Someone should forward this post to Frank Luntz. The bastard deserves to see what's coming down the road.
Also, you might find this article on language, both theirs and ours, to be interesting.
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200407/words.asp
An open letter to Don Rumsfeld:
Don,
The other day my wife came home in tears. There were a couple of guys, one 17 and one 19, driving up and down the road near our house. They had a half dozen ground squirrels which they'd shot and were dragging behind their rig. Some were recently deceased and whole, a few were closer to "parts." Seems they wanted to make some kind of a statement, or perhaps attract a little attention. When I confronted them about their sick behavior, they said they "kinda liked it."
Don, it sure looks like some of your best correction faciltiy people are going to end up doing time. If you're running low on talent - which I doubt, but you never know - I'm happy to tell you where you can find a couple of "true blue Americans." I'm sure they'd make you proud.
In case you're wondering, these particular folks are the pride and joy of Troy, Montana.
__________________________________________
And we wonder why the rest of the world hates us.
Alec, I think you're off by a bit.
Instead of "You don't believe exactly what we do, therefore you are heathen dogs," it should be, "We're concerned that there's a possibility that you or someone you know doesn't believe in our state sanctioned brand of fire & brimstone, so let's send you to a secret location in a far off land and put you to the question. By the way, do you prefer women's underwear or attack dogs?"
You know, I find this stuff fascinating. As someone with a degree I’ll never use, I look back and thank the Lord for the opportunity to receive a good education at a private university. (Let’s have three cheers for scholarships and grants, without which I’d probably be working construction.) At the same time, though, the piece of paper which designates my level of experience in my one-time field of endeavor is about as arbitrary and capricious as I can imagine.
On top of that, it just amazes me that people tend to pay more attention to a degree hanging on the wall than to the person who earned it, as if we were all just characters in the Wizard of Oz, and our worthiness and abilities had recently been transferred to us by order and edict of the Great & Powerful Oz himself. Sorry, Dorothy, but I just don’t get it.
I guess in the end, I don’t really give a damn about degrees, either those that you’ve earned or those that you’ve purchased. (I’m assuming that you’re not a Republican, and that you see a difference between the two.) I’m simply more interested in what you do with your life than in an embossed piece of paper that attests to you supposed skills. But since we live in a world where the bean-counters rule, and it’s vital that I can compare my credentials to your credentials, I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Still, it strikes me as silly, as if there should be, on some dimly lit BBC set in London, an ongoing Monty Python skit where the Minister of Silly Walks attempts to hang his degree from the Accredited and Revered College of Silly Walks on a wall that doesn’t exist.
" '...Inhofe is a disgrace to the Senate, to his party, and to the United States of America...'
-To the United States as it was. Unless something changes real quick people like Inhofe are gonna own this place.
It seems urgent as hell that people not get seduced by cheap catharsis.
Rumsfeld, even Bush, those guys are fusible links; villains of complicity, and fundamental liars, but the evil isn't coming from them. They're midwives. Facilitators. Tools.
Yes, bad. Yes, make them go away. But don't stop there.
We need deep change. Now."
Jeremy, I can't speak for Lance, nor am I going to disagree with Patrick when he makes the case that change happens one detail at a time. Still, I don't see the condescension that you're worried about. To my mind, Lance is saying something important here. You might look at it this way. The existence of our society, not to mention the rest of the world, is currently predicated on the availability of cheap energy, cheap natural resources, and the ability of the earth to accept and filter out the toxic byproducts of our materialistic, consumer driven way of life. In other words, humanity hasn't yet come to grips with the simple, yet vital, concept of sustainability.
I'm not much for doom & gloom predictions, but if we don't start to focus on the future, life in 10 to 20 years will likely be awful grim for everyone still around. Perhaps history will show that Bush's most egregious offense was pulling our attention back toward the past at a time when we desperately needed to be looking forward toward the future. In any regard, we need to break through this 50/ 50 political gridlock of the moment and start thinking in terms of the next decade or the next 50 years, not the next business cycle or the next quarter. Does this process start with getting Bush and his axis-of-evil satanic cult out of office? Absolutely. We need to do things one step at a time. Yet that doesn't mean we can be satisfied with band-aids when we really need more serious change.
