Killer Klowns

 

 

Oscar Wilde in his novel Picture of Dorian Gray created the indelible image of the ageless man whose sins, increasing with age, do not show on his face but on the face of his portrait.  It is a pity that nature does not provide us with such a guide so that we could look at each other and easily see what deeds are written there.  Politicians are the Dorian Grays of our moral lives.  We look at them and know very well that they are corrupt, heartless and self-seeking, but amazingly their faces are blank slates.  They ratify a system of hypocrisy and duplicity which we are desperate to preserve, otherwise we too should be caught out.  It is a version of the emperor's new clothes but in this case we are staring at a monster rather than a fool and very few have the courage to point it out.

 

The present scandal over the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge last September and the role that New Jersey governor Chris Christie played in those closings presents us with the newest example of malfeasance in high office.  Of what that malfeasance consists is still to be determined.  Did Governor Christie actually have a direct hand in the lane closings which were used as a retributive measure against political opponents or did he simply preside over an administration encouraged and permitted to take such steps?  There is little doubt that persons closest to Christie and his administration ordered and coordinated the closings, apparently as political retribution targeted at those who would not endorse Christie for governor in the then upcoming elections.

 

Many people shrug this episode off as simply political business as usual.  It is far more serious than that.  Corrupt politicians who take kickbacks or sell or trade favors do the public a serious disservice which when taken together weighs the system down with inefficiencies and costs.  The closing are of another order of magnitude.  Traffic was backed up for hours causing harms that are heartbreaking.  Obviously, when the business of life is delayed for thousands of people on the busiest bridge in the United States, there are going to be effects ranging from fairly trivial to the fatally serious.  Emergency vehicles were stymied in their movements.   Schoolchildren on buses were delayed during the first week of school.  A story of a fellow unemployed for a year on the first day of a new job driving into Manhattan arrived to work late.  One can only imagine the catalog of woe caused by these delays.  Certainly traffic jams are common and when they occur the same results are expected.  What should not be expected is that those delays and their melancholy results are caused by those in whom we place our civic trust.  But since the people delayed were driving from the New Jersey side to New York, there is the irony that many of those delayed went to the polls the following November and re-elected Christie as their governor, without knowing, of course, he may have had a hand in their discomfiture.  Given the nature of the American electorate at this moment, it would not be a surprise if a Killer Klown might not win an election by appealing to those who are so frightened of Taxes, they would gladly embrace Death.

 

 

 

 

Can I Please Have Some More?

[A recent column by Dr. John Lilly in the Springfield News-Leader of Springfield Missouri gave me cause to fulminate a bit today because of its preposterous assertions.  Its title - "Breakfast Plans Boost Nanny State" - hide the fact that the good doctor is complaining that a free breakfast program in the public schools sends all the wrong messages.  His column is as close as it comes to a perfectly wrong message.  My comments are below, but to really understand the source of my consternation you need to read his column, at least as much of it as you can stomach.]

Enough! With the latest column by Dr. John Lilly (“Breakfast Plan boosts nanny state – January 24, 2012) the News-Leader sponsors new levels of sophistry and perversity. Does he in fact speak for “taxpayers” who believe that the government has no role in feeding hungry children? That Springfield Public Schools will provide a breakfast meal for the children who attend should be a cause for congratulation. Instead, Dr. Lilly finds reason to suspect the motives and condemn the consequences of such a plan. Why? Because the children will ostensibly learn a false lesson: that they can depend upon their government. To translate into more humane terms: that the community around them is concerned about their welfare.

