We all knew that the Star’s editorial overlords would take on the subject of Obama’s speech last night. What no one realized is that the paper’s Midwest Voices blog had become the repository of the kind of faux-patriotic rah-rah’ing that got us into this mess to begin with. It was just yesterday that Tom Ryan sounded the drumbeat of withusoragainstus-ism, and now E. Thomas McClanahan is taking his turn behind the wheel.

ETM starts with a charming little anecdote about how kickass America is, in all our conquering glory. We’re liberators, right?

When he was in Iraq, Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis was asked by an Iraqi when he planned to leave.
“I said I am never going to leave,” Mattis recalled. “I told him I had found a little piece of property down on the Euphrates River and I was going to have a retirement home built there. I did that because I wanted to disabuse him of any sense that he could wait me out.”

U-S-A! U-S-A! Take that, Iraq. We invaded your little piece of desert and now we’re staying forever. With gems like that little tale, how could people possibly hate us? And what exactly is the point of all this? Your armchair hawk is here to tell you:

That’s how you win wars: You do everything you can to convince the enemy that what’s in your head is winning, not pulling up stakes and leaving. Tuesday night, President Obama sent a much more muddled message.
Give credit where it’s due: Obama didn’t go for the stillborn counterterrorism approach, which calls for pecking away at the Taliban and al Qaida with drones and a few thousand special operations troops.

Hmm. It’s not quite “pulling up stakes and leaving,” though, is it? It’s more like setting a date for accomplishment of goals. When you’re facing a restive public, a shaky Congress, and diminishing returns on a nearly decade-old war, you can’t just throw everything you have at the problem — especially when no one even knows what you’re trying to accomplish. And “stillborn counterterrorism approach”? What you’re describing, ETM, is actually one of the best ways to combat the kind of foe we’re facing.

He gave Gen. Stan McChrystal the lion’s share of what he sought. But what struck me was that in the next line of the speech, Obama said we’d start withdrawing troops in 18 months.

Well, that’s kind of the point, is it not? He doesn’t want to signal an open-ended commitment because that’s not what this problem needs, especially in a place where no invading force ever wins. He’s trying to say that we’re going in with more force, will accomplish our objectives, and will get out. What’s so bad about that? Besides, everyone knows that our capacity is diminished and our resources are dwindling.

Worse, he sent the message that our capacity is diminished and our resources dwindling.

Oh, so… he told the truth? And admitted what everyone could already see? And acknowledged that we don’t have financing lined up for this escalation?

Obama would prefer that Afghanistan simply go away, so he can concentrate on his favored domestic priorities. But it’s his war now, and if it goes badly it could destroy his presidency. He can’t afford to slide this to the back burner. Unfortunately, he has just told the Taliban that all they have to do is wait us out for 18 months.

Actually, that’s not at all what he told the Taliban. He told them we’re coming in with greater numbers to destroy them, disrupt their way of life, and chase them from Afghanistan. Perhaps a slightly less Rumsfeldian view of the world would help you see what everyone else sees.

Fear not, though: the ever-vigilant Star commenters are here to put people like me back in our place:

Indeed.

(Shoshanna Johnson, BTW, is the first African American woman soldier captured as a prisoner of war in Iraq. And Phil McGraw never looked less a media whore than he did in this Larry King segment.)

Right now Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s treachery on Thursday is running neck and neck with unemployed Jason Rodriguez’ Orlando, Florida office rampage on Friday. The MSM has really won the trifecta this week, with slayer Anthony Sowell, and now these two. The wingnut bunch, led by Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck and their ilk are certainly postering for the cameras and for their own homemade videos. One of those homemade videos I’ve seen on Google insists that there is an al Qaeda terrorist cell in Texas. (They wish.) However, I think that Hasan’s actions are related to Rodriguez’, but have far more import.

Out of all the stories I have heard of the dead and wounded–some barely in their twenties and out of high school–I’m in horror and mourning for that Latina servicewoman, Pvt. Francheska Velez, pregnant with a wanted child, who was returning from her deployment in Iraq. Eventually, she would have been on her way back to Chicago for the holidays and for maternity leave.

Instead, she and her unborn baby are dead, murdered by Major Nidal Hasan.

[...] A friend of Velez’s, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing.

“She was like my sister,” Ramos, 21, said. “She was the most fun and happy person you could know. She never did anything wrong to anybody.”

Family members said Velez had recently returned from deployment in Iraq and had sought a lifelong career in the Army.

“She was a very happy girl and sweet,” said her father, Juan Guillermo Velez, his eyes red from crying. “She had the spirit of a child.”

Some of the wounded had already been wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. In other words, they’ve been wounded twice.

Lt. General Robert Cone, the base commander, ominously offered that several soldiers heard Major Hasan shout “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is great!” in Arabic, before opening fire. Cone also said officials had not confirmed that Hasan shouted it, but it is certainly being bandied about in the media as if he did. It is indeed incendiary if Hasan yelled that out, because certain Muslims have been known to shout “God is great” during political demonstrations as well as terrorist attacks. Until it’s been confirmed independently by others that Hasan said this, I’m inclined to give the fish eye to this claim. It’s too pat. As National Public Radio said yesterday:

Perhaps soldiers in the mayhem of the moment only imagined Hasan said “Allahu Akbar.” FBI investigators aren’t sure Hasan really did say those words before he started shooting.

Why? Because I think people need to tread light on the whole idea of Major Nidal Malik Hasan being an Islamic terrorist in the vein of al Qaeda or the Taliban. No doubt, Hasan was upset that President Obama wasn’t pulling out of Iraq or Afghanistan fast enough for his taste. No doubt, Hasan was being imitative of suicide bombers and terrorist groups that he came to admire. But imitation is not the same as actually being a indoctrinated stealth terrorist. Some people are really trying to fan the flames.

What comes up for me is that (1) Hasan seems more to me like a fearful, disgruntled employee of the U.S. government than an active affiliate of these groups; (2) President Obama is still pondering his options about our presence in Afghanistan, and an extreme act like this is tailor-made for him to tip farther in the direction Bush-era generals want him to go; and (3) this horrendous incident points once more to a broken military, desperate to keep even malcontents in whom they have invested in the Armed Forces because they are unable to find qualified replacements and/or to equip them adequately.

Hasan is in a coma now; some reports say he may be permanently paralyzed as a result of his wounds. I’d rather see him alive, responsive, and in a wheelchair at the docket of justice to explain himself rather than dead.

Some of you may be wondering how many loyal Muslims are serving in the armed forces of our country. There are between 3,000-15,000 of them, but some will not and are not required to disclose their religious affinity. They include native-born American Muslims, African Americans who convert to conventional Islam, and the children of Middle Eastern immigrants who have grown up in this country.

Muslims in the United States have been quick to jump into the media discussion, from the relatives of Hasan to the rather problematic CAIR (The Council on American Islamic Relations) to explain themselves once more to Americans and to disassociate themselves from the violence. It’s almost become a knee-jerk response for them, and I can well imagine how crazy-making this whole episode can be. To explain yourselves for the umpteenth time to your already hostile neighbors, and then to brace yourselves for retribution from those who just won’t understand that one or a few fanatics do not speak for an entire group.

As for the wounded, it is touch and go for some who may not survive. Your prayers are needed for their recovery, more than just sentiment, jingoism, nationalism, or hate.

Wisconsin has also lost two young servicepeople, with four wounded.

Other military sources said Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, and Russell Seager, 51, of Mount Pleasant, who were killed in Thursday’s shootings, were members of the 467th. So were Spc. Grant Moxon, 23, a mental health specialist from Lodi, who was shot in the leg, and Dorrie Carskadon, a social worker and the team leader working at the Madison Vet Center, who was also injured, they said.

Late Friday, a Sauk County family said their son, Sgt. John Pagel, 28, also was among the wounded.

Pagel, of Denzer, also was with the 467th Medical Detachment. He is married, has three children and works for a frozen food company, according to his stepmother, Marilyn Clifford.

