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September 30, 2003
An Unsolicited Plug
by JeremyThere's a spoof news blog you should check out called Throne Report. Stop hounding me, dammit: yes it's me, it's my other blog.
It currently has an unreasonable number of Bush related jokes, but don't overinterpret that. The man -- though I greatly admire him for jeopardizing his presidency to liberate millions -- is a yuk magnet.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wilson and Novak and Plame "Oh My!"
by JeremyI?ve been reluctant (read: been way too chickenshit) to post on the whole Wilson/Plame/Novak/CIA/White House mystery but Roger Simon (in whose crowded comments pages I pusillanimously posted my goofy theory, which I here confess only now that it seems my theory may have been no more than 55 percent stupid) has, with bravery and caution, hosted and shepherded much discussion on the topic (here too).
One of the elements of this thing that Roger wisely points to is the nab-the-prez game (anti-Bush, anti-Clintion, same difference) that, at the very least, is probably adding to the bizarre way this story has been surfacing. I won?t add anything because you?re better off reading Roger, Glenn Reynolds and the blogs and comments they will lead you to, but Cathy Young has a piece in the Boston Globe today that speaks to the insanity of this POTUS-baiting phenomenon that?s worth reading. Or at least part of it is worth reading. Read the brilliant and refreshing part and skip the bits that fall flat, if you can figure out how that would work.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2003
"We hope the international community will not abandon us now"
by Jeremy
The acquittal of Amina Lawal by a Nigerian appeals court, overturning her sentence of death by stoning, was truly something to celebrate. But the monstrous source of her persecution still threatens Nigeria. It's right to celebrate Lawal's success but now is a good time to increase our concern over this issue rather than lessen it because the problem shows no sign of going away, as this Christian Sciene Monitor story illustrates:
"We hope the international community will not abandon us now," says Hauwa Ibrahim, Lawal's lawyer and friend. "This is when we need them most to keep an eye on us."
There have been some mixed messages as to whether or not international pressure is helpful, but it seems clear that this is more a matter of timing than anything else. We've got to watch and listen and when the call comes to make noise we ought to make as much noise as we can (if there's one thing the blogoshpere knows how to do it's how to make noise).
UPDATE: CIVILIZATION CALLS is vowing to make noise, so tune in and listen...
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 28, 2003
Left meets Right?
by CaraChecking out Norman Geras?s excellent blog recently, and the site Butterflies and Wheels he raved about, I was again inspired to blab a bit more about ?lefty? relativist assumptions inherent in ?leftist? dogma.
Moral Relativism essentially informs us that what is considered a truth in one culture is not necessarily considered a truth in another. Correct? In essence this means that there is no truth no matter what the evidence may suggest as it is all ?relative? to the cultural standards at hand. Good liberal that I am, I have, in the past, given this idea a lot of time and effort. I remember my freshman anthropology professor, Arthur Keene, talking about this issue as having particular importance to those studying other cultures in the field. The question of leaving aside one?s own standards when trying to document another culture was often discussed as an important way to keep objective. Talk therapy was another example of an area where a non-judgmental environment was thought as necessary to build the trust needed for therapeutic ?breakthroughs? to happen. I specifically remember a conversation in this anthropology course where the professor made the point that though removing one?s own standards for the purpose of objectivity was important in this kind of work, it didn?t necessarily follow that this idea be carried into every aspect of life in general. This professor, as I remember it, saw relativism as a valuable tool for use at work, but also spoke of its nasty potential if taken too far into all aspects of existence. I?m very grateful to this professor for his insight here. It?s one of the reasons I feel I?ve survived the post-9/11 relativist ringer we?ve all been through. Another reason I know my professor was right on this: ?There is no such thing as truth?, Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925.
-Cara
Posted by Cara at 09:56 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
Help Save the Bottom Line (Updated)
by JeremyA unique and historic music venue in New York City is facing its demise. The Bottom Line, whose space is owned by NYU, is being taken to court for eviction. This club has a 30 year history during which everybody you can think of has played there, many before, during, and after the height of their careers.
You can't say NYU is a villain here since the Bottom Line was indeed tens of thousands of dollars behind in rent -- they took a major hit in attendance, it seems, following 9/11. But NYU has clearly made a judgement that going out of their way to keep a music venue alive is less important than using the space for classrooms. It's a reasonable position, but it resembles the kinds of arguments that arise over the preservation of would-be historic landmarks. Sometimes the cultural value of a building is more important than putting that building to the most logical, practical use. There's got to be a solution whereby NYU can get its extra classroom space and the Bottom Line can stay alive. Perhaps if the folks at NYU understand how many people value the club, they'll be more motivated to cooperate on an innovative solution to the problem.
Fortunately there are some people who have organized a petition so we can show our support. But if you know anyone who knows anyone, or if you have any brilliant ideas I'm sure the people at the Bottom Line can use any help they can get.
UPDATE: There's a better telling of the story here. Sirius sattelite radio is putting up $185,000 to catch them up on what they owe NYU! It looks like NYU deserves credit for much patience and Sirius deserves credit for heroism here. Ok, Sirius, you've got me: as soon as I can afford another luxury I will choose your brand of sattelite radio. A company that can prove itself this devoted to the music world is likely to run a radio station with integrity.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2003
Stone Age, Space Age...Why Choose?
by JeremyNigeria, as of today, takes the prize for insane juxtaposition of the Millenium:
The police officers who arrested Ms. Lawal produced no witnesses to fornication, the court said. The court also gave a nod to what defense lawyers had called the "sleeping embryo" theory: under some interpretations of Shariah, an embryo can be in gestation for up to five years, meaning that Ms. Lawal's baby could have been fathered by her former husband...
