August 10, 2010
July 14, 2010
February 1, 2010
Bush as Existentialist
If you think that it is highly likely that it will be a very long time until the Republicans and Democrats agree on anything whatsoever, then there is an experiment you should try.
If you make a serious suggestion that former President George W. Bush deserves a place of honor in the Existentialists Hall of Fame; Democrats will want to tar and feather you, and Republicans will form a lynch mob. Both will be very adamant and be in full agreement that you shouldn’t say that.
The Republicans are trying so hard to disavow any hints of elitisim in their agenda and conduct and, instead, want to do the branding necessary to firmly establish their political party as a populist movement that only wants to improve the lot of the union worker and the bank clerk. There’s a rumor (which is being started right here) that the theme song for the Next Republican National Convention will be the Rolling Stones rendition of “Salt of the Earth.”
A Republican consulting firm has established the guiding principle that more Americans like corn than caviar.
The concept of lumping George W. Bush in with the likes of French Intellectuals such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre will be sufficient to send most of Ronald Reagan’s disciples staggering off to the nearest emergency room (where all immigrants and some Americans get free medical services?).
Democrats, on the other hand, will recoil in horror at any hint of seriousness in the suggestion that George W. Bush is an Existentialist because it will be misinterpreted to mean that they think that you think George W. Bush was smart enough to be ranked as a genius deserving a place alongside the likes of Camus or Sartre. The Democrats will react as quickly and as energetically as a bull at the rodeo when the gate is opened.
It would be easier to preach the gospel of Ferdinand at a bull fight than it would be to get the Hartman, Maddow, and Malloy fans to second the idea that Bush was an outstanding example of Existentialism in action. Note the words “in action.” Isn’t a part of Existentialism the “to be is to do” school of thought? If George W. Bush instinctively acted in an Existential way, without bothering to put “Being and Nothingness” on his famed reading list, then he was an Existentialist and thus eligible for membership in the Existentialists Hall of Fame.
Didn’t 43 cause a ruckus when he casually mentioned that “Le Stranger” was on his reading list?
On the web site for Princeton University this definition of an existentialist will be found: “a philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainable.” So Bush and Cheney decide they gonna kick Saddam’s ass, they get a convenient excuse, they replace a Congressional Declaration of War with a clause in the doctrine of Executive Privilege, they replace the Chancellor-for-life title with Commander-in-Chief, and then when the war goes into extra innings, they hide behind a tsunami of “no one could have possibly forseen” bullshit, and if that doesn’t fit the definition of Existentialist, then this columnist had better start singing the song with the line about “gimme three steps towards the door.”
In “The Rebel,” Camus wrote: “The advocate of crime really only respects two kinds of power: one, which he finds in his own class, founded on the accident of birth, and the other by which, through sheer villainy, an underdog raises himself to the level of the libertines of noble birth whom Sade makes his heroes.” Do you seriously think, if Camus were alive today, that he would be doing political punditry for Fox. They just couldn’t hire the man who said: “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”
Camus again: “I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules.” Does that mean that sidestepping the Geneva conventions and leading the Christians for Torture posse qualifies Dubya for membership in the Existentialists Hall of Fame? Isn’t the Bush Family motto: “Fuck your rules!”?
“When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination.” Isn’t it obvious that George W. Bush would concur completely with that Camus quote? When one has served as a pilot in an Air National Guard unit that can’t provide the type of aircraft that one had been trained to fly, doesn’t that leave the fellow free to choose to become the Commander-in-chief and thus be free of messy encumbrances derived from dead bodies?
George W. Bush might not agree that he is an existentialist, but most of the existentialists also rejected the suggestion that they be dumped into that category.
Sartre said: “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.” Thus if a man becomes the Commander-in-Chief by fiat of the United States Supreme Court, that’s just as good and better than being elected by the voters.
Can we get a witness from Nietzsche? In “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” Nietzsche said: “But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangman and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be Pharisees, if only they had – power.” Sometimes, by God, they get it!
So would that be referring to the members of the Bush family?
When Camus said “You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question” was he referring to the Dubya challenge to America: “Come on, what say, we invade Iraq!”?
Wasn’t saying “I’m the decider” tantamount to openly declaring himself to be an Existentialist of the highest rank and thus qualified to be considered for a place in the Existentialists Hall of Fame?
