Gay Marriage, A Questionable Enterprise

[Preemptive note: read the whole post before you start arguing with me.]

Consider the implications of this editorial from the NY Times.

Mr. Spitzer is right to be fighting for gay marriage. Civil unions and domestic partnerships are an important recognition of gay relationships by a state. But they still represent separate and unequal treatment. One federal study identified more than 1,100 rights or benefits that are accorded only to the legally married. That means that even in states recognizing civil unions and domestic partnerships, gay couples often have to use legal contortions to protect their families in ways that married couples take for granted. Gay couples may also be discriminated against when it comes to taxes and pension benefits.

The argumentative blocks of this paragraph are as follows:
1) Many states recognize civil unions and domestic partnerships.
2) Although these fall short of "marriage," they are well-intentioned.
3) However, these good intentions neglect the practical "discriminations" against those who are not fully and legally married.
4) Therefore, NY should pass a law legalizing gay marriage as opposed to these half-measures.

This logic is specious at best, because it ALSO assumes the following:
1) Gay people should want to buy into the institution of marriage
2) Only gay people are being "discriminated against" by marriage laws (taxes, pensions, etc).
3) That it is easier to promote gay people to marriageable citizens rather than dismantling an obviously-prejudicial pro-marriage system.

I would have to be really naive not to see that gay marriage is a hot issue for reasons other than those having to do with pensions; and obviously straight people who choose not to get married are in a different situation: BUT REALLY, MARRIAGE IS DUMB. Anything the Catholic Church and George Bush are so keen on defending, which is THE institution for reinforcing RHN (reproductive heteronormativity), that is (even in this pro-marriage editorial) an instrument of discrimination, socially compulsory, homophobic, patriarchal, etc. etc. etc.

So, gay marriage. Excuse me for my lack of enthusiasm about it. In my mind, it will only ever be (gay) marriage. And as long as the issue of homosexuality is an issue about "tolerance" and "the other," these are the sorts of ultimately irrelevant battles that will take place (over constitutional amendments): ones that ultimately supports "the system" and self-ascribes to degrading legalisms, etc. In short, marriage IS homophobic; why try to play their game?

Those fucking losers (part two)

Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, said: “If Harry Reid believes that this war is lost, where is his plan to win this war?”

Just so that someone will have said it...

[From the NY Times article on the non-binding House Resolution against a troop increase in Iraq]:
Despite the emotions on both sides, there were moments of agreement. Ms. Pelosi drew sustained applause when she said that everyone in the chamber praised the valor and sacrifice of Americans serving in Iraq.

Only in a Christian nation like America could there be such a "love the sinner, hate the sin" attitude, unquestioningly and nauseatingly repeated, always for political purposes, and without any real meaning.

What does it mean to "support" American troops in Iraq?
- To fund the brutal war of racist occupation they are waging?
- To praise those who continue to enlist after all pretense of the original (even then dubious) motive for the war has been dropped?
- To hope that "their guys" get killed when they come up against "our guys"?

Now, I'm not completely naive. I understand the political meaning behind saying "We support our troops"--and as long as that is a completely meaningless sound-bite, I guess I don't mind. But the second it actually comes to wanting an American soldier to "do his duty" and kill an Iraqi, or valiantly give up his own life, or have expensive new equipment, or even report for duty in the morning--then I am against such support. The only troops I "support" are those who desert or refuse to serve. This war is bullshit and anyone engaged in it is bullshit and I don't support the individuals without whose participation it could not continue.

[And to those who will say, desertion and subordination are hardly options, Ben!; I say: if someone told you, either you go out and kill in the name of a bogus cause, or spend time in jail and possibly ruin your life and bring disgrace upon your family---to me, there is no excuse for saving one's own skin* by shooting other people; it's disgusting.]

*= And I hardly imagine it comes down to this moral dilemma for our valiant troops--and why should it, when they are so kindly praised and supported in their execution of duty?

brief outline of demands concerning Iraq

(I know nothing politically/historically about this that was not available in the NY Times--I am an English student. On the other hand, this means I know how to read and dissect arguments fairly well. And that I am less ideologically fixed regarding these issues than a specialist would be.)

