Give up politics and live happily ever after in Disney Land

Johnny Wingnut

Like most Americans, I’m sick…tired….and just generally fed up with how things have been going lately in this country. More than that, I’m apoplectic over my apparent powerlessness to do anything about it.

First, there’s the federal government. Hopelessly bloated, even for the likes of Barack Obama. There isn’t enough hope in that man’s heart to give the federal government what it so desperately needs: intensive liposuction coupled with stomach stapling. If anything, he plans on continuing the trend of expanding government bureaucracy to invade every nook and cranny of our lives. That is his hope, an elitist ideology from the far left implemented on every level imaginable, and I suspect many liberals don’t even know what he means when he bandies about lofty terms without clarification.

That is the point, however. What a political leader’s rhetoric means is really irrelevant nowadays. Rather, the important thing is that you think you know what that leader means when he/she speaks of “hope” and “change.” Or maybe the libs really are paying attention. After all, the hope of neo-liberals is bigger government and that is really what will be changing: the size of federal government. The thinking seems to be, spend all you want, the American people will make more.

The neocons aren’t faring much better in the government spending department, either. Under Bush Jr. federal spending has ballooned to epic proportions. But McCain will also do his worst should he get elected. At least he acts like he’s got some moral fiber underneath all that gabardine, while Obama has the moral center of peanut…a really sharp dressed, smooth talking, and inspirational, hope filled peanut. Still, there might be worse things than having a high brow legume for president.

There’s the energy crunch driving inflation along with our trade deficit and yes, more big government “bail outs” which are, frankly, a joke. More on that in minute.

There’s the ever shrinking dollar and the loss of our self sufficiency.

To paraphrase, Bernard Goldberg, there’s the fact that on the left are loonies a plenty and on the right are gutless wonders. The former, going after Obama with all the zeal of drunken prom dates who’ve been hijacked to a frat party. The latter resorting to political scalping for the sake of the power grab and selling out the ideals which gave birth to the Republican Party in the first place.

Ironically, I’ve come to hate the party I belong to almost as much as the liberals do. A lot of that angst is because true conservatives aren’t even supported by the party which allegedly spawned conservative ideals. Instead, the party has gone “Topsy” turvy…almost… and is now more neo-liberal than ever when it comes to spending. Maybe that’s why classical conservativism has become anathema to the GOP. When the most classically conservative candidates can’t even get the support of their own party, you know it’s time to call it a day. Many conservatives are doing just that. They’re giving up, disengaging, heading for the hills. They can no longer stomach betrayal at the hands of the once Grand Ol’ Party. Yet, the party can’t seem to figure out where the conservative base has gone…or maybe they just don’t care. The fact is, only the very desperate or the very naive are supporting them now. That explains why they’ve become so “neocon with a dash of squishy moderate” lately. They need that soft squishy center now that classical conservatives have left the party in disgust. This arrangement suits them just fine, as long as they have warm bodies at the ballot box to ensure they stay in power. To quote my long time friend and fellow writer, Danny Johnson, “I press onward…” but only just barely.

There’s the fact that more and more Americans (neocon and liberal/moderate/progressive…uh, whatever the hell they’re calling themselves these days) are embracing the neoliberal concept of messiah. In this case, the chosen one is none other than Uncle Sam himself. Of course, when he manages to hit the nail on his thumb with the next failed government intervention, liberals will be the first in line to throw rocks through the “oral” office windows and purge on the White House lawn, provided there’s a Republican president at home. If not, then I’m sure they’ll find some other “conservative” to blame. Maybe it’ll be a legislator, or a conservative media outlet like Fox News. Maybe it’ll be those hicks in small towns whose bitterness has turned to guns, religion, and popcorn chicken. But the one thing you can count on is that liberals won’t shoulder one bit of blame for the policies they’ve screamed, pleaded, and begged for…policies like universal health care, foreclosure bail outs, corporate farm bail outs, economic (political) stimulus packages, minimum wage increases (another political stimulus package), open borders, free trade, and any other legislation they can dream up to expand social spending, buy votes, line their own pockets, and generally do away with personal responsibility. Neocons will be standing by with the holy water to give their blessing on all this, I’m sure. At least they have so far. Whatever it takes, you know. ‘Cause there’s just not enough love in the world and big government really is the answer.

