Pinning One's Hopes

History is a mean, brutal creature, unsentimental, unsparing. Collective efforts to shape and steer history in certain directions have been decidedly mixed, and in many cases, have worsened already miserable situations. But there is very little that we the living can do to escape these outcomes, though Americans do have the luxury to ignore what is going on Out There, so long as our numerous screens remain lit and our distractions plugged in. This is getting harder to do, but if nothing else, Americans will always find a way to bury their heads, even if it means actually burying their heads. The view under ground must be more enjoyable than the awful realities raging above, yes?

Still, there are those who try to keep an open eye to the horrors around us (this humble space included), and others who continually push against the large, closing walls. This latter effort is very necessary, despite the long odds, and I've done what I can to assist in these efforts, however feeble my contribution. So it was with considerable interest and sincere confusion that I read my old friend Jeff Cohen's celebration of James Webb's State of the Union response. While I understood why so many liberals threw their hats in the air on Webb's behalf, I must confess that Jeff's flying beret caught me off guard. After all, Jeff is a true American radical in a non-sectarian sense. His knowledge of American history and connection to various progressive currents has always impressed me, and when I was younger, helped to educate me.

I worked with Jeff during my formative, political years; and for a time, we shared a New York apartment, which afforded me direct access to Jeff's experience and seasoned political views (watching the evening news with him was a valuable lesson in itself). For someone who knew so much about the smallest political trends in American history, Jeff remained pragmatic, and could work inside the largest media behemoths. Read his highly entertaining and illuminating book, "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media," for the sordid details.

Allowing for all that, I remained stunned by Jeff's embrace of Webb. I emailed him and asked what was up. He promptly replied, saying that his piece was not specifically in support of Webb himself, but of the "progressive" message Webb sent out to millions, a message that should be amplified and expanded whenever possible. And what did Webb say that stirred Jeff so?

"When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

"Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts ...

"In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy: that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today."

Jeff maintained that this type of language is largely missing from mainstream discourse, especially when coming from official Democratic spokespersons. In the DLC/Clinton era of Dem politics, and mostly after, Jeff is right: few if any major Dems have talked this way (Mario Cuomo's speech at the 1984 Democratic convention possessed a similar tone, and George Wallace was very pro-blue collar, let us not forget). You'd hear it from the likes of Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters, but Al Gore and John Kerry shied away from such open populist appeals (though in the waning days of his 2000 campaign, Gore did make a few populist noises, which helped him with working people -- not that the party, the DLC in particular, learned anything from this). That a freshman senator from a conservative state delivered such a statement about low wages and class divisions should not be ignored or played down, but seized upon and widely spread.

Fair enough. Lord knows we need more, serious class awareness from below, seeing that those on high are already class conscious in order to maintain their advantage. But Webb is not alone among major Dems when it comes to this topic. John Edwards is making the class divide one of the key issues in his presidential campaign, while Barack Obama speaks about the need to create decent jobs while staving off the encroachment of the rich. What these and other Dems are simply doing is acknowledging reality, which is a good thing, to be sure, but not something that should mute our critical sensibilities. If Dems like Edwards and Obama have any shot at winning the Dem nomination, much less the presidency, then they're going to have to talk like this, or else kiss goodbye millions of potential votes from working people. Webb's already been elected and has just begun his six year term, so his populist language is potentially interesting, though it is part of the overall Dem approach. Bush has been murder on working Americans, and for the Dems to take his place, they must reach out to those Americans who've been hurt.

Regarding Webb's reference to Andrew Jackson's contribution to "American-style democracy," one might remember Jackson's smashing of the Creek tribe and his support of the Indian Removal Act, which eventually led to the Cherokee "Trail of Tears" and related atrocities. The Cherokee called Jackson "Sharp Knife" and for good reason. What Jackson and his successor Martin Van Buren oversaw would later be defined as ethnic cleansing, which was indeed an integral part of early "American-style democracy." I doubt that this is what Webb was trying to express, since the prevailing wisdom is that only monsters like Milosevic are guilty of such crimes. But it is telling that of all of the American references available, Webb went with Andrew Jackson. Not a huge deal, but worth a thought nonetheless.

Webb also touted Theodore Roosevelt's opposition to robber barons in order to provide his address further historical context. While it's true that TR was for a time opposed to the big business looting that was rampant at the end of the 19th century, his political ambition eventually overtook him, and in 1884 he broke from the reformist wing of the Republicans and backed the corrupt James G. Blaine, saying "I have been called a reformer but I am a Republican." Blaine lost to Grover Cleveland, but Roosevelt's shrewd move helped to propel him up the GOP ladder, where he became William McKinley's running mate, and then after McKinley's assassination, president.

When it came to war, Roosevelt was a dedicated imperialist and racist. His motto: "No triumph of peace is quite as great as the supreme triumph of war." Again, it's odd that a "progressive" like Webb would refer positively to such a political figure. Perhaps Webb trusted that most Americans know Roosevelt only from Mount Rushmore, and not from his desire to fight corruption to the degree that it threatened the status quo of which TR was a part, nor from his enthusiasm for slaughtering Filipinos and converting the survivors to Christianity. Ann Coulter might appreciate that, but one hopes that a Democrat with "populist" instincts would not.

Jeff knows all of this; but he's after something bigger: namely, a progressive takeover the of the Democratic Party. Jeff is now an active board member with Progressive Democrats of America, a group made-up of liberals and those a little further left who see the Dem party as the only realistic vehicle for serious political change. In our rigid, fixed political system, Jeff and his colleagues may be right, which is a pretty sad fact for the Greatest Democracy The World Has Ever Seen. Still, you deal with the cards that are dealt you. When Jeff informed me of this current strategy (which he predicts will take 10-20 years to fully come about), his piece on Webb made even more sense -- praise that which you can honestly praise, gain some trust, position yourself for further possible influence, and keep moving through the party.

Jeff cites the Christian Right's takeover of much of the GOP machinery as an activist model, though in my view, rightwing theocrats have more in common with their party than do progressives with the Dems. In other words, the fight on this side of the aisle is going to be much, much tougher, especially with the corporate stranglehold on the mules. At some point, serious differences will be unavoidable, namely, the mainstream Dem position on the Middle East, Israel in particular. Sooner or later, simply celebrating bits and pieces of the Dem platform will no longer suffice. When the shit truly hits the fan, that's when we'll know how far progressives can go in transforming the party altogether.

As you can see, I have serious doubts about this strategy. I, too, have worked with the Dems, and they are a stubbornly centrist, at times reactionary, bunch. Yet, as Jeff insists, this may be all we have at this point in time. So, in the spirit of open-mindedness and as a nod to an old friendship, I'm adding the PDA to the roll, and will keep a steady, critical eye on their various campaigns. After all, if there's even a small chance that my children might benefit from their efforts, not to mention the country and the rest of the planet, then it's worth seeing what the PDA and others can do.

Some Rally Notes

Busy day today, much of it away from office and home. So I won't be able to harangue you in the usual fashion (I have the rest of the week for that). But I did want to say a few things about the antiwar rally in DC over the weekend. The teen and I watched much of it on C-SPAN, and while there were speakers and choices in music that I wouldn't have suggested or backed had I been in on the organizing (this was always the case when I did help put together events, so take it for what it's worth), I thought that Saturday's rally was much more focused and inspiring than the last one, which was all over the map and dominated by sectarian drones. This rally, organized by United For Peace and Justice, possessed spirit, emotion, and verve. And, finally, some actual antiwar Iraq vets! To me, that was the best part of the rally, watching those young, camo-clad vets on stage. That really moved me, as did the military family activists. They were clearly the highlight of the day, and should be a significant part of any public action from here on out.

Of course, there were liberals who were put off by the rally. I won't name names or provide links. You probably know who they are, and I'm trying this week to be more upbeat and positive, and tearing into ignorant quotes will seriously undermine my mission (however realistic or short-lived). But there were those who thought that any mention of Israel and the Palestinians was off topic, and that this would anger and alienate any fence-sitters watching. For some, Iraq and Iraq alone is the only issue worth discussing, and even then, one must be careful of what one says. All I can say in response is that this is a regional war, and Israel is decidedly a part of it, both in terms of the ongoing brutalization of the Palestinians (who continue to kill each other, a violent split that solely serves their brutalizer), and in regional military actions, training and planning, the chief target being Iran. Indeed, from what I saw, there was very little mention of possible strikes on Iran. If anything was truly amiss at Saturday's rally, it was that.

Still, I thought that many of the right tones were expressed, despite the inevitable lags here and there. The Hollywood contingent, which usually inspires the harshest reactions, did well, in my view. I have never had a problem with celebrities speaking out on social issues, regardless of their politics. Some know what they're talking about; others haven't the faintest clue. I assess them individually, and those who showed up in DC weren't anything to be embarrassed by. As Sean Penn remarked in his brief address that was under two minutes, actors are citizens as well and have a duty to show their solidarity, which Penn, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon did. Many critics, liberal and reactionary alike, spat all over Jane Fonda's appearance. Liberals don't want to be tarred with Fonda's anti-Vietnam war reputation, and reactionaries are still kneeling before their Hanoi Jane altars, religiously convinced that Fonda did more to hurt Vietnam-era soldiers and vets than did the US government and the Veteran's Administration. That Vietnam combat vets shared the same stage as Fonda on Saturday apparently does little to sway this crowd, and I didn't see any Iraq war vets fleeing the area upon Fonda's arrival. I personally have had my criticisms of Fonda, most harshly of her and former husband Tom Hayden's support of the Israeli bombardment of Beirut in 1982. Hayden has since apologized for this stance, while Fonda, in her recent memoir, pretends it never happened. But Fonda has shown a growing awareness of Israel/Palestine issues since cheering on Ariel Sharon those many years ago. How deep it goes only she knows for sure.