I think it would be very interesting to ask a proponent of the Iraq war & occupation a series of questions in which one would "play dumb" and prod each answer that is presented as self-evident with an "and then...?" or "so...?", because everyone must feel that the occupation and ongoing war is being waged on rather shaky principles. So, when someone defends the occupation by saying that "If we left, the region would fall into even further chaos," not only would there need to be an argument about the probability of that event, but (naively) what would be so bad about that?

To demonstrate that we need a single troop in Iraq, to my satisfaction, some combination of the following would have to be shown:
-- that it is morally justifiable to invade and devastate a sovereign country, and then continue to occupy it, as long as you feel bad about the initial invasion. (This, of course, is the premise of a number of film noirs, where someone keeps doing bad things to save their hide, even though they already regret the initial crime. They usually end up badly.)
-- that our military presence in Iraq is or could be anything but a standing insult and open wound to the people of that country
-- that our diplomatic pressure in Iraq can lead to anything but a kind of Vichy collaboration with the occupation (us)
-- that our continuing military presence is reducing the influence of Al Qaeda in Iraq
-- that our continuing military presence is a stabilizing influence in Iraq (this seems to be the main argument--if we leave, everything will fall apart--but, stated in this positive way, it is completely absurd. THE destabilizing force in the region is our military presence. To me this is very obvious), rather than a festering sore.
-- that even a horrible regime arising after our departure would be so much worse than the near-civil-war and bloodshed consuming Iraq now.
-- that there would be a kind of "domino effect" where, if Iraq "fell" (I don't see how this wouldn't already be the case, by the way), then other countries would follow.
-- that the United States is justified in militarily occupying other countries on the basis of a paranoid fantasy that our national security is at stake.
-- that this paranoid fantasy is the real motive, instead of the obviously economic and racist motives.
-- that Arab peoples are barbarians who can't rule themselves without white people around, and who will come to the "wrong" conclusions unless we are there to shepherd them in the right direction.
-- that Iraq ought to become a Jeffersonian democracy
-- that our interests in the region are not wildly inappropriate and imperialist
-- that Iraq ought to remain a single nation
-- that an Iran under the influence of Iran and Syria, et al, would be so awful.
-- that, what people would condemn as "isolationism" in a withdrawal, would not be a noble demonstration of our commitment to anti-aggression and self-determination.
-- that self-determination for Iraq can be achieved with our military there
-- that this ought to remain any of our business; that we haven't "done enough" yet
-- that things will at all improve in the next 3 years than in the past 3, if we "stay the course"

To me, these are the claims of anyone who thinks there should be a SINGLE American/British soldier in Iraq. I find them all highly doubtful and henceforth, I have no moral tolerance for anyone who would advocate our continued presence in Iraq on these grounds--if there are other arguments, I would like to hear them; if I have been mistaken about the validity of these, I would like to see evidence. Otherwise, any argument for "gradual" or delayed withdrawal, much less a "troop surge" or even "staying the course" will simply be posturing in the service of an oppressive and unjustifiable military occupation. Troops out now!--it's not just a sentiment.

As I see it, there would be two (moral and legal) justifications for an American military presence in Iraq, neither of which have been discussed (to my knowledge):
-- the invitation of the Iraqi people for our intervention
-- the approval of the UN (which has repeatedly stressed the opposite--that intervention in Iraq should be regional and multilateral)

And, as far as the probability of either of those events, I won't be holding my breath.

Highlights of Bush appearance on 60 Minutes

-- Suggesting that, instead of criticizing the performance of the military, people should criticize him instead. "If the people want a scapegoat, they got one right here in me, cuz it's my decisions" [sic]. Wow, ok, thanks for the pointer--now we'll start criticizing Bush.

-- "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."

-- "People are discouraged, they don't apprecia--they don't approve of where we are."

-- The reporter describes how, in the presidential helicopter, Bush points out "the Washington monument and other landmarks along Pennsylvania avenue."

-- Something I didn't know--Bush personally signs every letter informing families that they now have a corpse in the family--this in contradistinction to Lyndon Johnson, of whom it might reasonably have been asked if he did know how many were killed that day. On the other hand, I wonder what is going through his head, then, every morning while doing this.

