Alan Moore- Meet the Man Behind the Protest Mask
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/27/alan-moore-v-vendetta-mask-protest?CMP=SOCNETTXT6965
I think it's kind of interesting that Guy Fawkes had been a figure of ridicule in British culture, and also an icon for anti-Catholic sentiment because the real Guy had been for Papal control. Alan Moore is British, knew that, and deliberately chose to invert it for his revolutionary antihero.
In spite of some comic book silliness and 70s-80s Cold War post-apocalypse silliness, the printed V for Vendetta holds up well. The movie was pretty good but had problems where it deliberately stepped back from the comic book's vision. Notably that in the movie the nationalist leader is killed in secret by V. In the book, he's assassinated publicly by an ordinary woman whose life had been ripped up by happenstance in the machinery of State. Also the movie tacks on a romantic love angle to V's relationship to Evey, both unnecessary and seriously detracting from the theme and character.
Mostly, it's that the movie dumbs the message down to social liberal versus conservative (which many of America's Bush-era rightist pundits were coherent enough to notice and get mad about.) In the book, it's very stark, anarchism versus fascism. The neat thing is that Moore lets fascism have every possible advantage. Anything that might make an ordinary person say "of course it's bad, but under these conditions for these reasons it might be necessary," Moore grants them and then says it's still wrong. Moore's postapocalyptic Britain is starved, battered, and one of the only surviving societies after nuclear (and possibly biological) exchange. His fascist leader isn't looking for personal gain but really believes in strength and unity as the greater good. The leader is assisted by a superhuman intelligent computer to make decisions. There are invaders on the outside and plagues within. And the alternative is V who is not kind but brutal, destructive, insane. "Because I love you, because I want you to be free" is a truly chilling line (as much as the better-known Moore line from a later project, "I did it thirty-five minutes ago.")
For this tonal omission, both the delightful early dialogue between V and the statue of Lady Justice ("you always did have an eye for a man in uniform") and the later speech about Authority and the fear of Chaos are cut. The point in the film where it actually uses the word, a robber shouting "anarchy in the UK", is the very point where the book V teaches "this is not anarchy, this is chaos." Movie audiences never heard "anarchy is the absence of leaders, not the absence of order."
I saw it written on a forum, and I fully agree, when watching the movie, the point toward the end where V tips over the domino assembly is where you should stop playback or skip to the end credits (maybe watch the explosions on the way.)
20111127
20111125
merit
Meritocracy is a useful illusion. It tempts us to identify ourselves with the powerful and against the powerless. Because we are sure our own merits are great and our problems only circumstance, it comforts us that our own gain in future status in is assured. Because we are unfamiliar with others' circumstance and assume their problems are character flaws, it offers us the thrill of looking down on their unworthy laziness. It is useful because it encourages our complacence and discourages questioning our fundamental assumptions.
20111110
Saganday(belated)
Yesterday was, or would have been, Carl Sagan's birthday. I think church never really had a chance with me because "Cosmos" plus some illustrated science books had sparked a sense of wonder that the stark walls and bad music at the local Mormon ward could never hope to match. (Who knows what the interplay would have been had our family gone to a more aesthetically evocative church?)
What always stuck in my head as the "Cosmos music" isn't actually the main theme of the show, and first turns up in episode 2 (youtube excerpt that starts partway in with that music, embedding's not quite the style here). This episode has what is still one of the best popular science explanations of evolution available. (If you prefer your explanations from books, I'd suggest Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale or Greg Graffin's Anarchy Evolution which pulls double time as a punk rock biography.)
What always stuck in my head as the "Cosmos music" isn't actually the main theme of the show, and first turns up in episode 2 (youtube excerpt that starts partway in with that music, embedding's not quite the style here). This episode has what is still one of the best popular science explanations of evolution available. (If you prefer your explanations from books, I'd suggest Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale or Greg Graffin's Anarchy Evolution which pulls double time as a punk rock biography.)
