Talk Lab

Defending the New Yorker cover

2008-07-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

After reading this article on WireTap magazine criticizing the recent New Yorker cover with the Obamas. Among other things, the article considers the image to be not satire but racism veiled as irony. One comment suggested that the image ought to be contained in the thought bubble of a bigot, to make explicitly clear that the image is "satire". But after reflecting on what the image says, as I should have already, I have come to appreciate the image as I think it was intended - a satire that challenged its readers to make their own judgments, and that implicates all of us in perpetuating the stereotypes it depicts, rather than blaming them on an imaginary bigot.

Good satire challenges the reader's own responsibility to the issue. If the New Yorker cover had a thought bubble from a "Fox News Exec" or a white hillbilly to clarify that the New Yorker does not believe these things about the Obamas, the reader would be excused from considering their own responsibility in propagating the false allegations and stereotypes. "Oh," we might think, "the New Yorker is not saying that I think this, or that our society is painting this picture". By blaming the racist images on another, the cover would excuse us from confronting our own complicity in propogating these ideas, and from considering how we out to respond to them on a personal level (Actually, the same cartoon with a thought bubble around it would be the real piece of racism).

Satire looses its bite when we contextualize it out of its meaning. The most famous piece of satire in perhaps all of English literature is Jonathan Swift's, "A Modest Proposal", in which he suggests that Irish babies ought to be eaten to control the island's population. At no point does he suggest that he's only joking. He also does not provide a literary thought bubble, such as "The following is what a bad person might say". He presents his case about baby eating and relies on the intelligence and morality of the reader to figure out that his piece is satire.

This New Yorker cover challenges us to confront our own stereotypes and make our own judgments. It neither blames the stereotypes on someone other than the reader nor relieves us of the responsibility of thinking about, understanding and then responding to the image ourselves.

When I first saw the cover, I, too, was shocked. But upon reflection, I think have learned a little about stereotypes and my own and my society's often unknowing role in propogating them. And isn't that exactly the point of good satire?

Governance without Government with Al Gore

2008-07-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

Maybe you have seen Al Gore's Challenge to the American people. We should come together as a county and abandon oil in 10 years. There are some interesting aspects in the speech that relate to expanding notions of what counts as governance.

For example, the video looks a great deal like what such a speech would look like if an elected leader had made it. American flags fill the back of the video. He is wearing a dark grey suit and a plain dark red tie, a favorite of Presidential candidates and Presidents alike. The video's framing suggests an official act of government.

Mr. Gore's language also links his challenge to Presidential acts of the past. He explicitly compares his challenge to President Kennedy's successful appeal to send an American to the moon.

The address is almost Presidential. It has the potential to guide viewers to link this challenge with official acts of government, and to view Al Gore's appeal almost like an appeal by government. With Congress and the President suffering historically low approval ratings, what does it mean when other leaders reach out to the country? It reminds me a little of how many of us found more comfort from Rudy Giuliani than the President after the attacks in New York City of 2001.

In both of these cases, it seems the institutions of national government have not filled the needs that many around the county feel. And so we turn to others who we think will lead our governance better than our government is doing.

Its curious that there is a distinction between governance and government, and that the latter is not always doing the former, and that the governed will search for their own sources of governance when their government is getting them what they want (and there are probably plenty of dangers with a situation like that, as well as opportunities).

But abstractions aside, its a little frightening that its happening now. Why is the national government having such a difficult time responding to an increasingly urgent crisis?

Here's the speech (And here's to hoping that we accept the challenge!):

Online organizing against lifting the ban

2008-07-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

Online organizing, with petitions, facebook groups and I recently heard about a Twitter petition, are one way to raise your voice (although don't stop there!).

Here is one petition against lifting the ban on drilling for more offshore oil. If you find others, please post them in the comments.

Only a dysfuctional system would drill for more

2008-07-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

CNN reports that Al Gore has come out strongly opposed to drilling for more oil.

"It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil 10 years from now," Gore said.

Mr. Gore puts very well what many of us have been wanting so badly to articulate. Another way to say it is to adjust an old truism - The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And the definition of insanity that gets you put away for being a danger to yourself and others is doing the same destructive thing over and over and expecting a different result.

To cure an addiction, you don't give yourself "just a little more" of your drug of choice, you find ways to take yourself off of it entirely.

CNN and Snow on a fine line

2008-04-22T09:36:00.003-07:00

CNN may not have learned much from yesterday's NYTimes
article about media independence.

The New York Times reported that the Pentagon and the Administration have been promoting their message about the Iraq war through the supposedly independent analysts that all of the major news outlets have been employing.

There is nothing wrong with the government trying to get its message out to the public. The problem is this: The news media and the government cultivated an illusion that these individuals were in fact independent voices. They wore the skin of unimpeachable and objective observers of world events. But they were in fact carefully cultivated by the administration to articulate a specific position on Iraq and the conflict there.

