Gazing at Vampires
Heads Up (or necks out?)
Heads Up (or necks out?)
A new topic is on my horizon. It's high campaign season and I've been writing a lot about politics. I'm always interested in policy, process, personalities and public perception so this will be an ongoing topic for me.
As the tabs above suggest, I have other interests, as well. Given the intensity of the election and the enormity of the things we face as a nation, I'm wasn't sure I'd get to other subjects before November.
I have had another personal interest in mind for the past week, though, so perhaps I will get to it before I expected. Let this be a warning that the subject matter is vampires. Yes, vampires. Or, to be more precise, the Anglo-Saxon fixation on vampires....
here.>
Insulting Everyone, Now That's Elitist
Insulting Everyone, Now That's Elitist
I was forwarded an interesting article today on "Why People Vote Republican". The general idea was that this psychologist was examining how "elitist" liberals don't get why people vote Republican. And if they would just figure out that Republicans understand something liberals don't - that people need a way to see themselves as part of a bonded group - they might start winning elections. I gather that the author was trying to show that he can value the perspectives of both ends of a spectrum. He made sure to call out liberals on their elitism for not seeing the good ole Republican way, while he seems to support the liberal agenda.
I'm a liberal, I suppose, and I thought the article was insulting to people of all stripes. As a liberal, it's not that I don't see the need to have a tribal identity, it's that I think anyone who wants to participate should be included, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, sexuality, etc.
And I know Republicans who are more about fiscal responsibility and keeping government out of our private lives, than they are about identifying with a religious moral code.
The difference between myself and the Republicans I know tends to be that I think government should have services to protect the most vulnerable amongst us, because humans tend to be so self-oriented they will not give up their desires for the sake of others whom they do not know. We can detach and be unconcerned about the suffering of anyone who is not known to us personally. The farther away, the less their suffering is meaningful to us. It's the size of our population that urges me to think government has a role, as the vulnerable tend to get segregated into groupings where they're stuck together without the resources to help themselves. I see it as a social contract to keep us operating at our best so that we keep our tribe as functional as possible.
I could go on, but I think that's really the big difference between most liberals and most conservatives. The religious fundamentalists on the right are fringe and the communists on the left are, as well. Yet, sociologist, psychologists, political pundits, etc want to define us in the extremes. Oh, well. Maybe it's not liberals who are elitists, maybe it's sociologists, psychologists and political pundits. You know, that old projection thing. They couldn't possibly be doing that, could they?
Return to PNN?
Return to PNN?
Hello PNN,
I've been gone for a while now. Had a very rough Fall and Winter. My father died in August, my medical treatment (which was just giving me enough help to be slightly functional) was retroactively denied in August (yes, they took back one year's worth of money), the hope for better treatment was dimmed as the doc I needed to see ended up on her own medical leave.... there was more, but I don't need to lay out every detail here.
The point is, I was left fairly non-functional. What little energy I had, i devoted to my daughter and to advocating for my health needs. Friends of mine had organized a film and speaker event on my behalf and with it they set up a little web site where I started blogging about Lyme Disease.
As with my writing here, that blogging was non-existent for several months. When I had enough wherewithal to write again, I needed to focus on that. So, the last two months all of my writing has been there.
Now, though, I'm ready to get back to my multi-dimensional musings. Which brings up questions for me about PNN:
1. right off the bat: why isn't there a "list" option in the tool bar? (ok, that's not such a serious question. But, it brings up questions of functionality and ease of formatting.)
2. Do I want my writing housed in a place that is targeted for women only? I've never wanted to limit my audience in that way and this definition of PNN evolved after I joined. (I find it odd to have a site founded by a man to proclaim this mission.)
3. Is there much traffic here? Does PNN proactively drive traffic here?
4. If I'm considering trying to earn a living as an essayist (did I just write that?!) is this a place to be? Or are there other venues better for getting on that pathway?
I like a lot about PNN. The ability to build out a site with pages for different topics is number one. I haven't seen another service like this. Not even for a fee. (which I might be willing to pay if the service is high quality and helps with the marketing) I do like the community concept, too. That other writers are here and we can get to know another is lovely. The idea of just putting up my own, independent site and hoping that people come along is a bit scary. Though, ultimately, there are some grander community functions I would love to build, if I were generating and income and could pay for some tech help. Clearly, that is way down the road! So, I'd like to start in a warm community environment.
