conversations

say, adspar, what is that obama fellow up to these days?  you know, that guy who was going to change everything for the better?  the one who gives us hope?

he's been busy.

that's good.  hope and change are hard work.  what a great guy.  so clean and articulate!  so charismatic and intelligent.  so what is he doing?  lots of great and wonderful things i'm sure!

yeah, well he's been changing bush's war on terror by escalating the slaughter of civilians in pakistan.  you didn't even know we were killing pakistanis did you?  

aren't they supposed to be our allies?  

oh well, no matter.  i'm sure he has very good reasons.  just like he has good reasons to send his troops to shoot pregnant women and destroy farms and crops in afghanistan.  you should have seen how articulately he gave that order!

that sounds kind of bad actually.  but i probably just don't know enough about it.  i'm sure he has access to secret information that makes this more understandable.  we should just trust his judgment on this.  he's not bush after all!  remember all those criticisms of bush he intelligently articulated in his campaign?  surely those criticisms prove his heart is pure and good.  yes, definitely, we should just trust him.

yeah, remember how he criticized bush for kidnapping people off the street and locking them in cages in guantanamo without any ability to challenge their detention?  obama is hoping and changing this by locking them in cages in bagram instead!  that probably sounds like it contradicts his campaign rhetoric, but don't worry, i'm sure you'll figure out some way to excuse him for it.

i don't know... i'll try hard...

i think you owe him that much.  he's working very hard to make sure there are no investigations or prosecutions of the well-documented widespread use of torture by bush's henchman.  he's working hard to make sure he can torture too.  so you better work hard to excuse, rationalize, or ignore anything he does that you don't like.

adspar, you're really such a downer.  i just want to feel good about the world, and have some hope.  times are really tough, so i don't think that's too much to ask for.  but you have to go and ruin it for me.  i don't think i'm going to ask you about politics any more.

this shit, as far as i recall, has always primarily been about two things: truth and fun.  it is clear to me now that one of these two things just isn't very important at all.

on condescension

As a followup to the previous post, on a personal level, I want to say that I think Brice Lord is a good guy and I don't mean to pick on him specifically.  The views he has expressed are very common.  

Statism, especially in America, is basically a religion into which people are raised.  And just as I don't think people are stupid or evil just because they're religious, I don't think that about those who believe in the state or in the exceptionalism of America.  But I do think their beliefs are dangerous and can lead to actions that are stupid or evil, and as such I try to challenge bad arguments defending those beliefs.  

The most hopeful outcome of such a process is to convince people to give up their religions and evaluate the world around them without the blinders of faith.  Perhaps a more realistic hope is that by speaking up we make it easier for others to do the same and to unite, gradually adding cohesiveness and force to a previously-marginalized viewpoint.

Just like when I've spoken out against religion, I suspect a reaction to what I've said here will be that I'm terribly condescending.  But all I've done here is say that I disagree with someone (or lots of people).  Implicit in disagreement is the thought that the other person is wrong. Disagreements happen all the time without accusations of condescension, so clearly there's more to condescension that simply telling someone they're wrong.  

If it is the suggestion that a perspective is based on faith, not reason, that seems condescending, I would argue that if anything that is a nicer way of telling someone they're wrong.  Personally, I'd feel better if my failure to understand reality could be attributable to complex effects of the way loved ones have influenced my emotional development and trusted authorities have deceived me.  That seems like the nicest possible way to tell someone they're wrong.  

I think this feeling that someone is being condescending is an unconscious way of insulating ourselves from challenges to deeply held beliefs, a point I've made before when I talk about "poor form".  Rather than confront the ideas, it enables us to simply dismiss the challenger.  After all, even if I am being condescending, that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

TomDispatch: Iran, Oil, Reality

The latest TomDispatch argues that the attack against Iran urged by the Cheney faction of the Bush Regime is looking less likely, largely due to the tremendously negative consequences of likely Iranian retaliation strategies. Notably, the price of oil would explode beyond its already stratospheric level. The piece is shaped by the idea that eventually reality catches up to people who act as if they can create their own reality, which certainly applies to Bush and Cheney.

