Facebook dropouts of the world unite!

Mark this down: On February 8, 2012, a day like any other day here in Philadelphia, the most dysfunctional city in America, I, Matthew Charles Scheck, being of sound mind and body, quit Facebook. Basically I de-friended all 270 of my Facebook friends as well, people from every era of my life dating back to my oldest and dearest friends from kindergarten, plus all my junior and senior high school classmates, Army buddies, and of course quite a few of my current friends. Oh, and of course, since I come from a huge clan, I also de-friended a large contingent of my family.

I’ve been a computer geek since 1988 when I bought my first IBM clone microcomputer, and I have always been the first person I know to embrace the technology, software, global interconnectability of the Internet, and the subsequent Internet lifestyle (blogging, dating, social networking, etc.) that the computer age has afforded all of us. I have earned a handsome living these last twenty years bringing computers and computer automation to the commercial world. In the early 90s I brought the computer age to a Midwestern manufacturing company, automating its plants and centralizing much of its daily operation with a wide area network that was years ahead of its time. I was on the ground floor of the dotcom revolution 13 years ago as one of the primary engineers working for Barnes & Noble in its quest to compete online with Amazon. Nowadays, with my Apple MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad, I am wired 24/7 to the Internet. I am, with all due honesty and humility, one of the early architects of this computer age and certainly one of its biggest fans and users.

I loved Facebook from the moment I joined it. It afford me the ability to reconnect with countless dozens of people with whom I’d lost touch many years ago, and in many cases I made new friends with people from my past I only knew in passing if at all, but who grew up with me and were in the periphery of my life back in the day, but now have become good friends. One has become my dearest friend in my current life. I cherish the fact I have reconnected with so many amazing people from my past, from all the many different places I have lived over these last 48 years; I think in this regard Facebook is one of the greatest tools the Internet has ever provided. Moreover, Facebook has been a good way to keep in touch with my huge extended family, as I have never been particularly good at keeping in touch with people, due to being the selfish and childless, free-wheeling bachelor I’ve been my entire adult life.

So why did I quit? As many of my Facebook friend would attest, I embraced the Facebook culture with as much gusto and enthusiasm as anyone. I’ve posted hundreds of photographs from my entire life. I have chronicled on the Facebook wall a great amount of my work travel life with dispatches from all of my destinations. My most unique niche has been to post music from the past and write little mini reviews not only about the music, but also with commentary about where I was when I first heard it and how it affected my life. I am sure some of my Facebook friends enjoyed my music commentary, while others may have found it tediously verbose and perhaps a little pompous, but for me it was an exhilarating way to express the joie de vivre, enthusiasm, and unbridled intellectual diligence I’ve had all these years of my life for culture, living, and self-expression. Moreover I loved the daily interaction with so many disparate people from so many different eras of my life. Chatting and interacting on Facebook isn’t quite as personal and substantive as sitting at a cafe with friends and engaging in conversation, but, then again, I love the fact I can connect with people I adore who live too far away for any kind of personal interaction and yet I crave their company any way I can get it.

Once again, why did I quit something I appeared to love so much and enthusiastically?

The answer is simple—and yet complex. I adore many of the people who are my Facebook friends. I cherish that I reconnected with so many dear friends and acquaintances from my past. The problem, however, was that I was spending far too much time tending to my online friendships and very little to my real-time ones. Plus I was ignoring far too many of my intellectual pursuits to spend time online farting around on Facebook. It had become an obsessive, and unhealthily so, habit.

So that’s it. What I regained by quitting was my anonymity and my time. And, a month into my Facebook defection, the results have been quite positive:  I’ve read more books and magazines, run four miles every day, and spent more time with my real-time friends. Do I miss Facebook? Curiously, no. I do miss my friends. They can find me through this blog if they want. I will be writing on here with greater frequency.

So I might not be back for a while.

What I’ll be writing is going to be all about politics and culture, and I warn you all it is going to be tough, critical, and mostly angry stuff.

So be on the lookout. I have returned.

It was an exciting era for rock music, and while most of the best Post-Punk bands did not enjoy wide appeal or huge commercial success, their music was massively influential for what would be later known as “Alternative” rock.

1. The Chameleons – Up the Down Escalator (1983)

2. The Sound – Skeletons (1983) 

3. Joy Division – Shadowplay (1979)

4. Comsat Angels – Independence Day (1981)

5. Killing Joke – Wardance (1980)

6. PiL – Public Image (1979)

7. The Cure – Play for Today (1981)

8. Echo & the Bunnymen – Do it Clean (1980)

9. Sad Lovers & Giants – Imagination (1981)

10. The Damned – Life Goes On (1983)

Voltaire

My atheism has been the easiest intellectual decision of my life, a view I’ve held since I began forming conscious memories as a child; indeed, I honestly have no recollection of ever seriously believing in god. After all these years of non-belief, and not once wavering, I’d say I’m just not wired for belief in god, gods, religion, or “spirituality,” whatever that means or entails. I’ll be even more honest in saying that it has required little or no contentious thought, or intellectual effort, to be atheistic. I just am.

However, atheism is also difficult intellectually because, in denying the power of god, gods, and religion, and all the intellectual certainty that comes from such belief systems, doubt plays a much heavier role in how atheists view everything. But, to be honest, I welcome the doubts as one of the greatest gifts of pure freedom we humans possess, but are mostly afraid to confront.

Atheism is not a “religion” or school of thought. It simply means not believing in god, or gods, or a spiritual existence of any kind. Moreover, I don’t belong to any kind of organization, movement, or group associated with atheism, nor do I follow any leaders or gurus. On this matter I am completely and wholly on my own, a free-thinking, free-living individual, alone in my (non)belief system, willing to stand on my own two feet and face the world on my own intellectual (and non-spiritual) terms.

Ever since the Age of Enlightenment, and especially since the formation of the United States of America, with its brilliant First Amendment Establishment and Free Exercise clauses (which have made the USA a secular nation by law), organized religion has slowly lost its ability to coerce belief from a position of power and authority, and eventually more and more people have slipped through the cracks of the religious majority. With each new generation the number of non-believers grows, and with each new generation the oppression, abuse, and denial of rights by the religious majority upon the non-believers has been reduced through countless challenges to, and victories over, unconstitutional laws that supported the religious majority.