One more thing, there’s the stupid, idiotic, sophomoronic media which no longer knows the difference between opinion writing and news writing. Just one tier below them we have the even “more stupider,” (for the biblically astute, write that as “foolish”) Kool-Aid drinkers who believe every word merely because it’s in print…or merely because it happens to match the preconceived notions of their neighbor who they get their information from. Mostly, they just toe the party line because they don’t know any better.

As I said in my opener, I’m tired folks. Tired of politics: politics in big government, small government, companies, organizations of every stripe..and dare I say it? Politics in the church. I’m tired of lunacy, tired of foolishness, tired of dishonesty, tired of adults acting like children, tired of a world and a country gone absolutely barking mad. I think if I don’t unplug for a while I may just join them. I’ve had it up to HERE with how the country is run and with foolish young people who’ll vote for anyone who speaks well and promises them the moon. I’ve also had it with liberal Dems and neocon Republicans who are so arrogant, they think they can do whatever they damn well please once they get elected. Guess what? They do, and I’m tired of that too. Mostly, I’m just tired of feeling powerless to do anything about it.

So, I’m taking a long vacation to Disney Land and I don’t know if I’m ever coming back. Don’t call and don’t write; I just want to be left alone so I can live my life in relative peace. Maybe next week if I’m feeling better I’ll write about something soft, fluffy, and inspiring…Naaaaah…that would only give aid and comfort to the enemy.

I think I’ll just give up politics altogether and live happily ever after in the land of Disney. If Al Gore and Bill Clinton can do it, so can I. While I’m there, I’ll do something constructive like invent some kind of eco-nazi crisis to drive the greens into a panic. That way, I can control world leaders and drive up the price of my stock or, perhaps, something less ambitious, like coming up with a new definition for the word “is.”

The Police Society

Dashiell

We’ve seen it all before. An unarmed black man is shot to death by police, who are later acquitted of all charges. This time his name was Sean Bell. There have been many others over the years.

But when people point to this pattern, and protest the excessive force and brutality used against African Americans, they are inevitably accused of being incendiary themselves, using the “race card,” and denigrating the authority of the police.

The same reaction occurs when the subject of racial profiling arises, or the disproportionate number of black people imprisoned. To talk about institutional racism at all seems to be tantamount to attacking the American way of life. The rightists have achieved such a stranglehold on public discourse that it has become taboo to declare what you can see right in front of your eyes. This narrative of denial has been politically effective for the right so far because they’ve framed everything in terms of a bad conscience rather than in terms of justice. No one likes to feel guilty, so in a carefully designed atmosphere of powerlessness, people turn on the bearers of bad news. But in truth, it’s not about guilt. It never has been. It’s about the system and how people can change it. As far as the police are concerned, I would think it was ultimately healthy for law enforcement to be self-critical in order to be truly effective.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard police chiefs and commissioners defend some indefensible action by claiming that opponents are trying to smear or denigrate the integrity of the police. Someone protesting a specific police action is attacked for being against the police force in general. Or if a corruption story breaks, there’s bound to be some spokesman or pundit railing defensively about “our fine police force” and the great job they do.

This is a curious phenomenon. Yeah, I believe most cops are just honest working folks doing the best they can, and that usually the best is quite good. But why should I have to bow and scrape and repeat this mantra every time cops do something wrong? The entire subject is weighed down by authoritarian thinking. When you really examine the premise, it’s perfectly absurd: as soon as someone puts on a uniform and becomes a police officer, he or she becomes incapable of wrongdoing or corruption, and to criticize the actions of that officer is to criticize the entire police force. No one would actually come out and claim such a thing, but this is really the operating assumption. And it prevents any real accountability.