FISA, Obama, same old story

Greenwald continues to document how the Democrat-led Congress is all set to immunize telecoms for their illegal role in Bush's domestic spying program. Congress is essentially saying that the laws they pass can be broken by anyone if the President says so. Remind me what function Congress actually serves at this point.

Meanwhile, the great hope of the Democratic party, Saint Barrack Obama the First, is prepared to lead a great crusade against this travesty, threatening to filibuster and use all of his popularity and power to thwart the passage of this bill.

No wait, I got that wrong. He isn't doing anything.

Oh I suppose he might make a few mild comments, and he'll cast a meaningless vote against it once the margin of victory has been assured. That way his deluded supporters can convince themselves he opposes this kind of thing, deep down in his pure heart, where no Republican smear tactics can tarnish him and no media figures can call his principles divisive. There, he's a champion of freedom and accountability and peace and fairness and liberty and hygiene; it is only the pressures of the corrupt campaign process that force him to hide the feelings in his heart. In his heart he wants the same things I want, I just know it! But never fear! The way he uses the power of the most powerful office in human history will surely be much different than the way he's used his ever-growing power before, and the way he's using it now, and the way he'll use it before his inauguration, and the way his party leadership uses it, and the way every other Democrat President has used it. He's different! He told me so!

bullshit

I noticed this article in hwong14's shared items and the headline caught my attention: "Does Power Corrupt? Absolutely Not." So I read the article and was a bit confused because the headline has basically nothing to do with the article. So then I went and read the paper featured in the article.

The experiments in the paper manipulate people's feelings of power, inducing them to feel temporarily powerful or powerless, and then gives them tasks. It generally found that people who feel powerful perform better than those who feel powerless. Read the paper for the details. One of the paper's authors, Adam Galinsky, has done other work on power, for example finding that feeling powerful is associated with reduced tendency to understand how other people think. I can see how that would bear on the corruption issue. But I don't see any way the featured research justifies a headline like that. It has nothing at all to do with corruption, though Galinsky does say it has "direct implications" on power and corruption. Aside from the headline, the lede sentence, and that quote, no other mention of corruption is made.

Coincidentally, the article was published in Time Magazine, a powerful and corrupt publication.

catch up blogging: NPR, Jeremiah Wright, Iran, voting

• I listened to about half an hour of NPR while I was home and was disgusted. 20 minutes of it was spent analyzing exactly how black Obama is, and how that mattered for his electability. The "issues" were mentioned once, as something that Obama would like to run on, but there was concern that "the media" wouldn't let him. Gee, NPR, I wonder how that would happen?
• The other 10 minutes were spent on how crazy and polarizing Jeremiah Wright is and what damage he is doing to the Obama campaign. No examination of what he says, of course. (Not that I care if Obama gets elected. His denunciations of Wright, with various lies packaged in, are pathetic and reveal him for what he really is, not that it wasn't already obvious.) I had a recent conversation about Wright with one of my more open-minded family members, who lamented how "divisive" he is, and yet seemed quite unaware of what the man has actually said. Gee, NPR, I wonder how that would happen?
• For typically excellent writing about Wright/Obama check out Floyd and Silber.
• I might comment more on this in a "why I won't vote" post, but check out the conversation here and at the post it links to. Is this the best the opposition has to offer?
• War with Iran seems inevitable, as I've said for a while now. I really feel like I want to be out of here before it happens. I don't exactly know why. My moving date is in 11 days, so... hooray I'll be in complete comfort in a slightly different wealthy nation before thousands of people are senselessly slaughtered! That's the boundless narcissism this blog was built upon.
  

Bush: I lied. Heh heh heh!

Bush: I supported the troops by lying to them. Wouldn't you do the same?

Hey, asshole, if you're so worried about morale, here's an idea. Don't fucking send them to invade and occupy a country that doesn't want them there. Don't extend their tours indefinitely. Don't send broken men back into battle and hide their wounded comrades in roach-infested shitboxes. Don't put them in situations where torturing and slaughtering innocent civilians is bound to happen. Don't blame their PTSD on preexisting condition and make them repay their signing bonuses. Bring them all home, and make sure their medical and psychiatric care is fully funded.

