Changing Places

Loved this essay. Please go read it all, it’s just fantastic. Via Denise and the Carnival of Bent Attractions.

You Would Think: Meandering Through the Maze

And it’s the equality that sends the theocrats into a tizzy. They start calling it “oppression” the very same second they are told they don’t get to control everything without challenge; that they must share the law with other people who do not necessarily agree with the tenets of their religion or their morality; that they must share social power with people who do not share their worldview. If we are all sharing power equally, then plenty of folks might be uncomfortable, but no one is being oppressed. Nonetheless, this particular claim of oppression arises again and again, always from the right, and always whenever they are not allowed to control other people.

Like any effective exercise in double-standard based discriminatory behavior, they never explain precisely where the oppression they claim to be experiencing is actually occurring, they just repeatedly claim that it is happening over and over until people who don’t pay very close attention start to believe that it must be at least kind-of true. People actually start to buy into the idea that the equality of a minority group is somehow oppressive to a majority group that is currently enjoying a disproportionately larger share of sociopolitical power. That conservatives can successfully wield this argument without making a single logical connection is what interests me. They’ve primarily appealed to ignorance, social prejudice, and emotion (predominantly faith and fear), from beginning to end, just as they did when they used their religion to justify slavery and then, when they lost that conflict, to justify the racial segregation that followed slavery in America and oppressed black people for roughly another fucking century.

I’m less interested in the architects of the theocracy movement, whom I view as garden variety powermongers — history’s never had an age without ‘em, bless the dark little shadows in their chest cavities where their hearts should be — and more interested in those who allow themselves to be used as its cinder blocks, who totally fucking baffle me. Why are so many regular people susceptible to such obvious lines of bullshit, especially when said lines of bullshit do eventually curve back around to kick said regular people in their regular asses? (You people who are willing to throw queers under the bus, you know these people are coming after you next, right? They’re coming for your marriages, your birth control and whatever entertainment choices you have that they deem immoral. And they’re gaining ground legislatively.)

…

Language is powerful. Our understanding of any given concept is strongly affected by whatever terms we have to apply to the concept, and the way those terms are understood to relate to other terms about other concepts. A good deal of that is socially constructed. For example, teaching small children that gays are “bad” and “wrong” and “gross”, or the children merely inhabiting a world that regards gays in this fashion, is the kind of thing that trains children to believe that gays are not quite entirely people. Gays are not like Us; gays are different; gays are Other. Culturally, “Other” is almost always synonymous with “enemy” due to a bunch of other social narratives, thus training children to Other gays is a pretty effective mechanism to get the adults the kids will someday become to make social war on gays (or sometimes direct violence) without even giving it a second thought. Oppressing gays becomes internalized as “the right thing to do” with no real reason ever required.

…

Associating concepts via the terms we use to describe them in a complex network is how socialization occurs. It’s how we learn to be a part of our culture, laugh at jokes, function in the supermarket line, pee in the bathroom, and hold down an accounting job. It’s also how brainwashing works. Funny, that. And messy. It’s the kind of messiness that ensures there’s no easy way out of this chronic social problem that we have with systemic inequality. We train children not just to understand that there is a hierarchy of bodies, but we train them to understand that there has to be a hierarchy of bodies. We train them to understand that such a hierarchy is necessary and natural (and worst of all, that it’s ethical). Which is why it is that, when you pick at someone’s reactionary defense of the hierarchy long enough, eventually they will sputter, “That’s just how it is!” But that’s not just how it is. That’s how we make it.

…

It’s not really a problem of language, though language is a critical hinge. I think it’s a problem that powermongering has created inside consciousness, inside the bodymind, using language as both a tool and a weapon. The entire strategy is very simple: divide/manipulate/conquer. It’s just that the division accomplished via the manipulation is sufficient to ensure that most of the time practically no one sees anything but the [manufactured] desire for conquering, which they mistake for authentic desire (“human nature”), and round and round we go, like a big hedge maze where everything looks the same and we have all been here before.

…

The longer I think about it, the more I believe that locating our authenticity is the only thing that can save us from this cycle of inequality. If enough of us simply are who we really are, who we really want to be, then the hierarchy, the very structure on which the inequality props itself up, will dissolve for lack of support. Equality wouldn’t look like oppression to anyone. Perhaps even oppression itself would no longer be desirable.

Heh — life, it’s the ultimate role-playing game: to escape the maze, we must find the center.

Bleah. I pretty much sucked at my Japanese final tonight. Oh well. At least my Tuesday evenings are free for a while.

Kin-yobi no komban ni hima desu. Or something like that….

