Author Archives: Frank Moraes

About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

Don’t Look Back and Sneer

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Schlitz Beer Ad 1950sLast year, I wrote a rather angry article, Michelle Obama and Downton Abbey. It is well known that the First Lady is fond of the show, as I have been. But it allows people to look back at that time and say, “Oh, we are so superior!” You see, we don’t treat gays and former prostitutes quite as badly as we used to. Ain’t we great?! Meanwhile, we allow our own injustices to continue on. And I’m not talking about ones that are so ahead of our time that we don’t even know about them. I’m talking about things like the selective enforcement of cannabis laws that manages to label huge numbers of young black men as felons for the rest of their lives.

So it’s always dangerous to feel too smug about how enlightened you are. I totally agree that it is best that we no longer hang witches in this country. (But don’t consider it enlightened that we didn’t burn them; the Catholic Church made that illegal in 785.) So I was excited to see that Business Insider had published an article, 26 Shockingly Offensive Vintage Ads. Some of them aren’t actually so bad — more simply reflecting the times. There is, for example, a 1940 Plymouth ad that shows a white couple, and attending to them is a uniformed black man carrying suitcases — and very happy in his job! The ad is conflating owning a Plymouth with being rich (that is, having a uniformed black servant). Charles Howard is shown in the movie Seabiscuit as having a black servant, and I don’t recall anyone complaining that it was racist.

But most of the ads are horrible. There is a 1950s Schlitz beer ad (see above) that shows a kitchen. A woman is holding a skillet that has smoke floating out of it; with her other hand, she has a handkerchief up to her eyes. Here husband has his arm around her, smiling and pointing to two bottles of Schlitz on the table. He says, “Anyway, you didn’t burn the Schlitz!”

Van Heusen AdThe best example is a 1950s Van Heusen ad. Now in a certain way, this isn’t really racist. It is highly ethnocentric. And it implies that all Americans are white. And that America is 80% of the planet. But what the ad is saying is that unless you are a tribal chieftain in the jungles of Africa, you wear Van Heusen shirts.

Okay, I was overstating above. The ad is racist. But it isn’t anywhere near as racist as all the photoshopped images of Obama as witch doctor that were so popular among conservatives from pretty much the moment he took office. It is not making a cultural comparison as in the Van Heusen ad; it is saying that our president is a primitive from another continent (and even time).

What was most striking about the Business Insider article is that right after it was, The 20 Most Hilarious And Clever Print Ads Ever. Mostly, I didn’t find them that great. But the two page DHL ad is nothing short of brilliant. However, it is quickly followed by the Bijouteries Natan: The first remote control ad. You’ve got to see this one:

Bijouteries Natan: The first remote control

I suppose I have no reason to complain. I was promised “clever” ads; there was no promise that they wouldn’t be offensive. But here’s the thing: I’m sure that the type of person who reads Business Insider today is the kind of person who would have found the Van Heusen ad “hilarious and clever” in the 1950s. And there is the point for Alyson Shontell and Kim Bhasin and Patricia Laya (the writers of those articles) and Michelle Obama and you and, most of all, me. We haven’t landed anywhere. In 20 years, that Bijouteries Natan ad is going to look totally sexist — unless we decide that sexual relationships are simply going to be pay-to-play. We must look to the future. We have come a long way, but on an infinite trip, that doesn’t mean much. Looking back at how awful we used to be is just a way of ignorantly showing how awful we now are.

Afterword

In 2008, the people of “liberal” California voted to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. That was just six years ago.

Modigliani, the Artists Not the Economist

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Modigliani - Self PortraitTomorrow will be the economist Dean Baker’s 56th birthday. Last year I wrote about that. And I sent him an email telling him. I also noted that he should consider it a great honor because it had been Modigliani the day before. He wrote back and talked about how much he admired his work. It was clear he wasn’t talking about the painter and I thought he was putting me on. But sure enough, he thought I meant Franco Modigliani, the Nobel Prize winning economist. Talk to an economist and see what you get.

But this year, just like last year, I must tell you that on this day in 1884, the great artist Amedeo Modigliani was born. He is one of the artists that I would classify as not terribly creative. That is to say that his style was remarkably consistent. But I might have said the same thing of Picasso had he only lived to be 35. At the same time, I love his work—far more than anything Picasso did.

