On the Marx Brothers: A Short One

It is interesting that the Right is now writing to compare the Obama Administration to that of Rufus T. Firefly's in "Duck Soup." I say it is interesting because the film was meant to reflect a hawkish, right wing government. Such behavior landed the brothers on the black list during Joe McCarthy's Psycho Hour, which hampered their careers. I guess this is just another drop in the hypocrisy ocean for the Right.

Everyday Now Opposite Day; The Past Remains in the Future

Recently, I have been watching the shenanigans being pulled by Republicans at both the federal and state levels of government. The hypocrisy is nothing new, either for them or their political polar opposites. It seems, though, that the Republicans have declared permanent Opposite Day in America.

First they want discussions about healthcare reform to be televised and then they don't. First they decry the Dem healthcare plan because it has a public option and doesn't just "reform" the current healthcare system and then, when shown that the plan does not have the latter and "does" the former, they say they still don't support it. Obama cuts taxes like Republicans want and they say he doesn't. They say Obama is too soft on terrorism because he gives suspected terrorists due process, something George W. Bush did...but Bush was right and he is wrong. They say he is a socialist because of TARP (Bush's plan) and the buyout of the auto companies (Bush was pushing for this on his way out). The stimulus funds, according to the Republicans, are bad economics and harmful to Americans but there they are, smiling with those giant checks like the idea was theirs. Facts, even when placed under Republican noses, seem not to bother them or affect their worldview.

A friend of mine once said that people should define themselves by what they are for rather than what they are against. I agree. The Republicans currently define themselves as "Against Obama," even when going along with him is in their favor. And this put me in mind of a song Groucho sang in "Horse Feathers." As "Just Wait Till I Get Through with It" was George W. Bush's, "I'm Against It" belongs to the Republicans. Enjoy.



As for the past remaining in the future, I have just some lyrics to print. As M.A.S.H. was set during the Korean War but was really about Vietnam, this song was written about WWII but was really about Vietnam. Now, it seems it's about Iraq/Afghanistan. I bet Pete Seeger wishes his songs were outdated:

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

We are called Legion, for we are many.

Yesterday I watched the documentary The Corporation, which I have been meaning to watch for some time. I guess it worked out well in that it was timed to follow the Supreme's Court's supremely ridiculous decision to allow corporations unlimited freedom to contribute to political campaigns. Of course, this Supreme Court is not the first to treat the corporation as a person but it grabbed that precedence and ran with it.

With my limited understanding of latin, provided by my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the word "corporate" comes from the latin root "corporare" which means, among other things, to be given a body. In other words, the group of people who form the corporation are "given a body" in the legal sense, allowing them to make decisions as a group which affect the group. So, in this sense, the legal decision makes sense. When the corporation makes a bad decision, the corporation is responsible. When the corporation succeeds, all involved succeed.

And that is fine from a legal sense in terms of business. But how much do the bill of rights apply to the corporation and can the rights enjoyed by the members of the corporation be extended to the corporation as a whole?

Okay, the First Amendment. Free speech obviously belongs to the corporation. They can say what they like, within bounds, and no one should limit that right. They can petition the government for redress of grievances, which they should be allowed to do, as necessary. The Second Amendment seems to make the case for Xe (neé Blackwater) but let us nip that in the bud. We have a militia. We don't need coporate militias. The Third Amendment is kind of out-dated but I guess it protects them from having to house soldiers in their corporate offices. The Fourth Amendment applies. You can't raid corporate offices without a court order, well and good. The members of the corporation deserve a trial by a grand jury for capital crimes as per the Fifth Amendment, no one would argue about that. The Sixth also applies since corporations get a trial by jury. Same with Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten.

I guess.

But think about it:

Corporations have the right to free speech but they can't lie. A cigarette company can't print a label on their cigarettes (anymore) that says they are good for you. A beer company can't run ads that say beer will make you thin. Of course, they find ways around this problem but the fact remains that they, like us, have to obey the law. Sometimes. Occasionally.

