Saturday, November 23, 2002

THE AUTUMN PRINT MISC is so darn late by now, mostly due to my own ambitions for it, that we're gonna skip the quarter and call it a Winter issue.

This also means I've time to add a new reader survey.

I want your recommendations of the weirdest "children's" or "teen" media (books, movies, TV, music) you've ever read/seen/heard. I'm not talking about mere wholesome dorkiness like Raffi; I mean true oddities like the Pac-Man musical album. Email your choices today.

posted by clark 1:09 PM

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

PUTSCHING IT THROUGH: In the current Seattle Weekly, editor Knute Berger ponders whether the GOP zeitgeist really is heading in the direction of classic fascism.

He starts by noting the terms "fascist" and "Nazi" have become overused in recent decades to the point of near-meaninglessness. I can agree, having personally listened to a guy describing marijuana laws as a worse abuse of authority than the Holocaust. And, as I've already mentioned, the most predictable cliche in online discussion boards is for a "thread" to collapse into mutual Nazi-name calling.

So now we have a national government that achieved power by insider dealmaking, unabashed demagoguery, and outright theft; out to systematically dismantle representative democracy, civil liberties, and most of the Constitution; placing its perceived political opponents on lists of "terror suspects" to be denied freedom to travel; desirious to replace the whole civil-service system with a "privatization" scheme based on big-money cronyism; preaching "Christian morality" but behaving in an extremely un-Christlike manner; adamant about busting the treasury for billionaires' tax breaks; eager to force its will upon any and every other nation; justifying all its crimes under the telltale slogan "homeland security."

And the terms that might best describe this particular form of despotism have devolved, among some swaths of the populace, into almost meaningless all-purpose epithets, commonly used to denounce anything from the movie-ratings system to no-parking zones.

The new age people say we become whatever we're obsessed with, whether that obsession is based in love or hatred. At least since the Reagan era and probably earlier, the post-hippie left has been obsessed with finding fascism everywhere outside its own subculture, so as to smugly claim to be the one and only defenders of freedom. It's difficult to work for economic justice, to run election campaigns, or to fight class-action lawsuits. It's far, far easier to simply draw Hitler moustaches onto the faces of every politician, to sneer at "new world orders," and to dismiss every U.S. citizen outside of your own little clique as a quasi-goosestepper.

I'm not saying the left, mystically yet inadvertantly, willed the current politick into being. But it didn't help to just assume all these years that it was already here, just so you could feel good about yourself. It didn't help to vilify the regular citizens you should be defending. It didn't help to reject actual political participation.

If, as Berger asks, the Republicans really are morphing into fascists, it's a different kind than the old Italian, German, Japanese, Greek, Chilean, or Spanish versions. For one thing, it'll claim to not be racist, at least on the higher official levels (welcoming the participation of anti-Castro Cubans and Condoleeza Rice, making convoluted distinctions between "good Arabs" and "bad Arabs"). It might not demand disciplinarian lifestyles, at least not among the affluent. It'll proclaim freedom of religion (except for Muslims).

But in the aspects that count, the trends are ominous. Militaristic huzzas-huzzas everywhere you look. A fast-narrowing range of acceptable-in-public opinions (that gets even narrower in the big national media). A regime steadily disrobing any claims to be operating on behalf of anyone but big moneybags. Federal spies and goons running about unrestrained.

Working to turn back these trends is the single most important thing any of us can do now. It transcends all single-issue causes, which would be rendered moot if the power-grabbers continue. And it's a helluva lot more important than individual or collective ego trips.

IN SOMEWHAT HAPPIER NEWS, The Seattle monorail referendum survived the late-absentee count to pass by 868 votes. Yet its opponents, ever-virulant about the people meddling in decisions deemed the exclusive domain of "experts," will still try to kill it through backdoor state legislation and other tactics. What part of YES don't you understand?

posted by clark 3:02 PM

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

IN THE CLASSIC RUSSIAN NOVEL Dead Souls, the protagonist tours the feudal countryside, buying the title deeds to big landowners' dead serfs, so he could amass enough "property" to force his way into the privileged classes.

