Tuesday, January 31, 2012

gruesome grimaces

Already in the 1990's I began to notice the evils of television sets in public places. I know that because Professor Lucas, hero of "A Neurotic in an Exotic Land", my novel whose early chapters were composed in the mid 1990's, complains about the evils of the televisions in the Chicago airport.

This evil has only increased in the intervening years.

Today I found myself in the waiting room of a hospital, in a room dominated by a "large screen" television. I managed to find the volume switch and turn it to the silent setting. Nonetheless, the images on the screen continued to be horrifying: young, healthy people distorting their faces, their eyes, their lips into an exaggerated imitation of living creatures engaged in normal conversation. It made my head spin and made me want to throw up.

I spoke to a man in the room about this. His laconic comment was: "That's why they have a mute switch." What a cocky, arrogant answer! No, the mute switch is not the solution. What we have here is the tip of an ugly ice-berg. Those are not real people, or they are real people engaged in unnatural acts. And it is a case of anti-culture. The fact that he could regard it as "normal" speaks volumes about the low level of culture in the United States. Indeed, in Slovakia, I had teenage students who clearly formulated the proposition ( and without prompting from me) that while they had a real life, with things to do, places to go, and people to meet, they had no need of television.

Earlier I had watched a Spanish language channel featuring music. Again, with the sound off, the exaggerated, ritual gestures of the singers and dancers seemed grotesque. Every woman was dressed in a way to draw attention to the fact that she was a woman. And the men, too, seemed to be grotesque parodies.

It was hellish.

And then there was the conversation segment of the program: four bimbos sitting in four chairs talking to one another in an artificial way. Yet, I thought I could discern a difference in the intelligence levels of the four imitators of human life. One looked at the camera with stupid sincerity. Most seemed completely unaware of the inanity of what they were doing. They believed it. But what they were doing, I would say, did not even reach the level of bad acting.

Only one woman, I thought, laughed in a way that suggested that she alone, of four people, realized what a pathetic pretense the whole thing was.

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Note
Talk about arrogance and delusions of power. A stern note on the television instructed all those present that they were not allowed to "adjust" the volume. The hell with that! I am only sorry I didn't shut the god damn thing OFF! WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE? HOW CAN THEY IMAGINE THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO TORTURE US WITH SUCH CRAP? And what idiotic passivity that people accept this intrusion!

Monday, January 30, 2012

oppressive encounters

If I were to die from some form of over-sensitivity, it would occur at the local YMCA, during a casual conversation with a stranger. I cannot learn to keep my mouth shut. Nor can I learn to follow through on the implications of even the briefest conversation. What I hear has countless implications which overwhelm me. Most of all there seems to be a sort of satisfaction or conviction that the status quo is good, a kind of blindness about the inadequacy of existing institutions--(Possibly based on the conviction which seems to be secular religion locally that anyone who has a job, owns a home, and two or three trucks, has a wife, a dog or two and three children, must be happy---after all, what more could there be?) Thus, if your home is about to be taken away from you---something someone did tell me about---and if there is no legal basis for that attempt, you need a lawyer. But, don't worry: use Legal Aid.

I was fool enough to suggest that such a thing simply shouldn't happen, that it was nothing more than a manifestation of a broader pattern. My words were ignored. So, too, the fact that (as the story was told), this was not the first time those holding the mortgage had attempted to steal the man's home......

My suggestion fell on deaf ears. It was naive of me to expect anything else. And I found myself wondering about the possibility of change. And what of my own personal satisfaction--or rather complete lack of it?

So long as my life is dominated by fractured conversations of this type, or a worse sort of conversation in which there is always an agenda in the background, I shall have no genuine relationship with any other human being. And so we come round, once again, to the simple fact of my deep dissatisfaction with every element of this thing they call my life. If your words fall to the ground prior to reaching the ears of another sentient being, you are talking to yourself. You can begin to believe that you are alone in the world, and that the creatures who have the form of human beings are zombies--or worse, that they never were and never will be truly human.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

ugly

This place is unspeakably ugly.
So, too every element of every day, the food, the people, every moment of the day,
is misery and ugliness.....
gmooh

Thursday, January 26, 2012

El Pasoans are assholes

Once again, it is 1:30 in the morning, and somebody has put their dog outside.
And that dog is barking non-stop....
asshole...

