What if it all goes the way I expect? Total, absolute isolation from the rest of the world, Muslim countries attacking us (which we will just ignore for a while, then blow them off the earth if they continue) and a booming economy manufacturing all the junk we used to import, and doing the labor that used to import itself. No more embassies. No more money, or people, going across borders. The State Department a bunch of little kids making "Go Away" signs with markers. Go back to old blog for detail.
Two problems remain: One, what about our need to kill large numbers of people? And, two, what about our freedom? Will we be let ourselves be free, or will we remain in the grip of a bizarre and vicious ideology which rewards silliness and penalizes real work?
The first one is easy. We just lob a nuke now and then at a random country. We kill a lot of people now anyway, with conventional weapons. The weak sisters among you can revert to high explosives, but I'll go with the nukes. They're cheap -- we've got way more than we'll ever need already. We don't know if the ones we have actually work any more, so this is a nice chance to test them. A little more radioactivity in the atmosphere will vanish in the middle of all the other junk floating around. Plus, keeps everybody else just a little nervous.
I'll be conservative; one very small nuke every, oh, three years or so will do. The European countries will be off limits, of course, and only folks with darker skins will be subject to our random attack. Sort of resembles the foreign policy of the last 50 years, doesn't it?
Two blogs ago, when I went down the list, I forgot Guatemala: US victims, 200,000. And East Timor: US victims, 180,000. This in the last 20 years of the 20th century, mostly in the idyllic Reagan years. First decade of the 21st? A very conservative million, and those direct, by our own hands, not by our proxies. You think a little baby nuke every few years will be any worse?
It will be cheaper and it won't harm any of our folks. We can go on being the world's greatest nation. I know that this is all true, and I don't understand any of it.
On to freedom. The news about freedom: not so good. After we throw out all the Muslims, then what?. No other possibility than a fine christian theocracy, with one exception -- for a while -- for Jews. We still pretend otherwise, but politics in this country is first about race, and then about religion. We are not ready to take on race, not yet. But religion: woo-hoo. All you Unitarians out there, you're gonna have question marks burned on your lawns. That's a joke.
No more secular humanist atheists -- we'll stone them, I guess -- and no more Hare Krishnas and no more Baha'is. No more Darwinists, no more physicists talking about relativity-- get rid of all that science stuff. Science people can return to theology school if they need to retrain. Theology will be the only "ology" allowed. Finish the list above with your favorite non-christian sect.
The Mormons are going to be trouble, as they always are. You're guess is as good as mine about their fate, but I think, in the end, their aggressiveness and peculiar theology will be their downfall.
Ha ha, you say. People have been predicting this for years, still hasn't happened. Crying wolf is, after all, crying wolf.
Not this time. The armed forces are permeated by evangelicals, particularly the officer class. Congress and the Senate are permeated by the rotting husks of ruling-class wannabees. The Supreme Court is permeated by, of all things, fundamentalist catholics. You think they won't stick together? You think they won't unite for an election very, very soon? You think the inauguration of the first openly theocratic president won't be in an evangelical church? You think there will be any elections after that? Think again, bucko. The train has left the station on this one, and there's nothing big enough to stop it.
Prosperity for all, good godly christians in every public office, mandatory church attendance, tithes out of your paycheck, complete control of all media. Video cameras watching everything. And you say we're not getting close? Ok, forget the tithe thing.
We always ignore the fact that the whole free market "ideology" is just a way to ensure a ruling class and a pretty scummy underclass. I can't understand how we've been fooled for a century with that stupid and self-serving crap. When it came to the crisis, the ruling class abandoned pretense and saved itself, got rid of the free market foolishness in maybe, what, twenty seconds. No one batted an eyelash. The free market indeed spoke; it told everyone outside the ruling class to go away and die, same as it did with health care.
Orwell? 1984? He had it a little wrong. He didn't anticipate our hoopy theocracy, really; his was more a secular nightmare. And the war stuff? Orwell saw a forever war designed for profit, and to suck up the energy of youth. Wrong. Our need to kill is more obscure, darker, a historical swamp.
We don't want wars. We want piles of dark-skinned corpses, and we'll take them any way we can get them. Profit? Sure, always good to make a buck. But what we really want are the corpses. We kill to get back to normal. Any time there is social change, class confusion, economic upset, we just kill a lot of people, and we are healed.
We have killed millions upon millions of people in my lifetime, many hidden, many televised. Hard for me to keep myself seeing through that dark glass. Why do we murder these millions? We do it to make us whole. I can't look away, and I can't look.
About 10 years ago, I had a wonderful idea. You could state your religion when you set up your bank account, and then, when you used the ATM, there would be a cheerful religious saying, personalized for your belief system, printed at the top of the receipt. Millions for me in royalties!
Now, just the christian sayings will be on the receipt. Control of thought and economy, on one little, barely legible slip of paper. Control of my life is easy, and just about finished. I have no freedom left.
Next time, anonymity. Stay tuned. Remember, I know who you are. Heh.
BTW, to comment, just click on the 'Comments' link below. Put in your comment, then click on the dropdown box. Put in your name if you wish; you don't need a url, but you can add your link if you have one. Otherwise, click good old 'Anonymous', and I won't know who you are. Heh.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Religious War 2
The Cold War was a narcissistic engagement -- a dancing-war -- between two powerful, nasty states. Even the names were mirror images -- the US and the SU. Finally, one of them had the sense and courage to stop the dance-war. We required a new dance-war partner.
Very few candidates appeared when they were needed; the criteria were pretty tough. To get on the list, you had to be willing to kill really a lot of people, have threatening weapons, and be overtly in the grip of a wacky belief system. You must have no sense of self-satire, and be, as our former dance-war partner was, really, really vicious. You had to take great pleasure in being deeply hated by about half the world. And you had to be willing to impoverish your people. That is what we did and we were the good guys, after all.
Not so simple to find dance-war partners. We tried China, but the Chinese didn't want to play, for now. Neither did India; they apparently thought we were crazy to suggest such a thing. All of Africa was too busy. Brazil also had other engagements, at least for the time being.
Well, it all worked out and better than even the most optimistic among us could have hoped. Wasn't so easy, but at the same time we were losing one partner, we generated a new one! Imagine the skill -- and luck! Our best minds and huge amounts of money were needed to make it be so -- surely one of the great achievements of the late 20th century. The old "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" seems to fit, but I can't quite get the mapping right.
In the previous post, I talked about my life being a series of war episodes. I also remember, in the late 80s and 90s, quaint debates about what to do with the "peace dividend". All that money, which had supported the war machine, would be turned loose, and we could do some pretty good things for our folks. Yup. Good things. Imagine that. I'm waiting.
Well, what now? A dangerous enemy, with terrible weapons, driven by alien beliefs, willing and eager to kill, and against whom no force will be big enough. An enemy who mocks our way of life, our values, who are cowards, who won't even take care of each other, who abuse their own women and children. They dress funny, smell funny and look funny, too.
And that's what they think of us.
There have been two Muslim-Christian wars before. Each one lasted at least a couple of centuries. Now, those folks are real dance-war partners. That SU thing -- hey, didn't last even 80 years. Short-hitters. Quitters. No guts and no glory. The Muslim thing -- those guys are pros. No more amateur hour. Once they get into gear, they're like the Energizer bunny; they just keep going, and going, and going.....
We can anticipate many, many more years of killing. In the last blog, I posted that killing is a normalizing experience for America. Whenever something unusual happens, or we feel insecure, or there's a slump in the economy, or there is minor social change, we kill a bunch of people, and then we feel more normal, reach some sort of equilibrium. It's a dynamic that we have played out for the last hundred years or so. It has worked well for us, not so well for our victims.
