Because I feel compelled to add a post…

I will do this, and share the summary of college life…

http://queenofthequad.tumblr.com/post/21254037001/when-someone-tells-an-irrelevant-personal-story-in

 

Renewal

After two years of paid inactivity, I have decided to dust this off and once more force the interwebs to record my ramblings. Maybe something useful will come along?  Doubtful. Very doubtful.

Correction–No One Was Even Symbolically Arrested

From today’s Washington Post:

No one was arrested during Tuesday’s demonstration, Elliot said. But there was a minor skirmish between police and protesters when some tried to gain access to a parking tunnel next to the hotel. After a small group was allowed to deliver “citizen’s arrest warrants” to America’s Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying group hosting the conference, the crowd began to disperse.

Thanks guys, I feel that much closer to change.

Symbolic America

I just came back from a health care protest at the DC Ritz Carlton, and I have to say I was extremely disappointed. The turnout was fine, the speeches standard but more or less well delivered, and in terms of agreeing with health care for all, I do, so I was not really bothered by the plentiful propaganda.

Here is what does bother me. Today at 12:30 pm EST, give or take, about 50 people walked towards the Ritz Carlton to issue a citizen’s arrest for the CEOs of some of the largest health care providers in the United States at a meeting of AHIP, the heath provider lobby. They were duly arrested for symbolic civil disobedience by the fine men and women of the DC Metropolitan Police Department.

This act of disobedience, in which the heads of several labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO, as well as “survivors” of the health care industry, including a man who went blind because he could not afford his health insurance, walked up with a piece of paper and some signs to waiting police to be put into waiting cars, accomplished nothing. Some news organizations were present, but none of the big networks. No congressmen were in attendance. There is little if any evidence that the AHIP meeting was even disrupted. What I saw was a symbolic act of defiance made by people who wanted to show, symbolically, that they were in solidarity with the 46 million un- and underinsured Americans in this country.

News flash: the time for symbolism has passed. Not so breaking news: these rallies are a waste of time.

Now, to qualify my position, I am not against health care reform, health care for all, single payer reform, the government’s socialist violation of your right to be less healthy, or whatever you want to call it. I want to be clear: I agree with the ostensible goals of this demonstration. But it was completely useless for two reasons.

The first is our skewed understanding of civil disobedience, which seems to have died in this country around the time they killed Martin. Thoreau notes:

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally… think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.”

The logical conclusion to be drawn, here, is that men must not follow unjust laws in the hope that they are changed, but defy them until they are defeated. This logic has been extended to hold that a conscientious group of protesters might disrupt the organs of government and other interests who act immorally. Buy that or not, I believe that “extension” was the what this rally aimed to achieve. But here’s the rub: if you aim to disrupt government and interest to make your points loud, clear, and public, WHY ARE YOU GETTING A PERMIT TO PROTEST AND PUBLISHING THE ROUTE OF YOUR DEMONSTRATION? That would be CIVIL OBEDIENCE and the direct result of it is: the police are waiting for you to arrest the appointed (and advertised!) demonstrators and that people in traffic know to avoid your rally so that you don’t disrupt their day.

Excuse me if I am getting pedantic here (I don’t think I am), but to my mind, the idea of civil disobedience is to intrude and disrupt, to force the otherwise blissfully ignorant mass to take note that some massive injustice is taking place in their country, and that they need to face it. Further, civil disobedience, if successful, should aim to obstruct the specific organs of policy (lobbyists, bureaucracies, and representatives) to which the act is opposed.

As far as I can tell, the organizers of today’s protest acted in the exact opposite to these goals, thus constituting an act of civil obedience, which is a waste of time. Why bother carrying your soapbox to a spot where no one can hear you talk?

Secondly, and more disturbingly, is that this farce ended in people being arrested. At first glance, this is actually the point of civil disobedience and I salute those (braver than myself) who would submit themselves to the punishment of an unjust system for righteous beliefs. However, these were not the arrests of those Quixotically opposed to the great corporate powers of health, but a ritual submission of actors in mediocre political theater.

Their arrests are symbolic–they had cops, lawyers, and probably even judges ready to have everyone processed and ready to be home by evening. This symbolism is meant to convey that unions, as a political group, are, to paraphrase a speaker, in solidarity with the “working” men and women of this country to create a more powerful “middle class.” Whatever confusion their language breeds over what group they support, the idea is that they should be clapped on the back for getting pinched.