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Domhoff link

A couple of days ago, there were problems with a link I posted.
That has now been corrected.

The link was to an article by G. William Domhoff, a sociologist who has documented the existence of a ruling class within the society of the USA.

Though I knew about Domhoff's work previously, I learned of this particular link at Brian Leiter's "Leiter Reports".

Incidentally, Domhoff describes recent research which shows that citizens of the USA do not know how much of the society's wealth is in the hands of a small number of people. Moreover, when asked about the ideal distribution of wealth, citizens describe a society much more egalitarian than the existing society.

(Myself, I am not inclined to hang around waiting for a change, and hoping that I won't get run over by one of the enormous trucks that people in the USA like so much .....I'd rather leave.....but I've been saying that for a couple of years.....and things have not gotten better...not one iota......)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

high school philosophy

Brian Leiter, whose blog I regularly follow, and whose links I regularly recommend (see my link to Domhoff in the previous post), has a link to an essay about teaching high school philosophy in Brazil.

I've had the experience of teaching philosophy in high schools. I taught something called
"Theory of Knowledge" in two different "International Schools" in Slovakia.

First of all, I must warn anyone who knows something about philosophy that what's being called "Theory of Knowledge" is not epistemology; it's not the sort of thing that's called "Theory of Knowledge" in textbooks or course descriptions in the English-speaking world. In itself, that fact is odd.

There are many details one might reveal in a reasonably long discussion. I haven't got the time for that now.

I did, however, want to say that my experience with the attempt to teach Philosophy in two different Slovak high schools was almost uniformly unrewarding.

Don't get me wrong. I won't say that every student was hostile. Nor will I say that most students were indifferent. I can't say that my students in the two settings were necessarily more prejudiced than, say, students I taught at the University of Toledo (where I taught for four years).

However, the very bureaucratic structure in which my course was embedded assigned little importance to the course I was teaching. Students got a very small number of points toward their degree from doing well in the class.

Consequently, the very brightest students focused upon other subjects, and characteristically never read what I assigned (or asked) them to read. And, I'm not an idiot either. So, when I realized that students weren't (in all probability) going to ever read what I assigned them to read, the whole exercise began to resemble a bizarre sort of shadow boxing.

To be sure, there were talented students who read things a month or so after I had assigned them, and then even became excited about them. In the meantime, the course would have moved on to another subject.

Incidentally, the organizational structure within which these lessons happened is called the "IBO". I've blogged about their version of teacher training before. I haven't a good word to say about them, but I can add a link to that on-line essay later....

Unspeakable Obscenity

Unlimited Resources for Weapons which End lives, rip people to pieces and increase suffering, without making my life or your life better---but careful control and constant inspection of anything which might actually mean a real improvement to your life—Those two features characterize the United States of America....

In the past two years, an assorted number of health care workers have visited my parents’ home. I can’t keep track of their names, and I can only guess how many there have been---ten? twelve?

But in addition to the persons who actually perform services, there have been numerous visits by people responsible for something called “re-certification”.

And then there have been phone calls and visits designed to check up on the people who are actually doing the work. I haven’t actually counted them, but sometimes they seem as numerous as the actual visits. I know that the actual working visits are more numerous, but, after two years, the whole business really is very tiresome.

The underlying message is that someone is determined to ensure that my parents won’t get something unless they really need it.

Contrast that with the extravagant expenditures on weapons by the USA. The USA has the dubious distinction of being the only country in human history to have dropped an atom bomb on a civilian population, which incidentally included its own citizens—prisoners of war. (And, oh yes, the government did know about that fact.) Moreover President Truman lied about it, claiming that the bombs were dropped on military targets, whereas the truth is that the bombs were dropped at midday when the maximum number of civilians would die. (Note 1)

Those crimes merely began a new era of militarism.

The policy is that spending on weapons is essentially uncontrolled. The initial budget proposals by weapons manufacturers routinely turn out to be half of the actual cost.

And then there is the fact that, for example, the so-called drones continue the Hiroshima-Nagasaki policy of sparing no one, i.e., carelessly sacrificing innocent men, women, and children to maintain the dominance of a single country. And, as the country in question is a plutocracy run by a small number of individuals (note 2), this is the same as to say that innocent men, women, and children are sacrificed every day in order to maintain the world dominance of a small number of individuals. (But of course, after the damage is done, the propaganda machines speak of “democracy” and “freedom”. No sane individual is fooled.)