And now CNN has hired Tony Snow, former White House Press Secretary, as a political contributor. Perhaps they hired him explicitly to bring a conservative voice to the network. But I hope that CNN is very careful about the kind of commentary they ask from him.

Larry King asked him who would win in November. Tony Snow replied, "I think [Sen. John] McCain's going to win, actually, because I think security and the economy both break his way."

Statements like this are fine if Mr. Snow is clearly portrayed as an advocate and not an objective analyst of political affairs. But it seems like it would be quite easy for him to take on the air of an analyst. At that point, statements of advocacy masked as analysis become at least a little pernicious.

McCain's Borrow and Spend Bill

2008-04-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

S. 2890 a bill introduced by Sen. John McCain.

OpenCongress describes this bill as intended "to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for a highway fuel tax holiday." The bill will eliminate the gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day of 2008.

Even McCain acknowledges that the money of the gas tax goes to something useful. So to make up the difference, his bill will replace the funds lost from the tax with money from the General Treasury. In essence, Sen. McCain is borrowing money from an already cash strapped federal government that is paying for two wars, huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and out-of-control defense spending.

Once again, a leader of the Republican Party is borrowing money from the government and tax-paying citizens to fund a project with only short term benefits and long term negative economic and environmental consequences.

Some complain that the Democratic party likes to "tax and spend". As this bill demonstrates, the Republican party is just as fond of spending (if not more so), but it gets shy when it comes to asking for the funds to pay for its adventures in foreign countries.

Proposing taxes sufficient to their spending would force the GOP to be accountable to an American public that is reluctant to have its money spent on frivolous projects. Instead, the GOP has developed a penchant for cutting taxes and hiding its spending by borrowing.

It borrows from social programs like education and social security. It borrows from the health of the environment. It borrows from workers' livelihoods. It borrows from the resources and the people that the United States needs to rely on in the future.

Collaborative law-making, Law professors debate and a web 2.0 project creates

2008-04-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Penn Law Professors debate collaborative environmental law-making

Here are their arguments, as I understand them:

Coglianese argues that the purpose of environmental law-making should be the greatest public good, and that collaborative law-making processes become dedicated not to the public good, but to making a deal among competing interests. The results of such processes then often reflect the lowest common denominator to which parties could agree.

Orts argues that command-and-control statutory processes for environmental law-making are just as dominated by deal-making as collaborative processes, but at least the latter invites deal-making into the open. The principle weakness of command-and-control law-making is that (1) law-makers do not have all the information that they would need to make a good decision and a collaborative process would find more information and that (2) policy decisions are value judgments and collaborative processes can enable those who hold opposing values to negotiate a settlement, rather than allowing the decision to be made by third-party policy-makers.

As a partisan of Wiki-wisdom and participatory civil society, I lean towards Orts at first. But Coglianese's criticisms strike several serious blows. For example, I can accept that many policy decisions are values judgments that can't be decided by "experts". When the law-makers are not elected by and accountable to the public, then I would agree that these individuals should not adjudicate the values of a community they do not legitimately represent. But if they are elected officials, they are not alien "experts", but rather individuals chosen precisely to make these value judgments on behalf of the community. In the end I am torn between their two arguments.

So to cut the gordion knot, I'll just point to a different model of collaborative law-making. (Whew. Two paths diverged and I left the forest) At PublicMarkup.org the Sunlight Foundation has written a piece of proposed legislation entitled, "Transparency in Government Act". The bill's text is written like blog entries - un-editable to users. But there is endless space for comments next to the text. And the bill's authors are free to incorporate or not incorporate comments into their text.

This model escapes the deal-making, lowest-common-denominator-finding problem that Coglianese associates with collaborative law-making. How? It says, "Forget you. This is my bill, and it will say exactly what I want it to say". But it is collaborative in two senses. First, it is collaborative in the sense that the software and mission of the site invite participation from internet users. Second, the bill takes shape in public and outside of the traditional avenues of bill creation such as closed Congressional legislative shops.

In this way, PublicMarkup.org does not dilute its strength through collaboration, while at the same time earning the benefits of public participation, debate, fact-gathering and perspective-enlarging.

A caveat: the PublicMarkup.org process is an iterative one. It supplements rather than replaces traditional legislative processes, because its bill must still be introduced, accepted and legitimized by a representatives of the entire community.

I'm so excited about PublicMarkup.org and the prospect of open-source, publicly created legislation that it seems likely there will be more about it on this blog....

:)

Too much division of labor causes a dearth of democracy?

