Got this op-ed piece by Mumia Abu-Jamal on a recent set of racial incidents in the central Louisiana town of Jena on the 28th of last month, and decided to re-post here for y'all to review and consider for yourselves.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Of 'White Trees', Black Boys and Jena, Louisiana
Of 'White Trees', Black Boys and Jena, Louisiana
[col. writ. 7/21/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
If you asked me two weeks ago if I've ever heard the name of a little town in Louisiana called 'Jena', I would've drawn a blank.
Jena? Never heard of it.
It made me think of the ill-fated Palestinian village called Janin, that Israel crushed into oblivion several years ago.
I think the incumbent president's daughter has that name (with and additional 'n').
But, that's it.
When a friend sent me several internet articles about recent events there, I was, quite frankly, flabbergasted.
I was astonished to learn that today, in the first decade of the 21st century, in Jena High School, there is still a 'white tree', called that not because the leaves are white, but because it is a generous giver of shade, and only white students sit under it.
In Sept. 2006, a young student named Kenneth Purvis asked the school principal for permission to sit under the 'white tree.' The principal answered that he could sit where he liked.
So, they did.
The next day, the 'white tree' was festooned with three nooses, in school colors.
In the South (or the North, for that matter), nooses have one clear meaning -- they are threats of death.
People naturally got riled up, angry, or scared.
Jena's High School principal looked into the matter, found the three white students responsible, and recommended that they be expelled.
The school superintendent felt otherwise, rescinded the expulsion, and instead recommended a 3 - day suspension. Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, the superintendent said, " Adolescents play pranks. I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
(Perhaps he meant anybody important - or white)
For Jena's Black community, this was but the latest slap in the face.
Black students at the high school decided to resist by holding a sit-in under the 'white tree' to protest the light suspensions given to the 3 white noose-hangers.
When word got out about the pending sit-in, the local DA came to a Jena school assembly, with several cops to threaten the students who dared to think they could do what people did some 40 years ago throughout the South (before the so-called 'New South'). He told them if they didn't stop making a fuss about this 'prank' he could be "your worst enemy." To make the point plain, he told the teen gathering, " I can take away your lives with a stroke of a pen."
Several days later, a white Jena student, who reportedly made racist taunts, including calling Black students 'niggers', got knocked down, punched and kicked. The boy was taken to the hospital, treated and released. That very night, he was well enough to attend a public event.
Within days six Black Jena students were arrested and charged with attempted second degree murder. All six were also immediately expelled.
The 6 teens were given bails set from $70,000 to $139,000.
Bail at these ranges could've just as easily been set at $1 million, for they were at rates that none of the local parents could afford. That meant, of course, that all of the accused were held in jail for months, awaiting trial.
And if money for bail was out of reach, what about money for attorneys?
Again -- out of the question.
That meant that public defenders were appointed by the court.
For one of the accused, Mychal Bell, this meant little better than no counsel at all, for his trial was soon decided by an all-white jury, who promptly convicted him of aggravated second degree assault, battery and conspiracy.
Bell now awaits sentencing which may put the teenager in prison for the next 22 years.
The public defender never challenged the all-white jury pool, put on no evidence, and didn't call a single defense witness.
The law of aggravated assault requires the use of a deadly weapon. What was the weapon?
Tennis shoes.
Families and friends of the Jena 6 are organizing against this case, and are also being threatened by the local establishment. One woman told Louisiana ACLU member, Tory Pegram, "We have to convince more people to come rally with us.....What's the worse that could happen? They fire us from our jobs? We have the worst jobs in the town anyway. They burn a cross on our lawns or burn down my house? All of that has happened to us before. We have to keep speaking out to make sure it doesn't happen to us again, or our children will never be safe."
To contact the Jena 6 Defense Committee, write:
P.O. Box 2798
Jena, Louisiana 71342
Or on the web: jena6defense@gmail.com.
--(c) '07 maj
[Sources: Quigley, Bill, "Injustice in Jena: Black Nooses Hanging From the 'White' Tree", July 3, '07; Quigley@loyana.edu.; Mangold, Tom, " 'Stealth racism' stalks deep South", BBC News, 5/24/07 online]
*******
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, a new trial, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice.
Free Mumia!
For more on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal read:
Top Ten "Fry Mumia" Myths Debunked
(Myth 1) "Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner."
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/19/18436405.php
Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
For a more "mainstream" perspective on the events in Jena, here's a link to a Washington Post article on the story, dated to-day, here-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080302098.html?wpisrc=newsletter.
The story also discusses the acute racial disparities between the way that European-American and African-American juveniles are treated and sentenced by our country's juvenile legal system.
Be seeing you.
07 August 2007
Sir Elton John, Andrew Keen, The Internet, and Bollocks
Just like the subject line says, here is a long, hard slog through the subjects mentioned therein, at least for the poor reader who comes across this.
The spark for this is an article about remarks made by Sir Elton John to Britain's Sun newspaper about the Internet, blogging and the like, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.
In the article, Sir Elton's quoted as saying that Sir Elton said the internet had "stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff", and it compelled them to "sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn't bode well for long-term artistic vision".
Sir Elton confessed he was a "luddite" who did not have a mobile phone or an iPod, and wrote all his music at the piano.
"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span," he said."
The article also points out that his latest album, "The Captain and The Kid", has slumped badly in the music industry charts since coming out last September.
Whether or not, this has been due to Internet piracy of his songs, which he has denounced in the past, according to the Sun article, is unknown, but, the financial firm "PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted sales of "physical" formats such as CDs and DVDs would drop from 81 per cent of total sales to 40.5 per cent in 2011, as digital downloads took over."
Either way, Sir Elton's of the mind that, "We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet," or so he stated to the Sun.
The publication's article correlates Sir Elton's statements with similar remarks made by one Andrew Keen in his new book, "The Cult Of The Amateur", in which the author denounces the Internet for killing our culture and assaulting our economy. However, the article, at least as reprinted in the SMH, doesn't go into details about Keen's arguments on those scores.
However, it quotes this assertion in Keen's tome, which, the SMH notes, went on sale in Australia this month, that, ""[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels."
The Sun/SMH article also notes, however, that Sir Elton made his entire music catalogue of 400 tracks available for down-load on Apple's I-Tunes music store back in March of this year, and that a concert celebrating his 60th birthday and the 250 million albums he's sold world-wide was streamed live over the 'Net as well.
All right, you've heard from Sir Elton John and Andrew Keen about the Internet's deletrious effects on society, culture and the economy. Now, I'll have my very uninformed say about their stances, which can be summed up in one word-bollocks.
For those of you out there who've not even my very limited grasp of Brit-Slang, "bollocks" means "balls", as in the pair a-dangling between a male's legs. named therein.
In this context, "bollocks" also has the same meaning as a similar American expression, "balls", meaning not only that portion of the male genitalia, but that an argument, notion or line of reasoning is complete and utter nonsense.
It strikes me, from my worm's-eye point-of-view here, that Sir Elton has had a very long, generally distinguished, and quite profitable music career, certainly in comparison with most musicians, of whatever musical genre you could care to name.
With all due respect to that career and those accomplishments, it just strikes me that his arguments are those of a frustrated 60 year-old man, who's allowed himself to fall out of touch with what's going on in the rest of the world outside of his patch of it, sees, along with the recording companies, a declining revenue stream thanks to declining CD sales, and who understands the 'Net and its workings about as well as my cats do(with all due apologies to my cats, which neither know nor care about the Internet, except for the fact that their Human-Tom Mama's being on the Box-Thing takes a lot of time and attention away from the attention and time due them. That's as it should be, because they ARE cats, which, while they are often alert to many aspects of the world and living I'm not, do not understand computers or the Internet, because both are beyond their ken, and their capacities to understand. I don't expect Sir Elton to have an expert technical grasp of the 'Net and its workings, but I do expect something of an extremely basic layman's understanding from the fella).
That epic sentence out of the way, it just seems to me that, while some of Sir Elton's concerns about the 'Net and its effects on human cultures and socialisation may have some validity, his grasp of the 'Net, its actual effects, and its potential effects, on human socialisation, creativity and culture are, at best, more than slightly off the mark.
Yes, people, Yours Truly included, should perhaps be outside more, socialising with others constructively, and creating all sorts of new, wonderful, artistic masterpieces, etc, etc.
But, what he fails to understand is that, for many people, especially those like myself, who find the costs of going out generally quite expensive, in a variety of ways, or who are restricted by physical or mental conditions that impair their mobility, the 'Net can be, when wisely used, a great place to gather information about all sorts of topics, see and hear points of view, art works, films, television shows, radio programmes, and other cultural products they'd never get to see otherwise, or, at best, might hear of only by report, whether in print or in face-to-face conversation.