The story of Modigliani is the stuff of romance. It’s absolutely awful but it is the kind of thing that even I find beautiful in its way. He mostly bartered with his paintings. He lived and died in poverty. He only had a single solo art show, that was shut down by the police within hours because of his “scandalous” nudes. Three years before his death, he met Jeanne Hebuterne, who became his constant companion. Here is one of his many paintings of her:

Jeanne Hebuterne - Modigliani

They had a daughter the following year. But Modigliani was suffering from tubercular meningitis. In January of 1920, after his downstairs neighbors had not heard from him for days, they entered the flat and found him in bed, almost dead holding onto Hebuterne, who was nine months pregnant with their second child. Modigliani was taken to the hospital but there was nothing that could be done. He died on 24 January 1920. Hebuterne was so distraught that she killed herself and her unborn baby the following day.

Modigliani - Elmyr de HoryMany years later, Elmyr de Hory made something of a living forging Modigliani. He did a lot of other people’s work too, but I think his Modiglianis are his best. He was very good. Here’s the only one I could easily find, but you can well see how de Hory fooled so many people for so long—he was good.

With my recent experience at the Antiques Roadhow, it makes me all the more angry. I don’t know exactly what I think of Elmyr de Hory. He was an incredibly talented guy and also a charlatan. But that’s not it. The problem is the whole business of art that is just shameful. This painting would sell for tens of millions of dollars if everyone believed that Modigliani had painted it. But instead, it isn’t. It’s still doubtless worth a lot of money because now Elmyr de Hory is famous. But the professional art world is a pox on society.

Happy birthday Amedeo Modigliani!

Class Is Not Style

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Why Marx Was RightWe have seen already that Marxists have a problem with the idea of utopia. This is one reason why they reject the illusion that, just because chief executives nowadays might sport sneakers, listen to Rage Against the Machine and beseech their employees to call them “Cuddlykins,” social class has been swept from the face of the earth. Marxism does not define class in terms of style, status, income, accent, occupation or whether you have ducks or Degas on the wall. Socialist men and women have not fought and sometimes died over the centuries simply to bring an end to snobbery.

The quaint American concept of “classism” would seem to suggest that class is mostly a question of attitude. The middle class should stop feeling contemptuous of the working class rather as whites should stop feeling superior to African Americans. But Marxism is not a question of attitude. Class for Marxism, rather like virtue for Aristotle, is not a matter of how you are feeling but of what you are doing. It is a question of where you stand within a particular mode of production—whether as a slave, self-employed peasant, agricultural tenant, owner of capital, financier, seller of one’s labour power, petty proprietor and so on. Marxism has not been put out of business because Etonians have started to drop their aitches, princes of the royal household puke in the gutter outside nightclubs, or some more antique forms of class distinction have been blurred by the universal solvent known as money. The fact that the European aristocracy are honoured to hobnob with Mick Jagger has signally failed to usher in the classless society.

—Terry Eagleton
Why Marx Was Right

Revolution at the Public Library

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Public LibraryI was over at the library, just roaming around. That’s the great thing about libraries and used bookstores: you never know what you’ll come upon. That exists online with blogs, but not at, say, Amazon. For one thing, you don’t get to browse older books. And the newer ones where you can “Look inside!” you are limited to what it has decided to show you. You can’t look at the table of contents and think, “Chapter 3 looks interesting, let me take a look at it!” Amazon has told you as much as it thinks maximizes its profits. But as used bookstores drop like flies, libraries continue on.

Have you given much thought to public libraries, though? Imagine we had no history of public libraries. And some person who cared about knowledge and society and the good of all humanity rose up and said, “Let there be public libraries!” What do you think would happen? Well, I know what would happen. The publishers would rush to Congress and get laws made. They would say, “A single book could be read by a thousand people! The writers will stop writing!” You see: it would be all about the writers. It would have nothing to do with the publishers who make far more from books than the writers. Nor would it have anything to do with Amazon that makes a huge amount of money just because they are Amazon. (And note: the fact that they don’t show profits is just because they are buying up everything in sight.)

At the very core of my being, I am a writer. I always have been. I like telling stories whether they are about things that are going on in the world or just bizarre things that are going on in my mind. And yes, I would like to make some money from it—at least enough to pay for the hosting of this site. And I probably will do something along those lines one of these days, throwing up a couple of ads. It would be my wildest dream to actually be able to make a living writing. The thought of making $40,000 a year is just amazing to me. But my writing here, much less what I consider my more serious private (for now) writing has nothing to do with making money.