But Dr. Lilly reserves such action for “churches and charities” and, were he living in 19th century England, one would suppose the local parish board of the workhouse. This contemporary Scrooge repeats in his complaint the words “the taxpayers” as if such a phrase ends all debate. As a taxpayer he objects to this” misuse” of his money. The parents of these children are also taxpayers as are their aunts, uncles, grandparents, and distant cousins. Some of them have fought in this nation’s wars and some of them died in them. That he can cast himself and his imagined community of taxpayers against a rabble of ill-fed, ill-clothed peasants who only deserve attention from “churches and charities” adequately discloses his crabbed mentality. Churches and charities certainly play their part in the larger social scheme, but they neither have the means nor the will to take on the social responsibilities of a modern state, especially a secular state. Are churches in the financial position to take on the enormous burdens of social welfare faced by a nation of 300 millions, even considering the fact these institutions are not taxed? Contributions to churches and charities are voluntary, paying taxes is not. That is, of course, what gets under Dr. Lilly’s skin. The reason that the government had to take on this burden, obvious to any schoolchild by the end of the 19th century, is that “churches and charities” were no longer able, if they ever were. We should all be pleased that the essence of Christian virtue has been assumed by our government in its desire to assist the widow, the orphan, the disabled, the hungry, the elderly, and those struggling to find their place – the children.

This fear that public school children are scamming the rest of us out of our hard earned cash seems to be a common refrain these days. Newt Gingrich, a candidate for President in the Republican primaries, has suggested that elementary school children be used to perform janitorial services in their public schools. I do not believe there has existed in living memory such contempt for other people’s children, except when the question of race was involved. Now it appears the tactics that were used to isolate and segregate Blacks in our society have re-emerged, but this time those tactics are directed at economic and social groups rather than strictly racial ones. My faith in “churches and charities” is seriously diminished by the fact that they do not rise up in fury and deal with these “taxpayers” as they deserve. A good caning from the beadle might change their mind.

Utterly Transformed



It’s not a film that I would have seen on my own, but since my son wanted to expose me to the 3-D experience at I-MAX a la the movie Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, who could refuse? An experience it truly was. We sat fairly close to get the full effect, meaning that one could almost smell the oily armpits of Sentinel Prime, a major mechanical character in this rusty junkyard come alive. As a movie it is as good as it gets in this age of special effect extravaganza. My comment on the film itself is that it represents what you get when its producers have unlimited access to the latest digital technology on the one hand and the dictionary of ten thousand clichés on the other. It was verrrrrrrrrry long and the dialogue further confirmed that since Bette Davis they don’t make films for grownups.

As a parable with pretensions to any meaning, a grade of “F” for this creaky mélange would be overpraise. But then again, we are constantly reminded, films are meant as vehicles for escape. Well, congratulations. Those Polaroid cheaters that are worn through the film provide some serious escape. The anti-hero played by Shia LaBeouf experiences the standard vindication of his bumbling and seeming ineptitude played against a vaguely patriotic theme of the threatened human race. The humans are in league with robots who have “hearts of gold” (or other precious metal) called Autobots fighting the evil Decepticons, robots operating out of total self interest (sounds like some brokers I’ve known). Unfortunately, I got no uplift as Chicago was laid waste by ponderous machines, some speaking with the voices of easily identifiable American icons. Sentinel Prime in all the august majesty of his well made shocks and struts has the voice of Leonard Nimoy. One can detect John Wayne among others. How cheap.

What did occur to me while the screen piled up increasing amounts of mechanical clutter was the brilliance of the technology. This is not your grandmother’s 3-D animation. The old song “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘um Down on the Farm” seems apt. Why would anyone be satisfied watching any film that wasn’t made with this technology? I imagined some really great films made with it such as the life of Christ or Buddha or Michelangelo, the tales of Sherlock Holmes, documentaries depicting the real dilemmas facing the world. The experience and interest of the audience could be immeasurably enriched. I will not hold my breath until such films are made. American audiences are so stultified that making historical films is almost out of the question. The Civil War is now 150 years behind us but making an historical film of that war in 3-D would not be easy because it appears at least to me that the politics of such a thing would be a disaster.

As our economy is torn apart by waves of Decepticons, people are content to watch their metal cousins engage in WWF-type slamdowns on the big screen. Whatever message might have been buried in the film it is so deep that even alien powers would be challenged to retrieve it. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that in this summer of “Debt Ceiling Chicken,” the newest game being played in our nation’s Capitol, Transformers was indeed the perfect film. It has been a point of curiosity for me exactly what Americans would sit still for. Now I know.