Ok, I think that does take a certain caliber of bravery, I don’t want to slight it. But let’s not get confused–symbolism is a stand in for the real thing, and only that. We live in a culture that confuses symbols for the genuine. Let’s call it a post-modern dementia. Symbols are important. As Geertz notes, “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun” and symbols, whether religious, cultural, or political, are the codes by which we recognize and understand the common heritage in which we are born into. But at the end of the day, a symbol remains a stand in, not the action. We wear donkeys and elephants not because we literally identify with them but because they identify the ideology which we promote through voting. But wearing the jackass is not the same as voting Democrat. Symbolic risks and symbolic acts and symbolic struggles are not the same as risk and action and struggle towards winning the fight.

When Rich Trumka got arrested today, he wanted everyone to know he is on the same side as those who don’t have health insurance in the United States. I salute him for his political position–but what the hell is he doing to alleviate the situation? The time has passed to take sides, the time has come to move beyond symbols and to move towards acts. Raise money. Donate to candidates that support government sponsored insurance. Vote for these candidates. Sue “big insurance” on behalf of dispossessed and recisioned so that they can get the benefits they were contractually promised. This is action. The rest is at best ineffectual and at worst the grossest kind deception–the kind where the weak are made to feel comfortable because someone has experienced modest discomfort in a show of solidarity with their great pain. That is poor comfort indeed.

So to close out this already too long post, I leave you with a quote from Dostoyevski, who had already diagnosed our problems today when he wrote Notes from Underground in 1864:

“We are oppressed at being men–men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea.”

Avatar–Piece Of Crap

Ok, obviously this has been done to death already, so let me share two links that hit upon the majority of my criticisms about the movie.

First, in terms of originality, Jersey based superstars at Hero Kids give a great synopsis on how Cameron came up with this piece of crap. I highly encourage you to enjoy that piece of genius review blogging.

Secondly, TMQ at ESPN, hands down the best DC area based sports writer today, spends a good digression talking about some of my biggest issues, namely there was nothing that could be called a “plot” and that US soldiers are murderous morons. Now ten times a day you can color me and my political views as subversively left and I’d be more than proud to take that label. That being said, Cameron portrays the US military in very unpatriotic ways, and Hollywood eats it up. Wonder why Democrats always seem weak on defense? It’s because they have that same knee jerk grin and agree that Hollywood megastars have when these kinds of depictions come up. It’s nearly as bad as when they talk about saving poor animals. Nice thought but they are intellectually incapable of understanding the argument that they are pushing. But this is getting ahead of myself.

Ahem, let’s begin again:

Avatar sucks.

Yes, I know it has some pretty effects. If that’s all you look for in movies, just stop going to them and buy video games instead. Hands down its the video game industry that really pioneers special effects, and they do it for about 10 million in production costs. Avatar probably cribbed most of its advanced effects from video games. Most people thought it was a video game. So if you are ok with crappy plots, dangerous political, social, and moral suggestions, and lots and lots of the good old ultra violence, just get an XBOX and let Cameron produce his crap there. If you like movies, please take a second and be outraged here.

Avatar is basically the latest iteration of a troubling liberal imperialist mind set that keeps us involved in stupid wars like Afghanistan. In a nut shell, it goes like this: “we must help the defenseless natives save themselves from ourselves.” If that makes no sense to you, then Obama’s Afghan policy should be similarly troubling.

Let’s get on with the plot summary first here: crippled marine takes over for his twin brother in a super secret project to peaceably remove indigenous blue aliens from valuable commodity. He is then struck by the injustice of the grand plan he is supporting, defects to the other side and in the end gives up his humanness to throw his lot in with hippy blue giants to help save the enviro-nature god of Pandora.

Immediately, there are a few problems here. Number one is the idea that the Pandorans cannot fight or advocate for themselves. For whatever reason, even though they have a traditional hierarchy, the intelligence to learn English, and familiar understanding of terrain, and perhaps commercial interests in negotiating with whatever company, government, or quasi-collaboration this evil entity that wants to mine Pandora is, they are cannot mount a defense. Instead, the conceit of this movie is that a crippled marine and some scientists gone native are the keys to the Na’vi’s survival–to the point that the greatest warrior among the Na’vi defers military leadership of his people to a wheel chair bound human who controls an “avatar” from a science trailer in an undisclosed location.

Yes, this stretches believability. What’s worse is this is the same kind of thinking behind George Bush’s democracy evangelism–the Iraqis don’t know how to overthrow a dictatorship and run a democracy, so let’s show them. Of course Cameron would never endorse this thinking, so he strips Bush’s actions of their moral justification and substitutes a mineral called “unobtanium” in their stead (Iraq is an “oil” war, any one?) while imagining that the enlightened humans would then go over to the Na’vi and help defend them against such a cynical attack on their culture and homeland.