20111103
Americanvalues
America was born in Rebellion. America was born On the Verge, where ideas, ethnicities, philosophies, religions, languages, histories and narratives from around the world came together in the cities, salons, pubs, coffeehouses, courts, churches, lyceums, presses and public squares, to mix, intermingle, and radically transform.
In all of the great moral conflicts that have defined American freedom, there have been those who sought justice and greater human dignity for all, and there have been those who defended established hierarchy and social restriction. The struggle between cosmopolitan embrace of all humanity versus the provincial, factional, traditional and powerful was old in our republic's youngest days.
Ending the rule of kings is a fundamentally radical concept. Abolition, free speech, women voting, civil rights, labor rights, freedom of conscience, have nothing traditional or conservative about them. The truly American spirit is Speaking Truth to Power.
Freedom is the freedom of dissent, disruption. Freedom is not merely freeing the businessmen. The untrammeled right of men of wealth to do as they please and influence decisions without concern for democratic participation is not the radical gift of the American experiment, but rather the ancient way of dominion and empire. Freedom is not merely freedom to live a comfortably unexamined life in one's steady cultural tradition, regardless if that culture is Bantu, Persian, Scandinavian, or the much mythologized and over-marketed American "heartland." Freedom obligates one to engage the world, doubt oneself, and see all cultures as sources anyone might draw from to grow and change themselves.
Goodness is not America's essence but its aspiration. No one gets to assume they're the good guys, especially not trying to justify something they would condemn from anyone less good than they. There never was a Shining City on the Hill, and a city presuming itself to be that one is guilty of pride. That City is not yet built and will never be completed.
This is the "liberalism" I learned from the example of many, and is nothing like the Strawman "liberalism" pundits on the right sneer at, nor the counterfeit "liberalism" focus-group technocrats in the Democratic Party might offer, nor the empty "liberalism" the compromised media occasionally name-check when they need to say something about "both sides."
This is America as I know it and love it.
In all of the great moral conflicts that have defined American freedom, there have been those who sought justice and greater human dignity for all, and there have been those who defended established hierarchy and social restriction. The struggle between cosmopolitan embrace of all humanity versus the provincial, factional, traditional and powerful was old in our republic's youngest days.
Ending the rule of kings is a fundamentally radical concept. Abolition, free speech, women voting, civil rights, labor rights, freedom of conscience, have nothing traditional or conservative about them. The truly American spirit is Speaking Truth to Power.
Freedom is the freedom of dissent, disruption. Freedom is not merely freeing the businessmen. The untrammeled right of men of wealth to do as they please and influence decisions without concern for democratic participation is not the radical gift of the American experiment, but rather the ancient way of dominion and empire. Freedom is not merely freedom to live a comfortably unexamined life in one's steady cultural tradition, regardless if that culture is Bantu, Persian, Scandinavian, or the much mythologized and over-marketed American "heartland." Freedom obligates one to engage the world, doubt oneself, and see all cultures as sources anyone might draw from to grow and change themselves.
Goodness is not America's essence but its aspiration. No one gets to assume they're the good guys, especially not trying to justify something they would condemn from anyone less good than they. There never was a Shining City on the Hill, and a city presuming itself to be that one is guilty of pride. That City is not yet built and will never be completed.
This is the "liberalism" I learned from the example of many, and is nothing like the Strawman "liberalism" pundits on the right sneer at, nor the counterfeit "liberalism" focus-group technocrats in the Democratic Party might offer, nor the empty "liberalism" the compromised media occasionally name-check when they need to say something about "both sides."
This is America as I know it and love it.
20110902
restatement
Liberals are stupid. Conservatives are evil. The pattern holds true.
Liberal stupidity plays glaringly in the delusion that there is anything like a convicted, stable Middle to be picked up. Were such a thing true, the conservative ploy of stepping further to the right every time would never work. It has worked very well. Therefore, there is no vast unrepresented Middle committed to centrist or moderate positions. There is a vast biconceptual majority who can be persuaded to think more liberally on some issues and more conservatively on other issues, and who will side with the better persuader, not the most centrist position-player.
