A couple of things below: the San Francisco State University Pinoy faculty's response,
November 17, 2004and another from the Critical Filipino Studies Collective:To the Filipina/o American Community,
We, the undersigned, denounce the recent actions of the Philippine Consulate surrounding the investiture of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco. Three Filipino American faculty members of San Francisco State University -- Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Danilo Begonia and Dawn Bohulano Mabalon - were specifically excluded from attending the November 18th conferral ceremony.
Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, assistant professor of Asian American Studies, had accepted an invitation to attend the ceremony and was told that tickets would be procured for her by a USF colleague. On Wednesday, November 10, Dr. Tintiangco-Cubales was informed that the Philippine Consulate requested that her tickets be returned because her name, along with two other San Francisco State University professors, were on a list of "activists." The other faculty members were Professor Danilo Begonia of Asian American Studies, and Dawn B. Mabalon, assistant professor of History. She was further informed that she, the other named faculty members, and our students were on a list that barred all of them from attending the ceremony.
Dr. Mabalon called the Philippine Consulate and spoke to Vice Consul Anthony Mandap on Friday, November 12. She was told by an assistant that Vice Consul Mandap "has the list." Vice Consul Mandap admitted that the consulate had concerns about SF State faculty and students, and told her that the Consulate had received information from anonymous sources at USF that we and "our students are intending to rally." Vice Consul Mandap now denies any existence of a list of barred professors and students, possibly fearing the kind of public backlash a list of this kind would elicit. As of Friday, November 12, the consulate changed their position and maintained that all are welcome, but there are no more tickets for anyone.
We are shocked and outraged that the Philippine Consulate would, without substantive evidence, bar San Francisco State University faculty and students from the ceremony. It is a slap in the face to all of us who are community advocates, educators, and professionals. The implication that we are directing our students to disrupt this ceremony is truly ridiculous. We believe this targeting of Filipino American faculty and students as potential threats to national and international security is an unreasonable and anti-democratic exercise of power by the Philippine government. It also places the professional careers and personal reputations of faculty and students unnecessarily at risk. This exclusion from the event is not only embarrassing, it could also cause unreasonable risk of harm to our professional careers, personal reputations and work in the community.
The existence of this list and these practices create an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, hysteria and division in which legitimate and constitutionally protected political discourse between academics and their students will be considered subversive. Placement on this list presents an immediate chilling effect on academic freedom.
In this situation, the only individuals that have been marked have been educators. This appears to be scapegoating of academics and students. Although we were not involved in planning an action against the Philippine President's visit to USF, we are against the unjust suppression of political discourse and peaceful demonstrations. No one should ever be condemned for exercising their constitutional right to engage and participate in political discussion. These are fundamental elements of the American educational and political processes.
Because of this unfortunate occurrence, we feel that our professional reputations have been smeared. We have long-standing, important, positive and productive relationships with faculty, staff and students at USF, relationships strengthened by our academic collaborations, networks, and community partnerships. Because of the actions of the Consulate, relations have been strained between our faculty and our colleagues at University of San Francisco.
As educators who are well aware of the importance of academic freedom and its rational limits, we believe the actions of the Philippine Consulate constitute suppression of legitimate political discussion. The many adverse effects of the Patriot Act on political expression and civil discourse in the United States are already well-documented, and we deplore the Philippine Consulate's clear complicity in this regard.
We, the undersigned, are concerned Filipina/o American faculty at San Francisco State University.
Danilo Begonia
Professor, Asian American StudiesDaniel Gonzales
Associate Professor, Asian American StudiesBenito Vergara
Assistant Professor, Asian American StudiesAllyson Tintiangco-Cubales
Assistant Professor, Asian American StudiesDawn Bohulano Mabalon
Assistant Professor, History
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Dr. Peter Chua
San Jose State University
408-829-7347FILIPINO STUDIES COLLECTIVE PROTESTS BLACKLIST OF FILIPINOS, PATRIOT ACT EXPOSED
San Francisco, November 17
The banning of three Filipino American scholars and university students from a dinner to invest Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of an honorary doctorate degree has revealed the existence of a blacklist of Filipino scholars and students, says the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective, a group of educators and activists. The existence of a blacklist has been denied by the San Francisco Consul General's office though what has been confirmed is that the Philippine Consul received a list from the Philippine secret service, and this list was compiled by another U.S. agency under the aegis of the Patriot Act.
