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A Progressive Trump?

The thing about Trump that a lot of his supporters like is the way he just ignores tradition and culture and complexity and makes his stupid decisions on the fly with no regard for the consequences other than whether or not he can brag about it later.  These kind of politicians are almost invariably right-wing nowadays, though some earlier populists like Huey Long had some progressive elements in their program.

So when do we get a left-wing politician of a similar bent?  Someone who will enact single-payer health care and damn the medical establishment if it doesn’t like it.  Someone who will slash military spending by 25% in his first year, because the U.S. already has ridiculously more than enough military hardware.  Someone who will decriminalize all drugs and step up treatment programs and declare that from now on the government will treat all drug problems as medical and social issues rather than criminal issues.  Someone who will ban all advertising during children’s television programming, and threaten to take away the broadcasting license of any media outlet that does not provide three hours of high-quality original children’s programming every Saturday morning.  Someone who will limit the interest rates banks can charge on credit cards and pay-day loans, because people who need to borrow money for a month are already desperate and don’t need these vampires to bleed them dry.

If you are wondering why carbon emissions is absent from that list, it is because it is too late.  We are actually beyond the point of no return.

Anyway, yes, there is Bernie Sanders.  And what do the Democrats do?  Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats are too polite to elect someone who will actually implement genuinely progressive policies.  So they nominate Hillary Clinton.

Have they learned?

[whohit]Progressive Trump[/whohit]

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Global Total Failure

Since 1980, the obesity rate has doubled in 73 countries and increased in 113 others. And in all that time, no nation has reduced its obesity rate. Not one.  Huffington Post

That is a startling statistic.

It is worse than the frustrating statistics on education, which, in the U.S. at least, never seem to get better.  Nobody can point to a school system that is doing the thing that gets better results and which can be adapted to all the other school systems so that they all improve.  There are systems that have improved their results somewhat, but never, it seems definitively.  Nobody can go to a failing system and say, “it’s simple: just do what these guys did and you will get the same results”.

We know that Finland does great with their schools.  They don’t give their children homework.  There: try that in Peoria.

Anyway, back to obesity, reread that quote: not one nation has succeeded in reducing the obesity rate.

So, obesity is normal.  It really is, when you think about it.  Developed nations have certain things in common about it’s food production: the massive overproduction of sugary calories in junk food and excessively sweetened other foods.  These are profit centers for the “food” industry.  As long as governments refuse to legislate policies that diminish the supply of bad foods, the populations will not resist stuffing themselves with them.

Every single one of those nations is doing something fundamentally wrong and can’t see it.

I’m perpetually perplexed by the obesity issue.

Just 4 percent of agricultural subsidies go to fruits and vegetables. No wonder that the healthiest foods can cost up to eight times more, calorie for calorie, than the unhealthiest—or that the gap gets wider every year.

What if a town decided that it would no longer allow the food industry a free hand in providing endless supplies of fattening foods?  What if banned displays at store counters of racks and racks of sugar-coated candies and chocolate bars?  What if it required restaurants, like car makers, to meet a certain set of standards so that the average nutritional value of the foods served meets a certain minimum?

What if– simplest solution ever– it imposed a tax on sugary foods that reflected the increased costs of health care caused by their consumption?  What if a bag of sugar candies cost $15?  But a bag of carrots and celery cost $2?  You want to sell sugar-carriers to children?  Well, the cost will now include the amount required to provide the additional health care required by an entire generation of diabetics.

The Republicans, in the U.S., would rise like giant waves of ogre faces and scream at the top of their lungs, “the Nanny State is coming to take away your french fries!”  And they would win the next election.  “I don’t want the government telling me what to eat.  I want Nestle, Coca Cola, and Unilever to tell me what to eat.”

And the food industry will speak gently, through their highly qualified public relations people: fat people are lazy!  They need to exercise more!  We’re all about choice!  Candy can be part of a “balanced” wholesome nutritious diet.

 

[whohit]Global Total Failure[/whohit]

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The Wives

There is a movie coming out soon called “The Wife”.  From the early reviews and synopsis it sounds like this: a great American writer wins the Nobel Prize for literature.  We are assumed to believe that because he is a great writer he must also be a great husband and father, even though nobody I know of, who has any awareness of the biography of any well-known person, would ever assume this.   But, shockingly, we find out that he has been mean and unfaithful, while his loyal and selfless wife has sacrificed her own stellar career to serve as his constant help-meet, washing his clothes, making his meals, cleaning his house, and raising the son who now resents his successful father.  So we are to hate him and admire the plucky woman for, apparently, in the end, finally–finally!– summoning the amazing courage to stand up to him.

