Socialism, Society, and America

I'm angry, I'm always angry unless there is something distracting happening to mask the anger. Today, the anger is about everyone's apparent glee about a Florida millionaire adopting a neighborhood with his riches and helping it out. I don't want to rain on the parade, but more than that, I've learned that raining on the parade subjects me to all kinds of anger from those who have yet to grasp the things I find to be self evident.

1. We are social beings and the only solution to our problems will be to work together.
2. America has been poisoned by decades of anti-Communist propaganda into thinking that any collective effort will lead to totalitarianism.
3. Individual efforts, while excellent for making dents in large problems, only go so far, and certainly not far enough.
4. Monied interests will always want to keep their money.

Ugh, I'm sure the list could go on longer and longer. I could get into how tribalism and racism are at the root of many of our struggles - sexism is there too, but it manifests slightly differently. People think Obama is getting crap because he's black, and yeah, that's happening, but he wouldn't have an easier time if he was white, because he's a Democrat. Anyone who thinks he would be riding high if he was white have forgotten the Clinton administration. And don't even talk to me about how the media would be treating him. Back in the 1990's, we were just starting the "both sides" rhetoric, and now it's so culturally ingrained that no one can even mention that one side might be wrong without adding useless equivocation. The nation has been gaslighted by reactionary monied interests for so long now that we no longer know right from wrong. Well, some of us anyway.

Sigh.

I know there are people out there who get it, and I'm actually somewhat hopeful, but damned if I'm not angry. Because these people who now get it were staying home in November 2010 when they could have prevented all this shit from happening in the first place. It was spring 2011 when people finally woke up, and by then it was too late. TOO LATE.

We got screwed with gerrymandered districts in 2012 because too many people didn't get it, too many people were convinced that their vote didn't matter, that nothing mattered, that because Obama couldn't make manna come down from heaven that it was "time to give the Republicans a chance". FUCK THAT! Republicans HAD their chance, they've had too many chances, and each one sucked, but you wouldn't know, because the people who should be telling you are living in the both-sides fallacy.

Then there are the people who were barely paying attention who all wonder "where it went wrong". They think that there was a time in America's past where we had it right, a time when we all cared about each other and things were great. Even intelligent, savvy people who have paid attention fall into this trap, but the truth is, the individualistic, screw everyone mentality is a CORE AMERICAN VALUE. Every single non-Native, not-descended-from-slaves person in this country came here to make it on their own. They left families, left towns, or left countries to "be free" from their old society. Then when they set up society on the east coast, some of them left to be even more "free" to go west and really live on their own. No, our past was not a socialist paradise, our past was a ruthless, cutthroat, dirty, dangerous, horrible hellhole that people somehow managed to survive long enough to have children in.

Even the period of time after WWII wasn't great if you weren't white or male, and even then, it still wasn't that great. It was a blip on the horrible history of our country, a random, uneven blip of sort-of okayness for some people that's gone now. We remember it as so great because the popular narrative of the time paints it that way, but millions of white men lived with untreated PTSD, raising kids with an iron fist, like their father did. Millions of women were frustrated and bored, full of resentment that they couldn't place. Millions of black people weren't much better off than they had ever been in this nation. Shit was bad, shits always been bad, and if we want to improve this shit, we have to get over the paranoia about working together. We have to literally go against every fucking thing that brought our ancestors, or ourselves, to this rock, and get over it. So I'm angry, angry about the bad rep socialism gets, angry about the failure of society, and angry about the reality of America.

Wishes

I wish I could make you understand what it is I'm going through, but it isn't really that hard to explain. I guess. I'm depressed. Nothing is as it should be, even though everything is fine, sort of. I'm overweight, overwrought, over everything. Nothing is that interesting to me at all, and to hear people gush over it like it was is like nails on a chalkboard.

I wish for a million more wishes. I wish to lose a pound of body fat from not my brain every week for two years or until I'm at 13% body fat, whichever is sooner. Second wish, I want to keep it off for the rest of my life. Third wish, I don't want to lose any random body parts to accomplish this. I don't care if I still have depression at this point, because at least then, people will give a shit about how I feel, and people won't hate to look at me, or at least I won't hate to look at me.