Also, to put it very bluntly here, there are often many times when one's neighbours, acquaintances, business associates, work mates, etc, AREN'T especially pleasant nor desirable company with whom to be around, especially when drunk or high.
Some of this assertion comes from unpleasant experiences I've had with neighbours here in my years in Vegas, some of it from bad experiences I've had, both in Reno and Vegas, in some of the low-level poetry and artistic circles I've been in, and some of it comes from the kind of hyper-sensitive personality I have.
I don't hate people, but, there are times when they can be a bit much for me, and I also know that I'm also not to many people's tastes.
I can talk too much and in far too much detail about subjects that I might find interesting, but which most people either don't know about, could care less about, or both.
My sense of humour can be extremely dark, rough and gauche, and I can, especially when drunk or stoned, if I'm not careful, over-familiar with people at times.
I also have a pretty wicked, bad temper, which, as a friend of mine described it on numerous occasions, "that can go from zero to sixty in 30 seconds"(not an exact quote, BTW), and, while I can and do sit on it much of the time, it can come rushing up, like a lava stream, extremely fast and hard when I feel provoked.
Have also been in a few physical fights(Generally, but not exclusively, when drunk)and confrontations in the past few years, and have generally very narrowly avoided getting into extremely serious trouble, thanks to a combination of other people's tolerance and charity, and just plain dumb luck.
Combine those, with the kind of party-down, have-another-drink, we-like-your-money-but-fuck-off-if-you're-broke culture we've here in Nevada, or at least in much of the Reno-Sparks and Greater Las Vegas areas of the state, and I think that you can get a fair idea of where I'm coming from, when I say that I'm bloody sceptical about Sir Elton's claims that, if the 'Net were shut down for five years, we'd see some sort of cultural and social Renaissance.
There are romantically-inclined sectors of the Left and the environmental movement that have similar hopes for the post-oil, post-car world they envision in the immediate future, once the big, bad economic order we've now, and which is very dependent on both, collapses, with locally-grown food, locally-made products, and locally-made culture combining with a sudden awareness on everyone's part that they should love, respect, and co-operate with their neighbours, thus ushering a new, far better social order, with everyone living happily ever after, and similar such-like rubbish.
It's the same sort of hyper-romanticised thinking as the dystopian fantasies of those on the Left, Centre, and Right, and especially on some segments of the libertarian and racist right, which envision a kind of free-for-all, Every-Man-For-Himself-And-The-Devil-Take-The-Hindmost, Mad Max sort of world, in which the biggest, baddest, most sociopathic or psycho-pathic(Excuse me, I should say "fittest", in deference to the tenth-rate sort of Social Darwinist thinking that often motivates this line of reasoning)individuals will come to dominate and prosper, while everyone else(because they're less "fit", or completely "un-fit")will go to the wall, so much the better, Amen.
Utopian and Dystopian thought and opinion are, based, depending on the individuals and groups involved, based in reality, or at least some parts of reality.
But, because they often tend to selectively portray various social ideals and goals in a heavily idealised form, without generally taking into account the simple fact that people are, quite often, very complex and contrary individual and social animals not always amenable to the pleas, protestations and punches given to them by those who "know better" about how the world should work than they, and, conversely, portray everything about the past and present as being horribly, irredeemably flawed and corrupted, both utopians and dystopians often miss a very basic point, which is that their analyses and projections, like most human analyses and projections, could be either wholly or partially wrong.
The reasons for their being wrong, or only partially right, could be because of flawed sample data, analyses based on either incomplete or very biased information, or other factors like those, and other factors that I neither know enough about, or not at all.
I also think that, in many cases, many utopians and dystopians, like most people, tend to forget that, quite often, what a person says, writes, creates, publishes, depicts, or just plain does in expressing him- or herself, can quite often say far more about the person or people doing the saying, etc, than the subject matter they're tackling.
The same, by the way, goes for this essay, too, and well it should.
I'm not as rigourously analytical and logical as I perhaps should be, but tend to be far more intuitive and emotional in looking at essays, art works, and in everyday life in general.
I can be quite inconsistent, and even hypocritical, and can be quite foolish and gullible at times.
I can be a bit of a pompous cunt, when I want to be, and when I don't mean to be, too.
That comes with being a human being.
Most of us are various combinations of all of these qualities, and far more, both desirable and undesirable, and how we express them depends on the social and other circumstances the individual finds him- or herself in in a given culture(and yes, that goes for rebels, recluses and hermits, too)and any given situation at various points in time.
There are some folks who, for one reason or another, or a combination of reasons, who tend to lean far more in one direction or another than most, but I believe them to be a relative minority of human beings alive and walking around on this planet.
Either way, this means that, whatever one says, does or creates, the sayings, deeds and creations that one makes are as likely to say more about oneself and how one sees the universe and the world around him- or herself at a given point in time, than they might necessarily say about the subjects at hand.
This is where this essay comes back to Sir Elton's pronouncements on the Internet and its effects, because this is a man who has, for reasons of his own, chosen to insulate himself from the 'Net and its effects, good and bad, on contemporary society and culture, and whom, I think, is also further insulated from much of the world around him by his great wealth and social position.
Some of his criticisms of the 'Net and its effects, as well as those of Andrew Keen's, which I shortly get to, may be quite valid.
But, I think much of his remarks are based more in ignorance and fear of something Sir Elton neither understands even a little, and I am no expert on the 'Net myself, so let me get that out of the way here, nor wants to.
Simultaneously, I'd also say that Sir Elton, his management team, and his recording label(Don't ask me which one, as I don't keep up with pop music developments)are, at least if the information about the availability of his music library via I-Tunes and the birthday/album sales concert being 'Net-streamed mentioned in the article are true, are rather hypocritical for turning right 'round(Yes, like a record, Baby)and making sneering remarks about the 'Net and its effects, while using it to make larger profits off of it, than they would have otherwise.
Sir Elton also mentions alleged musical changes that he thinks are coming within the next five years that will have absolutely nothing to do with the Internet, blogging, or anything else even remotely connected to them.
But, he doesn't specify what they will be, nor how they will work.
Now, some of that could be journalistic omissions on the parts of the Sun's or Sydney Morning Herald's reporters and editors, and the Sun is quite notorious for its brand of glaring headline, maximum-sizzle-but-little-steak style of yellow journalism, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Sun didn't mention what musical changes he envisioned(No, I've not read the original article, and don't really plan to, but probably should).
Some of it could be that he's just plain talking out of his arse, whether out of frustration, or a desire to get a quick bit of publicity by stirring up a bit of short-lived controversy.
I don't know, and will admit to that.
As for Andrew Keen's comments in the Sun/SMH article, let me just say this.
In every field of human endeavour, throughout our species' million year history, most of the artifacts produced in any field you care to name have varied greatly in quality, depending on who produced them, the materials used, etc.
This is especially true of human artifacts of all sorts, including cultural ones, produced since the rise of the printing press in the 15th Century, and the advent of the Industrial Revolution, beginning in the late 18th Century.
Many of the artifacts from the various pre-industrial stages of human history haven't survived, or at least only partially intact, and weren't produced in the vast quantities that we've seen from the late 18th-early 19th Centuries onwards, and this goes, again, for cultural artifacts, just as much as for house-wares, furniture, and other goods.
Even in the era of mass production, many cultural artifacts, like the vast majority of silent-era and pre-1950 sound films have either survived only partially intact or not at all.
The use of highly-flammable and easily degraded cellulose nitrate film stock, improper, careless and just plain lazy archiving and storage procedures on the parts of film producers and distributors, as well as accidents and the like, have further contributed to the decay and loss of many of these films, especially if these films weren't seen as having much of a shelf life beyond their original release dates.
What has survived has generally been what were considered to be valuable enough properties by at least one film distributor or film preservation society somewhere, or was just plain lucky in not being chopped to bits and pieces somewhere along the line.
Even then, of the majority of such films that have survived, many of those would be, at best, mediocre in quality, with sizeable minorities occupying their respective places on the spectrum of film quality, ranging from excellent to downright horrible.
All depends on one's tastes, I think.
I don't know.
What I DO know is that, while there's a ton and more of mediocrity and just plain junk out there on the 'Net, and doubtlessly I've contributed to my share of both, I've also found that there are interesting sites that contain valid, useful information, express artistic and other points of view I find worthy, and that contribute, even in microscopic ways, to the general human culture.
I enjoy being able to see, read and hear, and yes, down-load, music, video and other files of materials that I probably would have otherwise have had scant, if any, chance at all to access otherwise.
