Amateur philologist 'through the looking glass'

The current New Yorker has a fascinating and moving article by Joshua Foer about an amateur philologist named John Quijada. This middle-aged employee of the California Department of Motor Vehicles devoted his life to the creation of a language which contains the most distinctive features of other world languages, from the most common to the most obscure, in an attempt to create a more perfect language. The invented language, which he called Ithkuil, attempts to express concepts in a compacted fashion, so that, for example, a single word can express "that chin-stroking moment you get, often accompanied by a frown on your face, when someone expresses an idea that you've never thought of and you have a moment of suddenly seeing possibilities you never saw before."

The article, "Utopian for Beginners," develops like the usual wooly New Yorker article, taking as much time as is necessary to explain who Quijada is, why he grew interested as a youth in invented languages, and what he achieved with Ithkuil. But it is when he learns that his invented language, which he had published on the internet, had been taken up by a group of intellectual Russians and other post-Soviets, that the story suddenly becomes like a Bolaño novel.

Quijada is invited to attend a conference in an obscure corner of the forgotten USSR and finds that he is considered a hero by young students who are using his language in a discipline called psychonetics. Psychonetics turns out to be one of those quasi-mystical, quasi-scientific fields that Russians and other former Soviets tend to foster -- an allegedly scientific approach to changing how people think.

Quijada once hoped to become an academic, a professional linguist, but simply couldn't afford to go to grad school, and instead became a bureaucrat in a state agency. Now, still slightly mystified by his hosts' goals, he basks in the attention of scholars:

As the evening unfolded, he found himself perched barefoot and cross-legged on a sofa, with a group of young Russian students gathered on the rug at his feet.

"I was surrounded by all these people hanging on my every word. It was intoxicating -- especially for a loner like me," Quijada said. "For one day, I got to play as an academic. I got to live this fantasy where I took the other path in the garden. I got to see what it would have been like if I had gone to graduate school and become a professional linguist. The fates of the universe tore open a window to show me what my life could have been. That night, I went back to my room, took a shower, and burst into tears."

You'd think that this would be enough of a poetic ending to Quijada's story. But it's after this that things start to get weird.

Invited to another conference the next year, he gains an insight into what these "psychonetics" enthusiasts are really about. It turns out that one of the primary supporters of psychonetics is an ultra-nationalist who "talks of developing 'intellectual special forces' that can bring about the 'reëstablishment of a great power' in greater Russia, and give birth to a 'new race... that can really be called superhuman.'" It seems the psychoneticists want to use Quijada's "more perfect" language as a tool.

Appalled by their goals, Quijada withdraws from any further participation in post-Soviet psychonetics, and the article's author draws the usual wan New Yorker-ish conclusion that Quijada isn't the first person to invent a language and see it being used for means he never intended.

But I was impressed by the story's Bolaño-ish theme: How the actions of well-meaning people are adopted by a fascist movement, and the temptation this represents for ordinary people.

How collapsitarians find safe zones

On my favorite collapsitarian blog, today's post is a typical piece of baseless fear-mongering, so pointless I won't even describe it. And then the comments start.

First comment:

Most rural areas within a tank's worth of gas will be inundated by the Golden Horde. The few that can make it on foot will find their way through your retreat area and beyond scavenging, pillaging, and looting anything they can find to try and survive. No matter where you are you may get contact from people fleeing those cesspits that are major metro areas. Remember maintain good fields of fire/killing fields around your retreat and keep those mags topped off.

In the paranoid collapsitarian mind, once the Collapse happens, cities will become utterly consumed with rioting, leading some ("the Golden Horde," which I think refers to the people who have enough resources to escape the cities) to flee and attempt to find a safe place, leading to the now-hackneyed scenario described by the commenter.

The interesting part is the 4th comment down, in which someone creates a how-to for calculating the range of that "horde."

You have to draw lines out along every major highway from every major city, out to about 350 miles (the average distance someone could get on a full tank of gas, assuming all they do is drive). Shade all areas on the map to about 5-10 miles of each side of those highways from the 350 mile point, back to the city. Now draw a line about 30 miles out from the outer suburbs, and shade the area that it covers. You can throttle the lines back a bit for things like rough terrain, rivers, mountain ranges, and the like.

The result is the first two days of full-on zombie migration in your area. The outer edges will be lightly populated, while the inner ones will be heavily so (as traffic snarls up, etc).