2008-04-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

John Dunn in his book Democracy. A History quotes the French revolutionary theorist, the Abbe Sieyes,

The more a society advances in the arts of trade and production, the moore we see the work connected to public functions should, like private employments, be carried out less expensively and more effectively by men who make it their exclusive occupation.

For one thing, the quote illustrates that Marx was not the first theorist of capitalism to influence and inspire revolutionary thought. Dunn points out that Sieyes' determination that public offices should be held by career public officials in an advanced society comes directly from Adam Smith and his theories of the division of labor.

And today, public functions are often carried out by men and women who exclusively occupy them. Our vision of modern democracy is deeply intertwined with this vision of divided labor throughout society. This vision contrasts sharply with democracy's first fans. In ancient Athens, each citizen (of course, those citizens were only upper class wealthy males) had a responsibility to participate in public life. Today many people shy away from participating in public roles that reach outside of their job description.

What does it mean for a state with democratic aspirations to nurture a culture which tells people to butt out of public affairs unless they are professionals? Do we have a duty to play a role in governing our community?

To the media: don't hush democratic politics!

2008-02-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

CNN is not the only news source saying that "Democrats dread drawn-out, costly campaign."

This is a sort of wacky argument. Elections are supposed to be opportunities for Americans to choose their elected officials. In a related point, a person's vote is supposed to mean something.

Now let's consider the GOP. With Romney gone and Huckabee not doing too well, McCain seems to be the Republican nominee. This is true despite the fact that many Republican states have yet to vote. So every voter who lives in a state that has not yet voted is effectively disenfranchised by the early end of the Republican race for the nomination.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats in states like Maryland and Pennsylvania have a rare opportunity - for the first time in a long time - our votes for the Democratic candidate are meaningful. Don't lets let this power go to our heads.

The power of the vote exists whatever CNN says. But its message is nonetheless damaging. When major media outlets predict winners, those choices become more likely to win simply by virtue of having been choses as a winner. Perceptions of "who is going to win" will influence people's decisions about who to vote for.

So by saying the Democratic party is in trouble because the race might not be over long before the finish line, CNN is supporting the GOP over the Democratic party. This is just as bad as when its analysts suggest the GOP is split and weak because its members disagree with each other.

The democratic process NEEDS conflict. It needs individuals and parties to disagree with one another, and it relies on different interests getting together to hash out compromises and build new common ground.

Message to CNN: Stop stuffing the ballot boxes of public discourse, and let democracy, in all its squalid glory, function as intended.

And to the Democratic Party: Fight. For all you're worth, fight for what you believe in, as long you keep your ethics and your moral standards about you.

Here's to a long race and an exciting convention!

The Wallists - What kind of security do we really want?

2008-02-06T10:50:00.000-08:00

"They made a desert and called it peace"

There is an article in Le Monde today titled (trans. by me) "Israel may build a wall on the Egyptian frontier". This new wall is a response to Monday's suicide attack in Israel in which two Palestinians allegedly slipped into Israel from Egypt. You may also remember a few days ago that Palestinians managed to get through a breach in a border wall into Egypt and transported food, fuel and furniture back into the Gaza Strip.

There are a lot of walls being thrown up in democratic countries these days. Israel has got a big one. US politicians on the right love to talk about "securing the border" with a fence and super-modern surveillance gadgetry. What is behind all this "wallism"? And where's it headed?

I don't know, but it seems to me that many people have been seduced by a particular variety of security. They have come to see "security" as the absence of foreign threats. If you build walls and watch people carefully, you can keep foreign threats away.

Unfortunately, it is hard to determine how far "wallism" would let itself go. If one's answer to feelings of insecurity is to restrict movement and keep people farther apart from each other, domestic security will come to depend increasingly upon walls as well. How to keep inner city crime out of the suburbs? Build a wall. How to keep suburban crime out of the downtown business district? Build a wall. And outside of their home districts, only let people travel to their places of business.

Security is more subtle than walls. It is not just a negative "absence of danger", it is a positive feeling of well-being and connectedness to one's surroundings.

Israel's new wall seems to me to be a sign that it is getting too easy to answer the problems of security by building walls. We are right expect "security" from our politicians, but I don't think we should be so eager to accept such a false solution.

2008-01-20T11:23:00.000-08:00

I am wondering about the real importance of blogging to democracy.

Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture agrees with many other advocates of the blog. He argues that blogs allow for asynchronous public discourse. That is, discourse in which people talk about public issues, but they don't all have to be in the same place at the same time. For decades, local democratic traditions of town halls and the like have been atrophying. Lessig and others believe that blogs create a kind of virtual town hall. They also argue that blogs take control of public discourse out of the hands of the corporations that own the news media.

On the other hand, other internet experts have pointed out, correctly, I think, that the internet tends to make people focus on their own increasingly small areas of interest and expertise. I could read blogs all day and only ever read ones that I agree with.

