perfidy

Calvin Klein bikini briefs (aka 'banana hammocks') are really comfortable.

In Sawfan, in southern Iraq, American troops were welcomed by residents. "Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free." Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!" "No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!" It looks as though the Arab street, at least in Iraq, will not be rising up against us.

Mike, Thank you for coming to my rescue. 

It occurs to me that what you just described sounds a whole lot like the orthodox definition of Gramscian Hegemony. Was that intentional, you big postmodernist, you? 

That leads to the question: is cultural hegemony like empire? Putting aside the fact that Gramsci was a Marxist, I think this concept goes a long way toward describing the US's position in the world. Whereas empire means dominance achieved via military means, hegemony denotes dominance achieved via social, economic, and cultural means. 

Buckethead argues that empire is only dominance through use of force. WCM argues that there can exist derivative civilizations, not brought about by cultural imperialism (is that the same as hegemony?). I, predictably, stand in the middle and stammer like a moron. 

I think the three of us are arguing from this playbook, and we're getting lost in the thicket of distinctions. 

Is cultural hegemony like empire? By its own lights, it is not. But, if empire implies achieving dominance via force, and hegemony implies achieving dominance via way of life, what do you call it when we go kick some ass for the sake of asserting (and, some would argue, protecting) our way of life?

Ohio State.

[Cue Ranier Wolfcastle]"McBain to base. I am under attack by Commie Nazis."

Buckethead, I disagree with your statement about socialism evolving into fascism, but I think I will leave that debate aside for now. Any hint of Socialism in the Nazi party platform went out the window in May 1933 when the trade unions were crushed by Goebbels. That being said, it is striking that farmers and workers both in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia existed under feudal conditions.

As for affirmative action, the problems that lead to inequality among college applicants have far more to do with the condition of public schools than with some crazy race/ethnicity axis. And don't get me started on the state of public education. Everyone blames the teachers. It's not the teachers. Everyone blames the teachers unions. It's not (totally) them. It's the incoherent (unfunded) mandates handed down by state and federal governments that rob teachers of any latitude whatsoever. It's the standards and standardized tests that change from year to year. It's the insane culture of litigation that prohibits teachers from even standing up to disruptive students, for fear of being sued, fired, and blacklisted. It's the insult of making $17,000 per year after earning a Masters degree and certification.

Education is a local issue. Ohio has different education issues than does New York or California. For that matter, New York City has different education issues than does Syracuse. This emphasis on standardized tests leaves students conditioned to accept information in a capsule format and robs them of the opportunity to learn neat stuff like how to write without using emoticons or how to play a musical instrument. Useless skills, to be sure, for America's future plumbers and hair technicians! Let's give up on them now and let those who can afford it get out of a sinking ship! HOLY SHIT THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY!

....pant.....pant....pant

...Edison schools. Crap! Vouchers treat the symptom, not the problem! "No Child Left Behind" carries as much water as "Compassionate Conservatism," "Peace In Our Time," or "Read My Lips: No New Taxes."

Hey... while I'm all hepped up maybe I should devote a moment to the antiwar protests. Not the protesters. God bless them, except those mendacious Stalinist Fuckwits in ANSWER. The protests. Folks, the warmed-over, mentally bankrupt, tired, old 5-6-7-8 chants, hippie shit, sit-ins, human chains, and giant puppet heads have to go. Jesus!

Mike: I wasn't bring up any particular issue in re: University of Michigan. I just hate them because I'm an Ohio State fan. But thanks for the insightful commentary. 

As far as the connection between communism and fascism, there are many similarities - state control of economy, police state policies, brutal oppression, etc. They were two sides of the same coin - one side plated with internationalism and class warfare, the other with nationalism and race warfare. That's probably why they hated each other so much, and why calling a political opponent a Nazi is still the greatest insult someone on the left can lay on an opponent. (If Stalin and crew weren't communists, why did they insist that they were? Socialism evolved into many things, one of them was fascism.) 

Definitely tell your students! Tell everyone, pass out flyers in the street... 