We are supposed to be shocked, as I said, that a brilliant writer might be a lousy husband.  We are supposed to find irrelevant any aspects of the wife’s character that might diminish the horror we are to feel.  But then, they don’t tell that story.  In the story I expect, she is faultless.  She’s not manipulative or needy or nagging or petty or vindictive.  She didn’t push him into marriage.  She didn’t spend his money as if she had earned it.   She is just perfect.  It wouldn’t shock me– this is Hollywood– that we find out that she actually wrote all his books.  [I just checked a review: I think I’m correct.  That’s too bad: it would probably have been a more interesting movie if he had been terrified of her, that she would reveal the secret, and she used this dynamic to toy with him.]

And it is incredible how someone in a relationship with such a perfect being could fail to treat her like a goddess.

[When the movie arrives, I’ll see it, and correct my impression if necessary.]

Added January 19, 2019: I have seen the movie now: I was correct.  Pretty well, exactly correct.  Though I think the film-makers thought her nagging of Joe was adorable in some way.  What it reveals is that this story, written by a woman, is really judging Joe as a husband who didn’t appreciate everything his wife did for him.  The fact that she supposedly wrote most of his work– the most preposterous and unbelievable aspect of the story– is incidental to the real point:  he wasn’t nice enough to her.   Or to his son– in the movie, Joe is a prick for not being more supportive.  In real life, of course, we all are especially appreciative of those privileged people who get published because they were related to someone with strings to pull, like Joe Castleman.  (Look at Ingmar Bergman’s daughter, Linn Ullmann, who was extremely wary of attracting readers who were more interested in her famous parents than in her writing.)  The fact that David, the son, doesn’t seem to realize what position he has put his father in — how dare you not recognize my talent!– tells you just how mediocre the thinking behind this film is.

From the start, Joan seems paralyzed by the realization that she has wasted her life devoting herself to a man incapable of even the most momentary act of selflessness.  [Slant]

WTF?  Wait a minute– you are trying to suggest that she is actually an incredibly worthy person because she actually wrote the award-winning books so her husband could take all the honors.  Then you suggest that what really matters is that he wasn’t grateful! 

So Joan is “selfless”?  But if she was– think about this– if she really was selfless, she wouldn’t care.  That is what selflessness is.  But she is in fact very selfish because she expects a considerable amount of gratitude and respect in exchange for the waste of her life.  Her “love” is more like overflowing self-infatuation.  Her view of justice is that now that I’ve done all these things for you, you owe me.

Is the remarkable thing here that a person can be an asshole?  Or that a person can devote her life to serving an asshole and not realize it until she is old?  I’m not sure, in the end, that there is anything to admire about this woman.  Seriously?  You didn’t leave?  Are you an idiot?  Are we now supposed to be moved by your predicament?

It also appears “The Wife” will suggest that the wife would not have received recognition if she had struck out on her own, as a woman, right at the start.  Because the establishment is dominated by men.  But that only matters if she didn’t really care about literature— if it was the recognition that mattered, and the material success.   That men think she is just as good as they are.   Even though she didn’t take any of the steps necessary to become a successful novelist.

Besides, this will be shocking news to Doris Lessing, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Flannery O’Conner, Francoise Sagan, Agatha Christie, Sylvia Plath and others.

Because she’s entitled.

Isn’t that exactly the difference between great artists and mediocre ones?

You think you’re so smart, you men.

It would be a far, far more interesting movie if she didn’t care about the fucking Nobel prize or any other prize: if what she really cared about was writing something beautiful and true, for the satisfaction of those who didn’t care about awards or celebrities or what fucking outfit she was wearing, or if Oprah will have her on, or if men still find her sexually attractive at 50,  but only about the really beautiful and original and profound and true.

Like Doris Lessing.  Or Muriel Spark.  Or Alice Munro.

And I would wager that, in this movie, her outfits are to die for.  Because, she really only cares about real literature.  [They were.  At least, if you care about the fashion.]

