Tag Archives: politics

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT

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I’ve hated that phrase since the 1960s when people who despised our demonstrations for civil rights or against the Vietnam war hurled the words at us if they were bricks.

Not so sure what I think about love it or leave it these days. I’m not even sure I like our country anymore, so maybe it really is time to pack up and get out. The work I do can be done from anywhere there’s an internet connection. And there are Internet connections in countries that more closely resemble my democratic socialist and non-violent beliefs.

Why now? Honestly, I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe when I open a newspaper and read a synopsis of what I’ll call the TORTURE REPORT, a non-partisan summation of five, count ’em, five years of study that concludes we did indeed torture people. And also concluded that little or no useful intelligence was actually gathered. Okay. We tortured. And while the very idea is horribly disgusting, I also understand we’re not the only country to use Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (a very benign and misleading use of language). And we won’t be the last. But to then have government officials who were, at one time, vocal in their opposition to torture (e.g. the present Director of the CIA and the fucking President himself) dance around the report’s conclusion of its usefulness by repeating over and over that “it’s unknowable” appalls me. Hell, my government was more honest in the mid-70s when it disclosed the findings and transcripts of the Pike and Church CIA congressional hearings.

Actually, this blind eye toward torture isn’t new. My government wrote a constitution that spells out the notion that Black men (they didn’t even bother with women of any color) were worth three-fifths of a White. So for generation after generation we encouraged and welcomed slavery. (Just another torture form). And please don’t think this was only a North versus South issue. Vast fortunes were made in New England through the slave trade.

We can go back farther if need be. We blood-let Native Americans for the simple reason we wanted their country. Again, I get it. We weren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to steal other peoples’ land and homes. But a nation born from blood and continues that tradition through to the present, simply can not pretend that its hands are clean and claim, ”it’s unknowable.”

But the pull toward leaving isn’t solely based on our bloody history. It isn’t even based upon our current belligerent cop of the world posture and actions. It has as much to do with the attitudes and behaviors we’ve been acting on since ketchup became a vegetable.

Without romanticizing the 1960s when I first cut my ethical and political values, there were, at least, politicians who actually attempted to right wrongs. Not many, but many more than now. Even Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren voted to fully fund the Israeli military despite their very clear knowledge the funding was going to an apartheid state. What we got now is nothing and damn near nobody.

I sense a seismic shift of the underpinnings in even the great stuff my country has done. There was a time (though not without its own set of politics) when we had pride about being a country where people, not counting people of color, could actually have a chance to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” We no longer have bootstraps. We have part-time employees without living wages or benefits. Now, we want to pitch kids back to countries where death might be the kindest thing to occur. We once were proud of our roads, bridges and, at the time, perhaps the greatest infrastructure in the world. Now, that great infrastructure is crumbling and rather than address it, we give tax breaks to those who need it the least and carte blanch to corporate theft. Is it a surprise that almost 50% of our people don’t vote? Why bother? Both political parties are about feeding the rich. Thirty-three states have laws against people sleeping outdoors but don’t fund anywhere near enough shelters to house them. This is what we’ve become and I believe that those who don’t bother to vote have a gut level understanding of that. My government isn’t about them—or about me.

The cruel joke of it all is how many things I love about living here. Our arts, our literature, our music all speak to me in ways no other culture’s could. The caring and giving between people who might even be strangers. The often spontaneous celebrations or even protests that bond us, if only temporarily. The ability—if one chooses—to meet with people (whatever their politics) who, while different than me, still infuse my life with learning and growth. And of course there’s sports.

Would it be easier to be a stranger in a strange land than to be an outlier in my own? I guess I’d need to leave to find out. But let’s face it, I’m not going anywhere. Some very obvious reasons: family and friends. Not so obvious or even understandable to myself is the irrational never-ending hope that somehow, in some way, we still have time to change. That it’s potentially possible to become a land of sanity and community rather than warheads, drones, and prisons. That our culture might find its way out of our racist, economic, and military fog and into, at least, some light.