However, here's the trick: Not everyone will be moving at the same time, or at the same rate. Also, not all situations would result in a mass evacuation. ...

It goes on like that for a bit, but you get the idea. At least someone has attempted to quantify the effects of this supposed mass migration.

Also, note how the term "zombie" is used for any individual who is part of this so-called horde. Cute of him, because you know what you do with zombies: shoot them in the head (or hey-ud, because I can't imagine anyone with this mindset not possessing a Southern accent). In the minds of the collapsitarians, any non-rightous person who has not armed himself and his God-fearing family and stocked up for ten years of apocalypse, who in the event of a Collapse therefore needs charity, is identical to a zombie -- that is, deserves to be shot on sight.

In fact, this is what they would secretly like to do now, before any apocalypse: kill everyone who is poor, in need of charity, anyone who might rob them or use up their tax dollars, which they feel is equal to stealing. But of course you can't have whole websites and crypto-fascist movements that openly advocate killing the poor, the disabled, petty criminals and the like, because that would make you a Nazi. So you just call the targets of your wrath "zombies," and pretend it's all about preparing for some societal apocalypse, and then you can talk about it all you want.

If you have any doubt that the main audience this appeals to is neo-fascist, just read the rest of the comments on that blog post. Holy crap.

Foamer: problem with modern culture is not enough killing of small animals

Haven't had a laugh at Dave Daubenmire recently. But no problem! He's just posted They Are Afraid of Real Men, in which he suggests that the problem with America today is that we don't train boys to kill things. An excerpt:

I am just going to say it. We have allowed the young men in this nation to be emasculated by women. No offense to women... But, I don't want my son acting like them. I want him to kill bugs, and shoot varmints, and tell men off. I want him to open doors for women, to protect and defend his sisters, to learn to handle a gun in order to protect his family. Our children understand that the Father is the head of the house and that his job is to guide, guard and govern those God has entrusted to him. ...

If you don't teach him now, some 23 year old recent college graduate who minored in Women's Studies at the University will. ... In America we are teaching our young boys how to get in touch with their feelings, how to recycle paper, and how to speak without offending. I read somewhere that one of the first things Muslim children are taught in some of their schools around the Middle East is how to kill and dissect young animals. It teaches them to get over their natural revulsion to blood.

Or we could just make sure our children's first sexual experiences are with women who are menstruating. Unless killing is the important part. I have the feeling it is.

A typical screed from a paranoid right-winger

I often note the posts of collapsitarians, but today let's look at a typical blatt from one of your basic paranoid right-wing racists. It's titled Lone Wolf False Flag or Real Mumbai-Style Active Shooters?

"False Flag" is right-wing-paranoid lingo for an act blamed on one group but secretly perpetrated by their enemies in order to defame them. The classic example is the Reichstag fire, blamed on the Jews, but actually done by the Nazis. Ever since they blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, almost every act of terrorism is said by one foamer or another to be a "false flag" act, or in other words, a terrorist act secretly enacted by the government and blamed on right-wingers. You get the idea. Without further ado:

As the media and Spokesman-in-Chief, President Obama, warn us of a "lone wolf terrorist event" on or around September 11th, I can't help but think back at all of the articles I've written or posted regarding a "Mumbai-style Attack" or an active shooter scenario such as Arizona's Jared Loughner and the Oslo, Norway event. Many on the far-right continue to believe that this incident will portray a typical causcasian of the conservative swagger to be the trigger man in an effort to further demonize the "Patriot movement" (which has withered into the Old Republican Guard 2.0, ala George Bush-esque Rick Perry and Palin's successor: war-mongering, former IRS tax prosecutor Michelle Bachman) and alleviate pressure on the Middle East and "Obama's homeland." ...

Gun bans. Permanent renewal of the PATRIOT ACT. Orwellian pre-crime thought police. Internet censorship. Even further widespread eavesdropping and wiretapping. New "terror laws" regarding assembling in groups, limits to free speech and access to firearms. This would be one of the cheapest and yet most effective terrorist plots in American history. And with it, broad, sweeping political powers for the Elite.

So that's their basic paranoid take on things: All regulation exists to limit the rights of true patriots, and because any serious terrorist act would only lead to more laws and regulations, which are in the interest of the government, it follows that only the government would be behind terrorist acts.

