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Love as weapon; Education as tool.
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[26 Jan 2005|01:05pm] |
http://jessemyerson.blogspot.com is the url for my new blog, all political, all the time. I'll use this for more personal stuff.
Check it!
Peace,
Jesse
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[18 Jan 2005|08:32am] |
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mood |
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Cynical |
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music |
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Nina Simone |
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I can't close my window because it is literally frozen open. I see no way out of this mess.
That's more or less exemplary of how things have been going for my attitude recently. Having seen Hotel Rwanda, which had the rare effect on my of displaying fine acting yet still leaving me cynical about the things of this world, I am imbued with a sense of dread and hopelessness about the bigger problems of the world; like we were given one shot at these things called beauty and progress, and, over a few thousand years, totally ruined all potential.
It's not so different in my personal life sometimes. I tell my theater kids at camp and also those who did A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, by the way, guys, was fabulous, something Jose Joaquin Garcia told me: that the theater is superior to real life because in theater anything can be fixed, which is different from life, where they can't always be. I'm learning the latter part of this in a big, big hurry, the irreparability of some things.
On a slightly conciliatory note, Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is running for New York State Attorney General, and has a good shot at it. Elliot Spitzer is running for governor and has a good shot at that. If they both get it, believe me, good things will begin to happen in New York.
Additionally, this from Democracy for America:
National Journal's Hotline (very expensive subscription only) managed to get a hold of 42% of DNC members in what is the most comprehensive poll so far of the race for party chairman.
They find that Governor Dean leads the pack:
1st Choice For DNC Chair
Howard Dean 31% (58 votes)
Martin Frost 16 (30 votes)
Tim Roemer 4 (8 votes)
Donnie Fowler 4 (7 votes)
Wellington Webb 2 (4 votes)
Simon Rosenberg 2 (4 votes)
David Leland 1 (1 vote)
Undec/Refused 40 (75 votes)
Combined 1st/2nd Choice
Howard Dean 40% (74 votes)
Martin Frost 27 (50 votes)
Donnie Fowler 11 (20 votes)
Wellington Webb 8 (15 votes)
Simon Rosenberg 8 (15 votes)
Tim Roemer 6 (11 votes)
David Leland 3 (5 votes)
In the end, even with these minor concessions of good in the world, it's still a cold, cold, cold, cold place to be. If I could only get this fucking window closed, at least I'd be a little warmer in it.
Peace,
Jesse
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[12 Jan 2005|11:16pm] |
cabdriver.blues
jesse.myerson
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
driving.the.poet.around.the.city
in.search.of.the.words
he.feels.were.the.spoils.of.her.conquest
words.like
i.love.you
that.once.spoken.she.kept.wrapped.in.her.pocket
no.words.remain.for.him
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.drives.the.poet.down.avenues
where.steam.rises.from.potholes
rises.past.street.signs.like.dolphins.from.the.crystal.waters
rises.past.the.new.york.consumers
their.coats.tight.like.so.many.work.schedules.and.asthmatic.chests
rises.into.the.rain.clouds
from.which.fall.the.tears.of.a.god.unannounced
avenues.where.lost.words.are.homeless.men.cloaked.in.newspaper
where.lost.words.are.pigeons.disturbing.shopkeepers.
where.lost.words.are.porceline.dolls.white.people.buy.to.feel.chinese
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.wants.to.quote.whitman
wants.to.quote.hughes
to.quote.wordsworth
to.quote.dickenson
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.wants.to.quote.neruda
but.has.never.heard.those.names
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.has.known.the.heartbreak.of.a.million.yesterdays
who.has.known.wanting.to.hide.in.a.thousand.tomorrows
who.has.known.wanting.to.break.a.hundred.nows
who.has.not.known.being.a.poet
being.a.philosopher
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
whose.thread.is.unable.to.mend.tears
whose.pen.is.unable.to.redraw.lines.more.thickly.this.time
whose.flashlight.is.unable.to.guide
whose.eyes.sunken.from.years.of.tears
are.able.only.to.navigate.around.the.city
in.search.of.words
that.do.not.reside.on.chessboards.in.washington.square.park
that.do.not.reside.in.sounds.of.bleeker.street.laughter
that.do.not.reside.in.the.ices.the.dominican.man
scrapes.himself.outside.the.dykman.projects
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.spies.the.poet
in.the.backseat
closer.than.he.appears.in.the.mirror
as.he.stares.out.the.window.
losing.the.images.flying.by
as.he.would.a.recently.looked.up.phone.number.after.he.has.dialed.it
as.he.had.his.virginity.at.sixteen
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.knows.every.hot.dog.stand
every.strip.club
every.subway.station
the.fastest.routes.to.madison.square.garden
to.the.airport
to.125th.and.lenox
at.any.time.of.the.day
on.any.day
in.any.weather
knows.light.
but.does.not.know.answers
knows.signs
but.does.not.know.omens
i.feel.like.the.cabdriver
who.no.one.knows
like.the.ocean
like.the.truth
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[09 Jan 2005|02:00pm] |
My new nickname is Fuser...
