Just discovered Joe Bageant ...here's to appreciating his (sometimes long-winded) perspective ....
AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM?
Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga
By Joe Bageant
December 07, 2010 - Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico
If you hang out much with thinking people, conversation eventually
turns to the serious political and cultural questions of our times. Such
as: How can the Americans remain so consistently brain-fucked? Much of
the world, including plenty of Americans, asks that question as they
watch U.S. culture go down like a thrashing mastodon giving itself up to
some Pleistocene tar pit.
One explanation might be the effect of 40 years of deep fried
industrial chicken pulp, and 44 ounce Big Gulp soft drinks. Another
might be pop culture, which is not culture at all of course, but
marketing. Or we could blame it on digital autism: Ever watch commuter
monkeys on the subway poking at digital devices, stroking the touch
screen for hours on end? That wrinkled Neolithic brows above the
squinting red eyes?
But a more reasonable explanation is that, (A) we don't even know we
are doing it, and (B) we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure
we never find out. ....
Read the rest of this highly amusing article.
Joe Bageant is dead. Long live Joe Bageant.
Here's Joe's About Joe
Born 1946 in Winchester VA, USA. US Navy Vietnam era veteran.
After stint in Navy became anti-war hippie, ran off to the West Coast
... lived in communes, hippie school buses... started writing about
holy men, countercultural figures, rock stars and the American scene in
1971 ... lived in Boulder Colorado until mid 1980s ... 14 years in all
... became a Marxist and a half-assed Buddhist ... Traveled to Central
America to write about third World issues...
Friday, August 8, 2014
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Foray into US Culture: Manicured Faux
[Introducing a new writing series: "Forays into US Culture".]
Check out other entries in the new series, Forays into US Culture
Foray into UC Culture: Rush on Robin
Foray into US Culture: Hillary Clinton, "It Takes a Pillage to Raze a Child..."
Forays into US Culture: Relax in a Hurry
Forays into US Culture: Downloadable Books...and Other Dystopias
Foray into US Culture: Manicured Faux
Through the
window of my temporary home office, a flash of bright orange on a slim branch
of a well-trimmed oleander. I peer into the shrub manicured to present the de rigueur Potemkin profile for gated
communities in suburban Houston, Texas; its skinny, bare branches prop up a
palapa-like toupee of green leaves trimmed and tweaked so that no errant petal-
or dry leaf-like shape mars the streetscape. (I suspect the residents who drive
by in de rigueur V8, double-cab trucks
notice the environment only when something is out of place…then anonymous complaints
made to the anonymous HOA result in anonymous emails of disapproval to the resident
associated with the eyesore).
Suddenly, another
flash of bright orange, this time close enough that I make out a vertical
‘ruff’ that, Japanese fan-like, flicks out from throat to breast then folds
back into the neck of a delicate lizard, six inches from tip to tail;
spectacular!
Further revelations
of beauty when this lizard traverses the window sill inches from my face. If it
is fear that makes this creature’s chest thump as we, two disparate but living creatures,
size one another up through the glass, the lizard does not scitter back into
its camouflage. I marvel: its gossamer toes and knuckles jut at impossible angles
yet cling effortlessly to the metal window frame; its skin, rather than the
uniform brown I’d seen from afar, shows flecks in shades of yellow, orange, and
gold sprinkled on a background of browns.
Intrigued, I
wonder: how has this delicate critter survived ecocide and urban development?
For, out here,
south of Houston and a long way from “home”, San Francisco Bay Area, I am a cranky
visitor, out of sorts, disoriented. That lizard, tough little critter, helps me
understand I am heartbroken.
Certainly
not unique, this gated community - the norm for upper-income suburban development across the south western US - displays that the
subduing of the “natural” environment (this one was bayou wetlands) into manageable
monoculture and manicured faux is an art form, albeit banal, executed to the
exact price point to ensure, for developers, enviable return on investment and,
for residents, the exact signals of willingness to conform yet some leeway to brag, appropriately, that is without the effort of actually bragging, of far-above-average net worth.
Squares of Bermuda
sod grass, manufactured elsewhere, is carpeted into luminescent lawn sprinkled
at 3:00am each day throughout the neighborhood. I witnessed the laying of a sod
lawn: at 11:00am, in 95-plus degree heat, three Mexican men with shovels and
pick axes excavated resident grass and weeds while one white man leaned against
a stack of palleted sod and watched. At 4:30pm that same day, in 90 degree heat,
the same three Mexican men, now drenched in sweat and dirt, wiggled the last
squares of sod into the new lawn (now resembling a once-bald man’s head with
newly implanted hair plugs). The same white man leaned against a stack of empty
pallets and watched.