This is the train of thought of the 9-11 conspiracy nuts, who go to great lengths to demonstrate that only a well-trained crack government effort could possibly have produced the destruction of Sep. 11th, 2001. I won't even both to link to any such blatts, you can find them yourself in ten seconds if you try. They are entertaining for a few minutes and then simply tiresome. Look for them to peak next month, and then if anything remotely terroristic happens in the next, oh, 20 years.

On today's great reality show, 'The President and the Nutty Congress'

The main problem is that the Republican Party does not actually care very much about the deficit. It cares about, in order: Low taxes for high-income earners; reducing social spending, especially for the poor; protecting the defense budget; and low deficits. The Obama administration and many Democrats actually do care about the deficit and are willing to sacrifice their priorities in order to achieve it, a desire that was on full display during the health care reform debate. Republicans care about deficit reduction only to the extent that it can be undertaken without impeding upon other, higher priorities.

--Jonathan Chait on tnr.com

Foamer has apocalyptic vision in downtown... Columbus, Ohio

Gadfly, failed congressional candidate and opinionated old white man Dave Daubenmire took his granddaughter to the Fourth of July in downtown Columbus, Ohio, and was struck by this apocalyptic vision:

Boiling in the inner cities is a witch's brew of out-of-control passions fed by ignorance, poverty, drugs, and sex. ... Our journey into downtown Columbus exposed us to an element that has been quietly lurking in the shadows. All of the signs have been visible, yet our rose-colored glasses and Polyannic attitudes have cast a false brightness into the storm clouds.

The thunder is rolling in the form of roving gangs of fatherless families trolling the sidewalks of the inner cities. Saggy-trousered teenage boys, tattooed from pillar to post, wander the sidewalks, followed by scantily-clad teenage mothers with a toddler saddled to the hip.

But Dave, at least the men are still leading!

That was from last week's post. This week he takes up one of his standard hobby-horses: the alleged effeminization of evangelical Christianity and his broad dislike of most of its leaders. Along the way, he suddenly blurts:

Heck, I guess Jesus isn't good enough. It takes an "anointed teacher" to help lead you to your destiny. The thought of getting out a Bible and getting on your face just doesn’t seem to do the job anymore. I've always found eating carpet to be an effective way of getting in touch with my destiny.

Emphasis mine, but wow, did that ever jump out. That doesn't mean today what it used to mean, Coach.

Lonely, bitter man predicts that in collapse, everyone will become like him

This screed from a collapsitarian contains the usual laundry list of dire predictions of societal collapse. What makes it different is a few side comments the author adds to his prediction. For example:

Alcoholism, drug use and domestic violence will likely soar. I also expect the declining marriage rate to drop at an even faster pace.

Disclosure: I don't believe that a man should get married. There's nothing that marriage offers that he can't already get. Plus, the divorce and family courts will screw him over in a big way. Nevertheless, many women will not be interested in marrying a poor or working class man. And frankly, more men will fall into this category. Moreover, less men will want to get married because they will feel that they have little to offer.

What an insightful view of human behavior! I feel like I know him better now. Let me guess, he's a drunken old asshole whose wife left him after years of abuse, and he feels screwed over by everybody from his ex to the courts.

From what I can gather, this loser mentality seems only too prominent among survivalist and "sovereign" types.

According to the article, the Big Collapse can follow any number of catastrophes, from economic meltdown to a solar storm -- a vague assertion that makes it clear that the author's interest is not in how we get there, but what follows.

I think of this as a primarily pornographic view of the future. Collapsitarians love to repeat to each other the gory details of how bad it's all going to get following the B.C., but they're never too specific about exactly how we would get there. Harrumph, solar storm, ahem! The parallels to the Zombie Apocalypse are unmistakable. No one spends much time thinking about how the Z.A. actually originates; what's important is the stalking, growling, head-exploding, etc. Similarly, what's important to the collapsitarians is the rioting, shooting, general breakdown of everything. It makes them very excited.

Update a few hours later: The same blog has published an entry from one of its regular alarmists, saying that something called a super EMP would disable all electronics in the lower 48 states. Well, I guess it would have to be "super." The entry also includes links to several examples of collapsitarian porn such as the excitingly titled "One Second After."

They're just fucking with us now

Via BoingBoing: Blackwater, the infamous private security firm synonymous with US corporate exploitation of the Iraq war, has appointed Bush-era attorney general and former "Singing Senator" John Ashcroft to head a subcommittee in charge of "ethics and professionalism."

