(MOGS) Okay you asked for it...

For some reason which I cannot yet fathom, Pidge thinks that I am at my funniest when I launch into an absolute tirade...well dude, here it is, a reprint (almost) word for word of our last email traffic.

NOTE:  This started off after reading something Carly sent me regarding the student activist (tm)'s favorite tired buzz words - capitalist, imperialist, fascist nazi - often take to mean one and the same...I beg to differ...For better or worse, this is a rant, a hardcore, sarcasm-drenched rant.  Hopefully you will find the humor as well as the hurt.  You have been warned.

I'd like to hear the boy's definition of "Nazi" and "fascist" - really, does he know anything about REAL fascists, the kind who committed (actual) genocide and destroyed entire nations and generations of men and women???

Somehow, comparing say John Ashcroft or President Bush to say Adolf Hitler, Tojo, Saddam, or whomever absolutely cheapens the value of the words and their meaning.

The extreme end don't seem to realize that the continued, tired rhetoric and name calling has devlaued their "text" (how's that for post-modernism - turn about is fair play!) and made it into a PUNCHLINE. It's been used so much it's a worn out joke.

If I was you, I'd fine the lil' (PIGEONED) a quarter ever time he used a piece of cliched leftist rhetoric - or mentioned "Noam Chomsky"

Here's offensive statements for the left, but if you change out the names of people and concepts could also apply to some folks on the right. I call this the Comrade MOGS Manifesto

0) No one takes you seriously because you link together causes which the body politic really doesn't have (the) time or energy to care about such as legalizing pot, closing the School of the Americas or hybrid cars or biomass energy sources to causes people actually DO care about like Gulf War II. Most people dismiss anything you have to say on face value because in their mind "stop the war, and "free Mumia" have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER - it's the protest version of a bill rider amendment...(which I might add, is the one part of the legislative process thet Schoolhouse Rocks absolutely failed to teach us anything about)

a) It lessens your credibility when you invite Jello Biafra, or any celeb for that matter - as much as I like the Dead Kennedys as a band and respect the fact that Jello caused a runoff in a San Francisco mayoral election - he has the academic and social credentials with the majority of Americans on par with the crack ho sleeping under the bridge - people are out there DYING and all you can be bothered to do is write a (PIGEONED)-ing song about it - wow bro, you got some real guts. Way to show 'em.

b) Hippie drum circles suck - it shows the world how little you actually value the issue that your idea of providing meaningful insight is to get high and bang on a drum

c) Songs don't stop wars. Nor do they stop global warming. Sorry Neal Young, sorry Bruce, sorry Beatles. If you want to save the rainforest, the only guarantee you have is to (PIGEONED)-ing BUY IT. If you are naive enough to trust gov'ts and corporations and "da people" will come to the rescue, jack, just go home. Or better yet, (PIGEONED) vote already then.

d) No one votes "their conscience" - anyone who claims to lies.  Everyone votes their interests. If I still lived in Jersey I'd have probably voted for (PIGEONED) too.

1) No one reads Noam Chomsky (except Carly apparently :) - a lot people _say_ they read Noam Chomsky to appear cool, but no one actually reads him ;)

2) It's tough to take your anti-capitalism seriously when you drive an SUV your parents bought you.

3) White kids from the suburbs shouldn't try to be "hard" or "street" - oh wait, that would cover Lenin, Joe Strummer...hmmmm

4) Learn how to spell fascist before you call someone one.  Furthermore, the words fascist, imperialist, reactionary, conservative, capitalist are not synoyms and are not interchangeable.  Buy a thesaurus.

5) North Korea is a dictatorship that has imprisioned hundreds of thousands, destroyed itself through famine and economic mismanagement, and keeps an entire half of the planet held hostage to threats of war. Does this really sound like someone who should be admired? This doesn't pass the common sense test of most Americans, therefore you have no credibility so why should anyone listen to anything you have to say about the war or the UN for that matter?

6) Castro imprisons artists and poets (the "vanguard of the peaceful socialist revolution") last time I checked - Sandanista!

