Clive Barker's Nightbreed Director's cut

I was one of the first thousand to preorder it. I saw the movie back in 1990 and wasn't entirely pleased with it. Warners billed it as something like a slasher at the time, which is not. What Nightbreed was and now is again is the Citizen Kane of monster movies where the tables are turned--or that's what it was supposed to be, an epic tale, a metaphor for discrimination against LGBT people, and much more, a lost classic now found and restored to its former glory before the suits got their hands on it. 

A comparison is in order here: This is like the achievement of a full restoration of the first gay-positive movie ever made, Different from the Others (Anders als die Andern, 1919, starring Conrad Veidt, the somnambulist from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) or The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), it is historic.

I should receive the set by this weekend or early next week. A sprawling review and reflection on the new cut is coming. I'll also be doing a similar essay on Breaking Bad as a cultural and historical phenomenon in time now that the series has concluded and the dust has settled a bit. Expect the unexpected.

Postscript, 10.10.14: It's arrived! This is going to take some time to digest, but I should have my first observations up in about a week. The set is pretty amazing and the new artwork for the 3-BD set is better than the promotional art at the time. David Cronenberg should be pleased, he gets more screen time.

10.11.14: After watching the director's cut last night, I can say that we have a new classic.  What's most surprising is how what Barker intended most is a great, epic love story, a tale of universal love. Nightbreed has finally arrived to the audience it was intended for all along. There are so many things to say about it, and I will shortly. 

Audio and video quality are superb--it looks & sounds vastly better than its theatrical debut which is saying something. Yes, David Cronenberg has more screen time. I won't be printing any spoilers. 

I told you so Part I : The American groundswell is here

If the events in Madison, Wisconsin, still unfolding as I write this, say anything, it's that you love being wrong. For years now, I've been saying that this was coming, that when the American middle-class really started feeling the love of shipping jobs overseas, the rollback of the right to collective bargaining, the obscene accumulation of wealth amidst growing poverty and millions of mortgage foreclosures, that people were going to rise up and protest.

This is the only thing that ever works in a democracy such as ours: to stand and be counted and to demand one's rights and better conditions. Nothing has been achieved for the average person in human history without demands, it's a law of politics, and therefore, part of the laws of nature. The last time I checked, the laws of physics were still holding.

The walkout of Democratic state representatives in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital, wasn't the genuine beginning of all of this, it became real when the public came out in the tens-of-thousands. Politicians are rarely the solution in this nation and it has been the working-class who has saved the day more than a few times, even for the ones who did all the wrecking of civil society and the economy, again and again, until it was finally reined-in with the New Deal in the 1930s and the rise of labor.

No one knows where this train is heading, but the fact is, the groundswell has begun, some of its genesis is owed to Wikileaks, but more importantly, to misrule by both major political parties. Consider the walkout of the Democratic representatives in Wisconsin as, yes, an act (one-of -three, refer to your program) of political theater. When it comes down to it, they too will have to be forced by the public into pushing laws that allow for an expansion of collective bargaining and unions, generally.

I won't recount the lies emanating from the right, they're too wacky to even consider seriously.

What's been incredible about all of this is the stupidity of the Libertarian-leaning Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. By following the GOP game-plan of going after state worker unions, he also set his sights on the Policeman's Union. He might have had the Wisconsin State Police in his pocket, using them as goons to physically force Democratic lawmakers to return to create a quorum (the minimum number of reps needed to proceed on a vote on a bill). This isn't just un-American, it's illegal and obviously unconstitutional under our system of law.

Governor Walker, then, is a criminal and should be told to resign. If he doesn't resign, he should be dragged before either a grand jury, or an investigating committee. This could be done at either the state or federal level. President Obama is expected to stay out of the battle altogether and cannot be counted on as a friend of labor, let alone the average person. And where is the First Lady?

Apparently, she's no Eleanor Roosevelt and more a Nancy Reagan or a Hillary Clinton, a ghost-bouffant bourgeois who might slip and tell us all to eat cake. Somehow, I think she's smarter than that and smarter than her husband.

There are people far less intelligent: the people who have been telling me for years that this day would never come. I told you so, I really did, and you wouldn't listen because you never will. You have sold your soul for so little that it's a mockery of human life--or even tube worms that swarm around the vents at the bottom of the Atlantic...

On the dumbbell parade (the 9/12) march numbers and your lazy asses

Washington D.C.--Was it 2 million, as many--uh--parade goers and their tax-cheat backers want us all to think? Nope. Not even close.

Reasonable estimates coming from the police and even the conservative Washington Times has it at around 70-75,000. That's not the real problem. The numbers don't mean anything, it's the sprawl of yelling zombies, spouting terms they never learned anything about in civics class: "Socialist!" Yet--and to underscore their extremism--Obama's in-the-pocket of big pharma and the insurance companies anyway. No, it's because he's black and that their party lost the election, the Republican Party, that other party of big business. Also, they're incredibly ignorant individuals who are easily swayed by the message of fear. That's what we call an idiot, incidentally, a fool.

And who's paying to cart all the tards around? The aforementioned big businessmen and women who declared war on the average person, and therefore, the social contract, long ago. America's sinking, but these morons are too stupid to see the man on the hill running everything into the ground. No, instead, it's the "niggers," the "faggots," phantasm-like "socialists" (yet they never refer to Sen. Bernie Sanders as one, and he is), "communists," and a lot of other terms that aren't applicable outside of science fiction and The Turner Diaries. What supporters (70% of the public, easily dwarfing these loud-mouthed dunces) of single payer are waiting for is beyond me, I guess they're all on Facebook fucking around...ahem. The fact is, these crazies at the town halls are the minority, they're just very loud and they have corporate backing in many cases, if not having been pushed there by these same faceless forces through propaganda. Yet, where's the majority? Something needs to be done, and done now about these yelling geriatrics and racists, these fools.

