Decline and Fall of the Demure Right

            Obviously it has been happening for years, as steadily as a runaway glacier: the polarisation of American politics and the rightward thrust of the current Republican Party.  Nothing by way of news, though some stories from the past couple of weeks bode ill for a perfect union.

Super Tuesday Fizzle  Super Tuesday - called such because it generally concludes the primary stage of any opposition party’s election run-up in an explosive fashion - has fallen flatter than a tired metaphor, as Romney wins in a disappointingly lacklustre fashion and rival Santorum loses in such a way as to come out a slightly stronger candidate.  Not only does this underline that there’s money to be made in drawing out a foregone conclusion, but it is painfully indicative of a split among Republican voters.  Viz, that there are about as many conservative, bland, yet somewhat responsible primary voters that support (reprehensibly oily as he may appear to be) at least a plausible presidential candidate who has leadership and (reprehensibly as it may also be) successful business experience and a history of compromise to his credit, (deep breath) as there are voters of the vehemently Tea Party, post-Moral Majority set that (ever increasing in dictating party lines) have already shattered the efficacy of the House of Representatives, and now seem intent on crashing the gates on the Senate and Presidency.

Snowe Moves On   Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican representing Maine, announced a week before Super Tuesday that she would not seek reëlection, citing “an atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies [that have] become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”  What this does to limit congressional bargaining (and ultimately large-scale bipartisan projects, such as the debt reduction supercommittee) and the ensuing gridlock that follows would, in her opinion, make another term in the Senate personally unproductive.  She closes her announcement with a bittersweet flourish,

“As I enter a new chapter, I see a vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern, and I believe there are unique opportunities to build support for that change from outside the United States Senate. I intend to help give voice to my fellow citizens who believe, as I do, that we must return to an era of civility in government driven by a common purpose to fulfill the promise that is unique to America.”

Unfortunately, as she hangs up her legislative hat another potential intransigent may usurp her rare position as an aisle-reacher, further exacerbating the already static cling to party unity (over coöperation).

Pledge Drives  And the one that really gets me are the ill-fatedly indefinite pledges (read my lips) that have been getting the pass-round among Republican congresspersons.  The first is Grover Norquist’s pledge to never under any circumstances increase the marginal tax rate of either person or business (living or dead), signed by all but six Republican representatives and most of their senators.  No wonder Snowe (who did not sign the pledge) has decided to leave; if maintained the pledge effectively eliminates all possibility of compromise over the reduction of America’s debt.  The other pledge (because bad news comes in pairs) is the brainchild of the right-wing Susan B. Anthony List, directed at Republican presidential candidates and maintains a strict policy of appointing only demonstrably pro-life judges and appointees if elected.  Mitt Romney (again, the only thing by way of a plausible GOP candidate this fall) is the only of his rivals to not sign, arguing that it would be a limitation of his abilities as president.  Yes, the future of America’s Right seems to lie in the unmovable foundations of uncompromising ideology.  

So what then might anybody expect to be the Democratic reaction?  Eventually, trenches shall be dug, and the American moderate will indeed be a thing of the past.

Call Me a Communist, But...

So another weekend skiffles along full-pat, a stomach full of shepherd's pie and a mug of wimpy tea to salve a crampy cold I've succumbed to.  Uncharacteristically of me, for the first time in perhaps a week I've finally looked at the online news stories - Times Square and various city spaces around the world have been occupied by protesters decrying wealth disparity and a perceived lack of representation in government direction, Steve Jobs has suddenly passed on, Sonic Youth fronts Moore and Gordon separate (marriage now, band soon?), and the Treasury has delayed its final ruling on the fairness of China's currency valuation.

And then in lighter news, there's an interview with presidential-candidacy-hopeful Herman Cain on the NPR.  When asked by interviewer Scott Simon about the economic ramifications of Cain's proposed 9-9-9 tax scheme - in this case, instancing the proposed nine-percent sales tax on the price of bread paid by both prince and pauper - the Godfather's Pizza magnate responded:

On a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, Bill Gates and every rich person is going to pay the same tax as someone who's on the lower end of the spectrum. But Scott, I'm not going to play the class warfare card. You have to compare the taxes they pay today. If you pick a certain income level — and I'll pick one and walk you through it, OK?  (Simon: "Sure.")  I'm going to use $50,000 a year, since that's approximately what the median income is for a family in this country. [For a] family of four, $50,000 a year. Under the current system, based upon standard deductions and standard exemptions, they're going to pay $10,200 in taxes. Under the 9-9-9 plan, the middle 9, they're going to pay $4,500. That leaves $5,700 to apply to that milk and bread in terms of the taxes. You have to go through the numbers of each individual situation.