In an interview with Dr. Dawn Mabalon of San Francisco State University, one of the Filipino scholars banned from the dinner, she was told that she and others were "disinvited" since they were on "a list given to [the Philippine Consul] by the Philippine secret service."
This has led scholars to believe that the blacklist was prepared by a U.S. government agency and was submitted to the Philippine representatives.The blacklist represents what Dr. Dylan Rodriguez of the University of California-Riverside has described as "a form of low-intensity political repression that has directly enabled the U.S. Homeland Security apparatus. It is not just Arroyo who is facilitating a proto-martial law, we are encountering a version of it in the U.S." Members of the Critical Filipino Studies Collective observed that there is a kinship between
the torture, domestic warfare, and human rights violations in the Philippines and the torture, domestic warfare, and human rights violations that occur on the everyday within the United States. As Dr. Rodriguez observes, "This is, after all, where the
Arroyo government learned its craft."The chilling implications of the U.S.-Philippine blacklist are the effects it will have on Filipino immigrants, both those who are permanent residents and those who are undocumented. Many Filipinos will be afraid to join mobilizations because of their future dealings with the U.S. and Philippine state. Dr. Nerissa Balce, a member of the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective, says, "Every time a Filipino migrant, writer, or scholar will cross the U.S. or Philippine borders, you will never know if you
will be asked to step aside, be delayed, or not be allowed to travel at all. Some Filipino migrants will not be allowed to return to the U.S. if their names are on this blacklist."Dr. Jody Blanco of the University of California-San Diego says, "On a larger level, the blacklist exploits and exacerbates the atmosphere of mistrust, fear, and intolerance that has gripped the American public since the arbitrary and unlawful arrest, detention, and torture of U.S. citizens and foreign residents alike in the wake of 9/11."
According to Dr. Lucy Burns of the University of California-Santa Cruz, the blacklist "illustrates how academia, believed to be the last bastion of democracy in this age of corporate media, is not exempt from Bush's War on Terror." Dr. Burns adds, "This is a time to be vigilant and be vocal about the ideals of democracy. We in the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies want our colleagues at San Francisco State University to know that we support their concerns. We also call for Filipino communities and everyone to support their educators threatened under the surveillance of both the Philippine and U.S. states in service of this War on Terror."
The Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective was one of the leading groups to support the Cuevas family, a Bay Area Filipino family who were deported in June 2004. The Collective will soon be releasing a report on the deportations of Filipino families in the era of Homeland Security.
I'll be posting the SFSU Filipino faculty response shortly, but here's a press release from NAFCON regarding recent events.
There's also an article here written by Emil Guillermo for the Stockton Record.
For Immediate Release November 16, 2004 Contact: Jay Mendoza, 408-297-1977ARROYO BLACKLISTS PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS FROM ATTENDING UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO EVENT.
BLACKLIST ANTAGONIZES FIL-AM COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND EXPOSES DARK SIDE OF ARROYO.
Professors and students confronted the Philippine Consul General about a blacklist, which bars individuals from attending an awards ceremony for the President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for an honorary Doctorate to be conferred from the University of San Francisco (USF).
At a meeting at San Francisco State University (SFSU) on Monday, concerned professors, students and community members met to discuss individuals' being denied tickets and the ramifications of a blacklist. Prof. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Prof. Dawn Mabalon, and Dan Begonia, three well-known academics and community advocates, who are faculty at SFSU, were among those blacklisted.
Members present from the SFSU Associated Student Body committed to pursue a student body resolution against the blacklist.
"She's doing political profiling, just like Marcos did during martial law. She wants to silence any perceived voices of opposition. The irony is, people on the blacklist may not all be categorically "against her". So she's damaging her own reputation. It reveals to the American public the dark side of Arroyo---a side of her well known in the Philippines, but not so well known here." said Jay Mendoza, who is a Community Scholar at the University of San Francisco (USF), and the National Coordinator of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON).
Prof. Dawn Mabalon said: ""We have strong working relationships and wonderful friendships with our colleagues and the Filipino community at USF. I am shocked and angered that the Consulate would, without concrete evidence, bar us from the ceremony. It is a slap in the face to all of us who are community advocates, educators, and professionals, and the implication that we are directing our students to disrupt this ceremony is truly ridiculous.