In other words, if you support single payer, you need to get off of your collective dead-asses and do this: go down to your congressional representative's office and hold a vigil, and not just for one day, for a long, long time if necessary. Write them and call them incessantly until they start doing what we--the majority--want them to do on health care. These jackapes are being scared and even paid to come out and threaten, yell, and intimidate the rest of us into apathy and silence and it's working. They are the minority, we are the majority, and we want socialized medicine. Period. There is nothing left to say after you know that statistic of 70%, and some stats are higher than that.

And young people: what the fuck are you assholes waiting for? Are you retarded? Stupid? I can assure you that you're not going to live forever. Just look at some of you coming back from the Middle East in body bags. And for what? Once again, to make some faceless investors richer. To do nothing about this and to just apathetically take it or buy into it is to be less than a slave. After that, one begins to deserve everything that flows-out of that arrangement. There literally are no words, because after that, widescale violence becomes inevitable with the collapse of the social contract, that agreement we all have to band together as a society to care for one another rather than to murder each other. What are societies for? I bet you cannot answer that question.

Now, that's how stupid you're all being by doing nothing. It doesn't get any lower than that.

But if you really want to get to the crux of this stupidity, it's the American South again, the old Confederacy of Dunces that was never able to function within a democracy and still isn't. If you look at the outlays of the elections since the American Civil War and the voting patterns that drag America into a jaded authoritarianism, it's the South doing it again and again and again. Stupid is as stupid does. We could very well end up with another Civil War, it will have been just as avoidable as the first, and the South will have created the majority of the mess once again. We're seeing the cost of this stupidity writ large and we will reap chaos and destruction from it if we don't start making this a participatory democracy. There's only one way to do it, we all know how, and it's time to get off our asses and into the town halls and the streets to counter these incredibly moronic assholes, there is no other way. Democracy isn't a microwaveable pizza. Do it, hit it, go, now. Quit playing with yourselves.

This whole deal is political theater to give you that golden opportunity to cop-out and do nothing--and I know full well you're all looking for it. Do it. Now. Go. Find your congressional representative's office this weekend and go to his office personally and tell them you want single payer. If they're not going to support it, tell them that not only are you not going to vote for them, but that you're going to campaign for their opponents, that you're going to tell all of your friends and family not to vote for them. Know someone who should run for office but hasn't ever bothered? Push them, get them to run as an independent who will support this agenda of single payer care for all. No excuses, do it. Do it now, otherwise you're also intellectually incapable of functioning in a democracy, and that's about as low as it gets.

Obama's in their pocket, it's about race, ignorance, unwarranted fear, and lost elections:

http://www.citizensforethics.org/file /20090904%20-%20Summary%20of%20Health%20Care%20Visits.pdf

"The Underground Railroad never happened."

Michiana--Of course it did, and it was more widespread than bigots and racists here in Northern Indiana would care to admit.

Whether the local Klaverns around here or foaming-at-the-mouth racists like attorney Tony Zirkle want to admit it or not, a lot of people around here were involved in the hiding and ferrying of runaway slaves into Canada and other "free" states that wouldn't cooperate with slave hunters in returning the "property" of slaverholders in the American South and the border states.

My own father--not exactly someone I'd ever refer to as racially progressive in any sense--even had to admit this to me. During the 1970s, he did a lot of work on construction sites throughout Michiana as a civil engineer (the area I live in was once part of Michigan, and the borders might be contested again soon, another story for another time...) and he and his coworkers found several sites that were part of it, even tunnels that weren't on any map, completely unknown until their discovery by the construction crews.

But besides being a nexus for the Underground Railroad, Michiana has also been yet another place where local folklore once flourished. In 2005, folklorist Carl Lindahl visited the Suggs house and Underground Railroad museum, still run by the family of the same name up in Vandalia, Michigan, right outside of the city of Niles.

Lindahl's article is about a collection that was released at the time, but his observations about the Suggs patriarch J.D. Suggs and the legacy of certain folklore collectors from the last century are interesting ones:

Much more commonly, however, I emerged from the listening experience with enhanced respect for the collectors and for the positive bonds they had forged with the storytellers. Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of this sort was Richard Dorson. Dorson has been roundly (and rightly) taken to task for many of his statements about the nature of African American narrative, especially his contention that it was a “borrowed” tradition —adapted from European sources rather than being “truly” African American. Such theoretical positions have long been discredited, but they have influenced many folklorists, including myself, to belittle Dorson’s work with African American narrators and narratives. So I was astonished to find that the children of Dorson’s favorite African American storyteller, J.D. Suggs, not only remembered Dorson, but cherished their memories of him. Their father had had a vision of “black and white coming together”—and the Suggs children have interpreted that vision in terms of Suggs “coming together” with Dorson. When I drove up to the J.D. Suggs Underground Railroad Museum and Historical Site in Vandalia, Michigan, I was stunned to find two metal silhouettes —one of Dorson, painted white, and one of Suggs, painted black—facing each other. The silhouettes were fashioned on the model of a photo of Dorson and Suggs that Suggs had carried with him until the day he died. In August 2004, shortly after American Folktales had been released, I attended the J.D. Suggs Freedom Festival at the museum and emerged from my car to find the Suggs family gathered in a circle around the metal cutouts of Suggs and Dorson.
The recordings of Suggs and Dorson reveal a strong mutual affection based on the two men’s common love of story. These and similar recordings from other storyteller- collector teams underline the importance and redeeming quality of fieldwork. We may get it wrong theoretically, our scholarship may sometimes seriously misrepresent our “informants,” but as long as we can record their remarkable performances and deal with them personally, in an atmosphere of mutual respect, we have done something remarkably right. The recorded performances will survive our misperceptions and, through such archives as the AFC, be available for their grandchildren and ours. We justify our existence by prolonging that of the storytellers.
The Archive of Folk Culture is in many ways America’s folkloric memory. There is no substitute for the wealth of oral art and wisdom to be found there. (Lindahl, Carl. "The Making of American Folktales," Folklife Center News, Winter/Spring 2005, Volume XXVII, Numbers 1-2)

