Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Tom Lord]

    > From: nadim <address@hidden>

    > - You are talking quite a lot about things happening outside the
    > US. It is certainly unconscious but that's a way of _not_
    > talking about what is happening in the US.

It's very hard for any of us to tell what's going on in the US.  It's
a big place and different regions are very, well, different.  We don't
have hundreds of years of tradition about travel and reception of
visitors.  We mostly hear about one another the same way you hear
about us: on TV (or, for the intellektooals, the radio, papers and
other periodicals).

Jblack mentioned that my perception of a polarized country might be
mistaken: colored by where I live.

Here are some rough impressions:

I live in Berkeley, home to a very educated population and a wide
range of economic classes; home to a major university; home to both
sharply conservative and deeply progressive voters; home to the free
speech movement; home to people's park (a small city block that was
seized from the university of california by anarchic protestors in the
60s and retains some of that status still, although a bit papered over
these days); birthplace of "New American Cuisine" (buy high quality,
fresh, locally produced food and don't mess it up too much when you
cook it --- as someone said of the nominal founder of the movement,
Alice Waters, "That's not cooking; that's shopping!"); home of a city
rent control law so strong and challenging to the elite that it took
conservatives about 20 years to gut the law by overriding it at the
state level; a city who's legislature (a city council) regularly
passes resolutions expressing an opinion on usian foreign policy (and
on international affiars generally); home to the cold-war-shaped (and
subsequently (and ongoingly), Berkeley-reshaped) lawerence-berkeley
labs where oppenheimer's regretful ghost roams the halls); birthplace
of alan ginsberg's poem "America" ("America I've given you all and now
I'm nothing./America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17,
1956./ I can't stand my own mind. / America when will we end the human
war? / Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. / ...."), Berkeley where
several of the beat poets gathered anonymously to watch art films at
the Fine Arts Cinema, first repertory house, later a porn theater
after the murder (recently torn down -- the effort to declare it a
historic building failed); birthplace of BSD; birthplace, as the joke
goes, to commodity LSD (but it is a coincidence, after all, owsley
couldn't hack code and came years too early); home to zoning laws that
ensure the existence of affordable studio space for artists (though
this is under attack); one of the densest and more diverse populations
of religious institutions anywhere in the country; home to no shortage
of nobel prize winners and others of similar credentials; home to
peet's coffee and the "berkeley bowl" grocery store featuring
fair-trade imports, organic food, and constant crowds of customers
(many from outside of berkeley).

I have traveled through many US states albeit most very briefly and
most long ago.  I've been treated rudely (but that's the limit of it)
for having long hair more times than I can count.  I've passed near
the town where Matthew Shepherd was crucified for being gay (which is
not _that_ far from where a cowboy poet penned lyrics from the
Grateful Dead which is in turn not that far from where Hunter Thompson
intimidates strangers away from his crazy world with displays of
madness and guns).  I've lived in western Pennsylvania where, a bit
more than a century ago, workers lost their lives fighting the hired
goons of strike-busting Carnegie but now, population dwindling,
reclaimed property can be purchased from the city for mere hundreds of
dollars -- yet kerry's wife's capitalist progenitor's friends cling to
now isolated and pointless expensive properties.  I've visited the
Orwellian Disney theme-park compounds, paddled through rural wetlands
in Florida, hiked the Grand Canyon, witnessed first-hand the scarring
of the land at Mt. Rushmore, noted the sculpture of Tesla next to the
power plant driven by Niagra falls, made excursions to Quebec and
Toronto, visited two of the burroughs of New York City, graduated the
same prep school as George W. Bush, idled away days and days of my
youth in Boston and Cambridge marveling at buskers including the chess
guy who survives by playing low-dollar speed chess games in Harvard
square, had my bags searched by a suspicious guard in a Harvard
library, admired the Bush compound in Kennebunkport as a child --
shortly after Bush senior became CIA director, witnessed the
contrasting shapes (a symptom of relative age and differing tectonic
circumstance) between east and west coast beaches, been eyed
suspiciously by an Iowa cop as I drove my uhaul across country in
search of recovery after the disaster at Cygnus, been eyed suspicially
and rigorously searched by customs guards as i returned from amsterdam
and london to dallas texas wearing tie-dye and purple pants,
encountered the culture of affluent greater los angeles and wondered
where exactly the boundary around disneyland was, got "caught" (but
not busted) smoking a joint in the back seat as we drove into
california (they only wanted to be sure we weren't bringing deadly
pest-laden apples).