I did not discuss this event with any students. However, even if I had discussed GMA's policies in my courses, the existence of this list creates an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, hysteria and division, in which the legitimate and constitutionally protected political discourse in which academics and their students can and should engage will be considered subversive. Placement on this list represents a threat to academic freedom. This is chilling."
Prof. Tintiangco-Cubales stated: “"On Wednesday, November 12th, I learned that the Philippine Consulate requested that my passes to the GMA event be returned. I was outraged to find out that it was because I was on a 'list of activists' that included my colleagues, Dawn Mabalon and Dan Begonia. This exclusion from the event is not only embarrassing, it could also cause unreasonable risk of harm to our professional careers, personal reputations and work in the community. It also strains our academic collaborations and relationships with those at USF.
In this situation, the only individuals that have been marked have been educators. This leads me to believe that there is some type of scapegoating of academics and students. Although I was not involved in planning an action against the Philippine President's visit to USF, I am against the unjust suppression of political discourse and peaceful demonstrations. No one should ever be condemned for exercising their constitutional right to engage and participate in political discussion. This is part of our educational process."
Meanwhile, the Philippine Consulate denied there was a blacklist. The denial came amidst two scheduled protests during Arroyo's San Francisco visit, growing community concern about Arroyo's bleak track record of human rights violations and a letter and fax drive to the President of the University of San Francisco, Father Stephen A. Privett, to reconsider conferring an honorary doctorate to the martial law-like President.
"Arroyo is curtailing civil liberties. She's bringing her strong arm, strong republic tactics to the Fil-Am community. This is indicative of a political leader with an atrocious record of human rights violations that rivals even the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It's no wonder she's resorted to blacklisting," said Rhonda Ramiro of the Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.
###
NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR FILIPINO CONCERNS (NAFCON)
525 W. Alma Ave.
San Jose, CA 95125
408-297-1968
nafcon@focusnow.org
The cover of last month's issue of Filipinas Magazine had the caption "Sex and the Single Manong, ca. 1940." I was, perhaps irrationally, hoping for some hot man-on-man action, but I knew what to expect: the men-to-women ratio, the taxi dance halls, the riots, prostitutes following the migrants from camp to camp and harvest to harvest, that California businessman calling Filipinos "hot little rabbits,"* the fascination with white women, reading between the lines of America Is In The Heart about Bulosan's blondes and wondering what the deal was with all these white women wandering in and out of the narrative.
It's quite obvious and understandable how historiography regarding the manong generation proceeded this way: in a community full of fairly devout Catholics, and a nascent second/third-generation (het-male) Filipino American identity that was effectively emasculated in current American popular culture, it was no wonder that this -- I'm thinking of a good word -- rampant male heterosexuality became regnant in Filipino American Studies. There's nothing like a threat to masculinity to get one's, um, dander up -- if "one" were a predominantly male and perhaps proudly heterosexual group of Filipino American scholars in the '60s and '70s. The party line, if one could call it that, was that the manongs were playas -- the suits! the white women! the slicked-back hair! -- supported very clearly by the very real white perception of Filipinos as sexual threats, with its violent consequences. It is perhaps easier to imagine them, amidst their lives of desperate I-Hotel loneliness, as eternally swinging, forever single, and straight bachelors.
Such heteronormativity (and a healthy dose of Catholic prudishness) would perhaps prevent any further inquiry into whether or not scenes of the love that dare not speak its name were ever enacted in those lonely and cramped migrant shacks.**
*The whole quote actually goes, "The Filipinos are hot little rabbits, and many of these white women like them for this reason." At which point, I imagine, my straight male Filipino students say under their breath, "Cool."
**I'm also thinking about this because of a discussion in class last week of Joel Tan's story "Night Sweats," in which the classroom -- and at some point one student was fanning herself just talking about it -- was treated to phrases like "ring muscle" and "purple knob."
Just saw this about John Balance. And I just fell asleep last night listening to ANS on my headphones... I'm wearing my Time Machines T-shirt today. And playing Coil all day.
JB and ODB in one weekend.
Posted a shorter version of this last night (more like early morning).