Right-wing collapsitarians' racist beliefs

One of the core beliefs of the crypto-fascist collapsitarians, who think the western world is headed for an economic and social apocalypse, is that when "the end" comes, all cities will collapse into hellholes of violence, rioting, looting, pillaging, and so on. This is one of the main reasons they believe in "prepping" for the catastrophe -- which they refer to as The End of The World As We Know It, or TEOTWAWKI -- and "bugging out" to a well-stocked, heavily armed and fortified compound in, say, Montana. 

When this collapse of the cities is predicted, the example almost always cited is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. According to this way of thinking, that aftermath was almost exclusively characterized by, on the one hand, looting and violence, and on the other, pathetic dependency on government to save the people. Cable TV coverage of the event stressed both these themes, because they made for dramatic images, and that is what right-wingers have in mind when they say the collapse of the cities will look like that.

They are, of course, ignoring all the incidents where people helped others, acted with compassion, shared their resources, and made peace. TV ignored these incidents too, for the most part, because they aren't conflict-y, and are therefore boring.

But the other reason the crypto-fascist collapsitarians talk about the collapse of the cities, and assume they will descend into a cauldron of violence, is that they're racist. Take a look at this post on a prominent collapsitarian blog. About the cities, the author says: 

Misconception number four: Roving criminal hordes will come from the urban environment to your rural home or Bug Out Location (BOL). Nope, these people do not play chess or even checkers; they do not plan ahead much at all. Criminals, with few exceptions are lazy. And many are on drugs. Yes, a few will flee at the very beginning if they have a specific refuge in mind, the uncle with the farm, but most will not leave their familiar comfortable environment. Even if they have an operational vehicle capable of the trip it is likely to be low on fuel, particularly these days. They will burn up what little fuel they have driving around their usual haunts, to the liquor and drug stores, then to the convenience or grocery store like they did before the event, until their tank is empty. Walking or biking to save fuel will never cross their mind. No gas means no travel for this group.

They are stupid, lazy, and many are on drugs! Really!

Refuting those ideas, which are based on such an idiotic image of city dwellers, would be a waste of time. The only thing I can say in response is that that paragraph actually represents a more moderate prediction than the usual one, where crazed and armed city dwellers, having used up and then burned all the resources in their city, then go out to attack the good Christians in their Montana bunkers. (See my previous entry, Grim Dystopians Hoping for Complete Collapse.) So never mind that -- they are simply too lazy to do so!

It would be laughable, if not for the utter gullibility and ignorance of these collapsitarians, many of whom are elderly people who fall victim to tax-dodging schemes rooted in weird, almost schizophrenic ideas (such as so-called "truth language"). There is lots of money to be made from all the paranoia being served out there.

Crypto-fascist also has messianic complex

I've written previously about Chuck Baldwin, the former Baptist minister who moved his whole family from Florida to a rural Montana county filled with survivalist and Patriot Movement types. Of late he's been ranting about how churches that get federal 501(c)(3) tax exemption are somehow equivalent to Nazi collaborators. And today he emitted a real doozy, putting himself in the shoes of one of the "patriots" who fought and died at the Alamo in... what was it... 1836?

These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. There was something different about them, however. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort. Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom has little to do with financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Patriotism and Morality are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die.

It's like he doesn't even know what the famous battle of the Alamo even was. It was a bunch of shootists and bums who were hired by rich ranching and mining interests to pull territory away from Mexico. They weren't defending Liberty with a capital L. They were mercenaries.

But even if one accepts this Hollywood fantasy that the "defenders of the Alamo" were selfless patriots, saying "Patriotism and Morality and Liberty are inseparable: destroy one and all will die" sounds a little funny, since according to him those faithful patriots did not separate them, yet they all died.

Baldwin goes even farther:

Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our gutless political and religious leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, and political correctness. Try to recall the time in this country when ordinary men and women had the courage of their convictions and were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and independence.

Okay... Just what is he asking "our political leaders" to do? Doubtless he wants them to go ahead and shut down the government and everything the most heated Tea Party first-term Congressman wants. Does he mean they should force that through, even if it means sacrificing their political careers to satisfy the far right's hatred of government? Is that the same thing as dying at the Alamo?

That's the thing about Baldwin. He spends so much time ranting about his political fantasies and tossing bombs at straw-man targets whom his readers couldn't possibly be interested in -- PETA, really? -- that he forgets to say what he wants, what he stands for. It's really kind of amazing.

