Hillary the Populist

One question that has bugged me over the past few months is, who exactly are Hillary’s supporters? I am, of course, not talking about the stereotypical aging “die hard” feminists who refuse to give up on their support for the first woman president. If this were the case, one would suspect that such a group would be dismayed by Hillary’s “conservative” appeal, as well as the reprehensible attacks on Michelle Obama. If, on the other hand, Hillary’s supporters are simply so-called “Reagan Democrats,” that is, white working-class voters (petit bourgeoisie), why do they not support John McCain? He is, arguably, the most hawkish on foreign policy out of all of the presidential candidates¹, as well as the most “free market” orientated.

Jodi Dean has perspicuously pointed out how the term “elitist” (in reference to Barack Obama) has come to be a coded racial buzzword for “uppity” throughout the campaign. Now, of course, one can simply dismiss the (mis-)use of this term, as Barack Obama is, objectively speaking, the least wealthy, least “elitist” of the candidates (in comparison to the Clinton’s hundreds of millions of dollars and the McCain’s eight houses, corporate jet and ownership of numerous large corporations). But, as Dean emphasizes, the point is not so much a condemnation of wealth as it is a racist supposition that Obama has “risen above himself.”

On the other hand, it seems to me too easy to entirely dismiss those who accuse Obama of being “elitist” as racists, although websites such as Hillary is 44 do little to assuage my doubts in this regard. This, in my opinion, adheres too well to the Obama party-line and does little to confront the Clintonite counter-argument that decries Obama’s campaign as being sexist. Here we can see, in concrete form, a significant abstract-political problem associated with “post-[whatever]” identity politics.

I think that this electoral mystery is elucidated within Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes, particularly in the paradoxically titled chapter, “Why Populism is Good Enough in Practice (But Not Good Enough in Theory),” in which Zizek critically negotiates with Ernesto Laclau’s recent change in theoretical position from radical democracy to populism. As I have yet to read any Laclau, I have to go entirely on Zizek’s account of his work, which is obviously a limitation, but one that I am not entirely concerned with in the scope of this post. According to Zizek, then, Laclau conceives of populism as

the Lacanian objet petit a of politics, the particular figure which stands for the universal dimension of the political, which is why it is “the royal road” to understanding the political… Populism is not a specific political movement, but the political at its purest: the “inflection” of the social space that can affect any political content.

Along these lines, Zizek argues that populism can be conceived of as the “overlapping of the universal with part of its own particular content,” found within Hegel’s notion of “oppositional determination” (gegensätzliche Bestimmung). Zizek continues by stating that

populism occurs when a series of particular “democratic” demands (for better social security, health services, lower taxes, against war, and so on) is enchained in a series of equivalences, and this enchainment produces “the people” as the universal political subject… and all different particular struggles and antagonisms appear as parts of a global antagonistic struggle between “us” (the people) and “them.”

Thus, Zizek (and, ostensibly, Laclau) conceive of populism, at the most basic level, to be (1) transcendental-formal (as opposed to ontic) and (2) composed of a chain of equivalences that constitute a universal political dimension (“the people”). Finally, this avenue opens up a dichotomy between “us” and “them” (along Schmittian lines of public “friend” and “foe”). Yet, crucial here is that

The field of politics is thus caught in an irreducible tension between “empty” and “floating” signifiers: some particular signifiers start to function as “empty,” directly embodying the universal dimension, incorporating into the chain of equivalences which they totalize a large number of “floating” signifiers. Laclau mobilizes this gap between the “ontological” need for a populist protest vote (conditioned by the fact that the hegemonic power discourse cannot incorporate a series of popular demands) and the contingent ontic content to which this vote gets attached…

Perhaps, given this formula, one should do the unthinkable and take Hillary’s statements that she is the “populist candidate,” not as a cynical political ploy, but literally. Regardless of her objective status (in terms of wealth, class position, and numerous political positions), her “ontic content,” her status as a “populist candidate,” is purely contingent, the result of a formal necessity at the level of the direct expression of the chain of equivalences that constitute “the people.” Consequently, one should not read anything into her candidacy as such. Instead, one should concentrate on the problem at the theoretical level. As Zizek concludes, populism is limited by an ideological mystification, the attempt to suture the inherent antagonism (within society) by transubstantiating it into an external one (hence, “us” vs. “them”).

Yet Obama’s campaign is hardly without its own limitations. On the topic of Chantal Mouffe’s “democratic paradox,” Zizek notes that the “main threat to democracy in today’s democratic countries resides in… the death of the political through the ‘commodification’ of politics.