Golf clap, Mr. Cain.  As suggested, going through the numbers every rich person will pay the same tax, in dollar amounts rather than proportionally.  The $5,700 that average family may save still has to go towards the mundane (and now more expensive) task of paying for the groceries, the wares, the thingamajigs.  That average American family spends nearly all its cash on (you guessed it) these expenditures, with little by way of money to save.  An overall raising of the levy on purchased goods will really do little by way of a tax break for the Jones', and in many cases will end up being a tax hike.

Believe it or not, but beyond the investment of assets and grandiose luxury purchases, the very wealthy consume roughly the same by way of living necessities as their less-than-wealthy peers.  Check out this informative graph.  The top fifth of American earners spend roughly $65K a year of their average $145K income, proportionally less than the middle fifth's $35K/$45K or the bottom fifth's deficitous $18K/<$10K.  There's only so much money a family can really spend on consumer goods before the rest of that money simply piles up to multiple zeros on a banking ledger.  Rather than further improving the affluent's quality of life any, beyond a certain point the money apparently makes no difference.

Not that I'm a commie!  But I'm simply saying that a consumptive-based tax plan is a bad shake for the majority of Americans.  9-9-9 - basically a flat tax scheme - is just another thinly veiled proposal to make the wealthy wealthier at the spending class' heavy expense.  You (dearest reader) and I are essentially indentured servants in this life, scraping together the dough (by serving the proverbial Man) to buy the essentials, enjoy/discard/replace the baubles, and live in the apartments of (or pay the mortgages to, if You are a home-owner) said loosely-defined and still very metaphorical Man.  Mind you, that's just one way to look at it.  Negative lens, mayhap.

But that's largely what the Occupy Your-City-Here movements are so miffed about, for those who've until now not 'got it'.

Misplacing My Ire?

So the other (week, was it?) I furrowed a single brow at news that a CIA drone had successfully found and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the charismatic talking head of al-Qaeda.  Not because of who he was or what he stood for, but because of his American citizenship.  I'd been similarly nonplussed back in May when another drone strike targeting al-Awlaki instead killed a couple of others (reputedly al-Qaeda operatives themselves).  I'm not the only one ruffled by this incident:  the ACLU and CCR have launched lawsuits against the United States government, and a slew of literary ire has been pulled from the quivers of bloggers and op/edders.

Citizenship bears with it certain obligations, but it also yields certain unalienable rights- although then I have to second-guess myself when I remember the rationale of Rousseau's Social Contract, that those bonds can be broken.  But then bearing in mind al-Awlaki's location (questionably neutral but neutral Yemen), the lack of due process, the mode of execution-  I don't know!  My opinions are all in a bally muddle in this somewhat singular set of circumstances.  Because the man was undeniably inflammatory and rather possibly linked to the operational doings of al-Qaeda.  But is that worthy of targeting him for assassination?  Is it assassination, in this instance?  Again, a muddle.  Is this a precedent for wantonly targeting American citizens for courtless death, or is al-Awlaki's citizenship merely a side-note in a larger campaign?

In any case, I posed the question on the Facebook (while generally an open invitation for vitriol and disappointment, I have faith enough in the friends I keep that the conversations will be insightful and interesting) for a bit of discussion, citing the instances of Kaczynski and McVeigh as examples of home-spun terrorists caught and tried.  Perhaps a more apt comparison might have been David Karesh, but I received some good responses from a variety of sources, including a professor from my old college days.  Most notable among these was the lengthy and I'd say well thought out series of arguments posed by my friend Nate:

It's a tough call. Kaczynski and McVeigh were caught alone in the U.S., not hiding in a foreign country with a lot of protection. If it is true he was waging war against the U.S., he becomes a combatant. This doesn't forgo his citizenship, but open war against the U.S. does put you a bit beyond normal due process. And as compared to Osama, Al-Awlaki moved around a lot more, preventing a planned raid of the same scope. Unfortunately in the current global threat scenario some information simply won't be fit for public consumption. There is certainly a line in which government can and cannot infringe on a person's rights. It is my opinion that those rights may be infringed upon when that person makes war upon the people that government represents. To try and make a point of paramilitary ignores the forest for the trees. Surely lives are being diddled with on both sides, in the end it mostly washes out. I would agree as a concept a bombing should be avoided when civilians are at risk, but there are things to consider beyond that one angle. There are equally many scenarios in which more civilian lives are lost in other ways of dealing with Al-Awlaki. Take for instance the infamous Blackhawk Down, in which a raid meant to reduce civilian casualties ended up creating tenfold. In a perfect situation Al-Awlaki would have been arrested and brought to trial with full due process. It is not a perfect situation, and I believe the situation warranted the loss of that privilege. I will say that I would have supported the same tactic used were McVeigh hiding in Generic Lawless Christian nation attempting further attacks against the U.S. Or Generic Liberal terrorist in Lawless Socialist state. Unfortunately, many of the people who agreed with the death of Al-Awlaki would have disagreed were he White/Christian. There is definitely an anti-Muslim undercurrent in the public support of the War on Terror.

While I can't argue with many of his points- well, precisely because I cannot fully argue with many of his points without that vague sense of doubt, I wonder if this may be a waste of time on my part.  Another panic worth abandoning, like so many others cast aside in this decade-old War on Terror being waged.  Besides, there may well be more important things afoot, like the Occupy (Your City Here) movement sweeping the nation or the impending reelection of Vladimir Putin.  Or ending the death penalty.  Yet as I move on I cannot help but wonder in what ways this undermines the value of citizenship, or if (like patriotic buzzspeak 'liberty' and 'freedom' and 'democracy') it really hasn't any intrinsic value at all.

What strange and odious things does this abandoned panic portend?

A Bit of a Spit-take

So my weekend was fairly low-key:  a couple of beers over a sour stomach, a bit of online training, and a touch of rain that finally ushered out the dismally humid air that’s made sleeping a misadventure.  Oh, and my air mattress has a mysterious puncture somewhere.  My weekend was low-key, how was yours?

Because as I was going about for a piss and a water late last night I happened to check out my usual spots, the BBC and colleague Adam Luebke’s blog Dear Dirty America.  What the hell?!  Clearly all weekends have not been created equal, as New York’s Union Square has been occupied by a large-scale protest; a sit-down surrounded by a police cordon now eight days later.  80 people have been arrested so far, several maced, others assaulted by white-collared cops over the weekend.

Like a good day in Damascus, one might be so inclined to say.  Support rallies are likewise cropping up nationally, lacking perhaps the rough-and-tumble of the original if not the spirit.   For example, the occupation of City Hall in Los Angeles and proposed financial district rallies in London and Madrid. 

And yet… I’m looking through the major news outlets and not seeing anything on these stories!  Not as headliners, not even as supplemental blurbs on the crawl!  And CNN has the balls to front a piece called Why Our Government is Broken, the irony being that the 9-5 set (and their support subset of 24/7 part-timers) are all controlled by the same powers that be.  The news (clearly), the politicians (as evidenced in this tremendous if not quite surprising story), the tax system, the police, and the economy.  Everything funneling back to one place, fittingly enough the big board at the NYSE currently being protested.

I suppose I could see the BBC not running anything on the story; Europe and the rest of the world has been undergoing its own lock-step riot clashes for months.  But that none of our major venues would be covering this story on the front page (save MSNBC, whose video link of police brutality comes smaller than their story NYPD Chief: We Can Take Down a Plane if Necessary) is rather telling, in one of those vague everything-makes-sense-now sort of conspiracy theories.

Because it’s a difficult, hazardous knot to untangle and sort through, this ‘powers that be’ dilemma.  People are worried about a corporatocracy, and that’s well and good when presidential candidates come out and say ‘corporations are people.’  And people are upset by the tightly-knit connection between the professional classes, the interchangeability of lawyers, businessmen, and politicians and their unaccountable unanimity towards making America safe for big business.  Again though, broad strokes of the brush I’m trying to paint with; broad generalizations in an attempt to put a face to a macro-level situation.