Space Age:
A Nigerian satellite blasted into orbit Saturday aboard a Russian rocket, propelling one of the poorest nations on earth into space for the first time.I ain't making this shit up...
Millions of Nigerians watched the launch -- at Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome -- on live television.
``It makes me proud to be a Nigerian,'' said Prosper Sunday, a 27-year-old security guard in Lagos. ``It shows our nation is progressing. We've joined the space age.''
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 07:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
How to Put Glenn Reynolds at a loss for Words
by JeremyMany people take the word "nonplussed" to mean something like "unimpressed." I used to contend that it meant something more like the opposite of that, something like chagrined. I've since come to understand that it's meaning is somewhere in between.
If you want a living definition of the word, listen to Christopher Lydon's audio interview with Glenn Reynolds. About 20 minutes in (very roughly) Lydon refers in passing to the "fact" that the New York Times has had a strong pro Iraq war bias. What follows is a long, pure silence from GR. I don't mean to slander Lydon, who seems like a decent guy, but it reminded me of what it's like to be having a pleasant, lucid conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic in which he suddenly, casually mentions the fact that he used to be the famous Count Dracula until God transformed him into Ozzy Osbourne in order to deliver a message to the world about the evils of tupperware (this is a thinly fictionalized version of something once actually said to me). From what lexicon, in other words, do you find the words for a ready response . This is what it means to be nonplussed.
But you should listen to the interview. It was cool to hear the Instapundit speaking in his actual Insta-voice. He sounds like a very nice, down-to-earth guy and he had some interesting things to say about the phenomenon of blogging.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Harry Defends UK from Low Flying Horseshit
by JeremyOver at Harry's Place there's an online counter demonstration against the London "anti-occupation" protest. Via Jeff Jarvis. See Also the ease with which Michael Totten turns the fan against a similar crap-shower.
I'm just so glad these guys are out there.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 04:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Edward Said's Bad Influence on Hitch
by JeremyThe death of Edward Said the other day made me think back to a very amusing anecdote in Martin Amis? memoir Experience in which he describes an extremely uncomfortable evening spent with Christopher Hitchens and Saul Bellow. A pretty good synopsis of the incident is quoted below from a Village Voice piece in which one Joy Press fearlessly wrangles Amis and Hitch together in one review. Not mentioned is that what sparked the ugly exchange was a contemptuous remark Bellow made about Edward Said, then Hitchens? good friend. It?s a good example of what seems to have been the toxic effect of Said?s intellectual influence on Hitchens.
Buried in Martin Amis's memoir, Experience, is an anecdote about his old friend Christopher Hitchens. They've driven all the way to Vermont to visit Saul Bellow, Amis's hero, but the evening goes terribly wrong when the dinner conversation turns toward Israel. After 90 minutes of Hitchens's "cerebral stampede"--a tirade on the crimes of Zionism directed at one of America's Great Jews--"a silence slowly elongated itself over the dinner table. Christopher, utterly sober but with his eyes lowered, was crushing in his hands an empty packet of Benson & Hedges. The Bellows, too, had their gazes downcast. I sat with my head in my palms, staring at the aftermath of the dinner. . . . My right foot was injured because I had kicked the shins of the Hitch so much with it."
For some reason I can?t find my copy of Experience on my bookshelf, but as I recall, during the drive home Amis, despite Hitchens pleading for hours for a chance to pee, refused to pull the car over. So you see there is a way to defeat Hitchens in an intellectual argument.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2003
Amina Lawal's Victory
by JeremyGreat news, Amina Lawal will live! I can?t imagine how this woman feels. Then again, I can?t imagine how any woman feels living under Sharia law anywhere. As a woman contemplating all of this in a free country that upholds my right to safely do so publicly and privately, I?ve only allowed a fraction of my anger to surface and yet that mere fraction truly overwhelms me; and this is why we fight.
I?d like to know, if Amina Lawal was today sentenced to death would A.N.S.W.E.R. do anything to rally in her defense? Tell me, what would A.N.S.W.E.R.?s answer be? Well, give them a break; they?re only involved in organizing against the war in Iraq, right? Wrong...Mumia gets their attention but there?s no mention of Amina Lawal anywhere on their site. Oh, that?s right, forgive me, I forgot, the death penalty (and torture, stoning remember) is only unjust in capitalist/imperialist countries.
Anyway, one of the knots in my stomach just dissipated at the news that the theocratic fascists very publicly lost yet another battle, and regard for human decency prevailed, this time. This news is obviously a hopeful sign. The ripples will be felt. I will thank not ?God? but the spirit of liberation made manifest by folks walking the liberation talk, the same spirit that loyal ?lefties? are, in actuality, fighting against these days.
-Cara
Posted by Jeremy at 02:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Micro-pundit Moment
by JeremyI have no pretentions in this area and I'm sure the moment will not last, but as I write this I feel like the Blogfather himself. I read his post from his outdoor, free Wi-fi cafe paradise and was envious, to say the least. But I did a little Google search and found -- astoundingly -- a local cafe here in Northampton, MA offering free Wi-fi. It's too much for me to handle. The Cafe is called Woodstar -- the food and coffee are great too!
