The Green Party of the USA held its convention in Chicago last week, and chose former US Representative Cynthia McKinney as their presidential candidate. She chose activist and hip-hop artist Rosa Clemente to be her running mate.

Tags: green party

So the "big news" yesterday was that Jesse Jackson got caught on tape making an offhand and crudely-phrased comment about having a desire to figuratively castrate Barack Obama. Not because he hates him or intends to withdraw his support, but because he's frustrated about his handling of African-American issues.

And then, as is the custom in our day, Jackson had to show contrition in front of the cameras and release a carefully and artfully-worded apology, and Obama's campaign had to release a similar artfully-worded gracious acceptance of the apology.

I would love to know how Barack Obama really responded when he first heard of the comment. Did he laugh his ass off? Did he blow his top? Did he roll his eyes and groan? Did he wave his hand and say, "Fshaw"? I think that spontaneous reaction would have told us quite a lot about Obama's personality and character. His artfully-worded press release delivered by a spokesperson tells us nothing. But we'll probably never know.

Our media is full of words carefully crafted and chosen by professional spinmeisters and wordsmiths -- with the effect that they mean nothing.

I'm left thinking that a lot of the meaning in what we say and do comes from the spontaneity of it. A world without celebrity handlers would have more of a jagged edge, but it would be more genuine and human. The handlers who smooth everything over afterwards are not, i think, doing us a service.

That's not to say i think civility is meaningless or a waste of time -- just that sometimes people blurt out a thought that reflects part of where they're at rather than the considered opinion of their entire mind. When it happens, we should let things fall into place as they will.

Tags: meaning and discourse, news media

cowgrrl and i have been working our way through the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. We're at the beginning of season 2.5.

It dawned on me recently that it is in some ways a more faithful representation of Philip K. Dick's book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" than the '82 movie Blade Runner was.

I say that because in the book, unlike in Ridley Scott's very-loosely-inspired movie version of it, one of the main themes was the capacity for humans to feel compassion for something that looks and acts convincingly human enough. In the book, the androids exploit this for everything they can get from it -- because to a one they are ruthless, calculating, selfish, and utterly remorseless. They are, in human terms, psychopaths.

Similarly, a major theme in Battlestar Galactica shows humans reacting with sympathy and sometimes compassion towards the outward expressions of suffering or grief from the human-form Cylons. It's left to the viewer to wonder (as of the point she and i are at in viewing the backlog at least) if there is any authenticity behind these Cylon displays of emotion.

It's an interesting question. If there is no authenticity to their experience, if it's all an act, then any hesitation or compassion towards a Cylon is literally a weakness. At the same time, telling yourself it's okay to commit any cruelty or atrocity against something that is only acting when it seems to suffer in response would not prevent these acts from having a psychological toll on people anyway, and presumably the Cylons know this.

On the face of it, compassion would appear to be a flaw when one is in competition. And yet... and yet many species on Earth evolved with the capacity for compassion. In fact i would venture to say that in many species it is as strong a drive as hunger or survival or reproduction. It is not uncommon for example to hear about the abandoned or lost young of one species being adopted by members of another species -- even sometimes by species who typically prey on them. Compassion is quite evidently a winning species-survival strategy and not a losing one.

Would robots, left to their own devices, capable of making themselves more and more complex, eventually work out for themselves the advantage of compassion?

Tags: compassion, dick philip, movies and television, sf fantasy and horror

I suppose the mass media is downplaying this because they think it's ancient history and no one will care. But if there are people alive now who remember it, it's not ancient history.

As the Chinese-backed North Korean army rapidly overran South Korea in 1950, they released leftists whom the southern regime had rounded up in mass arrests and recruited them to help administer their occupation. When southern Korean leaders learned this was going on, they decided to slaughter their political prisoners en masse rather than allow them to be freed and assist the North Korean regime.

It will never be known how many people were thusly murdered, but an estimate of 100,000 is called by at least one historian "very conservative." US General Douglas MacArthur was aware of the mass executions and numerous men under his command colluded in them.

On June 29, 1950, as the southern army and its U.S. advisers retreated southward, reports from Seoul said the conquering northerners had emptied the southern capital's prisons, and ex-inmates were reinforcing the new occupation regime.

In a confidential narrative he later wrote for Army historians, Lt. Col. Rollins S. Emmerich, a senior U.S. adviser, described what then happened in the southern port city of Busan, formerly known as Pusan.