Book Burning

On May 10, 1933 and other dates shortly thereafter German students in coordination with the office of Reichspropaganda Minister Josef Goebbels burned mountains of books considered un-German. The American reaction was swift and strong and, although it did not include the physical intimidation or murder of Germans and the destruction of symbols of German culture, the displeasure of the American public was amply made manifest.

On March 20, 2011, following an earlier promise he had made for September 11, 2010, Terry Jones, an evangelical minister in Gainesville, Florida had ignited a copy of the Koran. The book had been soaking in kerosene and burned for about 10 minutes. Before the date of his first planned burning, he had been warned by high officials both within and without the United States that such an act conducted in public would most likely cause a firestorm in reaction in Muslim countries where American troops are engaged in military actions and need the cooperation of local populations. Terry Jones only relented after supposedly receiving a promise that the Islamic Center slated for construction a few blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan would be moved. Since it has become apparent that the plans for the Center’s construction have not changed, Jones felt it was necessary to make the original point he had intended. So in his church where about 30 were in attendance, a trial was held to establish the “guilt” of the Koran and then a punishment was executed.

Unfortunately, as predicted, parts of the Muslim world exploded in rage. In particular, in Afghanistan as of April 3, 2011 24 people have been killed, including 7 United Nations staffers overrun by an hysterical crowd. The number of wounded is over 100. Even in the best of times, Christian minorities are at risk throughout that region and after this provocation, one can only assume that the lives of Christians and Westerners are at greater risk. Is it fair to bring this episode into the context of Nazi bookburning? I believe so. When the Nazis burned books we as American reacted. When the holiest of Muslim texts is burned, the Muslim world reacted, each of course in an entirely different fashion.

Let us engage in a mind experiment. Suppose a crowd in Kandahar (Afghanistan) or Peshawar (Pakistan) burned copies of our Constitution or Declaration of Independence. Would we be thrown into a murderous rage? Probably not. The hypothetical scenario seems somewhat hilarious to a degree because it appears on one level to be a sandbox conflict. “Are too!” “Am not.” We are more sophisticated than to imagine that any real insult could be leveled against us merely by burning pieces of paper. Great parts of the Muslim world are still living in an age where symbols still count for something. What in fact would get our dander up to the point that we lose our self control and commit acts of mayhem and murder? Well, we use our armed forces when the “interests” of the United States are at stake. And when is that? Here I inject a subjective response. Those interests are really commercial interests. If attempts are made to compete with us in markets we deem sole access to or if threats are made to strategic resources such as oil or natural gas, bullets will surely fly. Some might ask – isn’t the mission to bring democracy and prosperity to the deprived of the earth. Looking at the record, our elites seem quite content to do business with ruinous and bloody dictators as long as they secure those commercial interests. As inhabitants of the quite daffy 21st century, we have our priorities straight, don’t we?

Of course, there are those in this country who think that Terry Jones did a noble thing by taking a match to helpless paper. That is because they belong to a segment of American opinion that has substituted magical thinking for reason and meaningless display for analysis and dialogue. There are entire broadcast networks devoted to a non-stop form of figurative bookburning, giving to the American people the kind of satisfaction found by the crowds on the streets of parts of the Muslim world. The Nazis were smarter and stronger and see how far their bookburning got them.

The Supreme Court Conducts a Military Funeral

When they finally posted Snyder v. Phelps, a recent Supreme Court decision, I threw away one hour of my life poring over the metaphysical cogitations of that most arcane of government committees on the subject of free speech and funerals. You already know (or maybe not) that I am a professor of sociology and that one of the subjects with which I get to badger crowds of twenty-somethings is the sociology of law. So, Supreme Court decisions, their illogic, their inanities, and their language, as distanced from real human life as if written by Martian invaders taking a sardonic turn about the room, are nothing new to me. However, this decision did manage to get my hackles up enough to write a short diatribe. What is all this about?

