After all this time not writing the writing is hard again. Which means I must get back to writing to make it easy again. Three days off and I write next to nothing. It's hard and annoying and now I have a slope to climb up all over again. It's very Sisyphean.
But I cleaned! I moved around all the junk, and swept, and then washed the floors. The place smelled like Ammonia all day. Before everything was covered in dust. Now everything is not covered in dust, which is much better. Tomorrow I need to get down to organizing things. The books are all out of order.
Oh. I need to finish my state taxes and send those in. They need the be postmarked by Thusday, and they are about half-done, I think, so no real worries, but I must spend some time working on them after work tomorrow, or I might start panicking about them.
I took all the tape off my drums. I didn't know drums are supposed to sound that good. I didn't know that that was what my ride cymbal really sounded like! It's beautiful.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Banana Republic of America
So, I haven't really been writing about politics lately, though I have been keeping abreast of it. And it's for a simple reason, I think, which is the torture debate, and my general sense that the people on my side just don't get whats going on.
It's not that I think torture is right, or that things like waterboarding and walling aren't torture. They are. It's not that I think that the last President's men and women are war criminals. They are. And in an ideal world they would stand trial for war crimes. But I don't think that Obama is wrong in wanting to "look forward."
Yes, it's intellectually incoherent. Not upholding the rule of law will have a deleterious effect on our system of justice. And however important Obama's agenda is to me and others, the impediments that prosecutions might place in front of it are no reason not to do the right thing.
It's just that I think that prosecutions might bee even more dangerous than not having them, because of the response that I forsee coming from them.
I remember reading an article years ago that made the basic argument that what happened to Clinton was payback for Nixon. Nixon is the only modern president, really the only president, period, who is unequivocally placed in the historical record as a criminal. And he was a Republican. There is just no correspnding stain to the Democrat's honor to equal what Nixon says about the Republican party, and impeaching Clinton was about trying to even that score. And though it didn't really work, the Republicans were obviously willing to that far, to get that dirty, in the name of settling a score that existed in their own heads.
So, what would happen if Obama tried the last administration for war crimes? What would that do? That has never happened before. Take a moment to think about how big a deal it would be to try a president for crimes. It's never happened before, and we have had some presidents who have done some bad things. Andrew Jackson was pretty much solely responsible for the Trail of Tears, and he's on the fucking twenty. To do so would be unprecedented, in a way, and the Republicans sense of agrievement would know no bounds.
And so there is no doubt in my mind that if Obama brought prosecutions against Bush, Cheney, or any of their underlings—just, righteous prsecutions—that the next Republican president wouldn't turn right around and start trying to find any excuse to bring charges up against Obama and various members of his adminstration. Holder. Clinton. Biden. Dawn Johnsen. Any joke of a reason they can find, they will take. I mean, can you imagine what Sarah Palin, that vindictive freak, would do, if she was our next president, and Obama had brougth charges against Bush officials? And given the precarious state of the economy, and the madness infesting the entire Republican party, that situation isn't as unimaginable as it should be.
And when the whole Banana Republic meme started up, I felt like, "I'm right." Some people think this is an absurd argument, after the Clinton impeachment, after the last eight years. And it is. But it isn't funny. Implicit in that line of (faulty) reasoning is a threat. "You want to play like that, ok, we'll play like that." It doesn't matter whether Obama is turning us into a Banana Republic or not, just that it gives them the excuse to start turning us into a Banana Republic. An excuse is all they need to become completely fascistic.
So while I think the prosecutiongs for the Bush administration is the "right thing to do," I don't know that I think Obama should do it, at least not any time soon. Because if the Democrats lose power in either branch of government anytime soon, America as we know it will quickly cease to exist. We will start to torture again. There will be endless surveillance of citizens and political opponents. People will start disppearing.
Given this argument only makes sense if you think the Republicans are evil. So if you don't think the major polical party that is arguing in favor of war crimes is evil, by all means continue pushing for investigations.
I value the rule of law. I think we should live in a system that is ruled by the law. But when one of the two major political parties doesn't actually beleive in the rule of law, I am not sure we can acutally have it. Writing that makes me feel ill.
God, I hate them so fucking much.
So maybe Obama is doing the right thing. Maybe he can has a plan. I don't know. And I don't know if following an ideal, in a particular case, is the right thing to do if following that ideal will lead to other's destroying it once and for all. I don't know if insisting on the ideal, no matter how noble, is the right thing to do with it will lead to the death of innocents. I don't know.
It's not that I think torture is right, or that things like waterboarding and walling aren't torture. They are. It's not that I think that the last President's men and women are war criminals. They are. And in an ideal world they would stand trial for war crimes. But I don't think that Obama is wrong in wanting to "look forward."
