Isaac shared this with me so I am passing it on.
---
[by Alan Sears, reposted for 40th Anniversary of Stonewall]
THE QUEER MOVEMENT has made impressive gains in the thirty-one years since the Gay Liberation Front emerged out of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. It is now possible for many lesbians and gay men to live relatively open lives in fairly supportive environments with access to real community resources.
Yet many others have benefited little from these gains. There has been little change in the lives of the most vulnerable queers, including transgendered people, queers living in poverty, people of color, people living in the closet and many women.
Before the Stonewall riots, queers were largely culturally invisible except for negative stereotypes. A predatory gay man or lesbian was sometimes depicted in a movie, play or novel, but they were usually killed off by the end of the story. Now shows like "Will and Grace" are prime time hits on conservative American networks.
Magazines, books, movies and plays have lots of queer characters, ranging from lesbian heroes in detective novels to the closeted high school teachers. It is a real gain to have some point of reference in popular culture, even if these are often chaste images of white middle-class gay men or lesbians.
In Canada, queers have made significant gains in the areas of human rights protection and workplace benefits. The Federal government and every Canadian province now include non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in their human rights codes. Many unions, particularly in the public sector, have bargained for non-discrimination clauses in collective agreements and full benefits for same sex-partners.
Indeed, from the perspective of Canada or much of Western Europe, the United States is an exceptional backwater in its denial of human rights. This is particularly surprising when you remember that the contemporary lesbian/gay liberation movement first emerged in the United States.
Yet these gains should not make us smug. The state continues to coercively police sexuality. Male Toronto police officers recently raided a women"s night at a Toronto bathhouse, using liquor license standards as an excuse to harass and terrorize.
Extensive spying and entrapment operations in parks and washrooms across North America continue to turn up vulnerable, closeted men who are often exposed to the glare of destructive publicity. High school is still a hotbed of harassment and violence against young people who are labeled "queer."
Indeed, the threat of heterosexist violence and harassment is pervasive. The horrifying incidents that come to public attention, such as the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, are just the tip of the iceberg. The threat of violence hangs over even the most open queers, who often do complex calculations of the risk of exposure in specific settings.
The danger of violence increases dramatically the farther one strays from the gender-normative gay male and lesbian images that have entered public consciousness. Transgendered people, people of color and queers on the street are openly targeted for harassment and everyday violence, including ongoing abuse at the hands of police.
Victories in Lean Times
This is a situation in which real and important gains for some gay men and lesbians have to be understood in the context of the many queers who have won little or nothing. Further, the most important of these victories have been won in the last 20 years, a period marked by a sharp shift to the right. The overall political climate has been marked by poor-bashing, anti-affirmative action measures, immigrant-bashing, the rise of the right, the decline of the left and a generally defensive stance on the part of the labor movement.
Those gains that were won have come for two reasons. First, they came through struggle: Queers have mobilized again and again, taking to the streets to protest against state violence, queer-bashing, inaction around AIDS and the denial of our human rights. In doing so, we have changed the world and, perhaps more importantly, changed ourselves into activists. None of these gains would be here today if it was not for this gutsy activism.
Queers are not the only people, however, who mobilized in the face of this right-wing offensive. Anti-poverty groups, immigrants rights organizers, anti-racist activists, feminists and labor movements activists have fought back hard. We need to probe a bit farther, then, to understand the changes in capitalist society that have created certain spaces for the consolidation of lesbian and gay identities in a generally hostile climate.
Capitalism and Sexuality
The word "homosexual" first emerged in the 1860s. A new word was required to explain a relatively new phenomenon. Of course, there was nothing new about women having sex with women or men with men. The new aspect that this new word "homosexual" tried to capture was the emergence of a same-sex orientation as a full-time sexual identity.
This shift was a product of specifically capitalist social relations. The separation of home from paid employment in capitalist societies provided the ground for the emergence of the homosexual.
In pre-capitalist societies, individuals would produce (expend energy to transform nature to meet their wants and needs) and reproduce (restore energy and raise the next generation) with the same people. People would hunt, gather, harvest, eat, play, raise children and have sex in the same kinship-organized community.
In capitalist societies, production is separated from reproduction and paid employment is removed from home. This opens up new spaces, as our access to the key productive resources in society no longer depends directly on our location within kinship structures. At some level, the employer in a capitalist society does not have to care about what employees do on their own time, as long as they show up ready to work.
Capitalism both opened up new possibilities for the exploration of sexuality and eroded family structures through long hours of work and inadequate pay. In the later 1800s and early 1900s, state policymakers and moral reformers began to worry that the working class was going through a process of "moral degeneration."
In many households, men, women and children were all employed for pay outside the home. Overcrowded housing units meant that children were exposed to sex and that boys and girls lived in close proximity. Non-marital heterosexual relations and homosexuality seemed to be thriving in the streets and the bars. State policy-makers saw moral reform in part as an antidote to working class militancy.
A revived working class family was seen as a potential pillar of stability as well as an ongoing source of new workers. The state developed a range of new forms of moral regulation to shape the working-class family in the period 1880-1920 in Canada, Britain and the United States. Male homosexuality was outlawed. (Women were omitted from this legislation in Britain, as sexist law-makers could not even imagine that women had a sexuality independent from men.)
