Laural's Dish

(OCCUPIED) LAURAL'S DISH

Laural is our dog, my dog. Everyone else heads off to school, "people like me and Laural" stay home. He's a fine companion, but you have to understand. If he's having a really good time he tries to bite you, me, anyone. Not hard, just…similarly, if you're scratching his belly real good, but then shift to his (apparently less preferable) ears, he'll growl at you. The irregular spelling of his name results from the time that Alexandra and I were mulling the possibilities, in a tunnel in Newton Abbot, when we came across the graffiti: Laura L is a dog.

Laural loves to eat more than any living being ever created, and he will eat absolutely anything. We've weaned him from rocks but he once tried to eat an unopened can of Carlsberg Export. surprise! So his dish frequently has unusual things in it, bits of this or that, absolute treasures that others might consider slightly unfit for human consumption, for whatever stupid reasons.

Beneath please find my literary reflection of Laural's Dish:

Laural's Dish comes out on Fridays, often, before lunch, usually.

January 30, 2012 (yeah, I know it's only Monday)

Living in the UK, multiculturalism is a bit different than the states. Social integration is probably a little bit slower, maybe, but there are certainly social enclaves in the states as well. After a hundred years or so the Irish- and Italian-Americans are pretty much integrated and more/less a brand name with great restaurants and bars, idiosyncrasies and family styles…but pretty much mainstream America. Then there's Black- and Hispanic- and Asian- America; all are more diverse: ranging from absolute isolation/total identity to integration into the mainstream. I kind of like it that mainstream suburban rebellious white boys are so desperate to identify with the Black isolationists, even though it's not my music (as Nina Simone said, "I love rap, they should be mad..."). Anyway…

The UK variation is different largely because of more diverse and central religion (a statistical fact is that more Muslims attend mosque weekly than Christians church, even though they're outnumbered 10-1). There is of course a large Indian (from India, not Cherokees…though British bikers do seem hold American Indians in some special esteem) population representing its many religions, one of which, of course is Islam. And there are Muslims from all over the place. Name any largely Muslim nation, and I bet I've met someone from there and had a reasonably long discussion. And, I guess I have to add, none of us attacked each other, or were even half-inclined to, though some/most of the best of them (like Baptists) pretty much figure I'm going to hell.

With the advent of satellite television, this can get interesting. No, there really is a point to this, do please keep reading…

I used to watch, well I watched it a couple times, probably never for more than ten minutes or so…but one of the weird channels (to my eyes and experience) used to feature these extraordinarily long-bearded Imams. People would call in and ask them questions regarding interpretation of the Quran. I have to say that the Imams typically responded sensibly, wisely enough in proportion to the question, etc. I can't say that I agreed with everything that was said but I'm neither Muslim, an expert on the Quran nor particularly interested in any religious figurehead telling me how to live. It was a gentle, good-hearted show, many of the questions struck me as extremely trivial but no one ever yelled "Death to Honkeys" or "Invade Israel" or anything like that. It was a show of very normal people asking questions regarding scripture to elders.

With really long beards. Ok, from here on it probably gets more entertaining…and also casts some light onto the shallowness of my development as a human. (To date! There's always hope.)

If the question struck the Imam as a relatively simple one, he would stroke his beard and softly offer his response. If it was more difficult, however, he would tug repeatedly at his beard…uttering a response in sometimes fragmented expression. But the BEST part was if the caller posited a position that was questionable….the Imam's eyes would light up and his eyebrows would go out the top of his head and he would tug frantically at his beard several times, then blurt (think of Apu's voice from "The Simpsons"): "That is not correct!"

I have set my stage.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/29/MNSI1N00ER.DTL

"Passionate, organized hatred is the element missing in all that we do to try to change the world. Now is the time to spread hate, hatred for the rich."

--Dr. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Occupy Oakland

(Tugging furiously at my Dickensian sideburns) THAT IS NOT CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the road to Baader-Meinhof, that's the road to hell.

