The Monster's Sweet Perfume

One of the reasons I can ably take apart Randite twaddle without breaking much of a sweat is that I've read just about everything Ayn Rand ever wrote. Biographies (both the authorized ones and the true ones.) The frightfully bad newsletter. The fearfully bad collections of essays. The Very Big, Frightfully Bad Science Fiction robot bible, the svelte, frightfully bad post-apocalyptic science fiction, and almost everything in-between.

And then I hit puberty :-)

It all happened centuries ago, and while Rand’s economic and philosophical offerings are pure, self-serving, laissez-faire gangsterism, if you don’t understand the powerful allure of it’s meritorcratic siren’s song, you will always miss the point.

Looking back over my professional life -- from delivering papers in the pre-dawn cold to today, writing this -- I see a landscape littered with lessons. I see the remnants of lost jobs and aborted careers; some small or predictable (say, working for a company that went out of business), but a disturbing number times the end came when dimwits with power let hucksters con then into playing with the lives and fortunes of the people who worked for them like Gomez Addams

playing with toy trains.

Most of my adult life I have been playing dime-store Cassandra at one organization or another, arguing for intelligent solutions based on realistic expectations and built on a boring, methodical, data-tested implementation strategy that pays close attention to the negative feedback loop.

Hideously unsexy stuff, but it works.

In virtually every fucking case, I found myself completely outgunned by people who were more connected, more ruthless, completely unfettered by conscience and more willing to promise a credulous, frightened, inept boss magical, transformative, quantum-leapy results, packed deep inside sleek, focus-group-tested adjectives.

Then came the next recession or funding cut or management fad, some functionary hands me my walking papers, and I find myself back on the road -- broke, screwed, angry, scared, forced to start all over again, and watching as the party boat sails on over the horizon without me.

Then in 3…2…1…

Boom.

Organizational shrapnel flying into the sky. Distant screams. The smell of burning PowerPoints and flipcharts. A flood of emails from friends still aboard the doomed vessel hinting at new, unspeakably Caligulan outrages. Having bet the farm on the Latest Crackpot Idiocy and having driven out of the monkey house everyone who tried to warn them that the Latest Crackpot Idiocy wouldn’t work, management can no longer back out of its Faustian bargain without a fatal loss of face.

So they go all-in and give the douchbags the keys to the kingdom; the weasels can have anything they want – they can eat the organization alive and dance in its skin – as long they promise to save the necks of the goofs who steered the ship into disaster in the first place.

And they do: the great, smothering arms of the Confederacy of Dunces reach out to enfold and protect another one of their own.

And it all begins again.

And you know what? Some morning I get up, looking in the mirror and my first coherent thought is that I am fucking tired of it.

Politically and professionally, I am heartily tired of being right, and losing, over and over and over again.

I’m tired of warning people not to give the keys to the shitwhistles, then watching them do it, then watching my nightmares come true, then watching them lie about it.

I am tired of drowning in a flood of other people’s self-absolving bullshit.

Tired of being a head smarter than primates who tell me to shut up and sit down while they fuck things up beyond repair.

Tired going broke while I watch people who have been wrong forever about everything prosper.

Tired of finding out – always too late – that there was another, secret rule book. Another, secret, organization chart. Another, secret list of the Clout Protected. Another, secret clique of insiders or brothers-in-law or made-media-men or A-lister’s who had already held their own Yalta Conference behind closed doors and have already divvied up the Brave New World I thought I was fighting for long before the battle was over.

Tired of finding out that while I was sweating my ass off, the game had been rigged against me by people who I thought were on my team.

Tired of finding out that the two ironclad rules of Illinois politics (Rule One: There is a club. Rule Two: You are not in it.) also apply to virtually every other institution.

Tired of finding out, yet again, that in the Valley of the Blind, the One-eyed Man gets fired.

And in that exhausted, angry moment when I can see so clearly how the world could be if it weren’t being driven to ruin by thieves and hacks and aldermen, I understand the appeal of Going Galt.