But genies in bottles aren't real, wish granting magical creatures are fiction, and I'll never get to lose the fat that won't go away. The best I can hope for is to lose about 30 pounds, but it won't stay off. I just wish I could have a surgery to remove abdominal fat, or maybe that fecal transplant from a thin person so I can digest food more effectively. But I have no idea how to get into that, and no idea how to find a weight loss doctor who isn't a quack, or even how to do it while I'm completely overwhelmed by my job. While I'm completely overwhelmed by doing 20% of what I'm supposed to do with my life.

Waiting for Something Big

I'm just a single person with an occasional double-digit view count. This blog isn't indexed by the search engines and I rarely link to anything. Yet I still have this blog where I air views and feelings that might be best kept private. It's a way of putting things out there in a literal sense without being as out there as I could be. It's like going into a lonely alley at 5am and giving a speech. Maybe a homeless person or early-morning commuter will hear a line or two, but they won't actually care.

I've been quiet about this opinion because it's wrong to have it and the consequences of getting what I want are bad for a lot of people, even for me. But goddamnit if I don't want the United States to go over the fucking cliff right now. We keep getting right to the edge, then get pulled back a few inches, only to start going toward it again. We never have the a-ha moment we need, we never "get it", we never realize that the stupid actions that half of our country does is causing this calamity because mommy keeps saving us from ourselves.

I'm tired of it, I'm so fucking tired of it at this point. We need shocking because prodding isn't working. The corporate media structure needs to be dismantled, we need universal healthcare, we need to stop spending so much on the war machine, we need a higher minimum wage and unions for service workers, we need to raise the capital gains tax and taxes on the highest marginal incomes, and we can't get there because the decision makers think everything is "okay" the way it is. So let's just do it and get it over with. Keep the government shut down, default on our debts, crash the fucking stock market. Let's burn this motherfucker down so we can get some real change going on here.

But I hate myself for saying this, and I hate myself for thinking this. I know that the loss to my measly 401k is nothing compared to the losses others will face. I'm not talking about losses faced by millionaires and billionaires - they won't go hungry or homeless - but I do care about the 95-98-99% of us who will still take a massive hit. I worry about the people who will go hungry and be homeless when the economy crashes. Collateral damage is ugly, but in my most honest of opinions, I think it is the only way out of this mess.

Let's hope I am wrong.

The World is a Strange, Ugly, Horrible, Beautiful, Scary Place

I'm not sure what I can do now. There are so many things happening around me right now, so many horrible things going down and so many misconceptions right next to me that I'm lost. I have an opportunity to share the things I've learned with people who need to know them, but I'm suddenly afraid.

The conversations I have online and with my friends come from a place of mutual understanding. We take it as a given that all people are born with rights, with dignity and the possibility to succeed, but they are born into circumstances that might stop them before they start. The circumstances might stop them before they are even born. I know that I'm where I am because of the privilege of my skin and my place of birth, not just because I'm smart and work hard. I was allowed to be smart, and people noticed my work, and now they reward it. There are many more people like me that aren't where I am now.

I see the future and it looks like the past, but which past? I'm afraid of re-living dark days, afraid of shanty towns in my own country, people suffering needlessly. I'm within the top 10% of earners in this country, but I can barely imagine living on less at this point. How do the rest of us do it?

All my hopes are pinned on 2014 right now - Republicans are so far past the light that they think they can read in the dark. I've got money to shield me now, but it is little solace. I can't pretend the world is alright just because I am. I was raised a hell of a lot better than that.

Intersectionality vs. Being Human

I read yet another screed on intersectionality in feminism that both made sense and irritated me. There is this assumption in a lot of the talk about intersectionality in feminism (which I don' see cropping up in conversations about racism, it's only the women who leave things out, I guess) that individual feminists should talk about the issues of all women whenever they talk about feminism. White feminists talk about the things that affect white women. Cis women talk about what affects them. Straight women are all about talking about dating issues in heterosexual couples. Western women talk about being a woman in America or Europe. And of course they do, because that is what they are, that is their experience. A black cis hetero man still experiences racism and still has things to complain about. A white cis hetero woman, likewise, has issues. Privilege doesn't even out oppression.

I get the complaint that most articles and talking about feminism is coming from a straight, cis, white, western perspective. I get that annoyance that they are the ones getting the big writing deals and having their voices and concerns heard. I get that they sometimes - or even usually - don't acknowledge other types of women, much less talk about the issues facing them. I get it, I really do, because there is something I've left out, maybe two, three, or more somethings. Two because being obese isn't seen as a 'real' disability and three or more because I don't remember every piece of identity all the time either.

