Overheard From Another World
Apr. 30th, 2007 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertomThe biggest reason I haven't indulged in as much political stuff lately is that there has been so much outrageous bullshit happening that I would spend all my time documenting it. (I follow a number of excellent blogs:
In any case, not as much politicking, 'cause life's too short. But some stuff just cries out for attention. Like this:
Sad, really.
What do you perceive as the biggest problem we face at this point? Any damn thing, just be serious about it. It's easy to say some politician's or celebrity's name or a bad TV show as a quick one-liner, but if you actually have reasons, please lay 'em out.
ETA: A couple of people suggested I add Digby's Hullabaloo to the blogs, and they're right. I usually just read it by way of links from Atrios, but it's truly brilliant.
- AmericaBlog
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Kos
- Atrios' Eschaton
- Firedoglake
- Glenn Greenwald at Salon
- Digby's Hullabaloo
- Think Progress
In any case, not as much politicking, 'cause life's too short. But some stuff just cries out for attention. Like this:
Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.Read the whole story, if you've had your morning caffeine. In my view, it's symptomatic of The Great Problem, the one that's really been plaguing the whole country since 9/11, and you can probably guess it: fear. So many people afraid of so much. Especially afraid of what they perceive to be different from them. Fear paralyzes them, prevents them from seeing and admitting the truth, makes them easier to control.
In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”
Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]
Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become Republicans….”
Sad, really.
What do you perceive as the biggest problem we face at this point? Any damn thing, just be serious about it. It's easy to say some politician's or celebrity's name or a bad TV show as a quick one-liner, but if you actually have reasons, please lay 'em out.
ETA: A couple of people suggested I add Digby's Hullabaloo to the blogs, and they're right. I usually just read it by way of links from Atrios, but it's truly brilliant.
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What keeps me up at night...
Date: 2007-04-30 01:23 pm (UTC)I'm tossing around...
1) Impending economic collapse; I think the sub-prime mortgage default problem will eventually spread through the entire (global? How many countries are we keeping afloat by means of buying their cheap crap?) economy, compounded by the potential of $4/gallon gasoline. Won't touch the fabulously wealthy, but Joe Average is going to feel the pinch. Maybe he'll notice that corporate profits are up by about the same percentage as his productivity, while his wages are flat.
2) We are damaging our planet to an extent that might require a reboot of civilization to fix it, unless someone comes up with a cheap, clean source of energy in a hurry. I am hoping that my ability to turn string into clothing will make me more valuable alive than dead when the apocalypse comes, and wondering if I should learn to turn sheep hair into string just in case.
3) President Bush seems to feel the Executive Branch is above and beyond the reach of Congress, and he's right, until someone is willing to put impeachment back on the table. As an example, nobody's quite sure what to do about Condoleezza Rice being 'not inclined to answer' the subpoena that was just issued for her to come talk to a House committee... the fact that Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee indicates to me that either a) they were checking to see how far the 'I don't recall' defense will fly or b) they intend to throw him under the bus.
Re: What keeps me up at night...
Date: 2007-04-30 01:29 pm (UTC)3) a) & b). If the first one doesn't work, they'll throw him under the bus so fast your head will spin.
Re: What keeps me up at night...
Date: 2007-04-30 05:25 pm (UTC)Re: What keeps me up at night...
Date: 2007-05-01 03:23 am (UTC)IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-04-30 01:26 pm (UTC)Now, the only people in possession of those tools are the ones who had the sense to make their own. Education was the first thing to be sold out, sold to the glib theorists with the soundbites like "learning through discovery." Yeah, right. If they trained soldiers and sailors and marines the way they teach kids...well, just imagine.
Rote learning, dates and kings, dead languages and dead composers and dead painters...it may be boring, it may be unpleasant, and it may have to be enforced by (el gaspo) discipline. But it gets the stuff in there and gives the brain something to deal with. It's bran flakes for the mind. And the constipated minds we see running the world today, the legacy of modern education, are its greatest advertisement.
Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-04-30 04:54 pm (UTC)What good is it to know about dead kings and composers, wars and civilizations that ended centuries ago, unless you understand how they came to be and how they affected the things that came afterward?
Take Latin - the quintessential dead language. You can memorize rules and vocabulary, learn to read Caesar and Virgil, and what do you get? Or you can learn to see the connections between Latin and English, to see the roots of words and understand the underlying meanings. That not only allows you to learn Latin faster, but gives you a better grasp of your own language. If you do read Caesar and Virgil, is it better to memorize quotes, or to understand how each work reflects and shapes the culture it comes from? And move from there to understand how Roman culture influenced our own?
