Dubya's Last Stand (Plus Some Gut-Check Honesty)

2233 words on the debate and what I think it's all about with some real good honest stuff at the end. Please go read it and leave me a comment of what you think.

Voter registration is getting fucked up by Republicans all over the country. It's a goddamn vote-supression shitstorm out there. Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, Minnesota... dirty tricksters and underhanded election officials are tipping the scales all over the place.

One of those states isn't too much of a worry though. Minnesota. Why? Same. Day. Registration. That makes all these bullshit paper games a waste of time, and we need it nationwide next time around. Seriously.

This is someting I'm going to start hollering about soon after the election, but here's a sneak peak. Our use of technology in assisting the mechanisms of governance is bass-ackwards in this country. We have voting machines that don't work and fail to produce paper recipts, and an enormous paper-heavy bureaucracy that's easily fucked with for voter registration.

There's no reason not to have same-day (election day) registration. It can be done. It works. It boosts participation. A little about same-day registration.

A big part of my job, I realize now, is writing. I think I wrote about 4 or 5 thousand words today. I feel a little guilty that this makes me tired.

Inspired by Pandagon: No Plan, No Problem, and a comment.

I lived through 9/11 in New York, and I recall doing quite a lot of very serious thinking in the days and weeks and months after about what the hell we should do. The vision that kept returning was of Jefferson's post Amercan revolution revelation that unless the sharecropping rentier farmer class that had been a large part of the revolutionary army were tied to the new order somehow, a series of unproductive repeat uphevals were in the mail for sure.

There are so many people out there who are not in any way partners in our massive and unparalelled prosperity. That's a significant root cause of the problems we face.

If you follow this line of reasoning, some people might accuse me of wanting to kowtow to murderers. You obviously can't have a policy of negotiation with individual terrorists as in a hostage situation, but there's a lot of value in looking at the ends a group of people are attempting to achieve by means of a campaign of terror, and try to figure out if there's a way to solve with without killing. We make truces with people who go to war. Sometimes it's even a good idea.

The resistence to this kind of reflection in America -- a resistence characterized by accusations of some isiduous desire to "blame America first" -- is really just a desire for us to be easy on ourselves and not challenge our assumptions about how the world works.

So, I don't want to sound un-American, but if you look at the set of reasons the likes of Bin Laden gives for making war on the US, they're pretty understandible. They don't "hate our freedom." That is and always has been an outrageous lie. This war isn't about Playboy; it's about geopolitical power.

What they hate is having US troops in Saudi Arabia (and now Iraq), US companies buying their oil at discount prices, and US power backing repressive and corrupt regimes throughout the region. The realities of petropolitics mean we can't just grant concessions on most of these things, but the demands are not really crazy or anything. It's really, "get your boys out of my hood, quit jackin' my shit, and quit backing up local thugs."

Until we can find a way to meaningfully address these concerns without sacraficing our national interests, we're stuck with more-than-nuisance terrorism. The Neo-Con fantasy in full regalia sort of represented one way out: proving the terrorists wrong in the moral sphere by conjuring a prosperous, US-friendly democracy in their midst. Problem is you can't "create" a democracy any more than you can "give" anyone freedom. It doesn't work like that. It was a great wet dream, but come the fuck on.

The alternative as I see it is waging a serious campaign of law enforcement, counter-proliferation and diplomacy while systematically weaning ourselves of the Saudi Smack over the next 10 to 20 years to the point where we can actually give the people what they want: the chance to take their freedom from the regimes which supress them and charge us whatever they want for that sweet black gold.

That won't be easy, and it will take a lot of political will, and I'm not saying Kerry will do it. But it's probably going to have to be done.

I know I live in a country with a decidedly anti-intellectual bent. Our greatest demogague, O'Reilly, likes to use the term "pinhead." For real. But still, come the fuck on, America. Science rules! Listen to what the nerds have to say!

The New Scientist:

"At its birth two centuries ago, this republic was governed by men who had a deeper understanding of science than most of their successors. The Founding Fathers were children of the Enlightenment, of the Age of Reason.

Today we are governed by people who do not believe in evolution. They have few qualms about distorting scientific knowledge when it does not conform to their political agenda. They speak as if they are entitled not only to their own opinions but also to their own facts."