I’m going to mull this one out, but my first reaction is to blame ‘money’ in its blandest cultural meaning.  Why are these protests happening now and not ten (or even four) years ago?  Because everybody loves money and the things that at least make it feel like one has it (a Swatch-watch grab bag of affordable and somewhat disposable luxury items that everybody must have); when the crunch came and as the mass majority begins to finally feel the pinch (like shrunken capillaries in the vascular system of our market economy) they get upset.  Little knowing or caring before what was going on so long as the bread and circuses kept coming. 

That's right, America.
They've watched every Christmas special ever.

            But the days of cheap crap are behind us, America.  Like it or no, we’re being matched and in many ways outpaced by scrappier economies, by peoples we’ve long ridiculed or else ‘respected for being so in-touch’ with et al (i.e. being quaint) like the Russians and the Chinese, Brazil and to a lesser extent India.  They’ve had to watch our crap 90s movies where even every broken family still lived in a sort of suburban mansion, see our vomitous pop personalities and sit through blurbs decrying America’s growing obesity problem; seen, worked, and dammit want the lot of it.  We’d set an improbable standard of living for ourselves, are losing it, and now (to boot) the rest of the world wants the same.

            The waters of this situation run deep, billions of folk swept along by interconnected currents and events.  Much grander than any one op-ed can properly cover.  More to come…  

Monumentally Mixed Feelings

So another day in the news, sipping on an afternoon cuppa while waiting for a job interview later on.  Reading the Deutsche Welle (don't we all?) I come across an article (this article) about a new memorial being built in Berlin, honoring Georg Elser. 

In 1939 Herr Elser attempted to assassinate Hitler with a homemade bomb; that he failed was tragic enough.  He was afterwards tortured and kept in solitary confinement until the waning days of the Reich, when Hitler (a man indefinitely renowned for harboring grudges) personally ordered his execution.  He was shot in Dachau, 9 April of 1945.

            Actually, I remember the story of Elser from John Toland’s wonderful book, The Last Hundred Days, a collection of accounts from folk (und volk) large and small woven into a tale of the last hundred days of European conflict.  It’s an enormous read, a must for any historiphiles out there.  But I had to do a bit of a refresh on the story of this man, turning to the ever-available Wikipedia to clue me in.

            Because, much as I feel the Nazi regime was one of humanity’s many travesties against itself (every century, it seems, has an unsettling number of these; read Leopold’s Ghost for an account of a genocide that rivals the Holocaust in scale, fuelled by the ivory trade and Big Rubber) I find myself questioning whether Elser deserves such high public honors.  Actually, it would be another of many such honors; streets are named after him, and there are already several monuments to his actions around Germany.

            Firstly, I think the attack itself is less-than commendable.  A rudimentary bomb in a public gathering, eight people killed and many injured, Hitler not among them.  I couldn’t say with any certainty if those assembled were members of the NDSAP, well-wishers, members of the press, soldiers, voters, or other sorts of civilians.  In contrast, Stauffenberg’s 20 July plot found Hitler in the midst of purely military men.  I’m not sure how I feel about that either (I’m sort of anti-bomb, if that makes sense; collateral damage irks me) but somehow it feels less a shade of grey.  Couple this with wiki-rumor that Elser may have been another Van Der Lubbe style patsy, which Nazi officials had already proven they were comfortable employing/discarding, and you’ve got yourself a tricky dilemma.

            How different is it than any number of bombings currently vilified by our press (likewise, by society in general)?  Once you remove Hitler from the equation, it simply isn’t.  Actually, as an element in any right-or-wrong question, I’d say the presence of Hitler rivals the efficacy of saving children.  He’s the end-all justification, the apropos metaphor for anybody one does not care for philosophically.  So I think Elser is more a product of Hitler hype than a noteworthy individual on the path for peaceful coexistence.  He’s another Oswald, another (whoever the bomber that killed Bhutto was), essentially.  Need we glorify lone-wolf devil-may-care extremism?