Pagel was shot in the chest and the left arm during the shooting. Pagel was treated and released from a hospital, his family said.

Pfc. Amber Bahr, a nutritionist from Random Lake who was shot in the back, had been at Fort Hood about a year and apparently is not attached to the 467th.

And again it was a woman who brought someone to ground by their actions. Sgt. Kimberly Munday is being roundly lauded for her heroism for shooting Major Hasan down and saving the lives of others. But she too is not out of the woods. This young woman, the mother of two, lost so much blood, the medics first thought she would die. Her first words were, “Did anybody die?” It could mean that two things, did she stop the assailant, or did anyone die from the shootings.

She did stop the assailant. And she did stop further carnage.

I’ll probably say more about all this later. President Obama is delaying his visit to Japan to attend the funerals of the 13 servicepeople. Former President George W. Bush, that opportunist who helped to create this current mess, is also visiting the wounded. But as one commenter put it, this story is going to be hard to sort out, and people thinking that this is an open-and-shut case of Muslim-inspired terrorism are going to have to get rid of the simplistic view rather fast.

Delhi has got used to shocking news nowadays. Hence it wasn’t of much shocking to hear one Pushpam Kumar Sinha, a PhD scholar working on wave mechanics at IIT Delhi assaulted, strangled and burnt 19-year old Manipuri girl. Indian english media raised its eye brows exclaiming at an IIT-ian turning in to a cold blooded murderer. So how come a ‘gentle genius’, that’s what his relatives say, turned in to a killer overnight? The events that led to fateful night seem to be simple.

Police said that on Saturday around 4.30 p.m., Pushpam Kumar Sinha found that the girl was alone in the house. He entered the kitchen where she was and made advances towards her. When she protested, he got scared and strangled her to death.

“He feared that the girl would report about him to others and he would face police action. He then torched her face. But because of the fire, her torso also suffered 30 percent burn injuries” Dhaliwal said.

Earlier, the police thought it was a case of accidental fire. However, the post-mortem examination revealed that she did not die of burns but had been strangulated.

Dhaliwal said the girl`s sister Timila, who works in a Delhi restaurant, had during the investigations raised suspicions about her next door neighbour Sinha.

“Timila said he was trying to befriend her sister but there was never any occasion when she had made any complaint about him. On Diwali they had burnt fire crackers together, so he mistakenly thought that she was attracted to him” Dhaliwal said.

The usual thinking of the Indian male is Hasi toh Phasi!(if she laughs, then she is trapped) Police now claims he had mental disorders as if they hold degrees in psychology. we are not sure of this Obsessive Compulsive Disorder theory will really help or harm the accused. But whatever the name you put it, the otherwise enviable IITian, educated urban younster is yet another ‘victim’ of the same Hasi toh Phasi syndrome. This incident also proves that the education without imparting basic human values is futile.

The growing trend of crass consumerist culture which is shaping the urban male in to a robot who only gets excited to gizmos, girls and cash and the commodification of women by the Indian cinema which is being aired 24/7 from all the directions are the social causes for all these kind of unimaginable, inhuman excesses. There are more Sinhas and Shiney ahujas amongst us who are continuing to be ‘gentle genius’ for the simple fact that they haven’t got the opportunity.

Other than the sexual aspect, the racist aspect also plays a deep role in this episode. Indians who raise hue and cry over Australian racism are in reality very good at perpetrating racism on their fellow country men and women. Leave the centuries and centuries of caste oppression and untouchability system which still continues, the racism and bias towards north eastern people in recent times are reaching its heights.

A survey by the centre shows that 86% (or 86,000) of people from the northeast in Delhi face some or the other sort of discrimination on a daily basis. Sixteen severe cases of molestation, rape and brutality against people from the northeast were recorded in Delhi this year. Four of these took place in the last fortnight. They include Hongray’s murder, molestation of an Arunachal girl by school boys, molestation of a Naga girl and beating up of a Naga couple.

Kamakshi Sinha of Assam, who is pursuing an undergraduate course in DU, says, “The police circular is just a piece of paper. People call us ‘Chinky’ and other names, but the police laugh when we go and complain”Most girls from the region are even scared of approaching the police. “Many cases have come up where the police do not respond to our cries. We are treated like outcasts” said Priyadarshini Nath, a DU student.

“We are often blamed for dressing provocatively and inviting trouble. A week ago, some men punctured the car tyres of a Naga couple and beat them up. The police blamed the Naga couple for the incident” Nath said. For safety’s sake they live together in groups. But they are called names when they venture out. “People view us as objects of sexual abuse only because we look different and wear western outfits. It’s like our community versus theirs and we feel we can never intermingle” Kamakshi said.

Agatha Sangma, Minister of State for Rural Developmet and the youngest member of parliament had say with despair, that incidents of women from the north east being molested in Delhi has been quite rampant. The situation in Delhi has been disgraceful, she said.

Manipur and other north eastern states are burning for the last 50 years for the ‘crime’ of raising self determination demands. Indian state is crushing the lives of Manipuris with an iron fist saying they shouldn’t ask for secession at one hand. On the other hand, proud indians are mocking at them and at times murdering them calling Chinkies. Wonder what’s the option left?

This sad episode reminds me the forgotten Irom Sharmila whose hungerfast is entering the tenth year, yes it’s not a joke, the tenth year, this november. One more corpse from delhi is certainly reiterating with force, the cause for which Irom fights for.

So, here is the story of another Indian (by birth) winning a world acclaim and the media and a section of the Indian masses trying to latch on to any iota of ‘Indianess’ that might exist in Venki Ramakrishnan, to be part of that hard-earned accomplishment of the noble prize winner.  Are we in such a drought of an Indian exploit, which makes us cling on to any Indianess in individual achievers across the globe?

Other than the scientific fraternity, who has had the privilege to work with the professor, how many on earth would have really known this individual till the day he won this accolade? Even by the scientist’s own claim, he had visited India very few times in the last 3 decades and that is how much amount of Indianess left in him, after having relocated to the lands of opportunity in pursuit of his dream.

May be as an individual who knows the professor or who has been associated with him or his work in some way, I would celebrate his success. How can the country take credit and be part of the success?

As the scientist himself has said it many times, let us not judge accomplishments by mere awards, for there are hundreds of other scientists who toil under the limited infrastructure at our disposal in our country and who every day wrack their brains to fight the bureaucratic and political tangles within our scientific establishments.

Given that, let us celebrate the individual’s Nobel on the merits of his accomplishment as a member of the scientific fraternity and not as an ‘Indian’. May be India provided the genes or the few fortunate teachers sowed the seeds of wisdom on Venki Ramakrishnan in his early school days. But, we lost that and continue to lose that privilege with the brain drain of so many individuals who migrated to greener pastures – more rightly so.

For a nation of more than a billion, there is no dearth of silly controversies and I cannot but admire the scientist’s response on nationalistic jingoism – one of the Best I have read to reinforce simple common sense!

” extreme nationalism “

its more a kind of term may be started by Hitlar or Nepolian..and osam bin laden is the follower of tradition.

There is, by now, an all too familiar refrain that goes something like, “Our military is under-appreciated” or “they don’t get the respect they deserve.” Janet, at the SCSU Scholars blog, argues that we take for granted the work the military does, that rights and freedoms are earned by military fighting, and that criticizing their actions “will lead to losses very few of us can imagine.” In an earlier post, she claims “we take our 100% voluntary military for granted,” calling it “the most humane military that has ever existed.”

(In all transparency, I took similar positions during my first year at SCSU. You can read a letter I wrote to the school newspaper in response to Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war speech on campus. “That’s just typical American rhetoric from those who take their freedom and liberty for granted,” I wrote. Needless to say, I no longer hold these views.)