So here are my elderly mother and father getting less help than they need and deserve. And here are the numerous individuals performing frequent inspections and controls to avoid the terrible danger that they might get more help than someone thinks is deserved. Well, no. That word "deserved" isn't quite correct. The actual calculations involve no such term. The actual calculation is something like this: How little can we possibly allow them? What is the minimum we can give them in order to make the claim that we are doing something? It's as if some tyrant were deciding how little bread he could give his population before they revolted.

That picture is obscene and pornographic. It’s really a nasty portrait of a miserable situation and a miserable country. And my portrait is incomplete. The actual situation is much worse than I’ve said.

Note 1:

Gar Alperowitz, The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb

Note 2:

G. William Domhoff, “Wealth, Income, and Power”,

http://whorulesamerica.net/power/wealth.html



After-thought: The inefficiency of Capitalism.

My mother has been on the phone for the past fifteen minutes. She is trying to get the pain-killer she needs. She has severe arthritis pain and a degenerative spinal condition. There is only one pain medicine which she found to be effective. Her health insurance provider doesn't like it because (they say) it is "too expensive". So every six months or so, she has to waste her time with numerous phone calls in order to get the doctor to communicate with the relevant middle-man.

Eighty-five years old. In pain. But she has to prove to a higher authority that she actually needs pain relief--not just once, but every six months for the rest of her life.

That is disrespectful.

Why do I blame capitalism? Capitalist, for-profit companies compete in the region of health care as in all other regions. Her current phone call is necessary because a new company is now handling he medicines.

Currently my father gets help with his showers. A very congenial man who works for an agency comes out regularly. However, there was a point where one health care company went out of business, and my parents were left out to dry. They received no help for several months on account of the fact that a company went out of business.

These are only the details I know about, but the story could be told at greater length. And we would reach the same conclusion--that this is a bad country, a bad place to live---not because the people living here are "bad" or lazy or stupid, but because the society is run (at every level of its organization) primarily in order to increase the wealth of the already wealthy.

Friday, January 20, 2012

El Pasoans are assholes (continued)

9pm Friday evening. I'd like to rest, maybe take a little nap.
A neighbor a street away is playing "his" music loud. BOOM BOOOM BOOM BOOOM BOOOM


2am update
And then there is the other asshole, who puts his dog outside every night, and the dog barks non-stop, all night.

ASSHOLES

these idiots seem to live in some sort of bubble-world of fantasy: I can do whatever I want with my stereo/my dog/in my house----and the rest of the world can go to hell. It is as if only individual wage-slaves exist with their property; the rest of the world does not exist for them. (Are they thinking: I had to work at a job I don't like and now I am going to get revenge on the world? Do they imagine that is "freedom"? Are they that sick?)

This is a kind of deep lack of civilization. (get me out of here!)

The joke is that people imagine that somehow it's better to live in a house, but when the houses are so close together and the neighbors are such assholes, it is worse than living in an apartment. (I lived in an apartment for nearly thirteen years in Europe, and never had so many noisy neighbors. Never!)

getmeoutofhere

true obscenity

"Whenever one of Obama’s drones wipes out an entire family in a faraway tribal region of Pakistan, or Somalia, or Yemen, the American controllers in front of their computer-game screens type in “Bugsplat”. Obama likes drones and has joked about them with journalists."--John Pilger (see link below)

Obama also joked about innocent Chinese Muslim prisoners (Uighurs) at Guantanamo. What kind of man is he? (And what kind of audience would laugh at such a joke? --And the audience did (sycophantically) laugh.)

how to waste a life

How to waste your life? Drive a car.

Today I had to go to the other end of town (the other side of the mountain).

I wanted to avoid driving on the freeway with some idiot behind me at 65 mph riding
my tail, and another to my left, and another in front. I don't see why they can't comprehend
that this style of living is intrinsically dangerous. I see nothing good in it. Nothing.