Do you know what a lot of money does for writers? It turns them into hacks. Consider Jonathan Kellerman. I haven’t read his first book, but it was thought to be pretty good and I’m sure that it was. Since then, he’s pumped out almost three novels for every two years for the last three decades. I reviewed one of his novels, Twisted Stretched. A number of fans have come by to tell me that I’m wrong, but it’s a total piece of garbage. Then there’s Stephen King. I actually think he is a great writer. He’s published 59 novels in four decades. This does not include his numerous novellas, short story collections, screenplays, and non-fiction books. In his case, however, I will admit that he does seem to simply be a madman and he maintains a high level of quality, unlike Jonathan Kellerman or many other writers I could mention. And I think King would write like a madman even if he weren’t making millions.

So money really isn’t the key to causing people to create things whether they be books, hand carved statues, or cool new high tech devices. (On this last issue, my partner and I have been doing this very cool, cutting edge work for a year; and although we do hope to make some money from it, we don’t expect to become millionaires; in fact, we expect only the thrill of doing something totally new.) But the world is not run by the writers and the other creators of things that make life worth living. Today, the world is run by the wealthy who are only really interested in becoming more wealthy, because wealth is what they “create”—even if it in itself is not something that anyone wants.

Roam around your public library—that relic of Enlightenment thinking, which paleoconservatives would destroy if they could. It is a wonderful thing. It will change your mind. As I walked about, I came upon Ann Coulter’s book, Never Trust a Liberal Over 3—Especially a Republican, a common sort of title for conservatives. It rightly implies that the writer is still thinking at that preschool level. She’s going for that hippy slogan (most conservatives have not moved beyond the silliest 1960s revolutionary thinking), “Never trust anyone over 30!”

But right there next to Coulter’s commodity book was Penguin Books’ Greet Ideas series edition, Common Sense. I picked it up. So you see: Ann Coulter isn’t completely useless. And I found that the book was downright subversive. It wasn’t just the one pamphlet. It also included Paine’s far better and more revolutionary Agrarian Justice. But when I checked on Amazon, I noticed no mention of it. It is only if you “Look Inside!” that you will even know that it is included. Out of 204 reader reviews, not one mentioned that it contains the other essay. The top reader review stated simply, “This book should be required reading for every American. It lays out the logic of the founding fathers in separating from England but also lays out the logical and philosophical foundations of freedom. Eye opening and enlightening.” In fact, this is not true at all. It lays out Thomas Paine’s logic for separating from England. The rich guys had their own reasons. What did The Oracle say in The Matrix Reloaded? “What do all men with power want? More power.”

A browser at Amazon would just find the sanitized version of the Revolutionary War. But the browser of the public library found actual revolutionary thought from long after the war. I’ve read it twice before, but I checked it out anyway.

Why Marx Was Right Review

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Why Marx Was RightI just read Terry Eagleton’s newest book, Why Marx Was Right. It’s a fascinating book and the best one that Eagleton has written in a while. It is organized in ten chapters that start with a common argument against Marx. Then he goes on to show that pretty much everything everyone thinks they know about Marx is wrong. The last line of the book is, “Was ever a thinker so travestied?” And after reading the book, it is hard not to answer in the negative, although I can think of a few thinkers who are certainly in contention—most notably Thomas Paine, although in his case the misrepresentation has been done by carefully ignoring almost everything he ever wrote.

Fundamentally, Eagleton argues that Marxism isn’t a thing as in an economic system. It is not communism or socialism. It is quite simply a critique of capitalism—a system that Eagleton rightly notes Marx had glowing things to say about. But the fundamental question is, “Since feudalism gave rise to capitalism, where is capitalism going?” This does not mean that Marx thought that history had a great pathway that it was following. Marx was a very learned man and knew that history goes in all kinds of different and unpredictable directions. But there are natural tendencies that different social systems have.

For much of the 20th century, it was easy enough to dismiss Marx’s contention that capitalism led to more and more inequality. Keynesian economics, the rise of labor unions, and social changes brought on by the sacrifices of World War II all worked to turn the direction of capitalism back. Of course, it wasn’t capitalism itself. The high levels of income inequality of the Gilded Age caused revolution in various places. It was high unemployment and not high inflation that brought the Nazis to power. But the countries that managed to avoid revolution, did it largely by liberalizing their societies—injecting socialist reforms without destroying the capitalist base.