The Westboro Baptist Church (Baptist? a Church?) was up to its old hijinks in that on March 10, 2006 it again picketed another funeral, that of Matthew Snyder, a 21-year old Marine who gave his life for his country in Iraq. For those of you who need catching up, Westboro is an outfit founded and run by a religious maniac named Fred Phelps who claims that the deaths of American soldiers in battle are a result of the toleration of homosexuality that exists in American society. He and his small band of malicious fanatics (all relatives of the same Phelps) travel about the country picketing funerals. The signs above should provide a sense of the wackiness these servants of the Lord feel it incumbent upon them to wave about at military funerals. It should be noted that Matthew Snyder was not gay, was Catholic (another group Westboro merrily defames) and was a private person who had no part in this debate nor did any of his family.

On the day of the funeral, the group from Westboro was picketing at a distance in conformity with Maryland law. Albert Snyder, the father of the fallen Marine, saw only the tops of the signs and learned what they said after the funeral. Nonetheless, he suffered traumatic health consequences from this episode and sued Phelps and Westboro in Federal District Court in Maryland for intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other things. The District (or trial) Court decided in favor of Snyder on some of the state tort issues and awarded him $5 million in damages. The church appealed and the Fourth Circuit reversed the District Court’s decision. The case came to the United States Supreme Court on this basis. The Supreme would have to decide if the District Court or the Appellate Court was correct.

Of course, the decision in any court rests on the way that the law is construed by the courts. Since intentional infliction of emotion distress was an issue, it had to be decided if the trauma experienced by Albert Snyder was of such an extreme kind that freedom of speech itself could be held in check to protect him from experiencing it. Any reasonable person should be able to appreciate the highly emotional nature of a funeral and that it is one of the most, and maybe the most, sacred and respectful actions taken by any civilized society. Surprisingly, the only mention of funerals or their particularly profound nature made by the Supreme Court in upholding the decision of the Appellate Court is to pontificate that the character of funerals does not place them outside the orbit of the requirements of free speech doctrines. Why shouldn’t you be treated to some of the Supremes’ verbiage:

"Westboro’s choice to convey its views in conjunction with Matthew Snyder’s funeral made the expression of those views particularly hurtful to many, especially to Matthew’s father. The record makes clear that the applicable legal term—“emotional distress”—fails to capture fully the anguish Westboro’s choice added to Mr. Snyder’s already incalculable grief. But Westboro conducted its picketing peacefully on matters of public concern at a public place adjacent to a public street. Such space occupies a “special position in terms of First Amendment protection.” United States v. Grace, 461 U. S. 171, 180 (1983). “[W]e have repeatedly referred to public streets as the archetype of a traditional public forum,” noting that “‘[t]ime out of mind’ public streets and sidewalks have been used for public assembly and debate.” Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474."

Here is where law tends to go off the rails. Yes, the picketers were on a public street, peacefully protesting, but they were protesting at a FUNERAL. Context must make some difference. You are free to shout “FIRE!” but not in a crowded theatre unless there is a fire. The decision if you read it, and I recommend that you do (just follow the link) has implicit within it the notion that the law is concerned with its own internal logic and sense despite what havoc they may cause to us mortals. But there are other considerations that the logical-rational operation of Western law considers vital. The Kantian categorical imperative must be part and parcel of the law. Its prescriptions and proscriptions are universal. What is good for one is good for all. The Court could just as easily have said that the exercise of free speech stops at the horizon of the funeral. Westboro, as the only dissent by Judge Alito made plain, has a thousand other venues to express its odious opinions. I am not suggesting that Phelps and his ilk should be censored. They can shout their line from the housetops for all I care. But, for every street corner rendered unusable by the presence of a funeral, there are 10,000 other street corners where picketers are free to purvey the same filth, some of them more trafficked and more likely to get attention. There are newspapers and the Internet and so on. Just because they happen to strike upon the name of Matthew Snyder and in their maniacal logic deem his death worthy of opprobrium does not mean that they should be able to render the occasion of his funeral a subject of national discussion and personal anguish. But that is exactly what the Court has said. They blithely acknowledge attempts of states to prohibit all funeral picketing, but by the tone of that acknowledgement I am not encouraged what that future decision might be. In fact, it would seem to me that those who picket funerals should be open on principle to the torts of which Westboro was accused. That would be a much better way to control the situation than trying to solve the problem on a free speech basis or a basis of location.

