This decision is no decision, obviously. Mbeki cheapens the fact of voting when he says "The Zimbabwean people have made a decision and now we have to leave it to them." How humiliating for thinking men and women in South Africa. As if the people of Zimbabwe did not make a decision at the polls, which the state determined not to follow. The use of the Old Man for this purpose reminds me of the Star Trek episode where the mock up of Hitler's command center was thought to be most useful to keep order on the alien planet. Shockingly, everything had turned to shit.
Let's all pretend that we are collaborating and compromising.
Or let's have a real parliamentary system. Or let's get rid of the African state as it is now constituted.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
9/11 Recalled Verbatim
First written, never posted, on Sept. 12, 2001.
"Four jet planes [sic] were hijacked yesterday morning while I was flying home to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., from New York's LaGuardia. Two hijacked planes, travelling from Dulles Airport on their way to L.A., were smashed into the World Trade Center, destroying both towers and killing many thousands of people. Another airplane was piloted into the Pentagon, burning a chunk of the huge structure, while the last jet was crashed into a field near Pittsburgh, probably because of some heroic act on the part of the passengers or crew.
"The first response of the military, according to the television journalist Tim Russert, was shock and anger, not at the fact of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, which was, Russert said, "expected" — he used this very word but at the precision and perfect execution of the attack. "They chose planes leaving for Los Angeles. The bastards knew they would have full tanks of fuel for maximum impact," Russert quoted a military man as saying.
"Most people in lower Manhattan said that seeing th efall of the towers was like watching a movie or being woken up from a "dream." (Why have we seen so many movies with these images in them? Were we in a dream?) NBC created a logo shown in the lower fight hand corner, as did CNN, and then many other television stations followed suit [sic], all of which say "Attack on America." It looks like any other logo. THis morning the narrative has progressed and the logos say, "The Day After," perhaps a reference to a famous television film shown in 1982 at the height of the Cold War . . .
"The attack punched right through the surface of complacency and familiarity with everyday life, and to some extent the networks have been trying to calm their viewers, recalling familiar narratives in which enemies are irrational, our spirit indominable [sic], our response unified and professional.
"Initially it appeared that the whole story was being managed or suppressed. The mayor of New York [Giuliani] was about to estimate the numebr of people killed and he was cut off. The military has cordoned the press from the Pentagon in such a way so that no decent visuals of the damage have been shown on television. For a long time there was no ground-level footage of the Wall Street area. I heard from observers through word of mouth that people had been falling or jumping out of windows from the burning towers. The first respons of the government was to hide the president. Key members of the administration were also spirited away. A spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, a political appointee close to the president and someone of no official authority, was the first government representative really to brief the press. She stressed that "banks have been open today" (Tuesday), a sign also to the perpetrators that they did not shut down our financial engines. . . .
"I thin the perpetrators of these acts should be punished. But I also know that the spectacle of mass displacement and destruction is familiar to people in impoverished or war-torn places in the world, like Congo and Sierra Leone and Namibia, that supply many of the substances [coltan, bauxite, diamonds, uranium] that supply the technology that drives the marketplace here. In the U.S. we are at the center of a regime that relies on people in faraway places to sell their labor and their products into a global market that effectively bars many of them from ever attaining the kinds of comforts taken for granted by us here. The detruction of the World Trade Center . . . has driven home the fragility of the boundaries between our world, our dream, and the places where all those other people live.
"I think the attack will ultimately force the U.S. to think more clearly . . . the rhetorical response by the government was that of a nation-state in peril. Today Secretary Powell is asking the international community, and particularly NATO, for ints unqualified support, on the grounds that our territory has been directly attacked. Our military will however very likely be acting unilaterally, and in the this sense we are now a nation at war.
"On the other hand, it seems to me that the attack was not made entirely, or even mainly, on the capacity of the U.S. as a nation-state, but on the U.S. as the controlling center of the world economy, and the enforcer of policies abroad, especially in the middle east, that are linked to that economy. We thought we could administer this structure — an empire, an economy, a sphere of interest — with no security at its core. We assumed we operate as we did partly because we wtill hold ideals enshrined by Jefferson and Adams and Paine, and partly because we have grown complacent and ignorant. We have a presence in the world that goes well beyond any other nation's, and a standard of living that relies on this presence. Maybe scholars and even politicians think about these things, but most Americans do not. I suspect Thomas Jefferson himself would call us an imperial power if he were alive today. I think Americans will now have to consider these kinds of contradictions with greater self-consciousness in the wake of this attack.