One of the things feminist articles - especially those regarding the issue of dating or men hitting on women - is that all women are thin. When a fat woman pokes her head up and says "I wouldn't mind being hit on every now and then", she's told that she really wouldn't. And like clockwork, she backs down in the face of all of the thin/normal sized women's stories of creepy guys not leaving them alone. But as a fat woman, I can say that I don't mind being hit on now and then because it happens a lot more rarely than that. I've had people call out to me on the street. In New Orleans in March, a guy a block away started swinging his arms. When I got closer, he indicated that he wanted a hug. I shook my head and smiled, but I didn't feel creeped out at all. Being bigger than the average male - same average height, more average weight - I am not really afraid of them. In fact, I actually do feel flattered when people call out to me on the street, and I don't give a shit if the guy intended it that way or not. It is my feeling to have.

But I would never begrudge a thin, normal sized woman her feelings about those situations either. I think their experiences are important to understand and those issues are important to talk about. Sure, I'd like to read more about how fat women experience sexism (and without the concern trolling about our health, please). Intersectionality is important, but I can't stand the comments about how this article or that article didn't touch on this type of person or that type of person and therefore their feminism is oppressive, unwelcoming, racist, homophobic, anti-trans, and everything else. Nothing can be everything, so take it for what it is and write your own article that does talk about those kind of people.

Mental Illness is Hilarious and Wrong

There is this article going around about people getting bad customer service because they are bad customers, and I do not doubt the premise. I've seen people be rude, condescending, and arrogant with servers and others in the customer service industry. I've heard stories from people who thought they were getting bad service, but from the events of the story, I could tell that the person was a dick. But this article, in my opinion, does not describe one of those people. Instead, it describes an incident of a woman, disappointed with a mistake in her order, yelling at a service worker.

Others read this and are quick to yell back at this woman for being unreasonable, but having been someone who overreacted to situations, I see it differently. My immediate assumption is that this woman is having significant stresses in other parts of her life andor may have mental illness. She may have been suffering from low blood sugar on account of not having eaten for a while which is a possible - nay probable - reason for why she choose a fast food drive through for her meal. Low blood sugar makes the mind do silly things and think things are right when they really are wrong. Another factor is that an ingredient that she did not want was added to her order, and she could have good f*cking reasons for not wanting that ingredient, like an allergy. She may not have the resources to cope with her mental illness or blood sugar issues, she may not even have the intelligence to understand that is what is happening, and she put some strain on the staff of this restaurant and caused a scene, but she doesn't deserve this criticism from strangers on the internet.

I really hope that the next article I read about an example of a customer behaving badly isn't such an obvious example of someone with untreated mental illness.

Intolerant Vengeance

I am intolerant, I am angry, I have a thirst for vengeance. When a random person dies because someone has a Rambo complex, all of my compassion for the victims of our draconian criminal "justice" system goes out the door. When bloated, moronic thugs think that violence against protesters is warranted or even funny, I begin imagining the cruel things I'd like to do to them, and it is usually exactly what they are doing. I have no sympathy for Johannes Mehserle, though his show of remorse puts him above George Zimmerman. Both killed someone who did nothing to deserve it, who were trying to build successful lives, who were not threatening anyone.

I am disgusted by the Zimmerman defenders on Facebook today. Disgusted with their inability to grasp that no matter what Trayvon did in his life, he did not deserve to die. I am disgusted with their parroting of the uncorroborated story that Zimmerman told and changed over the ensuing months. To them, it is not good enough that a child is dead, that parents are mourning, and that the person that did it is free. I don't know what would be good enough for them. To me, they are without empathy, without compassion, without character. They will cry up and down that they are not racist, and that I am the one bringing race into the situation, but one cannot bring race into any situation in America, because it is already there.

Race and racism are inextricably intertwined, knotted, in the American story. Race and racism are the American story. You cannot tell the story of the early colonies without telling the story of the conflict between those with slaves and those without. You cannot explain the industrial revolution without examining the textile industry and it's roots in the cotton plantations of the south. Race is in everything we do in this country, it is present in every part of our society, and racism is a part of every single person here. It doesn't matter if you're white or not, it doesn't even matter if you have been a victim of racially based prejudice. If you are an American, it is not a question of "are you racist," but rather a question of "how racist are you?"