What is at stake here is not primarily the way politicians are packaged and sold as merchandise at elections; a much deeper problem is that elections themselves are conceived along the lines of buying a commodity (power, in this case): they involve a competition between different merchandise-parties, and our votes are like money which buys the government we want. What gets lost in such a view of politics as just another service we buy is politics as a shared public debate of issues and decisions that concern us all.

The reduction of politics to ontic commodities (the way a politician or party might be “branded” or commodified) and the ontological political-being-as-commodification (the function of the political relegated to that of the commodity-form) points to the vacuousness of contemporary so-called “post-ideological” politics that Obama (at least in part) exemplifies.² It not only reduces “change” to a mere life-style commodity, but it also concedes to the economic-reductionist view of politics as “just another service” to be provided (hence the status of “change,” like that of money, as a pure “empty signifier”). This view thereby obscures the “real change” that politics, at its core, is able to achieve: that of making possible what, retroactively, seemed impossible; changing the entire coordinates of social reality.

Yet, in the opposition between the vacuous post-modern “commodification” of politics and populist ideological mystification, one should, perhaps unexpectedly, support the former. As one may notice, the above paragraph is incredibly cliché, a very stereotypical critique of the “commodification” of daily life, the reduction of things into brand names, etc. Hence, post-modern politics takes on the status of a fetishistic disavowal: “I know very well (that everything, including politics, is commodified), but nevertheless…” Thus, while populism obscures the objective status antagonism located within fetishistic disavowal through the reification of antagonism into an external Other (“them”), in contrast to “the people,” post-modern politics allows one to begin the project of genuine emancipatory politics by locating the fetishistic object, the object at the center of libidinal cathexis that allows for one to avoid subjectively assuming what one objectively knows.

1. At the very least, this is the image that he has attempted to cultivate, although, as the L.A. Times has pointed out, his foreign policy record is, at best, mixed ↩
2. As a caveat I will say that Obama’s rhetorical abilities and devotional fans are, in fact, a positive contradiction to this thesis. ↩

—Bryan Klausmeyer 1 Comment

The Politicization of Disaster

In regards to the nearly 10,000 children who’ve died in China’s most recent earthquake, the New York Times has a fascinating article on the way the disaster has become politicized at local levels, leading to demonstrations against the government for having failed to address the unsafe building conditions prior to the earthquake, as well as exaggerating the role they played in disaster recovery. Concerning the issue, the Times has this to say:

The protests threaten to undermine the government’s attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People’s Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region. Censors have blocked detailed reporting of the schools controversy by the state-run media, but a photo of Mr. Jiang kneeling before protesters has become a sensation on some Web forums, bringing national attention to the incident.

… The authorities in Beijing appear to recognize the delicacy of the issue. On Monday, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, Wang Xuming, promised a reassessment of school buildings in quake zones, adding that those responsible for cutting corners on school construction would be “severely punished.”

The article goes into more detail regarding the protests aimed against specific officials who the parents have identified as being negligent in regards to building safety conditions. What makes this particularly interesting is that it demonstrates that even so-called “totalitarian” states (in truth, China’s politics could be more aptly described as pragmatic authoritarianism) must be responsive to their citizens. The distribution of power between the (Party-)State and its People is never fully one-sided, even at the very limits of delegitimization. The events have spurred, to varying degrees, a form of local collective action against party bosses that are forced to acquiesce to the demands of the rightfully enraged parents. The only truly serious political question is whether this politicized message will come to play a crucial role at the level of national politics, against any predictable depoliticizing logic of “victimization.”

But I think what’s especially breathtaking here is that, while this development seems somewhat unremarkable, can anyone imagine the same procedure taking place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Not at the level of talking-head-faux-outrage, but the direct politicization of the disaster and the mobilization of the poor against the state apparatus and its varyingly corresponding parties. The irony is that in the U.S., contrary to China, such a development would be truly unfathomable, despite the latter’s aforementioned “totalitarianism.”

With the Olympic games coming up in a matter of months, the question that remains will be what, if anything, will occur in China. On the one hand, it is more than likely the case that things will continue running smoothly and any events that appear to disturb the smooth run of things will simply appear as “blips” on the radar screen. Yet, the reduction of such events to mere “blips” ignores a key Marxist insight apropos capitalism’s cyclic fluctuations (as well as Freud’s insight in regards to the symptom): these these momentary lapses represent the repressed “truth” of a ruling order. To varying degrees, they are capable of carrying with them a deeper truth-procedure towards an Event. On the topic of politicization, however, the crucial question is what kind of Truth emerges in the midst of an event. Will the masses opt for neoliberal ideology as did a number of post-Communist countries (including Russia), or will something new emerge? Obviously, then, one shouldn’t blindly throw a monkey wrench in a machine without in some way discerning out of that action what will emerge in its aftermath.