"The ruins of seven collapsed buildings in New York are still burning at this time."
"The first response of the military, according to the television journalist Tim Russert, was shock and anger, not at the fact of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, which was, Russert said, "expected" — he used this very word but at the precision and perfect execution of the attack. "They chose planes leaving for Los Angeles. The bastards knew they would have full tanks of fuel for maximum impact," Russert quoted a military man as saying.
"Most people in lower Manhattan said that seeing th efall of the towers was like watching a movie or being woken up from a "dream." (Why have we seen so many movies with these images in them? Were we in a dream?) NBC created a logo shown in the lower fight hand corner, as did CNN, and then many other television stations followed suit [sic], all of which say "Attack on America." It looks like any other logo. THis morning the narrative has progressed and the logos say, "The Day After," perhaps a reference to a famous television film shown in 1982 at the height of the Cold War . . .
"The attack punched right through the surface of complacency and familiarity with everyday life, and to some extent the networks have been trying to calm their viewers, recalling familiar narratives in which enemies are irrational, our spirit indominable [sic], our response unified and professional.
"Initially it appeared that the whole story was being managed or suppressed. The mayor of New York [Giuliani] was about to estimate the numebr of people killed and he was cut off. The military has cordoned the press from the Pentagon in such a way so that no decent visuals of the damage have been shown on television. For a long time there was no ground-level footage of the Wall Street area. I heard from observers through word of mouth that people had been falling or jumping out of windows from the burning towers. The first respons of the government was to hide the president. Key members of the administration were also spirited away. A spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, a political appointee close to the president and someone of no official authority, was the first government representative really to brief the press. She stressed that "banks have been open today" (Tuesday), a sign also to the perpetrators that they did not shut down our financial engines. . . .
"I thin the perpetrators of these acts should be punished. But I also know that the spectacle of mass displacement and destruction is familiar to people in impoverished or war-torn places in the world, like Congo and Sierra Leone and Namibia, that supply many of the substances [coltan, bauxite, diamonds, uranium] that supply the technology that drives the marketplace here. In the U.S. we are at the center of a regime that relies on people in faraway places to sell their labor and their products into a global market that effectively bars many of them from ever attaining the kinds of comforts taken for granted by us here. The detruction of the World Trade Center . . . has driven home the fragility of the boundaries between our world, our dream, and the places where all those other people live.
"I think the attack will ultimately force the U.S. to think more clearly . . . the rhetorical response by the government was that of a nation-state in peril. Today Secretary Powell is asking the international community, and particularly NATO, for ints unqualified support, on the grounds that our territory has been directly attacked. Our military will however very likely be acting unilaterally, and in the this sense we are now a nation at war.
"On the other hand, it seems to me that the attack was not made entirely, or even mainly, on the capacity of the U.S. as a nation-state, but on the U.S. as the controlling center of the world economy, and the enforcer of policies abroad, especially in the middle east, that are linked to that economy. We thought we could administer this structure — an empire, an economy, a sphere of interest — with no security at its core. We assumed we operate as we did partly because we wtill hold ideals enshrined by Jefferson and Adams and Paine, and partly because we have grown complacent and ignorant. We have a presence in the world that goes well beyond any other nation's, and a standard of living that relies on this presence. Maybe scholars and even politicians think about these things, but most Americans do not. I suspect Thomas Jefferson himself would call us an imperial power if he were alive today. I think Americans will now have to consider these kinds of contradictions with greater self-consciousness in the wake of this attack.
"The ruins of seven collapsed buildings in New York are still burning at this time."
Trying to get over the fear . . .
We've seen it again and again, the back of my neck is clammy, the media manipulation, the ever-aggrieved tone, the pre-packaged commentators willing to lie for the GOP, the predictable smears:
As in associating Obama with inappropriate discussions of sex with children, even though he aimed to protect children from inappropriate adults; associate Obama with "attacks" on Palin, with "demeaning" remarks never uttered nor thought, with "sexist" positions because little minds think it is good to accuse those against sexism in the workplace or violence against women that they are the real sexists . . . most of all, this time, "the real" is the major trope: the real maverick, the real agent of change, the real reformer, the real women's boosters: You can have your white cake and eat it too, they tell you!
As in associating Obama with inappropriate discussions of sex with children, even though he aimed to protect children from inappropriate adults; associate Obama with "attacks" on Palin, with "demeaning" remarks never uttered nor thought, with "sexist" positions because little minds think it is good to accuse those against sexism in the workplace or violence against women that they are the real sexists . . . most of all, this time, "the real" is the major trope: the real maverick, the real agent of change, the real reformer, the real women's boosters: You can have your white cake and eat it too, they tell you!
