Our Age: A History in Postcards

Things sure have happened in the world lately! Here, a recap through the lens of everyone's favorite mailable that doesn't require an envelope.

2006/7: Man, this blows.

Like a newly minted college graduate, Postmodernity is experiencing an existential crisis. The Modern dream of "progress" has ended in a horrifying global scenario that is confronted only by ignorance or guilt.
The "free world" is run by someone you wouldn't cheat off of in Intro to Government, and the idea of a "future" seems like wishful thinking.

It can't get any worse, so you attempt to cure the world of its ills-- the imperialism, consumerism, commodification that's killing everything it touches (and it's touching everything)-- and truly believe that you can.

A little heavy handed? Definitely. But this is no time for subtlety. The world is ending!

2008/9: A new day!

Our long global nightmare is over. Let's revel in the truths of existence (and Fleetwood Mac)*.

*which, incidentally, are one in the same.

2010:You know what? This whole thing is dumb.

The impossibility of human reason to surpass the interest of the self seems more evident every day in the actions of the people we elect to lead our society and make decisions that will impact our lives and the lives of future generations. Blind ignorance seethes from all ends of the political spectrum. No one has answers/911 is a joke/"society" is a cultural construct, man.

Things are realized and expectations are lowered. It is a possibility in our world that the person that is Sarah Palin might one day have power to influence the way other people's lives as humans. Absurdity is truth.

Think I'm gonna be thankful that at least emo is over (sort of?)...

... empty 18 packs while seeking refuge in a nostalgia for things that are "young" and "cool,"

and harass everyone whose address I have with stuff like this.

The USPS: still one institution for the people.

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

On November 4, I voted for you, and that night I stood with a hundred other young, well-dressed and drunk American voters and watched your acceptance speech, and the moment all felt like a good dream, that for one of the first times I can remember, it felt like the good guys had won. You, like us, seem to recognize that the system is broken, that the people elected to lead should not be nefarious and selfish but one of the people, working to serve their needs.
So now, a few weeks later, all anyone can talk about is the economy and how everything's ruined and how we should be stocking up on food and wait for the day that our money's worth nothing and take our place in the bread line.

I graduated from college in May, and learned nothing if not that every way in which the world is currently operating is wrong. So, reluctant to join this destructive "work force" that kills everyone who is in it, (I believe that I am alive and would like to stay that way) I have taken a menial position that I am much too smart for. It requires none of the skills that I have, bores me to tears and insults my dignity, but at least I'm not pushing papers for some soul-sucking corporation by and for the living dead. However, I am currently living well below the poverty line. I can barely afford to pay my bills now (although these do not even include car payments/insurance, expensive habits or health insurance) and in less than a month, my first college loan payment is due. All I want to do is work in a socially/environmentally progressive organization that is making valid steps toward effective change in the world. However, when the economy is bad, organizations like these are the first to tighten their belts, although the unsustainable, top-heavy economy itself is the reason why such organizations toward re-shaping our country and world are needed.

So let's recap. I need to join the very world I learned is wrong just to be able to pay for my having learned this. For me to do this is giving up all that I have, is cashing in my integrity and faith in the world, is relinquishing the belief that the world allows for progress and compassion and the capabilities of the human heart.I'm living in poverty because I care too much about the other people and things in this world to take a 40k/year job at a faceless corporation and actually buy some furniture and health insurance. Apparently the abilities of thinking and feeling have no place in the "real world," in America, but that's all I know how to do. America is currently crushing its own children; we are buckling under the weight of its reckless corporate lust, and we are scared it does not care about us, that it will hear our screams, shrug its shoulders and leave us for dead.

So, Mr. Obama, I, and millions of others like me, gave you our vote and our faith. How will you save us?