Johno: On convenience, I agree completely. That's why we wrote our constitution in negative statements - "Congress shall pass no law..." It isn't about government convenience, its about our freedom. 

As far as Saddam, ex-pet American dictator, goes - I think we are cleaning up our mess. The fact that we helped create it (as we did in Afghanistan) does lay a moral obligation on us. We did a lot of questionable things in the Cold War - many of which were probably justified in the light of the larger struggle against communism - that we will have to clean up. 

Thanks for the Pat Boone post.

Mr. Buckethead, 

To piggyback on your quick points, if I may. It's pretty clear that Castro is bad news. See? There's one lefty for the count. 

As to the National Socialist German Worker's Party issue, I must point a couple of things out. I'm sure this has occurred to you as well, but I would like to state for the record that the Nazis were a long way from being socialists of any stripe. While the original incarnation of the party, under the Strasser brothers, mostly, was oriented toward left of center politics, the fact that the word National preceded the word socialist in the party titled negated the whole thing. Socialism at that time was an international economic philosophy, and I might add, not a political system. For that matter Josef Stalin, Mao Ze Dong, Pol Pot, and their ilk were a long way from being Communists. Be that as it may, President Bush is not a Nazi; that's absurd. I hope you'll notice that despite my war opposition and despite the fact that I disagree with his policies and practices, I have done my best to refrain from ineffective and discourteous ad homonym (sp?) criticism. Thus, I will say, President Bush mispronounces the word nuclear as nucular. I'm not convinced that he does it deliberately to appear folksy.
The security craze sucks, alright. Good grief. I can walk out of my building and get shot by a gang-banger or hit by a car. Hell, don't most accidents occur in the home? I could electrocute myself changing a light bulb. Safety is never a guarantee, people. Hear, hear, Buckethead! 

The University of Michigan Law School issue is thorny, but here's why I think their point system really is doing something wrong. The University has asserted that it is in the best interest of society to discriminate against white males. In fact, their point system, as I understand it and I could be wrong, also discriminates against Asians. Huh. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that discriminating against anyone, for any reason, is never in the best interests of society. The problem is that the academic realm is not a meritocracy, it is an aristocracy in which pedigree is more important than ability. Since there is no king of academia, academic aristocrats let others in the clubhouse through their own creation of new peerages. There are other more complicated issues surrounding the controversy, but that's the only one I've thought through enough to take a stand. Can I tell my students about this site? They might enjoy it.

Fine fine fine fine fine. First things first. 

On empire as a non-indeterminate duality:

Buckethead, semantics aside, I'm willing to grant you your orthodox definition of "Empire" if you will grant me that there exists no empire/not-empire duality between which poles there is no ground for indeterminacy. I think that may be the single most opaque sentence I have ever written. 

On good and evil as non-indeterminate duality: 

Your point is well taken that the Cold War skewed US perceptions of good/evil (again not a Manichean duality). Furthermore, it is wrong to argue that since we made the mess, we forfeit the right to clean it up later. What a stupid argument, that I hear all the damn time! However, some Chicken Littles feel the US is currently in danger of allowing the same thing to happen once again in the opposite extreme. Christ, even AA doesn't require you to actually fix every problem you ever caused. Especially if that means ignoring especially inconvenient ones. 

On convenience: 

I don't think for a second that anyone in the Administration sits in a windowless room, night after night, brooding and plotting in a black leather wing chair about their cunning plans to break the spine of the American will and leave them putty--putty! to be molded like, er, putty into a complacent and docile nation of ciphers. 

That being said, the road to hell is paved with you know what, and good intentions never excuse wretched results. If certain members of the Government wish to make it easier to obtain information about any citizen under any circumstances, for the sake of convenience, that deserves much questioning. If certain agencies of Government wish for the power to detain US citizens at will and try them in a military court, that deserves ridicule. If those same agencies wish to reserve the power to strip US citizens of their citizenship, then I man the walls and start shooting on sight. Fuck good intentions, and fuck convenience. I, and all Americans, deserve to live free from fear of our government. Liberty is constrained when a citizen fears his leaders at every turn. Fuck good intentions, and fuck convenience. 

