was done with "Escalona." Of course in the extended format of a telenovela, wonderful things can take place, and they did throughout the episodes, all of them filled with music and magic.

I'm told that "Escalona" is still one of the most popular telenovelas on DVD, and it is no wonder. It is really that good. And the challenge of keeping up with the dialog -- a challenge I often failed! -- was.... bracing. ☺

Ché says, if you have some down time and think you can handle the Spanish, check out episodes of "Escalona" on YouTube. Some full episodes are posted along with a lot of short clips. You're liable to be transported to another plane of existence. (Where you might just find Amelia Earhart! Heh.)

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Anything?

Everything?







Fascinating.

----------------------------

Some notes: It really is a fascinating exploration of how we got where we are and who and what had such an influential impact on the course of events. It's similar to what James Burke did with "Connections" all those years ago, but with a harder edge -- because everything Curtis gets into is recent or relatively so.

This series is an incomplete exploration, of course, and it is approached from a decidedly British point of view, but it does help us to see how thinkers and actors on the world stage actually do have an effect on what happens and how.

Some of Curtis's startling observations include the resemblance between what Asian economies went through in the 90's and what we in the west are going through now. His observations about the World Computing Machines (as Edward Teller called them) would enable -- and what sort of strange and pitiless philosophy and ideology would go with them -- need quite a bit of expansion, but I think he's mostly on the mark. Underlying much of Adam Curtis's work -- which I really appreciate -- is the idea that a great deal of what we believe is wrong, and it is wrong because those who brought those beliefs forth, whatever their realm, were deep in error.

But "Truth" is never a finality. It is an ongoing and changing discovery. I like that a lot.

Sky Island -- the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico

Watch the full episode. See more Sky Island.

Watch the full episode. See more Sky Island.

Premiers July 10, 2011 on PBS.

In Northern New Mexico, a range of mountains rises up from the high desert: a wild, rugged land of the Faraway Nearby. The volcanic Jemez are isolated from all other mountain ranges — an island in the sky, surrounded by a desert sea.

In Sky Island, environmental filmmaker John Grabowska (Ribbon of Sand, Crown of the Continent) profiles this captivating landscape and humankind's place within it, examining the global warming effects that have already dramatically impacted the high desert and alpine ecosystems. This exploration of identity, place and perception features breathtaking cinematography, narration by acclaimed actress Meryl Streep, readings by Pulitzer Prize winner N. Scott Momaday and a sweeping orchestral score by Academy Award winner Todd Boekelheide.

The center of the Jemez Mountains is a slumbering supervolcano that exploded more than one million years ago in massive eruptions, creating a plateau of volcanic ash welded into rock up to 900 feet deep. Through the millennia, water sliced through the plateau, cutting myriad canyons that open onto the Rio Grande, which flows south through a massive rift valley on the eastern edge of the Jemez. From the Rio to the heights of the Jemez, the land rises more than a mile in elevation, creating different zones of life as temperature drops and moisture climbs in the steep ascent from canyon floor to alpine peak.

The Mountains -- and drought -- are a constant fact of life for all of us in New Mexico. Yet here in California and many other areas of the country, people are practically drowning in constant heavy rains, floods, snows in May and June, abnormally low temperatures. And of course, the tornadoes are flourishing like never before.

I may mock The Man in the Chair, Harold Camping, for his nonsense Doomer predictions, and yet, there must be something to this Judgement Day stuff as more and more things seem to fall apart...

Weird Weather

June 7, 2011.

I thought I heard the rain again outside my window. Cold. Damp. Dreary. Yes, it has rained in June in the Central Valley from time to time in the many years I've lived here, though the incidents are rare and the amount of rain is usually slight.

But despite the constant official cries of "drought!", this part of California has actually been in an extended wet spell. As I noted some time back, it's as if this section of the state had been bodily moved a thousand miles north. This is Seattle weather. No, it's British Columbia-southern Alaska weather.

It's not just the frequency of rain, it's the continued low temperatures (well, for here, anyway, in the 50's and 60's) and the sense that it's not going to stop.