Today, however, our national leaders are in the process of turning America over to the very forces that the Alamo defenders gave their lives resisting.

Who? Mexico? Ya really lost me.

Previously

To conspiracy theorists, it all fits together

Despite the fact that the messy pro-democracy upheaval in the Middle East will actually make the world safer by ridding the region of the dictators driving the hoi polloi into the arms of Al Qaeda, to right-wing conspiracy nuts It's All Part of the New World Order's Master (and they do mean master) Plan -- so says the latest post from the Shit Hits The Fan blog, Turning Off the Tap: Population Reduction Through Designed Economic Collapse.

According to their conspiracy theory, the rebellions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and other lands are all part of a plan by "banksters [sic], the oil cartel and ... Wall Street" to "(drive) up prices for essentials like food and energy to the breaking point, ... shaking every nation on earth to its core. The effect of such manipulation seems destined to lead toward a severe reduction in numbers of the human population, and a tightening of control over those who remain."

Yes, depopulation! That's all part of it! Of course, this prophecy depends on the vast majority of the population losing its mind and reducing itself through riots and unrest to a fragment. Or as they put it:

The oil and Wall Street powers seem satisfied to allow the civil unrest to spread in order to feed their greed for higher oil prices and resulting control. Surely they recognize that higher oil prices will suck the remaining wealth out of the poor and middle classes around the world. This scenario will obviously cause starvation, illness, and other life-shortening effects, as increasing numbers join the ranks of the poor... and the poor have no where [sic] else to go.

Obviously. Of course, there's no evidence that the events of the last couple of months are the result of outside influence from anyone other than democracy-minded people themselves. Secondly, it seems odd for a cabal of "banksters" and other members of a shadowy financial oligarchy -- of course "Wall Street" is simply modern crypto-fascist code for "the Jews" -- to launch a global takeover by means of increased democracy. Thirdly, if there are "Jews" behind countless democratic Arab movements, that would be very strange. And finally, there is no evidence that anyone is losing their minds as a result of the turmoil, except maybe Moammar Gadhafi. In fact, newly-freed zones seem to be taking up the challenge of self-governance with optimism and a reasonable amount of decorum.

But an essential part of the conspiracy theorist's practice is to ignore everything that doesn't fit the theory's template. For them, the conspiracy is constantly in the process of proving itself true.

Meet a "sovereign citizen"

A Tennessee TV station sent a news crew over to the home of 69-year-old Hollis Fay Summers, who "became a sovereign four years ago after attending a seminar in Alabama." Among other futile efforts, he has filed several billion-dollar lawsuits against officials of the bank which holds his mortgage, because they won't believe that his mortgage has been paid in full with funds from his "secret account."

WTF, you say. Well, in brief -- and the mention of the "seminar" he attended is the giveaway -- there are charlatans going around the country preaching a form of magic. The magic is contained in a mystical and completely bogus interpretation of legal language, and among other things, asserts that every American has a "secret account" of money being held for him by the federal government -- a government in which the profess not to believe, but that logical contradiction is only one among many -- and that you can access these funds if you know the magic. (For an explanation, see "Bill of Exchange" on the Southern Poverty Law Center's page on the so-called sovereigns, or see this page on the ADL's website for a full picture.)

The TV station's page with the story also includes links to a couple of Summers' mumbo-jumbo court filings, including the one where he asserts his sovereign status.

There are not that many of these people -- tens of thousands, at the most -- but they are responsible for gumming up local courts with these bogus filings, each of which must be addressed and declared frivolous. From the ADL's page:

The filing of frivolous lawsuits and liens against public officials, law enforcement officers and private citizens, on the other hand, has remained a favorite harassing strategy. These paper "attacks" intimidate their targets and have the beneficial side effect of clogging up a court system that sovereign citizens believe is illegitimate. Frivolous liens became such a problem in the 1990s that a majority of states were forced to pass new laws to make filing them illegal, their removal easier, or both. Today, eager sovereign citizens can use the Internet to download a variety of boilerplate forms and documents to wield against the government. More adventurous types can matriculate at "schools" such as the Erwin Rommel School of Law; additionally, a number of activists, ranging from David Wynn Miller to The Aware Group, hold seminars around the country to teach people -- for a price -- about the latest tactics and weapons.

(Undeterred, Summers has filed another document in which he attempts to redefine the word frivolous to mean "true and correct," the story says.)

