"We're Losing the Ability to Think"

The following are a couple of excerpts from today's op-ed by Leonard Pitts Jr., a columnist from the Miami Herald. It's the perfect follow up to my last post, which continues on the theme of Americans' stupidity and their flat-out reluctance to think:

"[...] And then tell me you don't feel the nation's collective IQ dropping like stocks.

I am not talking about ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of information; we're all ignorant in one way or another. Nor am I talking about people prone to punctuation or spelling errors; we all make mistakes.

No, I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from, or otherwise use information even when one has it. And stupidity is often characterized by smug indifference.

For as much as we obsess over black vs. white and red vs. blue, I suspect the defining division of this technology-driven era will be between those who have and can exploit information and those who do not and cannot. Between intelligence and its opposite. One wonders how long we can continue to equate stupidity with ''keeping it real,'' being a regular Joe or Jane, and hope to continue leading the world.

In recent years, we have seen intelligence demonized as the sole province of the ''elite,'' a term that once described accomplishment, but is now used to condemn anyone who looks like he might have accidentally cracked a book or had a thought."

The column can be found in its entirety here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/618348.html

Why Isn't Intelligence an American "Virtue?"

When Republicans (and people more generally) are confronted about their uninformed opinions, they react with a condescending laugh as if having ideals is naïve or somehow we just don’t get it. This is coming from the same people who believe that the defense budget is more than every other country combined because we need to “spread freedom throughout the world.” And even when Republicans concede the point that you are smarter than them, they are still unwilling to budge on positions they can’t clearly explain much less substantiate. At the very least, this means they do not have sound reasoning behind their stances, and most of the time they know they are wrong but are afraid to face reality lest it inconvenience them in some way. People prefer “truthiness” to truth, where truthiness is truth through the lens of self-interest. Adam Miller writes:

“What tends to matter most to us, whatever our political persuasion, is simple self-interest […] self-interest is the lens that warps our perception of truth, bends facts to meet our preferences, and disconnects us from the possibility of creating good that is genuinely shared in common. Only that which is shared in common can center us in a truth beyond truthiness […] We no longer see things as they are, and so we are no longer able to connect meaningfully with other people or truthfully with ourselves.”

The ironic thing is that truth isn’t hard to discern. Most so-called political issues can be boiled down to a simple question: Do you care more about money or people? That’s really it. I would much rather Republicans looked the American public in the eyes and said they don’t care about poor people than simultaneously claim benevolence while pushing for policies they know will crush them. If they tell the truth, we will know they’re bad people, and if they don’t, we'll know they're frauds. Worse yet, if they don't believe the truth, then we’ll know they’re delusional and at the very best, mildly retarded. In short, they continue to make the case for ignorance or plain stupidity as the overriding American “values.” As the old adage goes, “Ignorance is bliss.” But like Bill Maher said in Milwaukee last week, “Ignorance means you’re in the dark, and when you’re in the dark you’re scared.” I would take Maher’s line of reasoning a step further and say that when you’re scared, you make irrational decisions (believing in religious superstitions, or supporting Republican hawks like Bush and McCain).

Shedding ignorance and picking up a book can be “inconvenient.” The fact is, the status quo is depressing, and with knowledge comes the responsibility to act. People often ridicule me for my views (if not just for having them), and to a person their reaction is more or less the same: “One person can’t make a difference, so have fun changing the world.” This patronizing attitude is endemic in America from those whose political stance (conservative, corporatist, nationalist) or lack of one, is already the status quo, which implies a kind of socio-political inertia. But if Republicans can support jingo-nationalistic fascism, and believe that Noah built an ark and Jonah lived inside a whale, I can believe in liberty and equality, no matter how "naive" that vision might be.

No Risk / High Reward

"The working man's a sucker."
-Cologero
A Bronx Tale

My aunt just switched cable providers and on her first bill she was overcharged for services and hardware she never received. This made me think about how many people pay their bills and don't catch "mistakes" like this on a monthly basis. When consumers notice these "mistakes," someone in India apologizes and removes the extra charge from the bill, without the corp. taking on any fiscal responsibility. Is this not a microcosm for the way all mega-corps. operate under Western-capitalism? No risk with the possibility of high reward. The largest banks in America are being bailed out by the government after making mistakes with their stockholder's money. They took what should have been huge risks for the opportunity to make lucrative amounts of money. Only under our current system, apparently there is no monetary risk involved in being fiscally irresponsible. When are CEOs and politicians going to have to answer to the people for their "mistakes?" Their answer is likely to be more deregulation and "free" market ideology right? That way corporations can continue to exploit vulnerable consumers without answering to anyone. So in the end, the consumers foot the bill either way: they either rip us off or we have to pay to bail them out anyways. That's how the land of opportunity really rewards the hard-working majority. It's also how the myth of the American dream has turned the U.S. into a nation of suckers.