I was in the backyard yesterday, "puttering" as they say. Well, we've had some work done over the last couple of years or so -- some trees cut down and heavily cut back, a new fence put up, the exterior of the house painted, and I've been working on landscaping the back, something that couldn't be done when it was lost in the shade of bushes that had been planted when the house was new (1940) and had been left to become huge trees. Nothing would grow back there but the rankest weeds. So for years, we essentially just left it. Once the trees were cut down, suddenly the possibilities of actual landscaping were opened up, and I've been planting lawn, flowers, making paths and sitting areas, etc, having a grand time really. But yesterday I was pulling ivy and some other vining plant off the house. The east and south side of the house were becoming buried in vinage after less than a year since the house was painted. There's been English ivy in the back since we've been here, but it has never almost covered over the house like this. And the other vine (I'm not sure what it is) has been here for a quite a while, but never grown to this extent nor has it ever come this close to entirely covering the whole east side of the house.

As I was pulling this stuff down, I noticed how extraordinarily lush the foliage was. The leaves are broad and dark, glossy green, and there are new shoots all over the place. It's been less than a year since the ivy and vines that were on the house before were pulled down to paint the place, and they've all grown back and much, much more besides.

This can only be attributed to the rains, rains, and more rains. The other trees and plants in the back have also grown remarkably in the past year, even in the last couple of weeks. And it is raining again today.

Yet this is the Dry Season. Things should be turning golden and brown and brittle. That's the course of life for the native plants around here. Come May, they're drying up, and by June they are completely dry. There would ordinarily be no rain in the summer at all, and relatively frequent irrigation is necessary just to keep a lawn alive, non-native plants green, and flowers blooming. But we're used to it, know how it goes, and we're adapted to water conservation (after all, we've been in a "drought" for years now -- just recently declared "over.")

This year? Hardly had to turn the hose on at all. Rain is that frequent. And the green stuff has responded to the rains gleefully and spectacularly.

The reason for the change in the weather is said to be warmer temperatures in the Arctic Ocean which have resulted in much less ice cover and less enduring sea ice which in turn has caused the cold weather patterns that typically circle the north pole to wander southward through Siberia and North America, looping down over the Pacific and drenching California again and again. It is said to be an active demonstration of the consequences of Global Warming.

So far, for this part of California, it is A Year Without A Summer. That will likely change, of course, and we will be in searing heat and dryness. But not till July, maybe even August. You never know anymore.

The irony here is that though the current weather pattern in these parts is thought to be a factor of Global Warming, even though it's cold and wet, these are the conditions that can lead, in due time -- and not a long time, either -- to an Ice Age. It was recognized back in the 1950's that Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere depend on warmer ocean temperatures in the Arctic which were thought to be due to changing Gulf Stream flows.

The illustration below, taken from American Heritage magazine, April 1960, explains how Maurice Ewing and William Donn thought it worked back in the day. In other words, "warming" leads to ice.



What fun.

Raccoon At the Window

I was sitting in the living room yesterday surfing the internets, reading about the latest political OUTRAGE!!!™ when I heard a slight scritching behind me in the dining room. The window was open for air, but the screen was closed. It sounded something like a paper moving or what the fan in that room sometimes sounds like when it swings back and forth, but the fan wasn't on. It's been very cool and wet in Northern California lately.

I looked behind me but didn't see anything in the room or at the window and so I went on with my internet business, and I heard the scritching again. I looked again, and there was nothing there again. I thought maybe it might be a cat, but the cats were outside and the only one who scritches at the window would be very obvious. He's a back and white Maine Coon Cat and enormous.

I went back to the internets, and I heard the scritching again, this time somewhat more insistently.

I looked, and there was a huge raccoon at the window, trying to maneuver the screen open so it could come in. Oh. My. Goodness. It was an older, large, white-ear-tipped raccoon, and it seemed really intent on getting in.

I went outside, and it came to greet me. It seemed very friendly, but quite nervous. There had been a number of people across the street much of the previous couple of hours cutting down a tree, and for a moment, I wondered if the raccoon had been sleeping in that tree. I gave it some dry cat food, which it seemed to appreciate.

