It's No Game
03/28/07 10:35 AM
Reading about Karl
Rove, James Carville and their political ilk, you
get the impression that politics is very much a
game for them. It's a challenge, a test of mental
acuity and personal prowess. It's solving Rubic's
Cube on a grand stage. It's world championship
poker, but with human lives instead of chips; and
because of these enormousely high stakes, it's the
grandest game of all.
In gamesmanship, elements of (largely male) comaraderie, shared love for the game, and the generally meager stakes (money and pride) keep opponents on the level of "rivals." They are not "enemies." After all, no one is trying to do anyone else personal harm. A loss does not mean that your child is more likely to wind up in prison, or that you are more likely to go bankrupt, or that your son, daughter or brother may not be able to pursue his/her chosen profession because he/she is gay. Loss does not mean that your salary will effectively decrease over the next few years, limiting the opportunities you can afford your children. It doesn't mean that you cannot afford health care for yourself or your family. Losing a typical game does not mean that your life or the lives of your loved ones may be forfeit on a battlefield despite the fact that no one has yet figured out why we're present on it.
I find it impossible to consider a process in which the stakes are so high to be a game. To me, the process concerns matters of life or death, and the quality of both. It is my life and the lives of loved ones. Nothing with so much at stake is a "game." It could only be a game to those with utter contempt for the lives most men lead.
I am a black, gay man. Politics has, in the past, declared my life forfeit to any white, straight man who chose to take it. Today, politics makes it more likely that urban blacks will wind up in prison should they succumb to drug addiction (look at the gulf between the sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, with its black user base, and methamphetamine, with its white user base). Politics makes it more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for my partner and myself to fully provide for each other in case of illness or death. Politics can make it more likely that a police officer will shoot at me with greater impunity than he would dare to shoot at a similarly situated white man. Through failing to actively prosecute overt, illegal racism in the public sphere, politics can make such overt racism against me more acceptable and prevalent.
If, then, politics is life and death, what are political opponents? They are not mere rivals (as in a game) because, my friends, it's no game. I find it difficult to consider them anything other than enemies. They pursue and tolerate policies which have the potential to literally and needlessly put my life at risk--not for the sake of saving innumerable lives, bringing peace, freedom and democraacy to the planet or ushering in the Age of Aquarius--but for the mere reason of fulfilling an ideology. Ideology says that government should stay out of this or that. Thus, if a few more black people than white ones lose their jobs undeservedly or if a few children or parents die prematurely for lack of health care--that is the price the rest of us must pay for their ideology.
Yes. I must consider them not countrymen, but enemies. They are willing to forfeit lives for their ideology. They are willing to forfeit my life for that.
I am not an overly enlightened individual, and I strive not to be a liar. I admit to low emotions, regardless of how out-of-favor they may be. regardless of how politically incorrect it may be to admit to them: anger, jealousy, rage, hate... I am capable of each. How to respond when gentlemenly men in suits and ties smilingly, knowingly place your life and wellbeing on forfeit? Should we keep the emphasis on the style in which they attack, or the strip away the civilized facade and respond in kind to the substance of the act?
When we do strip away that facade, we're berated as "hateful." However, should their actions be seen as any less hateful? Who is more hateful, the one who calls names, or the one who costs lives? Have we sunk so low, become such a society of liars, that we pretend we don't see the difference?
When my enemies and those who support and propogate their policies fall, I am glad. That's one less person to do me harm. When they grow ill, the thought occurs that, should they die, I hope a particularly fetid corner of hell awaits them.
Oh, I hear the predictable tsk, tsking. "Such hatred. I am shocked." Am I proud of these thoughts? No. Do I acknowledge them? Yes. And to all the tsk tskers out there: The only difference between you and me is that I acknowledge them; I acknowledge their ugliness. I own both. You pretend to be incapable of either, and therefore allow yourself to guiltlessly indulge in both because you do it in a suit--with a smile.
