Eastern Europe in North America--Texas Style

Eastern Europe in North America

My previous post contained an error and has now been removed.

In brief, my error was to suppose that handicapped citizens need to pay twice for vehicle registration. It is not true, however I haven't got time now to spell out the details of my misunderstanding .

In other respects, my previous remarks stand. However, once again, I haven't the time at this moment to spell that out. Suffice it to say that the roads in my neighborhood are in a state of extreme disrepair. And the local tax office is surrounded by shrubs that obscure the sign indicating that a tax office is located there. All of that being evidence of the continuing class war--a war against ordinary people waged by the capitalist class.

No, I am neither a Marxist nor a communist; however that phraseology seems to me to be inevitable, unavoidable, and I know of no better way to describe reality. The fact that many citizens of the USA will find such a vocabulary disturbing is only evidence of how bad the situation is. (If you live in a class society--one without upward mobility--yet believe there are no classes, what hope have you of understanding your society?)

gmooh

note:

why not a "Marxist"? Well, I've never studied Marx.

why not a "communist"? As that term is used by North Americans, it seems to mean someone on the "wrong side" during the "cold war", or someone who sympathizes with "the enemy", the Soviet Union. However, if one tried to use the term more carefully, I am frankly unsure what it would mean. As far as I know both socialists and communists think that the people who work in the factories should run the factories--but anarchists think that to.....So, while my sympathies are undoubtedly on the left, I find it hard to be more specific. To be sure, the communists in the USA who changed policies according to Moscow's views did do damage to the US labor movement, so that is a mark against that branch of the left. So, I suppose that would be a reason for me to avoid calling myself a communist. (If the USSR dared to call itself "socialist" that had all the validity of the so-called democracy of the USA 'democratic' party.....)

Recommended Reading:

For details of how the American Communist Party actually damaged the union movement in the United States, see Sharon Smith, Subterranean Fire, Haymarket books:

http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Subterranean-Fire-A-History-of-Working-Class-Radicalism-in-the-United-States

On the lack of upward mobility, see:

See, e.g., J. Quiggin's Zombie Economics. (I hope to add a more specific reference in the future.)

Boundless Stupidity in El Paso, Texas

One must figure into the equation the fact that many El Pasoans (it seems) haven't really ever been anywhere else.

So, for example, the abnormality of the local environment is something they'd find shocking or even offensive to mention....

abnormality?

the extremes of high temperature, blazing sun, and dryness outside

more dryness and forced gusts of cold air inside (a.k.a., 'air conditioning')

Moving from one extreme to another: is that healthy?

Is the air generated with air conditioning really fresh or clean?

Moreover, people do not sweat here. The extreme heat wicks it away before it's had a

chance to accumulate.

What's more, I've seen young people engage in intense ludicrous dramatics when they

think they are sweating.

My goodness. It is as if they thought they were being attacked by an alien life form,

but I repeat: it is so hot here and so dry here, that most of the sweat is wicked away

immediately.

a strange, miserable place! GMOOH!

infinite stupidity in eptx

I confess straightaway: I have better things to do with my time than pull up weeds out of the rock garden that replaced the Bermuda grass at my father's house.

I think home-owning is rubbish, for the birds, not a source of pride, but a source of stupidity.

Buy things to kill weeds--use harmful chemicals. Waste your time that could be better spent. etc. Why? So that your neighbors will admire you? Really, have you nothing better to do with your spare time? Not for me, thank you very much.

My father's neighbor gave me advice: get some "roundup". The hell I will.

Harmful pesticides are present in the arctic. Let's ignore the consequences of our actions

as long as we can. (That's the real "American way"...)

Oh, no! (You know what I mean, dear reader....) here it comes: GMOOH!!!

for info about the presence of toxic chemicals in the melting ice of the arctic,

see the link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/melting-arctic-ice-banned-toxins-pops

Oh, yeah, has El Paso, Texas solved its so-called drought problem? By replacing grass with rock gardens fed by pesticides? Ha Ha Ha

amazingly

"The result is that the text of the First Edition [and also of the Second Edition] is replete with internal contradictions and incompatibilities. One must simply be aware of this fact in reading the text and make allowances for it."

The above sentence is taken from Professor Robert Paul Wolff's blog, his commentary on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", a great book.

I apologize to Professor Wolff for being so lazy, but I'm not actually reading his tutorial/discussion of Kant. I've got other fish to fry.