God love the common man, the only conscience America's ever had or ever will have, because it's not going to come from above. The Suggs House Freedom Festival is being held today and tomorrow in Vandalia, Michigan. Its main-thrust is racial unity between African-Americans and Euro-Americans and a reminder that the nation most of us has always wanted has always been there, right under our eyes all along, if only we heed the call. Most of us already have in our hearts and minds, the real battleground.

Listing of local events that include the Suggs Freedom Festival (Aug. 8-9): http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090705/INTHEBEND/305029998/1044/Ent

Lindahl, Carl. "The Making of American Folktales," Folklife Center News, Winter/Spring 2005, Volume XXVII, Numbers 1-2: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/news/news-text-winter-spring2005.html

More cries of "coup," this time regarding AIG from Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Magazine--I haven't read a copy of RS since 1992, so you probably know from this fact that they don't elicit much respect or admiration from me.

At best, the publication has been patently mainstream from its inception, a cheerleader of the consumer model, and a part of what's gotten us into the economic crisis we're now inhabiting.

Occasionally, the dinosaur ownership realizes at RS how inane and unimportant that they've become (once, the criticisms came from old school RS writers like the late Hunter S. Thompson) and pays someone to write something substantial about where things are at.

Their political articles are often belated pieces that would have had a better impact had someone commissioned them when the corruption and crimes were everywhere--occurring literally out in the open, down the street from RS's NYC offices--but advertisers don't like political coverage, especially when they're involved in the mess, and that would mean spending the money on a full time investigative team.

This doesn't fit into all the wonderful business models of recent times, so they don't have one, because since the introduction of CBS's "60 Minutes," the news is supposed to be profitable and entertaining.

Somehow, in this peculiarly adamant pro-business environment, we're being entreated to ditties from the Fourth Estate itself that "democracy will be inhibited without newspapers," yet when we had all of them they did little to protect it, making for a zero-sum loss in the age of the Internet. Yes, coverage will definitely become deeply "impaired" for a time, and there will likely be further consolidations of media, but what future will the survivors have in a generally wrecked economy? Being king is fine, but king of the garbage dump doesn't sound very grand to these ears.

One might also factor-in how hard it is to do business during widespread strikes and insurrection, but that's what defense contractors are for.

Into this bloody fray comes a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi on AIG and--please bear with me--the notion that the Wall Street bailouts have been a "coup."I don't believe that it's that simple, that many of these critics have been dangerously naive about our system and its promises because of their own "successes" ("You're just jealous."), and that they're finally discovering how America really works. You know: the American people are usually the last to know, because there are "unknown knowns," in the thankfully inimitable words of Donald Rumsfeld.

...["]When one considers the comparatively extensive system of congressional checks and balances that goes into the spending of every dollar in the budget via the normal appropriations process, what's happening in the Fed amounts to something truly revolutionary,” a kind of shadow government with a budget many times the size of the normal federal outlay, administered dictatorially by one man, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We spend hours and hours and hours arguing over $10 million amendments on the floor of the Senate, but there has been no discussion about who has been receiving this $3 trillion," says Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It is beyond comprehension." ... ("Back to the Big Takeover," Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, April 2, 2009 issue)

If it's a "shadow government," it's only because Congress delegated those powers to the executive branch and consciously did so over a period of decades. The article at least makes this point clearly enough. It should be added that Sec. of Treasury Bernanke has to answer to the President of the United States, ultimately, since he might have problems with how the money gets spent...or not. Taibbi is wrong--it really is all about money, the only thing Americans can be roused to action by. In other words, the Treasury Department isn't a separate branch of government, although Taibbi and others seem to be suggesting that it is. Were it that simple.

But this has been a real point-of-contention with me, since a "coup" means a real world transfer of power, generally to people who weren't originally "in-charge," with at least some essence of "finality" to it, however fleeting. Paradoxical--yes--and welcome to the world of power politics where language and logic break down above the atomic level. Sure, the Treasury Department and the Fed have significantly more power at the moment, that's true, and that's really an expansion of the power of the executive branch in the end. Former Vice President Cheney must be proud of his contribution to all of this.

Not since Hitler has so much confusion been sown in the halls of a modern government. It helped to have enablers and other fellow travelers along the way. So, these calls of a "coup" are more than a little belated--they actually sound weird coming at this moment. Habeas corpus has been nominally restored through the courts, but significant breaches in our Constitution are still there. There were many voices on the left who warned about the economic crisis and the war on terror's rollback of our rights from the start, and a few on the right, and so on.

But they weren't especially passionate voices, and they were ignored as they usually are.

Where were all these cries from the right and the mainstream media during the passage of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act? Off making money at the time, they couldn't be bothered to care at the time. When I question some of the "coup counters," they tend to settle on the term "paper coup," and neglect to go into any further details. A real world analog would help, like Yeltsin's creation of the Oligarchs through the Russian State granting them mineral rights, or similar moves in South America during the last sixty years. That would have been a business luncheon for the Bush II administration.