In gamesmanship, elements of (largely male) comaraderie, shared love for the game, and the generally meager stakes (money and pride) keep opponents on the level of "rivals." They are not "enemies." After all, no one is trying to do anyone else personal harm. A loss does not mean that your child is more likely to wind up in prison, or that you are more likely to go bankrupt, or that your son, daughter or brother may not be able to pursue his/her chosen profession because he/she is gay. Loss does not mean that your salary will effectively decrease over the next few years, limiting the opportunities you can afford your children. It doesn't mean that you cannot afford health care for yourself or your family. Losing a typical game does not mean that your life or the lives of your loved ones may be forfeit on a battlefield despite the fact that no one has yet figured out why we're present on it.
I find it impossible to consider a process in which the stakes are so high to be a game. To me, the process concerns matters of life or death, and the quality of both. It is my life and the lives of loved ones. Nothing with so much at stake is a "game." It could only be a game to those with utter contempt for the lives most men lead.
I am a black, gay man. Politics has, in the past, declared my life forfeit to any white, straight man who chose to take it. Today, politics makes it more likely that urban blacks will wind up in prison should they succumb to drug addiction (look at the gulf between the sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, with its black user base, and methamphetamine, with its white user base). Politics makes it more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for my partner and myself to fully provide for each other in case of illness or death. Politics can make it more likely that a police officer will shoot at me with greater impunity than he would dare to shoot at a similarly situated white man. Through failing to actively prosecute overt, illegal racism in the public sphere, politics can make such overt racism against me more acceptable and prevalent.
If, then, politics is life and death, what are political opponents? They are not mere rivals (as in a game) because, my friends, it's no game. I find it difficult to consider them anything other than enemies. They pursue and tolerate policies which have the potential to literally and needlessly put my life at risk--not for the sake of saving innumerable lives, bringing peace, freedom and democraacy to the planet or ushering in the Age of Aquarius--but for the mere reason of fulfilling an ideology. Ideology says that government should stay out of this or that. Thus, if a few more black people than white ones lose their jobs undeservedly or if a few children or parents die prematurely for lack of health care--that is the price the rest of us must pay for their ideology.
Yes. I must consider them not countrymen, but enemies. They are willing to forfeit lives for their ideology. They are willing to forfeit my life for that.
I am not an overly enlightened individual, and I strive not to be a liar. I admit to low emotions, regardless of how out-of-favor they may be. regardless of how politically incorrect it may be to admit to them: anger, jealousy, rage, hate... I am capable of each. How to respond when gentlemenly men in suits and ties smilingly, knowingly place your life and wellbeing on forfeit? Should we keep the emphasis on the style in which they attack, or the strip away the civilized facade and respond in kind to the substance of the act?
When we do strip away that facade, we're berated as "hateful." However, should their actions be seen as any less hateful? Who is more hateful, the one who calls names, or the one who costs lives? Have we sunk so low, become such a society of liars, that we pretend we don't see the difference?
When my enemies and those who support and propogate their policies fall, I am glad. That's one less person to do me harm. When they grow ill, the thought occurs that, should they die, I hope a particularly fetid corner of hell awaits them.
Oh, I hear the predictable tsk, tsking. "Such hatred. I am shocked." Am I proud of these thoughts? No. Do I acknowledge them? Yes. And to all the tsk tskers out there: The only difference between you and me is that I acknowledge them; I acknowledge their ugliness. I own both. You pretend to be incapable of either, and therefore allow yourself to guiltlessly indulge in both because you do it in a suit--with a smile.
The Fanboys of Empire
03/23/07 12:07 PM
In
1972-73 I was in high school and watched Vietnam
implode in a cloud of officially sanctioned lies,
mind-boggling incompetence and abject contempt for
the lives of American servicemen and the Vietnamese
on whose lands they did their commanders' bidding.
Tens of thousands of Americans died in that war.
It was my second year of high school when Nixon resigned. That ended two years of watching politics exposed as a criminals' game, one in which lies and the lust for the preservation of personal power were the ne plus ultra. The People, The Rule of Law? Bah. Hollywood stuff. That individuals like Nixon and his ilk could convince themselves that their utter venality was for the good of the union only proved that, for those in power, God and Country had been reduced to flimsy screens behind which they could sate their perverse lusts with the abandon of chimpanzees flinging feces in a cage.
