If, after giving as much money as you legally can to the Democratic candidate(s) of your choice, you still have more you're able to give, then you should strongly consider giving it to Ron Paul. No, Paul does not stand a reasonable chance of winning the Republican nomination; however, as Howard pointed out in his last post, Paul serves an important function nonetheless. The longer Paul is able to afford to stand up and rail against thoughtlessly pro-war, pro-torture candidates such as Giuliani, the more voters will become aware of Giuliani's many troubling positions on important national issues. Unfortunately, it is true that a hardcore base of Republican voters fully support Giuliani's stance on torture; however, a great many independent and moderate voters do not. The earlier such voters see Giuliani for the borderline authoritarian that he is, the better. Right now Ron Paul is in the best position to do just that--he just needs the additional exposure that better funding would allow him.
5.23.2007
5.22.2007
Republicans should celebrate Ron Paul, not denounce him
When Ron Paul had the gall to suggest that American occupation in the Middle East is a factor in fueling terrorism, the Reagan Conservatives reacted typically: If you're not going to tout the GOP position in the War on Terror, just go away. That's funny, considering that Sean Hannity and people of his ilk will always espouse their undying support of the First Amendment when their views are criticized.
Once Rep. Paul proclaimed his position on foreign policy, it was no surprise that Rudy Giuliani was all too happy to immediately denounce this "falsehood." Giuliani embodies the "don't rock the boat" candidate that will eventually threaten the Republican's chances in 2008. The fact that all the other candidates are still supporting George Bush's greatest failure (I know, that's bold) should scare the hell out of their would-be voters. If they were really thinking, they would embrace Paul's dead-on take instead of denouncing him as their version of Dennis Kucinich.
This is not to say that Ron Paul's pre-World War II isolationist foreign policy isn't outdated, because it most certainly is. America needs to retain diplomatic ties with the rest of the world and maintain its role in the UN. Globalism is eventual, meaning that an internationalist approach to foreign policy is the only sensible option. However, the current Administration is taking this idea and adding their own unilateral bullying of other nations, instead of listening to the concerns of the rest of the world. As Americans become more aware of worldwide criticism of the government's bullying overseas, it would seem the Republicans would rethink their strategy and move as far away from Bush as possible in this area. Too bad for the Republican voters that none of their candidates save for Paul will actually go out on a limb and break with the current GOP philosophy. For this reason, the punditry and anyone else that cares should embrace Ron Paul's idea, not label his position as extreme.
HC
Once Rep. Paul proclaimed his position on foreign policy, it was no surprise that Rudy Giuliani was all too happy to immediately denounce this "falsehood." Giuliani embodies the "don't rock the boat" candidate that will eventually threaten the Republican's chances in 2008. The fact that all the other candidates are still supporting George Bush's greatest failure (I know, that's bold) should scare the hell out of their would-be voters. If they were really thinking, they would embrace Paul's dead-on take instead of denouncing him as their version of Dennis Kucinich.
This is not to say that Ron Paul's pre-World War II isolationist foreign policy isn't outdated, because it most certainly is. America needs to retain diplomatic ties with the rest of the world and maintain its role in the UN. Globalism is eventual, meaning that an internationalist approach to foreign policy is the only sensible option. However, the current Administration is taking this idea and adding their own unilateral bullying of other nations, instead of listening to the concerns of the rest of the world. As Americans become more aware of worldwide criticism of the government's bullying overseas, it would seem the Republicans would rethink their strategy and move as far away from Bush as possible in this area. Too bad for the Republican voters that none of their candidates save for Paul will actually go out on a limb and break with the current GOP philosophy. For this reason, the punditry and anyone else that cares should embrace Ron Paul's idea, not label his position as extreme.
HC
5.16.2007
Snyde Remarks: A Sincere and Heartfelt Farewell to Falwell
In 1983, Hustler magazine printed a satirical liquor ad that suggested a young Jerry Falwell had lost his virginity via carnal acts with his own mother in a grimy outhouse in the backwoods of Virginia. It was a cheap blow, to be sure, and it would have surely been lost in some obscure wing of the annals of history were it not for Falwell’s subsequent actions.
Outraged, and rightfully so, the Good Reverend sued Hustler for libel and infliction of emotional distress. The whole ordeal became a free speech issue and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Actually, nevermind. The ensuing tale would take pages to write and most people know enough about it already. No need to speculate on whether or not Falwell was indeed a certifiable outhouse-squatting motherfucker. The man died yesterday. So with that in mind—and with every major newspaper in the country ditching Cold Hard Truth in favor of timid sentimentality with regard to this topic—let us turn now to bigger Jesus fish to fry . . .