But as raccoons will, it became quite sleepy after eating most of the food, and after washing its hands (they have hands) in the water dish, it fell asleep under the van. A cat came to look, shrugged, went on his way.

I went back in the house, and when I checked later, there was no raccoon. Must have gone off somewhere that raccoons go in the daytime.

We've seen quite a few raccoons around here. I counted eight of them one night, most of them quite young. But we've never seen one in the daytime.

Huh. Raccoon at the window.

The picture up top is of a whole lot of raccoons meeting the 18 46th Av/Stonestown bus in San Francisco. They have places to go, yes? Shopping to do.

The video below is of some of the nighttime raccoons here chomping away.

Oh the Sturm! Oh the Drang!

Weiner is GUILTY!!!!! He admits it!!! The World has come to an End!!!! The Man in the Chair was Right!!!! JUDGEMENT DAY HAS COME!!! He apologized to.... Breitbart!!!! Rend my garments, cover me with ashes! The World has Ended!!!

Jeebus Christmas dancing on a tasty Ritz cracker.

The caterwauling over Mister Weiner's weiner is now beyond the epic proportions once reserved for the Arch Cad Bill Clinton. Of course, it is widely pointed out in the sex-obsessed media (do they ever get laid?) that Weiner is a Clintonista, and so is his long-suffering wife!!!!

Which obviously proves everything. No progressive can ever trust Weiner again. HE. LIED. TO. ME!!!! About his wang!!! AAAAAAAhhhhhhh!

Of course, more importantly, Jon Stewart must have lied to his far more immense audience abut the... ahem... size (not that it matters) of the wang in question. Given that Jon Stewart has a bigger audience than all of Fox News, his lies obviously must mean something.

Look, penne pics are not at all rare in our modern world, certainly not rare on the Intertubez. They -- and cats -- are sort of what the Intertubez were made for. If anyone has a real problem with either Weiner's wang or the fact that he wasn't fully and completely honest about it and the picture of it (nor was his friend Mr. Stewart) and the women he's dated or had online "relationships" with, and whatever else of a personal and/or private nature about his current and past life they want to delve into, I think they really need to figure out how to get a life of their own.

Living vicariously through images of celebrities -- even political celebrities like Anthony Weiner -- is one of the worst habits Americans have had for a very long time. Whatever image of Weiner's sexual purity that "progressives" must have been carrying for them now to keen so loudly and incessantly over his betrayal is just insane.

As Stephen Colbert would say: "Nation. Get over it."

Bummer -- Ian Welsh Envisions the Permanent Depression

Ian Welsh predicts we're headed into a more or less permanent economic depression due to an unshakable addiction to fossil fuel and a refusal of the political class to face up to the reality of the situation.

"Baked into the cake" as he says.

Ian Welsh has been one of my favo(u)rite bloggers for quite a long time. His often sour Canuk insight into things going wrong is typically spot on. And I'll grant that the ingredients of the cake he's talking about -- that is to say governments' response to the financial unpleasantness of the last few years -- were spoiled and inadequate before the cake was made, but I'm not so sure he has it right otherwise.

The deal is that the economy that crashed was, much like the post-WWI economy, a "bubble economy." In other words, its promise and progress weren't "real." Some of us saw very well how frail its underpinnings were, and some of us did our best to sidestep the Juggernaut, just stay out of the way. Of course some of those who did are prancing around now in a kind of triumphalist stupor, but Ian is not one of them.

He saw how bad things were likely to get and why: unfettered greed, craven indifference, stupid and passive publics, governing incompetence and complicity. Well, at least in North America.

What I've called the Endless Recession, he suggests is going to be a very long Depression, far outlasting the Great Depression of the 1930's. Could be.

It’s gonna be a long 20 to 30 years folks. Does this have to be the future? In theory, no. In practice, well, yes, apparently it does.

On the other hand, I see what's going on from a somewhat different perspective. It's been obvious to me from the beginning of the Crash way back when -- and the collapse really began in 2007 -- that this situation would become the catalyst, whether intentional or not, for a major economic restructuring in the "Developed World."

