How Bad of a Name Is Too Bad, Bitch?

So Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called U.S. President Bush "the devil." Some people seem to think this is a deserved epithet. I have no special love for Dubya, so don't think I'm one of those College Republican chickenhawk bloggers when I say that "the devil" might be a bit harsh.

Why? Well, if Bush has been wrong for using terms like "axis of evil" -- not to mention his other "with-us-or-against-us" rhetoric -- then Chavez must also be wrong for using the term "the devil", even to describe Bush.

A little detail. I'm sure you know that Bush himself received a lot of criticism when he used the phrase "axis of evil" to describe Iraq, North Korea, and Iran (Iran being a current ally of Chavez). I am not smart enough to decide whether "axis of evil" was a, shall we say, skillful epithet for Bush to use. However, my vague impression of Bush's rhetorical device is this:

On one hand, you want to be careful using a word like "evil", for reasons that should be obvious to those of us in the blogosphere who are leftist hippie weinies instead of rightist chickenhawk weinies. On the other hand, if you do end up deciding that you have no choice but to kill a person because that person is too stupid to realize he doesn't have to kill you -- such as, perhaps, bin Laden (not in the Axis) -- then you might as well call that person evil. The point is you generally avoid using such language when you're not yet sure whether you'll be forced to kill the person being described. [for those of you understandably upset that I might ever consider it necessary for Person A to kill Person B, please feel free to read my post on violence: http://jlhart7.blogspot.com/2006/09/gandhis-gonna-kick-my-ass-for-this.html ]

The same point, I believe, applies to putting the letter "D" in front of the word "evil".

The truth is, as a politician I don't think much of Bush either way. I guess I've gotten so sick of both the people who idolize him (or who did) as some kind of messenger of God as well as the people who, well, think he's the devil. So sick, in fact, that the only way I can think to avoid sounding like a brainwashed regurgitator of either major party's talking points is to steadfastly refuse to have much of an opinion on the beady-eyed chimp at all (physical observations not counted). Oh, and I know I've badmouthed Chavez before in this blog (http://jlhart7.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-hugo-chavez-sucks.html). But that's not the point I want to make here.

I'm taking the risk of assuming I'm probably just objective enough to say this would be the case even if I didn't have it in for Chavez. Well, at any rate, calling Bush a naughty name isn't the worst I believe Hugo has done or is capable of, and it certainly isn't why I distrust him.

Lastly, I realize (retroactively) that I've been using all sorts of non-flattering names, such as "chickenhawk", "hippie", "peacenik", "weinie", "brainwashed regurgitator." Before you think I'm a hypocrite (of course I am, but not for that), please let me explain that I never said all bad names were bad -- hell, I really don't think any of them are without use. I just figure that (a) politics often means dealing more diplomatically with people than does blogging, and (b) some names are just not smart to use in an international-incident-type setting. At the risk of sounding self-contradictory (of course I am, but not for that -- hee hee), I'd say the case could be made that using "evil" and "devil" to label political enemies isn't even necessarily wrong, just boneheaded. Or maybe it is wrong, but not as bad as, like, genocide or whatever. Got that, motherfucker?


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College-Loan Debt and Why Everyone Should Be Lucky

A recent editorial by Cokie and Steven Roberts brings
up an economic issue that is does not hit as close to home for me as it does for many other recent college grads, but still pisses me off. This issue is the growing problem of college-loan debt. To quote the Robertses directly:

A serious class conflict divides the
nation's campuses. On one side are
privileged grads entering the work
force
debt-free because Mom and Dad foot the
bill; on the other are
students
shouldering huge loan burdens . . . Wealthier
students can
afford to take
unpaid internships that provide invaluable career
advancement. Kids who wait
tables to pay their bills can't do that.
More seriously, students graduating
with large loans face severely diminished career choices. They simply can't afford to take jobs that provide psychic rewards instead of financial ones.

I am one of the "privileged grads." I have no college-loan
debt because with my college education, part was paid for with an academic scholarship and my parents paid the rest.

Yes, the amount my parents paid actually included an amount
left for me (just like my sister and all my mother's-side cousins) by a late
great-aunt. And my academic scholarship was pretty good. But there still remains the fact that unlike many of my peers, I did not have to take
out loans or even work (though I did have a
few summer jobs and an after-school job anyway) to pay for what my
scholarship didn't.