-- Reporter: "You're not very popular, to be frank, in the country. Does that bother you?" Bush: "Not really."

-- "The minute we found out there weren't weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to tell the people so." This reminds me of that Onion headline, "Barry Bonds Did Steroids, Reports Everyone Who Has Ever Watched Baseball," with an accompanying photo of Barry Bonds under the words: "NO SHIT-- An Onion Special Report on Barry Bonds and Steroids." As Bush puts it, "I was as surprised as anybody that they didn't have them."

-- When he trots out the Domino Theory for the middle east, as if this were an original or credible idea.

-- Admits that the current instability in Iraq stems from "decisions." As in the sentence, "No doubt, decisions have made things unstable." This is a new tactic I would like to apply to all things that go poorly, as if "decisions" were an uncontrollable deus ex machina.

********************************
My characterization of mainstream politics, since I was probably 16, has been that of an unamusing fantasy which obnoxiously interferes with everyday life, and yet that some people mind-boggingly take seriously. To me, there is no reason why George Bush should be treated any differently than Hulk Hogan (PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM BEING IRONICAL)-- someone whose appearance on TV is good for nothing better than a highlight reel of idiotic pronouncements and a failure to understand that he is a joke.

The problem with American politics (here it comes) is that anyone takes it seriously--that all of the horrors perpetrated by the American military and those whom we support, all of the blunders, the lies, the shameless waste of money and lives in war, our endorsement of the worst regimes around the globe, rampant indulgence of Protestant doctrine, etc.--not that it all happens, but that it is "spun" and glossed over and defended and debated SO BADLY. Although Chomsky has written extensively about "thought control in Democratic societies," it is still mind-blowing to watch the rhetoric in action and see how inarticulate and bafflingly stupid it can be--which is to say, how amazing that this ever worked on us. This is the supreme accomplishment of thought control (although I'm sure someone else must have pointed this out)--that as a nation we could be led by, and re-elect, and quarrel with (but never overthrow or discredit) a moron like Bush.

To be plain: We have gotten the president we deserve. If this man was able to "deceive" us, how fucking stupid are we?

How stupid is the "politics" (I mean mainstream Washington-centric debates about what goes on on either side of "the aisle") which debates and rationalizes and researches and interrogates and votes on these discussions, as if on an equal footing? How tragic that we have put our military at his beck and call, and seem unable to effect a halt in the pouring of soldiers into Iraq? When I compared Bush to Hulk Hogan earlier, I wanted to stress how pathetic it is that any intelligent mind should "grapple" with Bush ideologically--any reasonable, dignified person would object to even be in the same room with this man--if I were a member of congress, I would resign in humiliation at the impotence of my office and the stupidity of it all.

BUT, it is not enough that this man is a joke, because of course he is a dangerous joke. On one hand, he shows that mechanisms of power function so incredibly well that "even" he could be president and, despite some bumpiness, get re-elected and continue to have credibility in the media/washington/the midwest. It is like that horrible movie where Kevin Klein mistakenly becomes president ("Dave": tagline, "In a country where anybody can become President, anybody just did."), only with less happy results.

So, what I want to suggest is:
1) The position of "holder of sovereign power" is empty, a null set.*
2) That of course Bush doesn't know this; hence his wild celebration of his apparent power.
3) That Bush, as the nadir of intelligence, dignity and charisma, is a sick joke we have inflicted upon ourselves to demonstrate point 1).
4) That any opposition which indulges in the fantasy I have been describing, is not worth its name.

(*--I find it extremely difficult to believe what (tellingly) many people want me to think, that Bush is a "madman" and that (as he would have us believe) he should be the scapegoat for all this. Doesn't it disturb you that the opposition and Bush are telling us the same thing---"Blame it on me, ignore all the history and all the drives and motives which have gotten us here?" It disturbs me.)

Someone tell me what this means

Democracy (in Mexico)

By way of a clarification of my points in the last post, here are two quotes from the New York Times about the swearing-in-to-office of Mexico's new President:

The courts determined Mr. Calderón, 44 years old, won the election last July 2 by about 240,000 votes out of 41 million ballots cast. But his principal rival, Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, has insisted that the official results are tainted and has never conceded defeat.