One of the personal odd moments of the last 20 years came listening to a radio interview with a former SU spy, one of a group ordered to keep an eye on the border with Finland. The Finns had their own spies, and the two groups got to know each other, had the occasional beer, and in general worked out a fine arrangement. And I remember the voice of this spy from the SU saying, with great emotion "I have never felt more proud of my country than when it abandoned the Cold War". In the seconds after hearing that spy, I was terribly jealous. I wished so much that I could have been the one to feel that pride. I wasn't. And I don't think it will be my country that has such courage the next time, or even the time after that. No.
Not in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of my children. I don't know what it would take for us to abandon our savagery. A horrible economic depression, with complete failure of anything but a barter economy? A political awakening, as in the SU? Surely not a spiritual awakening -- hell, we have those twice a week. Maybe a grand despair, a complete loss of hope that life can possibly get better? Maybe, but my peasant ancestors stayed peasants, for maybe a thousand years before someone came out of the bogs. Is there anything that can push us into cooperating with the rest of our kind? Any way we can simply abandon the apparently central experience of the American 20th century, that we need to kill large numbers of people?
Sure there is, and maybe the green elephants flying over my house will poop elsewhere. Maybe not. I'm not giving away my shovel yet.
BTW, to comment, just click on the 'Comments' link below. Put in your comment, then click on the dropdown box. Put in your name if you wish; you don't need a url, but you can add your link if you have one. Otherwise, click good old 'Anonymous'.
Very few candidates appeared when they were needed; the criteria were pretty tough. To get on the list, you had to be willing to kill really a lot of people, have threatening weapons, and be overtly in the grip of a wacky belief system. You must have no sense of self-satire, and be, as our former dance-war partner was, really, really vicious. You had to take great pleasure in being deeply hated by about half the world. And you had to be willing to impoverish your people. That is what we did and we were the good guys, after all.
Not so simple to find dance-war partners. We tried China, but the Chinese didn't want to play, for now. Neither did India; they apparently thought we were crazy to suggest such a thing. All of Africa was too busy. Brazil also had other engagements, at least for the time being.
Well, it all worked out and better than even the most optimistic among us could have hoped. Wasn't so easy, but at the same time we were losing one partner, we generated a new one! Imagine the skill -- and luck! Our best minds and huge amounts of money were needed to make it be so -- surely one of the great achievements of the late 20th century. The old "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" seems to fit, but I can't quite get the mapping right.
In the previous post, I talked about my life being a series of war episodes. I also remember, in the late 80s and 90s, quaint debates about what to do with the "peace dividend". All that money, which had supported the war machine, would be turned loose, and we could do some pretty good things for our folks. Yup. Good things. Imagine that. I'm waiting.
Well, what now? A dangerous enemy, with terrible weapons, driven by alien beliefs, willing and eager to kill, and against whom no force will be big enough. An enemy who mocks our way of life, our values, who are cowards, who won't even take care of each other, who abuse their own women and children. They dress funny, smell funny and look funny, too.
And that's what they think of us.
There have been two Muslim-Christian wars before. Each one lasted at least a couple of centuries. Now, those folks are real dance-war partners. That SU thing -- hey, didn't last even 80 years. Short-hitters. Quitters. No guts and no glory. The Muslim thing -- those guys are pros. No more amateur hour. Once they get into gear, they're like the Energizer bunny; they just keep going, and going, and going.....
We can anticipate many, many more years of killing. In the last blog, I posted that killing is a normalizing experience for America. Whenever something unusual happens, or we feel insecure, or there's a slump in the economy, or there is minor social change, we kill a bunch of people, and then we feel more normal, reach some sort of equilibrium. It's a dynamic that we have played out for the last hundred years or so. It has worked well for us, not so well for our victims.
One of the personal odd moments of the last 20 years came listening to a radio interview with a former SU spy, one of a group ordered to keep an eye on the border with Finland. The Finns had their own spies, and the two groups got to know each other, had the occasional beer, and in general worked out a fine arrangement. And I remember the voice of this spy from the SU saying, with great emotion "I have never felt more proud of my country than when it abandoned the Cold War". In the seconds after hearing that spy, I was terribly jealous. I wished so much that I could have been the one to feel that pride. I wasn't. And I don't think it will be my country that has such courage the next time, or even the time after that. No.
Not in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of my children. I don't know what it would take for us to abandon our savagery. A horrible economic depression, with complete failure of anything but a barter economy? A political awakening, as in the SU? Surely not a spiritual awakening -- hell, we have those twice a week. Maybe a grand despair, a complete loss of hope that life can possibly get better? Maybe, but my peasant ancestors stayed peasants, for maybe a thousand years before someone came out of the bogs. Is there anything that can push us into cooperating with the rest of our kind? Any way we can simply abandon the apparently central experience of the American 20th century, that we need to kill large numbers of people?
Sure there is, and maybe the green elephants flying over my house will poop elsewhere. Maybe not. I'm not giving away my shovel yet.
BTW, to comment, just click on the 'Comments' link below. Put in your comment, then click on the dropdown box. Put in your name if you wish; you don't need a url, but you can add your link if you have one. Otherwise, click good old 'Anonymous'.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Religious War
We are at the start of the third major brush between Christians and Muslims.
Arab Muslims are quite open about loathing the presence of Christians in their lands (I'm not too happy about Christians in my lands, either). We Americans have become increasingly intolerant of Muslim residents here, and it is only a matter of time -- a short time -- before Arabs are rounded up and expelled or put in camps, their property confiscated, and all that goes with being demonized. There will be resistance, but security will be evoked, as it always is. First, we'll give them national IDs with little crescents on them, and the demand "Show me your card!" will have some teeth. Then maybe we'll have them wear special hats -- the fez, for instance, would be a nice fashion touch. But I think camps/expulsion are far more likely. After all, we cannot tolerate potential terrorists in our midst.
Two other times, in the last 600 or so years, there have been long, ongoing wars between Christian Europeans and Arab Muslims. The first occurred on the Iberian Peninsula; Muslims took most of what is now Spain in 711 and stayed until 1492. The second was in the 17th to early 20th centuries, in Eastern Europe, and lasted until the Ottomans picked the wrong side in WW1.
Who cares? Within about the next decade, we will be at war with Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and a few other of the Arab or Persian Muslim countries, and will have no choice but to keep outside our borders anyone who has any Muslim blood, going back, oh, three generations or so. Best expel them all while we have the chance. Indonesians and Filipinos? We'll have a vote on them, but I have a pretty good idea what to expect.
And then? Here is my very practical idea. Many will think it alarming, but bear with me. We are going to do most of it anyway.
We need to move from being a world power, and not even a regional power, to being a power at home only. Not just isolationist; complete isolation. That damn fence needs to be 50 feet high, not 10 feet high. Nothing will cross our borders: no people, no goods, no services, no money. No debt will be repaid, no further debt will be incurred. If you want to stay, fine; but once you go, you can't come back. Relatives can visit, but only for two weeks, and with a bracelet that indicates where they are at all times. Sort of like a reverse electric dog fence. The fishing industry is a problem; we may need to eat farmed fish only. Not good, but the fishing industry is doomed anyway.
All overseas military bases will be abandoned. The navy will be reduced to a coastal force -- a big coastal force. Boundaries will be 200 miles. Military airplanes will patrol up to the borders. Every inch of the borders will be bristling with arms. And, if you even think of smuggling a person or a thing or some money, we will publicly humiliate you; something to do with body functions, or whippings in the town square. No more teaching of foreign languages at any level. Why would we need that? Intense, intense weapons research. The threat, posted on the 50 foot walls, written in crayon on construction paper: Touch us, and you and your ilk will no longer be on the planet. The State Department will use the crayons and construction paper. Canada and Mexico, with long land boundaries, will be the major problems. BIG fences, not just electrified, but designed to do away with anyone who comes within, oh, a hundred yards. We will divide up the Great Lakes.