But the way I feel right now, I ain’t betting rent. Although:

It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday. ~ John Guare

LATE TO AN UGLY PARTY

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By Zachary Klein

Since the 1960s (and probably before) it’s been no secret that our government spies on its own citizens. We knew that S.D.S. meetings, demonstrations, activists, and people the government distrusted have always been under systematic surveillance. Books have been written about it; friends had it proven to themselves by requesting their own dossiers after the Freedom Of Information Act was passed.

Like I said, it was no secret, but I never cared. If the government wanted to play garbologist with my life, so be it. It was their hands that got dirty. And when the Internet blossomed and people had the opportunity to chat with others far and wide, let alone visit websites that discussed everything from politics to porn, I just assumed they were being monitored. And I still didn’t care. If they wanted to watch me look at naked ladies, go for it. I’d lost any belief of the “right of privacy” a long, long time ago. I had other fish to fry and barely considered the implications of my own facile attitude.

But a week ago I saw a movie called Citizenfour, a documentary by Academy Award winner Laura Poitras. Shot in real time Poitras follows Edward Snowden leaking thousands of classified documents, primarily to Glen Greenwald, at that time a reporter and columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian. Then she followed the aftermath of the published leaks.

These leaks detailed the wholesale data interception by the N.S.A. We’re not just talking about spying upon known or suspected terrorists and their connections and associates. We’re talking about damn near everybody including prime ministers of other countries. (One example was Germany’s Andrea Merkel). And when I say everybody I mean pretty much that. Telephone companies, cable companies, Internet search engines, and any institution who gathered personal information were essentially ordered to turn everything over that they had on all of their customers or clients.

When the story first broke publicly in early June, 2013 I met it with a shrug, continuing to believe we were talking about rummaging around in people’s underwear. But at one point in the movie (and I’m going to paraphrase) someone commented that while we were calling this massive collection of information the loss of privacy, it really went much, much deeper. The enormity of this invasion of peoples’ lives actually represented the loss of freedom and liberty. A situation where the quantitative morphs into qualitative.

Well, that notion spun my head. If our own government quietly watches every person, with access to all our conversations, we are living in what ought to be described as a benign police state. A police state usually conjures images of barbed wire and machine guns and, in many countries throughout the world, that’s exactly what it is. But let’s remember what has always been true: information is power. Having virtually all information about every one of us residing in the hands of the government is more power than I’m willing to cede.

I’ve listened to the other side of the argument. “We need to be safe and secure.” “Everything changed after 9/11 and that tragedy demands heightened security—even at the loss of some liberty.” “We don’t know how many attacks have been thwarted because of the N.S.A.’s eyes and ears.” Which is true. We don’t know. But that lack of knowledge is due to our government’s ongoing refusal to provide any hard, real information.

Then there’s also the demand to show how this overwhelming amount of spying has affected anyone’s rights. Where is that slippery slope that will lead to the loss of liberty? Which organizations have been affected by the government’s knowledge about everything they do or say?

I can’t answer those questions. But the government can. And won’t—though some small glimmer occasionally shines through. Does anyone really believe that every major news organization decided on their own not to show the body-bags of our dead soldiers returning home? And that due process has been denied for every single person who has been sent to Guantanamo on the basis of information the government refuses to make public? Do we really have to wait until neighbors, relatives, or friends are arrested and detained because they had a conversation with someone who knew someone who knew someone else that attended the same church as someone who might have known a person who had possible ties to a radical organization? From where I now sit that’s way too late. That’s stick a fork in it time.

I’m sure there are people who believe that all undercover espionage on our citizenry should be eliminated. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and the possibility does exist that dangers might be greater than some reasonable surveillance.

But the key word is reasonable and that is not what’s happening. What’s really happening is blatantly unreasonable. For our government to secretly spy on its entire population because they can and not be held accountable in any way (and please don’t throw the secret F.I.S.A. court in my face because apparently they have no accountability to anyone but themselves) is shameful for any country that calls itself an open democracy.

Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras, Glen Greenwald, and those who drew back the curtains on the N.S.A.’s illegal activities should be honored for their attempt to expose our government’s spitting in the face of liberty and freedom. Dictionary.com defines a police state as a nation in which the police, especially a secret police, summarily suppresses any social, economic, or political act that conflicts with governmental policy.

We aren’t there or that. Yet. But most of the Patriot Act and especially the N.S.A’s extraordinary hidden reach, brings us a giant step closer.

“The best people possess the…, courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice.” – Ernest Hemingway

A SELF DIVIDED

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BY

ZACHARY KLEIN

I’ve written about the Showtime program Homeland a number of times with my last comment (I think) a couple of years ago. A new season has begun and, as most of the show’s other seasons, it’s high quality and anxiety producing. Although I’ve only seen the first three episodes, the series is once again a plot driven spy versus spy versus double agents drama. And once again it has raised questions for me. In our present era when every Muslim is often seen as a potential enemy and threat, it’s complicated to look forward every week to a terrific TV series that is built around a world view I detest.

Well, I just doubled down on that conundrum. Prisoners of War (original Hebrew title being Hatufim, (which translates to “Abductees”) is the threadbare low budget Israeli show upon which Homeland is based. In fact, after Hatufim won Israel’s Academy Award For A Television Series was sold to 20th Century Fox, some of the program’s creators and cast have been directly involved with the US show. We brought the dvds home from the library and have barreled through most of Season One. Gotta say, so far it’s a much better series, focusing intently upon the two ex-prisoners of war and the effects their release after seventeen years has upon themselves, their families, and everyone in close contact. Especially the Israeli intelligence community.

No surprise I’d find Prisoners the better show. People who have read any of my Matt Jacob novels or even my Just sayin’ series Interviews With The Dead (King Richard lll, Truman Capote, Martin Luther King, Norman Mailer and more to come) know my writing is character driven. Although I’m sure there will be more spy versus spy as Prisoners progresses, fact is, the characters are already more fleshed out and complicated than those in Homeland. The truthfulness of the relationships between each of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves feels true to the bone. And more. This is a particularly smart show where the unexpected occurs at exactly the right moment with writing and acting I just love.

But here’s the rub. Prisoners of War has raised even more misgivings inside than Homeland. Anyone who knows me knows my feelings about the overwhelming abuse and injustice the Israeli government exacts upon the Palestinian people. And while Prisoners has yet to identify the kidnappers, it doesn’t take a weatherman to imagine who they were.

So here I am, once again, praising a show whose politics sicken me.

Pablo Picasso was a misogynist his entire life—using women then kicking them to the side once he was done with them. Yet it’s impossible to ignore that he was arguably the greatest artist of the twentieth century who created Guernica, the most important anti-war painting many of us have ever seen. Even Diego Rivera, whose murals closely reflect my own political point of view, was often questionable when it came to his personal life. And, of course, there’s always the Ezra Pound dilemma.

Music, theater, and literature are also overloaded with artists who created great work but I wouldn’t invite to dinner. (Actually, there are some on my list who disgust me as people, but I’d love to engage in conversation.)

Firesign Theater’s album title, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All, only half describes my plight. I am somewhere. Stuck between my values about humanity and art I enjoy or even love, at the same time made by people who make my skin crawl. Hell, it’s hard enough to bridge the contradiction about individual artists, but when two television shows I consider art (ok TV haters, take your shots) present attitudes and behavior I abhor, that interior contradiction becomes even more difficult to transcend.

But in for a dime bag, in for a pound. Throughout my own artistic life I’ve maintained that it’s essential to separate people’s creations from the individuals themselves. I’ve always believed to not do so would lose too many important, thought-provoking, often beautiful experiences.

For all the agita these two series raise, that’s my belief and I’m sticking to it. If a creation merits consideration as art, then I’m going to view it as such—despite its content or creator. To be otherwise would undercut my convictions about freedom of speech. And just as I won’t judge a person simply by their politics or beliefs, neither will I judge creative expression only by the person who created it or the content it presents.

So how to recommend a television series that triggers serious internal conflicts? For those who don’t share my ideas about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it’s easy. Rent or borrow Prisoners of War and enjoy great television.

