Paging the Doctor

One month ago The Rum Diary opened in theaters across the country, featuring Johnny Depp's second portrayal of his friend, Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson (who acquired the title of "Doctor" from the Universal Life Church) was an infamous, alcoholic, drug-loving, anti-establishment hell raiser, the creator of Gonzo journalism, and one of my favorite writers. Most of what I love about his writing is his unmistakable, unparalleled style, but this week my mind keeps going back to the message behind his madness. Thompson wrote about social and political corruption in the era of Nixon and McGovern. What would the Doctor think of what has been going down lately?

My guess is he would bite hard on his cigarette and punch a visceral deconstruction of Peace In Our Time into his typewriter. He would start in Oakland and New York City, where riot police cleared out Occupy Wall St. protesters with tear gas in the dead of night, refusing to let reporters document their actions. He would move to U.C. Davis, where police pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful protesters in the face two weeks ago. I'm not sure he'd be all that thrilled with the Occupy kids; I would expect an ironic, pessimistic, fatalist send-up of both the 1% and the Merry Men in hoodies. But I suspect Thompson understood better than most the corrosive nature of power and the Undying Truth that the enemy of democracy is a can of pepper-spray, a baton, a taser, a fire hose, a rifle in the hand of an irresponsible policeman, regardless of whether he or she has the legal right to use it.

I know he would churn out page upon page about the Republican presidential debates, where audiences have cheered the execution of 200 death row-inmates, booed a U.S. soldier, and applauded the idea that people without health insurance should be left to die in the streets. Maybe what would burn him most, or maybe it's just what burns me, would be seeing a Republican candidate chewed to pieces for suggesting that we shouldn't round up illegal immigrants who have been living peacefully and productively in the country for 25 years, take them away from their families, and send 'em back on a bus.

Nevermind that no pathway-to-citizenship 'magnet' could ever compare with making seven dollars an hour in the U.S. instead of seven dollars a day in Mexico. In fact forget a pathway to citizenship, just declining to deport eleven million illegal immigrants is now a fringe position in the GOP. Apparently it's treasonous heresy to suggest that packing them on 220,000 buses covering roughly 14,000 square miles (or in layman's terms, Rhode Island) and carting them off to their country of origin isn't the best solution to our immigration problem. And heaven help you if you think spending billions of dollars on a 2,000 mile long super-fence is also a lacking solution.  Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?

The kids are turned off from politics, they say. Most of 'em don't even want to hear about it. All they want to do these days is lie around on waterbeds and smoke that g-ddamn marrywanna... yeah, and just between you and me Fred that's probably all for the best.

Hunter S. Thompson

Image: zen

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – "Ffunny Frends"

This is begging for a rap remix. Available free in this sampler.

Quotes: Church, this Country, and a Decent Cup of Tea

"The goal of a church service should be to connect people's hurt to the truth of the Gospel." Amy Sawyer

"It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there." Andy Rooney via Michael Costa

"[...] and she said no one is so busy they can't take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don't deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?" Frank McCourt, 'Tis

Obama and the Race for Not Romney

A year ago I decided to have some fun by posting a big prediction: Obama would win in 2012. This was primarily based on three beliefs. First, the economy would continue to improve over the next two years and jobs would start to return; second, the GOP would not be able to come up with candidate capable of taking on the president; and third, the Tea Party — as a creature of the waning recession — would not have a lasting impact.

Today these beliefs look a little foolish. Though the economy is growing, it is doing so at a glacial pace — practically indiscernible from standing still — and the job market has not shown significant improvement. The small group of Tea Party Republicans in the House managed to hijack serious, sorely-needed bipartisan reform efforts by Obama and Speaker Boehner, sending the government on wild stunts that wasted our limited political resources with threats of government shutdowns. These fiascoes not only made our fiscal problems worse, they killed what little confidence concerned Americans have in their government, sending Obama and Congress's approval ratings through the floor.

