At least in the high-speed world of programming book non-fiction, there's no such restriction. (That was in no way an excuse to trumpet that I'm writing a chapter for a Real Book! No!)
Jonathon: Deca...dents... AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Frist psot!
(Sorry, I've just never had the opportunity...)
I love the creative Commies meme. It makes fun of the Man. Nobody thinks open-source programmers are going to send Polish Army officers to the Gulag, send tanks into Prague, or bug the American Embassy in Moscow. By reveling in it, we demonstrate that this frame has no power over us: cf "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
Making fun of the frame is an excellent way to disable it entirely. Or so I hope. Because I still like Commie kitsch (my wife makes fun of me, but she still took me to the statue museum in Budapest so I could visit my favorite statue after it disappeared from the Hero's Square.) (Disclaimer: I'm a Communist sympathizer, having married one.)
I still can't understand why the wingnuts think we can't defeat terrorism without torture even though "we" defeated Nazi Germany without torture. ("We" in quotes because it obviously wasn't just the United States -- we had people in power back then for whom diplomacy was more than just another word for weakness.)
I guess this is really why I don't care as much about the politics of intellectual property any more. It just seems so very ... quaint. So twentieth, in a way. Back before the Reichstag (oops, I mean 9/11, whatever) changed everything.
But in talking with my Red State dad, who actually says he won't fly to Puerto Rico to visit me and his grandkids because he's afraid of terrorists (yes, terrorists, you can't swing a cat in either Indiana or Puerto Rico without hitting a suicider, as we all know) -- as I say, in talking with my dad, I realize that they've left reality entirely at this point. How can you fight that? I honestly just don't know any more. All I know is to get my family to safety before they close the borders. And having to feel like that is just not what my America was all about.
So, yeah. Happy New Year.
And for what it's worth, I prefer that people be happy to see me -- but I've rarely experienced it. In Germany, people tended to see America as the culture to feel superior to, and in Hungary, everybody assumes I'm independently wealthy and therefore a good target for swindling. Here in Puerto Rico, the first place I've been besides Japan where people can pick me out of a crowd as American, attitudes are fairly ambivalent, but Puerto Rico is a special case.
In Europe, I rely on my beard and my fluent German to disguise being American. Not because I'm ashamed of being American (except for the travesty of my government) but because it's simply easier not to paint a target on my head until people know me a bit better and see me as an individual first and an American second.
I've never travelled anywhere where being American is dangerous. And I don't intend to, either. But I can tell you that fear breeds resentment, and hatred, and as the American government is never going to give a shit about any individual earning less than ten million a year (and everybody knows it) the shield that fear would afford me would be worthless.
Two points (well, three, actually -- the third being that kilr0y is either banninated or skulked away, and I wish Patrick would tell me which).
1. On voting with your feet: I am an American. I'm now living in Puerto Rico, and I'm American. I used to live in Germany, and I was American the whole time. I may well move to Hungary (wife's country) and you know what? I'm still going to be American. My kids are American. My philosophy and outlook are American. The government in the part of the planet where I grew up might mutate into the most unAmerican thing imaginable -- apparently already has -- but my love of the ideal called America, my belief in those inalienable rights, my knowledge of the worth of every individual, that is going to persist, and flourish, and spread. It's a small planet. I'll be back. And it's a wired planet, too, so in a very, very real sense I'll never actually leave. (I could be in Hungary this very moment and how would you know? Answer: you wouldn't, unless you checked the times of day I typically posted -- we often spend several months at a time in Hungary and since I work online....)
