Not My Time Machine

There's an excellent essay documenting the nature of white privilege up over on Lean Left. It's a good read; it highlights the nature of white privilege, and lays bare some important points about it.

This is Absolutely Amazing

I can't muster full commentary on this, other than how absolutely incredible this video is.

Listen in awe as Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, trashes the shit of this TEA Bagging ignoramus.

Full video found here.

"So be proud to be an American, rather than a wanker whipping up fear"
- Michael D. Higgins

Why can't we have politicians like this guy? Why?

The Third Position of Centrism

In the United States, there is this mythical existence called "centrism." If you listen to our media, or our political parties, there's always a call for bipartisanship. There's always this idea that, if you call the right out for being the frothy fucking liars they are, then you've got to be "balanced" and reassure the population that the leftists are just as bad. You have to appeal to this mythical centrist unicorn; this rare, neigh invisible creature that exists less as a corporeal entity and more as an idea that is aspired to.

It isn't an idea we need to aspire to reach. Centrism is not a good thing. Being middle of the road doesn't make you more "mature", and it doesn't mean you put anymore thought into your positions than someone on either extreme of the political spectrum. A centrist is someone who hasn't decided anything, doesn't believe in anything, and doesn't take a stand for anything. A fence-setter - that is, someone who always answers poll questions like "Do you think the sky is blue" with "undecided" - is a centrist. I'm not saying you need to be an extremist, I'm just saying that centrism is not a state to aspire to. In a way, centrism is every bit as dangerous as extremism.

Centrism is not revolutionary. Centrism is reactionary. Centrism is a toxic, destructive force - it is not "capitalism with a human face." It's "corporatism with a Citizen's United mask".

And Finally...

Last post for today, and it's a brief one.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted "first kiss" on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.
Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.
Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship's return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets. The Navy said the money would be used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors

You can go read the article here, and see the pictures.

This is what we need more of. This is the new world order. And I welcome it with open arms.

Post 9/11 Thoughts

I didn't post anything on 9/11 yesterday because I have nothing positive to say about it. When you have nothing positive to say about a disaster, it's generally best to keep your mouth shut and wait until the day after it's anniversary before you say something about it.

Well, today's the day after. It's 9/12.

Here's my thoughts on 9/11:

At the Intersection of Terrorism and Privilege

How US Firms profited from Torture Flights.


I think that the title says it all, really. And to be perfectly honestly, to see our mighty captains of industry charging to due a patriotic duty for their country brings a tear to my eye. Of course, it's probably not for any patriotic reasons...

And, of course, something to help set the mood.

In Which Enigma Says Something Stupid

I've been reading a lot about the events that surrounded what happened to Skeptichick Rebecca Watson some several months ago while she was in Ireland. I have my own take on it, but before I get into that, let me explain something: I'm naturally a peacemaker; I don't like to see people on my own side fighting and, honestly, if we're working towards the same goals I see no reason why we should. I have a very visceral, physical reaction to seeing two individuals I respect engaging in an otherwise very nasty fight. It gets even worse when you try to step into that warzone with your own opinion, and you're worried about making enemies of the people that you used to, and still do, respect. I'm no tone troll. I have no use for tone trolls. I just do not like to see individuals I respect fighting, so I avoid the topic. Sometimes, though, you just can't avoid it. It's too important an issue to ignore and focus on other things.

So, having said that, let me get this out of the way: What happened to Ms. Watson. While she was in Ireland, she said that she was propositioned in an elevator at night, by an individual. She declined, and the individual went on his way. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure of to many more details beyond that because of how quickly that degenerated and decimated the online skeptic community. Well, she posted on her blog about it telling guys that you don't do that. What followed was Richard Dawkins making a remark on PZ Myer's blog, and the whole thing boiled over from there. Watson then, in real space, called out one of her critics during a skeptic conference from her spot at the bully pulpit. What followed was a meteoric impact on the skeptic community that was pretty devastating in flame war after flame war. ERV's blog, over on Science Blogs, reached some 2000 (2006, iirc) posts on the matter in a giant flame war that I just finished skimming through (no way I'm reading 2006 comments. That's just nuts.)

So, because this is my blog and my opinion tends to dictate the way that this blog goes (and make no mistake; everything herein is me elaborating on my opinion and where I stand, and why I stand there), where do I stand?

Becoming A Federalist Blog

This one certainly ranks among one of the most surprisingly stupid things I've heard this year. A columnist over at Whirled Nut Daily claims that the founding fathers are to blame for the rise "communist fascists" in Washington.

Militantly anti-Cheese

While I have yet to read the article in full, this article from the Guardian about Michael Grove's calling the teacher's unions in Great Britain militant resonates with me. I'm not British, I'm American, but I'm always interested in seeing what's happening in other countries around the world. After all, no man is an island unto himself, no matter how hard Howard Roark bitches otherwise or how desperate Galt is to remove himself from society. The same is true for countries as well - humans form a loose super-organism; the net of humanity is interwoven. What affects one of us will affect all of us.

I'm not going to comment on the article; I'm just going to comment on the overview of it. I come from a very strong union city, and I'm very pro-union. If that surprises you, slap yourself. You're reading the wrong blog. Unions are a basic embodiment of this thing called "solidarity" - that is, we're never stronger than when we're together, and that net of humanity, the great human super-organism, is never stronger than when it's united in solidarity. When you take care of your neighbor, you take care of yourself. History is full of class-antagonism; the poor have been continually exploited by the rich and the wealth, and unions are just one way that we can twist the system in our favor. After all, there's a lot more of us on the low end than there are of them on the high end; enough to tip the scales in our favor.

But this post isn't really about the unions. The heart of what I want to talk about is that word: militant.

Apparently, Mr. Gove has been taking lessons from the Right here in America. As a politician, they select their words carefully, and "militant" is one of those words that get used whenever you want to apply a negative connotation to something: militant gun-nuts, militant Christians, militant Pro-Lifers - see how easy that is? Unfortunately, like all polispeak, the actual meaning of the word itself is lost to the political connotation it carries. A "militant" is a person who takes up arms and actually fights for something. The definition itself is very neutral, which is as it should be. But the connotation is not, and there's a reason why Mr. Gove, like so many right-wingers here in the United States, chose that word to describe the teachers' unions for walking out: he's backed in a corner, and he's attempting to appeal to populism. This word gets used a lot by the political right: militant gay-rights activists, militant abortionists, militant liberals, militant this, militant that; anything I disagree with becomes "militant", because it's a thought terminating cliche that carries a few metric yottagrams of negative connotation along with it. It's like "patriotism" and "freedom" - they way they use the words in almost everything they do, you'd think they were compensating. But they aren't - what they're doing is a psychological defense mechanism called "projection" - they're the militants - militantly anti-union, militantly anti-choice, militantly anti-freedom, anti-poor, anti-human - but because they can't bring themselves to admit that, they paint their opposition with the term to make themselves feel better. "We're not militants," they say, "it's those other people who are militants."

Of course, I'm probably giving them too much credit. Their leaders and puppet masters are certainly thinking like this; they've got their base wrapped around their finger if they're insane enough. But it's the appeal to authority and the use of thought terminating cliches that keep their base from thinking at all: whenever you encounter someone claiming that the unions are "militant", or anyone is "militant", ask them "militant in what way?" Odds are, they're just parroting a claim and they'll try and dodge the question, like good puppets do.