The problem of bubble economics is only part of what's been going haywire in the United States for a good long time. As has been often repeated, bubble economies are not sustainable, yet once on a bubble track, it's very hard to get off it. When the only way -- or the "best" way -- to make money is the way it's been done in this country for many a long year, by inflating and deflating bubbles over and over again, you're on a collision course with catastrophe, guaranteed.

It's happened frequently in Western history, and the constant inflation and deflation of economic bubbles in Europe was a big spur to colonization and settlement in North America. People wanted to get away from what was going on back in the Old Country. To some extent, European imperialism of the 18th and 19th Centuries can be attributed to the exhaustion of bubble economies within Europe itself (and a case can be made that the bubbles themselves were partly spurred by the seizure of immense quantities of gold and other valuables from the Natives of the Americas and their wide distribution through Europe from Spain and Portugal.)

Now we're talking about never re-inflating a bubble economy again. That's an interesting concept, and it is not necessarily a depressing one. If bubble economies are unsustainable, as they are, and they have a tendency to spur -- maybe even require -- Imperialist expansion to avoid the Ultimate Economic Collapse or what seers consider the Ultimate Collapse, maybe it's a good thing, not a bad thing, to just get off the bubble economy treadmill altogether.

The Developed World has reached the point where it cannot -- apparently -- sustain itself without seizing the assets and potentially the territories of others. That's primarily what the current Imperial Project is all about. The Arabs have been designated as the "Indians" to be crushed, exterminated and stolen from, much as the United States developed its domestic empire by exterminating the Natives and stealing their land (and much else.)

Oil is the lubrication for all this, control of oil is the reason for it, and an unsustainable fossil-fueled global economy is the consequence. Domestic and overseas populations are forced to pay for Imperial Projects through seizures of their assets. But it can only go so far, and in the end various Imperial Projects collide with unfortunate results.

"Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Sure, sure. But the repetition is never quite the same each time out, and if we are going through yet another bubble-collapse-Imperial-Overreach-let's-not-do-this-again phase, it is not without learning some of the lessons of the past.

What Ian sees as an Enduring Depression may well be something else, and it may well be directable toward positive rather than negative ends. Figuring out how that might be done is the challenge...

Oou, I Like It Like That

The stories that are emerging from the Dance Party @ TJ's Event yesterday are kind of thrilling in a certain "You're not the boss of me!" way. Of course, it's only meaningful in the context of a Police State® running rampant, and what has been happening at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial -- dancing, fack! -- is about as minor an act of Civil Disobedience as can be imagined.

But the point is to get to Critical Mass. Everyone who actually practices in the field understands that. No individual act by itself in isolation IS that Critical Mass (as even Rosa Parks knew full well) but the cumulative effect of them over time, and the ability of these acts to spontaneously (well...) generate more, to act as a catalyst in other words, is the thing.

How can Forbidden Dancing ("El baile prohibido?") be that kind of catalyst? Is it even, reasonably speaking, civil disobedience?

Sure it is.

And despite his professed Libertarianism, apparently Adam's Actions at the TJ are Marxist no less! Well, after all, he's a featured installation artist at Russia Today, the notorious Soviet Commonist Television Station which hardly any Americans have access to.

I love it.

A performance artist. A provocateur. A rabble rouser. That's Adam and his buddy Medea.

Yes.

What they do does not necessarily directly lead to positive change any more than what Cindy Sheehan did directly led to the collapse of American support for continued war in Iraq and the other Imperial provinces and satrapies. What they do brings attention to a problem that needs to be addressed. In the case of the TJ Dance Parties, the problem is the overwhelming stupidity and brutality of the Authoritarian State we've been living under for some time.

When attention is brought to the problem, something can then be done. Without public attention, through the media and elsewhere, if something gets done about a problem, it is generally through backchannels, and ordinarily not in the Public Interest.

In that regard, it is interesting that when millions of people marched and carried signs -- repeatedly -- around the world in protest of the invasion of Iraq, it had no effect whatever on the actions of the High and the Mighty, whereas one woman -- and a few sweaty friends -- sitting by the roadside beyond the gates of Bush's "ranch" in Texas seemed to shake the Powerful to the core, no matter how much they mocked and disparaged her and her actions. They could ignore the millions but were caught short by one.