Emmerich was told by a subordinate that a South Korean regimental commander, determined to keep Busan’s political prisoners from joining the enemy, planned "to execute some 3,500 suspected peace-time Communists, locked up in the local prison," according to the declassified 78-page narrative, first uncovered by the newspaper Busan Ilbo at the U.S. National Archives.

Emmerich wrote that he summoned the Korean, Col. Kim Chong-won, and told him the enemy would not reach Busan in a few days as Kim feared, and that "atrocities could not be condoned."

But the American then indicated conditional acceptance of the plan.

"Colonel Kim promised not to execute the prisoners until the situation became more critical," wrote Emmerich, who died in 1986. "Colonel Kim was told that if the enemy did arrive to the outskirts of (Busan) he would be permitted to open the gates of the prison and shoot the prisoners with machine guns."

... Emmerich wrote that soon after his session with Kim, he met with South Korean officials in Daegu, 55 miles north of Busan, and persuaded them "at that time" not to execute 4,500 prisoners immediately, as planned. Within weeks, hundreds were being executed in the Daegu area.

from U.S. ignored Korea killings; Ally executed 100,000, new research shows

In a way, this is of a piece with US forces operating under rules of engagement that called for the killing of literally anyone who moved.

On 26 July the US 8th Army, the highest level of command in Korea, issued orders to stop all Korean civilians. 'No, repeat, no refugees will be permitted to cross battle lines at any time. Movement of all Koreans in group will cease immediately.' On the very same day the first major disaster involving civilians struck.

The stone bridge near the village of No Gun Ri spans a small stream. It is similar to a great many others that cross the landscape of South Korea, except that the walls of this bridge were, until very recently, pockmarked by hundreds of bullet holes. On the very day that the US 8th Army delivered its stop refugee order in July 1950, up to 400 South Korean civilians gathered by the bridge were killed by US forces from the 7th Cavalry Regiment. Some were shot above the bridge, on the railroad tracks. Others were strafed by US planes. More were killed under the arches in an ordeal that local survivors say lasted for three days.

Tags: american imperialism, global politics, gulag, human rights, war crimes

Our landlord has a few of his relatives over for a barbeque and get-together on the Fourth of July. I saw them on the porch earlier today, speaking to one another in Armenian.

And i thought, Ah, America.

When lady_babalon and i went to the Blue Hills park a few weekends ago, many of the families around us were of different races, and faiths, and listened to music sung in languages other than English -- and i felt profoundly proud of living in the United States.

How many places in the world are there where a person can live, and speak whatever language they wish to speak, practice whatever religion they wish to practice, with the expectation that there will be no interference from state or business or church or neighbor?

cowgrrl and i went to see a movie a little while back called "The Visitor," and among other things it was about this question, of what is an American? It is a white person who speaks English, was born here, and works in a cushy job? Is it a person who has come here from another country without documentation, practices Islam, speaks Arabic, makes music in Central Park, and earns money where he can under the table? The bold answer, the answer that takes courage, is yes and yes. Because every person who lives here brings something special to the people around them, to society as a whole. People have intrinsic worth, and when you say this, you have to carry it forward to the implications therein.

Thankfully the Founders had the foresight to put in the Constitution that the US does not have an official national religion. And so far, we have resisted the call to declare an official national language, though this debate comes up every generation or so and rages even now. Even now there are people claiming that the US is under "silent invasion" from Latinos and Latinas, that they are barbarians who will undermine our culture and our language and our religion. Seriously, "barbarian invasion" is basically what the influx of undocumented immigrants is being called - even though our economy and our politics - and our freedom - pulled them here. And even though they have paid sales tax on every purchase and have worked the fields and unloaded the trucks and staffed the kitchens of our country, they are spoken of as a burden. And even though they bring the wonder of who they are, they are spoken of as a burden.

It is not the place of the government to tell a person what language to speak, or what religion to practice, or whom they can marry or have sex with. It is the purpose of the government to serve us in our own peaceful choices. The Founders didn't actually see it that way, nor have subsequent generations of Americans - witness the practice of slavery, the long history of second-class citizenship for women, or the consignment of Indians to apartheid-like reservations which continues to this day. But it is the America we can visualise here and now.

Tags: american imperialism, freedom, marxian analysis, race

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

from Obama Vows To Expand Bush's Faith-Based Programs

This comes on the heels of Obama's stated willingness to vote for a bill that contains an immunity provision for telecom companies who helped Bush eavesdrop illegally on the phone conversations of who-knows-how-many American citizens.

Tags: church and state