I agree with you that education doesn't meet up to either standard. But I'll point out that the "constipated minds" in power today were not raised on "soundbite" education. They were raised on readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic.
Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-04-30 07:37 pm (UTC)Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-05-01 05:01 am (UTC)Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-05-01 08:10 am (UTC)Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-04-30 11:14 pm (UTC)Secodn, regarding the "dead kings and composers"... yes, absolutely, there needs to be more emphasis on analysis, on the process. And you know what we'll get when we get that in the public schools? The first time we've had that in the public schools.
As far as the education game goes, the thing I think ought to be taught is the love of learning. I would say that pretty much everyone who posts on this thread, and the grand bulk of people who post on my LJ, had a great love of books when they were kids, and their teachers didn't know what to do with 'em at one point or another. We all learned to love learning, and it carried us to places that our teachers could not... unless we were lucky enough to have those teachers who have the energy for a challenge and the wit to recognize they've got one. (I miss you, Dr. Ritzenhein. Dr. Stoller.)
That said, the problem with "dead kings and composers" is not the subject matter, but the way it's taught. You get a decent biography of any one of those guys, and that'll open the door. Or, with the right books, a kid can do it him- or herself. I had some kid-oriented, simplistic, utterly fascinating bios of Mozart, Beethoven, and Churchill -- not more than, oh sixty pages each with illustrations and big type -- and they were amazing. I had a book -- effectively a coloring book, except it was text -- with two-page bios of great scientists. Loved that. I really loved the Whitman book with kids' biographies of Galen, Lister, Pasteur, and a few other giants of medicine. (Hmm -- gotta go look for that one. eBay is love.) I loved having a big honkin' Bible and an equally big honkin' Book of Greek Myths -- i basically taught myself the fundamentals of comparative religion at age eight.
Meanwhile, the classes do teach structure and discipline. It's not enough, but it's something to build on. If they ever get around to it.
Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-05-01 08:32 am (UTC)I'm fifty-one years old, and I went through primary school (7 to 11) when the new ideas, that kids had to think they were having a good time at school, were just coming in in the UK. Fortunately for me, the secondary school I went to was of the old sort, or I'd never have learned nearly as much, being basically lazy. As it was I flunked just about everything I wasn't at that time interested in (history, geography, physical activity in general and so on). That shouldn't have happened.
I'm all for analysis and the process, but it's no good starting out in cooking as a profession unless you have first been not only taught the recipes, but fully stocked up with all the ingredients. I was not qualified, as a kid, to decide what I was going to need to know when I grew up, let alone what I was going to *want* to know. I get very angry at that kid sometimes... but a part of my anger goes to a system that didn't try to *make* me learn.
Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-05-01 04:24 pm (UTC)I think a combination of the two methods would work best, myself -- again, you need the discipline, you need the structure, and you need the basics. But you also need to get why learning is cool, so you don't just go so far and then stop.
Re: IMHO (TEP)
Date: 2007-05-01 07:14 pm (UTC)In kintergarden, all the children had a love of learning. I mean literally all - not a single exception. They were all excited to be there, and the most basic steps: counting to 100, learning to write your first words, and the most basic science, were received with amazement. As time went on they began to lose that wonder. It happened at a different point and a different rate with each kid, but I can see it happening.
I have to suspect that we don't need to teach children a love of learning - they've already got one. We need to preserve it. From there, we can build on discipline and analysis - I do agree that you need both.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 01:31 pm (UTC)I'm surprised you don't have Hullaballoo on your list. The writing over there is among the best on the net (on a par with Greenwald). I also, personally, have David Neiwert and Sara Robinson at Orcinus on my must-read list, though I do sometimes put them off for a day or two until I can really focus. Also, if you don't have her on your list, Avedon Carol's The Sideshow has some of the best, and less noted, political links around.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 01:51 pm (UTC)Not that it Matters...
Date: 2007-04-30 05:48 pm (UTC)...but IIUC Digby is a she. Nothing concrete, just based on statements made by other people in comments.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:05 pm (UTC)I highly recommend adding the excellent Digby at Hullabaloo (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/) to your list of blogs. Good stuff, frequently quoted by the other worthy sites you mention.
My favorite not-so-guilty blog pleasure is Slacktivist (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist//),where each Friday a Baptist seminary graduate and journalist named Fred Clark and a gang of witty commenters (many of them atheist) hilariously deconstruct the Left Behind books (including the sad fact that people who base their entire worldview on this crap hold actual political power).