I'm willing to be humanitarian. You have until January 1, 2012 to decide where to live.
So, a great experiment? Could we really rebuild the country? Can we give up the big TVs and the tchotchkes that are made in Asia? Yipes: no more coffee. Have a nice hot cup of chicken broth for a wakeup. No bananas, but lots of oranges. Fruits and veggies only in season. No grapes from Chile in midwinter. Sigh.
No more Mercedes, no more Toyotas; all cars will be made by GM, or Chrysler, or Ford. I'm sure they and the UAW will be glad to have their pick of the Honda and other foreign factories that dot the South.
No more crops picked by immigrant labor. If we don't pick it, we don't eat it. No more nannies working under the table; we take care of our own children. No more landscaping crews invading the suburbs each day; we mow our own lawns. Restaurant prices will double -- no more illegals to hire for cash; we'll cook our own food.
The first time we built the country, we did it on the backs of Native Americans, Caribbean islanders, Asians, and, by far greatest, in number and in pain, African Americans. They did the labor that made this country, and they didn't get paid. They got murdered, instead.
Can we build America a second time, with everybody getting paid, and nobody murdered? I'm not so sure. I'm not sure that the children of the middle class will be overjoyed about working in factories, or laying brick, or any of the gazillion jobs that, not long ago, were what Americans did.
If we build the 50 foot walls, and shut down the internet and telephone lines at the border, and knock down all the satellites, surely bad things will happen. But what?
If we build the country a second time, regaining our dignity and our liberty may be worth all the hard labor. We will be able to take care of our sick and ailing, our blind and deaf, our demented and damaged. There will be plenty of jobs, millions, to make all the stuff we need. There won't be China or Saudi Arabia to enslave us. We will be working for us, not for them. We can go our own way, without consulting our foreign masters. Are we worried about China attacking Taiwan? Fine, worry all you want, but ultimately it is their problem to solve. We are Americans, after all, and we will defend only Americans. Taiwan, Pakistan, South Korea, Israel, and all the other members of the American protectorate will fend for themselves; there will be no American help. Not even remissions.
On the other hand, I, at least, think that our messing about in the world has caused way more harm than good, so not much is lost in complete isolation.
The fences need to go up, and we need to cut all ties with China, Saudi Arabia, and the others who own us. No more. They can come knocking at the door with our IOUs in their hands -- too bad. We don't need them; we don't need their oil, we don't need their tchochkes. Yes, there will be chaos. But not for long. We are a resourceful bunch. We did it once, on the cheap. We can do it again.
To almost repeat myself: God gave Noah the rainbow sign; no more slaves, full price this time.
If this doesn't get comments, nothing will.
Arab Muslims are quite open about loathing the presence of Christians in their lands (I'm not too happy about Christians in my lands, either). We Americans have become increasingly intolerant of Muslim residents here, and it is only a matter of time -- a short time -- before Arabs are rounded up and expelled or put in camps, their property confiscated, and all that goes with being demonized. There will be resistance, but security will be evoked, as it always is. First, we'll give them national IDs with little crescents on them, and the demand "Show me your card!" will have some teeth. Then maybe we'll have them wear special hats -- the fez, for instance, would be a nice fashion touch. But I think camps/expulsion are far more likely. After all, we cannot tolerate potential terrorists in our midst.
Two other times, in the last 600 or so years, there have been long, ongoing wars between Christian Europeans and Arab Muslims. The first occurred on the Iberian Peninsula; Muslims took most of what is now Spain in 711 and stayed until 1492. The second was in the 17th to early 20th centuries, in Eastern Europe, and lasted until the Ottomans picked the wrong side in WW1.
Who cares? Within about the next decade, we will be at war with Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and a few other of the Arab or Persian Muslim countries, and will have no choice but to keep outside our borders anyone who has any Muslim blood, going back, oh, three generations or so. Best expel them all while we have the chance. Indonesians and Filipinos? We'll have a vote on them, but I have a pretty good idea what to expect.
And then? Here is my very practical idea. Many will think it alarming, but bear with me. We are going to do most of it anyway.
We need to move from being a world power, and not even a regional power, to being a power at home only. Not just isolationist; complete isolation. That damn fence needs to be 50 feet high, not 10 feet high. Nothing will cross our borders: no people, no goods, no services, no money. No debt will be repaid, no further debt will be incurred. If you want to stay, fine; but once you go, you can't come back. Relatives can visit, but only for two weeks, and with a bracelet that indicates where they are at all times. Sort of like a reverse electric dog fence. The fishing industry is a problem; we may need to eat farmed fish only. Not good, but the fishing industry is doomed anyway.
All overseas military bases will be abandoned. The navy will be reduced to a coastal force -- a big coastal force. Boundaries will be 200 miles. Military airplanes will patrol up to the borders. Every inch of the borders will be bristling with arms. And, if you even think of smuggling a person or a thing or some money, we will publicly humiliate you; something to do with body functions, or whippings in the town square. No more teaching of foreign languages at any level. Why would we need that? Intense, intense weapons research. The threat, posted on the 50 foot walls, written in crayon on construction paper: Touch us, and you and your ilk will no longer be on the planet. The State Department will use the crayons and construction paper. Canada and Mexico, with long land boundaries, will be the major problems. BIG fences, not just electrified, but designed to do away with anyone who comes within, oh, a hundred yards. We will divide up the Great Lakes.
I'm willing to be humanitarian. You have until January 1, 2012 to decide where to live.
So, a great experiment? Could we really rebuild the country? Can we give up the big TVs and the tchotchkes that are made in Asia? Yipes: no more coffee. Have a nice hot cup of chicken broth for a wakeup. No bananas, but lots of oranges. Fruits and veggies only in season. No grapes from Chile in midwinter. Sigh.
No more Mercedes, no more Toyotas; all cars will be made by GM, or Chrysler, or Ford. I'm sure they and the UAW will be glad to have their pick of the Honda and other foreign factories that dot the South.
No more crops picked by immigrant labor. If we don't pick it, we don't eat it. No more nannies working under the table; we take care of our own children. No more landscaping crews invading the suburbs each day; we mow our own lawns. Restaurant prices will double -- no more illegals to hire for cash; we'll cook our own food.
The first time we built the country, we did it on the backs of Native Americans, Caribbean islanders, Asians, and, by far greatest, in number and in pain, African Americans. They did the labor that made this country, and they didn't get paid. They got murdered, instead.
Can we build America a second time, with everybody getting paid, and nobody murdered? I'm not so sure. I'm not sure that the children of the middle class will be overjoyed about working in factories, or laying brick, or any of the gazillion jobs that, not long ago, were what Americans did.
If we build the 50 foot walls, and shut down the internet and telephone lines at the border, and knock down all the satellites, surely bad things will happen. But what?
If we build the country a second time, regaining our dignity and our liberty may be worth all the hard labor. We will be able to take care of our sick and ailing, our blind and deaf, our demented and damaged. There will be plenty of jobs, millions, to make all the stuff we need. There won't be China or Saudi Arabia to enslave us. We will be working for us, not for them. We can go our own way, without consulting our foreign masters. Are we worried about China attacking Taiwan? Fine, worry all you want, but ultimately it is their problem to solve. We are Americans, after all, and we will defend only Americans. Taiwan, Pakistan, South Korea, Israel, and all the other members of the American protectorate will fend for themselves; there will be no American help. Not even remissions.
On the other hand, I, at least, think that our messing about in the world has caused way more harm than good, so not much is lost in complete isolation.
The fences need to go up, and we need to cut all ties with China, Saudi Arabia, and the others who own us. No more. They can come knocking at the door with our IOUs in their hands -- too bad. We don't need them; we don't need their oil, we don't need their tchochkes. Yes, there will be chaos. But not for long. We are a resourceful bunch. We did it once, on the cheap. We can do it again.
