Stop the planet and let me off

Anglophile that I am, there are times when I think the United Kingdom might be more bizarrely insane that the Divided States.

Browsing the BBC News a few days ago, I ran across the following headline: “Designer vagina trend ‘worrying.’ ” Yes, you read that right. (However, even if you understood it correctly, you may not have read it correctly. Remember that the Brits would read “designer” with the last syllable pronounced –ah, so as to rhyme designer with vagina.) Yes, increasing numbers of women in England are getting cosmetic vaginal surgery—for “aesthetic reasons.” This ranks up there with lunatics who put various pieces of metal in and through their penises. Do these nut-jobs really expect many people to care that much about how their genitals look? Are they going to exhibit themselves or something? Do they think it makes them more sexually attractive? Aren’t we all attracted to guys with rings stuck through their dickheads? Imagine these guys going through airport security. The metal detector goes off near the crotch, and the security scanner looks quizzically at the proudly mutilated traveler. . . . A recent search on types of genital mutilation (don’t ask why I was searching this) turned up some absolutely horrifying examples of what people do to themselves—or sometimes have done to them by others. Enough to keep one awake at night. . . .

Almost every day brings me fresh news to convince me that I don’t belong on this planet. I was left here by some alien civilization as a punishment for some horrible crime I must have committed on my home planet, but I can’t remember what crime or what planet—maybe one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. (My astrological sign is ruled by Jupiter; isn’t that proof enough?) Earth is to alien intelligent creatures what Australia used to be to Earthlings: a sort of penal colony. The Weekly World News (my former alternative reality source—now defunct) had a headline years ago that said aliens think Earth is a bad neighborhood; to which one might respond that a lot of Earthlings do, too. Related to this is the belief that Earth is under a quarantine enforced by superiorly intelligent aliens who will never let us get out to go to any other planet until we clean up our act here, with the implicit and reasonable expectation that we may exterminate ourselves as a species first. e. e. cummings ended one of his most famous poems with the famous line: “listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.” Count me in, edward. We can get through the alien blockade by telling them we’re aliens ourselves. Or the blockade may not apply to parallel universes because the lame-brains who’ve gotten us into this mess haven’t figured out how to travel between them. Sadly, neither have I, or I wouldn’t be here.

Dialogue with raving lunatics

In my last post on Muskrat Hunt (“The storm clouds gather,” 9/15), I ended by saying that we should be trying to reach out to the rednecks we’re ridiculing and insulting. Hunt-master Doogman replied that he wasn’t sure how to “reach out” to someone who thinks he should be exterminated, and I replied that I thought this was in many cases a defensive posture because they think that we think that they should be exterminated, and that if we took them seriously and assured them that we'd rather listen to them than exterminate them, they might lower their guns.

It turns out that this was the fatuous blithering of an aging peace-and-love-and-brotherhood hippie, and I got a good, hard slap in the face by the cold, skeletal hand of reality when I reviewed the piece on Bill Moyers’ Journal on 12 September (www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html), linked on Muskrat Hunt (13 September) as “Excellent Moyers piece on the eliminationist movement.” If I was scared earlier at the idea of McCain/Palin winning in November, I’m far more scared by the realization that many “shock jocks” (a term for the mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right who host talk-radio shows) are openly and deliberately inciting their tens of millions of listeners to murder and mayhem in order to promote Christian family values. This is literally true, not a hyperbolic exaggeration: Moyers plays quotes from Glenn Beck in which he admits he wants to kill Michael Moore (ending with the rhetorical question, “Is this wrong?”); from Michael Reagan (son of Ronald) in which he says he’ll pay for the bullets for anyone who wants to shoot 9/11 conspiracy theorists; and from Rush Lamebrain encouraging his rabid followers to deliberately foment riots (“Operation Chaos”) in Denver during the DNC. Clearly, it is as pointlessly futile to try to dialogue rationally with shrieking maniacs whose rage and hatred drive them to such insanity, as it is to try to do so with certifiable schizoids who wander down East Colfax yelling incoherent diatribes at the walls of buildings.