In another recent thread (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2007/03/all_the_good_mu.html), the usual suspects analyze an amazing video of a preacher explaining in great detail how to tell whether or not music is "godly." (Short answer: anything with a danceable beat isn't.) The comments range from the definition of classical music to Battlestar Galactica. There's even a drive-by saving toward the end.
Favorite comment: "I hope I'm not the only person who headbangs to Verdi's Requiem during the Dies Irae."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:09 pm (UTC)I also get really overwhelmed not only the wrongful actions and the lying by our administration but the seeming lack of worry that it will ever matter if they did wrong or not (or lied about it).
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:20 pm (UTC)Hear, hear. I meant to recommend them as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:53 pm (UTC)And that scares me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 02:19 am (UTC)Without that, instead of broadcasters being a vital part of the community (actually, they're the glue that keep a community together) they're little more than McDonald's franchises, selling what their megacorporate masters tell them to sell.
I think that's essential to bring back responsible journalism and broadcasting alike. (Can you imagine how Rush Limbaugh would shut up if he had to respond to people? Or O'Reilly? Or Coulter? Three people to whom the masculine adjective "he" would apply.) The problem is, this isn't a "hot" or "sexy" issue, and I fear it will never get enough public pressure behind it to make it happen.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 02:59 pm (UTC)1. Fear -- or rather, the manipulation of legitimate concern by politicians and demagogues to keep people constantly afraid and tense and willing to go along with anything to Keep Us Safe, when in reality all safety at any time is nothing but illusion. I would throw in people's willingness to allow themselves to be manipulated and scared. The only legitimate way to live life, in my opinion, is fearlessly; a craven fear of death is unworthy of human beings. We all die; staying alive at the cost of one's (or one's national) ideals and raison d'etre seems to miss the point.
2. Ignorance. People are ignorant of the basic ideals on which this society -- on which human culture in general -- was built. They don't know what's in their country's Constitution, fer cryin' out loud. Heck, some (not all or most, I'll note) fundamentalists who claim to want to order their lives and society by the Bible are ignorant about, y'know, what it says other than Genesis 1-2, some passages in Leviticus and so forth, and seem to think that God speaks/thinks in Elizabethan English. Even more worrisome than ignorance, though, is a growing willingness to remain ignorant -- instead of realizing one's ignorance and educating themselves, people either deny their ignorance or realize it but refuse to recorgnize it as a problem/failing ... even take pride in what they don't know, insisting that their lack of learnin' equates to horse sense, so, heh, logically, the dumber you are the smarter you are. Cue migraine ...
3. As
(That fundamentalist link you posted recently depressed me beyond measure. Because, using one very narrow definition -- it's early-20th century meaning, when it referred to adherence to five basic doctrines (such as the Resurrection, the incarnation, etc.), without all the lunacy and legalism and politics and meanspiritedness that's accured to the term -- I could be considered a fundamentalist Christian. But I don't recognize myself in any of these people. And yet they claim the same source for their whacked-out views that I do for mine. Sigh.)
I try to, in my own life and spheres of influence, live fearlessly, always strive to educate myself and refuse to demonize opponents -- even those I'm sorely tempted to and may deserve it -- and try to model/promote this approach to life. It's a feeble effort, I suppose.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 03:37 pm (UTC)If you don't have honesty you have essentially nothing one can trust, if you don't have trust then systems will begin to fail.
We are currently seeing systems failing at an accelerating pace.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 03:44 pm (UTC)This may be pure stubbornness rather than fear, but anyway, that's what I think is our biggest problem right now: too many people who don't want to face the possibility that they may be wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 04:20 pm (UTC)Lets see, corporations committing ecocide for profit.
Impending eco-apocalypse as a result of global warming that nobody is doing anything about, [or doing very little and spinning it to look like a lot.]
Politicians who seem to think that as long as they aren't caught, it's ok.
Preachers who say do as I say and not as I do.
Politicians who do the same.
Leaders who think they are rulers.
Rulers who think they are little gods, in so far as what they say is reality.
People who think that their rights, includes the right to be a jerk and an ass.
People who think their freedoms are more important than yours.
Aww, heck with it...
Biggest problem = PEOPLE
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 04:33 pm (UTC)Ignorance that universal health care only provides bare-bones, minimum-grade health care for those who have nothing else to turn to, and that higher-grade private health insurance would still be a viable option for those who can afford it.
Ignorance that global warming results in changes in climate and weather patterns, not warmer temperatures.