At this point some readers may challenge the columnist’s credentials to elaborate on the subject of Existentialism. If a man chooses to call himself an expert on Existentialism; isn’t that sufficient? Isn’t a self-proclaimed expert on Existentialism a walking, talking personification of the philosophy of “to do is to be”? Would it be better to get a philosophy professor from Cal Berkeley to fact check this column? Wouldn’t that be a repudiation of the Republican/Existentialist heroic reliance on the code of self determination? “If I say this beach is safe to surf; it’s safe to surf!”
It was best said in some graffiti from the Sixties:
Camus: “To do is to be.”
Sartre: “To be is to do.”
Sinatra: “To be, do be, do.”
Now, the disk jockey will play Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regretted rien” (Bush’s theme song?), Les Baxter’s “Poor People of Paris,” and Bobby Darren’s “Mack the Knife.” It’s time for us to cut out. Have a “le jazz hot” type week.
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October 29, 2009
It’s True: Junior Bush is a Motivational Speaker Now
43 Becomes Motivational Speaker
–Politico Staff, Oct. 27, 2009.
Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take on Bush’s first ‘inspirational’ speech:
Colbert Mocks Bush
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October 26, 2009
On the Road to the Bloggers’ Hall of Fame
If Jack Kerouac were alive today, it seems quite likely that since he liked to be in the avant-garde contingent of contemporary writers, he would be blogging, but what sort of items would he deem worthy of his attention? Would he point out the fact that after serving seven years as President, George W. Bush’s apologists were stoutly advocating the idea that some problems were the result of Bill Clinton’s policies but a mere 8 months after President Barack Obama was sworn in, those same Republican folks were firmly maintaining that now all of America’s current problems are the results of the new President’s agenda?
Perhaps Jack Kerouac would point out that the fact that Clinton had a long lasting effect and that the new President had quickly taken control might be a subtle indication that Bush’s interim period had been ineffective and impotent. Do Republicans’ really want to imply that the USA’s first Negro President was a virile buck who has put his mark on world affairs that quickly and that Bush never managed to achieve that in seven years?
After reading “Why Kerouac Matters,” by John Leland, this columnist realizes that a misperception had formed. This reader had leaped to the assumption that Kerouac would sympathize with the political views of writers like Paul Krasner, Art Kunkin (of Los Angeles Free Press fame), or Hunter S. Thompson. Such a surmise is very wrong. Leland asserts that millions of Kerouac’s readers have misunderstood what Kerouac was saying.
Leland postulates that the father of the Beatnik movement actually held strong conservative convictions as far as political philosophy was concerned. The literary critic then doles out the evidence to back up his contention. (See page 28 in particular.)
Kerouac did not inject many (if any) references to the Korean War in his novels.
Who will win the Series? Although Kerouac’s name was synonymous with New York City, he didn’t seem to care much about pro sports let alone root for the Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees.
For as much traveling as Kerouac did, he hardly ever extols tourist attractions. He seemed to concentrate on jazz, drinking, and sex. That and his spiritual visions endeared him to the hippies and they assumed that his mystical moments constituted permission to experiment with mind altering drugs.
Would Kerouac have blogged about topics which were not to be found on the Internet, such as the hypothetical “Bloggers’ Hall of Fame,” or would he have extolled patriotic approval of all of George W. Bush’s war crimes? What would you expect of someone whose hero was William F. Buckley?
If someone doesn’t start the Blogger’s Hall of Fame, what good is blogging?
How can a blogger compare the Golden Gate Bridge to the Sydney Harbor Bridge if he doesn’t make the effort to see and walk across both of them? Why state a conclusion if there is no chance that the results won’t take the blogger a step closer to just getting nominated for a place in such a hypothetical institution?
Kerouac said “Why must I always travel from here to there as if it mattered where one is?”
Isn’t the answer the same as the one to the question about why did that guy climb Mount Everest; “Because it’s there!”?
Kerouac did rewrites and polished his work and presented one draft of “On the Road” on one long continuous sheet of paper as if it were a product of a spontaneous burst of creative energy. He gave encouragement to bloggers who tends to write fast and post in haste by saying: “Why let your internalized high school English teacher edit what God gave you?”
Speaking of putting a roll of teletype paper into your typewriter and starting a marathon of keystroking, the folks at National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) are about to start their annual November typa-thon competiton. Kerouac wannabes, you have been given ample notification.
Can you just imagine a talk show chat featuring Jack Kerouac and fellow conservative Ann Coulter?
Just before the posting process for this column was started, a quick bit of fact checking shows that the site for the annual blog awards (http://2009.bloggies.com/) contains a notation for repeat winners that they are considered to be at the Hall of Fame level of achievement.