One thing's for sure though, finding a viable Obama alternative in this climate has not been easy. I remember thinking the 2008 GOP primary field was cartoonish, but they don't begin to compare with this year's set of recession-fueled populists (who still look incomplete to me without Palin on the platform). There is one serious candidate in the race, Mitt Romney, whose poll numbers — which mean almost nothing at this point — continue to stick in the mid-20s. But the Right is so dissatisfied with his wishy-washy blandness that every few weeks they cycle through a new "front-runner" (read: tied with Romney). First it was Bachman, who believes the 9-9-9 plan is of the devil; then it was Perry, who would ax whole government agencies, he just can't remember which ones; and now it's Cain, who doesn't believe Muslims belong on the president's cabinet and wishes they would "leave us alone." My hunch is it's going to be Gingrich next.

I wouldn't need to revise my prediction if anyone but Romney were going to win the primary, but I'm convinced he is. Which is bad news for Obama. Without a screwball opponent, he is going to have to hope hard for some job recovery during the next year, and with Europe on the brink of throwing a giant wrench into the global gears, we're all losing confidence he will get it. His retreat from uniting the parties and attempt to rally his base and go on the attack has fallen on its face with the failure of his jobs plan (a common sense set of measures which should have been 2009's stimulus package, were it not disingenuously paid for). Obama is an incredible orator, but Romney is a better debater, and answering Romney's tough questions about what happened during the last two years is going to be difficult for Obama next Fall.

The unfortunate irony for Obama is he has excelled at the very things the presidency is well-equipped to do (foreign policy), but which voters care little about; and failed at things the presidency is ill-equipped to do (improve the economy), but which voters care very much about. I shudder to think what our military commitments would be had a McCain administration taken us through the Arab Spring, Libya, and the withdrawal from Iraq. Who knows how many fronts we would still be fighting on, and how many rebuilding efforts we would be committed to. When you throw in the discovery of Osama Bin Laden,  the nuanced, cool-headed, hands-off Obama Doctrine has proved not-too-shabby for a one-term senator.

But of course the average voter couldn't care less. Seeing the Left as weak in the face of adversity, the center has moved right.

There is still time. The Right could decide it just can't bear Mitt and send Perry to the slaughter. Jobs could come back. But these possibilities seem remote in comparison with the likelihood of a Romney nomination and high unemployment a year from Tuesday ... which would be tough for anyone.

Image: Paul Chenoweth

In Support of HR270

I've been able to find four House Resolutions (215, 225, 270, 485) to make "America the Beautiful" the national anthem of the United States instead of our current British drinking song. I'm sure there are more. I support every one of them.

The Big Find

Last week Google decided to eliminate the sharing features of Google Reader in an attempt to force users into Google+, or more politely put, to consolidate its social offerings into one product.

For three years I have actively shared links I found interesting on Google Reader. Reading shared links from my small community of friends on Google Reader has become part of my daily life and one of the primary ways I am exposed to new and interesting ideas.

Unfortunately, Google+ is a poor substitute for the sharing tools Google Reader provided. Without RSS, I am forced to either clog all my friends' Google+ streams with links (I tend to share a lot) or personally cull a circle of friends who I think will want to read what I have to offer. There is no way for folks to subscribe or unsubscribe from my shared links as they please, or keep track of what they have and haven't read.

I want to keep my small sharing community alive. I want to keep sharing the interesting things I discover on the web with whoever would like to read them. But as they say, if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. Google isn't here to provide what I want, they're here to use my data to sell ads. So I've come up with an alternative: I've created a micro-blog called The Big Find.

Micro-blogging (if you're unfamiliar) is sharing very small pieces of content, like links or pictures or videos, in blog form. Mine is located at:

bigfind.justinis.com 

If you would like to read what I've found interesting lately you can stop by once in a while or subscribe to the RSS feed here (using Google Reader, for instance). You can also check out the Big Find box in the sidebar of this blog. Or, if you're of the Twitter persuasion, you can follow @justinis–all my shared links and blog posts will be sent there.

