Whether Bush wins and is a lame duck or loses and is blamed for the loss, we are perhaps about to witness the end of the Republican Party as we know it -- the coalition of fiscal libertarians and social conservatives. The combination has never made sense and only worked when they were united against Communists and 60s radicals, which is now irrelevant. It is only the support of the fiscal conservatives and traditionalists that has given the radical right a legitimate voice in American politics these past few decades. About 3/4ths of Americans are liberal on social issues and I believe we are about to embark on an extended run of responsibly liberal governance that will bring us back in line with Europe and the rest of the "developed" world. I was talking with a friend from England last night and she said that while, of course, there are people and politicians in Europe who have radical right views, they know they have no shot at controlling the government and overturning liberal values like the social welfare contract and choice and gay rights. Not to get too blue-skyey, but I see us picking up the thread we let go of in the morass of the 70s and continuing our political evolution: reaffirming society's responsibility to its weaker members, reengaging the world community, rejoining the environmental movement.
The powerful anti-Bush lyrics in Eminem's last album went largely unnoticed. But there's no mistaking it this time. With a week before the election, Eminem has released Mosh, along with an incredibly powerful video. Moby, yes the same Moby of whom that little imp Eminem once said in a song "You thirty-six year old baldheaded fag, blow me." Yes, Moby has called this new Eminem song and video the best thing that's been done all year. I could not find a downloadable copy of the awesome video, but here are links for a streaming version in Windows and RealAudio that will work. They're the official ones from eminem.com. You must watch this video:
Windows Media Player
Realmedia
Here are some of the lyrics:
Someone's tryin'a tell us something,
Maybe this is god just sayin' we're responsible
For this monster, this coward,
That we have empowered
...
Strap him with an AK-47, let him go fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain't loyal
I really recommend you check out the video if you can. It's more powerful than the words by themselves. If Moby can forgive Eminem, then perhaps …
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Windows Media Player
Realmedia
Here are some of the lyrics:
Someone's tryin'a tell us something,
Maybe this is god just sayin' we're responsible
For this monster, this coward,
That we have empowered
...
Strap him with an AK-47, let him go fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain't loyal
I really recommend you check out the video if you can. It's more powerful than the words by themselves. If Moby can forgive Eminem, then perhaps …
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This is fascinating. Pat Buchanan's magazine, The American Conservative, decided not to endorse anyone this election, but instead run separate endorsements from the individual editors. Buchanan, while he disagrees with Bush on most things, decides to endorse him anyway. But the number two, Executive Editor Scott McConnell goes the other way. Altogether, the editorials break down: 1 for Bush, 1 for Kerry, 1 for Nader, 1 for the Libertarian, 2 for the Constitution Party, and 1 for staying home. They're all interesting, and from these links, you can check out all the others. Given, there's an unsavory anti-immigrant angle in some of it, but putting that aside, there is fascinating material in here supporting my long-standing and oft-reiterated view that there is nothing conservative about this president. The Kerry endorsement is here: http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html. Equally interesting to me, as a former Green leader and long-time proponant of decentralism is the Nader endorsement, http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover2.html,which asserts that his anti-corporatism is pure small-c conservatism.
To the Editor, In Jonathan Alter's October 18, 2004 Newsweek column, Try a Slice of Humble Pie, he says: "From the outset, Bush has treated John Kerry like a terrorist". The proper logical construction is not that Bush treats Kerry like a terrorist; it's that Bush treats anyone who disagrees with him, anyone who sees things differently, as "them", the Other. The woman who asked the debate question about whether he had made any mistakes, the media, the terrorists, Democrats, non-Fundamentalist Christians, cabinet members who've criticized him, are all evil, out to get him (and goodness in general.) A tactical benefit of seeing one's enemies as "them" is that it allows one to maintain a facade of civility while waging battle using inhuman tactics. There is no strategic difference between Abu Grab and the Swift Boat ads; they both assume an any-means-necessary approach justified by the ends. Bush doesn't treat John Kerry like a terrorist; he sees John Kerry as a terrorist. To George W. Bush, if you are not with him, you are against him, and if you are against him, you cannot be a righteous person. This way of thinking in anyone is dangerous; in the leader of the free world, it is catastrophic. Phil Rose New York, New York
To the Editor, In Jonathan Alter's October 11, 2004 Newsweek column, Your Gut Only Gets You So Far, Alter betrays a wrong-headed understanding of the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell's upcoming book, Blink. I hope Alter hasn't read the book but only heard about it around the cocktail party circuit; otherwise, his characterization is inexplicable. Gladwell's broad thesis, as I understand it after reading the impressive book, is that people often distrust their gut reaction and overthink a problem, that their initial decision is not a simplistic instinct-only response but a relatively sophisticated one, and that, not recognizing this fact, they spend a lot of time proving it out. His secondary point is that this proving is really only so they can feel OK about the view they already arrived at; it often adds nothing to the decision and, critically, can distract or deter them from deciding and acting. Does this describe a tendency in Kerry? No doubt. But calling Bush a "blink" president is absurd. Gladwell's "blink" is a far cry from Bush's uninformed and rigid decision making. In the example Alter cites from the book, the decision makers are the world's best-informed and most up-to-date experts in their field -- classical art. Their gut feelings about a forgery are based on vast knowledge. The core thesis of Blink is that what seems like instinct is actually the lateral synaptic processing of huge amounts of data -- and shouldn't be discounted. Gladwell does not support deliberate ignorance or a refusal …
