Perspicuity

Ukrainian Lovliness

2004-11-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

Perspicuity

Thinking on the tension in Ukraine over election results, the raw political collectivist in me wants to somewhat rejoice. People in the West of that ancient breadbasket have decided that dishonest election results may just lead them to secede. After the Nov. 2 elections in The United States of America, there was a palpable fear that someone would uncover an ugly blight in the election system, and people would get angry together. What I see in Ukraine is a willingness to throw order and prosperity to the lukewarm in exchange for justice.
Even not being on the ground, there is a convincing plethora of documentation circumscribing the faulty election results in Russia’s crowned jewel. The people beating on garbage cans and chanting in the streets know this. They aren’t young beneficiaries, or pensioners, or criminals. They are everyone that wants to be free in Ukraine; everyone who is willing to risk security for a voice.
This isn’t to say that America’s election results were definitely forged. For valid opposing viewpoints one might look to David Corn and Greg Palast: the situation is more complicated than a few broken voting machines and a few million spoiled ballots. But what should be shameful to every American is the apprehension with which most journalists, and political commentators of all colors, step daintily around the issue of electoral fraud in the U.S. It’s almost as if we would rather not know: just like we would rather not see the mutilated bodies of our soldiers in Iraq, or smell the stench of burning dehumanization everywhere.
The niff of singed hair and entrails enhancing the asbestos saturated Manhattan air in the days after September 11th 2001 has become a folk legend of sorts. It’s rare a listener doesn’t hear an “I was there,” without the redounding echo of horror and shock manifesting a pseudo-collective awe and disgust at the imagined malodor. We don’t like to see the obliterated flesh of our bombed victims in America. It might upset our stomachs to even know that civilians are killed in our practically indiscriminate bombing raids throughout the world. So our government writes euphemisms for us, like they write our history in the language of folk-story-patriotism: a sanitized landscape of chopped down cherry trees with sugar on top, and Emancipation Proclaimationed slaves. We might get miffed if we knew our election system was a verifiable joke. Why cause ourselves undue alarm? That would be childish and naive. What can we do about it anyway? Nobody listens when we cry. Nobody cares.
Tell that to the people in Ukraine.

Journalistic Integrity

2004-11-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

Perspicuity
Below is a letter I sent to Jane Eisner, a journalist writing for The Philadelphia Enquirer. It was in response to her column encouraging honest debate over the Abortion issue. In her column(http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/10149899.htm), she defends the appointment of David Hager to the FDA's advisory committee concerning Reproductive Health and Science.

Jane Eisner,

I was completely unware of David Hager's political and religious beliefs until I read your column. However, being in complete agreement with you as to how propaganistic, emotionally charged, reactions to political appointments are detracting and discursively unproductive (to a large extent), I cannot help but notice certain journalistic choices you've made in your interest. I'm curious as to why you decided to go right to Hager and ask him what he thought, without also presenting an opposing (informed) view. If you couldn't find one, you could have presented a reasonable reconstruction of the reasons one would be alarmed by some of Hager's views. I don't think you could have reasonably expected Hager to tell you he was against contraception and thought premarital sex was a sin--unless you pushed him into it; which it doesn't seem like you did. I'm also very interested as to how and when you came across the ad hoc study you cited--the one by Stassen and Crane. It seems to me that you may have come across that information first, then got perturbed by the attacks concerning Hager's views you came across. If it happened that you were perturbed first, then sought out studies to support your opinion--which has been couched in an interview with David Hager--you should perhaps reconsider your journalistic impulses. The study is weak and incomplete: it barely conceals a blatant attempt to disguise opinion in cheap science.
Your concern with reducing the number of abortions seems to be underpinned by an honorable and sound moral opinion. But in the end, your statement that we should have an honest debate seems to fly in the face of your journalistic choices.