Mr. Calderón reached out: “To those who voted for other political options, I will not ignore the reasons and causes for your votes,” he said. “And I ask you to let me gain your confidence with acts.”

I think it is time here to make clear the subversive point about democracy that I was trying to make in the last post: it is about LOSING. Democracy is not a rule by majority. It is about the losers accepting the will of the majority. I am not "for" democracy. This is why the question of a one-party rule (update from Gourevitch's book-- Uganda ended its "non-party" system in 1995, allowing semi-competitive elections which kept Museveni in power) is interesting, because the difference between a rubber-stamp parliament and a strong majority in a party system is to be seen in the willingness of the opposition to continue to participate and legitimate the system after their loss. So, I would say, with no interest in "finding out" whether the Mexican election was legitimate or not, that they will have a democracy only when the leftists concede defeat, and that if there is never a support by the left constituency of the new political order, there will be a huge problem--half of the country would be "outside". Democracy is not just counting votes. Here we see why the definition I am giving is not a happy definition.

Democracy

Naturally, this is an ongoing topic.

Let me start by saying that I sometimes jokingly wonder what would happen if I were stopped by a cop for a traffic violation, and when I rolled down my window, said something like, "Hey, thanks, but I don't believe in police, so I guess thanks but no thanks. Have a nice day." This is illustrative in a couple ways: 1) that police are the last people on earth who could wrap their heads around their own irrelevance, and 2) that it is ludicrous in America to state that one is outside of the system.

Let's historicize. There has been one great challenge to American democracy: the secession of a number of states from the Union in 1861, on the grounds that: [Secession] illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. (Jefferson Davis). Basically, the slave-owning states, when Lincoln was elected, saw that the national government was irreconcilably opposed to the core beliefs of their fucked-up white asses. So the argument of the Confederacy is, "We came into the union of our free will, and we can leave when we please." Or: "Since we are already outside of the democratic system, and the majority will be turned against us, we will make this officially the case and truly exist outside the American democratic system by seceding."

Eventually this was settled, but to my knowledge there has never since been an "outside" of the American democracy. This despite consistently pathetic voter turn-out, widespread corruption, fraud, disputed ballots, and repeated demonstrations that party politics are only nominally beholden to their constituents. So, I would say, the real success of American democracy is the shared illusion that everyone is equally represented, that there is only one legitimate government of our land, that the law is the law, that hundreds of millions of middle class or midwestern voters are capable of providing a legitimate and reconcilable counter-balance to my vote, etc. One country, one law, one government, no "outside".

Compare this to our prickly friends in Iraq. The celebration over their historic voting was short-sighted, because when people don't vote in Iraq, it has a very different meaning than when people don't vote in America. If you don't vote in America, you still acknowledge the legitimacy of the traffic ticket. If you don't vote in Iraq, you might be at war with the authority giving traffic tickets. In a way, George Bush was right when he stressed the way that ordinary Iraqi voters braved the terrorists who wanted to stop them from voting, because what is at stake in Iraq is not (as much) the specific ideological/political direction of the country, but the desperate attempt to have a consensus government-- one where even if you disagree with the specific administration, you see yourself as inside of the system and subject to the laws of the present and future governments. So, in a way, everyone who voted (and was willing to accept the result if their party lost) was on the same side. What George Bush misses is the non-incidental nature of this "outside" of "democracy".

What Democrats in America don't understand is that there is no "real" position for them, historically, as a Left party; that American democracy depends on vacillations and reversals in power, that if the entire country moved to the right, and Democrats lost in a landslide, there would 1) be no question of the ballots' legitimacy, and 2) that any political rigidity can lead easily to a one-party system which "we" hate on principle--- although ironically one-party systems can be extremely flexible (see: China).

My question, then, arises from the example of Uganda as described in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: why can't there be a one-party democracy? (The Ugandan ruling party is "all-inclusive".)