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Good News!
by Jeremy
KATSINA, Nigeria (CNN) -- An appeals court has freed a Nigerian mother sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
Posted by Jeremy at 06:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Caution: Slow Bloggers
by Cara & Jeremy
Sorry for the light blogging, as they say. But when we say it, you will notice, we say it with good reason. Four days and nothin?. Cara?s been busy redesigning our house and I?ve been sweating over an article I?m writing under deadline (I write for an electrician?s trade journal, though I?m no more qualified to write for electricians than I am to be a political pundit...hey, maybe I should get a job for the New York Times or the BBC).
Here are a few things that I?ve been wishing I had more time to comment on these past couple of days...
Tim Blair points to an absolutely bizarre Reuters headline -- it will be like a summons to all your righteously indignant blood.
Today is the day Amina Lawal will find out whether she is to be stoned to death. But lest you think the Nigerian court system lacks compassion, here?s why they?d postponed the decision until now:
?Her sentence was delayed until she could wean her baby, Wassila.?
CNN had a story the other day about 1991 Gulf War veterans and ALS (Lou Gehrig?s disease)
"VA researchers found that military personnel deployed to the Gulf War region during the conflict stood twice the risk of suffering ALS compared with nondeployed military."
My grandfather died of ALS when I was 13, so this is of particular interest to me. Some ?researchers? we are told ?blame stress? for this. Sure, maybe. I guess the fact that they were exposed to sarin couldn?t have had anything to do with it.
-Jeremy
Posted by Cara & Jeremy at 01:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2003
The French Resistance
by JeremyEncounter Books will soon be publishing a book by French author Jean-Fran?ois Revel entitled, simply enough, Anti-Americanism. It looks to be an intelligent and interesting account of the phenomenon from the perspective of a prominent French Writer. Here?s an excerpt from his introduction in which he describes how European (and particularly French) anti-Americanism is by no means an exlusively Left wing phenomenon:
The European Right?s anti-Americanism stems fundamentally from our continent?s loss during the twentieth century of its six-hundred-year-old leadership role: Europe as powerhouse of enterprise and industry, innovator in arts and sciences, maker of empires--in practical terms, the master of the planet. It was sometimes one European country, sometimes another, that took the lead in this process of globalization avant la lettre, but all more or less participated, either in concert or by turns. Today, by contrast, not only has Europe lost the ability to act alone on the global scale, but it is in some degree compelled to follow in the footsteps of the United States and to lend support. It is in France that this loss--real or imaginary--of great power status causes the most bitterness. Meanwhile, hatred for democracy and for the liberal economy that is its necessary condition is the driving force of the extreme Right?s anti-Americanism, as it is for the extreme Left?s.
The most astounding thing about this? The book, under its original title L?Obsession Anti-Am?ricaine, was a number one best seller in France!
See WindsofChange on this and much more, and see Cara on how it is that the Left and Right can so seamlessly blend into each other.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
None of our business?
by JeremyAmina Lawal, the Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of adultery, is scheduled to have her final fate decided next week. It seems there?s been open protest in Nigeria and in South Africa, which is certainly heartening. I remembered that big letter and email writing campaign last year and so I looked through the Amnesty International website -- a strange hall of mirrors where visions, some vivid and true some ugly and distorted, surround and ultimately overwhelm you. I ultimately found an Amnesty site devoted to Lawal and her plight, but the campaign was inactive, for reasons that struck me as unclear.
A google search led me to this BBC story from May 2003 which relates an appeal from a Nigerian group on behelf of Lawal, urging the international community to cease their letter writing. The logic, something to do with change from the inside being better than change from the outside, just doesn?t ring true to me. There?s just something hollow in this, something too like an invitation to go back to rationalizing the view that people of ?other? cultures are better left to sort things out for themselves. I don?t know...what do you think?
A more complete and balanced representation of the issue, and some ways people can help, can be found here (though I can't vouch for the site or the info: but check it out for yourself)
It may indeed be true that there?s nothing, between this week and next, that a humble blogger like myself can do to help win this small battle in the war against liberal values, against women, against democracy...but I will never accept that it?s none of my business. Might it be true that facile, liberal emailing campaigns accomplish little more than backlash in these situations? Certainly we should listen to those on the ground, those who know what they're talking about. But it's vital to remember that this isn't a Nigerian problem alone -- it's a piece of a global war in which we are all targets.
It?s too bad that these words by Martin Niemoeller have become trite and have lately been glibly, obscenely misemployed by the wilted Left. I cite them here in a form that I gather is close to their pre-quaintified origin:
?When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church -- and there was nobody left to be concerned.?
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 01:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2003
An Assumption of the "Left"
by CaraI wrote about the unconsciousness of the ?left?s? ?faith?, or their assumptions about the world (one being relativism), informing their theories about (and actions in) the world. I?ve come to realize there?s something else the ?egalitarian? ?left? is unconscious of.
