Words about Mitt Romney

My mother posted a link to Thomas Friedman's editorial, "Why Not in Vegas" on Romney's trip to Israel. I was struck by the words and phrases Friedman associates with Romney and his trip. Here's the skip-through:

• not about learning
• satisfy the political whims
• all about money anyway
• abase himself
• wrong with the U.S.-Israel relationship
• add more pandering
• canard
• had time for a $50,000-a-plate breakfast
• did not have two hours to go to Ramallah
• didn’t know what he was talking about
• feeding off this conflict for political gain
• using this conflict as a backdrop for campaign photo-ops and fund-raisers
• making things even worse
• grovel for Jewish votes and money
• blatantly ignoring the other side
• not going to do something constructive

As the great political philosopher Rush Limbaugh so adroitly observed, "words have meaning."

I think they may also have real-world effects. Among the effects Friedman is observing is the deterioration of peace, or of the potential for peace, in the Middle East when American politicians pander instead of speaking uncomfortable truths.

Another effect may be that Friedman finds himself severed from Movement conservatives. I may not have long to wait till he's branded a socialist.

Opposites Attract, or Likes Polarize?

Trying to find an updated nickname for a US marine for a book revision, I stumbled across, first a Wikipedia page on US Marines terminology, and then by two steps, this short description of the origin of the term "gung ho."

I grew up with the term, using it as a synonym of "enthusiastic," and was eventually aware that it probably had a Chinese derivation, but not until now specifically what that was.

During the 15-year Japanese invasion and occupation of parts of China (a timespan I repeatedly emphasized when teaching high schoolers about WWII), the US maintained formal, diplomatic relations with the nationalist and communist partisans resisting the invaders. One such diplomat, Marine Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, reported on the industrial cooperatives the Chinese government set up to replace the output captured by the Japanese Imperial Army in the coastal regions.

The Chinese government agency that coordinated this industrial effort was called Gongye Hezhoushe, which might mean something as simple as "industrial cooperative." (Maybe that's what the cooperatives were called, and the agency was called something else. It doesn't matter for this story, though of course it matters in the larger picture.)

Lt. Col. Carlson was very impressed with these efforts, and took the philosophy "Gong He" (work together, i.e. for a common goal) as the motto of an elite group of Marines he later commanded. The spelling "he" in the current pinyin phoneticization of Chinese is better represented to English speakers as "HUH," an accented syllable with a vowel not unlike the "oo" in "hoof" (NOT like the "oo" in "roof" for most of us.)

At the time of Lt. Col. Carlson's exposure to the industrial cooperative spirit, the dominant romanization of Chinese words was the Wade-Giles system, in which that sound was represented by the letter combination "ho." This is the source of our pronunciation - I'm assuming you pronounce "gung ho" the way I do, rhyming with the garden tool or the female deer.


We can bring this full circle (or would this be half a circle?) to today, when the interests of the US Military have for decades been associated in the public's mind more with the Republican than the Democratic Party, and the interests of capital as well. (Don't believe the hype.) Currently, Republicans voting in primaries and attending candidate debates seem to favor the aggressive military and industrial posture of the United States of a century ago (in the midst of conquering around the Caribbean and the Pacific) - a kind of remanifest destiny. They want the US military to defend US economic interests abroad.

Our greatest economic competitor, and one of our biggest collaborators (are you reading this on an iPad?) is China, a country beset by industrial cooperation in some pretty nasty forms. (Again, reading this on an iPad?) Our hawkish citizens tend to fear this competition and favor militarism, at least, on our country's part. (The trick will be getting all the other countries to unilaterally concede our superiority.)

Therefore, an unofficial motto of our US Marine Corps, "Gung Ho!" may come to stand in part for the military adventurism favored by whoever the Republican nominee will be (note to Ron Paul supporters: ...oh, never mind, you won't believe me anyway), including the aggressive military stance his supporters will want him to take against [drum roll, please] industrial cooperation in China!

---

Now, can someone please give the justification for calling a 1980s movie about a Japanese company opening a plant in the US "Gung Ho"?

hollow writing about a hollow achievement

I can't figure out what the source of the success of Huaxi village is.

Clifford Cloonan's Jan. 17, 2012 article in The Independent, "Huaxi: The socialist village where everyone is wealthy," doesn't explain how Huaxi got wealthy.


Well, not beyond founding village chairman Wu Renbao allowing farmers to grow the crops of their choice. The only way that would get them the level of riches described is if they were growing poppies or coca. 


Am I missing something? The town emits socialist songs over a PA system. I think there has to be more to this story in which solid gold statues and a skyscraper in a tiny village are the product of "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

List or satire: who can tell?

I used to love reading the Harper's Index. I actually read the whole magazine, cover to cover, when I subscribed. (Come to think of it, I might subscribe again. That was pretty good reading.)