It will be irresistible to the Oprah crowd.  Oprah, who wouldn’t make Jonathan Franzen’s novel a book of the month unless he agreed to appear on her show and, frankly, grovel.  He rejected it at first but (after his publishers begged him) finally took the bait and his novel flourished.  I’ll bet, in his own mind, he still can’t wash away the stink.  That, my friends, is a story for a movie.  For a potentially great movie.  For a movie that Hollywood will never make.

Here’s the thing, feminists: if Oprah Winfrey had had a single ounce of real integrity, she would have made Franzen’s book her selection and would have praised him for his refusal to kowtow to narcissistic tv hostesses who wanted to use him to enhance their own prestige.  Well, she wouldn’t have had to go that far to show any class.  It would have been enough to say, “I don’t care if he won’t come on my show: it’s a great book and I want to talk about it and urge all my viewers to read it.”

And is this dynamic supposed to be representative of which spouse takes advantage of which spouses’ abilities?  See Hillary Clinton below.  See Melinda Gates.  See Greta Gerwig.  See Soulpepper.

That’s mainstream Hollywood.  For the adult version of this story– I mean “adult” in the sense that it presents a mature intellectual context– see “Wild Strawberries” by Ingmar Bergman, one of my favorite films of all time.  Or try his “Autumn Sonata” if you want the more likely story.   Or “Scenes From a Marriage” if you can handle complexity.  Or Asghar Farhadi’s  brilliant “A Separation“.  Or even Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People“.  But then, those are not feminist fairy tales.

This in an era where women have accused numerous brilliant men of being monsters because, even though they created great art or produced important products or were very funny, they were not nice to them.  Because even though they took the money, they still feel aggrieved and wronged.   You took the money.  Bill Cosby (whose work I generally can’t stand anyway), Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Al Franken, Jeff Fager, Leslie Moonves, Louis C.K., Albert Schultz.

Steve Jobs is accused of being a lousy dad by his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.  He was a lousy dad.  He was not nearly the brilliant innovator his acolytes claim, either, but he did something important and significant.  And the role of his daughter’s book is to excoriate him because he was not nice to her.   She is asking you to buy and read her book because you will want to know that he was not nice to her.    Because we all needed to know this, just in case we assumed that because he ran Apple he was also a great husband and father.  Because he didn’t make her a princess.  Because maybe you don’t think she is important enough to merit your attention (whereas, he is).  He didn’t give her his Porsche, even after she asked for it.  He didn’t love her unconditionally.  [Lisa’s book deserves a much more extensive discussion: it’s complex and alternately self-serving and expressive.]  He merely acquired the fame that allows his daughter to write a book and go on the talk shows and talk about me, me, me, and me.

And how mean it was of him to not give her a Porsche.

Therefore, he is not worthy of respect or admiration or awards?  We are supposed to be shocked that a man admired for one thing should not be admired for something else?

Apparently, Brennan-Jobs was concerned that people would believe she was writing a book just to cash in on her relationship with her famous dad.  She should be concerned about that.  It sounds to me like nobody would buy a book by Lisa Brennan-Jobs if the book was not about her father.  That’s not to say she can’t write.  That’s not to say she didn’t have editorial help from the kind of editor you get if your book is assured of big sales and high profile.  And you will be invited onto Oprah, or Ellen, or whoever that audience worships today.

Here’s the problem I have with this.  The implication of #metoo is that the work done by these artists and geniuses is now worthless because they were not nice to their accusers.  The implication is that the sources of these allegations are convinced that we are all under the illusion that because a man is famous for his films or paintings or music or jokes we all assume he was a fine person as well.  We don’t.  We never did.  It was never the point.

So we should fire these men, boycott their films, rescind their honorary titles, retract their Oscars and Grammys and Nobels, and so on?  We should all hate them and declare that we are no longer moved by their art, or amused by their jokes?

While some of the most famous musicians of all time may be our favorite idols, it can be easy to forget that they’re not as great as we build them up to be. Yes, they may make amazing music, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a good person.  From Here

What?!  It is “easy to forget” that they might be assholes?  We’re supposed to be shocked to find out that even artist might be jerks?

You people think this guy is great? Well, he was very mean to me, so that proves he is not great.  And he wanted to have sex with me– he saw me as an object, so he is now subhuman and I get to decide when he has paid enough for his monstrous sins.

Dylan Farrow displays conspicuous anger directed towards people who continue to regard Woody Allen as a great director.  What about me?  He treated me badly, so he’s not so great.  Why do you keep saying “Manhattan” was a great film?