The greatest letter ever written (or so I've thought for the last few years, and will until I read a better one) is Che's farewell letter to Fidel. Though Guevara had returned to Cuba on March 14, 1965, his absence from public functions soon excited comment and, as the months went by, became an international mystery. Finally, on October 3, during the televised ceremony of the presentation of the newly established Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Castro, in the presence of Guevara's wife and children, read the following letter. Castro explained that the letter had been delivered to him back in April and that Guevara had left the timing of its disclosure to Castro's discretion. He had delayed so long in making it public out of concern for Guevara's security and, for the same reason, could not divulge his present whereabouts.
Here is the letter.
Fidel:
At this moment I remember many things -- when I met you in Marfa Antonia's house, when you suggested my coming, all the tensions involved in the preparations.
One day they asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of that fact affected us all. Later we knew that it was true, that in revolution one wins or dies (if it is a real one). Many comrades fell along the way to victory.
Today everything is less dramatic, because we are more mature. But the fact is repeated. I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban Revolution in its territory, and I say good-bye to you, the comrades, your people, who are already mine.
I formally renounce my positions in the national leadership of the party, my post as minister, my rank of major, and my Cuban citizenship. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba. The only ties are of another nature -- those which cannot be broken as appointments can.
Recalling my past life, I believe I have worked with sufficient honor and dedication to consolidate the revolutionary triumph. My only serious failing was not having confided more in you from the first moments in the Sierra Maestra, and not having understood quickly enough your qualities as a leader and a revolutionary.
I have lived magnificent days, and I felt at your side the pride of belonging to our people in the brilliant yet sad days of the Caribbean crisis.
Seldom has a statesman been more brilliant than you in those days. I am also proud of having followed you without hesitation, identified with your way of thinking and of seeing and appraising dangers and principles. Other nations of the world call for my modest efforts. I can do that which is denied you because of your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.
I want it known that I do it with mixed feelings of joy and sorrow: I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder, and the dearest of those I love. And I leave a people who received me as a son. That wounds me deeply. I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. This comforts and heals the deepest wounds.
I state once more that I free Cuba from any responsibility, except that which stems from its example. If my final hour finds me under other skies, my last thought will be of this people and especially of you. I am thank- ful for your teaching, your example, and I will try to be faithful to the final consequences of my acts.
I have always been identified with the foreign policy of our revolution, and I will continue to be. Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility ofbeing a Cuban revolutionary, and as such I shall behave. I am not sorry that I leave my children and my wife nothing material. I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as I know the state will provide enough for their expenses and education.
I would like to say much to you and to our people, but I feel it is not necessary. Words cannot express what I would want them to, and I don't think it's worth while to banter phrases.
Ever onward to victory! Our Country or Death!
I embrace you with all my revolutionary fervor.
Che
Pretty fucking eloquent, yah? Call me Fuser, ladies and gentlemen, because there is no one I'd rather be.
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| Here's something heady-- don't read it if you're depressed. |
[08 Jan 2005|04:49pm] |
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the in-rehearsal production of the Hendrick Hudson Drama Club, which I am helping to direct, will be performed on January 14th at 7 PM and the 15th at 2, all proceeds set to go to help tsunami victims, in south Asia. Lyle Lovett and Willie Nelson are both playing benefit concerts in Texas at 10,000 seat venues, which sold out before tickets went on sale. And while this Malthusian wet dream (sick, sick pun not intended, but we’ll take it anyway, in retrospect) is by all counts a worthy cause—it’s a genocide that puts to shame that paltry disaster in New York some years ago—it is simply the problem of the day.
It seems that only those problems which the corporate media declare worthy of news time are, by the general population, declared worthy of philanthropic action: while victims of waves receive a fervid outpouring of pledges, aid, donations and benefit concerts, victims of war, imperialism, AIDS, poverty here in the US, rape and all other such items as would round out this sort of litany go dismally and drastically under-funded and unattended.
The truth is, the pathologies of the world have piled up and are simply coming to a head. The evolution of life on Earth is estimated at about 2 billion years, the hominid, 6 million, and mankind, as we know it, a hundred thousand. The agricultural revolution takes place over about the last ten thousand years, the scientific revolution, four hundred, and the industrial revolution, a hundred fifty. You see the nature of the evolutionary paradigm: each new massive shift occurs over an exponentially shorter time period. Little analysis is required for you to know where I’m going with this. The next development ought to happen over our lifetime. This is tremendously exciting, but also terrifying.