Perhaps it just sounds good to the ears, that "c-word." It gives one the appearance of being prescient, prophetic, like Ronald Reagan (in appearance only). Granted, the term "coup" is taking over (pun intended) throughout the political spectrum.

Taibbi continues:

...The state is now being asked not just to call off its regulators or give tax breaks or funnel a few contracts to connected companies; it is intervening directly in the economy, for the sole purpose of preserving the influence of the megafirms. In essence, Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers. ... (Ibid)

And this is new in American history, because...? Frankly, I don't get it--these are the very same people in control of the system in the end (the original ones, the ones whose names are being withheld on TARP payout papers), the same super rich "investors" and business bureaucrats inside and outside of our government who played, and lost. Welcome to the inherent ( il)logic of our economy, you missed the memo. Was there some arch-conspiracy, or some kind of a plan to this? Were you paying attention?

This makes a grand leap of logic that these people on Wall Street were and are competent.

Are you kidding? Does it really look like they're good at anything done above board, legally? They aren't good at business, they cannot rule or govern effectively or sustainably, and it will all crash no matter how much they attempt to leave the rest of us with the bill. Their time is up, it's a given, even with these machinations that induce the apathetic, cynical, and gullible, to ascribe godlike powers to a bunch of Wall Street (and truth be know, Main Street) clowns.

That they're not good at business is a given, but that most of them are criminals has yet to be proven, but will be. They're going to keep playing the same games because it's all they know, and when the rules don't favor them they change the rules. Does that sound sustainable? Let them have their fun, playing with their Monopoly money, but if they get their way, any recovery is going to be short-lived in a system whose time came at least a generation ago, the rest being mythology.

Americans have often wrongly measured their freedoms and liberties through economic indicators and their ability to purchase while neglecting the very existence of a quality of life and the social contract. There will be plenty of time to reflect on that now.

"Back to the Big Takeover," Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, April 2, 2009 issue: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover

"Twilight time" at Ford, with a dose of hope and wisdom

So I took my grandfather's old--old?!--2000 van cruiser to the dealer down the road for a recall fix (you don't want to know, but it includes the cruise control and the vehicle bursting into flames, even when it isn't running) early this morning, and it was almost what I expected: no customers, employees sitting around in the waiting room with me (cute girls!), salespeople and other staff walking around trying to look "busy" when it's obvious there's no way in hell that's going to be possible, and a few other of the depressing sights and sounds one might imagine walking into a car dealership in America these days.

Mind you that I took the van in just to have the recall work done, gratis (FREE). As you might expect, I waited while they did it and one the big-shots in the garage came back and asked if I wanted the whole-enchilada--check the brakes, blow out the transmission fluid, check the battery, change the oil, wash the van, kick the tires, etc., etc. . Naturally, I had my trusty credit card in-hand, the damage (to my finances) was going to be impressive, and it was!

After what seemed like at least a two hour wait (not bad), they were done with everything, no hassles, no worries. It felt great to finally have all this done, like a good early-morning dump, both invigorating and a little exhausting, but satisfying and a relief. Now, my van wouldn't suddenly burst into flames spontaneously on the highway or in our garage where it could spread to the house, maybe taking-out a few lawn chairs in the backyard, a squirrel, and maybe an errant opossum. That'll learn 'ya.

Ask any working-class American one of their greatest sources of frustration and anger besides their job or their boss, and they'll immediately home in on their car or truck. Frequently, it's an American-made vehicle like mine, a hand-me-down. For decades and decades--even back when Henry Ford was alive--the auto manufacturers were told by the public, by consumer advocacy groups, the government (but not much here), and everyone with a pulse, to make cars that were safer, more affordable, durable, got better gas mileage, and required very little maintenance. I know, I know--people need jobs, and I'm not going to begrudge that, but why not pay everyone properly? Wasn't that Henry Ford's idea?

Wasn't he an authoritarian nut, a Nazi-supporter? What does that make the latest brew of CEOs who have placed themselves on the extinction list as a class? They haven't believed that Americans should be paid a living-wage, never mind being able to actually afford their products. I know, that whole "logic" thing. The real problem, as usual, is the American obsession with work and the work ethic, a dysfunctional authoritarian division of labor, and greed. This no longer works...so?

Even the new president is overly-obsessed with work and it's a little worrying; but I feel assured that reality of current events is going to change him and his assumptions as it changes everyone else. More work is not always the answer, but a rethinking of productivity, wages, and the division of labor are. True, there is much work to be done getting a sustainable energy policy and economy (the same thing, really, something our intelligent president understands), but what after that? How will work be divided-up? Are we to tolerate more of the same old, same old regarding the policies of employers?

The president appears to be on the same page as working-class Americans here in his vocal support of the right to unionize, the right to collective bargaining that's implicit to a healthy democracy. This is all about the social contract, or what the Republicans and errant Democrats have debased it to. For every recall, every death caused by design-flaws done at the behest of profit and shareholders, and corporate executives, and for every breakdown that could have been avoided but was part of "planned obsolescence," the social contract was violated and discarded again and again. This was the fault of ownership and management, not the UAW, not any union, and not necessarily the consumer, although we have to make an exception with the SUV.

As I was signing the papers for the repairs and maintenance, a very smart, wise Black man shook his head in a chair across from us: "Yeah, Ford isn't going out of business...at least not right away. You know, if they would have just made cars that--maybe they wouldn't look great--didn't cost so much, but got good mileage and didn't need so much maintenance." He was an employee of the Ford dealership. His supervisor did nothing to contradict him, nothing at all. We all agreed, and I had a great talk with this man about the heart of all of this. Call me crazy if you like, but I've always had a greater rapport with Black Americans--they call it as they see it.