Liberal stupidity plays glaringly in the delusion that there is anything like a convicted, stable Middle to be picked up. Were such a thing true, the conservative ploy of stepping further to the right every time would never work. It has worked very well. Therefore, there is no vast unrepresented Middle committed to centrist or moderate positions. There is a vast biconceptual majority who can be persuaded to think more liberally on some issues and more conservatively on other issues, and who will side with the better persuader, not the most centrist position-player.
20110806
twobarswhamyagottacross
I don't think there is any being in charge of the whole universe. I also have not been inclined to align with the organization American Atheists. This does not prove to be an exception.
Jon Stewart Mocking American Atheists for Opposing Cross at 9/11 Memorial
If someone were specifically constructing and installing a cross to "represent the faith of the people here," that would definitely be a First Amendment violation, using a public memorial to grant favorable status to a particular religion. In this case, it's a found object among the ruins, which some people have taken as meaningful. It's an emergent part of the narrative. If you go to many monuments or National Parks here around the West, you'll find Native American sites or religious artifacts, as well as historic churches or artifacts of settlers, displayed or pointed out on hiking/driving maps, because they're a significant part of what's there in the story of the area. I don't see that as violation of the First Amendment so long as it's not emphasized in a way to privilege a particular religion or culture in the story.
It's a question of how it's displayed, not whether it's displayed.
Jon Stewart Mocking American Atheists for Opposing Cross at 9/11 Memorial
If someone were specifically constructing and installing a cross to "represent the faith of the people here," that would definitely be a First Amendment violation, using a public memorial to grant favorable status to a particular religion. In this case, it's a found object among the ruins, which some people have taken as meaningful. It's an emergent part of the narrative. If you go to many monuments or National Parks here around the West, you'll find Native American sites or religious artifacts, as well as historic churches or artifacts of settlers, displayed or pointed out on hiking/driving maps, because they're a significant part of what's there in the story of the area. I don't see that as violation of the First Amendment so long as it's not emphasized in a way to privilege a particular religion or culture in the story.
It's a question of how it's displayed, not whether it's displayed.
20110617
communitynotdeity
You've probably heard, every couple months or so, of some town in the U.S. with atheist-themed billboards or bus signs, and angry people reacting with protest, stonewalling, or vandalism. Nontheists tend to see this reaction in terms of "see, they're so crazy even a completely inoffensive sign that we exist sets them off."
Here's another way to see it. If you've told anyone about a regular nontheist meeting or group somewhere, someone's probably asked "What do atheists need group meetings for, isn't that just like church?" In a way it can be; a competing community.
We often get ourselves into unproductive arguments about how much good or harm religion and atheism do. I think that community is the good religion does, the only real good it does, and that the realization that it's not an exclusively religious good but a general human good provokes defensiveness.
If people can fit you into their comfortable worldview, they won't have a problem with your existence even if they don't like you. Unbelievers as iconoclasts offering criticism and overenthusiastic blasphemy fits fine with a conservative religious community's collective worldview. Cold bitter intellectuals writing letters to the editor and occasionally filing lawsuits with the hated ACLU are no threat to them. The question "why are atheists so angry?" is not a simple misunderstanding of your nice intent, but a defensive reactionary attempt to fit you into a category that's comfortable.
But friendly neighbors who invite people to meet and feel welcome, organize charity work, and plan outings with their children, that's a potential replacement. It poses an existential question to a religion, whether the mystic and supernatural part of their religion is as essential as they've assumed. There are communities not specifically religious, but they can tell themselves it's a core of religiosity in people that makes such communities possible. A community that by is core constituency denies the relevance of devotion to the supernatural forces an expansion of their idea of what the community is.
Here's another way to see it. If you've told anyone about a regular nontheist meeting or group somewhere, someone's probably asked "What do atheists need group meetings for, isn't that just like church?" In a way it can be; a competing community.