Have I mentioned poverty (including mine)?  I've dragged myself
through "the angry negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix"
(Ginsberg) wondering if I'd be shot, stabbed, or beaten up.  I've been
held up at gunpoint, had my house broken into, been spat on by a
homeless Vietnam Nam vet as well as bythe post-pubescent kid of the
richest guy in town.  I've talked down junkies and crazies on the
street.  Shared my share of cigarettes.  Smelled how people smell
after weeks with no access to bathing.  Smelled how kitchens smell
after years of nothing but bargain-basement froot-drink and boxes of
macaroni and cheese.  Been persued endlessly by creditors.  Been
refused meaningful treatment by a doctor hired by my employer for a
workplace injury.  Wear glasses that are out of date and falling
apart, have worn shoes down to the point where they are just the idea
of a shoe.  None of that is the true meaning of poverty in the US for
that subset of the poor (not me) who inherited that condition as their
lifelong condition and that of everyone they know: The true meaning of
poverty in the US for those folks is exposure to overt and suddenly
deadly violence, yes -- but more usually, deprivation of health care,
crappy food, unhealthy living places, hostile civic policy, the
normalization of an expectation that you'll spend some time in jail
before your 30th birthday or have a friend who will: all that barely
balanced against a community of johnsons you can rely on (even though
they lack resources to do much more than commiserate and not cooperate
with the police).  Not to be romanticized, by a long stretch, but when
shit hits fan I know which neighborhoods are ready to fight the good
fight.  Again.

Did I mention wealth?  As I said, I graduated from the same prep
school as our president.  I've been shuffled around "privleged"
meetings with numerous industry movers and shakers.  I've sat in on
meetings with board members, founders, investors, luminaries and
pundits.  As a rule, with definate exceptions, cautious to a flaw.
Reactionary when confused.  Offended by dissent.  Protective of
position first, concerned about others as a hobby or secondary
avocation.  Schooled, not educated.  Poor taste in food.  Poor taste
in visual art, music, furniture, and cologne.  Minds barely attached
to bodies.  A wealth of possesions; a poverty of appreciation and
intellect.  Able to "zoom in" and actually feel life for an occaision
-- like a dinner announced in advance to be prepared by a skilled chef
or a wine reputed in advance to be worth drinking -- but otherwise,
simply not all there, most of the time.

I've been around more than your average bear.  I've seen a lot of this
country.

My take?

Many of the people are mostly not insane.  Many, many have both open
minds and a deep connection to their particular legacy of traditions,
so it can get a bit spicy at times.  Our capacity for overt
intolerance ("my tradition is the only one that's right") combined
with implicit tolerance ("i'm just sayin', is all.   no need to get
excited about it") is stunning.

At the same time, econmics and so much land created suburbs and
enclaves, both wealthy and less so.  And these places and
circumstances create both a crazy detachment from everyone not there
and an economic desparation to do nearly anything at all to be able to
keep living there.  Post-industrialism created people so alienated
from their labor and heritage and the mass of humanity they don't have
any cultural rememberence of any alternative and easily fall into
patterns of complete and hostile mistrust of anyone different.  The
suburbs and enclaves are all too often narrowly culturally homogenous:
these are the most scary ones.  Many, many pockets of them are stone
cold crazy, confirming your worst stereotypes of USians.

Mass culture and, especially, internet-influenced culture (which is
much, much larger than the internet itself) is, oddly enough, one of
the best hopes.  The stone-cold crazy ones can't control what their
kids see.  (Hey, kids: yes, you're parents are dumb.  Gently excuse
yourself from their baggage, please.)  This is a good thing.  (And,
ironically, it's a cliche in the US that the Internet is politically
cool because it can help to liberate _China_.)

And in politics?  Bush is not legitimate during this term in the sense
that he does not really representative but, the actual vote (due to
apathy and transient misplaced enthusiasm) was too close.  This year?
There is no legitimate (in all senses) outcome possible other than his
removal from office.  I've interacted with way too many people over
the years and I'm certain that while I'm wrong about some of them, I'm
not _that_ wrong about _that_ many.  So if he is isn't peacefully
trounced in this election: shit has hit fan, big time.

Beyond that: popular discourse still mired in sound-bites from the
cold war and then the 1970s and 1980s.  People just _barely_ starting
to wake up to facts like: hmm... maybe there's some connection between
crappy health care and the dominating influence of anti-welfare-state
rhetoric.  Labor organization not on most people's maps.  Foreign
policy in cartoonish terms in spite of dead kids shipped home.  

But those contradictions, a few months ago implicit in the popular
discourse but unmentionable directly, are starting to become the
first-class topic of discussion.  It's starting to be ok to talk about
them.  My sense is: there is an inkling, these days, of a popular
return to common sense and direct observation.  In short, there's
_some_ hope.   Michael Moore (watch the flames, now :-) is neither
ineffectual nor unique.

(BTW, don't put _too_ much stock into surveys like "most americans
think [the world is flat, or whatever]."  One thing we can't stand
around here is strangers interrupting us to ask questions they have no
business asking.  Many people really are that dumb but many other
people, I'm certain, are just fucking with the poll-takers.  Wouldn't
you?)


    > PS: any answer to this mail should be private. 

Or not.

    > The intent of this mail not to give opinion about the thread but
    > help (if possible) refocus so it doesn't die on it's own.

-t


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