2. 38% or 45% of America approves of something in their own perceptions which is not the same thing as Abu Ghraib in our perceptions. Granted, we're reality-based. But part of reality means accepting the fact that many people aren't participants. Americans as a culture tend to think in terms of scripts and production values (see Digby's brilliant post from ... yesterday? this morning? whenever) instead of actual researched, grounded facts. This is both a weakness and a strength. It allows us to pursue -- and achieve -- crazy dreams that other nations have to work harder at, just because they know it's going to be hard. But it makes us, as a people, more susceptible than most to propaganda. And this is why America is mostly red state -- they buy the narrative, it makes sense, it validates their choices and their beliefs, and makes them feel important and accepted. To steer America back towards liberal values, it's not enough to say that liberal values make sense from a pragmatic perspective, even though they do (example: we spend too damn much of our GDP on medical insurance (not medical care) and we still don't have flu vaccine or any defense against bioterrorism -- the best defense against the latter would be universal healthcare, duh! but nobody will say so, because it would be liberal and it would make a class of moneyed parasites as obsolete as buggy whip manufacturers.)
Instead of being wonks (i.e. reality-based) we need to change the narrative. This is what I think of as "hip to be square" -- or at least, hip to be right. It's a media question. The junta knows it, and they're really damned good at what they do, along with the complicit media. The media would love to have battling narratives; they're good theater and thus good for ratings. But as long as liberals are purely reality-based, it just ain't gonna happen.
To bring the discussion back to Abu Ghraib: to red staters (again, most of my family) see torture as our boys in uniform getting serious and kicking ass, and maybe some of them getting carried away. Rush Limbaugh and his "fraternity prank" line illustrates it. My wife, by the way, was physically ill when we found out. Hungarians are not a media-based culture, and her own education included too much Nazi history for her to miss the obvious. But red staters can ignore the reality of people being butt-raped for the crime of being brown and not speaking English well, and see the carefully scripted storyline as a more comfortable reality. They choose the reality to suit themselves, you see. Look at the point of fundamentalist faith: you choose reality. Do you think that attitude won't spill over into politics? Of course it will. This is a culture of arbitrary belief. Again: it can be a strength or a weakness, but it exists. To wish it didn't, or to insist that it shouldn't, is futile. Plan for it, and we win. Period. As I said in a post on Electrolite -- short-term media fix: make liberal ideals cool (or Christian, or whatever; the principle is the same, just the shorthand changes); long-term fix: education, real education, to allow people to learn to think on their own.
Give a man a thought, and he'll vote for you today; teach a man to think, and you have a Democrat.
OK, that's all the wisdom I have for you today. Thank you for listening. And kilr0y, wherever you are, son, we miss you. Don't be a stranger.
Oh, and Patrick, there's just one thing I need to say about this whole alternate-reality experiment of yours. As you know, I've long found your odd insistence on dogged media complacency with your posited Bush regime rather implausible, and frankly the whole thing has seemed like a lot of effort for no discernable payoff.
But now you truly expect me to believe that the American people would tolerate such an incompetent President, to the extent that the electoral picture in 2004 would be virtually identical to that in 2000, after such an already implausible series of Oval Office screwups?
It's ludicrous. Really. Sorry to post out of character here, but there's just so far I can take suspension of disbelief.
Chris: I've asked my father that same question. (Rural Indiana, remember.) He hems and haws, but figures that 9/11 was unprovoked, so our tragedy is greater.
Yeah, I know. But these poor creatures don't operate on logic. I (usually) love my Dad, and he's really intelligent, truly, but I'm not joking when I say that education would melt their brains. Sort of like this, that's how I imagine it.
My wife is Hungarian. This ability of red-state Americans to disengage their version of reality from logic drives her around the bend. (Not that Hungarians are better -- but she expects America to live up to its own self-image, you see.) It really is a cheap cop-out, which is why I rarely have meaningful exchanges with my Dad. It's just not much fun having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
I guess I misunderestimated the number of such intellectual lightweights in the voting public. I really thought America would vote to reject incompetence, but apparently the incompetent find it endearing that Bush isn't any smarter than they are.
Remember cracks about Bush appealing to his ethnic group, the Moron-Americans? (Hi, kilr0y!) I thought it was supposed to be a joke! But sadly, it appears to be all too true.
