advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket-or grabbo disappoints

so today is the day we "listen to the world" with the new york times sunday magazine...given the times recent up-swelling of anti-trump, pro democracy and "for the street" populism i had hoped there would be a series of stories humanizing the segments of the population vilified by the howling ,nativist, xenophobic, wildly distasteful trump base...with general electric leading the corporate charge of tolerance...i was somewhat optimistic in thinking this ( those of you who know me should stop gaping at that howler and remember the capacity for sarcasm )..what i got in my bulky sunday paper ( we will get to the causality of that bulk soon enough ) was the annual "voyages" issue

the times' annual paean to the wonders of travel photography...there is something of a difference this year however and it is the key to the ears that have cropped up in high definition photographs in their pages of late...

this editor's note stapled to the binding outside the magazine...

and this page of "detailed instructions" informed me that in an effort to move towards a more appreciable simulacrum of the natural world the times has provided a soundtrack for the photos i can listen to while i peruse the magazine if i sign into the times' web site...imagine my excitement...i was somewhat surprised at the dearth of advertising in this week's magazine...there were only ten pages of it and that was all dominated by general electric...and, since this whole effort to make my sunday a more natural place was "supported by" the same general electric one supposes that the pages were provided at a substantial discount...we should, however, not be over concerned about the times' fiscal health...

the bulk in today's times came, in part, from the "t magazine design and luxury" issue ( you know how we all crave luxury...the times wants us to and they want us to move beyond voyeurism and, if necessary, into debt to taste a bit of it ) 228 glossy pages of articles about the wonders available to us if we have the cash and 105 color pages of advertising for such necessities as italian leather couches, patron tequila, vacations in alabama, and tod's shoes that brought $11,467,575 into the times' coffers ( per the latest advertising rates i can find at the ny times )...they may have discounted general electric but they didn't lose money...so...fiscal health at the cost of social responsibility...it is the corporate way and the media are nothing if not corporate entities whose purpose is to make money, not necessarily by disseminating factual information...

i have closed with a photo of pepe mujica ( on the left side ) to cleanse the palate.

grabbo!

because of a intermittent supply chain i received my friday new york times this morning...perhaps there was a glitch somewhere in the "news" pipeline...or i live out at the end of the motor route and the delivery person wasn't feeling up to the drive...or didn't really care if i got my paper on the same day it was dated...whichever...the point is if i had gotten the paper on time we would have already been through this...as it stand the times has once again utilized precious canadian newsprint to send me high definition, full-page photos of ears ( different than wednesday's )...with startling detail that isn't all that aesthetically pleasing and a center-spread announcing that i am about to be heavily propagandized ( a trait the times has been displaying more openly in these trumpist times...with a heavy bias in favor of women..i have lived with women all my life..and i like them...have pursued them...seen multiple facets of them in sixty odd years...the times is distorting their humanness for political expedience ) over some unnamed but important ( in the editors' eyes ) issue that i should care about deeply and will be some tone-deaf trumpsist slug if i don't jump on the bandwagon and add my voice tot he groupthink chorus...i have already been through the evils of sanitizing history and pc debate framing and the fact that this tease is an attempt to put as much of the time's slick advertising into the hands of as many readers as possible...it will be of interest to calculate the advertising revenues from this weeks magazine ( provided i get the damned paper )...it will all go into the archives as another example of the times goebbels-like stabs at grooming opinion to suit their needs...if politicians are whores ( and they are ) the bulk of journalists ( one assumes there is some integrity left in the trade..one also assumes they are not especially well read writers ) are their swinish stenographers.