The new gender order was reinforced by activities, such as segregated home economics classes for girls and shop classes for boys in schools. The unpaid labor of women in the household was subjected to new forms of scrutiny, as public health nurses would suddenly show up on the doorstep to inspect and instruct.
Moral Deregulation and Queer Capitalism
The regime of moral regulation that emerged in the early 20th century was incorporated into the welfare state structures that emerged after World War II It remained largely intact until the 1960s. The past thirty-five years have seen a partial moral deregulation, in the face of changes in capitalist society and the emergence of militant lesbian/gay and women's movements.
Capitalism, then, both opened up new spaces for the development of sexuality and shut them down with a regime of moral regulation. In the recent past, this regime of moral regulation has undergone important changes.
There has been a partial moral deregulation as rules have been relaxed in certain areas of life. Yet at the same time, new forms of moral policing have been introduced, for example in the harassment of people receiving welfare benefits and homeless people.
Moral deregulation has been closely related to the deeper penetration of commodification (the production of goods specifically for the market) into our everyday lives. In North America, bread once baked in the home is now mainly purchased on the market. Birthday parties are increasingly organized at commercial venues like fast food restaurants.
The market is fundamentally amoral. It is about making a buck. The old regime of moral regulation was actually a barrier to making a buck in certain ways. For example, restrictions on gambling kept that ultra-high profit industry on the margins of North American life.
The shift to the right in the last twenty years has included a fair amount of deregulation as barriers to market expansion at any cost have been removed. Transportation industries, for example, have been deregulated in such a way as to decrease safety inspections, health and safety protection and limits on competition. There have also been elements of moral deregulation. Casinos now compete to suck money out of the pockets of working class people in Windsor and Detroit.
This moral deregulation has largely followed market forces and has therefore included elements of sexual liberalization. Commodification is strongly associated with sexualization as advertising endeavors to charge everyday objects with desire. Overly strict sexual regulation is an obstacle to this process of sexualization.
The deregulation of sexuality is in some ways parallel to the legalization of gambling. The state has reoriented activities that stood in the way of profit-making. The market-viable aspects of lesbian and gay existence have therefore gained some space.
Indeed, the whole idea of "gay community" is generally associated with commercialized spaces such as bars, publications, stores, heavily sponsored pride marches and queer personal style as expressed in clothes and haircuts. The last twenty years have seen many non-profit gay community publications and spaces shut down in the face of commercialized competition.
This commercialized gay lifestyle is not equally accessible to all. These spaces tend to be oriented towards men rather than women, in part because men generally have greater buying power. People with lower incomes have very limited access to these spaces, which generally run on the principle of pay to play.
People of color generally don't fit the "image" generated by the commercialized queer culture industries and face racism in queer communities. Transgendered people are often excluded by the gender-normative orientation of these spaces.
Indeed, gay men have been pioneers in the development of a new market-oriented masculinity that is spreading to heterosexual men. Hey, it's okay to care about your appearance, guys—you can be manly and shop all at the same time.
The rise of a commercialized gay lifestyle has been associated with a political shift away from radical liberationist politics within queer movements. The radical lesbian and gay liberation movements that emerged in the 1970s after the Stonewall riots had a set of politics that marked a serious departure from earlier queer organizing. The focus was on militant activism to confront power rather than trying to earn favor with the powerful; visibility rather than respectability; and opposition to the compulsory family system rather than assimilation into it, seeking an end to the official state monopoly on defining acceptable relationships.
These liberationist politics have gone in and out of favor in the thirty-one years since Stonewall. By the 1980s, a more moderate reform orientation dominated the movement. This reform-oriented movement favored lobbying to get inside power rather than militant activism, respectability more than visibility and assimilation into the family system rather than opposition to it.
Liberationist politics were revived by a wave of militant AIDS activism beginning in 1987. AIDS had a devastating effect on queer communities. The official response to this crisis by governments and the media was absolute silence except for the occasional derogatory reference.
Queer communities organized a whole range of AIDS services and preventive interventions. The anger around AIDS also relaunched militant liberationist politics, around such organizations as ACT UP, AIDS Action Now, Queer Nation and the Lesbian Avengers.
Queer Capitalism, Class and Liberation
The 1990s saw the consolidation of commercialized queer capitalism. An elite layer of professional queers (including businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, journalists and professors) as the spokespersons for queer communities. In the absence of radical liberationist movements, this professional class often defines lesbian and gay communities and politics.
This group tends to favor court challenges rather than mobilization and commercial festivals (like Pride Day Parades) rather than protests. Given the specific location of queer communities within many North American cities, this queer professional class has often been a leading advocate of gentrification and the coercive policing of the homeless.
The emergence of queer capitalism makes it particularly important to understand the relations between class politics and queer liberation. The business and professional types who often speak for queer communities do not necessarily consider the interests of more vulnerable queers. We are living in an era in which social polarization is increasing, so the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer—a polarization reflected in queer communities, where some are benefiting from contemporary social changes and others are suffering.