Sincerely,

America's Urban 20-Somethings

Myths that Politicians Happily Perpetuate

For fear of appearing too "smart" or "sophisticated" or French, America just keeps getting more American, and politicians are only too happy to cater to the whims of what they perceive to be simple-minded, big-hearted folks of this vast nation of plains, farms and honest-to-goodness blue-collar workers. Too bad those have all been slowly disappearing since after WWII, but the Vice President nominees seem to have missed out on that. (Farms today are run by millionaires and their illegal immigrants, who keep our lettuce cheap. If it gets too expensive when higher-paid legal workers pick it, we complain about the economy and want to kick all the immigrants out because they're taking American jobs). But honestly, why do politicians insist on allowing the myth of the American Redneck to determine the parlance and values of the country?

From Slate:
"At times what was supposed to be a throw-down turned into a hoedown as the candidates tried to out-folksy each other. Sarah Palin took us to the sidelines of the soccer games. (First hockey, now soccer—we'll be getting a spring sport soon.) Biden took us to the gas station and Wal-Mart. Palin was dropping her G's and using expressions like doggone. Joe was speaking to the Catholics with 'God love him' and reminding us a few times that his father called him 'Champ.' I'm just glad there wasn't dancing. Although, if there were, we might have been able to use those words."

This nation does not belong to blue-collar workers. They perform very important roles that we couldn't survive without, but the same group that pats them on the head is systematically indenturing them in low-paying, uninsured servitude. And then outsourcing their jobs elsewhere. A very small, very smart group of very old and very white men run the entire show, more so than we would be comfortable to even imagine, and politicians and their patsies to get down on their knees and shamelessly beg for votes is disingenuous and offensive, and the reason that debates and politics in general are completely worthless.

Also, for both VP candidates to stand up in front of America in 2008 and claim that our country is founded on the "sanctity of marriage" between one man and one woman is also a lie, and to rely on the other almighty sacred text, the Constitution, is just as asinine as relying on the Bible. Both are equally outdated and misinterpreted. The only appeasing fact here is that one day, everyone who went on record stating that alternative unions are somehow morally wrong and un-American will be as loathed as slave-owners are today.

Finally, another nasty little habit of politicians that needs to be curtailed is extolling the virtues of Americans to themselves. America is in a very bad place right now. That is mostly because most of us (51%) voted for George W. Bush in 2000. And in 2004. That was dumb. Now we're screwed. When a kid makes a mistake, you might let it slide. When the kid makes the same mistake, you do not tell him how smart and hardworking he is. You tell him you're in charge and he needs to listen. America has proven it can't handle it's responsibilities and needs to be told what to do. This metaphor is going nowhere. But Sarah Palin is a smug idiot, and the presidential debates are a spectacle that haven't been relevant since 1960 when Nixon lost to Kennedy because the former was old and sweaty. The "debate" has been boiled down to a slick production that's more performance than politics, just another formality in the skeleton of a rational democracy that now exists in America.

Democratic Advertisements

How has the media managed to turn the future of this country into just another product?



MSNBC's political website is a complete zoo, filled with loads of unnecessary content and redundant observations: "Voters wonder if Sarah Palin is qualified." They've also come up with a graphic for the current financial situation-- or, "Economy in Turmoil."


Related: when is a "news source" going to use "Pal-out and Bail-out" in a headline describing McCain's top concerns?
And, when is someone going to come out all Kanye West-like and say "Republicans don't care about women"? Aside from the fact that she's anti-choice and anti-women's rights in general, Palin's nomination has done much more damage than good for Americans' view of women by suggesting that they are fit for a job if they've competed in beauty pageants and show little to no sign of actual intelligence. Four people are nominated for the positions of president and vice president. One of them is embarrassingly underqualified, so much so that she has to be shielded from interviews. That person happens to be the only woman nominated.
Thanks, John McCain.

Economix?

So the House just defeated the proposed $700 Billion bailout of Wall Street.

Whoa.

