Two columnists at the New York Times published an article within the last week, and wow are they an example of the good and the bad. Here are links for reference:
Keep in mind, I am an Obama supporter. Additionally, keep in mind a rhetorically and cognitively fossilized Lefty might resonate with both opinion pieces, but I like one and hate the other.
David Brooks takes the highest road here. Keep in mind Brooks is a conservative, and if he were to simply take a default stance it would be on the side opposite of populist liberal. In the his piece he praises the Obama appointments for cabinet and White House staff. He uses a phrase to describe the type of Democratic politician Obama is selecting: "First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence". With this sentence, Brooks has revealed the mantra of The New Age that is upon us.
The Old Age is the one where academics, voters, politicians, and agit-prop careerists in PR positions at think-tanks and watchdog groups stood lockstep in solidarity with these opposing Titans: A ) Hippie and black hating George Wallace campaign rhetoric that was co-opted into Nixon's southern strategy B ) Countercultural assumptions that industrialization is evil and needs dismantling, and every culture with brown or black people is inherently superior and should be militantly assisted in order to replace WASP hegemony. My question is, can we start brutally eliminating proponents of A and B now?
Back to this New Age that sprung up in 2008. It is political empiricism, performance and merit based. In the Old Age, you took a life long stance of hating or revering Blacks/Whites/Industry/Nature/Lesbians/Cities/Public-Property/Money/Localism/Bicycles/Air-Travel/War and you voted for whoever gave the sometimes coded messages in their speeches that signaled a support of your hate agenda ( I'm including you peace-lesbians in this who revere a mythical Tibet and would close the Pentagon, with a little spiteful blip in your hearts). Of course the letdown is when this politician isn't really gunning down Blacks/Whites/Industry/Nature/Lesbians/Cities/Public-Property/Money/Localism/Bicycles/Air-Travel/War, but merely implementing punitive dysfunctionalisms into agency practices that perpetuate the A vs B culture war.
The Old Age A vs B culture war is void of ratio, void of rationalism, mystical. But that is a view from high in the intellectual clouds. There is a corporeal basis for everything intellectual. Ah, the corporeal. Let's look at these old battle bots politically born in the 1960's. THEY ARE EITHER ELDERLY, POOR, OR THE YOUNG ARE ATTENDING INTELLECTUALLY SECOND OR THIRD CLASS COLLEGES. They are Spain after the smartest migrated to the Netherlands -a land of the mediocre beating their chests and talking about pride while a vacuum of merit sucks a good fate from all future scenarios.
Bye, Old Age.
Gail Collins is nice enough to write a column for every Old Age-ist on the left [B] side. Nevermind that no one in a position of political or intellectual relevance is talking about crushing the GWB regime, much like we are not talking about crushing Joseph McCarthy. The Anti-Bush T-Shirt industry should not be a perpetual, perennial phenomenon, get a life people, you're embarrassing anti-Bush people like me. So go ahead and read the Collins piece, it is an IQ test, an entrance test for whether you lack the intellectual heft to enter the New Age.
Eno and Byrne have made a new record, Everything that Happens will Happen Today, their first in 30 years. Byrne and Eno began their artistic relationship in the late seventies with 3 Talking Heads albums, followed by their groundbreaking album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Songs from all of the above will be performed in this concert, but not in that order.
Their performing together, and at Seattle's premier opera and symphony hall, has me really considering seeing the show. Both men are more than musical giants of a bygone era, they are still a central presence in current intellectualism. Eno is a board member of the Long Now [link], and Byrne has the giant building instrument in New York City [link]. In the late 90's Byrne wrote an eerie social/art critique piece for either the Atlantic or New Yorker, I can't remember. I do remember reading it and being struck by its "prophecy". He wrote that the soft plastic, rounded edges, candy colored tech aesthetic that was so hot in gadget and furniture design [example ] was all very cute and pretty, but that something sinister lying beneath this cute and candy-like society, and may emerge someday soon. Then came G.W. Bush, the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamyan, and then Islamic extremists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th. Back to talking about Byrne, we live in a world of artists who long for the status of shaman and soothsayer in our culture, who believe they are attenuated especially for perceiving subtle shifts of popular aesthetic and able to be an Oracle of Delphi sounding an alarm. Most artists fall short of oracle or prophet, David Byrne actually did it.
