Baffling

So, after noting the utter predictability of the Democratic fold on FISA and telcom retroactive immunity, Greenwald writes:

But what is somewhat baffling in all of this is just how politically stupid and self-destructive their behavior is. If the plan all along was to give Bush everything he wanted, as it obviously was, why not just do it at the beginning? Instead, they picked a very dramatic fight that received substantial media attention. They exposed their freshmen and other swing-district members to attack ads. They caused their base and their allies to spend substantial energy and resources defending them from these attacks.

And now, after picking this fight and letting it rage for weeks, they are going to do what they always do -- just meekly give in to the President, yet again generating a tidal wave of headlines trumpeting how they bowed, surrendered, caved in, and lost to the President. They're going to cast the appearance that they engaged this battle and once again got crushed, that they ran away in fear because of the fear-mongering ads that were run and the attacks from the President. They further demoralize their own base and increase the contempt in which their base justifiably holds them (if that's possible). It's almost as though they purposely picked the path that imposed on themselves all of the political costs with no benefits.

Glen, that's because the Democratic base is, if anything, more craven than their leaders. They keep coming back, year after year after year of this nonsense. Anybody but Bush!! Anybody but Bush!! (Except Nader.) Just who holds who in contempt, really?

Cloverfield

So I just watched the movie Cloverfield, and I really have to say that the tacky and exploitive allusions to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in atomic bomb explosions make the Godzilla movies entirely inappropriate and tasteless.

Ahem... Which is to say that the hand-wringing over supposed 9-11 references found in many of the reviews of Cloverfield is just more narcissism from Americans who have no sense of the horror that we've unleashed on the rest of the world. How much hand-wringing do we get over using the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for our cheap Sunday morning entertainment? (PIX! PIX! PIX! PIX! PIX!--to situate myself generationally and geographically for those in the exact same demographic.)

Cloverfield is an exploitive and rather forgettable monster movie, with flashy special effects and very little to say about the world we live in. Get over it.

Sunday tunes: Whities dancing edition

Lest I offend, let me first preface by saying that some of my best friends and family are honkies...

Living in Austin, TX, many moons ago I caught a great show from South African "township jive" or "mbaqanga" group Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens at a club that I'm pretty sure no longer exists called Liberty Lunch. The belated "Lion of Soweto," as at least his promotional material dubs him, was on his first American tour and put on one bass-and-drum heavy, kick-ass show. During a break between songs, Mahlathini addressed the crowd:

Mahlathini: Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is great to be here on our first American tour!

Crowd: Woooooooooo!!!!

Mahlathini: I have to tell you, when I told my friends that I was coming to America, they said "No, no, don't go to America!"

Crowd: Woooooooo..... Waaaaah?

Mahlathini: And so I said, "Why not go to America?" And they said, "Because in America, everyone dances like this!"

(Mahlathini does hilarious physical caricature of Caucasian Benign Arrhythmic Dance Syndrome--or C-BADS)

Crowd: awwwww....

Mahlathini: But! But! But! I am so very happy to say that is not true!

Crowd: WOOOOOO!!!!!

Mahlathini: For some of you!

The following is not Mahlathini performing for honky Texans, it is instead the late, great Fela Kuti performing for some Europeans of unknown variety (and on an unknown date). Yet, it appears to my eye that C-BADS is a perhaps a transatlantic disease.

Sunday Tunes: Wattstax edition

Some tunes from the documentary Wattstax, centered around the August 20, 1972 concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the Watts Riots, but also including commentary from Richard Pryor and, somewhat oddly to later eyes, Ted Lange (who would go on to play Isaac, the bartender from "The Love Boat"), as well as a panoply of Watts residents. Put on by the premier label of southern soul, Memphis, Tennessee's Stax Records, home of Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MGs, William Bell, The Mar Keys, Johnnie Taylor, the Sweet Inspirations, Eddie Floyd, and many others, including of course everybody below.

The rest of the vids are live performances, but the movie opens with The Dramatics: What You See Is What You Get, one of my favorite tunes from that era of Stax, so I include it in spite of my general predilection for live music in these posts:


The rest of these are presented out of chronological order due to rationales that I will explain. Rufus Thomas, here doing The Funky Chicken, was part of duet that first garnered Stax the attention of Atlantic Records, which led to a distribution deal allowing Stax to expand much more than they might have in the earlier years and also led to Atlantic artists Aretha Franklin and Sam & Dave to come record in the Stax studios with house band Booker T. and the MGs, producing a number of hits for the former and almost all the significant charting tunes for the latter. So, Rufus gets first ups (nothing bad happens to the dude at end, I'm pretty sure):


The other half of that early duo with Rufus? His daughter Carla Thomas. Here she is with Pick Up the Pieces:


Appearing for the second time here at Sunday Tunes, the Staple Singers, with Respect Yourself, garner the middle slot by process of elimination solely:


The headliner for the evening was Isaac Hayes, who prior to his own recording career taking off with Hot Buttered Soul, his second album, was songwriter with David Porter for many of those aforementioned Sam & Dave hits and, after Atlantic severed its relationship with Stax and pulled Sam & Dave out of the Stax studies--basically never to be heard from again, the Soul Children, among others. Some of you young'uns might remember him better as the culinary artist forced to abandon his vocation because of his religious beliefs. Anyway, here he is near or at the height of his popularity with the Theme from Shaft, introduced by Jesse Jackson:


Finally, if you thought Isaac's look was 70's outre (how does one add accent egouts in blogger?) check the Bar-Kays in the following. But, what do you expect from "the son of a bad..." "Shut your mouth!"? Son of Shaft is the tune, which explains its placement (fans of Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back might recognize a sample or two from this clip):

Random thoughts from my regular job: Lit-crit bull-shit

[much much later update, as in no longer blogging update:
I just exchanged a few emails with Ms. Eoff, and she makes clear that she was a graduate student at the time the quote below was written and was herself frustrated at the academic culture requiring this kind of writing. I apologized to her in private and do so again here. All other individuals derided on this blog remain derided.]

"William Gibson's Virtual Light: The Conversational Construction of Chevette Washington," by Amy K. Eoff:

Femininity is a social construct. Science Fiction is a literary construct. In William Gibson's "Virtual Light", femininity and science fiction intersect in the person of the protagonist Chevette Washington. Chevette is a woman built of words. A feminine, literary construct in a science fiction novel. The writer, the narrator, other characters, and Chevette herself employ words, specifically conversation, to build her physicality, personality, and selfhood. Chevette Washington is both a personality and an act of discourse to examine. I apply both speech act theory and conversation analysis to "Virtual Light", arguing that William Gibson endorses and advances the concept of total personhood proposed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her famous 1892 speech "The Solitude of Self"...

This passage just forced an end to my workday due to the contusions I suffered as head repeatedly met desk. Normally when I mention my job here, it will more likely be in reference to propaganda and obfuscations found in history, economics, political science, and similar fields (i.e. the productions of Chomsky's "New Mandarins"), but I had to highlight this because it demonstrates two particular things I loathe about lit-crit. A) I find it far more likely that Professor Eoff "endorses and advances the concept of total personhood proposed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton" than I find believable the proposition that Gibson's cyberpunk is based on the speeches of 19th century feminists.* B) How can one make one's living working with literature and still manage to write in such a stultifying manner? That's the opening paragraph for crissakes!

* [added later] Not that I necessarily wish to abuse the "concept of total personhood"** and perhaps an argument could be made that Gibson's writings, or at least his creation of Chevette Washington as "both a personality and an act of discourse" echoes Stanton's views. But "endorses and advances"? Puhleaze. What I'm saying is that lit-crit is far too often an excuse to advance whatever the politico-cultural agenda of the academic may be rather than any thing that actually may be found in the text. I mean, sure, one can always find multiple meanings in texts, dependent on the receiving audience, the temporal and cultural contexts, yada, yada, yada, but it hardly means that every bit of meaning later readers can extract in order to advance towards tenure was consciously intended by the author and, contra academe, the intentions of the author remain important for assessing a book.

** Of course one might want to assess Stanton's "concept of total personhood" against comments such as this: "With the black man we have no new element in government, but with the education and elevation of women, we have a power that is to develop the Saxon race into a higher and nobler life." [emphasis mine] (From Ishmael Reed's criticism of the Clintons' racist-tinged Obama bashing, which I recommend while simultaneously reserving the right to bash Obama as a cog of the imperialist machine. Yes, not as bad as either of the Clintons, but his identical voting record with the NY Senator on funding the war and his comments on the campaign trail concerning military actions against Iran and Pakistan leads me to suspect that his relative lack of warmongering enthusiasm*** is only due to "lack of experience.")

*** Shockingly suggesting, for example, that dropping nuclear bombs on small terrorist camps in ostensibly allied countries--camps no doubt unerringly identified by that ever-reliable creature operating under the nom-de-guerre of the "US Intelligence Community"--might not be the wisest course. Hillary used this blindingly-obvious-to-all-but-the-most-monstrous observation to suggest that Obama was not ready for imperial prime time: "Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons," Clinton said. "Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons"****

**** What? You would prefer endless parentheticals?

Belated Sunday tunes...

Sugar Minott: Herbsman Hustling


Barrington Levy: Here I Come

Random thoughts from my regular job: Stakeholders

I hate with a passion the relatively new capitalist--and now apparently imperialist (but I'm getting to that... and of course they're related)--apologist/obscurantist term "stakeholders," which is intended to defuse popular global calls for democratic control over their own lives in the political and economic spheres, where such call exist in any strength.

