Sailing: An Odd Essay

Jon Stewart for President

I'm more than a week behind on this one, but thanks to Mandrake's tip I managed to catch Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire through Ifilm. Did you catch it, Dear Readers? He says what so many of us have been thinking: that the extreme partisan slant (one way or the other) of our media is hurting the country, that shows that reduce everything to left vs. right, black vs. white debates shouting matches just play into the agendas of politicians and corporations, and leave the rest of us folks on the outside, "mowing our lawns." And despite the fact that the show was called "Crossfire," and was presumably all about differences of opinion, the hosts did not like this difference with their own opinion at all. They called Stewart, "No fun," and asked why he wouldn't just "be funny" again. "We thought you were coming here to be funny. Come on, be funny. But Stewart wouldn't back down. He wasn't on "Crossfire" to be funny. "I'm not going to be your monkey," he said.

I know, now, what I'm going to do on election day. I can't vote for Bush. His handling of the war in Iraq has been a disaster. (I wonder if German and Japanese citizens felt like this in the 1930s: "We're expected to go along with this?" I can't get behind Kerry, either. He complains about how much debt Bush has created, and then promises to spend even more money. (And he proposes a tax increase on the wealthy that won't begin to cover his new plans.) The world has gone crazy, and all discussion, all pretense to investigation and debate has been reduced to the fanatical ravings simple-minded pugilists.

Jon Stewart pointed this out. He pointed it out right to the faces of the pugilists he accused.

I'm voting for Jon Stewart.

Granted, this is tantamount to not voting at all. Almost. I still throw my vote away, but as Kerry's going to take Massachusetts anyway, it hardly matters. Not voting at all shows laziness, apathy. Writing a hopeless candidate in shows (maybe) dissatisfaction with the system. It shows I care enough to participate, even if the game isn't fair. It's not that I don't read the papers and have no idea what's going on - it's that I do read them and I hate it. I have a feeling a few hundred other people will write Jon Stewart in too, this year. So rather than just cast a blank ballot or write in a fictitious name (or my own name - heaven forbid I win the presidency!), I'll give props to the only straight talk I've heard this election year, and contribute to what might be a little mini-sensation: the fact that a comedian is the only person with the guts to recognize that the system is broken and suggest that maybe we might try to fix it.

(Question: what happens to write-in ballots? Does somebody have to pull them out of the computer and count them by hand, or do they use optical character recognition systems? Or do they even bother, given that the number of write in ballots won't come close to being a fraction of a percentage point of the total votes?)

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What to do about these local elections? State senate and the rest? All the candidates around here are talking about how much money they can get for their constituency: more prescription drugs for seniors, better oversight of nursing homes, more money to protect the environment. How fucking selfish is this constituency? How about a candidate comes forward and says, "Hey, folks, you should realize that every time we get money for old people, or for the homeless, or for endangered wildfowl, that that money has to come from somewhere. Like, your paychecks. You ever wonder about that half of your money that you earned, but disappeared before you could cash your check? Yeah, that. How about we cut back on all these programs, let you keep the money you earn, and then you'll have enough left to take care of yourself?" Am I the only person who would vote for the guy?

Hmm...what are the odds of Jon Stewart getting elected to the presidency and the Massachusetts State Senate?

Rape of Nanking

Just when you think you've wrapped your head around all the atrocities of the 20th century, you stumble across another one you hadn't heard about. Christ. Don't click on that link. I'm kind of wishing I hadn't.

Actually, I had read a little bit about Japan's campaign in China in Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle. There's a war story contained within the much more gentle trajectory of that book, and Murakami does a good job of capturing the pathetic to the point of tragically funny brutality of that war. He doesn't get specifically into the Rape of Nanking, however, and he doesn't get into the numbers of victims involved. Reading his book, as someone with a high-school level understanding of the Holocaust, and Soviet purges, and Rwandan and Balkan genocides, and the 1914 invasion of Belgium and the 1945 fall of Berlin, I just want to heave a deep, sad sigh and move on. More massacres for the human legacy. Tomorrow is another day.

But I'm really troubled by the fact that this event is never discussed in Japanese schools. In contrast, I've spoken to several Germans who said that the Holocaust has become part of their education. They take field trips to the museums and feel shame about it, and discuss what they can do to prevent it from happening again. But in Japan, nothing. The faction that claims these events never occured at all is quite strong.

The thing most jarring about these images is the fact that many were taken by Japanese troops - as souveniers. And that the soldiers kept the snapshots long enough for them to find their way into the public domain. What did they do, put them in a photo album when they got home? Did they keep them with their uniform and bayonet in an attic treasure-chest, and open it up to reminisce on occasion? It's the first time I've seen such pictures taken by aggressors, pictures that show them reveling in the damage they have caused. (Well, other than the Abu Ghraib photos, of course.) Not to say similar pictures haven't been taken in other campaigns; I just haven't encountered them.

