Hope Less

What does it say about the Republican Party that when Barack Obama chose the word Hope as a campaign slogan the Republican Party, through their irrepressible publicity agents like Sarah and Rush, had to start sneering at it? True to their words, the offensive line of the conservative side of American politics has done its utmost during the last four years to oppose things that offer hope to millions of Americans. And it's working.

There's no such thing as a Great Depression. They're all pretty lousy. The country's economy might be improving slightly under the Obama administration, but it's slow going when the opposition has to take everything as an affront. The conservatives make less and less of a secret of the fact that their policies really are meant to cause the destruction of American citizens and trends in American society that they consider undesirable. They have fully accepted the premise that it's far easier to take lives than to change minds. In an overpopulated world, the quick fix is to kill people. This gets easier when you decide you dislike so many kinds of them so much that you have no qualms about stuffing them into deteriorating situations.

"The Poor" get the most attention when in actuality the working class faces the most immediate threat. Outright poor people have programs to help them with various needs like housing, food, heating fuel and health care. These programs are constantly under threat, but they have managed to remain in place. Meanwhile, people not far above the poverty line get no help and have no buffer to keep them from disaster. Even people in middle income brackets can be destroyed so swiftly, particularly by medical expenses, that they crash down to make a crater underneath the safety net without even slowing down for a brief instant of eligibility. Dead men take no dole.

To the bean counters it doesn't matter who gets destroyed. Life is cheap. People make more people with very little prompting. Some who get crushed may be charming, entertaining and even useful, but they can all be replaced. Then again, why bother? Every death just leaves more for the rest of us.

Kind of makes you wonder whether the sacrifices of World War II were worth it. We bought a few decades, but corporate fascism has an apparently unbreakable grip on our government and our own citizens seem more interested in hating each other than in seeking a better human condition.

People of limited financial means facing a medical crisis have to decide what sort of life they'll have left after the expenses of fighting a serious illness. We make heroes of cancer survivors, but they are forever stigmatized by the medical insurance industry and enslaved to the pharmaceutical industry for whatever drugs they might need to sustain life after the drastic damage inflicted by cancer treatment. I know this because friends who are fighting cancer right now are telling me about their experiences.

In the end, whenever that comes, you want to feel that life has been worthwhile. This gets a lot harder when you realize that all human endeavor is just the diversions of a completely useless species. All we do is argue, fuck and fight. I believe that convincing people to ease up a little would be the most worthwhile achievement in history. So far it has also been the most futile. Even people you'd think would agree will suddenly spout some aggressive rhetoric perpetuating the cycle of punch and counter punch, bullshit without end, amen.

Maybe the horrible winter is making the mental climate worse. It's very hard to get regular exercise, which an aging body needs far more desperately than a young one does. And the growing roll call of cancer patients in the area reminds us that the Big C doesn't care who you are or whether you take good care of yourself. I don't care what they say about early detection and improvements in treatment. In the slow collapse of industrial civilization it's just one more thing you hope never happens to you. If it does, you're doomed to massively uncomfortable treatments that will probably just make the end of your life agonizing. Or you can go without the treatments and just have the end of your life be agonizing.

Isn't this depressing? It isn't great at all, is it?

Music and drugs

Throughout the 20th Century, especially from the Jazz Age onwards, musicians were increasingly associated with drug use. It certainly wasn't all of them, but no one was ever surprised to learn that this one or that one was using something, whether it was alcohol or something more exotic. Little has been said, however about the addictive nature of music itself.

My music fixation has led me to consider that very subject and to do ten minutes of exhaustive research. My first and last stop was Helpguide.org, whose Google snippet showed that it might contain the kind of checklist of warning signs of drug abuse that I was looking for.

This opening statement hit on critical similarities immediately:

"Some people are able to use recreational or prescription drugs without ever experiencing negative consequences or addiction. For many others, substance use can cause problems at work, home, school, and in relationships, leaving you feeling isolated, helpless, or ashamed."

Substitute music for drugs and you get this:

Some people are able to use recreational or instructional music without ever experiencing negative consequences or addiction. For many others, music use can cause problems at work, home, school, and in relationships, leaving you feeling isolated, helpless, or ashamed.

Helpless! Isolated! Ashamed! That sounds like me after a tough recital or String Band session. The others take off. Helplessly I flounder after them. I feel isolated as the worst excuse for a musician in the place. I'm ashamed that I did not practice more, and that I present myself as any kind of a musician whatsoever. I swear I'm going to quit. But do I? No. Within HOURS I'm "practicing" again.

The same site offers this list of signs and symptoms of drug abuse:

Common signs and symptoms of drug abuse

• You’re neglecting your responsibilities at school, work, or home (e.g. flunking classes, skipping work, neglecting your children) because of your drug use.
• You’re using drugs under dangerous conditions or taking risks while high, such as driving while on drugs, using dirty needles, or having unprotected sex.
• Your drug use is getting you into legal trouble, such as arrests for disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, or stealing to support a drug habit. 
• Your drug use is causing problems in your relationships, such as fights with your partner or family members, an unhappy boss, or the loss of old friends.

