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FEBRUARY 2008 FEBRUARY 28, 2008: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PEACE SYMBOL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FEBRUARY 28, 2008: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PEACE SYMBOL |
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Exactly 50 years and one week ago, the familiar Peace Symbol was born. Happy belated birthday, little guy. Just one request: Would you please come back? We need you now as much as we did when you were a banner for folks marching for nuclear disarmament, and again in the sixties when you were a pin-on identifier for all of us who were against the Vietnam War.
Wikipedia has a detailed overview of the Peace Symbol's history, which I won't repeat here (scroll down in that article to get to it). Check it out - it's quite instructive, and a good waltz down memory lane for those of us who remember the sixties. I well remember wearing a Peace Symbol button, along with the Omega button of the draft resistance movement on - what else? - my Levi's jacket. More times than I care to remember, folks from the Greatest Generation - remember, the one that killed nearly 54 million people in World War II? - sneered that the Peace Symbol was "the footprint of the American chicken." To be perfectly honest, I did have one thing in common with a chicken at that point in my life: I was stupid. As it turned out, I was drafted and took the physical, but was declared too skinny and unhealthy to fight. I was given a one-year deferment - I didn't have to go to jail (as many did) for refusing to serve. When that year ended, for reasons unknown I was never called again. As you might assume, I didn't inform my local draft board of their oversight. So I kept wearing my chicken foot. I worked briefly for the SDS, but - as I stated above - I was too stupid (naive, unrealistic, short-sighted) to be of much use. I'd like to say that I did my bit to throw a wrench in the cogs of the war machine, but I can't give myself that much credit.
And here we are again, with another war underway. Will this one be stopped before it either engulfs us all like World War II or "merely" devastates one corner of the world as did the Vietnam War? Or will we chickens rise up and cluck "Enough!" loud enough to be heard by Haliburton, Blackwater, and the other decision-makers of our money-mad society? It may sound embarassingly naive and insufferably cornball to say "war is not the answer," but ... well ... it's inarguably true. As our weaponry gets more powerful, our religious fervor gets more blinding, and our leaders - both here and in the Middle East - become increasingly driven by monied interests that have less and less interest in the common Joe or Ali, new thinking is needed. Fast. At minimum, it sounds as if it's time to break out our 50-year-old friend and hit the streets, eh? [back to top] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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FEBRUARY 25, 2008: CLINTON MUDSLINGS AGAIN |
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Odds are you've already seen the photo of Barack Obama that's been circulated over the Intertubes by various right-wing hatemongers. In it, Obama is wearing traditional garb of a Somali elder, a gift when on a trip to Africa. Well, you may also have read today that the Clinton camp has declined to deny that they've been behind some of that photo's distribution.
But this latest move is her sleaziest yet - so slippery that the ol' Swiftboaters must be shaking their heads in admiration. Not only have the Clintonites again stirred the pot of "Barack is a Muslim" rumors, they've also tried to brand Obama as prejudiced by having Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, respond to Obama's objections by stating, "if Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed." Talk about wanting to have it both ways... When the Obama-is-a-Muslim whispering campaign first hit the mainstream media this January on - where else? - Fox news, reasonable news outlets such as CNN did their homework, reported the facts, and all seemed to quiet down. But only for awhile. Then untraceable emails began to circulate, claiming that Obama was allied with the Muslim plan to "destroy the U.S. from the inside out." These emails were thoroughly debunked by Snopes.com and others, but the damage had been done. The National Nutjob Confederacy is awash with commentary about Obama's "Muslim connection," that his true identity is "yet to be revealed," and that he should be mistrusted since "Once a Muslim, Always a Muslim." This fear-storm has morphed even further to include commentary about his friendship with members of the Weather Underground and twisted analysis concluding that "if Obama makes it to the big house, Israel is screwed." Nutjobism is a rapidly metastasizing cancer - a fact of which the Clinton campaign is most definitely aware.
And it might work. Old-style slash-and-burn politics are difficult to defeat because hate and fear are marvelously effective tools. (If Bush hasn't amply proven that to you, you haven't been paying attention.) But do we need another eight years of back-stabbing, dirty tricks, and hate-mongering? Vote Obama. [back to top] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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FEBRUARY 24, 2008: GIVE IT UP, RALPH! |
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Today comes the news that Ralph Nader has decided to run for president. Again. I think I speak for the vast majority of America - we progressives included - when I say...
