it’s a little late today, but in honor of today’s labor day holiday, here’s a couple of classic songs from the history of the labor movement.
pete seeger – solidarity forever
pete seeger – joe hill
happy labor day.
music monday: happy labor day
america’s dumbing down
about a week ago, or so, i came across an essay that intrigued me: how a tv sitcom triggered the downfall of western civilization.
i’ve said for a while now that it was, in fact, reality television that brought down civilization, but this guy may have it right when he points to show friends as the real “trigger.”
in 1994, when friends first aired, i was a sophomore in high school (man, i’m old…). though in those days the only shows i watched religiously were the star trek reboots the next generation and deep space nine, i am embarrassed to say i have vivid memories of driving around in my metallic-blue oldsmobile delta 88 listening to the friends theme song. i’ll admit to thinking at the time that it was a catchy song, with the caveat that my car had no tape deck, no fm radio. looking back now, i can’t for the life of me understand why the song was so popular that it played frequently on kansas am radio.
from the essay:
The show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of terror as the No. 1 show in the U.S., the same year that Paris Hilton started her own “lifestyle brand” and released and autobiography. And Joey Tribbiani got a spin-off TV show. The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value. Just as Green Day; their album American Idiot was released in 2004, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely. The rejection of Ross marked the moment when much of America groaned, mid-sentence, at the voice of reason.
the author makes a reasonable point. though friends did have a certain appeal, while watching reruns of the show in my young-adult years, i always found it odd that this group of people could possibly be friends. and it seemed that in addition to having some strange shared or overlapping history, they all (with the exception of ross) had a shared loathing or general apathy for anything that actually mattered, current events, etc. and they’d throw verbal tomatoes at ross if he attempted to enlighten them.
that ross and rachel ended up together was always the happy ending the romantic in me wanted for ross, though critically it’s hard to understand what they had in common besides that shared history. friends was always a show that entertained me, but took it for what (i thought) it was, a funny sitcom cast with attractive people. but my eyes have been opened and i can see how it might have been friends, as the lead-up to reality television, that has led to the fall of civilization.
from his conclusion, the author pivots to some simple actions we as individuals can take to “retain our sanity in a dumb, dumb world”:
No. 1: read a fucking book.
No. 2: learn something.
No. 3: stop buying so much shit.
And finally: protect the nerds.
check out the essay, it’s an easy and entertaining read.
philadelphia day seven
thursday. the last day of the convention and my last full day in the city of brotherly love.
frustration from two days prior continued to linger and physical and mental fatigue was beginning to set in, but i was up, again, in time to be at breakfast at 7am. that morning’s breakfast was going to be a special one; it had been arranged to have senator bernie sanders himself come and speak to the delegations staying at the hilton valley forge hotel.
thoroughly excited, i made sure i was downstairs in the conference room in plenty of time and to make sure i had my choice of seats.
in addition, and prior to, bernie’s speech, we welcomed former maryland governor martin o’malley. his speech was good, but honestly, i was so excited to see the senator up close and personal, i didn’t pay much attention. instead, i kept glancing back at the entrance to the room, waiting for the senator’s arrival.
unfortunately, because some bernie supporters were so unhappy with his loss and previous endorsement of hillary clinton, the senator was being harassed. there had been protests at his hotel (i didn’t even know where he was staying). so bernie was a little on guard and his secret service detail was definitely on guard. so, instead of a grand entrance from the back of the room, he was quietly rushed in through the kitchen entrance at the side of the room.
his appearance was sudden and though there was certainly applause and a rush to welcome him and maybe shake his hand, security moved him promptly to the stage with little fanfare and he began his address to us.
i tried to get some pictures of a couple of our young and bright bernie delegates presenting him with lei and gifts from hawaii. unfortunately, in the hustle and crowd, it proved difficult. i did, however get this great picture of a crying asami after presenting the senator with a lei:
his speech was good, but not a deviation from anything i’d heard from him over the last couple days. it was just thrilling to have him there, knowing what his campaign meant to so many people, including myself.
then, when he concluded his was whisked away back through the kitchen as quickly as he had entered.