Part of the rhetoric of the ?left? is the purporting to uphold egalitarianism. This was supposed to be the structure of the little ?collective? business I worked for. Yet, what slowly became apparent there was what Jo Freeman, in 1970, called ?The Tyranny of Structurelessness.? This essay focused on research into the phenomenon of the disintegration from within of 1970s feminist egalitarian collectives. Jo Freeman found that in the absence of formally elected leadership, un-named and un-elected leaders would spontaneously surface to exert primary control over the group. Leaders existed but were not consciously acknowledged as such. A culture quickly became established that essentially ostracized anyone who disagreed with the un-named leader(s). Elitist cliques formed an unconscious hierarchy, made up of the most outspoken of the group, which served to fill the leadership vacuum presented by ?structurelessness?. This un-elected hierarchy rigidified to exert pressure on those who dissented from their own opinions and because these leaders often went formally un-checked they tended to become more and more autocratic and harsh over time. Dissenters were simply branded as ?traitors of the cause?, and no one would dare listen seriously to a ?traitor?. These dissenters often left in disgust and mistrust of the ?cause?. And boy, does this ever feel familiar to me. This was exactly what happened within the collective I worked for and is exactly what continues to happen, I found, as a matter of course in most collectives as well. Unfortunately, under these conditions, collectives tend to turn into a bully?s paradise. No one dares dissent, those that do end up leaving and those who remain serve as the bully?s polite, martyred, ?passive?-ist enablers.
I fear this has happened, in a broader sense, to the ?Left? in general, and has certainly happened within the ?Lefty Intelligentsia? who helped to create and inform these collectives. So what becomes gruesomely apparent here, for me, is the usually hidden fact that ?leftists? really do, unconsciously and underneath their ?egalitarian? sugar coating, love not only hierarchy but the most potentially dangerous kind of hierarchy: un-elected, un-checked and unaccountable. Is this why, again and again, they ultimately always end up siding with (if even tacitly) the most dangerous dictatorships going? ?Saddam Hussein is horrible but...?...but what? Follow the line of logic here and it always leads to ?...but the U.S. is just as bad or worse?, casually brushing aside thousands in mass graves and apologizing for genocidal murderers. It really is that clear and really should be that embarrassing to every ?Lefty? who cares at all about truth and decency.
An article by David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart that I found via Glenn Reynolds put some unique historical perspective on this for me recently. This article, from 12/01, tracks the mid 19th century anti-market ?parasite? rhetoric of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, their critiques of conventional economic theory, and traces as a common thread a love of hierarchy and ?a worldview where the most competent rule the least competent?. Levy and Peart write,
?Carlyle supported hierarchy, a world view where the competent made decisions for the incompetent. He defended hierarchical institutions on the paternalistic grounds that the class of people likely to be exploited in unregulated economic and political settings, required looking after. In the 19th century, such denials of the benefits of free exchange were used to attack markets and defend racial slavery.?
They argue that , ?The underlying methodology of economics, by contrast, is deeply egalitarian? and use the example of John Stuart Mill?s commitments to both the abolition of slavery and free markets in contrast to Carlyle?s outright racism and anti-market ?parasite? rhetoric (which, as I understand it, focused on ridding the world of wealthy ?parasites? who ?take without giving back?; often the ?parasites? most often named were Jewish, Irish, Jamaicans or other entrepreneurial minorities who worked hard for independence, while at the same time this rhetoric also expressed the need for strong hierarchical institutions to paternally ?look after? the downtrodden ?exploited? by these ?parasites?.)
I don?t think ?lefties?, or even liberals, are used to thinking that free-market proponents and free the slaves proponents could be the same folks. Conversely, ?lefties? are not used to thinking of people who?ve campaigned against industrial capitalism and for better conditions for the poor as right wing racists. ?Lefties? have been taught, I believe, by the ?intelligentsia?, to adhere to their own fixed and rigid definitions of ?right? and ?left? and trained to assume anyone who talks, in a positive way, about the marketplace is by nature the enemy.
It is certainly true that free markets and totalitarian regimes do not mix, and in countries where the markets are freer the people usually are too, yet I?m still not so sure that free markets are always egalitarian in nature, as Levy and Peart argue. However, I do think that they have hit on something here, something that struck chords with me with respect to my collective ?lefty? experience: There seems to be a unique relationship between those devoted to philanthropic social justice and the hierarchies they claim to disdain; they always scorn their enemy?s hierarchy while vigorously fostering their own, whether they admit to it or not, and this can, and often does, lead down the same shady road they fight against and profess to be beyond.
Now more than ever, the ?Left?s? predilection for hierarchy is, to me, clearly apparent. The ?Left?s? assumption of their egalitarianism continues to cloak their hidden agenda even from their own eyes. There?s something so chilling about all of this and yet so embarrassingly sad at the same time. Hypocrisy isn?t a big enough word for it. This is truly my second biggest disillusionment and a phenomenon, as a report comes in of 6 American and 2 British citizens arrested in Iraq for conspiring in attacks on coalition forces, I?ve really come to fear, fifth column style.
-Cara
Posted by Cara at 03:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 14, 2003
What's That Funky Kabbalah Religion?
by JeremyThe BBC News website today features the realease of a new children's book by Madonna. What does Madonna write a children's book about? I wanted to know too. It seems it's a series, as the BBC tells us:
Each book is based on Hebrew texts from the Kabbalah religion.
Too little is known about this Kaballah religion, it seems. But what's odd to me is that I had thought Madonna was part of that whole Virgin Mary religion.