"Ralph, in 2000 Al Gore lost Florida by 527 votes (depending, of course, on which count you count). In Florida, you received 97,488 votes. Although many who voted for you might have sat out the election, and some may have even voted for Bush, I think it's safe to say that enough Naderites would have become Goreites to have swung to state to the Democratic party. You are a major reason that Florida put Bush in the White House, Ralph. That's cruel, but it's true. "Has guilt driven you over the edge? Are you trying to somehow atone for the past seven years of hideousness? Sure, Gore would not have been the crystal-clear perfection that you think you are, but, lord god, he'd have been better than BushCo. Even you must see that, right?
"We patriotic Americans need to do whatever we can to remove the government we now endure. But you're not helping, Ralph. Wake up and smell the coffee. You're a distraction. An embarrassment. A. Your presence helps our adversaries belittle our agenda. Your current blind, unrealistic arrogance tarnishes what was once a well-deserved reputation for effective progressiveness. "Go home, Ralph - but before you do, check out the following video, which sums up the whole painful mess better than I can."
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Sometimes I go for a week or more without posting here because I simply have nothing of interest to say, or because there's no topic making the rounds about which I have any particular expertise. But now, with the Republican primary season essentially over, and with various pundits making noises about how McCain needs to reach into the conservative, evangelical south for a running mate that will endear him to the Christian Right, I find that I must end my recent silence and answer the burning question that's troubling America - which is, of course, "Can our country, reeling as it is after eight years of near-criminal incompetence, mendacity, and rapaciousness, be well-served by an administration with a bass-playing Vice President?"
Forget for a moment that he's a Bible-quoting literalist who refers to himself as a "Christian leader." Forget that his Fair Tax proposal is dangerously regressive. Forget even that he's against reproductive freedom, that he's pledged to deport each and every one of our 12 million undocumented workers, and that in an unguarded moment he compared gay marriage to bestiality. These are all important matters to consider, to be sure, but they pale in comparison to the central question defining Mike Huckabee's legitimacy as a possible vice-presidential candidate. Namely... Can he rock? I have played bass for over 40 years. I've played for crowds of thousands and in small clubs. I've played in rock, jazz, blues, country, ska, funk, and punk bands. I've recorded both with my own groups and as a session musician - and I have the calluses and Dupuytren's contracture to prove it. I feel qualified to offer my considered opinion - which is that as a bass player, Mike Huckabee doesn't suck. He's no Stanley Clarke or Jaco Pastorius, but neither is he the four-string equivalent of a sax-torturing Bill Clinton. Check out the following, and see if you agree. The Huckster has a poorly arched but acceptably precise left hand, a decent if somewhat immobile right hand (extra points for no pick), and a stable-though-quite-caucasian sense of rhythm. Overall, he's safe and unadventurous, but not embarrassing: As I said, nothing exciting, but nothing heinous, either. The bigger question, however, is whether a bass player (as opposed to the lower designation of "a guy who plays bass" and the higher honor of "bassist") would be an appropriate choice for a position that's a heartbeat away from the presidency - especially when that heart will be 72 years old this August 29th. Examine the evidence. With the notable exceptions of Gordon Matthew Sumner and Sir James Paul McCartney, we bass players are a modest lot. We're out of the spotlight - we never get the groupies, I hasten to add from sad experience - and are, instead, simply the foundation upon which a tune is built. "Out of the spotlight:" VP-like. "Foundation:" not VP-like. Remember, it was Roosevelt's VP, John Nance Garner, who famously told Lyndon Johnson that the VP position "wasn't worth a bucket of warm piss," although the press changed that last word to "spit." Another tried-and-true knock on bass players: that playing bass is easier than playing guitar or keyboard (I'm not going near drummers … that's a minefield). As a guy who once made my living playing bass, I'm here to answer that accusation once and for all. It's true. We bass players are like carpenters - we're members of a noble, essential profession, but one that's less exacting than that of a cabinetmaker. A VP, however, is essentially a President-in-waiting - should the prez take a dive, the VP needs to be able to take over. Although I'm perfectly capable of accompanying Joe Satriani, if he went down you do not want me to take the next guitar solo. You don't want a bass-player-level VP, you want the next-best shredder.