Is the community here still active? I see "featured" articles that are almost one month old. Anybody know what the stats are for PNN, as a whole? How many unique pageviews per month? How many articles written each day?
Its not as though I've figured out where else I would do this. But I'd like to settle into something for a while and if I do that, I need to make some informed decisions. Any thoughts, info or suggestions are very welcome!
Power and "Spirited Away"
Power and "Spirited Away"
Last night I watched "Spirited Away" for the second time. (My 9 year old daughter is a little obsessed with it at the moment.) It's a masterfully done allegory where a little girl who, full of anxiety as she moves to a new home and school, enters an imaginary world of spirits and magic. The strangeness of the place is frightening and her parents are rendered helpless, so she must rely on her own inner resources to make her way. While there she activates her own powers of intuition, compassion, persistence and voice. It's a powerful tale.
It's a tale about power. A tale for our time, as we watch how those with inordinate power have impacted us all destructively. I woke up this morning, with thoughs of Spirited Away in my head and then found myself angry about this whole "bailout" of the financial industry and about the Obama DOJ's defense of Bush's Unitary Executive claims. I won't go into the details of these, because I'm thinking of it at a different level. If you want a clear explanation of the financial debacle read Matt Taibbi's piece in Rolling Stone (when did Rolling Stone become a source of such searing journalism?) Glenn Greenwald is a primary source for following constitutional issues and he's on top of the Unitary Executive question on his blog at Salon.com with a good opening look at the Obama administration here.
What I woke up thinking about this morning was the simple concept of the consolidation of power. In every good story of human drama, we find that the key to ratcheting up drama is an imbalance of power and the key to calming things down is re-balancing power. In Spirited Away, this is no different. Characters are used against their will when they give up their power. In this case, their identity. You lose your voice to speak truth to power when you sign away your name. In order to break the power imbalance you must take back your name, your idenitity.
In the U.S. we've given our power over to the concept of a "free and unfettered market". In selling this concept, there are those who have convinced us that The Marketplace will naturally regulate itself and will work out any imbalances that might come from misrepresentation of products, destructive aspects of management behaviors or production processes and inequities in resource distribution. This thing called Demand couple with Competition with assure that all goes well.
We've been mesmerized by this spell for over two centuries, ever since Adam Smith argued that The Marketplace, if allowed Compete free and unfettered, would advance broader social interests, even as all the activities were motivated by self-interest.
Really? How's that working out for us? What we've seen with our latest round of economic crisis is that self-interest really doesn't serve the broader social interests. Even as hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs the very people that set the financial collapse in motion believe they deserve exorbitant salaries. Our political leaders, even in the face of how much damage these people have wreaked, still believe that "we can't let them fail."
There is no such thing as a free and unfettered Market. That's because The Market is us. We are The Market and we are not unfettered. Built into this idealized concept of a Free Market Economy is the concept that we all act in our own best interests. Has there ever been a time in history when humans have proved to be so infallibly sensible?
Humans are a beautiful thing in all their flawed glory. Only, the beauty of it can only be capitalized on when we acknowledge and work with these flaws rather than deny them and act like they don't exist. We need to own the reality that we tend to be greedy and narcissistic. We all know the saying, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." And that's what happened with our financial systems. We allowed too much unchecked power to sit in the hands of a few. We know, deep down we all really know, that none of us will remain unadulterated if given too much power. Being the in position of power skews one's perspective and if we view the world from that perspective for too long, we convince ourselves that our view is the one true view and that only we know best.
What bothers me about this Big Bang Bailout thing that we've going isn't the massive national debt that it breeds, it's that instead of breaking up the power, we're consolidating it. We're declaring that "they're too big too fail" and watching smaller financial institutions fail in their wake, thereby increasing their fundamental power base. We're reinforcing the power position of the very people who abused that power. We're like the abused spouse who returns home after a trip to the hospital. We need an intervention. We need to regain the identity that we signed away when we fell under the Adam Smith spell.