Too messed up to remember
Eardrums still ringing
Head still aching
Feet hurt (from jumping)
Neck hurts (from headbanging)
Throat hurts (from shouting)
Met PBers at the Toronado
Sat with Spence and Kogan
Ended up six people deep from the stage
Saw Franken's back move farther and farther
from the middle
Keene played
Then sunsets and seagulls
1983-2004
GBV the crowd yelled
Bob with Cuervo bottle in hand
Beers aloft
Opened with Do The Earth
Lots of songs from SIAN
Bob rant on "old cuntry"
Willie Nelson and Rob Thomas
Called Lyle Lovett a pussy
Pissbreak during Window of My World
We got Gloomtown / Pricks / Jumpstart
We got Sad If I Lost It
We got Exit Flagger
We got Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
We got Beg for a Wheelbarrow
We got Redmen and Their Wives
We got loooong Secret Star
We got My Impression Now
We got Demons Are Real
We got Gold Star for Robot Boy
Mic troubles for Bob
Guy wanted to pass out next to him
Folks bumrushed the stage
on A Salty Salute
Woman bumped and grinded
Bouncers disarmed the settlers
Then homerun after homerun
Myron / Motor / FBI
Unleashed / Girls / Scientist
And the lights came up
And it was all over
No title for this one -- it's a spinoff from an old blog entry.
It's about looking for porn and finding something else.
Gingerly, where he found it,
but it was something else,
the thing that could make no sense.
They said it would be there,
thrillingly, to thumb and visit again and again,
the fuel of fervid dreams.
His boy classmates told him so.
It will be covert, but it will be there.
So one cloudy day he snuck into the room,
Cased the dresser,
container of cloth and the quotidian,
repository, hopefully, of the humid.
The shaky fingers, eager for touch.
The knobs, rubbed of their polish.
The wooden swish of the drawer as it slid.
The underwear, bunched like white blossoms.
And there, underneath, the unglossy surprise:
flesh upon flesh, limbs in a twist,
stiffening muscle, sinew and skin,
the spasm, the cries, the moan, the twitch.
The boy traces his unknowing
thumb on the amber surface;
the secrets of old men in muddy weather.
Second Blogger Drunk Night, after a discussion of hot man-on-man action in class (more on this later), Vietnamese food in the TL, the state of Asian American studies (this is unavoidable), and finally a booth at the Edinburgh Castle. Clearly between Barb, Darren and me a scarily encyclopedic knowledge of '80s music prevails: Anything Box, Scritti Politti, General Public, Love And Rockets, Dead Or Alive, the Joe Boxers. We were only stumped with the stanzas to Spandau Ballet's "Only When You Leave," but a later consultation with an iPod gave us lyrics that were obviously better forgotten: "Laying in the afterglow / I only want to learn what you know."
Over the last month, I added a bunch of folks to the (recently trimmed) blogroll:
- my friend Luna "Lawyer by day, DJ by night" Yasui (lunamania)
- fellow GBV fan Dan "God is my judge" Coffey (the square of the hypotenuse)
- Bino "Widely Published Poet, but he prefers Lunatic" Realuyo (calzoncillo)
- Elouise "da nutty professor" Oyzon (weezblog)
And two Asian celebs who I would love to put into a cramped closet like the Cure in the "Close to Me" video and have 'em duke it out category -- all my money's on the C.H.O.:
- the awesome Margaret "Kicks Ass" Cho
- the Pinay y'all love to hate, Michelle "Bugs" Malkin
I also added the shiveringly good second album from Jolie Holland, Escondida, to the favorite albums I've heard so far in 2004, in the column to your right. Buy 'em now!
Michelle -- the good Michelle, not the evil Michelle above -- asks me to write the story of my fall from grace. It's a long story, but a few pints will help.
Kid CarloMagno, if you're still reading this: thanks so much. I lost your CDs while packing and found them again after two months of gnashing my teeth. The Blow Monkeys rule. "I know it's wrong, IIIII know it's wrong."
You can send a congratulatory message to the new President of the United States of America, George W. Bush. Keep it nice, folks.
Two films:
- What to do if you're a cop and you suddenly need to deliver a baby. (nsfw -- not safe for work)
- Nancy, oh Nancy. (Fast connection needed, but it's worth it, as is the rest of the Scopitone archive. "Are you ready boots?")
In three days: the Electrifying Conclusion! (Alas, Gavin Newsom wasn't persuaded, unlike the other mayors.)
And tomorrow: the second (or is it already the third?) Semi-Weekly Blogger Drunk Night!