And for those who still believe that "free-market" capitalism is our mode of production or that Western-style capitalism is unquestionably synonomous with democracy: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

Untitled Photo Project by Pat Ryan

Here is a small sample from my friend Pat's final photo project at the Art Institute of California-Los Angeles. Pat is set to graduate next year with an emphasis in film. When he told me about this project I was excited to see what he came up with. As long as Pat keeps incorporating thoughtful socioeconomic commentary into his artwork, I will be happy to post it here. Nice work Pat.

I Recommend...

4/4 Stars: I don't know how to write movie reviews. I always have too much to say and I can't find a common thread to tie it all together. I can tell you that "The Dark Knight" needs to be watched, thought about, then talked about for a long time. This is true because of what it says, but more so for what it almost says, but is not allowed to. Dissent in this country is at its all time highest and the new Batman installment reflects this in content and tone. There has been a lot of hype around the film mostly because of Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker. Ledger's performace is nothing short of incredible, and the character written for the actor is one of the most radical and complicated to come out of mainstream-American cinema in recent memory; and the best villian/anti-hero I have ever seen on the big screen. Even though he is not given a cause to fight for, as writers probably feared this would make his nothing-to-lose approach to terrorism admirable, I'm still surprised this character made it past the indoctrinated censors that preside over Hollywood. Pay attention to everything he is allowed to say, and think about everything he is not. "The Dark Knight" is not only emblematic of the way mainstream American art voices dissent, but its invisible ideological limits as well.

This is not a review section, because again, I don't really know how to speak the languag, but once in awhile I will give films a star rating with a rationale if I feel like it. With that said, I also recommend "Be Kind, Rewind," Michel Gondry's imaginative ode to independent film, and in a clever trick in the end, silent films as well. I watched "Be Kind" alone in my basement in a less-than-average mood for watching a movie. When it was over, I was much happier in general after having laughed out-loud several times. Jack Black and Mos Def have great chemistry, and everything about the film is modest and sincere. 3 1/2 Stars. I loved both of these movies.

State Capitalism and the Myth of the Free Market

"Downturn Gains Steam as Inflation Roars Ahead"
"Bernanke: Economy faces 'numerous difficulties"
"Report: 150 Banks Could Fail Over Next 18 Months"
"Bush Administration Moves to Bail Out Mortgage Companies"

With headlines like this everyday across the country, are advocates of globalization and “free-market” ideology ready to admit that something is wrong, or at the very least, that there is nothing “free” about the market. For those that champion it, the market is “free” only when it continues to make the richest people in this country richer while keeping the rest content enough not to raise hell. But now it has gotten so bad that what the government has always done, which is subsidize large corporations who then keep the profits for themselves, has gotten national attention. If the free market existed, wouldn’t the so-called “invisible hand” of capitalism have drowned corporations like Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac? Without the government’s help, and taxpayer’s money, these companies would sink. The rationale given by politicians is that if these companies were to go under, the economy would collapse. Doesn’t that mean that this system, which proponents claim is self-sustaining, cannot survive without state intervention. How is this not state capitalism, which in ideology, is precisely the opposite of free-market capitalism? The very same politicians who run on small government are now pushing for billions of dollars in state intervention to save the sinking system that has made them all rich. As is often the case with the United States government there is a double standard at work: state intervention is wrong when it means regulating multinational corporations but ok when it means bailing them out. Where is all the free-market ideology now? This crisis is the result of the capitalist tendency, no necessity, to look no further than the bottom line. Capitalism’s short sightedness and unchecked deregulation has caught up to the United States in what many are calling the worst financial crisis of our lifetime. And still no one challenges or questions the anonymous monster behind it all: state-capitalism. Slavoj Žižek describes this phenomenon:

“when we pass from the notion of crisis as occasional contingent malfunctioning of the system to the notion of crisis as the symptomal point at which the ‘truth’ of the system becomes visible, we are talking about one and the same actual event—the difference is purely virtual, it does not concern any of its actual properties, but only the way this event is supplemented by the virtual tapestry of its ideological and notional background.”