Perspicuity

2004-11-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

Perspicuity

11/09/2004

The news of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s resignation is being received throughout the free world as its death knell. In a five-page letter dated Nov. 2, Mr. Ashcroft said “The objective of securing the safety of American’s from crime and terror has been accomplished.” The gall-bladderless public servant went on to inform the President that he believes his “energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons.”
There can barely be proposed a gentleman of more varied distinction in protecting the rights of American’s against trivial infringements; a champion of individual rights that has more tirelessly protected the hides of Americans from the hordes of barbaric-human-skin collectors currently conspiring in the ad hoc organization better known as Al Queda.
Mr Ashcroft’s five page letter of departure has been most negatively received by hard-core liberals. Noam Liebewitz was quoted by Intra-Press Service as saying dejectedly “the world has lost a civil servant of unparalleled reasonableness and dedication to human rights, in its unfortunate loss of John Ashcroft to the wolves of private sector solicitousness.” Other notably disappointed groups include Americans For The Separation of Church and State, and FreeThinkers.org. Randy Holmland, speaking in representation of the former, said “Mr. Ashcroft was the first high level American diplomat to seek a true materialization of Jefferson’s proposed ‘wall of separation between church and state.’ Hillary Tuft of Freethinkers.org said “John, and I call him John because he had given me such unprecedented access to his office and private time that we had dispensed with surnames, was an honest student of James Madison. He was particularly astute in carrying Madison’s secular funding plan to its logical conclusion.” Ms. Tuft claims to have heard John Ashcroft declare “give me privately funded church outreach programs, or give me Sunday prayer meetings in the White House with every important member of President Bush’s cabinet.”
So long to America’s most secular attorney general in its lengthening history. In eulogizing his resignation, this author has composed the following poem titled “Departure.”

I wouldn’t write a poem about

things that have no shape; no container.
I wouldn’t write a poem about
things that cannot be conceived.

So I wouldn’t write about space and time,
nor about that binding thing
that holds things
together.

I wouldn’t write a poem about you or I...
and just because I wouldn’t
I am.

May his memory remain unusurped by the conservative hounds of misappropriation and fictional vindictiveness.

***News Flash***
In other developments, President Bush has finally approved an American Military invasion of The North Pole. After months of public debate, The President feels he has a mandate to “seek out the evildoers wherever they may hide.” Based upon secret intelligence dossiers, The Defense Department has concluded that “only Santa Claus has the kind of intelligence gathering capabilities that could have facilitated the atrocities of 911.” Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfiwitz told reporters “it’s obvious that Santa has aligned himself with Al Queda. If you had access to the intelligence I do, you’d come to the same conclusion.”
The military endeavor is being dubbed “Operation Phantom Elves,” and will commence with the firing of depleted uranium cruise missiles from Alaska. Soon afterward, an amphibious assault team will beach on the western seaboard of the Arctic Circle. The biggest difficulty of the operation, according to Donald Rumsfeld, will be “in locating the exact coordinates of Santa’s workshop. Since the wily old chap has never allowed anyone to follow him back to the headquarters of his evil enterprise, Rumsfeld said, “we have to smoke him out of his hole.” In the meantime, defense officials say, “the amphibious assault team will drill for oil in the pristine arctic plains.” A state department official, on condition of anonymity, has said “this operation may significantly complicate Christmas, but the defense department is hellbent on putting an end to this thing quickly. When we asked them what would become of all the kids and their presents, they said patriotic kids wouldn’t want presents from ‘an evildoer who harbors terrorists away, and that we were either with them or against them.”
By executive order 293 “beginning Nov 10, anyone displaying the image of, or symbols related to, Santa Claus and his Phantom Elves, will be subject to fine and possible FBI inquiry.” Pausing to address solemn reporters during a speech given in an iced over Rose Garden, President Bush said “This is a serious challenge to our way of life. If these people are allowed to continue their subversive behavior, a mushroom cloud may be our next warning.” Condolezza Rice, the President’s closest advisor, continued “Santa has been known to possess magic, and an unconventional appetite for....” But in an inspired moment of leadership and bravery, Mr Bush interrupted “Besides, we’ve got to put the Christ back in Christmas, and who knows, maybe we’ll find some oil in the process.”