To almost repeat myself: God gave Noah the rainbow sign; no more slaves, full price this time.
If this doesn't get comments, nothing will.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Sickening Humiliation 3
Well, doesn't THAT make your hair stand on end?
The last thing I ever expected, or wanted, is that I be dependent on medications. Not just need them for something or other. Dependent, as in, needing the little puppies to keep on going.
So, I go to CVS to pick up the latest in the long line of neurological munchies that have been partially successful in controlling the TLE -- Alert Reader will remember TLE from previous entries -- and, when I get there, turns out it's gonna cost me about $160 for the month. For one med. And I need FIVE meds. What happened, I inquired, to my prescription drug coverage? Oh, you need a new card, they replied. Eventually, I paid out of pocket for enough to last the weekend, until I could get a new card, and we parted ways.
I went out to the parking lot and just sat in the car and shook. Alert Reader will also remember Miles the Cat. I had a vision of dividing a can of his cat food three ways, and sending him off to beg food from the neighbors, or maybe catch a mouse. Unfortunately, my mousing skills have declined over the years, and we will need him to bring home the bacon. Nice metaphor.
I have no doubt that this episode will all work out, my card will be restored, and I will again join the ranks -- maybe 25% -- of Americans with decent prescription drug coverage. Note the "Americans" in that sentence.
I need these meds to live. If there were no prescriptions coverage -- or only that incomprehensible, apparently marginally useful Medicare D -- we would be able to survive economically for a couple of years, eating up whatever savings there is. And then what? The one med I needed that day was actually a very standard drug, used for almost two decades, with a huge user base. Not expensive, relatively. If the others are similar -- and I think so, given the history and the use -- that brings us to a whopping $800 each month for meds. Call it 10K a year.
And that is only one of us, and only if I don't get any more problems -- both unlikely. Fine; call the annual amount, in about a decade, of maybe 25K, in 2010 dollars. At least.
So here I am: The Perfected American. All the good demographics. The most middle-class of the middle-class, highly educated, a credit to my community, hard-working, white, home-owning, English-speaking, non-criminal, so on, so forth -- and it comes to this. Neither of our sets of parents, three of whom reached very advanced age, and the fourth of whom is still advancing, ever had any problem paying for docs, or prescriptions, or hospitals. None. I'm now 65. When I hit 90, we and Miles the Cat will be watching carefully to see who goes first. We will all be holding knives and forks.
I also know a bunch of folks who worked for big companies -- Polaroid, ADL -- who had been promised, and had contributed to, decent pensions. The funds were looted by the administrations of the companies, and folks with 25, 35, 40 years service had nothing. Nothing. No 401K. And there was no recourse. And, of course, there was nothing for prescriptions, or health care. The victims were stunned for a bit, then raging and they still are. Fortunately, the miscreants were all held accountable; they were stripped of their loot and jailed. Oh, wait....that "held accountable" thing -- never has worked.
I've always wanted, and pushed for, and been willing to pay for, a health care system that cared for all. But that was theoretical; it was for a human right, and a social good. Not any more, bucko. Nossir. Now it's me, now it gets serious.
I am fearful for my own financial future, but I am ashamed that we won't take care of each other. We won't even take care of our own, of Americans. During the excruciating debate of the last two years, all I could hear was this: No. We will not care for our own.
How humiliating that was for us. Leave the wounded on the battlefield. You just go ahead and die out there; we won't even figure a way to get you some pills, and we won't say why. And so goes our freedom, and our basic right to live.
I get the sickening feeling that we've always been this way. and nothing will save us. There is an endless supply of white-toothed, big-haired hucksters groveling for cash, babbling about bootstraps, and, by golly, doing things the American way and living out the American Dream.
From here, that sounds to me like "Screw you; I got mine. Go die." American dream, indeed.
Let's look at it this way: If I ever have to choose between meds and gas, and the meds are more expensive than the gas, I'm gonna buy the gas, and one of the lighters conveniently sold at the gas stations, and I'm gonna use the spiffy iPhone to find some home addresses.
If the powers-that-be are so vicious and craven that they cut off my life -- well, they're gonna go before I do. The folks who run things have decided against providing medical care. Bad decision. There is a large, very personal cost for making that decision. Do the powerful really think that we won't remember, and that the impoverished dying elders, and their families, will praise them for what they've done? Are they that removed? That arrogant? Do they think that they and theirs are safe from harm? That there will be no retribution? Think again.
During the closing days of the Vietnam war, an interesting episode occurred: In September 1972, a man attempted to throw Robert McNamara over the rail of the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. McNamara was one of the few who really designed that war, and had personal culpability for it. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the assailant, who identified himself years later, reported that his rage over the war led to the attempt; he regretted failure. We were more benign in 1972, despite the demonstrations and long hair and all. Now we are not so forgiving.
None of the other main players in that war ever suffered so much as a day of discomfort. Same in Iraq, same in denying health care to Americans. How can we tolerate this kind of corruption? How can we allow the same deeply malignant fools to go on, day after day, killing some of us by what they do, and most of us by what they don't do? This has gone on all of my life.
The powerful need to personally suffer for the pain they cause. Remember what happened to McNamara, and how easy it is to get a can of gas, and then listen to part of an old country song:
God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time.
The last thing I ever expected, or wanted, is that I be dependent on medications. Not just need them for something or other. Dependent, as in, needing the little puppies to keep on going.
So, I go to CVS to pick up the latest in the long line of neurological munchies that have been partially successful in controlling the TLE -- Alert Reader will remember TLE from previous entries -- and, when I get there, turns out it's gonna cost me about $160 for the month. For one med. And I need FIVE meds. What happened, I inquired, to my prescription drug coverage? Oh, you need a new card, they replied. Eventually, I paid out of pocket for enough to last the weekend, until I could get a new card, and we parted ways.
I went out to the parking lot and just sat in the car and shook. Alert Reader will also remember Miles the Cat. I had a vision of dividing a can of his cat food three ways, and sending him off to beg food from the neighbors, or maybe catch a mouse. Unfortunately, my mousing skills have declined over the years, and we will need him to bring home the bacon. Nice metaphor.
I have no doubt that this episode will all work out, my card will be restored, and I will again join the ranks -- maybe 25% -- of Americans with decent prescription drug coverage. Note the "Americans" in that sentence.
I need these meds to live. If there were no prescriptions coverage -- or only that incomprehensible, apparently marginally useful Medicare D -- we would be able to survive economically for a couple of years, eating up whatever savings there is. And then what? The one med I needed that day was actually a very standard drug, used for almost two decades, with a huge user base. Not expensive, relatively. If the others are similar -- and I think so, given the history and the use -- that brings us to a whopping $800 each month for meds. Call it 10K a year.
And that is only one of us, and only if I don't get any more problems -- both unlikely. Fine; call the annual amount, in about a decade, of maybe 25K, in 2010 dollars. At least.
So here I am: The Perfected American. All the good demographics. The most middle-class of the middle-class, highly educated, a credit to my community, hard-working, white, home-owning, English-speaking, non-criminal, so on, so forth -- and it comes to this. Neither of our sets of parents, three of whom reached very advanced age, and the fourth of whom is still advancing, ever had any problem paying for docs, or prescriptions, or hospitals. None. I'm now 65. When I hit 90, we and Miles the Cat will be watching carefully to see who goes first. We will all be holding knives and forks.
I also know a bunch of folks who worked for big companies -- Polaroid, ADL -- who had been promised, and had contributed to, decent pensions. The funds were looted by the administrations of the companies, and folks with 25, 35, 40 years service had nothing. Nothing. No 401K. And there was no recourse. And, of course, there was nothing for prescriptions, or health care. The victims were stunned for a bit, then raging and they still are. Fortunately, the miscreants were all held accountable; they were stripped of their loot and jailed. Oh, wait....that "held accountable" thing -- never has worked.