For me, the 'Net, as I've stated before, provides me with access to a far wider world than the confines of my own home, neighbourhood or locality, and I appreciate it for that.
It's also given me the chance to express myself, on however small a scale and badly, that I might not have had the chance to, otherwise.
Mr. Keen's charges, or at least what the Sun/SMH article mentions of them, strike me as being just so much effete, psuedo-intellectual eye-wash in the face of it.
Will have to read about Mr. Keen, his book, background, articles by and about him, to understand why and how he feels the way he does.
In the meantime, his rhetoric, as shown in the quote from "The Cult Of The Amateur" in the Sun/SMH article, and even the book's title, seems to be that of a common, garden-variety, urban, intellectual snob, concerned with the maintenance of "canonical" literary and other standards, and with the idea that only "qualified professionals" vetted, judged and attested by other "professionals", like himself, are fit to produce cultural products, since they've the background, training, experience and requisite skills to do that, and no one else need apply, thank you very much.
There's an entire class of gate-keepers, whether agents, literary and casting, editors, sub-editors, or any such similar professions you'd care to name, whose jobs entail that only those people whose appearance, background and work fit a certain desired profile and professional standards get into, and keep working in, the various cultural professions, and who might well feel their livelihoods threatened by the rise of the Internet, and especially by the fact that many musicians, artists, writers, etc, who would have otherwise had to do the rounds of begging art gallery owners, literary agents, and so on, to please, please, PLEASE take just an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny look at their work, and judge it to be acceptable, in the hopes of getting the work made and distributed in one form or another, now have possible outlets on the 'Net for their works, without having to go through the whole hat-in-hand procedure of begging someone else to take a look at the fruit of their creative loins.
Whatever positions, money and power, these gate-keepers have could, and, in the case of the recording industry in particular, are gradually declining, as increasing numbers of artists, professional and amateur alike, use the 'Net to show off their wares, and by-pass the layers upon layers of gate-keepers employed to limit access to production and distribution of cultural goods to a relatively select few.
Does this mean that much of, if not all of, these works being displayed on the 'Net are of a stunningly high standard of quality and professionalism????
Nope, not at all.
Many of them are staggeringly bad, and many more are mediocre at best, but, as far as I'm concerned, that's also par for the course, especially when you've large numbers of people producing anything.
The larger the quantity, the more variable the quality of various goods and services produced.
One doesn't have to like it, not at all.
But, I think that Mr. Keen's book more likely than not begs the following question; given that the vast majority of goods, including cultural goods, produced throughout human history, and especially since the Industrial Revolution, have been and are highly variable in quality, especially when produced in mass quantities, wouldn't the vast bulk of such goods, including those made by trained and qualified professionals, be subject to those same dynamics???
I think they would.
Therefore, one could reasonably ask, if the vast majority of goods and services provided by professionals can be expected to be mediocre at best, what is the good of valuing professionalism above all else, if all that results is the same, or only slightly better than, outcome, than if the playing field was opened to amateurs also????
I think it has to do more with preserving one's position, power, however limited and illusory, and making a living, more than with preserving some grand artistic, social and political set of ideals.
Yes, one can probably correctly say that there are many amateurs out there in the cultural sphere who shouldn't be making poems, paintings, films, videos, photographs, musical recordings, etc.
One could also say that there are also quite a few professionals out there who should also be kept from foisting their works on the unsuspecting general public as well.
But, that's just what I think.
In closing, am enclosing the link to the SMH article so you can see it for yourselves, and not just take my word for it. It's http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/08/02/1185648044623.html?sssdmh=dm16.272311&from=top5.
Here Endeth The Lesson.
Be seeing you.
The spark for this is an article about remarks made by Sir Elton John to Britain's Sun newspaper about the Internet, blogging and the like, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.
In the article, Sir Elton's quoted as saying that Sir Elton said the internet had "stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff", and it compelled them to "sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn't bode well for long-term artistic vision".
Sir Elton confessed he was a "luddite" who did not have a mobile phone or an iPod, and wrote all his music at the piano.
"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span," he said."
The article also points out that his latest album, "The Captain and The Kid", has slumped badly in the music industry charts since coming out last September.
Whether or not, this has been due to Internet piracy of his songs, which he has denounced in the past, according to the Sun article, is unknown, but, the financial firm "PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted sales of "physical" formats such as CDs and DVDs would drop from 81 per cent of total sales to 40.5 per cent in 2011, as digital downloads took over."
Either way, Sir Elton's of the mind that, "We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet," or so he stated to the Sun.
The publication's article correlates Sir Elton's statements with similar remarks made by one Andrew Keen in his new book, "The Cult Of The Amateur", in which the author denounces the Internet for killing our culture and assaulting our economy. However, the article, at least as reprinted in the SMH, doesn't go into details about Keen's arguments on those scores.
However, it quotes this assertion in Keen's tome, which, the SMH notes, went on sale in Australia this month, that, ""[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels."
The Sun/SMH article also notes, however, that Sir Elton made his entire music catalogue of 400 tracks available for down-load on Apple's I-Tunes music store back in March of this year, and that a concert celebrating his 60th birthday and the 250 million albums he's sold world-wide was streamed live over the 'Net as well.
All right, you've heard from Sir Elton John and Andrew Keen about the Internet's deletrious effects on society, culture and the economy. Now, I'll have my very uninformed say about their stances, which can be summed up in one word-bollocks.
For those of you out there who've not even my very limited grasp of Brit-Slang, "bollocks" means "balls", as in the pair a-dangling between a male's legs. named therein.
In this context, "bollocks" also has the same meaning as a similar American expression, "balls", meaning not only that portion of the male genitalia, but that an argument, notion or line of reasoning is complete and utter nonsense.
It strikes me, from my worm's-eye point-of-view here, that Sir Elton has had a very long, generally distinguished, and quite profitable music career, certainly in comparison with most musicians, of whatever musical genre you could care to name.
With all due respect to that career and those accomplishments, it just strikes me that his arguments are those of a frustrated 60 year-old man, who's allowed himself to fall out of touch with what's going on in the rest of the world outside of his patch of it, sees, along with the recording companies, a declining revenue stream thanks to declining CD sales, and who understands the 'Net and its workings about as well as my cats do(with all due apologies to my cats, which neither know nor care about the Internet, except for the fact that their Human-Tom Mama's being on the Box-Thing takes a lot of time and attention away from the attention and time due them. That's as it should be, because they ARE cats, which, while they are often alert to many aspects of the world and living I'm not, do not understand computers or the Internet, because both are beyond their ken, and their capacities to understand. I don't expect Sir Elton to have an expert technical grasp of the 'Net and its workings, but I do expect something of an extremely basic layman's understanding from the fella).
That epic sentence out of the way, it just seems to me that, while some of Sir Elton's concerns about the 'Net and its effects on human cultures and socialisation may have some validity, his grasp of the 'Net, its actual effects, and its potential effects, on human socialisation, creativity and culture are, at best, more than slightly off the mark.
Yes, people, Yours Truly included, should perhaps be outside more, socialising with others constructively, and creating all sorts of new, wonderful, artistic masterpieces, etc, etc.
But, what he fails to understand is that, for many people, especially those like myself, who find the costs of going out generally quite expensive, in a variety of ways, or who are restricted by physical or mental conditions that impair their mobility, the 'Net can be, when wisely used, a great place to gather information about all sorts of topics, see and hear points of view, art works, films, television shows, radio programmes, and other cultural products they'd never get to see otherwise, or, at best, might hear of only by report, whether in print or in face-to-face conversation.
Also, to put it very bluntly here, there are often many times when one's neighbours, acquaintances, business associates, work mates, etc, AREN'T especially pleasant nor desirable company with whom to be around, especially when drunk or high.
Some of this assertion comes from unpleasant experiences I've had with neighbours here in my years in Vegas, some of it from bad experiences I've had, both in Reno and Vegas, in some of the low-level poetry and artistic circles I've been in, and some of it comes from the kind of hyper-sensitive personality I have.
I don't hate people, but, there are times when they can be a bit much for me, and I also know that I'm also not to many people's tastes.
I can talk too much and in far too much detail about subjects that I might find interesting, but which most people either don't know about, could care less about, or both.
My sense of humour can be extremely dark, rough and gauche, and I can, especially when drunk or stoned, if I'm not careful, over-familiar with people at times.
I also have a pretty wicked, bad temper, which, as a friend of mine described it on numerous occasions, "that can go from zero to sixty in 30 seconds"(not an exact quote, BTW), and, while I can and do sit on it much of the time, it can come rushing up, like a lava stream, extremely fast and hard when I feel provoked.