Thucydides Mordacious in Athens contributed to this report.

Perspicuity

2004-11-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

11/07/2004

Tonight there is a force of about ten-thousand American soldiers amassed just outside of Falluja in Iraq. These soldiers are fighting Iraqi freedom fighters and militants aligned with Zarqawi’s network, as reported by the AP. Iyad Allawi has declared a state of emergency, saying “a move to retake Falluja could not be delayed much longer.” (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6737309).
The most curious aspect of this scenario, however, just might not be found at the front lines of a potentially gruesome and complicated urban battlefield. A military scene in which “Sgt. Maj. Carlton W. Kent, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, told troops the coming battle of Fallujah would be "no different" than the historic fights at Inchon in Korea, the flag-raising victory at Iwo Jima, or the bloody assault to dislodge North Vietnamese from the ancient citadel of Hue they seized in the 1968 Tet Offensive” (http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBOB1GQ91E.html).
Kent has told his band of Marines that they are in the midst of history rising from the dry dust in an Iraqi desert. Allawi has taken his first bold action since being sworn in by a surreptitiously retreating L Paul Bremer–replete with military fatigue’s and hard hat. Yet it is Mr. Bush’s promise never to leave the safety of America and its citizens to the will or whim of another government (whether it be composed of a consensus gathering multi-national body or an individual human mind) that finds itself illuminated in the periphery of this international nail-biter.
This, of course, wouldn’t be so but that Allawi is making the calls tonight; his word is the will of American military might in Falluja. As the flesh of American soldiers remains vulnerable to the shrapnel of car bombs and sniper attacks, Allawi is trying to wait the militants out: so that he won’t have to make the call that could be used against him in the upcoming elections–the call to American Marine commanders that they should commence in sieging his city and killing his people. Allawi is in a political bind, while Bush sits back on his laurels. An American public that gave Mr. Bush the mandate he was craving remains unaware that a bit of irony is forming above the grey sands west of Baghdad.
Bush is permitting Allawi to keep American soldiers in the line of fire–while staying their hand–so that they (both Mr. Allawi and Mr. Bush) might escape a political catastrophe in Iraq. To suppose that they have deemed Iraqi’s more politically astute than Americans in making such a decision goes without saying. But the most important and comprehensive of betrayals is happening as I write–and as you read; as ten thousand Americans are restrained outside of Falluja–while untold numbers are injured and perish (who knows how many special forces troops and CIA paramilitary personnel have died already); while Bush is hailed as an honest and fearless leader–ready to lead his nation to a decisive victory, and protect his citizens at any cost.
We are in that space that nobody seems to notice. That space of betrayal and fiction that lies underneath the stated facts of preparing to lay siege at Falluja. Our bodies may be protected from the shrapnel, but our country has been stolen out from under us by a persistent bit of fiction--a scratchy skip in its measured intervals playing smoothly on a repeating phonograph; an over-sampling of “God Bless America” blaring in the foreground, while a thin and receding version of “We Shall Overcome” dissipates in the backdrop.
ref="http://phantactual.blogspot.com/">Perspicuity

Kerry Wins!

2004-11-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

Perspicuity

(Much of the reference to outside new sources in this post is to Greg Palast’s report on tompaine.com. The link is as follows: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