I've always wanted, and pushed for, and been willing to pay for, a health care system that cared for all. But that was theoretical; it was for a human right, and a social good. Not any more, bucko. Nossir. Now it's me, now it gets serious.
I am fearful for my own financial future, but I am ashamed that we won't take care of each other. We won't even take care of our own, of Americans. During the excruciating debate of the last two years, all I could hear was this: No. We will not care for our own.
How humiliating that was for us. Leave the wounded on the battlefield. You just go ahead and die out there; we won't even figure a way to get you some pills, and we won't say why. And so goes our freedom, and our basic right to live.
I get the sickening feeling that we've always been this way. and nothing will save us. There is an endless supply of white-toothed, big-haired hucksters groveling for cash, babbling about bootstraps, and, by golly, doing things the American way and living out the American Dream.
From here, that sounds to me like "Screw you; I got mine. Go die." American dream, indeed.
Let's look at it this way: If I ever have to choose between meds and gas, and the meds are more expensive than the gas, I'm gonna buy the gas, and one of the lighters conveniently sold at the gas stations, and I'm gonna use the spiffy iPhone to find some home addresses.
If the powers-that-be are so vicious and craven that they cut off my life -- well, they're gonna go before I do. The folks who run things have decided against providing medical care. Bad decision. There is a large, very personal cost for making that decision. Do the powerful really think that we won't remember, and that the impoverished dying elders, and their families, will praise them for what they've done? Are they that removed? That arrogant? Do they think that they and theirs are safe from harm? That there will be no retribution? Think again.
During the closing days of the Vietnam war, an interesting episode occurred: In September 1972, a man attempted to throw Robert McNamara over the rail of the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. McNamara was one of the few who really designed that war, and had personal culpability for it. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the assailant, who identified himself years later, reported that his rage over the war led to the attempt; he regretted failure. We were more benign in 1972, despite the demonstrations and long hair and all. Now we are not so forgiving.
None of the other main players in that war ever suffered so much as a day of discomfort. Same in Iraq, same in denying health care to Americans. How can we tolerate this kind of corruption? How can we allow the same deeply malignant fools to go on, day after day, killing some of us by what they do, and most of us by what they don't do? This has gone on all of my life.
The powerful need to personally suffer for the pain they cause. Remember what happened to McNamara, and how easy it is to get a can of gas, and then listen to part of an old country song:
God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sickening Humiliation 2
The Master (ok, Freud) used the amoeba as a metaphor for illness and depression. In normal times, the amoeba moves by extending a part of itself; if everything is ok, the rest of the little fella catches up to the extension, called a pseudopod. And so it moves to get food, find a nice starter house, go to those peculiar amoeba family reunions.
But in bad times, if the amoeba is ill or injured, no pseudopods. Wait a while, regain strength, think about amoeba-type things, and then consider moving on.
When people get sick or hurt, same thing. No new risks, no new challenges; take care of the immediate, then hunker down to heal and rest. Not always the best strategy, but not so bad, either. Evolution and all.
Well, then. Back to 9/12/2001. We had just suffered a terrible injury. An amoeba would have hunkered down. The getting injured part was over, the damage to us was done. No more pseudopods for us, not for a while. The evolutionary wisdom of the amoeba, and just about any animal larger than an amoeba.
Instead, we went all over the world -- really ALL over the world -- and just killed a lot of people. And then, the very, very strange part: we barely noticed. It became the normal. The only question was where and when it would stop, and nobody cared very much. Of course we didn't. We threw a blanket over our injury, and did what was normalizing for us: just kill a lot of people.
During my lifetime, there has never been anything more normal. I was born in time for Hiroshima, spent early youth reading about the dead in Korea, put my head under the desk like everybody else. Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon. Even Granada, but, hey, Granada was a real threat. Now I'm channeling Billy Joel.
I could go on. Nothing is more normal to our country than killing people, so that is what we did when we were injured. A very strange, disturbing idea, and I believe it completely: we kill people not for revenge, not for defense, not out of rage. We kill to be normal again. Yipes.
As they would say in mind-brain land, there was a physical injury -- the towers were our damaged organ. We made it all normal, and tidied up around it, and, when a little too much blood leaked out (torture, say, or mass murder), gave out more normalizing justifications: we had to do it, blah, blah. After all, this is what anyone would do. All mind-stuff, all about what us normal tribal people do. And what a country does, after an injury. Whew. We may be injured, but we act normal, and talk normal, and do normal things.
Me, too. After my brain was injured, it was left to the mind to coat it all with a nice chrome plating of normalcy. I acted as I had before, talked as I had before. When people noticed a small limp, I said I had a sore knee, and that was that.
Until about four years later. The onset of the dreaded TLE -- Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, to you civilians out there. Hallucinatory smells, short episodes of humiliating despair, the odd jerky movement, some humming in my ears. No loss of consciousness. Tiny little baby-step seizures.
But, woo-hoo, personality changes. Episodes of barely controlled rage; writing at great length about random stuff (heh!), moodiness, asceticism about food and drink and sleep. Grand theories about everything, from time travel to cat genetics. And, my heavens, pressure of speech. Oh, such pressure of speech.
I see it this way: my brain damage was turning into mind damage, and I couldn't control what about me was public. I began to be talked about: "Oh, how's he doing now?" when I wasn't present -- which, incidentally, is about as bad as it gets for the Irish. This whole blog is an effort to persuade myself, and everybody else, that, hey, I'm still a member in full standing of the tribe, just like I used to be. I want to control the flow of information. What I need is an Office of Public Communication.
I'm also starting to think that the whole enterprise is not going to work. The amount of brain pathology is simply too great, and too much of my social behavior is too strange; I'm on the edge of the tribe, and moving toward the outside.
And outside is not a place you want to be. Outside means all the connections are broken. Outside is true psychosis, deep Alzheimer's, a few other things that can just make it all crash. Really, really not a place you want to be. Injury to the brain becoming the terminal disease of the mind. Hey, we see it all the time: damaged brains chugging along for years; and really, truly dead minds. See? Mind and brain are categorically different. Maybe I'm right about all this stuff after all, you doubting weasels. I'll start getting my Nobel speech ready tomorrow. The children will know how to behave at the celebratory dinner, even if I can't pull it off.
Now, where was I about all these wars and stuff? Oh, yeah, random murder as a normalizing strategy. Well, I need a new normalizing strategy, better mind-stuff. Random murder might work for the good old USA, but probably not for me. Not even in the short run. And, Miles the Cat would surely disapprove, as he does with most human behavior.
I think a lot about music as mind-stuff that can normalize me, talking without words, being part of the world; I think less about technical stuff, working without words, and even less about craft stuff, building without words. Money stuff, accumulating without words, would be fine, but I just don't know how to make it go.
Losing trust in my own words has been a pretty nasty blow, and now I need something else for mind-stuff, so that I'm still a full tribal member.
Enough!!
Alert Reader will not be surprised that I'll still find enough insightful prattle to continue to blog.
But in bad times, if the amoeba is ill or injured, no pseudopods. Wait a while, regain strength, think about amoeba-type things, and then consider moving on.
When people get sick or hurt, same thing. No new risks, no new challenges; take care of the immediate, then hunker down to heal and rest. Not always the best strategy, but not so bad, either. Evolution and all.
Well, then. Back to 9/12/2001. We had just suffered a terrible injury. An amoeba would have hunkered down. The getting injured part was over, the damage to us was done. No more pseudopods for us, not for a while. The evolutionary wisdom of the amoeba, and just about any animal larger than an amoeba.
Instead, we went all over the world -- really ALL over the world -- and just killed a lot of people. And then, the very, very strange part: we barely noticed. It became the normal. The only question was where and when it would stop, and nobody cared very much. Of course we didn't. We threw a blanket over our injury, and did what was normalizing for us: just kill a lot of people.