On Pat Boone: 

I WAS going to let this slide. But you know what, I can't now, so you asked for it, you're effing well going to get it. 

Eminem is a whole lot like Pat Boone. Like Pat, he is a popular and wildly successful practitioner of a mature form of the popular arts. Like Pat, he has become popular by drawing on, reinterpreting, and arguably sanitizing, the fundamental tropes of his chosen genre. Like Pat Boone, he is a white boy singing what started as the modern folk music of black America, and he's become famous by being that music's emissary to white America and the pop world. And like Pat Boone, he's really fucking good at it. 

However. Eminem is much better than Pat Boone. Pat Boone is and always was boring. The music is competent but unremarkable, and his singing is too straightforward to really grab you. His talents were a great voice, charisma, and a stage presence, all of which went down easy back in the day. Eminem has the same exact things going for him, but he has more too, plus he's fun. No more "controversial," but fun. And better. 

Pat Boone never engaged in self-mythologizing like Eminem has, for instance. Do you realize that each of Eminem's first four albums have engaged a different aspect of his persona, and totally convincingly? Eminem, Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, they are all different characters, and within the mini-dramas of his singles, Eminem plays them off one another masterfully, if you care about that kind of thing. What's most remarkable about that is, from day one, he had to have planned this out. To do that, and to pull it off, is pretty awesome. 

Eminem has wicked flow -- he wraps lines around the beat, rushes them out, bites off words, falls completely off the meter, and somehow makes it right back to where he needs to be. Lots of black rappers can't touch him -- Biggie Smalls, Old Dirty Bastard, Mase (where is he now???), Missy Elliott, Nelly, they all have/had rudimentary rhythmic skills. (Admittedly, Biggie, ODB, and Missy all make their limitations into major strengths). Eminem writes funny, vivid lyrics. His ability to create a character, okay, caricature, with only a few lines is unmatched in current hip-hop, and his hooks kick ass. But yes, you are right. Eminem is like Pat Boone. He doesn't innovate, he perfects. Innovation is left to Timbaland and Missi, Prince Paul, N.E.R.D., perpetual outsiders like Aceyalone, and all the thousand kids in the Queensboro Houses who don't even remember who Schooly D was. It's been almost fifty years (FIFTY YEARS!!!!) since Pat Boone cleaned up Ain't That A Shame and had a hit with it. Who do we remember? Fats Domino. Eminem is probably headed for the same shabby dustbin, to rest beside Snow, Young MC, and Technotronic, but he's so much goddamn fun right now, that I could give a shit. Q.E.D.

I'm surprised that Johno never reacted to the Eminem is like Pat Boone comment.

The way the left ignores the abuses of murderers like Castro.

Our politicians making like they're Alexander the Great for busting bong manufacturers, closing down a rave, or picking on a defenseless computer geek for using ftp.

Civil Forfeiture and the RICO statutes.

Ex-Admiral John Poindexter's all seeing eye.

The Drug War

Norway

Idiots who think that America and Americans are too delicate, and must be protected by all consuming security laws. Look what happened to the shoe bomber. Or the guy on SW Airlines a few years back who was killed by his fellow passengers. I'll take a few extra risks, and keep my freedom, thank you very much.

Meddling politicians who are over-solicitous of my safety and well being, and act on it. (see above.)

Tom Daschle, who thinks I'm rich, and deserve to have two thirds of my income taken away to pay for his ridiculous sob sister policies.

People who call Bush a Nazi. National Socialist Worker's Party, jackass.

Reality programming

The University of Michigan

There's more, but that's enough for now.

Yes, Saddam used to fall into the category, "Yes, he's a bastard, but he's our bastard." The fact that he fell out of that category was due to 1) the end of the cold war, as I've discussed earlier; and 2) he went to far. The Cold War distorted our perceptions of international politics enormously. Ideology is a bad thing.