To me, atheism is simply the last—and most important—step to complete freedom and liberty. The formation of the USA was the first step in creating a democratic republic free from the rule and power of the Ancien Régime that lorded over Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire and enslaved a vast majority of the people. However, in the last 200 years the USA, while ridding itself of kings, princes, dukes, and other hereditary rulers, could not quite become the secular state it intended itself to be by its founders. Religion, though not formally sanctioned by the government, still found ways to exert its power over the people simply because a vast majority of American citizens supported religious authority over the supposedly secular institutions and power structures of American government.

Luckily, a brave few have challenged religious authority in American governance by appealing to our excellent check against majority power, which is the judicial branch of our government, and it has been in the courts where religious authority and power over the secular government has been defeated and denied. America is not a theocracy ruled by the Christian majority, and although this was the original intent of its founders, it didn’t truly come to pass until late in the 20th Century after many contentious court battles and judgments, many of which were extremely unpopular with the Christian majority.

Atheism, however, goes one step beyond that in establishing freedom for individuals. Ultimately, religious belief is an individual intellectual choice. In choosing to believe in religions and god or gods, individuals subjugate and submit themselves willingly to a higher power and authority, whether spiritual or temporal, or both. Whether religious people will admit it or not, this subjugation to a higher power and authority begins to strip them of their intellectual freedom and individuality, creating for them a “safe” belief system free from doubt and filled with absolute certainty egged on by false hope, group think and coercion, and phony religious fables, hotly writ, and folklore masked as dogma and, to a lesser extend, philosophy.

Atheism frees an individual from subjugation and submission to any and all authority, spiritual and temporal. For me, this choice was made easier simply because my not believing in god, gods, religion, or spirituality was never challenged by much internal intellectual debate or contentious thought. For me it was more or less inherently embedded in my intellect that I do not believe. All the evidence presented in my life trying to change my mind and coerce me to believe was rejected as easily as my mind rejects fairy tales, folklore, superstition, and phony or fallacious philosophies.

Pardon me for sounding a little arrogant here, but maybe the next step in the evolution of the human mind begins with the rational mind gaining better control over the irrational. Maybe that’s why religion, god, gods, and spirituality—or, for that matter, any kind of superstition or supernatural thinking—have never gained even a weak foothold in my intellectual being. Maybe my mind is less encumbered, by design, with irrationality and illogical thinking. I think more and more humans will be wired this way in the future. I’m one of the lucky ones who got it early in the curve.

Here’s what I have difficulty expressing to the believers out there. It’s not just that I don’t believe, it’s also that I don’t, even for one millisecond, understand your belief at any intellectual level. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It never did. Moreover, while I certainly respect your right to believe whatever you want, the truth is I do not, and never will, respect your beliefs.

This isn’t an essay about morality, right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, or even the primacy of belief vs. non-belief in the shaping of a culture or society. I am merely declaring, as simply as I can state it, my non-belief. I don’t have great certainty about much in this universe in which I live, especially about the existence of god, or gods, or spiritual beings, I am just certain I don’t believe in them, nor has anything in my 48 years of living done much to change that view.

I am sure this essay will upset a few people. Just remember this before you reply: I am not attacking anyone personally here. If you take it personally, that’s your choice. But please refrain from personal attacks against me. I find ad hominem attacks to be the lowest form of intellectual discourse, wielded by ham-fisted lunkheads who do not have the intellectual ability to express themselves logically and rationally, or with much eloquence.

The Miracle of The Shroud of Ernie began, as all miracles do, with all the participants unaware of the divine destiny they were about to fulfill. As everyone sat around the Dover Coal Mine break room, they discussed with this reporter the magical day when they discovered the Shroud of Ernie, the divine sign from heaven that has made this small company in Indiana a worldwide shrine for religious pilgrims.

Ralphie Mustang swore, upon retrospect, that the signs were there for something big to happen. “Well, my sciatica was acting up, and I swear I seen one of them there apparitions that morning as I was driving to work,” he testified.

“What the fuck is an ‘apparition?’” asked Big George Buggywhip.

“Goddamn, Georgie, you fat fuck, you ain’t never seen one of them things? It’s like a ray of light coming down from the sky.”

“Jesus, Ralphie, I think we call that a break in the clouds with the sun shining through,” sneered Terry Swinedoggie, the resident skeptic and philosopher.

“Yyyyyup,” seconded Bill Jockpuddle.

“Aww, fuck you both, it was a sign from above that a something was gonna happen. I seen it that morning, and now it makes sense.”

The discussion about signs and apparitions grew heated until the donuts ran out, the horn blew denoting the end of break time, and Ralphie kicked off his work boots and propped them on the table. “Them stinky-ass feet is a sign—from hell!” Chuck Puddingpop could be heard snorting as he made a quick getaway with everyone else. Work was better than smelling Ralphie’s feet or talking about the Shroud of Ernie with a nosy reporter.

The day of discovery was like every day at the mine, where the work is hard and the camaraderie between workers is of a high magnitude. Mining is not for the weak or simple, and these were hard, tough men who had great respect for each other. Their shift in the mine had just finished, so they were in the locker room, undressing before they showered.

Gib Hasselfuss was just about to enter the shower when he noticed that he’d forgotten his dandruff shampoo, so he quickly dashed back to his locker to retrieve it. Gib didn’t have much hair, but he did have a ton of dandruff on his scalp, so his wife was always forcing him to use some stupid concoction or other to cure the malady. Nothing worked, and it always looked like it was snowing in Gib’s world, with white flakes everywhere: on his shoulders, on his back, all over his lunch, in his truck, on all the furniture in his double-wide trailer home, and mostly all over his poor wife when she got up in the morning.

Ralphie Mustang was constantly riding Gib about his dandruff. “Goddamn, Gibber, we should slap some skis on a couple of rats and have us one of them World Cup races down your fucking back!” Since rats were in great abundance around the mine, some of the guys thought that was a pretty good idea. Chuck Puddingpop, the mine’s sports bookie, was actually thinking of taking bets on the race.

Between his wife’s bitching and Ralphie’s insults, Gib figured he had to at least try the crap or they’d ride his ass endlessly. Plus, his old lady was so crazy she’d sniff his hair when he got home to make sure he used it. Therefore, he had a sense of urgency as he sprinted to his locker.