During my lifetime, there has never been anything more normal. I was born in time for Hiroshima, spent early youth reading about the dead in Korea, put my head under the desk like everybody else. Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon. Even Granada, but, hey, Granada was a real threat. Now I'm channeling Billy Joel.
I could go on. Nothing is more normal to our country than killing people, so that is what we did when we were injured. A very strange, disturbing idea, and I believe it completely: we kill people not for revenge, not for defense, not out of rage. We kill to be normal again. Yipes.
As they would say in mind-brain land, there was a physical injury -- the towers were our damaged organ. We made it all normal, and tidied up around it, and, when a little too much blood leaked out (torture, say, or mass murder), gave out more normalizing justifications: we had to do it, blah, blah. After all, this is what anyone would do. All mind-stuff, all about what us normal tribal people do. And what a country does, after an injury. Whew. We may be injured, but we act normal, and talk normal, and do normal things.
Me, too. After my brain was injured, it was left to the mind to coat it all with a nice chrome plating of normalcy. I acted as I had before, talked as I had before. When people noticed a small limp, I said I had a sore knee, and that was that.
Until about four years later. The onset of the dreaded TLE -- Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, to you civilians out there. Hallucinatory smells, short episodes of humiliating despair, the odd jerky movement, some humming in my ears. No loss of consciousness. Tiny little baby-step seizures.
But, woo-hoo, personality changes. Episodes of barely controlled rage; writing at great length about random stuff (heh!), moodiness, asceticism about food and drink and sleep. Grand theories about everything, from time travel to cat genetics. And, my heavens, pressure of speech. Oh, such pressure of speech.
I see it this way: my brain damage was turning into mind damage, and I couldn't control what about me was public. I began to be talked about: "Oh, how's he doing now?" when I wasn't present -- which, incidentally, is about as bad as it gets for the Irish. This whole blog is an effort to persuade myself, and everybody else, that, hey, I'm still a member in full standing of the tribe, just like I used to be. I want to control the flow of information. What I need is an Office of Public Communication.
I'm also starting to think that the whole enterprise is not going to work. The amount of brain pathology is simply too great, and too much of my social behavior is too strange; I'm on the edge of the tribe, and moving toward the outside.
And outside is not a place you want to be. Outside means all the connections are broken. Outside is true psychosis, deep Alzheimer's, a few other things that can just make it all crash. Really, really not a place you want to be. Injury to the brain becoming the terminal disease of the mind. Hey, we see it all the time: damaged brains chugging along for years; and really, truly dead minds. See? Mind and brain are categorically different. Maybe I'm right about all this stuff after all, you doubting weasels. I'll start getting my Nobel speech ready tomorrow. The children will know how to behave at the celebratory dinner, even if I can't pull it off.
Now, where was I about all these wars and stuff? Oh, yeah, random murder as a normalizing strategy. Well, I need a new normalizing strategy, better mind-stuff. Random murder might work for the good old USA, but probably not for me. Not even in the short run. And, Miles the Cat would surely disapprove, as he does with most human behavior.
I think a lot about music as mind-stuff that can normalize me, talking without words, being part of the world; I think less about technical stuff, working without words, and even less about craft stuff, building without words. Money stuff, accumulating without words, would be fine, but I just don't know how to make it go.
Losing trust in my own words has been a pretty nasty blow, and now I need something else for mind-stuff, so that I'm still a full tribal member.
Enough!!
Alert Reader will not be surprised that I'll still find enough insightful prattle to continue to blog.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sickening Humiliation
The day after 9/11, every airplane in the country was grounded but one, the one used to fly some Saudis home. The corruption of that single act enraged me more than the destruction of the towers. I suppose I can stand our being attacked, but being reduced to a groveling nation, humiliating ourselves when we needed to be strong.....no. I didn't hear a collective howl about our sniveling to the Saudis. None.
There is less plain old freedom here, of course; at their whim, the repressive forces of the state can make me disappear, just like the corrupt regimes in Guatemala and Salvadore and Argentina and all the others used to do. In 1970, there were trials for some of the more heroic and visible domestic reformers; now, maybe, there would just be rendition. Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, from Chicago, charged with no crime, was held for almost five years before he was allowed to see a lawyer; by that time, his mind had been destroyed. He was one of us, and I am ashamed at how we treated him.
But, so what? We've done a lot worse. This is what African Americans have lived with for centuries. The big difference, of course, is that their freedom was taken from them. The rest of us gave ours away.
We used to say, in the heyday of the changes around 1970, that someone we didn't like was a lapdog for the capitalist pigs. Well, now it has been reversed; now, we are all lapdogs for the non-capitalists pigs, the king of the Saudis and the communist regime in China. Funny how that worked out. We agree that they run the show; we tremble at the possibility that we might fall from their favor, we reassure ourselves that they need us as much as we need them, and so on. Just feeble attempts to get our dignity back. Too late; all but the most obtuse know who owns us.
Some groups have fewer constraints now. African Americans, in some important ways. Women, in some less important ways. Gay folks, but still pretty qualified. And against this we have the tremendous loss of economic freedom. Our economic best and brightest have given our enormous wealth to the Saudis and Chinese, for some oil and a bunch of plastic tchotchkes. Miles the Cat could have gotten a better bargain. It's not so much that we owe them a lot of money; debt we could just pay off, and be done with it. The problem is that we can't live without the stuff we get from them.
Pulling it partly together: Choice, freedom, and so on all describe the varying number of constraints on us. More constraints, less choice, less freedom.
What is the freedom of someone unable to move, say, two limbs, after a stroke. Not much. Pretty tough constraints, pretty great loss of freedom. What is the freedom of a country unable live without oil and Chinese economic slavery? Not much. We spend so much of our lives giving money to those people!! There is almost nothing left. Just a few toys, and some crappy houses and cars. We can't even take care of all our people! Dignity? In both the stroke person, and the crippled country, not much. Ah, the endless small humiliations of dependency, the endless wishing for what had been before. Now I know why the conservatives want to go backward; some stuff was pretty bad back then, but at least we could pretend that we ran the world. Now, all we see are constraints and failures.
I know it's a difficult case to make: How is debt to the Saudis the same kind of thing as damage to the brain? Sounds like some rejected SAT question.
Well, that's the point of the whole damn blog, as Alert Reader knows by now. Both the debt and the damage can pass under the radar, and most often do. When there is an autopsy, pretty severe brain disease is often found, in folks who acted perfectly well until the truck hit them. When there is an Enron, the disease of the economy is found in a company that had seemed perfectly well until the market hit it.
When things go wrong, when life is pushed out of being ordinary, we notice. When the price of gas hits $1o.00, we suddenly see economic pathology. When actions or speech get strange enough, we suddenly see mind pathology.
Damage can be to the economy, or to the brain, but it is only when the social fact, the social pathology, emerges that we know about the loss of freedom -- the price at the pump, the scrambled mind, or the scrambled limbs. We don't look at the brain, and say, wow, that brain is damaged. We look at how someone fits into the world, and only then look at the brain. We look at how a person can be ordinary, and then we decide about pathology.
The chorus, once more: brain is about wet stuff, mind is about how well we fit into the tribe.
Is there any way to be more obscure? I'm working on it, with the help of Miles the Cat. I've got a few ideas....and, BTW, I think this was a pretty good blog entry.
If you don't, tell me I'm a complete bozo -- c'mon, Alert Readers!!! Relieve me of the delusion that I am part of the fabric of ordinary life.
There is less plain old freedom here, of course; at their whim, the repressive forces of the state can make me disappear, just like the corrupt regimes in Guatemala and Salvadore and Argentina and all the others used to do. In 1970, there were trials for some of the more heroic and visible domestic reformers; now, maybe, there would just be rendition. Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, from Chicago, charged with no crime, was held for almost five years before he was allowed to see a lawyer; by that time, his mind had been destroyed. He was one of us, and I am ashamed at how we treated him.