Of course, such sentiments are supported by calls for us to “Support our troops,” a completely vacuous slogan. It’s an empty and meaningless piece of propaganda, but that’s for good reason. It’s a phrase jingoists can rally around, that no sensible American could possibly be against (because it lacks meaning). If you dissent, you’re un-American, immoral filth, and so on. You feel guilty. You know — Americanism and nationalism. You can’t be against that, right? So that’s the first goal. But even more importantly, it diverts our attention away from asking important questions. Questions like, “Should we support this foreign policy?” “Is this war in Afghanistan right?” “Is what we’re doing moral?” You’re not supposed to ask those questions. You’re supposed to ask, “Do you support our troops?” That’s what propaganda is there for. As Noam Chomsky explains, “propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” It’s there to control public thought. So, of course, you “support our troops” and display yellow ribbons; you’re patriotic.

The military is to be left unquestioned, lest we face “unimaginable losses.” We’re supposed to forget (or not be told about) the terrible atrocities committed by our military in the name of righteousness, liberty, fairness, democracy, or all the other similar platitudes. We’re not supposed to mention the wars of conquests and terror carried out by this utterly humane military might. Anything we do overseas is right by definition because we’re doing it. We are, after all, exceptional.

That’s extreme jingoism. And it’s dangerous.

Excerpt of Real American in the above video: “ACORN is a fraud! . . .  Obama sucks! . . . These people are ACORN! . . . ACORN people! . . . You got the wrong symbol here, boy! . . . This is the ugly face of ACORN!”

I want to be fair to the Real American who yelled at the black women and children. After all, enabling tea-baggers by vending jingoist protest-paraphernalia is not much better than offering free tax advice to pimps prostituting young girls.

If I can’t decode what you’re saying, it doesn’t matter what you’re saying. I feel that this applies to both written and spoken discourse. In the case of the former, that’s the subject for a posting all of its own: the downfall of expository writing among high school and college students. However, I feel that kind of topic requires the right frame of mind and perhaps the gathering of a cane to shake while I mutter to myself. Instead, it is the latter case, that of spoken commmunication, that leads to today’s entry on this semi-regularly updated weblog.

The impetus for the topic was having to endure an hour long lecture yesterday from which I maybe gleaned ten percent of the actual content. It was a talk by Jurgen Habermas, who is a brilliant man and has certainly earned his place as one of the (if not “the”) leading intellectuals in contemporary philosophy. Whatever one thinks of his critique of the public sphere or his problematizing of political philosophy, it remains that his written work represents watershed moments in contemporary European thought. That said, over the course of the hour yesterday I had no clue what the man was talking about. I like to think that this is not because I am somehow an intellectually deficient person, and, quite frankly, it wasn’t the content of the lecture that stymied me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I understood the main thrust of the arguement: human rights emerge upon the recognition of an active or impending threat to human dignity, which itself is a social construction requiring the acknoweldgement of an inherent equality of social standing and merit among all memebers of a society. That’s it: that’s all I got in an hour. There was some discussion of morality and ethics, but aside from that… nothing. Again, this is not because the concepts were somehow obtuse. It is simply because I couldn’t understand the man.

This is a problem I have. If it’s that difficult of a task for me to parse a stream of sounds into recognizable phonemes and then recombine this phonemic elements into functional vocabulary, then I’d almost just rather request a copy of the talk and read through it on my own time.  And I fully admit: this is my problem, it is not the speaker’s problem. Or at least that would be true in theory. However, when an auditorium full of people excited about the opportunity to hear a notable academic deliver a paper (and I’m certainly one of those people that feels that when important people grace you with their presence, you show up) leave the lecture with a collective “WTF” on their faces and repeated shrugs of shoulders, then something has gone awry. And for once, I don’t think that I can blame this on poor amplification set-up. It was quite simply that the man was incomprehensible.

I got into a fight with a colleage once about this very same topic. I attended a lecture by Alain Badiou on the topic of Pier Paolo Pasolini and the translation of poetry. It was moderated by a professor of comparative literature, who was frequently called upon to recite sections of poetry in different languages (or at least in those languages not used by Badiou himself). However, many of these recitations were stilted in basic delivery, which is a problem when one of the arguments of the lecture was the transformation of meter and meaning in translation. In addition, Badiou’s accent was such that English delivery of the talk itslef became problematic after a while. Again, I’m not saying that this is his fault (as I frantically backtrack to keep any sort of jingo-istic implications at bay). And yet, the same WTF-esque reactions abounded.

The argument in which I found myself enmeshed was as follows. My colleague (bless her heart, she of an uncomplicated mind) thought that we should simply be appreciative that a man of his esteem would grace us with his presence. I agreed, but argued that a) he didn’t simply decide to cross the Atlantic out of the generosity in his heart and b) if a tree falls in the forest in front of an audience of people but no one can hear the thud because an elderly man was muttering in incomprehensible French, does anybody really give a damn and why are they still standing in the forest waiting for the tree to fall (ok, perhaps not the most succinct argument, but I feel it holds). This resulted in her shouting “Well, maybe it’s just that you hate everything,” which I feel is the rhetorical equivalent of holding one’s breath, stomping one’s feet, and taking one’s marbles and returning to one’s home. I was waiting for her to call me a poopyhead and throw a rock at me (in retrospect possibly in an elementary school playground manner… needless to say I did not sleep with her, for many a reason…).

But that’s really my feeling in a nutshell: I’ll show up, I’ll make a best effort to follow along with notebook out and pen in hand, but if some sort of linguistic boundary prevents actual comprehension from happening, I’m done. This is not to say I’m storming out shouting “Speak American!” [sic] and waving the stars and stripes. But I’ll certainly recognize that while sitting there for the rest of the lecture, my focus will be on all kinds of other tasks/foci: weekend plans, papers that need to be written, papers that need to be graded, new movie releases, dinner plans, tv program schedules, etc.

And I’m ok with that, because, in summary: I came, I saw, I made a grocery list.

The word “Patriotism” is used a lot these days. Some people understand patriotism to be the unconditional and unquestioning support of the government, others hold that patriotism is the defense and advocacy of certain values, and still others maintain that patriotism is any participation in the process of government. But what is true patriotism? At its most basic level it’s simply a love of one’s country- but what does that mean exactly? Who is being patriotic, the person who supports the war in Iraq or the person who opposes it? Who loves their country more, the person who opposes high taxes or the person who lobbies for them? In reality, you can’t attach patriotism to any one side of the political spectrum- after all, a person who believes that strict gun control is right for the country is being just as patriotic as the person who wants as little gun control as possible (provided his motivation is a desire to do what is right for his country).

Sadly, the word “Patriotism” is often misused to the point where its meaning changes altogether, resulting in what we would call “Jingoism”- the belief that one’s government is right in all things. We see this on both sides- people are labeled as unpatriotic (even anti-American) for protesting the war in Iraq and people are labeled as unpatriotic for refusing to support Obama’s policies. If patriotism is “the love of one’s country” then jingoism is a dangerous obsession.

Communists have experienced this more than others- indeed, the 1950s government detachment for investigating and combating the Communist ideal in America was called “The House Un-American Activities Committee”. Now were several problems with the committee, primarily that its creation was a gross violation of the constitution, and also because of the assumption it made that Communism was somehow unpatriotic and anti-American.

Now this raises an interesting question- which of these two world views is more patriotic? Capitalism or Communism?

Well, firstly let us investigate the ideals of Capitalism. As has been stated many times by now, the purpose of Capitalism is capital- money, which is to be obtained through the buying, selling, and general exchange of goods and services. Government regulation is equated with corruption, and tariffs and subsidies (created primarily for the purpose of benefiting the country’s local infrastructures and citizens) are deemed to be nothing more than hindrances to the economy’s growth. So is Capitalism patriotic? Absolutely not. If the purpose of Capitalism is the acquisition of money, then the Capitalist’s loyalties are not to his country but to the markets- and a country is made up of people, not economies. For example, a person in one country could attempt to acquire money through selling products- this is Capitalism. However, if the products he is selling are the country’s natural resources, or even sweat-shop labor, then this- while Capitalist- is far from patriotic. Or take for example the selling of faulty or shoddy products. If a person sells products decorated in lead-based paints, then he- while fully following the creed of Capitalism- is damaging the public and the country.