I can't say that I agree with the "gross" characterization. When I think of "gross" - which thankfully isn't something I have to do on a regular basis - I think of words like disgusting or nasty. Not that those terms are anything to write home about, but they don't sink to anywhere near the level of depravity pictured in those images from Iraq.
Nor is weakness the real issue.
I think we'd be better served by discussing how, in the eyes of the world, America's vaunted morality has been exposed as a sham. Bush, in particular, has been couching his rhetoric in religious and moral terms that are designed to appeal to his far-right base. Unfortunately for George, the pictures are so at odds with his "holier than thou" posturing that he comes out looking like a liar. Again. And the rest of the world seems to be getting pretty sick of an administration that's brought our hypocrisy meter to levels we've never even dreamed about before. Of course, they still aren't as angry at the rotten bastards in the White House as I am.
It’s interesting that, in our outrage, our vehemence and disgust, so few of us are willing to use the one word our warrior President employs to bolster his ratings. Evil. But here it is, in grinning color, straight from the fetid, bottomless pit of Iraq. Evil.
You might disagree, but in my mind, when anyone - man, woman or child - steals the dignity of another human being and replaces it with pain, with anguish, with a fear so deep and so real that it becomes pervasive and all-encompassing, then evil exists and, at least for that moment, triumphs. And our world is diminished.
I wish I could say that I am immune, that my beliefs will allow me to easily forgive the transgressions that no doubt occur on both sides of this insane war. But I can’t. I once heard Tom Brown, Jr. say, “Don’t hate the man, hate the ignorance.” Yet these photos document something so hideous that, for once, I don’t know what to say or how to react. Or even how to forgive. This goes beyond ignorance, beyond petty political schemes and the “us versus them” harangues of nations at war. This is evil, and from everything I can see it starts with the man in the White House.
Who are you people, and how did you get in my computer?
“Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.”
Perhaps we've been a little too glib here. I believe that W. was actually sending a coded message to sleeper cells of Republican operatives. I've haven't been able to decipher the entire thing, but the letters in "program" can be jumbled to spell ramgrop, which I believe is a turn-of-the-century term for group sex.
Maybe it would have helped if I'd seen it in context. I just can't bring myself to do that, though.
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote - "I'm put in mind of a book I had when I was very young, which told of how the Eskimos sang and danced for the whale they killed to honor its spirit. When I read about that at age five, my general opinion was that the whale probably didn't much care why someone had killed it, it cared about having gotten killed in the first place, and the eskimos should realize the singing and dancing were something they were doing to make themselves feel better."
One of the problems I have with American culture is our innate and pervasive arrogance. This is in no way meant to denigrate Kevin, who92s comment seemed both intuitive and heartfelt, but we look at situations like the one that he described and we tend to think, 93How quaint!94 or 93Can you believe that people really did that?94 or, to paraphrase Kevin, 93That92s a nice way to assuage their guilt.94 We never wonder, though, if animals do have spirits - well, maybe we hope for that possibility as it concerns our favorite pets - but we all seem to believe that we exist in a world where human beings are removed from the rules and constraints that govern the rest of creation.
Here92s something to think about. How would you act differently if you believed, as many individuals and many cultures do, that everything out there - the birds and beasts, the grass and the trees, the soil and the rocks and the air itself - were intertwined in vast mosaic of life that exists in the physical plane, but that transcends the physical world? The Taoists have called this energy The Force, certain Native American tribes call it The-Spirit-That-Moves-In-All-Things, and one of the basic tenets of each of these views is that everything, from the tiniest microbe to the largest whale, has a spirit. So given the possibility that western culture is wrong and that these other cultures are right, wouldn92t that make the Eskimos ceremony as meaningful as many of our own religious rituals?