Oh, and kilr0y, I currently live in Ponce, Puerto Rico. You can't drive your pickup over here and you probably can't afford the airfare, so I'm afraid I'm just going to have to disappoint you, man. I know you were really getting all pumped up and oiling your baseball bat and all, but hey, if you give me your address and I really get the hankering for a little vacation time in Podunk, we'll see what we can arrange. I always like a nice Cheeto.
Oh, man, you disemvowelled him just when he was starting to show a little spunk! This exchange was getting really promising! And what do I have to show for it? "W cn hv nc cht"??!? For all anybody could tell, he invited me for a cheeto!
Hey, jerk, why don't you go first? Chicken? Come on, if you're so big, you can tell me your address, right?
*snicker*
I love trolls. They're so entertaining when fed. And it's so typical of "Americans" like kilr0y to play bantam rooster when pushed. I'll bet he even thinks he's a Christian. Poor guy. If he ever got an education, it'd make his brain explode from humiliation.
Kilr0y the l33t said:
>Better yet, move the hell out of this country you hate and whine somewhere else.
Make me, asshole.
Kilr0y, you're the America-hater, because it's obvious you have no idea what democracy is. I know your kind; I grew up with you in rural Indiana. What you grindingly stupid people never understand is that if all the liberals left, there'd be nobody left to pay the bills.
Dumbass. Skulk back to your trailer park and don't speak until spoken to.
I know this is kinda OT, but that Rude Pundit posting had me laughing today, and when I read it out loud to my wife (making sure the kids were well out of earshot, my God, was it ever ... rude) I doubled over a couple of times and she laughed her head off. That's choice writing, that is.
And then, watching the actual debate, I kept snickering, thinking, oh man, I hope Edwards read that before facing the man whose heart is so small it requires a machine to make it beat. BWAHAHAHAHA!
So anyway, I was happy to see that you'd also linked to it. That kind of writing must be rewarded.
Not to mention that firearms were widely and easily available in pre-quagmire Iraq, and obviously didn't do much to prevent tyranny. Or foreign invasion, come to that. So, as a Heinleinist, I believe in the right to bear arms, and as an Erisian, the right to arm bears -- but the rationale in the Second Amendment doesn't appear to be all that solid.
And then there's my 100% agreement with Graydon -- the 2ndA abolutists should already be invading Washington (and if a Democratic administration were doing half what the Bushies are, they would be doing so).
On that topic, though, I think Graydon's misconstrued the tribal boundaries (or his rhetorical position has done so) -- it's always Us vs. Them, of course, but in this case, the Republicans have convinced the nutbars that they're Us. So to speak.
"They won't, because the Liberal cause can't afford to have the spotlight shined on George Soros, less the funding dry up."
I'm stymied by what this could possibly mean. I can see two possibilities:
1. George Soros would stop funding the Democrats if the media spotlight were cast upon him? Dude, Soros is a genius financier who went from nothing to billions on the strength of his intellect, then spent billions on promoting democracy throughout the world. If the media finally looks at a true American like that, so be it -- and Soros will still support democracy at home as well as abroad, regardless.
That doesn't make sense, so maybe it's
2. If the rank and file found out about shady financiers backing their fave candidate, they would stop donating?
This makes even less sense.
So ... I'm stymied, as so often when talking with people who argue from a priori assumptions instead of rational conclusions. But hey, don't mind me -- avoid voting for that flip-flopper Kerry and support steadfast Bush instead. Dork.
Damn, how come I only get to the good discussions after Godwin kicks in?
I found Will's sassy remarks humorous from the start, was perplexed by the really, really focused hatred they evoked, then relaxed as the dialog grew less sanctimonious. As a Perot-Perot-Gore voter who will by God vote Kerry even though he's a hopeless cause in Indiana, I've got the same bent towards throwing a monkey wrench in to see the ants scurry, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor.