Just before he got to his locker he tripped on a pair of underwear that someone had carelessly tossed on the floor. Like a banana peel scene in an old comedy film, he flew up in the air and landed supine on his ass, howling and shrieking the whole time. He immediately grabbed the undies and was about to unload a massive tirade of obscenities at the owner of the underwear, Ernie Dingle—whose name was written on the elastic band of the undies—when he noticed a rather large skid mark on the undies. Except it was larger and wider than a skid mark. It was…weird…curious…creepy. Gib stared at it. His anger subsided quickly as he became puzzled and amazed by this odd discovery.

Just then Ernie came out of a crapper and saw Gib holding up his poop-stained skivvies. “Gibber, what in the high holy hell are you doin’ with my drawers?” he screamed.

“Look at this shit stain, Ern,” he replied, “there’s somethin’ creepy about it, but I ain’t just sure what.”

Ernie blushed. “That ain’t no poop stain…I, uh, sat on a candy bar…yeah, a candy bar.”

As Ernie said this, Ralphie Mustang came out of the shower. Ralphie, among other things, was known as the “Bard of Dover” because of his mastery of ribald and vulgar limericks, such as:

There once was a man named Dave
Who kept a dead whore in a cave
One had to admit
She smelled like shit
But look at the money he saved.

A former Army drill sergeant, Ralphie had also honed his rapid-fire putdown skills to an art form. Everyone feared being the target of a Ralphie putdown tirade.

“Candybar my ugly old ass!” he shouted at Ernie. “You shit yer damn drawers, Dingle.” He yanked the undies from Gib and held them up, preparing to unload a barrage of insults at Ernie. But he didn’t. Instead, he got quiet as he examined the stain. Everyone took notice of this; Ralphie never passed up the opportunity to rag a guy for crapping his pants—after all, the jokes practically wrote themselves. Of the top five locker room sources of humor, a shit stain rated third behind a good, loud, smelly fart and someone throwing a bucket of cold water on some doofus in the shower without his knowledge.

“What’s wrong, Ralphie?” inquired his sidekick, Bill “Jesus” Jockpuddle. Ralphie called Bill “Jesus” because of his long hair. While Ralphie loathed most hippies (as most retired Army sergeants would), he and Jesus went way back and were as close as brothers. Jesus really wasn’t a hippie—he had long hair because his old lady dug it—and he hardly ever spoke, but when he did it was usually an affirmative “yyyyyup” to whatever had just been declared.

“Damn, Jesus, it’s colder than my ex-wife’s titties out today.”

“Yyyyyup.”

“Jesus, this fuggin’ coffee tastes like my sweaty nuts.”

“Yyyyyyup.”

Without really noticing it, everyone usually begins a declarative statement with “Jesus.” Say, for instance, someone hits his hand with a hammer: “Jesus, that fucking hurts!”

“Yyyyyup.”

Jesus Jockpuddle always thought people were telling him these things because they called out his name, so he always had a ready answer: “Yyyyyup.”

Ralphie held the underwear up for everyone to see. “Look at this shit stain. It looks like one of them—say, what do you call it when you shine a light on someone and trace their shadow on a piece of paper?”

“A silhouette?” replied Chuck Puddingpop. Aside from being an ace bookie, Chuck was also the considered the best scholar at the mine. Chuck just knew things.

“Yeah, a silhouette. Look at this fucker. It looks like a silhouette of someone.”

Everyone gathered around Ralphie and examined the shit stain except Ernie, who sulked by his locker and mumbled that it wasn’t a shit stain—he swore he sat on a candy bar.

“Jesus, it sure does look like someone,” said Gib.

“Yyyyup.”

A light bulb lit over Ralphie’s head. “Damn…you know who it is? It’s…it’s…”

“It’s the King!” shouted Hoot Hockenlouie.

Everyone froze when he said this. Hoot was the Elvis freak to end all Elvis freaks. He named his son Elvis, his cat Elvis, his dog Elvis, and named his daughter Lisa-Marie; he called his cock “lil’ Elvis”; his farm was called Graceland; he refused to call his wife, who was named Elfie, anything but Priscilla or “Cilla”; he had every Elvis record and Elvis movie; every Friday he put on his “Vegas Elvis” white satin, rhinestone-laden kung-fu outfit and sang Elvis tunes at the VFW. The man lived and breathed Elvis. So if he said the shit stain looked like a silhouette of Elvis, it must be so.

Everyone knelt as if praying. “Jesus, it’s a miracle!” shouted Chuck.

“Yyyyup.”

“I’m…I’m…guys, I am fucking lost for words,” said Ralphie.

“Jesus, that’s a miracle unto itself,” replied Terry Swinedoggie.

“Yyyyup.”

Hoot grabbed the undies and held them up gingerly. “This here’s a holy relic, boys. We are witnessing God’s divine work.”

“Them’s my goddamn lucky undies, they ain’t no holy relic!” shouted Ernie.

“Your lucky undies?” asked Chuck, who seemed startled by this news. “How are they lucky?”

“Well, when I wear them to go fishing I always seem to catch more. And remember when I won two grand in the lottery? I was wearing them when I bought my ticket.”

“You know, since I touched them undies, I noticed my sciatica pain is all gone,” added Ralphie.

“It is a miracle!” howled Swinedoggie.

“Hallelujah!!!” everyone shouted.

They say God works in mysterious ways; sometimes he also works in rather humorous ones. However one looks at the Shroud of Ernie, there is no doubt—whether it is divinely inspired or not—that it is something to behold.

So now the Shroud of Ernie sits in a glass enclosure at the mine, and pilgrims from all over have come to experience its healing powers. While some skeptics have debunked its healing powers as purely in the minds of the believers, those who have experienced its powers swear by it. Kenny Burgermeister, the mine manager, claims the company has made a fortune from the shrine, selling entrance tickets and souvenirs.

Ernie Dingle has mixed emotions about the whole affair. “Well, it ain’t really no shroud, of course—it’s just my lucky pair of undies. And it was a candy bar stain, a candy bar stain!”

Reading material:

1. Teacher Salaries Issue Sharpens Across Region by Kathy Boccella, December 20, 2010, The Philadelphia Enquirer
2. Republicans Incite Class Warfare—Within Middle Class y Matthew Rothschild, July 5, 2010, The Progressive
3. Washington State Education Leaders Lament Major Budget Cuts by Katherine Long, December 15, 2010, The Seattle Times
4. Christie Calls for New Jersey Pension, Education Cuts by Terrence Dopp and Esme Deprez, January 11, 2011, Bloomberg Business Week
5. Public Education in Texas Faces Massive Cuts , no byline, January 19, 2011, Associated Press

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But if allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.