Common signs and symptoms of drug addiction

• You’ve built up a drug tolerance. You need to use more of the drug to experience the same effects you used to attain with smaller amounts.
• You take drugs to avoid or relieve withdrawal symptoms. If you go too long without drugs, you experience symptoms such as nausea, restlessness, insomnia, depression, sweating, shaking, and anxiety.
• You’ve lost control over your drug use. You often do drugs or use more than you planned, even though you told yourself you wouldn’t. You may want to stop using, but you feel powerless.
• Your life revolves around drug use. You spend a lot of time using and thinking about drugs, figuring out how to get them, and recovering from the drug’s effects.
• You’ve abandoned activities you used to enjoy, such as hobbies, sports, and socializing, because of your drug use.
• You continue to use drugs, despite knowing it’s hurting you. It’s causing major problems in your life—blackouts, infections, mood swings, depression, paranoia—but you use anyway. 

Again substituting music for drugs the parallels are disturbing:

Common signs and symptoms of music abuse

• You’re neglecting your responsibilities at school, work, or home because of your music use. Or how about dragging in even later than usual the morning after your weekly String Band session and spending most of the day listening to the tunes you're trying to learn, collected on your MP3 player?
• You’re playing music under dangerous conditions or taking risks while high on it, such as driving while plinking on a dulcimer you just bought because it looked easy to learn, using strings you should have changed long ago, or having unprotected sex.Wait. What? Maybe if I was a better musician I could use it to get laid, but not at this point!
• Your music is getting you into legal trouble, such as arrests for disturbing the peace, driving under a frigging dulcimer, or stealing to support an instrument collecting habit. 
• Your music use is causing problems in your relationships, such as fights with your partner or family members, an unhappy boss, or the loss of old friends.These mostly take the form of WOULD YOU FOR GOD'S SAKE STOP PLAYING THAT THING FOR A WHILE?!?! Or maybe you feel you have to hide your practicing so they won't all get together and stage an intervention.

Common signs and symptoms of music addiction

• You’ve built up a music tolerance. You need to play longer to experience the same effects you used to attain with smaller amounts.
• You play music to avoid or relieve withdrawal symptoms. If you go too long without playing, you experience symptoms such as  restlessness, depression, sweating, shaking, and anxiety because you know you're forgetting everything you've worked so hard to try to learn.
• You’ve lost control over your music. You often play for much longer than you planned, even though you told yourself you wouldn’t. You may want to stop playing, but you feel powerless.
• Your life revolves around jamming. You spend a lot of time using and thinking about music, figuring out how to get more sheet music or learn more tunes, and recovering from the effects of hours of practicing. These vary depending on the instrument and the method of playing it.
• You’ve abandoned activities you used to enjoy, such as hobbies, sports, and socializing, because of your music.
• You continue to use music, despite knowing it’s hurting you. It’s causing major problems in your life—mood swings (Yes! I nailed that! Oh no, I totally suck at this!), depression (No, I just totally suck at this and always will), paranoia (Everybody wishes I would quit showing up but they're too nice to say so.)—but you play anyway.

 I would worry about myself but I have to practice as soon as my wife leaves. Other people may have problems with music, but not me. I can handle it.

The struggle for existence

If I had known that winter was going to die out in my lifetime, I would not have wasted all that time learning to ski. My life would have been very different. Chaos being chaos, once you change one thing you change a myriad of things. Multiple universes beckon in every fraction of a direction.

In the world we know, many of us invested time and energy in the continued existence of winter. The lack of it is going to cause a great deal of inconvenience for everyone, whether they choose to believe it or not.

In one small sport shop in one small town in one small state on one small patch of the Earth's surface occupied by the self-styled greatest nation on the planet, we struggle to survive. Our biggest adversaries are the weather and the economy. Their allies are other activities we do not service and the human tendency toward sloth.

We can't do much about the weather because too many people don't agree that we were capable of damaging the global climate in the first place. We can't do much about the economy because it is controlled by madmen with self-serving theories about who should prosper and how that is accomplished.

The attack on 9-11-01 was a blow, but the nation's response was more damaging. This was part of Osama bin Laden's plan: he knew that the powerful emotional response, coupled with our diverse philosophies, added to our technological ability to over-react would create massively destructive tension in our tenuously joined society.

The economy is bad, but it is made worse by the Republican immune system's response to Democrats. In the coming election we can either elect a Republican president who will join the misguided right wing of Congress to  strengthen the grip of oligarchy on our society or we can re-elect the Democrat and face four more years of destructive opposition from the Republicans as they try to make the economy such a mess for the average citizen that we will vote for whatever platitude-spouting orator they put forward in 2016 to promise to fix it.

Elections are no longer about leading this country to greatness or even goodness. They're about picking someone to lie to you for a few years until you have to pick a replacement knave or fool to occupy your television screen while unseen minions have their way with the nation's finances.