So are blogs a tool of democracy or of narcissism? I guess it depends on how a blogger uses them. But are there rules or cultural norms that bloggers should be expected to follow to make blogs a more effective space for public debate?

Watch the author of Fast Food Nation on Fora.TV

2007-12-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

I recommend very highly this interview of the author of Fast Food Nation and other important works about the reality of the American economy.

His work serves to illustrate his two most important points. First, he argues that the economy's structure, more than any "evil" power-brokers, that depresses the wages of the poor and middle class, and neglects consumers' safety. He offers the example of a CEO who supports unfair wages to protect his or her corporation's profits. Were this person replaced today, the new CEO tomorrow would have to keep doing the same thing. Its the structure of our economy's laws and regulations that force corporations to behave as they do.

As another example, he recalls speaking with meat packing executives appalled by the conditions of their workers. But as long as any competitor is allowed to abuse employees for the sake of profit, other companies will be forced to do so. Or face losing their businesses.

His second point regards the mythology surrounding the "Free Market". Many corporations and political leaders advocate for diminished government regulation of health standards, environmental standards and wage standards in the name of the "Free Market". But Schlosser points out that even 100 years ago, a pro-business republican administration (Teddy Roosevelt) recognized that left to their own devices and abandoned to the pressures of unregulated competition, corporations themselves would destroy their own markets. Free markets, America understood a century ago, require structure and boundaries to remain free over time.

Of course, Schlosser says all this better than I do, so please check out the video.

Tonight at rehearsal

2007-08-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight at rehearsal for Anything Goes the male voices were, as usual, a great deal quieter than the ladies'. The women, especially the younger school-aged ones were pretty confident with their parts, even when reading them for the first time. The guys sat nervously and affected macho poses while trying to make sure that wrong notes were too soft to be noticed.

The effect endured when we took a break. Many of the women chatted and most of us men sat with our arms folded or eyes buried pointlessly in sheet music. Real men, we all know, aren't "chatty" (Although research shows men and women talk equally much - manly stoicism is a story we tell and impose)

What difference does our hard concepts of masculinity impose on our government and culture, I wonder? At the least, our community theater might be better. At best?

Carnival of Conflict 4

2007-08-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you for the excellent posts this month. The Carnival's contributors have highlighted a spectrum of conflicts from the political to the personal. It strikes me that in these, as well as in posts from other editions and from all over the internet, we bloggers tend to be very explicit. Our political commentary is direct and we say precisely what we mean.

Where is the place for illusion in our arguments and critiques? We like to use short metaphors from the arts ("political theater", grandstanding") and and other sources, but even in our metaphors we tend to like our phrases to only mean one thing at a time.

Is it something to do with the medium of blogging? Did we just not learn the art of
storytelling as children? As you go through the posts this month, perhaps you can think about how we are writing, and how that might shape what we say.

And perhaps the ways in which we choose to fight shape the outcomes of our battles.

International

Esther Garvi argues that hate won't bring justice in African politics in Love vs. Hate.

Domestic

What would Jesus do about health care in America? Tracee Sioux argues for universal care as a Christian value.

The United States has had many "Foundings", and Ashok considers two of the earliest in his post, For Resolution: In what way are the Founding Fathers religious?

YID with Lid considers NGO accountability in Israel in the post, New Israel Fund to NGO Monitor: How DARE YOU TELL PEOPLE THE TRUTH!

Steven Silvers discusses the departure of two anti-WalMart political leaders for Presidential campaign jobs. Is he right when he suggests WakeUpWalMart defections might mean union-backed activist groups have done all they can do"?
Democracy vs. universal suffrage by Gavin Putland calls for a new kind of electoral college to rationalize democratic politics.

Lucynda Riley shares an article from the Seattle Times about standardization of schoool curricula in her post, This is why my son is homeschooled.

Is the filibuster a good tool or a grandstanding device in the US Senate? Mad CKane , in her song parody, Yet another filibuster song parody (The Full-a-Bluster Song) , says that the GOP can like it or dislike it, depending on what's convenient.

In Democratic Letter Writers Don't Think and The Writer Who Cried Wolf , Adam Graham criticizes a left-leaning letter to the editor.

Indigo Warrior introduces us to a new blog in Welcome to my Blogspot and shares a conviction about civic responsibility.

Bill Dvorak philosophizes on Politics: the choice that determines humanity's fate

Doug Ragan encourages the right wing to keep taking advantage of the Internet for supporting grassroots politiking on the immigration debate in What Everyone Missed in the Immigration Debate

Personal

There is A Bear in the Neighborhood! and Sheppard Salter asks what to do about it. Laws, safety, doubt and fear all mix to present a dilemma. Could the bear situation also be a metaphore?

