Politics – Page 8 – HystericallyBored

2019-04-01

Janet Jackson Gets Her “Due”

According to the New York Times, Janet Jackson has been unjustly deprived of accolades and esteem because of the scandalous event known as “nipplegate” in which a piece of her wardrobe fell away from her breast while Justin Timberlake was trying to put it back during a performance at the Superbowl in 2004.

No– the act was Justin Timberlake pulling the wardrobe away from her breast. But what was supposed to happen– after the audience got their titillation out of the way– was that the pulled away fabric would just reveal more fabric.

The Superbowl is already a triviality, a monument to nothingness, a mammoth orgy of absurdly boring sport and vulgarity. The half-time performances are already obscene: most artists lip-sync and gyrate to inane pop inanities while tanned boobie commentators ravish them with praise.

The song Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake was performing was about getting somebody naked. Why was that acceptable but the real thing was not? Because there is nothing in the world more appealing to hypocrites than titillation– literally! The enjoyment of things they believe to be taboo without the actual thing. Janet Jackson’s sin was that for a brief moment she dispelled the illusion that millions of viewers thinking deeply about tits would be exposed as actually thinking deeply about tits. The secret about “nipplegate” is that the real offense was exposing just how dirty America’s minds really are. Someone will have to be crucified in order to expunge this dirty secret and restore middle-America’s sense of respect and decency! I will not tolerate a naked breast on tv! I am a moral person! But, go ahead and dance and wiggle your clothed hips and sing about getting naked– I love it– but I am a decent, moral person who will only vote for non-outed political candidates.

Was there “blame”? What are you talking about? They were doing exactly what the audience wanted. The costumes, the lyrics, the gyrations, the rhythm– all were aimed at creating the largest sense of arousal possible while pretending to be enjoying the music and the artistry– and the sport– instead.

Shunned because of “nipplegate”? I am astonished that anyone really cares about the wardrobe malfunction, for many reasons:

it was trivial– there is nothing horrifying about the human body, to children or adults;
Janet Jackson is trivial: there is not, among her products, not a single performance of anything, that matters in any sense: she is merely a pop artist of no particular originality or insight;
attributing indifference to an artist who is a woman and black can’t always be blamed on the fact that she is a woman and black: for heaven’s sake, she never was or is anything other than a pop artist of mediocre achievements;
how did she get to be an artist in the first place? Did someone in the music industry notice this very talented singer somewhere and decide she should be a star? Or, could she have had some privileged connections? Do you need to ask?
Even Janet Jackson, or mediocre artistic achievement, deserves better than to be treated like that for a trivial indiscretion, even if it was intentional or her fault.

The Bush Administration tried to punish CBS for not preventing the mishap. Last I heard, the courts had thrown out the case.

2019-03-28

Mueller Shrugged

After mulling it over for a day or so, I lean towards the idea that Mueller blinked.

He just couldn’t bring himself to enact the logical consequences of the evidence he accumulated on Trump’s actions in reference to the Russia investigation. Was he ever going to indict a sitting president? Maybe he just couldn’t bear the astonishing sustained brutal assault on the Justice Department and the intelligence services. “One thing about this president: he doesn’t care about collateral damage”. There is no other logical explanation: the evidence of Russian contacts is extensive and definitive; and of course, Trump and his defenders have never bothered to disprove any of it, because they can’t. Mueller identified Russian hackers down to the location of the building from which they operated in Moscow. In a stupid moment of an interview with Lester Holt, Trump admitted he fired Comey because of his investigation of those Russian hackers. That is the very definition of obstruction. But for some reason Mueller just couldn’t take that last step.

I’m sure he hoped Barr would take the burden, and I’ll bet he hopes Congress takes it up if Barr doesn’t (he won’t). Perhaps Mueller judged that in the current political atmosphere, little would have been served by indicting Trump and throwing the entire country into turmoil. Perhaps he hopes that in 2020 the situation will correct itself. But by constantly attacking Mueller (a lifelong Republican) and the FBI and the Justice Department and some of the most reputable criminal investigators in the country, Trump has already done more damage than anyone could have imagined on the day he was elected.