This country was founded by revolutionaries who stood up to the abuse of the age-old monarchical powers of Great Britain. These rag-tag colonialists spoke truth to power and fought to get out from under. They told us that "all men are created equal" with the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." They didn't say that we had the right to pursue happiness no matter the cost to others. Yet, we celebrate those who have pursued inordinate amounts for themselves in the midst of the homeless and the starving and those without health care. We idolize those that hoard resources, especially when they share a token amount of it. We buy into the idea that all the other people are suffering because they just don't work hard enough or follow the rules or have enough self-control. Yet, we know that this is not true. We know that chance plays a larger role in anybody's success or demise than any other factor.
Chance doesn't respond to The Market and doesn't even notice Competition. That profound phrase, "There but for grace..." is profound for a reason. People are born into inequitable situations with inequitable interpersonal qualities and inequitable turns of fate can beset them. Some are more able to expound their sense of self worth than others, even when we all know that no one person is really worth more than another. Some can twist an arm harder than others and we don't band together to stop them even when we know that allowing them to get away with it means they will someday twist our own arms. We promote these people and when we do, we promote these qualities. We allow them to step into positions of power and when we do, we allow them to put us all at great risk.
What do we do when that risk is realized? Do we dissipate their power? Do we resolve ourselves to prevent such an aggregation of power again? No. We bail them out and tell them they're indispensable. We still haven't reclaimed our identity and broken the spell. I guess we, as a nation, all need to be spirited away before we can take back our names and do what it takes to enforce a just balance of powers.
I find these thoughts leading me to another piece of story in "Spirited Away". It has to do with how the girl is clear about what she really needs, what is most meaningful rather than being distracted by temptations that might make a particular moment feel good. There is a link between this clarity she has and her ability to reclaim her power. Perhaps next time...
About Those 'Bonuses'
About Those 'Bonuses'
I'm as dismayed as everyone about the way that unchecked greed has brought down our economy and our financial systems. It's been painful to watch friends lose their jobs, businesses go under and households hanging on for dear life. If we really want to figure out how we got here and what we need to change if we're to prevent this level of catastrophe in the future, though, we need to have a reasonable dialog. The Media and everyone else who keep referring to the AIG payouts as 'bonuses' are not helping matters. (And the Obama Administration has not handled the whole thing well, either.)
So, what were these big checks? They were retention payments. Retention payments are delayed paychecks. That is, you negotiate an annual salary and then you agree to postpone the reciept of a portion of the paycheck until the end of the year. When you get the balance of you paycheck, you agree to stay on for another year. These were contracts regarding their unqualified annual salaries, not bonuses based on performance or any other indicators. It's important to be clear about that, as we're all screaming about who gets a bonus when they've done such a bad job. It is likely true that the legal costs around breaching those contracts might have outweighed the cost of honoring the contracts. And we all know that every tax has a loophole. We're talking about people who master and manipulate the financial system for their own gain. By 2010, when these tax dollars are due, each and every one of them is likely to have used the retention money to earn more than enough to cover the tax liability and/or will have found some way to offset the tax by hiding income and assets. At this point, the damage is done.
That said, these weren't people who negotiated a deal for a $50,000 salary and lived most of the year on a $30,000 paycheck. These were people making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. It's not as if they are going to starve or lack resources for housing if they don't get the remaining balance of their pay. Once the company had to take public money, the responsible thing to do would have been to require that every person making over a certain amount of money come forward for a renegotiation of their entire benefits package before public monies could be received. There should have been a forced conscientiousness. When you're on the dole, you can't justify lavish lifestyles while those who are doling are losing jobs and homes and health care. Congress should have written language in to require that when they wrote the Big Bailout Bill last year. But I can't think of a time when our government has ever pushed conscientiousness and accountability onto the power class.
So, they didn't. They operated from panic. The Bush Administration pushed the panic buttons, too. All of our dear leaders were telling us at the time that this unprecedented bailout of private companies who had ruined the public economy had to have all this money immediately, with no requirements or accountability on their part, or life as we knew it was going to fall into oblivion.