pharmakons

i have been pondering a couple of pharmakons in a philosophical sense for some time and now a new one has cropped up…a pharmakon is something that is beneficial…a cure…up to a point…at some point, however, the beneficent effect turns toxic and the key…as with pharmaceuticals, is dosage…denial and community are the two original pharmakons i have been ruminating over…denial…we are all going to die…we all know this…and, to prevent ourselves from becoming some sort of edgar allen poe simulacrum we deny it…push it out of consciousness…ignore it to the point of forgetting about it…it lets us function in average everydayness without seizing up…something of a benefit…it can go too far…we can transfer that denial to other activities we should probably be more aware of…lie to ourselves so effectively that we mask our destructive behaviors and intentions ( both self and outwardly directed ) to the point we believe our own lies…become profound victims of doublethink…on one level we know what we are doing is destructive and on another actively ignoring that…conflicted…schizophrenic to an extent…addiction is an instance of denial becoming a toxic pharmakon where the only person seemingly oblivious ( and i am here to tell you they are not oblivious…they know…at least on a deeper level…what’s going on and it is a source of profound personal conflict…it is a difficult conflict to overcome…usually some sort of event that provides shocking, undeniable evidence of the depth and scope of the conflict is what is needed to overcome it…some do not survive the shock ) to what’s going on is the addict…denial gone haywire…community is another pharmakon…communities of like-minded people can be a wealth of support and a font of well-being for people…kurt Vonnegut maintained that loneliness was a plague in American life and that the preponderance of fraternal organizations, ( elks, moose, masons, etc. ) were a way of combating that plague and were therefor beneficial…i can agree with that to a point although nietzsche called solitude his “home” and de quincey wrote at length about the relationship between solitude and cogent thought…still...even an elk can find a moment or two to be alone…there can be too much in the way of group identification though…humans divide into groups…it’s what they do…tribes…villages…moose…and, no matter how benign the community is, the members consider their group just that much better than others…”we’re better” at one thing or another…”we do it right”…”they do things different there”…when community becomes toxic is when that “they” becomes “the other”…a scapegoat ( which, interestingly enough is another part of the philosophical definition of pahrmakon )…someone to blame for all your troubles…someone that needs to go…armenians…jews…bosnian muslims…tutsis…east timorese…the list goes on…and on…ein volk is a phrase that should be in utter disrepute…it isn’t...it’s toxic…it’s still around…it makes people think walls are a good idea…and gives them ideas about what to do when the walls ultimately fail…human adaptability is a new one on the list and one that has arisen lately…i would not have thought it that bad a trait…what is culture ( in the anthropological sense ) other than human adaptation to different environments and the intrinsic problem solving necessary for continued existence wherever you are…yet human adaptability can, if the changes are incremental enough, lead us to situations and behaviors that are not of necessity good ( here we tie into the “ein volk” from above )…here i am specifically thinking of economic change and adaptation…of late the manufacturing job i worked at for decades vanished in what can only be characterized as another casualty of consolidation of industries and an export of jobs…if not overseas then to less unionized localities…i was headed for retirement and have many economic variables under control ( like debt…fuck debt )…still I had wanted to wait a while yet before stopping altogether and found part time work for what will remain a nameless retailer at a wage rate considerably below where i was at a few months ago…this is not a crisis for me…that it is not nearly a living wage is not a disaster for me…i can’t help but wonder about the younger people that are working there however…this isn’t full time work…they can’t possibly be making ends meet here…one supposes they have other part-time jobs that are equally badly paid…it explains why so many youngsters are so angry…so why do they put up with it? i have a hypothesis which might survive rigorous testing ( or might fall apart like a house of cards…this is me we are dealing with here ) the current economic abuse of workers probably had its genesis with the wagner act in 1935 but it became more manifest with the nixon and carter administrations and accelerated through reagan and clinton through to the late stage capitalism we find ourselves in...a conscious and concerted crippling of social legislation and the ability of workers to organize collectively to bargain over terms and conditions of work (i am officially an “at will employee” who can be “ discharged ate any time, with or without cause and with no prior notice”…unions are heavily propagandized against because they would put a stick in the “at will” spokes…as well as raise wages across the board )…as well as deliberate exacerbation of social differences to deflect energy and consciousness that might be aimed at a critique of government policies and the underlying elitist philosophy that drives it…a deliberate destitution and marginalization of workers that would have driven our new deal democrat parents into the streets has been accepted ( if grudgingly and angrily ) by a generation because the change was incremental over a period of decades...what would have been a political problem for our parents and is for us has become a norm for our children and grandchildren...if your work-life starts out at $9/hour it’s what is…you don’t have a frame of reference ( beyond mom and dad’s and grandma and grandpa’s stories) that tells you things could ( and should ) be different…you adapt to the norm…acceptance…there is a strain of quietism about human adaptation that is unhealthy...it takes time but the social contract can be radically changed and the hegemonic culture can present it as the only logical end with no apparent alternative…there are alternatives…my best guess is that any substantive movement towards an alternative from below would be met with violent resistance from above…have a look around and filter what you see through a framework of pharmakons…tell me what you see…feel free to disagree...i could easily be mistaken…i am open to persuasion…i’m not a pushover though.