2019-03-13

You Can Have it Back

The U.S. is now negotiating with the Taliban to return the nation to some kind of hybrid administration that gives a significant amount of power to our former arch-foes. The current government of Afghanistan is not invited to these talks. Can there be a more anxious government in the world right now than the government of Afghanistan?

In other words, after almost 20 years of war and the loss of thousands of lives, we are going to restore things to exactly the way they were when we started.

The U.S. has lost this war. It will never publicly admit it, but it has lost the war in Afghanistan and it is finally going to leave, but not before adding insult to injury. The Taliban has no interest in a pluralistic, representative government. They have no interest in the rights of girls and women to an education or any other choice. Once the U.S. is gone, they will extract revenge on all who opposed them, including the thousands of Afghani volunteers who joined the police forces– at great risk– for $300 U.S. a month. They will almost certainly drive out their coalition partners and establish a repressive Islamic regime, like the one they had before the U.S. invaded, and after they drove out the Soviets.

Will anybody responsible for this disaster ever be held to account? The George W. Bush Presidential Library still stands. Dick Cheney’s daughter sits in Congress. Rumsveld? Wolfowitz? Richard Perle? Probably serving on boards of large corporations for hugh sums of money?

The dead? They remain dead and buried and mourned by their families and loved ones who think Colin Kaepernick should just go and piss off. We are patriotic. We invite you to use us. We invite you to offer our bodies as a sacrifice to your political career. They will name a freeway after you. They will bury our fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, wives, and sisters under the freeway.

2019-02-17

So Then You Shoot…

In his decision, Judge Norman determined that the officer “cannot be expected to coolly engage in a protracted analysis of all the information known to him in a rapidly changing circumstance, putting the officer in the position of having to make an immediate choice.” NY Times

This is the fascinating rationale– part of it– offered by Mickey J. Norman of Baltimore County Circuit Court– to justify rescinding a $38 million award to the family of Korryn Gaines who, while being served with a summons for a traffic offense, and in the company of her 5-year-old son, was shot to death by Officer Royce Ruby (who has since been promoted).

This is about the source of the judge’s rationale: a Supreme Court judgement. And here again we have an interesting interpretation of facts and law which clearly implies that the police have the right to shoot any person who approaches them, period. Think about it. That is all the woman did. She didn’t have a gun or a weapon of any sort. She called the police asking for help. She went to meet the police she called. They shot her dead. The courts say– with impunity. The article notes that many police forces now actually train their officers to act with impunity– in essence. The law will be interpreted to mean that anybody approaching any officer at any time under any circumstance can be shot because you can’t expect the officer to exercise any kind of judgement in a situation that could be interpreted to consist of a “rapidly changing circumstance”. The woman approached the car. She got closer. That was a “rapidly changing circumstance”.

It is curious that the court did not do any math. How many times a day does an officer face a “rapidly changing circumstances”? How many every week, month, year? The court says you could shoot anyone in range at any of those times, with impunity. What if the court had said, as they should have, you may never shoot unless you are reasonably certain that a real imminent threat to life and limb exists? If you are uncertain, you don’t shoot. That simple. If you don’t like that rule, don’t apply to be a police officer.

The court imposes no obligation upon a police officer to exercise good judgment. It is enough that the circumstances changed– “rapidly” — in the estimation of the police officer who was so weak and frightened and incompetent that his only choice was to draw a revolver and shoot. Frank Hamer would be proud.

I suspect that the judge had decided to rescind the award before he even heard any details about the case. I suspect that, because, when you read the rationale, above, you realize that you could invent such a rationale to justify a police officer entering your home without a warrant and shooting you to death in your bed. Because you might have a handgun under your pillow and an officer “cannot be expected to coolly engage in a protracted analysis of all the information known to him in a rapidly changing circumstance”.

Amazingly, the judge did not conclude that the police should avoid “rapidly changing circumstances” or withdraw from them, to prevent a potentially fatal conflict. No, if a police officer encounters a “rapidly changing circumstance” he can go ahead and shoot somebody and then count on judges like Mickey J. Norman to exempt them from any responsibility.

Remember that Ms. Gaines lost her life over a traffic ticket. Without the overdue traffic fines, there would have been no police invasion, and no shooting. No “rapidly changing circumstances”.