And the thing to know is that these people are not crazy. They're just a bunch of losers who have various grievances and have been tricked into believing that this particular form of magic will somehow lead to the redressing of these grievances.

Some nice details in the story, including the arrival of a dumpster during the interview -- a dumpster being delivered by the bank which is about to evict Summers from his long-foreclosed house. And where will this old grampa go then? Some poor relative, no doubt. But what you should focus on is the people who led him to this pass, who profited from his ignorance and credulousness. Here's the SPLC's page on the leaders of the Sovereign Citizen Movement, many of whom are now serving sentences in federal prison.

Previously:

'Sovereign' files $38 quadrillion lawsuit

The King of Hawaii (the verb)

"End is near' warning just as 'timely' as it was a year ago!

The funny thing about prophets who warn of the coming apocalypse is that it's always coming. The end is near, it's constantly near. If it hasn't come by the time predicted, that doesn't make the prophecy wrong. In fact, the prophecy is even righter than ever, because as time passes we truly are nearer and nearer the end!

That sort of logic can be seen in the introduction to this post on from our favorite collapsitarian blog: We Have Some Hard Decisions Ahead. The post talks about how, since the end is near, we may as well all stop participating in the economy, since faithful readers of the blog (the collapsitarian blog, that is) are all busy "prepping" for the Big Collapse. For example, stop paying your car loan and your mortgage; plan to downsize, because soon we will all be forced to downsize.

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. But this is what I found really amusing:

This article was originally published at Survival Blog and has been reprinted with permission from the author. The article's original publish date was December of 2009, but it is as timely today as it was a year ago.

Yes -- for all those who didn't follow its advice, that is! Because if they really stopped paying their mortgage and car payments and everything else last year, they sure as hell don't have them now, because they no longer have the house and the car.

And they say fascism depends on people having short memories. I guess so!

Oh Mama, could this really be the end?

An essay on the blog Download Squad with the alarming title Facebook -- with or without Google -- will destroy the world as we know it explains the two companies' diverging strategies. It's interesting (though I can't get very worked up about yet another apocalyptic scenario, in which something from the movie Terminator is used to get across how frightening it is), but what I was struck by was this line (emphasis theirs):

In other words, Facebook knows who we want to be, while Google knows who we actually are.

How Dylanesque!

The article closes with this warning, which I find pretty believable. Referring to Facebook's announcement yesterday that it was going to offer the equivalent of Facebook email, the article cautions:

You will be given the choice of opting out, of course. But think about it: can you see yourself leaving Facebook today? Now fast forward a few months, a year. Imagine what it will be like once all of your communication goes through Facebook; quitting won't be an option.

Now, the thing is, I use Google mail, I collaborate with others using Google documents, I have Google voice pointing to my cell phone, I use the calendar, and so on. It seems as if I'm pretty wrapped up in Google. And yet I think if Google disappeared tomorrow, all I'd lose is my saved email and this month's household budget. My life would go on, for the simple reason that Google's mail system communicates with the rest of the world, while Facebook's is designed not to. A "walled garden" is the term commonly used for such an exclusive online universe. I can think of another word.

I'm glad I'm not a Facebook denizen; I never registered. It's like having gone through the 00s without having gotten a tattoo: once you participate a little, you're marked for life.

Breaking news from the paranoid front

A website called The Survival Retreat -- you know, that well-stocked fuhrerbunker that will allow you to get through the supposedly coming apocalypse -- alerts us that now is the time to stock up on ammunition.

It just occurred to me that perhaps all the zombie movies and zombie TV shows are really about our anxiety about this eventuality, where there's total societal collapse, everyone attempts to flee, and the well-stocked right-wing Christian survivalist is vindicated. (See my entry from yesterday. (Speaking of which, the title of a post from another collapsitarian blog says it all: The US Government Is Preparing For Unlikely Events Like War, Catastrophic Collapse of Society, and Even Asteroids -- Are You?.)

Related: the Seattle Times reports that it's a buyer's market for islands. Which might help protect you from zombies, who (which?) presumably can't swim, but not from the desperate marauders imagined by the apocalyptic collapsitarians whom I mentioned yesterday.

By the way, can you guess which famous 1960s musician wrote a song about this topic? None other than Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary, whose 1971 song "John Henry Bosworth" imagined the same riots, flight from the cities and suburbs, and survival on a remote piece of property -- but minus the guns and with a much more truly Christian vision than the apocalyptic right-wing Christianity the survivalists apply to their fantasies.

