debs is invisible in terre haute

eugene v debs was the socialist party of america's presidential candidate five times in the last century or so and he was born in terre haute indiana...a day jaunt to that burg today had me wondering if i would find any trace of him or of his home town's recognition of his existence there...there may be some but i didn't see any...and given the political small-mindedness of this state it comes as no surprise...the statehouse is rank with ignorance backed by the hubris willful stupidity imparts to the dullwitted...so be it...i come form a part of the state that has been grossly misunderstood and vilified by those pompous twits fro years...they are pathologically incapable of understanding...on the other hand, benton county held out some hope for this melting pot of fools...wind power has been a staple of rural america for quite a while and if you squint at the top photo you should just make out an old farm windmill of the sort that used to drive well pumps and, in later years, generate home electricity ( it is on the left hand side of the road about the middle of the photo and mid-distance betweenthe road we're on and the wind turbines in the background )...it is in juxtaposition to a huge wind farm that...according to benton county's web page...is home to five hundred wind turbines generating electricity...they are not completely energy clean...no doubt fossil fuels were used to mine and refine the metals in them...there is doubtlessly petrochemically based plastic in them...energy was used in their manufacture, assembly ,and shipping...and in their placement and erection as well...but they hold out some spark of progress in a thoroughly reactionary state...with luck coming changes will make them irrelevant.

indiana is a hotbed of dissent

"Since 1915, the principal supporter of daylight saving in the United States has been the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of small business and retailers," says Downing. "The Chamber understood that if you give workers more sunlight at the end of the day they'll stop and shop on their way home. It's not just golf—the barbecue industry loves daylight savings, so do the home good stores because people tend to go out of their houses, see that their roofs need replacing and buy more shingles. It's a really important part of niche marketing for the retail industry."-michael dowling__________________________________________________ you can read some specious bullshit about the miniscule amount of electricity that daylight savings time allegedly saves but when i look at all the little electricity vampires on all the electronic gizmos around here...from the little red light on my monitor that's on even when the monitor is off or the neat little lit up logo on the goddamned flat screen tv in the livingroom or the green lights on the dishwasher ( which i patently refuse to use )or the red ones on the hardwired smoke detectors i know that's all lame posturing and cheap rationalization....the real reason is neatly outlined by dowling and is the brainchild of the chamber of commerce...that crypto-fascist purveyor of gluttons consumption...they are as doomed as dinosaurs and they can take their time theft and get bent, pound sand, eat shit and die...whatever strikes their greedy little fancy..everything those cretins do is extractive and deleterious to the environment...i will be forced to reset my clocks because i still have to deal with the "real world" ( despite its continual, illusory belief that "business as usual" will remain unchanged within established parameters ) and it has no sense of humor...greed will do that...as a footnote this state has been a bastion of resistance to daylight savings time resulting in a chaotic temporal situation at time, until that paragon of neo con politics turned university president sign a statute making the state observe it...another reason to say fuck these people...where is the lake of fire?

i'm right, you're wrong. why are you still talking?

"Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated. • 1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers. • 2. Publish their names. • 3. Seize all their grain from them. • 4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram. • Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of versts around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: "they are strangling, and will strangle to death, the bloodsucking kulaks". Telegraph receipt and implementation. Yours, Lenin. Find some truly hard people"________________________________________________________ this is what happens when teleological bureaucratization becomes the standard for government. lenin took marx's dictum "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" ( and i notice just now that this doesn't say anything about individual desire...only need...no wonder capital hates marx so...he denies it it's greatest manipulative tool ) and rewrote it as "from each according to our needs, to each according to how necessary they are to our ends." ( i neglected to add when i originally wrote this that this dictum is true of every hegemonic culture...you, as an individual, have value in their eyes only in so far as you serve their ends...if you aren't a minion you'd better be self-validating ) and in so doing lenin beget stalin. they knew what history's final end was...anything they did to reach it was acceptable.

it just drones on

i heard a piece on the bbc this morning about general atomics...industry leader in drone manufacturing whose pr people do not like te moniker "drone"...it is redolent of male bees who have a reputation as mindless drudges ( a concept pertaining to males that seems to be readily applied across species by some...but we verge on political incorrectness here..back to the lead-lined personal journal with that )and so implying that the targeting done by said drones is somewhat less than fail-safe at best ( one would need to ask a pakistani in the tribal area bout the efficacy of targeting...and one wonders what the federal response would be to say chinese drones in u s airspace...but, once again, we venture into waters bound to be offensive to some )...so general atomics wants us to call them something like "remotely operated aircraft" so the name can pass into the realm of bureaucratic euphemism and obfuscation and the "special vocabulary" that dulls the discourse...control the language and you frame the debate...goebbles understood this and so do his heirs..of course general atomics calls their drones "the predator' and "the reaper" which immediately calls the entire project into serious question...obamaland called them drones in his state of the union message...if it is good enough for the commander-in-chief then who am i to question it? drones it is.