But, so what? We've done a lot worse. This is what African Americans have lived with for centuries. The big difference, of course, is that their freedom was taken from them. The rest of us gave ours away.
We used to say, in the heyday of the changes around 1970, that someone we didn't like was a lapdog for the capitalist pigs. Well, now it has been reversed; now, we are all lapdogs for the non-capitalists pigs, the king of the Saudis and the communist regime in China. Funny how that worked out. We agree that they run the show; we tremble at the possibility that we might fall from their favor, we reassure ourselves that they need us as much as we need them, and so on. Just feeble attempts to get our dignity back. Too late; all but the most obtuse know who owns us.
Some groups have fewer constraints now. African Americans, in some important ways. Women, in some less important ways. Gay folks, but still pretty qualified. And against this we have the tremendous loss of economic freedom. Our economic best and brightest have given our enormous wealth to the Saudis and Chinese, for some oil and a bunch of plastic tchotchkes. Miles the Cat could have gotten a better bargain. It's not so much that we owe them a lot of money; debt we could just pay off, and be done with it. The problem is that we can't live without the stuff we get from them.
Pulling it partly together: Choice, freedom, and so on all describe the varying number of constraints on us. More constraints, less choice, less freedom.
What is the freedom of someone unable to move, say, two limbs, after a stroke. Not much. Pretty tough constraints, pretty great loss of freedom. What is the freedom of a country unable live without oil and Chinese economic slavery? Not much. We spend so much of our lives giving money to those people!! There is almost nothing left. Just a few toys, and some crappy houses and cars. We can't even take care of all our people! Dignity? In both the stroke person, and the crippled country, not much. Ah, the endless small humiliations of dependency, the endless wishing for what had been before. Now I know why the conservatives want to go backward; some stuff was pretty bad back then, but at least we could pretend that we ran the world. Now, all we see are constraints and failures.
I know it's a difficult case to make: How is debt to the Saudis the same kind of thing as damage to the brain? Sounds like some rejected SAT question.
Well, that's the point of the whole damn blog, as Alert Reader knows by now. Both the debt and the damage can pass under the radar, and most often do. When there is an autopsy, pretty severe brain disease is often found, in folks who acted perfectly well until the truck hit them. When there is an Enron, the disease of the economy is found in a company that had seemed perfectly well until the market hit it.
When things go wrong, when life is pushed out of being ordinary, we notice. When the price of gas hits $1o.00, we suddenly see economic pathology. When actions or speech get strange enough, we suddenly see mind pathology.
Damage can be to the economy, or to the brain, but it is only when the social fact, the social pathology, emerges that we know about the loss of freedom -- the price at the pump, the scrambled mind, or the scrambled limbs. We don't look at the brain, and say, wow, that brain is damaged. We look at how someone fits into the world, and only then look at the brain. We look at how a person can be ordinary, and then we decide about pathology.
The chorus, once more: brain is about wet stuff, mind is about how well we fit into the tribe.
Is there any way to be more obscure? I'm working on it, with the help of Miles the Cat. I've got a few ideas....and, BTW, I think this was a pretty good blog entry.
If you don't, tell me I'm a complete bozo -- c'mon, Alert Readers!!! Relieve me of the delusion that I am part of the fabric of ordinary life.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Crosses and Croissants Get Sticks in the Eye
It is apparent that putting a Muslim community center close to the 9/11 site is the equivalent of a stick in the eye to many non-Muslim Americans. Why be so inflammatory?
I don't know, since I haven't spoken to any Muslims about the situation. I do know that if I were an American Muslim whose family had been here for a long time, and who had been demonized, as middle-eastern folks were after 9/11, this would be an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Yipes -- I got to conditionals, like I promised before. And I got in a performative, by the way!!! A two-fer!!
We are a country, like most, with the political intelligence of Miles the Cat. The idea that Muslim folks who have lived down the street for the last 20 years should beg my forgiveness for 9/11 sounds like a bit much. Yet, that's just what we required. "I don't hear the moderate Muslims condemning the use of violence!!", went the refrain. We want them to satisfy our -- what? All this is about the ultimate function of so much of ordinary language: to determine who belongs, and who doesn't. In this instance, if you grovel, you make the cut. Our minds can be put to rest.
I was around when the JDL was causing quite a stir, and made violence very personal. There were constant, tiresome entreaties to mainstream Jewish organizations to disown the JDL. Well, the long-standing groups never owned them in the first place, and found themselves stuck between defending a bunch of pretty nasty folks, or else capitulating to the demands of a society that had never put out much effort to defend Jewish communities here or anywhere else. Nice choices. It was very hard for them to make up their minds how to respond.
I didn't hear the reactionaries condemning the use of violence after Oklahoma City, either. I do often hear holier-than-thou rants about the Taliban targeting police and village elders; then I hear about the American list of a thousand Taliban who have been singled out for assassination. No need to grovel here; this is pure American stuff, and doesn't move any of us outside.
It reminds me of the old SNCC days. SNCC was the most abrasive of African-American action groups in the 60s. Their leader was Stokely Carmichael, a very charismatic and smart man. He was hounded by the press, at literally every opportunity (how tired of it all he must have been!!): Would he renounce violence? He readily agreed that he would be glad to sit down with the white sheriffs of Alabama and Mississippi and they would all issue a joint statement renouncing violence. He had a little smile as he said this. For a century, the white sheriffs had terrorized African-Americans throughout the South, with a systematic brutality that murdered and maimed, and SNCC was supposed to renounce violence?? A stick in the eye indeed. The meeting never happened. The sheriffs wouldn't change their minds about their vision of race, and refused to grovel, as well they might. But, neither did Stokely Carmichael, and his sparkling mind enchanted millions.
To demand renunciation is to seek capitulation, and renunciation is a ritual of self-loathing. There is a complex relationship between power, capitulation, renunciation and sanctimony. It seems always to be the same. Why do we do this? Still, it all comes down to this: who is a truly one of us, and who not.
In the 1490s, the Jews of Spain were given a choice: find another place to live, convert to Christianity, or be killed. Many did leave, about 160,000, going primarily to the Netherlands and Turkey. About 20,000 died before getting to somewhere welcome. Some estimates double all these numbers. About 50,000 changed their minds about being Christians, going through ritual after ritual to prove that they were really converted. They were called "conversos". Their lives have been the subject of many books and movies; imagine the territory they present!! But they also a good object lesson in ordinary language.
The conversions were -- like I've been saying, all you folks who have been paying attention -- performative utterances. Saying "I hereby convert..." or some such thing, was the act that changed someone from an apostate to a Christian, from an enemy of Spain to a citizen of Spain.
And, the conversions? Surprise!! Many of them were false. Most conversos had no intention of converting, but they were willing to pretend. Torquemada, of the famed Inquisition, was a tad suspicious of them, as you can imagine, and tested them through torture. He was great at torture. But what did he want? The more he tortured, the more false declarations he heard. From the distance of five centuries, it sure looks like he just had fun torturing. Hmmm.
Even The Godfather got into the act: recall the scene of Michael Corleone reciting, at his nephew's baptism, "I renounce Satan and all his works", and at the same time murdering the baby's father. Renouncing becoming an art form.
So, conditionals. As ifs. Is the conversion an as if? Were the conversos acting as if they had converted? Would we say, knowing that their intention was to deceive, that they had actually converted? They were listed on church rolls, after all. And would we say that Michael Corleone meant what he said when he renounced Satan? Most people, I think, would say no. Only those with truly wishful thinking would believe otherwise. Torquemada was not a wishful thinker, but he ultimately accepted many of the conversos. Michael Corleone's sister was not naive, but she accepted his explanations. The pressure of the community sometimes triumphs.