So it may be with the Dance Party Movement.

Oh yes, much more is planned, and the Fourth of July has been designated as Nationwide Dance Party Day. Protesting everything that the State has been doing to Stifle the People.

Long row to hoe, eh?

But you can't get to the end without taking that first step....



----------------------

Just as a style note, these people need some serious Latin Dance lessons. Pots and pans are good for rhythm, too. Also, they need to learn to get the chants right, id est: Individual: "Show me what Democracy looks like!" Group: "This is what Democracy looks like!" Of course, good luck with that with a bunch of Libertarians ("There is no 'we', this is a spontaneous collection of 'I's'". Groupthink is the Problem, not the Answer.") But give them time...☺

Without Further Comment

The Dance

Above is the image on Adam Kokesh's teeshirt when he was arrested at the Jefferson Memorial last week for "dancing." It is of course an image of Gandhi, a name bloggers have a long-time tendency to misspell -- not that I'm such a great speller myself these days -- and along with the misspelling, there may some misinterpretation of the Gandhian quest and message.

Well, of course the notion of disobedience of the tyrannical and the unjust is fundamental not only to the efforts in Mother India to dispense once and for all with British rule, but everywhere else in the world where oppression and tyranny and injustice prevail.

Disobedience of Authority is hardwired in some of us, as is... submission.

It is my understanding that the Dance Party at the Jefferson is to resume today at Noon time. I'm sure the Authorities will have prepared for the Disturbance, as the continued disobedience represented by dancing at the Memorial has been well advertised since the arrests last week. So the Park Police will probably shut the Memorial down, forbid access to anyone, and threaten to beat the shit out of anyone who tries to storm the barricades and dance beneath the statue of the Author of the Declaration of Independence.

The only question is whether a prohibition on "dancing" at the Jefferson meets the standard of tyranny and oppression and injustice, and whether the brutal crackdown by Authority on the "dancers" was warranted.

The matter is disputed.

Get Down Tonight



------------

UPDATE: As I expected, the Memorial was shut down after the Dance Party @ TJ's had been going for a half-hour or so. The SWAT team, of course, was called upon to maintain "order," but there were no arrests.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/04/jefferson-memorial-closed-by-police-over-free-speech-dance-party/

I love the note that supporters of Republican presidential candidates Ron Paul and Gary Johnson were part of the festivities. Libertarian darlings all.

Here's my question: why do so-called Libertarian candidates run as Republicans? Just wondering.

One's Bliss

Isn't it funny that for many people, the concept of "bliss" is an empty green field where one is all alone, untroubled by any human or natural intrusion, often with visions of nearby alternate worlds one can easily escape to, at least in imagination if not in fact.

This is almost the Ur-Vision of "bliss" among Euro-Americans, and it underlies the constant impulse to spread "West" to new uncharted and supposedly uninhabited and unclaimed territory. And yet, the American Prairie -- which by all accounts was the realization of this vision of "bliss" -- literally terrified most of those Euro-Ams who encountered it in the early days.

It was what they thought they wanted, and it absolutely wasn't what they really wanted, not even on a bet.

Yet they kept heading out West, through thick and thin, no matter what, no matter how much they loathed their destinations, all to grab this piece of earthly Heaven -- before someone else did.

This Westering Urge -- toward some vision of Bliss -- was a constant driving force in Euro-American life from the beginning of European settlement in this vast and gorgeous land. The pretense that it was unoccupied and unclaimed was often made real by genocidal attacks on the Native Peoples and headlong slaughter of the animals that did occupy and claim it. This tactic proved highly successful, if somewhat morally suspect, in clearing the land for... "white"... settlement and future Progress and Prosperity. Only "whites" were thought to be capable of those things, and eventually it boiled down to a fine point: only Anglo-Saxon Whites, the pinnacle of Creation, were truly blessed with the wisdom and foresight that made Progress and Prosperity possible for anyone at all. The world was not just their oyster, it was their right and their bounden duty to claim and rule it in its entirety.

Bliss -- for a certain minority of a minority of a minority of Euro-Peoples.