Fuck you, you lying coward.

adspar's how to

Mox:

Adspar I'd like to see a post on what the options are for people who, like yourself, have principled objections to the laws they are subjected to. I know you're moving to Canada (and believe me, I have a lot of respect for someone who's really willing to move rather than support a regime they don't agree with), but I have the suspicion (given your recent anarchist bent) that Canada won't really scratch your political itch (even though it will be much better). What does one do when there is no nation (or region for non-statists) where one can go to that is well-aligned with one's own political ideals?

I'll start off with a few links that do a better job of answering the question than I will:

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2007/03/stop_traffic.html
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/10/break-goddamned-rules.html
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/you-may-as-well-break-goddamned-rules.html
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2007/10/sunday-sermon.html
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2007/10/children-of-revolution-part-one-zillion.html
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2007/10/grve.html
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2007/10/yutes.html
http://ajbenjaminjrbeta.blogspot.com/2008/03/stop-traffic.html

Next I'll note that previous posts here have offered answers to the question. I've tagged some of them with "Raging Against the Machine" to make them easier to find. There are probably more posts in the archives that deserve that tag, so I'll add them as I come across them.

I really would recommend reading the material at all of those links, but here are my own thoughts on the matter without any quoting of those other people or my previous entries.

---

The first thing you need to do, after recognizing the set of problems we're confronted with, is to realize two key points. 1) You're going to be confronted with these problems in almost all aspects of life on a daily basis, and 2) that you aren't going to solve these problems. There's no magical catharsis here. So the way I see it, all anyone can do is make the best of things, which involves some combination of fight and flight. Some of my suggestions for each are below.


Fight (a.k.a. disrupt the system)

• Learn as much as you can about these problems, and speak about what you learn to anyone who will listen (and some people who won't). Spread the message. Knowledge is power. Raise awareness. Educate. Advocate. Inspire. All that shit. It matters.
• Call things what they really are. Up isn't down; black isn't white. Don't let words become meaningless. The US Military isn't fighting a war in Iraq; they're occupiers. America isn't a" democracy" in any meaningful sense. The Department of Defense doesn't defend; the Department of Education doesn't educate; the Homeland Security Department doesn't make us more secure; the Department of Justice doesn't provide justice. Intelligent design isn't science. There's nothing conservative about neo-conservatism, and there's nothing liberal about neo-liberalism. Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama aren't anti-war. John McCain isn't a straight-shooter. Public Relations is propaganda. The Bible is a work of fiction. Declaring "war" on an abstract noun or certain kinds of chemicals literally makes no sense. The President of the United States is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, not the nation. NAFTA isn't a "Free" "Trade" "Agreement." Collateral damage means innocent people were slaughtered. Enhanced interrogation techniques means fucking torture. Call things what they really are. Words mean something, and have tremendous power. The lies stop at you.
  
• Paper currency passes through your hands on a daily basis. It could look different when it leaves your possession. Lots of other people will see it. For example, should religious messages be legible on government-issued money?
  
• There's an important day for the federal government coming up in 11 days. You probably don't want to risk large fines or imprisonment, but aren't few little innocent mistakes bound to happen in such a confusing process?
• Minimize: driving, taxable income, electricity usage, non-essential purchases, paper trails, interaction with illegitimate authorities (including voting for them), processed food consumption, television, religion.
  

Flight (a.k.a. enjoy life responsibly)

• You'll never find a perfect place, but you can move some place more in line with your ideals, a place where you can be more comfortable with the consequences of your daily decisions. Keep fighting when you get there.
• Immerse yourself in an occupation or hobby (one that doesn't compromise your principles).
• Have sex.
  
• Buy as much of your food as possible from local and sustainable farms. Experiment with new recipes. Eat slowly.
• Self-medicate.
• Play sports. Go camping. Listen to music. Adopt a pet. Take a walk. Read a book. Join a club.
  
• Keep in mind that flight is actually a fight strategy too. You're leading by example, demonstrating that people can be more happy and healthy outside of the fucked up system.
  