Article Syndication: The Sky is the limit so explore and aim for the sky by Mike Harmon offers strategies for spreading your message to readers through the internet.

Kristie Watson discusses the difficulty of resolving arguments when love and money are both involved, and the importance of compromise. The post is Marriage vs. money

Laura Young offers advice for how to stay cool in difficult interactions in Money, Honey, Part 2: Never Assume...

Pres. Hugo Chavez's threat

2007-07-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

CNN's story yesterday about Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: Chavez calls Honduran cardinal 'imperialist clown'

The story itself isn't too surprising, but it reminded me why I think President Chavez is a negative force in the Americas.

I agreed with some lefties' optimism about him when I visited Venezuela in 2006 for the World Social Forum (a gathering of thousands of activists for networking and workshops). One of the crowning events was a rally with Chavez and Cindy Sheehan and other luminaries. Before the rally I could believe in Chavez' role as a liberator and warrior against the tyranny of Western capitalist oppression. It was easy to see and hear about the good things he's done for the country, not least of which is overturning the western idea that national success lies in ever greater reliance on free markets and corporations. Plus, Chavez was hosting the Forum, which focuses exclusively on how nonviolent, diverse activism. It seemed to me he really was categorically different from the way the US Administration likes to portray him.

However the rally was chock full of military symbolism. Chavez's supporters wore red berets. Dancers even attacked with foam swords a black cloth with symbols of corporate logos. In one biography of Chavez, he explains that one goal of his Bolivarian revolution is to ease distinctions between the military and civilians. One one hand this means the military is expected to help civilians more, but one the other hand, it seems to me this philosophy threatens to militarize the entire society.

And the news of Venezuela's treatment of the freedom of the press keeps getting worse. And will Chavez willingly relinquish power, or will he keep amending the constitution to keep himself on top?

In the end, I think neither side is right about Chavez. He's not a bloodthirsty dictator, exploiting the people. But he's not a savior of the left, either. It may be that in his conviction about what is right for his country, he cares more about the ends of achieving justice than the means.

And if the best progressive leaders in history have taught us anything, its that lasting peace must be achieved peacefully, and lasting justice must be achieved justly.

CNN Debates unpredictable?

2007-07-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

Watching the coverage of the CNN YouTube debates, Mr. Cooper and the other pundits seem to be talking a great deal about how the debate format, featuring questions from YouTube users, is a victory for popular participation in politics. "Ordinary people" are able to ask their questions. The debate, they argue is more 'genuine' and unpredictable because the People are asking their questions.

But really? 2,900 people submitted videos. CNN picked 37 to show to the candidates. How unpredictable could they be, when the debate organizers can pick the questions they want to ask from such variety.

I love the format, and I think its very exciting, but in itself its really no less orchestrated than traditional debates. What the format does is shows us the next steps to take - bring citizens deeper into state politics and local politics. Leaders should craft policies that make it easier for citizens to participate and harder for money to talk.

The YouTube CNN debates is a great start, and from steps like this we start rebuilding American democracy.

Blog Carnival #3 - Text Only

2007-06-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Carnival of Conflict's 3rd Edition - Text Only

Most of the conflicts that submitters write about this month are domestic. And I think that leads to an interesting idea about the times we live in. The conflicts around us today tend to be pretty clearly political ones, in which the line between domestic and international is grey. Take one common topic for this Carnival, the war in Iraq. The fighting is completely real, but who still believes it will be resolved through force alone?

Its comforting to believe in non-political contests between rivals' brute strength. For Americans, it is a narrative structure that has served us well in the past, because it makes political questions, questions of identity and culture, much easier. If its us doing it, its right. Maybe its a tactic societies have always used. Probably binary systems of one society coherently struggling against another have never existed, despite the myth. This month's posts seem to confirm that there are not issues that only pertain to "us", an "other", or a clear conflict between these two. When Hakim Abdullah asks, Is Islam Compatible with Democracy? the answer matters to societies on every continent. When Grey Swan asks Are we too tolerant? the answer is important in inner cities as well as in the prison cells of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

The politics of fear, Ian Welsh's topic in Ok, Once More: No Existential Threat , are useful to cast individuals into playing their parts in the old two-sided story. But as Muse points out in How about... Rebuild Sderot Underground? there is no national bunker to seal one society off from the rest of the world. No nation is an island (even those that-technically-are islands), and conflicts between nations are also domestic conflicts as well.

An old poem gives a lesson. In the Iliad , Achilles is the symbol of physical strength and there is no man, not even mighty Hector that can stand against him. But religion, embodied by the fractious greek pantheon, brings him down. It is Odysseus, the most cunning politician of the Argives that finally defeats strong-walled Ilium by tricking them into creating their own defeat. Even all those centuries ago, a poet tells us that conflict is shaped not by arms, but by thought.

