Who needs them?

I took the Kraken Hatchling to the Shrine Circus the other night. We had a great time seeing the acrobats, the tigers, the elephants, the clown, and his baby elephant/puppy. We ate popcorn, cotton candy, had a snow cone that has left my entrails green, and even got to ride on an elephant. Well the Hatchling did, I took pictures. A friend came along too, and despite being half my age I think he had an alright time. Mrs. Kraken was working so she couldn't make it but was glad we went.

So my friend, let's call him Rakdos, is a young man with a good heart who really wants to make a difference in the world. We were chatting quite extensively about "direct action," considering the chaos going on around us, and the ever present possibility of right-wing vigilantes within earshot I was a little apprehensive about it. The word "sabotage" even came up. Personally, I'm not a fan of that word, and even less for the frames it evokes. Maybe I'm just too old now to believe that any sort of violence will help our situation. In fact, I'm very worried that any destruction of property carrying even a whiff of leftist action will set off the powder keg of right-wing vigilantism and cause the random mass murders of innocents by psychopaths to focus into a directed effort of posses, hunting down any young radicals they feel like. Ergo, direct action of the Weathermen style is to be condemned and discouraged. Utterly futile I know, but until it is absolutely and irredeemably certain that our democratic system is irretrievably broken there is still a chance to make it work for the public good. Eeek! Is that a sliver of optimism showing? Quick! Get the net!

The other topic we discussed, briefly though it was far more interesting from my perspective, was intellectuals. Hence the title of this post. Obviously disdain for thinkers by right-wingers and especially authoritarians runs very high, but our exchange was on different grounds. Rakdos brought up a rap song called "You can't be neutral on a moving train" and was actually surprised when I told him that is something of a classic of dissident literature by the late historian/activist Howard Zinn. I cannot remember the exact exchange from then on and I want to be fair to Rakdos but his argument seemed to sum up as "what have they ever actually done?" Specifically he was referring to Noam Chomsky. Now, putting aside that Professor Chomsky actually did march, demonstrate and work vociferously toward ending the war in Vietnam, yes, his main contribution has been intellectual and theoretical. "What has he done?" In the abstract I suppose this is a good question. I rarely venture beyond the idea of spreading the knowledge of problems. Pick and rank issues, joust with individuals and try to change their minds through persuasion or at least debunk the incredible misinformation out there.

The question I pose is often framed as "what can we do?" Hence where Rakdos and I started talking, he missed going to a camp out in the woods to learn about and practice this elusive concept of "direct action" and fretted about the lost opportunity. The answer to my question is to withhold, boycott, or avoid elements of corporate power as much as possible. Turning off the spigot of money, labor, and attention to these totalitarian institutions seems the safest way to reduce their power and the power of their owners/managers. The economic elite is the wellspring of most of the problems in our world and it takes an incredible amount of money to keep their little game going. Perhaps that is wishful thinking.

How I was first exposed to leftist activism was through the works of Jello Biafra, former lead singer of Dead Kennedys. His spoken word albums held a great deal of content and led me to like-minded individuals, helping to end some of the alienation and apathy I felt as a young crustacean. Biafra also referenced Chomsky, Zinn, and "the guy who runs The Baffler magazine." That of course was Thomas Frank, an historian and great chronicler of both ends of the right-wing "conservative" movement. I put that word in quotation marks because there is really very little this movement is trying to conserve, a better word is the authoritarian movement but no one wants to think of themselves that way in the same way that racists get quite annoyed when you call out their racism. Fifteen years later and I have moved from listening to punk rock to audiobooks of serious issues by real scholars. Perhaps I am an anomaly. Perhaps we really do need more direct action and less intellectualism. If a loud minority of authoritarians can catapult their leaders into positions to really wreck things, maybe what the larger society needs is a few dedicated miscreants to wreck the twisted desires of the corporate elite; democracy be damned.

Then again, maybe not. I just hope my friend Rakdos and others whose youth clouds the larger picture or makes problems old-schoolers like Zinn or Chomsky have been dealing with for decades seem so urgent do not do something they will regret. To be continued, I hope.

Police and fire unions

Is this really the best "we" can do?

Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, this week announced he is drafting “Act 10 Equity” legislation which would “remove the undue preferential treatment police and firefighter unions have received” under the law that governs collective bargaining.

It should be self-evident that any working person "standing with walker" is a sheep hoping to be sheared instead of skinned.

the police association stood with Act 10 opponents at the time, calling for a public boycott of businesses that didn’t support collective bargaining for public employees.

Still, when you agree to support a hunter because he promises to shoot you last there is something wrong with your strategy.

Just because

The "I'm rubber, you're glue" school of political discourse.



Now, I worry far more about the freedom from starvation than the right of LGBT marriage but dang... This was a new meme on me, the guy using it as his profile picture shared a last name with a certain right-wing radio personality and when I observed it he was defending the right of Apple computers to pay no taxes. These kind of brain-damaged people vote and influence others. They also often work in businesses where their ignorance and impaired cognitive functions can harm others.

And, not to conflate stupidity with bloodlust, but here is another favorite that "excrement and cranium" has as his cover photo:


"Responsible gun owner" translates to "I lie in wait for dark-skinned males to invade my space so I can kill them" in this case.