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On Victor Davis Hanson's October 08, 2004 column in National Review Online, Sizing Up Iraq by Philip F. Rose [This was submitted to National Review as a letter to the editor, but I haven't noticed they ever publish letters from non-conservatives, only praise and minor squabbling, so I'm more than doubtful they will publish it.] Hanson's analysis, based he says on "constants across 2,500 years of time and space that presage victory or defeat" leaves out one rather significant area: Is it right for us to be there? Is it moral? Ethical? Worthy and obtaining of respect in the world? I realize it was not his task to answer this question, but I find it immoral in itself to ask only whether we can win without asking whether we have a moral leg to stand on as we shoot up a foreign country. To the question of whether we can win, Hanson is not very reassuring. The analysis is laden with seems to bes and so fars? He says, "There is as yet no mass movement analogous to the Vietcong." As yet? He says, "Unlike the case of South Vietnam, the provisional democratic government is not flanked by a hostile nuclear China or Soviet Union." This is true; neither China nor the now-nonexistent Soviet Union border Iraq. A hostile nuclear Iran does. Hanson's dismissals of Kerry's chance to do better are without merit. He says Kerry's attempts to map another course have been met with "polite chuckles". Who's chuckling? Hanson? …
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| Apple has made me an iTunes affiliate. In the past, I've posted a few of my playlists, but I was always frustrated by the fact that people couldn't easily recreate my list. I offered Amazon links, but didn't expect people to buy a dozen separate albums just to be able to listen to my mix. But now, with iTunes' 99¢ songs, that's all changed. Over time, I'll be posting a bunch of these. Why should you care? Well maybe you won't. But for whatever it's worth, I've been mixing music for other people for a very long time -- parties as a teen (and ever since), a few club gigs in the 80s, programming a downtempo electronic radio station in the 90s. Hopefully, you'll discover something cool from this and the mixes to come (and the few that I already posted.) The coding of my mixes is pretty straightforward. "2000-5" means this was the fifth mix in 2000 that I burned to a CD for some purpose outside my home. In this case a friend's party. In all the years before iTunes, most of the mixes I made came and went without being recorded except for a few mix tapes I could recreate. There's an exception of sorts. At some point, I'll import the list of 1000+ songs I used when I was programming the radio station. BTW, don't get the impression from this mix or the radio gig that … (more)
Recently, I saw Watching the Friedmans. Immediately after that, I put on The Mating Game, a "60s" romantic comedy (it was from 59 actually) with Tony Randall and Debbie Reynolds. To me, these movies and movie experiences side by side offer a perfect case for asking whether the point of life is to be happy and if so what choices one might make. Why the hell did I submit myself to the ugliness of Watching the Friedmans? I felt dirty and sad afterwards. Watching The Mating Game I was between amused and laughing out loud. Tell me, why would one choose the former over the latter? Life is hard enough, filled with enough ugliness. I don't need to add to it by looking inside the minds of sick people that the world would be better off without. Give me farce. Give me romantic comedies. Give me fantasies. Or if I am going to look at ugliness, study depravity, let there be some lesson to it other than that life sucks. It reminds me of my old American Beauty - Magnolia distinction. American Beauty says that underneath the seeming normalcy and attractive facade is depravity and evil. Magnolia says that underneath the apparent depravity and messiness is an innate desire to be normal and good. They both have truth in them, but I'd rather go through life seeing that potential for good in people than assuming there's unseen depravity. And to the extent we make our own reality, of course, that …
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My Myers Briggs Jung Test Results
Your type is: INFP
personality tests by similarminds.com
personality tests by similarminds.com Enneagram Test Results Take Free Enneagram Personality TestType 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 43% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||| 53% Type 3 Image Awareness |||||||||||||| 60% Type 4 Sensitivity |||||||||||| 46% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||| 46% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||| 33% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||| 33% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||||||||| 73% Your Conscious-Surface type is 5 Your Unconscious-Overall type is 3w4 personality tests by similarminds.com (Note: The first paragraph of this piece ran as a letter to the editor in the 6/30 issue of NYPress. Go to www.nypress.com/17/26/mail/TheMail.cfm and scroll down to "Moore vs. White, XII".) Armond White's piece on Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, in the June 23, 2004 issue of the New York Press, is a biased political screed, not an honest review of the film. I did not start out a fan of Moore's, but each of his films has been less sentimental, more cohesive and more fact-based. This film is almost there -- gimmicks are few and non-central, documentation is substantial. Moore was careful on this one, because he didn't want it to be attackable on these grounds. White doesn't care; his blanket swipes at Moore suggest someone who didn't watch the current film with anything like objectivity. Nor is there any objectivity in White's political points. Moore uses footage of President Bush at an elementary school after he knew a plane had hit the WTC, sitting for seven minutes in the photo op rather than leading any action. Moore suggests that without an advisor telling Bush what to do, he did nothing. White says the same footage shows "the most powerful man in the world suffering. He's miserably distracted." So we're supposed to feel sorry for Bush that he was uncomfortable while he sat there not sure whether he should abort the photo op to address this national crisis? White then takes a hilariously non sequiturial potshot, calling Moore's … Statistics
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