The Absurd

Too Big to Fail — Too Stupid to Live

Remember how you, your kids and your grand-kids became indentured? When countless trillion deficit taxpayer dollars got wasted by government bailing out the biggest banks and largest corporations — just because they were too big to fail? You bought it, didn’t you? You fell for it hook, crap-line and national sinker. After George and Barack both agreed that’s how it had to be, who were you to even doubt it?

You never stopped to wonder what sense bailing out the dumbest, most gargantuan economic dinosaurs made. You never stopped to think that if god had bailed out the original dinosaurs — then humans wouldn’t even exist.

Don’t feel bad, though. Like, not personally, anyhow. Because the way George and Barack, together, agreed on wasting America’s future? It meant most everyone reckoned it had to be true. That America’s future had to get wasted.

And they need you to keep believing it. They totally fear you might blame how there can be no economic recovery on the government. That’s why, every few days there’s yet another lugubrious economist on State Television — a.k.a C.N.N. — haranguing it’s government’s job to bail out the economy in bad times and then, in good times, responsibly restore balanced budgets and pay off resulting deficits.

But what they invariably neglect to say? What they’d rather you didn’t know, never realized and couldn’t find out?  What’s so glaringly hidden in plainest sight for all to see?  It’s how utterly incapable of bailing out and driving the economy government actually is. How many dollars government wastes for each one it taxes. How inconsistent economic responsibility is with what government is about in the first place.

There’s fundamental axiomatic reasons government must have the last word in economic irresponsibility. Because the word for economic irresponsibility is monopoly — and government has complete monopoly to compel by force. Because government is not subject to economic constraint. Because it cannot be held to economic account. Because it is bankrupting and indenturing America into third-world nation status.

Of course the trillions government spent on stimulating the economy have been squandered. Of course the bailouts mean that the economic dinosaurs responsible for collapsing our markets have been inured to all economic consequence. Yet still, you continue to believe the government had to do something. Right?

Right. But think for a moment. We all hate big banks and corporations. As we should. So how come we didn’t let them fail? How come we bailed them out ahead of our own kids? The government could have insured to bail out every single affected individual — at a fraction of the cost — without safeguarding those stampeding economic dinosaurs trampling us into socio-economic and geo-political oblivion. It should have.

Sanity and free markets were saying, “Let ‘em fall, for cripes sakes. Those rampaging dinosaurs aren’t economically fit to survive.” But instead? Government kept screeching how big they were.  And just because government kept screeching so loud?  Everyone figured government was terrified for we the people.  Nobody stopped to ask if maybe government was terrified only for itself.  Nobody reminded how deep government and saurian banks and corporations were into each other.  So deep, there was no telling where one began and the others ended.  Nobody shouted out how government and saurian banks and corporations were all in a putrid swamp of self-interest together.

Finally?  Completing the farce of Americas historic tragedy?  We’re supposed to walk — or crawl — away blaming inadequate regulations.  Demanding government get more involved — not less.  Insisting government and saurian banks and corporations get even deeper into each other.  Whereas what we really had to realize was the precise contrary.  Separation of government from free markets is at least as crucial as separation of church from state.

That’s government for ya. Forcing you to bail out saurian banks and corporations ahead of your own kids. With the very economic lives of your own kids.

Good thing the original dinosaurs were extinct already. Otherwise the Obama Administration would have bailed them out too.

Yeah. Sure there would have been trouble if economic dinosaurs had been allowed to collapse. Nothing so large can fall without crushing. But if only government had bailed individuals instead of banks and corporations? If the market had been allowed to function without public interference? It would have been painful — but no exponential, potentially infinite deficit compounding of trouble. It would have led to market evolution — instead of these days of zombie dinosaurs. There would have been unimaginable opportunities for more responsible, fit economic life.

Instead? More deficit spending! More debt! Print more money! Do I hear 10 trillion? Do I hear 15 trillion? Come on, people — indenture them great-grandkids! There’s nothing left to lose…  What?  No future left to give, either?  Alright, then.  Going once, going twice — sold! For countless trillion useless government deficit waste. To the gentleman that’s finally succeeded spreading America’s wealth to the vanishing point.