There is a certain constituency out there who will argue that if she would have just obeyed the police, she would be alive today. It was her own fault. This argument assumes that our freedoms do not belong to us, but are granted only at the discretion of the police and the authorities. That is the definition of a police state, of a dictatorship. Furthermore, it assumes that no matter how trivial the offense for which the police are attempting to apprehend someone, the police in that situation are justified in using lethal force.

If I had been the judge in that case, for that reason alone– the relatively trivial nature of the offense– I would have wanted to make a very clear statement to the public and the police that the justice system will not tolerate rogue police officers killing people over traffic tickets.

The defense argues that it was not the traffic ticket. It was the fact that she resisted arrest. And I would say that it is a monstrous exchange here. If our society had to make a choice between collecting overdue traffic fines and the life of a young mother, rationality would prevail and we would find some other more proportionate way to encourage people to obey the rules of the road.

Progress

Devolution

2019-01-17

Punk Puritans

This Podcast

Hanna Rosen is the host of this interesting podcast about punk rockers in Richmond, Virginia. Emily Nixon is a young woman who was a member of a group called I.C.E. Motherfuckers. Do they sound tough or what?

Emily Nixon: “All that mattered was hanging out and making music and making mischief”.

Emily Nixon: “You always feared for your life at the shows but that was part of the fun”.

Emily Nixon was the front man for the band I.C.E. Motherfuckers– if I have that right. (Yes, I said “man”. Punks don’t care.) Emily Nixon is the subject of the podcast (above) that allegedly addresses issues of “calling out” people for sexual misbehavior. No other misbehaviors need apply–as we shall see– just anything sexual. Anything, you know, “dirty”. Because then we can all be automatically outraged, horrified, and extremely, extremely upset.

Emily was proud of having assaulted an audience member at a gig. Apparently, he chose to dance in the mosh pit during one of her songs about liberation and equality and empowerment. She jumped off the stage and punched him hard. That is assault.

We do not get called out for assault. Nothing wrong with the assault.

Emily Nixon said “You always feared for your life at the shows but that was part of the fun”. What a ballsy chick! Then she recounted how she made out in her bedroom one night with someone from another band and then, mid-make-out, changed her mind and told him to stop because his bandmates were in the next room. And he did stop, but then he locked the door so his bandmates wouldn’t walk in on them making out, and that creeped her out and then they slept in the same bed together but in the morning he touched her suggestively but stopped when she didn’t respond. She froze. She didn’t know what to do. She froze. He stopped probably because there was no response.

No mischief there. No punches. Not much of that punk attitude either.

She was fearless at her shows in which she feared for her life, but was so terrified of the hand on her ass that she could not even croak a single word like “no” or “fuck off”. So she froze, and he stopped. So, he needed to be called out. Yessiree. But “the feeling” was that “there was a sense” that if she did call him out, he would be “protected”. You know– white male privilege, I guess. So– unlike the guy she destroyed soon afterwards who mysteriously was not defended– she didn’t try to get this guy ostracized, castrated, or evicted. She didn’t even punch him.

But then we have the second guy. I have no idea why she didn’t “have a sense” about the second guy.

Which is too bad because a guy who puts his hand on your ass while he is bed with you in the morning should really at least lose his job. Or get punched. At the very least, I think that if I were Emily Nixon, I would at least ask him to go find his own bed.

There was another guy. Her best friend in the world. A real friend. And he was in another band. And then she found out that he did something really, genuinely, viciously awful– far worse than putting a hand on her ass in her bed in the morning: this guy sent a picture of himself naked to a girl unsolicited. Oh my gawd. Even a girl who is used to fearing for her life at her own concerts was just overwhelmed with the gravity of this horror. Oh my gawd! He had to be stopped. But wait– we’ve been best friends for, like, forever. Oh my gawd! Out he goes. She “outed him” on social media.

I like the word “outed” here. It conveys– erroneously, in my opinion– the idea that men hitting on women is something they are all trying to keep secret and that only brave, courageous, gutsy women who risk their lives at punk concerts will have the nerve to expose them. So they are revealed, exposed, displayed, excoriated. So she did.

But it also suggests that a lot of women are secretly obsessed with the idea that all the men around them are secret plotting all kinds of devilishness and should be exposed whenever possible. Because that is how women get power over men: by shaming them. That is what some women said about Louis C. K. He wasn’t ashamed enough. He needed more correction.