This is an argument I often find myself in with conservatives—libertarians most especially. All modern societies are some mixture of capitalism and socialism. Even libertarians agree that there are certain shared needs like a police force and a legal system to protect people from various forms of harm. So while such people may think they are promoting a kind of pure system, it is anything but. Most conservatives, for example, believe in corporations—the most artificial construct of human partnership ever devised. Thus we are left in liberal democracies to decide what the proper role of the government is.

The libertarian idea is that it is wrong to take money from one group and give it to another. Let’s assume that’s true. Let’s assume that it is wrong to take one penny of the Koch brothers’ inherited wealth to feed a hungry child. In such a libertarian utopia, the poor would rise up. They would not only take the wealth of the Koch brothers; if history is any judge, they would also kill them. So in my mind, libertarians are just people who don’t believe in insurance and that is why it will always be a marginal belief system.

But it is wrong to claim that Marx was in favor of violent revolution. And in fact, although he actually had nothing directly to do with the Bolshevik revolution, it was a fairly peaceful revolution because the vast majority of the people were behind it. As Eagleton notes, Marx also had no problem with marginal improvements. He was a practical man. If he were alive today, he would be like me in supporting Obamacare even though it is suboptimal.

The biggest surprise in the book is that it shows how Marx’s interests have been turned upside down. He wasn’t in favor of uniformity and increased production and everything we associate with Stalin and 1984. What he wanted was a more equitable distribution of resources so that people could do less of the unpleasant work and spend more time doing what they wanted to do. I discussed this to some extent a couple of days ago, Why Americans Don’t Work Less. The truth is that most people hate their jobs. As productivity has gone up, we could use that benefit to work less. Indeed, in countries like Germany and France, this is exactly what people have done. Of course, in the United States, our productivity gains have not been used to allow America workers more leisure. In fact, the gains haven’t even been used to make workers richer. Almost all of it has simply gone to make the already rich even richer. There is nothing natural about this. It is just a matter of public policy.

I didn’t consider myself a Marxist before reading Eagleton’s fascinating book and I don’t consider myself one now. What I now think is that there is no such thing as Marxism. But Karl Marx had a lot of really interesting insights about the failures of the capitalist system. And they are more relevant to modern America than they they were to 19th century England. It’s funny though. Marx was not a utopian. But the one most utopian philosophical movement in the world is libertarianism. Followers think they are the opposite of Marx, and they’re right—just not in the way that they think.

Above all, I think conservatives should read Why Marx Was Right. I don’t say that because they will agree with him about everything. In a fundamental sense, Marx was really just a modern liberal who read a lot more book than any sane man would. But for conservatives, Marx isn’t a man. He is just a symbol of the failure of Stalinism, which really had nothing to do with Marx. (Marx died 34 years before the Russian Revolution; 41 years before Stalinism.) Marx’s name has become a dirty word and nothing more. If you want to understand politics—especially libertarianism—you need to understand what Marx actually said.

“Was ever a thinker so travestied?”

Whistler Sans Mother

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Self Portrait - WhistlerAnother day, another birthday. Lots of interesting birthdays. But do you ever just wake up in a foul mood? (One morning my wife woke up in a fowl mood and flew away!) If it weren’t for caffeine, I don’t know what I’d do. But it hasn’t helped thus far today. So I specifically picked a birthday that would allow me to write as little about the person as possible and just rant. Are you ready?

On this day in 1834, the great artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born. He is best known for the painting he titled, Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1. But everyone knows it as simply, Whistler’s Mother. The reason that everyone knows it by that name is because it is a painting of Anna Whistler, also know as James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s mother, or if you prefer, Whistler’s mother. In some circles, it’s known as “Jim’s mum.” (It is not know as “Jim’s mum” in any circles.)

The original title of it is accurate. Basically, Whistler was trying to show what he could do with a very limited palette. And to me, it’s very clear: not much. Arrangement in Grey and Black, No 2 is actually a lot more interesting. What I think is most interesting about Whistler’s Mother is that it was the displayed in the 104th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London. But they were not keen on it. A short time later, he pawned it while in Paris. About twenty years later, someone from the Musée du Luxembourg acquired it and it became a big deal.