For those that do share my Middle East politics, I’d say grit your teeth and, for this series, allow art to trump.

“What is life without incompatible realities?” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

WAKING TO A NIGHTMARE

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WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

 

 

Something seemed strange when my eyes popped open. Not the recliner, used to it by now. Not even the shoulder pain after my recent surgery. Mornings always begin with that these days. But this time the ache seemed lighter and, for a moment, I wondered whether the painkillers were still working after seven hours.

Then it hit me. The pain was less simply because there was less pain.

Duh.

Okay, then. Rather than automatically grabbing for my morning meds, I decided to see if I could skip that round and wait for the next. Sit at the table, have my coffee, read the paper, hell, take the fucking brace off for a while.

Big mistake. For the first time in what felt like forever, I actually understood what I’d been reading for the last few weeks. But on this particular morning I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, grabbed the past week of the Boston Globes and read them all. That’s when I realized I had awakened to a nightmare.

“Boots on the ground” in Iraq? Hadn’t we already done that with horrifying results? (Is there anyone anywhere in the world (other than Iraqi politicians who got rich and powerful) who actually imagines our decade long debacle was any kind of victory for anybody? Or even slowed the growth of terrorism in any way? And now our guns, drones, bombs, and warships are starting to point toward Syria as well as Iraq.

I’m a fucking usher at the same movie over and over and, regardless of the “new” situation, I know the ending will be the same. It always is and has been since the Second World War. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results?

Does anyone really expect a better conclusion to using our force in the Middle East? I don’t think so.

Except, I suppose, the military and those who control it. When you have the largest number of weapons ever accumulated throughout the entire course of history, the incentive to use them must feel irresistible. Kinda like having a naked sex partner in the other room. Sooner or later you’re going into that room. Probably sooner.

And make no mistake. For most politicians war is sex.

It seems apparent that our government—both Democrat and Republican—just can’t get the taste for blood out of their mouths. Could it be that if we stop being the cops of the world we’ll no longer have any identity?

We sure as hell don’t want to be known for the chart at the top of this column. And that chart doesn’t even mention the insane income disparity that currently exists. Did anyone reading this ever believe we’d be living in a country where financial inequality would be greater than during the Robber Baron era? Not me.

Truthfully, when I combine all that I read, see, and watch about our domestic and foreign policies, it doesn’t feel like a nightmare. It is one.

And I’m one of the swells. White, relatively healthy, have a home that’s paid for, work I usually enjoy, friends and relatives with little or no chance of anything other than ill-health or accidents waiting to occur. Call me crazy, but that’s just not good enough.

This isn’t the country I imagined and hoped it could become. I never thought we’d spend our lives simply enjoying the arts, never thought we’d totally eradicate poverty, or even live in communes where no one fought about whose turn it was to do the dishes. I did, however, believe that if people put their service shoulder (no pun intended) to the grindstone, time and effort would tilt all of us to a better place. A place where we wouldn’t have to sweat our children’s opportunities or our grandchildren’s lives.

Obviously I was wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s worse now for most Americans than it’s ever been. And you don’t even need that chart to see it.

Ask people you know. Ask the person who works in Walmart but has to receive food stamps to feed her kids.

Ask anyone who has children who couldn’t afford college how their job search is going. Ask if they’ve been offered anything other than part-time work with absolutely no benefits. Including health insurance–other than the half-ass Obamacare that tries to pretend it’s “healthcare for all.”

Last week Kent wrote about the way suicide sneaks up on people with bi-polar conditions. But I have a suspicion there is something I’d call “political suicide.” Do you really think the day Hunter Thompson shot himself he was more depressed than the days, months, years before? Does anyone believe that about Spaulding Gray the windy day he waded into the ocean never to return alive?

I have no doubts that a forensic psychologist could/would uncover a ton of personal reasons for why these two people took their lives. But I’ll go to my grave believing a serious slide into their descent was the realization that our society was going to get worse. Much, much worse.

They were dead right.