All this is, of course, protected by the First Amendment right of these cockroaches (to use one of their own terms for the people they attack) to free speech. There is the rule (which Moyers attributes to Supreme Court Justice Holmes) against falsely crying “theatre” in a crowded fire, but the shock jocks don’t seem to be bound by this rule. (On the other hand, when the fascist thug-pigs in St Paul brutally and savagely violated the First Amendment rights of journalists to free speech, and of protesters to free assembly, they had the approval and blessing of the Fascistican Party holding their convention there. There is such a thing as selective law enforcement; in fact, there’s really no other kind.) But perhaps even scarier than the fact that these satanic monsters can get away with this, is the fact that countless millions of their listeners let their beliefs and opinions be molded and influenced by them—the same people, doubtless, who think the LaHaye Left behind garbage is a true and accurate portrayal of what the Second Coming will be like and are eagerly looking forward to witnessing it. These are the people who are numerous enough and powerful enough to kick our ass in November, and if we can’t dialogue with them to try to change their “minds,” we have to outnumber them somehow—which is precisely the strategy which the Obama campaigners seem to be following: getting more backers of him from the undecided, rather than trying to convert the die-hard Fascisticans. Why is this coming from someone who said earlier that it didn’t make any real difference who won? Well, now that there’s a good chance that the heroes of the mindless, enraged, hateful rabble who adoringly listen to shock jocks may seize power, I’m beginning to think it may make a difference after all.

By the way: how can I get an audience of tens of millions? Or even just get listed on Rude Pundit’s links? I’ll bet it takes money, dunnit? Anyone have a couple thousand Benjamins they want to give me?

The storm clouds gather

I’m getting truly scared. I’m too old and poor to emigrate to Canada, but I’m terrified at the idea of having to continue living in this country after next January.

To begin with, let me emphasize that I pay little or no attention to the coverage of the campaign by the mainstream domestic media. I’ve been reading the coverage by BBC, and it’s blood-chilling. I’ve also been reading lots of liberal-progressive blogs (mostly Muskrat Hunt and The Rude Pundit). And what terrifies me is that, in spite of all the ridicule and invective piled on McCain and Palin by the left, and in spite of mounting news coverage that makes it clear that Palin is a total disaster and the Republicans should be floundering helplessly in their death throes, some of the polls which BBC tracks (based, of course, on American pollsters) show that McCain-Palin are either neck-in-neck with Obama-Biden or edging past them. One commentator says we have no one but ourselves to blame for showing so poorly because the Democrats are not doing what he thinks they should be doing to look better. It’s useless to point fingers, but obviously we’re doing something wrong, and somebody had better figure out what it is and correct it really fast. And posting attacks on Palin in leftist blogs isn’t going to do it. We’re talking to ourselves instead of to the people whose opinions we should be trying to change. The left is often accused of being narcissistic as well as elitist—just the kind of people the gun-toting, Bible-thumping rednecks loathe. They may be inarticulate and ignorant, but they’re powerful, and we’re stupid to ridicule and insult them instead of trying to reach out to them. Our ridicule and insults just more firmly convince them that they’re right.

Granted, a lot can happen in seven weeks. The trouble is, it seems to me, as a confirmed pessimist, that most of it will be bad.

Who cares? It's all lies.

I don’t know why I care as much as I seem to about this sodding campaign—care enough, at least, to express my opinions about it. I entirely agree with Bageant that it really doesn’t matter which branch of the Republicrat Party occupies the throne. Business will proceed as usual regardless of which one it is because business will continue to be run as usual behind the scenes (and more and more these days right out in plain view) by the corporate masters who own the government. They may not be in total control of the government on social issues, such as gender issues, abortion, and immigration, but they’re in total control of anything that involves money, and nowadays there aren’t many issues that don’t involve money. Health care? Controlled by Big Drugs and the insurance racket. Fuel costs, energy conservation, and renewable sources? Controlled by Big Fossil Fuels. The Iraq/Afghanistan war (or any other war, for that matter)? Controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex. Education? Controlled to a surprising extent by publishers of schoolbooks. Employment and the economy in general? Controlled by the whole vicious cabal, which is supposedly legitimized by the priesthood of economists, who practice the most lame-brained hodgepodge of meaningless mumbo-jumbo, psychotic fantasies, and muddled and illogical bullshit ever to be called a “science.” All of it controlled by the plutocrats who pull the strings of the puppets they prop up as a façade. So, all this inspiring blather about “change” is so much farting in the wind, and the people who are indulging in it probably know it. McLame certainly knows it, and is cynical and mendacious in even talking about it. Obama probably knows it but may be naïve enough to think he can change the system; I can hardly accuse him of being cynical and mendacious. On the other hand, I hate to think he’s that naïve. Take your pick. His alleged inexperience, which his opponents use as a cudgel, hatchet, and blunderbuss against him, is, in my opinion, one of his greatest virtues, even though it may the reason for his naiveté. “Experience” basically means experience in working with the plutocrats, which invariably makes one cynical and corrupt. McLame, of course, has lots of experience and a “track record.” Boy, does he ever! Don’t look too closely at his experience unless you have a barf-bucket close at hand.