So, a list of questions:
-- Can there be a one-party democracy?
-- What is socially/historically necessary for universal inclusion to take root?
-- Can there be (has there been) a democracy that is not universally inclusive?
-- Is there a benefit to "holding off" on democracy when the result of voting will be a non-inclusive sovereignty? (ie: if an anti-democratic or exclusionary group came to power in Iraq)
-- Is it completely meaningless to not vote in America, given that not voting is interpreted as tacit acceptance of the legitimacy of the result?

A flyer I found in the library today

In the library today, I found this flyer about Islam, which I excerpt here:

Islam has of late been accused of being a violent religion. A quick glance at events around the world, however, leaves little doubt that Islamic violence is due largely to US and Israeli policies. The events in the following regions demonstrate this:

Kosovo: Islamic radicals burn down churches and persecute Christians.

Uganda: Muslim rebels in the north, aided by Sudan, have challenged the government.

Algeria: Islamic guerillas continue to attack a government dominated by fellow Muslims.

etc. etc. [there are a bunch of other countries, similar stories].

Do you see how the above states of violent Islamic unrest are due to US and Israeli policies? You don't?! Then you've read this correctly. They have nothing whatever to do with the US or Israel.

Whether you want to call Islam a peaceful religion or not is irrelevant. The fact is that the great majority of unrest around the world involves Muslims--- and has nothing to do with the US or Israel. It has to do with a violent people who have perpetrated some of the most heinous atrocities upon mankind, and convinced a great number of "useful idiots" (mostly on college campuses) that they have a "cause". ....this is not a "cause"-- this is evil in its purest form.
And please stopd the worthless nonsense of calling this note propaganda and racist. You're in college--- you should have the ability to research this easily verifiable truth.

The time to stop Muslim violence is now, the place is wherever you happen to be.
************************************

Obviously I am above debating this note. It begs so many questions, it dismisses in advance any criticism of it as "propaganda" or "racist", etc. There is no debate to be had here.

BUT I am going to investigate (in this extreme case) a lot of bad argumenative practices that are indulged in nearly all public, political discourse.

1) Why shouldn't this note be called "propaganda"? Because propaganda has a pejurative connotation, of course. Because it might imply that this is reductionist and one-sided? Because it considers itself a reasoned, multi-faceted, fair account? Surely this is not the conception the authors had of it, and a leaflet like this is definitively propaganda. Which is not, as the author assumes, to dismiss it. It is to give it a GENRE.

2) Why shouldn't this note be called "racist"? This is another prohibition. My first response is, they are not talking about a race, they are talking about a religion. In this way, warning off charges of racism *raises* the very question it is dismissing-- whether the assumptions about Islam have more to do with people of color (in general) than with the religion (in specific) that it is openly questioning. So, I would say, what is "racist" is perhaps invisible to the authors, and so in the sense *intended*, they are correct-- it is not racist. But in the assumptions (as I'll show) that the logic depends on, there is a definite white, Western prejudice at work.

3) The examples by region. Each of these lacks any citation, although informing me later that because I am "in college," the "truths" they demonstrate are "easily verifiable." Could be. But none of these examples gives a context, either. The violence is presented as part of an endemic violence rooted in Islam. I'll grant that Muslims have engaged in some violence in recent years, and that their outrage is at times unsettling. But in order to prove that this violence is a result of Islam's nature, it would need to be shown:
-- that this violence within Islam is a relative constant throughout history and place
-- that the violence has to do with being Muslim, and has no mitigating history
-- that the violence has to do with being Muslim, in the sense that it is not an internal violence having to do with economic conditions or by subjects who *happen* to be Muslim
-- that the current violence in Afghanistan has "nothing to do with the US". I imagine this is an impossible assertion to prove, and yet the note calls this the "correct reading".

So, this is one long fallacy. If you replace the word "Muslims" with "people over 5'11'' ", you will see how there is no substantive proof LINKING violence to the state of being over 5'11'', although that is precisely what you would be led to assume about being Muslim.

4) That a "great majority" of violence in the world "involves Muslims". As no citation is given, we are not obliged to believe this, and yet even if it were true, the United States and Israel certainly must NOW be dragged into the discussion (which this note is at every effort to prevent), in the context of the great number of examples left out where the United States and Israel have aggressively asserted their policy in the face of a (supposedly unified) "Islam".