From 1976-80 I was in college. Paid little attention to the world outside the campus, and I'm glad of it. Governmental ineffectuality in the face of an increasingly complex world seem the order of those days. Americans didn't like that much. We're used to being in control. We believe we deserve to be.
Reagan took care of that. Another "God and Country" man, he cavorted with right wing drug runners and death squads in order to overthrow Nicaragua's democratically elected leader, and lied about it. His administration oversaw sales of arms to Iran in violation of the law, and lied about it. The purpose of the sales was to gain the release of hostages. He lied about that, too. A scandal ensued. Indictments, convictions, reversals and pardons followed. By the end of his term, Reagan was, once more, beloved. It was more important that he showed us a vision of ourselves we wanted to see--one of the hardy frontiersman, pure of soul and big of heart--than the fact that he and his administration had been exposed as full of criminals, liars, and accessories to drug smuggling and murder.
His successor, George H.W. Bush, pardoned Reagan's former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, whose indictment accused him of withholding notes that contradicted Bush's assertion that he had only tangential knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair. The first Bush also pardoned 5 others in the matter. He said, "the common denominator of their motivation--whether their actions were right or wrong--was patriotism." God and Country. You would think that those who committed crimes in the peoples' name would be seconded to a special place in hell. But no. Lie, cheat, steal or kill, but as long as you wrap your motives in the flag, as long as you claim that your crime is committed in the name of The People, you deserve our thanks, not a prison cell. Thus, any crime is justifiable, and the national interest just becomes a matter of getting away with it.
Vilified for his White Trash unwillingness to fit himself to the mold of the Washington Establishment, Bill Clinton was hounded in the press and in the halls of Congress. Accused and investigated for everything under the sun--investigations that produced absolutely nothing--his outsized personal appetites finally provided the fodder, and it was his crime of getting a blowjob in the Oval office from a consenting adult that led to impeachment proceedings. Assassinations and drug running in the name of the American people got you official reverence or a pardon. A pathetic lie about a blowjob got impeachment. Clinton was said to have "disgraced us" by that blowjob and that lie about it. The murders?... Hey, That's Empire.
And now Bush II. A pointless war. Official lies to sanction it. Thousands of Americans needlessly dead. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis needlessly dead. Hundreds of thousands of widows, orphans, the mutilated and maimed.
It's Their Dream, Not Ours
Americans do not want an empire. But our leaders do. We watch again and again as they reach in to the world's thicket to have their way, and slice their fingers to the bone, and then reach back in and slice their forearms and reach back in, yet again, because they cannot relinquish the dream. But when they get cut, it's us who bleed. It's not an American's dream; it's not the people's dream. It's the dream of American leaders. It is their dream of Power. Their gross, perverse desire to hold personal sway over the world.
This country alone exhausts Americans. By itself, it's proving too big for effective governance, its purpose too diffuse to provide a common bond among its people, thus reducing it to less of a nation and more of a mere place. That's why we only seem able to define ourselves in opposition--opposition to the Soviets; opposition to the "Terrorists." There's not enough to hold us together, so we import the glue in the form of enemies and inflate our importance in the world as the last line of defense against it. And as keepers of that last line of defense, our leaders take license to steal our liberties and our lives.
The government I have witnessed in my lifetime has not been capable of the basics -- providing healthcare for all, planning for adequate energy for the future, maximizing participation in the democratic process and seeing that it is not corrupted by powerful influences that pervert the will of the people.
It cannot do the basics at home, yet our leaders have the gall to try to mold the world in their image. Americans are rightfully cynical about our government. We consider it corrupt, because it its. We consider it beholden to the powerful and the monied, because it is. Instead of ruling the world, perhaps our leaders might focus on governing America. But they don't. Perhaps it's because governance is not rule. Governance is dull and plodding and long-term. It's about thinking and planning and executing. And rule... it's like a videogame, full of blood and valor, adrenaline and action. Throughout my time, we have not been governed. We have been increasingly ruled by the Fanboys of Empire.