So, I went the long way around. And I drove at 45 or 50 mph on a long road, with traffic going two ways, and innumerable shitty little shops all on the left side of the road. Dubious quasi-Mexican restaurants. Faux adobes. And numerous shops for wrecked cars, wrecking cars, auto parts, and oil changes. Some people would not know what to do with themselves if cars were banned. (I think that's a good idea. Get rid of cars. NOW)

This trip was unlike my frightening journeys on the s0-called "freeway"; it was slower, so, perhaps a bit safer. But there's always the stress of driving, looking, watching, avoiding. Tension without rest. A waste of time. That's what I call it.

GET ME OUT OF HERE

To the extent that the citizens of the USA love their cars they are in love with their own grave-diggers.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

SOPA and PIPA

Stop SOPA and PIPA

after-thought (19 Thursday Jan.)
Professor Leiter has a sober commentary on this, with a helpful link.

Leiter refers to an extreme group of libertarians, who want absolutely no restrictions on the web.

I confess that I tend to fear another group--the defenders of copyright. That is because I don't believe that copyrights, in general, are used to benefit writers, artists, or creative people.
Moreover, the defense of copyright is part of the USA system of economic imperialism, hence always suspect.

On the other hand, I cringe when I hear people talk about "innovation" and the web, let alone job creation. Sorry, I do not buy any of that. Neither the web nor the so-called computer revolution have made a very big difference in my life. I've been either unemployed or under-employed since 1996. And I don't think my life has gotten better on account of the web or the computer revolution. I don't have more leisure time. I don't have more time to read. I do not have richer relationships with other human beings. None of those good things have increased because of computers or the internet.

(As for protecting copyrights.....I could use myself as an example of who it really benefits. I once published an article in a journal published by a prestigious UK university. I was paid nothing for the article, and receive no royalties. If you want to read the article, and you do not have university affiliation, you will have to pay 25 or 30 dollars. That's just one example of a much more general phenomenon.)

I am not necessarily disagreeing with Leiter, but as I posted the bolded words above yesterday, it seems appropriate to make some further comment.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

weather report

Well,here I am in eptx, not yet for three years.....
disliking every moment of it.
The biggest mistake in my life was allowing my family to persuade
me that I "should" return ...and I have regretted it every day.
Bad things have happened in the past few days----very unpleasant things,
which I hadn't anticipated.
I rue the day I returned to the shores of this benighted country.
gmooh

The residents of El Paso, Texas are assholes.

Why do they all have to have dogs?
Dogs that bark all the time?

You have a dog. A dog is a social creature. Then you lock him (or her) in the backyard and go to work. Mostly that dog is alone.

The residents of El Paso are idiots, assholes, e.g., the neighbor whose dog is outside barking non-stop now at 1 in the morning....

a nice dog too....

.....with floppy ears...

but that dog is always barking, and usually the neighbor is not home to hear it.


assholes.....

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Grouch Reads

The Grouch Reads

Last night I was reading a book by an economist about neo-liberalism. In the chapter on inequality, there was a discussion of how the USA and UK differ from the countries of Europe. At the time the book was written, the most recent data would be for the ten years up to (as I recall--I will add details later) 2000. At that point the poverty in the USA was, e.g., double that in Belgium, and the author attributed that fact to the relative action/inaction of governments.

But, why is there this difference? citizens of the USA are reluctant to have their governments actively work to avoid poverty because of the racism still present in the country. (Recall the outrageous stereotypes of "welfare mothers" and such.)

A similar claim has been made by the sociologist Loic Wacquant--roughly that the dismantling of welfare was an attempt to roll back the progress made by African-Americans in the sixties.

References
Andrew Glyn, Capitalism Unleashed; Finance, Globalization, and Welfare, Oxford UP 2006 (paperback 2007)



Sunday, January 15, 2012

stupidity

The worst sort of stupidity is that which is reinforced by the acquisition of money.
"I've got more money than you...." says the fool, "so, obviously I'm smarter than, and superior to you..."
But the fool never stops to ask what money is, where it comes from, and whether the values it places on things have anything to do with reality......If he did, he would be more humble, and maybe even a bit embarrassed or ashamed.

myths about crime

Here's another book I can recommend. (I'd like to read it.)
I often comment on the unnatural fear of crime in the USA--and, yes, I do believe the USA
has more crime than Slovakia, or Austria.