Euphemism and American Violence

Check out this excellent piece by David Bromwich in the New York Review of Books about how the US Government and news media's use of obfuscatory language has helped keep our national conscience from acknowledging our violent crimes throughout the world.

bush, terror, saudis, mommy, etc

A popular right-wing response to various accusations against the Bush regime is that whatever "questionable" or "unpopular" (read: illegal and immoral) actions they may have taken (read:did), they were certainly doing them to Protect America From Harm. This idea is very much an article of faith among people like my family: comforting and totally wrong. That should be obvious (even Bush's own analysts concluded that the Iraq invasion increased the threat of terrorism) but reality isn't something these types are good at seeing.

Nevertheless, after noticing this little nugget, I decided to send along some information to the folks. A painfully distorted justification is the only engaged response I'm likely to receive, but I can always hope...

Here's the message:

It is well documented that the Bush family, including both Presidents (and Dick Cheney) are very close personal friends with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, going so far as to nickname him "Bandar Bush." Previously secret documents recently revealed in British courts show that the Bandar had threatened to make it harder for British officials to prevent terrorism unless they ended a corruption investigation into massive secret payments to Saudi royals by British aerospace company BAE, which promptly scuttled the investigation.

Recap: the President's close personal friend basically threatened to kill random civilians if the British government even thought about trying to stop the dirty money and weapons flowing to him and his associates.

This is of course just one small episode of corruption and disregard for human life from the Saudi royal family, whose deep personal and business ties to the Bush family has lasted decades. Put aside for a minute that the job of a President is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the nation. Does a man committed to doing everything he can to protect America cuddle up to a guy like Bandar Bush?

I just noticed that I used the words "scuttle" and "cuddle," which kind of rhyme. So I got that going for me.

Why do they hate us????!

So many are just utterly incapable of understanding that some people have legitimate objections to the actions of the US Government, which then motivate the aggrieved to illegitimate actions. A Tiny Revolution highlights a perfect example. I'd describe it as hilarious but the fact that it is really fucking serious would make me feel bad about laughing. I need a word for that situation, because I'd use it a lot.

edit - I should note that Israel is involved in the linked case, but they're a US client state so they can be lumped in for these purposes. Also, racism or some other form of bigotry that allows us to think of some groups as subhuman contributes to this and other cases.

on the fine tradition of virgins having babies

I recently read Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great and particularly enjoyed this passage, in response to a gospel account of how Mary "was found with child of the Holy Ghost."

Yes, and the Greek demigod Perseus was born when the god Jupiter visited the virgin Danae as a shower of gold and got her with child. The god Buddha was born through an opening in his mother's flank. Catlicus the serpent-skirted caught a little ball of feathers from the sky and hid it in her bosom, and the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli was thus conceived. The virgin Nana took a pomegranate from the tree watered by the blood of the slain Agdestris, and laid it in her bosom, and gave birth to the god Attis. The virgin daughter of a Mongol king awoke one night and found herself bathed in a great light, which caused her to give birth to Genghis Khan. Krishna was born of the virgin Devaka. Horus was born of the the virgin Isis. Mercury was born of the virgin Maia. Romulus was born of the virgin Rhea Silvia. For some reason, many religions force themselves to think of the birth canal as a one-way street.

I sometimes wonder how many people who claim to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin genuinely believe that 2,000 years ago an actual human being was born whose conception didn't involve human sperm. The notion is obviously preposterous, and even the most devout Christians must have a hard time hiding behind "the mystery of faith" as their cheap cover. If those people were then exposed to the stories of all these other mythological asexual reproductive events, wouldn't that make it even harder for them not to see their beloved miraculous conception as a silly fairy tale like all the others? Knowledge is the enemy of faith.

[I couldn't resist including the last line of the quote. It would be an excellent introduction to a discussion of control over female sexuality, a topic I might revisit in another post.]