The truth is that putting on a uniform that gives you power over other human beings always contains the potential for corruption. People have limitations, so if you put guns in their hands, some of those limited people will misuse them. The problem is compounded when the people with guns are in a big group together and develop clannish or tribal behavior, which is a common human pattern. Cops may tend to see people outside their group as insufficiently supportive, or just ignorant of what it’s really like to be a cop, which makes them more defensive and less open. Now add race to the mix. There are plenty of screwed-up racial attitudes and beliefs out there—are you going to tell me that a police officer is somehow immune from that? In fact, that could easily become reinforced in the closed inner-circle atmosphere of a particular police force or unit.

All these things are not only possible, but have clearly occurred, and that’s leaving aside the outright corruption which has been documented in the police of various cities and states over the years. To see this as part of reality is simply to be awake and reasonably sane. How are the police supposed to really do their jobs unless they’re accountable? How can we trust them if they’re not?

Unfortunately, in an authoritarian system protest is considered a security threat. The police forces become political entities with their own constituencies and interests. So the concern is no longer how to serve the people, but how to protect and enhance the authority of the police. This is not a minor concern. Modern history has seen the rise of police power as a new form of government—in the Soviet Union, for example, the police were actually the dominant class, with a clear precedence over the military. Rather than a force of protection, which is still the narrative our society tells itself about the police, the new authoritarianism sees the police as a tool to be used against the citizenry, as a form of social control. The ominous vision of riot cops concealed behind black uniforms and visors, using force to put down peaceful demonstrations, is part of this shift.

So while individual acts of injustice by police, typified by these high-profile racial cases, are alarming, it is the defensive reaction against those crying out in protest that I find more disturbing. Individuals are affected more or less by the system as it has developed. Solutions to these problems may include civilian supervisory boards, increased police-community communication, etc. But I maintain that the system itself has taken on an essentially racial character. The drug war and the prison industry combine to keep African-American communities disempowered. The police shootings and other brutalities are like symptoms of this underlying systemic problem. How and why this is so requires a much wider public debate—and that’s exactly what the authoritarian right doesn’t want to allow.

fairlane’s poetry corner Part XVII

Cocteau Twins

Blue Bell Knoll

Ode to a ban chod

You fuck your sister
Yes,
it’s true
In fact, no one fucks their sister

quite like you

Ned Beatty’s Colon Exam

That cold, indifferent hand

“You gotta purty mouth, boy”

(Mom said there’d be days like this)

Now, bend over, and squeal

Good Old Kentuck

Here in Kentuck
We don’t have much
Why many of us are even missing our Teeth

We hate Dixie Chicks, and
Elitist “City Pricks”

But dern tootin’ iffin’ we’s don’t luv us sum Toby Keith

For that Jug Butted Fat Ass with Whom I used to Work

I once knew a girl from Nantucket
Her ass was shaped just like a Bucket

I was going to write more
But this poem is a bore

Eh, Fuck It

Ode to a Childhood

Little Miss Muffet sat on a…Tuffet?

What in the Fuck is a Tuffet?

Pondering Cal Thomas

You write about “queers”
Quite a lot I must say

And it does cause one to wonder

For the Memory Impaired

Riddley, Riddley Ree

I see things

No one else can see

For the Children

Somewhere, over my Rainbows
Care Bears fly

An Oldie, but Goodie

Four whores, and seven stints ago…

And So It Goes

Searching for signs among the torn soil, and debris
A funnel of light-Peering through the clouds-
Finds a Sparrow atop a large Cattail
Sharply singing out the all clear

The Earth takes a deep breath
Bubbling the large pools covering
Its skin

As

A cluster of Lilies stand tall, and stretch out
Their necks

Soon, the valley will fill with song in tribute-
To both the living and dead
Who are
Bound
One and all
by the precarious
Arrangement
The Universe has with Itself

Tarnished metal

distributorcap NY

OK - I will be the cynic. To many, the Olympics used to be something that made us gape in awe and inspiration at the marvel of amateur athletes. Now the games have evolved into nothing more than one giant advertisement with a lot of spoiled professional athletes looking for their next endorsement. While commercialism is rampant in 2008, politics and nationalism has been endemic since the rebirth of the games in 1896.

