Why elections do matter

Elmo Roper
Elmo Roper (1900-1971) was a pioneer of the science of polling, and his legacy is The Roper Center at UConn. The fundamental principle of polling is that we are more alike than we know, so that one person (assuming proper selection techniques) represents the views of thousands of others. So a poll of 1,500 Americans, properly done, can predict the outcome of an election with astounding accuracy. (Exit polls are even more accurate.)

We are polled more than an other people on earth, mostly for commercial purposes. We are also asked our opinions on political issues. But those opinions are not important (if so, we’d have national health care). Political polling on issues is merely a means of ascertaining whether or not opinion management techniques are effective.*

It’s easy to wander off into idealistic notions of democracy and get all glassy-eyed about the will of the people, voting and all of that. Roper’s research led him down a different path. He concluded that 90% of Americans are “…politically inert, inactive, inattentive, manipulable, and without critical faculty.”

I wish it were not so, because it rules out self-governance as a viable alternative to rule by the “elite,” or moneyed interests. What then is the point of having elections?
Continue reading “Why elections do matter” →

It defies obfuscation

This is the TED Talk that has caught so much attention. The Sapling Foundation, owner of “TED” (technology, entertainment, design) initially declined to air it, and demand had to grow on its own. Finally there was enough whining and complaining that TED was forced to air it. It’s making the rounds now.

In it, Nick Hanauer says some plainly true things that are a stark contrast to the spirit of the times. He makes lots of money, but doesn’t imagine himself a “job creator.” That function, he says, is the product of a feedback loop, with middle class consumers buying products acting as the real job creators. So low taxes for the wealthy has no influence on the number of jobs available to fill. (Quite the opposite, actually.)

That point is so basic that it takes whole university economics departments to obfuscate it beyond recognition. Sadly, that is the function of economics as we know it – not to discover truth, but to hide it.

Put a stop to pesky assassins today!

Has this ever happened to you – you’re at a family wedding, and suddenly, a drone strike kills the entire wedding party and many guests?

Are you tired of annoying government agencies killing your friends and family members?

We can put an end to these pesky assassins by signing onto the White House DO NOT KILL LIST. Once on that list, you can rest assured that President Obama will remove your name from the list of Americans he wants to kill. Here’s the petition, which despite the snarky nature of this blog post, is quite real, as is the kill list:

The New York Times reports that President Obama has created an official “kill list” that he uses to personally order the assassination of American citizens. Considering that the government already has a “Do Not Call” list and a “No Fly” list, we hereby request that the White House create a “Do Not Kill” list in which American citizens can sign up to avoid being put on the president’s “kill list” and therefore avoid being executed without indictment, judge, jury, trial or due process of law.

h/t David Sirota

Memorial Day, 2012

I tend to think of veterans, along with the people they maim and kill and turn into refugees, as mere victims. They know not what they do. They are mostly high school graduates, many drop-outs, but not by any means of lesser intellectual ability than the rest of us. They only suffer limited exposure. Also, they needed a job.

On return from duty they often assume an exalted posture, thinking of themselves as exceptional people who have given of themselves, put their lives on the line to “protect” us. Indeed they are at risk, and a small percentage die, more are wounded, and many are so jaded by the things they saw and were asked to do that they are forever changed – “PTSD” we call it now.

But there is a problem with that line of thought, as they are protecting us from non-existent enemies. No Vietnamese, Nicaraguan, Afghan, Iraqi, Libyan, Somalian, Sudanese, Colombian, Yemeni, Iranian, Panamanian or Grenadan has threatened our safety. Yet we have attacked them all.

We set this day aside in their honor. President Obama today repeated the myth that Vietnam veterans were abused on return. I suppose I should honor veterans in some way, but not for what they do or for their low level of awareness. I honor them if they return smarter people, if military duties changed them in such a way that their political and social awareness was raised. If they assume their proper role as world citizens, respecting life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness everywhere on the planet, and not just here, then I honor them.

Pat Tillman, prior to his death, had arranged to have a meeting with Noam Chomsky. That’s an extraordinary transition of mind, and few can be expected to make such a change. But if a few of our veterans leave the military in a higher state of awareness than those I have encountered in my life’s wanderings, I guess I can say it’s a bit like kissing your sister. It ain’t exciting, it ain’t fulfilling, but it ain’t nothing.

A matter of continuing puzzlement

To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take time to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness – of himself, of his condition, of his society – for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events. (Ellul, Propaganda, pp 46-47)

[Footnote*]
I don’t wish to follow the common notion that propaganda is a series of lies or even a big lie, but for this purpose this day will concentrate on one very big lie. The big propaganda event of 2011 was the “killing” of Osama bin Laden, and it is so thinly constructed, so transparently false, that I wonder why it is so easily sold.

