POWs and the Middle Class

"Senator John McCain never misses an opportunity to remind people that he spent over five years as a POW in Hanoi. What he fails to see is that every middle class American has been a POW for the last eight years, in a class war waged by the Bush administration."

-Posted by mdb on Daily KOS, August 27.

I am amazed at the levels that some people will stoop to in order to discredit a political opponent. In a recent post by mdb, entitled "Middle Class Americans Have Been POWS for Eight Years", my level of incredulity in the juvenility of the political discourse has been irked. Are the politically active members of our society really willing to make such incredible claims just to make an attack on their political opponents? The middle class are not POWs in any valid sense of the word.

First off, this is disrespectful to real Prisoners of Wars and the trials that they have endured for their country. Unlike much of the middle class, these men and women have actually served their country in an active way. Even though many were drafted for their respective wars, they still stood up and accepted their responsibility to serve. They knew that they had a duty to serve their country and their fellow countrymen. They had the courage to act when this duty called. They paid the price for the rest of the country when they were captured by enemy forces. A vast majority of the middle class today does not know what this duty is or why it is important. Some do, but most don't. By comparing these people and their level of service and sacrifice made for their country to a largely complacent middle class that often doesn't know or even care what sacrifices have been made for their sake is disrespectful to all service men; especially those that ended up as prisoners of war.

The level of suffering that POWs have gone through compared to the middle class is another striking difference. What does it mean to be a member of the middle class for the past 8 years? It would seem that for many it would consist of a life of luxury: wake up in a warm bed, eat a nice breakfast, go to work in an air-conditioned office, come home to their family and dinner, watch a few hours of television, and go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Now compare that to a POW: wake up chained to the floor when the guards kick you awake. Get yelled at in a language that you probably don't speak then hit with a rifle when you don't comply with the command you didn't understand. Torture and starvation are regular parts of your life. There is no air-conditioning; their might not even be toilets. It goes on and on. Many POWs still suffer today from mental/psychological ramifications resulting from their internment. These two styles of life simply don't compare. Saying that the entire middle class of America has suffered through the same thing as real POWs because they didn't get tax breaks is disrespectful. Its not only disrespectful to the prisoners of war that were captured, its disrespectful to their families and friends and fellow service members.

I do agree that McCain seems to use his status as a former POW as a political crutch. He brings it up to deflect lines of questioning that discredit him. For example, When Leno asked him about his many houses, McCain responded that he didn't even have a house when he was a captured. While a true statement, it doesn't actually answer the question being asked. McCain's heavy use of this answer shows how little substance that he actually contains. If he did know what was going on, or had an answer for the question being posed, he would answer it instead of deflecting back to his POW status.

The problem is that this type of knee-jerk juvenile piece discredits anything else that is said by anyone on Daily KOS. Orson Scott Card used to be a highly respected author of both fiction (his Ender's Game series) as well as an essayist (his Civilization Watch series). Although not everyone agreed with his views all the time they at least read his material and considered the points made. This is no longer true. Earlier this year he turned his attention towards gay marriage. For those that don't remember, basically his argument was that because the Church of Later Day Saints says that homosexuality is a sin, practicing Mormons cannot participate in homosexuality without it being a sin. It is hypocritical. He also extended this beyond his church to American society at large.

There was, and still is, a huge negative fallout from this series of articles. Even though they were mainly targeted towards members of his own church, the articles were read by many non-Mormons. These are the people who seem to have taken the most offense and were the spark that turned a simple expression of Card writing about his opinions into a huge public-relations disaster. Many who disagreed with Orson Scott Card thought that his arguments were old fashioned and juvenile, a remnant of a less accepting world that has no place in today's society. Card has now been labeled as homophobic. While he has refuted this and actually says that he has no problem with homosexuals as long as they don't get married, the label as stuck. Now many who otherwise agreed with him and listened to his viewpoints in the past dismiss his essays and articles due to his lack of credibility. People actively choose not to even read his material or listen to his opinions based upon a preconceived notion that they hold of him and his homophobic ways. In their opinion, he is no longer a credible source of ideas.

The same can be said for this blog entry. mdb is saying some things that probably weren't that well thought out. By saying that the entire middle class has suffered the same level of atrocities as a real POW, mdb is alienating an entire subset of the population. Anyone who has been a POW, knows a POW, or has any idea of the hardships that POWs have had to endure will probably lose respect for mdb and see mdb as no longer a credible source for ideas. This subset of the population includes a large percentage of people who have served or are currently serving our country. The real fallout won't even be about this article. Many will read it, not comment, and move on; but in the back of their mind whenever they see another article or idea that has mdb's name on it, they won't take it as seriously if they read it at all. This post discredits any future entries that mdb might post. Look at Orson Scott Card's example. His credibility was all but ruined.