Given all that, I found Fonda's address to be perfectly fine. She showed respect for war vets and their families, and admitted her own fears about speaking out, considering the slime machine that still operates at the mere mention of her name. Watch for yourself and see if you agree.

Slammer Time

Insanity stalks me this morning, after trying to strangle me in my sleep. Filthy fuck. Ignoring it does little to dissuade it. There is no reason nor morality that it recognizes. It just waits there, waits for me to let my guard down, its crazy face devoured by a stained-teeth smile.

I was going to write about the Dems again today, seeing how they are supposedly in charge while lame duck Bush jabbers on about "sacrifice" and the need for extended slaughter. But I simply lack the energy, Sonsters. Composing these daily blasts wears me out, and I neglect the house, the dirty kitchen floor, the mud room crusted with salt as several towels soak up the melting snow and ice tracked in by the family, the living room disheveled beyond belief, books stacked everywhere, magazines strewn on the dusty carpets, our neurotic New York cat puking up her food every few hours while our lazy Michigan cat sleeps and sheds all over my old Army jacket. Money is tight, bills are put off or partially paid, and here I sit, reading about the woeful world, jotting down notes and stray lines with sports radio providing ambient sound in the background.

Is this all there is?

Actually, believe it or not, I have planned, if not a more optimistic post about certain progressive Dems, then something less hostile and gloomy. At least that's how I feel at this conception stage. Once I start banging the thing out, that might change, but I can't say for sure. I never know how most of my posts will end, nor can I predict my mood as the thoughts burn through me. But I will try, loyal readers, to find something of worth in this mess, for I wear myself down far too often and suspect that I'm doing the same to you. If that's the case, my sincere apologies. Who wants to visit an angry man everyday, who shakes his fist at the sky and throws rocks at cars and trucks that speed through his residential stretch? I'm even looking the part these days -- my hair is getting long and my salt and pepper beard grows wild, like those old crazy coots in the trailer parks of my youth, cursing up a storm with a Schlitz in one hand and a Marlboro in the other. My friend Bob and I would egg these guys on, then laugh as they ranted away, seemingly oblivious to everything save their own dying rage. Kids can be cruel to the old, but I don't think those coots really noticed, especially after putting away a six-pack.

Speaking of old men who talk too much, a quick Perrin family snapshot: my grandfather, Charlie Perrin, who died in 1987, was somewhat legendary in the bars near his home. Charlie was filled with fear, which he covered up by being the loudest guy in the room, and oftentimes the funniest. For all of his bullshit, my grandfather could make you laugh, though he had to work you to find the right opening for his extremely corny but absurdist jokes and takes. I once went with him to one of his favorite bars, The Slammer, which had mock jail cell doors on the booths and old black and white photos of prisons and jails on the walls. The bar itself was very dark and reeked of dried beer on the floor. When we entered it was around 11 AM, and a small crowd of older men, hunched over their drinks, turned and stood to greet my grandfather.

"Hey! Charlie's here!"

They all smiled, awaiting Charlie's performance, and he did not disappoint them. I said very little, and took some pride in Charlie's act, which consisted of weird plays on words and anecdotes about his time as a salesman for Morton Salt. His little audience ate it up, and I could see, however briefly, my grandfather releasing some of his fear and living in the jovial moment. Of course, he got drunk and I had to drive him home, whereupon he drained a few more beers then nodded out in his big, plush chair, the bulk of his day over by 3 PM. He'd wake up a few hours later and read condensed books until bedtime, telling me that once he got the gist of a story or historical tale, he didn't need to read the whole thing, and so moved on to another shortened tome.

While I don't drink during the day (though sometimes I could really use it), I sort of feel like the Son is my Slammer, and you good people are the audience at the bar. Now, if only I would tell more amusing stories, yes?

Here's some classic Rodney Dangerfield, who looks a lot like my grandfather, though Rodney had a slicker act. But then, if Charlie hadn't been so emotionally beaten down, who knows what he might have achieved?

Sticky Webb

What is it about American liberals that makes them behave like 7th grade civics students eager for an A? Do they seriously believe the rhetoric about our "glorious nation" and its "unique" destiny? Or is this merely a defense mechanism, a desperate effort to stave off the awful realities we all face and play down the abject criminality of those who rule us? Either way, the libs aren't helping matters. And with the Presidential Sweepstakes currently under way, their shit will pile up at an accelerated rate.

Reading some of the lib responses to James Webb's speech from last night has left me feeling angry and depressed. More than a few have employed the adolescent "awesome" to describe what was, in form and in fact, a pretty standard political spiel. What a sorry time we live in for Webb to be seen as a beacon of political hope and courage. Yes, he was against the Iraq invasion from the get-go, but so were a lot of people, Republicans and conservatives among them. That Webb, like many in the US elite, foresaw the horrors that awaited our entry again means little. Anyone with passing knowledge of the region and a hint of honesty predicted the exact same thing. Are we so far gone that a conservative Dem who faces reality is considered "impressive"? Apparently so.

Note that Webb described the Iraq war as "mismanaged." Not criminal, not corrupt, not imperial, but "mismanaged." What if the invasion and occupation had been successful? Of course, that would necessitate bloodletting on a massive scale, and even then "success" would not be guaranteed. But let's suppose that Bush gambled correctly, wiped out all forms of resistance and put a lethal stranglehold on the Iraqis while Halliburton peacefully set up shop and US control over Iraq's oil reserves was secure. Think Webb would object to that? Judging from his speech, I seriously doubt that he would, especially if Bush's poll numbers were in the 70s or higher. Webb is simply articulating what many in the US elite already know and feel -- the Iraq war was a tactical, imperial error which is undermining US power in the region. Or to use Webb's terminology, it has been "mismanaged," and so it must be corrected, if that's even possible at this stage.

Note also that Webb completely buys into the War on Terror scenario, which he didn't really define last night, though he's doubtlessly referring to Afghanistan specifically and al-Qaeda generally. That's a serious topic that requires serious debate, but Webb wasn't interested in going beyond rhythm phrases like "war on terrorism," the mere sound of which supposedly defines itself and therefore nothing else need be said. And Webb is decidedly on board with an attack on Iran, as he is completely behind Israel's aggression in the region. When the cluster bombs begin falling on Iran, don't expect Webb, Pelosi, Hillary, Obama, or any senior Dem, to oppose it -- that is, unless the murder of Iranians is somehow bungled or "mismanaged." Then perhaps Webb might make some critical noises, and wave more family photos at the camera to prove his sincerity. And, as nature dictates, online liberals will again fawn at his feet, marveling at his "awesome" delivery.

Our "Opposition" Party In Action

From one bloody hand to another. God Bless America.

Real Roots

Back in my DC days, when I attended talks, appeared on panels, radio and TV, went to pubs and parties crowded with smart, ambitious young politicos (along with the inevitable drunken-hangover stay at Hitchens' pad), I witnessed first-hand the detachment of the American political class from the American public. Not that I was terribly naive about this reality going in; but direct exposure helps to hammer home points, and listening to the utter contempt the Beltway crowd had for the masses at times shocked even me. When I told my relatives about it, they weren't surprised, but neither were they convinced that this was truly the case. For if those who worked on or wrote about Capitol Hill hated and feared them, then what did Congresspeople and Senators think? The idea that The People mattered only during elections (and oftentimes, not even then), was, I believe, too negative for some of my relatives and their friends to take, especially if they were Republicans. After all, the GOP cares for its own, right?

I was reminded of all this during last week's little "netroots" dust-up, when Max Sawicky questioned not only the theoretical prowess of online libs, but also their dedication to something other than corporate Dems. A few libs, like Kos and Steve Gilliard, turned Max's point around to make it seem as if Max was the political elitist, and they merely humble servants of a nation in desperate need of de-Bushification. But other libs used Max's critique as an opening to discuss the actual meaning of political theory today, and whether or not knowing your Marx or Alinsky (Paul Goodman, anyone?) really matters anymore. This then led to an attack on the George Scialabba review in the Nation that I linked to last week, for it seemed to certain younger libs that Scialabba, like Max, was out of touch with what's really going on.

Matthew Yglesias, a well-regarded online, Beltway lib, found terrible Scialabba's idea that American lefties actually engage the larger populace in an effort to raise political issues, if not political consciousness. As Scialabba put it:

"How to accomplish it? I don't know. Perhaps population exchanges or year-abroad programs between blue and red states. Perhaps The Nation should offer free subscriptions to registered Republicans. Perhaps Katha Pollitt and Ann Coulter (or Thomas Frank and David Brooks, or Greg Palast and Matt Drudge) should barnstorm the country, the way Stanley Fish and Dinesh D'Souza did in the 1990s. Perhaps all secular liberals should sign a pledge: Every time one evangelical reads a nonreligious book, one of us will go to church. Somehow or other, someone must sow a healthy appetite for informed, discriminating political argument across large swaths of the electorate where it now appears lacking. Otherwise, public life will become wholly (what it now is largely) a marketing competition, and nothing more."

Yglesias utterly rejected such a straightforward, grassroots suggestion:

"[T]he underlying presumption here -- that political progress depends on massively increasing the general populations knowledge of American politics and public policy -- is dead wrong. 'Informed, discriminating political argument' is never going to be popular 'across large swaths of the electorate' because most people simply don't care very much about politics. This is a fact of political life -- of human nature -- that successful movements seek to deal with, not something to sit around pining over while the world passes everyone by."