Now, I have no plans to kill myself because my country is the belly of the beast. I’ll continue to do as I’ve always done. Try to write about difficulties in human relationships (see Matt Jacob), about all sorts of wrongs through this column, try to find pleasure where possible—and even write about that too. Plus, I will continue to believe in my heart of hearts that innovations in technology will enable good, compassionate people throughout the world to communicate and create the potential to grow seeds of positive change.

But those seeds are still just “potential.” Now is now, and now it’s time to take my painkillers.

“There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ~ Edith Wharton

WHAT’S A FAN TO DO?

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It’s right before the quarter-finals of the World Cup and I’m shaking my head while staring at the remaining teams. Most of the time, it’s pretty easy to be a sports fan. People I know generally root for their hometown teams past or present—sometimes both. Those are almost always long-term relationships that usually last a lifetime whether the team does well or, in the case of the hapless and hopeless, Chicago Cubs’ fans—need I say more?

World Cup soccer isn’t as simple. I’m a sports fan and where I do appreciate the beauty of play, I gotta root for someone. That’s the fun. When I’ve got no personal loyalty I usually find out who the underdog is and take its back. I just can’t imagine being neutral watching sports. I’ve never watched any game as a dispassionate observer.

This isn’t my first head shake since the tournament began. We’re talking country against country here, which trumps my underdog fallback policy. Most Americans who follow the Cup simply root for the US unless they had a different country of origin. Even then I’d guess most root for both. And while I love a whole lot of stuff about this country, it’s too difficult to tease out my nation’s team from the horror our government (both Republican and Democrat) has inflicted upon the Iraqis, Afghans, and every country against which it has waged outright and covert war since World War Two.

Yeah, I’m the same guy who has argued it’s okay to separate a person’s achievements from his or her personal life. Never had a problem enjoying Picasso paintings despite his misogyny. Or laughing out loud during Woody Allen films despite his controversial marriage. So why not do the same thing here?

Because I just couldn’t. I know the team had no hand in our ugly. But I still couldn’t stop cringing every time I heard the chant, “USA! USA! USA!”

Since I was watching a lot of Cup games and gotta root, I began my quest to find a country in each match to support. And, while I have no doubt that Mexico’s corrupt government has committed egregious acts of injustice and violence, I’d just spent a terrific couple of weeks there (see my last two posts). Hypocritical perhaps, but that experience allowed me to inexplicably push their crimes out of my mind and cheer. I had a team. For a little while, anyway. Unfortunately they didn’t get out of the Round of 16, but I did and wasn’t done with the Cup.

So, as I write this, I’m left with the following teams to root for: Brazil, that spent billions to host the tournament while just out of sight from tourists there are people who live in shacks without running water and about 15% of the country’s deaths are due to transportation accidents, violence, or suicide.

Gonna pass on Brazil.

And so it goes. No full face public burkas in France despite a Social Democratic government. Germany, well, I have historical problems there. Argentina, whose government slaughtered 15,000 to 30,000 political dissidents including trade unionists, students, and journalists in its “Dirty War” (Guerra Sucia).

I don’t think so.

That leaves me Columbia, Netherlands, Belgium, and Costa Rica.

I could probably find historical or contemporary fault with each of these countries but I have a personal connection with one. My older son Matthew spent a high-school summer with a Costa Rican family learning Spanish. Plus, Costa Rica has no military. So, for the time being (at least until they play the Netherlands, the clear cut favorite) I have an underdog team to root for.

Ain’t I the lucky one?

Truth is, I’ve learned something important writing this. There was a guy, a regular customer in my father’s tavern, who had a jones for betting on horses. His method?  Spread The Racing Form on the bar in front of him, take a needle, close his eyes, and dot the day’s races with pinpricks. He’d note the horses he’d hit, go to the telephone booth and call his bookie. I could do the same with the world map and find that every country I touched would leave me feeling sick. Some more than others, but very few without some quease. Even the ones I’ve never heard of.

Maybe that USA chant isn’t as bad as I first thought.

“This may not be the best of all possible worlds, but to say that it is the worst is mere petulant nonsense.” – Thomas Henry Huxley