He was kicked out of his band.

Seriously? A punk band expelled a member for misbehavior? For violating social norms? For being inappropriate?

And he was kicked out of the clubs.

And ostracized.

And un-friended.

And evicted.

And fired.

He disappeared somewhere– she heard that he “wasn’t doing that good”. I wonder if, at that point, Emily was more than a little intoxicated with her newfound power. Was it as exciting as punching the man in the mosh pit?

Satisfaction! I am impressed with Emily’s ruthlessness and cruelty here. No sense being coy about it– I see this as just an amazing expression of sheer sadistic cruelty. If you think it’s something else or think it should be called something else, I’m calling you out: it’s cruelty and you should own it. It’s mean. It’s brutal. It’s a little psychotic. It is psychotic, by my definition, which is the capacity to inflict enormous pain without empathy for your victim. Psychokiller, as the Talking Heads used to say.

You really owe it to yourself at this point to watch the documentary “Dig!”, about Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Just to give you an idea of how punk musicians ought to behave.

She admits– with enthusiasm– that this is “vigilante justice”. “It felt so good… that’s what he deserved”. I am the instrument of God’s almighty wrath!

“I’m not okay with it”, she said. That phrase is now a kind of mantra for the new Puritans. There are things I am not okay with too, but I haven’t been able to start a movement yet against people who attend leadership training seminars and love Disney.

Then we have Hanna’s impenetrable snark: Emily did the courageous thing even though it cost her. I was not able to determine what it “cost” her other than the risk of “the feeling” that someone might disapprove of disproportionate consequences for mildly rude behavior. You know how things are.

Then along came Herbert.

It’s hard to discern Herbert’s motivations here. Maybe he thought she was a tad self-righteous. I hoped that he might have been motivated by a desire for justice after the disproportionate punishment meted out to the guy she “outed” but it was more vicious than that. Herbert knew Emily. Herbert knew that Emily, in high school, had added a nasty emoji to a nude picture of an acquaintance that someone had posted on social media. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Apparently, she did other nasty things. She saw a girl having sex with someone at a party and slut-shamed her at school. Herbert revealed all this on social media and implored Emily’s friends to shun and ostracize her and implored her band– I.C.E. Motherfuckers– I’m not making this up— to expel her.

They all said, hey, a lot of us were creeps and mean and rude in high school, and made mistakes, and if she apologizes, we’ll all just move on and hope that we have learned to be better people.

Of course not. They all did what Herbert implored them to do. Emily Nixon was suddenly persona non grata. Her friends shunned her. Clubs banned her. Her band fired her. They even issued formal instructions on how she was be punished. This is a the punk community in Richmond, Virginia. We are so rebellious. We are so rogue. We are so uncompromising. We are so virtuous. We are pure. We are the wrath of God and you shall pay for your transgressions!

Hanna interviewed “Jay”, the girl in the nude picture. She was much kinder than anyone else in the podcast. She accepted Emily’s apologies as genuine. How nice. Let’s get back to the guy who texted the nude picture and ask him to apologize. No? You want him to rot in hell? Well, she didn’t say it, but if you broadcast Jay’s generous gesture you really need to address the issue of why Emily gets this consideration but nobody else.

We also, by the way, have a clue as to Emily’s character and psychosis in that “slut-shaming” of someone in her high school who had sex with a boy. Seriously, Emily? You were disgusted that she had sex with someone? You assumed everyone else would be disgusted too? You thought it would make you cool? What kind of person thinks like that?

Herbert was not forgiving. He openly declared that he didn’t care if Emily lived or died. She deserved it. Then, perhaps with some misgivings about coming off as too vindictive, he related how he had been abused as a child by his father. He actually got tearful. I thought, you have got to be kidding. No. He cried. But he now has a great relationship with his parents because, well, it got better. So, apparently he gave his father a chance to apologize and make it up to him. Very nice. Very kind. Very reasonable.

Emily, on the abuse she then suffered: “It just wouldn’t stop”. Oh, that was touching. It just wouldn’t stop.

She is referring to the relentless attacks she suffered on social media. She retreated to her job and her apartment and her boyfriend, a shell of her former self. “I’m not allowed to come to shows anymore. I’m not allowed to make music anymore. This was my entire life since I was 13.”