Exterminate, liquidate, or confine the Natives, steal their stuff and claim their lands, call it Progress... and move on to the next conquest. Again and again, endlessly. For if this process ever came to an end the world might collapse in on itself, and that would be the End of Everything.

And as we know, the End of Everything is the opposite of Bliss. At least it is for those whose Bliss is found in the conquest and occupation -- alone -- of Other People's Places.

The wonder of it is that there is no one else -- at all -- in this Blissful World of the Individual Conqueror. An intruder in the scene above would simply ruin the Moment. Even a Beautiful Intruder. For the point of this kind of Bliss is to be absolutely alone -- King of All, King of None. In a world that never was and never will be.

Magicland.

If it hadn't been for the existence of all that Empty Land west of the Alleghenies and Appalachians (either already Empty or soon to be made Empty), I do believe Americans would have gone absolutely mad and exterminated one another well before the time of the Civil War in which so many "progressive and prosperous" Anglo-Saxons perished in the quest to end or preserve the peculiar institution of chattel slavery. Among other things.

We like to pretend that American History isn't what it is, but it is what it is, and still the Bliss of so many Americans, especially of "Anglo-Saxon" descent, is the vision above, an Empty and Green Paradise, for oneself alone.

We need a Better Vision.

Whatever Shall We Do?

What'll I do with just a photograph
To tell my troubles to?

When I'm alone
With only dreams of you
That won't come true
What'll I do?

Yes. Well. It is a Problem, isn't it?

Dreams that won't come true, indeed. That is the situation for endless millions of Americans, more and more of them every day, and Our Government, when it isn't actively colluding with its Sponsors to make it so, is doing nothing to prevent it or to address the deteriorating moral, physical, and spiritual condition of the People.

What'll we do?

Whatever shall we do?



Look, we've watched our nation's physical plant, its infrastructure and public services deteriorate for the last 30 years and more, as the Doctrines of Reaganism and Privatization have been sold and resold like phony gold coins to the Rubes. Americans have been subjected to a grand con all these years, the origins of which date to the origins of the country, a confidence game that has produced some wonderful things and some terrible things on the world stage, but which is now producing nothing but visions of worsening and perpetual misery for more and more Americans, and unfortunately much of mankind.

It doesn't have to be this way.

It never had to be this way. That we let it be this way is part of our cross to bear as a People, but though we are burdened, we do not have to put up with the additional crap our rulers have decided it is in their interests to further burden us with. They simply do not believe in the public interest. They do not believe in "we" if you will. Only "I", and only "I" as it pertains to themselves.

As I've watched the Ryan Budget Matter unfold, it is quite striking to notice how completely the interests of the People, the public interest, is ignored, by all the many yabberers on the the question of "What'll we do with Medicare?" (Which could be any number of other "Whatever Shall We Do?" questions I've brought up here).

There IS no Public Interest in their minds (if they have minds). Thus the idea that Medicare -- or what it represents -- is vital to the Nation and its People's well-being is completely ignored. The only things that reach that level of conscience and consciousness among the Palace political class and its many media courtiers is "National Security" and "The Deficit."

That's it. There is nothing else as far as they are concerned. We are seeing the same phenomenon operating throughout the Western/Imperialist World, as rights, privileges, the economic futures and benefits are taken away one by one and in batches by an absolutely driven political class -- often nominally Socialist -- that seems to be in complete and utter thrall to the global financiers.

The Banksters as it were.

The test model of this destructive program was run in California and the West back in the Pre-9/11 Era with the Enron/Energy scam that looted the entire then $9 billion surplus from the State treasury and then some more -- extortion which is still being paid by Californians and Westerners.

Those who were doing it were laughing at the Rubes, and those who tried to do something about it, like Gray Davis, were unceremoniously dismissed from office, or they were prevented from gaining office (see Gore, Al) through some of the most appalling dirty tricks and outright corruption ever witnessed in this country. And that's saying something!

It worked so darned well in California, why not try it on the National scale, and so it would be, with the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court to install George W Bush on the Throne and the bloodthirsty Busheviks, Cheneyites and their Sponsoring looters, plunderers and murderers to run absolutely rampant and wild.

That's how we got to today.

