Summertime has rolled into town, creating mass confusion in the household over the appropriateness of eggnog and other holiday delights. (We did the nog, if you're wondering, and it was right.)
Tomorrow, we head out in Vantastic for a whirlwind tour of the island. This island. The North Island. We have food and the dog and a bed. We're looking for sun, beaches and calm. Vacation. It's really all we ever wanted.
Speaking of The Go-Gos, it's my new year's resolution to learn all the songs off Beauty and the Beat and Vacation in case anyone ever needs a Skidmarks On My Heart-ready drummer. It could happen. You want a piece of that action?
You know you do.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
WikiRebels: The Documentary
I have to wonder if WikiRebels, a documentary that aired on Swedish television earlier this month, will be aired on any stations in the U.S. In any case, it doesn't matter, because it's available online. See it in parts or see it as a whole at the link above. But whatever you do, see it. Whether Julian Assange will be convicted of the rape charges against him or not, whether the U.S. government will succeed in its misguided attempts to silence him or not, ultimately, is not important. What matters is our knowledge, engagement and participation in the political structures that govern us.
And now, pardon me for a moment while I proselytize:
I watched the video Assange chose to call Collateral Murder for the first time in many months. As I did the first time I saw it, I cried when the Apache helicopter crew fired their weapons on a group of men on a street below. I cried for the victims and I cried for the brash American voices congratulating themselves for hitting their mark. Everyone lost something in that moment, and I'm fairly certain that war is largely composed of just such moments, repeating in a loop until a decision is made to close it. War is, those of us fortunate enough to avoid it are told, hell. No joke. So, how do we make a decision to end it? After almost 9 years of fighting in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq, I'm convinced that it is precisely the obscurity of both wars that allows them to persist. Looking for a ready example of systemic obscurity? How's this: the U.S. Air Force is denying its servicemembers access to websites and blogs that disseminate the WikiLeaks cables.
So, don't we know by now, when we close our eyes to the truth that our whole world can be destroyed. In the dark, it's too easy to follow fear's motivation, to label freedoms as terrorist threats, to kill civilians in the name of irrational wars. None of the fear imposed on us-- I swear I believe this-- should be considered necessary or acceptable.
If we don't have a chance to see what goes on in our names, then we can't know what is necessary or acceptable. And if we don't take the opportunity to see what goes on when that information is made transparent, then are choosing fear over truth.
Demand transparency.
Thanks.
That'll be the end of my proselytizing. For now.
And now, pardon me for a moment while I proselytize:
I watched the video Assange chose to call Collateral Murder for the first time in many months. As I did the first time I saw it, I cried when the Apache helicopter crew fired their weapons on a group of men on a street below. I cried for the victims and I cried for the brash American voices congratulating themselves for hitting their mark. Everyone lost something in that moment, and I'm fairly certain that war is largely composed of just such moments, repeating in a loop until a decision is made to close it. War is, those of us fortunate enough to avoid it are told, hell. No joke. So, how do we make a decision to end it? After almost 9 years of fighting in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq, I'm convinced that it is precisely the obscurity of both wars that allows them to persist. Looking for a ready example of systemic obscurity? How's this: the U.S. Air Force is denying its servicemembers access to websites and blogs that disseminate the WikiLeaks cables.
So, don't we know by now, when we close our eyes to the truth that our whole world can be destroyed. In the dark, it's too easy to follow fear's motivation, to label freedoms as terrorist threats, to kill civilians in the name of irrational wars. None of the fear imposed on us-- I swear I believe this-- should be considered necessary or acceptable.
If we don't have a chance to see what goes on in our names, then we can't know what is necessary or acceptable. And if we don't take the opportunity to see what goes on when that information is made transparent, then are choosing fear over truth.
Demand transparency.
Thanks.
That'll be the end of my proselytizing. For now.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
People v. the Government
Today, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo of China for his fervent, non-violent struggle for human rights in his country. The prizewinner was unavailable to collect his prize in Oslo because the Chinese government has incarcerated him for a period of 11 years as punishment for a petition he circulated calling for a multi-party system in Chinese government. The Chinese government also refused to permit his wife to collect the prize for him, sentencing her to a period of house arrest, ostensibly for the precise purpose of keeping the notoriety of the Prize from influencing its population to celebrate a political prisoner.
A speech written by Liu Xiaobo and originally delivered before the court who sentenced him to his confinement was read at the Nobel ceremony. Liu, in the same spirit of compassion toward those who would oppress him that must inspire his long fight for rights, wrote, "Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy."