Because “Manhattan” was wildly greater than anything you will ever do in your entire life.  Especially if your claim to fame is that you were a victim.

And Greta Gerwig, who was delighted to star in a Woody Allen film when it helped her career, now says she would never do it again.  Really?  I don’t believe her.  (There are women who now insist that Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” is as good as a Woody Allen film– no, better.  It’s not true, not even close.   “Lady Bird” will be completely forgotten in a year; “Manhattan”, “Crimes and Misdemeanors”, “Annie Hall”, “Hannah and Her Sisters” will endure.)

It’s an odd equation.  I can’t find a good analogy for it.  Is “Manhattan” now a bad film?  Should we remove all the Picasso’s from our art galleries?  Should we stop watching the only serious prime-time news program on the big three networks, “60 Minutes”?

Is the equation this: your novels, your movies, your music doesn’t matter, because you were mean to me.

It is the argument of a narcissist.

I don’t mean to use the word “mean” in a demeaning way.  That is, in a way that minimizes the seriousness of the offenses.  In some cases, like Woody Allen, I don’t believe the allegations at all.  In other cases, like Weinstein, I believe he was exactly the kind of creepy, awful person it is claimed.  So does that mean “Thin Blue Line”, “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (the most aptly named of Weinstein’s films), “Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down”, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover”, “The English Patient”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Clerks”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Good Will Hunting”, and so on… are now crummy films?

The people accusing Albert Schultz of improprieties did not go out and found their own theatrical group, find donors and raise money, build a theatre, develop training programs, select plays, develop talent, arrange a New York tour, and win awards for their productions.  No, they deposed him and then took over Soulpepper, which is entirely the result of Albert Schultz’ visionary work.  Does nobody at least find this distasteful?  Are those women now parading around going, “look at this great theatre company we made!  You’re welcome!”

The people who took over “Q” on CBC are benefiting, to an overwhelming degree, from the pioneering work performed by– like him or not– (I always found him a contemptible sycophant) Jian Ghomeshi.  If the CBC had meant to be honorable, they should have cancelled the program, and taken the hit in ratings.  Instead, they are cashing in on the format and style and memes that Ghomeshi brought to the program while pissing all over his reputation.

And I find the name “The Bill and Melinda Gates” foundation a bit cheesy.  Bill Gates– whom I regard as an asshole for what he did to computing-– built a gigantic software company that dominates the entire world of computing.  Melinda Gates married a man who built the company that dominates the entire world of computing.  So their accomplishments merit equal recognition in the name of the foundation?  Without a doubt, Melinda Gates will share innumerable awards for handing out her husband’s money.  And she shares equal billing on the foundation even though her contribution to the funding that gives it all of its cache is exactly zilch.

(Bill Gates is a unique case: he is widely and mistakenly admired for his personal character and for his material success.  His charitable work is admirable, but I refuse to let him off the hook for the damage he did to the progress of computers for at least ten years.  I believe he did for software what Harvey Weinstein is alleged to have done for actresses).

Fortunately, Bill Gates reserved his predatory behavior for other software companies, like Word Perfect and Novell and Lotus and Geoworks and Vermeer Technologies, and not women.  So this is not about #metoo.  Well, it is.  It’s about women asserting that there is something about themselves that is just as valuable and just as admirable as the accomplishments of the men they were attached to.  But there is a similar equation going on here: why should the wife share the recognition?  Why should Bill Gates get all the love when I’m his wife.  I’m just as good.  I’m just as important.  The foundation should have my name on it.  Because I help run it.  With Bill’s money.

For the same reason, I annoyed some of my female friends by complaining about the fact that the wife of a former President was running for president.  I found it bizarre.  Is the U.S. like those tin pot dictatorships in the 60’s and 70’s in Latin America?  This is Eva Peron territory.   This is Isabel Peron territory.  This is Imelda Marcos territory.   This is Rosario Murillo territory.  This is Mary Bono territory.

Why on earth, in a nation of 350 million people, could the Democratic Party have found no one to nominate for president except for Bill Clinton’s wife?  It’s absurd.  It was Bill who ran for governor, and then president, and won, and served for 8 years.  So Hillary stepped up and said, well, I’m his wife.   I should be Senator from New York.  And then, I should be Secretary of State.  And then, I should be president.  I am entitled to be president.  And several of my acquaintances really insisted that, remarkably, the most qualified person to be president of the United States was the wife of the former President of the United States.