Hatred is the worst bastard mutation of fear, and fear is the root of all evil. Hell, the rich don't even hate us…the Deadly Sin that they-so many of them-have fallen prey to is Greed, which strikes me as something lesser than Hate. Helluva lot of contempt in there, too, but I think that's more a legal and ethical violation than a Deadly Sin. I think most often it's more along the lines of Coco Channel's famous response to a critic: "I don't care what you think about me. I never think about you." Albeit the catalyst of a dynamic that leads to so many problems including disease, homelessness, starvation and death. Not minor ones.

Besides being unnecessarily inflammatory, immoral and downright stupid, Ms. Ortiz' advice is the worst of all possible strategies. I mean, leaving aside its absolutely abhorrent nature, logistically it's dumber than anything General Custer ever thought up, and he was a master. Hatred as a political virtue was given free reign in a number of circles in the late '60s and early '70s (when the cultural climate was more fertile, though the economic circumstances less conducive)…does Ortiz actually believe that she or anyone else is going to step in and run a smarter "hate" campaign than Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn (Weatherman); Eldridge Cleaver and Geronimo Pratt (Black Panthers)? Does she figure they can recruit German counterparts brighter and more effective than Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin + Andreas Baader (above, laughing at a judge before they were murdered in prison by the state)? Some south-of-American more of a badass than Che? And of course she has some super-terrorist like Carlos The Jackal waiting in the wings getting ready to back her up. Maybe get the Irish going again, with someone half as effective as Martin McGuinness (the Irish situation does strike me as different, but name-dropping McGuinness feels right here as he was a field marshal beyond much compare, and has moved to peace )?

I've never heard more bullshit from any lucerferian Wall Street pimp or flunkie than Ms Ortiz' statement. Ortiz is not, of course, the voice of Occupy Oakland (she was one of many speakers), most of whom I would assume were shades of horrified or bemused by her remarks. If she'd said that shit here, Occupy Exeter would have most likely politely asked her to leave. But it is a dangerous vein that inevitably runs through any protest movement.

Yesterday, Occupy Oakland moved to convert a vacant building into a community center to provide education, medical, and housing services for the 99%. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, and mass arrests. The state has compounded its policy of callous indifference with a ruthless display of violent repression.

-draft unified response from Occupy Boston and Occupy Philadelphia, among other American Occupy movements

The problem is that until…unless…things get better Ortiz' incendiary rhetoric does have its own wild appeal, particularly for adventurists and the increasing number of desperate. Why shouldn't we help those that society won't through any means possible? As H. L. Mencken wrote-I'm not sure where, I'm pulling the quote from Gore Vidal's brilliant Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace:

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

The problems being, to review, "any means" and "possible": (1) it's very, very wrong, and (2) it's particularly ineffective in our day of Advanced Capitalism (term courtesy of Haruki Murakami) when most anything-including people to kill people-can be bought easily enough.

No, the strength of the Occupy Movement….who thought it would last this long or stretch this far?...has been in taking the moral high ground, in the pacifism of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

The weakness? The weakness may actually be a strength. Whereas Gandhi and King were acknowledged leaders of movements, those movements were composed in largest part by the relatively uneducated and willing-to-follow. By followers willing to give absolute faith to a leader, and follow without further complication (to be fair, both movements were fighting for better education, but the fundamental unity of purpose is why they were successful).

Occupy is a loose confederacy of know-it-alls. There's a relatively true joke about how you can't discuss any topic with three socialists without getting at least four opinions back. Throw in authentic Jeffersonian/Kennedy liberals, observant conservatives, doctrinaire libertarians, the spectacular spectrum of greens…don't wait for a consensus to emerge. The power of Occupy is not in hate, but it is in the obvious nature of what we're up against.

Over the past thirty years the world has seen the greatest (worst) redistribution of wealth since the collapse of the feudal system (except in reverse). The American Dream-working hard and buying your own non-triple mortgaged home replete with garage and dog before the age of 30, has collapsed. The number of millionaires has increased to the point where it's not even impressive, in those circles, to be a millionaire. That can't be right.