So we've established that you're free to hate me. The point I
want to make is: I got lucky. Lots of other college kids didn't. That's not
fair. I don't think it was necessarily my fault or my parents' fault for
being lucky that made those other kids be unlucky, but either way, those
kids should've been as lucky as me.

My guilt reflex is somewhat ... well, impaired, after my
overloading with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, college liberalism,
Protestant fundamentalism, and reading "The Redneck Manifesto" by Jim Goad [see: http://notbyjlhart7.blogspot.com/2006/09/from-redneck-manifesto-by-jim-goad.html]. Therefore, I find it hard to feel guilty that my parents had
the money to save me from debt. But whether it applies to you or not, I think anyone who believes the slightest in equality-of-opportunity has got to see this college-debt system is fucked up.

This is especially the case seeing that the fucked-up-ness is
getting worse. To quote Roberts and Roberts again:

On July 1, a new bill raised the
interest rate on Stafford loans -- the primary program for undergrads -- from
5.3 percent to 6.8 percent. PLUS loans, which go to
parents not
students, zoomed to 8.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, over the last three
years, Congress has failed to increased funding for Pell grants, the main
direct-aid program. The maximum is stuck at $4,050, while the average annual
cost at a private university has risen to $32,000. Even public colleges
cost about $15,000.

The Robertses suggest that Pell grants be made to keep pace with inflation, that the interest rates on PLUS and Stafford loans be decreased, and that both private charities and "[m]odest government programs that forgive loans for students working in public service jobs" be encouraged. I don't think any of this sounds like a particularly bad idea.

I've also considered the possibility that colleges and universities themselves can do more to reduce costs for students. One of the first things that comes to my mind is reducing salaries for both college administration and faculty. I am naive enough to assume that at least a few of the left-leaning professors out there would be happy to reduce their salaries in the name of promoting greater socioeconomic equality. Finally, a solution both liberals and conservatives can get behind! Liberals in general will have to support it because it's so obviously egalitarian. Conservatives, I imagine, will love it because they hate liberal college professors. As far as more conservative-tending administrators go, well, the kids'll have a lot of fun occupying the dean's office til the administrators agree to reduced pay too.

Why should we do this? Because human capital is our future. If a big-time pro-rich-people person like David Brooks can say that education is the key to greater equality as well as greater overall prosperity, then a good education clearly counts as equality of opportunity rather than of result.

Sources:

Brooks, David. 12 Sept. 2006. "Human capital is the smart investment." Akron Beacon Journal. Page B2.

Roberts, Cokie and Steven V. Roberts. 10 Sept. 2006. "Storefronts instead of high rises." Wooster Daily Record. Page A4.

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My Hypothesis Is Right in One Person's Case

About a week ago, I had a hypothesis confirmed for me, at least in the case of one person.

I had hypothesized (some long amount of time ago) that traditional/fundamental Christians' primary objection to the theory of evolution was not, as is often said, that evolution's random chance does not make room for God. Rather, I hypothesized that their main objection was that evolution would basically rule out the literal historical existence of Adam and Eve, and that this was a problem because without Adam's Original Sin, there would be no reason for Jesus to die on the cross for humankind's salvation.

Anyway, I'd had this hypothesis banging around in my head for a while, half-forgotten, until I happened to have a conversation about evolution with my friend Ryan. Ryan is unquestionably very intelligent -- I think he's likely more intelligent than I am. He also happens to be a devout Christian of what we may call the born-again variety.

Ryan had been reading two books on Intelligent Design -- one for and one against. Intelligent Design is the current alternative to evolutionary theory being advocated by traditional Christians. Ryan told me he wanted to be well-informed about why he believes what he does. We got to talking a bit about something how stupid we both think it is for some atheists to use evolutionary theory as evidence there's no God. I made sure Ryan knew (he already did) that not all subscribers to evolution are atheists, but that many believe God was sort of responsible for evolution -- which is my opinion.

I don't remember what I asked Ryan then exactly -- I basically asked his opinion of the God-and-evolution-both idea, since he understood that one did not rule out the other. Ryan began to explain -- entirely without any coaching from me -- how he did not believe in evolution because that would mean no Adam, no Original Sin, and hence no vicarious death of Jesus.