ears?

mysteriously the n y times today ( my home delivery subscription is for friday through sunday so i wandered off to the starbucks on willowcreek to buy the only copy of the artifact they had ) included a four page pullout of precious canadian newsprint that featured two high resolution ( and distinctly unappealing ) photos of someone’s ears and the centerspread was criptically printed with block letters spelling out “ listen to the world. coming in 4 days. the new york times. magazine” with a more than obvious logo from general electric in the lower right…so what could this be? advertising for a new and exciting new sound system coming from the troubled company ( “grabbo’s coming soon! get it!” ) or is it ( and this is what i am inclined to think…as if you thought you weren’t going to get an opinion piece from me and, if you are reading this, aren’t familiar with my worldview ) some verbiage that touts the times ersatz populism along with some anti-trump “we aren’t elitist” apologetics that fits their corporate agenda by boosting their sunday sales and getting their slick advertising into the hands of more readership so they can justify their advertising rates…all with the collusion of general electric which needs some pr boost and has, no doubt., ponied up some cash for the right to brand itself as a “sensitive” and “inclusive” corporation…i have long advocated the stance that everyone ( without exception…you cannot sanitize things and expect to understand…something drearily lost on liberals…pc is thought control…framing the debate…well…i am brighter than that ) gets to tell their story and everyone has to listen…to humanize one another in our eyes…to find commonalities…to recognize the sameness that cultural differences cannot obscure…to make an honest effort to banish certainties and undermine the concept of “the other”…but i don’t advocate that in the name of corporate profit or to help reinforce a hegemonic viewpoint…information for profit is part of the problem…all explanation is reinterpretation…the n y times has an email newsletter called “the interpreter” which i subscribe to, to keep tabs on what the elite punditry thinks i should think…i read it but rarely believe it…i harbor a nietzschian distrust of interpreters.

celebrate!