But today, at Ford, things have changed. Decorum has changed, and people are tired of towing-the-line for the big-shots, tired of keeping up appearances when it doesn't matter. I'd write that we need to do this and stop holding-our-tongues with employers when things no longer work, but that time passed long ago. Now comes the time to "fix" things, a time of incredible opportunities for working people...if they decide to be those squeaky-wheels that get oiled. We have an opportunity to rollback authoritarianism in the workplace like never before. If we fail to try we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Our children and their grandchildren will also blame us. They will be right. We can make things better, it's just a matter of will, the jaded-be-damned. Get moving, get organized.

President Obama so far

Washington D.C.--What can I write other than, "So far, so good"? Rather than stupidly cow-tow to a disgraced Republican minority, the President is moving forward rapidly towards fixing some of the mess left by them and not worrying himself with the petty obstructionism that they're known for. Welcome back to minority status, and get used to it.

That the GOP has no vision that's going to help the average American is now understood by the majority. What do they have against the Democratic version of the stimulus bill? It's not what you're being told: $125 billion for our schools, a tripling of the education budget, more insurance coverage for the unemployed, and even some new moves towards progressive taxation not seen since before Ronald Reagan.

That this is an end of Reaganism is now assured, and today, the new President has signed no less than three executive orders protecting and supporting the right of Americans to organize unions in the workplace. That would never have happened under Clinton, Bush I & II, or even Jimmy Carter. For over a generation the Democratic Party had lost its way and suffered from an identity crisis. Perhaps that time is over, but it's still a wait-and-see. But for now, the Democrats are doing what they haven't in ages, namely acting as though they actually won.

This writer is sitting-back and allowing the new President to make his best attempts, to let him succeed or to fail. Nobody should want him to fail, but the GOP is still intent on self-destruction--we should oblige them in this and also step-back and allow them to do so. The first hundred days of any administration are crucial, and he deserves every chance to fix the mess created by rampant deregulation under the Republican Party. Why are they acting so boldly?

One answer is that they have the Justice Department back again. Time to use it to enforce the laws of the land again, which means prosecutions of Bush II administration members who have clearly broken the law. First on the list would be former Vice President Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and former AG Alberto Gonzales for authorizing torture, and that's just for starters.

"What we accomplished together," a post-election synopsis from the Nader/Gonzalez campaign