I'm not saying that the above is anti-Semitic (I don't think it is) but it shows you why, of all the world's brands of anti-Semitism, Britain's is generally the most cute and cuddly. So many British people really think of us as if we were smurfs or unicorns. It's so childlike it's hard to take offense.
UPDATE: See Zachary's interesting observations about a common perception of Jews in Japan.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 13, 2003
The Pink Hula Hoop of Politics
by CaraMichael Totten recently wrote an update about his display of ?Why We Fight? pictures saying that some people were confused by the juxtaposition of images asking ?What do Nazis and Communists have to do with Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?? Michael posted a great bit from Paul Berman to explain, the crux of which was this: ?Each of these movements, in their lush variety, entertained a set of ideas that pointed in the same direction?.
This validates for me something I?ve thought for years now. Several years ago, at a time in my life when I was reading a lot about politics, I had a weird intuitive flash. I saw the pole line that we?re all familiar, with Communist on the far left side and Nazi on the far right, as actually only part of the picture and that this line only appears to be a line when viewed from a certain narrow angle. Imagine someone a block away from you is holding up a bright pink hula-hoop horizontally so that it is level straight. When you look up, if you?re at the right spot, all you see is a bright pink line in the distance. Move to a different position and the image that appeared as a simple pink line is seen as a circle. This is how I?ve come to see the traditional linear spectrum of left & right, that it actually seems to curve around to meet itself at different political points, forming a circle... and one of those points is tyranny.
I realize it?s all so much more complicated than this, (for instance where do Liberatarians go here? maybe the metaphor is closer to a 3-d globe than a circle). And I realize this is just my own inner sketch, I?m certainly no serious intellectual theorist, but this internal map metaphor has served me well for getting my head around the phenomenon Paul Berman spoke so eloquently of, that apparently different movements can point towards, and (unfortunately) arrive at, the same place. Here?s my clunky little attempt at a graphic to try to illustrate what I mean:
-Cara
Posted by Cara at 05:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Arafat Calls for Return to Peace Talks
by JeremyWait, Arafat...calling for peace talks? So he really is a man of peace! Who Knew?TM. Too bad Israel keeps getting in his way, isn't it. It would almost be easier for him to get his work done if there were no Israel.
Here's a fascinating piece on Arafat from last year...
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2003
Looking at the Unthinkable
by JeremyBecause Glenn Reynolds' email inbox is probably big enough already (the thing probably has its own zip code by now) I've written the following as an open letter in response to those who?ve criticized him for posting a picture of a man jumping from the world trade center...
Glenn, I absolutely think showing that picture was a positive thing to do. I have found that in many ways these images of people jumping have haunted me more than anything (My perspective is as a non-witness, I?ve only seen the media coverage). And in fact I?ve been haunted for many years by similar stories of people jumping from the burning Triangle Shirtwaist factory, not far from ground zero, in 1911. For me this means that it?s important to look at these images and grapple with the nightmares, though this may be too much for witnesses or survivors. I think people have to decide for themselves when it?s safe to face this stuff and how to do it. But if you read the blogs on September 11th, you have to expect that people will be grappling with these kinds of issues out in the open.
I just found out that there had been a statue erected in Rockefeller Center, a year ago, called ?Tumbling Woman? that depicted a woman jumping from one of the towers. So many people complained about it that a decision was made to cover it up. There?s probably no right and wrong here.
While it must be partly true that these people jumped out of the simple, animal instinct to avoid pain I have, first, come to embrace this -- we are all animals and that?s one of the things we fear most but it?s one of the things that is the most beautiful once you accept it. The other thing, though, is that we are different from any other animal. And equally true is that these people -- some jumping while holding hands, one woman jumping while clutching her purse to her chest, presumably so she could be identified and claimed by her loved ones -- were seizing the dignity of choosing to leap back into a world they loved and in which they continued to believe that their lives were important.
So this was not true suicide. Its been said by some compassionate observers that these jumpers chose life -- maybe its more accurate to say that, given that they were going to die, they chose this world, rather than the world of horror and hate they were attacked by. So when I see the pictures of jumpers I feel an overwhelming sense of connection and compassion for them, and a sense that we owe them our commitment to defending this world they loved so much, even as they were about to die.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2003
by Cara & Jeremy
Posted by Cara & Jeremy at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2003
9/11: More Leftover Thoughts
by CaraI?ve just recently left a job I?d had for four years at a ?lefty? collective copy shop. (By the way, this was a place I was mostly proud of, pre-9/11.) My reasons for leaving were personal merging with political as I witnessed the little problems we had at the collective being simultaneously played out, after 9/11, on an obviously grander scale with the larger ?left? in general. You see, this job of mine was both a microcosm of and megaphone for what some have called the ?tinfoil hat? phenomenon (or ?loony left?) and observing the behavior of both the micro and macrocosms I?ve realized that so many underlying and almost unconscious assumptions identical to both have led to almost identical problems with both.
One assumption I?ve noticed lately seems to go far deeper than I originally thought. I have three examples:
1) At work one day one of my co-workers said essentially that he thought the U.S. was just as fascist as Nazi Germany, to which I took immediate offense. I said I thought this was a particularly insidious insult to holocaust victims everywhere because it gives the impression of being something morally above the holocaust denial that it verges on. Another more supportive co-worker defended my point saying something like ?How will people know when the real fascists come if you?re always using that word to describe all sorts of people you happen to disagree with?? I appreciated the help she gave me and I agreed with the point made but something about it stuck in my craw. Later that night the words ?when the real fascists come...? kept going around in my head. Wait a minute, when the real fascists come? Didn?t they already come, rather recently? Hello? 9/11, 2001? Remember?