5) That there is any relation (having to do with Islam) between Indonesia and Kosovo--- other than the Koran, about which no proof is furnished that there is any incitation to violence.

So. Please consider this an exercise in argument and proving claims, rather than an actual "clash of viewpoints" with this drivel. I think liberalism and bourgeois ideology, and any number of debates, are based upon such disastrous reasonings. As Stuart's blog repeatedly shows, the claims of the Atlantic Yards project backers are contradictory, assert solutions to problems which are never shown to exist, and present numerous false binaries and strawman arguments. This post happens to attack a particularly easy (read: dumb) target, but I think this lazy, bullying style is so widespread that it is basically the Law of the Land.

I realize a lot of things can be reduced to unenlightening truisms or platitudes, or disposable "advice" such as, "mean what you say, and say what you mean." On the other hand, taken to heart, that is probably the most important advice you will get today (and I am giving you this bit of advice).

In class today, someone said the word "equates" when they meant "relates" or "indicates" or "reflects", etc. This is an innocent enough mistake. It is hard to think of the right words, so we rush past the exact right one, to make our larger point. As baffling as Derrida has been, this has been the lesson I (and now you) can learn from it: mean what it is that you are saying. Say what it is that you mean. There, you have one of the most terrifyingly difficult French philosophers, brutally summarized, and in a perfectly useless way. Surely this example ("equates" instead of "indicates") has not hit home with you.

This post is an attack on laziness. On linguistic laziness (now), on laziness in thought, and (finally) laziness in identity. I am not arguing for a humorless "sincerity", nor do I have my mother's professed opposition to people "being fake" (because there is no true self, DUH). But I think it is worth thinking through the difference between "equates" and "relates", if what you mean to say is the second one. Let's be rigorous. For one thing, *I* do not want to be summarized incorrectly (see a few posts back) as having "equated" something, when I only "related" something. This is a terror I have. I am a decent enough writer, I can stop and start over a sentence if it is not going well, if I realize that I am going to have to fudge a verb or a metaphor or a preposition. In a blog, in conversation, often enough I'll just leave it sloppy, so that my meaning is clear, though it comes out as badly written. This is especially true when you are setting up binaries, which is a common rhetorical approach (parallelism and contrast), but halfway through the sentence you realize this isn't a real opposition, or your metaphor is wrong, or you even chose the wrong first word ("although" when you really mean "regardless")--- this is all a sort of rhetorical autopilot.

What this leads to, in large enough quantities, is an imprecision that makes what we are saying nonsense. I think this is a) too obvious, and b) too hysterical a point to dwell on here. What I would like to talk about instead is the laziness, not of ideology or politics, but of people's self-formation. I was lecturing someone about this earlier, in the context of people's internet profiles, which are a really good and a really bad way to form opinions about someone. Good, because how people represent themselves is important. Bad, because people almost always represent themselves poorly.

What I cannot stand is people COMMITTED to ironizing, delaying, obscuring, and creating a nearly-universal language of avoidance, in these forums. I think we are all familiar with a hipster dialect of mystical animal/improbable verb to construct a record title or internet handle. This may also include adjectives like "awesome" or questionable signifiers like "AIDS".
So, "AIDS Wolf" is a band, but also "Awesome Color" and "Japanther". Presumably all of this will sound incredibly dated in a few years, just as the two words "Surrealistic" and "Pillow" now clearly reek of a precisely-dateable pretension. On the other hand, at least you know what you are getting ("surrealistic" might as well say "psychadelic").

Here, as a counter-example, I would cite my two of my own internet "names": "Misfits Fan" (my email) and "S/s", my name on myspace. The Misfits are my favorite band, and S/s (signifier determines subject) is probably the most important concept in philosophy for me, and a key part of my favorite book In Search of Lost Time. Nuff said. I mean these things. "Japanther" means nothing. And also, fair enough--it doesn't have to. We're all postmodern here, right?