The principle that the court has established is as insane as the activities of Westboro itself. (Recent news story quotes members of Westboro promising to quadruple the number of funeral protests in the wake of the Court’s decision.) The Court seems to suggest that if some group of people believes that the decision of the Court in this case is sacrilegious, it can picket the funerals of Supreme Court judges and their children with signs that say “God Punishes Disrespect” and “Families Go To Hell who Cannot Tell the Difference Between Right and Wrong” or “American Soldiers Die Because Funerals Unprotected.” Let the funeral combat begin according to the Supreme Court. Speech is such a sacred value that even respect for the dead shall not be allowed to trump it. Of course, who is kidding whom? The very wealthy could easily shield themselves from any unpleasantness, leaving the rest of us to run a gauntlet of picketers at one of life’s most trying and tender moments. In fact, a movement protesting at the funerals of the wealthy, especially bankers and stock brokers would be most apropos. My sign – “Thieves Go to Hell.” Now there’s a sentiment that meets the Court’s test for speech concerning “broad public issues.”

One last thing. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, one of the founders of Critical Legal Theory, suggests that courts can provide the necessary legal logic to justify any result. One can only wonder what the Supreme Court was thinking when it almost unanimously ratified picketing at funerals as something found within the “free exercise clause.” The conservatives on the Court probably identified with the rank homophobia of Westboro itself, and the liberals on the court salivate like Pavlov’s dog when they hear the word “speech.” One can only wonder what kind of horse trading or discussion went on in order to get to this result. This decision is either puerile or vicious, or a little of both. Two hundred thirty years of civilization and our courts cannot even protect a simple military funeral. After all is said and done, whose funeral is it?

Visual Aids for Politically-Challenged Americans

This is the coronation portrait of King George III which has had a face lift; that is, the face of that (in)famous king has been removed and replaced with the face of Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt. I have done this specifically to assist Americans who are having difficulty following the events that are going on in Egypt. The Egyptian people have had to contend with the “tyrannies,” “usurpations” and “abuses” by Mubarak and his regime for thirty years and even longer if former regimes are brought into the equation. These terms are used in our Declaration of Independence to refer to the actions of George III in order to justify the extreme step that our revolutionaries took in taking up arms against that king. Looking back today, of course, George III appears a kindly gentleman in a wig who had some bad advice and even worse public relations. But whatever he was guilty of, the American revolutionaries turned those abuses into the basis for a rhetorical flourish that to this day has left us both wonderfully inspired and terribly confused. On the one hand, the Declaration of Independence establishes the equality of all persons (using the term “men” to mean persons, we think) and yet countenances the continuation of slavery on the other. Be that as it may, what has this to do with Egypt?

The Egyptian people today are fighting an even graver battle against a dictator and regime certainly as ruthless and brutal as the redcoats of almost 250 years ago. Americans supposedly have been committed to the principles of freedom and democracy by virtue of the way that the United States came into existence. Shouldn’t the Egyptian people, or any people for that matter, have our sympathy and support when they seek the same freedom? There are, however, unfortunate barriers preventing this simple logic from operating. Those barriers include a distance in religion, ethnicity and even race, coupled with a sorry apathy among Americans that extends even to their own political and economic situation. It is my firm belief that what is going on in Egypt is a watershed moment, not only in the history of the Middle East, but in the history of the post-modern world.

The scenes out of Egypt over the past two weeks have exploded a narrative that has held sway until now without successful challenge. It includes the idea that Arabs are incapable of understanding democracy or the institutions that support it and that their Muslim faith is antagonistic to those institutions. What we witness instead is a generation of tech savvy people coming from all walks of life, from all faiths and degrees of faith, from various political shades of opinion, from all socio-economic strata, of all ages, men and women, together in a form of solidarity that is impressive by any sociological standard. The energy that we witness on the streets of Cairo and other cities wants its chance to affect events in Egypt and the world beyond through a democratic process. You hear calls for social justice because Egypt is a country with social inequalities even greater than those in the United States, and those inequalities are something with which it is difficult to compete.