So what about Communism? Well, the primary purpose of Communism is an attempt to improve society by creating justice and equality through the abolition of the class system, private property, and currency, and the establishment of a free, democratic government. Simplified by Chairman Mao, the Communist’s primary goal is to “serve the people”. Now as stated above, a country is not comprised of its wealth or markets or economy but of its people. What could be more patriotic than a system where serving the public is the end goal?

In short, in a contest between the two, Communism is by far more patriotic than Capitalism can ever hope to be.

Okay, so I promise after this I’ll let the coffee comments (see previous couple of posts) go.

Yesterday I listed some common comments that I found on a blog from someone trying to find an American-made coffee maker. I listed those comments. Now I want to address them.

I just think it’s *better* for the US economy if we would buy more “Made in US”.
It sure seems like it would be. It only makes sense. Except, it may not actually be any better that we make our own stuff (economy-wise, I mean).

If something, anything, is made in a foreign country and it’s far below standard, I personally feel it’s the fault of the AMERICAN manufacturer that sent our jobs overseas.
Good point. However… The American manufacturer is only supplying us what we want to buy. So I think it’s really our fault, as consumers. We vote with dollars.

USA manufacturers have not always been angels when it comes to purity, safety, and telling the truth about their products either.
Correct. But at least we know there are some standards and fail-safes here, like the CSPC and FTC and impassioned bloggers who help keep an eye on companies who screw up.

Just because something is made in China doesnt mean anything really, there are millions of companies that outsource their labour; it’s cheaper. Even good quality brands do it. It’s just their standards that you have to look out for. As in the company standards, not China standards.
Hard to argue with the  idea that the quality of a product is dictated by the company outsourcing the labor. At some point, they made a decision about the slightly better construction from the slightly more expensive labor, or the slightly cheaper option. That goes for whoever the company, whatever they make.

My problem is that China is not America’s best friend and I fear what they can do to weaken us by their intentional ’slip ups.’ Lead poisoning causes brain damage in children, for example.
I’m not about to suggest that Chinese manufacturers are intentionally lead poisoning the future best and brightest of America’s children. Common sense tells me that their standards and checks aren’t quite as tight as they may have been in a U.S. shop. But the idea of a country, any country, controlling the production of vast amounts of your stuff makes you worry about the “what ifs” that the future relationship with said country may bring. If during WWII Germany was making most of our stuff, they may have had more capacity for their own military machine, and we would have had less. Still, I’m not sure that I want to establish trade regulations based on eventual wars. But that’s the sort of thing government economists do, I think.

America needs jobs and manufacturing must return to help the economy. If enough people refused to buy ‘China Made’ they might consider coming back.
I’m sorta feeling false, then true on this one. I’m not actually convinced that we do need manufacturing jobs. If we’re moving up the food chain, away from the menial tasks and manual labor, as long as we’re evolving it may not be so bad. I’m no government economist, but theoretically we’d have a better society if we weren’t all doing tedious manual labor for eight bucks an hour, would we? I do think that if enough–which is probably some massive percentage, btw–of us stopped buying Chinese-made products, manufacturers would turn to other countries of cheap labor whenever possible. Theoretically, they’d do the same thing if we insisted on American-made stuff. But if our socks and backpacks and DVD players were suddenly universally MITUSA, we couldn’t afford them. We vote with our dollars, remember?

Many factories are full of 12-year-olds working 16-hour shifts. While some products from China are [made] well, much of the economy [is] based on slave labor.
Again, I can’t argue with the concept that many factories in many countries are full of labor that is, by our standards, horrific. But if your other option is even more underpaid and more horrific, wouldn’t you rather work in a less horrific factory? (The same thing could sort of be said for our own jobs. If we have the option of toiling over a sewing machine in a hot factory, or toiling over a CAD design system in an office, wouldn’t that office–no matter how awful–be a less horrific option that we should gladly trade up for? Aren’t those the jobs we’re trading for by outsourcing our “unskilled” labor?)

My rule is not to buy anything I put in my mouth from China. It’s getting harder and harder.
Probably not a bad rule. Or maybe you wear a tin hat. That’s the thing; it’s so hard to know what’s smart and what’s paranoid.

There are 3 main reasons I will NOT buy any products from China–1) Safety 2) Environmental (buy locally-within US) and 3) Human Rights Violations.
1) Okay. We’ve got rules here that decrease the odds of making lead toys. 2) I’ll buy that, but probably as much for the transportation issues. 3) Hard to argue with that. Sorta seems impossible for the layman to know exactly what’s going on where anywhere overseas.

I have been a label reader for 20 years plus. My friends used to laugh at me. I too will not purchse products from China… Safety, human rights, the environment & the loss of jobs and sturdy product once made in the U.S.
Your friends sound mean. The biggest travesty is, probably, the “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” thing. Although even if we made stuff here, it would probably still be mostly crappy plastic. Again, if you want a well made thing, buy well made things. Then they’ll make more of them to sell us. Stop just finding the cheapest thing and buying it all the time. If you can afford to, I mean.

If Americans would network once a month, every month, getting the word out via the Internet, ceasing all purchases of China-made junk (often dangerous) we may drive our point home.
I’m not very good at networking. I vote that we vote with our money. Seriously, if what we really want is no stuff from China, JUST DON’T EVER BUY STUFF FROM CHINA. Get everyone to do that, and then we’re all set. (The same thing applies to everything you buy. If you hate peas and you don’t want grocery stores to stock peas, stop buying them. Then convince everyone else not to buy them either. As soon as nobody’s buying them, nobody will sell them. The same holds true for all sorts of things we used to buy and they used to sell–galoshes, VCRs, horn rimmed glasses, poodle skirts, typewriters, etc.

Bunn seems to have gone to China…
Well that stinks. But why again?

What really amazes me is stores like #1 retailer Wal-Mart once built its reputation on buy American and now nothing in their stores is made outside of China and third world countries. What a great retailer for our country.
Wal-Mart sells what we buy. Period.

If you buy Chinese junk, you hate America. End of story. Buy American.
I think if you write comments like this you probably don’t get much of the complexity of how this whole thing works. It feels good to feel like you’re bringing back jobs we may not need, and voting with your dollars even if it’s a statistically insignificant amount, and if you’re not just literally buying MITUSA stuff 100% of the time forever you’re breaking your own dumb rule. Also, I think you’re probably a jerk. You make it hard for the rest of us to shop with a conscience for fear of being seen as small-minded jingoists like you. (Who’d have thunk it? Since when am I moderate?) Also also, you might just be an idiot. By this logic, the unbelievably vast majority of Americans (those of us who buy socks and TVs and eyeglasses) hate America. That’s just dumb. Please don’t comment on the web any more. Seriously.

###

Remember that site I linked to the other day? And remember the great comment I pulled out for your benefit? (If you don’t, it was here, and this: ”Being careful about what you buy is always a good idea, including when it was made in your own country.”)

The comments from that page illustrate many of the passionate arguments one can make, with others or with oneself, when considering the purposes and effects of buying things that are MITUSA compared to buying things that are not. Here are some of my favorite comments:

I just think it’s *better* for the US economy if we would buy more “Made in US”.

If something, anything, is made in a foreign country and it’s far below standard, I personally feel it’s the fault of the AMERICAN manufacturer that sent our jobs overseas.

USA manufacturers have not always been angels when it comes to purity, safety, and telling the truth about their products either.

Just because something is made in China doesnt mean anything really, there are millions of companies that outsource their labour; it’s cheaper. Even good quality brands do it. It’s just their standards that you have to look out for. As in the company standards, not China standards.

My problem is that China is not America’s best friend and I fear what they can do to weaken us by their intentional ’slip ups.’ Lead poisoning causes brain damage in children, for example.

America needs jobs and manufacturing must return to help the economy. If enough people refused to buy ‘China Made’ they might consider coming back.

Many factories are full of 12 year old working 16-hour shifts. While some products from China are [made] well, much of the economy [is] based on slave labor.