Who would get a link on a Kerouac Blog? How about the teacher going around the world on a bicycle? (http://teacherontwowheels.com/) Talk about a road trip.
Why did this columnist and so many others leap to assumptions about Kerouac if the ideas weren’t in the words? Leland leaves the questions about the possibility that those messages were present on the subconscious level and thereby more effectively communicated, to other future critics-analysts.
After reading Leland’s book, a re-read of “On the Road” seems quite likely.
“Why Kerouac Matters” doesn’t have an Index. (Boooo!) Somewhere in the book, didn’t Leland mention a jazz composition titled “Kerouac”? Without an Index, that fact slips through the existentialist’s time warp and disappears into the either. An Index would also help to determine which of George Shearing’s tracks Kerouac liked and which he didn’t because he thought they showed a new attitude of cool and commercial.
In “On the Raod,” Kerouac wrote: “He said we were a band of Arabs coming to blow up New York.”
Now, the disk jockey will play Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray’s “The Hunt,” Prez Prado’s “Mambo Jambo,” and Slim Gaillard’s “C-Jam Blues.” It’s time for us to bop out of here. Have a “Go moan for man” type week.
September 22, 2009
August 29, 2009
May 12, 2009
Gullibility Test
At the same time that John Demjanjuk has been extradited from Cleveland to face trial for things he did as a German soldier during World War II, Americans believe it when the news media reports that due to the statute of limitations, time is running out as far as indicting and prosecuting George W. Bush because of his torture policy. Why do citizens in other countries believe that Americans are very stupid and gullible?
March 3, 2009
Bush’s Presidential Library to Open
George W. Bush’s Presidential Library, slated to open April 1, 2009, will be a storefront in the Oil Country strip mall in Dallas, Texas, located between a payday lender and an Army recruiting office and across the street from the Piggly-Wiggly. The only reading matter on the shelves, aside from an autographed copy of ‘My Pet Goat,’ will be Junior’s collection of Christmas and birthday cards from Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and other GOP luminaries, with a ‘Win the War on Terror’ video game and a ‘Watch This Drive’ putting green in the back. Visitors will be required to remove their shoes before entering and it will be open from 10 to 4 daily. Admission fee will be your common sense or a hundred shares of Halliburton stock — unless you’re a friend of the family, a Blackwater mercenary, or a member of the Carlyle Group. Then admission is free.
January 28, 2009
The Tattlesnake – It’s Worse Than You Think Edition
MSNBC reported this morning that the Peanut Corporation of America – yes, someone actually named a company that – knowingly shipped out products contaminated by salmonella. (So much for the market policing itself.) The FDA alerted the PCA of the contamination last year. Did some exec at PCA decide, ala the Ford Pinto, that it would be cheaper to handle food poisoning lawsuits than recall its products? Stay tuned. (They’re just lucky that the salmonella wasn’t one of the new drug-resistant strains.)
BTW, we’ve been losing approximately 500,000 jobs a month, or 6 million annually, for some several years now. That means that the Bush Labor Department’s employment figures were skewed and actual unemployment is much higher than the government has been reporting. (But you knew that.)
Quick — try to think of the difference between the way Stalin ran the USSR and the way the average American CEO runs a multi-national mega-corporation. Those at the very top prosper, everyone else suffers, and the system is completely corrupt and immoral. (And don’t fool yourself that the stockholders are any more effective at controlling Comrade Chairman than were the Politburo; as in the old Soviet Union, the deck is stacked against the ‘little guy’ investor.)
On the other hand, Corporate America, and the world economy, are collapsing of its own weight. Read The Financial Times — the vipers in finance and investment no longer trust each other — no honor among these thieves — and the current corporate structure can’t make money for the stockholders nor even themselves anymore. Like any large beast doomed to extinction, they have greedily gorged themselves to the point where there are no more suckers left to fleece and they can’t fleece each other since they all play the same tricks. The bailout is their last desperate gasp before the final curtain. The diversified multi-national mega-corporation of today is finished, although its slow-motion fall will take a few years and there will be some further suffering on our part. The practitioners of Disaster Capitalism have finally seen the catastrophe dumped on their own heads and they don’t have a clue as to how to dig themselves out, since most of their inbred management, buzzing with the erroneous free market lingo of the transient MBA, are only slightly smarter and more adept than Bush the Younger. When your heroes are utter monsters like Al ‘Chainsaw’ Dunlap, or sleazy film characters like Gordon Gecko, your demise is predictable and well deserved. Fortunately for us, it seems President Obama is smarter than to go down with this sinking ship.