She came along and jumped to the front of the parade, because that’s where her husband, who started in the back and actually worked his way to the front, was now marching.  And then she brought along Kirsten Gillibrand, mentored her, supported her move into politics, came out with Bill to support her candidacy to the House of Representatives, pulled strings to get her appointed to  her vacant Senate seat, raised money for her, only to have Gillibrand turn around and smear Bill Clinton during the #metoo campaign.  Once again, a woman riding on a man’s coattails (Bill Clinton->Hillary->Kirsten) acts as if her position was entirely or even mostly the result of her own hard work and determination.  Bill Clinton stood in my way.

Now, somebody is going to claim that Bill Clinton would never have got as far as he did without Hillary.  Bullshit.  Hillary was smart, well-educated, and would have been an exceptional lawyer.  She was also interchangeable with any number of smart, educated, talented women.  On her own, she did nothing particularly unique, other than bungling the Clinton health-care initiative.  Bill Clinton was not interchangeable; Hillary Clinton was.

I think sooner or later a balancing will occur and people will recognize that just because a famous man was an asshole– and many of them were– doesn’t mean that his accomplishments were not remarkable.

And we know that no biographical movie or book is going to give you the chapter showing these women suggesting, politely, discretely, ever so seductively, and persistently, to their husbands, that they be given prestigious positions in their company, foundation, or party, ahead of all the other employees, campaign workers, artists, and political staff who worked their entire lives to get to that position.  They won’t mind: I’m your wife.

No more than the latest “Star is Born” is going to show you Ally begging Jackson Maine to give her a slot on stage.  No, no, no– the convention that is required here is that she is begged to perform because the star is indisposed or no one else can do it, and besides, the backup band just adores you– they know you are really fantastic, and the audience– they didn’t need to be told by the director to give you a standing ovation– they just felt it!

No, because it would be a dead giveaway to the audience if you were to ask for it.  It must be deserved, not weaseled for.

Or Consider

Vanity and Barbara Walters

What’s Wrong with Windows?

How Microsoft Killed Geoworks

 

[whohit]The Wives[/whohit]

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Kavanaugh

I have an odd feeling on this day, Sunday, September 23, 9:40 p.m., that Brett Kavanaugh may well withdraw from the nomination by the end of this week.

It’s a hunch, yes.  I’m guessing that there must be other allegations out there, someone else with collaborative knowledge, perhaps an acquaintance or friend is just about fed up with the self-righteous bluster.  I’m guess that is true because I’m guessing that Kavanaugh is a liar, particularly after his comment that he did not attend the party that Christine Blasey Ford did not identify.

The correct answer, Mr. Kavanaugh, was “I did attend parties around that time but I never did what Ms. Blasey says I did” or “I never attended any parties that time in my life” or “I don’t remember ever meeting Ms. Blasey Ford at any party I attended”.  The first seems plausible, the second ridiculous, and third makes the most sense, if the accusations are false.

But he said, “I didn’t attend that party”.  It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s damaging, to me.  It’s like a burglar responding to an accusation that he is a burglar saying, “I did not break into that house on Maple Street on Friday.”    Nobody said Maple Street.  Nobody said Friday.

So I suspect the allegation is true, and if it is, I suspect there will be some form of collaboration.  And if there is, there will be a lot of cold political calculations going on in Mitch McConnell’s office.  Do they really want to go into the November elections with this dragging behind them?  Just how pissed off will educated white women be at the Republicans desperate attempts to whitewash the issue?  When McConnell says Kavanaugh will be confirmed (to a gathering of evangelical leaders), he has basically said that Ms. Blasey Ford is a liar.  All while vowing to investigate the charges fully.

And if no collaboration shows up, I’ll concede that Ms. Blasey-Ford’s allegations may well be false.  Nobody who remembers them both being at the same party.  Nobody who remembers similar behavior by Kavanaugh at other parties.  Nobody how heard about the incident at the time.  It may be a false memory, or a blended memory, or a recovered memory– who knows– but false.

I just read this:

After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.  New Yorker

Well, that’s sort of what I imagined but it sounds a lot like Ms. Ramirez is “recovering” memories, which I think are worthless.  And it comes from an article by Ronan Farrow who is not a reliable source for this kind of story.

