Think of the Future

Posted on March 18, 2014 by wellsdc

By SRA Greg L. Davis, USAF (defenseimagery.mil) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The U.S. Air Force is planning to retire its entire fleet of A-10 Warthogs, all 340 of them, but Congress is stepping up to try to stop them (h/t Bob). The plane is safe through the rest of 2014, but the future is uncertain.

Officially known as the “Thunderbolt,” it got the nickname “Warthog” pretty much exactly how you might expect: by being ugly, mean, and largely unstoppable. It has a 30-mm Gatling gun that can fire close to 4,000 rounds per minute. The plane has been in service since 1977, and the newest planes were built in 1984, i.e. thirty dang years ago. You do not want to piss this airplane off. It even got its own entry on the Badass of the Week website.

So why would the Air Force want to ax it? Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, during an interview with PBS, that the A-10 is a “single-purpose airplane originally designed to kill enemy tanks on a Cold War battlefield.” It is less useful on today’s battlefields.

I’m sure members of Congress have good reasons to want to keep the A-10 fleet around, but allow me to propose what might be an alternate theory: in at least one vision of humanity’s future, the A-10’s very primitivity—having been designed and built in the 1970s and ’80s—makes it resistant to the machine apocalypse, and therefore an excellent weapon we humans can use to fight back. Think of the A-10 as the Battlestar Galactica to Skynet’s Cylon Basestar. Or just watch this video clip (with enjoyably ironic Russian subtitles):

Photo credit: By SRA Greg L. Davis, USAF (defenseimagery.mil) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

What I’m Reading, March 17, 2014

Posted on March 17, 2014 by wellsdc

How did Irish-Americans get so disgusting? Andrew O’Hehir, Salon, March 15, 2014

Irish-Americans rapidly absorbed the lesson that the way to succeed in their new country was to reject the politics of class and shared economic interests and embrace the politics of race. One disgraceful result was the New York draft riots of 1863, the low point of Irish-black relations in American history, when Irish immigrants by the thousands turned on their black neighbors in a thinly disguised race riot. Irish-Americans were under no delusions that the ruling class of Anglo Protestants liked or trusted them, and anti-Irish and/or anti-Catholic bigotry endured in diluted form well into the 20th century. But by allying themselves with a system of white supremacy, the Irish in America were granted a share of power and privilege — most notably in urban machine politics, and the police and fire departments of every major city.

*** Continue reading →

America at War

Posted on February 24, 2014 by wellsdc

By Lordkinbote at en.wikipedia [Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons Wikipedia has a page showing all (or at least many) of America’s military engagements at home and abroad in two timelines, 1770 to 1900 and 1900 to present (h/t Juan Cole).

The first thing you might note is that we have gone to war a lot. Most of the 19th-century campaigns were against this or that Indian nation—manifest destiny stuff, mostly—but there are also lesser-known foreign engagements like the Philippine-American War (1898-1902), which resulted in more than 4,000 American deaths, mostly from disease, and as many as 1.5 million Filipino civilian deaths. We also seemed to like to do some occupying back in the day, including Nicaragua (1912-33), Haiti (1915-34), the Dominican Republic (i.e. the other half of the island with Haiti) (1916-24), and the Dominican Republic again (1965-66).

The timelines color-code each war or conflict to indicate whether the conflict is ongoing or whether the U.S. was the winner, loser, or neither. It identifies seven “ongoing” conflicts: Continue reading →

Irony in Tennessee

Posted on February 21, 2014 by wellsdc

By Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pictured: Volkswagen plant. Not pictured: Chattanooga.

Republicans worked overtime to meddle in the affairs of private industry in Tennessee, as workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted on whether or not to unionize. Volkswagen itself, i.e. the employer who would be directly affected by unionization, remained neutral on the issue throughout the process. Republican politicians felt no such compunction to keep government hands off of business, though. Amid threats to legislatively withhold future incentives for Volkswagen to invest further in Tennessee, and some ridiculous Civil War analogies, workers narrowly defeated the unionization plan.

This ought to be a victory for business, right? Volkswagen can now create even more jobs in the state, secure in the knowledge that their workers will never dare talk back to them, so everything should be coming up roses for Tennessee’s economy.

Well, no.

Republicans apparently mistook Volkswagen for an American company that ships jobs wherever wages are cheapest and workers are the most powerless, not a company that gives workers a strong voice in its affairs. That misunderstanding, whether deliberate or inadvertent, may cost the state, or maybe even the entire South, more investment by foreign auto makers.

Nice going, jackasses.

Photo credit: By Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Biting the Hand that Still Feeds Them

Posted on February 20, 2014 by wellsdc

Fibonacci Blue [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], from Flickr Richard Eskow wrote a piece published at AlterNet a couple of weeks ago entitled “5 Obnoxious Libertarian Oligarchs Who Earned Fortunes from the Government They’d Like to Destroy.” To be fair, not all of the people he identifies want to destroy the government per se, but they certainly fail to appreciate the extent to which said government made their success possible in the first place:

We’re dealing with a cohort of highly fortunate, highly privileged and highly unaware individuals who have been inappropriately lionized by society. That lionization has led them to believe that their wealth and accomplishments are their own doing, rather than the fruits of collaborative effort – effort which in many cases was only made possible through government support.

But instead of thanking the government and the taxpayers for their good fortune, they’ve allowed their own good press to go to their heads. And they’re biting the hand that feeds them, attempting to shut down the system of taxpayer support and government action which created their world.