The specific character of class relations within queer communities requires more attention than I can give it here, for example looking at the relations between the queer service working class (in bars, stores and services) and their (sometimes) queer employers, work relations within the sex trades, and the specific experiences queers have had with welfare systems and homelessness.
The class-divided character of queer communities is also a reminder about strategies for organizing and building alliances. A strong labor movement can help drive queer rights forward. The contemporary lesbian/gay movement emerged first in the United States, and the infrastructure of organization there is very well developed; yet compared to Canada, lesbians and gay men in the United States have gained relatively little in the way of official rights and recognition.
Canadian queers have a proportionately weaker movement, yet substantially more rights. One of the crucial reasons for this is that the more powerful labor movements in Canada (and in much of Europe) have contributed in important ways to the development of rights and recognition. In 1981, Canada's most militant union (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) was the first to win a collective agreement clause specifying non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 1985, library workers in the Canadian Union of Public Employees were the first to win full benefits for same sex partners and their dependents.
In each of these cases, queer unionists had to organize and fight to convince their sisters and brothers that queer rights was a union matter. Once one set of workers have won these rights, it is possible to spread them across the unionized population. These rights have now spread across much of the public sector in Canada; breakthroughs in the private sector have been harder to secure in the face of determined employer resistance.
Socialism and Queer Liberation
Real queer liberation is a crucial wedge in the struggle to smash the system of sex and gender repression that impoverishes all of our sexual and emotional lives. Capitalism sucks out our life energy into the effort to keep ourselves alive, either through work, on inadequate benefits or in the streets.
This system displaces our sexual and intimate energies onto commercial transactions, so we achieve gratification by shopping. It pits us against each other in cut throat competition. If socialism means anything, it must be access to the resources, knowledge and power to control our bodies and our lives. Queer liberation is not an optional add-on to Marxism, but a fundamental feature of socialist politics.
Just as queer liberation will always be partial in a unequal capitalist society, so our vision of socialism cannot be complete without an end to sex and gender oppression. Queer liberation must be part of a struggle for all-round freedom.
Alan Sears presented this paper at the August 2000 Sumer School of Solidarity. He is a member of the New Socialist Group in Canada and teaches sociology at the University of Windsor.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
What the hell kind of music?
So pretty soon I'm going to turn back on the studio, play with some new drum kits and the synths, and finish another song or two for the live set.
My problem though is I'm really unsure what kind of music needs to be written right now. How it should sound, and thematically, what it should be about.
During George Bush's reign it was so much easier. The outlook was bleak, the world was terrible, and the music they played at goth industrial nights was even worse. So something overtly full of youthfully energetic, punky, political rage and avant garde noise elements made sense.
Obama is fucking up a lot of things but still, having his face there instead of Bush's creeps me out less. At least he's an intelligent promoter of American Imperialism- rather than a total moron- and he is willing to pay lip service to the needs of ordinary people, even if he is nonetheless content to let the employee free choice act die on the senate floor. The time to abandon political struggle and musical agit-prop in some form is certainly not now.
But the future still looks a lot less bleak. Most of the people with whom apocalyptic ideas best resonate right now are right wing crazies with guns, like the guy who shot the security guard at the Holocaust museum where my brother works. That's not too cool.
Apocalypticism is ultimately a shallow, over reactive response to economic crisis. I think the fact that Swine Flue didn't destroy the world and turn people into zombies was sort of like the last gasp for the hope that the system would just sort of implode on its own.
Instead life continues. It is harder, but it keeps going. There's no president that facebook idealism will elect who will just fix everything, and the best diseases the sewers of globalized agribusiness have thus been able to come up with still aren't good enough to wipe out all forms of governmental and corporate organization on their own.
I like the long, epic, stream of consciousness stuff that Savage Ideal has done... but music needs to be more upbeat to retain an audience. And to put lyrics into it.. hmm...
Well, let's see what happens. Feel free to offer any suggestions!
My problem though is I'm really unsure what kind of music needs to be written right now. How it should sound, and thematically, what it should be about.
During George Bush's reign it was so much easier. The outlook was bleak, the world was terrible, and the music they played at goth industrial nights was even worse. So something overtly full of youthfully energetic, punky, political rage and avant garde noise elements made sense.
Obama is fucking up a lot of things but still, having his face there instead of Bush's creeps me out less. At least he's an intelligent promoter of American Imperialism- rather than a total moron- and he is willing to pay lip service to the needs of ordinary people, even if he is nonetheless content to let the employee free choice act die on the senate floor. The time to abandon political struggle and musical agit-prop in some form is certainly not now.
But the future still looks a lot less bleak. Most of the people with whom apocalyptic ideas best resonate right now are right wing crazies with guns, like the guy who shot the security guard at the Holocaust museum where my brother works. That's not too cool.
Apocalypticism is ultimately a shallow, over reactive response to economic crisis. I think the fact that Swine Flue didn't destroy the world and turn people into zombies was sort of like the last gasp for the hope that the system would just sort of implode on its own.
Instead life continues. It is harder, but it keeps going. There's no president that facebook idealism will elect who will just fix everything, and the best diseases the sewers of globalized agribusiness have thus been able to come up with still aren't good enough to wipe out all forms of governmental and corporate organization on their own.