For another optimistic alternative, see this April 2009 NYT magazine article about what was called the Transition movement, which I linked to before. It says something about the appeal of the more horrific fantasies that they're 99 percent of what you hear and read about.

Rand Paul supporters rough up Move On demonstrator

Why would anyone be surprised that far-right wing demonstrators, whose stock in trade is rage and violent images, actually resort to violence?



Via mediaite.

Updated: The man who did the actual head-stomping has been identified as a local campaign coordinator for the Rand Paul campaign. He has verbally apologized, and has been banned from the campaign.

Collapsitarian screed: You're SOL

Last month I mentioned a book I was reading, a so-called novel which described a claque of well-prepared paranoids and how they survive the total collapse of society, including riots, cannibalism, and the end of all political and economic systems, which (according to the novel) will be a swift and inevitable consequence of our current political-economic course.

If you really want a sample of the way these people think, without slogging through that ridiculous (though self-righteously humorless) "novel," take a look at this blog post. It's on the website of the author of that book, and though the post itself was not written by the book's author, it partakes of exactly the same mentality -- only even grimmer. Here's just one sentence, following a passage in which the author says that if you do make it out of the riot-torn cities, it won't do you much good to try to hunt for food because your gunshots will attract other refugees.

Deciding not to risk your life to kill what's left of God's little animals, you might innocently/ignorantly believe that you can sustain yourself and your family by foraging for wild, edible plants, but so does every other unprepared refugee who has fled to the country, and they are all scouring the countryside, grazing on everything that is green or was green or might be green someday.

The whole thing's like that, wild-eyed and detailed to a pornographic degree -- because that's what it is, pornography. It's porn for paranoid right-wing foamers.

This apocalyptic event, known to right-wing paranoids as The End Of The World As We Know It or TEOTWAWKI*, is almost as widely predicted among the gun-crazy right wing as the Rapture itself, and perhaps even more widely yearned for -- because amid all the suffering that comes with it, the well-prepared right-wing paranoid will be vindicated. Plus, he'll get to do what he's always wanted to do, and that's kill everyone in sight that's not in his little survival group. It goes without saying that the end point of this fantasy is that the only other people around will be like-minded right-wing fascists just like him. No wonder he's looking forward to it.

* I think having an acronym that's impossible to pronounce pretty much defeats the purpose of having an acronym, especially when the phrase "The end of the world as we know it" is so easy and fun to say and even has its own rock song, which you are probably already humming along with. They also refer to this event as "When the Schumer hits the fan," apparently a cryptic anti-Semitic reference and one that allows them to piously avoid saying "shit." Because when you're planning a survival strategy that requires you to kill or leave to rot every other human being who isn't as well-armed and well-prepared as you, you'd better not cuss. The post-Schumer world, awash in blood, would be a terrible place if people took the Lord's name in vain.

Desert sojourn, day 28

On my long drive yesterday -- about seven solid hours of driving, all the way from Joshua Tree to Laughlin, NV and back (click for map) -- I listened for a while to right-wing radio foamers. I usually can't stand listening to them for more than about 30 seconds, but I was kind of a captive audience -- I couldn't get anything else on the radio. Plus, it's material for my book, which in part involves characters who have adopted a paranoid view of the state of things. Man, it's all just fear, fear, fear. One guy repeated what he said he'd heard from some right-wingers in the U.K., some tall tale about Pakistani drug gangs and their enslavement of 13 and 14 year old English girls -- white English girls, of course. The American commentator repeated this blather not only without critique but as if it were an oracle of what was about to happen in the U.S. And it all comes from building mosques, he said.

Just an example. I won't waste my time even saying how stupid it is, or how classically xenophobic and racist. What struck me was not the paranoid fantasy, but the enthusiasm -- spoken in a voice trembling with fear and loathing -- with which it was repeated and the explicit prediction that this is where the U.S. is headed.

And I had to remind myself -- Obama isn't even up for re-election for another two years! What will it be like after another two years? How far can they ratchet up the hysteria? Then I realized: that's exactly why terrorists blow shit up, to stoke exactly this kind of hysteria. Thus the right-wing foamers' talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or at least that seems to be the only place it leads to.