But I think the explanation is economic inequality and a fundamentally unjust society.
Citizens of the USA, as individuals, are not somehow worse than those of Slovakia or Austria.

But here's a sociologist who has bothered to document the ways in which this fear has been created:

hating the automobile

I hate automobiles---for quite visceral reasons, as any reader of this blog will realize.

The anthropologist, Catherine Lutz, together with Anne Lutz Fernandez, has now written a book about the evils of the automobile.

She will (I predict--as I haven't read the book---) be much more objective and scholarly, but I have no reason to think her conclusions will differ from my own...(viz., we should get rid of cars; they are, as the Czech philosopher/sociologist Vaclav Belohradsky has said, an obsolete form of technology---and that is a polite under-statement.......)...


As I've not read the book, it is, to some extent, dangerous that I've added this link, dangerous that I've made this entry. Well, I'm living dangerously. (and especially when I find myself traveling at 60mph or more with cars close behind, close to the right, etc.----involuntarily doing so as the public transit locally is total shit.....) Someone might come to a more nuanced or critical view of cars reading this work. I hate cars too much to spend time reading about them. Least of all do I want to re-live the experience of having to have a car, the enormous amount of wasted mental space, worrying, planning, spending, etc, etc. which is forced upon us in this hideous unfree country because public transport is inadequate.....

On the other hand, I've read C. Lutz's book about emotions, so I trust her to say something worth hearing.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

get me out of here! (revised)

get me out of here!

I must return to Europe.

In the link below, you can read about policemen in the schools of Texas.

Much could be said about this phenomenon. However, I shall now limit myself to commenting upon only one aspect of it.

One purported justification for the use of harsh penalties is the so-called "broken windows theory". Roughly, this proposal states that if you have harsh penalties for minor offenses (such as breaking a window), you will also manage to eliminate more serious violent crimes.

According to the sociologist Loic Wacquant, in his book "Punishing the Poor", there is zero evidence for this theory. Professional criminologists and sociologists do not believe that such
policing tactics decrease crime. (There is a link to his book at the left of my homepage under the rubric, "The Grouch Reads".)

It is true, however, that certain individuals (policemen and not especially well-qualified self-proclaimed experts) have gotten a lot of mileage out of proclaiming this "get tough" policy.

I will also say in passing: When I lived in Bratislava (Slovakia), and Vienna (Austria), I lived with much less fear than I live with today (living in El Paso, Texas---and god I hope I can escape soon!).....
Fear in my life: In El Paso, I fear to drive on the so-called freeways. The behavior of other drivers is unpredictable. A worst case scenario is: I want to change lanes, but as I am doing so or am about to do so, drivers on my left and/or my right also do so.

Moreover, drivers follow one another too closely when driving at dangerous speeds.
They follow so closely that they would smash into the car in front if that car had to
slow down. Following closely is the rule on the roads. It is a dangerous driving policy.

Everytime I leave the freeway I breath a sigh of relief.

Other fears: As a pedestrian, I take my life into my hands when I cross the street. Drivers are not, as a rule, pedestrian-friendly.

It is also true that citizens of the USA are irrationally frightened of crime. I myself a more afraid of the police, as, in my experience, they are not open-minded or especially polite, but are prone to be aggressive, suspicious, and over-bearing. Moreover, in my experience, the police have a low IQ and do not know how to read.

In Slovakia, by contrast, the police were not especially friendly, but they simply were not aggressive and in-your-face in the manner of the Texas policemen I have encountered.

In Bratislava and Vienna, when I happened to be on the street late at night, I had no fear. In the USA, if I happen to take a walk after dark, I fear getting hit by a car, I fear getting bitten by a stray dog, I fear getting shot by a frightened home-owner who fanatasizes that I am a criminal, and I fear police harassment (The police apparently operate on the policy that anyone who is on the street after dark, and not driving a car, is suspicious.).

So far as life in general goes, it might be worth mentioning that I don't have any sort of health insurance today, but that I did when I lived in Bratislava and Vienna....

Oh, what's that I hear? A voice saying, "You don't work, so you don't deserve health insurance." True enough, according to the conventional meaning of the English expression "paid employment", I have none. Neither do women caring for their children. But, let's talk about who gets paid, and what they get paid to do.