For a Democratic House who has done precisely nothing in the last two years besides roll over to the Republican's whims of drilling for oil in formerly protected areas, this is quite a blow. Nancy Pelosi and Co. have decided to tell Bush and his investment bankers, in no uncertain terms, exactly where to shove what The Nation deemed a fascistic corporate takeover of the US government.

Stocks fell almost 800 points, and we're left wondering what the hell this actually means for us. Doom and destruction? Worthless currency and bread lines? Grad school and basement full of canned food?

One thing's for sure: a world, a country and a generation less than trusting of this whole American domination thing now has a lot more to base their fear, incredulity and ulcers on.

All we can remember is that the economy itself doesn't actually run through our veins and doesn't affect our ability to breathe, and that Sarah Palin and God will save the day.



'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justive is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom! So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms. In your arms. So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms. In your electronic arms.

-- Laurie Anderson, "O Superman", 1980

A True Minority in the White House

Barack Obama is now officially the democratic nominee for the president of the United States, and everyone (ie the media, the republicans, the democrats, the racists, the liberals, etc, ad nauseum) is excited/pissed/hopeful that this will be an historic moment in America, that having Obama in the White House will be the end to our long national nightmare of white supremacy and all its ugly side effects.
In his speech last Tuesday night to accept the bid for president, it became clear that Obama's true novelty and uniqueness to the American presidential race lies not in his skin color but in his idealism. The man uses the word "hope" to the point of exhaustion, but B. sure has a hell of a lot of it. When was the last time a politician put his weight behind education, health care, and the environment (this man used the phrase heal the planet)?
Of course skepticism is appropriate; no one can simply step into office and hope our problems away. America is broken and whoever attempts to fix it is going to need a lot more than idealism and belief in the moral superiority of The American People™ (a theme of each presidential hopeful's campaign that remains more than a little frightening). But where else will change™ (another trademark of Obama's campaign, recently co-opted by McJowls) begin if not in the audacity of hope™ ?

Blogtrack would also like to acknowledge that the "Yes We Can" video by Will.i.am was so incredibly annoying, with its singing Scarlett Johansson, supermodels and other embarrassments to the human race, that it was thinking about rescinding any support, monetary or emotional from the Obama campaign as well as hope in humankind and America in general. However, that came out a while ago and blogtrack has since forgotten, and put faith back into Obama because what the hell else is there?

Breaking: College Grad Identifies Path to Success, Wisdom and Happiness

Ah, college grads. There may not be a creature on earth who so perfectly embodies the delicate balance of idealism and self-righteousness as the Recent College Graduate, and every May the air is filled with the stench of the self-satisfaction mixed with fear. Since I wore that little hat almost a whole week ago, I have the right to glibly bombard you with my views on the world and life, because I now know almost everything there is worth knowing (just a little more Kerouac, and that almost will be effectively taken care of). Before that whole "real world" thing (a cultural construct if there ever was one) mars the clarity with which I am currently able to view the world, here is a list of personal insights and cultural observations I've culled over the last few years of expensive summer camp, which was actually really worth it (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Before I started, I never would've known what I still don't know (which completely goes against what I just said about knowing everything, but that's the beauty of being young and impressionable. Or something.)*

Finally, the wisdom the world has been waiting for:

WHAT I LEARNED IN COLLEGE

1. Wow, the world sure is fucked up.
(a) Your reality is being controlled by a small cabal of very rich and very old white men.
(b) You're a corporate target.
(c) The natural world is being destroyed.
(d) Global wealth is more uneven than it's ever been.
(e) The cheap energy sources that have built our incredibly decadent lifestyles are close to collapsing.
In fact, just about everything that COULD go wrong actually IS! So, you, college student/grad/mom/dad/shamed American, must forget everything you know and start over. Everything THEY (yes, there is a they) tell you is wrong, you can't buy your way out of this one, and your patriotic/religious paraphernalia does not guarantee you a place in heaven.
2. You CAN! almost learn how to think about maybe starting to change it a little bit.
(a) Moral superiority is not a bad thing, and that myth is only perpetuated by the selfish and lazy.
3. You don't actually have to read the boring assignments, especially if you don't care about your grades. And a lot of the reading is really interesting, especially if you don't care about your grades.
(a) If you ever experience the carpet of reality being pulled out from under you and grow suspicious of all that exists and doesn't exist in the entire world, you're doing alright.
4. The world does not end if you get a C or a D or an F. Nothing you do for a grade will ever affect anyone else's life, so stop boring everyone with your complaining.
(a) Some people will graduate with honors. Some won't. Everyone keeps breathing. A lot of people with very good grades will go on to make a lot of money, or not make a lot of money, or have a lot of fun, or do great things. A lot of people with not very good grades will go on to make a lot of money, or not make a lot of money, or have a lot of fun, or do great things.
5. Awkwardness will ensue. Embrace it.
(a) Everyone is so self-conscious that no one has time to worry about what you're doing, wearing or listening to.
6. Selling a really great anthology of world literature for $19 is a mistake.
(a) reading is still a better idea than Wii.
7. Nothing is so important that you can't skip it for something spontaneous and fun.
8. You can take about three fundamental ideas and apply them to every paper you ever write. (eg the world bank is evil, nothing is true, almost every classic text you read is patriarchally informed, etc.)
9. Women are in charge in male/female relationships (obviously). No one can deny that. Women, use it without taking advantage it. Men, don't be jerks.
10. Your major probably doesn't really matter, so pick one that's fundamental to your becoming a person, or it's going to be a long four years. If you don't have actual academic interests (or want to major in business/ neoclassical economics), don't go to college and give your spot to someone else.
11. A lot of people are huge tools. Avoid them so you don't have to worry about it.
(a) But you can make fun of them when you need to feel better about yourself.
(b) Also, a lot of people who seem like tools actually aren't. Don't judge people until after you know them.
12. You definitely won't regret any time you spend with friends. Actually, the only regret I have is that I didn't meet more people (ie hot smart dudes). Your 4.0 will never make you laugh or listen to your stories, and won't keep in touch after you graduate.
13. Mainstream media is for the old and dead, as are moderation and greatest hits albums (obviously).
14. The sixties might've been cool, but they're over and partially responsible for the quagmire of bullshit our generation has to wade through (see #1). If we learn to celebrate and loathe the time we're living in, we can understand and fix it.
15. Facebook is our generation's most brilliant form of effective corporate mind-control. Think before you offer all your personal information (see #1 (a) and (b)).
16. In spite of the self-indulgent practices and beliefs that college allows and encourages, you are actually very far from being the center of the world.
16. This list wouldn't be complete without the cliche (but valuable) things you always hear: don't be afraid to talk in class, try stuff that seems scary or stupid or weird, if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room, allow yourself to remain open to all views (especially the ones that confirm your own so you can win arguments against Republicans and make them feel dumb).
17. It's impossible to make a mistake (except for #6).
18. Most importantly, don't let anyone tell you what to do. Doing what anyone tells you to is quickest way to ending up miserable.
(a) For the record, the list is is merely meant as a suggestion.

Also, college is pretty cool, but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't actually have to be the "best four years of your life!!!11" You should actually make sure it's not, because who wants life after 22 to be a sixty year denouement?

*Disclaimer: contributing to the pompous tone of this list is that I'm currently in a coffee shop attempting to justify my existence. Oh, and I didn't get honors so I feel bad about myself. J/k!!111

New Genre Alert: GOP Rock!

After years and years of speculation, a link between an appreciation of classic cock rock and being a huge douchebag has been proven!
In this case douchebag= Republican, but rare is the instance when it does not.

There is now empirical evidence that those fat sad repressed males who listen to Bad Company on their daily commute are more likely to vote Republican. What's next, proof that men who beat their wives and call Mexicans "spics" are more likely to vote Republican too?