Last modified on 2010-12-13 09:11:20 GMT. 47 comments

When Islamist Peace Activists Attack

Although the Paintball Raid may have been Israel’s most epic fiasco of failure?  Mainstream media coverage has been remarkable.  Uncharacteristic.  Almost evenly handed.  Even making non-hostile space for occasional Israeli views.  As if Israeli perspective could conceivably be legitimate.

Not the case for all media, of course.  Islamist media from Al Jazeera to electronicintifada keep ululating the “flotilla massacre”.  Radical Western media – the left’s version of FoxNews – continue insinuating it was cold bloody murder.  Headlining how Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range.  Denouncing how this information “undermines Israel’s insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.”

But more respectable mainstream media?  Not only are terms like “massacre” absent from respectable headlines.  There’s no insinuations of murder, even.  Could it be more respectable media are not so ideologically blinkered?  Not too blinkered to conceive how precisely close-range shooting does not undermine Israeli accounts?  How close-range shooting instead corroborates Israeli accounts?

Just maybe.  Could be.  Yet nonetheless surprising – due if only to sheer, spectacular magnitude of the Paintball Raid fiasco.  Even without ululating, there should have been far more denouncing in mainstream media.

There should have been.  And the reason there wasn’t isn’t funny.  It’s really ironic.  Because despite every magnitude of the fiasco itself.  Despite tragic loss of living.  In the sense most deeply, most viscerally imprinting worldwide audiences, Israeli soldiers have become transformed by video footage into victims of the so-called “peace activists”.

For the radical and Islamist audience?  Footage of Israeli soldiers beaten like drums could lead to great satisfaction – possibly to outright dancing.  Dancing for joy in the arab street – as after 9/11.  But it’s just horrifying for the mainstream audience – and nothing but hindrance for mainstream media.

How can mainstream media express proper outrage – when the mainstream audience shudders in horror?  While the mainstream audience cringes from footage of Israeli soldiers getting rabidly lynched by peace activists?  It cannot.  All mainstream media can do is over-emphasize how calamitous the consequences of the event are.  But when it comes to denouncing the tragic fiasco event itself, though?  Mainstream media outrage got severely muzzled.

It has to rankle.  It has got to chafe.  Hence why the Associated Press, in conjunction with the Foreign Press Association, bitterly headlined: Israel’s use of ‘captured’ video draws criticism.

Except the criticism didn’t qualify as such.  Demanding Israel stop releasing footage captured from Mavi Marmara passengers – yet acknowledging getting told by an Israeli army spokeswoman that the footage wasn’t captured.  “She said no material was confiscated. She said it was found on the vessel after activists were cleared off by the army.”

There was no criticism.  Only bleating in lieu of barking from mainstream media.  Bleating due to having been so thoroughly muzzled, bleating that anyone can now see that footage.  Footage not mainstream media nor PallyWood Studios nor even Mavi Marmara activists have had opportunity to begin editing.  Footage not only failing to properly stage Israeli soldiers as vicious sub-humans but rather, instead, totally revealing the precise opposite.

Who would have thought?  Who could have foreseen?  Not only distant footage showing Israeli soldiers restraining from shooting while homicidally attacked.  Brutally beaten, knifed, clubbed, thrown from on-high.  Not only distant footage.  Also close, personal, meticulous footage from the very deck of the Mavi Marmara.  Footage intimately framing Turkish peace activists’ sustained assault on the Israeli boat.  With grenade, with metal poles, with chains, with water-cannons.  And most wrenching?  How long Israeli soldiers did not shoot.  The way they just took that brutality.  How they restrained themselves.  How instead of shooting they huddled fearing for their lives.

When it comes to soldiering?  Nothing can be more admirable than reasonable restraint.  But restraining like that?  Restraint that extreme?  Huddling like baby seals?  Like lambs to that Islamist slaughter?  Pathetic.

This is the great irony of the tragic Paintball Raid fiasco.  How viscerally the global audience will remember it.  Whether in secret joy, with overt relish or, in the mainstream, with some glimmering understanding.  Understanding what it’s like to be an Israeli soldier.

Thus, regardless whether Israeli soldiers were legally self-defending in those international waters.  Even though Turkey has but recently enrolled into the brotherhood of Islamist societies.  Despite how Turkish passengers continue to be called peace activists.  Nevertheless.  There has been a pain-staked vision what Islamism entails for Israel on every side.  And aside from how pretty it isn’t?  It may begin exposing mainstream reporting bias.  What we in the mainstream audience have been taking as face values.