As Kevin alludes to later in his comments, the real problem with our way of looking at the world is that we create a hierarchy, a rating system for the things we love, the things we love less, and the things we don92t love at all. It might be wiser, however, for all of us to become less judgmental and more open to the possibility that we92re looking at the world through a lens gone askew. There92s no doubt that some people will see Dick Cheney shooting 70 pheasants and think he92s a barbarian, where they really wouldn92t have minded him shooting 70 rats or 70 spiders. But is there a difference? I believe that if you want to treat life as special or sacred, it makes sense to apply that particular principle indiscriminately, regardless of how difficult it may be on a day-to-day basis.
As a hunter - there's a deer hanging outside waiting to be butchered as I write this - and a fly fisher, and as a guy who makes his living writing for hunting and fishing magazines, I'd like to say that canned hunts have no greater connection to real hunting than pornographic sex (sex between strangers in front of a camera) has to making love. Sure, the acts can be construed as similar by someone who sees things from a distance, but that's about it. At their heart, they're completely different.
True hunters - and I've never heard anything which makes me think that Cheney belongs to this category - have a deep respect for their quarry, and, indeed, a stronger reverence for life than most non-hunters. When you've reached inside an animal (say a deer or an elk that you've just killed), your forearms are warm and sticky with that animal's blood and the heart - literally, the heart - is in your hands. At that point, you have an intimate connection with the world that goes far beyond the cerebral masturbation we typically accept as the apex of reality, and you damn well better understand the magnitude of your actions. You've just taken a life. Nothing we do - nothing - is more serious.
Of course, when this happens, when you've made this incredibly difficult choice to kill an animal, you can go two ways. A true hunter feels sorrow, he (or she) feels regret, he feels incredible sadness. In essence, that animal gave its life so that I may live, and my feelings and actions at that point either add meaning to that animal's existence and its sacrifice, or they steal every last shred of dignity from both of us. I don't believe that I have any choice in the matter. I have to hunt with a complete understanding of what I'm doing when I release that arrow or pull that trigger, and I have to hunt with as much respect and integrity as I can find within myself.
A "killer," on the other hand (and for lack of a better title), says, "Great. He's dead. Big son-of-a-bitch, too. Let's go find another one." Folks like that shouldn't have access to weapons.
I hope I've made a distinction that some of you non-hunters can understand. Despite what you might see or read in the media, not every hunter is a crazed lunatic. And if I didn't make the case clearly enough, I apologize. Regardless of whether or not you agree with what I've said here, though, there is a distinction between those of us who believe in "fair chase" and those of us who don't. We aren't all the same.
A working class hero is something to be.
Scott - You wrote, "And if I may presume to expand on Patrick's comments (while hiding under a rock and praying for forgiveness), I think he was referring to people who not only have an idealized, romanticized view of nature, but wish to enforce their aesthetic values (and the inconveniences involved!) upon others, regardless of how those others feel or what they happen to need."
Good synopsis of your idea, but somewhat tricky. We all, either consciously or unconsciously, tend to elevate our perceptions (Graydon just made a similar point) or, to put it differently, our way of looking at the world. After all, it's only natural that we think of our views on life as a close approximation of Truth; perhaps the closest approximation possible in this physical world. So naturally, since I know that my way of looking at the world is best and since others believe the same thing of their views, then life, especially life of the political and social variety, is comprised mostly of our attempts to shift, sway or coerce others toward our viewpoint. For those of us who are aware of this, we may also decide that it's in our best interest to remain open to the very real possibility that our perceptions are erroneous; after all, the ultimate goal is to get closer and closer to that ideal of Truth (you could also say Understanding). And to do so, we may eventually have to admit that we were wrong on certain issues and that we didn't know everything there was to know about others.