Apart from Yglesias' open elitism, which is no surprise, given his Harvard background, I'm always amused by how profoundly limited many Ivy Leaguers are. Perhaps the reason why "most people simply don't care very much about politics" is because American elites have worked long and hard to depoliticize the population. You don't have to be a Lippmann scholar to know that historical truth. But young Matt seems to seriously believe that, unlike him and his smart friends, the rabble out there just isn't up to understanding the larger forces that shape and steer contemporary society. Indeed, Yglesias goes to fellow Harvard alum, Sam Rosenfeld, for back-up on this point:

"[T]he modern liberal emphasis on making the public somehow smarter and better informed about politics as the central means of bringing about progressive change has amounted to a catastrophic misallocation of energy. I'm not sure what empirical basis anyone has in mind for such a notion: Do people really think that, say, New Deal reforms, or those brought by the Civil Rights Movement or during the Great Society came about because Americans of those periods happened to be better informed than today -- because, that is, the political discourse was more elevated and sophisticated, and demagogues and morons had a harder time finding an audience? Isn't it a bit more likely -- and, indeed, something of a constant of human societies -- that the 'quality' of mass political discussion and the political sophistication of the average citizen have always been pretty tawdry, and that effecting beneficial political change has a good deal more to do with manning and strengthening particular institutions and engaging directly in raw political struggle than it does with sprinkling enlightenment across the land?"

What the fuck do they teach at Cambridge anyway?

Yes, there have always been uninformed, tribalisitic and superstitious Americans throughout this country's history. Millions of them, in fact. But to claim that average, working people were just as depoliticized in the New Deal era, or during the Civil Rights struggle, as many are today is self-serving, ahistorical horseshit. One can go back even further, to the radical years of the late 19th century, to the Industrial Workers of the World of the early 20th century, periods when numerous working-class newspapers enjoyed wide circulations. The American and immigrant workers of that time were highly politicized, so much so that US elites were not only alarmed and threatened by what they saw as a possible uprising, or even revolution, they did what they could to suppress this type of political activity, which of course included shooting workers in the streets and jailing those leaders who were deemed "anti-American Reds." The political discourse of that time not only was "more elevated and sophisticated" than now, it was more effective in educating those who lacked the money or connections to attend elite institutions like Harvard. Read Emma Goldman's autobiography for a closer look at this now-forgotten era of working class activism and political awareness, then wonder what the hell Yglesias and Rosenfeld are really talking about.

It's certainly true that large segments of working people today lack the same outlets and support networks that workers of earlier periods fought for. Decades of assaults on workers' rights accompanied by relentless anti-union propaganda has taken a heavy toll, and it remains one of the true successes of the American political and economic elite. But awareness from below has not been completely stamped out, as we presently see in the anti-sweatshop movements and the ongoing union struggles of Justice for Janitors. George Scialabba's recommendation is a good one -- "we" should be mixing more with those locked out of the current American system and making "our" ideas more accessible and better understood. I've done my share of this over the past few years, and it's not an easy or even pleasurable task. There are more setbacks than breakthroughs, and perhaps soon I'll write more about this. Still, it's worth a shot, especially in a criminal time like now. How much longer can we afford the "insights" and "guidance" offered by those from on high, or those, like Yglesias and Rosenfeld, who pine for such elevated status?

War. No. End.

There are days when my anger and frustration with what remains of the American "experiment" hit such violent lows that whatever chair I happen to be occupying is in danger of becoming kindling -- even the metal chairs. I've destroyed many chairs in my time, kicking and stomping them into splinters, throwing the larger remnants against the wall while unleashing hideous, primal screams as my monkey brain clicks on and I jump around, reduced to a sub-evolutionary state suitable only for football tailgaters, NASCAR gatherings, or some contemporary country musicpalooza. My political Hulk is an unreasonable beast, and over time I've lessened his influence and subdued his destructive urge. But he can still pop out at any time, and like Bruce Banner, I must maintain control before my pupils dilate, my shirt and pants begin to rip, and broken chairs begin flying.

Chaos and death continue in Iraq, and this past weekend has been most brutal. You've seen the headlines and the accompanying wire photos of smoldering, twisted metal and blasted bodies, some wrapped in bags, others not, with pools of blood spreading everywhere. Political machinations continue, of course, both in Baghdad and in DC, where there is, so far, token Dem resistance to Bush's upcoming "surge." (Afghanistan is not much better, but that's for another day.) Libs across the land keep pointing to the polls and to last November's midterms, insisting that the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to any escalation in Iraq. Maybe they are, but I suspect that this opposition is tepid at best, at least when it comes to the great mass of Americans, who are, by design and by choice, largely apolitical and ahistorical. They don't like bad news, and that's all that's coming out of Iraq.

If this present war went down as easily as the first Gulf engagement in 1991, we'd probably see the same high pro-war poll numbers, tickertape parades and "Salute Our Conquering Heroes" TV specials. I remember that period very well, for I was right in the middle of it all. And some of the biggest celebrations took place in lower Manhattan, with office workers pouring out of buildings, chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" Had Bush, as many of his liberal critics urged, invaded Iraq with a massive show of force and slaughtered three, four, five times the number of Iraqis who even glanced at US troops with a frown, and controlled the larger cities with an iron, Saddamist fist, think the negative poll numbers would be as high? Christ, people would be jacking off at Bush's feet, praising his toughness and resolve. And naturally the Dems would yank meekly along, maybe quietly suggesting a raise of the minimum wage so the working poor could afford an extra meal at McDonald's -- from the 99 cent menu, of course.

An ugly scenario, to be sure. Perhaps even uglier than the reality we currently face, if that's possible. The reason I even entertain such chilling thoughts stems from various sources of late, most recently a local radio show that I'd never before heard until Sun morning, and an item in today's Indianapolis Star.

The radio show, hosted by someone named Michael Stein, and broadcast by WDTW-AM, Detroit's "Progressive Talk," has to be one of the more idiotic offerings I've encountered since reading Kos' take on political philosophy last week. Stein, from what I heard, is one of those anti-PC rightwingers who "tells it like it is," in his case, from a shallow, polluted pond of ignorance and arrogance. Stein not only believes that "we" can still win in Iraq, but challenges "the left" to articulate a better policy. None of the callers could sway him from his stance, though truth be told, they weren't in full command of any passing facts of the matter. One self-described moderate backed Bush's coming escalation, saying that the extra bodies would act as protectors for those beleaguered troops already on the frontlines. Stein barked back that the US goal was not protecting other troops, but to win the war and secure the peace "before" civil war erupts, "before" Islamic fanatics establish a foothold, "before" Iran and pro-Iranian elements begin influencing events in Iraq.

I know that a lot of truly stupid people have access to microphones and cameras in the United States, but this guy blows past the average. For a moment, I thought I was experiencing aural hallucinations, so unfuckingbelievable was Michael Stein's rant. Then I saw, according to WDTW's schedule, that Stein's show is paid programming, which explains his appearance on Sunday mornings. But I wonder if Detroit's "Progressive Talk" will put on any viewpoint in exchange for money, or simply lunatic reactionaries like Stein? In a sense, you can't blame the station. Not only do they get paid, but they feature someone who makes their regular line-up of Al Franken, Stephanie Miller, and Randi Rhodes appear forward-thinking. Not a bad racket.

Still, know-nothings like Stein are more common than not, regardless of media reach. I was reminded of this when reading about college students in Indiana who remain, at this late date, "ambivalent" about the Iraq war. Some quotes:

"College students honestly don't know what should be done. We don't know what should be done. We don't like what's being done, but we don't have any better ideas."

"In class, it is not something people really want to talk about that much because it's such a sensitive topic."

"[P]eople are so tired of hearing about it. We just want whatever makes it over."

And of course, there's always a young optimist:

"I know mistakes were made, but reconstruction always takes time. It will definitely show more results. It's a good start, and we should be able to see progress at least."

See why I left Indiana all those years ago? The place can still turn your mind into quick-drying cement.

To be fair, there's a lot of this in Michigan, a somewhat bluer state. In fact, I'm willing to bet that this makes up the majority of discussions and thinking about Iraq nationwide. For all the hype about how the majority of Americans are against this war, when was the last time you heard, either on talk radio or in your everyday life, a serious, historically-based statement or exchange about what's going on? This is why I remain suspicious about those supposedly "antiwar" polls. And if American antiwar feeling is more surface than depth, then where does that leave us, especially with more war on the horizon? I'll try to answer this tomorrow as I look at some "educated" online political opinion, where Walter Lippmann's "manufacture of consent" is more popular than ever.

But for now, please excuse me. There's a wooden stool that's just asking for it.

Sonshine Day!

The Son has been a sour lad of late, partly because of the usual political bullshit, and partly because I've spent the week fighting off some low-level virus, flu, exhaustion, whatever it was, plus performing blue collar labor on top of it.

Blarghhh.

But today, I feel so much better, thank you, and I don't want to waste this good feeling on harsh opinions. Instead, the Son is all about the love, the sharing, the smiling in the face of hatred, fear, and contempt, the daisy in life's rifle barrel.



The boy's been writing up a storm of late -- mysteries, historical essays, and most impressively, poems. Here's one he composed this week.

Haunted Mansion

The neighbors, a ghost in his mansion.
I know it!
The dogs are Zombies!
The cats are vampires!
The tv's a mummy!
The books are ghosts!
The statues are alive!
The birds are skeletons!
I must be brave!
So I can borrow a cup of coffee.

Of all of the boy's creative work of this period, the above is definitely a keeper.

Upon reading this, I was reminded of a Michael O'Donoghue poem that appeared in the Evergreen Review in 1965.

The Untimely Demise of Madame X
(or)
"Shot in Her Box at the Opera"
. . .to Benjamin Peret, 1928.

My airplane is burning.
My formal gardens cross their legs.
Negroes have eaten up my sister.

My mother have been revoked.
Gypsies stole my father,
Repainted him,
And sold him across the border.

My wife is a sailor.

My wolves are housebroken.
My cat is a dog.
The goldfish drowned.

Emery dust in my monorail.