We often get ourselves into unproductive arguments about how much good or harm religion and atheism do. I think that community is the good religion does, the only real good it does, and that the realization that it's not an exclusively religious good but a general human good provokes defensiveness.
If people can fit you into their comfortable worldview, they won't have a problem with your existence even if they don't like you. Unbelievers as iconoclasts offering criticism and overenthusiastic blasphemy fits fine with a conservative religious community's collective worldview. Cold bitter intellectuals writing letters to the editor and occasionally filing lawsuits with the hated ACLU are no threat to them. The question "why are atheists so angry?" is not a simple misunderstanding of your nice intent, but a defensive reactionary attempt to fit you into a category that's comfortable.
But friendly neighbors who invite people to meet and feel welcome, organize charity work, and plan outings with their children, that's a potential replacement. It poses an existential question to a religion, whether the mystic and supernatural part of their religion is as essential as they've assumed. There are communities not specifically religious, but they can tell themselves it's a core of religiosity in people that makes such communities possible. A community that by is core constituency denies the relevance of devotion to the supernatural forces an expansion of their idea of what the community is.
20110531
pure
Of course, an interest in heritage, culture, even ethnicity, is neither racist nor fascist. However, an interest in the purity of that heritage or culture or ethnicity, a desire to keep it from dilution and free of anything foreign to it, is the very substance of racism and fascism.
Purity is a corrosive antimoral value that reliably leads people to evil conclusions. Whether in matters sexual or spiritual or cultural, unless you're talking about refining chemicals and ores, purity is not a value or goal worth having.
I'm thinking of two otherwise unrelated things here. One, wishing an easy way to navigate the musically compelling but politically volatile pagan- folk- and black-metal scenes. Another, clashes over the immigration issue. At that debate (three months ago) between United for Social Justice and Utah Minutemen, the assertion there's no American identity to mold oneself to (sorry, forget the exact words) struck me as a good one. Of course one of the Minutemen vocally disagreed. I'm sure they think themselves just normal people wanting what's right (that's what's so insidious about cognitive frames), but their idea of what it is to be American is arbitrarily limited. I align more with Naomi Wolf who identifies being "American" with the attitude of speaking truth to power and willing to free all people from authorities and systems of control. By her account Americans need not have ever trod the soil of this continent beneath their sandalled feet, and probably not even lived while the place bears that name. It's an excessively idealistic, slightly sappy notion, argued specifically to lure those with narrow views of America to expand their horizons, but it's a desirable one that manages to embrace a broader humanity.
Purity is a corrosive antimoral value that reliably leads people to evil conclusions. Whether in matters sexual or spiritual or cultural, unless you're talking about refining chemicals and ores, purity is not a value or goal worth having.
I'm thinking of two otherwise unrelated things here. One, wishing an easy way to navigate the musically compelling but politically volatile pagan- folk- and black-metal scenes. Another, clashes over the immigration issue. At that debate (three months ago) between United for Social Justice and Utah Minutemen, the assertion there's no American identity to mold oneself to (sorry, forget the exact words) struck me as a good one. Of course one of the Minutemen vocally disagreed. I'm sure they think themselves just normal people wanting what's right (that's what's so insidious about cognitive frames), but their idea of what it is to be American is arbitrarily limited. I align more with Naomi Wolf who identifies being "American" with the attitude of speaking truth to power and willing to free all people from authorities and systems of control. By her account Americans need not have ever trod the soil of this continent beneath their sandalled feet, and probably not even lived while the place bears that name. It's an excessively idealistic, slightly sappy notion, argued specifically to lure those with narrow views of America to expand their horizons, but it's a desirable one that manages to embrace a broader humanity.
20110524
kantyousee
Logical corollary to the categorical imperative: Anything you try to justify doing to anyone else, you implicitly grant everyone in the universe permission to do to you. Your only refuge is in highly specific circumstances or in confessing to having chosen to do ill.