I like the long, epic, stream of consciousness stuff that Savage Ideal has done... but music needs to be more upbeat to retain an audience. And to put lyrics into it.. hmm...
Well, let's see what happens. Feel free to offer any suggestions!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
It rained
And lightning-ed.
Got to see the clear sky transform to clouds, and thunder clouds condense and electrify the air.
Got to see the clear sky transform to clouds, and thunder clouds condense and electrify the air.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
I Quit
I quit my job due to the fact that the ownership was breaking the law by extorting tips from me and all the other waiters and bartenders. I was ripped off by that guy for 4 months. I'm not sure how much in detail I should write but I am rather angry at it.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Nice Weekend
There was Backwards Records' transistor fest, some of which was interesting (seeing Syphilis Sauna vs Black Cell was rad), but I wasn't at enough of it to do a full review.
Then it got stormy. I went to the Ace Hardware to buy a hacksaw and eat some of their free popcorn and these sirens started screaming. The clouds were very dark. Then a funnel started to appear. It grew and freaked us out but then it disappeared.
Over in Boulder the weather was nice. So I went hiking with this friend.
We could see the storm over the Indian Peaks
We found a Black Boulder Beetle
View of Boulder
I need a new day job. And I have to finish the Savage Ideal live set.
Tonight is Esper Machine. Synthpop band I did a show with once. Nice people from Missouri. At "Degenerate Mondays", at Herman's Hideaway, 1578 S Broadway 303-777-5840 www.hermanshideaway.com
I made myself look spooky
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Why I'm Against Obama's Afghanistan
By Benjamin Lewis
(A mirror from Traveling Soldier)
Marine Benjamin Lewis served two tours in Iraq and was honorably discharged in 2007. Recently, he received notification that he was a candidate to be recalled to active duty. A few weeks ago at a Winter Soldier event in Portland, Oregon, Lewis publicly announced his intention to refuse reactivation from the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Here we reprint his April 9, 2009 statement from Alternet:
I am a veteran of Iraq who served two tours in the U.S. occupation of that country. I experienced firsthand the horrors of that war, and like many others, came to see it as nothing more than a chance for a very few to make vast profits in a short amount of time. Now, because of those selfish and irresponsible actions, the citizens of not only the U.S., but of the entire world, are asked to pay for the fallout of war in blood, sacrifice and currency.
But this is old news.
Yet, even as we deplore the war in Iraq and the unconstitutional actions of the former administration, we are sucked back into the propaganda of the ‘first war,’ the ‘good war,’ as if the Bush administration was so unpatriotic that it had no interest in Afghanistan. Even as we acknowledge that Iraq is a war for oil and profit, we ignore the history of Afghanistan and the oil resources of the Caspian Sea that would be opened up through this conquest. Even as we sit on the brink of a depression we are willing to pour our money and resources into a so-called ‘ten year plan’ that will cost unknown sums of money that we will not get back. Exactly as it is happening in the Iraq war, the fruits of our labor will be siphoned off into the banks of contractors and industrialists, and for whose benefit? Certainly not ours, for we have only some false hope of revenge to attain.
If it was not evident before, it should be apparent by now that Obama is not our savior. He does not bring us hope of no war and he certainly is either not able or not willing to bring about real change. He is, above all, one thing: a politician, and as such he is bound by the rules of his trade. That is his livelihood, so his career rests not on the energized citizens who, inflated with the jingoism of his campaign, rushed to the phones and then to the ballot box in support of his campaign, but by his financial backers, who are already reaping the benefit of ‘bailouts’ and a newly resurrected war. And if anything is transparent it is that Obama’s administration plans to use the same bully tactics that the Bush administration used in order to subvert the will of the electorate and secure the interests of a very few while the rest of us struggle in a recession.
Yet he was elected on a ‘no war’ ticket and in this, if we know our history, he is no different than Woodrow Wilson who pulled America into World War I against the wishes of his constituency and later admitted that it was only for the benefit of capitalists. Obama stood shamelessly behind podiums and promised an end to the Iraq War, all the while planning to launch us into the good and just war against Afghanistan -- a nation that is really not one nation at all, but a heterogeneous population of many languages, tribes and cultures.
Even several of the Obama supporters I know cringed at his recent announcement of his ten-year plan in Afghanistan, a horrific declaration of war that boasts no objective other than training and arming a foreign military that supports the United States to protect U.S. corporate interests in Asia. Here again we see the despicable logic of building large armies in the name of peace. Perhaps more perturbing is the fact that our ‘new’ government is still insistent on abusing the rights of young men and women by duping them into military service.
As a veteran facing and refusing recall orders back into the Marine Corps, I am appalled by the notion that many support the war in Afghanistan, referring to it as the good war. As if any war is good. Still, even against their own interests, people cannot seem to see past the obvious façade that is the endless "war on terror."
Afghanistan is one of the most unstable countries in the world. Its population is diverse, its mountainous territory virtually impenetrable. The region has been sought after by outsiders for as long as there has been conquest, and not once has a force succeeded in occupying the terrain. The people of the United States look at that country as a singular entity, but in truth there are vast political differences in that region. To increase military force in Afghanistan will be as destabilizing in the region as the U.S. support for Israel has been farther west. And, as we have seen in Iraq, our enemies there will only increase.