Purchased adult palm
trees (homeowners have the option of
purchasing decades-old oak trees from other parts of Texas – at $100k per oak
though, palms proliferate) inserted into accommodating holes are carefully arranged around stucco houses with the
architectural flourishes of princess-in-fairytale castles, painted in shades of beige (“ecru”?)
and brown (“desert”?) and off-white. Inside, the square footage is so vast that
resident’s leg muscles ache from hiking the stairs to upper bedroom number one to
media room then down the stairs to kitchen to one of three dining areas then back up the stairs to a Jack ‘n Jill bathroom dividing two junior bedrooms to master bedroom to number two and three bedrooms
then downstairs to half bathroom to walk-in closet that stores shoes and accessories and
walk-in closet that stores clothing to four-car garage that stores consumables post consumption, and oversize, bulging garbage bins awaiting the garbage truck due in the early hours two days a week. (Then, out of sight, out of
mind, garbage goes wherever garbage goes. Why care where it goes as long as it goes?)
How did this
glorious lizard survive the ecocide? I imagine it the
lone survivor of the lizard equivalent of the Hunger Games, a once proud member
of a lizard community since euthanized to make way for 2.2 members of nuclear
families fully dependent upon houses with air conditioning systems that utter airplane-taking-off-like
moans throughout the day and night. Despite 4-car garages, Lexus SUVs (white or
silver) and monster trucks (uniformly new and shiny, white or black, Ram,
Ranger, Super Duty, Silverado, or Escalade) and golf carts (to putter
rather than walk around the neighborhood) park, four-deep, in expansive drive ways.
How will this
lizard survive this over-engineered future? How will any of us?
Those of us
with imagination, or from the experience of having known this land before it was 'mani- and pedi'ed' into submission, conjure up images of when this bayou wetland and all its denizens,
including lizards and oak trees thrived. At least we still have our imagination - for now.
(Photos: Susan
Galleymore, 2014)
Upper income stucco but cookie-cutter-nevertheless houses with fairytale princess-in-the-castle architectural flourishes. |
2.2 members of nuclear
families fully dependent upon air conditioning systems that utter airplane-taking-off-like moans throughout the day and night. |
The effrontery of it! This expression of wild plant life resisting manicured faux lasted 3 days. Then the offense was spotted and eradicated by landscape crews. |
Views for sale! Three multimillion dollar homes, with all the accoutrement, will be fitted into this spot. Here, work begins on the first home. |
Garbage day in the 'hood. "Garbage is picked up by men in a truck and where garbage goes, I don't give a f...!" |
Check out other entries in the new series, Forays into US Culture
Foray into UC Culture: Rush on Robin
Foray into US Culture: Hillary Clinton, "It Takes a Pillage to Raze a Child..."
Forays into US Culture: Relax in a Hurry
Forays into US Culture: Downloadable Books...and Other Dystopias
Foray into US Culture: Manicured Faux
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Lest We Forget “Never Again”
April 18, 1996, Israel Defense Force shelled a UN compound in Qana, south Lebanon, killing 106 and injuring 116 of the 800 civilians seeking refuge there. Back then, the UN expressed outrage and demanded accountability, stating that its officials had repeatedly given details of the UN facility and its refugee population to Israel. Israel denied this.
July 30, 2006, Israel Air Force attacked a three-story home in
Qana where 63 villagers had sheltered in a basement for 18 days. Survivors suggest
the house may have been targeted when pilots spotted flickering candlelight. Rubble
from one of three bomb strikes blocked the basement door.
What happened after that?
According to accounts related to me in Qana in 2006, family
members sought one another by shrieking names while parents felt around in the pitch
dark for their children, all the while slipping in blood and scrambling to
remove dust from lungs and debris from limbs while the able-bodied scrabbled with
bare hands at the blocked exit.
One mother found a toddler she refused to release even after
she escaped the ruins. Bleeding, in shock, and sheltering under a tree, she rocked
the already dead child until dawn revealed the child to be her neighbor's. Her own
child, smothered to death under dust and rubble, was still in the debris - one
of 16 children of the 28 confirmed dead; 13 more dead were never found.
The UN expressed outrage and demanded accountability. The US
did too, sort of….
My trip to Qana in 2006
allowed me to understand, first hand, these sites and how these attacks are remembered.
Memorials at the site of the UN attack in Qana include a shiny
black pyramid-shape to remember the UN’s UNFIL victims. For the Lebanese dead, an
elaborate photo mural, a series of coffin-shapes spread over the plaza and, on
the ruined floor of what once an office in the UN compound, a rusty shell
casing and a man’s sandal still lay in the bombed structure.
See more pictures: New holocaust.
See more pictures: New holocaust.
A memorial to the dead of the Qana basement is built over the home’s concrete foundation; the youngest victim was 10 months old.