The Beijing Olympics are right around the corner, and like clockwork - the controversy has already started. Protests about China’s treatment of Tibet has disrupted the torch relay tradition in many countries. The selection of China was controversial in of itself — and the Beijing Games will undoubtedly be filled with problems, politics and pharmaceuticals — just like every games before it — only I believe even more magnified.

While there is much to admire about the games, the Olympics has had a checkered and tragic history. The 1972 Munich massacre, the boycotts of 1976, 1980, 1984, Hitler’s Games of 1936, the protests in Mexico City 1968, the dissolution of the Soviet Union before the Barcelona games in 1992, the skating cheating scandal in 2002, Jim Thorpe, Karl Schranz, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, the list goes on.

The quadrennial event strives to be a gathering of the world’s athletes in a celebration of competition. But the Olympics has proven to be anything but. I will take a look at four of the most common problems that have plagued the Olympics - Women’s Issues, cheating, politics and drugs.

Women’s 800 Meter Run - 1928 Amsterdam

At the 1928 games in Amsterdam, the IOC added a new track event for Women - the 800 meter run (which is about ½ mile). Prior to this, the longest event on the calendar for women was the 200 meter run. The winner was Lina Radke of Germany with a time of 2:16.8, which was a world record. She was followed by runners from Japan, Sweden and Canada. After the race, several of the women collapsed from exhaustion and the heat. The Press (yeah they sucked back then too) and the Int’l Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) seized on this as evidence women should be banned from running more than 200 meters. One doctor said “women who took part in races this long would become old too soon.” The president of the IOC, Comte de Baillet-Latour, took this one step further - he wanted to ban all women from the Olympics (even though men had collapsed during many of the rowing events in the same Olympiad).

Guess who won? While the IOC did not get a complete ban on women, IOC officials bought the IAAF argument about long distance races for women. The 800 meter was dropped after 1928, and there were no races for women over 200 meters for 32 years — until 1960 in Rome. The 1500 meter race was added in 1972, and the marathon in 1984 (notably won by American Joan Benoit Samuelson).

Men’s Basketball Final - USA vs. USSR - 1972 Munich

Before the hockey game in 1980, there was the basketball game in 1972. The Americans entered the tournament as heavy favorites, having never lost a basketball game since the event was added to the Olympics in 1936 - 54 straight wins and 7 gold medals. The US team was coached by Hank Iba of Oklahoma (who coached the winning teams in the two previous Olympics) and led by amateur collegiate stars Doug Collins, Tom McMillen, Kevin Joyce and Ed Ratleff (unlike the current Olympics, which is chock full of NBA stars).

The US handily won its first 8 games by an average of 32 points - including a 66 point margin of victory over Japan. The final against the USSR, during the height of the Cold War was to be broadcast live back to the US.

The game was a slow paced game, not the run-and-shoot strategy the players had been employing. With six seconds to go, the USSR had a one point lead. Soviet player Sasha Belov threw the ball straight to American Doug Collins, who was then fouled intentionally (and quite hard). Dazed, Collins sank two free throws with :03 left, and the US led 50-49. Now it gets interesting.

The USSR in-bounded the ball, but 2-seconds later, the Brazilian referee called an administrative time out when he saw an argument at the scorer’s table. It seems the Soviet coach had called a time-out after Collins first shot. The horn indicating a time-out went off just as Collins shot his second free throw. The international rules in 1972 stated that the time-out could be called before or after the shot. The German scoring officials thought the Soviet coach had cancelled the time out when he saw the Soviet players line-up for Collins free throw, so the Brazilian referee was never notified of the time out.

With one second left, the USSR was given their time out. They in-bounded the ball, the clock ran out and the US celebrated. Not so fast.