- John Ralston Saul

And now comes the American plutocracy’s class warfare’s final phase as the political minions of our plutocracy begin dismantling the government infrastructures and services that benefit the middle and lower classes.

The problem here is simple. As the marginal tax rates continue to plummet for the wealthiest 1%, coupled with the massive loss of tax revenue at all levels caused by the Great Recession, most state, and local governments across the country face huge deficits.  Since there’s zero political will to raise taxes, especially on our wealthiest who are gorging on record corporate profits and rising stock portfolios while the lower classes continue to face widespread unemployment and negative income growth, state and local governments have no recourse but to cut spending on everything, even once sacred cows such as education.

Let’s be clear here. The wealthiest 1% in this country has seen its income rise in record amounts, even since the Great Recession began in 2007. The wealthiest 1% own about 35% of all wealth in America, and this is the only group that has seen a considerable rise in its income since 1980. The upper 20% of of earners in America control 85% of all wealth, leaving a paltry 15% for the remaining 80% of Americans. That 80% includes most wage and salary workers in America. People earning the lower 80% have seen their incomes decrease since 1980 while their personal debt went up horribly to bridge the gap.

Here’s the thing. As the wealthiest 1% saw huge increases in income, their taxes went down! The premise for these massive tax cuts for the wealthy was to create jobs through the “trickle-down effect,” but of course since 2007 nearly 8 million jobs have been lost, so massive tax cuts for the rich, in terms of job creation, can be clearly seen as a bust policy. And now to finance these generous tax cuts even further, we have to cut social services and infrastructure across the board instead of bringing the tax rates back to their original values, which would balance the massive deficits across the board in a couple of years.

The wealthy elites, of course, don’t give a damn about public education and health, especially for the children of the working poor, so of course they want to see their taxes cut and have their well-paid political minions dismantle the education and social services infrastructure, especially squashing powerful teacher and other state employee unions, which have been a major thorn on the side of the plutocrats for several generations. When one no longer gives a damn about the public weal as we see from our wealthiest citizens, whether or not the children of the lower classes have access to decent education and health care is certainly not of any importance. In fact, the plutocrats want our children dumber and unhealthier. It makes them cheaper labor in the future. Even more profits! Whee!

Isn’t it ironic that the rich caused the Great Recession and also benefitted generously from its bailout that not only absolved the rich of any criminal charges for their massive fraud and mendacity in causing it in the real estate, banking and finance industries, but also saved their wealth from going down the toilet, and meanwhile everyone else in America suffers, and to add insult to injury to this suffering, the social services that benefit the suffering classes are being de-funded, dismantled, and eradicated just when they are needed the most?

The Tea Party loves to call itself a “populist” movement, but if you dig deep enough into who is financing it, you’ll find a lineup of the usual right-wing billionaire suspects who also finance most of the right-wing think tanks (American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, et al.), and news organizations (FOX News, The Weekly Standard, National Review, et al.) that have been heavily promoting the Tea Party. Their only goal is massive tax cuts for the wealthy, no matter what the cost is to the general weal of the United States of America. The rich no longer want to participate in any kind of shared sacrifice in America, and therefore need useful idiots from the working and middle class to champion their cause, and hence the Tea Party, masked as a “populist” revolt, distances these über-rich benefactors from any public scrutiny.

How can cutting public education be seen as anything but destructive for the American general weal?

While we watch America get turned into a third world country in the next few years, by the time the middle class useful idiots who championed the cause of the plutocrats realize they’ve been royally fucked, it will be too late.

Cutting government cuts the one avenue to power that common people have. Once government is removed or debased, common people no longer have a power structure that they own and also champions their cause, and they become subjects to the people and power structures (wealthy individuals, corporations, gangsters, etc.) who fill the power void left by the shrinking and effete government. Many people feel they are powerless now. Well, if government gets cut further and “drowned in the bathtub” as most Libertarians like to jest, how powerless will we all be then?

I know this seems far-fetched to most people. But open your eyes. It’s happening right now as we speak. The facts do not lie even though the highly -paid sophists on TV news like claim otherwise. It is their job to lie and obfuscate the truth long enough for this massive dismantling of our democracy to reach its final phase, at which point the rich will rule like feudal lords of old and the rest of us are merely subjects to their every whim.

Just pay attention. It’s really happening.

Reading material:

1. Social Animal by David Brooks, January 17, 2011, The New Yorker

1. The Rise of the New Global Elite by Chrystia Freeland, January/February, The Atlantic

I haven’t written anything substantive in so long that I can’t even type very well, and I’m a goddamn computer geek. I’m sitting in a quasi-hipster café near 2nd Avenue and Bell in Seattle, it’s an overcast and chilly day, and my mind is wandering between various and sundry thoughts as I sip a really good Americano prepared by a kid who apparently stole his fashion sense from a 1977 photograph of Punk legend Stiv Bators, but I’m guessing the kid, if queried, has no idea who that is—nor would he care.

Call it post-modern-post-whatever culture, equal parts boredom and worshipful kitsch, nihilism for ninnies, anarchy for anhedonics who don’t really give a fuck about anything enough to truly care about anything. But they love to dress like, and affect the manners of, people from the past who actually did give a fuck. It’s strange and disconcerting for a former ultra-leftwing Punk rebel like me to bear witness to this generation of feckless and effete drama queens trying too hard to pass themselves off as anti-heroes and rebels. It’s not much of a rebellion—or even shocking—when the only controversy you generate is your old man thinks you’re a goofy little fag.

It’s got to be tough to be a kid today, especially if kids aren’t jacked into the meritocratic elite culture of posh suburban enclaves, elite schools, and familial connections in the working world. If you’re a fringe kid from the poor and working classes, you’re pretty much fucked unless you’re the next Picasso or Kurt Cobain. Or you can hit a curveball like Joe Maurer. Hope in 2011 has taken an extended vacation. Or was handed a pink slip. I’m not sure which just yet.