"I don't read your political blog posts"

1.) "I don't read your political blog posts." I get that line a lot. I'm curious as to how those people expect I'll react to "Hey I don't read the 95% of what you write... you know, the stuff you obviously care a great deal about. But dude that shit about the Ramen was funny! I love Ramen!!!" Thanks. Thanks a lot. (If you've said this to me recently and figure I'm talking about you, I assure you that you're not alone. My readership has changed dramatically since I used to write about poker and movies all the time.)

2.) I had a conversation recently with my mother, who loves George Bush unconditionally, trusts him completely, and fully supports his war-making. Over the course of this conversation it became appallingly obvious how ignorant she was about basic facts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She actually outright refused to believe factual information I provided that casts the actions of our military in a negative light, starkly denying the possibility that it could be true. She knows nothing but Progress and Noble Goals, and unquestioningly assumes the Goodness of The United States of America. She once told me "America is number one." I stopped and asked her what that means exactly. She paused, thought about it for a while, and said "it means that we have the privilege to live in a country that is the best."

--

This is America in a nutshell. We're occupying a country on the other side of the world that we illegally invaded, causing death and injury to untold millions, and nobody wants to know a thing about any of it. The vast majority of us are shockingly ignorant and oblivious, but that doesn't stop huge numbers from blindly supporting our course of destruction anyway, because hey, if we're doing something, it must be right, because we're Number One and being #1 means we're The Best. The Best might occasionally mess something up or have an isolated bad apple, but we're always operating with the Noble Intention of Spreading Freedom, and the net effect of our actions is always Good. (Because we're The Best. The Best = #1. America is #1. )

I don't blame you that you don't want to question these stories. I know you don't want to actually think about this. I know you don't want to discover that your country is a monster and your flag-waving friends are idiots. Do you think I do? Do you think I want to know that my own mother's carefully considered explanation for why America is #1 is that "we're the best"? That she believes every lie from George W. Bush's forked tongue and not a word from mine?

Go read that link. I know you don't want to; that's what the link it actually about, the way we censor our own conversations to avoid unpleasant reality. If you manage to suppress your urge to click elsewhere, if you actually read it, you might realize that by voluntarily ignoring the spread of evil, you're willingly surrendering to it.

Explain this phenomenon to me

I object to Bush's war and they bring up Sandy Berger. This has happened twice now, once with each parent, in incidents almost a full year apart.

[Berger was Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor who later stole classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing them down his pants. The lead prosecutor of the case indicates that he stole only copies and that no original material was destroyed, though this story is hotly disputed by Rush Limbaugh and the like, who claim without much factual basis that something much more sinister was happening.]

Who knows what the hell was going on there, but what kind of derangement is happening when you attempt to compare this to Bush's war crimes? Its like comparing the Columbine shootings to spray-painting some graffiti on a school wall. I can't even fathom what point they're trying to make by bringing it up. "Well you're saying that Bush illegally invaded two sovereign nations causing the slaughter of at least a million people, but this one guy who used to work for Clinton stole some documents!!"

Helen Keller and Brian McGough

At the time Keller became a socialist, she was one of the most famous women on the planet. She soon became the most notorious. Her conversion to socialism caused a new storm of publicity - this time outraged. Newspapers that had extolled her courage and intelligence now emphasized her handicap. Columnists charged that she had no independent sensory input and was in thrall to those who fed her information. Typical was the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, wrote that Keller's "mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development."

Keller recalls having met this editor: "At the time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him." She went on, "Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which was are trying to prevent.

- James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, p22. Thanks to Brice Lord for recommending it.

Rush Limbaugh:

VoteVets.org has -- they describe themselves as an organization comprised of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns who oppose current policy in Iraq. They've put together a TV ad that takes aim at me. This ad's going to run on Fox News, on CNN, it's going to run on WMAL radio in Washington, $60,000 ad buy that's going to run, I think, on our local West Palm Beach station down here. And there's a man identified as Brian McCoff -- McGough -- it's M-C-G-O-U-G-H, I'm not sure how he pronounces it, McGo, McGuff -- I haven't watched the ad.

He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, "Until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service." You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into.