The head of FIBA (that is the International Basketball Federation), Robert Jones of Great Britain intervened and ordered the clock set back to :03, which was how much time was left when the Soviet coach called the time out. Jones had absolutely no authority to make this call, but no one was going to criticize the tyrannical head of FIBA. The USSR got another chance to inbound the ball, whereby Ivan Edehsko threw the ball way downcourt to Belov, who pushed past his American defenders and scored the winning basket, USSR 51-50.

Anger and chaos erupted on the American side, and Iba filed a protest with Jones. Iba claimed that there was no way that play could have been accomplished in :03. However, under international rules, the clock does not start on inbounds plays until the ball is touched, in this case by Belov. The five man panel voted straight geo-political lines (sounds familiar huh?) - the judges from [then] communist Hungary, Poland Cuba voted for the USSR, while the judges from Italy and Puerto Rico voted to disallow the basket. The US refused to accept the silver and boycotted the medal ceremony. As for Soviet hero Sasha Belov, he died mysteriously 6 years later.

Men’s 4×100 meter relay - 1936 Berlin

The Berlin Games of 1936 were Hitler’s Games - where he would prove to the world that the Germans were superior. Jesse Owens put a major crimp in that assertion, as he won 4 gold medals in Track & Field, much to the chagrin of Hitler. Owens got his gold 4^th gold from a very controversial decision.

The 4×100 relay runners were originally scheduled to be Marty Glickman, Frank Wykoff, Sam Stoller and Foy Draper. Owens was not originally part of that team. The four men practiced baton passing (a tricky part in the relay) for weeks. After Owens won his third gold in the 200, there was some pressure to add him to the relay. Coach Robertson initially resisted.

The day before the qualifying heats, Owens was added and Glickman was dropped. Then on the day of the heats, Stoller was taken off the team and Ralph Metcalfe replaced him. Robertson’s reason for the last minute change was that he feared the German team and wanted the relay to have the four fastest men running, not the ones who practiced the baton-passing. The new team led by Owens easily won the 4×100 gold medal by 15 meters - a huge difference. In most 4×100 relays the difference is usually less than 1 meter. Owens had his 4^th gold. Interestingly enough, Robertson did not follow his own 4×100 advice for the 4×400 relay and have the four fastest men running on that relay, including 400 meter winner Archie Williams. Robertson kept the original line-up and that relay lost to the British.

What was the worst kept secret about the 4×100 line-up change was the fact that Stoller and Glickman were removed because they were Jewish - the only two Jews on the US track team, and the only two athletes who did not compete at all in Berlin. Much of the blame for the change is attributed to Avery (aka Slavery) Brundage, head of the US Olympic Committee - who did not want to offend Hitler. Brundage was a notorious anti-Semite and used twisted logic to justify that keeping black athletes on the team somehow didn’t offend Hitler, but Jewish ones did. Glickman went on to be a sports announcer in New York.

The East German Women’s Swimming team - 1976 Montreal

Since the 1960 Olympics in Rome, the US women had dominated the swimming races. At the 1972 Munich Games, the US women won 17 medals, including 8 golds. The East German (DDR) women’s swimming team won 4 silvers and one bronze. Four years later there was a complete turnabout, as the East Germans won 11 of 13 events and 18 medals. The US won 7 medals and only one gold. What happened in between?

In 1976, the IOC was testing for amphetamines, barbiturates and a few other drugs. They were barely testing for steroids. Between 1972 and 1976, the physicians and scientists of the German Democratic Republic were studying the biochemistry of the body. They began feeding their star athletes, including the women swimmers, a variety of steroids and hormones to give their athletes an edge. At the 1975 World Swimming Championships, many athletes from all over the world (not just American) remarked that the East German women were bulked-up, over-developed and man-like. The East German officials dismissed these claims, stating the Americans did not train hard enough, master the technology of ulta-thin swimsuits or incorporate nutrition into the training regimen.