Have also been in a few physical fights(Generally, but not exclusively, when drunk)and confrontations in the past few years, and have generally very narrowly avoided getting into extremely serious trouble, thanks to a combination of other people's tolerance and charity, and just plain dumb luck.
Combine those, with the kind of party-down, have-another-drink, we-like-your-money-but-fuck-off-if-you're-broke culture we've here in Nevada, or at least in much of the Reno-Sparks and Greater Las Vegas areas of the state, and I think that you can get a fair idea of where I'm coming from, when I say that I'm bloody sceptical about Sir Elton's claims that, if the 'Net were shut down for five years, we'd see some sort of cultural and social Renaissance.
There are romantically-inclined sectors of the Left and the environmental movement that have similar hopes for the post-oil, post-car world they envision in the immediate future, once the big, bad economic order we've now, and which is very dependent on both, collapses, with locally-grown food, locally-made products, and locally-made culture combining with a sudden awareness on everyone's part that they should love, respect, and co-operate with their neighbours, thus ushering a new, far better social order, with everyone living happily ever after, and similar such-like rubbish.
It's the same sort of hyper-romanticised thinking as the dystopian fantasies of those on the Left, Centre, and Right, and especially on some segments of the libertarian and racist right, which envision a kind of free-for-all, Every-Man-For-Himself-And-The-Devil-Take-The-Hindmost, Mad Max sort of world, in which the biggest, baddest, most sociopathic or psycho-pathic(Excuse me, I should say "fittest", in deference to the tenth-rate sort of Social Darwinist thinking that often motivates this line of reasoning)individuals will come to dominate and prosper, while everyone else(because they're less "fit", or completely "un-fit")will go to the wall, so much the better, Amen.
Utopian and Dystopian thought and opinion are, based, depending on the individuals and groups involved, based in reality, or at least some parts of reality.
But, because they often tend to selectively portray various social ideals and goals in a heavily idealised form, without generally taking into account the simple fact that people are, quite often, very complex and contrary individual and social animals not always amenable to the pleas, protestations and punches given to them by those who "know better" about how the world should work than they, and, conversely, portray everything about the past and present as being horribly, irredeemably flawed and corrupted, both utopians and dystopians often miss a very basic point, which is that their analyses and projections, like most human analyses and projections, could be either wholly or partially wrong.
The reasons for their being wrong, or only partially right, could be because of flawed sample data, analyses based on either incomplete or very biased information, or other factors like those, and other factors that I neither know enough about, or not at all.
I also think that, in many cases, many utopians and dystopians, like most people, tend to forget that, quite often, what a person says, writes, creates, publishes, depicts, or just plain does in expressing him- or herself, can quite often say far more about the person or people doing the saying, etc, than the subject matter they're tackling.
The same, by the way, goes for this essay, too, and well it should.
I'm not as rigourously analytical and logical as I perhaps should be, but tend to be far more intuitive and emotional in looking at essays, art works, and in everyday life in general.
I can be quite inconsistent, and even hypocritical, and can be quite foolish and gullible at times.
I can be a bit of a pompous cunt, when I want to be, and when I don't mean to be, too.
That comes with being a human being.
Most of us are various combinations of all of these qualities, and far more, both desirable and undesirable, and how we express them depends on the social and other circumstances the individual finds him- or herself in in a given culture(and yes, that goes for rebels, recluses and hermits, too)and any given situation at various points in time.
There are some folks who, for one reason or another, or a combination of reasons, who tend to lean far more in one direction or another than most, but I believe them to be a relative minority of human beings alive and walking around on this planet.
Either way, this means that, whatever one says, does or creates, the sayings, deeds and creations that one makes are as likely to say more about oneself and how one sees the universe and the world around him- or herself at a given point in time, than they might necessarily say about the subjects at hand.
This is where this essay comes back to Sir Elton's pronouncements on the Internet and its effects, because this is a man who has, for reasons of his own, chosen to insulate himself from the 'Net and its effects, good and bad, on contemporary society and culture, and whom, I think, is also further insulated from much of the world around him by his great wealth and social position.
Some of his criticisms of the 'Net and its effects, as well as those of Andrew Keen's, which I shortly get to, may be quite valid.
But, I think much of his remarks are based more in ignorance and fear of something Sir Elton neither understands even a little, and I am no expert on the 'Net myself, so let me get that out of the way here, nor wants to.
Simultaneously, I'd also say that Sir Elton, his management team, and his recording label(Don't ask me which one, as I don't keep up with pop music developments)are, at least if the information about the availability of his music library via I-Tunes and the birthday/album sales concert being 'Net-streamed mentioned in the article are true, are rather hypocritical for turning right 'round(Yes, like a record, Baby)and making sneering remarks about the 'Net and its effects, while using it to make larger profits off of it, than they would have otherwise.
Sir Elton also mentions alleged musical changes that he thinks are coming within the next five years that will have absolutely nothing to do with the Internet, blogging, or anything else even remotely connected to them.
But, he doesn't specify what they will be, nor how they will work.
Now, some of that could be journalistic omissions on the parts of the Sun's or Sydney Morning Herald's reporters and editors, and the Sun is quite notorious for its brand of glaring headline, maximum-sizzle-but-little-steak style of yellow journalism, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Sun didn't mention what musical changes he envisioned(No, I've not read the original article, and don't really plan to, but probably should).
Some of it could be that he's just plain talking out of his arse, whether out of frustration, or a desire to get a quick bit of publicity by stirring up a bit of short-lived controversy.
I don't know, and will admit to that.
As for Andrew Keen's comments in the Sun/SMH article, let me just say this.
In every field of human endeavour, throughout our species' million year history, most of the artifacts produced in any field you care to name have varied greatly in quality, depending on who produced them, the materials used, etc.
This is especially true of human artifacts of all sorts, including cultural ones, produced since the rise of the printing press in the 15th Century, and the advent of the Industrial Revolution, beginning in the late 18th Century.
Many of the artifacts from the various pre-industrial stages of human history haven't survived, or at least only partially intact, and weren't produced in the vast quantities that we've seen from the late 18th-early 19th Centuries onwards, and this goes, again, for cultural artifacts, just as much as for house-wares, furniture, and other goods.
Even in the era of mass production, many cultural artifacts, like the vast majority of silent-era and pre-1950 sound films have either survived only partially intact or not at all.
The use of highly-flammable and easily degraded cellulose nitrate film stock, improper, careless and just plain lazy archiving and storage procedures on the parts of film producers and distributors, as well as accidents and the like, have further contributed to the decay and loss of many of these films, especially if these films weren't seen as having much of a shelf life beyond their original release dates.
What has survived has generally been what were considered to be valuable enough properties by at least one film distributor or film preservation society somewhere, or was just plain lucky in not being chopped to bits and pieces somewhere along the line.
Even then, of the majority of such films that have survived, many of those would be, at best, mediocre in quality, with sizeable minorities occupying their respective places on the spectrum of film quality, ranging from excellent to downright horrible.
All depends on one's tastes, I think.
I don't know.
What I DO know is that, while there's a ton and more of mediocrity and just plain junk out there on the 'Net, and doubtlessly I've contributed to my share of both, I've also found that there are interesting sites that contain valid, useful information, express artistic and other points of view I find worthy, and that contribute, even in microscopic ways, to the general human culture.
I enjoy being able to see, read and hear, and yes, down-load, music, video and other files of materials that I probably would have otherwise have had scant, if any, chance at all to access otherwise.
For me, the 'Net, as I've stated before, provides me with access to a far wider world than the confines of my own home, neighbourhood or locality, and I appreciate it for that.
It's also given me the chance to express myself, on however small a scale and badly, that I might not have had the chance to, otherwise.
Mr. Keen's charges, or at least what the Sun/SMH article mentions of them, strike me as being just so much effete, psuedo-intellectual eye-wash in the face of it.
Will have to read about Mr. Keen, his book, background, articles by and about him, to understand why and how he feels the way he does.
In the meantime, his rhetoric, as shown in the quote from "The Cult Of The Amateur" in the Sun/SMH article, and even the book's title, seems to be that of a common, garden-variety, urban, intellectual snob, concerned with the maintenance of "canonical" literary and other standards, and with the idea that only "qualified professionals" vetted, judged and attested by other "professionals", like himself, are fit to produce cultural products, since they've the background, training, experience and requisite skills to do that, and no one else need apply, thank you very much.