In a fit of rage over the selection of Liu Xiaobo for the prize, China prohibited media in the country from all reporting of the Nobel committee's decision. It sought company in its peevish indignation and lobbied other nations to boycott the prize, casting the prize as an symbol exclusive to western culture that should not be imposed on other nations with other values. In a desperate attempt to claim autonomy over the delivery of impressive prizes, it even invented a new one: the Confucius Peace Prize. Apparently, the first man selected to receive it turned it down, claiming that he'd never heard of it and didn't want it. Poor China. It probably wishes it could run away to Mars right now, where all that earthbound interest in human rights would be nice and irrelevant.
As the U.S. government prepares to level charges against Julian Assange, the founder and face of Wikileaks, for the website's distribution of leaked U.S. State Department cables, I can't help but draw comparisons between the two nations' churlish response to news that doesn't go its way. Just as China would prefer to silence a writer and activist seeking political reform, so too, it seems, would the U.S. prefer to prevent the public's further access to the materials received and shared by Assange. Even more interesting, aside from seeking transparency among governments as a fundamental necessity for true democratic governance, Assange really hasn't called for anything else. He may feel one way or another about U.S. power but ultimately, his views of the U.S., as an Australian citizen, are inconsequential. He cannot vote nor does he contribute to the American coffers as a taxpayer. And yet.
And yet, many American politicians have called him a traitor. (An impossible indictment as he is not a citizen of the country.) They have called him a spy, despite the fact that he was given the material by an American military service member who simply copied files onto a CD and there doesn't seem to be any allegation or evidence that he requested the material beforehand. And now, the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to indict Assange under an antiquated law whose origin is is just another eerie skeleton in the deep, dark closet of American history and, even worse, whose applicability to the Wikileaks case is tenuous at best. The Espionage Act of 1917 was the brainchild of a vulnerable and sick president, Woodrow Wilson, who sought to circumvent the First Amendment freedom of speech by criminalizing the protests of ordinary citizens-- educators, artists, activists-- against U.S. involvement in a war against Germany.
Now, the same poorly drafted, sadly intentioned, musty onion-skin Act has been slammed on the table before the ravenous, always combative powers-that-be-and-don't-want-to-not-be in the U.S. (Senators Lieberman and Feinstein both want to see it employed against Assange.) And the dust rising from its pages is helpfully obscuring the true facts of the Act's purpose and relevance to the matter at hand.
Like China, the U.S. apparently would prefer to sequester and confine the voices that speak against it. Interestingly, however, the voice of Assange is not the issue here. It's the documents that the U.S. government itself drafted and failed to secure from the prying and/or discontented eyes of its own employee. Between the two regimes, perhaps the greatest similarity is the wish to appear competent even when incompetence is revealed. And that, really, is just shameful. These governments don't appear to be "of the people" but rather "over the people." Therefore, it becomes necessary to shutdown any person, citizen or otherwise, who reminds the people of their obligation to become involved in government if they want it to change.
Pity. Really, it's a pity.
A speech written by Liu Xiaobo and originally delivered before the court who sentenced him to his confinement was read at the Nobel ceremony. Liu, in the same spirit of compassion toward those who would oppress him that must inspire his long fight for rights, wrote, "Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy."
In a fit of rage over the selection of Liu Xiaobo for the prize, China prohibited media in the country from all reporting of the Nobel committee's decision. It sought company in its peevish indignation and lobbied other nations to boycott the prize, casting the prize as an symbol exclusive to western culture that should not be imposed on other nations with other values. In a desperate attempt to claim autonomy over the delivery of impressive prizes, it even invented a new one: the Confucius Peace Prize. Apparently, the first man selected to receive it turned it down, claiming that he'd never heard of it and didn't want it. Poor China. It probably wishes it could run away to Mars right now, where all that earthbound interest in human rights would be nice and irrelevant.
As the U.S. government prepares to level charges against Julian Assange, the founder and face of Wikileaks, for the website's distribution of leaked U.S. State Department cables, I can't help but draw comparisons between the two nations' churlish response to news that doesn't go its way. Just as China would prefer to silence a writer and activist seeking political reform, so too, it seems, would the U.S. prefer to prevent the public's further access to the materials received and shared by Assange. Even more interesting, aside from seeking transparency among governments as a fundamental necessity for true democratic governance, Assange really hasn't called for anything else. He may feel one way or another about U.S. power but ultimately, his views of the U.S., as an Australian citizen, are inconsequential. He cannot vote nor does he contribute to the American coffers as a taxpayer. And yet.
