Month of November , 2004

In Atlanta, a trial begins today (link via BoingBoing) over stickers inserted into biology textbooks (ostensibly high school, though the article doesn't say). The stickers read:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

The plaintiffs claim that these stickers constitute an endorsement of a particular religious belief; the school officials claim that it is simply an injunction to students to keep an open mind (though it must be noted that they did not also put in a sticker reading "This textbook contains information on germs. That germs cause disease is a theory, not a fact. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered").

The trial is expected to take a few days; perhaps we'll know the outcome by early next week?

If you're Jewish and between 18 and 26 years old, Mayanot/birthright israel will fly you to Israel for a 10-day tour, absolutely free. The trip to Israel is a Big Thing for Jewish folks, particularly in the "Jewish Crescent" (what the goyim call the Northeast Corridor) -- I remember once when I was on a temp assignment at Hadassah (the Women's Zionist Organization of America), I was introduced to the organization's librarian, whose first words to me were "Have you been to Israel yet?" I hadn't, and still haven't, for a number of reasons. Jewish identity didn't come easily to me -- I spent my formative years denying it explicitly, mostly out of a pervasive disjoint between myself and religious thinking. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties and began reading the literature of the Holocaust and of the Lower East Side that I began to understand that there was a heritage here separate from the religion itself, a realization that immediately put me in the camp of the "secular" or "cultural Jews". What's more, a big part of this took place in opposition to the pro-Israeli, Zionist Judaism that, as a New Yorker at the time, I was surrounded with. My own feelings ran towards the Bundists': engagement with the problems of the diaspora, not disengagement and escape towards a Promised Land.

So to be honest, I probably wouldn't have taken them up on this offer even if I was still under 26. Israel has little to do with my understanding of Judaism or of myself as a Jew -- and that little is predominantly negative. What's more, the security requirements of the trip (and do be sure to check out the security precautions) require the tour give a wide berth to hotspots like the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, meaning that an important part of the Israeli experience is ignored. (Bonus link: Have a look at the Onion's archived front page from November 9, 1948, particularly the headline, "War-Weary Jews Establish Homeland Between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt".) To me, the settlements and retributive bombings and bulldozings and checkpoints and so on are of a piece with the Zionist ideology -- they wanted to be a nation-state, and nation-states are defined by their use of coercive force against external threats and internally in the construction and regualtion of a "national" identity. To American Jews, remote from the threat of daily violence that shapes Israeli identity, these tours seem (to me, of course) to offer a stunted, attenuated image of the Zionist mission. I won't go so far as to say the intent is to brainwash impressionable American Jews, but I will say I think the tours offer an unrealistically optimistic idea of what Israel offers to world Jewry.

This, er... "gentleman" ("gentlewoman"?) is a bit upset about the election. Too bad s/he felt like s/he had to hold back for politeness' sake -- it would be better if s/he just said what she really felt...

Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that's right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that's just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states.

I'm not usually much for conspiracy theories and the like, but why is it that a Google Image Search for "abu ghraib" doesn't turn up any images of torture at Abu Ghraib? Even adding the word "torture" to the search doesn't return any of the images we are now familiar with (or anything else torture-related, for that matter)? Seems weird -- Google is usually a search engine that can be counted on to return appropriate results...

Neal Pollock says:

The Jesus People won.

They're the ones in charge now. And they're the ones who are going to bear the brunt of the war. That's the tragedy of how they voted. So don't feel superior to them. Don't misunderestimate them. They're not going to reach across, so we have to.

I think that's about the fairest, most insightful thing that's been said, on the linky side, about the 59 million Americans who chose otherwise. It's easy to feel superior right now, to wring our hands and rend our garments over the stupidity of the slim majority of our citizenry, but let's face it: they'll have to pay, just like we do -- through the nose! I think Thomas Frank is right about voters not voting their interests, but the thing is this: it comes across as so patronizing, so superior, so elitist ("We know what's best for you") that it was all-too-easy for conservatives to spin until it lost all currency with the very people who might have most benefited from a good, hard look at what really effects them, as Americans and as citizens.

OK, Bush won. Fair and square -- or not. The last 4 years have shown that it doesn't really matter, as long as Bush's ass ends up warming the chair in the Oval Office. Like many, I really, really, really REALLY didn't want to see a second Bush term. Not that I was particularly enthralled with Kerry -- he was better than he seemed at first glance, but certainly wasn't offering the kind of radical change I think this country needs. But still, he was someone I felt we linkies could work with, someone who would at least open his eyes and ears (and maybe even his heart) to the American public now and again, and even act on what he saw, heard, and felt coming from us.