So said Kurt Gottfried, chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the opening passage of a damning report released in July on the politicisation of science in 21st-century America. Put bluntly, Gottfried’s charge, and that of the UCS, is that President Bush does not understand science.

He has little interest in the subject, and his administration has grossly manipulated the process by which objective science informs policy. As a result, the US has made the wrong decisions over issues such as climate change, energy, reproductive health and the environment.

So let's run it down. Scientists? Bush must go. Historians? Ditto. Business Professors?

The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The federal budget surplus of over $200 billion that we enjoyed in the year 2000 has disappeared, and we are now facing a massive annual deficit of over $400 billion. In fact, if transfers from the Social Security trust fund are excluded, the federal deficit is even worse – well in excess of a half a trillion dollars this year alone. Although some members of your administration have suggested that the mountain of new debt accumulated on your watch is mainly the consequence of 9-11 and the war on terror, budget experts know that this is simply false. Your economic policies have played a significant role in driving this fiscal collapse.

That's a scathing indictment. And Nobel Winners agree. I could go on like this. I wanna do the ethical/moral case against Bush too, but all this brain-weight gives me ideas for another ciritique.

In any event, it should be clear that this arrogant manchild of a president cannot listen to criticism or reason, which is clearly a pointed difference between him and his opponenet, and from my perspective this anti-factual bullheadedness is one of the most compelling reasons to work for regime change here at home.

Confession. I have become terribly uptight. I just now attempted a little light yogic stretching as learned back in my days at the Experimental Theater Wing, and found it more difficult than I ever remeber: harder than when I first started (kinda understandible as I've got more muscle to stretch now than in those early twiggy days) and vastly moreso than the last time I remember really trying to stretch, which had to be around the beginning of the summer. I've also noticed that I've gained quite a little bit of weight (gut flab, mostly) in the past few months.

Things seem to have taken a turn. The life is taking its toll, I suppose. But I've decided that all this "I can't wait until the election is over" fatalism has got to end. That's right; I can't wait until the election is over.

For starters, that's not the end of the road for me. It's hardly even a break. I can't sleep for a year, or even a month. Things will need doing the week after, so saddle up and be ready.

And moreover, a lot of this stuff shouldn't be postponed. I'm not going to go clothes shopping any time soon, but getting my physical life in order is an endeavor that's going to take a while, and there's no compelling reason not to start right now. The actual daily investments of time and energy are modest. It just takes discipline, and discipline is something I could use more of at the moment anyway. So there. Reasons abound.

I'm pretty convinced also that overcoming this physical tightness, as well as working off the flab, will help me continue in improving my mental and emotional state. I'm a confirmed believer in the mind-body connection. It ebbs and flows, but it's always present. Your body and brain are all one connected system, so none of this should be at all surprising. Still, some people still think that there's a hoky new-age smell to believing that having a rich physical life is a critical component to a good mental and emotional experience.

I don't bother to question it or to be sanctimonious about it; I'm more concerned with what it means for me and my life pragmatically. To put it another way, I'm not one of those people who frets over food or obsesses over exercise. I'm one of those people who thinks, "damn, I'm bummed out. I should take a giant bike ride up some really tall hills and then go get sushi, maybe start stretching more and eating veggies again."

And anyway, for any of this shit to really work, it's gotta be sustainable. Terriby uptight is not sustainable because it's not an optimal condition for production, and high production is going to be a must for the next ten to twenty years or so at least. I don't think I'll really be able to slow down for a while, nor do I want to. But to live up to that date with velocity, I've got to get my engine running cleaner and smoother.

Trying to figure what I think about Matt Stone's ambivalent comments re: voting in the latest Rolling Stone. I think his point is that if you're looking to their movie to figure out how to vote, you need to find better research -- but the manner in which he expressed it was unfortunate. There is some shame in not voting, because basically it means you're telling other people to run your life.

Which, as this bright woman points out might mean ending up barefoot and pregnant. So yeah; don't take your cues from a puppet show. Take it from Robin and vote.