It was my second year of high school when Nixon resigned. That ended two years of watching politics exposed as a criminals' game, one in which lies and the lust for the preservation of personal power were the ne plus ultra. The People, The Rule of Law? Bah. Hollywood stuff. That individuals like Nixon and his ilk could convince themselves that their utter venality was for the good of the union only proved that, for those in power, God and Country had been reduced to flimsy screens behind which they could sate their perverse lusts with the abandon of chimpanzees flinging feces in a cage.
From 1976-80 I was in college. Paid little attention to the world outside the campus, and I'm glad of it. Governmental ineffectuality in the face of an increasingly complex world seem the order of those days. Americans didn't like that much. We're used to being in control. We believe we deserve to be.
Reagan took care of that. Another "God and Country" man, he cavorted with right wing drug runners and death squads in order to overthrow Nicaragua's democratically elected leader, and lied about it. His administration oversaw sales of arms to Iran in violation of the law, and lied about it. The purpose of the sales was to gain the release of hostages. He lied about that, too. A scandal ensued. Indictments, convictions, reversals and pardons followed. By the end of his term, Reagan was, once more, beloved. It was more important that he showed us a vision of ourselves we wanted to see--one of the hardy frontiersman, pure of soul and big of heart--than the fact that he and his administration had been exposed as full of criminals, liars, and accessories to drug smuggling and murder.
His successor, George H.W. Bush, pardoned Reagan's former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, whose indictment accused him of withholding notes that contradicted Bush's assertion that he had only tangential knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair. The first Bush also pardoned 5 others in the matter. He said, "the common denominator of their motivation--whether their actions were right or wrong--was patriotism." God and Country. You would think that those who committed crimes in the peoples' name would be seconded to a special place in hell. But no. Lie, cheat, steal or kill, but as long as you wrap your motives in the flag, as long as you claim that your crime is committed in the name of The People, you deserve our thanks, not a prison cell. Thus, any crime is justifiable, and the national interest just becomes a matter of getting away with it.
Vilified for his White Trash unwillingness to fit himself to the mold of the Washington Establishment, Bill Clinton was hounded in the press and in the halls of Congress. Accused and investigated for everything under the sun--investigations that produced absolutely nothing--his outsized personal appetites finally provided the fodder, and it was his crime of getting a blowjob in the Oval office from a consenting adult that led to impeachment proceedings. Assassinations and drug running in the name of the American people got you official reverence or a pardon. A pathetic lie about a blowjob got impeachment. Clinton was said to have "disgraced us" by that blowjob and that lie about it. The murders?... Hey, That's Empire.
And now Bush II. A pointless war. Official lies to sanction it. Thousands of Americans needlessly dead. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis needlessly dead. Hundreds of thousands of widows, orphans, the mutilated and maimed.
It's Their Dream, Not Ours
Americans do not want an empire. But our leaders do. We watch again and again as they reach in to the world's thicket to have their way, and slice their fingers to the bone, and then reach back in and slice their forearms and reach back in, yet again, because they cannot relinquish the dream. But when they get cut, it's us who bleed. It's not an American's dream; it's not the people's dream. It's the dream of American leaders. It is their dream of Power. Their gross, perverse desire to hold personal sway over the world.
This country alone exhausts Americans. By itself, it's proving too big for effective governance, its purpose too diffuse to provide a common bond among its people, thus reducing it to less of a nation and more of a mere place. That's why we only seem able to define ourselves in opposition--opposition to the Soviets; opposition to the "Terrorists." There's not enough to hold us together, so we import the glue in the form of enemies and inflate our importance in the world as the last line of defense against it. And as keepers of that last line of defense, our leaders take license to steal our liberties and our lives.
The government I have witnessed in my lifetime has not been capable of the basics -- providing healthcare for all, planning for adequate energy for the future, maximizing participation in the democratic process and seeing that it is not corrupted by powerful influences that pervert the will of the people.
It cannot do the basics at home, yet our leaders have the gall to try to mold the world in their image. Americans are rightfully cynical about our government. We consider it corrupt, because it its. We consider it beholden to the powerful and the monied, because it is. Instead of ruling the world, perhaps our leaders might focus on governing America. But they don't. Perhaps it's because governance is not rule. Governance is dull and plodding and long-term. It's about thinking and planning and executing. And rule... it's like a videogame, full of blood and valor, adrenaline and action. Throughout my time, we have not been governed. We have been increasingly ruled by the Fanboys of Empire.