20110504
absenceofleaders
Haymarket Affair, May 4
"Anarchist" is a term that was generally adopted with some sense of irony. Apologists for status quo hierarchic government and business domains, sincere or self-serving, generally attacked any attempt to improve the lives and restore the rights of underclasses as bringing on "anarchy" in the chaos-brutality-and-riotous-destruction sense. If bringing about genuine freedom, opportunity, voice, and participation for laborers, women, ethnic outsiders, and the poor is "anarchy," many people reasoned, then let us be for anarchy. If institutional power of the wealthiest few dominating the impoverished many is civilization, then let civilization burn. "Anarchist" has acquired a long list of hyphenated adjectives, as visions of just how to build up a better civilization vary, but what many anarchists have actually envisioned is a very loose federalism, built up of otherwise independent local community organizations and labor unions.
I'm about as (un)comfortable with the label anarchist as I am with liberal, socialist, libertarian, or progressive. In some contexts, I even count as conservative. I also am dubious of the value and virtue of violent revolution. I like to place a bit of hope (not faith) in the Arab Spring, and also in open communication, strikes, building occupations, mass demonstrations that block ordinary business of government and trade, and other instances of badass pacifism.
(The last is a TVtropes link; hope you've got three hours to kill if you click on it.)
"Anarchist" is a term that was generally adopted with some sense of irony. Apologists for status quo hierarchic government and business domains, sincere or self-serving, generally attacked any attempt to improve the lives and restore the rights of underclasses as bringing on "anarchy" in the chaos-brutality-and-riotous-destruction sense. If bringing about genuine freedom, opportunity, voice, and participation for laborers, women, ethnic outsiders, and the poor is "anarchy," many people reasoned, then let us be for anarchy. If institutional power of the wealthiest few dominating the impoverished many is civilization, then let civilization burn. "Anarchist" has acquired a long list of hyphenated adjectives, as visions of just how to build up a better civilization vary, but what many anarchists have actually envisioned is a very loose federalism, built up of otherwise independent local community organizations and labor unions.
I'm about as (un)comfortable with the label anarchist as I am with liberal, socialist, libertarian, or progressive. In some contexts, I even count as conservative. I also am dubious of the value and virtue of violent revolution. I like to place a bit of hope (not faith) in the Arab Spring, and also in open communication, strikes, building occupations, mass demonstrations that block ordinary business of government and trade, and other instances of badass pacifism.
(The last is a TVtropes link; hope you've got three hours to kill if you click on it.)
20110501
coolbeans
Imagine you're looking at a normal jar of jelly beans of assorted flavors and colors. Then someone less clever than they think they are tells you it couldn't possibly have just shaken out that way, that getting that exact arrangement of colors and shapes must have taken a greater-than-mortal power carefully planning and sorting to get that exact jar of jelly beans.
definition of 'order' = arbitrary
analogy = weak
definition of 'order' = arbitrary
analogy = weak
20110404
antihumanagenda
In the 80s and 90s, one of the right's rallying hate-ons was "secular humanism." It probably still is, for all I know. I used to think they just didn't understand the deep roots of humanism in our civilization, going back to Renaissance, going back to Greece. I now fear they do know, and intend to unwrite all of our civilization's history and moral progress to root out the philosophical roots of humanism.
Humanism is the notion that humans have moral worth for themselves rather than as servants to lord and Lord. Labor movements, which go back at least a hundred years before Marx, stem from humanistic ideals. Women's rights as they have been hard-won in struggles over decades and centuries, depend on understanding the worth of each person's experience, rather than their fitting into an ordained social role. Racial integration and religious tolerance, scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience, freedom itself, depend on philosophical humanism.
Humanism is the notion that humans have moral worth for themselves rather than as servants to lord and Lord. Labor movements, which go back at least a hundred years before Marx, stem from humanistic ideals. Women's rights as they have been hard-won in struggles over decades and centuries, depend on understanding the worth of each person's experience, rather than their fitting into an ordained social role. Racial integration and religious tolerance, scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience, freedom itself, depend on philosophical humanism.