I want to know who decided to take up this particular case as warranting a survey. This could be a new trend in demographic research. Who do Jewel fans vote for? What about the vast majority of Kenny G fans?

Further, the irony of the fact that fans of the Who and Pink Floyd are voting Republican is almost too much to bear. Ted Nugent I can see. But the bands whose songs contained the lyrics "We won't get fooled again" and "Mother should I trust the president?" in angry and nihilistic politically charged songs? Oh, world. You're so cute when you get things completely wrong.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the corporate tie-ins of classic rock bands as they wank their way into old age (see Pete Townsend). In a few years they'll be playing all the same songs in nursing homes and hopefully we can bury the classic rock radio format with Keith Richards' corpse. Some rich old guy who's driving around in his Cadillac (R) with "Black Dog" ALL THE WAY UP or using his American Express Rewards (TM) because the Rolling Stones "Free to do what I want" is the campaign jingle is the perfect ending to a completely self-serving and worthless generation who ruined everything and is leaving the clean up for us.

At least they left us some good tunes though.

Good One, "EPA"

It's been obvious for a while that the EPA might as well stand for Environmental Profiting Agency since the agency has nothing more than corporate dollars in mind (thanks to Bush's stellar appointees) and hasn't done too much to prevent destruction of the environment since Nixon was in office (his one good deed).
Welp, it looks like their malign neglect on global climate change is not going uncontested by seventeen states. Finally, some action. Way to go, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia, plus the city of New York, and the mayor and city council of Baltimore!

Enlightenment, Enslavement, and War

In 1949, German philosopher Martin Heidegger first presented what would later become to be known as a highly influential and controversial work, a volume entitled "The Question Concerning Technology." In his opening, he states "Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral." Heidegger contended that without acknowledging the control that technology itself holds over us as humans, rather than having mastery over it, we are instead enslaved to its will. That is, for example, without questioning the means of a gun (technology) to carry out an end for the government (also technology), we are then enslaved to both.

Heidegger's contemporaries in Germany's Frankfurt school, Horkeimer and Adorno, contended that modernity, commencing with the enlightenment, enabled above all humanity's "sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Scientific and technological advancements were not used for enlightened progress as much as morphing Christianity into an anthropocentric and ethnocentric utilitarianism.

Both the concepts of technology as an enslaving device and modernity as conceiving a barbaric humanity could be considered the defining themes of modernity itself, and nowhere is this more present than in the practice of warfare. The stories of the Winter Soldiers, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, who are now telling their stories around the nation in order to rally support for Iraq Veterans Against the War lend credence to this claim. Four service people presented their testimonies to a large audience last week in Burlington, speaking with great passion, power and remorse about their experiences in Iraq, all acknowledging that they had acted immorally at the behest of the United States government. One soldier's testimony was particularly wrenching; he presented horrific images and footage to the audience as a backdrop to his acknowledgment that in Iraq, he and other young members of his unit murdered innocent humans out of aggression and boredom. The deaths of innocent Iraqis were celebrated within the unit, and often the result of contests or bets, cavalierly referred to as kills, while the murderer was congratulated.

Modern warfare is not the hand-to-hand combat that we still imagine to be "war," it is not a valiant duel or a human vs. human struggle, nor is it the heroic endeavor of the "good guys versus the bad guys," in which "We" are acting toward those holy ends of Democracy, Peace and Justice for "Them." There is no shadow of humanity left in the mechanistic destruction that is wrought at the hands of young American men fueled by a steady diet of extreme machismo and hubris, often perpetuated by their commanding officers.

Previously unimaginable destruction has been made possible due to the machinery that is the result of vision of some of the world's most skilled scientists and engineers, and previously unimaginable justification of these horrors is made possible by the vision of some of the world's most skilled religious and "patriotic" extremists.