My rule is not to buy anything I put in my mouth from China. It’s getting harder and harder.

There are 3 main reasons I will NOT buy any products from China–1) Safety 2) Environmental (buy locally-within US) and 3) Human Rights Violations.

I have been a label reader for 20 years plus. My friends use to laugh at me. I too will not purchse products from China… Safety, human rights, the environment & the loss of jobs and sturdy product once made in the U.S.

If Americans would network once a month, every month, getting the word out via the Internet, ceasing all purchases of China-made junk (often dangerous) we may drive our point home.

Bunn seems to have gone to China…

What really amazes me is stores like #1 retailer Wal-Mart once built its reputation on buy American and now nothing in their stores is made outside of China and third world countries. What a great retailer for our country.

If you buy Chinese junk, you hate America. End of story. Buy American.

Aside from the last comment, posted by “Patriot,” I can’t help but feeling like all of those comments are right. And I also can’t help but feeling like all of those comments are wrong.

###

it’s a tale as old as the use of a clock,
peeps from another camp are seen as lesser stock,
flocks from other borders, holding other beliefs,
praying to other gods, following other chiefs,
they mean much less than the fool next door,
so it’s easy to kill them off as we explore
just how far we can go as a nation,
even if it means another mans extermination
in the name of security, for the sake of our tribe,
they must have been a threat since our leaders don’t lie,
do they?

I think it takes being high to enjoy this song. If you’re not high, then you just get depressed. But if you are, you just laugh your depression off and really enjoy this song.

This is the type of song that was most probably originally conceived by a fourth grader who had to do a project on a word, you know, describe the word through imagery. The word he was assigned was “jingoism.” This was a final project of the quarter or semester or whatever; which merited a lot of work by the students. Now, this kid was an outcast, so he had to work alone, and most probably his father played the guitar. Now, after he came home one day, and answered the question of how his day was, his father decided to help him out on the project since it counted for such a large portion of his grade. Judging on the nature of the song, I’m pretty sure that the kid’s father disregarded the fact that his son was only in the fourth grade and decided that the song would be best written during an acid trip. So, most probably against the behest of his mother, the kid dropped acid with his father and wrote this song.

But that wasn’t all. Or at the very least it doesn’t describe how Kid Rock got his hands on this gem. So here’s how I explain that. See, Kid Rock isn’t someone that I would describe as smart. And he definitely tried his fair share of illicit drugs, sadly leaving his brain in the same state as Ozzy Osbourne’s. Which is sad because his brain degeneration (which wasn’t that impressive to begin with) wasn’t accompanied by any ways to definitely distinguish his mental impediments, well, except for the way he looks. Anyway, my theory is that he took something one day and watched Billy Madison, which made him think that the moral of the story was that he should try to do the same thing. So he did. The only problem was that he couldn’t pass the fourth grade. So, seven years later, after presenting his horrible presentation on the word “censorship,” which he thought was a Japanese martial arts warrior who liked the sea, he heard this song and decided to copy it and claim it as his own.

Now, you may say I’m being a little mean to Kid Rock. Well, he’s a fucking asshole for writing this retarded piece of hateful shit that bastardizes every value that any American ever held dear. It’s a sad song that will leave you heartbroken, unless you’re high, which will allow you to laugh off these ridiculous statements.

Here are some: “So Dont Tell Me Who’s Wrong And Right When Liberty Starts Slipping Away/ And If You Aint Gonna Fight Get Out Of The Way.” This phrase is exactly what brought us into our war in Iraq and allowed the Bush administration to torture people. It basically says that if I say that liberty is at stake, that’s the end of the discussion and I can do whatever I want, and if you don’t let me do whatever I want, you’re evil and you don’t breath red white and blue as I do.

So I implore you to listen to this song when you’re high, and please don’t if you’re sober. I hate to be repetitive, but if you’re high, you can just laugh it off as just one more negative consequence of the failed education system and incest, combined with routine depravation of the necessary amount of oxygen for the brain to function. If you’re sober, it’s the sort of thing that’ll make you quit your job and sign up as a member of ACORN, the Weather Undergroun and Michael Moore’s film crew.

Dear Reader,

A few years ago (1984) some obscure academic was making an address to a bunch of Rotarians in Warrnambool, and the main point of his little after-dinner speech was to say that Asians were going to take over Australia unless we did something about it.

The “we” he was referring to would have been other white men like him, i would be guessing.

So this made him famous overnight. On account of being a racist cunt.

Rarely in the history of the modern world has a nation given such preference to a tiny ethnic minority of its population as the Australian Government has done in the past few years, making that minority the favoured majority in its immigration policy,

quoth he. It is unclear how “Asians” (one third of the world’s population) could be described as “a tiny ethnic minority,” but there you go.

People were shocked by this stunning piece of xenophobia from someone who had a locker in the Professor’s change room at a University, so he followed up his little rant with a piece in The Age:

I do not accept the view, widely held in the Federal Cabinet, that some kind of slow Asian takeover of Australia is inevitable. I do not believe that we are powerless. I do believe that we can with good will and good sense control our destiny … As a people, we seem to move from extreme to extreme. In the past 30 years the government of Australia has moved from the extreme of wanting a white Australia to the extreme of saying that we will have an Asian Australia and that the quicker we move towards it the better.

He coined the term “Asianisation,” and became the poster-geezer for racial intolerance and anti-Asian redneckery. He went on to be shunned by his University, and so he wrote a book called “All for Australia,” which apparently sold well in the sort of regional bookshops that also stock a wide range of feral pig hunting magazines.

Blainey was the guy’s name, and he was an expert in History. Believe it or not.

Hilariously, in 2005, this remarkable xenophobe had a Chair in History named after him at the University of Melbourne, where, two decades earlier, students protesting his racist views forced him to cancel his lecture series on “How to Hate Asians Like a Proper White Man” because of fears for his safety.

He was in the paper again today, this prick.

Prof Geoffrey Blainey said one of the biggest changes over the past 50 years was the astonishing improvement in pronunciation and grammar.

“That clearly has come from television and radio and films, not from what’s been taught in schools,” he told the Herald Sun.

Prof Blainey said earlier generations used to say things like “them days” and “all of youses”.

“I’m not criticising them, that’s what they learned in childhood, but that old grammar has virtually vanished,” he said. “Even when you listen to the footballers today, they all speak well.”

And for “that old grammar” read “that bad grammar.”

Not content with attacking Asian people, he has now turned his interests toward linguistic eugenics.

Oh, yes, Professor. Let’s all talk like pompous stuck up ponces with plums in our mouths and our tongue up Queen Victoria’s sphincter.

You know, the way *you* talk.

Personally, i find that “old grammar” you deride so readily as being the domain of the uneducated (note the reference to footballers who – when you’re a Historian – are uneducated thugs with nary a braincell to rub together) to be a defining aspect of my ethnic background.

As an Historian, you would probably realise that we Australian-English speakers have only been developing our dialect for a little over two hundred years. We’ve just started differentiating our tongue from Nanna England, and now you want us to be stripped of this uniqueness and turned into TV-English speakers instead?

How about you just fuck off back to your History Wars and leave us alone.

(The History Wars, dear Reader, are over whether or not we non-Aborigine Australians should hate the Aborigine Australians. He’s pro hate, BTW, in case you couldn’t guess.)

The article reporting all this senile ranting concludes to reassure the glancers of the Herald-Sun that Blainey hasn’t given up hating Asians, and wanting to warn us of their threat to our way of life.

Prof Blainey said he was also very concerned about universities becoming export industries and feeling pressure not to fail full fee-paying foreign students.

For “full fee-paying foreign students” read “Asian students.”

Why are we hearing from this washed-up old Jingoist? Well, he’s just been nominated by the National Trust as one of Australia’s “100 national Living Treasures.”

I. Shit. You. Not.

Yours multiculturally,
Gullybogan

Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven, Nine-Eleven
I heard perhaps the worst song I’ve heard in years – worse even than Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up” – while grocery shopping on Sunday: Aaron Tippin’s “Where The Stars and Stripes and Eagles Fly.”