The attraction of once and for all turning my back, stepping aside and letting it burn.

In that moment I once again understand the adolescent allure of Ayn Rand.

Perfectly.

Happy Blogroll Amnesty Day, Citizen!

(Cool graphic courtesy of Skippy)

That day whereon we little folk rise early, get down on our wee, dimpled knees and celebrate the glorious anniversary of that glorious moment when certain glorious A-List bloggers finally got shut of the smelly, little monkeys amongst whom they had been ingloriously trapped,

grabbed a glorious horse...

rode off with the glorious girl...

to a glorious future free from...

Oopsie

OK then, well, let's just never mind that shall we?

Instead, how about going around and giving these folks a little pat on the ass?

After all, who wouldn't want to help "Stop All Monsters"?

Or admire the patience of a "Ramshackle Beauty" who has been banging away on the side of the angels six years?

Or give their optic nerves a workout on the gray-on-black font scheme jungle-gym, the "Leftwing Nut Job" has waiting for you?

Or be led on a personal hazmat-slog through some of the less fragrant and scenic territories on the Right by "The Free Republik", after which "From Laurel Street" will have a little tonic for your soul waiting on tap?


Happy Blogroll Amnesty Day, Left Blogylvania.


Long may our freak flag fly (full size here)

Grifter Politician Charges Rubes $100K

To hear her whine about grifter politicians ripping off rubes.


From Rumproast:

Palin Sure can Pick ‘em - Tea Party Convention Shaping up to be Epic Fail

Given the choice* of speaking at CPAC 2010 (for no remuneration) or at the National Tea Party Convention (for beaucoup bucks - yay!) guess which one the Frosty Grifter picked? Why, you betcha! That hefty speaking fee, reportedly $100k, convinced our Sarah that the Tea Party Convention was a much more worthwhile organization with which to align herself. Well, luckily she apparently got half that fee up front cause the rest of it’s looking a little shaky these days.

Even FauxNews is admitting the Convention is in trouble.

The first National Tea Party Convention is slated for the end of this week, but several big names and events have cancelled after questions rose about the high fees to attend and the treasure chest where the money will end up.

Over the past few weeks, several sponsors, speakers and volunteers have backed out of the convention, scheduled Feb. 4-6 at Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., after learning that the convention organizer, Tea Party Nation, is a for-profit company. Some activists and outsiders alike are questioning the motives of Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips.

...

In other news, Irony was rushed to an area hospital today and is reported to be in "Very Critical" condition.

Schrodinger's Mo's: Now More Than Ever

No, you get in the fucking box.

File under: "Because, as long as your actions are safe, sane and consensual, the Almighty does not care what you do with your trouser Funyuns."

In light of the direction that the Screwing-Same-Sex-Couples-Out-Of-Their-Civil-Rights-In-Order-To-Pander-To-Bigots debate is now taking (From SFGate):

Prop. 8 defense only needs 2 witnesses

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

If the Proposition 8 trial were about something more mundane than the rights of gays and lesbians to marry - say, a suit over an auto accident or insurance coverage - it would probably be no contest.

In 12 days of testimony in federal court, lawyers for two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco called a parade of academic heavyweights and people affected by the ban on same-sex marriage to buttress their claim of unconstitutional discrimination. Defenders of the November 2008 ballot measure called only two witnesses, who did not address many of the plaintiffs' issues.

But while Prop. 8's challengers presented the weightier case, they also faced the heavier burden: overturning a voter-approved law on a politically sensitive subject, with arguments that no federal court has yet addressed, much less accepted.

The centerpiece of their case was testimony by professors from elite universities that marriage is an evolving institution, that parental fitness has nothing to do with sexual orientation, that gays and lesbians are subject to continuing discrimination and that the Prop. 8 campaign was based on appeals to prejudice.