Hanna sly implies something about Emily’s horrible behavior that she never offers to any of the males in the story: that it is forgivable. That she deserved the chance to make it right, to apologize.” I suspect Hanna would have felt quite comfortable with the CBC panel that announced that, in the #metoo movement, there was never “collateral damage”. All men are guilty. All women are telling the truth. She tries to cover her tracks but her selectivity is telling: Jay thinks Emily’s remorse is genuine.

Hanna calls the abusers “brutal or cruel”. Communities have always punished severely those who violate the rules in order to “enforce the moral code” and “keep the community safe”. She said, “maybe we’ve not given pain enough credit for all the ways its helped us”. “The community decides”… no law or police or judges. No proof required. Hanna declares that inflicting pain on others is not only acceptable– it’s great! There is “no other way… it’s just what humans do.”

This has crossed over into hysteria. It has the hallmarks of hysteria. It is taking on the characteristics of an irrational, extreme reaction out of proportion to the real weight of action that precipitates the reaction.

Then Hanna Rosen has the chutzpah to complain that Herbert didn’t care about Emily at all– excuse me? I didn’t hear that violin playing when you described how Emily crucified her best friend.

Hanna idiotically concludes that this shows pain is good. It moves you forward.

Pretty well everyone in this podcast, including the host, with the exception of “J”, is appalling.

2019-01-09

Self-Approval Ratings

One of the most perplexing polls in the currently political climate is the one showing that only about 20% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. About 80% disapprove.

How can that be? Did we not just have an election? Did you not vote? How on earth did the wrong candidate manage to usurp your candidate’s seat?

Oh. Nobody usurped anything here. The guy you voted for won. Now you tell me he makes you vomit. He is a failure. You hate him. You hate him even more than the president.

But this is not possible. You have a democracy. The majority wins. You chose this Congress. You’re obviously a masochist.

2019-01-04

Bring Your Gun

If the last Congress were true to its “principles,” it would have passed legislation specifically allowing the public to bring firearms into every courtroom (including the Supreme Court) and every meeting of the executive or legislative branches in each state and the federal government.

Let them play by the rules they set for others. Let them live in constant fear, consoled only by the ridiculous notion that the “good guys” will protect us from the “bad guys.” Let them be visited by the tragedies we see played out in almost every other arena.

A “second-class right,” Justice Thomas? Then why are you not speaking out forcefully to allow the public to bring guns into the courthouse in which you sit?

From a letter to the Editor, New York Times, in reference to an article by Linda Greenhouse on the shift of the Supreme Court on Second Amendment rights.

Clarence Thomas has, of late, provocatively insisted that the court is treating the second amendment like a “second-class right”. That’s rhetorically clever and plays to the Republican base: how dare you impede, in the slightest, my passionate desire to own a produced designed to kill people? Well, actually, to defend my family. Yes, that’s it. My family.

This is really a brilliant piece of logic. If the right to buy and own guns should be protected because of it’s sacred contribution to the safety of all Americans, why can’t you bring those guns into a courtroom, or Congress, or City Hall? Why don’t politicians want to be safe?

Because they know this is a lie. They know it in their bones. They know that a courtroom full of guns is not safer– it is far more dangerous– to everybody. So they make an exception for themselves that they refuse to grant to students, church-goers, concert-goers, and anyone else who does not believe that guns make you safe. We are going to make sure there are lots and lots and lots of guns out there, including assault rifles, because, we have no choice: the Constitution guarantee’s this right.

But in my court room? Are you nuts? In my council chamber? Never. Into Congress? Not in a million years.

You think I’d want anyone to be able to bring guns into here, as if it was a church, or a school, or a concert hall? Never.

They are liars.

2018-12-10

Gaming the System

What we are learning from the U.S. right now (especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina) is that any political system is only as good as the honor and integrity of its constituents. Even if a majority of citizens want sound, responsible, government– and vote for it– there are ways in which ruthless parties can exploit the loopholes and gaps in constitutional law to game the system. John Roberts may like to issue platitudes about “objective” justices but we know exactly how the votes are going to go when these issues reach the Supreme Court.

And what we learning about the justice system from the Mueller indictments: he who arrives at court in a limousine, leaves in a limousine.