So there's this venture that wants to do youth-oriented political advertisements. They're called Compare, Decide, Vote. The ads are a little cheeky, but they're certainly no more offensive than any candidate ads, and a damn sight less creepy than any of that Swift Boat nonsense. They point out where Kerry and Bush differ on issues that might matter to younger voters -- college costs, minimum wage, Iraq -- and urge the viewer to compare, decide, and vote.

The idea was to run them during the Daily Show, TRL, Chapelle, etc; get some good issue-based content out there to remind us tykes there are real choices at stake on Nov 2nd.

Pretty simple, right? Well, Viacom, which has a near-monopoly on young-adult oriented programming (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET) is refusing to allow the ads to air.

Wanna do something about it?

Let me explain exactly why this is TOTAL BULLSHIT. First of all, Sumner Redstone (the tycoon in charge) is a Bush supporter by virtue of W's pro-consolidation platform. Suspect. Secondly, they've given no real reason why they're not going to air the ads. They probably believe they have a right to refuse to run political advertisements because they give space to 501c(3) orgs like Rock The Vote and Declare Yourself, which urge people to vote more or less "just because."

But here's the thing: becoming an engaged participant in civic life and the political process isn't something you do "just because." It's about formulating and acting upon opinions. It's about making choices based on your (hopefully informed) judgement as to which candidate(s) will best protect and advance your interests, not printing a voter reg form off the internet because a celebrity implied that it was cool. While I'm glad that Rock the Vote and Declare Yourself exist and are registering gobs and gobs of people to vote, they by no means in and of themselves express or constitute an informed political consciousness.

Viacom apparently believes that their channels, which reach millions of potential young participants, are not an appropriate forum for data which might set their viewers down the path towards forming such a consciousness for themselves. They are fine with other consciousness raising messages, though.

"Your Skin Belongs To Noxeema?" You bet it does.

"Girls Gone Wild?" They sure have!

"Unleash The Cold Filtered (and right-wing owned) Taste of the Rockies?" Mmmm... twins...

"Compare, Decide, Vote?" What the... get that crap off the air!

So, yeah. The message is clear. Consumerism, intoxication and sex are great, but don't try and give our kids the grist from which they might form some political opinions. We oppose that. We will not take your money to run ads which do this.

Can you think of anything more fucking condescending than that? Anything more patronizing? Anything more un-fucking-American? Our future is on the line -- our jobs, our education, our health, the looming spectre of widening warfare and compulsatory military service -- and the corporate masters of our media universe want to keep us in a happy hazy trance.

That and they want to hide the fact that Bush's record and agenda sucks ass from the youth perspective. I think there's a mix here between Sumner Redstone having a paternalistic moment and wanting to "protect" his products (young viewers are the product, don't forget) from those troublesome bits of data that might upset their valuable little consumatronic lifestyle, and him simply trying to help his man out by keeping Bush's record on education and the minimum wage off the airwaves. My response? Fuck you, Sumner. I will burn you down.

Make a stink. I'm so tired of the anesthetization of our generation by the broadcast giants. This is bullshit, and we shouldn't stand for it. If we can put the screws to Sumner and the Viacom cronies, maybe we can get them to re-think their position.

This weekend:

- Had a drink with a man who played keyboard with Nine Inch Nails on the Pretty Hate Machine tour; ate late-nite breakfast at It's Tops.
- Talked to (at?) the kids from Baobobs about blogging.
- Got real high with Luke and rocked out to Iron Maiden and Lenyrd Skynrd b-sides (they sound a lot more like Jimmi Hendrix than "Free Bird" would lead you to believe).
- Listened to Chelsea and Jees play kickass guitar/banjo -- Porch Skank! -- before they take off for New Zeland (and possibly an arena tour of China). Fell asleep on couch.
- Watched The Shawshank Redemption, which I'd never seen before and which almost made me cry.
- Had date; and a good one at that.

And I'm still in a state of internal conflict about what I'm doing and where it's going, but I'm remembering that, hey, this is my life and I can do what I want with it, and I should. Life is holy and every moment precious. It's high time I reclaimed the dignity of my own experience.

By popular demand: one of John Kerry's finest moments. It's (ugh) windows media because that's what I was able to find. It's also a big-ass file, but because it's (ugh) windows media I can't cut it down.