My contention would be that, yes, we are all being postmodern here. There is irony in "misfits fan" (it makes me sound like a 15 year old), and in "S/s" (what the fuck does it mean?), but at the same time, these are two VERY important things to me, rendered as if they were just floating signifiers. They aren't. But I am pretending that they are, since I am using them to "name" me. So, for me, I would say, this is my huge critique of the Hipster: get a self. Stay with it. Play with it, by all means. Have fun. Use language and images and signifiers, as freely as you like. But at the end of the day, MEAN something. You don't have to "stand for something"; I am not being political here. Be a person. Consolidate your objects and your desires into something that goes beyond evasion and posturing. I have an idea of what it is like to mature and to get into new things; this doesn't have to be everyone's. I do not ask anyone to be twee and wear their hearts on their sleeves, or to be humorless, or worst of all to be ME, but more's the pity if you turn 30 and you realize you have merely been rotating your self out on a 6-month schedule.

here's some more bullshit

There are two articles in the Times today about how religions are not subject to the law in the same way as other corporations/organizations. One is about how churches are not subject to the same regulations about land/supervision of programs that a secular body would be, and the other is about how employees have little recourse against churches if they are fired.

The obvious thing strikes me is that christians want to have their cake and eat it, too, as regards the separation of church and state. So, religious types want to put prayer in public school, keep the word "God" in the pledge of allegiance, pursue their political agenda, demand money for faith-based programs, etc. And then they demand that the government not tell them how to use their land. And as long as an overwhelming majority of congress-people are religious, this is probably just the way it will be. We live in a democracy run by Christians. If you want to let these people vote, you have to follow their rules. Deal with it.

The second thing is that I really don't care if churches fuck over their employees. The reason I think everyone (including me) gets upset about priests abusing kids is, they are KIDS. Their parents put them in this situation, and they have no good way to speak out or defend themselves or escape, and their parents drive them to church week after week to get molested. But I have no such sympathy for, say, a Nun who gets dismissed from her order because she has cancer. If some whack hospital thinks that collective bargaining and unions "defy Christ’s admonitions that behavior must be directed by individual conscience” and “is inherently disruptive” of the church’s healing mission, you know what, that is splendid. KEEP CRAZIES OUT OF THE 21st CENTURY. Churches marrying gay people, women becoming priests, unions for religious institutions, any kind of respect for human decency--- if you belong to some religion that frowns upon these things, it is your own stupid fault that you expect to enter the 21st century and get married/become a nun/have a union. Mainstream religion is not like Scientology. The Catholic Church is not a bait-and-switch. You know what you are getting into. If anything, it is *more* liberal now than it promised to be in the previous century, which is why you have Mel Gibson-style wingnuts.

The same goes for Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, as for Catholics. Bummed out that your two-thousand-year-old beliefs don't gel with your progressive attitude? GET A CLUE. I am not interested in redeeming or reforming or hearing complaints about your religion. Unless some new scroll gets unearthed, if you are Jewish, and you don't like what is in Deuteronomy, TOUGH LUCK. Unless the virgin Mary appears in an english muffin telling you to be a woman-priest, I don't care. The one real virtue of Religion is that it is UNDISGUISEDLY STUPID. Arguing about whether bread turns into bloody-flesh in your mouth, and an intelligent discussion of collective bargaining: these things need to be kept separate.

It is very distressing to me that this great achievement of Western Civilization, representative democracy, which gives the US the moral superiority to battle for freedom against "Islamofascists" worldwide, and in the name of which our civil liberties have been foreclosed, comes down to WHAT EXACTLY?
-- the Democrats now stand a good chance of winning back one of the chambers of legislature, because some Republican sent creepy, sexual-predator emails to boys.

Is anyone happy about this? Sadly, yes. All the Anybody-But-Bush people of 2004, whose candidate pretended not to be able to speak French in order to get elected (which shockingly did not work), now see this as a perfect moment to win political influence by trading on a sexual scandal and alleged cover up.

Now, I thought this was inappropriate in the case of Clinton, and I find it inappropriate now.
1) There is a really unpleasant flavor of homophobia to the whole thing.
2) Undoubtedly this happens with female pages/interns/etc. all the time as well
3) We elect these retards to VOTE IN OUR NAME. On which this has no bearing.
4) Given all that the Republicans have done in the past 14 years in Congress, this is a pretty fucking weak reason to finally overthrow them.