I hope you enjoy the Carnival, and please join the discussion!

International

Is censorship right? by Pooj.

Hakim Abdullah asks, Is Islam Compatible with Democracy?

Close Guantanamo demands Anja Merret. There is no excuse, she argues, for the mistreatment of those in American custody in Cuba.

Domestic

Undercover Black Man shares Songs of Negro patriotism , exploring the relationship between race, power and war.

In Is Politics Reducible to Rhetoric?" Ashok tries to untangle politics and rhetoric with help from Machiavelli, the sophists of Greece, and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
When the media hurts by Alfa King deals with freedom of the press.

Ian Welsh speaks out against the politics of fear in the United States in Ok, Once More: No Existential Threat

Muse offers a solution to calm fears of terrorism: make everyone live in and underground bunker. The article is How about... Rebuild Sderot Underground?

Partisanship in Congress and divisions caused by the immigration reform bill are Troy Stouffer's subject in Republican Backstabbing and Political Suicide .

Mad Kane targets Mr. Giuliani for parody in The GOP's in for a Rudy Awakening

Hell's Handmaiden finds what she shares in common with a soldier in Me and the Guy in the Army

Are we too tolerant? by Grey Swan discusses how society should respond to memorials to victims (who were sometimes perpetrators) of violent crimes in inner cities.

Lucinda Riley writes about executive privilege and the Bush Administration in This is shocking .

William Dvorak makes a case for anarchism in The Political Norm of Centuries .

eHarmony complaint proves once again that lawsuits are a great way to generate serious publicity for extremist silliness by Steven Silvers is about the press' response to a lawsuit about sexual orientation descrimination.

The legacy of 'Macaca' is alive and well for The Richmond Democrat in this post on YouTube politics and George Allen.

Freethought community still united by vjack

Personal

Chris finds totalitarian and Maoist tendencies in behavior on the web in Wushu and the Second Cultural Revolution

How to complain and get a good result by Paul Michael

A poem from a dead boy by Ken Nubo offers wisdom on living life in the moment.

Male v. Female Spirituality by Brandon Peele examines how people relate to spirituality and philosophy.

Sheppard Salter identifies More Scams that Sabotage the Simple Life

Thanks for coming to the carnival, and I look forward to your responses.
Find out about submitting your work to the carnival here.

Read Ehrenreich's Article

2007-06-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

Her article in The Nation is a fun read as well as an important one. Her point in a nutshell is that the staggeringly vast inequality of America's economy is bad for our economy and our society.

Its no surprise that the ridiculous class differences in the US are bad for democracy, but Ehrenreich also points out that it is bad for the economy too. We talk about sustainability a lot these days, (see Fora.tv for more on this topic) and an economy that concentrates wealth and power in an increasingly small group at an accelerating rate is not a sustainable economy.

My favorite quote from the article: "As the Times puts it: "It's as if every household in that bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent."

But what to do about it? Is it enough to just increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans? There are plenty or corporate jobs that people just wouldn't do if they couldn't make scads of money doing it...is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Are there other strategies that should be used instead/as well? Could there be changes to legal codes governing corporations?

The article is a good read, and a good thought-provoker, too.

Farming co-op?

2007-06-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

I'd like to write more about this idea later, but I'd just like to throw it out there tonight to see if anybody knows any resources I should look at...

What if we started in the county a farming cooperative? Howard County, like many counties, is hemorrhaging farmland, and none, I suspect, is safe from the endless thirst of housing developers to build mcMansions. What if instead the County acquired farmland for community farming?

People would sign up to perform tasks associated with the farm, from working the land to administrative tasks, etc. They would be paid in credits, which would be cashed in for a proportional share of the farm's produce.

This could be a terrific pedagogical tool, allowing students to participate in a project that gets them outside, working on a project with real tangible results and tangible applications of the chemistry, biology, math and other lessons they learn in school. And working side by side with other community members, the farm would help get kids and other community members reconnected to each other.

Also, since work would be by the credit system, and the farm would be open to all who cared to register, people could be very flexible about their schedules, and work as little as they like.

It sounds like a very challenging project to organize, logistically and legally...but I think the potential benefits are pretty substantial. Has something like this already been put into practice?

"Art for sale"

2007-06-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

A new picture I made today:

"Art for sale" is the name. I'm not actually trying to sell anything.

Habermas article about free press

2007-06-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Jurgen Habermas, one of the foremost theorists of civil society today, argues in How to save the quality press? for state support of the free press.

The core of his argument is that markets, which once supported the independence of the press and its role in a healthy public sphere, now threaten the independence of the press and its role in democracy. When media outlets must be as profitable as possible in order to survive, they will cease to provoke, to introduce new ideas to the public sphere (or the state agenda). They will simply be mirrors that reflect and then reinforce the preconceptions of an increasingly uncritical public.