It rather reminds me of Moby-Dick. That book was widely panned when it was first published. It wasn’t until almost 70 years later that Carl Van Doren decided that it was a work of genius that it became the “great book” that it is today. And let’s be honest, in a standard sense, is Moby-Dick great? I don’t think so. That’s not to say that I think Moby-Dick isn’t a great book. I think it is a very great book. It is Melville. It is the book that Melville was meant to write. If you look at his other works, you can tell the man has talent, but he isn’t baring his soul the way he is in Moby-Dick and to a lesser extent The Confidence-Man. But the point is it little more than an accident than anyone outside of academia even knows who Melville is.

Having said what I have about Whistler, you might think I don’t like his work. That’s not true at all! He was a brilliant artist. I’m just not fond of Whistler’s Mother. Just take a look at a collection of his work and you will see: Google Image Search. What’s more, he was a master at the use of a limited palette. Here is one painting I very much admire, Symphony in White, No 2—generally known as The Little White Girl (Whistler was very annoying about naming paintings):

The Little White Girl - Whistler

But the man could do color too. Here is Caprice in Purple and Gold No 2—generally known as The Golden Screen:

The Golden Screen - Whistler

Happy birthday James Abbott McNeill Whistler!

Don’t Ask How the US Would React

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ADL Rockets

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweeted out this image with the text, “We stand in solidarity with the people of #Israel as rockets from #Hamas-controlled #Gaza rain down on them.” Okay, I understand. Of course, the ADL would stand in solidarity with the people of Israel if feather pillows were raining down on them. But there’s nothing wrong with always being on one side if that’s how you feel. Personally, I stand in solidarity with the people on both sides.

I want to answer that question, though. “What if terrorists targeted your city with rockets?” I think I can answer for America. We would overreact even more excessively than the Israelis have. We used the 9/11 attacks to fight a war with a country that had nothing to do with it, killing at least 100,000 people. I don’t think it is very helpful for Israel to ask America how it would react. We don’t have a good track record.

But I think it is very interesting that the ADL feels it needs to buy Twitter ads in this conflict. Because it is getting harder and harder for Americans to maintain their unwavering support for Israel. What we would do hardly matters. We’re a bunch of hypocrites. It doesn’t matter what we would do. We dropped two unnecessary atomic bombs on Japanese civilians. Asking us what we would do in a given situation is like asking Hannibal Lecter what he would do with a dinner guest.

It is completely wrong for Hamas to fire rockets into Israel. And I think Hamas really needs to figure out if its going to be a governing body or a terrorist group. But the fact remains that Hamas continues to be almost unbelievably impotent in their attacks. And Israel continues to be unbelievably lethal in their attacks—far more so against civilians than actual militants. And it makes me wonder if Hamas doesn’t fire its rockets just to make Israel respond in this way. If that’s the case, it’s an evil, but brilliant strategy. Because it is getting harder and harder to support the Israeli government’s reactions to these attacks.

I actually don’t take a side in this conflict. This goes right along with my 95/5 rule: 95% of the people just want to live their lives and 5% screw everything up. I stand with the 95. A bunch of them were killed in the last few days. And as usual, they were Palestinians, regardless of who started it and is ultimately to blame.

Another Libertarian Gets Trapped Talking About Practical Matters

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Peter SudermanJonathan Chait wrote a really good article earlier this week, Libertarian Accidentally Shows How Obamacare Is Succeeding. It has to do with Peter Suderman’s coverage of Obamacare over the past six months at Reason Magazine. Readers here may know of Suderman, because he’s also a film “critic” who I blasted last year about his truly ignorant take on why Hollywood films are so boring, Why Screenplays Suck. It’s funny that a libertarian would complain that films suck. According to their ideology, a film’s value is completely determined by how much money it makes. But whatever. Suderman, it seems, is just as much an idiot when it comes to Obamacare.

Chait looks at five articles that Suderman wrote about Obamacare. First, he said Obamacare wasn’t going to reduce the uninsured at all. A couple days later he said, well, maybe it would reduce the uninsured a little bit, but that was all. A month later, he was scoffing about the seven million Obamacare signups on the exchanges; he said it might be two and a half. A couple weeks after that, he had bumped his number up to three million newly covered—far less than the 13 million hoped for by the administration. So a New England Journal of Medicine report recently came out and found that 20 million Americans have gotten health insurance through Obamacare. Suderman’s response, “[I]t’s too early to say exactly how many so far—only that 20 million is almost certainly an overstatement.”