The reasons I liked the Index were the latent humor of juxtaposition, the generally progressive message the list of data conveyed, and the heady feeling that there was humor out there, just waiting to be dug up, in newspaper clippings and economic statistics and other modern political detritus.

It's that sort of confusion and humorous serendipity, the feeling that we may be looking at information, or natural events, or something intended to be serious, or we may be looking at a satire of it, and we can't tell at first. 

That's why I wanted to share this list of Republican actions - as Speaker Boehner promised leading up to the 2010 legislative election - to focus on job creation.

My favorite:

(110) 11-18-2011: The House is once again considering the "Balanced Budget Amendment", which sounds almost reasonable until you learn it could cost millions of jobs. Oy vey.

Actually, I just picked that one quickly. I couldn't really decide on a favorite. However, I like having a list of Congress' GOP majority's actions resolutely failing to create, and mostly even failing to address, jobs.

This isn't totally subtle, but it is a list, and it is satire. I think.

a "makers versus takers" type email

I was distressed that a friend forwarded this email:

Subject: FW: FREE STUFF....

Worth reading.

>  
>
> I have never heard this said as plain or as well.
>
> Class war at its best.
>
> The folks who are getting the free stuff, don't like the folks who are
> paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free
> stuff, can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own
> stuff.
>
>  
>
> And,
>
>  
>
> The folks who are paying for the free stuff, want the free stuff to stop and
> the folks who are getting the free stuff,
>
> want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting.
>
>  
>
> Now... The people who are forcing the people who Pay for the free stuff,
> have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who
> are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.
>
>  
>
> So, the people who are GETTING the free stuff, have been convinced they need
> to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff, by the people who are
> forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free
> stuff in the first place.
>
>  
>
> We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more
> people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.
>
>  
>
> Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide
> somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The
> voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by
> electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in
> exchange for electing them.
>
>  
>
> The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 231 years ago. The
> number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the
> free stuff. We have one chance to change that in 2012. Failure to change
> that spells the end of the United States as we know it.
>
>  
>
> ELECTION 2012 IS COMING
>
>  A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves.
>
>  I'M 100% for PASSING THIS ON.
>
>  Let's Take a Stand.
>
>  
>
>
>  Obama: Gone.
>
>  Borders: Closed.
>
>  Language: English only.
>
>  Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
>
>  Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare.
>
>  NO freebies to: Non-Citizens.
>
>  We the people are coming....
>
>  
>  Only 86% will send this on. Should be 100%. What will you do?
>

And I had this response:

People who do not pay income taxes (because they have little or no income) pay sales taxes. Many of them get “free stuff” in the form of temporary aid. Some of them get “free stuff” in the form of temporary aid that lasts a long time. This is a problem because they are consuming and not producing.

People who do not pay income taxes (because they have a lot of money, and spend a small portion of it to shield a greater portion from taxation) pay sales taxes. many of them get “free stuff” in the form of access to roads and bridges, fire and police protection, clean water, hurricane warnings and the like. This is a problem because the system that everyone else pays for allows them to benefit enormously without contributing to the system.

People who do pay income taxes make up the majority of Americans. They also pay sales taxes. Their tax payments educate the vast majority of the future doctors, engineers, and construction workers – of all of us. Their tax payments allow governments to build and maintain roads and bridges, test cantaloupes for dangerous bacteria, and inspect cost-cutting/profit-maximizing airlines’ planes before takeoff. They also own the airwaves that the government they pay for licenses to broadcasters. This is good because the people who pay the taxes by law make the decisions, however indirectly, in government.

This is where it gets interesting. The people who don’t pay income taxes (because they have enough money to shield their money) own a lot of broadcast media. They do it as individuals, as corporations, and as interest groups. They are a bit scared of the people who do pay most of the income taxes. They have a choice: fight us (hard) or co-opt us (not quite as hard). They have tools for fighting (bloody) and tools for co-option (less bloody).

I’m glad they chose the easier, less bloody route of telling you what to think. Now I am still alive to tell you what I think. I think they are filling your head with misinformation.

If there’s a class war, who won? The people who are out of work and hopeless and still sitting on their hands, or the people who are comfortable and well-fed and in control of media and government? Or, to use the original writer’s metaphor, the wealthiest are the wolves.

I have to get back to work if I’m going to continue supporting public education (my kids are in school right now), the interstate highway system (how I get to work and how my food gets to the grocery store), the public utilities commission (which helps keep electricity rates down so my boss can keep the lights on), et cetera, ad nauseam.

Stay well,

Steve

---

I think I was very diplomatic. Now I really have to get back to work!