Ignorance that "terror" isn't some country you can invade or some criminal you can kidnap, it's a method and an idea.
And so on...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 04:39 pm (UTC)The trouble is that politicians need Us vs. Them it drives the need for someone to do something, usually detrimental to liberty, peace, and understanding, but adding to the personal power of the politician.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 05:38 pm (UTC)My own take is that the most important strand in the web is the way capitalism has gotten dangerously out of whack. I genuinely believe that free markets are second only to scientific thought as the greatest historical force for the betterment of mankind, but the system we have today certainly seems to refute that proposition -- global corporate capitalism as it now exists is the greatest force for the debasement and destruction of mankind, beating out even coercive religion. Today, most of the important decisions in the world are made by a tiny group of people on the basis of only one criterion: what maximizes their own corporation's stock price in the next reporting period. It's a serious distortion of the idea of free markets and entrepreneurial capitalism. Corporations are far too big, so that the people at the top are too distant from the day to day effects on individual people's lives of their decisions (whether the people are customers, employees, or residents of communities where the corp operates). And corporations are far, far too focused on the very short term; even a company concerned with absolutely nothing but maximizing shareholder value would be much better for the world if they were maximizing that value in the long term. In the long term, keeping your customers, employees, and neighbors happy is good for business; it's just in the very short run, where the immediate monetary benefits of screwing them are in the time horizon and the long term damage is not, that it makes sense to be so evil.
The screwed up corporations are major immediate causes of most of the other big problems. All our environmental problems from global warming on down flow from the fact that being responsible costs money in the short run and only brings benefits in the long term. The debasement of our media is caused in large part by the fact that most of our media have become divisions of megacorporations, required like all the other divisions to show increasing profits, and real journalism is expensive compared to infotainment fluff. The insane alliance between the environment-destroying corporatists and the intellect-destroying religious whackjobs that is today's Republican party works because the corporate side is willing to work with anyone who helps them achieve their short term goals and is willing to say anything to secure their help, because honesty is another thing that costs extra in the short term and only brings rewards in the long term. Our political system is so corrupt because it's become all about money, a situation that those who have the money do everything they can to protect and enhance the influence of money -- and where's the money? In the corporations.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 06:57 pm (UTC)Truth has been traded in for balance.
Getting the facts comes second to getting the news on the air first. (For a parody of this problem, see Something Happening in Haiti (http://www.theonion.com/content/video/breaking_news_something_happening).
And investigative reporting seems to be a thing of the past.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 07:23 pm (UTC)I view intolerance as a major problem -- on a global basis! -- but I find that I'm not nearly wise enough to be able to draw a big bright line between behaviors that should be tolerated and those that shouldn't. Oh, sure, some are clearly way over here and some are clearly way over there (in my opinion; your mileage may vary), but some calls are just going to be harder to make. And when it comes down to it, I think that we're really bad at achieving a wise consensus on those close calls -- again, not just in the United States, but on a global basis.
I could go on down the list, but I think you've gotten the idea by now. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 11:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 11:54 pm (UTC)I don't think tolerating something rather than accepting or rejecting it is a bad thing. In fact, I think it's kind of vital to be able to tolerate something regardless of your personal opinion of it. Tolerance doesn't imply that what you're tolerating is an inherently bad thing -- quite the opposite. It implies that it's something you may think is bad but it's not your business to interfere.
There are some things I think should be accepted rather than simply tolerated, but ... well, tolerance is something one can insist upon. Acceptance isn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 12:40 am (UTC)The other problem with tolerance is that it's a tipping point. No resolution; just status quo. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, if you're inclined to live and let live... but there are way too many people who are not.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 12:51 am (UTC)Precisely the attitude that needs to be changed. If you can get people to believe that it's okay to not interfere with something they perceive as bad, you don't have to get them to believe that it's not bad -- just that it's not their business.
In other words, all that is really necessary for the triumph of Not Actually Evil is for the self-righteous to do nothing.
...*eyes self* Okay, that was unsettling.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 07:07 pm (UTC)"If you happen to see an injustice, you are no longer a spectator, you are a participant. And you have an obligation to do something."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 08:41 pm (UTC)"Fear" is the problem, but it was also so 20+ years ago when the right fretted about Communists while the left fretted about global nuclear annihilation. Various scares predated that.
"Ignorance" seems to be the problem in varying degrees throughout history.
And of course the culture wars go back at least to the days of Prof. Harold Hill. =)
Et cetera et cetera et cetera, as the King of Siam would say.