In large part this has to do with the follow-the-leader nature of the American public (the “public” that I am familiar with – I suppose other “publics” are as malleable). If important people say it is true, and especially if there is general agreement among people who purport to oppose one another in public, then the story will be believed, no matter how incredible.
Continue reading “A matter of continuing puzzlement” →

The audacity of somnambulant stupidity

Woodward (right) and Bernstein
I normally don’t read books by Washington insiders, as I find them boring. I have tried. I once worked my way through a book by the actor who played a journalist in the Watergate affair, Bob Woodward. The book, Plan of Attack, was awful – he had Bush saying things he could not possibly say; Bush all by himself deciding to invade Iraq, as if he was in charge. The book had glossy black and white still photographs, obviously posed, of administration officials talking, one in particular where Bush was looking officious and others standing around listening with serious faces. Does anyone ask how that camera got in the room? Not Woodward.

Does anyone ever ask why he is even granted such access? If he were a decent journalist, he’d never get through the front door. Journalism, as Assange and Manning well know, is illegal.

I did find Plan of Attack useful – I hollowed out the middle and used it to hide spare credit cards and cash. I thought if anyone was looking for a book with significant content, that would not be that one. My valuables would be safe hidden in garbage.
Continue reading “The audacity of somnambulant stupidity” →

Calling Conrad Tester! Calling Conrad Tester!

This hoary marmot had never before heard the sound or smelled the fumes of an ATV
The “Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012” (HR 4089) is one of a long list of bills that are part of a full frontal attack on our wilderness system. When I was working these issues back in the 1990’s, the ever-present threat was the loggers, who like so many others, cannot conceive of the concept “enough.” They wanted everything, every log, and the idea of setting land apart merely to preserve it was foreign to them. That is the ethos of the corporation, and while corporations are comprised of human beings, corporations manifest the worst aspects of humans – greed and indifference to nature and human aesthetics. In fact, that is what corporate structure promotes, and what the law mandates – profit before all.

Loggers are still with us, and presented their agenda (again – it’s old wine in a new bottle) in Sen Jon Tester’s (D-MT) “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act,” like the Heritage Act, a name crafted around a long oak table in a room deep in the bowels of an ad agency. Their job is to sell, and the naming of a bill (Clear Skies, anyone?) is as important as any other aspect of getting anti-social, anti-commons, anti-community legislation passed.

SHA2012 does the following, according to Wilderness Watch of Missoula:

HR 4089 would give hunting, fishing, recreational shooting, and fish and wildlife management top priority in Wilderness, rather than protecting the areas’ wilderness character, as has been the case for nearly 50 years. This bill would allow endless, extensive habitat manipulations in Wilderness under the guise of “wildlife conservation” and for providing hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting experiences. It would allow the construction of roads to facilitate such uses and would allow the construction of dams, buildings, or other structures within Wildernesses. It would exempt all of these actions from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Finally, HR 4089 would remove Wilderness Act prohibitions against motor vehicle use for fishing, hunting, or recreational shooting, or for wildlife conservation measures.

In other words, the bill overrides every important provision of the 1964 Wilderness Act.
Continue reading “Calling Conrad Tester! Calling Conrad Tester!” →

Oh what a night!

On to serious stuff now.

In my athletic days (slow-pitch softball, like bowling, is considered an athletic activity by some), I was called upon late in a game to be the catcher (something to do with my not catching balls in the outfield). Our center fielder had a cannon for an arm, and ran down a ball in the gap and got it back to me at the plate quickly. That took the other team by surprise, and there I stood at home plate, ball in glove and two runners having crossed third base. I tagged each of them, one of the most unusual double plays ever in the annals of the game. The second runner, probably out of embarrassment, tried to run me over, Pete Rose fashion. But as I discovered on further examination, I had held onto the ball. (He was called out for running into me, not allowed in slow-pitch, but he was out anyway.)

That event came to memory as I watched a baseball game last night – something far more unlikely happened. Cincinnati’s Mike Leake, Zach Cozart and Drew Stubbs hit back-to-back-to-back home runs, unusual. But the really amazing thing was that one fan in the center field bleachers caught two of them.

Imagine that there were 23,000 fans in the ball park. The odds of any one of them catching an errant ball are, say 20 in 23,000, or 1/1,150. The odds of the same person catching two would then be 1/1,322,500.

What a night for 20-year old Caleb Lloyd! He was invited up to the broadcast booth during and down to the locker room after the game, and even standing among all those millionaires, wanted no money for Leake’s home run ball (it was his first major league home run).

New witness steps forth in the RFK murder

I have long since dismissed any serious consequences or fallout from the JFK assassination. The poor schmuck was a victim of circumstances, and would probably had continued to lead a charmed life had he not been popped that day. The one person who mostly caused his demise knew that he had done so, and from afar it appears that he went through a consciousness-altering experience with the death – enormous guilt, a new perspective on the world, and a death wish. That was Bobby. Though we’ll never know, it could be that his anti-war stance was genuine.

Normally in American politics, false leaders appear on the scene to collect discontent and misdirect it to a futile end. In 1968, that appears to have been Eugene McCarthy’s role. There was no need for a another false leader, so that Bobby’s anti-war stance could well have been real. There was also the matter of his determination to solve the mystery of his brother’s death. These two things made him unqualified to be president.
Continue reading “New witness steps forth in the RFK murder” →