Yes, it's intellectually incoherent. Not upholding the rule of law will have a deleterious effect on our system of justice. And however important Obama's agenda is to me and others, the impediments that prosecutions might place in front of it are no reason not to do the right thing.
It's just that I think that prosecutions might bee even more dangerous than not having them, because of the response that I forsee coming from them.
I remember reading an article years ago that made the basic argument that what happened to Clinton was payback for Nixon. Nixon is the only modern president, really the only president, period, who is unequivocally placed in the historical record as a criminal. And he was a Republican. There is just no correspnding stain to the Democrat's honor to equal what Nixon says about the Republican party, and impeaching Clinton was about trying to even that score. And though it didn't really work, the Republicans were obviously willing to that far, to get that dirty, in the name of settling a score that existed in their own heads.
So, what would happen if Obama tried the last administration for war crimes? What would that do? That has never happened before. Take a moment to think about how big a deal it would be to try a president for crimes. It's never happened before, and we have had some presidents who have done some bad things. Andrew Jackson was pretty much solely responsible for the Trail of Tears, and he's on the fucking twenty. To do so would be unprecedented, in a way, and the Republicans sense of agrievement would know no bounds.
And so there is no doubt in my mind that if Obama brought prosecutions against Bush, Cheney, or any of their underlings—just, righteous prsecutions—that the next Republican president wouldn't turn right around and start trying to find any excuse to bring charges up against Obama and various members of his adminstration. Holder. Clinton. Biden. Dawn Johnsen. Any joke of a reason they can find, they will take. I mean, can you imagine what Sarah Palin, that vindictive freak, would do, if she was our next president, and Obama had brougth charges against Bush officials? And given the precarious state of the economy, and the madness infesting the entire Republican party, that situation isn't as unimaginable as it should be.
And when the whole Banana Republic meme started up, I felt like, "I'm right." Some people think this is an absurd argument, after the Clinton impeachment, after the last eight years. And it is. But it isn't funny. Implicit in that line of (faulty) reasoning is a threat. "You want to play like that, ok, we'll play like that." It doesn't matter whether Obama is turning us into a Banana Republic or not, just that it gives them the excuse to start turning us into a Banana Republic. An excuse is all they need to become completely fascistic.
So while I think the prosecutiongs for the Bush administration is the "right thing to do," I don't know that I think Obama should do it, at least not any time soon. Because if the Democrats lose power in either branch of government anytime soon, America as we know it will quickly cease to exist. We will start to torture again. There will be endless surveillance of citizens and political opponents. People will start disppearing.
Given this argument only makes sense if you think the Republicans are evil. So if you don't think the major polical party that is arguing in favor of war crimes is evil, by all means continue pushing for investigations.
I value the rule of law. I think we should live in a system that is ruled by the law. But when one of the two major political parties doesn't actually beleive in the rule of law, I am not sure we can acutally have it. Writing that makes me feel ill.
God, I hate them so fucking much.
So maybe Obama is doing the right thing. Maybe he can has a plan. I don't know. And I don't know if following an ideal, in a particular case, is the right thing to do if following that ideal will lead to other's destroying it once and for all. I don't know if insisting on the ideal, no matter how noble, is the right thing to do with it will lead to the death of innocents. I don't know.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
ugh 2
So, another week of work, another week of not writing. My apartment still isn't clean, though I got a bit of it done. The living room, at least, has lots of floor space, and the sink is mostly empty. I did get my federal taxes sent out, so that's good. The state taxes are still sitting around, but I have until the 30th for those, so no worries just yet.
I think this confirms to me that writing really is reliant on momentum. After I let it atrophy for a bit, it just went away, and didn't come back. Even if I don't write much, with this coming week of work I need to just write something everyday, no matter how short or pithy, just to keep the mental faculty working. Knowing that it needs a certain level of practice (and not just knowing it intellectually, but instinctively) is very helpful moving forward. I just need to get the momentum moving again.
Also, I have been reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson recently. For some reason reading fiction seems to crowd out the part of my brain that wants to write. It's like I can read, and I can write, but I can't do both, at least I can't feel a zest for doing both. It's very odd, and a predicament I need to find my way around.
In slightly better news, earlier this week, right before leaving for work the vague outline of the entire first book of SK came to me in a weird jump and I wrote the whole page or so down in a notebook. Which it a major step forwards because it gives me, if not the entirety of my story, the areas that I have to color within, which is very edifying.