though there were more events at the convention center, not to mention clinton’s acceptance speech that evening. i, however, decided bernie’s visit to our hotel would be a fitting end to my official convention experience. i wasn’t really keen on hearing hillary speak, nor bear witness to the celebration (and smugness from some) of clinton’s supporters. instead, i gave away my credentials to one of the party faithful form hawaii who had come to philly to staff the delegation; she was a clinton supporter and had no doubt she’d enjoy being there to see hillary accept the nomination much more than i would have.
so, a gray and rainy day spent packing, relaxing, editing photos, and writing marked the end of my convention delegate experience. in some ways, it had been the longest few days of my life. in others, it was over as hurriedly as it had begun. i was sorry to see it come it an end without any real climax, but so it goes.
early the next morning, i boarded a shuttle to the airport happy to begin my vacation spending quality time with friends and family in the midwest.
philadelphia day six
the previous day had been a rough one and though we had to be up early again for breakfast, wednesday morning began with a slow start.
from my perspective, the most important parts of the convention had already taken place and, admittedly, my enthusiasm was beginning to wane. there wasn’t much, as best as we could tell, a whole lot going on at the arena of note prior to the primetime speakers, so a lot of us spent much of the day doing progressive, non-convention-related stuff: attending trainings, forums, protests, etc.
for my part, myself and a friend decided to attend some forums in the city being put on by progressive democrats of america. if memory serves, which is always questionable, the forum was on progressive budget alternatives. it’s a topic both my friend and i have been interested in for some time and had, in previous years, attempted to publicize here in hawaii (to little effect). however, for reasons also escaping my recollection, we never made it to the forum despite having paid for it. i think we were distracted and preoccupied talking to fellow progressives and just lost track of time.
still, the day still had promise as there was scheduled a democratic socialists of america (DSA) event at the same location. i was pretty excited about it…. in the meantime, we grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby deli and had lots of good conversations with various progressive activists and democratic socialists. a great way to spend a morning!
shortly after signing in for the DSA event and finding a couple of seats, we received a text message from the bernie campaign about a candidate and campaign training that had just been added to the day’s schedule and was going to start within the hour. after a bit of deliberation, my friend and i agreed it made sense to try and hoof it across town to be at the training with our fellow bernie supporters and progressive activists. and so, with some disappointment, we left before the DSA event got started and made our way back to the vicinity of the convention center.
…only we got a bit turned around. or, as my friend would certainly point out, i got us turned around. and i didn’t realize my mistake right away, rather more like after 20 minutes in the opposite direction. so we did our best to hurry back in the right direction, trying to find our way to a bus or subway stop that would get us to our destination. we did eventually make it, but we were quite late (and very hot and dehydrated). and then the training itself turned out, at least for me, to be not very useful. so it goes.
after the training was over, we walked over to reading market for some coffee and food as we mapped out our plan for the rest of the afternoon. while there, we bumped into some other hawaii bernie delegates and ended up just hanging around the market until it was time for us to make our way to the wells fargo center for primetime.
we had been warned that because the president was going to be in attendance, security was going to be much tighter and after a certain time we might not be admitted at all. and as had become typical of the DNC, none of those rumors turned out to be true….
despite president obama’s arguable failures in any number of areas of domestic policy and his utter warmongering foreign policy, it’s hard not to listen to him speak and… like him. he’s a hell of an orator.
i found myself, at more than one point during his speech, thinking how much i liked him and was so disappointed “this guy” hadn’t turned up to run the country.
while obama’s speech was the most memorable, i have to say vice president biden and clinton’s VP nominee, tim kane, did pretty well too.
the president finished his speech to a standing ovation and cheers. and while there was still one more day of the convention remaining, i didn’t know at the time that wouldn’t be back the following day.
philadelphia day five
tuesday. nomination roll call day.
it was the big day. the day for which all the bernie delegates had traveled to philadelphia; the day we cast our votes for the democratic party presidential nominee. though i likely could have travelled to philadelphia expenses paid, as staff, it was important to me that i be able to cast a vote for bernie sanders.
the previous late night and only a few hours of sleep had caused breakfast came painfully early. after collecting my credentials for the day, it was back to my room for a slow start.