November 11, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

To staff, volunteers, supporters, donors, and voters Authoritative public sentiments have always been there, have they not? From the Declaration of Independence's majestic prose to the preamble of our Constitution which begins with "We the People of the United States ..." to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address "toward a new birth of freedom ... for a government of the people, by the people and for the people" to the last words of the pledge of allegiance -- "with liberty and justice for all." Sentiments remain mere words; heralding hopes, wishes and poignant nods. Unless they are grounded in reality, behavior, respect, attitude, and renewal, they become the words of controlling processes, pacifying the resigned, fortifying the concentrators of abusive power, and ever manipulating the trusting populace by the latest politicians climbing up the electoral hills. The Nader/Gonzalez independent ticket set standards for presidential campaigns that were authentic, honest, factual, far-seeing, and committed to a deliberate, deep democracy that creates high expectations and dedicated actions from the people themselves. Democracy is revered all over the world because it brings the best out of people. But the people have to want it, to work for it, and to use it daily in its many splendid varieties. Elections are a temptation for abstraction, soaring rhetoric without roots in the daily experience of those who are impoverished, ailing, defrauded, and indebted. The vast majority of citizens are marginalized and excluded from the freedom to participate in power -- to paraphrase Marcus Cicero. Our campaign started with the realities of our country on the ground where the people live, work, and raise their families. Politics must never be an abstraction. For if allowed to be such, it will be a mirage that stokes the hopeful emotions while detaching people from a critical recognition that they and only they -- individually and organized -- can make their representatives truly their representatives, dutifully producing more leaders. Leaders who cannot betray the trust of the people, and that of their children and grandchildren, know from whence they came. It is with these thoughts that all of us at the Nader/Gonzalez campaign headquarters tender our gratitude to all who stood with us. We thank your enlightened self-interest, your awareness of the necessity for enlightened communities from the neighborhoods and workplaces all the way to our national government. We must make this government a tribune of peace, justice and freedom throughout this tormented world of ours. While I was campaigning in Syracuse, New York this October in a city beset with hard times, a middle-aged blue-collar worker with calloused hands approached me after our discussion and said, "I'm voting for myself, which is why I'm voting for you." I took that declaration as a serious trusteeship and later on the campaign trail turned it into a basic question: "Isn't it about time that we all voted for ourselves?" Isn't it about time that we planned our futures rather than ceding that essential function of citizenship to giant rootless corporations? What follows is a summary of what we achieved together through the Presidential campaign of 2008, despite being obstructed by the Democrats' and Republicans' ballot access hurdles and traps, despite being excluded from speaking to tens of millions of Americans through the Presidential debates (polls repeatedly showed the people wanted us -- by name -- included), and despite being willfully ignored by the national television and national newspaper/magazine media. These achievements represent persistence, stamina, and the willpower to penetrate this political bigotry so as to give choice to those voters who knew we were running. We believe history will treat the Nader/Gonzalez initiative kindly in part because its reading of the necessities of the American people was accurate as was its condemnation of the concentrated powers that have for so long denied them livelihoods of decency, security and voice. We thank you who made all this possible. Looking forward, we thank all who will make the campaign's legacy proliferate through all seasons at all times wherever human beings seek the fulfillment of their human possibilities. ACHIEVEMENTS OF NADER/GONZALEZ 2008 Moving a Progressive Agenda Forward in the Electoral Arena. Nurturing anew the survival seeds and sprouts for a functioning democracy, so that someday the fruits of this campaign will be traced back to the political pioneers of 2008 who carried forward the torch of conscience and justice high across the land. We followed the model of Presidential candidates Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas; if they had not run within the electoral arena many people would not know key elements of the progressive agenda. As Thomas Paine once said, "a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of right." In 2008, without third party and independent candidates there would have been no opposition to the bailout, no discussion of single-payer, no opposition to nuclear power plants, no support of living wage, no peace advocacy over blow-back militarism, no advocacy of electoral reforms, no crackdown on corporate crimes, etc. Civil Liberties for Independent and Third Party Candidates Working to break down unfair ballot access laws that shred the rights of minor party candidates to run for office. Example: Victory in Arizona, declaring in-state petitioning law unconstitutional at the 9th circuit court of appeals. Example: Victory in Ohio case at the 6th circuit, declaring Secretary of State Blackwell was wrong to throw Nader/Camejo off the ballot in 2004 and that the Ohio law requiring in-state petition circulators was unconstitutional. Bringing in New People to the Political Process We will be over 700,000 votes in 2008 as absentee ballots and write-ins are counted over the coming days and weeks. Many of those voters would have stayed home and not voted if Nader/Gonzalez had not been on the ballot. 60% of Nader/Gonzalez donors have never contributed to any other political candidate before. Thousands of citizens developed skills in clean politics and many will run for office where they live in coming years. Documenting the Multi-faceted Oppressiveness of the Two-Party Controlled Dictatorship of Our Country The exclusion from the debates and the media blackout helped deflate the myth of a competitive electoral democracy. Exposing myths is the first step toward reforms. International Solidarity The Nader/Gonzalez campaign helped show the rest of the world that there are voices inside the Presidential campaign who speak vigorously to the United States becoming a humanitarian superpower that knows how to wage peace, advance justice and enhance the security of all peoples, as envisioned by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Ballot Access & Voting Success Bronze Medal: Nader/Gonzalez got more votes than any other Presidential third party or independent candidate. 45 State Ballot Lines and the District of Columbia: We got on more state ballots than in any previous Ralph Nader Presidential campaign (including the state of Idaho for the first time). Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez were on the ballot as Independents in 36 of those states, and in the District of Columbia. The Nader/Gonzalez campaign was nominated by the Independent Parties of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland and New Mexico. Nader/Gonzalez was also nominated by California's Peace and Freedom Party, Florida's Ecology Party, Michigan's Natural Law Party, and Oregon's Peace Party. Nader/Gonzalez qualified as write-in candidates in Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina and Texas. Only Oklahoma voters did not have an opportunity to vote for Nader/Gonzalez. Former Nader 2000 & 2004 campaign manager Theresa Amato will be coming out in 2009 with a devastating indictment of the political duopoly that crushes diversity and dissent in American elections. Her forthcoming book is titled Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny (New Press). Party formation was more active than in 2004, and Nader/Gonzalez achieved several notable ballot access accomplishments. Independent Party of Maryland. Obtained ballot status and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Independent Party of New Mexico. Obtained ballot status and achieved .5% vote threshold allowing 2010 candidates without petitioning. Independent Party of Hawaii. Obtained ballot status. Because of low vote totals the party must petition candidates for two more elections to obtain a 10 year ballot access status. Chairman Shaun Stenshol pledges to keep party alive and field candidates in 2010. Peace Party of Oregon. Obtained ballot status by securing 1% of the statewide vote total and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Connecticut Independent Party. Obtained ballot status by securing 1% of the statewide vote total and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Preserved ballot status of the Natural Law Party in Michigan. Ballot status of Delaware Independent Party, California Peace and Freedom Party, and Florida Ecology Party continues because of criteria other than vote totals. Some Memorable Campaign Accomplishments Our Vice Presidential Candidate Matt Gonzalez was the first Mexican-American VP Candidate in American History. Debates: We participated in three third-party Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates: Thursday, October 23, in Washington, D.C. at the Mayflower Hotel between Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin -- sponsored by Free and Equal -- covered by CSPAN. Thursday, October 30, in Cleveland, Ohio between Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin -- sponsored and hosted by the Cleveland City Club -- covered by CSPAN. Sunday, November 2nd, Vice Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada -- sponsored by Free and Equal -- which included Libertarian Party VP candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, Constitution Party VP candidate, Darrell Castle, and Independent Ralph Nader running mate, Matt Gonzalez. Wall Street Rally: Thursday, October 16, 2008. Thousands of people gathered in front of the New York Stock Exchange to join Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez in protesting the bailout of Wall Street and to demand a crackdown on corporate crime. Massachusetts Marathon: Saturday, October 25, 2008. Dozens of organizers helped Ralph Nader set the Guinness Book of World Records for most campaign speeches in a single 24-hour period. We made 21 campaign stops in 21 different Massachusetts towns in a single day. Uplifting Facts When issues, not party mattered, Nader won: In a local Brooklyn High School on Oct. 28, 2008, students were allowed to vote for five Presidential candidates but were told only what the candidates stood for, not their names. Nader/Gonzalez handily won the election with 46%. Read about it at http://berkeleycarroll.org/news/detail.asp?pageaction=ViewSinglePublic&LinkID=3614&ModuleID=183 One of the eldest voters in 2008 cast a vote for Nader/Gonzalez. She is Geneva Garner, a 108 year-old lifelong Republican from Gaithersburg, Maryland. Read about it at http://www.gazette.net/stories/11042008/montnew171838_32513.shtml

Nader/Gonzales on the ticket in 45 states!

