I'm concerned that conspiracy is becoming a political movement

In 2001 sometime, I experienced a guy on the uptown 4,5,6 platform in Manhattan shouting, "Do you understand that if you have a square R with a 5-R configuration, flickering back and forth, you will be shot dead by federal agents. You understand that, right?" (I mentioned this here too.) Right! It was kind of an amusing moment in subway-nut conspiracy think. And I kept an eye out for that 5-R configuration for years, to no avail.

Then a few weeks ago I came across this Xerox of a Wall Street Journal article, scotch-taped to a lamppost in Santa Monica:

This little clipping of colored-pen conspiracy scratch rivals the subway caveat above, in that none of it makes a shred of sense. The underlined text makes no sense; the circled words around it make no sense; and the thread of logic from "Catholic Church" to "Roman Monster" to "chess" to "Berlin Nazi" also, makes no sense. Though I must give this conspiracist props for his flags: they're quite compelling.

I'd typically write this off as another bit of isolated lunacy, but there's a disturbing context for this disjointed bit of crazy. Thomas Friedman might've put it best in an editorial today, in which he opines the "poisonous political environment" being created by conservatives, who seek to delegitimize the president by any means possible. The wanton Hitler comparisons, the interchangeable cries of fascist/communist/socialist, the shouting of "you lie" by a congressman during a presidential address — it was just this kind of environment that emboldened a right-wing Jewish nationalist to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.

For RNC chairman Michael Steel to call Friedman a "nut job" reveals that conservative leadership is in denial of the toxic stew they're fomenting. "[They're] saying, because you disagree with the president on policy," Steel said, "that all of the sudden we're going to make this leap into, you know, assassinations and all this other stuff." No, Mr. Steel — what Friedman is saying that your rhetoric is whipping up an uninformed fringe to take that action. And the facts point to that possibility.

A credible white supremacist assassination plot was already foiled last year; death threats against the president are up 400% this year; Fox-inspired protesters proudly carry signs saying, "We came unarmed — this time." Just yesterday, a conservative editor wrote an article outlining the possibility of a military coup to dethrone the president, suggesting it was better than letting the president achieve his goals: "A coup is not an ideal option," the editor wrote, "but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable."

If these aren't signs that the heated rhetoric is having a dangerous influence, I don't know what would be. It's well time the conservative movement — Fox and all — dissociated itself from this lunatic fringe. If they want to lead this democracy in a different direction, they need to assume a responsible leadership role that doesn't score points by slurs, smears, and disinformation. Until then, they are stoking the indiscriminate anger of a volatile minority, and their base will continue to evolve into something like this guy:

And yikes! — who knows what he's capable of?

Spin spin spin from the White House

I have to write out about a quote I read this morning in the Monitor. The article "EPA staffers go to Hill over global warming" features a great chart comparing US states' emission of greenhouse gases to that of entire countries. If states were individual nations, six would rank among the top 30 emitters of greenhouse gases worldwide.

But what got me was this infuriating quote:

"Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre argued that Congress never gave the EPA authority to regulate CO2. Even if the agency had the authority, he continued, "now is not the time to exercise such authority, in light of the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change and the ongoing studies to address those uncertainties.""

The only "substantial scientific uncertainty", of course, is whether or not the Bush White House can accept documented science when it conflicts with corporate profiteering. And Garre's contention that the EPA lacks the authority to regulate CO2 hinges on the brainless argument that CO2 is not a pollutant. As if the thousands of tons of CO2 introduced into the air by industry, energy, and automobiles aren't pollution. If that's the case, perhaps Garre could sit in his garage with the car running for a few hours.

Beyond the more self-evident documentations available in An Inconvenient Truth about what greenhouse gases are doing to the atmosphere, Elizabeth Kolbert covered the irreparable effect CO2 is having on the oceans in the New Yorker last month.

This is about sex, because power is an aphrodesiac.

My peeps,

If we could talk about something really sexxy for just a second, I'd like to discuss ... public broadcasting. Yes, it's hot stuff; caliente. But please, read on. It gets even sexier.

Corporate media's goal is to get you to watch ads. That's a great motive to fund shows like the Simpsons, The Daily Show, The OC, but it's not great for news. Whichever way these networks lean politically, they all lean economically towards profit.

PBS and NPR are the only outlets in the media landscape that stand distinct from all other media outlets, which exist to make money. Public broadcasting exists to inform, educate, inspire and engage. The critical idea here is that PBS provides an essential alternative because America is a democracy. Without public broadcasting, all of America's airwaves are run by corporations.

Now hard enough to believe, the party of power in Congress is seeking to eliminate funding for public broadcasting, even after a public outcry stopped it last year. I'm not big on online petitions, but I'm big on keeping the media landscape level. If you care about keeping the media landscape even marginally democratic, please sign the petition at this link.

http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting
thank you,

rob

Also, read the Boston Globe story on the threat to NPR and PBS.

Also, the C.S. Monitor is a rare privately-funded media source that serves up reliable news.

Also, my band Analog Jetpack will be playing in DC this month and New York City next month.

An Inconvenient Truthism

Tonight I saw the documentary of Al Gore's crusade to alert the world to global climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. And earlier this week, some workmen cut down a large tree in my backyard.

Don't worry, I'm not going to relate these in a predictable way.

Rather, I'm going to praise the movie and relate deep concerns about my own ability to focus on a dedicated career path.

The tree behind my house was big and beautiful, perhaps 50-100 years old. About 12 feet off the ground, it split into two dominant trunks instead of one central trunk, growing straight up. The bifurcation seemed to compromise the typical vertical stability of a tree, and it had developed an ungainly lean towards the house. Thus the owners elected to cut it down.

Similarly, my own dedicated interests pull me in compromising directions. I, like some friends I've discovered, have something of a creative myopia that causes me to put myself into whatever role I am most directly looking at. If I'm watching a great film, I consider my life in terms of filmmaker, scriptwriter, preeminent actor. If I'm walking the halls of the Supreme Court, I think to myself, "Yes, I'll totally be a Supreme Court Justice. I'd better look into the LSAT." And if I read Vasari, I quickly fix myself into the historical context of great artists.

It's fairly ridiculous, perhaps symptomatic of any democracy as de Tocqueville noted, and existentially ADD in a way that alternately could be praised as the fruit of an undying curiosity or derided as the side effect of a debilitating lack of focus.

Watching Gore's presentation makes it very clear that the world is at an environmental and cultural tipping point. Environmentally, wide scale reduction in CO2 omissions is urgently needed, while culturally, there is a demand for serious awareness and reevaluation of what macro lifestyles can be sustained by the earth. The film outlines Gore's career of drawing attention to this issue, and how the 2000 mis-election diverted his full focus back to it.

Watching the film has had a similar effect on me. Washington is, perhaps, the most political city in the world, and one can't avoid osmosizing a degree of it. Seeing Gore present his case should strike a chord with any viewer to seek considerable change in the nation's practices and policies (to say nothing of leadership).

So thoughts of how I can involve politics into my career are now enriching/clouding my pursuit. Perhaps this is good, perhaps I should banish the thoughts and focus on art/music/film/writing. But even a successful career in these pales without a dedicated component of service of some kind. Ongoing, lasting service, to mirror a substantial, lasting contribution to the arts.

That's all I want.

So coming right up, the next installment of the Analog Jetpack comic.

That's all I'm saying.