From that end, it is important to understand how we perceive race and how we act on it. If all you can do when you hear this is think "well, I have friends who are black, I can't be racist," I assure you that you most certainly are. If you never question your thoughts as you walk down the street and see black people walking towards you, you're probably crossing the street to avoid them. You're condescending to them at work and left wondering why they are getting testy with you. Like the addict who has to admit to the problem before being able to solve it, you have to see your own racism before you can consider rising above it.

I contemplated my own racism this week and it bothers me. I see names from certain cultures associated with projects at work that I would like to be doing and I become jealous and irritated. I assume they are in the position because they are cheaper labor, or because of something else, I don't know what. That bothers me and I am bothered by the bothering, and I'm not sure I will ever be able to control those thoughts. The important thing is that I am aware of them, and aware that they are unjustified and racist, and now I can see if my behavior changes because of them.

But the Zimmerman defenders will not do this. They will swear up and down that they are not racist in the least for this reason or another. They will pedantically bring up the idiotic notion that because Zimmerman wasn't completely white, that he somehow can't be racist. Then tell you that Zimmerman had a "right" to "defend himself" while ignoring the fact that he initiated the conflict in the first place. They can't be bothered to think that maybe Martin should have the same ability to defend himself from a stranger following him. The next step is to ask why the kid didn't call 911, to which I wonder if it is good enough that the boy paid for that mistake with his life.

Mehserle got away with murder, but he had remorse. I have enough reason to believe that he will be haunted by his actions for the rest of his life, but I have no reason to think Zimmerman is anything but pleased with what happened. He strikes me as a sociopath that I can't even bear to look at. He projected his own sociopathy onto a random person walking down the street. A person that fit a profile, one that he probably doesn't realize was racist, and just as the BART cops escalated the situation at Fruitvale because of their own unexamined racial anxieties, Zimmerman pursued an honor student coming back from a store with snacks. He didn't bother to talk to him and ask what he was up to; he followed him like a stalker, ensuring that the boy would be afraid and on the defensive.

My anger at this Zimmerman is overwhelming. The things I wish on him are best left unrecorded. That I am open about that is probably ammunition to the Zimmerman defenders - "hey, look, she just wants to see bad things happen to him, she's bad" - but I don't care. I'm human and I have human anger about the death of a promising 17-year-old boy. I'm angry about all of the promising young men who are cut down, and I'm angry at all of the young people who live in environments that don't allow them to be promising, like mine allowed me. I have this thirst for vengeance, and an intolerance for those who would not sympathize.

Exposure

You cannot find this blog on Google, I do not link to it from facebook. I've been insulted with blog comments from friends, strangers, and friends pretending to be strangers enough to be content to blog in the corner. But contentment is not happiness. I would like to have people read what I write and say things like, "wow, that was interesting. I was sort of thinking about it like this" or "I thought that too, but it happened to me like this". Kind of like how I wish conversations would go too, instead of me just blathering on and on and on.

Learn to Let Go

The internets are amused at a sign posted in some store, linked here. This is along the lines of no shirt, no shoes, no service rules that greeted me at eye level as a child when I accompanied my father into various gas stations in rural Wisconsin. I often wondered why "pants" was left off, and then I wondered what the big deal was about the lack of either article of clothing. If it was hot, lots of men wore no shirt, but their wallet was in their pants. When I was on a long car trip with my mother to Cincinnati, we might not have our shoes on when we stopped to use the restroom. But no shoes was an obvious safety problem, shirts less so. And this ban on saggy pants seems even less logical.

I didn't get socialized in a normal way. I've always been on the outside of normal society and thus looked at it from the outside and learned the views of the outsiders. I've only recently realized how abnormal I am, which led me to think that any knowledge I gained in the course of my life was simply the information that all the normies acquired when they didn't invite me to parties.  So when I look at strange clothing, different ways of behaving, music and dance, I don't assume that my initial reaction of shock should turn to disapproval. I assume my shock is simply a result of me being on the outside, so I accept the reality that is and move on. Sometimes, I look into the roots of what I am seeing, but if I find no harm in the newness, acceptance is enough for me.