The point that Chait makes explicitly is that individually, each of Suderman’s articles claim that Obamacare is failing. But looked at in series, they show that it is a great success. I’ll go further: Suderman’s article series actually provides a more positive narrative for Obamacare than any of its biggest cheerleaders. This is a typical error committed by conservatives on Obamacare especially. They have been so certain that it would be a failure that they have made continued bold claims about it. I’m sure you could do what Chait did to anyone. If I could stomach it, I’d do it to that charlatan Avik Roy.

But there is something special here: Peter Suderman is not just a conservative—he is a libertarian. Libertarians are fine if they only talk in terms of theory. “The minimum wage is bad because two people should have a right to engage in any contract they find mutually acceptable.” It’s when they talk practically that they get into trouble, “The minimum wage is bad because it will cost jobs and drive prices up!” They should know this. When I was a fellow traveler[1], I understood this. But most libertarians just can’t resist. They insist on arguing that their “principled” stand will bring about a better world, even when there is usually no evidence for that.

Why is Peter Suderman against Obamacare? Because he’s against the government doing just about anything at all. And that’s fine! But he doesn’t make that argument. He makes the argument that the law is not working and will not work. But as a libertarian, he can’t really care whether the law is working or not. His complaint is theoretical. The free market is king and will solve all our problems! I just don’t understand the need to make these practical attacks.

Of course, today he is out with his own counter argument, Did I Accidentally Prove that Obamacare Is a Success? It’s actually a shockingly bad bit of writing. Chait’s main point is that on each occasion, Suderman put the worst possible spin on what was going on. Suderman’s main complaint is that Chait didn’t quote other articles of his. But if you look at those articles, they are either pure reporting, or again, Suderman putting the worst possible spin on the data. For example, he complained that Chait didn’t include “an April 17 post noting the administration’s report that 8 million had signed up for coverage.” But in that “report,” Suderman makes the same conservative comments: not everyone is paying and we don’t know about the demographics. It might as well have been Charles Krauthammer or George Will writing.

At no time did Chait claim that Suderman was making outlandish attacks on the Obamacare news. He was just pointing out that Suderman was always painting the worst picture possible and over time that picture has gotten better and better. In a sense, it is a compliment to Suderman; it shows that he is not resistant to facts. He has an ideological ax to grind, but he isn’t such an ideologue that he refuses to look at reality. (As a counter example, look at the gold standard crowd who claim that inflation is actually really high but there is a conspiracy to prevent us from knowing about it.)

I, of course, have a much worse view of Suderman. I still have a certain fondness for libertarians. They are not paleoconservatives. But I have a problem with Suderman because I know that it doesn’t matter what happens, he will always hate Obamacare for theoretical reasons. So let’s suppose that in three years, Obamacare is a fantastic success—that there is no way to deny this. Suderman will do what libertarians always do when they can’t make a practical case: he will complain about it based on theory: the government should not take money away from one group of people to give healthcare to another group of people. And that annoys me, because it means that all the practical arguments were disingenuous. The biggest thing I still respect about what I consider real libertarians is that they are honest. Almost none of the people who call themselves libertarians are.[2]

Say it with me: “I will only make theoretical libertarian arguments because practical libertarian arguments are usually a joke.” Repeat as often as necessary.

[1] People may wonder why I continue to use the term “fellow traveler” to indicate my former libertarianism. This is because libertarianism today is very much like communism 80 years ago: it is a utopian philosophy that can never be refuted because no society can ever be completely pure. So proponents will always claim, “Well, if we just did one more thing” everything would be roses or whatever. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have a certain respect for the old communists or the new libertarians. But they are far more similar than they know.

[2] But look at that face! He looks so fresh and idealistic. It’s hard to think ill of him.

The Bill of Rights is About All Humans Not Just US Citizens

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The Bill of Rights Applies to CITIZENSI saw this sign from a protest against the kids who have fled the violence in Central America. It is literally true: the Bill of Rights applies to citizens. But of course, that’s not what the sign means. It means that the Bill of Rights only applies to citizens. This is a common and totally fallacious belief.

