the newsroom

I’m infatuated with a TV show. It’s been a while. I mean, of course I watched Game of Thrones. What self-respecting fantasy writer (or aspiring fantasy writer) hasn’t? And it’s great entertainment, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no infatuation. I just like it, a lot. But this new show – it’s infatuation, moving towards love.

I doubt very much that you’ll be surprised when I tell you that the show is Aaron Sorkin’s  The Newsroom. I didn’t watch much of The West Wing – no cable at the time and the Internet was not yet all over streaming things like that – but the couple episodes I saw were enjoyable. From a distance though, it seemed like a bit of a fairytale: centrist, pragmatically progressive president making the decisions we wish the American president had been making, and showing the heart we wish he’d been showing, during the height of the Dubya debacle. In the absence of regular exposure to the show, I just never developed an attachment. I never had a chance to properly suspend disbelief.

‘Every quality, taken to extremes, becomes a weakness.’ Paulo Coelho

I’ve spent a good portion of the last week reading blogs, news and alternative news sources. It’s triggered a bit of introspection along the lines of Mr. Coelho’s quote above, and from that introspection I felt the need to try to clarify a couple thoughts.

The Easter post, part satire and part anti-religion rant, raised more ire than I usually manage to provoke (or at least that I’m aware of). Most of it arrived via my FB link or by private message/email than here in the comments, but I was ready for it. There’s no way I wrote that without an intention to provoke.

But I’m also not one that relishes contention most of the time. I have to feel pretty strongly about something to not look for a win/win solution that’s inclusive. I do recognize, however, that I, like everyone else, have the ability and propensity to become too enamored of an idea, an ideology, a quality in ourselves that we consider one of our strengths, a political position, a religious doctrine, a scientific or academic school of thought, etcetera, etcetera. It is not an affliction that is unique to any one demographic or another. Even those who cherish science, objectivity and reason above all (while pointing at emotion, empathy and metaphysics as foolish self-delusions) things can become entrenched in those concepts to a degree that excludes other valid possibilities. We are all susceptible to the dynamic.

I think we find it attractive because sometimes the journey gets tiring and we just want desperately to believe that we can find that one internal or external position that will allow us to stop exploring. That place where we can say, “I’m finally here”, and that, in that place, we’ll find some rest. But that concept is, I think, mostly an illusion - a mirage.

For sure, there will be, and should be, times when we rest for awhile, but the journey never really ends. We may find refuges and oases at times, and we probably need them when we get there, but the real challenge is knowing to move on after we’ve had that rest instead of trying to settle in as if we’d ‘arrived’.

That was one of my thoughts. The other involves the concept of synthesis as opposed to extremism.

In my first year of under-grad studies, while I was taking all of those ubiquitous survey courses, I was struck by the trend in each discipline for schools of thought to develop around specific approaches, discoveries or styles. Each new paradigm would be based on the ground gained by the one before it, and yet the new paradigm ended up being branded as contrary to the one prior, and a mutually-exclusive dynamic would rear its ugly head resulting in temporary stagnation. This process would continue, spawning school of though after school of thought, until some bright person would come along and try to form a synthesis of all the best aspects of these “disparate” schools of thought.

I always gravitated towards the synthesis concept more than any other one school because, well, it just made more sense. Concepts of amalgamation tend to be more open and dynamic. Constructed on the assumption that ideas that have come before have something to contribute, and that a combination of ideas can be more complete than any separate component can be, the synthesis perspective tends to be (in theory) perpetually inclusive in design, always looking for the next bit of discovery or revelation that will help fill in a bit more of the picture.

I hold pretty strong ideas regarding the nature of institutions whether they are religious, social, bureaucratic, educational or political. I doubt that this disclosure comes as a surprise if you’ve read anything here or know me. I liken any institution to trying to make one specific wave permanent…

That said I also realize that my position on institutions is hardly ultimate or inviolate. We need institutions like laws and courts and representational democracy in a pluralistic society with high population density. I recognize that multiple perspectives are required in a system so that debate can occur; that the progress of ideas occurs through the process of exploration, disagreement and discourse; that diversity is a good thing. I like those ideas. I just don’t like the manifestations of those ideas that we are currently working with and under. If we’re open enough, I think that we’ll be able to evolve past them, but we have to be open to the evolution and not fight it so much.