Reading Žižek can sometimes be frustrating. He works out his theories as he goes and reading his work is witnessing this process live. If you try and pick up and understand everything you will get lost, so you have to extract nuggets of insight whenever you can. This quotation perfectly describes how the government/media (the line is blurry) is handling this economic crisis. It is a well-known taboo to question capitalism, in fact it is even taboo to say capitalism anymore. Instead it is the anonymous system to which there is no alternative. I know that some will read this post and say that capitalism works and there’s no better system. They

"claim that Capitalism is today so global and all-encompassing that they cannot ‘see’ any serious alternative to it, that they cannot imagine a feasible ‘outside’ to it [… but] the task is not to see the outside, but to see in the first place (to grasp the nature of contemporary capitalism)—the Marxist wager is that, when we ‘see’ this, we see enough, including how to go beyond it…So our reply to the worried progressive liberals, eager to join the revolution, and just not seeing it having a chance anywhere, should be like the answer to the proverbial ecologist worried about the prospect of catastrophe: do not worry, the catastrophe will arrive…"

This is the conversation I want, and we need to have as Americans. “Although the sphere of the economy appears ‘apolitical,’ it is the secret point of reference and structuring principle of political struggles” and if you're paying attention, it appears that the catastrophe may be arriving sooner than later. A small part of me wants things to get worse before they get just better enough for people to forget that they are being raped by the system. Gas prices are the perfect allegory for how the system operates. People all over America are catching themselves being happy when gas drops to $4 a gallon. They have to remind themselves that a year ago it was under $3, and three years ago it was around $2. Likewise, before we become content with policies that are meant to keep us at bay, we need to remember that in the richest country in the world, inequality grows, wages stagnate and the middle class disapears. Perhaps more importantly we need to remember that the system which is responsible for all of this depends on our compliance, because ironically, we work to maintain these debilitating trends.

The Christian Right

The following is an excerpt by John Caputo from the introduction to The Sleeping Giant has Awoken: The New Politics of Religion in the United States. It's a collection of essays on the parallels between the "triumph of American political conservatism" and the "ascendance of Christian evangelicalism." A common argument from progressives and leftists in general is that if people voted in their best interest, we would never have a Republican president. When lefties say this, they are generally referring to economic considerations. One thing that isn't talked about as much is the idea that if Christians voted for what their interests should be as self-proclaimed followers of Christ, the same would be true. Anyone who knows me knows that I have often been at odds with dominant "Christianity" in America for all of the following reasons (and more), which the author of the introduction articulates much better than I could:

"the dominant form of American Christianity today, the Christian Right, has sat down to table with virtually every power and domination that Jesus contested in his own lifetime, with the very powers of imperial rule, the rule of the world, which took his life. It stands for authoritarianism, nationalism, and militarism that contradict the letter and the spirit of Jesus' words, who said to love one's enemies, and if one is struck on the cheek, to turn the other cheek. It enthusiastically supports a war that cynically flaunts the classical conditions of just-war theory, "just war" itself being a strange turn of phrase to be found on the lips of a follower of the author of the Sermon on the Mount. It marches arm in arm with an unbridled capitalist greed that has recklessly permitted the rich to grow even richer while grinding up the poor-flaunting the very ministry Jesus announced for himself. By lending itself to laissez-faire capitalism, the Right undermines everything it might have been believed to stand for. Unchecked capitalism wrecks family values by impoverishing families and leaving children homeless and parentless[...] the economics pursued by the Right constitutes an all-out attack upon the middle class, where family life is the mainstay[...] Where Jesus found strength in the weakness of God, in forgiveness and nonviolence, the Christian Right openly lusts for a Christian Empire, even as it was an earlier Empire that took the life of Jesus. The cruelest and most bitter irony is that the Christian Right does all of this in the very name of Jesus, asking us, "What would Jesus do?" -as if Jesus were a capitalist out to make millions and a militarist with aspirations for imperial power, in search of a kingdom very decidedly of this world. What is this if not the will of humans in love with bare-knuckled power, with themselves and their own will, cloaking themselves in the name of weakness of God and nonviolence of Jesus?"

The only thing that concerns me about religious movements is their ability to instigate social change. Spiritual awakening and faith are only useful to a social critic if they are necessary to overhaul the current social structure. In other words, if Christian theology ignores the exploited and oppressed among us, it is worthless. But what I have realized is that it is not Christianity I detest, it is what religious institutions and power structures have done to corrupt it. I am Not a Christian but I respect the moral system that true Christianity teaches, the system of the New Testament that the Christian Right forgets or simply chooses to ignore.