Let me say one more time -- I never can stand to listen to this stuff. So it's really true that I've never heard it before, not full-force for a couple of hours. And the millions of people who thrill to this stuff listen for hours, all day every day. Kind of an astonishing moment in the history of the U.S. experiment with democracy, really. A real test of the question "How much free speech can we stand?" (Coincidentally, the Fred Phelps cult went before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday so the court could address just that question.)

Today's fakes: internet vigilantes who entrap and humiliate

This is one of those stories I learned about very late. It started when I saw a piece of news on c|net, but that's the end of the story. To start closer to the beginning, it seems there's a vigilante group called Perverted Justice. Started by a geek who wanted to act out his feelings of rage against an alcoholic father (according to this 2007 Rolling Stone article on the group), they began online flirtations with men, claiming to be underage girls, then publicized the hapless men's pictures and chat transcripts. This was so successful (successful from their point of view) that they began partnering with MSNBC on the show "To Catch a Predator," turning their online stings into a reality TV show. The show resulted in the conviction of over 200 men for attempted sex acts with underage girls, even though there never were any underage girls, just adults posing as girls for the sheer purpose of entrapping would-be molesters.

If these tactics sound dubious to you, the D.A. in a Dallas suburb would agree -- he refused to press charges against two dozen men who were netted by these antics after one of the men who was ensnared (but who didn't even show up at the house of the supposed jailbait), a prosecutor in a neighboring locality, shot himself.

Okay. So along the way, one of the people who became angry at the tactics of Perverted Justice was one Bruce Raisley. He embarked on a campaign to publicize and embarrass the organization, leading the founder of Perverted Justice to retaliate by posing as a woman -- not even underage this time, but using the same flirtation tactics which had proved so successful -- and getting Raisley to leave his wife and show up at an airport with flowers ready to meet his internet love. The P.J. founder sent a confederate to take pictures of the hapless Raisley, and then posted them on its website with the taunt: "Tonight, Bruce Raisley stood around at an airport, flowers in hand, waiting for a woman that turned out to be a man... He has no one. He has no more secrets... Perverted-Justice.com will only tolerate so much in the way of threats and attacks upon us."

Well, that would piss me off, all right. And Raisley was so angry that he downloaded some software and launched botnet attacks on several websites, such as Rolling Stone and other publications which had reported P.J.'s trick on him. And today, to bring this to a close, Raisley was convicted of computer crimes and faces ten years in prisons and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Here is a more detailed story.

The Perverted Justice group (archive of stories about them here continues its antics. As far as I can tell, they've never been accused of a crime or suffered any negative consequences as a result of their activities.

He's putty in their hands

I ran across this plaintive cry in a forum post on a site called Tea Party Patriots:

Here I sit once again at the computer, same routine. Look for a job, check emails, seek out local like minded patriot groups, research current events and repeat. I am getting restless!!! I want to do so much but I don't know how to channel my energy properly. At 40 years of age I still maintain the anger and rebellious nature of my youth. I am a family man, blue collar with a school teacher wife and a daughter starting college, but the anger that I feel for the way my country is being run into the ground and the lack of faith I have in government just build up inside me and I know I could easily go down the wrong path. I know that this is what they want and will only further strengthen their wicked agenda, so for now I will content myself with writing it all down, spreading the truth to my fellow Americans and preparing for what lies ahead. I get some hope from joining this group and others, networking with people who want to fight for what is right and not what "they" say is better for us. My family and friends think I am nuts because I am throwing myself into this 100%. I was Known as the dude who didn't give a f#!k about what goes on but thankfully I snapped out of it and I am ready to roll. my email is (redacted)@aol.com.

He did publish his full email but I have redacted it. The actual guy is not the point, the point is how typical he must be, how he embodies the blank slate that animates right-wing conservatism today. "I'm full of energy... restless... won't give in to their wicked agenda... my friends and family think I'm nuts... I am ready to roll."

Could it be said any more succinctly? He's just begging "Manipulate me, exploit my inchoate anxiety, and point me at a target!" It occurred to me that there must be people in Islamic societies in the exact same mental state, and how easy it must be for people with, yes, a "wicked agenda," to turn them into suicide bombers and so on. And what makes me really alarmed is that the differences between our democratic society and their autocratic or theocratic society seem to be rapidly shrinking. Once those differences sufficiently disappear, what's to stop us from having suicide bombers here, and worse? Just look at that guy who crashed his plane into the IRS earlier this year -- that's exactly what I'm talking about.