By my reckoning, the following so-called professions make zero positive contribution to the society:
---weapons manufacturers who produce weapons used in wars of aggression
---politicians who are bought and paid for by the 1%
(or the one-tenth of one percent) who really run this country
---advertising executives who create distracting and misleading attention-grabbers
which provide zero information about the product featured, but create a sort
of dream-world illusion of happiness
---Hollywood producers, actors, etc. etc. who produce advertising, and spectacles
that are designed to earn money, and do not achieve the status of art,
---bankers, financial managers, hedge fund operators who gamble with money that does not belong to them,and who wish to turn everything into a commodity,
----lawyers and judges who serve the interests of the 1%,
----journalists who serve the interests of the 1%, who trivialize the scientific
evidence that anthropocentric global warming is real....
----technically oriented individuals who design computers and electronic conveniences for the pleasure of those living in the richer part of the world, and exploit the
poor in order to do so.....

You say I don't deserve health insurance because I don't 'work'? The thing you call 'work' is not noble or good. The thing that is conventionally called 'work' is not a contribution to the well-being of humanity---rather the opposite. No, my friend, I think I deserve a reward for not hurting humanity......even if I have never contributed anything positive, at least I have not increased the damage currently being done....
----
You can read below about policemen in the schools of Texas:

stingy land

the united states of america
are united in stinginess
they give you something
but it is less than you need
they give you something
and you are expected to bow and scrape and say thank you thank you
but you have less than you need
and they control you and inspect you and turn you over on the other side to see
whether you are doing what you are supposed to do
and then they tell you that you are free
and that you should be thankful
but I am not thankful
and I am tired of being inspected as if I were an object of consumption
about to be sold
and I am fed up with the hypocrisy and the lies
and the opium fed to the citizens of a land whose specialty is visiting
death and destruction, lies and corruption upon anyone who has the misfortune
to get in the way

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Misery of the Personal Automobile

I must make a thirty minute trip to the other side of the mountain.
One part of me seems to be saying: What could you read during the trip?

But, then, I remember where I am. I must drive a personal automobile to the other side, expend gas, and waste my own time, as well as suffer anxiety about the speed, the other drivers, the bright sun shining in my eyes, etc., etc. Oh, yes, and I do contribute to climate change, which it seems, is spinning out of control...

All needless and wasteful. I deeply resent the fact that I cannot simply take the Metro. (Oh, yeah they call the local bus system "sun metro", but it's not a metro. El Paso is not a city, and the bus system is no metro. If you call something a metro, it had better be a train, an underground, a subway, or an elevated train, perhaps. And, in real cities, trains run more regularly than do the El Paso buses. If El Paso had a metro, I could make the trip in much less than thirty minutes. And, while I was traveling, I could relax, take a nap, or read an article/book.....You see I really do hate it here, and I hope that someday I will escape from this prison. I have absolutely nothing good to say about this place--nothing.

Monday, January 9, 2012

by the way...

Correction:

El Paso, Texas is not a city.

It is an enormous parking lot with roads-- filled with over-sized trucks.

The people exist for the sake of their "vehicles".

It is a nightmare, not a city.


Communist Austerity

Last night I happened to watch "An Englishman Abroad", a short film about a chance meeting with Guy Burgess (written by Alan Bennett).

It so happens that the bleak depiction of Moscow reminded me of Prague and Czechoslovakia in general. I visited there as a young undergraduate.

Fruit was scarce. Luxury goods were scarce. I purchased a sweater in a "Tuzex" store---a store where goods could only be purchased with foreign currency. And, of course, you must know that waiting in lines was common.

You might as well call all of that "austerity". Of course the austerity that people suffer from today does not hit consumer items so much as, say, health care and education. The so-called communist lands had universal health care, and education was free. (Of course there were entrance exams for the universities, and there was a rigid censorship of what was taught.)

(Don't get me wrong. Universities may have been free, and the censorship was not trivial. You might read, e.g., Kundera's "The Joke" for a depiction of the insanity of it all. The censorship and paranoia cannot be justified, but so far as causes go, it is worth pointing out that more or less the entire capitalist world (Europe and North America) were hostile toward Russia. The atom bombs were dropped on innocent civilians--something Truman lied about--in order to show the Russians that (so to speak) "We mean business"......AKA The so-called Cold War started with a horrendous war crime by the USA.)