Reasoned Opinions

My blog is mostly inspired by news stories that catch my attention during the week and you'll notice that I have written about more than electoral horse races and flag pins. The conversations Americans are having would be a lot different if people were informed. A friend of mine and fellow blogger came to the conclusion that "many Americans are either unable or unwilling to reach a reasoned opinion. They leave the thinking to someone else." The problem is that the people Americans unwittingly rely on to form their opinions do not have their best interests in mind. Here's a perfect example: Today on Democracy Now! I listened to a story about a lawsuit against American corporations who supported Apartheid in South Africa. Stories like this aren't going to find the front page in papers that could hypothetically (and realistically) be owned by the defendants. In other words, the media that people rely on for their information represent a giant conflict of interest. In theory (and ideology), journalism exists for the benefit of a given community. When I took journalism classes in undergrad, I was taught that journalists were watchdogs for the people. There's only one problem: 90% of the media is controlled by 6 mega-corporations; the same entities who by law place profit over people. The "best interests of the corporation" principle is a fixture in corporate law. According to this principle, a corporation can have no other motivation for its actions besides what is in the best interest of its shareholders. Thus corporations' only responsibility is to maximize profit which means genuine corporate social responsibility can not exist. So what does this say about media social responsibility?

Let's do a little detective work. NBC is generally thought to be the most "liberal" network news channel. NBC and its cable affiliates are owned by General Electric, not exactly a beacon of corporate responsibility. Here is a link to their corporate responsibility profile provided by coopamerica.org:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/company.cfm?id=231
Under the alerts section of the profile, see if you can find a story you'd expect to see in primetime on NBC or their cable affiliates. It's simply not feasible. This is an obvious case of privileging the profits of the corporation over the well-being of the people. Therefore the media should be at the center of any conversation that deals with the ignorance or obliviousness of Americans. Don't get me wrong, I am not letting the people off the hook. The apathy of the American people is mind-numbing at times. But there's no doubt that the media is largely responsible for the gap between mass-uninformed opinions and the truth. At the heart of any true democracy are the "reasoned opinions" of its people. Without reasoned opinions, the population becomes a herd.

All this being said, please check out Democracy Now! It's an independent media source available online and by video and audio podcast. It's an hour long 5 days a week and it will change the way you look at the world. Apathy is inconceivable.

Note: In light of all the talk about Obama and flag pins, my friend Luke and I have been going back and forth in agreement about how distorted the idea of patriotism has become. I'm going to use this opportunity to direct you to his blog "I Eat Media." There's nothing more I can say about patriotism that he hasn't already said much better. Do yourself a favor and read his newest post (linked in my blogroll).

Our Only Choice for President and a Quick Note on Climate Change

A new report from The Center For American Progress estimates John McCain’s proposed tax plan would save corporations $175 billion per year with $45 billion of those savings going to the country’s 200 largest corporations. Right now oil companies are posting the highest profits ever for corporations while the cost of food and energy are at an all time high. For reasons like this, it would seem that voting in the fall is a no brainer. Well it is and it isn't. I think people are planning on voting for Obama for all the wrong reasons. Here's really why we have to vote for the Democrat in '08:

First of all, I am not a Democrat. Every true progressive in this country knows that when it comes to U.S. elections you have to vote for the lesser of two evils. That’s the sad reality of our so-called democracy. The Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin. This stupid idiom is actually appropriate for once because both parties are controlled by the all mighty dollar. When people refer to the left in this country, it is only because of its relative position to the right. Both parties are controlled by large corporate interests in Washington and when it comes to substantial differences, both have more in common than not. That being said, I am a firm believer in doing the best we can with a given situation. Right now we cannot afford to let John McCain get into office. In our two-party system, Barack Obama is the only other viable option. Will Barack Obama be much better? Probably not because if Obama really represented the radical change this country needed, he wouldn’t be representing a corporate party on the ballot in November. But Obama does have the most liberal voting record of anyone in the senate (I know I'm rationalizing). Truth is, I would love to sit here and push for Nader in the fall, because he truly represents the interests of the American people. If Americans actually paid attention to Nader in the general they would find that his positions are the ones we wish the compromising centrist candidates from the democratic party had. But the political landscape is not prime for a candidate like Nader to compete yet, frankly because Americans won’t get out of their own way (although they have plenty of help from corporate media). So yes, I will probably vote for Barack Obama in November, but I am not happy about it. It is simply the best we can do right now. There cannot and will not be radical change in this country until the American people are ready to fight for it. No candidate representing a corporate party is going to deliver the government back to the people, even if they wanted to (and they don't). When we are ready to take back our government and our country we can stop settling for the best worst in every election on every issue. (This is the point where I always say I hope I am wrong about Obama and that maybe he's a work in progress, but that's the ounce of optimist in me.)

