Tag: politics

As goes the nation, goes the LA Weekly

The neocons take over in the expected putsch after the New Times bought them.

I assume the OC Weekly is on the list for the same treatment. Should be easier here, since finding someone who isn’t a right-wing loudmouth is nearly impossible.

Nothing is enough for these people. They’re not satisfied with owning the national news media outlets, the cable TV news, the newspapers, the magazines. They have to go after the free weeklies where seldom-read lefties tag along after the entertainment listings, and root that out too. It’s not like Harold Meyerson et al. were hugely influential — everyone reads a paper like that for the listings and the ads — but the Big Right-Wing Crusher Hand has to get everyone.

And now the New Times neo-con talk-radio-style tabloid monster has eaten almost all the notable free weeklies in the country.

These people want more than a voice. They want to reverse and destroy every single thing about the rebellion of the 1960s, go back and win every argument they lost about the war and Watergate and race and gender, eat and shit out every pop culture item that might contain subversion, and burn down the universities where their professors confused them with suspiciously foreign intellectualism.

Welcome to Talk Radio Nation: Boomer sell-outs, ignorant neo-cons, privileged post-literate suits, and their slaves.

Long live the LA City Beat.

Scout’s Honor

L.A. Boy Scouts new merit badge: ‘Respect Copyrights’

patchLOS ANGELES (AP) — A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, etc., etc. He is also respectful of copyrights.

Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a merit patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music.

The patch shows a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a “C” enclosed in a circle.

The movie industry has developed the curriculum.

“Working with the Boy Scouts of Los Angeles, we have a real opportunity to educate a new generation about how movies are made, why they are valuable, and hopefully change attitudes about intellectual property theft,” Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, said Friday.

Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen.

Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music.

Meaning Well: Anti Irony #1

One of the worst things you can call someone now is “well-meaning.”

A well-meaning person is always doing the wrong thing. The phrase encompasses many sins. The well-meaning person is presumed to be ignorant of the world’s harsh ways, naive, gullible, and full of an unwarranted optimism especially about human nature. Arrogance or at least hubris is implied too, in that well-meaning people have an exaggerated view of their own ability to improve things.

One thing is certain: well-meaning people always make things worse. They’re always trying to feed babies when the real problem is that parents won’t work. Or getting in the way of a war because of the horrors thereof when the real problem can only be solved by winning the war. Or providing shelter for the poor when the real problem is the oppressive system that keeps them poor. Well-meaning people always seem to have band-aid solutions and don’t see the picture. Their attempts to make things better always result in disaster because of something called the Law of Unintended Consequences which says that every time you do something that seems to mean well it will mean more trouble later on, in the larger scheme of things.

The answer to the problem of the well-meaning is to accept that the world is a harsh place and embrace that harshness. In fact, one is supposed to embody the world’s hard ways. If someone misbehaves, punishment and force must be used. If there is a problem between governments, then it will inevitably result in war and it’s best to prosecute the war as soon as possible. If there is a social disaster like a famine or an economic crisis, it’s important that this “run its course”; mere half-measures like handing out food or shoes will only drag out the problem.

If a problem resists solution by bombing or jailing or some other harsh measures, then it is considered to be insoluble and part of the human condition. To say otherwise is, once again, to be “well-meaning.” Tough-minded hard-nosed adults understand how unforgiving and full of suffering things are and don’t try to change it. Only the very young and the fatally naive believe that things can be improved.

This is a place where Social Darwinism, Marxism, and Malthusian pessimism meet after having been thoroughly dumbed down into one idea: don’t try to be good. The task is impossible and will make you into a victim yourself. Worse still, it will obstruct the natural way of things which eventually resolves conflicts. The Tao of this worldview is cruelty, and you must flow with it.

This attitude is everywhere in my country. The admirable person is said to be hard-nosed, realistic, rational, sober, and tough. His opponents are softies, Pollyannas, illogical, giddy, and weak. It’s as though the Churchill-Chamberlain dichotomy was applied to every part of life: politics, religion, law, medicine, the arts, everything. You’re either a heroic bulldog war fighter or an umbrella-waving idiot appeaser.

The word “aggressive” is entirely positive in all contexts. It has come to mean “effective,” and anything labeled “passive” is by definition a failure. One roots out crime aggressively, and also treats disease aggressively, and even an aggressive prose style is given the seal of approval.

I urge you to resist this. Mean well.

Feed babies. Use band-aids on wounds. Give poor people 20 dollar bills and places to stay. Solve arguments without violence. Oppose cruelty and war. Be passive rather than aggressive. I urge you, in fact, to be a complete weenie and wussy, who can’t see that what’s needed is a short sharp shock. I urge you to think of criminals and drug addicts as salvageable improvable humans. I urge you to lose an argument more often and to resist an opportunity to destroy an enemy.

