footnote

At the G20 in Canada 1 billion dollars were spent on preventing anyone from
getting close to the so-called "leaders".

What were those leaders doing that was so important? Apparently, they have decided
not to spend more money on schools, jobs, or anything social.
It goes without saying that death and destruction will have all the money they want.

Why would those G20 people be so afraid of ordinary people?

Would a democratic leader need to fear the people s/he represents?

And then there were those terrible young people in black! breaking shop windows!
Setting police cars on fire!

Let's see, we have how many people who will die today from lack of clean water,
from lack of sanitation... how many people who live in despair because they've
lost their jobs or homes....we have oil spilling in the Gulf of Mexico...
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, murders by remote-controlled plane in Pakistan,
sweat shops in Haiti, supression and worse in Gaza.......and.... and... and.......
you can fill in the blanks easily enough.
That's in the one corner... (on the side of the G20)

and in the other, what do we have?

and then we have a few broken windows and burned police cars....

not violence, but public property damage (not mere criminality but an act of political disobedience).....

Maybe we would be better off if the black garbed people were in charge; they would be less destructive.

killers

On the front page of the local newspaper there are pictures of the new general

--another killer, a professional killer. You would think he were a pop star.

The local politicians are hugging themselves with greed at the thought

that more professional killers are moving to the area. More "troops" are

coming to live in El Paso. Apparently the local politicians and businessmen

view an increased number of soldiers as a source of profit.

Mindless, dogmatic, militarism and narrow self-interest.

Oh, yes, I know that many who join the military are forced to do so by economic

circumstances, and are victims of our cruel society. But it's no good ignoring

the truth. It is sheer hocus pocus and narrow mindedness to say that the

large number of killers is "good for the local economy". You might as well

celebrate the prospect of collecting blood money. Of course, those who celebrate

would be highly offended to hear this; that is their level of self-deception and their

intense lack of self-examination, their unwillingness to imagine how things could

be better--in sum that is their moral cowardice.

If you really can't survive any other way, then you shouldn't celebrate the fact.

That, too, is a distortion. (But, in any case, I do not believe that increased revenue for local

politicians is merely a matter of survival.)

If people do not have jobs, then the system is a failure.

Get me out of here!

Deeply Anti-Social

The other day I happened to notice a small park just near the public library.

A prominent sign said the park was closed from 10pm until 6am.

Why?

That makes no sense.

In El Paso, Texas it doesn’t even begin to cool off until 10pm.

If I wanted to sit outside in a park, after 10pm would be the perfect time.

So here you have a public good that is inaccessible to the public during the hours when it would be most attractive.

What exactly are the rulers of El Paso afraid of?

Are they afraid that teenagers might sit in the park drinking beer?

What’s wrong with the public consumption of alcohol? Why must it be a crime?

There are countries where it is not criminal. There are countries where people do drink in public without any damage to the social fabric.

If there is a problem with the consumption of alcohol in this country, then someone should ask: why? Maybe there is an overall invisible level of oppression which leads to excess when those who have been trodden upon finally have a little space to breathe.

During my recent visit to Vienna, one of my most pleasant evenings was spent sitting in a park talking to a friend until 1 or 2 in the morning.

No one bothered us, and our activity was perfectly legal.

Of course, there is another angle here. If it is illegal to be in a park after 10pm, then should you want to socialize, either you invite your friends to visit your home, or you go to a bar. If you close the parks, there are no free public spaces in which friends can meet.

Something is wrong with this country.

current events: President Fires General

The nakedness of our pretense was momentarily exposed,

by a professional assassin, a “tough” guy, who made the mistake of talking too much,

And (How uncouth!) getting drunk with those he was supposed to be supervising!

But he was made to answer to the urbane man in a suit,

he who is oh so liberal and progressive with his open shirt collar,

--And, oh, so civilized!---But, oh, no less a murderer,

every bit as much a killer as the talkative tough guy.

When any hint of our brutality escapes,

we must maintain the pretense of civility.

Was the talkative general a threat to democracy?

As if the government were democratic!

As if the killing and maiming and destroying that goes on in foreign lands,

were all done for "the good of the people" or done in “defense”…

While the simple fact is:

There are some things we do not say in public;

But we can do any damn thing we please.

The Bad General

What people don't understand is how the USA is not like other countries.

Our government is independent of the military, and that is what makes us strong and free.

Take this general, for example. He criticized the President, his boss. You don't criticize your boss. That' s part of democracy too. And that's what makes us so free and great.

One time a college professor friend explained it to me: in the University the administrators are the bosses of the Professors, and so Professors can't criticize their

bosses either. Generals can't criticize and Professors can't criticize either. That's democracy and equality.

Our military is independent of the government. How much money do we spend on war? Lots. That's good too. More money on war than schools or roads or (god forbid) peace studies. All that is good and explains why we are so great.

God bless America!

Don't grin and bear it

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip.