Okay, now I'm a little worried, but it's probably just paranoia on my part.
All throughout this whole blogging business I've taken great pains to separate the personal opinions on my blog from my professional career, even though the latter seeps into the former a good amount of the time. My students can probably testify that I've almost bent over backwards to accommodate -- no, welcome -- opposing viewpoints and have people decide for themselves. (Playing devil's advocate is also something I do well, without even presenting it as such.)
But my last post was probably the angriest one I've posted in a while. And despite previous posts explaining my ambivalence, I am still very deeply troubled about the results of the election, and it comes out in the classroom every now and then. I cannot imagine teaching an Anthropology class (or especially an Asian American Studies class) without engaging with it in some fashion.
The atmosphere here on my campus is, in any case, very tense, and when the wingnuts in the academe are already busy watching SF State -- well, maybe I should keep my mouth shut.
The point is that it is very easy for someone to print my posts out and demand that they be placed in my tenure file, and then I'll probably be toast. Or, even worse, deported. But there is nothing wrong with being motivated, even professionally, by a sense of outrage. I am convinced, in any case, that my behavior in the classroom remains accommodating and objective, and I will ensure that it stays that way.
Let me make something of a quick confession: I do understand, quite clearly, where evangelical Christians are coming from, mostly because I used to be one.
Yes, not only was I the youth coordinator at my church back in the Philippines, I even led my own Bible study group and had my own "disciples."
Yes, I used to firmly believe that abortion and homosexuality were sins, and that anyone who believed otherwise was hellbound.
Yes, I was held sway by Campus Crusade for Christ for about 4 years, up to the point that I would accost strangers in the street and ask them, "Have you heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?"
And this is precisely why I can understand where their sense of outrage is coming from -- and it is also why it pains me to see how Jesus's teachings could be so ignored, especially by people who profess to use him as an example for their lives.
(The part about voting against their own economic interests -- that part I still can't understand.)
You may think you hear the sound of furious backpedalling in the background, but you're not. So yes, any Bush supporters reading this: consider this as something of an apology for how I wrote my angry piece -- but not what I wrote.
(Man. I'm going to get into trouble for this. Some prospective editor or person on a grant review board will google my name and find this. But I won't edit it: consider it the work of someone very pissed off, and who should know better -- we anthropologists, after all, have to be a little more... nuanced in our analysis, shall we say, and this is fairly off-the-cuff. But at least I've removed most of the expletives.)
Maybe the problem is that class is indeed dead -- moribund in terms of an organizing principle, as a framework for understanding the social world around you. Perhaps it has to do with the overwhelming, unquestioned victory of the capitalist system and the similarly unquestioned inequalities it perpertuates. To successfully persuade people to vote for tax breaks for billionaires, as the Republican Party did, implies a couple of things: that people willingly accept their lot as economic destiny, or that they cling stubbornly to a trickle-down theory from heaven. Or that Cheney's profits from Halliburton floats all boats somehow. Or that the immense power of the credit card to function as surrogate domestic partner renders one's class status insignificant.
In contrast, gender and racial difference is perhaps a lot more stunning in its clarity in people's everyday lives. I teach Gerald Berreman's essay on caste, class and race every semester and that's a lot easier to understand. But in general I don't think the American middle class can see themselves as belonging to a mobilizable group with a common cause -- perhaps the middle class exists simply because they are neither dirt poor nor filthy rich. What most concretely distinguishes classes from one another isn't the amount of labor or who controls the means of production, but consumption. And since credit theoretically allows the middle class to consume their way "into the elite" (though of course the levels of distinction will always be maintained), class becomes irrelevant.
But class, I suppose, wasn't the point. We're told anyway that Bush supporters didn't come out to vote because of the economy, or because of the war, but because of "moral values." (As if the war on Iraq wasn't a moral issue.)
This, at least for me, is what has made mourning such a protracted process. We are told that Kerry was never really an advocate for gays in the first place; we are told that the left neglected the liberal Christians among them; we are told that Democrats should start thinking about faith-based initiatives now; we are told that Gavin Newsom single-handedly created a moral panic and practically handed the presidency to Bush. These should feed into tactical considerations, sure, but please, please don't call what happened in San Francisco "too much too fast" -- about time, I'd say.