So I do find the low pants phenomenon to be strange. It has been going on since at least the mid 1990's (see Clueless), so I think it has passed the 'fad' phase and it is now a staple in American dress styles. I've seen pants so low that I wonder how a person can walk. It seems utterly impractical to me, similar to the fad (I can only hope) of the platform high-heel, but without the inherent foot damage. And yes, I can see the plaids and stripes of boxer shorts between the pants and the shirts, but they don't register to me as offensive. One could be wearing plaid pants, or these guys could have briefs on under those boxers.

This is where cultural relativism has completely taken over my value system. I do not believe in absolute cultural relativism by any means, but perhaps my childhood spent not feeling a full part of my own culture, then studying other cultures and feeling ashamed for mocking them has made me immune from the outrages that others of my culture jump to so easily. The only things that bother me are the things that cause real harm, all else is noise or intrigue.

He's Still White

Everyone is on about how there is this new pope. The ABC World News show featured the single sentance news for over 15 minutes on their half-hour show when it happened. I was at the gym, and left at the 15 minute mark, but they probably filled that whole half hour with dribble about the new pope. Here is all you need to know.

Despite being born in Argentina, the new pope is of Italian ancestry and is old. He's a Whitey McWhiterson. In terms of adding more diversity to the Vatican leadership, this was less than the least they could do. He represents Europeans who left Europe and took ownership of land, probably, fraudulently, and set up life there - a colonist. In my eyes, that makes him MORE white than if his family had stayed in Europe. It means all white Americans are whiter than Europeans, including myself.

The new pope isn't a change, it is barely a bump. He's a whitey white whiterson who doesn't like homosexuality and will be replaced in another decade.

Internet and Human Connection

If I was attending this conference 20 years ago, I wouldn't be able to do work from my hotel room. I doubt that I would have felt much like socializing with people at the conference either. The things I do are very removed from the day to day needs of people in my field. I'm grasping for insights at every event, and gathering some. I have no idea how I can interact with anyone, and I didn't come to the conference with anyone. One attempt was met with awkwardness, and I'm over taking the risk of greeting random strangers just to offend them.

So if this was 20 years ago, I probably would have felt the same way and retreated to my hotel room. I would not have been able to get some work done from there, which is one benefit. But I also would not have been able to log onto facebook and see updates and comments from people that I like.

I think of things like this when people lament that our means of connecting are making us more disconnected. Actually, I usually think of laying a giant F bomb on them for saying that. I refuse to be nostalgic for an inferior time.

Cut Down All My Good Times, I Know Right from Wrong

I remember all the concern about the debt when Clinton got into office. I was a pre-teen, so I didn't know much about recent history, but I saw all kinds of numbers and pressure on Democrats to cut spending. John Stossel was always calling out government excesses on 20/20, and it shocked me. Then, there was a budget surplus in 2000, but I didn't care because I was a kid hypnotized by the "both sides are the same" rhetoric of the Green Party. They had their points, and my state went for Gore, but I won't make that mistake again.

Suddenly, the debt didn't matter. Then there was spending and spending and spending. Dick Cheney said that deficits didn't matter. I learned more about the Clinton years. I learned that the Republicans just became anti-Clinton, even for legislation that they supported during the Bush 1 presidency.

Then Obama was president, and like clockwork, all of the Clinton era crap came back. The national debt mattered and Republicans were lock-step obstructionists. I have no illusions that Republicans have the nation's best interests at heart because I've seen their real behavior. I've fancied myself a Republican, I've been a radical leftist, and now I'm in the center - ready to face real problems and create solutions where everyone benefits. I know that this means rejecting the Republican party and I'm not ashamed. History played out in front of my now 31-year-old eyes, and I paid attention.

Let Me Talk About the Pope

The pope retired today because modern science has allowed his body to live beyond his brain's ability to cope. The last time a pope retired was before Europe found the place where most Catholics now live. Now you know all that there is to know about this story.

The only way that additional news related to this story could be good is if the new pope is more to the left of Pope Palpatine and/or not from Europe (or of European Origin). If that happens, maybe the RCC can stop it's long, downward spiral into oblivion, but I'm not holding my breath.