I wish, sometimes, that it was easier for us as a species to remember and practice that cooperative approach of synthesis. I wish we’d save “you’re wrong” for really special occasions and look for what’s right more often, even if we can only see a little piece in the larger whole. I wish we’d look for a middle path of symbiosis instead of investing so much energy in trying to steer left or right. I wish we’d include instead of exclude. I wish we didn’t need a “them” in order to simply be “us”.

And I hope that I’ll never forget that in front of my own mirror is the best place to renew this wish.


As a side note, I like the idea of this:

‘Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?’ Facebook Fansite Page, 02.04.10

Yesterday a Facebook group started asking this very question and inviting people to join up. By the time I found it yesterday afternoon membership had already exceeded 45,000. This morning it has exceeded 64,000 fans and is growing at a rate in excess of 1000 fans per hour.

‘Free advice is worth the price.’ Robert Half (part deux)

Dear Mr. Obama,

Whew, you’ve been one busy beaver (in Canada that’s not dirty) this week: The SOTU, dangling the spending freeze, then this latest, the question and answer period in the dragon’s den. Er, I men, the congressional GOP room. It made for some exciting television unless you include the media coverage. (Couldn’t we just outlaw big media? They suck.) I managed to avoid most of the infotainment coverage however, and stayed with online feeds as much as possible. I visited my mom yesterday and she had CNN on, but I managed to escape with only a slight hemorrhage behind one eyeball and felt gratified by the knowledge that I’d squeaked out of a really close call.

Although I know you didn’t read my last missive, I think we were on the same wavelength on a few points. In the spirit of bi-partisan ship, even if I don’t qualify for that dynamic on account of my Canadian-ness, I thought I’d write another note to let you know how it all went down in my eyes, and to offer some more free advice. This also allows me to re-use a quote, which I love doing – it always makes me feel cheap and dirty in a sexy kind of way…

Anyway, in regards to the SOTU, I have to say that you almost lost me. The first half of the speech was so… so… motivating, but in an anti-motivating, ‘I’m listening to a speech intended for ten-year olds’ kind of way. And all of those disingenuous and fallacious standing ovations by a bunch of middle-aged corrupt men and women? Blech… It made my teeth hurt a bit in the way gorging on Halloween candy does. I was ready to rush myself to the hospital at one point to demand a shot of insulin. Instead, I said just about this very thing on the Whitehouse FB page and felt immediately better.

That desperate act allowed me to hang on for the second half of the speech which was, I’ve got to say, much better. When you started calling them out, each group, one by one, and instead of cheers garnered mutters and grumbles, then you had me. The looks on the faces of the Joint Chiefs and the Supreme Court made me feel giddy. And when you finally got around to threatening all of their corrupt asses by targeting the lobbyist system? That was beautiful, man, just beautiful. Like I said in my last letter, I think you’ll know that you’re getting somewhere when they all hate you utterly.

And the GOP question and answer session? Well, the Whitehouse blurb called your performance “inspiring”, but my impression fell a bit short of that. Gutsy, for sure, and very adequate. You did a hell of a job there, no doubt. I’ll be inspired when you do the same thing, just as publically, with the DNC representatives. When you call “your team” to the carpet just as directly and vociferously, then I’ll really be impressed. One of the CNN pundits suggested this very thing, in fact, but said that you should do it behind closed doors “obviously”. Not obviously, not at all. Make it public. Be a real leader and expect, nay demand, more of those on your side of the room than of those in opposition to you by ideological default.

Which brings me to today’s free (and worth every penny, dammit) advice.

I think you need to go much, much farther. Frankly, while the SOTU touched on a few nerves, you stopped shy of where I’d have enjoyed seeing you go. Too much wiggle room, my friend, too much. Same with dressing down only one side of the room in the Q&A: Not far enough by far. Thus, my advice to you, the thing that, I think, would make you an instant icon and the adored leader of the majority of the country, is the following:

Go independent. I’ll say it again: Cut your ties to the DNC and go independent.