2) In the midst of a very non-political chat with the women from the BBC?s fashion conscious show What Not to Wear, NPR?s Terry Gross commented about not throwing out an ugly but very functional old sweater she had and that she was keeping it around ?in case there?s a war or something?. There goes that craw thing again. In case there?s a war? Uuuh...
3) Pete Seeger just re-released an old song of his called ?(If You Love Your Uncle Sam) Bring Them Home? where he remarks how apt this is again, ?There's one thing I must confess, I'm not really a pacifist, If an army invaded this land of mine, You'd find me out on the firing line?. And for my most recent craw daddy...If an army invaded this land? Sorry Pete, I must?ve missed you there.
I?m left with the only conclusion I can draw here: people on the ?left? simply don?t think this war is real and assume that after the 9/11 ?fluke? occurred, (the co-worker from above actually used this word to describe 9/11), there?s no real threat, or at least not as big as the Capitalist empire threat.
Well, it seems a lot of folks on the ?left? will never know when the real fascists come, will never acknowledge this land was invaded, and will never realize the war is here and now. The question becomes why. Why have they refused to turn this corner of reality? Why do they so easily redefine reality to suit their agenda? Which brings me to one of the biggest ?lefty? blind-spots of all time: relativism. This concept underlies so much leftist thought that it has become almost invisible. And it is important to remember that all of this relativist philosophy is just that, philosophy, and is not scientific fact; it is an assumption, or, rather a faith, about the world. Does it seem odd to anyone else that an entire school of ?lefty? political thought, one that prides itself on having a strong commitment to objectivity and truth, is based in part on faith, a faith that has remained for the most part unconscious? And does it seem even stranger to realize that people on the ?right? side of the political spectrum are not only conscious of their own particular faith informing their politics but are actively involved in crafting it that way. In other words, the right & left are both affected and moved to action by their ?faiths? but only the left doesn?t see this assumption as the act of faith that it really is, while continually criticizing the religious dogmatism of the ?right?. I can?t help thinking how true it is that knowing your bias (or admitting your bias) leaves you actually more objective than folks who do not see (or will not admit to) their own bias.
This same relativist mode of thinking that led the ?lefty? global intelligentsia into world war denial also led my local co-workers into their own form of collective battle denial. On all fronts outrageous acts are reframed or renamed as needed: terrorists become ?revolutionaries?; intentional attacks on thousands of innocents soften into sad ?tragedy?; reporters who create, rather than report, the ?facts? and who behave irrationally get promoted rather than disciplined; and my co-worker?s act of kicking a hole in a wall, after many screaming tantrums, becomes simply a ?low point? ignored out of ?sympathy?, void of consequence, or a just a ?cathartic expression? above judgment. Obviously, all vary in degree of severity for sure, but all these examples have, at their core, a duty to shrug and never judge (except for imperialist capitalist pigs, of course), for all is relative in the universe.
On the eve of the second anniversary of 9/11 I?d like to remember a universe where ?lefties? know a fascist, an invasion, and a war when they see it, and aren?t ashamed to feel grief for the innocent victims of fascist thugs. I?d like to witness a renaissance of real liberal principles (you know, freedom, democracy, human rights, that sort of thing) take precedence over fetish guilt and obscene misdirected rage at the devils they know all too well to be really scared of.
-Cara
Posted by Cara at 07:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 08, 2003
Ruth and the Supremes (in the shower?)
by JeremyListening (!) to the U.S. Supreme Court?s oral arguments on McCain-Feingold on C-SPAN (but it?s TV so of course you get to see colorized slides of the justice?s heads) I had a couple of tangential observations.
The first is that Justice Breyer sounds a hell of a lot like Mr. Rogers. Here?s a link to video of him trying to speak several languages to students at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, DC. (I?m torn between two polar reactions here: on the one hand there?s something wrong, something pitiful in the resulting display. On the other hand what's wrong with enjoying the fact that there are so many different cultural influences in this country, as long as it doesn?t come at the expense of teaching kids what we share, something often presented as a Hobson's choice, falsely in my view, since we can have both). But honestly, it?s the Mr. Rogers thing that?s most important here.
And here?s the other thing...what the hell am I doing listening to TV? I don?t know if it?s the court itself that?s mind-meltingly boring or if I?m mesmerized into chuckleheadedness by staring at the frozen, cheesy smiles of one justice after another, but I feel I've gained nothing from it.
And the tidbit below makes it so much harder to tolerate. How, if the Supreme Court is such a delicate instrument that it must be spared the taint of the viewing public's hairy eyeballs, can it reconcile itself to stuff like this:
If she were not a judge, Ginsburg would have chosen to be an opera singer. "If I could have any talent God could give me, I would be a great diva," she said. "But unfortunately I can only sing in the shower and in my dreams."