7) You only have the time to care about "fascism" and "imperialism" because you have the privelege of not having to go out and do more fundamental things such as search for food and drinkable water which are more important to 90% of the population. The people of the Third World opressed by "the man" don't really give a flying (PIGEONED) WHO feeds them and WHAT THEY BELIEVE as long as they can get some bread. That's why your socialist revolution never actually comes from the working class (if your're a classicial Marxist-Leninst) or the peasants (if you're a Maoist).

8) MOGS' Momma, a survivor of a few '60s happenin's herself, put it this way:  "Most of you do not care about 'the cause.' You are there to skip school or work, maybe hook up with some emotionally vulnerable piece of (CHICKEN), get high, and listen to a band for free you'd otherwise have to pay 60-70 dollars to ticketmaster to see. Just do us a favor and admit it already."

9)  Any country whose name contains any combination of the words "Democratic + People's + Republic" - isn't.  Trust me on this one.

Still, I think a lot of student activism comes from a sense of inadequacy and unfullfillment. Our grandparents survived the Depression, WWII, fought Korea, and the Cold War. When you look at it that way, our parents' generation (the Boomers) has a very small peepee when compared to Grandpa and Grandma's...

Whither Gen X? Rejecting not only the stance of the Boomers, but everything else while we were at it (that's why our generation is looking around now, and wondering how the hell the boomers still run things, the world just went ahead and skipped us, and went straight to Gen Y instead)

Who knows? All I know is that I want to go kills me some smurfs...

Comments

[Stella]

Mogs have you taken your heart pills today? Wowzers, anymore rants like that and the old ticker is going to give out. Hope nothing happens to really push you over the edge.

I do agree with you though on most points, especially your comments about Gen X. I'm pissed the Boomers are still pushing the levers of power in society. They've really made a mess of things. Perhaps we can get our revenge when they get into old age when they are weak and vulnerable. Nothing like giving a little bump on a wheelchair tire with your front fender to help its occupant into the ditch!!! Heh, heh, heh. The geriatric version of Mad Max.

[Amal]

Mogs, #7 really resonated with me. A few years ago I lived and worked in Beirut (think year 2000). At the company I worked at, we had a student interning with us who was going to protest about Globalization. Now, I am not a huge fan of the whole globalization thing myself but I said to her that instead of protesting against globalization, she would be better off taking a stand by feeding the poor and using her father's influence (and he had a lot) to get the poor some help. I basically told her exactly what you said in #7. I thought I was the only person who thought like that but I am so glad to see I am not alone. :)

[Amal]

P.S. I do actually read Noam Chomsky (love him).

[MOGS]

Well, if life experience has taught me anything it's this - those of us in the more affluent part of the world really have no idea just how good we got it. Let's face it, even our poor are rich by many standards.

I think author John Ringo said it best when he highlighted "We were living in a Golden Age, as flawed as it may have been" - we have the time and the resources to sit here and type at a machine for really no other purpose than to amuse and possible educate ourselves. I didn't have to go track down my food, prepare it, or find water.

Most of us worked hard at some point to get where we are, but let's face it we did get a bit of a head start too, you know? I don't believe in an entitlement to equality of outcomes, but I do believe that the purpose of any gov't which sees itself as ultimately a guardian of the people's rights, is to set the conditions which allow for equality of opportunity.

I think many cultures see that meaning the community has the opportunity to succeed. Some see that as an individual opportunity to succeed. I think it's more a mix of both - I don't really subscribe too much to the idea that "it takes a village..." to raise a child. Villages, families, clans, communities are made up of individual people - on your deathbed, you are beholden to no one but yourself and whomever you're about to pay a visit with.

[MOGS]

Oh. and I tried reading Noam once for debate competition. Interesting guy, thought he was way off base. Still do.

My simple one sentence reviews of many leftist scholars can best be summed up thusly:

"Barking up the wrong tree"

"Highlighted a real problem, recommending the wrong solution" - this applies to MOST of the social engineering attempts of the last 40 years in my book

"Mis-ID'd the _root cause_ of the problem" - My answer to radical feminism

"Missing the forest for the trees" - my answer to why Soc, Anarchy, and Communism, Communitarianism and pretty much any "Co-op" style of living ultimately fails.