So, who cares who wins? What real, fundamental difference will it make? I hate to say it, but I don’t think even the Great Brown Hope will be able to make any, not because of his inexperience but because the plutocratic cabal will keep him from doing so and will impede and frustrate his every move in that direction; and if he gets uppity, they’ll disembowel him and eat his entrails while he’s still alive, like African jackals do with their prey. (And then there’s always the threat of assassination.) So, when I call those who promulgate the rhetoric of change mendacious, that’s just a euphemism for lying. They’re all lying liars, to quote Al Franken. Obama may be more or less sincere, out of naiveté, when he talks about what he intends or hopes to do, but when it comes to the Republican attacks on him, and their defense of their own records and agendas, the air becomes heavy with the smell of shit. Muskrat Hunt has at least two posts in which major news media frankly and repeatedly use the terms lies and lying (MSNBC’s “Countdown” in “Debunking McCain” and “Talking Points Memo” [focusing specifically on Palin] in “McCain/Palin = Bush/Cheney”). If the Elephants suffered the Pinocchio syndrome, they couldn’t move without stabbing each other with their noses. And a note of farce enters the comedy when the opponents accuse each other of lying about their lies: “You’re a liar when you call me a liar!” “You’re a liar when you deny lying!” And since I don’t believe anything any of them say, I refuse to listen to them. When their propaganda pops up on the cyclopean mind-controller, I change the channel; and when every channel is broadcasting their lies at the same time, I just switch it off.

The one exception, ironically, is the TV ad for Marilyn Musgrave. Precisely because she’s the target of Muskrat Hunt, I couldn’t help being curious about what the object of so much invective could have to say in her defense. It’s a real tearjerker. “Secondhand clothes, and meals from a Salvation Army. A childhood devastated by a father’s alcoholism. Marilyn Musgrave knows about hard times, because she’s lived them. [All this voiced over pictures of sad, crying children.] Today, you’ll find Marilyn helping the homeless [footage of her doing housing construction], the hungry [footage of her working in a soup kitchen], the broken and battered [footage of her counseling a woman in what may be a safe house]. In Congress, Marilyn stands for what’s right [—for the rich and powerful], working with Democrats and Republicans to oppose the President’s cuts to Medicare and veterans.” I don’t know enough about her record to know how much of this is lies, but my guess would be, most of it; and the inspirational footage is obviously posed for the occasion. But remember, the Russians thought Stalin was their savior because he controlled the image of himself portrayed by the media. They can all be assumed to be lying. Always.

Whither will they Rove?

I think we should be very worried about the report that Karl Rove seems to have taken control of McLame’s campaign. This monster was the architect of some the most viciously evil schemes of the Bush empire before he deserted what he doubtless realized was (because of him, of course) a sinking ship, and he seems to have an uncanny knack for convincing people that Hitler was just a kindly little Sunday school teacher and Stalin was a sadly misunderstood industrial visionary. This guy could sell cyanide to Hostess Cakes, the makers of Twinkies, as a new baking ingredient, and rumor has it that he may have had a hand in picking the Alaskan Beauty Queen as McLame’s staggering mate. If so, it may not be as moronically self-destructive as we think and hope, but may be part of another Rove-ian plot which will work precisely because it appears so stupid. His Machiavellian machinations are going to add a new factor to the equation, which may shift, and seems already to be shifting, the balance of opinion. We were scared of this creature when he was in center stage, and we should be even more scared of him now that he’s behind the scenes. Pure evil once again slithers through the sewers of Republican power.

Different realities

The Republican Convention has made me uncharacteristically loquacious—far more so than the Democrat one. This message is only a day after my last one—unheard of for me.

The more I learn about Sarah Palin (much of it from Muskrat Hunt), the scarier she sounds. In the last post, I described the Republican ideology as meaning “little except anti-gay and anti-abortion, … and maybe pro-guns and pro-death penalty.” Of course, that doesn’t quite do it “justice”: anti-evolution, anti-global warming, pro-Christo-fascism, and pro-oil are also important planks, and on every one of these (again with the possible uncertainty of Christo-fascism), the queen bitch of the Republican Party stands firm. But her personal and political history is sufficiently bizarre and unsavory to make even some Republicans a little leery of her in spite of her ideological purity. So, given her appearance as a total, unmitigated disaster as a candidate, her selection has made many liberals perceive her choice as a form of deliberate mass suicide for the Republicans, a sort of Jonestown Kool-aid Party. And yet there are some Republicans who seem to think her choice is a brilliantly clever move which will save and energize the Party and lead their way to victory. How can they entertain such radically different ideas?