There's an entire class of gate-keepers, whether agents, literary and casting, editors, sub-editors, or any such similar professions you'd care to name, whose jobs entail that only those people whose appearance, background and work fit a certain desired profile and professional standards get into, and keep working in, the various cultural professions, and who might well feel their livelihoods threatened by the rise of the Internet, and especially by the fact that many musicians, artists, writers, etc, who would have otherwise had to do the rounds of begging art gallery owners, literary agents, and so on, to please, please, PLEASE take just an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny look at their work, and judge it to be acceptable, in the hopes of getting the work made and distributed in one form or another, now have possible outlets on the 'Net for their works, without having to go through the whole hat-in-hand procedure of begging someone else to take a look at the fruit of their creative loins.
Whatever positions, money and power, these gate-keepers have could, and, in the case of the recording industry in particular, are gradually declining, as increasing numbers of artists, professional and amateur alike, use the 'Net to show off their wares, and by-pass the layers upon layers of gate-keepers employed to limit access to production and distribution of cultural goods to a relatively select few.
Does this mean that much of, if not all of, these works being displayed on the 'Net are of a stunningly high standard of quality and professionalism????
Nope, not at all.
Many of them are staggeringly bad, and many more are mediocre at best, but, as far as I'm concerned, that's also par for the course, especially when you've large numbers of people producing anything.
The larger the quantity, the more variable the quality of various goods and services produced.
One doesn't have to like it, not at all.
But, I think that Mr. Keen's book more likely than not begs the following question; given that the vast majority of goods, including cultural goods, produced throughout human history, and especially since the Industrial Revolution, have been and are highly variable in quality, especially when produced in mass quantities, wouldn't the vast bulk of such goods, including those made by trained and qualified professionals, be subject to those same dynamics???
I think they would.
Therefore, one could reasonably ask, if the vast majority of goods and services provided by professionals can be expected to be mediocre at best, what is the good of valuing professionalism above all else, if all that results is the same, or only slightly better than, outcome, than if the playing field was opened to amateurs also????
I think it has to do more with preserving one's position, power, however limited and illusory, and making a living, more than with preserving some grand artistic, social and political set of ideals.
Yes, one can probably correctly say that there are many amateurs out there in the cultural sphere who shouldn't be making poems, paintings, films, videos, photographs, musical recordings, etc.
One could also say that there are also quite a few professionals out there who should also be kept from foisting their works on the unsuspecting general public as well.
But, that's just what I think.
In closing, am enclosing the link to the SMH article so you can see it for yourselves, and not just take my word for it. It's http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/08/02/1185648044623.html?sssdmh=dm16.272311&from=top5.
Here Endeth The Lesson.
Be seeing you.
Flim Review Link: Snow Cake
Am posting a link to a 2nd August review in the Sydney Morning Herald of the Canadian drama, "Snow Cake", starring Sigourney Weaver, as a high-functioning autistic woman whose daughter' s killed in an auto accident, and co-starring Alan Rickman as the driver of the car in which Weaver's daughter was traveling when the accident happened.
The Herald's reviewer gives high marks to Rickman and Carrie Ann Moss, who has a supporting role in "Snow Cake", but isn't as happy with Ms. Weaver's performance.
Not having seen the film, I'll leave you be the judges of that.
The review's at http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/snow-cake/2007/08/02/1185648019070.html?page=fullpagecontentSwap1.
The Herald's reviewer gives high marks to Rickman and Carrie Ann Moss, who has a supporting role in "Snow Cake", but isn't as happy with Ms. Weaver's performance.
Not having seen the film, I'll leave you be the judges of that.
The review's at http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/snow-cake/2007/08/02/1185648019070.html?page=fullpagecontentSwap1.
Joke: A Guy And His Monkey
Joke: A Guy and His Monkey
A guy walked into a bar with his pet monkey and ordered a drink. While he was drinking, the monkey jumped all around the place. It grabbed some olives off the bar and ate them, then grabbed some sliced limes and ate them. It jumped onto the pool table, took one of the billiard balls, stuck it in his mouth and to everyone's amazement, somehow swallowed it whole.
The bartender screamed at the guy, "Did you see what your monkey just did?"
The guy said, "No, what?"
"He just ate a billiard ball off my pool table...whole!"
"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the guy, "he eats everything in sight. Sorry, I'll pay for the cue ball and stuff." He finished his drink, paid his bar bill and paid for the stuff the monkey ate and walked out.
Two weeks later he came into the bar again along with his monkey. He ordered a drink and the monkey started running around the bar as before. While the man was finishing his drink, the monkey found a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabbed it, stuck it up his butt, then pulled it out and ate it. Then it found a peanut.. This, too, he stuck up his butt, pulled it out and ate it.
The bartender was disgusted "Did you see what your monkey did now?" he asked.
"No, what?" replied the guy.
"Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry up his butt, pulled it out and ate it...the same with a peanut!"
"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. " said the guy. "He still eats everything in sight but ever since he had to pass that cue ball, he measures everything first."
A guy walked into a bar with his pet monkey and ordered a drink. While he was drinking, the monkey jumped all around the place. It grabbed some olives off the bar and ate them, then grabbed some sliced limes and ate them. It jumped onto the pool table, took one of the billiard balls, stuck it in his mouth and to everyone's amazement, somehow swallowed it whole.
The bartender screamed at the guy, "Did you see what your monkey just did?"
The guy said, "No, what?"
"He just ate a billiard ball off my pool table...whole!"
"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the guy, "he eats everything in sight. Sorry, I'll pay for the cue ball and stuff." He finished his drink, paid his bar bill and paid for the stuff the monkey ate and walked out.
Two weeks later he came into the bar again along with his monkey. He ordered a drink and the monkey started running around the bar as before. While the man was finishing his drink, the monkey found a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabbed it, stuck it up his butt, then pulled it out and ate it. Then it found a peanut.. This, too, he stuck up his butt, pulled it out and ate it.
The bartender was disgusted "Did you see what your monkey did now?" he asked.
"No, what?" replied the guy.
"Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry up his butt, pulled it out and ate it...the same with a peanut!"
"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. " said the guy. "He still eats everything in sight but ever since he had to pass that cue ball, he measures everything first."
Jason Alexander Is...Rovedemort???
From Ourfuture.org, comes this video, starring Jason Alexander as Rovedemort, a cross between Karl Rove and Lord Voldemort, who's continually engaged in conspiracies to frustrate Democratic progress in Congress.
Yes, the video's partisan propaganda, but, it's not bad partisan propaganda, and I have to say that I actually like Alexander's work(he co-wrote, as well as starred in and produced this)in this effort, and I don't usually care for Alexander's acting at all(too many memories of the incredibly irritating George Costanza character he created on Seinfeld).
So, check it out, and see for yourselves what you think of it.
Be seeing you.
Yes, the video's partisan propaganda, but, it's not bad partisan propaganda, and I have to say that I actually like Alexander's work(he co-wrote, as well as starred in and produced this)in this effort, and I don't usually care for Alexander's acting at all(too many memories of the incredibly irritating George Costanza character he created on Seinfeld).
So, check it out, and see for yourselves what you think of it.
Be seeing you.
Once Was Lost, But Now Found
Late this morning, I got a message in my in-box here from an old friend of mine, with whom I'd been part of the Committee For Public Safety(a mid-'90's Las Vegas arts group), and, slightly later on, had been a co-host on a segment of a late-night Sunday radio show at the university radio station here in town.
Well, after our gig ended there, and that was around ten years ago now, he ended up leaving town, and we fell outta touch.
Had asked mutual acquaintances, whenever I infrequently saw 'em, how this friend was doing, and their responses indicated to me that his fate wasn't good.
So, you better believe I was happier than all Hell and the Devil himself, when I got that message from him this morning.
Added him to my friends' list here, and sent 'im a reply to his second message a few minutes ago.
For some of the problems and frustrations I've encountered here on MySpace, and elsewhere on-line, it's moments like this, as well as re-encountering Jason Quiggle and Mlle Omnisciente at earlier points in time, that make being here worth it and more.
Welcome aboard, Jim!!!! Damn nice to have ya here.
Well, after our gig ended there, and that was around ten years ago now, he ended up leaving town, and we fell outta touch.
Had asked mutual acquaintances, whenever I infrequently saw 'em, how this friend was doing, and their responses indicated to me that his fate wasn't good.
So, you better believe I was happier than all Hell and the Devil himself, when I got that message from him this morning.
Added him to my friends' list here, and sent 'im a reply to his second message a few minutes ago.
For some of the problems and frustrations I've encountered here on MySpace, and elsewhere on-line, it's moments like this, as well as re-encountering Jason Quiggle and Mlle Omnisciente at earlier points in time, that make being here worth it and more.
Welcome aboard, Jim!!!! Damn nice to have ya here.
WHO Is The Superior Species???
Got this pic of a cat confronting a toy Dalek on-line a few months back, and, after showing all the pics of wet, humiliated, kitties, I thought it was time to show one taking charge of a situation.