Solutions to global problems do not reside in bombs, retribution and revenge. They grow from supporting the many peaceful causes in the region and by uprooting instead of propagating war. For our brothers and sisters in that region are people just like us. They ask for solidarity and we send in the Marines. They ask for aid and we give them conditions.
I have refused to return to military ‘service’ because doing so would be a disservice to this country. For all that money should belong to the people, and not to the military industrial complex and those it benefits. For all that money could reduce hunger and poverty and thus subvert war. Though the events of 9/11 were horrific, do we justify them by becoming terrorists ourselves? Or do we move forward, admit and amend the mistakes of our past, and set our sites on peace and prosperity for all the world?
(A mirror from Traveling Soldier)
Marine Benjamin Lewis served two tours in Iraq and was honorably discharged in 2007. Recently, he received notification that he was a candidate to be recalled to active duty. A few weeks ago at a Winter Soldier event in Portland, Oregon, Lewis publicly announced his intention to refuse reactivation from the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Here we reprint his April 9, 2009 statement from Alternet:
I am a veteran of Iraq who served two tours in the U.S. occupation of that country. I experienced firsthand the horrors of that war, and like many others, came to see it as nothing more than a chance for a very few to make vast profits in a short amount of time. Now, because of those selfish and irresponsible actions, the citizens of not only the U.S., but of the entire world, are asked to pay for the fallout of war in blood, sacrifice and currency.
But this is old news.
Yet, even as we deplore the war in Iraq and the unconstitutional actions of the former administration, we are sucked back into the propaganda of the ‘first war,’ the ‘good war,’ as if the Bush administration was so unpatriotic that it had no interest in Afghanistan. Even as we acknowledge that Iraq is a war for oil and profit, we ignore the history of Afghanistan and the oil resources of the Caspian Sea that would be opened up through this conquest. Even as we sit on the brink of a depression we are willing to pour our money and resources into a so-called ‘ten year plan’ that will cost unknown sums of money that we will not get back. Exactly as it is happening in the Iraq war, the fruits of our labor will be siphoned off into the banks of contractors and industrialists, and for whose benefit? Certainly not ours, for we have only some false hope of revenge to attain.
If it was not evident before, it should be apparent by now that Obama is not our savior. He does not bring us hope of no war and he certainly is either not able or not willing to bring about real change. He is, above all, one thing: a politician, and as such he is bound by the rules of his trade. That is his livelihood, so his career rests not on the energized citizens who, inflated with the jingoism of his campaign, rushed to the phones and then to the ballot box in support of his campaign, but by his financial backers, who are already reaping the benefit of ‘bailouts’ and a newly resurrected war. And if anything is transparent it is that Obama’s administration plans to use the same bully tactics that the Bush administration used in order to subvert the will of the electorate and secure the interests of a very few while the rest of us struggle in a recession.
Yet he was elected on a ‘no war’ ticket and in this, if we know our history, he is no different than Woodrow Wilson who pulled America into World War I against the wishes of his constituency and later admitted that it was only for the benefit of capitalists. Obama stood shamelessly behind podiums and promised an end to the Iraq War, all the while planning to launch us into the good and just war against Afghanistan -- a nation that is really not one nation at all, but a heterogeneous population of many languages, tribes and cultures.
Even several of the Obama supporters I know cringed at his recent announcement of his ten-year plan in Afghanistan, a horrific declaration of war that boasts no objective other than training and arming a foreign military that supports the United States to protect U.S. corporate interests in Asia. Here again we see the despicable logic of building large armies in the name of peace. Perhaps more perturbing is the fact that our ‘new’ government is still insistent on abusing the rights of young men and women by duping them into military service.
As a veteran facing and refusing recall orders back into the Marine Corps, I am appalled by the notion that many support the war in Afghanistan, referring to it as the good war. As if any war is good. Still, even against their own interests, people cannot seem to see past the obvious façade that is the endless "war on terror."
Afghanistan is one of the most unstable countries in the world. Its population is diverse, its mountainous territory virtually impenetrable. The region has been sought after by outsiders for as long as there has been conquest, and not once has a force succeeded in occupying the terrain. The people of the United States look at that country as a singular entity, but in truth there are vast political differences in that region. To increase military force in Afghanistan will be as destabilizing in the region as the U.S. support for Israel has been farther west. And, as we have seen in Iraq, our enemies there will only increase.
Solutions to global problems do not reside in bombs, retribution and revenge. They grow from supporting the many peaceful causes in the region and by uprooting instead of propagating war. For our brothers and sisters in that region are people just like us. They ask for solidarity and we send in the Marines. They ask for aid and we give them conditions.
I have refused to return to military ‘service’ because doing so would be a disservice to this country. For all that money should belong to the people, and not to the military industrial complex and those it benefits. For all that money could reduce hunger and poverty and thus subvert war. Though the events of 9/11 were horrific, do we justify them by becoming terrorists ourselves? Or do we move forward, admit and amend the mistakes of our past, and set our sites on peace and prosperity for all the world?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
A Neo-Nazi went to shoot people at my brother's job
My brother works at the Holocaust Museum in DC.