(Sorry about the musicals references)
The biggest problem is that we can't see the historical forest for the very frightening trees. All these problems are much scarier up close, but the key is, as the good book ("Hitchhiker's Guide" of course) says, Don't Panic.
I read somewhere that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. What's most unique and distressing about this verse is that we have a government running a war and weilding an uncomfortable amount of power, led by a man who has pretty much no idea what he is doing. During Vietnam, we may not have been happy with the way things were going, but at least we knew LBJ and Nixon were in charge. Disagree with what their mental clocks said, but at least they were ticking. It's going to be a scary ride until this era sorts itself out around 2010, but I have to have faith that it will, and not give in to the level-headed-but-evil minds who seek to profit from this chaos.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 09:20 pm (UTC)Recently Pandagon critizied Markos for blowing off Kathy Sierra when she was getting threatened, because, (to paraphrase him) "we all get threatened, shake it off". Pandagon pointed out that there is a undercurrent of sexual threat that male bloggers don't get and IMO should be more sensitive about.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-30 10:50 pm (UTC)A whole lot of people have mentioned fear. I think that's one of the biggest ones, from freakouts like you link to there to the fact that people are so terrified of even the slightest risk to anything that swings and merry-go-rounds are getting banned all over the place. It also covers most of the side-effects of it, particularly the tribalism that someone mentioned elsewhere in the comments.
Ignorance is kind of an unfair one to list; coming up with that one as a major problem is like shooting fish that are already lodged in the gun's barrel these days. It causes a lot problems itself, but the main one it's responsible for is fear. Stuff gets banned at the first hint of problems because people don't understand how risk works. Email forwards convince people vaccines are deadly, so the neighbors decide to treat their kid's cancer with homeopathic "medicine." Science gets generally stigmatized because people get their perceptions of it from contemporary science fiction movies and not The Real World. That kind of thing.
My main pet peeve, though, is the fact that foresight is pretty much stigmatized. Anything that involves any kind of long-term planning or consideration is a non-issue, both because We Need Instant Gratification and because such things are generally considered bad for various silly reasons, in and of themselves. A lot of issues going on these days aren't going to be fixed with a hastily-written law or a couple of marches or by bombing a country into the ground. Fixing a lot of problems facing the planet or any particular country in it is going to take years or decades or generations of work in quite a few cases, and I think that's going to be a problem until people learn that it's not wrong to think further than two years ahead.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 01:00 am (UTC)lots of EXCELLENT posts. (and I'm checking out the rec'ed blogs)
personally, I think the biggest problem is the lack of personal responsibility.
Nothing is ever anyone's fault. Oh, my child dived into the pool right by the 'No Diving' sign and broke his neck. It's the POOL'S fault. Or the Lifeguard's for not watching my child!!! waaaaah
Same with the politicians. It's like they are allergic to saying. "Ok, on reflection, this was a really bad idea, we're calling all the troops home."
I don't know if it is fear of confessing that they are *gasp* actually human and capable of making mistakes or their overweening arrogance but what happened to being able to say "My bad."
Education: always a gimme. the politicos don't want the general public smart enough to realize that they are screwing us over by the numbers
and you know what else seems to have disappeared? manners. Simple "please" and "thank you" or "excuse me" when you've bumped into someone.
yes, we're hurrying, hurrying, hurrying all the time and I'm not advocating that we snail down. But would even a low muttered 'sorry' really hurt? or is that admitting responsibility and owning up to a mistake?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 01:56 am (UTC)This is our country, and it is our right, our duty, and our responsibility to keep it going, and to make the right decisions. Many of us, occasionally myself included, lose sight of this. We let "good enough" be good enough; we assume decisions that screw up someone else's world will never affect ours.
There is just one human race on this planet. There are many cultures, many faces, many lives...but all are connected, and all suffer from gullibility. All suffer from that belief that what affects you won't hurt me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 06:05 am (UTC)Any time an individual or group begins to believe that his, her, or their position is inherently superior just because it's his, hers, or theirs, there is a problem. I don't think there is anyone above the age of, say, nine months who's immune to this tendency, though -- and I should point out that I'm well over nine months old, myself.
Blog recs
Date: 2007-05-01 08:23 pm (UTC)http://driftglass.blogspot.com/
His most recent post comparing GOP accomplishments to The Aristocrats is masterly.
Also jurassicpork:
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 07:10 pm (UTC)If I were a cynic I'd say that sentence was too long. The biggest problem that we face, in one word, is belief. Faith, in other words.