Capitalist Austerity does not aim at Ipads (produced in miserable conditions by poorly paid Chinese and other peoples) or numerous other non-essentials of the capitalist consumerist society.

But if you need an operation! Or if you would like to attend university, forget it! Can't be done.

but I read that the US government has no problem with loaning money to Greece--in the form of high tech weapons.....

It makes me sick.....

Footnote: What they used to call "communism" was no such thing. To start with, communism is supposed to be a society without classes, but as a small group within the Soviet Union or CSSR were granted privileges and had more power than ordinary citizens, those societies were never communist (or socialist). Along the same lines, the USA is not today (and never has been) truly democratic. The ordinary person has little power. When wages were higher people didn't stop to think about this. Now that wages are declining and public services are being cut, people are unhappy. But no major decisions have ever been made with the good of the majority in mind or with genuine input by the average citizen. (Not the creation of the internet, or decisions about war, or the decision to destroy public transit.....) The highest form of democracy would allow citizens to make decisions; it would be only a fall-back, weaker, version (and still better than what exists in the USA) if decisions were genuinely made with the good of everyone in mind.....

After-Thought about "An Englishman Abroad":
So far as the story itself goes, what is striking is that Coral Browne relates to Guy Burgess as another human being. She is not bowled over or seduced by the ideology of "communism" versus the "free world". She retains a sense for their common humanity and ignores the ideology. I also enjoyed her ability to recognize typically English bullshit and call it by its proper name. (See, e.g., Kate Fox Watching the English.)

Link
"An Englishman Abroad" at Wikipedia:

Sunday, January 8, 2012

the cruelty of the USA

The USA is not merely an irresponsible land, but a cruel one..... unkind......

Do I think about the consequences of my actions? To be sure. I wouldn't reach for the coffee cup if I didn't think it would make me feel better.

And when people are kept alive to a very old age, but not given the needed support?

My parents (and many other elderly people) are kept alive, but after that, there's nothing for them--not enough culture, not enough sociality, not enough stimulation.

And most of all there's not chance enough to share their actual current experiences with other people in the same situation. they are isolated, alone--in a very unhealthy situation.

Medical companies can make money selling all sorts of equipment, but the real care that people need is nowhere.

There's something very wrong here. And to go back upon a previous post (to show my own inner contradictions) I would like to say that this is a country which shows no genuine respect toward the elderly...... or anyone else...... You might even say that it is irresponsible merely to keep someone alive, and then to condemn them to loneliness....but better to say it is cruel---worse than merely irresponsible....

And this cruelty is a by-product of the way people live here, in their "suburbs" with their cars and this miserable form of life which is isolated from the ground up, with homes full of consumer goods that bring no happiness.......a swamp full of trivial distractions that bring no joy.....and no understanding.......

Saturday, January 7, 2012

problems I never experienced in Europe

Lately, I have acquired a new item on my list of items which make this country a bad place to live: people who drive at 60 or 70 mph, so close to the car in front that if you
look into your rearview mirror (supposing it is you they are trailing) you can count the hairs in the guy's mustache...... (Well, mostly guys, but the other day there was one woman.....)


jerks who play "their music" so loud that it travels into the ears of the neighbors a street away...boom....boom...thump....thump.....like the sound of elephants jumping up and down....any time day or night....

assholes

get me out of here


(When I lived in Europe, people used to ask: don't you miss it (the USA)?
I always was a bit embarrassed to tell the truth, which was, "No, I didn't miss it, not one tiny bit."
The only thing I used to miss was access to first-rate libraries with books and journals in English. but, guess what! I live in the USA today and I have not got access to a first-rate library. So, I am screwed all around.....)

irreplacability

I'm convinced of the irreplaceability of art, even if I can't say exactly what that comes to. A story --anybody's story--can take your mind off your own problems, and can make you feel less crowded, less weighed down. And any story, I suppose, is art, though not necessarily art of the highest technical accomplishment.

I'm thinking of two things---sensuous prose and a few short films I've recently seen by Alan Bennett.

Sensuous prose: Elizabeth Bowen.