So I empathize with your desire not to be told what to do, where to live, how to act, etc., etc., but I don't think that Greens, or any other group for that matter, have a monopoly on the stuff we're talking about. The Green way of looking at things may be far enough outside the accepted social and political norms of our day - heck, it's not the way I choose to look at the world - that it's a little discordant, but it's really no different than any other group of individuals. At one time or another, we all shake our heads and say, "Lord, it's so simple. Why don't they get it?" In a larger sense, it's part of the human condition, and that's probally not going to change. The trick, of course, is to remain aware of all this as we go through life. Being a vastly imperfect being, I need to remind myself all the time. And even that doesn't always work.
A couple more things to consider.
Back in the summer of 2000, I spent a few hours talking with two Greens, arguing that they should put aside their voice of dissonance and vote for Gore. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. I should have taken the summer and fall off and moved from Montana to Florida with the same platform. Of course, back then nobody fully understood the ramifications of a Bush presidency, or how foolish Nader would look in retrospect.
What amazes me now is how easily Ralph still co-opts the spotlight. The man played his hand and the American people, no, strike that, the entire world, has suffered as a result. You'd think he'd be content with that. He should be.
Patrick, one thing you might clarify. When you mentioned the Green's "tendency to value aesthetics over people," were you actually serious? I live in a remote valley in northwestern Montana, along with a couple hundred other folks, several of whom are Greens. I'm obviously not a Green, but I spend a fair amount of time talking with a few of them and I've never heard any of them refer to the preference you mentioned. Now if you're talking about nature, about wilderness, about an intimate and living connection with the incredibly mysterious world we live in and what the Native Americans refered to as The-spirit-that-moves-through-all-things, well then, yes, I suppose I can see where you're coming from. Although I don't think I'd agree with you.
For instance, a couple weeks back, I was standing by myself on a timbered mountainside in the gathering November gloam, transfixed by the deep, mournful howls of an alpha wolf and his mate. Would I trade that experience for a cocktail party or the opportunity to spend an hour at a Star Trek convention? Not a chance.
But if you're talking about choosing pretty scenery over people, I guess I don't see that as being an accurate depiction of your typical Green, at least not in my experience.
Teresa - You wrote. "You can translate "Things have to get worse before they get better" as "Things have to get worse in order for everyone to see that I'm right and they're wrong," but I think it more accurately translates as "I will countenance no good unless it's my own good, arrived at via my own programs and my own schedule; and this adherence to my program matters more to me than the good itself."
That was perfect. Sad, too - I think at one time Nader was on the cusp of being a wonderful human being - but perfect.
I'm not a Clark supporter, although I think the Democrats could do a lot worse. In fact, a Dean/ Clark ticket would probably be my first choice. It's interesting, though, that Clark seems to be taking hits from both sides. He's getting trashed by Franks and Sheldon, his old army bosses, for being something of an anti-establishment military guy - maybe not an oxymoron, but probably close to it - while at the same time getting whacked by liberals who don't think that the military can produce a decent, empathetic leader. Which leads me to believe that he may have a fair amount of potential after all.
One thing that doesn't quite mesh with Taibbi's impressions of Clark as a heartless warrior was Clark crying - amazingly, his tears seemed genuine - on a recent 60 Minutes interview. The interviewer (seems to me it was Mike Wallace, but I'm not positive) commented on how emotional Clark became when talking about genocide in Kosovo. Clark, to his credit, didn't really play the empathy card, but he did get straight to the issue. If you can't get emotional about saving hundreds of thousands of lives, what are you going to get emotional about? I'll reserve the right to change my mind, but for now Clark seems like a rarity - a talented individual with liberal social tendencies and a long and distinguished service record. The man has potential.
I can remember reading Breslin back in the 70s, in the NY Daily News. The summer city was broiling and Son of Sam was stalking the back alleys and lover's lanes and Breslin did as much as anyone to focus our attention on our common humanity, on the myriad threads that tied our lives together and made us a community as opposed to a group of self-indulgent, uncaring strangers. I'm glad to see that after all these years he's still telling it straight, getting at the truth and holding it up to the light for us to see. Thanks for sharing this piece.
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