For example?  Just for one instance?  When Reuters runs headlines like “Angry Turkish PM tells Israel ‘thou shalt not kill’”?  As if the Turkish PM weren’t expressing more lunatic hatred?  Now we can start putting it together.  How it doesn’t add up.  Because when Erdogan’s anger gets juxtaposed with Israeli soldiers beset as they were by Turk Islamists?  When Israeli soldiers came inches from losing their lives prior to commencing shooting?  It can only mean Erdogan is utterly enraged by Israelis defending their lives.

In the figurative light and the literal darkness of Mavi Marmara footage?  We start comprehending where Islamists really come from.  And when we do comprehend where that place of absolute hatred is?  Then mainstream media can’t keep fooling.  Then Islamist language turns transparent.  Then Islamists might as well say what they really mean.  Express that Islamist outrage, anger, hatred.  Get it off their chests knowing that we in the mainstream do indeed, finally, understand.

“How dare jews defend their lives.”

Wouldn’t it be simpler?  Wouldn’t that be clear?

There’s no doubting what a disaster the Paintball Raid has been.  But when it comes to Islamists and Israelis?  It has been a revelation.  One that Islamists, radicals and even mainstream media can only hope we’ll soon forget.  A revelation they will do their utmost to distract us from.  To ensure we do forget.

Last modified on 2011-12-11 23:05:35 GMT. 31 comments

The Paintball Raid

They boarded the Mavi Marmara with paintball guns and proceeded to get lynched.

If that sounds absurd?  That’s because it so totally is.  But there’s no laughter.  Israel supporters are particularly shamed and sickened.  And any that aren’t had damn well ought to be.

By now most anyone has likely seen footage how IDF soldiers were attacked aboard the maritime vessel Mavi Marmara.  How literally the first few got lynched.  So, no, it was no “massacre”– like Mahmoud Abbas or Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, lamented and raged.  Nor was it “murder.. without.. justification” like Turkey’s  Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu condemned.

It was an absurd fiasco gone tragically wrong.  That’s why international condemnation persists legitimately – and entirely apart from the typical hysteria of Islamists and their radical-left allies.

Israel supporters, however, are not fazed by international condemnation.  They are used to it.  They expect no less.  And having seen all that Israeli footage on CNN, they understand what Dan Carmon told the Security Council was the obvious, plain truth.

Of course the Gaza convoy flotilla was out to siege-break by pretending delivering humanitarian relief.  No need to keep pointing out how superfluous convoy flotilla so-called aid was.  No need to repeat how, had the convoy flotilla mission really been humanitarian,

.. it would have accepted, weeks ago, during the planning stages, the offer by the Israeli authorities to transfer the aid, through to the port of Ashdod, to Gaza through the existing overland crossing, in accordance with established procedures.

And there’s certainly no burning need to quote spokesperson Greta Berlin saying, last week, that the convoy flotilla “mission is not about delivering Humanitarian supply, but rather about breaking the Israeli siege.”

Everyone either knows or ought to know by now.  There’s headlines sprouting all-over to that effect.  Like “New boats headed to Gaza to challenge blockade” and “Activists send new boat to challenge Gaza blockade”.  Not only doesn’t Greta Berlin keep this secret – it sounds like she blares it in whatever media orifice becomes available.

According to Greta Berlin, “..a cargo boat is already on the way to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.”  She vigorously contends that “this initiative is not going to stop.”  Because,

.. Israel will get some kind of common sense. They’re going to have to stop the blockade of Gaza, and one of the ways to do this is for us to continue to send the boats.

It isn’t international condemnation fazing, shaming, sickening Israel supporters.  It’s something else.  Something Sarah Palin, however eloquently, failed to appreciate. Something infinitely more important which, perhaps for the first time, is no longer true.

When Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israelis on ship acted in self defense?  It was a lie.  And while true that Israeli “soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives or they would have been killed,” it is not true that hostilities were commenced by assailants aboard the Mavi Marmara.  To the contrary.  Because the vessel was in international waters, hostilities commenced the first moment Israeli soldiers boarded.

