Arbeit macht nicht frei

“My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me, and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves. They are concerned about gasoline prices, the cost of getting to and from work, taking their kids to school or to practice and so forth after school. That is what women care about in this country and my vision is to get America working again.”

That's what Mitt Romney said in a speech on April 4 to the Newspaper Association of America.

Here's what Hilary Rosen said on CNN on April 11:

"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future."

The rest is history, with most people revealing that they have thrown away their humanity in picking what political team they root for.

Mitt Romney and Hilary Rosen are saying the same thing. They deny the other's right to say it, because they are both expressing false concern. And both are wielding their comments as a weapon against the other.

What this whole stand-off illustrates is the false divide in U.S. politics.

Hilary Rosen is a right-wing corporate flack, famous for leading the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign against people sharing the music they've bought with friends. She still advises Obama on the issue. After quitting that job, for a short time she was interim director of Human Rights Campaign, which awarded their 2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award to Goldman Sachs. While working at the Huffington Post, she was outed as a consultant for BP.

Ann Romney is married to one of the predatory capitalists that Rosen serves. They may not have anything in common in personal style and beliefs, but they both serve the same master.

At least Ann Romney only raised a few children and supported her husband on behalf of that system, whereas Hilary Rosen has actively contributed to its evil. Her dismissal of Ann Romney appears to be because the latter has only listened to women on the campaign trail, without a history of actively working to maintain their economic misery.

Many "liberal" commenters on this issue have expressed a hatred for women who choose to stay at home as a betrayal of feminism, as if feminism is only about a few women getting to the top of the exploitative pyramid and everyone else being forced to toil in "service" jobs as somehow liberating.

Rosen's strong support of Obama and the Democratic Party is clear evidence that the only difference between the parties is that one is slightly more tolerant of gays.

That's certainly a good to be counted, but it does nothing for the 99% of the people, women and men, gay and otherwise, who are not striving to triumph in a cut-throat system. It's good that Goldman Sachs extends benefits to gay partners, but that hardly makes it a benign force in the world. Human rights are rather a broader issue.

What is work for? Actively raising a family should not be the privilege only of the rich. Is either Mitt or Hilary suggesting an economic system that makes raising a family easier for everyone (as in many European countries)? They are both against women, against men, against families, against humanity.

Arbeit macht nicht frei. Work does not make you free.

human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

The Four or Five Funny Books

1. The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life (translation of An Béal Bocht) by Myles na gCopaleen (Brian O’Nolan a.k.a. Flann O’Brien)

2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

3. Fisher’s Hornpipe by Todd McEwen

4. Come to the Edge by Joanna Kavenna

5. Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

6. Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander

7. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W. E. Bowman

The Arrogance of Industry

The state of New South Wales in Australia has drawn up draft guidelines to regulate further construction of "wind farms". Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Australia duly submitted comments to decry them and denounce those supporting them. (The alleged latter, however, do not find the guidelines to be very good, either: see here, here, and here.)

Ken McAlpine, Director of Policy and Government Relations, writes:

Vestas opposes the Draft Guidelines, primarily because of the sheer number of new and additional requirements and barriers that would be placed in front of the wind energy industry without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need for this additional regulation.

The Draft Guidelines appear to be in conflict with the New South Wales (NSW) Government’s own renewable energy policies and seem to be primarily motivated by an attempt to appease anti-wind protest groups.

In other words, after removing requirements and barriers facing development of previously protected land and instituting favorable regulations and tax breaks and other financial benefits to make our industry profitable, without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need, and seemingly motivated primarily by an attempt to appease pro-industry investors, how dare you consider anyone else's concerns or wishes, let alone the people you pretend to represent!

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

Judy Callens: Good Riddance!

A friend writes:

The principal (no "pal" of mine!) of Hartland Elementary School, Judy Callens, is retiring at the end of this academic year (because her contract was not renewed?). We have therefore been subjected to a barrage of encomia for her devotion to learning and her inspirational leadership.

In fact, her vision is limited to producing little soldiers. She is obsessed with disciplinary trivialities and eager to punish anyone who does not fall in with her rigid program of indoctrination. Her paeans to "community" in a weekly newsletter were no more than self-aggrandizing assertions of her school as defining the limits of that community. She epitomizes the reasons that so many people are not just dissatisfied with their public schools, but flee them in horror.