But the quoted bit is very interesting.

I might use that as something of a motto: There are contradictions in this blog, but

the reader must make allowances....

Well, I do ask for charity. But, there's a specific reason for the inconsistency in Kant's work which doesn't apply to anything I'm saying here....

Just thinking about the remark above, it sounds as though Kant scholars must have a fantastic degree of patience and must sometimes be on the verge of insanity while attempting to discern what their hero really wanted to say....

(And is there nothing puzzling in Plato? Oh, surely, especially when you start moving across the dialogues, but contradictions within one dialogue? Well, there may well be, but right now I don't know....) But Professor Wolff says the First Critique is "replete" with contradictions--not just one or two.....

Imsickofallthisugliness

Once again I found myself in a doctor's waiting area.

Behind me a television boomed the story of a murder.

We were told about the upper middle class home.

There was speculation about who did it.

It seemed to me that there was great stress placed upon the comfort of the home,

letting us know which class the victim belonged to.

Of course, in the USA, the word "class" is never really used. It is only quoted or mocked.

Or, it is used to complain about what someone has said, and evade honest argument.

The noise I was subjected to represented tabloid journalism at its worst.

However, when I complained to one of the ladies, someone did turn the volume down.

And, I was genuinely thankful, even if the broader picture of ugliness continues to disturb me.

The excesses of R. Murdoch and his sycophants draws attention, but the crap I overheard in the doctor's office passes without notice. The problem is bigger than Murdoch. Even if he goes, the bigger problem remains. And it will.

recommeded reading:

Paul Street on the invisibility of America's working class in media depictions of America

http://www.zcommunications.org/on-working-class-invisibility-by-paul-street

One might say, with a nod to Vijay Prashad, that most Americans don't live in America,

but the better off around the world do.

nothing in particular

This, That, and the Other, in no particular order....

The other day the elites were writing over at Professor Leiter's reports about how great it is to be a philosophy prof.

I couldn't read that. Oh, yes, I have some sympathy for the young person who wanted to know.

Am I bitter? Well, not exactly. At this point in my life, I regard my Philosophy graduate school experience as, above all, an American experience. That is to say: I find this society unfriendly and alienating, and I suppose that my unhappiness as a student (a graduate student, a college student, and a high school student) was due to the society at large, and my place in it, more than the actions of any particular individual.

Nonetheless, as universities are being rapidly down-sized.....it seems a bit odd (to choose an inexact expression) to engage in a lengthy public celebration of the pleasures of having one of the better jobs in a world of shitty jobs.....

Of course, in Prof. Leiter's defense, he certainly is careful to provide information about how bad the "job market" is...... So, perhaps, the broader picture he supplies is much more accurate than I seem to suggest.

Locally, I continue to be trapped in this hell: this city, this country--both my personal hell.

Family obligations keep me here. And nothing else.

El Paso, Texas continues to be ugly. Too many cars. Too much flatness. Nothing to look at.

A complete lack of the life which makes a city a stimulating place. No stimulation here.

Nothing better to do than lock myself in a sound-proof room with a good book. No reward from leaving the room or putting down the book.

Somewhat more globally:

Two friends recently rented a car in order to drive across the large expanse of Texas and visit a relative. Rented a car? How superfluous! What a waste of money! Well, public transport and trains are not found here, so it makes sense. Yes, a certain sort of stilted sense. Just think: there are countries where it is not necessary to rent a car. It is possible to travel in a train and then upon arrival, travel via various forms of comfortable public transport. (Ah yes, "comfortable"? Is it really comfortable to ride in a car? You have to crawl into the cockpit. And then you have to crawl out. And there's the constant need to monitor other drivers, etc., etc. I really do prefer public transport, where I can sit or stand.... But it gets crowded you say? Oh, yes, and there are no traffic jams if you have a car?)

But I don't expect to convince anyone. I'd rather just leave this land, never to return.... to escape, finally, once and for all....

Appendix

"THE UNITED States' infrastructure, because of when it was first developed, is all centered around the automobile. The layout of cities and so on, unlike other developed countries--which developed earlier, not around cars--is predicated on cheap gasoline, with far less public transport provision. That's why it's been one of the most intransigent in all of the international climate change negotiations.

While on the other hand, Europe can see that it can obtain an economic advantage by pressing things more. Not because they are a more far-sighted set of capitalists or anything. But they can see a competitive edge where they're better able to adapt their industry, to be less carbon intensive than the United States is."