We all have a lot of ideas of how to fix it, well many, most of us do. We're not going to convince each other and-frankly-there's no reason to consider trying to destroy capitalism. It would be easier to fix it than break it and figure out something better to replace it with. Occupy is a movement unique in that it is a movement of rugged individualists, who agree with each other on an issue-to-issue basis less on a broad scale than any previous international movement of its magnitude in the history of the world.

We're also not going to agree on a presidential candidate. President Obama says that he supports the movement, but his deeds are anathema. He didn't even bother mentioning Occupy in the State of Union speech (might put off some millionaire/billionaire/trillionaire campaign donors, neh?), Ron Paul embraced the movement from the first but few in the movement embrace his determination to (among other-many good-things) remove the social safety net for the poorest of the poor, and the working poor.

All we can do-in one of my opinions-is not waste our vote by voting for someone we don't think would do a good job. Flush that "lesser of two evils" crap, and vote for good. For me that won't mean voting for Obama, or Paul, or/definitely not Romney…my current inclination is to write-in Patti Smith. I guess what I'm suggesting is that the Occupy movement, collectively, make the decision that I made in 1992 when I refused to vote for either Clinton or Bush. I wrote-in Guns N' Roses, I figured one of 'em was likely to be awake at any given moment and none of them could do worse than either of the major candidates…we woke up the morning after election day with a terrible president but that was inevitable…I'm pretty fucking proud of that vote, looking back on it.

I believe that third-, fourth-, and maybe even fifth-party candidates will emerge (everyone knows that Obama can be taken) , in a more serious sense than anything we've seen since the 1930s. It may get so bad that the Republicans try and get a hired-gun liberal run to take votes from the Democrats/neo-liberals and/or the Democrats try and get a hired-gun Republican to take votes from the Republicans/libertarians. Fuck all that bullshit, man.

When you vote for President of the United States, vote for someone you think will be a good President of the United States. God knows we've had enough lousy ones, and we've survived 'em all, but this world has not seen a winning streak that lasts forever, not even Borg at Wimbledon. [note to utilitarians: 5% for any candidate qualifies their party for Federal matching funds in the next election, which kind of helps create a power base in these days of Advanced Capitalism ]

A lot of genius and good was wasted in the politically-justified jubilation of hate, forty years ago. This is a very nice piece.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-black-panther-20120129-html,0,2641122.htmlstory?track=icymi

Peace,

Clayton

January 13, 2012

http://news.yahoo.com/millions-filipino-devotees-defy-terror-warning-093054988.html

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/ahmadinejad-international-zionism-assassinated-iran-nuclear-scientist-1.407168

"It's a choice between faith and fear," said Rodolfo Uy, 45, a polio victim whose 12-year-old son pushed him on a wheelchair to see the Black Nazarene . "I got nervous last night when I heard the news but my devotion was stronger."

I think this is kind of the crux of it. Wars about religion are bullshit. No righteous leader ever wanted us to kill each other over them. If you think you can tell me why we should kill someone because of their religion…you're automatically flushed. And yet it is the history of war. I'd guess that somewhere along the lines of 85% of the people killed in wars over the past 2000 years have been killed under "religious coverage." Not that Jesus or Mohammad or Moses or anyone else actually stepped in….more that someone mentioned their name and sent the slaughtered. Many of whom, dead, won. Whee!

I've fucking had it-and with God's Blessing the world will soon have fucking had it-with Holy Wars. There are NO holy wars. There are wars to defend, and there are wars to conquer. Anyone who thinks that Christians need Sharia Law is a detestable freak, and anyone who thinks that the Middle East can't function unless we help (not quite Christian) Israel bully the rest of the Middle East is a fucking idiot. And anyone who thinks that the situation might improve if Iran gets nukes is too dumb to talk to. (but, I mean, I try and love them-and recognize elusive divinity in them-anyway)

Israel has nukes, we all know it, we even sent a patsy to prison. For some reason no one has ever wondered, in print, if they could hit Rome or Paris or London if some nut (i.e. anyone elected to Prime Minister in Israel since I've been paying attention) got pissed, because they need us to prop them up. Not because Jesus and Moses were really good friends. India and Pakistan have nukes, they say, but only with enough range to hit each other. Oh, good. ………..I mean, so that's ok? Oh, good.