Linked to Haley Barbour's attempt to disenfranchise African American voters in Mississippi, and other efforts recently detailed by Andrew Hacker; the idea is to suppress the Obama vote with the old Jim Crow techniques, Whitifying this election!
Don't fall for it please don't fall for the lies
Don't fall for it please don't fall for the lies
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Difficult times
It is hard to watch the soulless hordes of talking heads with one side getting to tell the truth and the other to echo the lies. They are lies. Alan Combs is actually angry; the idea that "Obama . . . Sex . . . Kindergarteners" is anything more than, well, what it is . . . Think about it, for a moment. The first thrust is: "Look, folks, he's insulting the white not-so-bad-looking white lady!" Then, this. The black man, the father, is the "uppity" black, and his sin is leering at your wife and kids. String him up.
That's what is going on here. That's what the GOP is doing. Talk about Nixonian politics.
I mean this literally, really I do. Take a look at the way lynchings unfolded in the South. The accusations that were made, the reaction of the crowd, the focus on violated motherhood and purity. Palin, pure as the Alaskan snows! The disembowelling of the corpse! "Lipstick on a pig, he said! It meant something different when The Senator said it, about Hillary, than when you said it, Obama!"
It is a shadow play, and we are being asked to get in touch with those parts of our psyche that we rightly most despise, and project them forward . . . parts that we might ordinarily wish we could leave behind. Don't trust the black man, get that guy, THERE! part of white America's mentality. That's the meaning of the Palin candidacy. That's the thread they want to pull, the feeling they want to legitimize and channel in the voting booth . . .
Please, please God, please let enough of my countrymen wake up by election day and vote for Obama
That's what is going on here. That's what the GOP is doing. Talk about Nixonian politics.
I mean this literally, really I do. Take a look at the way lynchings unfolded in the South. The accusations that were made, the reaction of the crowd, the focus on violated motherhood and purity. Palin, pure as the Alaskan snows! The disembowelling of the corpse! "Lipstick on a pig, he said! It meant something different when The Senator said it, about Hillary, than when you said it, Obama!"
It is a shadow play, and we are being asked to get in touch with those parts of our psyche that we rightly most despise, and project them forward . . . parts that we might ordinarily wish we could leave behind. Don't trust the black man, get that guy, THERE! part of white America's mentality. That's the meaning of the Palin candidacy. That's the thread they want to pull, the feeling they want to legitimize and channel in the voting booth . . .
Please, please God, please let enough of my countrymen wake up by election day and vote for Obama
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Palinophobia
Frightened. She's a symbol of something I don't want to think about. Representation and American credulity, the spread of a faux-reality, the giant flat screen TVs in poor urban Americans' homes.
Old folks wanting to live out their lives without making any changes at all, obese people, moronic people, fetal alcohol syndrome babies now grown up, hated bosses. Used-to-hunt fellers. Wife-beaters.
America's outward religiousity. Pre-millenarian "belief", how it actually functions in real life.
About wanting things to be a certain way, . . . substituting for making them that way.
That Pacino movie about the computer-generated female actress nobody saw.
Something deeply wrong in the American character.
Something even deeper. Something about huddling on the ground in the soaking rain, praying together, 'cuz it was just sooo important to pray the way one wanted to, — while native American warriors cudgelled one's family to death.
Something wrong.
Old folks wanting to live out their lives without making any changes at all, obese people, moronic people, fetal alcohol syndrome babies now grown up, hated bosses. Used-to-hunt fellers. Wife-beaters.
America's outward religiousity. Pre-millenarian "belief", how it actually functions in real life.
About wanting things to be a certain way, . . . substituting for making them that way.
That Pacino movie about the computer-generated female actress nobody saw.
Something deeply wrong in the American character.
Something even deeper. Something about huddling on the ground in the soaking rain, praying together, 'cuz it was just sooo important to pray the way one wanted to, — while native American warriors cudgelled one's family to death.
Something wrong.
Rachel Maddow's first show
Was great. It even featured an in-joke about dominant vs. passive homosexual partners and esteemed military officers officiating a baseball game ("at least they should be pitching," said her gay gossipy pal). We need more of her.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Primary source assignments
Here is the link to my teaching blog, the one following the Northern Light Company up into Matabeleland and "Bechuana" country.
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