Similarly, we are told that mourning is over, and it is time to get to work. Roll up your sleeves, they say. Or, worst of all, repeated ad nauseam: "Don't mourn; organize."
But it hasn't gotten any easier. I'd roll up my sleeves, sure... in order to take a swing at some Republican twit. (Those who know me personally would know this is a little ludicrous, as I'm a total physical coward.)* Don't mourn -- confront some Republican jerk, I'd say. Make the Christians ashamed of what they did.
We are told that we should not be angry, that this is a time for healing, that this is a time for building bridges. But these truisms are uttered without recognizing a simple, brutal truth: they hate us. They hate what we've "done to their country." They hate how feminists have contributed to the degeneracy of the American way of life -- after all, the reason 9/11 happened, according to Jerry Falwell. They "hate the sin but love the sinner," in all the convoluted doublespeak that entails.
The problem is that it really has been a war for quite some time now, with battle lines drawn between God and Satan, and the Christian right took this very seriously. I'm afraid the Democrats didn't. Ellen DeGeneres somehow constituted a greater threat to the American way of life, which says everything about the depths of homophobia in American society.
The 1100 American soldiers-and-counting killed in Iraq died because of Bush's lies, and all these morons can do... Well, god knows what they're thinking. They probably think the military occupation of Iraq means "freedom." Or that Saddam Hussein flew the planes into the WTC himself.
You're probably thinking, well, this is the result of a horribly misinformed electorate -- "dumb," as the Daily Mirror famously wrote -- and we should do what we can to educate them. You're right, but misinformation, in many ways, is the least of our worries.
The fact that these Bush-ites would rather piss and moan about stem cells than the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi men, women and children means one simple thing: that they are heartless racists. The only logical explanation for the resolution of this cognitive dissonance is that Iraqi lives simply don't count as being human.
No, really: go confront one and ask them if Jesus would go and bomb little Iraqi kids. For people whose mantra is "What Would Jesus Do?", this hypocrisy is staggering. (See, that's the worst part: they still think that they, and their President, are blessed by God, that they're compassionate, freedom-loving people, that they're following Jesus's example. I must have missed the part in the New Testament where Jesus straps on an AK-47 and blows some Iraqi kid's head to bits. Which epistle was that now?)
You're probably thinking: doesn't this just smack of the kind of intellectual snobbery supposed to be dished out by the liberal elite? Whatever -- but remember: it was anti-intellectualism that led Bush to be elected.
You're also probably thinking: isn't this just stooping down to their level? That I demean myself by participating in hateful name-calling? Whatever -- but remember: they hate you already.
This brings me to my point: right now, I cannot build bridges with these people. Plans are being made to create a "culture of life" (i.e., to ban abortion) as we speak, just as Falluja, where Satan lives**, is being bombed all to hell -- laid to waste by a Christian god.
I do not see the hope for any "constructive dialogue" for people who think that unwed mothers can't become teachers, for people that think they would go to hell if they vote for Kerry, for people who think that it is somehow acceptable to kill people because their god is different from theirs. They obviously cannot be reached. They are obviously beyond any reasoning. Keep me away from them. I'll bite my tongue if I have to, but if they get me started...
A vote for Bush was a vote for empire, racism, homophobia, misogyny and hatred. Really -- you'll feel a little better just admitting that. And then, perhaps, you can begin to move on.
*DISCLAIMER (and I write this in capital letters): as should be clear, I would never advocate physical violence in any form, and I would be the first person to run away from a fight.
**In case this part wasn't clear, scroll to the bottom of the article and read the quotation from a Lieutenant-Colonel Gareth Brandl, the commander of the 1st battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment:
But the enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him.
I was going to post an anti-Republican screed, but I'm keeping my pointer (or middle?) finger from pressing that "Enter" button just yet. (I'm a little surprised by the vehemence coming from li'l old me.)
Wrote about Seona Dancing a little while back, and so I was tickled to find the full story on Allmusic, of all places.
I really want to write about the excellent Oscar Penaranda / Barb Reyes reading the other night, but my brain is fried after too much grading (and drinking -- the only way to handle the tedium).
Or islands of blue in a red sea?
What I don't understand is how people could still vote against their own economic interests. I can understand how religious mentality would work -- it's clear now that, in some states, the gay marriage ban was a bigger draw for voters than the war on Iraq -- but to vote for a party that has screwed the working class every single time boggles the mind.