This song wasn’t written in a Los Angeles studio by cynical shysters looking to cash in on nationalistic sentiment, but you couldn’t tell by listening to it. It has nothing going for it except its patriotism, and it’s not even good patriotism. Rather than putting art in the service of sentiment, Tippin simply checks off every item on the Feel-Good ‘Murrican Song checklist, line by line. The resulting 3:42 potboiler plods through its images like a bus driver calling out stops:

• God
  
• Stars and stripes
  
• Eagles
  
• Dreams
  
• Hard work
  
• the Statue of Liberty
  
• the Liberty Bell
  
• Freedom
  
• The price of Freedom
  
• “I pledge allegiance to the flag”
  
• “And if that bothers you, well that’s too bad”
  
• Pride
  
• Raising a family
  
• Doing things the same way Dad did
  

The next song after this was a Sousa march, leading me to wonder if September 11th Weekend now merited every patriotic song in the catalog on Shaw’s Muzak station.

You Baby Emcees Drink Pedialyte
I was in the Enormous Room on Saturday, having a few drinks and chilling between other engagements. The DJ always picks a good selection of tracks to groove to, but plays them too loud for conversation. This leads to a chill music appreciation as you nurse the Enormous Room’s hipster-bait^*.

I started tapping my toes as Jurassic 5’s “Quality Control” bounced to life over the speakers. The mix of talented and toneful lyricists with Cut Chemist’s well-harvested beats never fails to put a party in the right frame of mind. That’s a sign of true quality: an album that can still move you, even nine years after holy shit, Quality Control is NINE YEARS OLD? And I wilted back into the couch.

The young have no appreciation for classics. Greg Wymer recounted a story to me on Saturday about his most recent DJing gig at The Joshua Tree in Allston. He put on Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September,” since “this is the one time of the year I can always get away with playing that.” A strapless, tanned twenty-something marched into the booth a few seconds later. “Did someone request this?” she asked. No. “So you put this on yourself?” Yes. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

Fuck you, you Allston scenester. If it weren’t for Earth, Wind and Fire, you wouldn’t even be alive.

_______________
^* Hipsters reliably order the cheapest non-Budweiser beer on the menu, in this case Red Stripe ($4).

National Park Service photo from September 11, 2001

Whew. Another 9/11 anniversary has come and gone.

I wasn’t going to write about 9/11, although I have plenty that I could say about it. I could relate my memories of that uber-memorable day; I worked at one of Sacramento’s tallest office buildings at the time, and I remember the local and national hysteria on that and the many following days.

Most of all, what 9/11 means to me is the hysteria that followed, the belligerent jingoism that I found to be unsettling to frightening, and how the unelected Bush regime — although, we would find out in 2004, “President” Bush had received an August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” — milked 9/11 until the cow ran dry. Indeed, 9/11 served the Bush regime, like the Reichstag fire served the Third Reich, all the way to “re”-election in 2004. (The Democrats would retake Congress two years later and it’s been downhill for the Repugnicans ever since.) 

I wasn’t going to write about the 9/11 anniversary at all this year until I just read a Reuters news article on how there has been opposition to including, in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, scheduled to open by 2013, information on the 19 9/11 hijackers.

Apparently, originally the museum was going to display videos that 9/11 hijackers had made before the attacks to explain their motives, but this was too controversial, and so the exhibit on the hijackers will be limited to photos and written texts.

Americans don’t want to even be exposed to the other side of the story when it comes to American history.

All that Americans want to hear about Christopher Columbus, for instance, is that he “discovered” the “New” World. They don’t want to hear the part where, among other things, he enslaved natives as part of his quest for riches for the Spanish crown, and he helped to open up the “New” World to later white European exploitation, which would include, of course, the decimation of the native peoples of the entire continent and the enslavement of Africans.

Similarly, the Thanksgiving myth of the pilgrims and the natives enjoying a feast together glosses over the actual history of the genocide of the natives by the white colonizers.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Tomorrow’s American history is being made today, and if head-in-the-sand Americans have their way, the myth of 9/11 will be that the United States of America was attacked by “freedom-hating terrorists” on September 11, 2001 – the “terrorists” hated “freedom” so much that they decided to take out, in a suicide mission, the World Trade Center, the center of the capitalistic exploitation of the peoples of the world — oops, my bad; of course the WTC was the planetary center of freedom. We’re good, they’re bad, they attacked us because they’re evil, freedom-hating animals and we’re freed0m-lovin’ angels, God’s chosen, even. End of story. That is the 9/11 myth in a nutshell.

Listening to the hijackers give their reasons for their suicide mission doesn’t mean that you have to agree with what they have to say. It certainly doesn’t mean that you have to agree with what they did. But you won’t know the whole story of 9/11 until you do listen to what they had to say about what they did.

Wikipedia, in its entry “September 11 attacks,” has a section titled “Motive.” Here the section is:

All of the fatwas [Islamic edicts] before September 11, 2001 from Osama Bin Laden have a consistent theme: U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia. In 1998 Bin Laden said in a fatwa: “For more than seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.”

The attacks were consistent with the overall mission statement of al-Qaeda, as set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, [et. al.]. This statement begins by quoting the Koran as saying, “slay the pagans wherever ye find them” and extrapolates this to conclude that it is the “duty of every Muslim” to “kill Americans anywhere.”

Bin Laden elaborated on this theme in his “Letter to America” of October 2002: “You are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its constitution and laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms absolute authority to the Lord and your Creator.”

[I have to interject here and note that it is American wingnuts who also believe that U.S. law should be based upon woefully outdated religious texts. Theocracy is bad unless it's "Christian" theocracy, you see.]

Many of the eventual findings of the 9/11 Commission with respect to motives have been supported by other experts. Counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke explains in his 2004 book Against All Enemies that U.S. foreign policy decisions, including “confronting Moscow in Afghanistan, inserting the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf,” and “strengthening Israel as a base for a southern flank against the Soviets” contributed to al-Qaeda’s motives.

Others, such as Jason Burke, foreign correspondent for The Observer, focus on a more political aspect to the motive, stating that “bin Laden is an activist with a very clear sense of what he wants and how he hopes to achieve it. Those means may be far outside the norms of political activity [...] but his agenda is a basically political one.”

A variety of scholarship has also focused on bin Laden’s overall strategy as a motive for the attacks. For instance, correspondent Peter Bergen argues that the attacks were part of a plan to cause the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, thereby forcing Muslims to confront the “evils” of a non-Muslim government and establish conservative Islamic governments in the region.

Michael Scott Doran, correspondent for Foreign Affairs, further emphasizes the “mythic” use of the term “spectacular” in bin Laden’s response to the attacks, explaining that he was attempting to provoke a visceral reaction in the Middle East and ensure that Muslim citizens would react as violently as possible to an increase in U.S. involvement in their region.

So it seems to be much more complicated than the overly simplistic “They hate us for our freedom.” U.S. meddling in the Middle East — in Muslim holy land — including, of course, the U.S. government’s support of Israel, the No. 1 recipient of U.S. foreign aid, seems to be the No. 1 reason that 9/11 happened.

But Americans put their fingers in their ears and sing, “La la la la la la — we can’t hear you!”

Which, of course, won’t prevent another 9/11.

In any case, I’m happy that the unelected Bush regime is gone and I’m happy that 9/11 no longer is an effective tool of fear and control, which, when you think about it, ironically is a form of domestic terrorism, only it’s treason, too, because it’s Americans terrorizing other Americans, such as with the Bush regime’s bogus color-coded terrorist-strike alerts.

I don’t miss those days, those McCarthyesque days of bogus terrorist-strike alerts and dissenters of the unelected, war-mongering Bush regime being labeled as terrorist sympathizers.

Wingnut Glenn Beck does, though; his “9/12 Project,” according to its website home page

…is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with red states, blue states, or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principles of the greatest nation ever created.