“…one essential condition for a healthy society is equal distribution of goods, which i suspect is impossible under capitalism. for , when everyone is entitled to get as much for himself as he can, all available property, however much there is of it, is bound to fall into the hands of a small minority, which means that everyone else is poor. and wealth will tend to vary in inverse proportion to merit. the rich will be greedy, unscrupulous, and totally useless characters, while the poor will be simple, unassuming people whose daily work is far more profitable to the community than it is to them.” thomas more. “utopia” [1516] penguin classics edition. paul turner 1965 translation____________________________________________________________________ the end of summer…the end of fun…that’s the holiday celebration labor is allotted in the united states…not the international celebration of labor in the spring that memorializes those haymarket ”anarchists”…no need for american labor to identify with them…except that workers have a shared common interest ( if they could only recognize it…there have been some bitter lessons on that along the way ) and work itself taught them to be organized…still. “…under the law a mere combination of workers violated an employer’s freedom to run a business in a profitable manner. in moores vs. the bricklayers union ( 1890 ) ohio’s supreme court ruled it illegal to make an employer conduct business according to union regulation.” [murlo and chitty.from” the folks who brought you the weekend”p.112 ]…they quietly made efforts to find common voice anyway…from colonial cordwainers to the noble and holy order of the knights of labor founded by uriah stephens in 1869…originally a secret society because of membership blacklisting among employers, it went public in a declaration of principles in 1881..trying to teach American workers they were workers first, with a common interest, and bricklayers or carpenters or poles or germans second…in that declaration they stated, “…we declare that there is an inevitable conflict between the wage-system of labor and the republican system of government, the wage laborer attempting to save the government, and the capitalist class ignorantly attempting to subvert it.”...in these tenets they faced two problems…the first was the assumption that workers could easily overcome trade or ethnic distinctions…”america’s working class was most noted for its heterogeneity. native-born workers had nothing but contempt for the irish catholic immigrants, and the irish, in turn, looked own on the late coming poles, slavs, and Italians. whites feared blacks; jews suspected gentiles. employers easily played off one group against another and shrewdly mixed their labor forces to weaken group solidarity.” [dubofsky. from “we shall be all: a history of the industrial workers of the world” p. 4]…think guns, abortion, immigration and you’ll see the “shrewdly” is still in play…there is very little recognition by workers that they form a class…the “classless society” mythos in america is inculcated from an early age ( unless, of course, you are openly and cogently critical of the hegemonic culture…then you are engaging in “class warfare”, something elite interests would never dream of doing )...and humans by their nature are tribal…they split off into groups of common outlook that tend to be small…the larger and more complex they become the more energy there is used in internecine debate rather than focused action…solidarity has many issues…the second problem the knights faced was their thinking that the government was some sort of neutral umpire that would, If capitalists would just let it function the way it was designed, resolve disputes fairly…unfortunately the government has been in the hands of the economic elite since at least 1789 and the government was never neutral...and the governmental bias the knights faced in the gilded age carried over into the next century…”by 1917 the war department ( it was a more honest age in that respect…no euphemistic department of defense…a fairly recent addition of a grey, calming bureaucratic lexicon…we only kill people with drone strikes to defend ourselves, right? no imperial motives here…nothing to see...move along folks…asking inconvenient questions just upsets the digestion…whose digestion is what i wonder about ) had had considerable experience in using soldiers to quell domestic labor disturbances. in 1877 federal troops had repressed strikes, riots, and demonstrations arising from that year’s railroad labor conflicts. fifteen years later federal soldiers went into northern idaho to break a miner’s strike ( that would be a protracted guerilla war around federal silver mines near coeur d’alene…they don’t teach labor history from a labor perspective in public schools…workers are always the disrupters of the system hard working capital is trying to build ), and , despite opposition from governor john peter altgeld, president grover cleveland dispatched federal troops to the chicago area to crush the american railway union’s Pullman boycott ( they were in gary Indiana during the 1919 steel strike as well for those of you from the calumet region ). when the occasion demanded, federal authorities could always justify the employment of troops to preserve the domestic peace. world war one seemed such an occasion…not entirely by coincidence, the first railroads and utilities so protected were in montana and washington state, states furthest removed from the area of german espionage and closet to the scene of iww activity…despite the restoration of apparent stability the troops remained on duty from 1917 to 1919, and in butte until 1920. they had proved so effective in preserving the peace that western governors, united states attorneys, and local employers hated to see them withdrawn.” [we shall be all pp.229-231 ]..so much for neutrality…the great depression changed things a bit…mostly because hard times drove labor to develop more effective tactics…such as the sit-down strike…workers occupied the means of production and so exerted some control over negotiations…come to an agreement and you can have your plant back…that had to stop so the wagner act of 1935 formally recognized the right of unions to exist ( and unfortunately for workers the courts interpreted it as guaranteeing the rights of unions, not workers, and so the conflict between rank and file and union leadership imposed itself on the adversarial relationship with management…war on two fronts )…it also brought them “into the system”…liable to regulation by the department of labor, the national labor relations board, administrative law judges…and one of the first regulation was a ban on sit-down strikes…you could strike but you had to do so from outside and leave room for the scabs inside…this also left labor relying on legislators to give them an equal voice in the process…political rhetoric and political actions are nearly mutually exclusive…some “friends of labor” proved unreliable…particularly after world war two when congress began to chip away at the legislation from the thirties…taft-hartley in 1947…landrum-griffin in 1959…tightened regulations on unions and made union certification elections more difficult to win…and the decline continued through carter’s deregulating of the trucking and airline industries and reagan busted patco setting the stage for another almost forty year decline as industrial jobs fled offshore and “right to work” laws targeting unions proliferated...on the eve of the holiday, trump has moved to freeze the wages of federal workers as work related issues facing teachers and other public workers worsen as well……the prognosis does not seem good…aggressive capital wants all the money they can extract and government is almost wholly on their side…by all means vote in november…vote your conscience…i am not sanguine about finding candidates worth voting for...even the ones who might be are sure to face a system that in inimical to change…a blue wave there may be and that may change the tone of the rhetoric…undoing what has been done is an entirely different matter…it did not begin with the current administration…it is a cumulative process that spans decades of an overt, concerted corporate agenda aimed at weakening the voice of working people concerning, not just the terms and conditions with which they work, but the general drift ( concerted as it may be there is an element of the haphazard about it…the elite are both united and divided by their greed…what’s good for one may be good for the others…but they still have to share an ultimately finite wealth…there is dissent…more drift than course…i wouldn’t take that dissent as an opening for change however…threaten them with substantive change from below and they close ranks…look back at those federal troops in montana, idaho, chicago and gary…look at the late 60s and early 70s…”can’t happen here?”…already has ) of the society…how we live and towards what goal we destroy the environment and hence ourselves…equitable distribution, or upward redistribut