Yesterday someone went in there with a gun and started to shoot at people.
My brother wasn't hurt, so that is good, though I am sure he was shaken by watching a security guard get shot just a few yards away from where he was standing.
Don't just leave me comments saying "I'm sorry", or "that's too bad." I appreciate your sympathy, but there's more at stake here than what just a few families are dealing with personally. Like the murder in Kansas of abortion doctor George Tiller, this shooting as well is symptomatic of a most unhealthy political shift in our society and a political response is necessary.
---
This is a good NYT article about how that swamp of Republican Party racism, fear, paranoia, and apocalypticism has become a "mainstream", acceptable point of view. FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk, are rotting people's minds, telling them lies, and trying to direct their anger at *anyone but* the very people responsible for destroying our economy and plunging us into costly, unwinnable wars.
It's time people stand up to that crap and say "enough". FOX news is not a legitimate news source. If it is on the TV where you work, change the channel, and confront the management about why on earth they would have it set to that one. Do I think that James von Brunn saw a program on FOX that told him to go kill the Jews and because of that he did it? Of course not, that guy had been a neo-nazi for years. But I do think that the "mainstream" debates about politics have shifted decisively in favor of racial scapegoating, and in that context violent extremism is likely. If the muslims, the mexicans, and the blacks are all at fault, why not the Jews as well?
The Right is in decline, the Republican party is sliding ever further off the deep end, and Bush's imperial "crusade" is a failure. Like all spoiled children, the die-hard representatives of this party are incapable of honestly fessing up for their mistakes, taking responsibility, and trying to fix things. With their foreign and economic policies discredited it seems the few ways the right can still get people to vote for their agenda is by preying upon the basest fears and superstitions of their poorly educated constituency: racism (tacit or otherwise), islamaphobia, and an unreasoning religious fanaticism. They are conducting this propaganda in an alarmist, millenarian way that I believe encourages the desperate to react in violent, unpredictable ways.
As the more "farsighted" leaders of American Capitalism continue to desert them in favor of the Democrats, "fringe" elements within the party feel ever more embattled and desperate. Militant white supremacy, and violent anti-abortionism, are predictable products of this scenario. Is it really any surprise that some Americans, with an *official* 9% unemployment rate (much lower than the actual rate), would grow tired of their politicians' ineptitude and "take matters" into their own hands? And if they did- what other targets would they choose than the ones they've been taught for years to aim at?
I understand that not everyone who has voted Republican supports all of these values, but the people running that party to a large extent do. When John McCain campaigns to be the chief executive of the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced country on earth, and he has to kowtow to people who don't believe in evolution in order to get votes ( 1, 2), something is very wrong...
Does Fox News control the Republicans or do the Republicans control Fox News? Does it matter which?
One serves they other; and both prey upon impressionable minds. They don't say "kill the Mexicans", but their ICE raids and fence building and their Lou Dobbs and their speeches send the message that Mexicans are the problem and ought be got rid of. So when some white kids in a hick town see a Mexican immigrant, they feel it's okay to beat him to death. When the prosecutors go easy on them and the judge lets them off with a slap on the wrist, this sends another message ( 1, 2).
Fox News, various members of congress, and Rush Limbaugh all seem to agree that Obama is a secret muslim communist bent on taking away our freedoms, that impoverished mexicans are taking away our jobs, that brown skinned people in countries that we bomb and invade and turn into refugees by the millions are "the enemy", and, oh yes, that gay couples who love each other are a "threat" to your marriage (never mind divorce rates).
That last point isn't thrown in there just to be inclusive either. I think Gay Marriage bans encouraging anti-glbt violence is every bit as predictable as the "Pro-Life" movement spawning off assassinations and bombings. The difference between politicians attacking minorities with laws and bigoted individuals attacking them with rifles and fire extinguishers is one of degree- not one of principle. The latter would not exist without encouragement and nurture by the former.
I recall the Oklahoma city bombing in 1995. They at first thought Islamists did it. But nope, it was another homegrown rightwing nut job. It was the same thing with the Columbine Shootings... paranoid, alienated white people going crazy.
It is my opinion that the people who hue and cry about "gun control" laws needing to be passed, but who passively ignore and to some extent give into the various incitements to racism, misogyny, and religious fundamentalism that are broadcasted every day on the nightly news, are far more responsible for this violence than are the manufacturers of the commonly available sporting arms that a would be domestic-terrorist will take up on the day he finally snaps.
It is also ironic that my brother has for his entire adult life been a supporter of the Republican Party, Christianity, and what we might call "Southern Values". The other day I feel that he himself was almost consumed by the very hate his own party has for decades nurtured.
Which is probably the greatest irony of all... The "fundamentalists" and "terrorists" that seem to pose the greatest threat today aren't halfway around the world, but right here at home. Racial profiling and having your toothpaste confiscated at the airport won't stop them. God fearing politicians with charming Southern accents on TV have nothing to say to comfort you from them. Like every mess they get us into, when the shit hits the fan... or should i say, when the blood hits the floor, they back off and deny all responsibility.