In Montreal, Kornelia Ender was the star of the DDR team, racking up 4 golds, 1 silver and a lot of world records. Shirley Babashoff, the leading American swimmer, came to Montreal as one of the favorites in the four free style events. She lost to East Germans in all four and remarked that the East Germans looked huge (and they did, they had shoulders beyond comprehension). Babashoff was labeled by the East Germans as a “sore loser.” In the final event of the meet, the 4×100 freestyle relay, the Americans upset the heavily favored East Germans, for their only win of the ‘76 games. Shirley got her gold and eventually the last word - for she was right about the East Germans and her being tagged as a sore loser premature.

Every sports official and physician in the DDR knew the athletes were being injected with steroids. All the competitors could tell. But for the athletes themselves, many were being injected without their knowledge. When the wall came down in 1989, the curtain went up on the whole East German chemical program. It was discovered that East German doctors were regularly injecting their stars with steroids and hormones, telling the swimmers they were vitamins. Years later, many of the women who received the drugs were suffering from a variety of diseases, tumors, reproductive problems and mental health issues as a result of being chemically-enhanced. Turns out those 1976 and subsequent East German swimming medals were tarnished and then turned rotten.

Kornelia Ender, DDR

What do you think about Blackface?

Barry Max
I was hanging out with some friends last week rehearsing a one act play by J.I. Rodale titled: Streets of Confusion.

It’s about urban renewal (in case you cared).

We are scheduled to perform at The 2nd Annual Bagg’s Square Art Festival May 31st i utica N.Y..

I have been involved from its inception.

Part of the festival’s mission is to show the diversity of Utica and provide a platform for artists of every medium to show their work.

There will be music, food, film , poetry, and one act plays throughout the day. There will be booths were local artists wil be selling handmade jewelry and an assortment of offerings.

So , naturally I will flex my acting chops by participating in several of the performances.

We are an assortment of individuals from totally different backgrounds; assembled to make this aspect of the event sucessful.

We each bring something different to the table.

I have been able to point an early spotlight on the event by writing several articles about it. I have also went into the community to get some diversity in the homegenous event. The planners are enthusiastic about some additional culture.

Breakthrough Central New York and Art on The Run are the main bodies behind this ambitous idea. By writing out their mission (check em’out) over two years ago they have managed to watch these written ideas come to fruition. The last hurdle is the inclusiveness, to embrace and include all segments of Utica.

The upshot?

They admit… “we need help”

The attitude is there. That is what I mean when I say “there really is harmony”, it just has to be realized. And conflict, whether racial in origin or not, has to be a point of connection not separation.

There are a great many people who want that.

Want to get along.

There are people who are tired of hating, and do not even know why they hate.

Sometimes brutal honesty is a tonic, we need to know what is up sometimes.

During our rehearsal one of my associates asked “Dave what do you think about blackface”?

All eyes on me.

Without any hesitation, I said, “In a historical context it is sad and sickening.” I thought about it a little more and continued without pausing “I mean…you need to understand how many actual performances were literally ripped off. How many brilliant black performers had their material stolen from some small backwater stage, and then had to sit through the mainstream mockery by these blackfaced cretins?” Then I said, “Think about all the black people who had to wear it as well, a little piece of their soul dying everytime they put it on, think about the rare black headliner of the show having to enter the theatre through the back door. If you are comfortable after that, so be it”.

I almost said think about Paul Robeson but I knew it was futile.

Then I thought of Flava Flav and it is hard to blame people who don’t know history for doing or saying something that may seem totally innappropriate with someone like him on the airwaves, drawing big audiences.

Can anyone say Mantan?

“O.K Dave…. (he actually said o.k. like i was ranting…I wasn’t) so, what do you think guys”

I refused to be angry, I am sure there are bad events in his/their cultural history that I am just as indifferent about . It is not that I don’t care, it just does not resonate emotionally. So I can understand people like slappy and other eurocentric ethnicities not caring too much about racism and the biased construct we live under today.

After all, they treat each other pretty bad too.

Inclusiveness, conversations and questions like “do you mind blackface” make all the difference.

With a group consensus it probably won’t happen, if it does, I will counter with white face, walk around like something is in my butt and dance without rythm(Its a stereotype).

Is that funny?