Who you callin' a pansy?

These pansies are still blooming underneath the Christmas greens in the planter beside the back door to the shop. They've survived two major snowstorms and numerous sub-freezing nights since the end of summer. So tell me again why we use the term pansy to describe something weak?

Pansies! Yeah!

The problem of wealth

Protestors all over the country are demanding greater accountability from the small percentage of Americans who control the vast majority of its wealth. It is only the latest installment in the debate which has gone on since the beginning of human social life.

In a group of social animals, leaders emerge based of clear-cut abilities that give them dominance over the lesser members of their band. As humans evolved, their brains not only gave them more tools with which to manipulate their environment and each other but also superstition and flawed logic with which to create belief systems that would perpetuate the dominance of certain humans and their descendants regardless of the actual abilities of specific individuals.

Dreamers who believe in the unstoppable power of hard work and initiative, and the self-correcting nature of a completely free market are confident that the concentration of wealth is not a bad thing at all, and that it simply gives all the hard-working strivers a goal toward which to work. Taxation is not the way to break up this clot of wealth. They haven't said exactly how the free market will provide the leverage. They're simply confident that the government should not be used as part of the solution.

Compare that point of view for a moment to the pot-smoking teenager who does not want his parents to come into his room. Of course he doesn't want adults coming in telling him he can't indulge himself as he wishes. He may even be making money on a little commerce in his chosen field. If you object to the example of an illegal drug and illicit commerce, substitute chronic masturbation and a stack of Playboy magazines. As distasteful  as that habit may be to contemplate, it's still legal as far as I know. And it creates jobs, as our little wanker buys publications to stimulate his imagination and suitable lubricants to ease friction. It shares another characteristic with immense wealth, being that it is done exclusively for the gratification of the one at the expense of whatever else has to be neglected during the pursuit of it.

Like any metaphor, it can be beaten to death. Flogged too hard, as it were.

Most shorthand economic arguments being tossed around today are based on incorrect assumptions, like the notion that rich people are the only job creators. Anyone who buys goods or services is creating demand. Demand creates jobs. Existing jobs need demand to keep them viable. I create jobs.You create jobs. We all create jobs. Hurricanes and earthquakes create jobs.

The margin of error in the debate grows even larger because we're looking only at dollar amounts. A million dollars today is less money than it was ten, twenty and thirty years ago. Who knows what it will be worth in ten more years. Money is just a number. A $100 bill and a $1 bill produce exactly the same amount of heat and light when you burn them. The difference to us is entirely the result of what we make them represent.

Numbers don't lie but people certainly use them as part of many falsehoods and misdirections. Because actual currency and verifiable value are only a small part of our financial world, clever fabricators have developed --derived, if you will -- numerical rat-mazes based on theoretical principles that sweep a few digits at a time into one person's column instead of someone else's. It's done in a room as sequestered from reality as our fantasizing teenager's bedroom, yet its consequences are vastly greater.

Mid Autumn

 Canadian cycling blogger Rantwick holds a foliage photo contest every year. He passes a magnificent maple on his daily route that inspired him to put it up against all challengers. It's all for fun. Shown above is my own challenger. It has usually reached this state of disrepair by the time I manage to ride over there with the camera. This year, high winds and the strange, slow progression of color conspired once again to strip many leaves while some still remain green. The cloudy day didn't help.

This photo of the rapids at Effingham Falls goes under the heading, "Why I Live Here." For all the inconvenience, this area has managed to remain fairly pretty and undeveloped thanks to small environmental initiatives and a major lack of anything resembling a strong year-round economy.

Power

Power doesn't necessarily corrupt but it tends to select for corruption.

As an evolutionary characteristic, power enhanced breeding success. Social customs developed from animal behaviors before the emergence of conscious thought. After the development of language, the power of bullshit could be added to physical qualities such as size and combat skill. Along with thought and reason comes misdirected thought and faulty reasoning. Along with the naturally-occurring errors these can generate, they provide leverage for manipulating people through mistaken perceptions.

Fair-mindedness would cause an ethical leader to step down over certain issues in which a corrupt leader would look for some way to excuse remaining in power. Because various margins for error coincide nicely to provide these justifications, the traditions of leadership tend to accumulate greater tolerance for corruption up to a certain point. Beyond that the dirt becomes obvious. This might not cause a leader to topple if the leader can command enough forces to stay on top of the heap, but it commits that leader to the role of despot rather than merely "flawed" or "controversial."

Uncorrupted leaders still manage to operate even now. Because they tend to limit themselves through their ethics they are still in the minority, where they can be expected to remain. The system as we accept it still favors people who grab for power and cling to it tenaciously. We even praise the qualities of energy and ambition as signs of the ever-valued work ethic almost regardless of the outcome.

Where a would-be leader of old might need to command fighting forces to bolster that ambition, now the seeker of power needs to command money or solicit donations of it. While this can be less destructive in the obvious sense of riding roughshod over the countryside pillaging, it raises corruption to new importance as the supplicant makes deals in return for financial support.