WWW--This is a wonderful development for the third party movement, a movement towards real change in America where the public has a shot at actual representation in government. Look at the statistics below, it's an exciting development in American politics, and the only road towards accountability in government. Time to smash the two party duopoly that got us into the current mess we're in. Let's roll.

September 9, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

Drop $11 on Nader/Gonzalez. Why? We're celebrating. At the beginning of this campaign, we made a promise: Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot in 45 states by September 20. Today -- Tuesday, September 9, 2008 -- eleven days ahead of schedule -- we declare victory. We have completed our ballot access efforts and we're set to be on in 45 states. On in more states than in 2000 (43). On in more states than in 2004 (34). On in 45 states. Now, the American people will have a choice. To vote for a campaign free from corporate influence. But, as you probably have figured out by now, we are not a campaign that rests on its laurels. So, today we are proud to announce the launch of our eight-week Nader/Gonzalez Get Out the Vote drive. We need to raise $80,000 by September 17. This money will be used to reach out to Americans throughout this country. We're planning on deploying 30 full-time field staff. Ordering tens of thousands of lawn signs. Printing hundreds of thousands of pamphlets. And making hundreds of thousands of phone calls. To inform the American people that they now have a choice in November. And to get them to vote for Nader/Gonzalez. Want health care for all? Vote Nader/Gonzalez. Need a living wage? Vote Nader/Gonzalez. Want to transform the country to a solar energy economy? Vote Nader/Gonzalez. Want to reverse course in the Middle East? Vote Nader/Gonzalez. Help us celebrate this historic opportunity the only way we know how. With action for a change. So, donate $11 now to the Nader/Gonzalez Get Out the Vote Fund. (If you give $100 or more now, we will send to you In Pursuit of Justice, the 520-page book of essays by Ralph Nader -- essays on corporate power, the Constitution, and transforming our country. If you donate $100 now, we will send you this historic collection -- autographed by the man himself -- Ralph Nader. (This offer ends at 11:59 p.m. September 17, 2008)) So, let's start to spread the word. Nader/Gonzalez on in 45 states. Time to crank it up. And get out the vote. Let's get it done. Onward to November. The Nader Team

American Elections: The Skinny

A'murka--We are a nation of apathetic voters. Granted, after Watergate, it's been hard to believe the system here is anything but utter bullshit, a joke. Agreed. But the subsequent voter apathy hasn't made things any better, has it?

That's how Ronald Reagan and the rest of the jackapes that have come afterwards (and before that) have gotten into office . When Reagan ran in 1980, the voter turnout was in the 20-percentile range. Reagan won less-than-half of that, which means that less than 10% of eligible voters elected him. That's not a mandate at all, and calling it "the Reagan revolution" was apropos--then-and-now.

The 2006 midterms show some hope that things can change: we reached the 30-percentile range of voter turnout. That's still not very good, but it's going to have to do. Only the American people can bring about the loss of the franchise (the right to vote) now. When you have that range, a candidate like George W. Bush is only getting 10-15% of the actual range of eligible voters. No mandate there, which is OK with the Republicans, though they never let that stop them. That should tell you something about them and their attitudes towards democracy.

The GOP and the DNC feed on your poor response to your own cynicism of our political and economic system. There is nothing more irresponsible than not voting in a democracy. If you don't really care, why hang around? Why have children? Why not stay in bed and eat ice cream all of the time?

But enough about Mississippi--we all need to vote. And that's not going to be enough: you must start to and remain active in the political process for life. It's the most responsible thing to do. Otherwise, you have no credibility whatsoever. Part of the current crisis is all the dodging of responsibility and accountability we've all engaged in over the last 30 years.

This situation must--and will--end. Responsibility isn't just for the rest of us either: it means everybody, or democracy and reasonable law and order and vacant words without meaning. If you don't understand this, you don't understand democracy and why it's preferable to other systems of government. So, what are you supposed to do? Get off your dead-asses, get informed (decide for yourself), demand accountability of politicians and yourself and your neighbors, and REGISTER TO VOTE.

An interview with Dr. Noam Chomsky, from "Interpol Magazine," February 1995 (Part 2 of 2)

This was an interview conducted through the mail with Dr. Chomsky while I was finishing my degree in American History at Ball State University. Just two-months after I received his answers in the mail, we all witnessed the Oklahoma City bombing, and the first stirrings of the war on terror (really a domestic one against all of us). It's been a long road from the Spring of 1995. At that time, the internet was just starting to become accessible, and its impact on the political and cultural discourse is only now being realized. 1995 was a year when the "zine revolution" was occurring, and it was quickly-supplanted by the high-price of paper and the internet.

This interview was done for one of those little zines--my own--called "Interpol." I actually got copies of it in zine-central, the legendary Quimby's Queer Store in Chicago. It was pretty surreal going up to the Windy City and seeing those copies in the store (I never got paid, incidentally), it felt pretty good.

All that said, I would never trade the blog format, it's superior in every respect to that old digest format, and it's getting better all the time. Dr. Chomsky is a very friendly and encouraging person, and when he passes from this world, we will have lost a wonderful human being. Appreciate the flowers in life, they are fleeting. Try to be that person you admire, and strive to make a better world for all. That's the meaning of life.


Matt Janovic: Is "Leftism", as defined by the mainstream culture, more a problem of semantics, rather than a cohesive movement? It seems that throughout much of the 20th century, when groups worked and protested and acted for honest political change, the press and various "populist" elements resorted to labeling them "anarchists," "reds," "communists/commies," "pinkos," etc. . Do you agree with the analysis that often mob actions are stimulated from above, or are there complex social and economic reasons behind scapegoating and vigilantism?