And yet, many American politicians have called him a traitor. (An impossible indictment as he is not a citizen of the country.) They have called him a spy, despite the fact that he was given the material by an American military service member who simply copied files onto a CD and there doesn't seem to be any allegation or evidence that he requested the material beforehand. And now, the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to indict Assange under an antiquated law whose origin is is just another eerie skeleton in the deep, dark closet of American history and, even worse, whose applicability to the Wikileaks case is tenuous at best. The Espionage Act of 1917 was the brainchild of a vulnerable and sick president, Woodrow Wilson, who sought to circumvent the First Amendment freedom of speech by criminalizing the protests of ordinary citizens-- educators, artists, activists-- against U.S. involvement in a war against Germany.
Now, the same poorly drafted, sadly intentioned, musty onion-skin Act has been slammed on the table before the ravenous, always combative powers-that-be-and-don't-want-to-not-be in the U.S. (Senators Lieberman and Feinstein both want to see it employed against Assange.) And the dust rising from its pages is helpfully obscuring the true facts of the Act's purpose and relevance to the matter at hand.
Like China, the U.S. apparently would prefer to sequester and confine the voices that speak against it. Interestingly, however, the voice of Assange is not the issue here. It's the documents that the U.S. government itself drafted and failed to secure from the prying and/or discontented eyes of its own employee. Between the two regimes, perhaps the greatest similarity is the wish to appear competent even when incompetence is revealed. And that, really, is just shameful. These governments don't appear to be "of the people" but rather "over the people." Therefore, it becomes necessary to shutdown any person, citizen or otherwise, who reminds the people of their obligation to become involved in government if they want it to change.
Pity. Really, it's a pity.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Messenger v. Message
Really. Is anyone surprised that the U.S. government maintains poorly guarded secrets about its diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world? The country's ruling class can't tell its ass from an urgent need to rescue the middle class from predatory lenders who continue to feast on the rickety bones of families struggling to stay in shelter. Thus, Congress carries on with all efforts to cover its ass but leaves families swinging floppy sticks at their mortgage holders from their front porches.
Most recently, we've seen the Senate hijack all commonsense and future financial security by stonewalling tax cuts for the middle class if the richest 1% of the population doesn't get their cut too. Obama capitulated with the Republican hijackers, allowing them to ensure that those making over $564,000 per year will get at least $70,000 in tax savings instead of the paltry $27,000 in savings they would have seen had their tax bracket been increased from 33-35% to 36-39%. By contrast, a family earning the median income in the country, or $55,000 per year will owe about $2,700 less than they might if the tax cuts were permitted to expire.
The best horrible thing about all this? Congress and the White House agreed that the across the board tax cuts will simply be added to the national debt. This, see, is the only way the politicians can cover their asses for the 2012 elections some 700 days off.
Similarly, the Senate sits comfortably on its luscious, well guarded ass at yet another impasse-- this one confounding most observers who give a damn (including Condoleeza, HW and maybe a handful of U.S. citizens who really should tell their neighbors to get more involved) as it delays the ratification of a new treaty to reduce the nuclear arms capabilities of both the U.S. and its Cold War dance partner by another name, Russia. The Senate Republicans argue that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is insufficient because, basically, they just don't know if Russia is going to play by its terms. The same Republicans don't seem to remember that the treaty is a product of the quintessential Republican leadership of Ronald Reagan. When it comes down to it, the tragedy of the New START is the same as that keeping the American people hamstrung by debt: the Republicans don't want to play with the Democrat kids on the playground because the Democrats could, potentially, swat their fat asses later... in that looming election still two years off.
So, it's with a heavy, indulgent hand that I turn to Wikileaks and all the meat it's tossing into the digital media, be it juicy (Putin and his minion, the Russian President, need some superhero underroos), dry (Prince Charles isn't as respectable as the Queen), stringy and unpalatable (Afghani leaders ask the U.S. to cover up the hiring of young dancing boys for American contractors), or really, really, really, shockingly rancid (American troops have been killing people in Yemen and Pakistan but the government denies it). The information exposed in these cables may or may not help the U.S. if it chooses to pursue its neo-imperialist strategies around the world as it has since 9/11... that is, by obscuring its desperate pursuit of its enemies through a more desperate cultivation of fair weather friends who support those enemies in order to take advantage of the U.S.'s greatest vulnerabilities: oil addiction and a behemoth debt. It probably won't help, actually, and that's why the freaky neocons and their lesser educated Tea Party friends are calling for the death of the messenger, rather than engaging in a more deliberate consideration of the information revealed. Deliberation could expose too much information to a population that seems to prefer darkness to light. Isn't this a distinct condition of an oppressed people?