Now, I care about as much about what happens in Washington as I do about which channel of NFL commentators I watch on Sunday mornings (very little, but I have my preferences). That these 400 or so retards, almost uniformly white, Christian, and bourgeois, mostly male, make some claim at running our country, while really just waiting around for lascivious instant-messenger conversations to come across their desk to a) make a scandal or b) cover it up, is so pathetic. This is really even a step down from when Al Gore tried to get elected Leader of the Free World by wearing more earth-tones.

Anyways, if I ever hear anyone talk about our national democracy again, excuse me if I vomit.

Not that you would ever know it, because I don't often have time to post here, but I think written-out opinions, in a set context, are soon the only one I will stick by, and even then I have fear of being misunderstood.

I remember one time I was trying to draw a comparison between Bush and Reagan, and say that Reagan brought a sort of grand old-timey-ness to the office that one is even nostalgic for when faced with this desperate, sketchy, sweaty administration. The example I gave was Reagan's speech on the event of the Challenger exploding: `We will never forget them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.' My point was, 'Can you even imagine Bush saying something like that?!' But all my dad heard was 'Reagan Reagan Reagan' and the conversation didn't go anywhere because he was still too pissed off at Reagan to admit that there was at least an attempt at dignity in that decade.

Another argument I got into with my dad was about "Million Dollar Baby" (no shit), and whether shitty movies won Oscars all the time or not. Or something like that. Anyways, I'm not sure what we were arguing about, because my dad was trying to impart wisdom about the Oscars at the same time as I wanted to point out that he had liked this overblown film. So we were completely at cross purposes until my mom broke us apart.

Things you say in seminar, even longer blog posts (see below), anything relayed to another person, any message board post, virtually every single thing I think-- once you say anything, other people are only going to hear what they want, and then when your message finally gets back to you, it no longer at all resembles what you meant. This is why, if you've ever argued with me, it goes on FOREVER--- my belief is that we aren't really in an argument to begin with, that we've just misunderstood each other, and that if we really separate out our emotions from "what we are really saying," we might turn out to disagree, but at least we'll know, and we'll probably understand each other better. This is why I have a reputation for loving to argue; but to me, I just want to be sure there is even a need to. I think a good deal of the time, we are "just saying the same thing" as the person we are arguing with, and neither of us wanted to think so.

If one thinks of how one gets information, it is either in a chaotic way (conversation, the internet, cultural absorption) or in a uni-directional way (TV, "the news"). Think about politics. The "debate" in politics is conducted by pundits. It is staged for us. There is ZERO attempt made to provide the raw material of decision-making-- firstly, because no one actually wants this, and secondly, when there is a "backstory" given, it is usually some human interest story and not a dialectical/historical process. What this means is that the circularity of political discourse generates its own (detached) conventional wisdom, but then EVERYONE outside of this circuit is invited to join in (on November 2nd) on the basis of having accepted this conventional wisdom as THE discussion about politics. So, doing one's civic duty and voting are coded in specific ways by this discussion, so that not voting is demonized: remaining outside these endlessly-generated arrangements is demonized. As it should be, by the logic of the political circle. It is always *conversational*, and the essence of conversation is the agreed-upon premise, which allows us to talk to one another. Our words mean one thing, this is the definition Newsweek and both the Right and Left agree upon, now we can talk. That is why there is no philosophy of politics which anyone IN politics engages in. Which is why the Judicial, which has this kind of self-philosophizing, is so baffling to Congress. The judicial is NOT conversational.

Anyways, writing. When my book comes out, it will get summarized, people will reference it without having read it, and make assumptions based on the cover and who else has liked it, but in order to SAY anything about it, one will have to have read it. And while that opens up inevitable misreadings, I think this demand of going back to the source is so much less violent in the case of a book, than in, say, an argument. I guess that sounds obvious, but given the fact that the current administration a) functions entirely by miscommunication in news briefings and never "puts it all on the table," and b) the president does not read books; I think it merits a bit further thought.

And no, this doesn't mean that I'll be talking any less.