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 09:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 06, 2003
Ex Ministers Don't Die They Just Spew Away
by JeremyJeff Jarvis doesn't let this sort of stuff get past him and I guess that's why he's captain of the Buzzmachine. He was the first to find the words to revile Michael Meacher, former U.K. environment minister, for writing, among other things, that the Bush administration allowed 9/11 to occur so they'd have justification for the war for world hegemony (rule of thumb: ignore anyone who uses the word "hegemony") long planned within the evil lair of the neo-conservative thinktank, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
I would only add that Michael Meacher is the same former environment minister who, several years ago, so nobly advocated for a ban on urban Brits buying second homes in the countryside:
"There are many young people from families who have lived in the countryside for generations who want to stay there, who want to marry and get a house.They find it extremely difficult because of the existence of those who can buy up property, force up property prices and make it extremely difficult for people who have more right than anyone else to stay in the countryside.?
He even gallantly confessed that he himself owned a second home in the country. It later emerged that he owns seven of them (registration required to view)
To be a proper hypocrite one must, of course, stand at arm?s length from the truth. This guy?s reality problem, however, seems rather exceptional.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 02:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 05, 2003
Clearing Out the Junk
by JeremyWith my job at the ?collective?, and all things far left, behind me, I?ve had oodles of time on my hands with which I?ve been using, both the time and my hands, to do some much needed housework, painting, a bit of renovating, etc. so I?d like to (formally) thank Jeremy for carrying the load these days with his fun and intelligent blogging (as well as also helping out with these household projects). I guess I?ve really needed to do this kind of physical work these days. It helps to clear the junk from my head as well as from my house. So, with the kitchen now the color of curry, the cabinets clean, and new shelving in process I break from this work to comment briefly on a couple of things.
I?m so glad Andrew Sullivan is back, I?ve missed his razor sharp insight. I was glad to see him spotlight the discovery of Vatican documents that reveal systemic conspiracy regarding sex-abuse of children by priests. Unfortunately, this does not surprise me. Which leads me to this granite Ten Commandments monument thing: isn?t it common sense that this latest court ordered action is in actuality protecting all religious practices in this country from being steamrolled over by any other less tolerant faction? Imagine that there?s a city in the U.S. that is mostly, say, Muslim, and imagine that the local judge puts up a granite monument in the public courtyard of the Koran. Now, does this feel at all threatening to anyone? Well, it does to me; in fact this would feel just as threatening to me whichever holy book is depicted. That is just the point. No government official has the right to promote any religion on public property, period, and that ensures that Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, Jewish, and Islamic practices are all equally protected here in the democratic and pluralistic country we are all so proud of that we send our own in harm?s way to fight to protect. Common sense, right?
-Cara
Posted by Jeremy at 11:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2003
The Real Diversity
by JeremyA few bloggers have been lamenting the fact that identity politics has overstayed its welcome in this country. I agree, but think we should explore the territory a bit more. It certainly is a drag when people play games with their in-group/out-group capital, making a cruel competition out of their heritage, their beliefs, their sex or sexuality, trading on the coin of their faith, their nature or their ancestors in an almost greedy way.
And maybe that?s the point: it?s not that there?s any reason to avoid identifying with the group or trait or belief that makes you -- in part -- who you are, but that we need to realize we?re playing with dangerous mojo when we do this. There is an unfortunate human temptation to use our group identification to enhance our existential cache at the expense of other people or even to drag them down into the hole that we?re in (to paraphrase Dylan).
But there is clearly something good about celebrating the things that make us unique. I went to a required ?diversity? training a few years ago which just by chance was led by a truly interesting guy (Bob, something. I can?t remember his last name just now). He was African-American, so I expected him to have something to teach me about race. It turned out, though, that he wanted to teach us the opposite of that. He said he was told by the all white employees of one company he did this training for that they ?didn?t have any diversity.? Bob said if we didn?t know why this was stupid, he was going to teach us why. He then took us through an exercise where we interviewed the people at our tables and found out how different everyone was from each other, though the superficial group-identifications might have led one to suppose otherwise. This, he said was real diversity and this, he said, was what people had to learn to tolerate in each other. No membership in an ?in-group? will save you from having to learn to tolerate this real kind of diversity.
So step one has something to do with learning about what makes us each different and then learning to be able to visualize other people?s qualities as if they were our own. Or something like that (hell, I only took one short workshop).
Growing up in New York City, I saw a lot of ?diversity? but there was nothing that taught me how to understand what it all meant. Now that I live in Massachusetts (for the past 18 years or so) I can look back and see that in some ways I had more in common with the ?diverse? people I knew in NYC than with many seemingly similiar to me here.
A lot of this is about language. I may think of myself as Jewish, (meaning I guess a kind of nationality of people of partly Semitic heritage more recently of Eastern Europe) but I am culturally an English speaking person from New York. Thus, Shakespeare speaks to my soul more than the untranslated stories of Isaac Singer which just sound to me like the murmurings of my grandparents when they didn?t want me to understand what they were saying. So the language I was steeped in is my linguistic culture and I think it really defines me.