And in today's world, those who would grab, take, steal whatever is left to the miserable masses don't even bother to hide their intent any more, they hardly bother with their standard lies and subterfuge. It's right out in the open: they're gonna steal whatever they want from you because you aren't gonna do a damned thing about it. They have proved to themselves over and over again that you -- ie: We the People -- are powerless in the face of their Magnificence and Glory.

Yield or perish.

The way our Governing Class behave, they are absolutely convinced that is the way things are, the way they will always be, world without end (please.)

What'll we do?

Most people, it seems, have either hunkered down or given up without a fight, and that's kind of how it goes when these situations arise. It is human nature to yield to one's "betters." Or at least to ones that are apparently more powerful in the material world.

We know now how Germans so easily fell under the Nazi thrall. We're feeling some of that same thrall fall upon us. And we know how that little experiment in unpleasantness ended. No, it wasn't pretty.

But there was another 20th Century example of the People coming under sway of the Powerful -- perhaps against their will; there was a Civil War before the installation of the New Regime was consolidated -- in the Soviet Union. Its offspring is now operating -- spectacularly -- in China.

The Soviet Union collapsed in due time. How it happened is still mostly a mystery to Americans -- who were never allowed to understand the operating principles of a Communist (even if only ostensibly Communist) state. But there is no such state any more, gone as if it never was, and the rump state of the Russian Federation that has filled the vacuum of Power is hardly a match for What Used To Be.

No, China is the Model of the Future. Or maybe it's India. Experts disagree. But is that the Future we want? Is it even the Future the Chinese want?

If that is the Future, then many, many Americans will at least try to opt out. The United States will become a backwater of sorts, possibly still a refuge, but from the New Modern World, rather than leading it. But that's far down the road. We are nowhere near there yet.

I've tried to point up the fact that things have been worse than they are now, far worse, for many Americans. American passivity in the face of the Barbarians at the Gates may in part be due to that instinctive knowledge. Things are nowhere near as bad -- for most Americans -- as they once were, at least not in a material sense, and certainly not in the sense of "liberty."

Our Rulers know this too, and as they ratchet both the liberties and the material well-being of the masses, for the most part, they try to maintain a constant pressure toward reversal rather than attempting to push the masses into penury and servitude all at once. They sometimes push harder than at other times, witness Walker and other Republican Governors literally trying to delete the last 50 years of labor history and worse. Or that little punk Ryan in the House pushing passage of the renunciation of 50 years of the social contract.

These are overreaches, to be sure, but despite all the OUTRAGE!!!!™ they've inspired, it passes in due time -- which is what they are counting on -- all or most of what they want is enacted, and the People become accustomed to The New Normal.

That's the way it goes, no matter which way the political pendulum swings.

That's how the criminally high unemployment rate has been maintained for years now without more than a modest outcry from the People. How the numerous Wars keep going. How the Rich continue to hoover up every last dime still circulating in the more or less permanently collapsed consumer economy. People get used to it.

So whatever shall we do?

To an extent, the answer is plain: Nothing. Neither fight nor acquiesce.

And yet still we must:



This gets into realms I will try to explore more deeply in other posts, because this concept of "Nothing" in the material world is a spiritual one; it doesn't really make sense from a material perspective, and yet it is very real. Clearly the notion of giving up on what doesn't work has a resonance in the contemporary era, and by setting aside those actions and reactions that have no useful function any more, or by keeping ones that actually poison oneself or others at bay, we find a peace and a sense of liberation we may never have recognized before.

Demanding Better! is not just a material assertion, either. One demands better of oneself to start with, even as one may give up striving and desire.

So. Those Dreams may never come true, certainly much of what we once thought the Future would be will never happen for most of us. On the other hand, when you're open to what can be, much of what you were fighting against doesn't matter so much any more...

To be further explored later....

Whatever Shall We Do About Civil Liberties?

The latest Civil Liberties OUTRAGE!!!!™ is the Memorial Day Weekend Incident at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC, in which a number of activists, including Medea Benjamin and Adam Kokesh were violently assaulted and arrested (literally, "put down") by DC Park Police for -- get this -- "dancing."