On a more macroscopic level, what humanitarian ideology, a thoroughly depoliticizing bourgeois ideology if there ever was one, has taught us is that natural disasters, which render people into victims, require the benevolence of some privileged third party capable of administrating the affairs. Yet, what if the appearance of disaster (e.g., global warming) and its after effects points to a general failure at the level not only of state-citizen interaction, but at the level of Capital as well. That is to say, what if the logic of Capital does not accommodate itself to disaster relief, and hence relies upon the ideological mystification of humans reduced to the status of “victims” to elicit support at the individual level. Consequently, the politicization of disasters and the formation of local collective action seems like a positive development for the most marginalized members of society (those are disproportionately affected by such disasters) against the ruling strata. And this, of course, is not simply the case for impoverished Third World countries: we should recall the events of Katrina and keep them in mind when developments such as these arise, in order to seize them before they dissipate under the guise of mere “blips” on the radar.

—Bryan Klausmeyer 7 Comments

Indiana Jones and the Family Myth

I recently saw the new Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and was pleased to find a film that so easily accommodated itself to a psychoanalytic interpretation. I suppose, as a general principle, however, that the majority of mainstream Hollywood films are perfect terrain for examining the contours of today’s ideological constellation from a variety of angles: in this respect, Indiana Jones did not surprise in the least.

The film takes place in 1957 when Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) leads a convoy of Soviets (disguised as American soldiers) to infiltrate an American military base in Nevada, where they force Indiana Jones to lead them to a crate containing the remains of a mysterious alien creature. Following Dr. Jones’ escape, he learns from a young greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) that the Soviets are after the alien’s crystal skull in Peru.

The film gets interesting when Indiana flies to Peru in order to rescue his kidnapped colleague, Dr. Harold Oxley, and retrieve the crystal skull before the Soviets, with the help of Mutt Williams. After coming across a long lost love in Peru, Dr. Jones discovers to his surprise that Mutt is in fact his son. It is from this development that the film should be properly understood. As Slavoj Zizek outlines in his In Defense of Lost Causes, a common trope in Hollywood cinema, ranging from Deep Impact and Armageddon to Reds and Doctor Zhivago, is to place a family drama against the backdrop of a catastrophic global conflict or event. This is quite common in a number of Steven Spielberg’s films, where the cataclysmic tale obfuscates the truth located at the level of the so-called “family myth.” To name several examples Zizek gives, Jurassic Park is effectively a story of a paleontologist (Sam Niell) coming to terms with the role of the father. In the very beginning of the film, the dinosaur bone acts as an objective correlative to the paternal superego, which manifests itself in the incarnation of the dinosaur’s unrestrained fury. As Zizek points out, it is precisely when the dinosaur bone is dropped from the tree in the scene where Sam Niell and the kids are hiding from the dinosaurs, where he finally comes to terms with fatherhood, that the dinosaurs emerge as friendly and herbivorous. The same logic of the family myth is operative in Schindler’s List, in which Schindler is plays the father figure in contrast to the infantilized Jews; the Nazis here are merely a poor substitute for dinosaurs. And, again, the family myth can be found in E.T., in which E.T. merely stands as a “vanishing mediator,” a substitute father, until the young boy’s single mother befriends the male scientist at the end of the film (signaling the entry of the “true” father figure and, consequently, E.T. can now “phone home”).

In Indiana Jones, the true “lost object” is here not the crystal skull: what the crystal skull stands for is objet petit a, a positivized lack that merely obfuscates the “true” lack, that of Indiana Jones himself as father figure. In returning to Peru, Dr. Jones effectively returns to his “rightful place” within the Oedipal family model, just at the moment that the son’s rebellion begins to threaten their non-Oedipal cohesion (which would, following this model, require the mother to adorn the phallus). In re-reading the developments of the latest film, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Indiana Jones left behind the chance to be a father: this is how to read his pathological fear of snakes, as a fear of the father’s phallus. However, after coming to terms with his fatherhood, Dr. Jones immediately reprimands his son for a transgression he formerly had condoned (“But you said not attending college was fine!” “That was before I knew I was your father!”). The change in perspective is merely at the level of the Symbolic Law, of assuming the Name-of-the-Father. Consequently, the family myth in Indiana Jones, unsurprisingly, simply reifies the ideological apparatus of the nuclear family as a normative model, a model which reached its apogee (as an ego ideal) precisely during the 1950s.