I would also encourage you to follow my small community of friends who are slowly making the move to micro-blogs to keep the party going:
Erin Smith
Alyssa Buckley
Cheryl Swit
(More will be added as they arrive; if you decide to join in, send me your link!)

Image: Vector Hugo

You Say You Want a Revolution

I come to you this week just back from McPherson Square, where the Occupy movement's DC chapter has been parked for the last month, complete with tents and drum circles and a swarm of disenchanted (disenfranchised?) college kids. I went because had I read, as perhaps you have, the litany of reasons reporters have given for why these kids are out there: from student loans to income inequality to greed and corruption. I wanted to hear it for myself.

If your stomach can stand one more story about these protests amid the deluge, well here it is.

Walking around the park felt like stepping out of my DeLorean into what I can only imagine a 60s demonstration must have felt like. There were tents covered in signs protesting everything from war to greed to fracking. There were sidewalk chalk drawings promoting love and harmony. It had the feeling of a close community; one woman was living there with a toddler whose toys were strewn in the grass. There were tents for information, media, and a big one operating a full service kitchen with crates of donated food. It was more or less a whirring operation.

After sitting in on a General Assembly and a long conversation with good-natured protester named Michael (who has a full time job but spends his evenings on the square), it was obvious: nobody out there knew what they wanted. Nobody knew how to attain their ideals. Nobody knew what would need to take place in order for them to feel it was ok to pack up and head home. They were there to figure all that out. What they knew was this:

They're mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.

They're not alone. If the political and economic climate of this country doesn't upset you you're not awake. Nearly four years ago a toxic bundle of politicians, bankers, firms, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, home buyers, and a healthy dose of collective delusion sank our retirement accounts and put too many of us out of work. Then came an unprecedented federal spending spree that financed corporate bonuses, put our country even more perilously in debt, and arguably did little to improve our situation. We've been struggling with near stagnant growth ever since, and the entire debacle has quickened the pace of the hollowing out of the middle class and the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. If anyone feels they have a real solution, we'd all love to see the plan.

I have little faith the Occupy movement will ever foster or even encourage workable solutions to our crisis. Its Achilles' heal is the very principle it is founded on: it must never imitate the inequality it decries. If 1% of the community must never be given sway over the rest, then unanimous consent is required for every action taken and every idea proposed. The Occupy movement is home to anarchists and socialists, libertarians and Democrats, folks who want to redeem the system from the inside and folks who want to rip it apart. Uniting people this disparate through unanimous consent is hopeless. Any charismatic leader who might unite the group under a common set of actions is doomed because the very principles of the movement preclude leaders. The Tea Party, a group with an equal amount of populist anger, was able to put like-minded people in office who affected national legislation (admittedly in an age group much more fond of voting); will the Occupiers fare so well? Winter is coming fast, and very soon eighteen degree temperatures may prove to be stronger foes than corporate fat cats.

Of course many praise the movement for starting a conversation about income inequality in America, but I have to wonder if they've opened a newspaper lately. To me the news has been a years-long barrage of questions about America's future, chief among them the future of the middle class (here's a whopper of an example). And I have to wonder if it's even the right conversation. Certainly the concentration of wealth in 1% of the American population has its consequences, but is it the ultimate source of our trouble? What of our crippled education system? What of rising health care costs? Immigration? The debt crisis? Militarism? And on a global scale, aren't nearly all of us the 1%? How then should we live?

But for all the pointlessness I perceive, I must admit these protests are distinctly American. They are a celebration of freedom speech, freedom of assembly, and redress of grievances. We should frown on efforts to squelch them. If this were Europe I suppose there would be looted businesses and cars burning in the streets.

Walking back to the Metro from McPherson square, one image stayed with me. It was of a homeless man, sitting on a bench with a warm plate of food cooked up by the Occupy DC food tent. The occupiers may never get the equality they seek but at the end of the day they will have spent months housing and feeding those at the very bottom of the 99%–and that's worth fighting for.

Image: TimWilson