The general consensus among the journalists responsible for the mawkish, bullshit-stained obituaries presently mocking all notions of historical justice in this morning’s papers is that Falwell, for all his unrepentant depravity, is redeemed to a certain extent because he was utterly sincere in the mind-bending, honky-baiting twaddle he so feverishly propagated. Sure, he may have been a whore, but he was an honest whore.
Well, maybe. Maybe his insanity was so complete and crystallized that his piss-drenched brain actually believed that the ACLU and the pagans and the feminists were responsible for 9/11. Maybe he was speaking from whatever black, pus-filled organ he called his heart when he warned, “AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” Maybe. But issues regarding the man’s sincerity are irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Jerry Laymon Falwell has slid off this mortal plane and that the world is a better, saner place because of it. His bizarre sermons and lectures—no matter how varied in topic, scope, or tone—always had one thing in common: the underlying and unstated goal of these incessant jabberings was to transmogrify the very worst in human nature (stupidity, bigotry, mindless fanaticism) into unassailable virtues and to take the best traits demonstrated by mankind (love of truth, reason, sense of liberty, virility, instinct for progress) and transform them into sinful proclivities and sources of shame.
From his bully pulpit, he compelled his sheep to cast aside their logic and critical thinking, to unblinkingly believe in absurd ghosts/gods, to disregard notions of sensible tolerance, to embrace mind-poisoning fairy tales, to vehemently loath their own sexuality, to regard as evil all manifestations of happiness/pleasure, and to submit their wills to his marauding herd of yokels. In short, to renounce their virtues and to sully Life itself.
It is impossible to conjure any means or ends more evil than the above mentioned. Jerry Falwell was not merely a symptom of Evil; he was a certified symbol of it. He was a leering, lurching mascot of every deficiency plaguing our species ad infintum. Power lust? Check. Willful deceit? Check. Propagation of hate? Check. Of ignorance? Check. War-mongering? Check. Aversion to reason and science? Double-check.
His power lust—and the mystic swill he spat to that end—was borne from a striking lack of integrity, independence, and intellect. Unable to raise himself to even the remotest level of self-respectability, he sought instead to reduce other men to superstitious animals. In lieu of generating his own philosophies, theologies, or ideas, he digested archaic religious dogmas and then shat their distilled poisons unto his victims through the aforementioned sermons, no creativity required. Just smear some mind-bogglingly ridiculous bullshit on your resume about being a “spokesman for God” and you, too, can attain reasonable wealth without having to endure the toils of honest work. And while it would be merciful to paint his victims as mere innocents swindled by forces beyond their ken, it would hardly be just.
Let us not mince words or fear reprisals of “elitist” accusations: Jerry Falwell’s followers were a discomforting assortment of excitable and dim-witted rustic rabble. With their fetish for victimhood and flare for melodramatics, they constantly mewled and brayed and complained that a nefarious element (be it the “liberal” media, academia, the Jews, Hollywood, homosexuals, or immigrants) sought to “destroy their way of life,” a phrase they defined and redefined at their convenience, depending on the “aggressor” at hand. A sinister legion of baffled white males was thereby given the sanction of victim despite having been granted, by birth, every conceivable societal advantage in the history of human folly. There are few things on this planet sorrier or more disconcerting than a 35-year-old Georgia cracker pointing to his Confederate flag-emblazoned T-shirt, bitching about his stake in life, and rambling vaguely about “rebel pride.”
These are the kin Falwell and his ilk have wrought. It is difficult to watch Larry the Cable Guy today and not envision him as the love-child of a decadent love tryst between Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson circa 1966.
The image of Pat Robertson perched nude on a pulpit in such a position to better receive Jerry Falwell’s seed is not a pleasant image for a sane person to ponder. Both men are objectively ghoulish. And their mutual ghoulishness, it could be argued, is no coincidence.
It has been said that a man’s face is a window into his soul. Jerry Falwell provided favorable evidence for this aphorism. More over, his entire body had a languid plumpness to it and was aptly shaped like a rotting pear. His skin shone in a sickly, pasty hue and hung from his flaccid frame like a limp, water-logged tarp. The poor bastard no doubt suffered from malaise, of both mind and spirit. His condescending smirk and smug eyes betrayed a degree of self-loathing rivaled only by Dick Cheney’s.