Thus, far from depicting a Cold War showdown between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (and, humorously, none other than the Russian Communist Party has denounced the film for “distorting history” and “provok[ing] a new Cold War”), the film stages a conflict between the Oedipal nuclear family and the radically anti-Oedipal matriarchal order, embodied in the figure of Irina Spalko, who commands a large army of disposable male concubines. It is thus no surprise that her weapon of choice is the sword, the necessary correlative to the snake. The sword fight between Mutt, who fields his small retractable blade, and Irina thus stages a rather absurd spectacle at the level of phallic imagery.

The end of the film, moreover, should be read very precisely: when Dr. Jones remarks that Irina was after knowledge, this should be understood essentially as a necessary error due to his newly adorned status as father (Master). What Irina was after, what reduced her to rubble, was her search for Truth, which, in the analytic sense, refers to the articulation of the analysand’s desire. In contrast, Lacan conceives of Knowledge as a signifying chain (S₂, S₃, S₄, etc.) that supplements the discourse of the Master (S₁), its “quilting point” that ensures signification. We should therefore read the film symptomatically: the “kingdom,” which is found inside the ‘skull’ of a rock formation shaped as a man’s face, is none other than the dimension of Indiana Jones’ unconscious. Consequently, Indiana Jones, like a true obsessional neurotic, staves off the realization of analytic Truth in favor of the Master’s Knowledge, in order to retain his desire, that of being an adventurous archaeologist (no wonder “every kind of archaeological treasure” is found within the “kingdom,” it is simply the objective correlative to Dr. Jones’ “traversing of the fantasy”). Consequently, if Dr. Jones had chosen the side of Truth, he, like Irina, would have been reduced to rubble, undergone “subjective destitution”: what would have been left go under so many names, from the Hegelian “night of the world” to the Cartesian “cogito.” Instead, we end with a very typical marriage scene, thus confirming the results of his having chosen Knowledge over Truth. This is not surprising, as Dr. Jones makes the very same quip apropos “Truth” in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, remarking on how “archaeology is about fact. If you want truth, philosophy courses are right next door.”

The true reading of the film, therefore, is not to conceive of it along strictly political lines. The rather pointless and disposable “capitalist” character points to this fact, as his inclusion simply attempts to oppose the film to standard Cold War narratives that demonize Communism. Spielberg here attempts to show how capitalism too, if gone unchecked, can be excessive as well, and thus we need patriotic, good-hearted liberals like Indiana Jones, who represent both the epitome of physical strength (Achilles, along with his own kind of “Achilles’ heel”) and cunning (Odysseus and his “myth of Enlightenment”). As has been examined, the true ideological element of the film resides in its trumpeting of the Oedipal model in the form of the family myth, a recurring motif throughout both numerous Spielberg films as well as throughout Hollywood cinema in general, against the anti-Oedipal matrix of unbalanced matriarchal jouissance.

(As an aside, it’s interesting to point out the numerous and rather odd references to Werner Herzog’s films in Indiana Jones: from the myth of Don Lope de Aguirre to the shooting location of Iquitos, the same location as in Fitzcarraldo, and finally the horribly animated monkeys that attack Irina, similar to those on the flotilla with Klaus Kinksi at the famous ending sequence of Aguirre: Der Zorn Gottes.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Zizek: Theory, Politics, Culture

I recently read Kojin Karatani’s Transcritique, which, for those that don’t know, is an analysis of Marxian political economy from the transcendental perspective of Kantian ethics, and Adrian Johnston’s Zizek’s Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity, which I thought was tremendously well written considering the breadth of abstruse theory dealt with. Not to say that Karatani’s wasn’t, in fact Karatani’s was probably just as equally well written, although it was translated, so maybe I should just thank the translator.

Anyhow, I started reading Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes and, although it’s whimsically riveting, I can’t help but hope that Zizek’s next book will be a much more condensed attempt at touching upon the real core of his work (transcendental materialist theory of subjectivity, according to Johnston). Essentially, In Defense of Lost Causes seems to me to be applying this Kantian notion of “bracketing” by limiting intense theoretical discussion in favor of a Hegelo-Lacanian analysis of politics and popular culture (but I’m only fifty pages into it, so perhaps this isn’t the case, but the lack of citations and the title of the book is highly suggestive…). If In Defense of Lost Causes brackets “high” theory, then perhaps we may look forward to a text that brackets (“low”) popular culture and politics as sources of deviation from a more rigorous thesis. This, I think, would be interesting, as it would concretize the essentially theoretical notion of “parallax,” as developed by Karatani (vis-a-vis Kant) and later expanded on by Zizek in The Parallax View, by putting it into practice in regards to his publishing.