Seeing clearly - multiculturalism and its discontents

I won't write today to complain about the New Know-Nothings or the Amurrica-Firsters or the millionaires and wannabes who pine for silly things like Whites-Only schools. I'm not even complaining (except about how hard putting contact lenses in turned out to be). I read with interest an article in In These Times at the Optometry Clinic at Cal--that's the University of California at Berkeley to people who don't recycle alumni fundraising requests--while waiting for said contacts.

It struck a nerve with me. More things are doing that lately. Probably about to spout off on some poor, unsuspecting person. Still, I've been a bit quick to anger.

This nerve, however, did not bulge in my neck or cause comical wavy lines to indicate steam escaping from my ears. (No. Those comical, wavy lines are hair.)

John M. Davis' piece, called "Still Separate, Still Unequal," reprised a theme I used to entertain thoughts of writing on. Come to think of it, I guess I'm doing that here.

Davis (in the March, 2011 issue, and online dated March 2, 2011) writes that progressives have allowed the original genius of ending school segregation to stand for the entire project of social equity. By insisting that only schools desegregate, we've missed the point of total desegregation, which is to undermine the attitudes and affiliations that channel wealth and power in this country by racial categories.

Descending a generation further from Brown v. Board of Education, progressives allowed themselves to become protectors of a new inequality, one not of power but of softer privilege, the privilege of recognition, of official sanction. (It's this, really, that right-wing buffoons like Newt Gingrich complain about--having to celebrate the achievements of the disabled, the dark-complexioned, the left-handed...) By so doing, we not only unnecessarily tweak clown noses (clowns with bullhorns, and lobbyists' phone numbers tucked into their oversize shoes), we reify difference.

And the consequences of the two together are greater association of poverty with melatonin, greater differentiation between rich and poor schools, and a current trend toward abandonment of desegregation in public schools at all.

My feeling is that Davis leaves out progressive malaise. Maybe that's not the right term. Maybe it's decency. Progressives these days, and as far as I can tell since around the time left-wingers in the US stopped lobbing explosives at plutocrats, tend to fight against the maelstrom of right-wing power and publicity by steering straight for our goal. We then fight against the greatest concentration of wealth and media ever known, a concentration concentrated on concentrating political power to a degree almost never known. (You remember, the "permanent right-wing majority" to be reached by redistricting, media and campaign deregulation, and a constant state of fear.)

Just as progressives cringed when President Obama proposed Bob Dole's health insurance reform plan and the Republicans called it a socialist takeover casserole with a side of death panels, I feel progressives should not have pushed hard only for school desegregation. Doing so set the battle lines too close to the status quo ante.

What we need to do going forward is push for the (sorry, but I'm getting the munchies) whole enchilada. Don't let the fact that a pasty-white guy wants it with "manchamanteles" red mole sauce distract you from Davis' doctrine, and my corollary. Progressives should push far to the left of what we think we can get. Be honest. If it were 1954, would we want school desegregation alone, or social desegregation and economic justice? There's always going to be pushback, whether against school busing or against recognizing GLBT citizens in the social studies curriculum, so why not legislate morality, and start the battle there? Certainly the right wing wants to legislate morality, now that it means something other than outlawing sexual and racial discrimination! Why should the left be any more timid.

Well, it's because timid is sort of like nice, at least nice to bullies, and that's what we've become. Nice to bullies. That approach draws the line at the question of who gets my lunch money, rather than what all the bullied kids in school plan together in resistance.

digging a deeper pit

From a Facebook/middle school friend:

"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

Life as we Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I'm slow to read this, and a bit perplexed by its success.

It's not that I don't like the book. On the contrary, I was riveted. I just found its plot development contrary to what I figured the target demographic was moved by.

This is good news on two fronts: first, that publishers are finding success with more than one formula for this age group (teens and young adults); and second, that teens and young adults (and I) are moved to read more than one formula.

As for scenarios, this one is a doozy. It starts a bit lackadaisically, but changes drastically. I find the slow set-up the confusing part. My feeling is that the diary format allows for greater latitude in developing an identification with the main character. That, and good writing. Pfeffer holds our attention without the global catastrophe striking in the first chapter.

When it does strike, it brings out some of the current political debate. First, the main character Miranda is frustrated with the behavior of her newly fundamentalist Christian friend. She feels shut out, and confused at her irrational behavior. I was watching for signs of a reversal in Miranda's opinion. None, as of the first book, but it's a three, and possibly four book set. (See Pfeffer's blog, linked at right.)

Second, Miranda's mom disses the president, and although he's not named, he lives in Texas, and she calls him a dimwit or the equivalent. Not too much guessing needed.

Third, and most important, Pfeffer neatly encompassed a minor part of the current government shut-down debate by showing how things fall apart. Every family turns inward, and in their isolation are exposed to great risk. Without mediating authority, contact with others also is a risk.

