Michael Jay Lissner

With Howard Zinn’s Death, We All Suffer a Little

2010-01-27T20:11:37-08:00

Howard Zinn was one of the greats. He may not have freed the slaves or created the nation, but it is safe to say that his every action and his every belief furthered the dream and the ideals of the American state. After eight years of Bush policies dragging down the nation, and a year of Obama sounding increasing like an echo of Bush, it is truly tragic that we are losing this thinker.

I posted this quote from Zinn’s Passionate Declarations some time ago, but now more than ever it seems relevant:

What sorts of values and ideals are encouraged in the young people of the coming generation by the enormous emphasis on the Founding Fathers and the presidents? It seems to me that the result is the creation of dependency on powerful political figures to solve our problems.

…

Consider how much attention is given in historical writing to military affairs–to wars and battles–and how many of our heroes are military heroes. And consider also how little attention is given to antiwar movements and to those who struggled against the idiocy of war.

…

As a result of omitting, or downplaying, the importance of social movements of the people in our history…a fundamental principle of democracy is undermined: the principle that it is the citizenry, rather than the government, that is the ultimate source of power and the locomotive that pulls the train of government in the direction of equality and justice. Such histories create a passive and subordinate citizenry.

If you haven’t read Passionate Declarations, you should.

Confused About Obama

2009-01-23T13:35:55-08:00

You know, I was 18 when Bush came into power. I had embarrassingly weak knowledge of politics, and didn’t vote in the election despite some people getting rather annoyed with me about it. I argued at the time (and I stand by this), that people should only vote if they know enough to vote the right way. At the time, I felt like I didn’t know enough.

It’s hard to remember how things were back then. Bush was obviously an idiot, but at the same time, it wasn’t obvious how much damage he would do (or that somehow he’d last eight years). My first hint that he was terrible was his thinking on stem cells, which pretty indisputably slowed medicine research for about a decade. Once I heard about this issue, I knew I should have voted, and became fairly active reading the news and learning the issues.

In a way, I can thank the Bush administration for being one of the most corrupt, damaging, and all-around God-awful regimes in American history. If it hadn’t been so terrible, I might not have gotten so interested. I think this is true for many of my friends as well.

I just spent some time looking at a few of Obama’s executive orders and memos, and of the few I read, it’s pretty impressive. It’s been less than a week, and suddenly I’m having a lot more trouble being critical of the administration. If I’m not supposed to rag on Bush anymore, in a way, what do I do? Do I praise Obama? That’s not really my style. Maybe I should be critical of the Obama administration? But there’s not a lot to be too critical of just yet.

I’m a bit confused, in a good way. Here’s to hoping that Obama can keep it up, and to a new regime.

On Airport Security and Knives

2008-09-22T16:39:48-07:00

I had the occasion to go through airport security over the weekend, and I realized an interesting thing. If you want to get through security with a large knife, all you have to do is try to slip one through in your bag a few times over the course of a few days or weeks.

Each time you fail, you act like an idiot (“oops!”), and give them the knife, proceeding without it to your airplane. Eventually, the guy watching the x-ray screen will miss the knife, you will proceed, and you will finally be able to cut your airplane steak.

I learned this lesson by accident when I nearly missed my plane. I had planned on checking my small bag with the knife in it, but when I arrived at the airport late (my fault), I could either miss my plane, or try to sneak the knife through.

Since I didn’t want to miss my flight, I tried and succeeded to get the pictured knife through. Pretty amazing that a three inch blade can pass right by, eh?

I wonder if terrorists are patient…

Sarah Palin - Worst candidate of all time?

2008-09-05T08:51:04-07:00

I have been getting a lot of email lately from various organizations telling me about Sarah Palin. They’ve started to pile up in my inbox, so I decided that I better learn a little about the woman. Here’s what I learned so far:

She was mayor of a town so small it didn’t have a police department^[1]
She believes the Iraq war is “a task from God.”^[2]
Referring to a natural gas line she wanted built, she said, “God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.”^[2] Gods will? What?
She has been Governor of Alaska for about a year and a half. For the ten years or so prior to that, she was mayor of a TINY town of about 5,469 people.^[3]
She opposes abortion in all cases except if the health of the mother is in danger. That includes rape and incest.^[4]
As of 2006, she supported teaching creationism in schools. To wit: “Teach both…I am a proponent of teaching both.”^[5]
She sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as a threatened species.^[6]

Do we really want this person in any position of power? To reiterate, she was mayor of a town of about 5,000 people for the bulk of her time in politics, she believes she knows the will of God, she would have creationism in schools, she would have rape victims give birth to the rapist’s child against their will, and is even more anti-environmental than the Bush administration.

Incredible. Please help get this word out. This is awful, and not just a passing concern.

References ^1. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html ^2. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jNulPSqaP1eyysv8ENJWhk0ZSrPgD92VJPL00 ^3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasilla,_Alaska ^4. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/101906/sta_20061019031.shtml ^5. http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html ^6. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3987891.ece

I Just Heard About This

2008-07-19T20:22:52-07:00

I just learned about this, but it’s pretty shocking so I thought I would post it. Apparently a few years ago, Bush said that he uses “The Google”.

Observe:

That’s pretty bad. He’s the president. From this clip, it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t use the internet. It would probably be a useful tool for his line of work.