For those of you who aren't Doctor Who fans, the Daleks are a sort of cyborg-like race of beings whose ambition is to conquer the universe, and who like to utter cries of "Exterminate, exterminate!!!".
Yep, they and the good Doctor don't get along. Not at all.
Anyhow, enjoy the pic, and be seeing you.
For those of you who aren't Doctor Who fans, the Daleks are a sort of cyborg-like race of beings whose ambition is to conquer the universe, and who like to utter cries of "Exterminate, exterminate!!!".
Yep, they and the good Doctor don't get along. Not at all.
Anyhow, enjoy the pic, and be seeing you.
A Re-Post Triple Shot
Ruben Navarrette On The Immigration Debate
Am reproducing this op-ed piece by Ruben Navarrette Jr. that had been posted in a bulletin a friend of mine here sent out this evening.
I think it very concisely and nicely spells out the two major factors driving the immigration debate, and the extremely nasty turn it's taken in this country.
As for the Morris Dees quote about Joseph McCarthy, I think Mr. Dees was talking squarely out of his arse.
McCarthy's demagoguery was aimed, first and foremost, at Americans, whether "native-born" or immigrant, who were Communists, thought to be "fellow travelers" with the Communists, or who simply opposed McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Robert Kennedy(That's right. THAT Bobby Kennedy), and the rest of HUAC's activities.
Make no mistake: the above-named were, and remain, swine for what they said and did.
But, they didn't, to my knowledge, make the kinds of anti-immigrant statements, nor advocate the kinds of anti-immigrant policies that, for instance, A. Mitchell Palmer, US Attorney General during the second Wilson and Harding Administrations, did, though he was able to combine that with anti-Communist fear during the "Red Scare" of 1919-21.
It'd be one thing if Dees were someone like you or me, and made that kind of historical boo-boo.
But, Dees is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been fighting racism for around 30 years now, and should know his history better than that.
A niggling point??? Maybe. But, when people, on whatever portion of the political spectrum, fudge or completely screw up portions of the historical record for their own gain, even accidentally, I see(no pun intended)red.
Historical distortions, however accidental, garble people's understanding of history, and, consequently, their understanding of their culture and themselves, and leave them open to more distortions, exaggerations, and out-right lies.
Sorry for the extended rant about Dees' little historical whoopsie, but I really can't stand it, when someone who does, or at least should, know better than that, makes a dubious historical allegation to score some political point or another.
As for Dobbs, well, he may have made some good points about out-sourcing and its effects in the past, but, as for his stand on immigration, I have to say that he's so full of shit, his eyes should be brown, if they aren't already.
Anyhow, enough blather from me.
The article's directly below.
Thanks to ST for originally posting this in her bulletin, and be seeing you.
UNION-TRIBUNE
Ruben Navarrette Jr.
The winners write the history. And now that border restrictionists have won the battle to scuttle immigration reform, the history that many are desperate to write is that the debate was colorblind.
Really. The restrictionists and those pundits who have taken up their cause claim that race and ethnicity aren't even part of the discussion and that those who oppose giving illegal immigrants a shot at legal status would feel the same way if the immigrants were coming from Canada instead of Mexico. They say their concerns are limited to border security and the rule of law, and have nothing to do with nativism or xenophobia. And they reject any suggestion that the debate was hostile to Hispanics.
This is the fable being spun by CNN's Lou Dobbs, a commentator labeled by New York Times columnist David Leonhardt as "the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans." In recent days, Dobbs has argued that the Senate compromise died because Americans of all colors dispassionately concluded that it was bad for the country. Racism played no role, he insists.
Most Hispanics feel differently. I've seen three different surveys, including one by the Pew Hispanic Center, where majorities of Hispanics say that the immigration debate has led to an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. And, as I travel the country speaking to Hispanic groups, one thing I hear is that "anti-immigrant" rapidly morphed into "anti-Hispanic" and specifically "anti-Mexican."
I get evidence of that every day in my e-mail. Just last week, after I defended the prosecution of two Border Patrol agents, a reader called me a "dirty Latino" who needs to get "back to Mexico." Another writer called me an "anchor baby" – the term used by nativists to describe the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
Never mind that I was born in the United States and my parents were born in the United States. What I see here is racism.
That's also the view of the National Council of La Raza, which recently wrapped up its annual conference in Miami Beach. Speakers included Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton said the immigration debate has become "venomous."
Obama, quoting from a 1968 telegram that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sent to farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, said that Hispanics and African-Americans were "brothers in the fight for equality" and decried the "racism" that crept into the immigration debate.
For some reason, Dobbs took those remarks personally. He responded by poking at Clinton and Obama on his show, insisting that they were insulting the American people.
And he really went ballistic when NCLR Vice President Cecilia Munoz said that much of the immigration debate was driven by a "discomfort with Latinos," and the Senate had caved into "what was largely a wave of hate." That prompted Dobbs to blast the NCLR as a "socio-ethnic centric group."
I'd quibble with Munoz. I don't think it was just hate that drove the immigration debate, though according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate crimes against Latinos and immigrants are on the rise while hate groups use the immigration issue as a recruitment tool.
Just last week, the SPLC filed a lawsuit against the Imperial Klans of America – an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan – and five Klansmen, claiming that two members were recruiting for the group at a county fair in Kentucky when they beat up and kicked a 16-year-old Hispanic boy and called him a racial epithet. The boy, who suffered cracked ribs and other injuries, is a U.S. citizen of Panamanian descent.
But this isn't really about hate as much as it is fear and ignorance. And ironically, one of the things fueling it is people such as Dobbs.
"America has a long history of men like Lou Dobbs," Morris Dees, co-founder of the SPLC, said during a recent conference call with journalists. "Men like Sen. Joseph McCarthy who prey on the public fears. Often, they're xenophobic demagogues."
The people who buy into this demagoguery say the country is being colonized. That harkens back to what Benjamin Franklin said in the 1700s about German immigrants making up "a colony of aliens."
A lot of what Franklin said about the Germans was rank bigotry. The same goes for what other generations of Americans would later say about Italians, Irish, Jews and other immigrants – even if they came legally.
What poison. Thank goodness we got that out of our system.
Reproduced for educational purposes.
A Message From Senator John Ensign(R-NV)
A few weeks back, I received a response from Sen. John Ensign(R-Nv) regarding an on-line petition, which I'd signed, banning the use of cluster bombs by the US.
Well, this morning, I signed another petition calling on the GOP's Senate leadership to stop filibustering bills designed to mandate a time-table for American withdrawal from Iraq.
This response, and a bloody quick one it was, too, came from his office to-day.
The message's text is reproduced in full below.
Be seeing you.
This is an official communication from the Office of Senator John Ensign. Any tampering or alteration of this communication is prohibited and may result in criminal investigation or prosecution.
July 30, 2007
Mr. Donald Rilea
457 N Lamb Blvd Apt F
Las Vegas, Nevada 89110-3376
Dear Mr. Rilea:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the continued presence of our armed forces in Iraq. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me, and I value the opportunity to address them.
Recognizing that a new direction was needed if we were to achieve success in Iraq, President Bush outlined his new strategy in an address to the nation. He stated that in order for Iraqis to achieve a political solution to the civil strife in Iraq, security needed to be ensured. Approximately 20,000 additional U.S. troops will help this effort, coupled with an increase of Iraqi police and army units. To address the other requirements for success, the Iraqi government has pledged to pass legislation that will distribute oil revenues on a fair-share basis among all Iraqis: Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd. It will also spend some $10 billion of its own money in order to create jobs and improve the country's infrastructure.
I recently met with Army Lieutenant General David Petraeus, the new commander of our forces in Iraq. General Petraeus concurred with the sobering reality that removing U.S. troops prematurely would cause collapse of the government in Iraq and result in chaos, with terrorists groups like al-Qaeda filling the vacuum created by our departure. Anything short of victory would significantly undermine U.S. credibility and motivate the terrorists to wage their war inside our own borders. As such, it is vital to our own national security that Iraq succeeds.
Some in Congress have spoken out against the President's plan without offering any policy alternatives of their own. Empty rhetoric is not what is needed; rather we need to realize that this war against Islamic jihadists is unlike anything America has ever faced. While there is no guarantee that this plan or any other plan will work, I believe that we must make every effort to achieve success. We cannot permit Iraq to become a failed state from which terrorists can launch attacks against the United States.
I fully appreciate the sacrifice American families make when they lose a loved one in this fight to keep America safe. This country was built on the valiant sacrifices made by the many brave men and women in uniform who have answered the call to defend the freedom of all Americans. My prayers are for the safe return of those deployed and a timely, successful end to this conflict. I will continue to work to ensure that these heroes and their families are afforded the very best this nation can provide.