The utterly depressing culture into which America dug itself the last decade cannot but fuel this disaffected and dispassionate attitude in kids. Perfumed metrosexual gangsters from Ivy League universities manage our economy with so much Social Darwinistic gusto that I imagine Herbert Spencer is popping a woodie in his grave. Our political culture is completely lorded by corporate corruption and abject moral depravity that would make Machiavelli vomit with disgust. We’re fighting two wars with no end in sight while having very sketchy ideas about what constitutes victory in either of them. The media is run by a few powerful moguls who pervert the national dialogue with every sort of self-serving bullshit sophistry imaginable, all with the intent of keeping people scared, stupid, and apathetic about their role in a democratic nation. Nothing defeats egalitarianism quite like feeling frightened, unworthy, powerless, and insignificant.

Our meritocratic elite have become the worst scumbags since the Nazis. These weasels with Ayn Rand fixations and eight-figure incomes were not raised to give a flying fuck about concepts like shared sacrifice, egalitarianism, and civic virtue. Since they were in diapers they’ve been told how wonderful and special they are, and they treat every aspect of life like a competition where, not only do they have to win, but they have to skull fuck everyone they vanquish. Remember the story of Pericles weeping after he defeated the Persians? Our elite would rape the dead Persians.

The gulf between rich and poor is so appalling today in America that it’s as if we’ve returned to the Gilded Age. Go visit places like Camden, North Philly, West Baltimore, or Washington, DC just a few blocks from our Capitol; what you’ll see are American citizens who are way beyond being merely skull fucked. No, they were skull fucked back when Ronald Reagan took over. Now they’re just plain fucked all over their bodies. Right-wing blowhards whine about Obama making America a European socialist country, but please, if you can, find a European city as hellish and poverty-ridden as the ones I cited above. Imagine what America will be like in a few years if our economy doesn’t fully recover. Poor kids will start reading The Grapes of Wrath to feel nostalgic about when people had it good in America. Or at least had hope for a better future.

Is it possible to dig ourselves out of this hole? What kind of future are we handing our kids today?

According to David Brooks, the dippy New York Times columnist, things are just hunky dory for our young elite. Raised by power yuppie parents in some gated rich enclave far out in the suburbs, and educated at Yale, or Duke, or Stanford, our young elite are masters of the universe and, like that girl said in the film Jerry McGuire about people in first class not only having better seats, they have better lives, that’s pretty much the truth if you’re some poor or working class kid with few very good prospects for the future; no matter how hard you work. it’s impossible, especially in America, to compete with the elite when the playing field is totally in their favor by virtue of a vast inequality of wealth, privilege, and opportunity.

Welcome to the future.

[UPDATE] The great American philosopher and linguist, Leftbanker, writes a scathing essay called Welcome to the Crisis: Year Three, which pretty much echoes my own feelings. Now that federal stimulus money is running out, most states and local governments are going to start cutting most substantive social services because they are bankrupt. Since no one wants to pay taxes, and Republicans want limited or no government, most of the country will look like Camden, New Jersey, which looks a lot like Somalia nowadays. Or Mexico.

9/14/2005 – Philadelphia

On Government, Part II

Two years ago I wrote a scathing screed about George W. Bush’s incompetent leadership in waging the Iraq War. It was an angry and sarcastic look at how ridiculous Bush worship had become after 9/11, and how dangerous this was to our republic.

In light of the Hurricane Katrina debacle, it is obvious that all the taunting and screaming by the Republicans about Bush’s vaunted leadership was pure fantasy. Just go review clips from their national convention in 2004, where Bush’s leadership ability and character were pretty much all they promoted. They smeared John Kerry’s Vietnam service and taunted him as indecisive (a “flip-flopper”), and even had the gall to call him a traitor. Bush, they countered, was a great leader, a pious and moral man who loved America and would never ever let America down in a crisis.

Well, as we have learned in the last few weeks—and some of us knew all along—Bush is not quite the heroic leader he was made out to be.

Let me hark back to my essay in 2003, which I wrote just before we invaded Iraq.

I began the essay with a prescient quote from John Ralston Saul about the theatrical power of national leadership, even when the leader is incompetent:

Politicians know that if they can only get up onto the public stage and stay on their feet, they will be able to give the impression that they are filling the stage by the very presence of their personality. Of course they will not be filling it and so the Heroic mythology of emptiness will stay in place, thus making their presence seem even more essential. This conundrum is to the twentieth century what the indivisibility of the Holy Trinity was to the Middle Ages or the nature of predestination to the Reformation. As always, the successful installation of an unsolvable paradox at the heart of public affairs means that those who hold power can find justification for almost any sort of action.

No other modern President has benefited from this notion as much as George W. Bush. In the 2000 election he lost the popular vote by 500,000 votes and needed the Supreme Court’s help to bypass a fair recount in Florida. As has been duly noted by several credible sources, a fair recount probably would have given the state to Al Gore, and hence Gore should have been President. Bush won through partisan chicanery and a sleazy loophole in our electoral process. This slimy manipulation certainly did not win Bush the confidence of the plurality of Americans who voted for Gore.

Therefore, Bush began his first term with the weakest mandate to govern in the modern history of the presidency. And indeed, in his first nine months in office Bush proved to be a weak and mediocre leader at best. Moreover, as the American economy began sinking into a rather nasty recession, Bush’s popularity sunk further. By late August in 2001, his chances of being more than a weak and ineffectual president were growing dim.

Then, like a twisted Greek myth, 9/11 came along and elevated this mediocre moron to a heroic stature. For the first time in his life, George W. Bush, a lousy student, inarticulate public speaker, National Guard deserter, recovering alcoholic, and failed businessman, got to look like America’s Pericles—even if he’d not actually performed any heroic deeds. He merely had to stand on that stage Saul discussed in the above quote. With a frightened, angry, and confused nation looking on, Bush stood atop the ruins at Ground Zero and turned a photo op into a national rally. George W. Bush would be our sword of justice against the “evil doers” who flew the planes into the twin towers and Pentagon. He would be our hero, our white knight, our champion, our war king. Like a swooning damsel in distress, America fell in love with its new faux hero.

It was, to say the least, the easiest and yet most brilliant work of public relations imaginable. From this singular act Bush would be given a mandate to govern that no other President had had since Pearl Harbor was attacked over sixty years ago.