I've found a fun way to play with this kind of linguistic awareness: it?s a survey on pronunciations and quirks of English vernacular as they vary form state to state. Read through the results for your state of birth and you?ll feel things happening to you, you?ll feel the strings of your culture being plucked. (By the way, this scares the hell out of conservatives, fundamentalists and racists, since language is a virus, to quote Laurie Anderson, and it can steal your children away from you, if you choose to look at it that way. Thus the reactionary uses of identity politics)
One little coda: has anyone else noticed that the numerous accents of New York are merging? I?m finding it increasingly difficult to attribute that classic accent of New York ?attitude? to any one culture: Italian, Jewish, Latino, African-American, Irish, Chinese...they all seem now to own equal stock in it. It has all mixed together to become one single, linguistic battering ram that enables New Yorkers to brazen their way through the thousand natural shocks that come between the subway to work and the subway home.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 01, 2003
I Gave Mecha the Benefit of the Doubt -- It Didn't Last Long
by JeremyI?ve seen a number of blog posts about Bustamante and his past links to a group called Mecha. I did a little research on Mecha to find out what the fuss is about. It turns out they?re a Chicano (ie: Mexican-American) separatist group, whose goal is to reclaim the Southwest -- the historic nation of ?Aztlan? as they refer to it -- from the ?Gringo.? Always eager to don my ?disappointed optimist? uniform, I thought to myself, ?hey, maybe they?re just a progressive Chicano group who, in their youthful rebelliousness, are trying to stir up the muck a little with some tongue-in-cheek radicalism.?
Maybe, I thought, they?re just trying to slough off the facile, patronizing endorsement of white, liberal America (hint: I was dead wrong). But the fantasy that I was weaving, in my own facile and patronizing imagination, of intellectually mischievous college students playing with shock value, was rooted in at least one precedent.
It was Julius Lester I had in mind. He?s a former civil rights activist, writer, folk singer, professor, African-American and devout Jew who, during his SNCC years, wrote a book titled ?Look Out Whitey! Black Power?s Gon? Get Your Mamma!? The title was a campy effort to get the attention of white, mainstream readers -- the book was an analysis of black power from a perspective just outside that wing of the movement (SNCC was more radical than Martin Luther King, but nothing like as fringe as the Black Panthers).
Lester has a way of exposing wounds and forcing people to look at them, which has often gotten him scapegoated throughout his career. In the late 60?s and early 70?s he had a show on the very left leaning NYC radio station WBAI. In ?68 (before my time, for the record) he got in trouble for shining a light on the accusations of racism and anti-Semitism that were poisoning the debate over decentralizing control of the schools in poor, black neighborhoods, accusations which, it seems, became self-fulfilling. Lester?s style was to show the gangrenous wound and then discuss it on the air (a blogger ahead of his time?). He thus aired a frothingly anti-Semitic poem written by an eight grader in order to show that there was a problem that needed to be taken seriously.
He was subsequently accused by some people of being anti-semitic (a charge especially ridiculous in retrospect, given his eventual conversion to Judaism).
I guess I?d hoped to find a similar misunderstanding going on, which was silly of me.
In the end I?m almost sorry to have brought Julius Lester?s name into this, though it does provide an interesting historical reference as well as a stark contrast. And it gives, I think, some insight into how lefty/liberals like myself can be pitifully naive while tricking themselves into thinking they're cleverly drawing from a nuanced (we like that word) understanding of radical history.
The only factor I did find in defence of Mecha is that they, so far as I could tell, are not the group on whose website you find all the scary, anti-Semitic screeds. The real scary stuff is to be found on the site of ?La Voz de Aztlan? which is often associated with Mecha by critics, but it looks like both groups purport to have no direct connection to each other. (La Voz?s website reads ?a totally independent news service.? Do they protest too much?). It?s La Voz de Aztlan where you?ll find articles filed under such headings as ?God vs. Zionism and USA Immorality.?
They offer exclusives, scooping even the big media:
?On October 10, 2001, one month after the WTC and Pentagon terrorist attacks, two Israelis, one a MOSSAD colonel, were arrested inside the Mexican Congress with IDF issued Glocks, hand grenades and explosives. The incident has been totally swept under the carpet by high level Zionists in the Mexican government.?Uh...right. Incidentally, this was taken from an article entitled: "Who really were the WTC and Pentagon terrorists?" I'll leave it to your imagination.
But connection or no, Mecha?s literature has its own scary implications:
Here?s a statement or two from their constitution:
Nationalism as the key to organization transcends all religious, political, class, and economic factions or boundaries. Nationalism is the common denominator that all members of La Raza can agree upon.
Read back over that list of boundaries that they plan to transcend and you?ll notice ?race? is not among them. Race is saved for last: ?La Raza?. The term "La Raza" is used in a generally benign manner in Latino parlance, it seems. But in this context it's hard to see that it's in reference to anything other than racial purity -- and they?re not talking about Puerto Ricans, Dominicans or any other Latino group. Give them credit, at least, for having a focused vision.
Still, surely they don?t mean Nationalism, nationalism...
Economic ties of responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units......For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.
Uh...Ok, maybe they do.
So you?d think, even if he rejects any connection between Mecha and La Voz de Aztlan, that Bustamante would be able to verbally distance himself, at least, from Mecha?s race-based nationalism with its weird -- at best -- vision of reclaiming a large swath of the U.S. and creating a new nation. This is the kind of thing a gubernatorial candidate should be able to take some position on. The question of expulsion of people on the basis of race followed by secession from the Union strikes me as a one that deserves a simple yes-or-no response.
Oh, I almost forgot. Mecha?s Cornell University branch has a website that features a very large version of the Mecha logo, an eagle of some sort. It was there that I noticed the eagle was clinging to a stick of dynamite. Oh, but surely that dynamite isn?t to be taken literally. Click their link, then click the eagle.
-Jeremy
Posted by Jeremy at 10:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