It was a long day yesterday, working the polls. Overall it was routine, signing people in, handing out ballots, fixing little problems with the scanner, periods of boredom when the voting was slow, and it was very slow for this primary with no major things to be decided. Next door in district 50, Francine Busby unfortunately was beaten in her runoff against Bilbray, the Republicans still opting for yet another corrupt one of their own than a darn Democrat.

Meeting some of those Republicans yesterday was interesting. They are my neighbors, of course, since I live in a very Republican area. The Republican ballots outnumbered the Dem ballots 2 to 1. Some of these people I know and respect, even though I disagree with their politics. Some of them were just fucking morons, although of course as a poll worker you have to keep those opinions to yourself.

But there was the guy whose grandfather was an immigrant that spoke eight languages, and of course learned English when he came to the U.S., through Ellis Island and being quarantined, amd made a fortune in real estate. So why did we have election materials in Spanish, why can’t those damned immigrants learn English and be legal instead of illegal? What are they complaining about low pay for? He ranted for several minutes before he was told to take it outside. By that point I had simply turned my back on him and pretended to be reading something, fuming silently at his bigotry and ignorance.

There was the mother of the household that rented the house whose garage we were set up in, coming down on one of her kids who had missed a school assignment, by grounding him, making him babysit a friend’s children for free, taking all his things out of his room, and forcing him to go to a city council meeting instead of his planned choir event. One of things I could understand, but all that, for missing an assignment, and then telling us about it so openly and proudly all the while smiling and saying, “oh, the poor thing”. She rewards her kids for good behavior with money, but this one was of course always in the negative, “owing money for breaking the other kids things”. Yeah, I bet any time one of the other brothers breaks something, it ends up this poor kid’s fault. Won’t she be suprised when this poor kid ends up doing drugs or worse in high school, and never speaking to her again as an adult.

She was a very pleasant woman, even made us cookies in the afternoon. But my heart just broke at the way this poor kid was being treated, and to her this was all just good parenting. I don’t know how this kid will turn out, but I really cringed every time she would come out all smiles and tell us about some additional punishment she had thought up for him.

It got to where I could mostly tell who was who by how they dressed and acted. The Republicans, always smartly dressed and groomed (the wife of this home also made her husband change shoes twice since she didn’t like the ones he wanted to wear to work, and all the shoes were of course in the garage since no shoes were allowed in the home). Always with the same tight attitude, no humor allowed. Wanting to vote in the big election for Bilbray, even though he wasn’t even in their district and they are represented by Duncan Hunter, because they heard how horrible Busby was on the right-wing talk shows. I mean, they didn’t even know who their congressman was. Almost all the spoiled ballots were Republican.

The Democrats would come in casually dressed or in a work uniform perhaps, chat with us in a relaxed way, smile, were pleasant to deal with, rarely asked any questions since they knew what they were doing and made no mistakes with their ballots, and were patient when there were lots of people in line and they had to wait for a few minutes.

So even in this little sample, there was a contrast, and it seemed to fit with my general impressions about the parties and who they represent. Republicans look for order and control and are all about the money. The Democrats want things to run well and expect individuals to be competent, so they don’t need a lot of imposed rules. There is an understanding there that we are all human beings with feelings, doing a task we need to do but being pleasant about it. But they are also understanding when things may not run as smoothly as we would like.

Those are two very different views of life, I think. And I think all in all, I know how I prefer to live mine.

I’m off today working the California primary polls. I’ll leave you a recommendation to one of my favorite blogs of late, The Big Picture. If you want to understand what’s going on in the stock market, Barry is the one to read. He’s been superb in his overview of the rise and fall of the stock market this year and well worth a read. And I love his commnetary today on the importance of reading and educating yourself as to what’s going on in the world. These days, that is ever so important, for all of us.

The Big Picture

The really funny thing was that prior to reading this anti-Big Picture commentary, I just had read not one but two separate comments about the importance of an overview — of being a great generalist, doing lots of reading, and learning all sorts of things beyond your own expertise. You know, “Big Picture” stuff.

The first was from Warren Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger:

On the importance of reading: “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero… You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” -Charlie Munger’s Worldly Wisdom

The second commentary was from Barton Biggs:

“Reading is definitely my thing, too and I think you have to read not just business stuff but also history, novels, and even some poetry. Investing is about glimpsing, however dimly, the ebb and flow of human events. It’s very much about breasting the tides of emotion, too, which is where the novels and poetry come in. Besides, sometimes you have to refresh your mind and soul by consuming some crafted, eloquent writing.” -Hedgehogging

My own experience comports with that. Becoming well read, educating yourself on a variety of subject matters, being able to place the course of society, the economy, politics, and investing into a larger context can only help.