And of course Bush would spend the next four years fucking up this mandate, much like he’d fucked up every other aspect of his professional life since the days when he shirked his duties as an officer in the National Guard. The only problem was, every time he fucked up the press backed away like frightened children, failing to attack him or his policies out of fear of being labeled a traitor by the right-wing punditry and blogosphere.

In my 2003 essay I pointed out how Bush and his right-wing attack dogs in the press and blogosphere used 9/11 to ambush his administration’s critics:

Every time the American people begin to question the motives of Bush and his minions in their increasingly confusing and specious linking of 9/11 and the war on terrorism to their invasion of Iraq, Bush simply pulls out photos of Ground Zero, gets teary-eyed about his faith in Jesus and the American resolve to do what is “right,”—and just in case the people still don’t fall for this unctuous grandstanding—he has his chief military, intelligence, and domestic security advisors cry wolf about another impending terrorist attack that will make 9/11 look like a fender bender in comparison. “Head for the hills, the barbarians are coming! Buy duct tape and plastics sheets to cover your windows! Hold your breath! And, for God’s sake, let me invade Iraq before Saddam fires poison gas at your kid’s school! Praise Jesus and God bless America!”

Moreover, the right-wing media attacked Bush’s critics relentlessly, calling them traitors and anti-American, as if criticizing the standing President is a treasonous act. Many members of the press simply did not question the Bush administration at all, even as it became obvious he and his advisors were rushing America into an unnecessary and highly questionable war in Iraq. The press not only became cheerleaders for the war, they also seemed to have a schoolgirl crush on Bush and rarely attacked him or his polices. Even when nearly every reason Bush used to invade Iraq was debunked, the press remained largely silent.

I attacked the press viciously in my 2003 essay:

Based upon the deluge of hagiography about our President that is promoted by the twenty massive conglomerates that control 50% of all media in America, we learn that George W. Bush is a good, moral, honest, and deeply religious man. Pay no mind that many of the journalists and media celebrities promoting this tripe—many having sold their intellectual souls in exchange for fat paychecks and celebrity status to work for these conglomerates—don’t believe a single positive word they promote about Bush. After all, one does not bite the hands that feed it and make it famous. Media conglomerate journalists and celebrities flushed their convictions down the toilet the moment they realized they were as famous as Hollywood stars and could hobnob with the jet set when not working to promote the lies and fabricated liturgy of the plutocracy.

I mean, really, who amongst us wouldn’t sell his or her soul to be invited to all the best post-Oscar parties, to hang out in the Hamptons with supermodels, pop stars, and wealthy scions of the Brahmin and corporate classes?  How many of us would sacrifice this deliciously cool wealth, access, and celebrity status to stand behind our true convictions? These days, selling out is what it is all about. Everyone wants to be rich and famous. So why not write and promote a few little fibs about our President to the drooling masses? It’s all good, dude. Today I’ll pooh-pooh over the President on my CNN talk show, and tonight I’ll be having dinner at Tommy Mottola’s house with Sting, J-Lo, Barbara Walters, Tom Hanks, Lynn Cheney, and that cute girl who was on that new reality television show.

During the dark days just after Hurricane Katrina struck, the press finally realized the depth and magnitude of Bush’s incompetent leadership, best exemplified by how weak and ineffectual his Department of Homeland Security looked in responsed to the to the crisis. While thousands were in deep peril all over the Gulf States, all of a sudden media lightweights and Bush worshipers like Anderson Cooper, Joe Scarborough, and even Tucker Carlson began screaming at the federal government to act more quickly. The criticism was loud and angry. It was a great awakening for the press.

While the crisis unfolded before our eyes, Bush seemed to handle the crisis with a detached indifference, so surrounded by cronies and sycophants incapable of telling him bad news that he had no idea how bad it had become in New Orleans. Bush’s FEMA director, Michael Brown, continually gave Bush upbeat reports that did not match what most Americans could plainly see on television news.

Meanwhile, on the ground the first responders, already overwhelmed and running short on supplies and resolve, looked to the federal government for leadership and aid during this massive crisis. The military, the only federal agency with the equipment, personnel, and leadership to handle the madness on the ground, was held in check while Bush and his advisors haggled over using them. Donald Rumsfeld was the biggest advocate against using federal troops. What a great leader, eh?

We can all stand around and point fingers and play Karl Rove’s “blame game,” and of course leadership at all levels of this crisis are at fault to a certain degree, but after we have all been pummeled by the right-wing for so long about Bush’s superior leadership skills, at the moment America demanded Bush to lead, he failed horribly and many Americans died or suffered unnecessarily.

We learned after Hurricane Katrina that our emperor, our heroic Pericles, had no clothes; the bearer of our sword of justice dropped the sword long ago. Many of us on the left knew this all along. To watch the America mainstream press awaken from its post-9/11 fugue state and become journalists again and attack Bush and his cronies for the first time since 9/11 was heartening, to say the least. Even Bush lovers like Joe Scarborough, Robert Novak, and Tucker Carlson were openly criticizing Bush and his incompetent cronies in FEMA and DHS.

This time Karl Rove and Karen Hughes cannot not spin Bush out of trouble; the facts on the ground are simply too damning for Bush and his vile and mendacious spin doctors. For once Bush has had to fire someone in his administration and accept blame or suffer even worse political fallout, which has already been bad enough for him. He has become the least popular President since polls have tracked this kind of data. He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon during Watergate or Herbert Hoover during the Depression. He is Napoleon and Hurricane Katrina is his Waterloo. Bush is finished as a national leader; he is a lame duck President with three years left to serve.

I have watched Bush and Rove smear the honor of American heroes like John McCain, Max Cleland, and John Kerry. I have watched Bush and Rumsfeld misuse the military for a war we did not need to fight. I have watched as Bush cut taxes that mainly benefited the wealthy and further widened the gap between rich and poor in America. I watched Bush and hiscronies award huge government contracts to corporations that financed Bush’s campaigns. I have watched Rove commit treason by revealing the identity of a CIA agent to smear her husband. I have watched Bush and his Republican buddies in Congress gut federal agencies that are supposed to help the American people. I have listened to Bush and his gang badmouth government as if it were the scourge of mankind.

In the last three years since I have been blogging, I have been called a traitor, America hater, and have had my patriotism questioned—no, make that sneered at and spit on—by right-wingers, simply because I opposed Bush.