I have to try and figure some of this shit out on my own. Not knowing anything about the details, when I saw Greg Palast’s report on TomPaine.com titled “Kerry Wins,” I felt a pang of disappointment for a man I trusted not to fall into a convenient formula of ‘exposé.’ How could he expect those of us who read “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” and followed all his reports on Hanging Chad’s in Florida; how could he ask those of us who watched him chase an Assistant Elections Commissioner down a bland hallway–microphone in hand, BBC camera in tow; how could he tell us the same story four years later and await our reasoned endorsement?
I was thinking very harriedly–trying to find a good radio station to fill the backdrop on my daily aerobic exercise regime. The sharp cymbals of an independently recorded new agey rock band played into my ears, as Palast’s report was blocked over by a new window.
I was heavily sad: I’ve respected him as an investigative reporter. On election night, when he complained over the phone on Link Tv’s election special that the voting already showed evidences of inaccuracy; when the smug host smiled and cut him off, then showed a commercial from the 1950's about how people have been afraid to vote on electronic machines since then–how people unreasonably cling to paper trails like leeches on progressive energies; when the MC leaned back and, raising his eyebrows, said “So you can see, this has been a problem for quite some time,” I didn’t see how anti-techies from the mid-twentieth century had anything to do with 92,000 people being disenfranchised in Florida circa 2000. I also didn’t understand why a progressive talk show host would be so nonchalantly dismissive of a man who’d uncovered some of the most important information concerning American democracy to hit the e-pages since Al Gore invented the internet. I made a mental note to send an incisive email to the producers over at Link TV as soon as I had a chance. But here Palast is telling me the same story about spoiled votes and provisional ballots and I’ve had enough of that jargon. I know why, but for some enigmatic affective anti-intuitive blotch of blocking that issue had played itself out in the incendiary cauldron I call a political consciousness with the crackle of lighted wires. After all, what can we do about evil public servants who fix elections save armed revolt? But like everyone else left of left-center, I had sworn not to let that happen again.
Sure, there’s always a chance I overestimate my country and its fascist devils. But I just can’t believe the powers that be-to-deceive would keep playing the same riff. Could they just keep refusing to count votes thinking we’ll never catch on? By not counting supposedly ‘spoiled’ ballots, though, they can never get caught doing something illegal. But can it be that the Republican’s just keep getting lucky and having an ace in the election foxhole to count all the ‘right’ votes and discard the ‘left’ ones? I guess it could happen that more ballots cast in minority communities are ‘spoiled’ (a spoiled ballot can have anything from an extra mark on it somewhere, to an incompletely punched hole–or hanging chad). This would fall in with our racist stereotypes, but that doesn't necessarily mean its untruth. I just can’t understand how the Democratic party doesn’t catch on. After Catherine Harris stole the election for King George in 2000, how could they let Ken Blackwell do it to them this time? And how can Blackwell refuse to say how many votes were ‘spoiled,’ if it’s the law that he tell us (as Palast reports)?
I’m definitely not won over by the evidence here. It is an awful coincidence that counting the projected ‘spoiled’ votes and provisional ballots in Ohio leaves you with a number resembling the exit polls (if this is true, as Palast reports) but I'm in a kind of disbelieving funk right now.
For anybody who is interested, I suggest the following link http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

Moral Crusading

2004-11-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

The world is coming to a concentrated point of descent. The American Empire has just received its most visible sign of emanent decline. If people really went out and voted according to moral coincidence, a curious dynamic may very well be fueling that aspect of American politics. More particularly, if the American government really did legislate morality (in a comprehensive sense) people definitely would not vote for moral legislators. It is because government is largely incapable of determining the moral actions of its citizens, that people would see legislating morality as something desirable. In other words, it's another vacuous detail in U.S politics. People went out and voted for G.W because they he said he was against gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research etc,. These are marginal moral spheres; spheres where government can try to limit the actions of its citizens. Unfortuneately, this is the kind of world certain people would want to live in, so they voted for G.W. A world in which women do not have full autonomy in making decisions about their own bodies; a world in which people die without hope because science can't touch stem cells that would never have become people; a political system in which people cannot get married unless fundamentalist christians and moral degenerates feel entirely comfortable with the fact of their marriage. After all, most people I talk to in this great nation don't see human life as equally valuable across national boundaries. Perhaps these people know something the humanists don't. Maybe we live in a material cosmos that fundamentally transforms the nature and value of beating hearts as they are carried across national boundaries and stripped of the sacred vestages of American citizenship. These could be quantum laws; the probablistic outcomes of string theory revealed by god to his faithful crusaders. There's always a chance. We musn't give up hope.