Memorial to Israel's bombing on a home and killed people who'd sheltered for 18 days in the basement. Photo: Susan Galleymore |
Ibrahim Ahmed’s family’s photo collage honors its dead;
Ibrahim Ahmed is shown right of Zena’s husband, center. |
I talked to Zena, whose husband and father were killed, and to
Zena’s mother, Maryam, wife to patriarch Ibrahim Ahmed - dead, along with 10 members
of the family. Today, these women, like many others who lost heads of household
in the attack, eke out a meager living (sometimes supplemented by Hezbollah).
Never again? Or, more of the same?
This year, in July, Israeli forces struck UNRWA schools in
Gaza. As of the end of July, the toll of dead and injured had not been fully
tallied for this latest event (RT reports, “Officials in Gaza say the shelling
killed at least 15 and wounded 90 others”). The overall tally of dead Palestinians
in Gaza, so far, is more than 1,300 since July 8 (with Israel targeting 4,100
sites in Gaza’s 139-square-mile area).
According to The
Guardian's Harriet Sherwood, reporting from Jerusalem, "United Nations
officials described the killing of sleeping children as a disgrace to the world
and accused Israel of a serious violation of international law….Ban Ki-moon,
the UN secretary general, said the attack was "outrageous and
unjustifiable" and demanded "accountability and justice". The UN
said its officials had repeatedly given details of the school and its refugee
population to Israel."
In the US, Israel’s most staunch ally and weapons’ supplier,
the White House called this week’s shelling of
the UN facility by the Israeli Defense Forces 'totally unacceptable and totally
indefensible'.
Nevertheless, RT reports
that US Congress “overwhelmingly approved an emergency measure on Friday
[August 1st] to grant $225 million in additional revenue to Israel for the
country’s Iron Dome missile defense system.” (The inimitable Sen. John McCain explained, “We are with the Israelis, because if they don’t have the Iron Dome, they can’t
defend themselves.”)
And, the Pentagon reportedly approved Israel’s request for additional rounds of ammunition from the US.
It is difficult not to feel deep cynicism and not to express biting sarcasm at these predictable goings on. How dare those inconvenient and pesky Palestinians resist their slaughter? Why do they insist upon clinging to land subjected to Israel’s relentless 19th century-style colonizing project?
And, the Pentagon reportedly approved Israel’s request for additional rounds of ammunition from the US.
It is difficult not to feel deep cynicism and not to express biting sarcasm at these predictable goings on. How dare those inconvenient and pesky Palestinians resist their slaughter? Why do they insist upon clinging to land subjected to Israel’s relentless 19th century-style colonizing project?
And, after several such attacks on UN facilities since the 1996
attack on the UN in Qana, how can UN representatives bear to manufacture yet
more outrage and indignation for public consumption at yet another instance of
the slow-moving genocide of the Palestinians?
How can "the public" watch …then turn away to busy
itself with the banal?
Do the Israelis attack so shamelessly because they are
certain that the UN's expressions of bitter outrage (and the US’s carefully
phrased-to-be-meaningless condemnations) to the public will be as impotent and
as futile as ever? No matter what Israelis do, US support, weapons, and
ammunition will keep flowing – after all, how else will Israel defend itself?
If the world remembers Qana - or Cana - as the site where
Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding two thousand years ago, why can it
not remember Qana’s - and Gaza’s - more recent yet just as dramatic events?
Perhaps it is simply pesky and inconvenient to remember distressing
events unless they are drummed into heads via assiduously courted and supported
pro-Israel historians, academics, history books, movies, news reports, and
propaganda, or unless they are as well funded as the marketing campaigns and museums
around the world dedicated to the mantra “Never Again”.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Occupy… and Defuse Capitalism's Handmaidens
I wrote this article for Csaba Polony's publication, Left Curve, No. 36, 2012 issue.
Occupy… and Defuse Capitalism's Handmaidens
In 2011, I wrote, "The same ground you walk on, we do too" for Left Curve, No. 35. Download and read it.
In 2014, after 30 years of publications, Left Curve will print its last issue, No. 38. Order it from Left Curve website, also the archive.
This journal was unique in that it published articles, poems, art and ideas that our culture tends to marginalize as not mainstream enough. For example, this was one of the few print publications where writers critical of Israel's policies and brutality against the Palestinians (and others who highlighted them) were published.
Csaba Polony's passing is a blow to his family and friends...and also signifies the end of an era. Where else might such ideas and the product of such ideas arise?
Occupy… and Defuse Capitalism's Handmaidens
In 2011, I wrote, "The same ground you walk on, we do too" for Left Curve, No. 35. Download and read it.
In 2014, after 30 years of publications, Left Curve will print its last issue, No. 38. Order it from Left Curve website, also the archive.
This journal was unique in that it published articles, poems, art and ideas that our culture tends to marginalize as not mainstream enough. For example, this was one of the few print publications where writers critical of Israel's policies and brutality against the Palestinians (and others who highlighted them) were published.
Csaba Polony's passing is a blow to his family and friends...and also signifies the end of an era. Where else might such ideas and the product of such ideas arise?
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