The case for Prop. 8 rested largely on one witness, David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, who said marriage was universally defined as a male-female union, and expanding its definition posed unacceptable risks. Blankenhorn lacked scholarly credentials and struggled to explain past writings that seemed to endorse same-sex marriage. The second witness was political scientist Kenneth Miller, a professor at Claremont McKenna College.

Prop. 8's sponsors may submit further evidence before closing arguments, probably in March. But for now, Blankenhorn's testimony is the sole justification offered for the ballot measure by any courtroom witness.

It "couldn't possibly be enough," said Joan Hollinger, a UC Berkeley family law lecturer who attended the trial in San Francisco and plans to submit arguments in support of the plaintiffs. "There was nothing there except his own opinions."
...

-- it seemed like an opportune time to re-direct some newer readers to a short snip from a much longer piece from four years ago which riffed on Erwin Schrödinger's famous dead-cat-based thought experiment:

Schrodinger's Mo's
...
So let us imagine there’s a box in, oh, say, Massachusetts or Oregon or Iowa.

A big box, and in that box are the following items:

1. A Bible.
2. A preacher.
3. A gay couple.
4. A straight friend.
5. Enough consumables and comforts to last a lifetime.

Sort of a Biosphere II, but with vastly better feng shui.

And you’re living la vida no-neck in some high-toned, melanin-poor gated exurb, or in some scruffier digs where the “gate” is a gaunt, three-legged pit-bull named Bobby Lee tied the rusted hulk of an El Camino up on ancient blocks.

Now at some point over the course of years, the gay couple may ask the preacher to pick up the bible and, with their straight friend standing witness, get hitched.

Or they may not.

In fact, they exist only in a cloud of quantum connubial possibilities until you bust the box open and demand to know just what in the fuck they’re doing in there. And how can they have amassed such a formidable stockpile of really spiffy antiques without ever having left the box!

It is only when you kick the door down and intrude on their private business that the haze of potential outcomes collapses into a single, nuptial certainty.

So the question is, when exactly -- over the course of, say, forty years of leaving the box intact and letting them be -- did their status inside the box destroy your marriage outside the box?

When was it -- precisely -- during those four decades that this single detail of the lives of strangers who live so immensely far away from you in every meaningful way managed to intrude into your life so violently that it ruined your relationship with your spouse and debased the value of the love and mutual commitment you share?

So much so that the only possible solution is to amend the foundational documents of our democracy?

Because if you cannot identify the specific, quantifiable harm that such a union would have on you and yours, then shut your fucking hole.
...

Oh quantum physics, is there no dark corner you can't illuminate?

Driftglass and Blue Gal Special Podcast

 

"The Shellacking that Dare Not Speak It's Name" Edition This is a semi-fictional account of an exchange between Roger Ailes -- the Chief Propagandist of the American Fascist Party -- and Arianna Huffington, which was "moderated" by Barbara Walters (oh joy!) on “This Week” yesterday:

... Roger Ailes: Everybody hates Sarah Palin because her book sold well. Fox News is Fair and Balanced. I’m not in politics. I’m in the rating business. Arianna Huffington: Then why did you cut away from the event in Baltimore? You were the only network that… Ailes: Because suck my dick is why. Walters: We have to go now!

What bother mentioning it? Because this snippy little skid-mark in the underpants of the Mouse Circus was just about the most serious and lengthy exchange regarding the Baltimore Beatdown to be found anywhere on Sunday morning network political teevee yesterday (and other than the two hours of special coverage that MSNBC allocated to breaking down and discussing what was arguably one of the most significant political events in recent memory, it might well also be the most serious and lengthy exchange undertaken by any broadcast media anywhere.) Remember, Baltimore was not a Democratic Party PR stunt; this was the leader of the Free World and the head of the majority political party of the most powerful nation on Earth fielding question from 140 members of the opposition, on their stage, on their home turf., and at their invitation. And if President Obama had bungled it, I guarantee you, that is ALL you would be seeing on every network today. If Obama had bungled it – even a sliver of it – there would be a Fox!News!Alert running --