In 2001 George Bush set out to rid the world of "terror" and unreasoning, fundamentalist orthodoxy. Today in the United States, Israel, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, there are more Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists with weapons calling for blood than there ever were before Bush was elected.
Are we winning yet?
Yesterday someone went in there with a gun and started to shoot at people.
My brother wasn't hurt, so that is good, though I am sure he was shaken by watching a security guard get shot just a few yards away from where he was standing.
Don't just leave me comments saying "I'm sorry", or "that's too bad." I appreciate your sympathy, but there's more at stake here than what just a few families are dealing with personally. Like the murder in Kansas of abortion doctor George Tiller, this shooting as well is symptomatic of a most unhealthy political shift in our society and a political response is necessary.
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This is a good NYT article about how that swamp of Republican Party racism, fear, paranoia, and apocalypticism has become a "mainstream", acceptable point of view. FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk, are rotting people's minds, telling them lies, and trying to direct their anger at *anyone but* the very people responsible for destroying our economy and plunging us into costly, unwinnable wars.
It's time people stand up to that crap and say "enough". FOX news is not a legitimate news source. If it is on the TV where you work, change the channel, and confront the management about why on earth they would have it set to that one. Do I think that James von Brunn saw a program on FOX that told him to go kill the Jews and because of that he did it? Of course not, that guy had been a neo-nazi for years. But I do think that the "mainstream" debates about politics have shifted decisively in favor of racial scapegoating, and in that context violent extremism is likely. If the muslims, the mexicans, and the blacks are all at fault, why not the Jews as well?
The Right is in decline, the Republican party is sliding ever further off the deep end, and Bush's imperial "crusade" is a failure. Like all spoiled children, the die-hard representatives of this party are incapable of honestly fessing up for their mistakes, taking responsibility, and trying to fix things. With their foreign and economic policies discredited it seems the few ways the right can still get people to vote for their agenda is by preying upon the basest fears and superstitions of their poorly educated constituency: racism (tacit or otherwise), islamaphobia, and an unreasoning religious fanaticism. They are conducting this propaganda in an alarmist, millenarian way that I believe encourages the desperate to react in violent, unpredictable ways.
As the more "farsighted" leaders of American Capitalism continue to desert them in favor of the Democrats, "fringe" elements within the party feel ever more embattled and desperate. Militant white supremacy, and violent anti-abortionism, are predictable products of this scenario. Is it really any surprise that some Americans, with an *official* 9% unemployment rate (much lower than the actual rate), would grow tired of their politicians' ineptitude and "take matters" into their own hands? And if they did- what other targets would they choose than the ones they've been taught for years to aim at?
I understand that not everyone who has voted Republican supports all of these values, but the people running that party to a large extent do. When John McCain campaigns to be the chief executive of the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced country on earth, and he has to kowtow to people who don't believe in evolution in order to get votes ( 1, 2), something is very wrong...
Does Fox News control the Republicans or do the Republicans control Fox News? Does it matter which?
One serves they other; and both prey upon impressionable minds. They don't say "kill the Mexicans", but their ICE raids and fence building and their Lou Dobbs and their speeches send the message that Mexicans are the problem and ought be got rid of. So when some white kids in a hick town see a Mexican immigrant, they feel it's okay to beat him to death. When the prosecutors go easy on them and the judge lets them off with a slap on the wrist, this sends another message ( 1, 2).
Fox News, various members of congress, and Rush Limbaugh all seem to agree that Obama is a secret muslim communist bent on taking away our freedoms, that impoverished mexicans are taking away our jobs, that brown skinned people in countries that we bomb and invade and turn into refugees by the millions are "the enemy", and, oh yes, that gay couples who love each other are a "threat" to your marriage (never mind divorce rates).
That last point isn't thrown in there just to be inclusive either. I think Gay Marriage bans encouraging anti-glbt violence is every bit as predictable as the "Pro-Life" movement spawning off assassinations and bombings. The difference between politicians attacking minorities with laws and bigoted individuals attacking them with rifles and fire extinguishers is one of degree- not one of principle. The latter would not exist without encouragement and nurture by the former.
I recall the Oklahoma city bombing in 1995. They at first thought Islamists did it. But nope, it was another homegrown rightwing nut job. It was the same thing with the Columbine Shootings... paranoid, alienated white people going crazy.
It is my opinion that the people who hue and cry about "gun control" laws needing to be passed, but who passively ignore and to some extent give into the various incitements to racism, misogyny, and religious fundamentalism that are broadcasted every day on the nightly news, are far more responsible for this violence than are the manufacturers of the commonly available sporting arms that a would be domestic-terrorist will take up on the day he finally snaps.
It is also ironic that my brother has for his entire adult life been a supporter of the Republican Party, Christianity, and what we might call "Southern Values". The other day I feel that he himself was almost consumed by the very hate his own party has for decades nurtured.
Which is probably the greatest irony of all... The "fundamentalists" and "terrorists" that seem to pose the greatest threat today aren't halfway around the world, but right here at home. Racial profiling and having your toothpaste confiscated at the airport won't stop them. God fearing politicians with charming Southern accents on TV have nothing to say to comfort you from them. Like every mess they get us into, when the shit hits the fan... or should i say, when the blood hits the floor, they back off and deny all responsibility.