I come across it a lot in the economics literature that crosses my desk. Also, significantly, in the reports that are issued by the United Nations, the international monetary institutions, by the US government (although more so under Clintonites than Bushies), European governments, and governments toadying up to the "Washington Consensus." A "stakeholder," for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, is any party who may have some concern in some "development" activity: the profiteers, the government, the international development complex......and.......the workers together with the regular other folks in the neighborhood who might get polluted, displaced by dams and such, have their farms sprayed with unwanted pesticides, be subject to destabilizing forest cuts that might lead to landslides on their head, watch their marshlands disappear no longer to protect them from hurricanes, and, well shit if you extend the metaphor to its logical conclusion, all the poor coastal people all around the world who are well and truly fucked when those ice caps melt (Alexander Cockburn, much as I generally approve of him, notwithstanding*). So right there's the pernicious thing about the term "stakeholder." It places these parties of unequal power on the same unequal playing field; it mishes and mashes a few sham community forums and meetings attended by "workers representatives" who may or may not actually represent the interests of the workers; and it then pretends that this process represents a process of equality in which all "stakeholders" have been heard from.

But the following represents the first time (and please leave links in comments if you've seen others, he says to the nonexistent readership)... the very first time I've seen it used to refer to actual state-to-state-satrapy relations. Promoted from comments to Barnett Rubin's post on the recent bombing of the elite hotel over at the group Informed Comment Blog** one Farid Maqsudi makes these observations:

"The key to success for Afghanistan and stakeholders such as USA and the international community, is the shift of burden from US and international community to Afghans.

The accountability for the success and failure needs to be with the Afghans and the Afghan government.

A common Afghan knows what he/she wants and needs for better life.

I agree in principle with the government's position that aid should flow through it. But as President Karzai acknowledges the increasing corrupt environment, he must first take serious action against the corrupt culture to gain the confidence of the donors, citizens and the private sector.

I am involved in the reconstruction economy of Afghanistan and from experience, I can tell it is better for Afghanistan and the world to stop with much of the technical studies and consultants to consultants in the reconstruction projects.

Afghans are hearing about billions and billions of aid money but they don't see it benefiting them. Let's talk smaller money and extend it directly to the people so they appreciate the challenges of reconstruction as well as the benefits.

The Afghan government should promise and deliver to its citizens a number of high impact projects that will boost the confidence of its citizens and stakeholders.

No doubt that various entities in Pakistan*** are taking detrimental actions against Afghanistan but Pakistan is not the entire cause of the problems in Afghanistan. The Afghans on both sides of the border should demonstrate their patriotism for Afghanistan by taking constructive and peaceful actions.

It is high time that we address the basics.

It is time for President Karzai to take the respectful robe off and pull up the shirt sleeves.

It is time for President Karzai to spend several continuous months in each regional capitals like Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat to bring attention to security and reconstruction.

It is time for the international community to support Afghans.

It is time for the country to come together."

Now aside from other evidence of willful ignorance about the basic power equation (Karzai pull up your shirt sleeves indeed! Maybe Hamid should go cut some brush?) and some small bit of valid observation ("Afghans are hearing about billions and billions of aid money but they don't see it benefiting them."), let's just look at the explicit and implied use of the term "stakeholder." The first stakeholders mentioned are the "USA and the international community." See how that works? The US and the "international community" are now on an equal moral par with the Afghans themselves concerning the fate of the country. Or maybe not, because shortly afterwards, the commenter mentions "citizens and stakeholders." So clearly they're not the same. Then who should have more legitimacy and control? Well, given my experience with the literature I mentioned above, I rather suspect that most people using such language will de facto support "USA and the international community," in that order, at least until the power equations change.

* Here George Monbiot calls him basically a "9/11 truther" for that piece.

** Informed Comment: Global Affairs is an alternately fascinating and infuriating read. Infuriating especially if you have to swallow as much imperial academese as I have to in my regular job. Fascinating because...well, look at what you learn from this eyewitness report of the population at the Serena hotel at the time and in the immediate aftermath of the recent attack on Kabul's elite luxury hotel. Listed in order of mention, but minus the bombers themselves, they include: Rubin's correspondent "Naser Shahalemi, an Afghan-American friend living and working in Afghanistan," Shahalemi's cousin Arif, Shahalemi's "office manager," "4-6 guards posted outside, one a good friendly face Aghai Sultan always gives me a friendly wave and waves my car in after checking the vehicle," "the friendly hostess," "a few friendly faces," "Serena employees,"

"Amongst us is the Norwegian Foreign Minister, and his security contingent. Also is the UN Human Rights activist Sima Samar [she is Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation of human rights in the Sudan], also a former Women's Minister of the Karzai Administration [and Chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission]. We get in the cafeteria and more Afghan politicians are amongst us, with Europeans and foreigners. Karzai''s oldest brother is also trapped with us and he is pacing frantically as we are unaware of what is going on in the lobby,"

"Zina a very pleasant Filipino Girl who was just doing her job working in Afghanistan to support herself and family abroad," "president of the Olympic Committee, Mr. Anwar Khan Jagdalak [a former mujahidin commander of Jamiat-i Islami] ," the "doorman [who] had passed out from all of the events he saw," "two Russian girls," and after some hours "two U.S. Marines" "armed to the teeth," and "Hundreds of Afghan Secret Service and NDS [National Directorate of Security, Amaniyyat-i Milli] guards."

Anne Patchett's got nothing on that!

*** Note that "various entities in Pakistan" are not "stakeholders."