I think this confirms to me that writing really is reliant on momentum. After I let it atrophy for a bit, it just went away, and didn't come back. Even if I don't write much, with this coming week of work I need to just write something everyday, no matter how short or pithy, just to keep the mental faculty working. Knowing that it needs a certain level of practice (and not just knowing it intellectually, but instinctively) is very helpful moving forward. I just need to get the momentum moving again.
Also, I have been reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson recently. For some reason reading fiction seems to crowd out the part of my brain that wants to write. It's like I can read, and I can write, but I can't do both, at least I can't feel a zest for doing both. It's very odd, and a predicament I need to find my way around.
In slightly better news, earlier this week, right before leaving for work the vague outline of the entire first book of SK came to me in a weird jump and I wrote the whole page or so down in a notebook. Which it a major step forwards because it gives me, if not the entirety of my story, the areas that I have to color within, which is very edifying.
Friday, April 10, 2009
ugh
Work seems to suck all the life out of me. I just have had no energy, after getting home form work, or waiting to go to work, to do any writing this week. Yesterday, my day off, I just say around all day, read, felt sorry for myself (for a variety of reasons), and read some more. I have been sleeping past noon lately. I think that's part of it. You just can't feel good and motivated when your circadian rhythms are that thrown off. Last night I read in bed until about three, then set my alarm for 10. I have been up a little over an hour now. Been cleaning my apartment, slowly, taking breaks. Everything is covered in a coarse layer of dust. It's very disgusting. No wonder I have been feeling depressed. It's been like renting the place out from someone who died last summer. Getting this place into a hospitable realm is probably the first step.
My taxes aren't done yet either, but they are getting there. The federal basically just needs to be filled out all officially, and the state? well the state is way more complex, and I am just trying to figure out what all the deductions and everything are.
My taxes aren't done yet either, but they are getting there. The federal basically just needs to be filled out all officially, and the state? well the state is way more complex, and I am just trying to figure out what all the deductions and everything are.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
update
I woke up this morning and, feeling the need to do writing, as a cross between a duty and a necessity, I sat down and wrote the second half of a story I started several months ago. I just pulled up the document file and finished it off. I drank coffee while working on it. Then I had breakfast in the mid afternoon.
It's not done, by any means. There is a rather longish speech that takes up the center of the piece needs to be drastically reedited, just completely rewritten. I think the phrasing is not nearly precise enough, and it doesn't truly fit the character's personality. It should be a bit more rehearsed, and thus more literary. He has given speeches like this before; he has had practice. Right now, it's just kind of a grab bag of information. I was just trying to get down the facts he would say, so that they would be concrete and not floating around in my brain. Now they need to be beaten into shape.
Still, I feel that happy sense of accomplishment. I am particularly proud of the two epilogues to the story's main event, which I think do quite a nice job of commenting on the the main action without being explicit about it, and actually being quite casual in presentation and seemingly beside the point.
Overall, I feel like this forcing myself to write, and to write in my own voice, is doing me quite a bit of good. It's becoming part of my arsenal of activities, and I think I am slowly improving at expressing myself in words at will (slowly), giving myself an easier facility at controlling my meaning with language, because I am getting in touch with the process of engaging that speech faculty. There are still bumps along the way, and I am sure if I went back and read this stuff I would notice all kinds of mistakes and grammatical errors, but there's writing and there's editing and right now I am concentrating on the more essential of the two. It's a process. I need to build the foundation before I start worrying about the decorations.
It's not done, by any means. There is a rather longish speech that takes up the center of the piece needs to be drastically reedited, just completely rewritten. I think the phrasing is not nearly precise enough, and it doesn't truly fit the character's personality. It should be a bit more rehearsed, and thus more literary. He has given speeches like this before; he has had practice. Right now, it's just kind of a grab bag of information. I was just trying to get down the facts he would say, so that they would be concrete and not floating around in my brain. Now they need to be beaten into shape.
Still, I feel that happy sense of accomplishment. I am particularly proud of the two epilogues to the story's main event, which I think do quite a nice job of commenting on the the main action without being explicit about it, and actually being quite casual in presentation and seemingly beside the point.
Overall, I feel like this forcing myself to write, and to write in my own voice, is doing me quite a bit of good. It's becoming part of my arsenal of activities, and I think I am slowly improving at expressing myself in words at will (slowly), giving myself an easier facility at controlling my meaning with language, because I am getting in touch with the process of engaging that speech faculty. There are still bumps along the way, and I am sure if I went back and read this stuff I would notice all kinds of mistakes and grammatical errors, but there's writing and there's editing and right now I am concentrating on the more essential of the two. It's a process. I need to build the foundation before I start worrying about the decorations.
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