That all being what it is, I have no problem with Israel's Mossad knocking off Iranian scientists working on the bomb. And if they weren't doing it, quite frankly, we should. It's clearly self-defense, Iran's current leadership has consistently to the point of nearly constantly discussed their desire to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth," and anyone who believes that Iran's nuclear program is entirely peaceful and good (no nuclear power is good, see Fukashima) either hasn't been paying attention or is a good candidate to buy the Brooklyn Bridge…from anybody. And if you want to talk about a situation that justifies air strikes...

And so the Republicans head into South Carolina with Mitt Romney the presumptive nominee. There are millions of Southern Republicans who want to stop him (way more than want him), but I don't think they know how. Or, more to the point, they don't have the candidate to do it. I have no idea how Rick Santorum did so well in Iowa (I knew that there would be a last minute, desperate conservative flood but I expected it to go to Michele Bachmann-who is at least from there, and should have claimed more of the ladies vote), but I think New Hampshire is the better gauge of his appeal: the more you know about the guy, the less you like him. Newt Gingrich was always impossible, for personal and political reasons. Rick Perry's a cartoon. Jon Huntsman's too cerebral for the GOP. Half of Ron Paul's views rally the world in general but are anathema to conservatives, the other half conservatives love. It's not too late for someone to jump in, and a deadlocked convention is an increasingly but still remote possibility if Mitt keeps winning but with very low numbers; I'd say it's at least 15-1, right now, that Mitt is the Republican nominee.

If it comes down to Obama vs. Romney we're basically sunk for another four years. Not deceased-America has survived many lousy presidents and Obama/Romney is just another one-but…you know…living in the relative shit we deserve for allowing our political system to come to this. They're not Jefferson, Paine, Washington…they're Corporato wimps. Obama probably means well, but he gets rolled every time (he should have Dr. Dre as Chief of Staff). Romney, Romney…he's not a bad guy either, but he doesn't always mean (half the time is diplomatic) what he says and his main argument in the election-for people who see through the bullshit-is that he's basically Obama, but better at managing. Which, actually, may be true…but if being Obama's not enough for me to vote for, being more Obama isn't either.

Never waste your vote, voting for someone you don't want to win…unless they're running against Hitler.

So then? Will Ron Paul run as a Libertarian? I hope so, it would only help Obama, the lesser of the….not evils, but fouls… what's that look like? I'd say Obama 45%, Romney 36%, Paul 12%, Other (I'm still proud of voting for Guns N' Roses in 1992, and I'm leaning towards Patti Smith this election)….the rest. Actually a Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson/Paul would conceivably be stronger, and one I'd be inclined to vote for. Gov. Johnson has demonstrated that he knows how to run a government, though he's shown no evidence that he has any idea of how to galvanize a national campaign, which Paul, in a small but convincing way, has.

BUT…yeah, I'm gonna say it again….what if there's a FOURTH PARTY CANDIDATE….let's just say…for the fun of it….a Michael Moore/Cornell West ticket on the "Restore Jeffersonian Ethics" Party? It gets different, fast, I'm not saying they would win but they could, and they would easily pull the 5% necessary to get matching funding in 2016 (omigosh was there anything funnier than the hippies and rednecks fighting over Ross Perot's legacy in 1996?)

Polling that today, and not counting for states and such, I would call it at somewhere around Obama 30% (consistent with figures that find him doing "very well"?), Romney 20%, Paul 10%, Moore 10%; 30% wide open...and that's before anyone other than Obama or Romney makes their case. And it doesn't count that any sensible candidate can assume pulling 2% or less in Mississippi, Alabama, anyway….if Michael Moore (or Warren Beatty) were to open up California and New York….

God, please help us, it's time to Bless America, please!!!!!

Well let's end the start of the New Year with a film update...how about in the order of how much they make ya wanna "rock and roll/all night/and party every day"...an ethos that I don't, incidentally, recommend to anyone of any age-much less those of us approaching a half century...but....it is a great feeling...