A final solution for roadless lands in Montana?

If ever you wanted a primer on the nature of the political debate we’re all engaged in, it is uncovered here. That thread has it all – declared enemies, Trojan horses, agents provocateur, collaberators, stooges, spear chuckers and a few who want to die with sword in hand.

The stakes a very high. When the roadless lands are gone, even if we come to our senses, they are still gone.

We are in Connecticut for a few days, and it is indeed a beautiful place. There might be roadless lands here for all I know, but it is civilized and there is no danger anywhere. As Ed Abbey reminded us, wilderness ought to be dangerous, a few people ought to die there every year. Sleeping on the ground there ought to be a a frightening experience. Montana ain’t Connecticut. Parts of it still cause nightmares for collaberative souls.

Why elections do matter

Elmo Roper

Elmo Roper (1900-1971) was a pioneer of the science of polling, and his legacy is The Roper Center at UConn. The fundamental principle of polling is that we are more alike than we know, so that one person (assuming proper selection techniques) represents the views of thousands of others. So a poll of 1,500 Americans, properly done, can predict the outcome of an election with astounding accuracy. (Exit polls are even more accurate.)

We are polled more than an other people on earth, mostly for commercial purposes. We are also asked our opinions on political issues. But those opinions are not important (if so, we’d have national health care). Political polling on issues is merely a means of ascertaining whether or not opinion management techniques are effective.*

It’s easy to wander off into idealistic notions of democracy and get all glassy-eyed about the will of the people, voting and all of that. Roper’s research led him down a different path. He concluded that 90% of Americans are “…politically inert, inactive, inattentive, manipulable, and without critical faculty.”

I wish it were not so, because it rules out self-governance as a viable alternative to rule by the “elite,” or moneyed interests. What then is the point of having elections?

It defies obfuscation

This is the TED Talk that has caught so much attention. The Sapling Foundation, owner of “TED” (technology, entertainment, design) initially declined to air it, and demand had to grow on its own. Finally there was enough whining and complaining that TED was forced to air it. It’s making the rounds now.

In it, Nick Hanauer says some plainly true things that are a stark contrast to the spirit of the times. He makes lots of money, but doesn’t imagine himself a “job creator.” That function, he says, is the product of a feedback loop, with middle class consumers buying products acting as the real job creators. So low taxes for the wealthy has no influence on the number of jobs available to fill. (Quite the opposite, actually.)

That point is so basic that it takes whole university economics departments to obfuscate it beyond recognition. Sadly, that is the function of economics as we know it – not to discover truth, but to hide it.

Put a stop to pesky assassins today!

Has this ever happened to you – you’re at a family wedding, and suddenly, a drone strike kills the entire wedding party and many guests?

Are you tired of annoying government agencies killing your friends and family members?

We can put an end to these pesky assassins by signing onto the White House DO NOT KILL LIST. Once on that list, you can rest assured that President Obama will remove your name from the list of Americans he wants to kill. Here’s the petition, which despite the snarky nature of this blog post, is quite real, as is the kill list:

The New York Times reports that President Obama has created an official “kill list” that he uses to personally order the assassination of American citizens. Considering that the government already has a “Do Not Call” list and a “No Fly” list, we hereby request that the White House create a “Do Not Kill” list in which American citizens can sign up to avoid being put on the president’s “kill list” and therefore avoid being executed without indictment, judge, jury, trial or due process of law.

h/t David Sirota

Memorial Day, 2012

I tend to think of veterans, along with the people they maim and kill and turn into refugees, as mere victims. They know not what they do. They are mostly high school graduates, many drop-outs, but not by any means of lesser intellectual ability than the rest of us. They only suffer limited exposure. Also, they needed a job.

On return from duty they often assume an exalted posture, thinking of themselves as exceptional people who have given of themselves, put their lives on the line to “protect” us. Indeed they are at risk, and a small percentage die, more are wounded, and many are so jaded by the things they saw and were asked to do that they are forever changed – “PTSD” we call it now.

But there is a problem with that line of thought, as they are protecting us from non-existent enemies. No Vietnamese, Nicaraguan, Afghan, Iraqi, Libyan, Somalian, Sudanese, Colombian, Yemeni, Iranian, Panamanian or Grenadan has threatened our safety. Yet we have attacked them all.

We set this day aside in their honor. President Obama today repeated the myth that Vietnam veterans were abused on return. I suppose I should honor veterans in some way, but not for what they do or for their low level of awareness. I honor them if they return smarter people, if military duties changed them in such a way that their political and social awareness was raised. If they assume their proper role as world citizens, respecting life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness everywhere on the planet, and not just here, then I honor them.

Pat Tillman, prior to his death, had arranged to have a meeting with Noam Chomsky. That’s an extraordinary transition of mind, and few can be expected to make such a change. But if a few of our veterans leave the military in a higher state of awareness than those I have encountered in my life’s wanderings, I guess I can say it’s a bit like kissing your sister. It ain’t exciting, it ain’t fulfilling, but it ain’t nothing.

A matter of continuing puzzlement

To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take time to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness – of himself, of his condition, of his society – for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events. (Ellul, Propaganda, pp 46-47)

[Footnote*]
I don’t wish to follow the common notion that propaganda is a series of lies or even a big lie, but for this purpose this day will concentrate on one very big lie. The big propaganda event of 2011 was the “killing” of Osama bin Laden, and it is so thinly constructed, so transparently false, that I wonder why it is so easily sold.

In large part this has to do with the follow-the-leader nature of the American public (the “public” that I am familiar with – I suppose other “publics” are as malleable). If important people say it is true, and especially if there is general agreement among people who purport to oppose one another in public, then the story will be believed, no matter how incredible.

The audacity of somnambulant stupidity

Woodward (right) and Bernstein

I normally don’t read books by Washington insiders, as I find them boring. I have tried. I once worked my way through a book by the actor who played a journalist in the Watergate affair, Bob Woodward. The book, Plan of Attack, was awful – he had Bush saying things he could not possibly say; Bush all by himself deciding to invade Iraq, as if he was in charge. The book had glossy black and white still photographs, obviously posed, of administration officials talking, one in particular where Bush was looking officious and others standing around listening with serious faces. Does anyone ask how that camera got in the room? Not Woodward.

Does anyone ever ask why he is even granted such access? If he were a decent journalist, he’d never get through the front door. Journalism, as Assange and Manning well know, is illegal.

I did find Plan of Attack useful – I hollowed out the middle and used it to hide spare credit cards and cash. I thought if anyone was looking for a book with significant content, that would not be that one. My valuables would be safe hidden in garbage.