All of of this is so flawed in so many ways. So, of course, the Big Bailout has not resulted in fixing anything and now we're seeing the continued selfish, greediness of the privileged class and now we're going to focus all of our anxieties and anger at this one definable group.
Tragic. It saddens me deeply to realize that this how we're going to process the massive failure of a social ethos - one of 'individualism' and a 'free market' that does not attempt in any way to curb the human pathos of greed and ego in order to protect the vulnerable and ensure a sustainable economy for all.
I'm bothered by this red-herring of outrage about these non-bonuses. We're at a critical time in our culture. A time when we could be looking deeply at a new way forward. If we were really interested in that, we would be talking about why anyone thinks it's okay for any single person to earn millions of dollars, representing the hoarding of the Earth's resources, when others are starving, homeless and without health care.
Take Oprah, for example. Why do we revere her? She's one of the wealthiest people in the country. And, yes, she's done some philanthropic work. She's always sure to promote her philanthropic work and she's never given up a single creature comfort in order to help others. She throws herself a multi-million dollar birthday party, requiring that each guest come prepared to praise her. She launches a magazine with her own picture on every cover. She's narcissitic and greedy. With her resources, she could probably make sure that an entire town ended hunger, educated everyone and built a bevy of small businesses for long-term sustainability. She might not have as much expendable money afterwards as she's used to, but I'm sure she'd still be comfortable.
So, what does it say about us that, as a culture, we reinforce her pursuit of wealth for herself while our neighbors choose between paying the heating bill and having health insurance? Why are we so comfortable with individuals hoarding resources at the expense of others. And don't tell me that it's not at the expense of others. Money is only useful if it has the power of purchasing goods and services. All of which require energy or material resources from the planet. The planet is a finite object. There is only so much food that can be grown, for instance. So, if you're eating more than your share, you're denying food to someone else. (We may not be a the limit of food production, yet, but you get the gist.) Why isn't that concern high on our moral checklist?
So, what bothers me about the AIG mess, isn't that these people are getting their retention pay. It's that we don't bat an eye at how much the paychecks are in the first place. I mean think about it. Is any one person really worth that much more than another? Why do some people think they deserve a $1million paycheck while the guy two floors down only deserves a $75thousand salary and the guy working from the basement keeping the the building in tact and making sure you have a clean, safe place to work only deservies a $30 thousand salary. If I work 40 hours and you work 40 hours and we both have families to feed and house and educate and insure, what makes you think you and your family "deserve" a more lavish lifestyle while my family worries about whether they can get more than beans at the grocery store?
I've heard people argue that managers and executives are taking on more responsibility and, therefore, deserve more money. I'm not convinced that this is a meaningful debate point in and of itself, but it certainly isn't when there is not accountability to go with the responsibility. If you're getting all that money and you fail and you cost everybody else their livelihoods, maybe you should get stuck with a bill to cover their costs of living. On a human level, how can one person look another one in the eyes, especially someone working side by side in the same endeavor, and feel good about their multi-house, jet-setting life when their co-worker can't afford a home?
It's the cold, selfishness of it all that gets to me. More than that, it's the celebration of this cold selfishness that gets to me. The willingess to call self-serving people heroes or proffer up some status of higher being is a testament to how far away from the ideal of "all men are created equal" and the mission to create a place where "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is equally accessible to all. These things can never be true when we encourage people and celebrate them for accumulating so much for themselves. Until we face that truth and have a deeply, profound shift in our cultural values, we will continue to have cycles of false economic prosperity (where, really only a few people are truly prospering) and "shocking" crashes. Watching the shallow public discussion about AIG suggest that we want it that way.
Past Articles
Away
Away
I want to write, "Sorry, I've been away." It's a euphemism. I suppose it would apply here, since I have to "come" here to write and participate. I guess I'm "away" when I don't log in. But I haven't been traveling. I've been unable to muster the energy and string the thoughts together that are required for this kind of writing. it's called living with a chronic condition. Sometimes it's not just a 'bad day', it's a 'bad cycle' (however long a cycle turns out to be.)