No, seriously, I’m not kidding. It was the independent voters that elected you after all, so drop this façade of partisanship altogether and send the congress and senate a real message. You’ve been so politic in the way you’ve criticized the DNC and I think that you have to drop the gloves with them the way you’ve been willing to with the GOP. I think that, as much as I know that it might be political suicide, you should give the American population a sure sign that you are beholden to no one other than them, so take all of the red and blue ties out of your closet. Go with some really cool colors or, for serious occasions (they all seem to be serious ones these days), try some nice gray ones. And that’s only if you absolutely have to wear one because, like I suggested last time, those of us that think the system is a joke hate ties anyway.

You told the GOP representatives that you weren’t an ideologue and I like that. It mirrors much of the “whatever works” rhetoric from your book and I prefer believing that you are serious about that stance, so take that final great big leap and declare it to the country and the world in a tangible way. I’ll even give you a politically expedient out: If you really think that you can win a second term, wait until after the next election. Frankly, considering how massive your bottom-up support was, I can conceive of you running as an independent and winning. Now wouldn’t that be historic?

You keep saying that you want bi-partisan support, cooperation, and a non-partisan attitude, and this way you could really, really show you mean it. You could condemn the whole system then, without any doubt that you consider both sides of the aisle equally complicit in the corruption. You could declare a level of Presidential autonomy that would eliminate any appearance of ideological favoritism or compromise. I’d stand up and cheer. Hell, I’d apply for citizenship (whatever little hope I have that you can really change things down there, it is infinitely larger than the faith I have that Canadian politics can ever be redeemed). I’ll go straight to the border and swear my allegiance to the flag right there, and I hate, hate nationalism (outside of amateur junior hockey) with a passion, so I’m talking about a real sacrifice here.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s too soon; it would eliminate any chance to accomplish anything; I’d lose any momentum I have and betray the responsibility I have to put the public interest first; they aren’t ready for it yet. Excuses, all of them. Well, maybe not, but I keep hoping that you can be to the “last remaining super-power” (who the hell came up with that and how can they ignore China?) what Gorbachev was to the USSR. Break the broken system so much that something new has to be constructed to replace it. Shake ‘em up so bad they can’t go on like they have. Make it impossible to continue down this path of denial and corruption, and possible to actually move forward.

Then you might really change things. Aw hell, that might actually change the world.

Yours sincerely,

Michael

CC. The Whitehouse

‘Free advice is worth the price.’ Robert Half

Dear Barack Obama,

On this, the day of your 2010 State of the Union address, I would like to offer you some free advice regarding your speech.

First and foremost, shoot from the hip. We all know you could talk the garter off of a nun, but speak plainly this time. By all means, exercise your rhetorical skills and impress us, but do so as if you were speaking over coffee or a couple beers. Don’t spin anything or try to dazzle. Frankly, as inspiring as you can be, the shtick is getting a bit old. You need to be heard being sincere, not presidential; plain, not fancy. The people that elected you are pretty plain, you see. They are the moderate, independent middle of everything. They are the disenfranchised that saw in you and your beautiful speeches the possibility of a politician that was not one. Someone who saw what they saw.

So be that guy again. Talk plainly, even coarsely. I myself think that you should swear a few times. You should say ‘bullshit’ at least three times, and one of those should be in a sentence in which you are describing the disingenuous and partisan practices of the Republican Party. You could also call your own party to task while you’re on that topic, maybe throw in an F-bomb when describing how frustrating it was to watch your own party’s congressmen tear apart your health care bill like hyena’s squabbling over a kill, each one taking a nibble to appease one of their big money/no conscience, financial backers, leaving a proposal that is ultimately neutered.

And ‘balls’… use the word ‘balls’. As in: ‘I promise to grow a pair of balls in my second year as your president’. I mean, I truly admire the commitment you have made to non-partisanship, but come on; the GOP will be pouting over their loss for at least another six years, even if things continue as they have been and they reclaim the Whitehouse in three, so offer the olive branch every time and, when they blubber and cry about how unfair it all is, take it back and hit them over the head with it. Perhaps repeated concussions will improve their IQ.