I can't deny that I'm as curious about Nanking as I'm dismayed by it. Why such brutality, so far beyond what's necessary to achieve their military ends? Do human biengs just flat-out enjoy doing this shit? If so, why is it so hard-wired into our behaviours? What evolutionary advantage does it provide?

Would you behead and rape and butcher, and toss babies onto bayonets, if you were in the same situation? Operating under the same orders? Coming from the same culture? Would I? Would we participate, stand aside, or speak up?

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Forgive, but don't forget, Elizabeth I taught us. Not bad advice, from a monarch or a self-help book.

I Was Going to Vote, But...

How about a political post? It seems to be what all the kids are doing these days. Plus, it'll be a first for this weblog. Huzzah!

Well, I'd thought I'd be voting for Kerry for the reason that I'd count myself in the not-for-Bush camp. With all the Democrats in this country, I'd been lamenting the fact that there's not a stronger candidate to get behind, someone with a clearly enunciated position on, well, something. Then I realized, why should a president have to be so gung-ho on some particular set of issues? Wouldn't it be better to have a leader who thinks about information as it comes in, and reacts accordingly? Someone who is not so pre-loaded with so many preconceived notions that he'll ignore all evidence and all information as it arrives, and ram his agenda through all opposition? I decided for a while that I liked Kerry specifically for the reason that he was wishy-washy.

But now I'm discouraged again, because big stories keep coming into the news which neither candidate want to discuss. Evan's discussion of projected budgetary shortfalls did a good job tying my stomach into knots today (while simultaneously giving me a couple belly laughs - thanks again, Evan). Meanwhile, the Blowhards have been hammering this immigration issue pretty hard over the last year or so - up to the point where an issue I'd never thought about (as an isolated New Englander) was starting to trouble me, a little. So, when Time magazine devoted a ten page cover story to the issue last week, I was primed to settle in for a good pants-shitting session.

Try reading that stuff, I dare you.

Really! Why is neither canditate discussing the pending $72 trillion shortfall and what that's going to mean for my generation as we try to raise our children and position ourselves for retirement?

What these numbers portend are crippling tax increases on workers, slashed benefits for retirees, gutted budgets for homeland security, highways, research and everything else, and an economic decline or a financial collapse that devastates the middle class, as happened recently in debt-strapped Argentina. Eventually, analysts insist, someone -- today's children or tomorrow's elderly or both -- will pay this debt.

And why isn't Kerry questioning the Iraq war's $200 billion price tag in the context of how that money could have been used to secure our border with Mexico, which border is allowing Afghanis and Iraqis to sneak across every day?

Popular belief has it that illegals are crossing the border in search of work. In fact, many have their jobs lined up before they leave Mexico. That's because corporate managers go so far as to place orders with smugglers for a specific number of able bodies to be delivered. For corporate America, employing illegal aliens at wages so low few citizens could afford to take the jobs is great for profits and stockholders. That's why the payrolls of so many businesses—meat-packers, poultry processors, landscape firms, construction companies, office-cleaning firms and corner convenience stores, among others—are jammed with illegals. And companies are rarely, if ever, punished for it.

Kerry's probably going to win Massachusetts anyway, which has me thinking, why-the-fuck bother voting? (The Electoral College still seems like some system for electing retarded presidents on a curve, now doesn't it?) I suppose I could vote for a third party candidate, but he's not talking about this stuff either.

Better to stay home, I think. I could use the extra twenty minutes to work on my own retirement plan. So far I've got:

• Get a vasectomy. Kids are not going to survive this future.
• Buy that boat.
• Stock it with enough food to last 60 years.
• Sail past that line where personal liberty and legalized gambling are still encouraged.
• Get the hell out of the middle class, too. I'm sick of pulling all the weight. Upper class is, of course, where the action is. But lower class will do for now, while there's still some lucre in the public treasury.
• Construct a hidden underground lair. Because they'll re-posess my sailboat, eventually.

So, that's "Snake and Me" Politics for you. BTW, I'm still registered Republican, on account of I'm a fan of free enterprise and fiscal responsibility. So - the last Elephants I voted for were Bob Dole and John McCain. My Rush Limbaugh phase came to a close around the same time I took my SATs, and my Ayn Rand phase just a little after. Funny, how hard it is to find a new phase, these days.

Wrong On So Many Levels

"You know, I've never really thought of myself as prejudiced, but I'm realizing I don't really like Indians."

"Do you mean Native American Indians, or Red Dot On The Forehead Indians?"

"I mean the ones in the Middle East."

"So, you mean, you really feel that because of what a few people do, it's okay to hate an entire group of people?"

"Yeah, I think it's okay to hate all the Indians because of what they did to us on Nine Eleven. They all hate us, right? It's in their religion."