The terror comes into play when one considers that with each massive shift—agricultural, scientific, cultural development—comes also massive leaps toward utter destruction—the advent of war, of dominance, of parasitism, and other such efficient, but ultimately destructive, things. So, as we come to the time when the shift can take place over a generation—and beyond—there may be almost instantaneous development and disaster.
I don’t wish to sound apocalyptic—yes I do—but the tsunamis and all those other little things you never hear about—like starvation and sweatshops and torture in Guantanamo—are perfectly in line with this view of the evolution of life, en evolution which, of course, as with all processes of creation, moves towards an end: devolution and destruction.
Hamlet, that lovable Danish Prince, upon his death, lets us know what’s in store, as a result of our actions—all 2 billion years of them. “The rest,” he says, “is silence.” Which reminds me, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the in-rehearsal production of the Hendrick Hudson Drama Club, which I am helping to direct, will be performed on January 14th at 7 PM and the 15th at 2, all proceeds set to go to help tsunami victims.
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[07 Jan 2005|01:44pm] |
I am a qualified and certified mixologist and social chemist. Also, I have my own mixing and pouring set.
So, who's having a party with liquor?! I am not expensive, and I can mix over 80 drinks, at a rate of 20 drinks per 7 minutes!
Jesse
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[02 Jan 2005|09:25pm] |
I seldom do things like this, but this one seemed fun. Props to Rich's live journal.
- choose 15 people from your friends list.
- write something about them, but don't divulge their name.
- comment and guess if you think one is you.
1. I've known you since I was but a lonely freshman, being picked on by Billy Dandreano and that Martin kid, calling me "Sound" (that was really obscure). You were friends with both my first major crush and my first girlfriend before I knew either, and somehow, even though I started out just using you to get with both of them (definitely just kidding), we're still close. Once I impersonated you, and you told me that you don't sound THAT good. But, oh! You do.
2. I ruined your life, as all my friends now know.
3. You came to me for relationship advice before we were even really friends (boy was THAT a big fucking mistake!)
4. You are my sister. And when I say that, I don't mean that you're actually my sister. I mean it like the way black people mean it, which, to me, is much more meaningful, I think.
5. You were the first person in this district that I hooked up with and, despite either of our having a girlfriend/boyfriend/kid-who-looks-like-he-could-be-your-son at the time, you still did like grabbing my penis at inappropriate and hilarious times, like during leadership conference training, or before Mr. Mackin, as we tried to sell yellow t-shirts with shuttlecocks on them.
6. You're going to love whatever college you go to, now shut the hell up and kiss my cheek, as you do each time I see you, and it makes me so happy. You were our favorite, despite circumstances that may have indicated otherwise, and everyone else knew it.
7. You are more obsessed with hip-hop than I. You are more obsessed with electoral politics than I. Who'd have thunk it, you scrawny, Jewish MC/progressive-democrat? Are you I?
8. I taught you the meaning of the words cunnalingus, fellatio and sodomy on the back of a bus while we were sweaty. Despite that, we have never hooked up, which is a good thing, since our relationship has revolved not around sex, but instead around helping one another with our respective fucked-upednesses.
9. You, a militant Islamic fundamentalist, and I, an enormous Japanese lizard, still hang out with high school kids. Lame though that may sound, at least we are comforted by the fact that we lead substantially cooler lives than they and that we continue to pursue the goal from which my mother tried to dissuade us, in front of our old school.
10. Both of my girlfriends at HHHS have suspected that I like you (HAHA! I snuck this one in. It applies to TWO of you!).
Figure that shit out, motherfuckers!
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[01 Jan 2005|02:58am] |
I miss college so terribly.
Jeremy and I agree that even considering the Red Sox' victory in the World Series (COUPLED with our HHHS graduation!) 2004 still managed to be a rotten fucking year. Good riddance. Only problem: 2005 promises to be even worse.
Get me out of Cortlandt Manor.
Jesse
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[27 Dec 2004|01:17pm] |
Mother Nature is furious.
Our pollution and exhaust yields the wrath of global warming heat waves, disease spread, plant/animal range-shifts/population-changes, ocean warming, sea-level rising/coastal flooding, glacier melting, Arctic/Antarctic warming, droughts, fires, and downpours/heavy snowfalls/flooding (Check out the Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/ or Al Gore’s speech on the topic at the Beacon Theater in NYC, about a year ago http://www.moveon.org/gore3/speech.html for more information).
The spread of AIDS, this summer’s Florida hurricanes, and, most recently, the disastrous 22,000 deaths in Southern Asia this week all stem from our ultra-Capitalistic drive to make money, even at the expense of extensive ecological damage (Read The Enemy of Nature by Joel Kovel, and Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a comprehensive look at Capitalism and the environment).