More Musings

Friendship, friends. I've had many and few, none and a million. Best friends, former friends, good friends, friends that might as well have been enemies. I've fought, insulted, forgiven and been forgiven. But I still don't understand what makes someone a friend. Is it similar politics, interests? Could I be friends with my neighbor, even though we only talk in passing? Once, I was so desperate for friendship I'd be friends with anyone, even someone who nearly insulted me in each conversation though I couldn't see it. I know that not everyone will like me, but how do I tell if anyone likes me?

I feel as if my life has always been spent on the outside, looking in. Sometimes, I could be inside, but still felt like I was somehow not part of the group. Once, in Junior High, some girls made friendship bracelets and gave them to others as a symbol of friendship. There were seven of them, and somehow, I got one. It was orange. I wore it because I was flattered. I didn't feel like I deserved it, I didn't feel that close.

School seemed to breed friendships of necessity.  I made friends in my classes in elementary school. People in other classes were like the other, since I didn't see them on a constant basis. Even the kids in the afternoon kindergarten were strangers to me for part of first grade. Every year I had slightly different relationships with these friends, sometimes different friends. We had ups, downs, and heart-to-hearts, then the summer came. My life changed to revolve around the neighbor kids, making up games, sometimes chores, the farm, picking strawberries and raspberries with cousins, and the occasional sighting of that school friend. The summer festivals were good for that - Country Western Days, the Church Picnic, and one year, a barn fire* at a near-by farm.

A change of school brought new friends from new schools. I had always been on the fringes of the popular group in elementary school. Sometimes they let me play, sometimes not. I did this by choice because I noticed the social dynamic, and I wanted it to play in my favor. But Junior High was different, so I gravitated to a group of people who were sort of like me, but not quite outcasts, not quite the misfits. By the time I reached the end of it, I was flying high - not popular or anything, but everyone knew me, and that was how I like things. High School went pretty much the same way, as did college. I started alone and afraid, completely awkward and stupid. Made mistakes, gathered friends here and there, changed social groups from time to time, but always ended on a high note, feeling like the king of the school.

Graduate school broke the mold, probably because it wasn't like the rest. First of all, all of the first year students were of different ages, and I was the baby of them all. That wasn't really anything new to me, since I was the third youngest kid (by one and three days) in my grade in elementary school, but these people were a lot older than me, and had lived in cities that weren't Minneapolis or St. Paul. Still, it was easy to form friendships, since we all still had class together.

The other different with grad school was my accident. For the months after that, things seemed to be going well for me. Friendships seemed to be solidified and kept coming on. I was riding high, feeling good, making and rekindling friendships in person and online until the first blow, the first crack in the walls. I won't tell the details, but it was pretty offending, and it had me depressed for the first time in quite a while. Still, that was just an online slight, and I could learn from it. The people around me were still friendly, and inviting. We laughed, went out, had parties. It was all a great time until the great miscommunication.  It was then that my world seemed to fall apart, and I didn't know what to do. The main person refused to talk to me in person, then ran off to a foreign country for the summer. I took advantage of the absence to hang out with these friends as much as I wanted, but I knew that it wouldn't last. I remember the Last Time I got to hang out with them, and I remember knowing that it was the Last Time.

I tried to nurture other friendships that fall, and also tried to make new friendships, but something was off. I was also toying with dating and went out a lot. I guess that gave me some kind of reputation that I was unaware of. I was just being me, and trying to figure things out, but I was alone a lot. I got a boyfriend from shared politics, which was a mistake. I left graduate school on a serious low. I'd made some friends through that boyfriend, but like him, they weren't great and didn't last. My new home after grad school was thousands of miles away from the culture I knew. The people around me were much older, and now I realize that they were pretty disingenuous.

I made friends, lost friends, kept friends, rekindled friendships, but remain confused about who is being friendly and who is just being nice. Now I find myself with the prospect of leaving this place again and going into a new culture. I keep wondering if I'll get back to the Bay Area. I've never returned to a place after I left it except for home, except for one or two visits. If I did come back, would my friends still be here? Am I destined to always be a drifter? Wisconsin to Minnesota to Michigan to California to Texas, and then where? I was pretty set on living in Albuquerque when I was there.

* The fire was unplanned, an accident, but it drew a lot of locals and I remember it having a bit of a festival feel at the end. My family lived about a mile away from the farm. We saw the black smoke on the horizon and my dad said that it looked like smoke from a burning barn. He was right, and it turned out that it was the barn of a customer of my dad's. Volunteer Fire Departments from all over had to come to put the fire out. We eventually learned that it was caused by wet hay, which heats up under it's own weight and can combust. 