But -- and this is strange as all hell -- while watching the Bush victory speech today, I felt... I dunno, almost joyous, for a brief moment. It's part of the ritual for the losing candidate to declare that "the fight's not over" and that he will "keep fighting for the American people", so although Edwards gave me warm fuzzies, I wasn't particularly reassured. Gore promised the same thing, remember? And where has Gore been hiding for the last 4 years? But watching Bush play out the role of the gracious winner (yeah, right) I did feel this moment of elation -- this isn't over. We've been given a chance, at long last, to shrug off the dead weight of the Democratic Party, the way I see it. In 2000, the Dems could, rightly or (I think) wrongly, point to Nader and somehow convince themselves that their own wishy-washy politics weren't to blame for the loss. This time around, we've seen an overwhelming desire for change. Bush didn't win this, any more than Kerry did -- nobody wants either of them in office, as far as I can tell. As far as I can tell, Bush stayed in office because a) he's the evil we already know, while Kerry is the evil we don't know, and b) in the absence of any moral core to current American politics, a lot of Americans were willing to substitute for the cheap replacement for morality offered by Bush.

It seems to me that the field is now open for whoever can present a set of real issues -- things that directly touch the lives of Americans in real, tangible ways -- grounded in a real moral vision. Not a moralistic vision, mind you -- a real sense of right and wrong and of the subtleties and difficulties involved in choosing well. More than that, though, I think it's time that candidates, politicians, and engaged participants (that's us citizen-types, y'know?) start addressing voters as individuals (what could be more American?) than as representatives of various voting blocs: blacks, working mothers, NASCAR dads, evangelical Christians, cultural liberals, etc.

I'm not sure the Democratic Party has anything to do with this kind of future. I've kind of resigned myself to the impracticality of third-party solutions on the national stage, given the demands of modern politicking. So what I'm really advicating -- what struck me as Bush platituded his way through his speech -- is the creation of a second party, a real alternative to the Republican machine that, sooner or later, cultural conservatives are going to realize is using them as a smokescreen for the dissolution of the American government.

I'm willing to entertain the notion that this is just crazy-talk. It may be that, after a brief high, alcoholism returns as the only rational response to a Bush presidency. But I don't think it's all crazy-talk. There hasn't been a real issue discussed on the American political scene in a long, long time. Gay marriage is not an issue, it's a campaign ploy! What we're not talking about is who is making the decisions that shape our daily lives -- and here's a hint: it's neither us nor our government. Real issues might not play well on TV -- but shit, we got the Internets now, right? And I think we've got to take a big step back, to the early days of the Dean campaign, when the promise of the Internet seemed about to take root. We've got two years before the next elections, and an electorate that's actually excited about the democratic process for the first time in decades -- seems to me that we've got a lot to work with, no?

Given the depressing post-election news, I'm down to two options as to how to face the next 4 years:

1. Take up alcoholism;
2. Live in Denial. Insist that Kerry won in a landslide, taking the electoral vote in 49 states with a 38% lead in popular votes.

Maybe both....

Going through some back posts the other day, I came across this post, written in the first few days of the war on Iraq, that seems eerily prescient. OK, I'm not really a genius (well, not based on this, anyway) -- the thing is, it was so very easy for right-minded folks to see exactly where the invasion of Iraq would take us, making the surprise expressed by our media and co-Americans seem all too unlikely. Listen:

What is the objective of military intervention? The administration says "regime change" but hasn't given anything but the fuzziest idea of what to change the regime to. They'd like "democracy" but have assured the Turks it won't be too democratic. The big question is, how will we know when we've won? It was my understanding that the rise of Powell in the administration signaled an acceptance of his admonition to have clear military objectives and a clear exit strategy, but I don't see how military tactics in Iraq relate to the goal of establishing "democracy" in the region. Will we be done when Saddam's head is on a pike outside the Presidential Palace? The administration has been indicating that this is, indeed, the goal, but even they must see that we won't have created anything but chaos at that point. Will we be done when an interim government is put in place in Baghdad, as was done earlier in Kabul? We don't seem to be done in Afghanistan, at least as far as military action is concerned (our resolve to establish "democracy" there seems to have flagged, however). Will we be done when contracts for rebuilding are issued to American corporations? Given the amount of tension this is likely to create among Iraqis cut out of the rebuilding process, I imagine they'll have to work in the protective involvement of the American military. Will we be done when we've conclusively demonstrated the existence of the so-far-invisible Iraqi WMD development efforts? What if it turns out, as seems likely, that we were wrong, and there simply aren't any WMDs? Will we be done when we bring our troops home? Trust me, we will never be bringing our troops home. (emphasis added; corrected for typos)