But then, there's also complicated prose, or better rich prose like Plato or Silvan Tomkins.
Last night I was trying to read Republic Book Nine, and, predictably, there was more going on than I recalled....and I couldn't help the thought that this guy doesn't like sex. But I plan to hang on to see what he's up to anyway.....(Though my reading is very very --terribly---undisciplined...)

Alas, books won't replace people, so they are no cure for my loneliness. And right now my eyes are burning, so I cannot continue to type. (Apologies for its incompleteness.)

But one quick thing about Tomkins: I was very surprised by the appeal of his thoughts. There's a concreteness about what he says that is gripping. I suppose the implicit comparison is with other writers on emotion: Nussbaum, Prinz, Ben Ze'ev.........I would say that I was somewhat similarly moved by Fridja. There is a reality in the way Fridja talks about emotions that is not abstract. But I've only read ten or twenty pages of Tomkins. Too soon to really know what's going on.......but perhaps I am also attracted by his consideration of development. (It's too soon to say anything with confidence...)

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

responsibility

are you taking responsibility?

I don't have time to go into it, and maybe I shouldn't mention it, but such phrases mean nothing to me....

Have I ever used one? Well, I shouldn't jump to conclusions....but someday I'd like to make a list of these Americanisms which turn my stomach.

They seem to be favored by people who are (a) superior, (b) verbally assaulting someone with less power......

(go ahead, call me an "anarchist"; I wish I knew enough to say I am one; but not a primitive American anarchist (a term coined by an Austrian social scientist, I believe)....

not one of my more elegant entries, what?

USA Crap Don't Care Health System

Recently my parents happened to be talking to a seventy-something friend who lives in the Netherlands. She lives alone. A nurse comes to see her--possibly just to check on her---four to five times a day.

I repeat: She is visited at home by a health care professional four to five times a day.

Contrast that with what my parents get: each of them gets a nurse visit one time per week.

Four or five times a day versus once a week.

The USA has a CRAP system of health care.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

a friend's birthday

Dear Jaro,

Knowing that it is your birthday, I am sad.

I cannot buy you a drink or a bottle of wine.

I cannot congratulate you in person.

Knowing it is your birthday, I remember that once I could bump into you on the street, meet you with no prior plan, and enjoy a brief conversation.

Knowing it is your birthday, I remember pleasures I once had, and compare my present life with my past---and, so I feel angry, sad, and desperate.

Knowing it is another year that I have been in exile in a cruel land where “vehicles” are more important than people, where the twisted souls have learned to accommodate the machines which run their lives, and have

forgotten to complain or scream---instead living lives of frustrated obedience to rules and rulers they cannot see.

And I go about like a blind man bumping into their ignorance. It hems me in, chokes me and fills me with disgust, despair and rage. At every step I am kicked in the balls by ignorance. With every breath I inhale the putrid stench of decay.

By comparison a hangover is a lively, pure, and beautiful thing.

By comparison it is sheer joy to be ripped off my feet by a tram taking a sharp corner, to see faces and hear voices in a crowded tram.

By comparison I was more alive when I returned home soaked from the rain and cursing my inability to predict the weather. More alive than I have ever been here in this total desert of dry anti-culture and misery.

And, in the meantime, the past travels at lightening speed, leaving me behind, grumbling, dying, but not dying fast enough.

I wish I could believe escape were possible.

note to self

Reasons to leave the USA: crap health "care", crap political institutions, crap economic institutions, penetration of the ordinary populace by crap ideological notions of "work", "success", etc.; crap public transport, crap food......

The Grouch's Dictionary

Academic, noun: an individual who inhabits a relatively secure and comfortable niche in an otherwise crumbling and uncomfortable edifice.
Sociological note: These individuals are more or less isolated from other members of their communities--for good and bad reasons. In the United States especially, there is often a curious ambiguity between a desire to influence the wider populace and an emotion akin to disgust. The populace at large is easily able to respond in kind--moving from fawning admiration to distrust and suspicion. Demagogic journalistic types can stir up the masses with visions of "nutty" professors who don't really work as hard as the rest of us, or who do so-called research into subjects that are ridiculous. The Sociologist Wacquant has suggested that academics outside of the USA are not so isolated.


Much more could be said on this topic but I don't sleep at night, having the non-stop stress of being (in effect) on twenty-hour call....and having been woken too early by an employee of the USA's don't care Health System.