--Chris Williams

The above quotation was cut and pasted from "Is it too late for Planet Earth?" in SocialistWorker.org, 20 July 2011.

http://socialistworker.org/2011/07/20/too-late-for-planet-earth

disrespect, ugliness, fear

Needing to purchase something not out-of-the-ordinary, I find myself going

to the hated despicable "Wal Mart".

I am disrespected by someone who stares at me from head to foot as I leave,

as if I were a thing, someone who does not even possess the basic sense of civility needed to

speak a polite greeting....but instead intently regards me as a thing, an object of suspicion: Is he a thief?

And, then, again, in the parking lot, wandering in the merciless sun,

looking for my car, I know that my mode of dress is different from the local one,

so I am not completely surprised when a fat mother (everyone is fat in eptx--unless they happen to be "pumped up"......sporting a t- shirt which celebrates killing....)--regards

me with suspicion, maybe even a little frightened....

thus do the citizens of this country live in fear of their fellow creatures,

sadly,

miserably.

gmooh

disgusting u.s.a. capitalism, DISGUSTING ALBERTSONS

the food in this country is CRAP

crap

crap

Recently Albertsons has been selling apples "on sale".

What an insult!

They are not fresh!

When you cut them open, they are brown inside; so you can't eat the whole thing.

WHAT A FARCE

shame

shame

a disgusting, third-rate food store!

why do people put up with this shit?

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

someday I will leave this country,

and I will never return...

If Albertsons were honest, here's what they would say:

We are selling these apples at a low price because they are not really very good.

In fact, they are nearly spoiled, and you will have to eat them quickly.

So, our low price reflects the very low quality.

Of course, the joke is that even the higher priced fruits and vegetables are not very fresh either.

disgusting...

inferior usa technology

I guess that the clever and talented engineers work on spying on USA citizens,

or torture, or devices of destruction....

They sure don't work on toilets!

No matter what The Guardian newspaper in London may say about El Paso Texas

solving the so-called drought problem (which is really a global warming problem,

as I have pointed out more than once... a problem that USA citizens refuse to

recognize...itself a sort of crime...)...

the so-called water conserving toilets are TERRIBLE

If you look at them cross-eyed, they get stopped up , and threaten to overflow.

ha ha ha

what a joke

a great success? ha ha ha---far from it!

A country that cannot even make a decent toilet!!!

GMOOH

Loans

The Grouch Reads:

Vijay Prashad's "The Darker Nations"....

Loans:

"To burden the people with big loans...the repayment of which will be beyond their means is not to help them but to make them suffer. It is even worse when the loans they are asked to repay have not benefited the majority of the people but have only benefited a small majority."--from the Arusha Declaration (1947) quoted in Vijay Prashad's The Darker Nations; A People's History of the Third World, The New Press: New York and London, 2007, p. 192.

Richard D Wolff

I've been thinking about the economist's analysis of the happy-happy-let's-be-optimistic-and-work-hard USA ideology.

He says that a long period of rising wages due to a labor shortage is behind it.

That makes sense.

And all that stopped back in the 1970's.....

My own life has been getting worse for a good long time.

What the fuck is the point of having a Ph.D. when the work you perform does not require you use the skills you've developed? (In my experience, most employers regard anything like a half-way intelligent thought as a threat.)

I can just feel the brain cells dying...... slowly, but surely, since 1996 . . . . so that some day soon my IQ is going to be equivalent to that of a boiled potato.

Oh, yes, I am soooooo happy to be here.......

LINK

Richard D Wolff's homepage:

http://www.rdwolff.com/

the truth

I couldn't say it better myself.

I guess the sound quality is poor on this, but it's worth hearing....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

things are bad and getting worse in the world's most dangerous country....

(link to George Carlin on the "American Dream", a famous mythological /ideological creature....)

better to die

considering the stupidity present locally

climate change denial

militarism

mindless truck fetishism

etc

etc

etc

it would be,

all things considered,

better to simply die.

But that would be an improvement,

ergo,

it won't happen.

gmooh

cut the crap

I am sick of the bullshit!

bullshit I heard today:

1. Oh, you are caring for your elderly parents. You are an angel.

2. Oh, elderly people deserve more help. They have earned it!

1. I am not an angel. I am getting screwed. I do not have a space of my own. I live with my eighty-something parents and have no personal life. My future will be worse on account

of what I am doing now. I sleep in a room filled with clothes that no one wears, and typewriters and sewing machines that no one uses. There is no room for my belongings. And that's just a small example of how constrained and uncomfortable my daily life is.