In this absurd fiasco?  Israel cannot honestly be said to have acted in self defense.  That’s what fazes, even sickens Israel supporters.  Because always fighting only in self defense is the bedrock of Israel’s moral supremacy.  And while true facts of the paintball raid become known from Israeli footage penetrating through Islamist hyperboles of hysterical hatred.  While international condemnation subsides accordingly.  Even while the blemish in the bedrock of Israeli moral supremacy emerges as a chink – rather than fracture or fissure.  Still.  There can only be dismay whether this fiasco harbinges more absurd things to come.

How hard can it be for Israel to ensure always fighting only in self defense?  When Islamist societies — altogether or individually – can never cease shooting at Israel?  When Islamist societies keep calling for Israel’s destruction – and bragging how they’ll do it?  When one Islamist society is quietly constituted on genociding Israel?  When another Islamist society is loudly and proudly chartered on genociding Israel?

It shouldn’t be hard.  It should be easy as falling off logs.

Israel must return fire in self defense.  Israel must fortify walls designed to save lives in self defense.  But Israel cannot and must not use defensive walls to imprison against shooting in the first place.  Not in self defense.  Because collective imprisoning – even to stop genocide-boasting aggressors – is not defensive.  Collective imprisoning is offensive.

The Gaza embargo does not and cannot work.  It does not work practically to keep weapons out.  And it cannot work morally when collectively locking Gazans in.

How can Israel more fully separate from and fortify against Gaza – without locking Gazans in?  Only too obviously.  Gaza borders not only Israel – but also Egypt.  Therefore, Israel must more completely separate from Gaza – while encouraging Egypt to fully open the Rafah Crossing.

It is too obvious.  Just imagine there are two neighbours.  Imagine one neighbour claiming the other has stolen land, vowing to kill the land-thief — and shooting to kill.

Clearly there must be complete separation when neighbours keep shooting to kill.  Just as clearly, no neighbour can ever cage the other like an animal.  This is why there must be complete separation orders between Gaza and Israel.  This is why Gaza needs to stay entirely away from Israel.  Why Gaza needs to stay with her Egyptian relatives.

Galvanized by the paintball raid fiasco.  With the embargo failing on land, underground and in the sea.  With more tunnels dug, with more boats coming real soon.  The time has come for Egypt to open their crossing from Gaza – while Israel must prepare to close their crossings down.

The time is right now.  The gate of opportunity at Rafah is wide open.  Because Egypt opens Gaza border after Israel ship clash.  Because Egyptian security even tells Reuters that the border “..will remain open for an unlimited time.”  Gazans can cross as they please.

The less Gazans have to do with Israel?  The more they have to do with Egypt?  The more Egypt must administer to Gaza?  The better.  Why, finally, should Israel not trust in Egypt to eventually keep the Gaza peace?  So long as Gazans are chartered on destroying Israel – not Egypt – how can Egypt do any worse?  And no matter whatever else – can anyone even imagine Egypt resorting to paintball guns?  Like, ever?

Last modified on 2011-12-31 03:53:06 GMT. 93 comments

If You Can’t Say Something Nice: Kingwell Throws A Prissy-Fit

Mark Kingwell sounds really upset.  No telling if he really is — but he sure sounds like it.

So what has Kingwell got to sound so upset about?  Not that much, from the sound of it.  Mostly his own idea that Harper and Ignatieff are killing Canadian democracy.  Because, according to Kingwell, Canadian democracy can’t survive how rude Harper and Ignatieff are.

.. when Stephen and Michael’s insult swapping and bogus claims have filled the conversational air to such a degree that we can no longer hear, let alone appreciate, a sane voice with a good idea, a just idea — when that happens, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Wait, though.  As Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition – isn’t that what Harper and Ignatieff are supposed to do?  Isn’t it their job — not getting too civil with each other?  Not getting too chummy?

How could there be any pretense of Canadian democracy if Harper and Ignatieff seemed too chummy?  Collaborative?  If they became entirely collegial?  If there was evidence of collusion instead of opposition?  There could be no more pretense of Canadian democracy.  It would amount to admitting how we vote makes no difference.

Absent clear disagreeing, divisions and opposition between elected so-called representatives, it could only mean more of the same – regardless how we voted.  It would mean our voting could make no difference whatsoever.

Let’s be fair to Kingwell, though.  Since he isn’t saying elected representatives ought to agree more.  He’s saying they ought to be more agreeable.  More civil.  Because, says Kingwell, “Incivility.. doesn’t just threaten the etiquette of interchange, it threatens democracy.”