eventually, we all made our way to the wells fargo center. we had been told, several times, that it was important to be at the arena by the opening gavel, because it would be shortly afterward that the roll call votes would begin. but, as is often the case at these types of things, the real business of the day didn’t start until more than an hour after the gavel fell.
in the lead up to the roll call of states, each remaining candidate was nominated, with a second (and third) nominating speech. at this point, i can’t recall who made the nominating speech for hillary, but after a quick google search, i found it had been senator barbara mikluski of maryland. hawaii’s own tulsi gabbard made the primary nomination for bernie sanders.
throughout the day, delegates had been casting their vote on an official tally sheet, which, as i understand it, would eventually be used as the official record of the vote. for, i don’t know, theatrics i guess, each state was called alphabetically by the secretary of the convention. it was probably an hour or so before it was hawaii’s turn.
as our turn approached, some of the hawaii delegates began to move around. it wasn’t until right before we were called that i realized people were positioning themselves to make sure they were on camera. to the disappointment of some of my family and friends watching on tv, my realization came too late and i ended catching a position just out of the camera shot.
during the roll call, there were ongoing rumblings of an organized “walk-out” among the bernie delegates. not wanting to participate, or be seen as participating, i made a not-so-discreet exit before the mass walk-out, i left the hawaii delegation shortly after we cast our votes for a cigarette, or two.
time passed as i chatted with other delegates, who had either voted already or were waiting their turn, outside for the same respite from the slow proceedings. the whole roll call ended up taking a couple hours and as i was heading back to my seat, so began the aforementioned “walk-out”. a long procession of bernie delegates, chanting “this is what democracy looks like,” made their way toward the open air. many were holding up their phones to record the event, or “no tpp” signs, or bernie signs…, jill stein signs.
while this was going on, i was also beginning to hear about something even more disappointing and frustrating; one of our bernie delegates, while on camera for the roll call, had “flipped the bird” with a giant grin on her face. news spread about the incident and while some of us were angry, others saw it as a bold and heroic gesture in the face of dnc’s bias against bernie and his delegates.
after the walk-out had dissipated, some of the participants, including some from the hawaii delegation, staged a silent “sit-in” protest in the media tent. that act was also one that i didn’t support, believed was ill conceived, and only served to do damage to the underlying message and long-term goals of our movement.
so, needless to say, i was not happy. in fact, i was pretty angry and didn’t reenter the convention floor for the rest of the day, except to apologize to some of the hawaii clinton delegates and superdelegates for one person’s behavior. i wanted to be clear that her actions were not representative of all of us. and i spent the next couple of hours talking to people outside, smoking, and generally avoiding eye contact with some of those who had participated in the protests. i was sure i’d only end up shouting and cursing at them….
to make sure i’m fair here, i want to make sure it is understood WHY they did what they did. here’s a link to a facebook post explaining it.
i share their anger and frustration, but nonetheless have serious criticisms of what they did. in the end, i don’t think they’re shenanigans served any purpose except as proof to those people already skeptical of bernie supporters and those who called us “childish” and “sore losers”. of course, i don’t believe either are true, but the walk-out and media tent sit-in, through that skeptical filter, looked like little more than a collective temper-tantrum.
now, to be clear, i’m not saying that what I think it looked like, but at the end of the day the stunt wasn’t for my benefit. what i’m saying is this; bernie delegates said they were making a statement with their actions, that they “wanted their voices to be heard.” but what i think some, if not many, still don’t understand is that in their need to feel righteous and have “their voices heard,” they only served to reinforce the preconceived notions of those who were skeptical of us from the beginning and were happy to label us a certain way.
their “message” wasn’t heard. mainstream US media covered little, if any, of the protests and when they did, it was more often than not with “slant” that wasn’t favorable to the bernie folks. and i’m not aware of any local media outlets that covered the protests at all. so, in the end, the message was only received by those who already agreed with them, and thus only reinforcing the nearly deafening echo-chamber that already existed.
by the time the sun went down, i was tired, feeling beaten, bruised, and demoralized. even though i had wanted to hear live former president bill clinton speak, by then i had no energy; all i wanted to do was go back to the hotel, maybe have a drink, then go to bed.
though maybe for different reasons, convention day two had come to an end with too many of us feeling defeated.