    

 -- every 30 minutes for the next month announcing that Fox would be re-animating the corpses of Lee Atwater and Jefferson Davis to join Karl Rove and a cartoon rabbit in a Fair and Balanced discussion of whether or not Obama was the mastermind of the evil Commie plot to destroy America, or merely a stooge of that plot. But Obama made no false steps. No mistakes. Instead he carved the GOP up like a pot roast, in their own back yard, using the weapons they provided, while outnumbered 140-to-1. Which is why you are not going to hear a fucking peep about it. Except, of course, right here :-)

Netroots Nation Wants My Ideas!

Really? Little old me?

Yes!

They sent me one of those electronic mail thingies -- every bit as stirringly personal as the occupant-addressed, Democratic primary literature that are now bursting the welds on my mail box -- soliciting my ideas on panels they should have.

Touched I was. Deeply.

So I clicked on the link and discovered a very long questionnaire that made it clear that, well, they don't really want my ideas.

They want Mr. Crowdsource --

"...a neologistic compound of Crowd and a short for Outsourcing, for the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an "open call" to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions."

-- to organizing panels. Line up panelists. Figure out times. Coordinate troop movements. Calculate the tides. And make sure that each panel has "a Netroots hook", "a range of diversity (ethnicity, gender, age, viewpoints, geography, etc)" and a several other bells, zippers, whistles and childproof caps.

But see, those are not "ideas". That's whatchcall your "event planning": hard, detail-oriented work, which is so many organization pay professionals to do it.

So no thanks.

Instead, here's a counter-offer

Bring me out, put me up in style, and Live-And-In-Person I will interlocute any two of the following driftglass-original-panel-topic guaranteed winners.

"Rent-to-Own Activism": Are we outsourcing our passion?

"Smart Liberals/Foolish Choices": On the flogging of dead horses and the starving of live ones.

"Shut Up and Send Money": How to blog every day until you go anonymously broke.

"Down-wonking Your Policy Casserole": They don't call it "The Power of Myth" for nothing.

"Virtual Protester Beaten by Digital Redneck": If a talking point falls in SecondLife...

Act now!

Operator are standing by!

Supplies are limited!

Now with extra Tom Waits!

Skip the middle man!
Don't settle for less!
How do we do it?
How do we do it?
Volume, volume.
Turn up the volume.

A Vituperation of Bloggers

Blogroll Amnesty Day cometh, citizen.

Wednesday, February 3rd.

Look up.
Link down.
Party on.

Noted Blogger Directs Nonspecific Anger

At unidentified people.

From Eschaton here:

Blogging In The Age Of Obama

I admit it can be a bit annoying at times, not as bad but in some ways similar to blogging during primary season. There are people who think they are noble truthtellers for explaining how Obama is the awesomest ever, and people who think they are noble truthtellers for pointing out how foolish we all were for voting for him instead of... well, not quite sure who we were supposed to vote for. I'm not writing this in a Broderesque "nuts to the left of me, nuts to the right, must mean I'm just right" way. People can legitimately believe Obama is awesome, and they can legitimately believe he's awful, having different priorities, interpretations, and understanding of things which can't necessarily be known. In other words, people can disagree about stuff! This does not bother me. What's annoying is getting from both sides an accusation of being some kind of a sellout or dupe. By both sides I don't mean all people, I mean in the sense of coming from some people from both directions.

I'm not quite sure what Duncan is so cranky about. After all, based on the well-documented comments and linking habits of Eschaton and several other A-List bloggers, as far as I can tell there are only, what, maybe five or six blogs left on the face of the Earth.

And since there are only five or six blogs left on the face of the Earth, can't they all just go in a room, work out their differences with foam quarterstaffs and trust falls and go back to "Rocking On", "More Threading" and telling us to go read what Digby wrote?