My arsenal is doves.
My caprice is annotated.
The bathtub tried to bite me
And did.

Hunchbacks gave me money.

My screams are dead snowflakes
Falling on dead people
Making them feel all warm and loved.

While the boy (thankfully) lacks O'D's fascination with death, there are similarities in cadence and image. And the boy's only 10. O'D was in his mid-20s when he wrote the above. I like the kid's artistic chances.

The wife showed me the following clip this morning, which helped to sharpen my Sonny outlook:



But for me, few could top Bugaloo Caroline Ellis, who made many of my Saturday mornings most delightful.



Have a happy weekend, Sonsters! And remember: take only what you need, and know your dealer.

Jerks In The Circle

The libloggers have spoken, sort of, and man, what a sorry group they are. I knew that many of the larger lib sites contained little more than "Go Dems Go!" rhetoric, but I must admit that I was somewhat surprised by their inability to defend this position, such as it is. Max Sawicky nailed them and nailed them good; and their whiny, self-absorbed responses merely reinforced Max's original point.

I thought that Steve Gilliard would put up a better fight -- not necessarily a fact-based counterstroke, given Gilliard's rather loose grip on political reality beyond his keyboard, but something that possessed a little passion. His ego alone could cough up a quick 700 words. But instead, Gilliard retreated, waxing on about some anonymous housewife in Ohio who wants her own voice heard in national affairs, and how her desire is feared and despised by elitist, lefty pointy heads who hate average people, unlike Gilliard and his friends, who are the real populists, and who, through blogging, are empowering her while changing the world.

Yeah. Can't you just feel the societal shift?

While Gilliard composed his fantasy scenario, Marcos "Kos" Moulitsas decided to engage Max directly:

"Here's my take on the whole matter -- 'intellectuals' who'd rather read books and measure purity are next-to-useless. I prefer people of action, not of elitist academics. And I say that as someone who collected degrees as a hobby. What did all those Marx readers deliver the country? Nixon. Reagan. Bush. Bush II. Not to mention the DeLays, the Scalias, and the long national nightmare that is just now being stemmed.

"That's not a knock on people who've been fighting the good fight. Just on those who think the intellectual circle jerks of the 60s are superior to what we're building today."

To say that Kos is ahistorical here is an understatement. The guy is simply a dolt -- an aggressive, careerist dolt, mind you, who is clawing upward for senior mule status, but a sack of rocks all the same.

The inescapable bottom line is this: libloggers largely talk and link to each other. When Kos complains about "intellectual circle jerks," he's simply projecting what he, his followers, and imitators do on a daily basis (though their exertions are more pseudo-intellectual). The idea that online libs are "changing reality" or "saving lives" or even "reaching out and empowering" the common folk is a self-serving delusion. The vast majority of the American public do not read political blogs of any stripe, and I guarantee you that I can walk down my Midwestern street, knock on every door, ask "What's your opinion of DailyKos?" and receive more blank stares and mumbled "Who?"s than "Why, he's a man of action! A true progressive force!"

What Kos and company are "building today" is little more than a pro-Dem consensus for those already predisposed to the idea. Idependent, critical thinking about empire, global capital, other "wars of choice" (just wait until their Dem heroes support a US attack on Iran -- we got a preview of their reactions during Israel's cluster bombing of Lebanon last summer), class relations, and other, actual problems that the Dems have no real interest in addressing, much less attempting to solve, is either beyond them or beneath them, in Kos' case, probably both. Those who proudly know nothing about earlier, important struggles cannot be trusted or even expected to lead or help forge serious, contemporary struggles. But they can appear on political chat shows and handicap who will be their corporate party's nominee in '08. That's a form of action, I suppose.

Dembulbs

Angry, pissy emails regularly flow into my inbox whenever I slam Dems or libloggers for their latest blunder, hypocrisy, or state apologia. "Who then?!" is the usual response, followed with "You're full of shit!" or some related pleasantry. To be expected in our political culture, where the acceptable boundaries continually shrink, forcing sensible people into contorted, contradictory positions as they try to make sense of what is offered them. I understand, but I don't accept this as the only means to discuss and debate our sorry condition. Indeed, living in a wealthy, imperial country, it is incumbent upon us to break down these boundaries whenever possible. This is not easy, as reaction is always there to hammer us back down. The real question is, how much hammering will you take before you hammer back?

For many online libs, hammering back means voting for Dems and little more. Of course, this is to social change what katas are to combat, but again, this is what we've been reduced to. Dem victories in the midterms supposedly altered the American political terrain, but we old-timers know better, having seen this pantomime before. One can excuse the younger libs for jumping up and down with glee, eyes widened to the possibility of ideological rollback. They lack the longer view and have yet to receive serious political scars. But when an older lib, say someone over 40, tries to jump with the kids while squeezing his or her eyes tight in order to see the same illusion, the result is pathetic and very beside the point, like a balding hippie, or worse, a graying punk, wheezing and sweating in an effort to keep pace.

The disjunction of then from now was further illustrated yesterday when Max Sawicky, older lib and economist supreme, delivered his critique of the online lib world at TPM Cafe, Josh Marshall's centrist circle where today's Big Minds meet to chew the policy fat and devise new ways to elect more Dems. Given this static environment, Max's cutting, accurate line, "The 'Internet Left' is a mostly brainless vacuum cleaner of donations for the Democratic Party," pierced the thin skins of those operating the party's Orecks, and led to predictable retorts about how the Sixties accomplished very little and are thankfully dead, how online libs are saving people's lives in the here and now and helping to ensure a better future, etc. and so on. Online lib-fave Steve Gilliard weighed in as well, informing Max that the chief movements of the 1960s ended badly, and in the cases of SDS and SNCC, "slipped into terrorism." Gilliard also claimed that the New Left "was a minor participant in social change because it was disconnected from the masses. It was really college kids and some activists reading Marx and talking." Today's online libs are more effective because they don't sit around and talk about Marxist theory -- they're out there in the Real World, getting it done, unlike "fantasists like Max Sawicky."

Where to start?

First of all, Gilliard's concept of American radicalism and its effect on this country's politics is not only blinkered, it's simplistic bullshit. The social movements of the 60s, like any attempt to force political change, boasted both successes and failures. But it's the failures that we are most reminded of, and Gilliard sounds no different on this front than those rightwingers, primarily from the Wall Street Journal and the American Spectator, that I used to debate back in the day. "The Sixties were a bust!" the likes of John Fund or Terry Eastland would tell me, their forefingers jabbing at the air for emphasis. "The New Left did more harm to this country than good!" After reminding them that the antiwar movement of that period cut across ideological lines (the libertarian right was opposed to Vietnam as well), I said that the New Left, for all of its mistakes and self-destructive actions, helped to till the ground for future grassroots political movements -- just as the labor movements of the 1930s (which Gilliard tries to divorce from radical forces like the CIO, not to mention the Communist Party and other socialist formations) and the civil rights and anti-nuclear weapons movements of the 1950s set the stage for the New Left. Thanks to the activists of the 1960s, opposition to imperial war took root in the body politic, and movements for women's rights and queer rights began to gain traction and support. Environmentalism also became a mainstream topic and concern, something that wouldn't have occurred had it not been for the ferment of the 60s, which entailed much, much more than sitting cross-legged under banners of Huey Newton, quoting Marcuse and Fanon.

It's easy to see why reactionaries hate the Sixties, and have spent their political lives trying to turn back the clock. But for liberals like Gilliard to spit on the same movements makes you wonder what exactly he and his fellow Dems have in mind for tomorrow, apart from electing more Dems, that is.

Missing from all this liberal outrage are assessments of 1980s activism, which owed a great deal to the movements of the 60s. When the Reagan administration tested the waters for direct US military intervention in El Salvador in 1981 with its "White Paper," opposition to this proposed move was immediate, as activists ranging from college kids to churchgoers to suburban dwellers staged sit-ins, organized street actions, wrote letters to politicians and newspapers, signed public petitions, and essentially raised such a degree of hell that the Reagan gang backed off, preferring to go clandestine instead. As Noam Chomsky put it, the American people drove the government underground, and even then, education about and solidarity with the people of Central America spread throughout the country. I was in my early 20s when this exploded, and it served as my first serious political education (following up my years in the Army, which kick-started my political awareness). As I've said before, I knew people in the Sanctuary Movement, and met with Salvadoran teachers and union organizers who fled their country thanks to American support and training of the death squads that were hunting them down. And while I did run into some college brats playing Che or Fidel from time to time, the majority of activists I knew, met or worked with back then were common people -- people with mortgages and kids in school, who went to church on Sunday (or temple on Friday), who shopped at malls and ate fast food. The same went for those in the anti-apartheid movement of the same era. Dissidence was deeper in America than it had been in the 1960s. And you can thank the social and political movements of the Sixties for that.

If you want to read a serious piece about today's Dems and the limitations we face in trying to push the mules in a progressive direction (assuming this can be done), check out George Scialabba's review of various lib books in the current Nation. Scialabba is another old-timer, whose essays in Grand Street in the 1980s and early-90s were among the best political commentaries of that period. He tries hard to find silver linings in the Dems' recent ascension, but like many of us who've been around this block more times than we can count, all that appears are bits of tinsel tossed down by Barack Obama and John Edwards. Things might change, of course. Anything's possible. But sitting on your ass and tapping out ahistorical screeds on behalf of a corporate party while denigrating the influential struggles of those you've never met is hardly the best way forward.

Sick Day Filler

Feel pretty lousy today. More physical than emotional. So I'm gonna take it light and try to come back tomorrow with something more substantial.

Until then, here's a couple of visual distractions sent to me by Shane Taylor and Oliver Sheppard, the latter of whom runs Cult Punk, a political/music site which I will soon add to the roll, along with some other worthy online efforts.