You assholes on the right hate American citizens. You hate everyone who isn’t rich, white, Christian, and living in gated communities. You have done everything in your power to debase, defame, and deconstruct our government. You hate government because government belongs to the people and is their only legitimate claim to power. If you wish to destroy the power of government, it can only mean you wish to destroy the power of the people and turn them into subjects instead of citizens. Without a government to express our legitimate role in this society, we become merely subjects to the unchecked power of wealthy individuals and corporations. Without government there is no way to block their power and they can act with impunity; they can exploit us, pollute our air and water, cheat us, steal whatever they want, and all the while we have no way to check their power.

I do not want to privatize my government. I don’t want Enron, General Dynamics, Halliburton, or Worldcom to replace my government. Do you?

What other avenue did the poor people in New Orleans have to redress their grievances for what happened to them during and after Hurricane Katrina if there had been no government—or a lesser one—in place? Without a strong central government, who would have come to their rescue?

What happened last week in the Gulf states was a clear and obvious reason why we need a big and powerful central government. Only a big, strong, and vital central government had the means to rescue these people. Their city and state governments were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the damage and destruction caused by the hurricane and flooding. Not only that, but to rebuild all the damage and help restart the shattered economy of the affected areas, only the federal government has the money to finance such a massive project.

So is less government the answer to all of America’s problems? Not only no, but hell no.

All these right-wing and libertarian assholes who want to destroy government or “drown it in the bathtub” are the real anti-American traitors. In a nation of we the people, with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, if you hate government then you hate the people. You hate Americans, and, by extension, you hate America.

Like me, you can hate the assholes running a government (such as right now), but to hate the institution of government is to hate yourself. To destroy government is the ultimate act of democratic suicide.

So let’s turn back to the jerk and his minions who have been handing out the anti-government hemlock since 2000.

In light of Bush’s (and the right-wing assholes running my government) failures in the Iraq War and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I would like to take this opportunity to tell neoconservatives, right-wing libertarians, conservative Republicans, and all other Bush worshipers and government haters to go take a flying leap into the shit-laden murky waters polluting New Orleans.

And while you are drowning in shit, go fuck yourselves.

Therese Marie "Tess" Bernat Scheck 1926-2010

The one undisputed fact about me is that I was such a momma’s boy. I was the youngest of nine children, and for me the pinnacle of my childhood was when, prior to my entering kindergarten and while all my older brothers and sisters were off to school, I got Mom all to myself. Glorious times indeed! Most of the time we hung out with our neighbor and Mom’s BFF, Helen “Queenie” Clegg, who was a sweet, delightful, and perpetually entertaining character. Queenie would drive her gigantic station wagon with one hand while she chain smoked with the other, all the while oblivious to the mayhem she caused in traffic because she was talking to Mom a mile a minute and not paying much attention to the road. Lord knows how much collateral damage Queenie caused. Mom was usually mortified by all this reckless driving, and was also, as she screamed in horror every time Queenie nearly wrecked, constantly catching Queenie’s cigarette ashes and still-burning embers, which Queenie flicked nonchalantly without much regard for where they fell; if not for Mom’s gallant effort, I am sure Queenie would have set the entire car afire. And yet Mom adored these daily excursions with Queenie, as did I.

My Mom had me when she was almost 37 years old, and of course, typical of me, I put her through her worst labor of her nine children. I was born three weeks prematurely because Mom started hemorrhaging horribly, which forced her labor to be induced artificially. Not only that, but our family doctor was on vacation, so a strange doctor delivered me, which greatly enhanced Mom’s anxiety. Luckily I came out fine and Mom survived the ordeal. However, my parents had originally wanted to have at least 10-12 children, but after my difficult birth they were done—poor Mom was literally worn out after me! And it would not be the last time I put her through hell.

Mom’s true journey through hell began in 1972 when my father fell ill with a severe brain tumor called a gliobastoma. For the next year Mom endured the worst nightmare imaginable, the loss her beloved, and it was especially painful because Dad suffered horribly before he died on October 15, 1973. Yet somehow Mom picked up the pieces of her shattered life and spent her remaining years working incredibly hard to shelter her children from this terrible tragedy that nearly destroyed our family. All she had was her faith and a tremendous amount of pride, intelligence, self-discipline, and courage to pull her through those dark years. And love, of course. We weren’t wealthy in the material sense, but we were immensely rich with love thanks to Mom.

Sadly, despite having such a large brood that loved her deeply and needed her dearly, Mom’s journey to her end was incredibly lonely without her beloved Big Mike by her side. Part of her died with him and we never saw that part again for her remaining thirty-seven years. All her experiences after his death were never quite as joyful because he wasn’t there to share them with her. Despite this she did everything in her power to make our lives meaningful, happy, and positive. She was always there for us and gave us everything she had.

All my life after Dad died I dreaded losing my mother. The mere thought of this wracked me with anxiety nearly on a daily basis well into my thirties. What oddly comforted me was that I felt I would probably die young like my father and Mom would outlive me. I’ve lived my life with the same reckless abandon as Queenie’s driving because I always felt I was cursed and deserved to die young, and two years ago I nearly fulfilled my delusional prophesy of my demise, yet I survived, and now here I sit experiencing that dreadful moment I’ve feared my entire life: Mom is gone.

Alzheimer’s, that insidious, cruel, and utterly heartless disease, robbed my family of our beloved Mom well before she passed today. It has been many years since we’ve been able to pick up a phone and seek Mom’s sage advice or just chatter endlessly with her. It’s been years since we’ve heard her laugh or spent a weekend at her house playing silly board games, chasing the grandchildren around the house, or feasting at her dining room table. It’s been years since we’ve heard her tell us she loves us, which was about the best damn thing to hear in this world. She was always more than just our Mom, she was also our best friend and closest confidante, our harshest critic and biggest cheerleader, and all the while she asked for little in return. So when this awful disease took away her mind, we suddenly had a huge void in our lives that was impossible to fill.

Death has freed Mom from the living hell in which Alzheimer’s banished her. She’s at peace. Hopefully she’s somewhere out there greedily smooching with our Dad and the universe is in balance again. She deserves that much.

As for me, I will miss my dear Mom for the rest of my life. I take comfort I was given life, raised, befriended, and loved by this brilliant, noble, kind, generous, selfless, humble, and loving woman. I have always been, and will always be, a devout momma’s boy. And why not—I had the best Mom in the world.