2018-12-04

Half of Everything

Suppose you had a big plate of delicious french fries, and a friend to share it with. You both sit down at opposite sides of a table. “I’ll give you half,” you say. “That seems fair,” says your friend. So you divide the plate in half and pick up your fork.

Your friend gobbles down all of his french fries in a hurry, as you pick over yours, one by one. After a few minutes, he looks at your side of the plate longingly. “I don’t have any more fries,” he says.

“You can have a few of mine,” you say.

“Okay. Thanks.” and your friend takes half of the remaining fries.

And gobbles them down in a hurry.

And then stares at the remaining fries. “I don’t have any fries,” he says.

“No.”

“Oh come on– look at all the fries you’ve got. Is it fair that you get all those fries and I don’t get any? How can you be so greedy? I should get half.”

And so it goes, until there are no fries left.

And that’s how we get to drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. One of the last preserved natural regions in the nation.

Not for long!

When the oil companies started drilling, some politicians with good sense, including Theodore Roosevelt, realized that the public would like some areas of natural beauty to be kept free from the massive destruction caused by mining and oil wells. So they said, you can’t have everything. They set aside some remote areas like the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge to be maintained in their natural states. And the oil companies got carte blanche to drill practically everywhere else. The government was generous– to the oil industry. You don’t like oil wells? Tough shit. They went up almost everywhere if there was oil. But yes, even then, the government reserved a few areas for the pleasure of that part of the general public that appreciates natural beauty and wonder.

And then the oil industry used up their everywhere else and began to look longingly at all that pristine wilderness.

The clever carbon industry has realized that public perception is not very sophisticated. The public doesn’t understand that areas that were set aside to be protected from industrialization are the half the government resisted handing over to the oil barons. (It’s actually far less than half.) The public doesn’t understand that the oil industry already ate half of the fries. The oil industry says, how can you be so selfish? Share your fries!

Eventually, of course, they will keep taking the half the public stupidly offers them until there are no halves left: just a world full of arid, polluted, wasteland.

The owners of these industries have the means to live in luxury somewhere else. But if you happen to live in one of these protected areas, you are screwed.

They will promise to preserve the environment, to clean up their mess, and provide good jobs for a lot of people for a long time. And you believe them?

It is very important for the conscientious citizen to understand this important fact about the oil barons: there are absolutely no consequences for them if they are lying. The executives who decide to lay waste to millions of acres or allow alcoholics to captain their vessels, or scrimp on safety equipment face no personal consequences at all. They never have. Their corporations will pay fines which will not come out of his bonus.

I repeat: the executives of these companies face no consequences at all for even the most reckless, criminally destructive behaviors.

Think about it– when is the last time you heard about a corporate executive going to jail for lying, for fraud, for polluting the environment, for breaking government regulations?

But the public should not be spared. We elected the assholes who do the bidding of the oil companies. And we refuse to accept any plan to address global warming if it involves the slightest personal sacrifice.

We want a plan that reduces our carbon emissions without reducing our carbon emissions.

Only people like Doug Ford and Donald Trump can work such a miracle.

2018-11-15

Free Enterprise is For Suckers

I guess I need some basic economic lessons again. Not sure I understand “free enterprise”. When a single mother with five children gets a small amount of money from the government, it’s a handout and builds an unhealthy dependency. When a extremely profitable multi-billion dollar corporation gets $1.2 billion in government handouts, it’s an “investment”. Bombardier and Chrysler accepted billions in government “investment”, money that went to wealthy shareholders and top executives. Most, if not all, of that money will never be repaid. In fact, Bombardier just completely torpedoed the one semi-legitimate argument for that investment by laying off 5,000 workers.

Amazon and Foxconn have received even more lavish deals from the U.S. government, as does every major sports franchise in America. As does every major defense contractor– these are for-profit companies, you know– not state-owned enterprises. They don’t just sell their weapons to the United States.

So that single mom should just incorporate herself and ask for an “investment”. She just needs better pr. She should maybe hold a competition among cities: who wants to get my “headquarters”.

As Charlie Chaplin said in “Monsieur Verdoux”– truly one of the most non-conformist films ever made– , about serial killers vs. generals: “numbers sanctify”.