In truth, the entire Constitution has only 22 references to “citizen” in it and they are all about who can be elected to office, who can vote, and how citizens of one state interact with citizens of another state. As for the Bill of Rights, there is no mention whatsoever of citizens in the original ten. As for the amendments, except for one, every mention has to do with voting. The one exception is the 11th Amendment that has to do with citizens of one state or country suing citizens in another state. It really has nothing to do with citizens and was about the jurisdictional reach of the Supreme Court.

If you study the thinking that powered the founding of the United States, you will see that these men did not see rights as a special case for the United States. True: that was all they had control of. And they, like all men, had their many hangups. John Adams, for example, might have thought himself above a cobbler, be he thought a lawyer of property in England deserved the same rights as he did.

This is why the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” There’s nothing in that amendment that says that a tourist must be of the “right” religion or must shut up. That’s to say nothing of a national.

I have heard this kind of thinking that the Constitution is only for citizens from conservatives for years, however. This is not only sad and disappointing, it is dangerous. Conservatives are actually more fond of the Declaration of Independence than they are the Constitution. Yet that document is even more explicit. The key sentence is, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” [My emphasis -FM] There is a strong current in the conservative movement that wants to move backwards from 1776. They want to limit rights, as though foreign people being granted rights somehow diminishes their own.

I realize that it would be too wordy to create a sign that read, “The Bill of Rights applies to CITIZENS but except for voting it also applies to EVERYONE.” But I assume the person who created that sign didn’t know this, didn’t know the history of this country, and didn’t care in a very real way, that we are a revolutionary people. And that means we are not looking out for only ourselves, but for everyone. We don’t want to form just a more perfect union, but a more perfect world. The Constitution, in its most important parts applies to all people. That is something that all fifth graders should know.

Truckin’ Away With Blind Boy Fuller

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Blind Boy FullerOn this day in 1907, the great blues singer and guitarist Blind Boy Fuller was born. Among blues lovers, there is such a tendency to focus on the Mississippi Delta as to think that nothing else was going on. But as I wrote about last month, Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley, who were both thought to be from Mississippi were actually from Texas. And Fuller was from North Carolina.

He learned to play the guitar while still a kid, but had no intention of making a living at it. But in his teens he began to go blind and by the age of 20, he was completely blind. Much later in life, he learned that he had neonatal conjunctivitis. This left him no real choice. He started performing on street corners and the occasional party. His talent was such that he didn’t remain unknown for long. It was especially other professional musicians who picked up on him.

He has a pleasant enough voice, but it is his guitar playing that really stands out. He is considered a major figure in Piedmont blues, but it is probably easiest to think of his work as ragtime on the guitar. It’s the kind of playing that makes me weep with jealousy. Here is a song that doesn’t show off his great guitar playing, but it is just so much fun, I can’t help it. It is the traditional “Rag, Mama, Rag”:

“Rag, Mama, Rag” was one of the first songs that he recorded. But unlike a lot of great musicians from that time, he was well recording, eventually producing over 120 songs. Here is one that better shows off his guitar playing, “Truckin’ My Blues Away”:

Fuller had a very good career for five years, performing and recording up and down the east coast. But in 1940, he began having problems with his bladder, even having surgery for it. This forced him to stop performing and he died the following year from blood poisoning due to an infected bladder. He was only 33 years old. But he did leave a great legacy of music that enrich us to this day.

Happy birthday Blind Boy Fuller!

Best Britney Spears Ever—and More

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Britney SpearsIt’s your fault America. Your the ones who like hyper-produced “cute” boys and girls performing your music. You’re the ones who want all real emotion and authentic humanity taken out of your music. You are the ones who have elevated just the right reverb on the digital snare drum above songwriting craft and inspiration. And above all, you’re the ones who have allowed auto-tune distortion to soil every mainstream hit for the last decade to the point where you think its a singing style and not an algorithm for fixing inaccurate singing. So it’s your fault and I want you to shut up about it.

The issue at hand is Britney Spears’ new single, “Alien,” which someone got released with the lead vocal track un-processed. Many are saying that the problem is that it hasn’t been auto-tuned. The producer claims it was just a test track, and so shouldn’t be judged as the kind of work that Ms Spears is capable of. I’m sure both of these claims are true. And there’s one more thing: Spears, like all the other purveyors of children’s music, does not have loads of other effects put on her voice here. But before listening to this track, bear in mind that her pitch problems are not primarily on those high notes that most people are freaking out about. I suspect that if it weren’t for those high notes, few would even have noticed. So again, America: it’s your fault because you have no taste, no maturity, and very little musical sense.