It’s true that our conscience doesn’t know how to manage a central bank or create a national water policy or stop the warmongering of dictators. And our conscience is naive about realpolitik and the tragedy of the commons and the necessity of breaking eggs to make metaphorical omelettes.

“Well-meaning” is our attitude when we listen to conscience. I am not ashamed.

Political Paralysis of the American Weenie Social Democrat

I feel politically defeated. I’m on the left end of the Democratic party, more of a social democrat type. My adult life began just as we started to lose ground, and my country has gone inexorably to the right since.

When I was younger, I voted and volunteered and protested, and wrote. Now that I am older and more established, I vote and volunteer and protest and write, and contribute. It doesn’t seem like enough.

At this point I consider my country’s government illegitimate and lawless. The opposition, my party my whole life, is both weak and collaborating. There are very few individual legislators who represent anything like my point of view. I wonder what cause my contributions to the party will support, other than the personal careers of some prominent traitors.

Worst of all, the actual opposition seems totally fragmented. There are various small organizations who all want money and support from me and appear to have my values, but they’re tiny and ignored. The radical left has been navel-gazing since 1969 and the more moderate types I resonate with have no voice.

My question for the group mind is: What can I as an individual do that makes the most impact on this situation? I’m horrible at politics and I do so poorly in political organizations that the whole prospect of getting more involved is both frightening and depressing. It’s like church; as soon as you think you agree with your compatriots someone will bring up a divisive issue and the whole thing falls apart.

Is there a single-issue or focused group that deserves my entire financial and personal support, that’s making a big difference? A candidate or politician perhaps not in my locale who deserves that kind of focus? A cause where I can work without being disillusioned in 30 seconds? I invite suggestion and comment.

I am tired of feeling defeated and marginalized. I’d like to take some ground.

Editorial Note: flamewars in the comments will be deleted. so don’t even.

king

I agree with tristero

The truth is that there is a rogue presidency and there has been, since January, 2001 (earlier, if you count the stolen election). Certainly, everyone in Washington knows it, but no one dares to admit it. The bill legalizing torture merely enables Congress to pretend they still have some influence over an executive that from day one was governing, not as if they had a mandate, but as if Bush was a dictator. If, for some miracle, the bill didn’t pass, every congress-critter knows Bush would keep on torturing.

Better to vote to pass and preserve the appearance of a working American government, the thinking goes. For the very thought that the US government is seriously broken – that the Executive is beyond the control of anyone and everyone in the world – is such a truly awesome and terrifying thought that it can never be publicly acknowledged. If ever it is, if the American crisis gets outed and Congress and the Supremes openly assert that the Executive has run completely amok and is beyond control, the world consequences are staggering. It is the stuff of doomsday novels.

Windbag alert and attention conservation notice

I have developed a manifesto-sized idea and am about to blog it out. You have been warned. Long essays making a large cultural point can’t be sold and published conventionally unless the author is a respected and eminent intellectual or a rock ‘n’ roll star. Those who can, do; those who aren’t, blog.

This may fizzle or may be several essays; I’m not sure where I’m going to pinch off the blog yet. Because of TL;DR in this post-literate medium I present some bullet points below for those who aren’t going to plow through the thing.

  • Irony is worse than dead, it’s suicidal.
  • Stop celebrating bad art, bad food, and evil. There’s a place for enjoying things that are so bad they’re good. It isn’t the place called “the entire culture.” Giving up on quality of any kind has more serious consequences than we might think.
  • Phony postmodernism kills. Take the risk of being well-meaning and sincere. A couple of poorly understood Cultural Studies classes does not confer the privilege of detached Godhood.
  • Permanent adolescence is no improvement over permanent childhood. Living our lives fully and meaningfully is a duty to others and not just to ourselves.
  • Subcultures, fandoms, and gaming worlds are eating a generation of privileged and educated people alive when we could and should be doing well and doing good. Come out of the couch fort and live.
  • Cheap fatalism is a crime of privilege. Admitting defeat in advance hurts many, many people less fortunate than we are before it touches us.

I freely admit in advance that I will be didactic, pretentious, and annoyingly prescriptive. It’s likely that I’ll also be irrelevant and that I will make a fool of myself. I have no formal training in philosophy or sociology and will probably reinvent various wheels poorly.

But sometimes an idea just arrives and possesses me. This one has sat on me for years, and is at the root of a troublesome fiction project that won’t budge. Tormenting my small audience with an unsaleable vanity-press think piece is the best I can do with it right now.

Further material in this series will be tagged “ironyproject.”