So, again, it would be really interesting, then, to have a very focused work (akin to Tarrying with the Negative or The Parallax View) deploying, in his own words, a more coherently formulated account of self-relating negativity (Hegel’s “night of the word,” Descartes’ cogito, etc.). Perhaps even more interesting would be a direct engagement with Johnston’s text and, perhaps, drawing concrete political conclusions from it, which Johnston’s text, for a variety of reasons I’m sure, usually abstains from (with a deliberate reference to Kantian bracketing, in his case). And I would say this would still abide by this bracketing principle since any political discussion would be held off until the very end of the dialectic.

—Bryan Klausmeyer

On Speculation

V. I. Lenin:

We can’t expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot.

(Via Lenin’s Tomb.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Happy May Day

To celebrate, here’s a copy of the Internationale in German:

Check out some of these great posts:

• Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, and make merry while ye May (Historiann)
• May Day Greetings (Lenin’s Tomb)
• Still Nothing to Lose But Our Chains, After All These Years (The Weblog)
• Dockworkers Protest Iraq War (NY Times)
• International Workers’ Day Iconography (Greenpagan)
• International Workers’ Day (Wikipedia)
• All Out For May Day! (Crooked Timber)
• Immigrant Rights Day of Action (AFL-CIO, DC Metro Council)
• Workers of the World Unite (Bitch Ph.D.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

366 Songs: March EP

As spring approaches, so does a new 366 Songs EP.

Get the best of my March recordings here. As a whole, I was much more comfortable with this month than the previous two. It was a little harder to cut it down to six.

1: Petunia ‘Possession’ is nine tenths of this song, which I recorded in my favorite open tuning, Open E. ‘Projection’ is probably the leftover tenth.

2: Ashes and Ashes I couldn’t decide, would it be ‘wailing wall’ or ‘western wall’? In this take ‘wailing’ made the cut, and the drone was most convincing here, so I went with it. Half of this take’s lyrics are improvised, which is a technique I like to use so that the demo doesn’t become too stodgy.

3: The Sound of Squealing Brakes I cannot count the number of times I have driven around late at night with the windows down and radio on. I am usually too worried about whether I’m speeding or going too slow to fall asleep. That’s where this comes from, it’s sung with a bravado that seems unusual to me.

4: Doing Fine Old folks homes interest me. I imagine they’re a lot like dorms, except you get your own bathroom, which is nice.

5: Laughing Stock I really wonder what my neighbors think when I’m recording backing vocals like these. The walls are paper thin, they can’t hear the rest of the song playing in my headphones. It must sound like strange moaning. One day I’m going to get some backup singers.

6: Goose in My Pillow Another duet with myself. Sleep was a major theme this month as I had bouts of insomnia. At one point I became completely nocturnal. I feel that was helpful, but I’m done with that now.

—Mark Elliot Cullen

Three Obvious Strategies to Fix Windows

Windows is a fat Paris Hilton. You want it to be a Wheaties box athlete. Put Windows on a diet, take away it’s toys and designer clothes. Make it run around the track a few thousand times. Give it a new mantra: Performance, performance, performance.

Fix XP (or Vista), Work On Incremental Updates

Stop hyping the next release of Windows as the solution to the problems of the current Windows. Fix and streamline Windows XP, and then issue incremental updates based on that platform. Fix security issues, crash problems, rewrite thousands upon thousands of lines of code, go over it with a fine tooth comb until you’re absolutely sure your foundation is strong, then build.

Do what Apple does and hype your service pack updates as OS revisions. Charge $100, release yearly. The problem with issuing epic OS updates: it’s like fasting for a week to loose weight instead of maintaining a healthy diet. By fixing your problems as you go along, you stop them from compounding. No one will be expecting a magic life changing OS, they’ll be expecting a better version of XP. That’s easier to ship and to build.

Reconsider Everything

Rebuild Windows from the bottom up. You’ve done this to an extent. What I’m talking about is reconsidering everything you thought you knew about Windows. Do what Decartes did (skip the needy proof on God). Ask stupid questions, reconsider design, coding, user-interface, and OS philosophy.