            Simply because it was directed at Hitler does not further the cause of peace, nor I feel does it further the memory of those who perished and suffered during the Holocaust.  Simply put, it adds nothing to the human tapestry.

A Bit About the Twit (And Other Such Twings)

          So I've been delving into the wonderful world of Twitter the past month or so.  Yes, the Twitscape, primordial pond of new words, up-to-date ideas, and mistaken identities; a sort of hundred-forty word newsprint personal of the moment.  Without looking up Twitter protocol any place in particular, I've been able to pick up a few of the mores.

Firstly, there're such things as pounds and at (plural), or # and @, respectively.  And that if you want to pound a word phrasing (non-jocularly, of course) one has to mash said phrase the gether.  So 'short stories' becomes #shortstory, the Mod Squad becomes #fashion, etc.  And all-the-gods-that-are forbid you quote something without an appropriate @originofthought.  Of course, that's the first rule of scholarship... cite yon source.

Also underpinning the Twitter universe is one's notoriety.  I've found that unless a body has more followers than followees, that body is schmobody, or maybe twobody... not quite grasped the lex as of yet.  Currently I'm batting at a low .216 so far.  Also!  Have you noticed that there are lots of spammers about on the Twitscape?  Like, supposed gals who follow to be followed (as twit-cordiality dictates) then pipe on about relationship advice and torrid sex talk, in between pushing scam link-ups.  Maybe that's just the me, but it smacked odd at first glance.  Second glance and I understood, of course.  Large nets cast over the e-seas of loneliness, I suppose.

Obligingly taken from http://kaitlinring.wordpress.com/tag/culture/

More like than not, she'd kyped it from elsewhere... Is that libel?

Of course, for all you lonely folk out yaar there's good news on the news horizon!  Nightcaps are good for older women, apparently.  Yes, slosh a tall one down an attractive over-forty (possibly younger-fifty) and enjoy a bit of chat, gnosh, and romance.  Takes the edge off of that distant, less-than-hermetic online world, one might say.

But that's the Rudian day of the now; although the GOP debate (or debacle) certainly raised my eyebrows here and there.  The Obama 2012 train seems set to roll onwards, potentially under the slogan "Really?  This is their candidate??"

Now is Our Time {to Go Forth and Vomit}

So I saw a recent Levis ad running online.  I’m not even sure where to begin, so simultaneously amused, awed, and irritated was I.  But I’ll start with awe; beautifully shot, a tender panoply of color and effect and subtle razzmatazz.  The contrast of each pants-wearer’s scenario, well woven into the next transition with fire and petals and water and Batman-era colorful tear gas.  And throughout comes the soothing voice of the narrator droning on in the background amid the sounds of waves crashing and upliftingly light music.

Makes for pleasant effect but by the end I was a tisch vexed, “how dare they” and such.  I think my underlying point of contention was their campy use of the rebelliousness of youth to sell clothing, and of their taking what really is a rousing little poem and somewhat cheapening it thereby.  Not that those social offenses are anything new, or those subjects sacrosanct.  But I think it was the young Ewan McGregor wannabe swaggering up defiantly towards the riot line, and the commercial’s trite fluff-and-gloss of rebellion (more specifically, of rioting and civil unrest), their equating this rebellion to a resurgence in punk youth fashion.  Maybe it was poor timing, now that Libya is finally winning its war on Gaddafi.  If more than mere coincidence, it strikes me as a sort of band-wagoning cash-in not unlike recent statements made by current Republican candidates.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Levis.  In point of fact, I only wear Levis (527s) so far as jeans go, which are inevitably the only things I wear on my legs when in public.  Solid.  Dependable.  Well-fit.  Et cetera.  And so far as commercials go, it was easier to watch than some of the new Geico ads or any number of deodorizing spray commercials.  But it begs to ask, who does Levi Strauss & Company want its clientele to rebel against?  So far as the rank and file go, Levi is the establishment, the devil-may-care buy-buy-buy corporate steam engine the Man rides to work every morning. 

I dunno, I’m prolly looking too deeply into it.  Nonetheless, it rubbed me against the grain that something as truly brutal and violent (and real, if you will) as rioting/unrest/civil discord can be passed off as something light and cool to sell a few pairs of slacks.  Smacks distasteful.