The various resolutions addressing the conflict in Iraq will be debated in the Senate within the next few weeks; please rest assured that I will be sure to keep your concerns, and the concerns of all Nevadans, in mind. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. If you should have further questions or comments or would like to share your thoughts on another matter, please feel free to write or e-mail me via my website at http://ensign.senate.gov.
Sincerely,
JOHN ENSIGN
United States Senator
JE/RT
Your thoughts and opinions are important. Unfortunately, any replies to this e-mail will not be received and processed. If you want to contact Senator Ensign electronically again please visit:
http://ensign.senate.gov/forms/email_form.cfm
We respect your online time and privacy. If you have any questions about our online privacy statement, please visit Senator Ensign's website http://ensign.senate.gov/ and read our privacy policy at the bottom of the page.
Ingmar Bergman and Bill Walsh Are Dead
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Just saw these obituaries on, respectively, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Chicago Tribune's respective sites.
The link to the Bergman obit. is http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/film-legend-passes-away/2007/07/30/1185647819444.html,
while the Walsh obit. is at http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/sns-ap-fbn-obit-walsh,0,5477816.story.
May both Mr. Bergman and Mr. Walsh rest in peace.
Be seeing you.
Tom Synder Dead At 71
Just read this at the LA Times site. Tom Snyder, whom many of you out there may remember from his '70's late-night talk show stint on NBC, as well as his CBS "Late Show" stint on CBS from '95-98, and even the parodies that Dan Akroyd did of him on "Saturday Night Live" back in the '70's, died of lukaemia, at age 71 yesterday.
I don't recall seeing him on NBC, but I enjoyed his work on "The Late Show", and thought he made a marvelous talk show host.
I, for one, will miss him.
The article can be found here at http://www.latimes.com/news/la-ex-snyder31jul31,0,7566354.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Synder.
Be seeing you.
News Monday: Article Links
Here are a few news article links for you to check out when you get the time.
The first is on the British Army's draw-down in the Basra area of southern Iraq from the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/middleeast/29basra.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1185807864-DdTP8KqFKCVI2rjusTKwvQ.
From the Veterans For Common Sense web-site comes this CNN article on the emergence of Shi'ite warlords in southern Iraq, and why and how that situation's so, at http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/8128.
From the Los Angeles Times, comes this article on the divisions inside the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which is split among as many factions, as there are floors of the Interior Ministry building in Baghdad(There are eleven floors, according to the article, and the top one's occupied by American advisors, so you do the math), at http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-interior30jul30,0,7135292.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntottext.
Also from the LA Times, comes this article on the increasing number of US-Iraqi tribal(mainly Sunni tribes)alliances, and how that doesn't sit well with many in the currently-Shi'ite dominated Iraqi government at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq29jul29,0,1476598.story?coll=la-tot-world&track=ntottext.
From the Sydney Morning Herald comes this article about how current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denies calling for British troop withdrawals from Iraq at http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bushs-poodle-turns-bulldog/2007/07/29/1185647743536.html?sssdmh=dm16.271293.
From the Observer/Guardian UK comes this story on the vast numbers of Iraqi amputees, and how the growing rates and numbers of amputations in Iraq are creating a health care crisis there, at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2137035,00.html.
From the Telegraph(UK)comes this article on just how stormy the relationship between Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Malaki and US forces' Commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus have become, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IGAHG33FIYEL1QFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/28/wirq128.xml.
From the New York Times, again, comes this article about how the Iraqi government's failing to take charge of the numerous development projects launched by various US military and civilian agencies once the latter have completed the initial tasks of building said projects, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/world/middleeast/28reconstruct.html?hp.
Finally, also from the NYT, comes this op-ed piece by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, the former a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the latter the director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, which advocates that Gen. Petraeus' surge strategy, along with the local alliances between the US military and various Iraqi tribal and ethnic groups, is beginning to bear fruit in Iraq, and should be allowed to seen through, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
I personally don't endorse this view, but post it here nonetheless, so that you can see it, and decide for yourselves what you think of it, as well as all of the other articles here.
Thanks for your time and attention, and be seeing you.
Am reproducing this op-ed piece by Ruben Navarrette Jr. that had been posted in a bulletin a friend of mine here sent out this evening.
I think it very concisely and nicely spells out the two major factors driving the immigration debate, and the extremely nasty turn it's taken in this country.
As for the Morris Dees quote about Joseph McCarthy, I think Mr. Dees was talking squarely out of his arse.
McCarthy's demagoguery was aimed, first and foremost, at Americans, whether "native-born" or immigrant, who were Communists, thought to be "fellow travelers" with the Communists, or who simply opposed McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Robert Kennedy(That's right. THAT Bobby Kennedy), and the rest of HUAC's activities.
Make no mistake: the above-named were, and remain, swine for what they said and did.
But, they didn't, to my knowledge, make the kinds of anti-immigrant statements, nor advocate the kinds of anti-immigrant policies that, for instance, A. Mitchell Palmer, US Attorney General during the second Wilson and Harding Administrations, did, though he was able to combine that with anti-Communist fear during the "Red Scare" of 1919-21.
It'd be one thing if Dees were someone like you or me, and made that kind of historical boo-boo.
But, Dees is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been fighting racism for around 30 years now, and should know his history better than that.
A niggling point??? Maybe. But, when people, on whatever portion of the political spectrum, fudge or completely screw up portions of the historical record for their own gain, even accidentally, I see(no pun intended)red.
Historical distortions, however accidental, garble people's understanding of history, and, consequently, their understanding of their culture and themselves, and leave them open to more distortions, exaggerations, and out-right lies.
Sorry for the extended rant about Dees' little historical whoopsie, but I really can't stand it, when someone who does, or at least should, know better than that, makes a dubious historical allegation to score some political point or another.
As for Dobbs, well, he may have made some good points about out-sourcing and its effects in the past, but, as for his stand on immigration, I have to say that he's so full of shit, his eyes should be brown, if they aren't already.
Anyhow, enough blather from me.
The article's directly below.
Thanks to ST for originally posting this in her bulletin, and be seeing you.
UNION-TRIBUNE
Ruben Navarrette Jr.
The winners write the history. And now that border restrictionists have won the battle to scuttle immigration reform, the history that many are desperate to write is that the debate was colorblind.
Really. The restrictionists and those pundits who have taken up their cause claim that race and ethnicity aren't even part of the discussion and that those who oppose giving illegal immigrants a shot at legal status would feel the same way if the immigrants were coming from Canada instead of Mexico. They say their concerns are limited to border security and the rule of law, and have nothing to do with nativism or xenophobia. And they reject any suggestion that the debate was hostile to Hispanics.
This is the fable being spun by CNN's Lou Dobbs, a commentator labeled by New York Times columnist David Leonhardt as "the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans." In recent days, Dobbs has argued that the Senate compromise died because Americans of all colors dispassionately concluded that it was bad for the country. Racism played no role, he insists.
Most Hispanics feel differently. I've seen three different surveys, including one by the Pew Hispanic Center, where majorities of Hispanics say that the immigration debate has led to an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. And, as I travel the country speaking to Hispanic groups, one thing I hear is that "anti-immigrant" rapidly morphed into "anti-Hispanic" and specifically "anti-Mexican."
I get evidence of that every day in my e-mail. Just last week, after I defended the prosecution of two Border Patrol agents, a reader called me a "dirty Latino" who needs to get "back to Mexico." Another writer called me an "anchor baby" – the term used by nativists to describe the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
Never mind that I was born in the United States and my parents were born in the United States. What I see here is racism.
That's also the view of the National Council of La Raza, which recently wrapped up its annual conference in Miami Beach. Speakers included Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton said the immigration debate has become "venomous."
Obama, quoting from a 1968 telegram that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sent to farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, said that Hispanics and African-Americans were "brothers in the fight for equality" and decried the "racism" that crept into the immigration debate.
For some reason, Dobbs took those remarks personally. He responded by poking at Clinton and Obama on his show, insisting that they were insulting the American people.
And he really went ballistic when NCLR Vice President Cecilia Munoz said that much of the immigration debate was driven by a "discomfort with Latinos," and the Senate had caved into "what was largely a wave of hate." That prompted Dobbs to blast the NCLR as a "socio-ethnic centric group."
I'd quibble with Munoz. I don't think it was just hate that drove the immigration debate, though according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate crimes against Latinos and immigrants are on the rise while hate groups use the immigration issue as a recruitment tool.