( I am not saying David is the greatest teller of the American story, the teller of our whole on-the-ground real experience and semantic space. That distinction goes to the Minutemen. Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are more famous for this epic 20th century Americana song crafting, but the Minutemen took it as far it could ever go. )
Benaroya Hall
Wednesday
February 18, 2009
7:30pm
$45
http://www.theparamount.com/artists/?artist=919
Doesn't this house negro slur kind of "not stick" when the black person OWNS the house. Back in the day when blacks did not own their own house, yeah, this epithet made some sense. ( although I think any class, especially race, must break the bonds of solidarity in order to become better off ) So back to Obama and Rice. They are very real intellectuals ( professors at US academic institutions ), and have made enough money to place themselves in the upper-middle-class. They own or embody more of this economic paradigm than most whites.
To Ayman al-Zawahiri: No, my towelheaded sandnegro, these are not house negroes, they have not "accidently" broken ranks with you or your league, rather, these are negroes working to kill you and every scum bag supporter that happens to be in the same building with you.
When I think of the hard working people making automobiles in the USA, I usually think of these plants and the cars they produce:
To exclusively think of unionized Ford, GM and Chrysler plants in Michigan is counterintuitive, since few people I know would by products made at those plants. I wish mass media and politicians would get on the same page as Americans have been on for over 20 years: Americans do buy vehicles made in the USA, mostly from the above list. The spin doctors from the unions and the Big Three love to control our dialogue by saying "American auto manufacturers" and only mean Ford/GM/Chrysler, which is a lot like like saying "people" and only meaning "white people". It is a dirty rhetorical trick the American people are not on board with.
The Church of Latter Day Saints is one of the most progressive of all religions grouped in Christianity. There seems to be a Left and Right LDS, and the Left almost always out Left me. The LDS leader's decision to do anything intense and overt with Prop 8 is a case of really poor reasoning, and poor "religious" reasoning. Here is the logic breakdown:
Society is already divergent from an LDS path. I don't expect the LDS to be ambivalent about this, and it is commendable on some level for LDS to sincerely want a better fate of the wider society. But to jump in with both feet on a single issue is a lose-lose-lose scenario.
Lose-lose-lose; here are the 3 ways the LDS lost:
First, for the LDS to feel threatened by society's behavior and semantics (a legal status is merely semantic). This is a core religiosity dimension, show me schism that is so weak its members might turn into gays any other way of life that religion happens to oppose -and I say that schism is has an internal cohesion and coherence problem threatening their "faith" more than anything external. So to drive this home, I'm calling the LDS faith itself weak and prone to demise by its own device(s).
Second, for imposing LDS doctrine on society, especially one as eclectic as the population of California. Faith and metaphor wise, this may sound like a good old David and Goliath story. Amongst the faithful in any religion such a challenge always looks appealing. Herein is the perfect storm: Wanting to be faithful and rock-throwing David is a temptation in of itself, it is indulgent testosterone driven hail-mary-pass religious activism. LDS fell for this temptation. But in this case the opponent wasn't Goliath -it was the Death Star, Klingons, and now even the Terminator. The LDS stood up and threw their little rock, and unfortunately for them, they hit it. What they hit is something big, from outer space, and may not die.
Third, the LDS did wrong for disrupting Western society's progress towards more cohesion and peace. For the last 50 years society has experimented with no boundaries (no definitions). Countercultural trends inverted all that had previously defined opposites such as right and wrong, crime and righteousness. Maybe this was needed. But now I believe we are starting to settle in with some boundaries, slowly stating again what is right and wrong. Gay marriage is part of this return to a right-and-wrong sensitive society, allowing homosexuals to have an overt place in civic legitimacy. Gay marriage can serve as one of the larger "gains" we made with the last few decades of discord and experimentation. Sure, I know gay marriage is not in the plan for most Christian Churches, but these churches should see the better place that society is ascending to, and not be THE roadblock to a better place. These churches should have practiced an outward appearance of political and emotional ambivalence, neither condoning nor condemning. Only the self-centered think they always have to do one or the other, the wise know when to shut up.
"The proletariat seizes the power of the state and first of all transforms the means of production into the property of the state." -State and Revolution
So here is the muse ( and the reader is expected to know the gist of Marxism, Lawrence Lessig, GPL and creative commons licensing ): The Soviets transformed Russia from an illiterate peasant class agrarian and artisan culture to a literate heavy industry culture in just a few years. Skipping the misery of millions as an indictment of the regime, I'm selecting the industrial output as an indictment. Russia produced big, clunky, undependable crap. Always inferior to anything made in the West or Japan/Korea.