The problem is this: the people being ruined by these ecological crises are not the people creating the policy that yields such crises, in the first place. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol and is now blocking progress at the International Conference on Global Warming (Check out Bush Green-Watch http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/ to get information on our president’s environmental record and goals), to open up the environment, among the most precious things we have, to big business, as many presidents—democrats, too— before him have done. If only there would be floods in the Council on foreign relations! If only there would be rampant AIDS in the Bilderberg Conferences! If only hurricanes would strike the Trilateral Commission!
Drilling for oil in Alaska, the high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and all the havoc reeked on nature by war (Anything by David Brower will give you an understanding of the war/nature problem) are all part of this economic system we are taught never to question. We are also taught that it is the only feasible system, because the alternatives “look good on paper, but don’t work in practice.” I guarantee you’ve heard that meaningless and false line from every teacher who’s ever touched the subject. I say that if this is working in practice, give me failure!
If the death of 22,000 human beings in two days is a system “working,” then we must seriously reconsider the nature of the system, itself. If, and I’ll give you Capitalists the benefit of the doubt here, this is just a failure of the system, then it’s really time to clean up this system by instituting progressive environmental change.
We must have a president who will say, “yes” to international treaties for progressive ecological reform! We must have a congress that will pass legislation to protect the rich and beautiful wilderness of this country! We must challenge the WTO and NAFTA, who, in all their drive toward globalization, utterly forgot environmental standards (not to mention worker’s rights—but that’s another essay)!
We have no other choice—Mother Nature is furious.
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[23 Dec 2004|10:23pm] |
Wanna do it?
Y'know... it.
Any and all comments welcome and solicited (with interpretations, please)
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[19 Dec 2004|02:07pm] |
I’d like to lay to waste a myth that the American public, more especially the right wing, seems to have taken for truth. The Bush Administration’s war in Iraq was not a response to faulty intelligence; the faulty intelligence was a response to the Bush Administration’s desire for a war in Iraq.
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (http://www.newamericancentury.org/) was established in the Spring of 1997, calling itself a “non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership.”
In a Memorandum dated June 17, 1998, Executive Director Gary Schmitt writes to the Opinion Leaders of the project, “The international community will decide that any cooperation on the part of Iraq is ‘good enough’ and the Clinton Administration, increasingly isolated in its position toward Iraq, will convince itself that ‘containing’ Iraq is also ‘good enough’ strategically.”
Schmitt, for one, reckoned this a dangerous position. His solution was simple: war. “As we pointed out in our letter to President Clinton in January and, more recently, to the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, the only lasting and effective solution to the problem presented by Saddam Hussein is his removal and the destruction of his regime. But time is getting short. Unless Congress forces the administration's hand, it will continue to go along with the UN's game plan and leave the U.S. and its allies facing a Saddam powerful at home and in the region, and bent on avenging his previous losses.”
Signatories to PNAC’s “Statement of Principles” include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, in short, the Bush Administration’s foreign policy team. Knowing that these people were calling for a war in Iraq as early as 1998 as means of maintaining American hegemony in the world is disconcerting. It’s downright terrifying when one considers what PNAC published in its September 2000 report, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century:” “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” That’s right, members of the Bush Administration were expressing their desire for an attack on the United States, in order to further their goals, which included, foremost, a war in Iraq.
Tell me they weren’t happy a year later when just that thing happened. What’s more, they’ve done with it exactly what they said they would: they’ve gone to war in Iraq. Even when, as the 9/11 Commission Report shows, Dick Clarke, Clinton and Bush’s head of counter-terrorism operations, along with various CIA agents and officials, presented Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz with information on Al Quaeda and Afghanistan, the Administration turned them away, saying, essentially, “We only want information that would help indict Iraq.”
It all adds up. They wanted the war before Bush’s election. They turned away real information, in favor of Iraq-bound information. Now, they claim to be victims of faulty intelligence.
I say the victims of “faulty intelligence” which actually were lies, since the Bush Administration clearly knew better (read above article), are the over 1,300 American troops and roughly 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have died in this war. Will they ever forgive us?
P.S. Enough with this nonsense about an exit strategy. Stop pretending that they ever intended to exit. They’ve built fourteen permanent military bases in Iraq. Who needs an exit strategy when you’ve got an occupation?
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| In Defense. |
[14 Nov 2004|02:03pm] |
This is in response to Amanda's entry (http://www.livejournal.com/users/fade2black00/30253.html). I wrote this intending it to be a comment on her journal, but it was too lengthy for LJ to let me post it as a comment. Here goes:
Of course, I was bound to say something.
The fact that you have made this such an issue of “us” and “you” is a testament to the state of political discourse in America, which embarrasses the intelligentsia on both sides of political issues and the majority of the rest of the world. The reality is that there is no “us” and “you”. There are democrats who believe in capital punishment and military spending boosts. There are republicans who believe in abortive rights and social security. There are people utterly outside the political system, and many of them don’t participate in it because of such discourse.