Success Outside the Cult

I think it is depression that is preventing me from seeing any reason to do anything. But I also see a lot of inefficiencies in what people do. I understand that religion is a myth, that there is a limit to the stuff one can buy, that renting isn't a worse financial investment than buying a house, that processed foods aren't worth the stuff they're packaged in, that lower taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations hurt society, and that the only way to make a living in a society like this is to drink the kool-aid.

It's frustrating and depressing. What good is knowing all this stuff if I end up unemployed, with no access to health care?

I Wish

I wish I could just be honest, with everyone. I'm not bad, I wish no ill on people, and there is nothing wrong with anything I have done. I barely have the will to kill the tiny ants in my bathroom right now. I wish I could tell them what I want to do, and how I want to contribute.

I wish everyone could calm down. I wish they could let go of their silly hangups. I wish everyone, like me, could focus on what is truly important. I wish they could find the truth, I wish they all could be smarter than me. I wish I was the dummy in the room, instead of the one who can see through it all. I wish people could resist the urge to drink that soda, or buy that stuff they saw on the commercial, or go to that bland chain restaurant.

I wish I could pull down this house of cards, redistribute the wealth, pay farmers, teachers, and careworkers what they really deserve. I wish that all the blowhards would just fade away, and let me work a 5 hour day, from home. I wish they would reduce their expectations - the computer can't read their mind.

I wish all the rich folk would move out of their over-sized mansions in the countryside and come back into the nice houses in my neighborhood. I wish we could all realize that nothing is ever like it used to be, that how it used to be isn't how it always was, and fighting change is a losing game.

I wish I wish I wish that I never had to watch 24-hour news channels again. I wish people in Texas would realize that they don't need to eat that much. I wish that the farmers on land that needs to be irrigated understood the path that they are on. I wish everyone knew as much as me.

I wish that wishes came true, I wish the genie wasn't just a myth. I wish I may, I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight.

Won't Fit on a Bumper Sticker

I wrote this comment in response to a facebook posting of an image that said "Those who wear a helmet to defend our country should make more than those who wear a helmet to play football."

The truth, the very sad and upsetting truth is that no one fighting in the name of the United States is actually protecting "the United Sates". They are protecting special interests of global corporations, some of which may be headquartered in the United States.

There is an argument to be made about rooting out terrorists that are plotting to attack the United States. However, there are far more effective ways to prevent those attacks than to run around their home with guns. In fact, running around the homes of people already upset enough with the US to plan attacks, with guns and in tanks, is a pretty good way to ensure that those people STAY upset with the US.

However, these are not the decisions of the individual members of the military. It is my opinion that those individual members should be compensated enough to have a comfortable life for them, and their families. They should have employment opportunities after their military service ends, and a military pension. When the United States government recruits an 18-year-old, it should understand the cost of supporting that person for another 70-80 years.

That the government doesn't make decisions this way is part of why high-profile athletes, and even low profile major league athletes make so much money. It is because humans are profoundly stupid, and short-sighted. Most of us, and especially those with a lot of money to waste, only look at dollars in and dollars out. But dollars in does not equal real value. The irony is that people who do understand the meaning of real value are unlikely to bother having a lot of money, and it is easier to procure power and influence with dollars than with living a valuable life.

But I find the comparison in this image to be kind of stupid. Both positions fill a role in society. American football players are providing entertainment, which a lot of people think is frivolous. Those people, however, do have means of entertaining themselves, and do not think of their own activities as frivolous. Entertainment is important, and American football in particular fills a very important role. I shudder to think of what fall 2012 in America would have been like without the ritual of the NFL and college football to distract all of the angry white (mostly male) conservatives in this country.

American football also fills a role in American society that exists in all societies, going back as far as we have recorded history. Like it or not, people like to watch other people, and sometimes animals, fight. Roman gladiators, jousting matches, organized boxing matches, rugby, and American football seem "barbaric", but they all let a lot of people (the spectators number higher than the participants) get their aggression out, without actually hurting anyone.

Cynically, I can say that American football gives stupid people, who are, sadly, the majority, something to get excited about. Whining that they should be excited about something else is a losing game.