The language of mind meets the language of persecution. No questions of brains here, just the conversions of minds, just rituals of humiliation and deceit, in which all participants go through the "as if" motions. And like all the rest of the performative utterances, talk is cheap, and talk is the most valuable tool of life -- for all these folks, to stay alive.
But, we have come around to it again. All this talk is about mind fact, social fact, not brain fact. It is about enforcing social norms, deciding who is a part of the tribe and who is to be an outcast. It is not about brain function; it is about mind function. Mind appears again this time, as so often, in the vestments of religion. The religious have been having their way with minds, language, and social compliance for a pretty long time. Sanctimony and humiliation do wonderful work.
And here I am. What if all the docs conclude that my mind is damaged, just as my brain is? How would they, and I, know? Well, if my behavior is so odd, so strange, so deviant that I cannot be discussed as a regular human, a full person, then I am expunged from the group. I can pretend, maybe, like a converso, but someone so damaged would have a hard time getting by. I can renounce my mind, like Michael Corleone did. But even that much groveling might not work; ultimately, it didn't work for him.
Hard to imagine the devastation. And is it a performative? Does the act of uttering become a promise? A prediction? A description? I've been around the mental health types for too long to think that those are all the same thing. Maybe the performative is a way of getting more money from insurance companies. It is hard to avoid thinking of diagnoses, in psychiatry always, and neurology often, as performatives. Saying it brings it into being, like a promise or a bet or a marriage.
This chapter is way too long, I think, but I feel in the grip of the TLE, and just can't stop. The message scrawled on the mirror, in the lipstick of the victim, who is lying on the floor in a pool of blood: "Stop me before I talk again". A command? A taunt? A statement of intent? A plea? We've come a long way. And I haven't even mentioned ambivalence!!!
Probably the one thing I haven't mentioned.
I don't know, since I haven't spoken to any Muslims about the situation. I do know that if I were an American Muslim whose family had been here for a long time, and who had been demonized, as middle-eastern folks were after 9/11, this would be an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Yipes -- I got to conditionals, like I promised before. And I got in a performative, by the way!!! A two-fer!!
We are a country, like most, with the political intelligence of Miles the Cat. The idea that Muslim folks who have lived down the street for the last 20 years should beg my forgiveness for 9/11 sounds like a bit much. Yet, that's just what we required. "I don't hear the moderate Muslims condemning the use of violence!!", went the refrain. We want them to satisfy our -- what? All this is about the ultimate function of so much of ordinary language: to determine who belongs, and who doesn't. In this instance, if you grovel, you make the cut. Our minds can be put to rest.
I was around when the JDL was causing quite a stir, and made violence very personal. There were constant, tiresome entreaties to mainstream Jewish organizations to disown the JDL. Well, the long-standing groups never owned them in the first place, and found themselves stuck between defending a bunch of pretty nasty folks, or else capitulating to the demands of a society that had never put out much effort to defend Jewish communities here or anywhere else. Nice choices. It was very hard for them to make up their minds how to respond.
I didn't hear the reactionaries condemning the use of violence after Oklahoma City, either. I do often hear holier-than-thou rants about the Taliban targeting police and village elders; then I hear about the American list of a thousand Taliban who have been singled out for assassination. No need to grovel here; this is pure American stuff, and doesn't move any of us outside.
It reminds me of the old SNCC days. SNCC was the most abrasive of African-American action groups in the 60s. Their leader was Stokely Carmichael, a very charismatic and smart man. He was hounded by the press, at literally every opportunity (how tired of it all he must have been!!): Would he renounce violence? He readily agreed that he would be glad to sit down with the white sheriffs of Alabama and Mississippi and they would all issue a joint statement renouncing violence. He had a little smile as he said this. For a century, the white sheriffs had terrorized African-Americans throughout the South, with a systematic brutality that murdered and maimed, and SNCC was supposed to renounce violence?? A stick in the eye indeed. The meeting never happened. The sheriffs wouldn't change their minds about their vision of race, and refused to grovel, as well they might. But, neither did Stokely Carmichael, and his sparkling mind enchanted millions.
To demand renunciation is to seek capitulation, and renunciation is a ritual of self-loathing. There is a complex relationship between power, capitulation, renunciation and sanctimony. It seems always to be the same. Why do we do this? Still, it all comes down to this: who is a truly one of us, and who not.
In the 1490s, the Jews of Spain were given a choice: find another place to live, convert to Christianity, or be killed. Many did leave, about 160,000, going primarily to the Netherlands and Turkey. About 20,000 died before getting to somewhere welcome. Some estimates double all these numbers. About 50,000 changed their minds about being Christians, going through ritual after ritual to prove that they were really converted. They were called "conversos". Their lives have been the subject of many books and movies; imagine the territory they present!! But they also a good object lesson in ordinary language.
The conversions were -- like I've been saying, all you folks who have been paying attention -- performative utterances. Saying "I hereby convert..." or some such thing, was the act that changed someone from an apostate to a Christian, from an enemy of Spain to a citizen of Spain.
And, the conversions? Surprise!! Many of them were false. Most conversos had no intention of converting, but they were willing to pretend. Torquemada, of the famed Inquisition, was a tad suspicious of them, as you can imagine, and tested them through torture. He was great at torture. But what did he want? The more he tortured, the more false declarations he heard. From the distance of five centuries, it sure looks like he just had fun torturing. Hmmm.
Even The Godfather got into the act: recall the scene of Michael Corleone reciting, at his nephew's baptism, "I renounce Satan and all his works", and at the same time murdering the baby's father. Renouncing becoming an art form.
So, conditionals. As ifs. Is the conversion an as if? Were the conversos acting as if they had converted? Would we say, knowing that their intention was to deceive, that they had actually converted? They were listed on church rolls, after all. And would we say that Michael Corleone meant what he said when he renounced Satan? Most people, I think, would say no. Only those with truly wishful thinking would believe otherwise. Torquemada was not a wishful thinker, but he ultimately accepted many of the conversos. Michael Corleone's sister was not naive, but she accepted his explanations. The pressure of the community sometimes triumphs.
The language of mind meets the language of persecution. No questions of brains here, just the conversions of minds, just rituals of humiliation and deceit, in which all participants go through the "as if" motions. And like all the rest of the performative utterances, talk is cheap, and talk is the most valuable tool of life -- for all these folks, to stay alive.
But, we have come around to it again. All this talk is about mind fact, social fact, not brain fact. It is about enforcing social norms, deciding who is a part of the tribe and who is to be an outcast. It is not about brain function; it is about mind function. Mind appears again this time, as so often, in the vestments of religion. The religious have been having their way with minds, language, and social compliance for a pretty long time. Sanctimony and humiliation do wonderful work.
And here I am. What if all the docs conclude that my mind is damaged, just as my brain is? How would they, and I, know? Well, if my behavior is so odd, so strange, so deviant that I cannot be discussed as a regular human, a full person, then I am expunged from the group. I can pretend, maybe, like a converso, but someone so damaged would have a hard time getting by. I can renounce my mind, like Michael Corleone did. But even that much groveling might not work; ultimately, it didn't work for him.
Hard to imagine the devastation. And is it a performative? Does the act of uttering become a promise? A prediction? A description? I've been around the mental health types for too long to think that those are all the same thing. Maybe the performative is a way of getting more money from insurance companies. It is hard to avoid thinking of diagnoses, in psychiatry always, and neurology often, as performatives. Saying it brings it into being, like a promise or a bet or a marriage.
This chapter is way too long, I think, but I feel in the grip of the TLE, and just can't stop. The message scrawled on the mirror, in the lipstick of the victim, who is lying on the floor in a pool of blood: "Stop me before I talk again". A command? A taunt? A statement of intent? A plea? We've come a long way. And I haven't even mentioned ambivalence!!!
Probably the one thing I haven't mentioned.
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