One of my principle complaints with libertarianism as practiced*, besides its tendency to rely on vague terms like “liberty” and define them in highly self-serving ways, is that it generally ignores all or nearly all of the contributions of the rest of society to certain individuals’ success. (I have many other complaints, but that one sticks out.)

By Leonard Kleinrock [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pictured: Socialist tyrant.

The internet, which came into being because of massive government investment and development, is a singularly ironic place for such disdain for the government to arise. (Any jokes about Al Gore in the comments will get deleted, FYI.) Yes, the private sector made the internet profitable, but it did so once the basic infrastructure was already in place. It’s doubtful that a private company, concerned over quarterly earnings reports and the like, would have taken it upon itself to invent the internet from scratch. Other industries also benefit extensively from “big government.” To give a snarky example, Whole Foods is able to ship and receive products around the company with minimal fear of bandits.

1. Eskow first identifies Tom “Kristallnacht” Perkins, who does something involving venture capital, I think, but who clearly doesn’t have a strong understanding of broader American society or European history: Continue reading →

To Each Their Own, I Suppose

Posted on February 12, 2014 by wellsdc

Some conservatives appear to have views on sex that are almost impossible to satirize (h/t Jason):

The original post on the Facebook page Hot Liberals includes a link to the source, a YouTube video I’d rather not watch.

The most common response to this guy’s remarks seem to be along the lines of “He must not be doing it right,” or, perhaps more crudely, “He just needs good BJ.” For my part, I don’t care one tiny bit what this guy personally thinks about sex. I only care that he’s trying to push one narrow view of sex onto everybody.

If a person doesn’t want to have sex except to procreate, that’s their thing, and no one except maybe their partner has any say in the decision. If someone doesn’t want to have sex at all, same deal. Being positive about sex does not mean making it mandatory in some way. Sex is awesome and joyful and magical and painful and terrifying and so on and so forth, and we still can’t seem to bring it up without making snickering quips about it.

To Jerome Corsi, I therefore say this: If this works for you, more power to you, but you don’t speak for everybody, and certainly not me.

To everyone else, please lay off the “he just needs to get laid” jokes. For one thing, they’re not helping. For another, by making jokes like that, you’re missing the opportunity to mine the gold that is Monty Python:

“Texas Doesn’t Belong to Them”

Posted on January 29, 2014 by wellsdc

Last summer, I expressed my sincere view that we progressives are not stuck here in Texas with those who would impose their own narrow religious views on everyone in this state and have the audacity to call it freedom. Those people are stuck here in Texas with us.

I am a Texan, born, raised, and flag-waving, and if you try to say otherwise, bless your heart, you can go to hell.

While she is far more diplomatic about it, it seems Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis agrees with me, according to this e-mail I received today:

This month has been quite a start to the election year. Our opponents are showing exactly how low they’re willing to go to keep their stranglehold on power.

But Texas doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to each and every person who lives here. Every student struggling to get ahead. Every family working to put food on the table. Every child who dreams of a future that’s filled with possibilities.

Texas deserves leadership that understands and respects their stories — not leaders that attack them.

[Emphasis added]

Contribute to Wendy’s campaign (or volunteer) if you want to help make Texas a better place for everybody (even the religious folk who might not appreciate it at first.)

So You Want to Compare Something to the Holocaust

Posted on January 26, 2014 by wellsdc

Farhad Manjoo’s flowchart can help you determine if your comparison is appropriate.

IS X LIKE THE HOLOCAUST? I made a handy flowchart! pic.twitter.com/eAf6PKVWvN

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) January 25, 2014

Panem et Circenses, American-Style

Posted on January 24, 2014 by wellsdc

By WolfgangRieger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Over the past day or two, I have rather cynically shook my head at people taking to Facebook, Twitter, etc. to decry the proles’ shallow fixation on the latest Justin Bieber news—something about eggs and drag racing—to the apparent exclusion of more important concerns.

I generally figure that people’s preference for bread and circuses is a persistent feature of society, and has been since we first started having societies—and with them, issues of societal importance for people to ignore. Then I saw this headline, and decided it’s worth being at least a bit annoyed: “Watch a congresswoman discussing the NSA get interrupted for ‘breaking news’ on Justin Bieber’s arrest.”

The extremely cynical and conspiracy-minded among us might think that this was a deliberate distraction, orchestrated by the network or even by a government that only pretends to be just marginally competent. I, on the other hand, am thinking this was more likely to have been a combination of unfortunate timing and a hasty programming decision.

Would they have interrupted a report on, say, one of the Kardashians to report on Bieber? Who the hell knows? The fact is that Bieber seems more like news than the NSA to whomever runs these shows, and that’s more likely to be because they think more people will tune in for Bieber. In that sense, I guess I join those who bemoan the hoi polloi’s fixation on seemingly trivial entertainment news (more on the idea of triviality below.) Continue reading →

What Exactly Is Being Shoved Down Your Throats?

Posted on January 6, 2014 by wellsdc

To all the people who feel that gay people being allowed to marry somehow infringes their rights, be warned—those of us who see how dumb this argument is will not be able to avoid laughing like Butthead for much longer whenever you complain that gay people are shoving their agenda down your throat.

Photo credit: Via it.wikipedia.org.

Cryptic Philosopher

Farting in Idiocy's General Direction

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