In a similar vein, McCain said, “Well, basically, it’s a Google. You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It’s remarkable, you know.” Emphasis mine.

He also says, “I am a [computer] illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.”

Observe here.

This is really, really sad. Is there ANY job for which you would deliberately hire somebody that professes internet and computer illiteracy?

Shocking.

Dear Hillary

2008-05-20T21:06:22-07:00

Dear Hillary,

It seems you have lost the contest, and it’s time that you accept that fact. I won’t say you ran a good race, but you really did put one heck of a lot of effort. By my count though, there are 313 delegates remaining. Obama needs to get 72 of them. You need 243.

I think it’s time to throw in the towel, and - dare I say it - move on. Please?

Top Five Problems with Major American Elections

2008-01-20T13:04:07-08:00

I’ve been thinking about elections a lot lately (even before that last post), and I’ve come up with five things that are simply broken about democracy. Call me a commie or a socialist or something if you must, but I challenge you to identify why these are not critical flaws with our system.

Number 1 - Money It’s long been known that it’s expensive to run for any political position, but how much does it really cost? Well, as of January 9, this article says that Hillary has raised about 24 million bucks. That’s pretty darned impressive, but let’s take a moment to think about that. Nobody gives money for nothing, so the way I like to think about it is to say that she is 24 million dollars in debt. If she wins, she’ll need to get that money back to those companies/people, and will probably do something to make that happen. Kind of like the current administration did for Halliburton, except more democratic. So we have a new president that has biases on their very first day. Great. My solution to this is a very simple concept: publicly funded elections. I know it sounds expensive, but it serves two purposes. The first is that it allows politicians that are running for office to focus on their current jobs, rather than focusing on raising money. The second is that it levels the playing field for third parties (see number 2 below) while creating elected officials without debts to companies. What a concept!

Number 2 - No Third Party This one is obvious. Does anybody vote green or independent (or other) outside of strongly democratic states? Is there a third party? No, not really, which means that it’s either democrat or republican, i.e. status quo.

Number 3 - Nobody Knows Their Candidate It’s a fact. There is so much hype around elections that pretty much everybody, including those who follow these things pretty closely don’t know what their candidate stands for. What it comes down to for the democratic primary is, “Black or woman?” In the case of the republican primary it’s “Military guy or mormon?” That is not how the fate of the world (voting for president) should be decided, but I bet it’s about what it’s coming down to. I recently was shown a site called glassbooth.com, which asks you some questions about your opinions on issues, and then tells you how to vote so you get a candidate that agrees with your opinions. Doesn’t that make more sense? Can’t we have that when we vote for president?

Number 4 - State Electorate System…Broken. Shall we face it yet that having our vote broken up by state electorate points doesn’t make much sense? Why should our votes be broken up by artificial lines in the sand? It doesn’t pass the logic test if you ask me. For example, there was a recent measure in California to redistrict the state, thus allowing a more accurate split of its points. That makes sense, but why not just do away with the whole outdated system altogether? It’s time, isn’t it?

Number 5 - Voter Ignorance/Impossibly Complicated Issues I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know what most of the candidates stand for on an issue by issue basis (see number three above). I think I have some idea, but that’s only after studying up, and I still feel kind of ignorant on much of it. Think about this squirrelly question: is a tax break good for the economy? How much of the population knows enough economics to understand this issue? Maybe one percent, and probably more like one percent of one percent. Yet, all of the population votes on the issue, and most of it votes depending on who has the greater advertising money, and thus the more convincing ads. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s not a winning concept, and it can be expanded to other issues, such as stem cells, wire tapping, money for schools, etc.

Howard Zinn on “The Use and Abuse of History”

2008-01-19T00:29:03-08:00

I’ve been reading some excellent stuff by Howard Zinn of late. I’ve tried three times now to read his most excellent People’s History of the United States, but I have always failed for one reason or another. I guess it’s just too dense for everyday, casual reading. This time however, I stumbled upon a much more readable book by him, Passionate Declarations. It’s tying in rather well with some thoughts I’ve been having about our electorate system, so I thought I would post a quick quote from it to share the wealth:

What sorts of values and ideals are encouraged in the young people of the coming generation by the enormous emphasis on the Founding Fathers and the presidents? It seems to me that the result is the creation of dependency on powerful political figures to solve our problems.

We were being exploited by England? Well, the Founding Fathers took care of that in leading the struggle for independence. Was the nation morally blighted by the existence of 4 million black slaves? Abraham Lincoln solved that with the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we have a terrible economic crisis in the early 1930s? Franklin Roosevelt got us out of that one. Do we face enormous problems today? Well, the solution is to find the right president, to go to the polls and choose either the Republican or Democratic candidate.

Consider how much attention is given in historical writing to military affairs—to wars and battles—and how many of our heroes are military heroes. And consider also how little attention is given to antiwar movements and to those who struggled against the idiocy of war.

…

As a result of omitting, or downplaying, the importance of social movements of the people in our history…a fundamental principle of democracy is undermined: the principle that it is the citizenry, rather than the government, that is the ultimate source of power and the locomotive that pulls the train of government in the direction of equality and justice. Such histories create a passive and subordinate citizenry.

I don’t think I could put it much better than that, but in related news, I completed the first round of election pollster training today. Come February 5, I shall be a clerk of the polls (for better or worse).