Habermas states his argument very well, and we can see around us examples of what he fears. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show continuously levels criticism at CNN and other major news outlets for selling news as a consumer commodity and not as a public good. Flash, fear-baiting and celebrity chasing are all tactics media outlets chasing dollars must turn to for survival.

Anderson Cooper said it well during his interview on the Daily Show. Stewart criticized the glitz of CNN television with its 3-D animations, scary-voiced announcers and melodramatic reporting. Cooper replied that you have to play the game. When your ability to report - your ability to communicate with the public - depends on the money you can bring to the station, the winner is going to be the one who feeds news consumers what they want.

Habermas' proposed solution is state support of the media to protect its ability to report honestly. And after reading the article, I'm inclined to agree.

Carnival of Maryland, 8th Edition

2007-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

Though she is but small, she is fierce

says Helena about Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. This edition of the Carnival of Maryland shows that the Old Line state is likewise small but home to many fiercly dedicated to a wide variety of pursuits, from nature to politics and from gaming to graduation.

Which highlights a classic connundrum of our age. How are we to celebrate and promote diversity of perspectives and then draw particular lessons from what we have experienced? Each of us, after seeing these posts, understands "Maryland" a little differently. For me, I feel a little closer now to the state's urban life - its baseball, its bookstores, and to its local government. How do the posts of this edition influence your perception of Maryland?

Derek theorizes about Blizzard's Next Move: The Future After Starcraft II

Images of one of Maryland's best known migratory bird species at Geese in the summer by The Ridger.

Stan Modjesky considers contemporary literary culture from a book-seller's perspective in Book-burning in Kansas City.

A 50 year plan: Social Security by Michael Swartz provides an analysis of social security.

Alwitt Xu provides a list of CSS resources for web design at CSS Tools Collection.

Soccer Dad expresses sympathy for the travails of Orioles' manager, Sam Perlezzo in Embattled.

Exhasperated with overcrowded schools and irresponsible development, John Harris proposes, Wicomico County should enact a building moratorium.

John Harris also shares his perspective on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in Let us finish our mission.

Commencement by therapydoc explores the author's complicated relationship to graduations. We love them, we dread them, we anticipate them eagerly, and they bore us silly. Why, in the end, do we do it?

Joyce Dowling writes about events in Prince George's County including a Juneteenth even on Creating a Jubilee County: Price George's Co., MD.

Joining the celebration of Rachel Carson's centenary, Pinenut writes about Carson, her connection to Silver Spring, and the events commemorating her life today in Rachel Carson's Silver Spring.

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I hope you have enjoyed the Carnival of Maryland, and I hope you will consider submitting your work to the next edition. Find out how here.

Anti-Globalisation Protest in Germany

2007-06-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

The BBC runs a story today about a large protest rally in Germany to protest the upcoming G-8 meeting there. These protests happen fairly regularly, and the question on the minds of many is: does it work?

Or perhaps more accurately, most have decided their answer to that question, and far too many have decided, NO, protest rallies are not effective at changing policy.

But its not too difficult to see that demonstrations are more effective than they get credit for being. It seems to me they serve three primary purposes.

1) Expose policies as contested: Many CEOs and right-wing think tanks would have people around the world believe that laissez-faire economic policies are generally accepted by the peoples of the developed world as the right way to run international economics. But these policies are not clear cut and there is not consensus about them. A protest demonstrates to undecideds that there is a debate to be had on a subject, and that their participation in the debate is important.

2) Build connections and solidarity within a movement: When thousands of individuals participate in a single rally together, they are likely to strengthen the ties of ideology that bind them. At the rally they may make new contacts with other activists, learn and develop new ideas for further action, and deepen the cultural appeal and strength of the movement. Consider the prevalence of different kinds of political theater during rallies: giant puppets, people in costumes, etc. These are designed to look good in the media, but also to strengthen the social bonds among protesters. Then when marchers go home, they are full of new ideas and energy for carrying the movement forward.

3) Support elites' efforts to change policy: Perhaps the best example of this was the famous Battle in Seattle , when protests helped create an atmosphere in which negotiators from developing countries were more able to resist the pressure of concession-hungry G-8 negotiators. Maybe protests are unlikely to change the minds of those dead-set to oppose them. But they can certainly shape the opinions of those in and out of power who have yet to take an active role in a debate.

So will the rally in Germany be effective in these respects? Tens of thousands of people think so strongly enough to go there. For now, at least, I'm willing to take their word for it.

Learning about art and power

2007-05-30T16:46:00.001-07:00

Today I'm starting research about the relationship between art and power for a short essay.