I've had lots of vampiric thoughts on my mind. The first season of True Blood ended and there are so many aspects of that story to explore. I've read two other vampire books. Yep, more fodder there. I especially don't like leaving the thread of vampire thinking where it was, because I wouldn't want anyone to assume that I was endorsing the vampiric state in any way. That was meant to be the begining of a train of thought. The train stopped in the first station and apparently couldn't get enough coal to make it any further along the track. It will, eventually.
Perhaps, though, I should write a little bit about Lyme disease first. I'm coming out of a rough patch (I hope I am, anyway.) Trying an endeavor like this, where steady input is the best way to keep an audience, was a risk for me. What will happen if I can't produce? This project doesn't have a lot of impact on my life. I'm not earning income from it. (Though, I see it as a practice. A development of a discipline and a honing of a skill, so that later I might earn an income from writing.) But the concern I have about my ability to meet any expectations is a microcosm of what I experience as I face a life with a disability. I might need to process that a bit. Doing so might be just the thing that produces the coal for that train. (We mine for coal, don'e we?)
Tomorrow evening I'll give that a try. Until then.....
Ugh. When Will We Learn?
Ugh. When Will We Learn?
Today I was directed to two Salon.com articles about Michelle Obama. The first is about her rear end. Yes, a woman wrote and took up space on a news site about the First Lady-Elect's butt. The second is a lament that she is being pushed to sublimate her strong, professional self for the less threatening role of mother.
I was asked my opinion. Well, such mixed feelings.
On the first one: sheesh, we haven't been talking about the details of Laura Bush's body for the past eight years. And it's not like she was a waif. So, what the hell? This article was specifically about celebrating a black woman's butt. Will we be celebrating the black Mr.'s you-know-what next? I get that women feel dehumanized and oppressed via objectification. Black women have been at the very bottom of the social ladder and definitely get the worst of it. But you don't crawl up by celebrating another woman's body part. Celebrate the person. Obama ran as the best person for the job, not the best black person for the job. Michelle supported his campaign. Not to forward the acceptance of a big butt, but because she thought her husband was a gift to this country. People really need to rise above their neuroses.
On the second, I couldn't even read it. Again, women have to rise above if they are to rise at all. The fact is that the Obamas are a team. Obama has just been elected to the single most demanding job in the country and they have two young daughters. Of course, as a loving partner and mother, she will scale back her work outside of the home to steer her family safely through one hell of a transition. If she were president, he would do the same. It's not about gender, it's about family. As a team, they decided to support him going for and executing this job. I don't get the sense that for one moment, she considers herself having given up anything. Nor is it likely that she couldn't resume any level of work that she chooses. They are to be commended as a model for a healthy family.
As for the idea that her role as an advisor is being played down for gender reasons, that's also patently absurd. It's not that she's a woman. It's that she wasn't the one elected. We've been through this. When Hillary was running everyone was concerned about the 2-fer that seemed inherent. It was a drag on her chances. Not for gender reasons, but because the spouse didn't campaign on his agenda and we didn't elect him. The highly influential relationship of a spouse makes it much more difficult for the electorate to put aside suspicions about what kind of damage can be done by an overly-aggressive spouse. (can we talk Health Care Reform setback?) A spouse is so different than other staff members that are hired for the administration. You can't really fire them. That said, they always have some sort of influential role and it's up to the couple to find the balance. Everyone needs to just accept that and get on with things. But I definitely don't see it as a gender issue.
Are those that complain about Michelle Obama's decision to focus on her children during this overwhelming experience of being thrown into the world spotlight is a bad one? Are they suggesting that she should ignore the family needs? We're talking two young girls who will find that play dates come with Secret Service units and every move they make comes with a swarm of Papparazzi. I'd be disappointed in them as parents if they didn't decide that Michelle should focus on them for a while.
I'm certainly sensitive to the oppression of women, and particularly black women who really do have it worse than anyone in this country. Still, I'm always disappointed at how successes are celebrated. We think it's some kind of movement forward that a woman with a big butt is First Lady. But the very thing that indicates that we haven't moved forward is that we're focusing on her butt. We scream for gender equality, but we don't actually celebrate feminine qualities. We want empowwerment, unless it's the power to choose something we derisively call 'traditional'. Tradition isn't necessarily bad. Not valuing all the roles played to carry out the needs of society is what we need to fight against.