proletarian splendor

"at the time there was a movement in art called constructivism. the name was probably chosen to indicate that its adherents believed in construction rather than destruction. there was a strong input of mechanical civilization, and a preference for the looks of an electrical turbine to the looks of a landscape. human beings were eliminated from their pictures, or, if used, were transformed into a wheel, cylinder, or an obedient puppet subject to the machine." george grosz. "an autobiography"________________________________________________________________george mentions constructivism in relation to a trip he took to the soviet union in 1922 and the similarity of viewpoint between allegedly diametrically opposed socio-economic systems that this passage reveals is striking...whether it is the secular religion of marxism or that of industrial capitalism the view of the industrial worker is as an object.... set aside all the posturing about "the people" and "the proletarian revolution" and "the dignity of labor" ( and you can throw in that calvinist fucking work ethic too ) and the industrial worker is an adjunct to a machine.... a resource to be used...a part...a cog...( human resources taken literally )...a philosophical rationalization of the elite no matter what bogus political system underpins the system...it is a matter of relegating workers to a position inferior to the goods they produce because that production is the socially created wealth that the elite privatizes in a far greater proportion than the those who physically produce it..that relegation is crucial to the functioning of any system of social stratification...happiness is what you own is its public face here...stakhanovite production "for the revolution" was its face when george went to russia in 1922...either way it sets the elite apart________________________________________________________________________speaking of elites, my "right to work" ( for less ) state took out a full page add in today's sunday new york times ( mike pence putting my tax dollars to work...good job mike! ) with the catchy tag line: "new york: if you can make it there, you can make A LOT MORE OF IT HERE. indiana a state that WORKS...it is too large to scan in but i bet you can see it at astatehatworks.com...fuck these people...where is the lake of fire?

technology bubble

"...if growing and maintaining complexity costs energy, then energy supply is the master platform upon which all forms of complexity depends."-david korowicz_____________________________________________________________________slavic peoples are noted for their pessimism ( this may be an over-generalization...there must be optimistic slavs somewhere...and ozzie spengler was pretty pessimistic for a german...with good reason, but that's another post ) and david's surname strikes me as being deeply polish in origin ( i am of carpatho-rusyn extraction personally, on the enate side...anglo-irish on the other ) and this statement will strike some as being an unconscionable assault on the holy writ of growth and, additionally inconsequential environmentalist prating because technology will provide the answer...they are, of course, twenty-first century cargo cultists in need of a good dose of catton's book "overshoot" ( if i can make may way through a book by daniel yergin certainly they can read that )...no we aren't running out of energy completely...and probably won't...but it is getting to be more difficult and expensive to come by petroleum product and the alternative do not have anywhere near the energy density or ease of transport those products do...so to maintain current energy use levels extraction and transport and processing of lower grade materials has to become more complex...you have to do more tomorrow to get the same results as yesterday...entropy setting in...it's fourteen below zero ( fahrenheit ) as i write this sitting in a technology bubble that keeps me warm, tells me what the temperature is outside, lets me write on the interweb ( doubtless some will call it "opinionating' and still others "ranting"...you are, i suppose, legally and constitutionally entitled to that...you don't have the intellectual tools necessary to convince me to change my views however...and if it offends your worldview that deeply i am sure you can find philosophical solace with a click of your mouse )and, by extension, drive to work and to the supermarket where i can find stuff from all over the world to eat...a very complex web of producers and consumers trading goods and services across the world and all based on high quality energy...anyone see an achillies heel here? joseph tainter defines collapse ( in his book "the collapse of complex societies"...an slim academic book full of information )as an economic and cultural readjustment to a less complex system...a return to a simpler and more local way of life...as i sit here in a warm, well-lit room with the outside temperature now reading 15 below i wonder how long this complex system...so interconnected and so subject to the increasing likelihood of cascade failures can go on and how much of a "readjustment" on the part of people...especially people used to having light at the flick of a switch and heat on demand...the end of that abundant high quality energy will entail...i find pondering this on line deeply ironic...this machine is inert plastic ( petrochemicals ) and metals ( from ores that had to be mined , transported, smelted, refined , transported again, reconfigured into wires and electronic components, assembled, shipped again, purchased, transported again, programmed, and finally plugged into the grid...and that's just me and just one facet of one life...somewhere there are limits...my concern is that we have already passed them.