Your company is in the unique position where it has the resources and capital to remake an entire OS from scratch. Take your time and consider what you’re doing very carefully. Some might even make the suggestion of open-source cooperation, which is great for code, but you’re going to need a dictatorship with a strong vision to make a great OS.

Simplify, Become Utilitarian

One version. One price. One name. One look.

You do not need to make yourself into Apple to be successful, you do not need to make yourself Linux. Maintain simple visual appeal with no flashy graphics. Make a working, useful OS with only those features which are useful. Get rid of all the third-party shit.

—Mark Elliot Cullen 3 Comments

The Passion of the Howler

Title unrelated, but I figured it worth mentioning that Mark’s Song 97 of 366, “Karl Pilkington Has A Head Like a Fucking Orange,” has found its way into the lap of Ricky Gervais by way of Pilkipedia, the only Wiki dedicated to all things Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Pretty cool, innit?

—Bryan Klausmeyer 1 Comment

Proposal: Urban Gardening

For this proposal, gather a watering can and fill it with water. Go to your closest center of urban commerce and find objects that need water. Begin with a telephone pole, then try a post box. Once you have emptied the watering can your task is complete. It is suggested that you do not attempt this on a rainy day as overwatering may spoil your good intentions.

Let me know if you try this.

—Mark Elliot Cullen

A Letter To Drug War Supporters: What Are You Smoking?

Here’s a letter I just wrote to the Michigan Daily concerning U.S. Drug Policy. I don’t know if it will or should be published, but either that’s why I’m putting it here. By the way, Hash Bash at Michigan is sort of a joke now-a-days, it really deters from anything resembling a social or political movement—it is nothing but a peanut gallery display for undergraduates to “experience” while they wait for their six-figure jobs. Anyway…

Regardless of whether Hash Bash is held this year on the Diag, the discourse over the continuation of America’s failed drug policy, exemplified by the War on Drugs, should be critically evaluated by every U.S. citizen. Both Michigan and the United States as a whole are facing economic and fiscal problems with no clear solutions in sight, and yet we continue to spend vast amounts of tax dollars to pursue policies that are proven failures. The War on Drugs is nothing but a financial blackhole. Billions are spent annually domestically and abroad to reduce the production and distribution of controlled substances with little success to show for it. In fact, the Drug War under the reign of George W. Bush has actually led to a two-fold increase in cocaine production worldwide.

The benefits of ending the War on Drugs and fully decriminalizing marijuana far outweigh the supposed consequences of their existence—this view point does not call for the decriminalization of more severe drugs such as cocaine, crack-cocaine, heroin, and METH. According to an estimate taken in 2000, prior to an increase in spending under the current administration, the federal government alone spent roughly 19 billion dollars annually on the War on Drugs—this number increases drastically when you factor in spending on drug enforcement across the country by local and state governments. Just consider the many ways that our governments could be using this money instead. For example, a city/state restoration fund could be established to finance renovations in struggling areas across the country (think Detroit or New Orleans…or Michigan in general for that matter). The money could also be re-routed to assist overburdened government programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security; it could be spent on public education, humanitarian work in third-world countries, investing in alternative energy sources, increasing student loans or Pell-grants, and renovating our crumbling infrastructure. Oh, and don’t forget our never-ending adventure in Iraq.

The damage caused to this country by the Drug War is not limited solely to the fiscal realm, it affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens every year. According to the New York Times, about 800,000 people are arrested annually for possession of marijuana, with an outrageous majority receiving criminal charges for possessing meager amounts of marijuana. Having such charges on peoples’ records can prevent them from receiving higher-paying jobs (this hurts employment rates and consumer spending) and can even result in the revoking of one’s right to vote in certain states. The right to vote is the essence of our governmental system and should not be revoked under any circumstances, otherwise how will those who are wronged by the system have the opportunity to amend it?

Given Michigan’s dismal economy and budget problems, I’m surprised at the astonishing lack of practicality displayed by Michigan’s state representatives. It is going to take innovative solutions to bring Michigan back to national prominence, so here is one to consider: Full legalization of hemp and marijuana within the state of Michigan. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world to make hemp production illegal. Growing hemp would provide Michigan farmers with a versatile product that can be used in a wide variety of products. I’m not implying that legalizing hemp would be the “cure-all” for Michigan’s problems, in fact it would have only a tiny impact on Michigan’s overall economic situation, however, to be blunt, any step forward would be a good step right now. Legalizing marijuana would have a much more positive impact on the state of Michigan and our nation as a whole. Legalization holds a two-fold benefit: 1) the state saves money by redirecting law enforcement efforts towards more grievous crimes, which in turn saves money by reducing processing costs within the legal system that arise from mandatory sentencing and 2) the state can earn money by selling growing licenses to individuals and by placing a tax on the selling of marijuana by companies—if you do not think pharmaceutical companies would like to sell “dank” strands of marijuana to high-end consumers, you just might be taking a hard drug like METH.