In any case, the equality symbol coopted to showcase military grade weapons with no other purpose than to kill as rapidly as possible, just because you can makes a strong case for keeping such weapons away from any individual coveting them. Yes folks, freedom to marry trumps freedom to kill despite the huffing and puffing of cretins.

Speaking of cretins,



DERP! And the summer before that gas was $4.19/gal. You know, when hewhomustnotbenamed was in office.

Again, just because. Make the same claim in any case, just because the other side made it. Call your book "culture of corruption" just because Nancy Polosi uselessly labeled the republican majority as operating within a culture of corruption in the house of representatives. Cry bloody murder over an attack on American diplomats in Libya because liberals opposed war with Iraq based on lies. And wallow, just wallow, in self-pity over the horrendous persecution visited upon anti-government fanatic organizations by the toothless IRS. Oh the humanity of having to wait a little bit for tax-exempt status from the government you hate with every fiber of your being.

Just because.

We’re All Entitled Now

We’re All Entitled Now

Posted on April 19, 2013 at 5:10 pm by JM Ashby

Considering what has transpired in Boston during the course of this week and particularly last night after a shooting at MIT lead to a carjacking, shootout, the use of explosives, and a manhunt — I’d like to take a moment to marvel at how big of a jackass Lou Dobbs is.
This is from two nights ago.

Dobbs: There seems to be a sense of entitlement on the part of many Americans that somehow they don’t have to be responsible for themselves and that they have no obligation to protect themselves, their families, and their communities in the face of these horrific threats.

Apparently, if you do not own an AR-15 and an extended magazine for it, you’re not only a liberal girly-man, you’re also an entitled freeloader. Because you should be providing security for yourself and not relying on trained, tax-payer funded law enforcement.
I wonder if the officers of Boston-area police departments would agree that they are serving an entitlement to the free-loading residents of Boston as they pursue someone who may or may not be armed with explosives at this time.

Kraken's comments

Sorry about the cut and paste job but this observation from Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog Go! was simply too good not to share. Is this the latest trial balloon of "how far can we go?" Thomas Frank discussed in Pity the Billionaire that there is no limit to the aspirations of right wing nutjobs, the crazy knows no boundaries. The contrast between monied insanity and society could not be more stark, in a week where most of us were so proud of law enforcement in Boston a sizable chunk of cretins make the dobbesian moment of derp; "MOAR GUNZ!"

How ironic that it is now the right wing authoritarian followers who are preaching Ice-T's mantra. Our so-called "conservative" movment has now finally and truly broken off to become it's own little oxbow lake of stupid and crazy if they think "Fuck the Police" is going to be a winning strategy for them.

filmhill.com: TAKE A LONG WALK OFF A SHORT PIER

For the second time this year I would like to state that this site has no connection with filmhill or any other goofball spam site. Still getting notifications that traffic is being routed to this site from the aforementioned scumsuckers so to reiterate. GET THE FUCK OFF MY KOOLAID YOU DIRTY SCAM ARTISTS!

Civics and the Republic

What is empirical evidence?
What are logical fallacies and why not a valid way to argue issues?
What does the Constitution actually say? And why is that document more important than the Declaration of Independence?
Why do both sides of an issue often accuse each other of the same things? And why are our political rivals ALWAYS LIKE HITLER AND THE NAZIS!?!

The zombie recently posted this picture:


What's the difference? I sometimes forget in my gloominess and cynicism that there are actually people out there who, in spite of great intelligence and skill in other areas, just do not know much about that black hole we call "politics." And why not? After all, if you think about it rationally, what does one actually gain by being "informed?" There are only so many hours in the day. Once you start ladling family and bills and home maintainance, planning for retirement, "" "" weddings, death, and everything else that gets in the way of a responsible person's leisure who the hell wants to read or watch the bad news? That's on top of learning a skill or profession, finding and keeping employment, advancing into a career, and on and on.

In that spirit, a friend commenting on this picture noted how he keeps meaning to read this article about how to avoid sounding like a idiot when discussing politics. Zombie and I chatted for a moment about what it means. No conclusions but maybe there are lots of educated professionals,  certainly not limited to that demo, out there who have mastered their skill, feel comfortable in their career and now want to be involved in the Great Experiment. A bit of irony there, if any truth can be found, that is exactly the reason zombie founded this blog in the first place. He even tried to build a second one called "New Deals and Great Societies" as an educational site. As academics, wannabe intellectuals, scholars even, we thought maybe we could provide a minimally biased and patient environment for a sort of adult civics class.

However, this site is called the Gloomy Historian and it is run by one now. Whatever the zombie's intentions, I feel trying to market information to the frustrated individuals with a deficit of republican virtue would be a complete waste of time. After all, we live in an age of incredible access to information. If there is a substantial population of Americans unable to understand, analyze, or process it, I do not think I can help. Who am I to even think I can make any difference either?

I would trade all my knowledge and wisdom of history, politics, ideology, and human nature for one truly marketable skill. But this is what I have, trouble is that the only politically-engaged folks out there seem to already be pretty set in their ways. Certainty, like consistancy, is a hobgoblin of small-minds and there is nothing to be gained by continuously jousting with cretins.

I would love to be proved wrong.

Patience

Note to CNN, the next time you are going to go off half-cocked; think about baseball.

Journalists really should have to take some history classes in college, it might just teach them a modicum of patience. Not that that is the only thing wrong with cable news or the entire corporate media structure, but it would be a start.