Just last week, the SPLC filed a lawsuit against the Imperial Klans of America – an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan – and five Klansmen, claiming that two members were recruiting for the group at a county fair in Kentucky when they beat up and kicked a 16-year-old Hispanic boy and called him a racial epithet. The boy, who suffered cracked ribs and other injuries, is a U.S. citizen of Panamanian descent.
But this isn't really about hate as much as it is fear and ignorance. And ironically, one of the things fueling it is people such as Dobbs.
"America has a long history of men like Lou Dobbs," Morris Dees, co-founder of the SPLC, said during a recent conference call with journalists. "Men like Sen. Joseph McCarthy who prey on the public fears. Often, they're xenophobic demagogues."
The people who buy into this demagoguery say the country is being colonized. That harkens back to what Benjamin Franklin said in the 1700s about German immigrants making up "a colony of aliens."
A lot of what Franklin said about the Germans was rank bigotry. The same goes for what other generations of Americans would later say about Italians, Irish, Jews and other immigrants – even if they came legally.
What poison. Thank goodness we got that out of our system.
Reproduced for educational purposes.
A Message From Senator John Ensign(R-NV)
A few weeks back, I received a response from Sen. John Ensign(R-Nv) regarding an on-line petition, which I'd signed, banning the use of cluster bombs by the US.
Well, this morning, I signed another petition calling on the GOP's Senate leadership to stop filibustering bills designed to mandate a time-table for American withdrawal from Iraq.
This response, and a bloody quick one it was, too, came from his office to-day.
The message's text is reproduced in full below.
Be seeing you.
This is an official communication from the Office of Senator John Ensign. Any tampering or alteration of this communication is prohibited and may result in criminal investigation or prosecution.
July 30, 2007
Mr. Donald Rilea
457 N Lamb Blvd Apt F
Las Vegas, Nevada 89110-3376
Dear Mr. Rilea:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the continued presence of our armed forces in Iraq. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me, and I value the opportunity to address them.
Recognizing that a new direction was needed if we were to achieve success in Iraq, President Bush outlined his new strategy in an address to the nation. He stated that in order for Iraqis to achieve a political solution to the civil strife in Iraq, security needed to be ensured. Approximately 20,000 additional U.S. troops will help this effort, coupled with an increase of Iraqi police and army units. To address the other requirements for success, the Iraqi government has pledged to pass legislation that will distribute oil revenues on a fair-share basis among all Iraqis: Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd. It will also spend some $10 billion of its own money in order to create jobs and improve the country's infrastructure.
I recently met with Army Lieutenant General David Petraeus, the new commander of our forces in Iraq. General Petraeus concurred with the sobering reality that removing U.S. troops prematurely would cause collapse of the government in Iraq and result in chaos, with terrorists groups like al-Qaeda filling the vacuum created by our departure. Anything short of victory would significantly undermine U.S. credibility and motivate the terrorists to wage their war inside our own borders. As such, it is vital to our own national security that Iraq succeeds.
Some in Congress have spoken out against the President's plan without offering any policy alternatives of their own. Empty rhetoric is not what is needed; rather we need to realize that this war against Islamic jihadists is unlike anything America has ever faced. While there is no guarantee that this plan or any other plan will work, I believe that we must make every effort to achieve success. We cannot permit Iraq to become a failed state from which terrorists can launch attacks against the United States.
I fully appreciate the sacrifice American families make when they lose a loved one in this fight to keep America safe. This country was built on the valiant sacrifices made by the many brave men and women in uniform who have answered the call to defend the freedom of all Americans. My prayers are for the safe return of those deployed and a timely, successful end to this conflict. I will continue to work to ensure that these heroes and their families are afforded the very best this nation can provide.
The various resolutions addressing the conflict in Iraq will be debated in the Senate within the next few weeks; please rest assured that I will be sure to keep your concerns, and the concerns of all Nevadans, in mind. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. If you should have further questions or comments or would like to share your thoughts on another matter, please feel free to write or e-mail me via my website at http://ensign.senate.gov.
Sincerely,
JOHN ENSIGN
United States Senator
JE/RT
Your thoughts and opinions are important. Unfortunately, any replies to this e-mail will not be received and processed. If you want to contact Senator Ensign electronically again please visit:
http://ensign.senate.gov/forms/email_form.cfm
We respect your online time and privacy. If you have any questions about our online privacy statement, please visit Senator Ensign's website http://ensign.senate.gov/ and read our privacy policy at the bottom of the page.
Ingmar Bergman and Bill Walsh Are Dead
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
Just saw these obituaries on, respectively, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Chicago Tribune's respective sites.
The link to the Bergman obit. is http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/film-legend-passes-away/2007/07/30/1185647819444.html,
while the Walsh obit. is at http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/sns-ap-fbn-obit-walsh,0,5477816.story.
May both Mr. Bergman and Mr. Walsh rest in peace.
Be seeing you.
Tom Synder Dead At 71
Just read this at the LA Times site. Tom Snyder, whom many of you out there may remember from his '70's late-night talk show stint on NBC, as well as his CBS "Late Show" stint on CBS from '95-98, and even the parodies that Dan Akroyd did of him on "Saturday Night Live" back in the '70's, died of lukaemia, at age 71 yesterday.
I don't recall seeing him on NBC, but I enjoyed his work on "The Late Show", and thought he made a marvelous talk show host.
I, for one, will miss him.
The article can be found here at http://www.latimes.com/news/la-ex-snyder31jul31,0,7566354.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel.
Rest In Peace, Mr. Synder.
Be seeing you.
News Monday: Article Links
Here are a few news article links for you to check out when you get the time.
The first is on the British Army's draw-down in the Basra area of southern Iraq from the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/middleeast/29basra.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1185807864-DdTP8KqFKCVI2rjusTKwvQ.
From the Veterans For Common Sense web-site comes this CNN article on the emergence of Shi'ite warlords in southern Iraq, and why and how that situation's so, at http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/8128.
From the Los Angeles Times, comes this article on the divisions inside the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which is split among as many factions, as there are floors of the Interior Ministry building in Baghdad(There are eleven floors, according to the article, and the top one's occupied by American advisors, so you do the math), at http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-interior30jul30,0,7135292.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntottext.
Also from the LA Times, comes this article on the increasing number of US-Iraqi tribal(mainly Sunni tribes)alliances, and how that doesn't sit well with many in the currently-Shi'ite dominated Iraqi government at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq29jul29,0,1476598.story?coll=la-tot-world&track=ntottext.
From the Sydney Morning Herald comes this article about how current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown denies calling for British troop withdrawals from Iraq at http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bushs-poodle-turns-bulldog/2007/07/29/1185647743536.html?sssdmh=dm16.271293.
From the Observer/Guardian UK comes this story on the vast numbers of Iraqi amputees, and how the growing rates and numbers of amputations in Iraq are creating a health care crisis there, at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2137035,00.html.
From the Telegraph(UK)comes this article on just how stormy the relationship between Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Malaki and US forces' Commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus have become, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IGAHG33FIYEL1QFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/28/wirq128.xml.
From the New York Times, again, comes this article about how the Iraqi government's failing to take charge of the numerous development projects launched by various US military and civilian agencies once the latter have completed the initial tasks of building said projects, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/world/middleeast/28reconstruct.html?hp.
Finally, also from the NYT, comes this op-ed piece by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, the former a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the latter the director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, which advocates that Gen. Petraeus' surge strategy, along with the local alliances between the US military and various Iraqi tribal and ethnic groups, is beginning to bear fruit in Iraq, and should be allowed to seen through, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
I personally don't endorse this view, but post it here nonetheless, so that you can see it, and decide for yourselves what you think of it, as well as all of the other articles here.
Thanks for your time and attention, and be seeing you.
06 August 2007
The Prisoner: "Fall Out", Part 5
Part 5 of "Fall Out", which closes out the episode, and the series.
In some regards, the consternation and anger stirred up by this episode's climactic meeting between No. 6 and No. 1, along with "The Prisoner"'s open end, was quite similar to that caused by the rather enigmatic, open end of the "Sopranos", and the audience reaction to the latter made me think of the reactions to this series' end when I first heard about it.
Will have more thoughts, reflections and pontifications on "The Prisoner" in this space in a few days time.
In the meantime, be seeing you, as was said all throughout the series.
In some regards, the consternation and anger stirred up by this episode's climactic meeting between No. 6 and No. 1, along with "The Prisoner"'s open end, was quite similar to that caused by the rather enigmatic, open end of the "Sopranos", and the audience reaction to the latter made me think of the reactions to this series' end when I first heard about it.
Will have more thoughts, reflections and pontifications on "The Prisoner" in this space in a few days time.
In the meantime, be seeing you, as was said all throughout the series.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)