I respect Ryan quite a lot; he's been one of my best friends since we were in elementary school. I don't want to make it seem like I devalue his opinion on its own merits because I can use it to validate my hypothesis, and I don't want to show disrespect for my friend by using him as a statistic in some kind of study. Nonetheless, I feel personally vindicated in that my hypothesis was correct for at least one person. I don't know if other people who hold Jesus as their savior like Ryan does also disbelieve in evolution for the same reason he gave, but it's encouraging to know I was not too far off the mark on that.

Of course, there's the whole issue of my big head swelling again, but that's another issue. Actually, I cannot honestly say that this hypothesis is that big a deal; just kind of a neat footnote.

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Gandhi's Gonna Kick My Ass for This

Violence. It makes a great movie, but in real life it can be kind of a hassle.

When I consider the possibility that some violence (even killing) may be justified, I often can't help thinking that Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Tolstoy, M.L. King and God are all up in heaven wagging their fingers at me. Nevertheless, I've basically decided that using violence in self defense (blah, blah, blah -- you've heard this before) is, if not "okay", then at least understandable in that God won't throw you in hell for too many eons for it.

You see, I've also considered the possibility that killing someone -- no matter who -- will land you in a temporary hell that may still last trillions of eons. The question you have to ask yourself when you think of killing someone is whether you think it's worth it spending trillions of eons in hell to kill that person. If you kill a dictator who's planning on killing a bunch of other people, then you might emerge from those trillions of eons in hell as a hero when you finally get to heaven. Or something like that. I kind of mean for this idea to be more of a mental yardstick to use before acting -- sort of a "what if" scenario that you can use to decide whether it is ethical to kill whoever you're considering killing.

Now, since I'm all about collegiate revolution, let's talk about where violence fits in there.

The thing about using violence in a "revolutionary" struggle is this: Violence is, at the very most, for physical self defense. It is a reaction. A political struggle to change the status quo, on the other hand, is about in some sense moving forward--starting something new instead of just reacting. It may be okay in the eyes of God and Gandhi to protect your physical wellbeing, but protecting yourself doesn't have anything to do with pushing forward your political goals.

That is, if the cop at the demonstration hits you with his nightstick, you may have the option of hitting him back in order to try to keep him from hitting you too much more -- if that even works. The various things that may happen if you do this, you can imagine. Or, you can allow yourself to be hit with the nightstick -- not because you don't have a right to fight back or because the cop should be allowed to hit you -- but because keeping yourself from getting bashed up with a nightstick is not your goal in the demonstration.

Please keep in mind that I have never been hit with a nightstick and am not trying to make light of how much that must suck. I'm not even saying I wouldn't fight back. You may not have to be a total martyr for your cause, but if you think it's important to protect yourself, you have to realize the consequences that will come of that -- escalation of violence being probably the most relevant. And because you don't even know whether fighting back will reduce the extent to which you'll be hurt -- which is your whole reason for fighting -- well, let's just say turning the other cheek isn't cowardly here.

Looking at lethal violence in the same light, we can see a similar dynamic, except that in this case it can probably be even more justified to protect yourself. If your neighborhood is plagued with members of a group of people who don't like your group of people, you may buy a gun and shoot any member of that other group who tries to shoot you or your family. And even though it might be absolutely necessary to kill members of this other group in order to protect yourself and other innocent members of the group you're said to belong to, this will most likely not lead to a situation where those others don't try to kill you anymore -- it'll be pretty certain to do the opposite, if anything, at least in the long run. But hey, I'm not telling you to sacrifice your life for a possible long run. You gotta kill who you gotta kill -- but you gotta remember what you're killing for. If killing means that the people you're protecting will get killed more, then you're not a Chamberlain for thinking that killing the killers is the wrong form of protection.

Oh yeah, and we're all children of God who are interconnected in web of blah, blah, blah ... which means your afterlife may get a little hot for at least the lifetimes of a few galaxies.

This is true, I think, whether you're an oppressed minority struggling for revolutionary freedom or just a person who belongs to a group which may or may not be oppressing some other group, and who wishes those folks struggling for freedom would quit blowing up your friends.

Basically, if you're thinking you have to kill someone, consider whether that person would still be trying to kill you if you were not trying to kill him.

After originally writing this post, I found the following, by Howard Zinn, which brings up good points about the non-feasibility of revolutionary violence [ http://notbyjlhart7.blogspot.com/2006/10/im-such-hippie-excerpts-from-zinn.html]:

614 - What of revolution? Here the balance of achievement and cost is less haphazard, though still far from rational. The four great revolutions of modern times (the American, the French, the Russian and the Chinese) though all erratic in their movement towards social progress, in the end, I believe, justified the relatively small amount of violence required to fulfill them. But today, can we still look to revolutions as the chief means of social change, and as a useful means, whereby great change can be achieved at relatively small cost?