Driving home last night (Tuesday), I heard on the car radio a little bit of one of the speeches at St Paul; I never did find out, or much care, who the speaker was. I could only listen to about three minutes of it before switching to jazz, since it would have been rather embarrassing to puke into my lap in the car seat. But three minutes was enough to give me, as one who generally refuses resolutely to read or listen to any of the moronic garbage spouted by the Republicans, a new insight into the mentality of these creatures. In that short time span, it became clear that this person, who is presumably representative of the Party as a whole, was coming from what I would call (as in the above title) a different reality. He had (and they have) a totally different perception of the meanings of historical events and people. He spoke (and they speak) a different language—not totally different because they use the same words we do, but they use them, again, with totally different meanings. This naturally makes communication with them practically impossible, since neither of us can really understand what the other is saying; our ideas sound as much like insane gibberish to them as theirs sound to us. It is not entirely out of levity that I routinely refer to our nation as the Divided States. We are truly, and I fear irreconcilably, divided by barriers of language and perception which form, I insist, separate realities. I say irreconcilably because it seems that large proportions of those on both sides (including me on our side) seem so adamantly convinced that their perceptions and their use of language are the only “real” ones, and that those on the other side are not just opposed but to some degree clinically insane and arguably evil, that it makes any bridging of the chasm well nigh insuperable.

So it is from this unbridgeable chasm between different realities that the Republicans can view their choice of Palin for running mate as brilliantly clever and the salvation of the Party. (Even the term “running mate” takes on different connotations as to whom or what they are running from.) It doesn’t make it any easier to listen to them, but it makes it a little easier to understand “where they’re coming from” if I do listen.

Of computers and politics

Two totally unrelated observations:

1. It recently occurred to me that I never use my “personal computer” for computing. Does anyone else? I use it for word-processing, music-processing, and Internet access, but the closest thing to computing I do on it is to add up columns of financial figures, which has about as much to do with math as a grocery list has to with writing, or “Mary had a little lamb” with music. Very little of my Internet use is for porn, but a friend of mine recently admitted that he got rid of his PC because he realized he was masturbating to Internet porn up to three or four times a day and it was beginning to affect his life (not to mention his penis), although he credits his good prostate health to this. The bit about the use of computers was brought to my attention by a book I’m reading on the history of astrophysics, which pointed out that every advance made in that field during the 50s through the 80s was made by advances in the computers which were necessary to make the fiendishly complicated and tedious computations which are called for in that work. Those were the days when computers were used for computing. Among the personal effects I inherited from my father, who studied chemical engineering at Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, in the 20s, were a slide rule and a mechanical drawing set—old-fashioned heirlooms now, to say the least.

2. I may be accused of cynicism (how could anyone possibly harbor such a thought!?!) when I note the strangely muted reaction of the Republican Party to the news, broken during their convention, that the teenage daughter of the Republican nominee for Veep was knocked up “out of wedlock,” to use a quaint expression. (Why does wedlock sound so much like padlock? Even a little like hammerlock.) This is happening in the so-called “family values” party which usually considers unwed teenage mothers to be crack whores on welfare, probably knocked up by Democrats and liberals, and is being adroitly swept under the rug, although everyone knows perfectly well that if this had happened in the Democrat Party, the Republicans would be making hay of it. As it is, the Rude Pundit is predictably and characteristically making hay of Sarah Palin’s nomination, referring to the “repulsive cynicism of the selection of the obviously insane, stupid, and corrupt … Palin,” although Rude could make hay of someone picking his nose in public. I don’t know about “insane, stupid, and corrupt,” but it’s pretty clear to me that the woman has absolutely no qualifications for the office except that she’s a “social conservative” (duh!), which in the Republican Party now means little except anti-gay and anti-abortion (that’s their idea of “family values”), and maybe pro-guns and pro-death penalty. I haven’t heard whether she’s a born-again fundamentalist Christo-fascist, but that can safely be assumed without being stated. There’s something oddly fitting about the coupling of this politically correct nonentity with a doddering old carbon copy of the half-witted psychopath who has trashed and raped this poor nation for eight years. For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone of normal intelligence could possibly vote for that pair. The answer, of course, is that there are millions of voters out there who don’t have normal intelligence.