Take Ohio, which lost more than a third of the country's jobs since 2000, for instance:
Eight counties had unemployment rates above 9.0 percent during September. The counties with the highest rates, other than Morgan, were: Coshocton, 13.5; Meigs, 12.7; Muskingum, 12.6; Perry, 10.8; Monroe, 10.3, Vinton, 9.8; and Adams, 9.5 percent.Morgan County, with a whopping 15.8% unemployment rate, voted for Bush 56-43. And so on: Meigs (59-41), Muskingum (58-42), Perry (52-48); Monroe (55-44 for Kerry), Vinton (55-45), and Adams (64-36).
At least Cuyahoga County, which lost 63,000 jobs in the last four years, voted for Kerry 67-33.
Somewhere along the way, the left forgot class. I'm a professor of Asian American studies, but I can't help thinking that identity politics may have played some part in this: a focus on identity that had, alas, little to do with the white, Christian conservative population -- an alliance with whom may have been more easily accomplished by turning the spotlight onto class inequalities. The big size of the left's umbrella is certainly one of its virtues, but tactically, this year it may have been its undoing -- especially galling with a president who has been so brazenly pro-corporate power. (Though what kind of alliance one can make with supporters of, say, new senators Tom "death penalty for abortion doctors" Coburn or Jim "no gay teachers" DeMint is hard to say.)
Oh well. Yesterday Romeo was telling me about the parents of a former classmate of ours, who apparently voted for Bush because (they believed) he would grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants. As I said, my mind is still boggled. But then I live in a city that voted 83-15 for Kerry.
(I fully apologize for my earlier "fucking morons" comment, though ignorance clearly was a factor in Bush's win. But enough about "moron;" how about "asshole?")
Early yesterday afternoon I was jumping up and down after the 6 pm exit polls were published:
PA 53 46
FL 51 49
NC 48 52
OH 51 49
MO 46 54
AR 47 53
MI 51 47
NM 50 49
LA 43 56
CO 48 51
AZ 45 55
MN 54 44
WI 52 47
IA 49 49
Turns out it was far, far off.
But now the questions are coming in: 1.39 million new voters, and Kerry loses by 376,923 votes. Or how, in Wisconsin, there's an unexplained difference of 8%. Or as posted on Democratic Underground:
...on several swing states, and EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results.While Mystery Pollster laid out his argument for taking exit polls with a grain of salt, one wonders whether this has anything to do with it.In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.
So we have MATCHING RESULTS for exit polls vs. voting with audits
vs.
A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits.
Black Box Voting just filed 3,000 FOIA requests to see the internal computer logs.
Fuck. Tonight I'm drinking myself numb.
Damn you Wonkette, The Daily Koz, and Slate for keeping my hopes up. I was happy this afternoon. But those damn early exit polls. The 6:00 one gave two points to Kerry in Ohio and Florida.
Called up almost everyone saved on my cellphone to vent: Jeff, Alice, Jens, Nerissa, Romeo, undeserving recipients of my wrath.
Bush as president for another four years is bad enough. The worst part: that all these fucking morons actually voted for this monster.
Okay, I'm angry and drunk, and I'll regret this in the morning, because I've thrown any objective discourse out the window. But still: motherfucker.
Anyone who bothers to comment with a nyeah-nyeah: fuck off.
As I was driving to the childcare center to pick up Izzy, I was suddenly overcome by a feeling of doom. The time change had made the sun go down earlier, and my usual drive was now accompanied by the sun setting in the Pacific.
It didn't help that I had been listening, on repeat, to David Bowie's "Five Years" -- something suitably apocalyptic -- or that we're discussing the Vietnam War in my Asian American Studies classes tomorrow. (It also didn't help that I was also in the middle of a Halloweeen trilogy of horror films: Shaun of the Dead on Saturday, 28 Days Later on Sunday, Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight.)
Whatever the feeling was, it was certainly dread. The election will probably get ugly. We may not know who will win until next year. But what is perhaps most chilling is that a good half of the American people would still vote for someone who is undoubtedly the worst president in American history. Bush and his cronies are frightening, yes, but the fact that ordinary people like you and me still believe him and support him and think he is guided by God is probably even scarier.
So when I saw Izzy I gave her a longer squeeze than usual, and I felt a little better.