20110323
noteconomicallyevolved
In our perfected system, the more aggressive (and not discernably wiser) monkeys are encouraged to beat down their comrades to ascend the slats of a small ladder, earning an advantageous position for flinging poo, and the privilege of imagining they are growing nearly as tall as their keepers.
It's messy, but at least it's free of any trace of godless queer European-style socialism.
*****
Many classic texts explaining capitalism and advocating for total laissez-faire with no regulation, democratic feedback, or social responsibility beyond stockholder value make analogies to evolution. The above has exactly as much to do with evolution as does any economist's argument.
It's messy, but at least it's free of any trace of godless queer European-style socialism.
*****
Many classic texts explaining capitalism and advocating for total laissez-faire with no regulation, democratic feedback, or social responsibility beyond stockholder value make analogies to evolution. The above has exactly as much to do with evolution as does any economist's argument.
20110309
valuedomination
LTE. A bit Tea-Partyish, I know. But I actually bother to define my usage of 'fascism.' It's an exercise in social-cognitive damage control and messaging.
See also the Serene Babe's irregularly updated page on America's creeping fascism.
_________
News about the rallies in Wisconsin sheds light on a broader pattern.
There is a false moral system that puts purity and strength above truth, that holds military valor as the only meaningful patriotism, that would break the working class and twist public institutions to serve the wealthiest businessmen. Mussolini said fascism is properly called 'corporatism'; government of, by, and for business. Fascist values say captains of industry are the best the nation has to offer, and so are the ones the state should serve.
We see union-busting, the Citizens United ruling, billionaire funders of astroturf with their own bought-and-paid-for governor, constructed hostility to any honest doubt of U.S. foreign policy, wars that throw away soldiers' lives and loyalty so that billions in no-bid contracts can be given to government contractors, corporate welfare, privatization of intentionally underfunded and neglected infrastructure, and slashing of essential and hard-earned services for working people.
Corporatism is the system of government and economy in America, and neither voting conservative "values" nor liberal "hope" ensure against it.
See also the Serene Babe's irregularly updated page on America's creeping fascism.
_________
News about the rallies in Wisconsin sheds light on a broader pattern.
There is a false moral system that puts purity and strength above truth, that holds military valor as the only meaningful patriotism, that would break the working class and twist public institutions to serve the wealthiest businessmen. Mussolini said fascism is properly called 'corporatism'; government of, by, and for business. Fascist values say captains of industry are the best the nation has to offer, and so are the ones the state should serve.
We see union-busting, the Citizens United ruling, billionaire funders of astroturf with their own bought-and-paid-for governor, constructed hostility to any honest doubt of U.S. foreign policy, wars that throw away soldiers' lives and loyalty so that billions in no-bid contracts can be given to government contractors, corporate welfare, privatization of intentionally underfunded and neglected infrastructure, and slashing of essential and hard-earned services for working people.
Corporatism is the system of government and economy in America, and neither voting conservative "values" nor liberal "hope" ensure against it.
20110225
20110224
competitiveevolution
Twisted overlap: those who warn that acceptance of evolution would lead to everyone giving in to dog-eat-dog competition and self-interest, and those who warn that prosperity and "economic freedom" require everyone to give in to dog-eat-dog competition and self-interest.
20110218
20110212
dempartytrad
""The tradition of the Democratic Party is: be more liberal than the Republican Party on domestic matters. Not too liberal, but more liberal. On matters of foreign policy, don’t be much different at all." --Howard Zinn, 2009 interview with Dave Zirin
The think tanks that drive Republican policy have realized for at least 20 years that Democratic policy is only defined relative to Republican policy, that Republicans could move arbitrarily far to the right and the Democratic Party would follow.
The think tanks that drive Republican policy have realized for at least 20 years that Democratic policy is only defined relative to Republican policy, that Republicans could move arbitrarily far to the right and the Democratic Party would follow.
20110210
abusedpledgeletter
Abuse of the Pledge
This past Monday I attended a public debate at the Salt Lake City Library. I won't go into who was there or why, it's tangential to my point and you can easily find it if you like.