It seems now that it is a relationship defined, like so many other relationships, by contention among competing forces. There is art that provides alternatives to state power, and this kind of art tends to be emphasized pretty heavily today - art as emancipation for sub-altern groups.

On the other hand many kinds of art have also been defined by ruling classes - the tradition of portrait painting was, at least at first, produced by artists for the wealthy.

One thing that seems pretty constant. Artists, practicing skills that do not directly produce the goods they need for life, need support from other parts of society. Long ago, metal-working artists practiced their craft (and perhaps even invented their craft) for the benefit of kings and nobles. At other times society or wealthy patrons have taken it upon themselves as a collective to support artistic endeavors. In the latter case, artists tend to be more free to do work that is not for the benefit of any particular individual or client, but is rather directed at all of society.

Many questions emerge. What about this artist/not-artist dichotomy? Can people include artistic production in their lives without being solely artists? Is that a possibility that modern digital media make more available or less available than it has been in the past? And would it be positive or negative to have more self-supported amateur artists?

And the boundaries of "art"...is a YouTube video art? Could software be art?

Carnival of Conflict #2

2007-05-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the May 29, 2007 edition of the Carnival of Conflict. Thank you to all who participated this month. We have great posts, and I look forward to the discussion.

For information about the Carnival including a description, archives and instructions for submitting your own posts to the next carnival, visit here.

Iraq is on the minds of many in the Carnival of Conflict this month. Some, such as Anja Merret and madcap discuss the war explicitly. Others are concerned with related issues of international and domestic strife. Faisal Devji considers the relationship of Islam and Christitanity in Europe. Tim , Doug Ragan and Mad Kane are writing about domestic conflict that stems from the war, continents away from policy-makers and some of the citizens concerned about it. (Which asks the question, "could the citizens of Iraq, the US, the UK and other nations talk to each other?)

Other carnies write about other conflicts. Alfa King's topic is labor organizing. Samir poses for the internet age a question that has been on the minds of democratic theorists for centuries. Is it so great to let the people decide? Who died and made us king?

For all the strife around the world and in the pages of this carnival, I think we see here a pretty good example of why democracy is something in which we should continue to engage. John Harper explains his belief that violence takes more shapes than we realize. Even not trusting a person can be a form of violence, he says. Violent conflict, then, is a pattern that reappears at every level of our society, from military conflict in Israel and Palistine (and over Jewish identity) to college campuses to emotionally abusive inlaws. Violent and destructive conflict takes many forms, it seems, but it is one principle repeating in many contexts.

Could it be that strategies for managing interpersonal conflict, such as those discussed by
Chris and CA could help channel conflict in other forms? I think that making this connection among different kinds of conflict is a powerful argument for democratic forms of government.

Democracy, or more simply the ability of individuals to participate in questioning, improving and celebrating society, gives us the chance to understand the perspectives of those in each part of our society. Through discussion (and blog carnivals) violent conflict can be a seed for productive conflict such as respectful debate over ideas and principles.

Thanks so much for your posts this month, and as always, I hope you'll join the discussion below. (And include your comments about how to make the carnival better!)

Enjoy!

International

Anja Merret asks What about the war in Iraq, Mr. Brown?

madcap considers war-time rhetoric in Berlin by Christmas or Just Forget About It

Islam's role in Europe is the subject of Christendom's Muslim Midwife: Part I by Faisal Devji

Tim reacts to a proposal of Senator McCain for a new approach to international peace and conflict in Senator John McCain Envisions A League of Democracies

Domestic

Adam Graham wants to Politicize Everything

Union Leaders demonstrate as NPC holds its first meeting by Alfa King

Sammy Benoit says Tom Friedman is Only Trying to Protect the Jews

Ted Reimers discusses Ways to Increase Security and Safety on College Campuses

Samir asks about democratic fundamentals in Tyrannis Populi: Who are 'the people' anyway and who says they are always right?

If This Is True, My Head May Explode by Mad Kane

Jason Kirk parodies the gun control debate in The Oven Control Debate

Doug Ragan writes about conflict in the US legislative branch in Bush's Approval Rating at 33%, Congress 29%

Bill Towson asks, Is the Military Outdated?

Personal

Withholding Violence by John Harper

Tim Abbott explores a balance between avoiding and seeking conflict in Elephants in the Room

Chris discusses a visual model for dealing with interpersonal conflict in Breaking the Drama Triangle

Alwitt Xu provides a CSS tools collection.

Good Riddance Rosie O'Donnell by Tracy Coenen

Sheila C. introduces her family in My In-Laws Rolled In a Gigantic Nutshell of Chocoloate-Covered Psychosis

Business life lesson - conflict resolution by CA

Thanks for coming to the carnival, and I look forward to your responses.

Find out about submitting your work to the carnival here.