I haven't booked an airline ticket from within the USA in many years,

and I was amazed by the amount of work I was required to do.

The presumption was that I had a personal computer and printer, and I had

to print my boarding pass, etc.

Note well: I am not kidding. I was working. I was performing activities which

before the so-called computer revolution another person would have done for me.

And my fare was not cheaper as a result.

This included checking myself in at the airport.

This is a total rip-off.

Let's also mention the fact that the internet was developed and paid for with

taxpayer money. And, then once the bugs were worked out, it was and is being

SOLD BACK to us!

Note well: that means we are paying twice...

Thus the American system of so-called (wrongly called) "free" enterprise....

Interestingly enough, the lady at American Airlines, once I began to complain

that I was working harder as a passenger and not getting more for it,

joined in with her own complaint.

Very directly, very immediately, without prompting from me.

I respect her for that.

Later, on my return flight, I made some complaints about American Airlines

to a fellow traveller, and he added his own complaints.

I repeated to him the little incident above. Ahh, but for him that was wrong.

Why should we hear that someone is working harder for less?

On the contrary, I said, and still say, we all need to say it--on every possible occasion.

The system stinks. It is inhuman, unjust and inefficient.

And pretending otherwise is not merely cowardly, but also betrays a kind of false consciousness--something for which I have no respect.

And that is why I will continue to complain in my blogs.

El Paso's Greatness

El Paso’s Greatness Recognized

Today we learned that El Paso has been selected as an “All America” city! Wait a minute! Shouldn’t that be “all American city”? Has the English language changed while I was abroad? Or is this the local variety of English?

Nonetheless, continuing to speak my own dialect (after all the most frequent response I get when I open my mouth is: “you’re not from around here—are you?”….No, I do not have the local accent…)

El Paso has been awarded the label, “All American city

It’s not hard to see why.

El Paso is a mirror of all the greatness that is America:

-Mindless dogmatic Militarism:

So-called public service announcements in the buses warning young men of the punishment they will face if they do not make themselves available for the next time the ruling class decides to invade a foreign country….

And Nationalism:

Omnipresent American flags (made in China)

And Climate Criminality:

--An over-abundance of enormous trucks, and
a variety of mostly large vehicles,
with the accompanying hostility toward
pedestrians… (as someone explained
to me after I had almost been run over
by a woman carting her children somewhere in an enormous truck) ..”We don’t expect to see pedestrians….”

… and a mediocre public transit system, which has the nerve to claim it is the best in Texas….as if being the best public transport system in a region which hates public transport is some sort of achievement….
(But to be fair, the El Paso bus system did not make it up. Someone actually gave them an award. Which tells you something, namely, that nobody in their right mind should take such awards seriously…)

-a public transport system which is so inefficient and slow that it would make any sane individual immediately run out and purchase his or her own personal Self-piloted Metal and glass box, no matter what the cost.

And then there is the sheer vanity and desultory meaningless of consumerism:

We all have (or aim to have) our own personal square of dirt or cactus or grass--grass not indigenous to the area and requiring an amount of water that would make sense in Scotland…
surrounded by a fence, and guarded by one or two or more dogs…

In this way, we can contribute to the wealth of the upper class even when we are not working, by purchasing home and garden supplies on the weekends at Wal Mart.

And then there is the local cuisine:

Someone should count the number of
“convenience” food places—fast food places specializing in greasy food. I know it is greasy because whenever I walk across the parking lot of an abandoned shopping mall, whose stores are deserted, but whose outskirts are ringed by fast food stores, I can smell the horrible fatty stuff… and it is sickening…. (and I can see lines of enormous trucks waiting to pick up the food the drivers have ordered….)

And then they should count how many actual grocery stores there are… What is the ratio? Ten or twenty or more greasy food places for every one grocery store? I would really like to know…

Without actually counting, I would bet that the proportion of actual grocery stores is very low here. In my old neighborhood in the post-Socialist Bratislava, there were three fruit vendors, and three grocery stores within easy walking distance. And there were two larger grocery stores at a slightly longer walking distance. Nothing comparable exists in El Paso.
(And I won’t mention that the quality of the food here is lower than in Central Europe—the fruit and vegetables less fresh….)

In our sociological survey, we should also count
the number of churches per block. Their numbers
are certainly up there with the fast food places. We are a God-fearing nation, and, again, El Paso is representative.

Finally, there is a feature of the city that is almost invisible: the sheer amount of work done by citizens of Mexico who cross the border every day to do it. How many homes are cleaned by women coming across the border from Juarez every day? How many gardens or lawns are tended by Mexican gardeners? How well are they really paid?

In this final feature, the city of El Paso truly is American, taking advantage of a poorer country to do the work that is essential to the life of the city…so typically American in the unjustice of it all…. (I suppose the God we all worship is not a just god....)


All in all, in El Paso, Texas, we see everything that has made the USA the great country that it is.

Hence the award “All America[n] City’ is well deserved.

Congratulations El Paso! You deserve it.