In honor of gay & lesbian pride month, which Clinton supported, our current idiot in chief does this:

I have a number of gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends. I read a wonderful blog by Denise, a transexual, who has described in tremendous detail what she has gone through. I read Americablog on a daily basis, and am loving their campaign today to call every Senator and Congressman supporting this idiotic piece of shit legislation and ask them personal questions about their sex lives.

I am sick and tired of Republicans prying into our personal lives and our bedrooms. I am sick and tired of their discrimination against members of our society, their hatred towards women’s rights, and their bigotted, biased attitudes towards those of other races. I’m tired of white men running and ruining our country.

This country was created for ALL of us. Perhaps in those early days, the founders couldn’t make that crystal clear, though many of them tried. Many were against slavery. Many were for the rights of women. All of them were against government prying into our personal affairs.

It’s time for this garbage to end. The “Christian” right has to be forced out of power. I am totally in favor of anyone being able to express their religion in the manner they choose – but I’ll be damned if anyone has a right to force their religious beliefs on anyone else, and I’m damned tired of the Republican party catering to the wishes of the “moral” Christians.

I was raised Presbyterian, and I learned that Jesus taught tolerance, fairness, and praying in private, not spouting your religion all over the place as a way of showing how superior you are to everyone else. I will be damned if these people will take any more of our rights away – and I will work my ass off to support civil rights in this country for EVERYONE – not just the favored few with the “right” morals.

They are not blessed by God – not even their God, because their God would be appalled by what these people do in his name.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves, not try to force shame on others for doing things or living in a way they don’t approve of.

Live your life, your way, “Christians”. But stop forcing your values on this country. Fine, you want a “fag war”, you’ve got one.

And by the way, those at the top, Bush included, could give a shit about your values. He knows there’s not a chance in hell of this passing. He knows it’s never going to be the law of this land. It’s just a distraction for him, for them, from the war in Iraq, from the fucked-over economy, which they’re telling you is just great, from the damage from Katrina, from Haditha, from all those things they ought to be hanging their heads in shame over. But no, they just go back to appealing to the wingers, distracting them into yet another vote for the Republicans who will “save” them from the horrors of gay marriage.

Here’s a message for the “Christians”:

YOU’VE BEEN USED.

You’ve been used, just like the rest of us, to line the pockets of the “elite”, those at the top of this society trying to squeeze out every last dollar before they become worthless pieces of paper, thanks to their economic policies.

And you know what? They really don’t give a shit about anything else. They don’t even care if you know that’s what they are doing, because they’ll just take their money and go ruin some other country if this one wakes up.

The Bush family, the Cheney family, and all their ilk, are a bunch of evil bastards. And you know what they would say to that? “Who cares what you think?”

Well, you know what? Maybe enough people in this country are finally starting to care what I’ve thought, what so many of us have thought, and said, and ranted about, for the last six years. I sure hope so.

I still have hope for this country. I have two boys, 16 and 20. I’ll be damned if either one of them will end up in any of the evil wars these people spawn. I just hope somehow we wake up in time that they still have a country, that they still can get a good job, that they can live in this country and not have to go overseas to even find a decent place to live and work.

I still have hope that we can be America again. The real America – not this hellhole the Bushies or the “Christian” right wants, but OUR America. EVERYONE’s America, that we can be proud of once again.

Oh, and if you’re as pissed off as I am, please go to PFLAG and join. You don’t have to be gay to support all our civil rights.

The three things you can count on from Republicans – tax cuts for the wealthy, a wrecked economy, and a big war. It’s what they live for.

“Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

One of my favorite plants to grow is the lily. I literally do nothing to these once they are planted, and yet they reward me with their beauty every year. I’m lucky enough to live where they are able to naturalize, but it is so amazing to watch these plants grow. They bloom for only a brief time, but when they bloom, wow. The colors are just incredible.

So much is in bloom here right now. In a few weeks, it will get too hot for most of them to handle. But, for now, I’m surrounded by beauty.

This is why I read Stirling Newberry – he gets it. Both where we are, and where we could have been.

Damn it I wish Gore was president, every day now for six years I’ve wished it. I want the future, damn it – not to sit in this wasteland of the past anymore.

The Recovery about Nothing | TPMCafe

We know what the other first millenium decade would have looked like – wireless, sustainable energy and nanotechnology are all breaking out. If we had spent the trillions on this, rather than on building inefficient mcmansions and digging a deep dry hole in Iraq, at this point in the business cycle, with a shallow yield curve and the beginnings of inflationary pressure – effort would have shifted to these areas, and where the 1990′s saw wholesale trade become more efficient, stock trading broader and the internet ubiquitous, this decade would have seen wireless, a wind build out, and greater efficiencies of content distribution – movies being downloaded, and not mailed in little red and blue sleeves.