Bullshit. What he is talking about is not national unity or patriotism or anything like that, but pure, raw, Nazi-ish jingoism, which is “unity” based upon fear and ignorance and xenophobia. (In George Orwell’s 1984, the repressive rulers ["Big Brother'] use fabricated enemies and constant fabricated warfare to keep the masses terrified and thus to keep the masses in line.) And, of course, the stupid white men like Beck are to be the ones to “lead” us out of the fear that they themselves stoke at the same time.

No, I refuse to go back to Beck’s Orwellian “vision” of how “great” things were on September 12, 2001.

We had eight long years of ruination by stupid white men during the unelected reign of BushCheneyCorp.

To even more of that we need to say to the treasonous wingnuts like Beck: Over our dead bodies.

And to ensure that we don’t have another 9/11 and more post-terrorist-strike national hysteria that the wingnutty fascists like the members of BushCheneyCorp and their supporters like Beck use for their own political gain, we need to learn from history for once. Part of that history is that the other peoples of the world have hated us Americans much more for our intentional ignorance of the wrongs that our nation has done unto them than for anything like our “freedom.”

And yes, learning that history means listening to what the 9/11 hijackers had to say and jettisoning our intentional ignorance once and for all.

Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum Save the World Despite Marital Instability

I am the kind of mentally misappropriated man who has seen Independence Day more than twice in a single day. I cannot deny that my fearsome habit had something to do with this, but even worse, I couldn’t deny having enjoyed it everytime.  This fine film was on the list of events for this night. Once myself and my friends had begun our descent into beligerent patriotism, we leapt right into this evenings feature. But not without special rules. The average man may find it moderately difficult to sit through Independence Day without shouting and whooping, and we were not average men. True patriots, the 4 of us, and with that kind of readiness to chant “U.S.A!” at the first sign of President Bill Pullman our voices would quickly overwhelm the fine acting at play in this film. We needed something to prevent that. Alcohol was just the thing. The rules are as follows.

1) Everytime Will Smith does something stereotypical of African-Americans, you must drink.
2) Everytime Jeff Goldblum or Judd Hirsch do something stereotypical of Jewish-             Americans, you must drink.
3) Everyime something explodes, you must drink.
4) Everytime something “free” happens, you must drink.

To any outsider these rules may have seemed overly vague, and perhaps even racially charged, but allow me to get down to brass tacks. This was a movie called “Independence Day” in which the United States appears to single handedly save the world. Detractors of my particular line of reasoning may claim that there is “international cooperation”, but its very clear that the entire world is simply sitting around scratching their cobblers waiting for those damn yanks to figure it all out. As this was a movie wholly concerned with the American myth, it seems almost obvious that it should embrace many of the cultures this fine country is built on, and that I should take a drink in honor of that fine tradition everytime one of the attached stereotypes should rear itself. The third rule, is of course, very obvious. When something blows up, which is not as often as I would like, one must drink. Around the 90 minute mark my associates and I, well into it at this point, began to argue over whether or not we were drinking for fire or the actual catalyst explosion, this argument was quickly put down, as we were soon after required to drink as the result of combustion. The 4^th rule is perhaps something that not everyone can understand. Something “free” is, as defined in the Independence Day rule book, a behavior, action, or event that seems absolutely American. And this movie was brimming with that. When Will Smith punches out an alien? Free. When Jeff Goldblum gets drunk and trashes Area 51? Free. When the president declares that July 4^th shall become the worlds Independence Day, a statement so free it could possibly require several drinks, followed by a round of high fives, that was what we were looking for. These were the kind of gung ho, no regards for safety, science, or social conduct behaviors that I was searching for this fine day. Jingosim at its most flagrant.

As we descended further into our respective states of uncontrolled booze guzzling, I found myself ahead by a large margin. Sitting upon the couch drapped in my flag, drinking down that 101 I began to think heavily on what was at play in this movie. Sure, there were some overly bombastic racial stereotypes, and it was clear that the writer had no regard for the castle dwelling, rain soaked, Russians. I could see why some might have panned this movie, but there was something deeper there that I don’t think anyone else could see. This film had a very underplayed theme of breaking out of the powerful restraints of social caste. An MIT graduate who skipped a life of easy money and prestige to work for a cable company saves the world with a computer virus, completely defying his perceived social station. A young black marine pilot, living in sin with his stripper girlfriend and her child from another man shrugs off his repeated NASA rejections and later pilots an alien craft into space to save the day. And, a personal favorite, an alcoholic crop duster, one job away from being the panhandling Vietnam veteran, sobers up in time to learn how to pilot an F-18 and saves the president from certain death. This was the kind of outright dreaming that one can only find in this sort of American film, that was it, boiled down. The dream of escaping what you’re dealt for greater things, perhaps this movie had captured something truly American without really knowing it, ignorant to the fact that it might have some sort of value other than dated special effects. Perhaps I simply liked Independence Day so much that I was trying to defend its merits? Or perhaps I had simply captured too much whiskey that particular day, and had begun to apply my own visions of that most beautiful of nationalistic dreams onto everything I saw. In the end, who could know?

“I will die for you”

“I know you love me so much”

“Whatever I do, wherever I go, I will be thinking of you”

“I love you”

They exchanged saliva and their lips were locked sometime.

“Trust me”

“I do”, She kissed him again.

“When will you back from the meeting? take care of you.”

“Very soon. Your love protects me”

“How the things are done by you?”

“Its great. Everyone appreciate me for my job. Our chief invited me for a treat”

“I am proud of you, But you know I am an average girl with ordinary expectations. I am scared because of you sometimes. I don’t know why. Is it possible for you to leave these things for me?”

“You started to doubt me”, He replied in a low voice.

“I worried about you. I got some bad dreams…”

He interrupted her this time, “Oh, no! How come you talk like this to me. You know me, you started to love because of my leadership attitude, you said that. Now how you got this sudden change in your mind”

“I am sorry. I couldn’t control my selfish thinking about me and you”

“You should overcome this emotions”, His voice sounds like commanding her.

“I can’t”, She lowered her eyes.

“Look, this is our flag. Respect this, that means, you are respecting me”

“Now I need only you . I afraid I couldn’t accept sometimes”

She suddenly grabbed the flag and thrown away from the building.

“I love you”, She said it again.

He went nearer to her and slapped her thrice.

The sounds of her tears melts into air.

—————————————-

Sri Rama Sena Channa Masala Recipe

1 cup chickpeas (what a sexiest name!), A pinch of Soda bi carb, A pinch of rock Salt, 2 Finely chopped red onions, 2 Finely chopped tomatoes,
3/4 teaspoon finely chopped ginger, 1 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala powder, 1/2 teaspoon Turmeric Powder, 1 teaspoon Chilly powder, 1 teaspoon Brown sugar (remember Rolling Stone song?), marble size tamarind, 1 teaspoon Pomegranate seeds, required Salt, Oil

Wash & soak the channa over night.  Put chickpeas in pressure cooker and let it boil for 10 minutes with Rock salt and soda.  Grind a handful of the boiled channa with Ginger, ½ of the minced onions, garam masala powder, chilly powder, turmeric powder, Pomegranate seeds and roasted Jeera seeds to a smooth paste. keep this preparation aside.

In hot oil, fry the sliced onions. Add the ground masala and continue to fry on low flame for 2-3  minutes.

Add sliced tomatoes, mix well and cook till tomatoes are well blended with the masala. Add the tamarind pulp, cooked channa, salt and a little water mix well. Let it boil till the thickness is reached.  Finishing touch, top with cilantro herb.

Yes, I remember the moon landing too.  I thought it was cool, but despite the fact that I loved building models of the rockets, watching them take off on TV, read endless sci-fi stories, and was truly fascinated by the idea of space travel, I found the event itself rather unexciting.  Uh, well, that’s me.

I find myself a little dismayed at much of the hoopla over the 40th.  There is much nostalgia, which I don’t share.  I try and avoid nostalgia, but, again, that’s me.  If people want to get dreamy over their bygone days, it’s not my business.