the trial I

My time in the box_____________________________________________________ I got to the courthouse a little after 7 on Thursday morning and the sheriff’s deputy behind the security desk questioned my being there for jury duty. “That’s on Monday morning.” Well, no, they split the jury pool and told us to report to judge Moss’ courtroom on Thursday. So she went to ask her supervisor who told her to let me in so she ran me through the metal detector and gave me directions. Of course no-one was there so I plunked myself down on a wooden bench and waited. Other moaning prospective jurors began to trickle in and by about ten until 8 eight there were quite a few, (something over thirty, I never got an accurate count) at eight they took us into the courtroom to begin filling out paperwork in triplicate, one for the judge, one for the defense, and one for the prosecutors. A bit of conversation between the middle aged bleached blond bailiff and some of the candidates for juryhood established that the jury pool was split because there usually wasn’t a jury trial in this court, in fact this was the first one this year, ”after all you don’t usually have a jury trial in misdemeanor court.” That got my attention…a jury trial in misdemeanor court? Why? There’s a story here After the paperwork was done they showed us a piece of propaganda about the inalienable right to a jury trial…that killed another twenty minutes…then we waited. A bit after nine the prosecutors, the defendant, and the defense attorney showed up…once they were seated the judge came in and began the process of empanelment. It was a six person jury with an alternate so they called the first seven victims up and started asking questions like “do you own a hand gun or any pets.” And “are you a member of an animal rights organization” and, “ are you a vegetarian” There must have been a purpose for that juxtaposition. People did their damnedest to get out of that jury box…radical peta members were crawling out of the wood work along with diehard hunters and meat eaters…the prosecution dismissed a doctor with two goldfish and the defense got rid of four animal rights extremists…two of the first seven remained in the box and five more went in…all sorts of questions …”have you, a member of your family, or a close personal friend ever been a victim of a crime?” “ have you, a family member, or close personal friend ever been charged and convicted of a crime, including driving under the influence ?” Four of those five were dismissed. I was in the next four to go up there and try as I might to rant about the bias towards wealth of the system I somehow remained in the box when only one of my group was dismissed…shit…this is a pain. The next woman up was chosen as the alternate and at ten-forty five the judge announced “we have a panel” and adjourned until 1:30 for lunch…this set the pattern for the entire trial which experienced far more down time that courtroom time. Lunch was free but the catch ( aside from the jury business) was that it had to come from the courthouse cafeteria…I always feel threatened by institutional food, and for good reason…the antibiotics I was taking for my mangled hand we already causing some gastric discomfiture…the courthouse food rendered it into full blown distress…we were pinned with huge orange buttons that said JUROR on them and turned us all into instant pariahs…people fell over themselves avoiding us as we walked down the hallways…quickly cutting corners, hugging the walls, ducking into rest rooms, cowering in doorways until we passed…no-one wanted to be tagged with jury tampering…which in itself is odd…it’s lake county Indiana after all and jury rigging is hallowed tradition amongst the legal fraternity dating back to the time when the governor of Indiana offered the county to Illinois at a fire sale price ( which was refused, at which the governor simply wished the damned place would slide off into the lake)…after we filled our trays the bailiff led us down to an empty table near the back of the cafeteria. As we were about to sit down he pointed to the enclosed smoking area and asked. “ do any of you guys smoke?” before we could answer he looked directly at me and said, “I mean cigarettes. You guys in here with your marijuana charges…if the ever legalize it or I retire I’m gonna try it just to see what it’s all about.” I was stunned into silence…it’s the hair…I know…stereotypical thinking…I do it too (bleach blond bailiff…that was an assumption)…I will try harder not to. 1:30 and the show began… the seven of us were sworn in as a jury and the defendant was introduced as a doctor…and the scales fell from my eyes…we were a jury in misdemeanor court because the doctor had the means to hire counsel and counsel felt that the good doctor would get a better break with a jury that with a judge. Much easier to fool the laity with a bunch of trite emotionalism and the proper amount of legalese. It seems that on the evening of august 15, 2007 ( the wheels of justice grind slowly…a bailiff who is entering law school next fall told me that this was purposeful…that things were done slowly and deliberately to minimize rash and hasty decisions…I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now…the bailiff is part of the system and like most of us not terribly objective about things we’re close to) the doctor shot and killed a neighbor’s dog with a .380 handgun alleging that the dog was mauling his…the owner of the dead dog and a handful of eyewitnesses took exception with that and the doctor was charged with cruelty to animals ( much was made of the definition of the word “beat” in this trial) and criminal mischief…both class a misdemeanors carrying fines and the possibility of a one year jail sentence. Opening statements were rhetorical masterpieces…prosecutors set out to prove the doctor a socio-path and a madman…a loose cannon with a .380 cannon while the defense characterized him as a loving son ( middle-age and still living with mom? All sorts of sirens, red flags, bells and whistles) and doting dog owner who had been victimized by a raging lone wolf of a golden retriever named max who was wandering the post storm ( there had been a doozie and all the power was out…a significant factor in all the confusion) chaos in a snarling, un-neutered frenzy of blood lust…I surmised the truth ( if you can find such a thing in a courtroom) lay somewhere between the two extremes. After opening statements there was a recess so the parties could arrange their displays, flow charts, graphs, aerial photographs, and dog obedience awards ( don’t laugh…they used all that stuff and more) and figure out just how they were going to pitch something so idiotic as a misdemeanor jury trial to seven shmucks off the street.