In some exceptional instances, yes. But, as a general rule, it seems to me that the conditions of the contemporary world have removed the feasibility of revolutions in the old sense. There are several reasons for this. One is that the power of weapons in the hands of the ruling elite makes popular uprisings, however great is the base of support, a very dubious

615 - undertaking. The other consideration, and probably more important, is that revolutions like wars no longer can be contained. They almost always involve one or more of the great nations of the world, and are either crushed by an outside power (as were the Hungarians in their revolt) or are prolonged to the point of frightful massacre (as the revolt in Viet Nam was met by the intervention of the French and then the Americans, and as the revolt in the Congo was stymied by Belgians and other forces). The Cuban revolution was an oddity; it was able to subsist because it brought into the picture not one but both the two leading world powers. There, even in success we can see the perils posed by revolution in the contemporary world, for the Cuban missile crisis almost set off a global disaster.

By the way, here are some links to stuff written by people smarter than me, both for and against the philosophy of nonviolence (aka, pacifism):

Support for nonviolence:

http://www.mkgandhi.org/sfgbook/eleventh.htmhttp://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=01&par=3466

http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/philosophy-nonviolence.php

http://nvpf.org/np/english/resources/rstudy.asp.htmlhttp://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/tolstoj/tolstoy.htm

http://afrikaworld.net/afrel/goddionah.htm

http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/torah.htm


Criticism of nonviolence:

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/02/20/miller/http://web.archive.org/web/19981205224334/www.netwood.net/~hryan/nonviol.htmhttp://www.walterlippmann.com/mx-nyt.html

http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fanon.htmlhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=111454http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schaefer042803.asp

http://www.i3pep.org/archives/2003/09/23/contextualizing-gandhi/

http://www.i3pep.org/archives/2003/09/23/contextualizing-gandhi/ (claims that Gandhi’s nonviolence worked but that violence may at other times be necessary)

http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt (not mainly against nonviolence, but mainly against Gandhi)

Also, I'm not sure whether these two articles can be called pro- or anti-nonviolence. They're sort of both. I like 'em:
http://ranprieur.com/essays/vipac.html

http://ranprieur.com/essays/viunrav.html



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The Long-Awaited Communique on Environmentalism and Primitivism

About the only opinion I have on environmentalism is this: I agree that Earth will go on with or without human beings. I believe that, as a human being, I have a vested interest in seeing the human race continue until everyone I know dies a natural death — whether or not Mother Nature gives a shit about us either way.

Therefore, I support trying to help keep our environment clean for humanity’s sake, not because humanity is the only important thing on Earth, but because the Earth itself is not essentially what’s at risk — us humans living on it is. I don’t know whether technological civilization itself needs to be done away with, but I want to try to either 1) salvage technology or 2) grandfather us into the primitivist utopia, either way in order to avoid massive human deaths.

This is why I still say “yay” for labor unions in the industrial production complex. Whether the workers take over the factories and then gradually start decreasing production to save the earth before finally going back to hunting full-time is a matter of whether or not that industrial production makes human life on Earth untenable. I figure that if humans can survive with a polluted world, Mother Nature will, indeed, kill us — but this is not what we want, so we better clean up our act to whatever extent we need to (keeping the worker’s factories or not) in order to keep Momma from killing us.

Oh, and as for animal rights -- see my post here for why I gave up vegetarianism: http://jlhart7.blogspot.com/2005/12/neandertals-freak-dancing-and-case-for.html

Does this make sense?

Added 9/19/06 - Let’s just do whatever we can to avoid massive deaths, either from starvation OR from primitivist genocide. We can try to save our technology, both because (a) we like it and (b) much more importantly, it’s generally agreed that going straight back to nature would result in billions of people dying. If keeping all our toys save our neighbors from dying in a Mad Max hellzone, well, there’s nothing easier than doing the right thing when it helps you.

However, it could also be that the opposite would be the case. If it comes down between keeping our fun technology and thereby killing billions through planet-death starvation on one hand, and getting rid of our technology to save a greater amount of lives on the other, then I guess I’ll have to resign myself to never beating Sonic & Knuckles.

See also: http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=1890

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