We need to see the Obamas as role models. Will we learn from them? They have risen to prominence because they ignored all the things that people tried to use as weapons of oppression. We need to keep on ignoring it. Note when the weapons are successful and work to neutralize them. But when they aren't, leave those weapons in the decaying battlefield to be buried in the sands of time. Otherwise we're only pointing them at ourselves.
Upon Some Reflection
Upon Some Reflection
I've done some resting and reflecting and not a whole lot of writing. What is it I want to write about now? As the tabs above make obvious, I'm interested in the topics of politics (which covers a lot of ground from civil rights to economic theories to governance styles and foreign relations....), vampires (as a symbolic study), Lyme Disease (as a public service) and parenting (well, just because I am one and it's a wild ride.)
During the election, my writings were heavy on the politics and that balance is likely to change now. Two political topics that are currently still on my mind though, are economic theory and constitutional law. Of course, the economy is on everyone's mind. I've done some studies of it while getting my MBA and it's been of interest to me for a while. Particularly because two of the premises on which economic theories have been built have always seemed absurd to me. In recent years, though, there has been a new school of though that has challenged these theories. I'd like to see a transformation of how we treat economics at the governmental policy level, so I'll try writing about that from time to time.
Constitutional law is not something I've had more than a fleeting interest in before. Certainly, we've seen a lot of constitutional issues come to the fore with the Bush Administration. Bush's actions have defnitely spurred me to read parts of our founding document again, specifically the Bill of Rights. But what has really motivated me to write and explore and learn about this revered piece of work is Sarah Palin's gross misinterpretation of it.
I'm not saying she's willfully misinterpreting or she's cognitively impaired. But, I can imagine she's never actually studied it. I went to schools all over the country while growing up. My father was in the Air Force. He retired as I entered my sophomore year in high school and we moved into his mother's house while he went back to college. My grandmother lived in New Canaan, Ct., a very wealthy town with a well-endowed school system. We had a planetarium in the high school and a fully operation television studio, along with a course catalog larger than some colleges. By all accounts, I lucked into a top-tier education. Still, I barely remember studying the constitution. Certainly, we read it, but I don't recall debates about interpretation or teachings about different schools of thought or competing governance philosophies of the founders. As an adult, I could vaguely tell you about the Bill of Rights, but couldn't have listed all of them. For all of Palin's charisma and eagerness, she didn't come off as an intellectual. So, I'm guessing she never went beyond what she was told in school and may have absorbed in her political sphere. Never applied her own critical thinking. (Let's hope so anyway, because for all the interpretation there might be, no one would agree with her characterization of the 1st Amendment.)
So, on the politics front these are the topics I'll continue writing about. I'm sure there may be other things that crop up based on current events. But I hope you'll join me in re-reading and studying the Constitution of the United States of America. This way, we're intellectually armed the next time a candidate makes her own claims about what it says or an administration violates it.
I'll have to a little studying up first, so expect to some vampire voyeurism in the meantime....
Past Articles
Political Writing
Political Writing
Here's what I've been writing about in Politics lately:
"Why Do Liberals Hate Sarah Palin?"?
Politicking: Why Are Lies Acceptable
How Best to Invest $700billion
Why Are We Giving Them $700billion?
James Carroll Writes About John McCain's Honor
UnaSpenser
is reviving.
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Fact Check Before Blathering
Fact Check Before Blathering
Look, politicians work hard to paint their opponents in the worst possible light. It's your job to confirm the claims or least understand the context before blithely passing on misrepresentations. Things are usually not as simple as they want you to believe. Over the years, the site I've found to be very unbiased is FactCheck.org. So, check your facts before you blather.
I'll periodically post links to issues that come up here. Including ones that call out the candidates I favor. But I heartily recomend that you bookmark the site and use it as a resource.
1. Did A Democratic Congress Cause Our Financial Crisis?
2. That Obamanation book is, apparently, an abomination itself.
3. Obama Got Who Would Lose with Privatized Social Security Wrong
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