 

[whohit]Will Kavanaugh Withdraw?[/whohit]

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The Book Cover

The media knows and understands that many of the Republican presidential candidates know very well that they do not have the slightest chance of becoming the nominee.  It doesn’t matter.  Most of them are businessmen and investors and owners and they understand the important thing in life is to make money.  And the real money is in the books and the speeches.  And the books and speeches sell for more if they come with this appendage on the cover: “presidential candidate and [whatever]”.   I’m not sure they even say “former”.

Just look at all the free advertising they all get.  Millions and millions of dollars worth of free advertising.  The dumber the comments, or the more controversial, the more free advertising, and the more copies your book is going to sell and the more money you get from giving after-dinner speeches all over America.  You get your picture taken with the organizers of these festive occasions, shake their hands, give them something to talk about at the office the next day.  The dumber the comments the better, because then you can accuse the “establishment” and the “east coast media” and “east coast intellectuals” of all being against you.  They are against you because you are right and they are wrong.  The bible says so.  And your audience in join you in insisting that they are just as smart as those educated, East Coast elitests.  Because you read this book.

More amusement.

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Hollywoodizing Greek Debt

In almost every Hollywood movie, some characters will do bad things. They will be ill-mannered. They will be mean to a child or a pet. They will be sneaky and dishonest. The purpose of these incidents is so the viewer can enjoy seeing this character dismembered, tortured, or killed later, guilt-free. It’s not much fun to watch terrible things happen to people at random– they don’t deserve it. So first, we must establish that the character deserves it. Now we can enjoy the violence.

In the same way, the Greeks must be perceived as lazy, self-indulgent, greedy, reckless, and sneaky, before we get to enjoy watching their economy destroyed by the troika (the EU, the IMF, and various European governments). Otherwise, we will feel as though we should help them. That Greek pensioner crying on the sidewalk because he can’t get any cash from the ATM to buy food? He voted for a government that pays people not to work, that hires commissioners to take care of lakes that have dried up, that lets people retire at the age of 40, and so and so on.

I’m not inclined to join the brow-beating because I keep circling back to the same question over and over again: what idiot banker would lend money to an insolvent government?

We know that the banks in North America do not make loans so that they can be paid back. Where’s the fun, and profits, in that? They make loans to increase your indebtedness to the point where you cannot pay off your loan. Instead, you pay high interest rates, in perpetuity, on that loan. That is the banker’s wet dream. The fact that the average American owes about $8,000 on his credit card is proof that the strategy has been widely successful.  The fact that 50% of the population do not actually have any “wealth” (read Thomas Piketty) proves that most of us don’t understand how the economy really works.

So the banks were not lending money to Greece so they could improve their economy and then pay them back. They were lending insane amounts of money to Greece in the hope that they would not be able to pay the loans back, but would have to make large payments, year after year, for decades, generating enormous profits for the banks.

In Iceland, the bankers who developed this kind of strategy were fired, arrested, charged, convicted, and imprisoned. Iceland told the banks, this is a capitalist, free enterprise society. You intentionally made bad loans. Your customers can’t pay them back, and you knew it. You lose. Iceland declared bankruptcy and the banks were wiped out. Iceland started new banks to facilitate cash flow and started over.  The prison sentences were given because the bankers knew full well what they were doing.  Lending enormous sums of money to people or institutions that cannot pay it back is not the result of carelessness, but of careful, conscious planning.

Greece is not the same. But the result should have been the same. Banks, trying to make big money, loaned the Greek Government billions of Euros. Did they check to see if the Greek Government would be able to pay them back? Evidently not. But employees of the bank made millions of Euros in commissions by arranging these loans. In a capitalist system, when Greece could no longer make payments, the banks should have lost their money. The bankers would have been fired. And Greece would have had to start over. Maybe the banks would have collapsed. Well, that’s free enterprise.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, the European governments led by Germany bailed out the shareholders of those banks. Now they want their money back. They did not require the banks to do their due diligence before making their loans, so they have just done an enormous favour to the banking industry.  They didn’t punish the bankers for making fraudulent loans and failing to perform due diligence: they rewarded them.

But they don’t tell you that the Greeks must pay them for this favor to the banks’ shareholders.

They say, you selfish, lazy Greeks. You took all our money and now you won’t pay it back. And they act like Alex Tsipras has been ruling the country for 20 years, creating all that debt.