That he was incurably self-loathing should come as no surprise. The Reverend was such a grotesque caricature of self-righteous chicanery that—even as his heart pumped its last fatally sporadic beat and the final images of a squandered existence evaporated in the synapses of his withering brain—there is little doubt that even Jerry Falwell hated Jerry Falwell.
Outraged, and rightfully so, the Good Reverend sued Hustler for libel and infliction of emotional distress. The whole ordeal became a free speech issue and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Actually, nevermind. The ensuing tale would take pages to write and most people know enough about it already. No need to speculate on whether or not Falwell was indeed a certifiable outhouse-squatting motherfucker. The man died yesterday. So with that in mind—and with every major newspaper in the country ditching Cold Hard Truth in favor of timid sentimentality with regard to this topic—let us turn now to bigger Jesus fish to fry . . .
The general consensus among the journalists responsible for the mawkish, bullshit-stained obituaries presently mocking all notions of historical justice in this morning’s papers is that Falwell, for all his unrepentant depravity, is redeemed to a certain extent because he was utterly sincere in the mind-bending, honky-baiting twaddle he so feverishly propagated. Sure, he may have been a whore, but he was an honest whore.
Well, maybe. Maybe his insanity was so complete and crystallized that his piss-drenched brain actually believed that the ACLU and the pagans and the feminists were responsible for 9/11. Maybe he was speaking from whatever black, pus-filled organ he called his heart when he warned, “AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” Maybe. But issues regarding the man’s sincerity are irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Jerry Laymon Falwell has slid off this mortal plane and that the world is a better, saner place because of it. His bizarre sermons and lectures—no matter how varied in topic, scope, or tone—always had one thing in common: the underlying and unstated goal of these incessant jabberings was to transmogrify the very worst in human nature (stupidity, bigotry, mindless fanaticism) into unassailable virtues and to take the best traits demonstrated by mankind (love of truth, reason, sense of liberty, virility, instinct for progress) and transform them into sinful proclivities and sources of shame.
From his bully pulpit, he compelled his sheep to cast aside their logic and critical thinking, to unblinkingly believe in absurd ghosts/gods, to disregard notions of sensible tolerance, to embrace mind-poisoning fairy tales, to vehemently loath their own sexuality, to regard as evil all manifestations of happiness/pleasure, and to submit their wills to his marauding herd of yokels. In short, to renounce their virtues and to sully Life itself.
It is impossible to conjure any means or ends more evil than the above mentioned. Jerry Falwell was not merely a symptom of Evil; he was a certified symbol of it. He was a leering, lurching mascot of every deficiency plaguing our species ad infintum. Power lust? Check. Willful deceit? Check. Propagation of hate? Check. Of ignorance? Check. War-mongering? Check. Aversion to reason and science? Double-check.
His power lust—and the mystic swill he spat to that end—was borne from a striking lack of integrity, independence, and intellect. Unable to raise himself to even the remotest level of self-respectability, he sought instead to reduce other men to superstitious animals. In lieu of generating his own philosophies, theologies, or ideas, he digested archaic religious dogmas and then shat their distilled poisons unto his victims through the aforementioned sermons, no creativity required. Just smear some mind-bogglingly ridiculous bullshit on your resume about being a “spokesman for God” and you, too, can attain reasonable wealth without having to endure the toils of honest work. And while it would be merciful to paint his victims as mere innocents swindled by forces beyond their ken, it would hardly be just.
Let us not mince words or fear reprisals of “elitist” accusations: Jerry Falwell’s followers were a discomforting assortment of excitable and dim-witted rustic rabble. With their fetish for victimhood and flare for melodramatics, they constantly mewled and brayed and complained that a nefarious element (be it the “liberal” media, academia, the Jews, Hollywood, homosexuals, or immigrants) sought to “destroy their way of life,” a phrase they defined and redefined at their convenience, depending on the “aggressor” at hand. A sinister legion of baffled white males was thereby given the sanction of victim despite having been granted, by birth, every conceivable societal advantage in the history of human folly. There are few things on this planet sorrier or more disconcerting than a 35-year-old Georgia cracker pointing to his Confederate flag-emblazoned T-shirt, bitching about his stake in life, and rambling vaguely about “rebel pride.”
These are the kin Falwell and his ilk have wrought. It is difficult to watch Larry the Cable Guy today and not envision him as the love-child of a decadent love tryst between Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson circa 1966.
The image of Pat Robertson perched nude on a pulpit in such a position to better receive Jerry Falwell’s seed is not a pleasant image for a sane person to ponder. Both men are objectively ghoulish. And their mutual ghoulishness, it could be argued, is no coincidence.