In 2001 George Bush set out to rid the world of "terror" and unreasoning, fundamentalist orthodoxy. Today in the United States, Israel, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, there are more Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists with weapons calling for blood than there ever were before Bush was elected.
Are we winning yet?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Now
I will have the internet, starting friday, at home, 24/7, as a stable connection, that I am the sole user of.
So that is pretty neato. I'll probably finally get to post on here more.
In other news, the Sears Auto Center by Mesa mall is the only auto repair place open in Grand Junction on a Sunday.
And... if the car in front of you hits an elk, who gets to keep all the elk meat? It's it impolite to stop and ask if you can have some? Because I mean otherwise, that's just going to go to waste :(
So that is pretty neato. I'll probably finally get to post on here more.
In other news, the Sears Auto Center by Mesa mall is the only auto repair place open in Grand Junction on a Sunday.
And... if the car in front of you hits an elk, who gets to keep all the elk meat? It's it impolite to stop and ask if you can have some? Because I mean otherwise, that's just going to go to waste :(
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Solution
The solution to time management is to go home, sleep, wake up around midnight. Eat and sample strange library films, and then write music or words from approx 2 am - 10 am. Hey, it got me through college!
Also, these are cool facebook personality tests I took. I just pasted them into a craigslist personals ad. Let's see how well they'll work out!
Which alignment are you?" with the result Chaotic Neutral.
Chaotic neutral is called the "Anarchist" or "Free Spirit" alignment. A character of this alignment is an individualist who follows his or her own heart, shirks rules and traditions. They typically act out of self-interest, but do not specifically enjoy seeing others suffer. Many adventurers are of this alignment. An unusual subset of chaotic neutral is "strongly chaotic neutral", describing a character who behaves chaotically to the point of appearing insane. Characters of this type may regularly change their appearance and attitudes for the sake of change, and intentionally disrupt organizations for the sole reason of disrupting a lawful construct. Captain Jack Sparrow is of the Chaotic Neutral alignment..
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What's your ideal career?" with the result Creative Arts (Artist/Writer/Actor/Musician).
Congratulations! You are destined to be involved in the Creative Arts! You are a creative, vibrant and outgoing individual who would prefer being self employed rather than live your life under the shadow of a boss or employee. Sitting in a small office all day is definitely not your cup of tea either as you would rather work in an open and pro-active environment where you can sit back, relax, and let the creative juices flow....
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Which Cult Movie Character Are You? Tyler Durden
From "Fight Club." You inspire others and are often referred to as a hero. You're effortlessly stylish, unshakeably cool, and dangerously charismatic. You're a great leader and trend-setter, yet try not to piss in too many people's soup, okay?
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How Will You Face the Zombie Apocalypse? Able to survive and thrive, building a new civilization on the ashes of the old
Zombies? Just an environmental hazard, like thunderstorms or forest fires. Nothing to get all worked up over. Preparation, discipline, and ruthless pragmatism are all you need to handle zombies. You've got more important things to do, like finding survivors and building a new society.
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Which deviation are you? quiz and the result is Correct line
Armed with teachings of the classics and possessing correct assesment of objective conditions, you lead the masses in their struggle.
Also, these are cool facebook personality tests I took. I just pasted them into a craigslist personals ad. Let's see how well they'll work out!
Which alignment are you?" with the result Chaotic Neutral.
Chaotic neutral is called the "Anarchist" or "Free Spirit" alignment. A character of this alignment is an individualist who follows his or her own heart, shirks rules and traditions. They typically act out of self-interest, but do not specifically enjoy seeing others suffer. Many adventurers are of this alignment. An unusual subset of chaotic neutral is "strongly chaotic neutral", describing a character who behaves chaotically to the point of appearing insane. Characters of this type may regularly change their appearance and attitudes for the sake of change, and intentionally disrupt organizations for the sole reason of disrupting a lawful construct. Captain Jack Sparrow is of the Chaotic Neutral alignment..
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What's your ideal career?" with the result Creative Arts (Artist/Writer/Actor/Musician).
Congratulations! You are destined to be involved in the Creative Arts! You are a creative, vibrant and outgoing individual who would prefer being self employed rather than live your life under the shadow of a boss or employee. Sitting in a small office all day is definitely not your cup of tea either as you would rather work in an open and pro-active environment where you can sit back, relax, and let the creative juices flow....
---------
Which Cult Movie Character Are You? Tyler Durden
From "Fight Club." You inspire others and are often referred to as a hero. You're effortlessly stylish, unshakeably cool, and dangerously charismatic. You're a great leader and trend-setter, yet try not to piss in too many people's soup, okay?
------------
How Will You Face the Zombie Apocalypse? Able to survive and thrive, building a new civilization on the ashes of the old
Zombies? Just an environmental hazard, like thunderstorms or forest fires. Nothing to get all worked up over. Preparation, discipline, and ruthless pragmatism are all you need to handle zombies. You've got more important things to do, like finding survivors and building a new society.
--------------
Which deviation are you? quiz and the result is Correct line
Armed with teachings of the classics and possessing correct assesment of objective conditions, you lead the masses in their struggle.
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