The first, "Shoes", simply is. Nothing else need be said.



The second, "Apache", is something more -- more of what, I've no serious idea. But I promise you, it's like nothing else you'll see today.



And here's Eric Bogosian playing Garry Shandling's ex-comedy partner on the always great "Larry Sanders". Aren't comedy writers complete pricks?

King For Today

Happy MLK day, especially to all us well-intentioned white folk who do so very much to help alleviate the world's suffering. Being a white lefty is burdensome and often unrewarding, but someone has to go tell it on the mountain, and who is more qualified to mourn and celebrate Dr. King than we forward-thinking persons of pinkish-grayish hue?

I offered my own thoughts about King this time last year, and I see no reason to revise them. What I said then, I'd say now. The only thing I'm sorry to have missed back then was Aaron McGruder's sharp satirical take on what King would say had he survived the assassination attempt and lived to see commercial African-American culture.

I don't watch much late night TV, so I knew nothing about McGruder's animated assault on his "Boondocks" show. Clearly, my head was up my pale ass when this episode aired and offended a good many people, which is what a decent satirist should do. I'm sure that more of you out there know about McGruder's harsh take than don't, but in case, like me, your head was elsewhere, the episode roughly breaks down like this:

King is not killed in Memphis in 1968, but falls into a coma, from which he doesn't awaken until 2000. As he clears his head and looks around him, he becomes increasingly disgusted with the way African-Americans are portrayed and how many of them behave. He's also branded a traitor when, after the 9/11 attacks, he maintains his Christian pacifist position (something I also mentioned in my post from last year). But it isn't until King, accompanied by "Boondocks" fixture Huey Freeman, arrives at a black church that his rising contempt is given full expression.



I like it that King moves to Canada and dies there at 91. As for Oprah becoming president, well, better than a lot of other possible celebrity choices, I guess. But surely McGruder recalls that Oprah was in favor of invading Iraq, bringing on Kenneth Pollack to cheerlead the war. I don't know if she's ever offered a mea culpa since then, but if not, I doubt anyone of consequence is going to remind her. One of the perks of being Oprah.

After the episode aired, McGruder appeared on "Nightline" to explain his satirical intentions.



I won't pretend that I was an avid "Boondocks" reader, but I've always liked McGruder whenever he's appeared on TV or radio. I only wish I'd been at that infamous Nation dinner several years ago when McGruder really brought it to the pale liberals about to receive their just desserts.

"Toward the dessert (chocolate torte) portion of the evening, Uma Thurman rose to introduce a special guest: Aaron McGruder, the creator of the popular and subversive comic strip 'The Boondocks,' who, as it happens, had travelled farther than anyone else to be there, all the way from Los Angeles. McGruder, one of only a few prominent African-American cartoonists, had been making waves in all the right ways, poking conspicuous fun at Trent Lott, the N.R.A., the war effort. An exhibition of his comic strips—characters with Afros and dreadlocks drawn in a style borrowing heavily from Japanese manga -- with accentuated foreheads and eyes -- was on display in the Metropolitan Club’s Great Hall. It seemed to be, as a Nation contributor said later, 'his coronation as our kind of guy.'

"But what McGruder saw when he looked around at his approving audience was this: a lot of old, white faces. What followed was not quite a coronation. McGruder, who rarely prepares notes or speeches for events like this, began by thanking Thurman, 'the most ass-kicking woman in America.' Then he lowered the boom. He was a twenty-nine-year-old black man, he said, who got invited to such functions all the time, so you could imagine how bored he was. He proceeded to ramble, at considerable length, and in a tone, as one listener put it, of 'militant cynicism,' with a recurring theme: that the folks in the room ('courageous'? Please) were a sorry lot.

"He told the guests that he’d called Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, a mass murderer to her face; what had they ever done? (The Rice exchange occurred in 2002, at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, where McGruder was given the Chairman’s Award; Rice requested that he write her into his strip.) He recounted a lunch meeting with Fidel Castro. (He had been invited to Cuba by the California congresswoman Barbara Lee, who is one of the few politicians McGruder has praised in 'The Boondocks.') He said that noble failure was not acceptable. But the last straw came when he 'dropped the N-word,' as one amused observer recalled. He said—bragged, even—that he’d voted for Nader in 2000. At that point, according to Hamilton Fish, the host of the party, 'it got interactive.'

"Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation, was sitting in the back of the room, next to Joe Wilson, the Ambassador. He shouted out, 'Thanks for Bush!' Exactly what happened next is unclear. Alterman recalls that McGruder responded by grabbing his crotch and saying, 'Try these nuts.' Jack Newfield, the longtime Village Voice writer, says that McGruder simply dared Alterman to remove him from the podium. When asked about this incident later, McGruder said, 'I ain’t no punk. I ain’t gonna let someone shout and not go back at him.'

"Alterman walked out. 'I turned to Joe and said, "I can’t listen to this crap anymore," ' he remembers. 'I went out into the Metropolitan Club lobby — it’s a nice lobby — and I worked on my manuscript.'

"Newfield joined in the heckling, as did Stephen Cohen, a historian and the husband of [Nation editor and face of "reasonable" liberalism] Katrina vanden Heuvel. 'It was like watching LeRoi Jones try to Mau-Mau a guilty white liberal in the sixties,' Newfield says. 'It was out of a time warp. Who is he to insult people who have been putting their careers and lives on the line for equal rights since before he was born?'

"By the time McGruder had finished, and a tipsy Joe Wilson took the microphone to deliver his New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps half the guests had excused themselves to join Alterman in the lobby. A Nation contributor estimated that McGruder had offended eighty per cent of the audience. 'Some people still haven’t recovered,' he said, sounding thrilled.

"'At a certain point, I just got the uncomfortable feeling that this was a bunch of people who were feeling a little too good about themselves,' McGruder said afterward. 'These are the big, rich white leftists who are going to carry the fight to George Bush, and the best they can do is blame Nader?'

"He went on, laughing a little, 'I was not the right guest for that event. I’ll be the first one to say that. It was one of those reminders that, yeah, I’m not this political leader that people are looking for.'"

Anyone who can drive condescending assholes like Eric Alterman into the lobby is okay by me. Obviously, McGruder didn't recognize Alterman's resounding goodness, nor that of the other aging white lefties in attendance. And after all they've done for his kind. I'm sure Dr. King would've been appalled.

New Blood For Old Sam

The war's about to expand, with Iran and Syria somewhere in the mix. Bush is in his bunker, snarling and snapping at subordinates, then staring off into space as his medication kicks in. Laura smiles and insists all is well, playing Toby Keith CDs to keep the mood upbeat. Cheney comes and goes, tense as hell, muttering crazed thoughts through his yellowed, grinding teeth. Condi flits in, oblivious and loyal to the end, affecting Audrey Hepburn poses in the tall, ornate mirrors. Barney the dog shits on the tile, then humps the leg of the Secret Service agent assigned to clean it up. Down the street, Nancy Pelosi poses yet again for the cameras, twirling a red cape, her eyes glazed with self-satisfaction. And Rahm Emanuel carefully emerges from his limo, looking around for antiwar hecklers, his nerves jangled from encountering the common herd.

Another day in the dying American empire. I wonder how long it will be before all these squalid figures start wearing laurel wreaths on their heads, feasting on roasted boar while Moroccan bellydancers shimmy around the torch-lit tables. We're on the cusp of a major death spike which everyone can sense, especially those about to be called up or have their tours lengthened. But at the state level, there is little more than talk and denial, with Joe Biden saying that he might, some day, get really, really serious about expanded war, and the open admission by the likes of Harry Reid that any opposition to this fresh round of brutality will be "symbolic."

Some libloggers are moaning about Bush's end run around Congress, but seem to miss the 800-pound fact that much of Congress is with Bush, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary. Congressional "opposition" is made up largely of careerists and cowards; and once this next phase of bloodletting gets going, they will wave their flags and speak, hands over hearts, of bravery and sacrifice, while avoiding any real confrontation over the war. After all, there's the '08 elections to think about. They can't look too partisan this soon. What will corporate lobbyists think?

I've long suspected that this wretched period of American history would occur in my lifetime, a period where the government finally and openly shows its full contempt for the governed, and does whatever the fuck it wants, convinced that no one will stand up to it. Who's to say that our rulers are wrong? We're staring right in the face of abject criminality, and yet everyone feels helpless -- so helpless that many cling to the fantasy that the Dems will put a stop to this waking nightmare, or at least dampen its horror. But this is comparable to begging a butcher to use a duller blade when cutting the meat, or trying to reason with a hyena that is muzzle-deep in a fresh carcass. This is what the American liberal tradition has come to, while on much of the right, derangement and lunatic nationalism spread and stick like herpes. We are a sick, twisted nation that is armed to the teeth. And we are only in the beginning stages of the final, barbarous meltdown.

I'm sorry if the Son seems too despondent these days. I sincerely wish this wasn't so, and I suspect I'm driving readers away with these angry, frightened posts. If that's the case, so be it. I write what I feel. Maybe Billmon and Michael Bérubé were right in hanging it up. Perhaps it's time to shut down and take a vow of silence. Eat mushrooms and see the world as it really is, beyond our violent, primitive monkey minds.

All that sounds good -- well, tempting, anyway. I could use a few trips through innerspace right about now. But here I remain, for the duration, at least, for honestly, what real choice do I have? If someone must play the foole while the graves are dug and the screams drown out the laughter, then hand me my cap and bells and give me room to dance.