Over in another part of the world, almost immediately after the fall of the Soviets, a new form of human called "geeks" created a computer operating system and ancillary programs, then big cross-platform scripting frameworks, that changed every game of man. The output was tangible and definable in some ways, but the epiphenomenon was what everyone knew was the remarkable aspect. The epiphenomenon was innovation.
The proletariat can nationalize a few cranes and the port, oil, and coal, but my musing is that the means of innovation is the goose laying the golden egg. And those without that goose have a less vibrant or resilient lifestyle.
It may be interesting as pragmatic budget concerns drive the farmers and ranchers away from their identity with oversized 4WD trucks such as the Suburban and on to less oil consuming farm vehicles. Since the 1970's, when trucks started being large and impressive rather than just hard and dependable, Joe Redneck has been very attached to their rigs. Might I suggest this Pakistani built motorcycle workhorse?
"The country must be governed from the middle," Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Wednesday. "You have to bring people together to reach consensus on solutions that are sustainable and acceptable to the American people."-New Congress must govern from the middle. FoxNews
Nancy Pelosi has made this statement as a guiding principle for Democrats. Combined with President-elect Obama's constant assertion of centrist ideals, this should provide a great deal of clarity to the American people as to what to expect in the next two years. This message was sent out the day after the elections, in a style that both major parties in Washington D.C. use to announce to what ends their agenda will serve.
Nancy Pelosi just defeated a political challenger from the Far Left, Cindy Sheehan. See:Pelosi defeats Sheehan. SFGate. This in of itself should send a message to the center and center-right as to where San Francisco and Berkely liberals truly stand. And if San Fran is voting down the Far Left, then the Far Left really have no "base" of operations, and are thrust into the wilderness.
Note: I hope the Far Left die in that wilderness. Or better yet, start plenty of powerless non-profits, everyone of which will likely buy copying machines, computers, office furniture, hire a website programmer, and pay a graphics artist to create a logo. ( Hey Revolutionaries, Thanks for the $$, and good luck telling each other you are right(eous). - the Economy. )
I have an acquaintance who lives in Wasilla, Alaska, and wrote the day before the election with these fears that are being discussed in his local church: After Obama is elected, laws will be implemented that prevent people from speaking their beliefs, specifically people will not be able to say "I believe gay marriage is wrong, and against the wishes of God". The other thing some at his church are afraid of is gun rights being taken away. One of his local church leaders is buying extra ammunition, saying that if Obama wins then he may not be able to legally get more ammunition.
Here are my responses to all the above:
I believe the Democrats are going to rebuild the public part of this country -the parts that make all of our lives and livelihoods work. For too long we have had a fear of the Far Left, and run to shakedown artists feigning they give a sh_t about conservative values, or any values. We had to kill two birds with one stone to kill either one. With Obama, we did -the Far Left and the Republican shakedown artists are both swept into the dustbin of powerlessness. Tip for America: Keep both of them dead by keeping both of them dead.
“We’re entering a new era – not only in terms of voting, we’re entering a new millennial presidency – it’s not only that young people turned out in big numbers, but also the way in which they were engaged in the process. There’s a whole new level of transparency and access that Obama as president will utilize to much more engage young people.”
That was evident in the way Obama reacted to his win. He chose first to send an email to supporters thanking them, before heading out to speak in the glare of television klieg lights to the throngs of tens of thousands of cheering - some tearing-up - supporters at Grant Park on Tuesday night.
- Obama’s turnout historical in numbers, diversity. Christian Science Monitor
I have an ad using Googles Adwords advertising service. It has been in operation a little less than 24 hours. The ad has already been shown 17,537 times, for a total cost of $0.35 to me. ( I am one the world's cheapest advertisers, with a limit of $5 per month, so I can only afford a few cents per day for my worldwide ad campaign. )
15,635 of these ad viewings were in the Google "content network", which can be anything from the New York Times to a blogspot blog. The remaining views were seen by users of Google search, using certain keywords.
Economically, Adwords has not made me any money yet. Maybe the excitement I feel is in the ease of use by me the advertiser, and the reach of the advertising. I am excited that memes can be spread this far, this cheaply.
Technical glossary: By 17, 537 "views" I mean my ad was seen on a webpage, I do not mean the users clicked on my ad. My ad was only clicked on 5 times, and that is the only time I am charged money for the ads. My average cost per click was $0.07.
This is a list of items that may be useful in an economic collapse in which new ad hoc decentralized industry arises.
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