You listed various things that “we” threw at “you.” Already, this is not about the issues of the election, but about calling names, categorizing, and generalizing. And it’s false, to boot. Choose or Lose, Rock the Vote, and others like them are not partisan organizations designed to help the left. None of them preferred Kerry to Bush, Cobb, Nader, or any other candidate. What they did was attempt to register new voters, inspire discourse about the election and get the public far more interested in the matters that govern the state of affairs in our nation. They were largely successful, and we saw an upshot in registration and voting that was wondrous.
These things and the left’s calling Bush “Hitler, stupid, dumb, warmonger, liar, cheater, monkey, fascist, murderer, war criminal, puppet” are what you take as your mandate to criticize the left. I think that it is important to note the nature of criticism in the public discourse. If there was any side that attacked the other, I think you probably know which it is. From George Bush saying things in debates like “that’s how liberals talk” instead of addressing the issues at hand to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth defiling the name and record of a true war hero—if we agree that such a phenomenon exists—with vicious and offensive lies, the character assassination that the right wing threw at John Kerry (and more, surprisingly, at Michael Moore—they made one movie attacking Kerry and six attacking Moore, and Moore wasn’t even the CANDIDATE!) trumps what Ed Gillespie, chairman of the GOP referred to as Kerry’s “attacks on Bush,” in reference to Bush’s scowling at the first debate. Kerry’s “attacks,” any soft look at a debate transcript would reveal, were composed of facts, simply noting the disastrous state of things in the American Government. In truth, all the Move On ads featured exclusively facts, or, in some cases, testimony from soldiers’ mothers or 9/11 widows. If the simple factual truth sounds like attacks, it is because things are really bad.
Part of the reason things are really bad, is that the Democrats are terrible. They are a lackluster party with fewer movements than organizational resources, which are minimal—I know because I volunteered for them in Pennsylvania. But to assert that the Democrats have gone too far to the left is just silly. Michael Moore was not the Democrats’ spokesperson. He is not recognized by the DNC as such. In fact, he himself is not a democrat. He supported Nader over Gore. The only reason he supported Kerry, who neither he nor I like very much at all, is the same reason I did. It’s the same reason you had all of Nader’s base dissolve and saw right wing Lieberman on stage with left wing Kucinich: things have gotten really terrible in the United States and the only combat is a new government.
The values issue, so-called, confirms one of your points, Amanda. That is that I am out of touch with the American people. I simply cannot relate to the view that a disastrous and failed war coupled with lack of health care and jobs are less important that insuring that gay people not get married. That seems foreign to me. Regardless, I do think I’m right, that connective issues like national security and equal rights are more important than making sure people can’t marry who they want. The fact that the majority of Bush supporters voted on those grounds and, as a Pew Research Center/Gallup Poll indicated, two days before the election, a full 75% of those who consider themselves “Bush supporters” believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (both lies perpetuated by the Bush Administration, lies that a lot of Democrats like Kerry—but not like me or Michael Moore—fell for) should indicate to you the reasons that democrats have “lost the hearts and minds” of the American people, in an eerie reference to McNamara’s Vietnam rants. Nonetheless, I will respond to each of them, in the interest of debate.
”Tone down the hate and name calling. You will never convince the other side to vote for you if you continue to tell them that they are completely wrong and incredibly stupid.”
Again, for every time a republican official, like the president, refers to “pompous north-east, cosmopolitan liberals” how many times to do you hear a democratic official refer to “bumblefuck bible-thumping uneducated southerner.” Zero. Name calling is a skill that Karl Rove has perfected. To say that the left owns this one is to ignore every speech given by Bush over the campaign season.
”Denounce Michael Moore right now. Stop sounding like him, stop acting like him, stop defending his movies. The sooner you do this, the sooner you will see more people take you seriously and vote for you.”
I’m confused about who it is you refer to with this “vote for you” comment. John Kerry? Tom Daschle? Because neither of those people sound or act like him, or have ever publicly defended his movies. I don’t even know how this one got started. I am also really confused about how stigmatized the right have made Michael Moore. He’s an excellent filmmaker, whose films are based entirely in fact—he has released line-by-line citations for his last two movies, available to anyone on earth—who happens to be a leftist. It seems silly to go about spending so much time and money discrediting Michael Moore, and not outlining President Bush’s policy achievements.
”Stop sounding like Bin Laden. His new tape and your rhetoric are way to close to each other. You should not be giving OBL any talking points, and you shouldn’t be taking your talking points from him either.”
Comparing the Democrats to terrorists exactly the problem you earlier bemoaned, which included “us” comparing Bush to fascists. I don’t understand how you can mourn the death of enlightened political discourse as having degenerated to name-calling and unfounded attacks, when that is PRECICELY what you just did. Democrats died in the attacks of September 11th as well as republicans. Democrats are fighting in Afghanistan as well as republicans. I wish for you to please take back your comparing us to Osama Bin Laden. That is cheap and mean.