When we reached out to the teachers to help us through a bad patch in our son's academics, asking them to warn us earlier than at grade-reporting of any problems, to suggest extra work that might be helpful, etc., we were met almost entirely with silence. The guidance counselor who further brought it up on our behalf was met with defensive anger. Finally, Judy Callens, with our son in her office to inform him of her latest punishment for poor grades, told him that his teachers have no responsibility to communicate (same root as "community"!) with us beyond entering grade data into the online "Powerschool" program.

She even prefaced her comment to this child with a sarcastic "With all due respect". Too cowardly to face his parents, she revealed her true lack of respect for, even hatred of, children. And that attitude characterized the entire school. Her "leadership" encouraged a blithe laziness among the teachers, an environment that expected respect to flow one way only, especially when not deserved.

The community of Judy Callens' vision is a narrow one indeed. It is entirely shaped by her own personality: mean, resentful, small. It is defined by deference to authority above all else, perversely tested by giving every reason to disdain it. Hers is the logic of an abusive parent: ensuring the very disrespect she demands in a vicious spiral of violence and failure.

Spring came early with the announcement of her departure. Let us hope that Hartland Elementary will do much better with her replacement.

I wish Ms. Callens all the misery and misfortune she deserves for the violence she has done to the many young lives entrusted to her.

School Choice Vermont!

Security Threat — Stand Your Ground

Are George Zimmerman and Robert Bales very different from Barack Obama?

George Zimmerman was protecting his gated community — and in the evening of February 26 shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, because he didn't recognize him.

Barack Obama was protecting his country — and bombed and killed 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (and nine others) on October 14, 2011, because his father had said mean words against U.S. arrogance (and who (along with three others) had already been killed for it on September 30, 2011). Although their murders would be inexcusable no matter their country of origin or residence, both al-Awlakis were U.S. citizens. But Obama did not recognize them as part of his community and considered that to be justification for murder.

American soldier Robert Bales "snapped" in Afghanistan and, allegedly alone, methodically killed 16 people and injured five in the dark morning hours of March 11. In one house, he killed a woman, four girls aged 2-6, four boys aged 8-12, and two other relatives. He then set their bodies on fire. In another house, he killed a 55-year-old man. In another village, he killed four members of another family, including another child. [Click here for their names.]

Bales had quit his career as a stockbroker to sign up with the Army after the hijacked airplane attacks on September 11, 2001. His fortunes as a capitalist were obviously not going well, and now he had something to blame. Eradicate that eternal enemy and his honor and prosperity would be restored, the latter at least in the expanded war market.

"Restoring America" — implying attainment of the personal "success" every citizen/consumer feels entitled to, somehow never wondering how everyone can triumph over everyone else — is the normal cry of every election in the U.S.A. That means that social and economic breakdown is the normal situation. It's as if politicians and every other huckster (the only people that do in fact "make it") want it that way! They market fear so they can sell you redemption.

It is the eradicating of an enemy — any enemy — that promises honor and profit. Without that enemy, where are you?

The message is the same from all of these killers: Stand your ground, America. It's never your fault. You have good reason to be scared, because other people aren't like you. Don't ever change! Don't ask questions! Shoot first! You're not a failure if you can kill! Your readiness to kill proves you're right!

[Ten years later: “Warshington Warlords”]

All that remains

From "Going, Going" by Philip Larkin:

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.

environment, environmentalism

Into the tumbril!

Jeffrey St. Clair writes:

The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.

Next, let us eliminate the Mephistophelean phase win-win solution, a verbal potion of the Clinton era that was used to justify oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the redwoods, and rollbacks in air pollution standards. In win-win solutions, industry gets what it wants and environmental groups get paid in grants to go along with the deal.

Finally, let us jettison the term holistic, especially when affixed to “ecosystem” or “resource management.” Holistic is a merely a New Age-update of the venerable term “multiple use,” one of the oldest cons in the history of conservation. Multiple use was the ludicrous notion that public lands could be all things to all people (or more properly all industries). In other words, wildlife could peacefully co-exist with mining, logging, livestock and off-road vehicle use. Holistic ecosystem management posits the same battered notion, but escalates the deception by suggesting that logging and grazing are actually beneficial to the long-term health of the ecosystem.

environment, environmentalism