Most of the event was interesting and engaging, and most of the participants showed to have some common ground on critical moral points. However, early on one side chose to invoke the Pledge of Allegiance. This was not done at the opening of the whole event, but was instead reduced to a stunt during that speaker's assigned time.
I started to stand along with many in the audience, but it was bluntly obvious what this speaker was trying to do. Not being especially fond of loyalty oaths nor mandated spiritual rituals, I chose to keep my seat. My commitment to the ideals of America is not a tool for public speakers to score points over.
My suspicions of the speaker's intentions were confirmed when, as expected, his side later tried to use people's response to the Pledge to divide the audience and call support to that side.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 (slightly altered, since then) by Francis Bellamy (a socialist, if that matters) with the purpose of inspiring a sense of unity among the diverse peoples and classes of the country (though his own sentiments were less than perfect).
Some act as if the Pledge has magical significance, so that anyone with the 'correct' sentiment will be overwhelmed with the need to speak it, but no one is ever actually required to take part. If a child were drowning in a nearby pool, you obviously would not take part. When Liberty is drowning in a nearby pool, you should not take part. When demagogues invoke the Pledge against the spirit of unity, as a stunt to test in-group loyalty and divide people into Us and Them, that is an excellent reason not to take part.
Years ago, I fixed the Pledge in my own heart. Here is my Pledge:
I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the ideals to which it aspires, Liberty and Justice for All.
_________
The event was a debate on immigration issues between United for Social Justice and the Utah Minutemen. I may have more to say on that later.
This was a letter submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune today. They'll edit it, of course, though I know I've seen printed letters longer than their word limit. I'm at least a hundred over. I hadn't seen the limit 'til after I sent it.
This past Monday I attended a public debate at the Salt Lake City Library. I won't go into who was there or why, it's tangential to my point and you can easily find it if you like.
Most of the event was interesting and engaging, and most of the participants showed to have some common ground on critical moral points. However, early on one side chose to invoke the Pledge of Allegiance. This was not done at the opening of the whole event, but was instead reduced to a stunt during that speaker's assigned time.
I started to stand along with many in the audience, but it was bluntly obvious what this speaker was trying to do. Not being especially fond of loyalty oaths nor mandated spiritual rituals, I chose to keep my seat. My commitment to the ideals of America is not a tool for public speakers to score points over.
My suspicions of the speaker's intentions were confirmed when, as expected, his side later tried to use people's response to the Pledge to divide the audience and call support to that side.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 (slightly altered, since then) by Francis Bellamy (a socialist, if that matters) with the purpose of inspiring a sense of unity among the diverse peoples and classes of the country (though his own sentiments were less than perfect).
Some act as if the Pledge has magical significance, so that anyone with the 'correct' sentiment will be overwhelmed with the need to speak it, but no one is ever actually required to take part. If a child were drowning in a nearby pool, you obviously would not take part. When Liberty is drowning in a nearby pool, you should not take part. When demagogues invoke the Pledge against the spirit of unity, as a stunt to test in-group loyalty and divide people into Us and Them, that is an excellent reason not to take part.
Years ago, I fixed the Pledge in my own heart. Here is my Pledge:
I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the ideals to which it aspires, Liberty and Justice for All.
_________
The event was a debate on immigration issues between United for Social Justice and the Utah Minutemen. I may have more to say on that later.
This was a letter submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune today. They'll edit it, of course, though I know I've seen printed letters longer than their word limit. I'm at least a hundred over. I hadn't seen the limit 'til after I sent it.
20110203
denyskeptic
The skeptic applies doubt to everything, including especially oneself. Denialists apply doubt only to reaffirm their committed selves.
Denial of climate change, like denial of evolution, is heavily concentrated within the United States, and therein heavily concentrated among those aligned with or influenced by a particular political faction.
Do not honor denialists by calling them skeptics. I'd feel reluctant applying the word skeptic to lots of people, including myself.