This man will always be a hero to this country with everyone. Whoever pumped him full of these lies about what I said and embarrassed him with this ad has betrayed him. They're not hurting me, they're betraying this soldier. Now, unless he actually believes what he's saying, in which case it's just so unfortunate and sad when the truth of what I said is right out there to be learned.

raging out

I still haven't finished that post I alluded to a little while back. Actually I haven't even worked on it since then. I had started working on it because I read a few essays that really moved me and I wanted to respond to them. But an ongoing problem is that several times every day I'm moved in the exact same way, and all sense of perspective slips away as I'm motivated in 20 different directions at the same time. The form of the movement is best described as outrage, although elements of frustration, despair, disgust, anger, and sorrow are all in the mix. But we'll call it outrage.

Ours is an outrageous world. Outrageous atrocities are committed on a daily basis and those who are responsible tell outrageous lies about all of it. An outrageous nation with by far the most powerful military force in history uses it to destroy helpless small countries and loot the wreckage, while outrageously preaching to the rest of the world about how noble this is. The internal factions driving this machine somehow manage to blame the carnage on their timid opposition, and the resulting outrage is taken to be proof of the blame. The carnage itself is agreed to be an unfortunate but necessary side effect of the gloriously noble and very important destruction/looting/aggression/killing/spreading-freedom-and-democracy-and-puppies. Heinous war crimes and violations of international law, when impolitely mentioned, are taken to be an indication of how necessary and glorious and noble and important the outrageous aggression must be, but certainly will never be fully acknowledged, yet alone prosecuted. Lies mount upon lies until everyone saying and hearing them knows full well that the words and the truth bear no resemblance. Yet the liars are outraged when their lies are not accepted. Their outrage is loud and bold and coordinated and amplified and effective, in spite of, or more likely because of, its hollow meaninglessness. Dense, genuine outrage is quiet, meek, sloppy. It is and suppressed and impotent.

And I sit here in front of my computer, outraged in a dense and genuine way, wondering what the flying fuck I can do about any of it. I try to write about it but I can't, not really. I try to talk about it but I can't, not really. And so in the end this just amounts to a semi-apologetic self-important lonely pity party, unless of course putting it where other people can read it does some good for anyone else. Then the pity party is a bit less lonely, cause we're certainly not capable of stopping the machine. The outrages accelerate and we won't know what or when the end will be, or if it will be a bang or a whimper or some outrageous third option.

Lauren Green, Kathy Griffin, and Jesus Lord of Comedy

It turns out Kathy Griffin was wrong! Jesus had everything to do with her winning that award!

But here's what I don't quite understand, although I'm sure there's a very good explanation. If Jesus really did have everything to do with Kathy Griffin's award, and think Lauren Green has undoubtedly shown that to be true, then that means Jesus had everything to do with Kathy Griffin saying "Suck it Jesus! This award is my God now!" And since Lauren Green makes it clear that she finds self-effacing humor to be amusing, why is it that Lauren Green is unamused by Kathy Griffin's remarks, which is essentially Jesus' own self-effacement? Jesus is Lord of Comedy, but Lauren Green is won't scarf down his tasty communion wafer.

But like I said, I'm sure there's a very good explanation. It is probably related to the reason why Lauren Green would have "turned the other cheek" if Kathy Griffin had just said that no one had less to do with her award than Jesus. Obviously that kind of a comment is the literal equivalent to a slap in the face, but Lauren Green, good Christian that she is, would receive that slap without complaint, and then offer her other cheek to be slapped again. But if Kathy Griffin (at Jesus' insistence) goes on to then slap again, as Lauren Green specifically offered, apparently at that point Lauren Green must spring into action.

Now, I very much believe that Lauren Green and Bill Donahue and Fox News would never have said anything if Kathy Griffin had only disavowed the involvement of a 2,000 year old fictional Jewish zombie. They would have gladly ignored that, and nobody would have censored remarks on the broadcast, and Lauren Green never would have written her well-reasoned column.

But why turn the other cheek if you won't accept the inevitable re-slap? Why doesn't Lauren Green have a sense of humor when Jesus uses an irreverent comedian to make a little fun of himself?

I guess its just that me and Jesus are on the same comedic wavelength. We get each other. That's what I love about him.

chomsky, trivers

Another objectionable mass email

A relative sent this email to most of my family.