”Denounce Soros this second. And either support all 527s or denounce all 527s. You cannot pick and choose what ones you like and do not like.”
Soros is not a 527. He is an independent benefactor of various groups, including some 527s. Regardless, there is no need to denounce Soros, who has spend the latter part of his life using his money not for personal benefit—as corporate heads have—but by fighting injustice, racism and the repressive regime in the Soviet Union. Denouncing him would be an insult to those causes. On the issue of 527s, I absolutely support the existence of all 527s. Political Action Committees are allowed to exist, and, in the current political funding climate, encouraged to. What I don’t support is 527s lying, like the aforementioned Swift Boat Veterans, who John McCain and others have denounced (much as you’d have the democrats denounce George Soros), but who Bush has refused to. America Coming Together, Move On, Democracy for America—these are legitimate organizations, dedicated to spreading fact and evidence, which the Bush Administration has holistically rejected for four years.
”Stop trying to silence people by calling them liars and trying to remove their books from the shelves.”
This is a bad practice, people going into bookstores and removing books. It is not one endorsed by the DNC or any other legitimate group. It is also not anything that’s very widespread or that had any net effect on the elections, and certainly not anything that’d keeping health care, education, jobs, national security and equal rights from citizens.
”Study American history and focus on what Democrats used to be. If JFK (John F Kennedy) was alive today, he would be a Republican. JFK cut taxes and stood up to our enemies. If you don’t want to study just think of the moderate Republicans that we have today: Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Schwarzenegger, and John McCain. If that is too much for you, think about Zell Miller, and Ed Koch. If you ran anyone like this against the Republicans, you would have a great race on your hands. And, I think, a civil debate and campaign.”
This one is full of logical fallacies I wish to repair. John F. Kennedy would NOT be a republican. It is silly to assume so, as he comes form a dynasty more democratic than the Bush dynasty is republican. John Kerry is the natural heir to the legacy of JFK (you might notice that Kerry was the first democrat, in the 1980’s, to vote for tax cuts, and also that Kerry was committed to standing up to enemies). If you want to talk about republican values, let’s talk about fiscal prudence, wariness of foreign wars and lack of government intervention into the lives of the people. In fact, the Bush Administration has run up unprecedented deficits, has started a doctrine of pre-emptive strike based on doctored intelligence, and presides over the largest and most invasive government in the history of America (that is to say that the FBI and CIA have obscene amounts of power, that human rights violations in Guantanamo are a major offense to the Geneva conventions and that Ashcroft effectively removed the writ of Habeas Corpus from the Constitution). So, by your own logic, if Bush were alive today, he’d be a democrat. Giuliani, Schwarzenegger and McCain are perfect examples of why it is obscene and detrimental to civil debate to categorize people as one thing or another (like Jack Kennedy as a republican). The difference between Evan Bayh and John Conyers is striking. I don’t exactly understand your point in referring to these men. As for Miller and Koch, I don’t see the correlation between your berating negativity in politics and then saying that these men are good candidates (they are people who the democrats have long since lost all allegiances to, and who, if they run, would have no discourse at all with Bush, as they agree with him almost all the time, and the representation of American views would be even slimmer than it is now) as Miller’s speech at the RNC is one of the most angry, insane, name-calling rants I’ve ever seen. You say to cut back on name calling and lies, but tout Zell Miller as your ideal democrat? Maybe we need to rethink that one. Maybe the ideal democrat is Barack Obama, who is not negative, is a striking speaker, appeals to people on all sides of the political spectrum, and who cares deeply about national security, health care, jobs and education, the issues, unlike gay marriage, that affect ALL Americans.
”Do not mention Halliburton ever again. I think each time you do, you lose votes.”
Halliburton is benefiting to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its former CEO is now Vice President. I don’t see why this is not worth noting. If losing votes in the short term means creating a movement in the long term, so be it, I say. That’s why I’m for democrats forgetting this civil union shit and supporting gay marriage. If it loses votes, it co-opts an issue of the future.
”And lastly, put an extra read in on American History under: “Founding Fathers and Religion”. You may be surprised at what you see.”
Those founding fathers were the “northern liberals” so many people love to poke fun at. They were revolutionaries and anti-imperialists before anything. And, religious though they might have been, they created a secular state, in the fear that the government would regulate things like religion and force others to ascribe legislatively to the spiritual beliefs of the government. That is something Bush has undone.
If you, as a Bush supported, feel attacked by the criticism of his administration and policy, which have been disastrous, simply put, imagine what it was like in the nineties when the single most ruthless, vicious and unfettered attack on any president was instituted: that by the republican media and congress against Clinton, who, granted, was a shitty and has other disastrous policies.
Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that you’d be much better served to address political issues than to piss on democrats, leftists, progressives, liberals (I don’t even know how to delineate them, and I’m probably part of some of them) as intrinsically worthless.
Consider the dead in Iraq, who died for lies, poor statesmanship and corporate profit. Consider the 160,000 people in Pennsylvania alone who lost manufacturing jobs in the last four years. Consider the children who don’t have health coverage and will die if they get sick. Consider the privatization of social security, which is a destruction of one of the cornerstones of the New Deal. Consider the eschewing of a system of progressive income tax, which has been a staple of American economic stability since 1915, under Wilson. Consider opening the environment to rape by corporations who care more about making money for their owners than ensuring that life on this Earth be inevitable. Consider the massive strain placed on educators in the form of mandates that simply go unfunded. Consider the equal rights of all people, threatened by constitutional bans on gay marriage in eleven states, the first time any constitution in the US has ensured legal INEQUALITY. Consider the invasion into a woman’s body that will occur when the up-to-four Supreme Court judges Bush appoints overturn Roe v. Wade.
Those are the disasters to be angry about, not liberal discourse.
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[31 Oct 2004|11:59pm] |
Trick or Treat:
Trick:
George Bush said there were WMDs in Iraq. He said Iraq got depleted uranium from Nigeria. He said Al Queda and Saddam Hussein worked together. George Bush said he'd create jobs. He said he'd be a uniter, not a devider. He tricked all of us.
Treat:
The ability to vote him out on Tuesday.
John Kerry/John Edwards in 2004!
Happy Halloween.
Boo!
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[27 Oct 2004|04:43pm] |
We're going to win this fucking election.
Harvard released a poll of young people (who are not counted in regular polls because they are not "likely voters," which is to say that they haven't voted in the last few elections and because they use cell-phones as their primary numbers and pollsters call strictly land lines) who back Kerry 59-32!
Additionally, the magnitude of new voters is unprecedented. That, along with Ohio and Pennsylvania leaning Kerry and Arkansas, formerly a Bush state, looking Kerry-otic, leads me to the conclusion.
But, then there's the capper: the former political director of the AFL-CIO, who knows as much about electing presidents as anyone in the nation, said in a private comment to a guy I know that if Kerry is down 3% in the polls come election day, he'll still win the damn thing.
We've got this election. It's just a matter of the voting being fair.
Peace,
Jesse
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| October suprise |
[11 Oct 2004|06:51pm] |
Karl Rove talks about having a few suprises in store for the Bush campaign
Predictions:
1. They'll "find" Osama bin Laden, whose actually been in their custody since the beginning of the war in Iraq. The guy's 6'7", requires dialysis, and has connections that go to the top of the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. There's no way he's hiding in some mountains somewhere.
2. Cheney says his doctors advise him against serving another term because of heart problems, so he "regretfully" resigns. Then, the campaign brings in John McCain as VP. McCain, who is a supposed "renegade" has been campaigning mad hard for Bush, speaking at the RNC and tossing Kerry aside, even though he tends to side with Kerry on policy. He's got massive appeal with independents and in the southwest. Plus, Cheney could still run the show in Washington, since all his PNAC cronies are parts of the Bush Administration. McCain could just be an election tool. Opportunist bastard.
I say the first one, which I've been predicting for years, would go really nicely tomorrow or the next day, in time for the third debate, while the last one would be really good coming into the last two weeks before election day.
Kerry has been hammering home Bush's inability to capture Osama and constantly appealing to McCain as a proponent of a lot of things that Kerry is trying to use as his election platform. Either addition to the Bush campaign would be fodder for shoving in Kerry's face.
If I'm wrong, I'll be happier for it, because that makes a Kerry victory more likely, but if I'm right, don't call it, as Karl Rove did, a suprise, you heard it here first.
Jesse
Kerry/Edwards 2004!
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| Winnarainbow to Bard |
[13 Aug 2004|10:35pm] |
I left Winnarainbow, hopped on a flight as soon as I got into the Bay Area, flew to New York, got driven home, took a shower and the moved into Bard. I've been here a week and it's fabulous. I've made a whole bunch of great new friends, I dare say, unfortunately, at the expense of thinking very little about my friends from home (this is both very good for my mood and very bad for my relations). My roommate is wonderful and I'm writing poetry and songs that will be the soundtrack to this revolution I'm gonna start (just you wait).
An interesting prompt for a deep-ass conversation: voting for Bush as means of expediting the downfall of the American empire (imminant, anyway). Hey, speaking of politics, who told all you bitches about Barrack Obama? I FUCKING DID! Hell yeah, and his speech at the DNC will go down in history as one of the greatest ever. Speaking of NCs, expect me to maybe get arrested at this RNC (GO TO TEXAS! WE DON'T WANT YOU EXPLOITING SEPTEMBER 11TH! THAT'S WHY NY IS VOTING KERRY!).