Yesterday, I finally watched Mike Judge's "Idiocracy", and while the first 20 minutes made me laugh, or released some of the pain from my body, the film soon ground me down, and by the end, I was as depressed as I had been before. Judge is a first-rate satirist, and his scalpel cuts incredibly deep. This film was apparently abandoned by 20th Century Fox before Judge could put the final touches on it, and the rough edges show. It makes "Office Space" look like a big budget mall movie. I'm sure the execs at Fox weren't all that crazy about promoting a film that tells Americans how fat, stupid and violent they are. Although Judge sets most of his story in the year 2505, he's speaking to us today, and he's relentless with his message. "Idiocracy" has to be one of the gloomiest comedies of recent times, and if Judge can drain my spirits in 84 minutes, I can't imagine what his film would do to someone less prepared for its punch. Here's a clip from the film's opening, contrasting the birth rates of white yuppies with horny, ignorant rednecks. And while the yuppie larva wouldn't necessarily bloom into someone worthwhile, Judge's point is more than made.



Unlike Judge's dystopia, the Star Trek franchise has always tried to sell the distant future as an enlightened, progressive era. A pleasant fantasy, and who knows, maybe even achievable. Tough to tell from this point in time. My friend Louis Proyect recently watched an episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" that adds to the franchise's tradition, and he offers some interesting thoughts. I haven't seen this show, but it sounds entertaining. How we get from here to there in real life, however, is lost on me. But then, who comes to the foole for answers?

Demial

Notes scattered across my desk. Late night jots on 3x5s and on the backs of Trader Joe's receipts. I look at them this morning and feel nauseous. My stomach and nerves are revolting against what reason remains in my brain. I feel like puking on my keyboard and kicking the monitor that keeps bringing the bad news. And it is bad, Sonsters. You and I both know it.

Not much energy today, so there won't be yet another screed against the Dems and their lib apologists and enablers. What's left to say? Well, plenty, but I've gotta space these posts out a bit or I'll be back in that killer mode from last July, when Israel's assault on Lebanon drove me to a near-physical meltdown. (Juan Cole told me that I suffered from a lesser but still significant form of war fatigue. He went through the same thing when he was in Beirut during the civil war there. "How can I have war fatigue sitting at my safe desk in the midwest?" I asked him. "You look at enough photos and film of people getting butchered, children among them," he replied, "and it'll get to you, no matter where you live.") Watching Dick Durbin's response to Bush's slow motion madness made me feel like I was in a cage. This is it? This is how the "opposition" reacts? And that line about the Iraqis dialing 9-1-1 for US help was a real kneeslapper, Dick, even though it has nothing to do with what the fuck's going down. Who are these maniacs who control our political lives? Does anybody really give a shit?

Reading some of the more popular lib sites only deepened my sorrow and feelings of desperation. I won't bother naming them or quoting their silly posts. You probably know who I have in mind. They continually rub their little porcelain mules and hope hope hope that their Dem idols will eventually get off their soft assess and deal with Bush's escalation. But the Dems won't, not if another 37 hearings can delay any serious engagement. Oh, and Chris Dodd is now running for president. Just what we need -- a bad, aging Bobby Kennedy impersonator. Very retro in a very sad way. I bet Dodd's already got Emilio Estevez's vote. Just stay out of Californian kitchens.

That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with something more amusing, I hope. Right now, I'm going out to find Mike Judge's "Idiocracy", for if there's a movie that matches my mood, that has got to be it. Until then, watch this simple but brilliant act. This came after the close of the Vietnam war. Will we ever recapture such innocence?

That Liberal Desire

So Bush is intent on cramming another 20,000 warm bodies into the Iraqi meatgrinder. What will the Dems do about that? Nothing much, it appears. As reported in this morning's New York Times, these supposed bringers of better tomorrows are planning little more than symbolic gestures, although some talk about maybe showing stiffer spines down the road, whenever or wherever that is. And I love what Joe Biden said: "If you really want to change the situation on the ground, demonstrate to the president he’s on his own. That will spark real change."

Oh yeah. Can't you just picture Bush shaking and sputtering once he realizes he's on his own? Which of course he really isn't. The Dems, for all of their choreographed chatter, are right there with Bush. If they weren't, they'd attempt to bring some serious pain his way, flexing their political muscle as far as they possibly could. They are the majority, right? So what's the fucking delay?

You knew the fix was in once Pelosi and gang took impeachment, or even the merest shadow of impeachment, off the agenda. To sane observers, Bush is as impeachable as presidents get. Shit, if lib darling Clinton could face the drumroll, then Bush is a no-brainer. Indeed, Clinton's impeachment makes a Bush impeachment that much easier. Compare the crimes and tally the score. It's so obvious that it would make the sun blush for being so bright.

But it's not going to happen. And honestly, we all knew it would never happen when we marched with high purpose into the voting booths last November. Like so much else in American political life, a Dem majority actually attempting to redress the crimes of state is a fantasy, simply because they are in on the corrupt action. Criminals only rat each other out when there's no more room to move; and as of today, the Dems believe that they have plenty of space in which to maneuver, which is why they are talking about possible action in the near future. They are worthless, spineless, a travesty to even a schoolchild's concept of liberty and justice for all. They should be pelted with garbage whenever they appear in public.

If you want the true face of the Dems, take a look at Rahm Emanuel's expression when he was accosted by antiwar activists, as seen on Bill O'Reilly's show:



A lovely sight. Naturally, O'Reilly then ripped into Sunsara Taylor, who for some reason decided to appear on that asshole's platform. The only good thing about this segment is that we see how even reactionaries like O'Reilly will rush to the defense of their supposed political enemies should they actually face the anger of common people. O'Reilly may be a mere Murdoch mouthpiece, but he does share the same interests as those in the Beltway's political elite, as is clearly evident in the clip above. That it takes a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party to state the obvious about the Dems and the war should shame those liberals who fancy themselves antiwar, but who would never, ever, confront a Dem leader like that. When the mules at Firedoglake start organizing such public demonstrations against their beloved leaders, then we'll know that the shit has taken a serious turn. But like those they revere, the libloggers and their loyal dittoheads will wait and wait and wait while the Middle East continues to burn, more dead and mangled come home, and the Iraqi bodycount climbs and climbs.

At home, worms eat our flesh as we smile and jerk off to internet porn -- the worst of which is liberals blowing a diseased donkey that in turn fucks them for votes and overall allegiance. I'm all for respecting various lifestyle choices, but the one American libs have committed to affects more than just themselves. But then, it's hard to see the bigger picture with a donkey dick in your mouth.

THANKS: To my old chum and sometime sparring partner Marc Cooper for favorably mentioning an earlier Son post. Marc and I have many political differences, some of which can get quite heated, but at least he sees the Dems for what they are. Every bit of dissent helps.

Sing Along With The Son

Like the confused, fat squirrels jumping from our trees and racing across our roof (which vexes me so), I'm scampering about today, and in no shape for a long, reflective, or even angry post. But I wanted to put up a list of songs that my old friend Luke burned for me of late, music that, in Luke's ears, makes a fitting soundtrack for the Son. Luke has made many CDs for me, and like John Cusack in "High Fidelity", he draws from an eclectic range of sounds and weaves together compilations that have their own rhythmic narratives. And the Son's soundtrack is no different (though there is one omission -- "Janitor" by Suburban Lawns). Luke really caught my many moods. See if you agree. And if some of you are real nice, maybe I'll burn and send out a few copies so that when you read the Son, you can listen and sing along.

"Fear is a Man's Best Friend" -- John Cale

"Oh! Brother" -- The Fall

"Dancing For Money (Outtake)" -- Talking Heads

"Signs" -- Five Man Electrical Band.

"Jug Band Music" -- The Mugwumps

"Lies" -- Thompson Twins

"Let Me Die In My Footsteps" -- Bob Dylan

"I Hear You Screaming" -- Gene Krupa

"Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" -- Bob Dylan

"Boa Constrictor" -- Johnny Cash

"I've Been Twistin'" -- Jerry Lee Lewis

"Strong White Male" -- Mecca Normal

"Police & Thieves" -- The Clash

"Reefer Man" -- Cab Calloway

"Living With War" -- Neil Young

"Nine Million Rainy Days" -- The Jesus and Mary Chain

"Watercolours Into The Ocean" -- Destroyer

Here's an amusing, if sometimes literal, montage set to "Signs", the 45 of which I bought when I was 11-years-old (and thought was really radical, to the degree that I understood what that meant back then). Don't know how Luke knew that I liked that song, but again, he seems to read my mind when putting together these compilations.



And here's a sweet clip of Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man". Just what are you saying, Luke?

Dems & Doze

Readers of the Son, both casual and regulars, know that I distrust (to put it mildly) the two major parties, and I make my feelings plain. No hidden meanings here. And yes, I repeat myself more than I would like, but honestly, there are only so many ways one can assess the American political structure. There are times when I'm tempted to go Lance Mannion, and simply write about film, comedy, and music, for there I can go much deeper and derive more joy than dealing with the latest Beltway bullshit. But as the old saying goes, if you don't define your political space, it will be defined for you. So here I remain, mucking through the endless falling crap.

I say all this as a reminder to you and to myself that we are entering a new phase of American political reality, not new in the sense that it's unprecedented, but new in that the other wing of the ownership party is looking to clean up Bush's many messes, and reset US imperial policy on a more "constructive" course. That's the Democrats' function, especially now, with much of the American elite appalled at Bush's extreme mismanagement. This is how our system works, for something this powerful and profitable to those at or near the top isn't going down without a serious struggle. The "miracle of democracy" is, at bottom, an attempt to keep the status quo from collapsing, and so the Dems are brought in to brace the beams and flush out those elements that are undermining the larger structure. Rebuilding the thing or committing to extensive repairs is the furthest thing from the mules' minds.