‘Zell’ — It Rhymes with ‘Stink’: “[T]he Tribune Company. This media conglomerate, which owns some of America’s top newspapers and television stations, was bought a year ago by a Chicago real estate baron named Sam Zell.
“This fellow didn’t have anywhere near enough money to pay the $8.2 billion purchase price, but, hey, that’s no problem for a striver. Zell simply got the company’s CEO to let him use the employees pension fund as collateral for bank loans to buy the Tribune. Even though their money was put at risk, the employees had no say in the deal, nor in how the company was run. It was run badly. Less than a year after Zell’s takeover, the Tribune has had to declare bankruptcy, and employees are likely to lose jobs, severance payments and pensions.”
– Jim Hightower, “Pirate Ethics,” Dec. 18, 2008.
“Sam Zell never really had much skin in the game. Last year, when he purchased the Tribune Company… he put up $315 million of his own money and paid the balance of the purchase price, $8.2 billion, with the employee stock ownership plan — a move in which Tribune employees had no say whatever. But that actually overstates the amount of Zell’s investment. Of the $315 million he sunk into the company, it turns out that $225 million was simply a promissory note. Due to the vagaries of bankruptcy law, writes business analyst Mark Lacter on LAobserved.com, that means that Zell has better protection for his stake than all his employees.”
– Harold Meyerson, “The Worst CEO,” Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2008.
The Zell-owned Chicago Tribune has been at the forefront of the relentless media attacks on Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption and demanded his impeachment even before Fitzgerald arrested Blago. Now, that’s entertainment.
January 20, 2009
October 16, 2008
September 11, 2008
Patriot Day?
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
– Mark Twain
Today is the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I notice on the calendar that it’s labeled as ‘Patriot Day.’ Patriot Day — when did that happen? ’9/11 Remembrance Day’ I could see, but ‘Patriot Day’? At any rate, as well as recalling the tragedy of that day that led to so many other tragedies, I will also remember, and hope most other Americans do, that the Bush Administration had nine months to prevent the attacks and bungled their responsibility to keep the nation safe, a vacationing Junior even ignoring a CIA Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” along with other warnings of imminent terrorist attacks. If Bush had paid attention and done his job, 3,000 Americans might still be among the living. That’s something to remember on Patriot Day.
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September 9, 2008
July 24, 2008
The Tattlesnake – Humor You Can Use Edition
Or: Further Examples of Why It’s Hard to Write Satire These Days
“Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this?”
– Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) from the film “Casablanca,” 1942.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Republicans snickered and goaded Obama over not visiting the Middle East; Obama took the bait, called their bluff, and turned the trip into a three-point photo-op score showing him looking presidential with various world leaders and greeting smiling US troops. For a bonus, he even got an endorsement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his 16-month Iraq troop withdrawal plan, leaving Blinky McCain to impotently twist in the wind. Obama also defined the role of a US commander-in-chief in strong Trumanesque terms – no more of the weak Bush Boy’s lame ‘I’ll leave it to the generals to tell me what my policy is’ nonsense. Meanwhile, back stateside, Ol’ Crazy-Eyes is left with egg dripping off of his face, peevishly grousing about the amount of media coverage Obama is receiving and whining that The New York Times won’t publish his op-ed wherein he waves the bloody flag of victory in Iraq without bothering to define it.
12-Step On You Program: “Wall Street got drunk,” dribbled our Worst President Ever last Friday trying to explain why the country’s headed into its second Great Depression. Gee, how’d that happen, Junior? Was Cheney providing them with firewater while you were on vacation in Crawford, recovering from your ‘hard work’ vacationing in Washington? Remember when this goof was advertised as the first MBA president? Was that ‘MBA’ as in ‘Master of Bumbling Assessments’? Oh, brother.
Hit and Run Off at the Mouth: Creature of the Night Bob Novak emerged from the Soil of his GOP Homeland recently to float the story that McCain was going to name his Veep pick this week in a desperate attempt to counteract the massive media coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip. Then the Prince of Darkness flipped later in the week, and claimed he thought the Republicans may have played him and the story wasn’t legitimate after all. “Pretty reprehensible,” is the hilarious way Bob the Impaler described the possible McCain camp attempts to ‘use’ him to garner publicity for their candidate. Imagine that – Rove’s Water Boy on the Plame leak and the shoehorn for scores of other GOP-inspired balderdash entering the media mainstream ‘shocked, shocked’ to discover gambling at Rick’s Café. Roll your eyes and laugh, children.