There are many videos of the incident, but Adam's posted version seems to be getting the widest currency:



What utter Police State® crap. This is not America!!! Except it is. We know it is. And we don't know what to do about it.

Civil Liberties are being extinguished in this country right along with the Republic itself, and while there may be some alarm from time to time at what is happening, most people seem to understand that it has been worse, far worse, in the past.

The Liberationism that came to fruition beginning in the 1960's was an anomaly. In fact, the history of the nation is one of constant oppression and repression -- when it hasn't involved genocide and conquest. Civil Liberties have historically been more theoretical than real, at least for vast swaths of the People, and even if we don't know the History, I think Americans know in their DNA that in many ways there is more Liberty now for more Americans than there has been at pretty much any time in the past.

It sure doesn't seem like it, though, when we witness scenes like the one in the video above. That kind of official violence against non-resisting or mildly-resisting citizens is far more common than we'd like to believe. Certainly the people involved, Medea Benjamin and Adam Kokesh among others, are well aware of just how routinely violent American Authorities can be and often are.

What is their Problem, for cripes-sake? Authority seems to be terrified that unless they treat the public with such contempt and violence they won't be in control and and won't be "respected". Certainly this kind of violence toward citizens (and much worse than this) is more and more routine, enabled, even encouraged by officials terrified that some how their safety and security will be compromised if the Police aren't brutal enough often enough.

Certainly any American of not-so-white a hue can testify that this sort of police behavior has been employed relentlessly against People of Color since before the Founding of the Republic and it is still going on, day in and day out, in many marginal -- and some not so marginal -- communities.

Nevertheless, to see this kind of Police State® behavior at the Memorial to the author of the Declaration of Independence, over something as trivial as flash-mob dancing, is shocking and more than a little absurd.

The natural response of any sentient being is "WTF!?"

Yeah, well. Note, however, the sheep-like response of the civilians in the Memorial when this aktion went down, not intervening, not even saying "Stop!" but simply watching the show -- and some recording it -- as if it were some kind of performance art or entertainment. And when they are told to leave, they do.

With nary a word. Not even a "Baaaaah." (At least in the airport security lines, I've occasionally heard the patrons delicately "Moo" as they are herded along.)

What do you do under the circumstances? Of course, what Adam and Medea and others are trying to do with "installations" like this is to raise the consciousness of a somnolent Public to the real brutality and threats to the simplest Civil Liberties the People are under from a Government and its Stormtroopers who are out of control.

But I look at this incident and know that the People have seen these sorts of aktions by the Polizei over and over again and their response is either a blank stare or even approval of the police action against unlawful citizen activity.

One wonders if there is any "consciousness" to raise among such dullards, but one shouldn't fall into the trap of blaming the victims for their own plight. It is too easy to say they are too stupid to live and write them and their fate off to their own fault.

What Medea and Adam are doing is actually what has to be done, persistently and relentlessly, to trigger those consciences that can be -- and will be -- triggered when the out of control Authority is confronted again and again with scenes of such simplicity and absence of threat.

It's a simple statement -- over and over again -- that this kind of Authoritarian bullshit is WRONG. You can't just say it, you have to show it. Over and over and over again.

And the message clicks.

Apparently this incident was triggered by a judge declaring that "dancing" at the Jefferson Memorial (or "public facilities") in DC was illegal. So, Civil Liberties Activists decided to challenge Authority on the matter and this is what happened. It wasn't exactly the Incident at the Edmund Pettis Pettus Bridge, but still.

The way to deal with these Civil Liberties breaches is to demonstrate the insanity of Authority, just as these people -- and so many others -- have done throughout our history.

Authority will be shamed and Authority will yield. Though it may seem to take forever. And ever. And ever.

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UPDATE: The Jefferson Memorial Dance Party will continue next Saturday at Noon. All you DC denizens, be there!

Police State USA: Adam Kokesh: 'Dance party next Saturday at Jefferson Memorial!' - May 29, 2011 Vidéo mirrorthis2010 sélectionnée dans Actualité

BTW, wat.tv where this is from is a ton of fun. Check it out sometime. Oh, those Yurpeens.