Predictably, many liberals see all this as some kind of political overhaul, if not a minor revolution. As I said last week, this is what they're supposed to do: having sold themselves on the premise, they now attempt to sell the premise to the rest of us. And if we refuse to buy into it, and prefer instead to deal with the structure as a whole, then the attacks begin. I've been called many things, both at other blogs and in private emails. I'm utopian. I live in my parents' basement. I'm politically adolescent. I don't know how the system really works. I hold the Dems to too high a standard. I'm really a rightwinger. I'm a sectarian asshole. I helped defeat Gore/Lieberman in 2000 and Bush is all my fault. And so on. You know the tune.

I won't review, yet again, my actual political history, much of which consisted of working with and voting for Dems. I even voted Dem in the last election, picking Jennifer Granholm over Dick DeVos for governor, since DeVos would've been much worse for Michigan than the centrist Granholm (of course, I refused to vote for the vile Debbie Stabenow, for reasons I've already stated). The point is, I'm very much aware of the differences between the mules and the GOP. How could I not? The problem, which we've seen for some time and are currently experiencing at a feverish pitch, is that too many liberals have convinced themselves that the differences are astronomical, that the brightest, purest light is fighting a bottomless, darker evil. Think I exaggerate? Go to any of the major lib sites and scroll around. Nancy Pelosi is to them what Trotsky is to the Fourth International.

In a way, I can understand this need for fantasy. After all, in a fixed, corrupt system like ours, where real politics is reserved for elite players and their advisers, trying to tackle what actually exists can seem daunting for some, if not completely impossible, and this usually leads to an abandonment of hope and a steady slide into apolitical cynicism. I've seen it too many times in my adult life, and have experienced it myself. The Real Deal is a savage motherfucker, and if you get too close you will get burned or chewed to bits. I've known several well-meaning, intelligent people who worked on Capitol Hill, and witnessed up close their political dismemberment. It's a tragic sight to see, and it happens more often than not. It's another way the system defends itself, and being a murderous entity, its defensive methods are meant to hurt and cause lasting pain.

Instead of grappling with that reality, where even the tiniest victory is in no way guaranteed, a good number of libs openly pretend that the political wing they support is somehow outside of this system's nastiness, or perhaps in direct opposition to it. You can recite their party's actual and verifiable history all night long, and for many of them, it doesn't matter. They need the Dems to be a certain way and that's that. Who cares what horrors earlier Dems unleashed? And anyway, it's all probably Republican propaganda.

The current fantasy making the rounds is that Pelosi and Harry Reid are somehow "antiwar," and this is bolstered by a letter the two of them recently sent to Bush. Now, whatever Nancy Pelosi's current stand on Iraq really is, and I have no doubt that she, like a lot of elite Americans, are tactically opposed to Bush's proposed troop "surge," the new Speaker of the House is hardly antiwar. There's no way a pro-war party like the Dems would promote someone who opposed their view that the US has a right to attack anyone it wants, so long as it's in the "national interest." If that were the case, Dennis Kucinich would be prominent among senior Dems. The invasion of Iraq carried with it a ton of risks, and so there was elite opposition to it --- not because of some philosophical hostility to imperialism, but because the invasion could very well damage the US military system, as well as incite anti-American hatred worldwide. Of course, this has pretty much transpired, which is why Dem leaders like Pelosi and Reid are against further escalation. If there weren't powerful forces supporting them, neither of these pols would dare broach the subject. "Redeployment," on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable --- indeed, necessary, if the US imperial project in the Middle East is to survive. And that, above all, is what Pelosi and Reid are trying to salvage. A complete and total pullout from Iraq is simply not going to happen, not voluntarily, anyway; and it definitely is not going to happen under the gaze of a San Francisco Dem.

If you find me too harsh on Pelosi, consider this: a report in the London Sunday Times cited sources in the Israel Defense Forces that Israel is rehearsing a possible air strike on an Iranian enrichment plant using low-yield nuclear weapons. Of course, the Israeli government immediately denied this, but the story's intended effect has gotten through. Now, assuming this story is true, and I know it's a stretch to imagine the IAF bombing another country, but if this actually goes down, how will the "antiwar" and all-around progressive Nancy Pelosi react? Would she oppose it? Denounce it? Call for a freeze on military "aid" to Israel? Given her complete support for Israel's assault on Lebanon last summer, I seriously doubt that, suddenly, Pelosi would go in the opposite direction, especially now that she's House Speaker. That would be a rebuke of her institutional position and sure political suicide. Like the rest of the Dems, with perhaps one or two minor exceptions, Pelosi would applaud such an attack and call for more if Israel deemed it vital to its "national interest" (in this case, remaining the sole nuclear power in the Middle East).

So, we know how the "antiwar" Pelosi would react. But what of her fawning chorus of libloggers? How would they respond to such an attack? Would they criticize their political darling and wake up to what she actually represents? Or would they merely make, at best, a few critical peeps and fall back into line? I think the answer is obvious. But then again, I can see only so much from the basement stairs.

On The End Of Every Fork

There are times when I wonder what world I'm living in. I know, I know -- reality is subjective, and we are merely the sum of electrons and neurons popping and colliding in our underused brains, reordered in such ways that we can get through the various hells of contemporary existence without losing whatever sanity we possess. I get all that. But when I look around these United States at this time, I see a country that, for all of its cultural diversity and millions of mini-sagas, is guided by serious delusional thinking. Not thinking I happen to agree or disagree with, but straight-up fantasyland, funhouse mirror projections. The beginning of the 110th Congress is an immediate case in point.

From the right, there are frenzied cries about the "leftist" takeover of government; but one site in particular, Red State, decided to vent its despair and fear in a very retro way:




Subtle, eh? Yes, FrontPage does this sort of thing on a regular basis, but David Horowitz's graphics usually verge on self-parody (and I see that DHo's lost none of his zip, cheering on Shi'a death squads, which kind of brings him full-circle to when he supported Bin Ladenist violence in Afghanistan when the Russians were there). The above attempt to douse the Dems in red paint is something else altogether -- equally as stupid as anything Horowitz slaps up, yet an attempt at political commentary all the same. However, for this graphic to be taken at all seriously, you have to really believe that American communists were behind the US withdrawal from Vietnam. And since only the federal state could order the military to return home, this means that the USG of 1975 was essentially pro-communist, with Republican President Gerald Ford overseeing this treason. In the real world, we know that American big business turned against the Vietnam war by 1968, and that Republican Richard Nixon, despite his criminal expansion of imperial violence into Laos and Cambodia, was forced to wind the whole enterprise down, and would've presided over the final pull-out from Saigon had he not resigned or been thrown out of office. But for some reason, the reactionaries at Red State are using this imagery to slime the modern day Dems. It's a political non sequitor, a cheap and easy way to express hatred for the moderate wing of capital. It's at once funny and pathetic, and I suspect that as this Dem-dominated era drags on, we'll see more of the same from other rightwing outlets.

Instead of simply laughing off Red State's oafish effort, liberals like those at Crooks and Liars appeared peeved by the thing. How dare those righties call us socialists! We're nothing of the kind! Which is true, of course. But it is telling that it takes a graphic like Red State's to push libs into confessing their real politics, which in many instances honors the same symbols while employing similar "patriotic" rhetoric. As Speaker Pelosi reminded us from her new perch, we are one country, despite which party one belongs to. Pelosi is certainly correct, if not completely candid. Both major parties serve the same master, and it ain't the Constitution, in case you're confused. But this won't stop some libloggers from trying to confuse the issue anyway, as was seen at two prominent pro-Dem sites yesterday.

Firedoglake is perhaps the most servile Dem site currently running. Christy Hardin Smith's posts are embarrassing to read, and it boggles the mind that a grown, educated person could tap out such simplistic prattle. Either she and her hundreds of dittoheads really believe this crap about the Dems, which means that political fantasy is their primary mode of expression, or that they know it's mostly bullshit, but are saying it anyway, which means that they are cynical political hustlers. Either way, the truth about our present state is being avoided, dismissed, ignored, glossed over. And this, remember, is the "progressive" take. I'm no Criswell, but I can say without fear of contradiction that this type of commentary will worsen as we roll into '08, and that sites like Firedoglake will become mere echo chambers for the Dem-controlled state.

The other site, Hullabaloo, shows a bit more independence, though Digby is not above kneeling before the mule throne himself. After watching Pelosi take the oath to defend the rights of corporations to loot and -- er, I mean, the oath to become House Speaker, Digby let loose a real howler:

"I am a liberal because it is the political philosophy of freedom and equality. And I am a progressive because it is the political path to a better future. And I am a Democrat because it is the political party that believes in freedom, equality and progress."

One need not review the extensive history of liberals and Dems selling out and undermining the very "freedom, equality and progress" that Digby cherishes to know that's he's chasing fireflies. When I read posts like this, I cannot tell the difference between libloggers and, say, Scientologists. Both swear allegiance to a central belief that is untenable, but nevertheless is needed by them to get through the day and justify their actions. The more you examine and take apart their rationales, the tighter they cling to their fantasies. If Digby, Firedoglake, and the other lib sites are talking like this only one day into the new Congress, then the coming year is going to be a drawn-out, nerve-wracking slog.

Plane As Day

On Tuesday afternoon, while throwing around the boy's metal and canvas gliding plane in the nearby park, an engine roar came out of the sky, and right above us was a large passenger jet no more than a few hundred feet in the air.

"That's not right," I said aloud.

"What's the matter Dad?"

"That plane's way too low. I wonder if it has mechanical problems. There's not an airport anywhere near here."

"Are there people on that plane"

"I suppose so."

"Well, I hope they're safe."

The jet lumbered on, staying at the same altitude, moving over a row of distant trees. Then, it was gone.

Another father with two young kids just entered the park. I asked him if he saw what we saw.

"Yeah," he said, still staring at the tree line where the plane had disappeared. "I hope it doesn't crash."

For a moment, we all stood there, silent, waiting to hear an awful noise, or see black billowing smoke rise in the bright blue. Nothing.