I mean, I know that there isn’t really any difference between the Dems and the Reps, the blue and the red. Pretty much all of the elected officials (oh, please not you too – say it ain’t so) have corporate and special interest hands so far up their asses that they are practically muppets (to muppets everywhere – I apologize for the insult), but we, even those of us who just watch and have no say in US politics, all hoped so hard that you’d be different, that you’d do what you said, walk what you talked. I read your book, read and listened to your speeches and, dammit, I still want to believe that one person can beat the odds, make it all the way up there without completely selling out, and when they have the chance, will actually use it to make a real difference. I want to still believe that.

I want to believe what you said in your book about rising above it all, about throwing the old school out and ushering in a new era in the way politicians can work in service to their country instead of using their country and position in their own service. I thought you might be that guy. Lord knows, plenty of your fellow Americans thought you were that guy too; someone that actually cared more about getting shit done than what the polls said; someone who would sacrifice a second term if that’s what it would take to get the job done. You made them think you really care. Don’t let them down, okay?

So this is your chance to turn it around. Don’t wear a tie (I distrust people that wear ties), and go for that town hall look, only grubbier. Be earnest and sincere and that adorable bit of a geek that you are. Most of all, tell it like it is – no varnish, no illusion, no misdirection – just that facts. And then, after you say it, actually do it this time and damn the torpedoes. Do it not because it’s politically efficacious, but because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s honest and real. Be that guy and they’ll follow you. Right now they can sense the fear and smell the ubiquitous stench of the bullshit. You can’t keep doing that and think there will be a legacy worth leaving behind. Do something that’ll make the bad guys mad, mad enough to take a shot at you, and then you’ll know that at least you’re doing it with gusto.

The fact is, everyone that was so enamored of you back in November of 2008 is still waiting to see the guy in office that they saw in the campaign, and they are eager to follow that guy! So be him again. Start tonight. Take off the gloves and fancy ties and the smart suit jacket and put on a baseball cap and talk to them. They’ll follow if you can be strong enough to lead them. I promise.

And we, the rest of the world, will be hopeful too, if you do and they do, because if someone can actually redeem the US, then there’s definitely hope for everyone else.

Yours sincerely (mostly),

Michael

‘I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.’ Charles De Gaulle (1890 - 1970)

There has been a deluge of pundit opinions regarding Mr. Obama’s (that’s right, ‘Mr.’… he isn’t my president) administration’s first year in office lately, especially in light of the recent senate elections in Massachusetts and the even more recent declaration of a spending cap. The range of these opinions varies, from those that have declared Obama’s administration an utter failure through those who see problems and issues, but have not called it DOA just yet. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is saying that his administration has done a stellar job.

With the election of a Republican senator in perhaps the most Democratic state in the union, the Democrats have lost their super majority in the Senate and may (will) now be subject to the unpleasant reality of endless filibusters, effectively crippling the Senate of any efficacy whatsoever. In retrospect, some of the pundits are saying, Obama should have used the majority to ram his measures through, but that opportunity has now been lost.  Of course, this ignores the reality that he had to ram things through the Congress to get it to the Senate, and that proved impossible enough. Too many Democratic Congressmen were drooling too much at the thought of all of the political might they had, and how much they could translate that into favor for themselves and their election campaign contributors, to make any real effective use of said might. In essence, Obama’s own party undermined whatever efforts he was making. Of course, there wasn’t a supportive Republican to be found anywhere, they of the corporate right refusing to do anything but pout and point fingers.

And so, facing the first real crisis of faith in his presidency, Mr. Obama reacts by announcing a spending cap to appease whoever finds that decision appeasing. The first year in office showed that the administration’s offense was weak and ineffectual. This year has started with a demonstration of an equally fragile defense.

I’m not ready to call the Obama administration a failure. He does, after all, have three years to fix things a bit, and I haven’t forgotten that he inherited this ridiculous mess rather than create it. That said, a tragic history is only an excuse until you admit it and recognize it; then it either becomes motivation to not repeat that history, or a crutch to mitigate responsibility.