While some corporations are trying to have their own armies a lá the computer game Syndicate, it is not and should not be a legal entity...unless you are Blackwater...or Triple Canopy...or any other company who employs a mercenary army. This is not what is meant by the Second Amendment. Corporations may bare arms...but only on casual Friday.

The Third seems unnecessary in today's world but I guess it does count for corporations. Like Halliburton. I guess if anyone tries to sue them for electrocuting soldiers in the shower, they can just say they weren't supposed to have to house soldiers anyway...

The Fourth counts and I can't refute it. We need the rule of law. Even when dealing with jerks. I feel the same about detainees in Guantanamo.

But for the last bit...

When has an entire corporation, executives and stockholders and all employees, been held responsible for a crime? Do we have courtrooms and prisons big enough to hold an entire corporation? Usually, when a coporation is being investigated, it is one or two executives and not the entire corporation. But that means that decisions made on behalf of the corporation, whether helpful or harmful to the corporation, are done by individuals and not by the corporation. If we cannot treat the corporation as one body in criminal investigations, we must question whether we can treat it as an individual in terms of political campaigns.

Giving corporations presents three major problems which make the political landscape even more desolate than it was previously. First, people are already distrustful of corporations. Giving them unlimited power to affect the political process is only going to fuel the belief that our government is beholden only to the moneyed interest. Which I guess is good...because it is. Corporations can blame bad press for peoples' beliefs but, really, it's their own fault. You can't act like a dick and then get mad when people call you a dick and don't invite you to parties. Often, people say, "The corporation's only job is to make money for its shareholders." Well, my only job at work is to provide behavioral services to clients on my caseload. Often, I help with other clients pro bono because it's what good people do. They go above and beyond. When you do this, people can often be forgiving of other failures.

Second, our Constitution prohibits persons who are not citizens from voting or attempting to affect political outcomes in the United States. This is a good idea. What is good for another country may not be good for ours. But what happens when a corporation in the U.S. but whose parent company is in another country begins to attempt to direct the course of American politics? In whose interest are they then acting? These entities may be benign but is that a risk we should be willing to take?

Finally, the corporate interest in this country already abuses the loopholes they have. Instead of tightening the loop holes, the Supreme Court has widened them and given corporations a blessing on behalf of the people to do as they will. Where is the stopping point? If each individual is given a vote in the United States, should a corporate person be given a vote? Should members of that corporation be given two votes? Where does it end?

Luckily, Congress has set about trying to correct the action, proving the usefulness of checks and balances. Let us hope that the outcome is one that favors the individual and not the corporation.

Nuance

I recently began reading George R. R. Martin's fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, after reading that HBO has optioned the books for a series. The series is notable in that a) magic and magical creatures enter the story late and have smaller roles than is normal in your typical Dungeons & Dragons novel; b) the story weaves individual character perspectives over several thousand pages without interrupting the pace of the story; and c) there is a distinct lack of "good" characters and "bad" characters. No matter how much you may like a character, he or she will eventually pull some ignorant move that makes you question your devotion to him or her. This is called "nuance."

Americans, on the whole, enjoy viewing the world in "black" and "white." Why else would we have such a need to hang on to a two party system despite obvious evidence that it doesn't work? We engage everyday in a useless butter battle. But the world is a giant grey area and nothing is ever completely right or wrong.

It is far easier for Americans to call terrorists "evil" than to think that, while their tactics are abhorrent, they may actually be legitimately angry with the U.S. After all, would we tolerate the presence of another country's military in our land without fighting? And we can't act like we haven't harmed innocents in the name of "defending freedom." If you need examples, take a good look at Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, or people attending a wedding in Afghanistan. Believing we are righteous, we commit sin after sin after sin.

You need evidence that Americans can't stomach nuance? Look at evolution. What were they saying during the "intelligent design" debates? It's "just a theory." Everything in science is a theory. Even gravity. There is no such thing as "scientific fact." Nothing is ever "proven." A theory either has evidence to support it or it doesn't. When I tell this fact to most people, they argue it with me. Why? Because it makes people scared when the lines are blurred. They need delineation. They desire to be told that x is true and y is false and it will always be so.