"Let's go home and check this out," I said to the boy, and we exited the park, leaving the other dad staring off in the distance as his children stared at him.

Within a few minutes, we were back in the house. I checked the local sports radio station, which is located down the road. All I heard was extensive moaning about Michigan's embarrassing performance in the Rose Bowl. Not a word about an errant plane. Checked the Web. Still nothing. Went in the front room and turned on CNN. No reports about any plane making an emergency landing in Ann Arbor. I left the TV on and looked out the window. All perfectly peaceful and calm. A jogger ran by. Two old ladies walked a yappy little dog. The boy was getting upset. He feared that all those people on that plane were in danger. His eyes welled up, and I told him not to worry, since we heard no noise or saw any smoke. I flipped through the cable news channels and caught an image of a plane landing at an airport.

"Hey, Dad," the boy said. "That looks like that plane!"

It was Air Force One arriving at Grand Rapids, the final stop for Gerald Ford.

"Yeah, it does look similar," I replied, "but there's no way that's the same plane. How could it get to Grand Rapids so fast?"

There's a reason why I don't pull a paycheck for making air speed estimations, for yes, Sonsters, you guessed it -- that was indeed the very same plane.

Seems that Air Force One made a pass over Michigan Stadium, where Ford played football, and which is five minutes from our house. The boy and I were witnesses to Ford's last visit to his old stomping grounds. And where Air Force One wants to go, it apparently goes, regardless of altitude. It was quite a sight, watching that big ass jet fly just over our heads. Had I only known beforehand. I would've waved to Betty Ford, one of the few remaining liberal Republican women, for her support of the ERA if nothing else. Beats the mass murder her husband bankrolled. A true "better half" in every way.

And Awaaay We Go

Sometimes, the past can take the sting out of the present, no matter how trivial the source. On Saturday, my long-awaited DVD box set, "SNL: The Complete First Season" arrived, much to the wife's chagrin, as she doesn't share my enthusiasm for the old show. Still, she watched a few bits with me and wasn't completely put off, but it was my son who expressed the most interest, asking me if he could sit in on one of my viewings. I explained to him that some of the references were over 30 years old, and that he wouldn't understand them all; but once again I learned that comedy has its own language, regardless of age.

We watched the Desi Arnaz episode, one of the more solid shows of that first season, and the boy really got into it. There was enough strangeness, absurdity and slapstick to appeal to him, and I was mildly shocked that he laughed at some of Chevy's Weekend Update jokes, repeating them to himself and laughing some more. Then we watched the first Elliott Gould show, and again, the boy got a lot of the humor, especially the Killer Bees sketch that broke the fourth wall, which he loved.

"I like how you can see the studio and all the cameras," he said, as a younger Lorne Michaels strode to the control room to confront the drunk director, Dave Wilson, whose cameras were off-kilter. "It's like everything is part of the show."

I smiled and thought of how "SNL" first grabbed me. Of course, that was in real time, and I was a few years older. But watching these original shows reminds me of how pure that first season was -- not perfect, not always funny, but you can really see the effort the cast and writers put into it, as if they had nothing to lose. The pace was slower, but the comedy was deeper, much deeper than it is now, or really in any other period of the show's history (some exceptions exist, of course). The political humor of that time was far sharper than now, with jokes about CIA secret wars in Africa and US alliances with openly fascist figures like Spain's Franco. Tina Fey has said that she would be afraid to work on the original "SNL"; and judging from her work on the show, I can see why.

The holidays turn our home into a screening room, since all of us are film fanatics of one stripe or another. And New Year's Eve is always the strangest and usually the funniest night, as we watch as many extremely awful movies we can before collapsing. This year, the wife bought a mega-DVD set of drive-in movies from the 50s through the 80s. Instead of scrounging through the local video store's backlog, looking for that one Loni Anderson drama that might put us over the top, we now own 50, count 'em, FIFTY, truly shitty efforts. And thanks to the thorough synopsis that's provided for each movie, we know going in what to expect -- well, we have a general idea, anyway. Because with some of these films, the synopsis serves as a teaser. Images and lines that you thought you'd never see or hear, or indeed, never imagined at all, hit you from nowhere, catching you off-guard. That's what great about bad cinema: the unexpected pleasures.

This year proved to be a bumper crop. The first film, "The Manipulator", stars a bearded, long-haired Mickey Rooney, who plays an odd ringmaster of sorts, but allow me to quote directly from the DVD sleeve itself, since I cannot match this precise plot description:

"A has-been movie make-up man (Rooney) has gone over the edge by kidnapping an actress and hiding her on the back lot sound stage of an old movie studio. While there, he forces the actress to perform scenes from various productions, all the while shouting orders to imaginary crewmembers and spiraling further into madness. Faced with death through starvation or by his hand, the actress must try to reason with a man who has clearly lost his mind."

You can see why this served as our opener.

The film, surprise surprise, makes very little sense, but Rooney is in fine mad form, delivering insane monologues, applying mascara, lipstick and rouge to his little round face, dancing to carnival music, shouting non-sequitors, and so on. Keenan Wynn briefly wanders in, and either dies or goes to sleep, I couldn't tell which. And there's a nice fantasy sequence showing a classical string quartet in full formal wear, playing music inside a meat locker, slabs of slaughtered cows swinging into their instruments. Most of "The Manipulator" is shot in the standard, low-budget early-70s style, with plenty of fish-eyed lens shots and swirling colors. I suspect the filmmakers tried to make it look experimental, or maybe they had no idea what they were doing. In any case, Rooney never lets up. It's a long way from the MGM soundstages of the 1930s and 40s, but Rooney, ever the pro, gives it his all. Phoning it in would seem obscene to him.

As much as we enjoyed "The Manipulator", it was nothing compared to the next offering, "Twister's Revenge". The plot here is simple: Mr. Twister, a monster truck that has a computerized brain and can talk though his speakers ("My Mother The Car" meets "Knight Rider"), is pursued by three rednecks who want to use the truck for their own nefarious purposes. And that's pretty much it. Lots of chase scenes through rural settings carried by banjo solos. Plenty of bad intentional comedy. Explosions and house and barn demolitions. And, of course, Mr. Twister shows why he's the king of the monster truck circuit, crushing smaller vehicles while laughing in a computerized voice. Take it from the Son, this is a very funny movie -- that is, if you find a Grade Z "Dukes of Hazzard" knock-off amusing. It was the perfect way to end 2006.

The new year was ushered in with "Invasion of the Bee Girls", a 1973 horror/sex offering in which suburban California women are turned into semi-bees by an alluring female entomologist, and are ordered to kill as many men as possible by fucking them to death. This being a 70s film, however, fucking is called "balling," a word that's used many times to describe each murder scene, but not as poetically as when an outraged male citizen yells out at a police press conference, "Eight men have been balled to death in the last week. What do you intend to do about it?" The wife and teen liked this movie far more than I did, as I found it quickly repetitive. But the scenes where detectives are trying to ascertain who's doing the lethal balling are humorous, though you'd think that a hive of bee women would be easy to find in a small community.

The following day, the fam went to a local relative's house to eat nachos, drink beer and watch Michigan play USC in the Rose Bowl. This visit had the potential to turn into a bad production of its own. While we are close to these people, we cannot discuss politics, or religion, or sex, or drugs, or the war, or really anything else that might be going on apart from cultural diversions like college football. These people are pretty rightwing in their politics and Christianity, so we knew what to expect. But I didn't anticipate rubbing shoulders with a couple of real nutjobs, both of whom I'd met before, and had hoped to never see again.

The first person is a woman in her early 20s, a soldier in the Army Reserve who served a brief tour of Afghanistan. A mutual friend of the family who grew up with this girl told me that she was insane, and she did little to dispel that reputation the first time I met her, eyes glazed as she spoke of the wonders US-led wars, how America was guided by God and the rest of it. Apparently, visiting a dirt poor country in chaos like Afghanistan did little to shake her faith, in fact, it hardened it. When the national anthem was played before the start of the Rose Bowl, this woman literally stood at attention in front of the large screen. I thought it was a joke, but no -- she was absolutely serious. Once the anthem ended, she let out a whoop, widened her eyes and told the rest of us how excited she gets when she hears that song. Everyone other than my immediate family smiled back and nodded their heads in agreement. I went to the kitchen to see if there was any vodka.

The other person is an ex-high school football star turned rightwing Christian minister. Man, there is nothing worse than a religious jock, given that most jocks buy into the authoritarianism of sports anyway; and when you add an extreme interpretation of the Bible . . . Lord, help us. This guy, simply put, is a royal asshole: loud, belligerent, convinced of his personal holiness and of the evil in those who disagree with him. I've seen him in action at weddings and other gatherings, and he tries to steamroll people into seeing God his way, using his massive (and now bulging) frame to press his point. And then there are the moments when he assures all that not only is Jesus in the room, the Son of God is standing right next to him, telling him what to say -- sort of like Jimmy Stewart in "Harvey", but without the charm or intelligence.

This day, the guy made sure that everybody knew he was in room, attempting to get each and every person to acknowledge his presence. I ignored the guy as best I could and focused on the game. Before long, however, he strolled over to where I was standing and planted himself right next to me. I could feel him breathing on my cheek, and saw him, peripherally, studying my profile. I almost turned to him to say "I appreciate the attention, but I don't swing that way." However, in that room, such a comment would violate the No Reality rule (as did my quip about the Michigan marching band playing "Stairway To Heaven": "What's this?" I wondered aloud. "A tribute to stoner music of the 70s?" This met with complete silence and stares). So I simply kept ignoring him until he gave up and left.

Jesus, on the other hand, remained for a moment and whispered to me, "Isn't that guy a complete knob? Still, I must show mercy to him. It's what I do."

Amen to that. I have the feeling we're gonna need lots of mercy in the months ahead.