Enough is enough. Both Michigan and the United States are going to have to wake up to the economic and fiscal realities they are facing. We have too many problems that need to be addressed and properly funded to be wasting billions of dollars annually on policies that give no return on investment except to certain weapons contractors. And please, don’t cling to the “moral” argument that marijuana is illegal because it is bad for you. There are roughly 16,000 alcohol related deaths and even more cases of tobacco related deaths due to lung cancer, and yet these substances are legal when there has never been a single recorded death due to marijuana. America became great because of its innovation, I hope it does not continue its fall from grace because it desperately clings to out-dated and irrational polices beautifully clad in the cloth of “moral superiority”.

Jeff May is a sophomore and thoroughly enjoys getting stoned off his ass.

—Jeff May 2 Comments

Signing Statements

I strongly suggest you listen to this week’s This American Life which is about the dogged pursuit of power by the executive branch. One of the most challenging parts of the episode involved an interview with Charlie Savage about executive power and in particular, signing statements.

While McCain promised he would not use signing statements while in office, both democratic contenders did not exclude the possibility of using signing statements. Here’s a quote from Obama:

“The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation,” Obama answered. But, he added: “No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president’s constitutional prerogatives.”

Of course the Bush administration argues that it uses signing statements to protect its prerogatives, so Obama doesn’t really have a problem with the overuse of signing statements, just the interpretation.

And from Clinton:

“I would only use signing statements in very rare instances to note and clarify confusing or contradictory provisions, including provisions that contradict the Constitution,” she wrote. “My approach would be to work with Congress to eliminate or correct unconstitutional provisions before legislation is sent to my desk.”

And once again, no promise to not use signing statements.

While there is no explicit constitutional limit on signing statements, Wikipedia notes that the Constitution only “empowers the president to veto a law in its entirety, or to sign it.” Beginning with the Reagan administration, the proclivity of a president to issue a signing statement has increased, as has their power.

Until the 1980s, with some exceptions, signing statements were generally triumphal, rhetorical, or political proclamations and went mostly unannounced. Until Ronald Reagan became President, only 75 statements had been issued. Reagan and his successors George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton have produced 347 signing statements among the three of them. By the end of 2004, George W. Bush had issued over 108 signing statements containing more than 505 constitutional challenges. As of January 30, 2008, he had signed 157 signing statements challenging over 1,100 provisions of federal law.

This is an important issue, as I’ve mentioned before I worry about the power of Obama’s canidacy, and probably more so about Clinton’s, who I tend to disagree with more often.

The misuse and increase of unchecked executive power is one of the biggest follies of the current administration. Unchecked power leads to a tyranny of ideas, and possible solutions. If Obama and Clinton are serious about their goal of bringing together Washington they cannot continue to support signing statements. It’s disingenuous and troublesome.

—Mark Elliot Cullen

Nader’s Poem

Ralph Nader has composed a poem of sort for Hillary Clinton, which I found via Wonkette. Since I write poetry, I thought I’d offer a helpful critique and a revision of the poem at the end of this post. First the poem itself:

• Don’t Listen to Senator Leahy

Senator Clinton:

Just read where Senator Patrick Leahy is calling on you to drop out of the Presidential race.

Believe me.

I know something about this.

Here’s my advice:

Don’t listen to people when they tell you not to run anymore.

That’s just political bigotry.

Listen to your own inner citizen First Amendment voice.

This is America.

Just like every other citizen, you have a right to run.

Whenever you like.

For as long as you like.

It’s up to you, Hillary.

Just tell them –

It’s democracy.

Get used to it.

Yours truly,

Ralph Nader

Warning: If you’re easily bored by discussion of poetics, you might want to skip straight to the revised poem.

Ok, first of all thank you for not using a rhyme scheme, sonnet form or a strict sense of meter. That already puts you one step above the rest. The biggest problem with this poem: too much space. Almost every line is end-stopped, it’s own stanza, and most end with a punctuation mark. Unless you were going after an intentionally slow pace, which would work well with his theme of everyone trying to rush Hillary out of the race before September, some of these stops need to be eliminated. (Even if you were going for that it’s way over the top.)