My computer in my dorm is not fully set up yet, but it may be by the time you read this. When it is, I'll be able to be online and update this motherfucker more often (I'm on a communal computer right now).
I've figured out a lot over this Summer, including, most importantly, how to REALLY admit fault and forgive.
I hope all is well with all you. Much love. Think Kucinich, Vote Kerry, Imagine Nobody!
Nobody for President in 2004: if nobody wins, nobody loses!
Peace, yall!
Jesse/Lyricus
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| How to reach me |
[26 Jun 2004|07:43pm] |
Homies,
I'm off for California, where I work at a camp for six weeks. Should you want to write me a letter, scribble a post card, or send me a care package full of goodies, you may do it this way:
Lyricus
c/o Camp Winnarainbow
PO Box 1359
Laytonville, CA 95454
Note that you have to address it to Lyricus, since that is my name there, and a significant number of people doesn't know that I'm Jesse to you all.
Holla at me.
Much love,
Jesse (Lyricus)
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[20 Jun 2004|05:19pm] |
This week, for the second time in my life—the first doesn’t even really count, because I wasn’t very emotionally in touch—I found myself having to say goodbye to people whom I will never see again. The first time was when I moved; this, NFL Nationals in Salt Lake City. Musical Break:
Salt Lake City’s a big fucking drag
When you’re with a bunch of friends just looking for some fun
‘cause everything closes at like 9 o’clock
And the party’s just ended as the party’s just begun
You hear that there’s an Indian restaurant on the main drag
Which you can’t find ‘cause all this city is is just one big fucking drag
Once in a while you get a voice mail
And that’s about as cool as shit tends to get
The streets are wide and the traffic is slow
And the shops are so lame you get genuinely upset
You hear that there’s a movie theater on the main drag
Which you can’t find ‘cause all this city is is just one big fucking drag
Maybe you see a hot girl walk by
And that’s pretty cool so you start to fantasize
About her body but little do you know
She’s one of the mayor’s 17 wives
You hear that there’s a night club on the main drag
Which you can’t find ‘cause all this city is is just one big fucking drag
Music break over. Here is what the Mormons believe (no joke, I can’t make this shit up): Adam and Eve, Moses, the Begats, the Beatitudes, etc. and Jesus died and then the Apostles died, and after that, there was NO Christianity any longer. So… Jesus came back to Earth about a thousand years before Columbus and took a boat to South America from the Middle East and made the Indians there his new Apostles. Then… in 1830, since there was STILL no Christianity, Christ came back a THIRD time. And where? Jerusalem? Mesopotamia? The Vatican? No. Missouri, Indiana and Minnesota. This is where he met his new prophet. His name? Moses? Mohammed? Siddhartha? No. Joe Smith. And in 1830, Smith and Brigham Young and others decided that the Midwest was a big fucking drag (read above song) and Jesus recommended the fucking desert in Utah. Then, the trek. Then, they got to Utah, but because it’s a fucking desert, there was no food. So Jesus commissioned these orchards and on the second year the food was abundant. Then, the fucking crickets came and threatened to destroy the orchards. Then Jesus went to the fucking pacific coast and got the fucking seagulls to fucking come and eat the crickets. READ THIS: IN THE MORMON TABERNACLE, THEY HAVE A BIG-ASS GOLDEN STATUE OF A SEAGULL. And, so it was. This, I think, is the only Christian sect that actually claims Jesus himself as the church’s founder.
On the way home…
The plane out of SLC was 40 minutes late. But that might have been okay, because there was some time between our arrival in Dallas and our departure to NYC. We would just be cutting it close. Then, there were storms in Dallas, and our flight was diverted to Abilene, where we sat on a Tarmac for two and a half hours, which the captain originally had reported as twenty minutes. Eventually, we get to Dallas and we find out our 2:15 and subsequent standby flight of 3:15 had taken off (confusing, since we weren’t even allowed to land. We were given an 8:00 flight, which would get in to NY at 1 AM (keep in mind, we’d left the hotel in SLC at 7 AM). Our standby flight, a 5:23, which became 6:15, which became 6:30 was moved from gate to gate a total of three times. Finally, we got on a 7:30 plane which got us home at midnight, when we had to be driven by the district from LaGuardia to home. In the end, my back hurts worse than that time I had to stay in bed for 24 hours after injuring it.
I think that what I’m trying to say is that Sami, Sophie, Scott, Christina, Patrice, Sheridan, Issac, Stacy, Erica, David, Me’Lisa, Hugh, Evan, and several others (Ngazi, Alex, etc.) have given me the time of my life, and I will miss you all terribly. Before I cry again…
Jesse
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[05 Jun 2004|07:37am] |
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EXPECTOOOOOOOO PATROOOOOOOOOONUM!!!!!!
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