It has been said that a man’s face is a window into his soul. Jerry Falwell provided favorable evidence for this aphorism. More over, his entire body had a languid plumpness to it and was aptly shaped like a rotting pear. His skin shone in a sickly, pasty hue and hung from his flaccid frame like a limp, water-logged tarp. The poor bastard no doubt suffered from malaise, of both mind and spirit. His condescending smirk and smug eyes betrayed a degree of self-loathing rivaled only by Dick Cheney’s.
That he was incurably self-loathing should come as no surprise. The Reverend was such a grotesque caricature of self-righteous chicanery that—even as his heart pumped its last fatally sporadic beat and the final images of a squandered existence evaporated in the synapses of his withering brain—there is little doubt that even Jerry Falwell hated Jerry Falwell.
3.16.2007
A Coming Disaggregation?
YouTube plans to start sharing advertising revenue with video producers in the not-too-distant future. Won't this allow rogue groups made of just a handful of journalists, authors, etc. to compete with the mainstream content ("news") producers?
It seems likely to me that Google is going to allow content creation and distribution to become completely disaggregated in a way they never have been in the past. Google is strictly a distribution company--it generates almost no content. And Google is damn good at distribution--obviously so much so that the traditional media companies (which both produce and distribute content), like Viacom, are completely terrified. Frankly, in a competitive industry, filing a suit of the kind Viacom has recently filed against Google/YouTube is a sign of desperation: Viacom cannot compete in the marketplace, so it's taking its competitor to court. Whether Viacom is actually trying to shut YouTube down or just gain leverage in future business negotiations, its management clearly sees online video as an important emerging content distribution medium.
Each year Google is already paying out approximately 30% of its total revenue, which amounted to $825 million in the third quarter of 2006, back to its AdSense partners. Google's partners are mostly content generators, many of whom have no access to traditional media distribution channels. That's an enormous amount of money and it's paid out based mostly upon content popularity. The more people who view a site, the more people click on its ads, the more money its creators make. Success in this new model is primarily a matter of getting people to read, listen to, or watch one's content. Sure, most people just want to watch stupid crap; however, even if a tiny of a fraction of the people in the world (almost all of whom will be online in a few years) are interested in what one has to offer, one could still have quite a large audience. Of course one would need to buy advertising through Google (or another company) for assistance in initially reaching one's target audience. The profit margin in such a content generation market would simply be one's AdSense (Google's partner payment program) revenue minus one's AdWords (Google's advertising service) expenses. As long as one had content that interested a large enough number of people, then one's profit margin could be significant: if you and/or your media creations were interesting, then you could make money.
All of this will really take off when the Internet, television, and radio all merge into a single seamless media-scape--especially considering the rapidly falling cost of creating audio and video content. Obviously, we're not quite there yet, but aren't we headed there? And what will being there be like?
3.10.2007
Prolegomenon
Fourteen billion years ago the universe came into existence through the Big Bang. Four billion years ago life developed on Earth. One billion years ago life evolved from single-celled organisms into multi-celled organisms. Five hundred million years ago fish evolved. Three hundred and sixty million years ago some fish evolved into amphibians. Three hundred million years ago some amphibians evolved into reptiles. One hundred and eighty million years ago some reptiles evolved into mammals. Forty million years ago primates evolved.
Five million years ago human and chimpanzee ancestries diverged. Two million years ago Homo habilis, one of humanity’s cousin species, developed primitive stone tools. Five hundred thousand years ago Homo erectus, another of humanity’s cousins, learned to control fire. Around one hundred thousand year ago humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa. Ten thousand years ago humans developed agriculture and pottery. Three thousand year ago humans learned how to use iron.
From a total population of only five million individuals ten thousand years ago humanity increased our numbers to 150 million individuals by the year 1 AD. By 1835 there were one billion people. Now, in 2007, the human population has surpassed 6.5 billion people. Scientific and technological advancements are taking place more rapidly and in greater numbers than ever before. Genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence all stand ready to revolutionize human civilization. The process of globalization is also proceeding more quickly than most people realize, weaving everyone everywhere together into an unprecedented web of economic interdependence.
Clearly, this is an extraordinary time during which to be alive. Humanity balances precariously on a razor’s edge: we stand able to achieve our most wonderful desires, but also in danger of falling victim to our most terrible nightmares. Our fate depends upon whether we can evolve a new set of ideas powerful enough to allow us to navigate successfully through the myriad promises and perils of the 21st Century.
We have two choices: evolve or die. Let’s evolve.
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