Quick rant on climate change: Lately I've had to deal with old-white men in the break-room at work tossing around snide comments about how climate change obviously doesn't exist because we've had a cool summer thus far. Then there was a letter to the editor in today's Sentinel that claimed there is still no consensus on climate change. I've had enough so I did some quick research and here's what I found: The Intergovernmental Pannel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a completely objective entity that collects scientific information from literature all around the world. “Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.” I’ve included a link to the right that will take you to their report for 2007. The report opens by saying that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.” Unequivocal meaning leaving no doubt, clear, unambiguous based on all of the data they've assessed. Sounds like a consensus to me but as always I am a pragmatist so I am willing to listen to any other sources that would prove otherwise.

News and Notes: Security, Economy, and Religious Intolerance

Here are a couple of stories that should be dominating headlines this week:

If nothing else, the United States' actions in the Middle East were supposed to make Americans more secure right? This is the common argument from conservatives who defend the administration. Well, two stories I read today make me feel anything but secure when it comes to my safety and my civil rights. First, on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel there is a story about how Al-Qaida is extending their network into Algeria. These Algerian militants have been “reinvigorated with fresh recruits and a zeal for Western targets.” This story proves that the United States’ reactions to 9-11 have only strengthened Osama Bin Laden’s ability to bring “local militants under the al-Qaida brand.” When asked why his group merged with al-Qaida, the Algerian militant leader cited religious reasons: “If the U.S. administration sees that its war against the Muslims is legitimate, then what makes us believe that our war on its territories is not legitimate?” Again this reinforces the obvious fact that this war is a war of ideas, and as long as America maintains its imperialistic foreign policy, its going to be easier and easier to recruit pissed off Muslims who make it their life's cause to wage a holy war.

I came across another story in a segment of Democracy Now! that discussed what are being called “Terrorist Liaison Officers” or TLO’s. These individuals are people who have access to the community who are trained as watchdogs for terrorist activity. They can range from police officers to utility personnel. They are trained to look for a host of suspicious activities that includes “taking pictures that don’t seem to have any aesthetic value.” Ultimately this means that a lot of innocent people are going to find themselves on lists kept in secret government databases. Once on these lists, who knows what further happens to their civil liberties. The syllabus for training these TLOs has been kept confidential thus far. TLOs have been deployed in 8 states including Wisconsin. There is an official website for the organization at tlo.org. The website is pretty much a scare factory where citizens can report leads on suspected terrorist activity. You have to check this out; I couldn’t fucking believe it. Big Brother anyone?

Besides security, the economy has been the other dominant criteria for judging the state of the union. It’s no secret that our economy is in a "slowdown" (or whatever euphemism conservatives try to attach to recession today). Many economists believe that savings and consumer debt are important barometers of current and future economic health. Well, since President Bush has been in office, our national savings have gone from 6% to 1 % of the Gross Domestic Product, and consumer debt has climbed from $8 trillion to $14 trillion. See Thomas Friedman's op-ed "The No. 1 issue for November."

Finally, on a side note, Barack Obama and his campaign managers need to take a lesson from Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza. Remember the episode where everyone thinks they are gay and they always reply, “We are not gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that.” This episode is poking fun at political correctness as it were but it is relevant in today’s political landscape. Because the political system in this country is a joke and Americans are programmed to fear difference (and really do), Barack Obama has been demonized by the right for being a “secret Muslim.” All Obama has done is refute these accusations without taking the time to point out that there’s obviously nothing wrong with being a Muslim. For more on this, there was a great op-ed in the Journal Sentinel today by Leonard Pitts from the Miami Herald called “Obama disappoints in relations with Muslims.” I’ve been angered by this for quite some time so this piece was refreshing. How would Judeo-Christians feel if, God forbid, they were a religious minority (I know it’s impossible to imagine), and politicians were forced to treat their religion as if it were leprosy in order to get elected in the country they called home?