The Democrats' attitude that if you're liberal you owe them your vote reminds me of a friend who ran for office once. Without even asking me about my position, he made a point of saying, "Well, there's one vote I can count on." (Proved himself an ass in other ways over the course of the campaign, too -- a local one -- campaign, not ass -- and lost ignominiously, as pride goeth before &c.)
I didn't vote Nader in 2000 mostly because he screwed up getting onto the Indiana ballot, but by the time the election rolled around I'd pretty much decided I actually liked Gore (and could stomach the fortunately not yet named Joementum, oy), so I ended up voting with the plurality, which makes me proud now. Bitter, but proud.
But I respected people who did vote Green. They had valid reasons for doing so (that magic 5%), and if the Democrats had wanted to avoid spoilage in future elections, they had only to push for removal of impediments to third parties, such as the requirement in many states for a party to have a presidential candidate to appear on the ballot as a party -- and of course they instead decided to play nasty. Really nasty. And judging by FMguru (sorry, FMguru, you're really not normally so vitriolic, but this time your head is spinning like a top) this is normal for the True Democrat Believers.
All of which was a long-winded way for me to chime in with an <AOL>ME TOO</AOL> on not understanding Nader bashing. I don't like him, wouldn't vote for him in 2004 after his sorry performance of late, have in fact never voted for him -- but to act as though he was the anti-Christ, as True Believers seem to -- I just don't get it.
Avram -- for a moment there I thought you were advocating giving hungry people pictures of bears. That kind of threw me. Maybe I need to get off this board, finish today's portion of work, and go to bed. Yeah. That sounds good.
WOW! Welcome back with a sizzler! There's still a smoky smell in the room here...
And you couldn't be more right. One of the most agonizing aspects of the divisiveness of this Administration has been the recognition that a lot of people and organizations I used to like and find entertaining are actually far less entertaining than I thought they were. Even in the open-source movement; once I realized that Eric Raymond *supported* the war (for the most specious of reasons, dismaying for someone I thought was intelligent) -- that kind of ruined a lot of things for me. One more reason to vote ABB.
Fandom typically includes a lot of self-identifying libertarians (me among them, sometimes -- sometimes libertarian, not sometimes a fan) and the less thoughtful libertarians usually still assume the Republicans are their party. There's nothing more pathetic than libertarian herd mentality. Sigh.
1. Whew.
2. Whaddaya know, we're moving too -- except instead of three stops south, we had the epiphany that if you work online anyway, and if the other of you is finished (at last!!) with the doctorate, then ... why not live in the Caribbean? So, g'bye Indiana, hell-O Puerto Rico.
3. Small book boxes. Back in the bad old days before we stuck in our (now owned) house for five years, we moved 14 times in 10 years. The first time or two I thought large book boxes were more efficient. Now I use shoeboxes, or large matchboxes sometimes. Lots and lots of boxes.
4. As a landlord, and soon to be a two-times-over landlord since we're vacating this house now, I have to say that tenants who paint -- even plum -- are a cut above tenants who leave holes in walls. Say. Although I once had a lady who did both.
I prefer newspapers with a unified comics section so that when I pick one up in McDonald's I don't have to sort through all the chaff to get to the only useful part of the paper.
I curse the day I discovered political blogs, thus sucking me into the gaping maw of caring what happened in the world around me. Or, more precisely, in the world not just around me.
OT: just finished John Barnes's "The Sky So Big and Black" and had a jolt at the author's note, where he thanks his editor -- our gracious host. That was kind of a Ped Xing moment.
Damn, the threads today are depressing me.
Graydon: as a Quaker, I really have to question your assumption that steppe nomads are likely to show up. That said, as a Quaker, I'm not religious about it: if my family were threatened, I'd defend them. But in actual point of fact, the way I'm defending them now is to make sure their passports are current.
Otherwise I wholeheartedly agree (as usual) with your (as usual) highly cogent view of Army as Engineering Discipline. And would go one further: Rumsfeld broke it, he should buy it. We had us a fine bulldozer until he decided it should be used as a squad car. Moron.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 5 |
| 2004 | 25 |
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