No, what dismays me, and also amuses me a bit, is the prevailing spirit of declinism. Everything’s just going to the dogs.  The country has just gone to hell.  We were so much stronger in the past.  Yada, yada, yada.  As if people haven’t been saying that since history was first written, and I mean that literally!

Two examples from Watts Up With That, a blog that I read because it is very informative about global warming, or the lack of it, but which has a wide audience among various right-leaning people with whom I probably agree on nothing at all except that the Kyoto Treaty is a bad idea.

For a moment, let’s take time to think about earlier generations:

Some of our grandparents lived through the advent of the first automobile, the first aircraft, World War 1, the Great Influenza Epidemic, the Great Depression, World War 2, the Korean conflict, and so on. Some of them even lived long enough to see the first man walk on the moon.

My grandparents and and my parents’ generation were sensible and strong. In comparison, recent generations have become weak and frivolous.

No offense to The Greatest Generation, but they also brought us The Great Depression, Jim Crow in abundance, lots of pollution, the Red Scare, prohibition, the Teapot Dome Scandal, Al Capone,  McCarthyism, and lots of other unsavory things.  I’m not sure what strength is shown by “living through the advent of the first automobile.”

Following, we have an example of what is sometimes called The Politics of Resentment, that fertile soil for all sorts of nasty political movements:

For All Mankind.
The documentary. [on the moon walk] Watch it and be proud.
Notice the great bold letters U S A as the behemoth Saturn V rocket lifts the best of this great country into the future.
Notice the very large US flags worn proudly on their space suits.
Ask yourself . . . .
Would this kind of unabashed visible pride in country be permitted today?
Ask yourself . . .
Would the words ‘men’ and ‘mankind’ left behind on the plaque be permitted in today’s PC world.?
Ask yourself . . .
Do we still have the right stuff?
If your response is a concerned furrowing of your brow I suspect you’re not alone.
My admiration for these men and the great country that made their success possible swells my heart to bursting.

People today wear flags on everything.  To be a government employee practically requires it.  How terrible if we went to Mars and left a plaque commemorating the “human race” instead of “mankind.” Yes, how terrible our fall has been.  Things change, isn’t that awful?

I wish we could return to The Golden Age, but unfortunately, according to the ancient Greeks, who lived when things were really good, it predated them by centuries, and was sometime during the late Stone Age or early Iron Age.  Have fun!

Image Courtesy: The Hindu

Beyond all the uproar of Kasab’s four hour long confession, there is a small incident which couldn’t find much importance.

The court took exception to a remark made in jest by Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam. In a jibe at Ajmal’s lawyer Abbas Kazmi, Mr. Nikam said Ajmal had not mentioned “Abu Abbas Kazmi.” The court immediately asked Mr. Nikam to withdraw his comment.

What made the well learned lawyer to pass such a demeaning remark? After all, Kazmi is performing his duty just as the over excited Nikam. Was that a simple joke? Didn’t we saw how humor started with Anjali waghmare forcing her to quit? Some time later, Kazmi was ousted by Islam Gumkhana for the ‘kaffir’ act. We heard the bar council resolutions in various north indian courts that no lawyer should defend ‘Terrorists’. We saw how some lawyers were thrashed inside court premises for the ‘crime’.

Things are moving in that direction. Like how an ‘ordinary middle class man’ want to pronounce sentences in ‘Wednesday’, a hindi movie, instead of wasting time. The hate and ultra patriotism is in air.. ‘Sunny Deols’ everywhere, intolerant towards all ‘traitors’. Rules are pretty simple. Just be with us. Don’t use words like democracy, rule of law etc., We will joke. We will ridicule. At times things may go out of control. We can’t help.

Sooo, the Fourth is behind us. Time to consider the stuff I’m less than crazy about in this country that I love so much! To my mind, this, too, is an act of patriotism, because blind love is no kind of love at all. I suspect there are those who might disagree….

1. “We’re #1!” - No we’re not. Let it go. I believe that we’re pretty terrific, as I think I may have mentioned the other day — but there is no #1, and we are also responsible for a lot of crap. Far too often, we do not live up to the American Idea, or we ignore it for reasons of expediency or contradictory passion. We cannot be both a Christian nation, and the United States of America. We cannot be a nation of, by, and for the people, when some of the people cannot serve in the military supported by their taxes — taxes that are higher for them than for their neighbors, because they cannot get married. We’re the only nation to ever use an atomic bomb, we maintained an extensive torture program for years (and are apparently still too lily-livered to prosecute anyone for it), and Iran? I can think of at least four moments in world history in which American action helped to lay the foundation of the repression we see there today (1953 – removal of Mossadegh; 1970s – unfettered support for the Shah; 1980s – craven involvement in the Iran-Iraq War; 2002 – the phrase “axis of evil” and the policies and attitude behind it, which effectively shut off existing back-channel cooperation). Nobody’s #1, and the sooner we (and everyone else, frankly) realize that, the sooner we might all stop killing each other.
2. Reality TV – WTF? I mean, really: WTF? I know that we do not bear sole responsibility for this blight on civilization, but surely we consistently raise the blight to ever greater heights of blightiness.  “Reality TV” is to reality what Tang is to orange juice, and humiliation-as-entertainment is bad for everybody. Bread and circuses, people — this is the sort of shit that brought down the Roman Empire.
3. Language prudity – Admit it, you flinched a little when you read “shit” just now, didn’t you? Don’t lie, this is the internet — I can see you! The importance Americans place on not saying certain words — particularly when compared to, say, our comfort level with sexual exploitation and/or mind-numbing violence — is just baffling to me. Here’s my favorite example: There is this lovely, gentle Irish movie about two sweet, gentle musicians who fall in love and play beautiful, towering, sometimes gentle music together, called Once. In this movie, without wanting to spoil anything, there is not a single explosion, drop of blood, or exposed body part. Yet it is rated R. Why? Because the Irish people are prone to saying “fuck.” To this I can only say: America, please. Get the fuck over it!
   Corallary: I knew that Janet Jackson had nipples before the Superbowl, and I suspect she has them to this day.
4. Rampant individualism – We are powerfully attached to our history and culture of individualism, in a way that I believe does real damage to both our local communities and our broader nation. It may in fact be true that we have a “right” to this, that, or the other, but it human communities need a certain amount of give and take in order to thrive. What this means is that I may have to give up my right to, say, not have a rehab program, or a prison, or (I don’t know) a terrorism suspect In My Backyard — because my community is served by that program, prison, or movement of said suspect from a legal netherworld and into the light of day. Each of us has the right to drive a Hummer, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, and/or refuse vaccinations for our children, but as a nation, we would do well to more frequently remember that, occasionally, there is a larger good that ethics demand we consider.
5. Capitalist medicine - Which leads me to the health care fight. I lived for 14 years in a country with socialized medicine (Israel), and let me tell you: It was a mess! But it was a smaller, much more human and humane mess than that which we continue to suffer under and defend in these United States of America. Access to basic health care is a human right, and every time that we choose to privilege not that right but the profits of a select few — or some fuzzy notion of “privacy” — we are not only consigning real, live human beings to a lesser existence, we are hurting our country. America is not served by sick children, untreated communicable diseases or addictions, or families bankrupted by their efforts to care for their loved ones. Anyone who says that we are, or (more likely) that such troubles are the individual problems of the people whose lives they destroy — has cut themselves off from some very basic piece of their humanity. Reasonable people may disagree about how to solve this problem, but the focus has to be first on the lives it involves, not the profits and/or individual rights of some.
6. Fruit out of season – For the love of God, people, if it has no flavor, don’t put it in a bowl and serve it to me! If I am never presented with another hard, pale green cube of honeydew in the middle of December, I’ll be a happier woman, all around.

Finally, a commenter brought to my attention that in Japan, they, too, scoop poop and do it cheerfully (see comments, “Things I love about America.” ) So, while I retain my right to celebrate this crucial facet of the American spirit, I believe that the information serves to support my contention (see #1, above) that no-one, in fact, is #1. Win-win!