The young soldier spoke of being turned into a killing machine, a monster, ultimately to carry out the will of the United States Government in this modern nightmare, which most people either justify or fear is a holy war. The truth is, this occupation has nothing to do with any god other than that holiest of modern deities, the American dollar. Modern war is executed with expensive mechanical technological advancements, while its human components are nothing more than an extension of their M-16s, but this war would not exist without that most significant (and destructive) of human technological advancements: capitalist imperialism.

Hundreds of years after the enlightenment, the Frankfurt school's half-century old assessment of it echoes eerily relevant. If modernity began with the physical manipulation of nature and ideological manipulation of "God's will," it will end when these two modes of destruction have mined that last of what remains of the natural and human, or that which not yet been used as a means to an end by imperialistic governments.

America, I was wrong about you: part deux

(in which the blogtrack unwittingly and regrettably advertises for loathsome causes.)




It was on thesaurus.com! So then I looked synonyms for "border" and "patrol" and found that you can also use "confine vigilance" "periphery shotgun" or "xenophobic, propagandistic waste of money."

And "mission focused"? Should've used a thesaurus and come up with a better slogan, like "I voted for Bush and all I got was this really long fence."

LOL!!!!!!111

(corporate-casual.com)


Civil liberties are now un-American.
2026: 42 years after 1984.

“Exposure reduces prejudice.”

And, ahem, the NYT breaks a story that Blogtrack was on 6 months ago.

Lizard Brains and Extraordinary Courage

Christopher Wool
Art
"People don't make literature, architecture, and art-- the culture makes those things," says Dave Hickey, art critic, lizard brain and compadre of Lester Bangs and Hunter S. Thompson.

Joanie D. is a punk. But is she a traitor to her gender?

&Politics
Now it's only 403 days! "What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing—what we need is partisanship," says Paul Krugman.

Hitchens on Bhutto's extraordinary courage.

Vocab Word

from antiwar.com

Good News is No News

Jim Fitzpatrick, courtesy of bbc.com

Che: The man, the brand.
You're not paranoid if they really are watching you.

Old people say: "we really f-ed this one up, so start doing something about it, college kids!!! And blogs don't count. But, remember, globalization is working, so don't try and change that. "

At least we can laugh about it and watch indie movies.

Ipso Facto

Using Latin phrases makes you sound smart, even if you don't really know what they mean.

"A terrorist and an environmentalist cannot live within the same skin."

"Our work is going to end, if it ends, in the construction of this space for new political relationships."

Rock Star as cultural construction? Nooooooooo!

Too Howl too handle, 50 years later.

"Self-obsessed tunnel vision spiraling into nihilism" sound familiar? You might be an American under 30.

The Voice of a Generation is unoriginal, Ivy-leagued and male.
Times sure have changed.

Scranch Scranch

It is difficult
     to get the news from poems
           yet men die miserably every day
                 for lack
     of what is found there.
-William Carlos Williams


"To take Williams' statement that people die for lack of what is found
there, I think this means lack of open-heartedness, lack of sweetness
and tenderness to each other. But then a little later I saw that
meaning also as ecological, that openness not just for the human
community but for the natural community; it's for our immediate
neighborhood of all the other species, all of us passing through time.
I get angered when the bears eat my apples right off the tree. But I
can say well, okay, they got to them first; they must have enjoyed
them."

-Gary Snyder

________________________________________________________

"We, the people, had better keep an eye on our government, not out of
contempt or lack of appreciation or disrespect, but out of a sense of
guardianship...
"How do you use these tools we have given you to make us safe in such
a manner that will preserve our freedom? . . . Freedom is no policy
for the timid. And my plaintive plea to all my colleagues that remain
in this government as I leave it is, for our sake, for my sake, for
heaven's sake, don't give up on freedom!"
-Dick Armey, Retired "very conservative house majority leader"

Greed is

Love is

Life is expensive,
The world is conservative,
and we all just want to get buy.
--The Believer