2. No one in this world gets what they deserve. No one. I do not deserve to have my life interrupted. My parents deserve more help than I can give them. Bill Gates doesn't deserve what he has and most people deserve more than they have. Please, just cut the crap!

the disaster in the USA southwest

A recent article in the London Guardian presented a fairy tale picture of El Paso's reaction to the drought. In truth, there is not a drought problem, but a global warming denial problem.

The journalist at the Guardian did not have the courage to speak so plainly, though the

truth is present, in an oblique way, in her article. How like (what they call) communism!

A more accurate account of the real problem faced by the southwestern region of the United States is found at the following link.

http://www.zcommunications.org/how-the-west-was-lost-by-chip-ward-1

the doctors' list

The Doctors' List

I'd like to compile a list,

of the doctors my parents have visited,

describing their waiting rooms,

and the fantasies expressed there:

these doctors' taste in art,

and those doctors' contempt for their patients,

compelling the captive audience,

to see and hear bastard images of medical knowledge,

or twisted echoes of power,

all performed on colorful shining screens,

contemporary high tech instruments

of torture and control.

Most doctors are fans of 1984,

--and don't even know it.

GMOOH

brief follow-up

This is a brief follow-up/after-thought to yesterday's post...

STUFF AND NONSENSE

The so-called drought problem is, in fact, identical with a problem of denial,

the problem of denying anthropocentric global warming.

El Paso is in denial about the cause of its drought (anthropocentric global warming).--And with respect to that error, the border town nearest to the world's murder capital differs not a bit from most of Texas, or most of the USA.

Consequently, El Paso's "drought problem" cannot be solved until it is recognized for what it is.

(Moreover, praise for what's been done so far is, to say the least, a bit premature.....)

PS

added Sunday 2 July

And then there is the question of the efficiency of the new and better more water conserving toilets. They like to get stopped up. They seem unable to handle a normal amount of excrement.....At any rate, this has been my experience with the two toilets in my parents' home, two different toilets, both allegedly water-conserving.....

Perhaps Slavoj Zizek should update his excellent monologue on the cultural significance of toilets......let's see: US toilets now let the shit swim in the water, endlessly......(check it out on Youtube if you haven't seen it; Zizek is painfully funny on this one.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTJXHNP0bg

this one is better, fuller....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ73hLQ64Ng&feature=related

fluff over in London

Recently there was an article in the "Guardian" about the alleged success of El Paso Texas in managing the drought.

I was struck by a variety of facts unmentioned by the article.

People continue to have grass in front of their homes. That grass requires water,

more water than would be naturally available from local rainfall. (And, if there is

a drought, or if the drought continues, then that amount of water will not remain constant.)

In addition the rock gardens which have replaced the green lawns (UK: gardens) require

the use of chemicals or, at the very least, strong vinegar. When I arrived two years ago

my father had a supply of "Roundup", a very powerful pesticide. I believe (but please do

not quote me) that this product was recommended to him by the people who put in

his rock garden--replacing the water hungry Bermuda Grass.

Moreover, there are homes whose lawns have been replaced by cement, paved surfaces which turn the former lawn into a parking lot for big trucks. Those surfaces increase the area that reflects sunlight back into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. (How much? I do not know. However I do know that a scientist discussing global warming in Slovakia made the point about the large parking lots built by Carrefour and other stores in Bratislava.)

To what extent do homes and buildings in El Paso continue to be surrounded by imported

plants and shrubs? The article did not discuss that point.

However, without discussion of that point, it is hard to see how anyone would have a right to assert that the city can't do better by way of preserving water.

The most basic question is how to design a city that makes a realistic attempt to fit within the local environment. So long as the organization of the city is determined by so-called "market forces" there will not be a reasonable attempt to be realistic about ecological reality. (I apologize for the brief statement of that claim. I recognize that more should be said on behalf of its defense.)

It was also amusing to see the word "conservative" used to describe the unwillingness of Texas to consider the possibility of anthropocentric global warming. After all, isn't this a state where the oil industry has a great influence? A more accurate--though admittedly less diplomatic term--might be "ignorant".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/27/water-conservation-el-paso-texas