Denial of climate change, like denial of evolution, is heavily concentrated within the United States, and therein heavily concentrated among those aligned with or influenced by a particular political faction.
Do not honor denialists by calling them skeptics. I'd feel reluctant applying the word skeptic to lots of people, including myself.
20110126
letnotutbeaz
Daily Herald story
Deseret News story
Couldn't find anything on ksl or sltrib.
I was glad to be one of the I'd say 150+ people who braved the descending cold to be on the steps of the Utah State Capitol building. Though I can't help seeing chants from a meta perspective, sometimes shouting along, but often just amused by them.
Good speakers, though not always the best speeches. Each speech cycled to hit the same key phrases, which works as a kind of poetic rhetorical mnemonic, but i'ts a bit on the blunt side.
I signed up for United for Social Justice's mailing list, though for the time being I work during their meeting times. I'm leery of the other group there, the UVU Revolutionary Student Union. Their main organizer is clearly bright, passionate, and dedicated, but they go out of their way to specifically say they're not closed to those who believe in violence.
Ideally, I like the idea of open borders. In a free world, anyone should be able to live where they like. Practicality should consist not in lamenting the impossibility of the ideal while reinforcing its opposite, but in working incrementally to make the reality more like the ideal.
Nations are an occasionally useful fiction. Fixed borders are a more recent and philosophically suspect notion. The borders of a place were the vague area where a power couldn't reliably project its control.
It's ironic and hypocritical to blast the people coming to our shores and borders when what drives them here is economic situations often imposed on their home countries by our corporations, our strategic doctrines, and our Department of State.
Our laws need to be reformed to make legal immigration easier, and yes, amnesty will need to figure into that. Stricter enforcement of bad laws won't fix a broken system. Strict enforcement of disrespected law undermines respect for the rule of law.
Deseret News story
Couldn't find anything on ksl or sltrib.
I was glad to be one of the I'd say 150+ people who braved the descending cold to be on the steps of the Utah State Capitol building. Though I can't help seeing chants from a meta perspective, sometimes shouting along, but often just amused by them.
Good speakers, though not always the best speeches. Each speech cycled to hit the same key phrases, which works as a kind of poetic rhetorical mnemonic, but i'ts a bit on the blunt side.
I signed up for United for Social Justice's mailing list, though for the time being I work during their meeting times. I'm leery of the other group there, the UVU Revolutionary Student Union. Their main organizer is clearly bright, passionate, and dedicated, but they go out of their way to specifically say they're not closed to those who believe in violence.
Ideally, I like the idea of open borders. In a free world, anyone should be able to live where they like. Practicality should consist not in lamenting the impossibility of the ideal while reinforcing its opposite, but in working incrementally to make the reality more like the ideal.
Nations are an occasionally useful fiction. Fixed borders are a more recent and philosophically suspect notion. The borders of a place were the vague area where a power couldn't reliably project its control.
It's ironic and hypocritical to blast the people coming to our shores and borders when what drives them here is economic situations often imposed on their home countries by our corporations, our strategic doctrines, and our Department of State.
Our laws need to be reformed to make legal immigration easier, and yes, amnesty will need to figure into that. Stricter enforcement of bad laws won't fix a broken system. Strict enforcement of disrespected law undermines respect for the rule of law.
20110125
newcentrismanditsdiscontents
I read this and thought it needed some spreading around. Of course, I've already demonstrated my tendency to align with Lakoff, he says what needs to be said about the language and philosophy behind political positions, and the political positioning behind political language.
The "New Centrism" and Its Discontents, by George Lakoff
On another note, I'm going to try to adjust my web2.0 usage. Since this blog feeds my facebook anyway, I'll try to put any non-slice-of-life thoughts here first, not reassembled here later.
HTML is more flexible, anyway.
The "New Centrism" and Its Discontents, by George Lakoff
On another note, I'm going to try to adjust my web2.0 usage. Since this blog feeds my facebook anyway, I'll try to put any non-slice-of-life thoughts here first, not reassembled here later.
HTML is more flexible, anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