Subject: Fw: News Flash

> Verified with SNOPES--this is unnerving
>
> AT A CITGO STATION REGULAR WAS PRICED AT $2.82 PER GALLON, NO
> CUSTOMERS, HOWEVER ACROSS THE STREET IT WAS SELLING FOR $2.85 PER
> GALLON AND ALL PUMPS WERE HAD CARS
> WAITING TO FUEL. HERE'S WHY!!!!
>
> Have you noticed how the Citgo signs have disappeared in the past 7-8
> months? Very clever move by Chavez. But guess what...........
> CITGO IS CHANGING ITS NAME...this is serious Americans...make sure you
> read ..
>
> NEWS FLASH:
>
>
> Chavez is NOW getting a Russian Weapons Factory built by Putin The
> RUSSIANS are building an AK-47 Kalashnikov Assault Rifle factory in
> Venezuela , to give armament support to Communist Rebel groups
> throughout the Americas.
>
> Chavez NOW has IRANIANS operating his oil refineries in Venezuela for
> him. It is likely only a matter of time, if not already, before Chavez
> has Iranian built LONG RANGE missiles, with variety of warhead types
> aimed at: Guess Who?
>
> CITGO is NOW in the process of Changing Its Name to PETRO EXPRESS due to
> the loss of gasoline sales in the USA due to the recent publicity of
> ownership by Chavez of Venezuela .
>
> Every dollar you spend with CITGO or PETRO EXPRESS gasoline will be
> used against you, your basic human rights, and your freedoms. He will
> start wars here in the Americas that will probably be the death of
> millions.
>
> THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because Chavez is starting to feel the loss of
> revenue from his holdings. HE OWNS CITGO. This is a very important move
> that everyone should be aware of.
>
> ANNOUNCED JUST RECENTLY, CITGO, BEING AWARE THAT SALES ARE DOWN DUE TO
> U.S. CUSTOMERS NOT WANTING TO BUY FROM "CITGO-CHAVEZ", HAVE STARTED
> TOCHANGE THE NAME OF SOME OF THEIR STORES TO: "PETRO EXPRESS"
> DO NOT BUY FROM "PETRO EXPRESS" EITHER!!! "PETRO EXPRESS" IS ALSO 100%
> OWNED BY "CHAVEZ."
>
> KEEP THIS MEMO GOING SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING.
>
> BOYCOTT "CITGO" AND "PETRO EXPRESS"
>
> MAKE SURE THIS IS PASSED ON TO EVERYONE IN YOUR E-MAIL LIST IN THE
> UNITED STATES AND OUTSIDE OF AMERICA

I sent this response to everyone.

If we're concerned about weapons in the hands of dangerous people that might be counter-productive to America's interests, we might want to be more concerned about this kind of thing. Nobody arms dangerous people with more weapons than the United States.

Additionally, some of the claims in the email might be a wee bit silly, like " Every dollar you spend with CITGO or PETRO EXPRESS gasoline will be used against you, your basic human rights, and your freedoms." This article explains how this claim is wildly inaccurate from an economic perspective, although economics are the least of the problems there. The idea that Hugo Chavez is actively attempting to violate American human rights and freedoms on a massive scale is pretty silly. Note that he has offered cheap heating oil to American poor. In his own country, he's fought poverty in numerous ways, getting real results. Let's worry about human rights violations and attacks on personal freedoms committed by our own government before we start worrying about hypothetical future violations by someone else.

Or "he will start wars here in the Americas that will probably be the death of millions." If we're worried about wars that will probably be the death of millions, maybe we ought to get our own forces of Iraq. As of a year ago, the best scientific estimate of the number of Iraqi deaths that had occurred since our invasion that wouldn't have happened if we had not invaded was 655,000. We're easily on pace to kill well over a million.

Note that none of this should be construed as blanket support for Hugo Chavez. There might well be valid criticisms of his policies and practices, but absurd fear-mongering hype isn't the way to address such issues. And my other objection is that if we're concerned about war and weapons and personal freedom, we'd be wise to tend to our own affairs first.