My take on the song is different. I think it’s the best thing she’s ever done. I just wish all the background music were taken away. With that vocal and an acoustic guitar, it would be terrible. But that would be a major step up from what most of my fellow Americans think passes for good music.

Now I’m going to present to you some good simple music. No, I’m not going to go back to Robert Johnson. Here is Camper Van Beethoven doing Take the Skinheads Bowling. It’s simple; it’s fun; and it’s pretty well in tune (not that it is critical):

Here is Devotchka with “The Clockwise Witness”:

Here is Jules Shear doing “The Trap Door”:

And here is the greatest punk band ever, Minutemen with “Two Beads at the End”:

I don’t care if you like any of that, America. But when you demand music that is created like television commercials, don’t be surprised when all the pieces aren’t perfect on their own. What you hear on “Alien” is an actual human voice. If you don’t like it, admit that it’s the technology you care about. Embrace your dehumanization.

See Also: Justin Bieber and the End of Western Culture

A Modest Proposal for Israel-Palestine

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Hiroshima BombI have a modest proposal for the Israel-Palestine conflict: genocide. It’s time tested. After all, if the conflict were going on 500 years ago, the Israelis would have just gone in, slaughtered all the Palestinians who weren’t able to flee, and the conflict would be over. And would it really matter? Yes, there would be people who would be very upset. But there already are! Why should Israel care? They are the only country in the region with nuclear arms and they have the biggest military. Plus, anything the United Nations would try to do would be vetoed by the United States. So I say: go for it!

Now I know what you bleeding heart liberals will say, “Just because you got bumped out of art school by a better Jewish painter doesn’t mean you should commit a genocide against the Jewish people.” I see that point, but you have to draw a line somewhere. For example, some Palestinian idiots fire a couple of rockets into Israel wounding two people. So the Israelis respond in their usual proportional way. They didn’t go after the people that fired the rockets, of course. They just did their usual (And totally justified!) collective punishment, which killed at least 23.

This, of course, is following the kidnapping of three Israeli youths. It appears to have been a usual thing where thugs kidnap people and exchange them for money. But when it became a political issue, they thought it was best to just kill them. [Update: it now seems it was a Hamas splinter group that did it. -FM] This led to some sicko Israeli folks kidnapping a Palestinian youth and then burning him alive. So let’s see there. Step one: unpolitical act of murder by individuals. Step two: political act of torture murder by extremists. Step three: political act by extremist Palestinian faction. Step four: official Israeli attack on Palestinian population.

It’s not a good situation. And I know that many conservatives in the United States will say that the at least five Palestinian children who were killed in the recent attack should have been born to different parents or something. So given that it is perfectly acceptable to kill civilians if you think you have just cause (Defined as: whatever!) why don’t we just get systematic about this!

Of course, it will be sad to see all the Palestinians killed. But we’ll get over it. I mean who remembers the genocide of the Ottoman Empire? Who cares about the American genocide of the native peoples? All of them would be dead by now anyway. So in a hundred years, who will really care?

But let me be clear: it doesn’t have to be an Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. It could be the other way around. It is just that there are problems. One is militarily, the Palestinians really aren’t up to it. What’s more, if they did manage to do it, the United States wouldn’t be there to protect Palestine at the UN because we only believe in justifying absolutely everything that Israel ever does.

What’s really great about my idea is that the Palestinians are hardly clean in this matter. Sure, there’s about a thousand to one Israeli reaction to anything Palestinians do. But the Palestinians aren’t a bunch of Jains out sweeping the road in front of them to make sure they kill no living things. And it certainly doesn’t help that Hamas can’t decide if it’s a government or a revolutionary group. It was sad that they supported the murder of those three Israeli youths. So the point is that Israel has justification for attacking Palestine. And they don’t ever seem to be concerned about an appropriate level of force. So let’s get some of those nukes out. Let’s get this over with!

Afterword

Of course, the two countries could act as adults and not allow the extremists on both sides to destroy diplomatic efforts. But I’m sad to say that this idea is even more fanciful than my modest proposal.