When you break the line, typically there is an intended break in speech not unlike a comma or period. The reader is forced to evaluate the line as an idea before moving on and connecting it with the next line even if it’s a continuation of the same thought.

When you break into another stanza typically there is a larger separation indicating that those lines in the same stanza are associated, and those lines in the next have another set of associations, not unlike the separation found with a paragraph break.

When you use a period it has the same basic function of a period in prose, yet the way the line breaks and stanzas separate the sentences (if they exist) plays with or against period use. When you use all end stopped lines (a line that ends at the end of a clause), you lose the ability to play with this dynamic.

Using all three of these devices together with each line, the pace becomes very slow and the reader hangs on the poetics of every word or phrase. Since you’re using very colloquial language there’s no real point to this. Instead of dressing up your language, you can play with the lines and sentence structure to create tension and release.

The line “This is America.” is the most obvious release. Some people will tell you to use periods to emphasize important points, but in my revision, I’ve kept it out– the line is strong enough on it’s own. Any reader worth a damn is going to know how to read the line.

I do enjoy the signing of the name at the end since it calls up old forms of passed poetic cultures and also suggests the form of a letter is being deconstructed.

Here’s my suggested revision:

• Don’t Listen to Senator Leahy

for Hillary

Just read where Senator Patrick Leahy is calling
on you to drop out of the Presidential race

Believe me, I know
something about this
Here’s my advice:

Don’t listen to people
when they tell you not to run
anymore

That’s just political bigotry. Listen
to your own inner citizen First
Amendment voice– This is America

Just like every other
citizen, you have a right
to run, whenever you like

or as long as you like

It’s up to you, Hillary, just tell them –
It’s democracy, get used to it

Yours truly,
Ralph Nader

I’ll be checking out the Nader campaign for further poems, maybe Obama doesn’t have a lock as the writing candidate.

Do you have your own revision? Perhaps an ee cummings experiment with white space? Submit it via e-mail or in the comments section and we’ll evaluate it.

Update: There are lots of poems on his blog that suffer from the same unfortunate pacing problem. I don’t know if I’ll come back and revise them as well, but I’ll keep an eye out for new poems from Mr. Nader.

—Mark Elliot Cullen 2 Comments

366 Songs: February EP

Now that March is winding to an end, I’m putting out my best of February EP from 366 Songs. I’ve remastered the songs, which makes this a good chance for you to catch up if you haven’t heard any of them yet.

You can download the entire EP here, or check out the individual tracks below. You can also check out the archive to find lyrics and guitar tabs for each song.

1: Breaking the Law This song was based on a walk I had around the University of Strathclyde campus one morning. As I was walking between the dorms, I noticed a large fox walking along the sidewalk with the students. About half of the students seemed to ignore the fact that the fox was there completely, but the others and I were a little shocked.

2: Mama’s Drinking Turpentine This song is a homage to children’s folk songs. The twisted control dynamics and threats of death in this song aren’t exactly strangers to that genre. There’s also an obvious tension between the lyrics and the melody that I tried to recreate in this song.

3: Du Du Du The day I recorded this Rachael and I were creating melodies and recording them one after another. She came up with this one, and I added lyrics and guitar work to it.

4: Psycho I fell asleep for several hours and needed to make a song within the space of about an hour after I woke up. This take is my second time playing the song, which I crafted as I sang it. Usually when I do that the song is pretty dry, but this one turned out better than most of my premeditated songs in February.

5: You’ve Been Wise I had written down parts of this narrative but my recording set up kept messing with me. It was a four minute song and I must of tried to get a demo down five times before I got frustrated and decided to wing it with my computer’s internal microphone. It became a very bizarre sprawling nine minute fiasco, that also managed to pick up the most plays that month by visitors.

6: Henri Matisse Yes, it’s not pronounced quite like it should be, but the speaker probably isn’t aware of that. Started out as a guitar riff, but then it evolved into a song about celebrity, hero worship, and mortality.

—Mark Elliot Cullen

Proposal: Shopping Cart Stroll

Visit your local grocery store and take out a shopping cart. Make sure the wheels don’t squeak and that the stability of the cart’s turning is in order. Experience the freedom of pushing a cart around the store with no agenda, and no excess groceries to weigh you down. Do not purchase anything– you must be resolved to enjoy this as an experience, not as an errand.

If you attempt this, let me know.

—Mark Elliot Cullen