Behaviors such as categorizing, labeling, and stereotyping are all behaviors which have served animals (and this includes humans) throughout our collective evolution. If I know a grizzly bear is dangerous, then everything that resembles a grizzly bear should be avoided. If I avoid all organisms that resemble a grizzly bear, I survive to pass on my genetic material. Those who do not die out, thus ensuring that only the strongest survive. So the behavior has a purpose...to an extent.

Where it fails us is when those categories are not true categories but are based on false or inconsistent data. Certainly, all catogories are hypothetical constructs and are subject to context but it is not this that should make us question their usefulness. Where we run into a problem is that these categories, these stereotypes, become a pro forma, allowing us to move forward free of any speed bumps. Therein lies the problem. In ignoring nuance and using these stereotypes, we free ourselves from thought. We free ourselves from doing that one thing that separates us from our closest animal relatives: the ability to think rationally. We use the category to handle problems in a blanket fashion and move on about our day, free to look only ahead and never back...or even around.

We label criminals as bad people. We say all black people are loud and have no manners. We say all Asian people are good at math and have a better sense of family. We say all white people are rich and have no rhythm. We say that gays molest children and the only politicians we can elect are straight, married men. All women love domestic behaviors and all men like football and meat. All poor people are boorish and all rich people have the skills to solve the problems of the world. The outliers are "weird" or "freaks." Of course, they are. That keeps your truth intact and frees you from thinking.

So, what does one need to accept nuance? to celebrate nuance?

There are two things one must accept in order to accept nuance: 1) it is okay to be wrong and 2) it is okay to not know. Often, we cling to obsolete beliefs and practices because to change is tantamount to saying one has wasted one's life believing something that is wrong or engaging in behavior that is wrong. Making mistakes is not wrong; engaging in that behavior repeatedly when an effective alternative is known to exist. The world is uncertain. We seek concrete truths to which we can cling in what we see as a raging ocean of chaos. The reality is that we are born from chaos into chaos. The one sure thing in this world is that you know nothing. Socrates stated he was the wisest man because he knew nothing. When you think you "know" a thing, you cease to look for answers. When you accept that you have some information, but not all, you free yourself to accept data which runs counter to your beliefs or which alters those beliefs and to incorporate that data into your belief. You become adaptable, a characteristic which is necessary in evolutionary progress.

Humans, and, perhaps, other animals, are nuanced creatures. They are not hard-wired, immutable, or "flawed". Accepting that people are neither good nor bad but that people engage in behaviors which are appropriate or inappropriate frees us from destructive behaviors such as hatred and allows us to address and, most importantly, correct the problem behavior. There is, of course, much more to changing an organism's behavior but we must first be willing to accept that a person can change and be willing to accept that the person who needs to change may be us.

Doing this, the grey area in which we live becomes one of myriad, subtle color and far more interesting and enjoyable than that boring black and white.

Opposite but Equal (An email sent just before Thanksgiving.)

As we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and move into the Christmas holidays, we begin to hear those bells and see those red buckets into which we deposit a dollar or so every time we leave the drug store, book store, grocery store, or simply pass a street corner. I am speaking, of course, of the Salvation Army. I used to be one of those people who gave a dollar or two every time I passed them, even after learning that they discriminate against homosexuals and homosexual families. My argument was that the families and individuals who do receive help should not be hobbled by the organization's treatment of others.

My wife, good woman that she is, pointed out to me that there are many other organizations who happily help people, regardless of their sexual orientation. I could donate all that money to them, and then no one loses. So, for the past few years, I have done so. My charity of choice is the Chicago Food Depository.

It should be pointed out that the Salvation Army does not refuse to help homosexuals. Their official stance is that they do not discriminate against those they help (as a group that receives federal dollars, they are not allowed to do so) but they do attempt to preach their beliefs to those they help, which amounts to "heterosexuality or celibacy." They do, however, find a way to fire any person who comes out while working there and they refuse to hire homosexuals who are open during the interview process. They also have actively fought any attempt to make the LGBT community a federally protected group.