Now, the P-Bass, as we call it, is a fine instrument - although not on par with the Tobias. A Tobias starts at $2,000, and when fully accessorized can top out at $10,000 or more. The P-Bass, on the other hand, is an American icon with models available at well under a thousand bucks, making it affordable by mere humans. Clearly, Huckabee doesn't want to look like a member of the monied class when he's courting the votes of the working class. The Tobias is also ... well, how should I put this? ... a bit outlandish-looking - hardly the image a queer-bashing candidate would like to project. So what's my point about Huckabee's instrumental flip-flop? Simply that no self-respecting bass player would trade his trusted axe for another, even if that other instrument made him more acceptable to his audience. A true bass player would say "Screw 'em! I'm here to play." From a bass player's perspective, the former Arkansas guv is just another a jive-ass mo-fo pandering for votes. Bottom line: Mike Huckabee may be an acceptable amateur bass player, but from another bass player's point of view, he should stay out of the Executive Wing. And he should also work on that badly angled left hand - you've got a pinkie, Mike, learn to use it. [back to top] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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Back in 1967, we were mired in an unpopular war that was being presided over by an unpopular president. Times were lousy - and we hadn't even hit The Year of Assassinations and Riots™ yet. Yes, times were lousy, and they were about to get lousier. Sound familiar? That year, Jules Feiffer - better known as an editorial cartoonist - wrote a play entitled Little Murders (later turned into a film by the same name). It's a dark, dark comedy, set in a New York City where violence is pervasive, random, and accepted as part of daily life. Murders were "little" - that is, so accepted as to not merit serious attention. Well, folks, the wheel is coming 'round again. Here are a few recent news items to illustrate my point: February 11: 7 dead, 5 wounded in Oakland violence
But what? Well, let's start by dumping one idea: stricter gun control. Simply put, it's too late - we're awash in guns, and any effort to get rid of them is doomed to either failure or to success only after a long, long period of time. Also, as a nation we're hopelessly divided about gun-ownership rights. Personally, I also believe that the NRA - as craven as they can be at times - is actually correct when it spouts its two favorite sayings, that "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" and "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." The reason that those sayings resonate so well is because, well, they're true. Simpleminded and bumperstickerish, to be sure, but, at their coercive little cores, they're true. (Full disclosure: I own a 100-year-old .38 Colt revolver, but no ammunition.) Advocates of total gun bans remind me a bit of those anti-immigrant folks who believe that the best way to solve the undocumented worker problem is to "ship 'em all back to Mexico." Even if we all agreed that doing so would be a good thing, it's simply impossible. It's too late to get rid of both immigrants and guns - whether you're pro one and anti the other or vice versa, you need to face reality and realize that they're both inseparable parts of the American landscape. We should start working on solutions to the challenges they both present, but we should also realize that those solutions will take years, if not decades, to fully implement.
What's really needed is difficult, but not impossible: a full-scale cultural paradigm shift. And it needs to be massive. Leaders of every stripe, parents at every educational and socioeconomic level, friends and relatives of gun toters everywhere - we all need to loudly, clearly, and forcefully say, "We're not going to take this crap anymore." We need to make the rising tide of murder a national priority. It needs to become a forefront issue, not simply a problem that's relegated to the back burner because it primarily effects "them." For too long we've allowed ourselves to be cut off from our fellow citizens - at times we've let the power structure pit us against each other, and at times we've simply been too gutless to step into a "brotherman's" shoes and see the world from his eyes. In addition, we've let our country's mental-health services become shamefully inadequate. We've also confused a person's right to his or her own privacy and freedom with the undeniable fact that there are people out there who need proactive care and guidance - whether they're tragic crazies roaming our cold, dark streets or angry abusers in our offices and bedrooms. Our current national political leadership is so debased and distant from the people that it's essentially impotent in this matter. It will need to be threatened with political extinction if it doesn't provide the needed help to those at the state, city, and local levels who can do something about this growing problem. Money will be needed - a lot of money - for community policing, drug treatment, counseling, job training, investigative services, witness protection, community services, battered-women's shelters, neighborhood investment, recreation centers, mental-health services, halfway houses, small-business loans, job corps, and the like. We're spending over a trillion dollars in Iraq and its environs. We should be spending hundreds of billions to stop the war that's spreading on our own streets.