Well, Julian Assange and his impressive network of skillful collaborators has presented the U.S., and I mean its people, not its government, with a really appealing opportunity. We the People could make a choice to engage in our democracy, to review the shape of our nation's footprint internationally and to deliberate on that impression based on our national values. We have a chance to kick our government in its over-protected ass, not for god or christ or the second amendment, but because we share a decent moral commonground that may not want to be oppressed or to oppress. Right?
We aren't a bad people; we just don't seem to know better sometimes. Now, we do. Or, we have the chance to. Read the cables. Pass them around. Think a little. And don't call out for the death of a man who puts a light in your hand. Instead, use the light.
Most recently, we've seen the Senate hijack all commonsense and future financial security by stonewalling tax cuts for the middle class if the richest 1% of the population doesn't get their cut too. Obama capitulated with the Republican hijackers, allowing them to ensure that those making over $564,000 per year will get at least $70,000 in tax savings instead of the paltry $27,000 in savings they would have seen had their tax bracket been increased from 33-35% to 36-39%. By contrast, a family earning the median income in the country, or $55,000 per year will owe about $2,700 less than they might if the tax cuts were permitted to expire.
The best horrible thing about all this? Congress and the White House agreed that the across the board tax cuts will simply be added to the national debt. This, see, is the only way the politicians can cover their asses for the 2012 elections some 700 days off.
 |
| Crash. |
So, it's with a heavy, indulgent hand that I turn to Wikileaks and all the meat it's tossing into the digital media, be it juicy (Putin and his minion, the Russian President, need some superhero underroos), dry (Prince Charles isn't as respectable as the Queen), stringy and unpalatable (Afghani leaders ask the U.S. to cover up the hiring of young dancing boys for American contractors), or really, really, really, shockingly rancid (American troops have been killing people in Yemen and Pakistan but the government denies it). The information exposed in these cables may or may not help the U.S. if it chooses to pursue its neo-imperialist strategies around the world as it has since 9/11... that is, by obscuring its desperate pursuit of its enemies through a more desperate cultivation of fair weather friends who support those enemies in order to take advantage of the U.S.'s greatest vulnerabilities: oil addiction and a behemoth debt. It probably won't help, actually, and that's why the freaky neocons and their lesser educated Tea Party friends are calling for the death of the messenger, rather than engaging in a more deliberate consideration of the information revealed. Deliberation could expose too much information to a population that seems to prefer darkness to light. Isn't this a distinct condition of an oppressed people?
Well, Julian Assange and his impressive network of skillful collaborators has presented the U.S., and I mean its people, not its government, with a really appealing opportunity. We the People could make a choice to engage in our democracy, to review the shape of our nation's footprint internationally and to deliberate on that impression based on our national values. We have a chance to kick our government in its over-protected ass, not for god or christ or the second amendment, but because we share a decent moral commonground that may not want to be oppressed or to oppress. Right?
We aren't a bad people; we just don't seem to know better sometimes. Now, we do. Or, we have the chance to. Read the cables. Pass them around. Think a little. And don't call out for the death of a man who puts a light in your hand. Instead, use the light.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The Wait for the Dog.
 |
| Five months and five days after we left her, she comes home. |
We settled in on the beach, not just for the views and and the incessant drone of the waves, but for the beckoning sandbox beyond our deck. This would be her playground.
Today, the little dog is released from her 30-day confinement in quarantine. We've visited with her often, at least twice a week but usually three, during that time. In the first days, she was over-excited and confused to see us. As time passed, she became hopeful that every visit was our last and that she would finally don her collar to depart. She would sit patiently in front of the door during our visits, blocking our exit lest we forget what we came for. Unfortunately, we had to explain to her uncomprehending, eternally devoted eyes, her sentence wasn't complete. In the last week, I've fancied her new non-chalance as a resignation to her situation. We arrive, she jumps and licks and tells us through wiggles and groans that she's okay but not totally satisfied with her digs. She looks at the door and we say, "not yet." And then she lets it go. She heads onto her private, concrete patio to show us a toy, drink water, mutter at a bird hopping too close to the chainlink fence separating her from the best possible, but still inaccessible, world for her. When we leave, she gets in bed and casts her dark eyes on us. I read her disappointed compassion for us in them and I assure her that we've tried to be unselfish in this adventure, that she'll be happy at the beach, that we'll be together for the rest of her life, that she'll never have to sleep alone in a lonely, sparsely furnished kennel suite looking out on the hills and fields she'd love to romp.
Ah, but I know what she might think. "Haven't I done this before?"
And that's when I commit, come what may, to staying on these islands. Because, come what may, our dog shouldn't have to travel anymore.
Two more hours until they set her free.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)