How Much More Productive Could I Be?

Working with this person is seriously the worst day of my life. The person is supposed to be an expert at a topic that I know more about. I don't even know. This person wants to leave the hotel together, and keeps inviting me out for dinner, and to eat lunch together, and we're sharing a damn office. I want to scream.

This person noticed that I was growing impatient, and wondered if it was something they "had done." How do you tell someone that the reason that you are so irritated around them is that they are dumb as a box of rocks? I made up some stuff about my seasonal affective disorder, which is making me less outgoing. Then I got a talk about how great I am, and I should remind myself of this when I am sad.

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My sadness is not going away because I remember that I am the sh*t - depression doesn't work like that. I know that I am awesome. I'm irritated because I have to slow myself down to work with some idiot, which just happens to be the person I'm talking to at that moment.

Random Thought, Only Not

Why do people fight aging? It is so pointless - you'll be old eventually, you're already old. Me, I can't believe that I'm going to exist, take in information, have emotions, and hear annoying things, like the guy snorting snot back into his sinuses, for at least another 50 years. I'm going to be menstruating for another two decades, for crying out loud.

One Hundred Fifty Years Ago, Today

Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in the territories held by Confederates are now free. This enables those slaves to enlist in the Union Army, and changes the war from a battle to preserve the Union to a struggle to end slavery.

The Library of Congress has this to say:

In an effort to placate the slave-holding border states, Lincoln resisted the demands of radical Republicans for complete abolition. Yet some Union generals, such as General B. F. Butler, declared slaves escaping to their lines "contraband of war," not to be returned to their masters. Other generals decreed that the slaves of men rebelling against the Union were to be considered free. Congress, too, had been moving toward abolition. In 1861, Congress had passed an act stating that all slaves employed against the Union were to be considered free. In 1862, another act stated that all slaves of men who supported the Confederacy were to be considered free. Lincoln, aware of the public's growing support of abolition, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion were, in the eyes of the federal government, free.

The This Day in the Civil War site comments that an American president could only do this when states were seceding and there was a war on.

But history is so dry and unemotional. The real deal is that today is the sesquicentennial of the Federal Government's decision that slavery was wrong for the Union. 150 years ago, roughly five generations in the past, is not so long, when you start to think about it. The election of 2012 should also show us how tied to history we all are too. All of the descendants of those aristocratic, dumb-as-rocks slave owners, still using nepotism and charm to worm their ways into positions of power.

But that is unfair - really unfair, in the sense that some of those people could be very intelligent, and kind. Some of those people could have an understanding of all things and all people, but the slithering ways of cultural memory and not wanting to make waves, especially when things are going well... Well, no one should be so naive as to believe that the legacy of slavery ended with the end of the institution. No one should be so naive as to believe that racism went away with the Civil Rights Act. No one should be so naive to believe that the Cold Civil War is not still happening.

Yet we are. Somehow, history became "back then" in America, and completely separate from what is happening now. My hypothesis, my gut feeling, based on my study of history and cultural memory is that the Second World War had a severing effect in the United States. The mobilization of the United States was awesome in several ways. Many look at it as a good thing, but there has always been a contingent who saw it as overreach. When peacetime came, and the excesses of truly overreaching governments were clear to Americans, this contingent drew parallels between the United States Federal Government and Stalin or Mao. It was idiotic, of course, but after a while, a generation of new people, born just after the war, began to come of age. Being in the majority, they were catered to in many ways. Their ideas were seen as "edgy" when they may have just been anti-social, or stupid. They did see a lot of problems in the established ways of doing things, so they shook them up. But instead of understanding the historical aspects of the current problems, they got a single victory, like Roe v. Wade, and then thought everything would be solved.

Then of course, in their childhood, Americans forgot how much of a problem Republican administrations created for the economic well-being of the country, and elected a moderate one. So all those kids grew up with a positive, but inaccurate view of actual Republican ideology. Naive, ignorant, children, in the majority. I am encouraged by the fact that their children and grandchildren, with more of an appreciation for the past, are growing up and getting voices. And there is the internet. It is a lot harder to push a rewritten version of history when the internet is there, and people know how to use it.

Past is prologue. Past is always the prologue, and reading it will answer all of your questions. One hundred fifty years ago, today, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in the seceded states were free.