Seriously?  How can incivility threaten democracy – when we know democracy can survive even civil war?  Kingwell doesn’t exactly say.  He suggests we better believe it, though.

The real software of democracy is…  [P]olitical literacy, the ability to engage in critical dialogue with ideas both agreeable and disagreeable…  We need to learn this skill…

Thus, since we have yet to learn how, presumably we do not have the ability to engage in critical dialogue with ideas.  Presumably, we don’t know how to engage disagreeably.  But what a dubious claim for Kingwell to not make.  To even suggest.

Absent evidence to the contrary – does it not stand to reason that disagreeing entails greater engagement than agreeing?  That hard talk commands more attentions than small talk?  And even if Kingwell’s suggestion were true.  Even if people tend to disengage disagreeable ideas.  When did it become pre-requisite that people’s ideas be well thought out?  Concluding democracy hinges on us becoming more insightful and thoughtful requires an overt and powerful argument.  Such conclusions cannot follow merely by suggestion.  Particularly not since Kingwell’s conclusions seem so elitist – whereas democracy so often seems most commendably populist.

Kingwell himself – not necessarily our existing political conversations – must engage more critically with ideas.   And let’s be honest.  If Kingwell really is upset?  It’s not because incivility really threatens our political discourse.  Democracy is rough, populist and more than ready to handle incivility.  Kingwell, on the other hand?  He’s not so populist.  He’s not so ready to have his own, more privileged conversations interrupted.

And indeed, that’s what appears to have happened.  That’s what got interrupted.  Kingwell’s conversation.  Not everyone else’s.

.. while Kingwell was taking comments following his speech, two Liberal parliamentarians began their own conversation at their table — clearly audible to all…  Not just audible, actually. They practically shut down one whole side of the room.

And as if that were not injury enough?  Someone later had the gall to add insults:

If people were talking over Kingwell, then that’s not so uncivil…  They’ve probably heard the speech before and got bored. I’ve heard it, and it’s frigging boring.

“To which,” writes Kingwell, “the only rational response is fuck you.”

Well – damn.  Makes perfect sense for Kingwell to get prissed.  Only not about protecting everyone else’s political discourse.  More about better privileging his own conversations against rudeness.  And why not?  His elitism is not absolute.  That “fuck you” goes to show Kingwell is not our least favourite English aunt.  The one always exhorting silence unless we can say something nice.  Kingwell is more imaginative.  His version goes, “If you can’t say something nice – then fuck you.”

Finally.  Let’s be clear.  Let’s not have too much misunderstanding.  Just because Kingwell is wrong to say rudeness can threaten democracy – that doesn’t mean democracy cannot be threatened.  To the contrary.  There’s myriad threats to democracy.  Only rudeness and incivility are not among those threats.

Disagreeable expression cannot render speech meaningless.  And even when ignored, disagreeable ideas nevertheless remain meaningful.  There is always that choice whether to meaningfully engage or disengage.  And the choice to disengage is not fatal to democracy – not so long the choice remains.  But that choice can also be lost entirely when meaning itself fails.  And that’s when the possibility of democracy fails.  When every possibility of meaningful discourse fails.  When only violence can mean anything.

From some elements of criminality to cultural fragmentation to the scorched-earth between inimical cultures, violent conflict can remain the only meaningful expression when fundamental meanings become too contradictory, too glaringly inconsistent to conceivably reconcile.

How can there be meaningful discourse between fundamental contradictions in meaning?  There can’t.  Not if the contradictions are indeed fundamental.  Not until one and all fundamentally contradicting voices are silenced.

That’s the real, ultimate challenge democratic culture must survive.  How to maintain discursive coherence, how to avoid the language of violence while contradicting ideals and ideologies entail irreconcileable differences in our fundamental identities and meanings. It used to be that scorched earth due to contradictions in fundamental meanings more securely divided inimical cultures.  But no longer.  Not in our multicultural Western societies.  Not in present and future multicultural urban spaces, where cultural clashing as between empires of the past can manifest between neighourhoods.  From one street to the next.  From one side of the street to the other.

How frivolous to become agitated over incivility.  While, with every day passing, we grow increasingly aware there could be no reconciling the ideals  we are prepared to live — against the ideologies so many are eager to kill and to die for.

Last modified on 2011-08-16 07:33:47 GMT. 23 comments