Noam Chomsky: If I were a PR specialist trying to indoctrinate and marginalize people(as they do, quite consciously), I'd try to deprive all words of meaning, so that it's impossible even to think and talk coherently about things that matter (the powerful will continue in their own ways). To a large extent, that's happened. Personally, I keep away from words like "left," "liberal," "conservative," etc.

They have been so deprived of meaning as to become useless. Take "conservatism." The Reaganites were called "conservative." In fact, they were statist reactionaries; a genuine conservative would have turned over in his grave to hear the way the term is used today. There's also been a massive falsification of the "sacred texts." Take Adam Smith. We are supposed to worship at his shrine, but if anyone takes the trouble to read him, they'll find a very different picture from the official version handed down in the doctrinal system.

As for "mob action," it has so many different causes and sources that one can't generalize. CIO organizing and the civil rights movement were "mob action" from one point of view; the rampages of Hitler's organizations were too. Usually, when destructive mob action is stimulated from above, as it often is, it appeals to genuine social and economic concerns, manipulated for that purpose. Those are the tools in trade of demagogues, of every stripe. We've got plenty of experience with it throughout US history, dramatically right now.

Matt Janovic: What can the average person learn from the fall of the Soviet Union?

Noam Chomsky: The simplest lesson is a familiar one: in a conflict, the more powerful adversary tends to win. Europe began to separate into two parts in the 15th century, the West beginning to develop, the East becoming its "third world." That continued right to the early years of this century--for much of Eastern Europe, until 1945. There are some rules of the international game: (!) service areas have to fulfill their function, not get uppity about following an independent path; (2) if they do take off on their own and turn out to be successful in terms that appeal to others in the same boat, they really have to be crushed--in official rhetoric, they are a "virus" that might "infect others," a "rotten apple" that might "spoil the barrel."

If it's a speck in the Caribbean, it takes a weekend. If it's 1/6 of the world, it takes 70 years. But the logic is rather similar; and not surprisingly, much of Eastern Europe is returning to its earlier origins. Sectors that were part of the industrial West, like the Czech Republic, are returning to that status; parts that were basically service areas are returning to the typical third world model. There are all sorts of nuances and complications, but that's a fair approximation.

It's worth stressing that despite much pretense, Western leaders had no serious objections to Stalin's awesome crimes, any more than they had fundamental objections to Hitler or Mussolini, or to Saddam Hussein, or to a host of similar and lesser monsters. On that, the documentary record is very clear, and one can learn about it in arcane monographs (or the marginalised dissident literature). In a really free society, it would be on the front pages and in the school texts, along with much else that is consigned to the memory hole, as Politically Incorrect (in the operative sense of this ridiculous term).

Matt Janovic: Dr. Chomsky, what kind of direct improvements would you envision for the American worker in the workplace, if there was more democracy in most institutions of our society? How do you think that could be brought about?

Noam Chomsky: Right now [1995] one can't look for any improvements; the immediate problem is to preserve the rights that were finally achieved at least in part in the 1930s, after a century of bitter struggle, and have been eroding ever since. They are now under very sever and cruel assault, not just for working people: the same is true of family values, as I mentioned. A traditional stance within the US labor movement and intellectual life, as American as apple pie, is that industrial democracy must be a central component of operative democracy.

If the central decision-making institutions of a society--in production, commerce, finance, ideology, etc.--are in the hands of unaccountable private power, then democracy is a thin reed at best. That's traditional and mainstream. Today it sounds exotic, but that's because the American tradition has largely been demolished, also being "Politically Incorrect." How can democratic practices be extended to the central institutions of the society? There's only one answer, always: the same way they were slowly extended to governmental functions. That was never a gift; it was the result of committed popular organization and action.

Matt Janovic: In a truly democratic society, what do you think our educational system would be like?

Noam Chomsky: Education in a democratic society would try to encourage the natural curiosity and independence of mind of children, instead of suppressing it and channelling them into obedience and conformity. It would celebrate the traditional values of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, which held that teaching should not be like filling a vessel with water, but helping a plant grow in its own way by allowing it to have proper food and light. These traditional conservative values are, of course, anathema to contemporary statist reactionaries.

Matt Janovic: Lastly, what is your idea of international humanism, and do you believe that to impose Western democratic and humanistic ideals (as the Chinese communists/nationalists loyal to the party argue) on non-Western nations is cultural imperialism?

Noam Chomsky: The idea that the West tries to impose "western democratic and humanistic ideals" on the rest of the world is one of the most ridiculous scams that the commissar class has indulged in. Western leaders, including intellectual elites, are dedicated to undermining these professed ideals at home, and centuries of brutal history show how they have "fostered" them elsewhere. Take simply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UD).

The official line is that we courageously defend its universality, fighting off the "cultural relativists" of backward countries who say it doesn't fully extend to them. As even a moment's attention will show, the US flatly rejects about half of the UD even in principle, and grossly violates the rest. That's not controversial; the documentation is readily available. But for the doctrinal managers, it doesn't matter: what is important is ideological warfare, not truth or honesty--in fact, those are the values that have to be undermined.

Link to Part 1: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/05/interview-with-dr-noam-chomsky-from.html#links

End of Part 2 of 2 (and statement of intellectual ownership): This interview is the intellectual property of Dr. Noam Chomsky and Matt Janovic, in toto. Permission to reprint, quote, or reproduce can be obtained through written permission from the authors. Quotes of up-to four lines are acceptable without permission. All rights reserved as of 2007, Noam Chomsky and Matt Janovic.