Another part of this exploded narrative concerns the proclivity of Arab populations to engage in violence and terror to secure change. Concomitantly, the Muslim world has been taunted after 9/11 for calls to demonstrate that it contains moderate masses, disconcerted by the violent events in the world. Well, here is an eloquent demonstration of non-violent Muslim, even Arab, masses laying down their lives in the name of freedom. The tables are now turned. Where are the Western masses raising their voices in concern and support? Where are the Western voices taking responsibility for supporting for thirty years a regime and security service that engaged in every form of brutality? Where are the Western voices acknowledging that the Egyptian regime was a handy client who provided a venue for torture and mischief that could not be conducted on the soil of supposedly more civilized environments? Those voices until now seem rather silent.

Egypt is a nation of great contrasts and difficulties and the road to democracy is not going to be an easy one. The Muslim Brotherhood has its eye on capturing events for its benefit. But why is the Muslim Brotherhood any more dangerous than the “Christian Brotherhood” which operates under a hundred different names in the United States, is as retrograde and which supports violence against its “enemies.” Right now, we witness events which should fill us with hope and inspiration. If good people on all sides of the various divides in the world make common cause on those things with which they agree, maybe the divisions will seem less important. There are too many critical problems that need a remedy. Inflaming sectarian passions certainly is not a solution. Fostering democracy and eliminating injustice seems more apt to move us in that positive direction.

POLITE SOCIETY

In today’s New York Times, there were two editorial columns concerning the connection between the shooting in Arizona last weekend seriously wounding Congresswoman Giffords (which involved the death of six people, including a federal judge) and the violently inflammatory rhetoric that the coddling of the political right has permitted. The column by Bob Herbert hit all the right notes. The column by David Brooks was shameful, but in a career of expressing shameful opinions this was no surprise.

The sorrowful Mr. Brooks is unhappy that the media, the monolithic left wing media, has the audacity to link the actions of a maniac in Arizona with the rantings of numerous political maniacs from his side of the political spectrum. After Sarah Palin, that strong frontierswoman in Gucci, was able to publish a map with the locations of left leaning Congresspersons placed in “cross-hairs” of a gun site and still be found on the crosshairs of the political radar, speaks volumes about the level of our moral sensitivity. It is incomprehensible to me that any candidate aspiring to national political office would not have been hounded off the political stage just a few short years ago for such a gesture and shows how far down the road to political oblivion we have gone. The tactic of the old right was to scare the public with minority violence. Remember the first Bush campaign and his smearing of Governor Dukakis with the likes of Willy Horton? They have graduated from deploring the violence to encouraging it. But the accusation Mr. Brooks is making is more profound than his acting the flack for an airhead cheerleader from a backward state with gun-sized fantasies.

He wants to decouple the act of Jared Loughner, the young man who brought a gun to a political meeting in Tucson and opened fire on an innocent crowd, almost assassinating a member of Congress, from all the political gun talk and violence talk that the right wing has been so free to cast about at least for the past ten years. Sorry, Mr. Brooks, your efforts are not only wasted, they are demeaning. Having taught a class in Holocaust studies and published in that area for twenty years, his column immediately made me think of another kind of decoupling that many, particularly on the right, also attempt. That is the decoupling of anti-semitism and the Holocaust. Two thousand years of vitriolic talk and accusation mounted by church and throne in Europe and somehow there is little or no connection between the murder of millions of Jews and all that rhetoric. While we are decoupling political rhetoric from violent acts, maybe 9/11 was actually the end product of a joyride that a few dozen crazy men decided to take in order to get their names in the history books. Forget all the hate and violent talk spewed into their heads by their local Sarah Palins. What an image – the lovely and demure Ms. Palin among bearded and wild-eyed imams. At least, they are the genuine article. She is a cardboard figurine propped up by a cadre of amoral flacks and now we can add David Brooks to that list.