Let’s dial this back for a minute. We’re clearly supposed to find Sully sympathetic, and be outraged for the Na’vi that humans would dare take their resources and upset the balance of Pandora’s ecology. By extension, I guess this means that if the Taleban joined Green Peace, we should fight for their control of Afghanistan? Because it seems to me that the Na’vi have a whole host of practices that most people in the US wouldn’t buy into–arranged marriage, hereditary leadership, and biotelepathic interfacing with dragons to name a few. Yet this, in a way, is not the worst part. I’m a Wilsonian–if the Na’vi want to live in a big tree house, or the Afghan tribes want to live in their traditional way, as far as I’m concerned they’re entitled to it without our interference. That doesn’t mean going native like Jake Sully or John Walker Lindh.

Of course Cameron and crew don’t trouble themselves with this kind of moral implication, because they probably never even considered it. Nope, instead they figured that an out of the box cliched nature loving tribe of blue giants are naturally too goody-goody to draw comparisons to the Taleban. That’s ignorant but not callous. What’s callous is the idea that Jake Sully and friends would (must, even!) turn upon their former friend, colleagues, and comrades to defend the Na’vi’s way of life. Not one person shows any remorse at killing humans. Excuse me, but weren’t these people you’re friends? Are you really choosing a bunch of blue giants you hardly know over the race you’ve known your entire life? Without any regret? I guess those helicopter pilots are not parents, siblings, spouses, or children to any one, just more toy soldiers to blow away in some cheap liberal wet dream. Color me speciest (or whatever) but if it were me, I’d throw my lot in with humanity, you know, the race that I owe my existence to.

But the “plot” aside, what’s really troubling about all that is the implication that humans are some how too crippled or evil to be a part of, and rather what we should aspire to is some kind of noble savage that doesn’t even exist. Make no mistake, humans have a long history of doing shitty things to each other and the planet, but we’re all we got. What this movie says is that only our complete extermination or expulsion can let the planet survive. I don’t buy that. As a people, we’ve been self critical enough to deal with some of the worst atrocities committed by the US (slavery, our genocide against the Native Americans, imperialism, racism, sexism, the oppression of workers, etc.). We’ve got a long way to go, but at least we have the capacity to be self-critical. In less than a decade, the populace of this country has come to see Iraq and Afghanistan as imperial misadventures. Unfortunately, Avatar does not seem to find that valuable.

Finally, despite the fact that 1) future humans are an evil Xe-Haliburton hybrid with an insatiable and heavy handed desire for a mineral they can’t have and 2) they must be destroyed, the only man who can do this is Jake Sully. This is the same effete white man guilt that Conrad had. Read Things Fall Apart–it’s not a great book, but at least Okonkwo can think, fight, and defend (or fail to defend) his way of life without the help of some well educated progressive to hold his hand. The only difference between the concept of a noble savage and a brutal savage is an element of self-hating superiority. The pretension of imperial all-power and all-knowledge runs through both, and that kind of paternalism is worse for native peoples of all stripes, because it robs them of self agency through deception. So as nice as this liberal white man’s burden sounds, the Mau Mau and Viet Cong did quite well for themselves without it, and movie goers can do so as well.

Post script: I’ve ranted enough, but this movie is also guilty of sexism. The folks over at Over Thinking It do a better write up on the difference between a strong character and a “strong” female character than I could hope to, so I will give a bite size analysis. Neytiri is an accomplished hunter, mystic, and heir apparent to ruling the tribe. She finds out that Jake Sully has used her to bring about the destruction of her home, expulsion of her clan, death of her father, and threat to her very way of life. Understandably, she is upset. Jake Sully tames a big dragon. By this very act of manliness (for what is more testosterone charged and virile than breaking the baddest animal to your will?) he not only earns her forgiveness but an APOLOGY for acting like a crazy woman when he ruined everything. What? As soon as Jake is accepted as a warrior in the Na’vi, Neytiri gets a strong dose of stupid disease and does nothing of note until the end of the movie when she kills Colonel Quaritch, which really shouldn’t count because she was a damsel in distress that had to be rescued by both an alien bobcat and Jake Sully before she could free herself enough to kill him. I don’t know what’s worse, the sexist implication that a woman can’t think for or defend herself, or the semi-racist/imperialist point of view that noble savages can’t save themselves from us, but this character gets the worst of both.

Updated for a variety of spelling, syntax, and content errors.