The ultimate cage match
What would a columnist say if he were assigned to produce a column about a hypothetical cage match between Hitler and George W. Bush? Could he add a new point that hasn’t been made previously?
Obviously the public is weary of being reminded of the most apparent salient points such as:
Hitler won his country’s top military honor in battle; George W wasn’t it combat.
Hitler wrote a book that sold widely; George W’s book may have been ghost written.
Hitler was a mesmerizing public speaker; George W inspired yawns.
George W. Bush would have to be declared more cunning and conniving than the German who precipitated the Second World War and if you are living in a country going to war, that’s the kind of guy best suited for the driver’s seat.
Hitler took extensive measures to make sure that his people were unaware that he and his men were committing war crimes. Folks were fearful that bad things would happen to the people who were interrogated by the Geheime Staatspolitzi (AKA Ge-sta-po) but they never knew for sure what the specifics were. Thus when the details were revealed during the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials, citizens of Germany were genuinely shocked and ashamed to learn what their leader had done in their name.
Hitler didn’t involve the citizens of his country as co-conspirators in his war crimes.
George W. Bush’s diabolical game plan included the 2003 revelation of complete details for his method of questioning terrorism suspects and after those questioning methods were made public there were very few voices raised in opposition. Thus if (trolls please note the use of the subjunctive mood here) Bush committed any war crimes by using waterboarding and other harsh measures, the citizens of the United States would have to be considered as possible accessories during and after the fact.
Hitler wasn’t included in the list of defendants at Nuremburg. He was not even listed as a defendant being tried in absentia. His team did stand in the prisoners docket and it became obvious during the Nuremburg trials that most of the German citizens were just as shocked and surprised by the offences as was the rest of the world.
Bush’s use of waterboarding may have helped enliven some barroom debates, but it never spurred any serious denunciations from the country’s mass media, the country’s clergy, nor even much of the citizenry.
By enlisting the country as accessories to his methodology, George W. Bush insured himself against any serious threat that he would ever face any legal consequences in his own country’s judicial system. His defense would have to be: “Sorry, we goofed!” Any guilty verdict would have to be tantamount to saying: “We sure did!” and that’s not a bloody well likely scenario in a country that portrays itself as “the Goodguys” (and we don’t mean hippies who scored the famous WMCA T-shirt in the Sixties).
Statistically Germany is a Catholic country and maybe der Fuhrur knew that he couldn’t intimidate the Pope (Pius XII) into giving his imprimatur to the torture, so he kept it hidden, but future dictators (and Presidents) have learned from Bush; if a country is going to sin it is best they do so openly without any hint of an admission of guilt or shame.
Imagine, if you will, that legendary aviatrix Hanna Reitsch had managed to take Germany’s chancellor with her when she made her legendary escape from Berlin in an Arado 96 airplane as the war came to an end. Can you envision that it’s two or three years later and you spot a billboard in Berlin during the airlift portraying the former leader (Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was named as the successor) with the caption: “Do you miss me yet?” Obviously it would be in German and use the Schwaben style font.
To put things in their proper perspective just imagine that sometime in 1955 Huntley or Brinkley traveled to Germany and got an exclusive interview with the retired dictator on his ranch in Bavaria and that he smirked and tossed off a line about “I consulted the best legal minds available before sanctioning the waterboarding.” That hypothetical scoop will give readers a fair idea of which of the two was a better con man. It should be a gimme to see that Bush is much more devious and treacherous than the vegetarian (who distained smoking) could ever hope to have been. Only one of them connived to include all citizens as accessories to their torture program.
Neither Hitler nor Bush have ever been charged with (let alone convicted of) war crimes in court, so it seems that unless such a hypothetical grudge match could actually be held, their respective fans will (like the continuing sixties debate: Beatles or Stones) have something to debate every time they meet.
Hitler had a gimpy arm and Bush has been called a bully so our money would be on GWB if (in a Twilight Zone world) the cage match actually were to take place.
We were going to use what Robert Frost wrote (“Most of the change we think we see in life/Is due to truths being in and out of favor.”) as the column’s closing (apropos) quote but on the way to the Berkeley Public Library to use the wifi connection to post this column, we ran the premise of a Bush-Hitler cage match past Allison of Home 101 on Shattuck and she had a better one. She said: “They’d just give up and become friends!”
Now the disk jockey will play play Wayne Newton’s “Danker Schoen,” and two by the Andrews sisters: “The Beer Barrel Polka” and “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon.” We have to go to Oakland and post bail for a friend. Have a “hunker in the bunker” type week.