Tell me a Lie
03/21/07 02:06 PM
We are
a nation of lies told mainly to ourselves. And we
tell them for the typical reasons people tell lies
to themselves. We tell the lies because we are too
weak and too cowardly to acknowledge the truth.
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, an
establishment pundit if there ever was one,
finally placed the truth in a
paper of record: Over 3200 men
and women have been killed in Iraq. He
acknowledged that their lives were wasted. They
did not die for a noble cause. They did not die
for America's glory or to safeguard her
citizens, no matter what the particular soldier
personally believed. They died for other men's
hubris and ignorance--nothing more. They did not
perform a Christian sacrifice so that the rest
of us could live free. They were sacrificed--and
continue to be sacrificed-- so that other men
would not be embarrassed by having to admit
their arrogance and ignorance --so that they
would not have to acknowledge that from their
seats of power, they wasted so many lives.
Until recently, it has been verboten to say that soldiers' lives were wasted. It was illogically read as an attack on the soldiers--as if they themselves had lied and thrust themselves ill-equipped, ill-trained, without an endgame, into that Iraqi meatgrinder. It was said that it was unkind to the soldier's family to have to know that their child's life was wasted. I can't even imagine how unkind, how vicious that must be. But I believe in the truth, and if that truth hurts, it should. It should hurt like hell and every other parent who has not had their child's life wasted should have to watch others endure the unbearable and be forced to imagine themselves in the same ungodly position. Only then will it end. Only then will it not happen again.
We lie to keep ourselves clean. We lie to spare ourselves complicity in the waste of all those lives. We lie because the waste doesn't matter as much as we know it should. We read the daily death stats and they don't even elicit a shrug anymore, do they? It's "them." They volunteered. What does that have to do with me? Then we exploit the parents of the dead as we stick cameras in their faces so they can reinforce the lie and tell us all that they are proud that their child died saving us all--saying what they have to say to spare themselves the impotent rage that is the alternative. I don't personally know anyone with a child in Iraq. I may have overheard the checkout woman at the grocery store mention something to a co-worker about her son being home on leave, but I'm not going to pull a Friedman and pretend she's a bosom pal. We are strangers and there's no way I can imagine the nightmares that shake her, that choke her awake at night. Through the lie, I am spared the knowledge that lives are being wasted in my name. The lie spares me complicity. I am a busy man. I work hard. I deserve my sleep at night.
Until recently, it has been verboten to say that soldiers' lives were wasted. It was illogically read as an attack on the soldiers--as if they themselves had lied and thrust themselves ill-equipped, ill-trained, without an endgame, into that Iraqi meatgrinder. It was said that it was unkind to the soldier's family to have to know that their child's life was wasted. I can't even imagine how unkind, how vicious that must be. But I believe in the truth, and if that truth hurts, it should. It should hurt like hell and every other parent who has not had their child's life wasted should have to watch others endure the unbearable and be forced to imagine themselves in the same ungodly position. Only then will it end. Only then will it not happen again.
We lie to keep ourselves clean. We lie to spare ourselves complicity in the waste of all those lives. We lie because the waste doesn't matter as much as we know it should. We read the daily death stats and they don't even elicit a shrug anymore, do they? It's "them." They volunteered. What does that have to do with me? Then we exploit the parents of the dead as we stick cameras in their faces so they can reinforce the lie and tell us all that they are proud that their child died saving us all--saying what they have to say to spare themselves the impotent rage that is the alternative. I don't personally know anyone with a child in Iraq. I may have overheard the checkout woman at the grocery store mention something to a co-worker about her son being home on leave, but I'm not going to pull a Friedman and pretend she's a bosom pal. We are strangers and there's no way I can imagine the nightmares that shake her, that choke her awake at night. Through the lie, I am spared the knowledge that lives are being wasted in my name. The lie spares me complicity. I am a busy man. I work hard. I deserve my sleep at night.