I also remember that Mr. Obama and his sidekicks are politicians. When he won in November of ’08 I told everyone that would listen to not forget that simple fact. For all of his fine words and inarguable rhetorical ability, there is no way that Mr. Obama and his handlers maneuvered him into a position to claim the Oval Office without him being a fierce political animal. He still believes in a system that is corrupt to the core and devoid of integrity, and that makes him corrupt too.

While many thought he would be immune to that dynamic, at the best of times I hoped he would simply be less corrupt. Now I’m not so sure. I’m still hopeful in an “I’m not in denial at all” kind of way, but that hope is eroding. While I still believe he was the better choice in ’08 (I respect McCain, but nobody would have been able to handle another 4 years of corporate and military  cocksucking the likes of which George W and Dick were capable of, and which the Republicans would have no doubt forced their candidate to engage in), I’m sadly back in the place where I recognize that saying the Democrats are better than the Republicans is like saying that the second rung on a thousand-foot ladder is higher than the first rung – there just isn’t much of a difference, and rock bottom is still within easy reach.

Maybe Jefferson was right and we do need a real, old-fashioned revolution. I’d vote for a bloodless one born out of the consciences of the masses, a grass-roots effort to promote equality and egalitarianism, but I think we’re getting to the point where we can’t be too picky. Or maybe Obama’s administration can pull this out of the fire…. If they have the will to do so.

That, folks, is a mighty big ‘if’.

“The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.” Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)

I was talking to a friend about this concept recently, that there is really, despite what the media might want to suggest, very little ideological difference between the right and left in North America, whether we’re talking about the USA or Canada. The differences in policy and ideological underpinnings are so infinitesimal as to be irrelevant when viewed against the backdrop of the greater ideological spectrum.

The conversation made me grumpy, so I’m getting a little political today.

I remember seeing a diagram in PoliSci 101 in the which the ideological spectrum was drawn as a circle. Pure democracy was at the top of the circle and totalitarianism was at the very bottom with the traditional delineations of ‘right’ and ‘left’ fitting onto the spectrum.

The relative ideological positions of the US Republicans and Democrats were nearly on top of each other just to the right top dead center, while the Canadian parties were stumbling over each other just over and to the left of top dead center. An inset magnifying this area of the circle was required to show the specific relative ideological positions because there just wasn’t enough room in the tight space they were crammed into to make a ledger readable in the larger view of the whole spectrum.

I remind myself of this whenever I am watching any of the infotainment channels at somebody’s house – that there is no legitimate difference between the right and left except that which the media and government magnify and blow out of proportion to give us the illusion that there is actual debate and opposition occurring in government. There isn’t.

The first step to making change is recognizing the truth. Seeing the truth doesn’t solve the problem, but knowing it’s there is a start. At least when we are aware and have taken the blinders off, we know that we have to start looking for some solution. There are some pretty smart people out there working on solutions, (and they aren’t in government) but even their hard work is useless unless we, the people, are in a place to participate when the time comes.

In the mean time we can at least open our eyes and start putting pressure on the governments that do exist to quit being so smug and to start actually working on behalf of the people that elected them instead of the people that paid for the campaigns.

Who did you think government works for?

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.” Frank Herbert

I'm going to start something new today. I've been thinking about it a fair bit since my November 11th Noam Chomsky quote of the day, and in particular since I received a couple of the responses to it. It struck me then that, while my chosen quotes meant something to me, and always something positive to my train of thinking, some of them might not always seem so positive to the people that see them on Facebook.

We all perceive the world through our own 'lenses', and if somebody else's lens converted the quote into a negative for them, then my purpose in posting was being lost in translation. Considering that the only thing I seem to be any good at is communicating (and that might even be a reach), the last thing I wanted to be doing was miscommunicate simply because I was to lazy to post what I got from a quote and what i thought it meant.

So here I am, trying to be less lazy. Now I have less than 100 words left, so I should get on with it.

Mr. Herbert's quote is a bit vague, which I suppose makes it more interesting. I hear him saying to be wary of those who have one set agenda, or hold too dogmatically to one proscribed path to success. His point, to me, is that the reasoning mind, no matter how much we might think that we've found a belief system or ideology or philosophy that works, will always remain open to new concepts and ideas. Learning should never end, and to close ourselves to ideas that don't necessarily fit with our comfortable world view can be dangerously lazy.