Now, instead of buying dead people, the relentless arm of Marketing wants to sell things to them. P-I columnist Joel Connelly has written about the commercial junk mail that still comes addressed to his recently-deceased ladylove. That piece generated many responses from bereaved citizens with similar tackiness to report. In the story linked here, these include an old UW Daily colleague of mine, Joel VanEtta, who lost a brother but can't convince mailing-list compilers of this.

posted by clark 11:22 PM

UNPLUGGED: It's not the "voluntary simplicity" movement but the New Depression's involuntary simplicity that's helping spark the latest young-adult fad: Guys n' gals who were more or less fully plugged in (email, cable TV, broadband Internet, even their own websites) just last year, but are now not only Netless but phoneless. Some of them were in relationship or roommate situations that busted up; others tried to go exclusively with cell phones but neglected to pay attention to their minutes, racked up impossible bills, and got cut off.

There is a nonprofit program to help these folk stay at least semi-connected to the outside world. But, as you might expect, it's threatened with draconian budget cuts.

posted by clark 11:07 PM

HAVE AN ORGASM, save the economy?

posted by clark 1:06 PM

Monday, November 18, 2002

JUST AS I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU ALL ALONG, TV viewing is good for the brain. Now stop your anti-pop elitist whining already.

And if you don't like what's on TV, go out and make some of your own.

posted by clark 10:48 PM

Sunday, November 17, 2002

NOT THE 'ROOT' OF ALL EVIL: In times of war-mongering fervor, many sadly predictable events regularly recur.

Among them: Essays, usually but not exclusively written by women, blaming essentially the whole male gender for the actions of a few (usually old and un-virile) men who promote the starting of wars. (These stories almost always invoke the phrase "testosterone poisoning" and comparisons of phalluses to guns and missiles.)

One of these, by LA sex-talk-show host Dr. Susan Block, recently appeared in the lefty newsletter CounterPunch. (The above link is to a posting of the article on Block's own site, which includes images of dildos with Bush and Saddam caricatures drawn on them.)

Just once, I'd like to see a leftist response to war-aggression hype that DIDN'T turn into a wholesale denounciation of het-male sexuality.

For one thing, the current White House occupant isn't, as Block calls him, a hormone-crazed "dickhead." If anything he's a metaphoric castrato, shrilly and obediently (albeit loudly) singing to the moneyed castes in the opera-house luxury boxes.

And as Block has herself written elsewhere on her website, sex and violence are not linked but opposed to one another. A penis is not a missile, a gun, or a torpedo, but biology. It is made to bring joy; to bring people together; to replenish the species, not deplete it. (Though its improper use can lead to heartbreak, broken homes, and STDs.) Cocks have nothing to do with the starting of wars, or at least they haven't since Troy. (Though as we've seen in Kosovo, they can become abused, as weapons of abuse, once a war has commenced.)

I'd like to propose a different vision: Peepees for Peace. Men publicly proclaiming the dedication of their manhood toward "erecting" positive loving alternatives to war-fear, invoking vigor and courage to resist the calls to blind obedience, working alongside (and often-times beneath) all the wise and compassionate women.

This is a little more complicated than the old slogan "Make Love Not War," but ultimately comes down to the same conclusion. Active love, not passivity, is the true opposite of war (or of fear, one of the key emotional underpinnings of war).

I personally plan to be a warm, firm, blood-filled, snug-fitting, well-lubed, properly-sheathed, rhythmically synchronized advocate for long-term solutions to one of the planet's most joyless regions. I will use my capacities to help make my nation more responsive to the peace message. And as a writer and public speaker, my fingers and tongue will untiringly pursue procedures which might help lead to a long-lasting, fulfilling resolution.

posted by clark 2:21 AM

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