And, yeah, there will be assholes that we can't reach - but if their entire community makes them realize that there's no long-term profit in assholery, they might be able to reach themselves, to admit that they're living an unsupportable life - and if they do, they need to be welcomed and congratulated, not shamed and humiliated. I don't pretend to know how this will all play out - but I do know what the first step is: Admitting that we have a problem. A big problem. A problem that's shared by all of us and not simply by unfortunate members of a perceived "underclass." A problem that won't go away on its own, and that needs the best thinking, planning, and leadership from the best members of our society, and a commitment to action by the rest of us. And a boatload of funding. Screw the phony "War on Terror." The real war is here and now. [back to top] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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Tonight Marilyn and I attended an it-could-have-been-fascinating-but-was-instead-simply-enlightening event hosted by the Institute of International Education, a group about which I'm only learning, so I can neither recommend it nor diss it. The IIE gathered 21 journalists and party functionaries from mostly developing countries, and is currently shepherding them around the U.S. of A. so that they can observe our primaries, caucuses - the whole nominating process. Tonight they all gathered in the Hotel Nikko to discuss their experiences; we listened in. The representatives from the countries participating in the program were high-level: the heads of major parties in Kenya and Ghana, for example, plus the vice-chair of the currently dominant Hungarian parliamentary party. There were also top journalists from Gambia, Turkey, Peru, and other countries. A great mix.
Either these guys (and, except for one woman from Turkey, they were all, indeed, guys) see a different America than I do, or their perspective is influenced by the fact that their cultural and journalistic situations are so much worse than ours in the U.S. that we appear to be living in the Age of Pericles by comparison. But, as I said, that's a discussion that'd take more brain power than I have here at 12:15 a.m. on Feb. 7. And so, instead, the answer to Monday's trivia question: All of those performers have played god at some point in their careers: Sandra Bernhard: One Hell of a Guy, 1998; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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So tomorrow's the big day, eh? We here in California will finally have our primary votes count for something - and, with any luck at all, my Republican neighbors and friends may send Mitt the message that even if you're slick, wealthy, and ruthless, you can't necessarily charm, buy, and cudgel your way into the White House.
On the Democratic side it's looking more and more like we may have a convention that means something this year. If that happens, look to Clinton to out-politic Obama - she still has more of the old guard (and their money) on her side, the Kennedy clan notwithstanding. I'm making not any bets, however. So, then, what deep and searching insights do I have for you on this election eve? What brilliant analyses? What political perspicacity will I purvey? Not a thing. I'm instead obeying a wise saying from a psychedelic poster I saw back in the 60s: May the Baby Jesus Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind. But I do have something for you - a trivia question that's completely and thoroughly unrelated to anything political. To wit: What do the following baker's dozen of performers have in common? Sandra Bernhard Next time I drop by - which should be Wednesday evening, as tomorrow is completely booked - I'll provide the answer. [back to top] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The Peace Symbol was designed by the late 
That war ended with four million dead Vietnamese civilians, along with over one million Vietnamese and over 58,000 American military deaths, plus just under 2,000 Americans listed as "missing in action" - and who knows how many Vietnamese with the same fate. Were those lives wasted? Yes.
What won't Clinton and her handlers stoop to? Already I've written about her attempt to 
Clinton's numbers are in a 
"Ralph, please go home. You were once an important contributor to many important improvements in the lives of average Americans. But something terrible has happened to you. Ego? Blindness? An exaggerated sense of self-importance? I don't know. But you've become an embarrassment - and a dangerous embarrassment, at that.
"Or maybe not, 'cause here you come again. Luckily, this time out you have about as much chance of being elected president as ... well ... as you did in 2000, which was somewhere around Absolute Zero. Remember good ol' Otto von Bismarck, the guy who said that "
Yes, I'm talking about that huck-a-huck-a burnin' charisma, 
Finally, I want to make one point about Huckabee's personal bass-playing credentials - one that proves he's more politician than musician. In the photo at the top of this posting, you'll notice that he's playing a 
Most of these killings were local, so you can imagine that the same carnage is going on in many if not all populations centers in this Land of the Second Amendment (although our own Oakland seems to be 
Stricter sentencing for gun-related offenses runs up against the same reality. The streets are awash with guns, and if we merely lock up people who use them and throw away the key, our already shamefully bloated prison population will become even larger. And, it needs to be admitted, blacker.
There are innocent folks dying out there, people - something must be done. And, it must be said, we also need to stop the guilty from dying, as well. If a gangsta is shot, that's another man lost - a man who could, with support from his friends, family, and community, be turned into a proud and productive member of our shared community.
Let me know if you'd be interested in me reporting about their analyses of our electoral process, their perceptions of the tribal and corruption challenges in Africa, and their - naive, to me, at least - belief in the purity of our journalistic ethics.
However, do note that I wrote, "With any luck at all." This has been one wacky primary season so far, and it's entirely possible that Mitt may not be as far back in as many states as the polls say he is. I certainly wouldn't put any money on it - hey, I thought that the Patriots were a mortal lock in last night's Super Bowl...