This paragraph is a spoiler, so don't keep reading if you don't want to, but it is only the resumption of some level of politicla organization that promises hope and saves Miranda's family at the end.

I thought that fit nicely into my developing sense of Pfeffer's politics. I intend to read the next two (or three) books in the series with an eye to her evolving opinion. It's just the sort of thing that raises my interest in a book, at least one that holds my attention with good plot and character development like this one.

For now, the book closes with Harry Tuttle in "Brazil" about to rappel off the highrise apartment wall, thumbs-up "We're all in this together, kid."

Great. I feel just like Sam Lowry.

politics, more Shadow Children, and self-doubt

I wanted to share this article I read about Jerry McNerny's (CA-14) opponent in the November election. Harmer is a Tea Party-branded extremist who, according to this Mother Jones article, wants to abolish public education.

I've said it before, but when will progressives and half-way decent people stop - just STOP - writing dystopian and apocalyptic novels that the right-wing then uses as instruction manuals?

• Orwell, 1984, Dick Cheney.
• Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Christian fundamentalists.
• Haddix, Shadow Children series, Harmer.

See what I mean? I'm sure you could add to the list.


Finished Margaret Peterson Haddix' third Shadow Children series. Good world creation. Interesting characters. Multiple points of view. Short novels. I like the combination, and she's a serious enough writer to make the short fiction format a powerful vehicle for this drama-with-a-message series.

My own writing is stalled. I'm remaking my world. I was struggling with logical inconsistencies that no amount of verbiage was going to effectively paper over. I needed to resolve (and am still working on) how the world got the way it was, to ease readers' suspension of disbelief.

"Muslims versus Jews" email

I love my aunt and uncle. But they watch Fox.

They recently sent me an email you might have seen going around comparing Muslims and Jews, centering on the number of Nobel prizes each group has won, and on vague, misleading or inaccurate, and ridiculously decontextualized generalizations about propensities toward violence.

Have you seen it? Here are a few gems:

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.

Note the artful use of capitals, the clever repetition of the phrase "NOT one single." Just in case the meaning of "one" was unclear.

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

OK, I'm not sure it's metonymy, but I wanted to show off by using the word. Probably the above phrasing is just laziness. The whole UK debated this? A quick search online turns up debunkers and promoters of this meme. I guess people just pick a side and run with the facts that fit their conclusion. The analysis on Snopes does a good job of confirming the predictable - that this is a tempest in a teacup, and a much more interesting and less alarming piece of news than the fantasy version. It boils down to one school reconsidering the teaching of controversial topics in a history class in light of a study on the effects of such teaching methods.

It's almost comforting to think of the world in Glenn Beck diagrams instead. Certainly, it's easier to understand between commercial breaks. It settles my stomach to compare my commute, my sore knee, and my credit card debt to Adolf Hitler.

Back to my massive wimp-out. I wanted to send this reply to the whole mailing list, but I really hate getting emails like that, so why send one? .



So here's the reply I didn't send.

---

I feel that the intended conclusions of this email are unworthy of anyone with humane intent. I am sure I will see the contents recycled and repackaged as part of an equally loathsome accusation of the imaginary international Jewish conspiracy.

And in the meantime, several thousand emails will be concocted and forwarded around the circles that receive these contents gladly, condemning me for my beliefs, calling me inhumane, stupid, a coward, a criminal, un-American, and counting the achievements and crimes of people somehow like me, and what will that prove? (After all, I am a member of the most despised minority in America!)

Remember, you and I are citizens of the only nation in the world to have used nuclear weapons against humans, and in both cases the targets were, or were surrounded and outnumbered by, large cities.

Our nation recently launched a war to bring down a dictator it had supported and armed, in reaction to an attack with which he was in no way connected, predicated on the spurious charge of a direct connection, killing a million or more people, and displacing tens of millions.

Our nation legalized, regulated, and promoted slavery, and for a hundred years after the end of slavery, resisted legal equality for the descendants of slaves.

Our government practiced genocide against the original inhabitants of the land, and confined the survivors to tiny, resource-poor outposts.

Men mistreated women, Europeans mistreated non-Europeans, Christians mistreated non-Christians, Catholics mistreated non-Catholics (and other Catholics who were unable to defend themselves), and Californians produce more trash, smog and greenhouse gases per capita than almost any other population on earth. What right have I to even live with such a record as a male Californian of European and Catholic descent? 

Some Irish in San Francisco murdered Chinese laborers a century ago. My children are Irish and Chinese? Should they hate themselves, fear themselves, or forgive themselves?

Thinking of people as groups first and individuals second is the source of too many problems to count. Please find in your heart, draw from your belief system, or discover in the support of your friends and family, the will to be better than this.

Practice peace.

Love,

Steve

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OK, tell me, was that "practice peace" just a little to goody-two-shoes? Yeeikes!