10/8/2003 – Philadelphia

When there’s a baseball or hockey game on television and I want to watch it, I usually get off at the subway stop near my apartment in Philly’s Old City neighborhood while on my way home from work. From there I usually go to Nick’s Roast Beef on 2nd Street just off Market, where I watch the game as I quaff a few brews and scarf a plate or two of wings. Nick’s wings are awesome. It has been my ritual since I moved to Old City in 1999.

The bartenders, waitresses, and kitchen staff at Nick’s all know me as a quiet, polite, and well-dressed gentleman and generous tipper, probably as innocuous a customer as they have on a regular basis. I come in, drink some beer and eat, watch the game, and then leave. Sometimes I’ll strike up a conversation with the people sitting at the bar with me, or I’ll chat briefly with the staff, but mostly I read Harper’s or the New Yorker while I watch the game. Nick’s doesn’t have the best food or the coolest and hippest clientele in my neighborhood, but it does have a couple of nice television sets at the bar, a very cool staff, and patrons who are friendly but mostly mind their own business.

So last night I’m at Nick’s watching Game One of the NLCS between the Cubbies and Marlins, sipping a diet soda (I’m on the wagon for a while) and munching on a plate of wings, having my typically blissful sports fan experience after a crappy day at work, when my nirvana gets rudely interrupted by a corpulent jerk who plops down on the bar stool next to mine. He’s a middle-aged man, grossly overweight and foul smelling, dressed in generic businessman’s attire, looking like a cross between the pro golfer Craig Stadler and Rush Limbaugh, and right away he begins alienating the bartender by being loud and rude as he orders a beer.

Right after ordering Fatso begins striking up a conversation with those of us around him, and it’s obvious after about five seconds that, not only does he love the sound of his voice, but it’s also a rather loud voice. And as he speaks he spits all over the place. I am not exaggerating—the man actually spews spittle like a fire hose as he speaks.

UGH, fuck, I mumble under my breath, I always get the wackos sitting next to me. I look down at my plate of wings and pretend I’m a deaf mute, hoping Chubbo ignores me. But nooooo—he elbows me and asks who I like in the game.

“The Cubs. But I spent all summer in Miami and enjoyed going to Marlin games and watching them get better every game. But it hurt to watch them abuse my Philles down the stretch, so I hate them.”

After I say this, Lardass goes into a five-minute bullshit-laden soliloquy about both teams that has no factual basis and interests me for about one millisecond before I go back to eating my wings and ignoring him. It’s a rude ploy, yes, but I hope he sees I have no interest in talking to him and he’ll leave me alone. Then Chunky Boy starts spewing out political theories and other loud and obnoxious opinions best kept to himself, and all the while I’m wishing he’d just shut the fuck up and leave me alone. His politics are somewhere to the right of Rush Limbaugh and expressed with even more obnoxious bravado than that pile-o’flab creepo Limbaugh can muster.

All the while I keep looking at the bartender and rolling my eyes, as if to plead with him to ask this fat fuck to shut his mouth. The bartender, a large, strapping Irishman whose day job is as a union electrician, is a fellow I’ve known for a couple of years and we have an excellent rapport; he just shrugs, as if to say, “Hey, it’s a free country,” and of course he’s right so far. The fat fuck isn’t even drunk, just loud, ignorant, and obnoxious.

Meanwhile Fatty’s food arrives, and as he devours his wings he continues his political discussion, and while he talks food begins to collect on his moustache and triple chin. Most of what he’s saying I am ignoring. I think he might be talking to me, but I’m making no apparent eye contact with him or even looking at him, silently hoping he’ll choke on a chicken wing and die so I can watch the game in peace.

Right about the time Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez smacks his three-run homer, Piggie begins screaming about the French. Don’t ask me why. Apparently he has issues with France and the French people. “I hate those French cocksuckers! Cowards! Commies! Back-stabbing scum. And that cocksucker Chirac is a fucking scumbag. Ohhh…don’t get me started!”

But of course he has already started. Loudly.

I turn to him. “Sir, do you mind? I am trying to watch the game and you’re bothering me. Plus my mother and her family are French, so do you mind? I happen to think Chirac was right about Iraq, so just leave your vile opinions to yourself.”

At this Blubber Titts jumps up and starts screaming. “I’m not sitting next to some goddamn cocksucking French-loving traitor fucker! You goddamn fucking cocksucker traitor! I am not sitting next to you!”

I shrug. “Good, then move, Fatty.”

Porky assumes a defensive stance as if to challenge me to a fight. “What are you gonna do, you French-loving coward! You traitor! Come on, French lover!”

The bartender walks over to us. “Dude, can you tell this fat fuck to leave?” I plead to him. “If you don’t, I think I might have to knock the shit out of him.”

The bartender politely asks Tubby to either stop acting like a jerk or he has to leave. Jelly Belly ignores him and keeps screaming pejoratives at me. I’m not mad, really, nor am I offended. The man is harmless, just a fat, psychotic windbag who I could drop by looking at him. He poses absolutely no threat to me. Mainly I just want to watch the game and eat my food and be left alone. However, I am sure even Gandhi would lose his patience and bitch-slap this fat turd if provoked like this.

The bartender escorts him out the front door. All the while Whale Butt is screaming that he can’t believe this bar would throw him out while allowing a French loving traitor stay. “Our boys are dying in Iraq because of traitorous cocksuckers like him!” he screams, pointing at me.

Now the bartender is getting mad. “If you don’t shut up I am going to really throw you out of here.”

As the bartender says this, Chubbs sneaks past him and comes back to the bar next to me and grabs the tip he left on the bar. “I’m not tipping you, you fucking asshole. You’re a goddamn French-loving cocksucker too!” At this the bartender grabs him, drags him to the front door, and literally tosses him onto the sidewalk on 2nd Street. Bloated Boy gets up and screams at us, but we can’t hear him because the bartender closes the front door.  Meanwhile three of the cooks and another bartender show up, just in case our nemesis wants to come back inside. After a few minutes he walks away, shouting the whole time.

After this, I calmly go back to my wings and the ballgame. It was a great game too, a classic, one of the strangest yet most wonderful games I’ve ever seen. Other than my close encounter with Mr. Foul Fat Francophobe it was a good night, even though the Cubs blew the game and those stinking Floridian Fish won.