There seems to be a deeper problem here, though, for people who are members of the Christian faith. There is a streak running through both the Protestant and Catholic branches of the Christian faith of "hate the sin but love the sinner." It is rarely possible for people to separate behavior from the individual in the humanist community (who still maintain a mind/body dualist philosophy), much less from a community which believes the "person" and his or her behavior are deeply connected, so much so that the person's behavior can carry over with him or her to the afterlife and affect admission into Heaven or Hell. So to hate the sin eventually morphs into hating the sinner. At the very least, marginalizing the sinner. The latter may be worse, as the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.

I am sure that even those who are not part of the Christian faith are familiar with the story of the woman at the well. For those unfamiliar, here is a summary. Jesus approached a woman who was drawing water from a well. She was considered "untouchable," yet Jesus asked her for some water. Even acknowledging her in this manner was considered taboo. Yet Jesus did so. There are other examples: the adultress (oddly absent the adulterer) being stoned, sitting at table with tax collectors, attending the lepers. It can be accurately argued that Jesus did tell the adultress to "go and sin no more," but this was following a request for that information on her part. He did not force it upon her or make his help conditional upon her receiving that information. He gave the 5,000 their food first. They were welcome to leave or stay as they chose. He did not make the receiving of food conditional on listening to a sermon. As a result, the people were more receptive to the information than if they had been required to listen first. Had the latter been true, many would no doubt have sought food and philosophical discourse elsewhere.

The point to make is this: according to scripture, Jesus interacted with other humans as humans first. If the listener wanted to engage in deeply religious conversation, he allowed them to make the decision. His help, his love, were free for the taking. It is like asking for a modest donation for a service but not requiring it. No pushiness leads to more donations. Certainly there are those who will abuse the system but this is a relatively small part of the population and the onus is upon them. Those who have been charitable have done their duty.

As you go out this season to do your duty as an American and consume, remember the words of Rabbi Hillel, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is the commentary. Go and learn." It is hateful to us to be marginalized, to have our freedom and happiness diminshed, to be treated as less than human. Do not drop those dollars in the red buckets. Instead, save them and give them to an organization who helps people indiscriminately. Better yet, volunteer and "be the change."

Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas!

The First

I sent out an email recently which addressed my issues with the "separate but equal" approach to the LGBT community in the United States. It will be the first post on this blog which is "about something". And that is the goal of this blog.

Most of the problems we experience in our everyday lives can be boiled down to a problem of language. What we label thoughts, feelings, objects, and people colors the way in which we experience or interact with them. Every person spends his or her time attempting to escape or avoid aversive situations, feelings, or people. If they do not do so full-time, then at least part-time. The purpose of this blog is to examine the thought processes that we employ when we analyze our world.

Often, we fail to see the world from other viewpoints. You may select whichever cliché fits for you: blinders, blindfolds, etc. We wear them. There is a tendency on the part of all of us to blame the person who suffers from the myopia for his or her condition. We speak of the person wearing blinders made of his own creation or blinding herself to the problem. We do what we learn.

In my field, I am a behaviorist. To students of philosophy, I am a physicalist. I do not believe the brain is a separate entity from the body. I hold no concept of soul. There are no "good people" or "bad people"; there are good behaviors and bad behaviors. Even determining which behaviors are good or bad is subjective relative to context and culture. Most important, I hold no concept of "free will".

That is not to say that I believe that humans are automatons. We respond and react to reinforcers (stimuli that increase the occurrence of behaviors) and punishers (stimuli that decrease the occurrence of behavior) in our everyday lives. There is no such thing as a closed system and that includes our brains, which are systems unto themselves. It is a kind of Gestalt that allows us to be more than just a robot reacting to stimuli in a preprogrammed kind of way. But that is a post for another day.

I told you all of that to tell you this. Many people are not taught to think critically about what they hear, read, or think. Since I cannot change the educational system in the United States or any other nation, I must do what I can. That means critically analyzing events and ideas in order to assist others in learning to do so or, at the very least, giving them another thought about the issue.

For now, I am giving myself the goal to write once a week about something. It may not be something in the news. I have a lot of ideas bouncing around my mind grapes. I will attempt to be interesting. I will be funny where I can. Mostly, I will attempt to add to the dialogue and not detract from it.