The story continues.

[whohit]Hollywoodizing Greek Debt[/whohit]

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Mattress Wars

Is Emma Sulkowicz the new Oleanna? Or Joan of Mattress? When I first encountered the story, I assumed it was another tale of campus rape, mediated, probably, as usual, by drugs and booze, at a frat party or dorm room somewhere, with the usual cast of characters: young, naive woman out for a good time; young man dragging her off somewhere and forcing himself on her; young girl’s friends warning her, losing her, looking for her; young man’s friends laughing it all off and calling her a slut.

But this story didn’t work out that way. The alleged rape took place in Emma’s room, and was, in it’s initial stages– by her own account– consensual. But, she claims, he took it too far, and forced her into anal sex. But, then again, she didn’t seem to regard it as non-consensual for quite a few days afterwards, as she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with Paul Nungesser, the “perp” in this story. And then again, some of her messages seemed rather specifically expressive: wanna come over and have anal sex?

Emma didn’t file a complaint immediately. In fact, she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with him for sometime after the event. It appears that only after encountering other young women who had relationships with the young man– and the young man’s detachment from her– that she decided that the anal sex had been, after all, non-consensual.

She went to the University and explained her situation. The University, even after refusing to look at the Facebook messages, or to hear from Paul Nungesser, declined to suspend the alleged perpetrator. Emma then went to the police. The DA also declined. I haven’t read a good account of why both the University and the DA didn’t proceed with charges, but it seems likely that Emma was honest enough to admit to exchanging messages with the alleged perpetrator that, at the very least, made it difficult to press the case that the sex was “non-consensual”. I wish we could hear the conversation with the University officials: there must have been something remarkable there for them to decline to punish a student for an alleged rape.

What is remarkable is that Emma Sulkowicz, from her statements and actions, appears to have a different idea of “non-consensual” than even devoted feminists have held up til now. She seems to actually believe that no matter how consensual the act was at the time, bad behavior by the man afterwards can justify a retroactive assessment of the act as rape. This is intriguing to me because I don’t think she is unique in this regard. Some of her comments about Nungesser suggest that her accusation is based more on a judgement of his character than her memory of the incident. Something about her comments sounds familiar and disturbing, in the sense that I wonder just how reliable some allegations made by other women are– which is something one should not wonder.

If there was any doubt about the nature of Emma’s accusations, she has released a video of herself and a male actor recreating the “rape”, from several angles, with considerable authenticity. The sex is not simulated. This is quite possibly the strangest attempt to build credibility I have ever heard of. The experience was so awful that I will recreate it, as artistic expression? You could build a lot of aesthetic theory on the idea but in terms of how this furthers her demands for “justice”, I am mystified.

Is this all drama? All of it? The mattress, the allegations, the protests, the re-enactment? Is the relationship itself another drama, with the University and the District Attorney denying Emma her catharsis?

[whohit]Mattress Wars: Emma Sulkowicz[/whohit]

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The Look and the Sound of Silence

The ending of “The Graduate” is a legend now.  And I suspect it’s about time someone made the traditional attempt to “debunk” the mythological greatness of it and attack the whole strange sequence as mediocre, confusing, or trivial.

Personally, I think it holds up extremely well.  In fact, I dare say, it seems stronger and more allusive today to me than ever before, while the rest of the second half of the movie does, at times, seem aimless and rote.  The uncanny momentum of the first half, up to when Elaine learns about the affair, suddenly deflates and wanders, until it seems to gather itself up again into some kind of  raucous crescendo with the wedding.

But it can’t be denied that part of the marvelous impact of that last scene on the bus  is due to the expectation of the Hollywood ending, the happy music, the smiles, the suggestion that all is now well.  With expectations like that in place, the first encounter with that long, lingering, ambiguous take is rather stunning.  And it shifts the viewer’s perception from that empty, trivial, inauthentic kitsch to the rich complex authentic possibilities of their relationship– not all unicorns and hazy meadows.

Some commentators feel that the ending is therefore sad and pessimistic.  I don’t think it goes that far.  I don’t think we encounter a fateful, tragic mistake.  What we have is the real possibility that they will work things out but only after actually learning to cope with life beyond the magic hysteria of their escape from stultifying bourgeois conformity.  Maybe Benjamin becomes an environmental activist.  Maybe Elaine becomes a feminist.