So what could have been done different? It seems to be obvious that the point of this article was to bring up and discuss the taxes that Bush enacted in his terms as president; specifically how they affected the middle class, how they benefited the upper class, and to point out that McCain's tax plans will be more of the same. Instead of making a wildly irrelevant and disrespectful conjecture that links McCain's POW status to his economic policies, mdb could simply have talked only about McCain's economic policies. It isn't like there isn't an avalanche of evidence that shows that McCain doesn't know what he is talking about. His stance on the economy and what he wants to do about it is are two of his weak points.

It might even have been better to split this article into two separate articles. One would talk about how McCain's constant use of his former POW status as a political crutch both makes him less credible as a political leader and is disrespectful to other POWs. The second article could have talked about his tax plans and how they will affect the middle class in a negative way. These two articles would have allowed for more in depth reasoning on a specific topic and would have prevented any alienation of any subset of the population. By showing respect for what a POW is and what they have gone through mdb might even have been able to bring a number of people over from McCain's camp to Obama's! That surely would have been a preferable outcome than any loss of credibility or alienation of a subset of the population.

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Subtlety

I'm not happy with the way that blogger automatically blurs this image.
Click through to see a higher detailed version.
If you know how to fix this, please leave details in the comments section.
Thanks!

originally written on January 10th '08

Jan 10 08

The thing about the economy circling the shitter, or going down hill, or
whatever you want to call it, is that the more it is reported the more it
will happen.

This is because the economy doesn't really exist. The economy is what you
believe it to be, and what I believe it to be, and what everyone else
believes it to be. It is a (very powerful) figment of our collective
imaginations.

That isn't entirely true. The reality of it is that some people and
entities have more of an effect on it than others. And some believe in it a
lot stronger than others do.

so heres how it works:

If you think the economy is going to shit, you are less likely to buy
things. You'll want to save that money for later, when you are going to
need it. By not buying things and telling others that the economy is
crashing, you create a negative feedback loop. Suddenly no one else is
buying anything or investing or trading or creating new products/services.
The money flow becomes stagnant. No one is going out to eat anymore. No one
is going to sports games. why? because they think that they'll need the
money for something more important later: such as rent or bills.

The problem with that is that suddenly, all of those people who lived off
of providing you with goods/services aren't making as much money as they
were before. You have actively contributed to the shrinking of their
income. Suddenly they don't have enough cash to pay their bills or go out
or purchase clothes or whatever. Now all of the products and services that
they would have purchased, they are unable to. So they don't.

Reverberate this throughout the entire economy and you have a recession.
Then everyone is fucked.

So if your worried about the economy going to shit, heres what you can do
to fix it (or help to slow its recession): pump money into the economy
-by buying things, renting, going out for dinner or a movie, lending
friends money, etc. convince others that its not as bad as they think it is.
-don't go around spreading ideas about how we're all going to starve and be
homeless. extremism like this can only worsen the situation.

It should be mentioned that this does not advocate spending more than you
would normally just to help the economy. Stay within your limits. Simply
try to not spend less just because you THINK that the economy MIGHT be
receding.

Whether you think it will, or think it won't, you're right.

//this note added on april 2, 2008:
the previous article isn't broad enough. It gives too much importance to
the individual consumer, and not enough to those with huge buying power
(such as corporations and industrialists). It is when these larger influences
start spending significantly less that the economy is really in trouble.
the previous still holds, but it is not the whole picture.

//this note added on aug 10, 2008:
I guess this is called the multiplier effect.

Poem Comic

Vista from Ubuntu

I've decided to switch my main operating system from Ubuntu to Vista. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu can do everything that I need it to. The problem is that it doesn't do it easily.

My computer is only 8 months old at this point. I purchased it from Dell in early January. Its a Dell for two reasons: 1) they had the option of a Linux only system and 2) it came with a cash-back rebate that covered the purchase of a 17" widescreen monitor. Back then the difference between the prices of purchasing Vista and getting the laptop with Linux installed was only $20. I purchased the version that came with Vista. At the time I had plans to sell it to someone, but that never materialized. Needless to say I'm glad that I ended up keeping my copy of Vista; otherwise I would have to shell out $300 or so now.

Its not that I don't like Ubuntu. I do. In my opinion it is better than any other Distro I've tried. Once everything is set up it is a hell of a system. Getting everything working, however, is a pain in the neck.

Flash, for example, simply didn't work. In order to get it installed and working I had to implement a hack. Adobe at the time didn't have a 64-bit version of their Flash for Linux, so instead I had to install a 32-bit emulator thingy, get the 32-bit version of Firefox running on that, get all of the various libraries installed that Flash required, and then get that running in the emulator as well. This took about a week to finally get working - I tried a bunch of other various options that ended up not working first. It still doesn't work completely right, though. Youtube causes Firefox to crash about once a day or so. Sometimes it crashes even more.

I'm currently running Firefox 2.0.0.11. I would really like to update, but I'm afraid that it won't work and I'll be without Internet for an extended period of time. That is unacceptable. I simply don't have the time or patience to work on this for however long. Updating a browser shouldn't have to be a week-long project. Seriously.

The internet itself didn't work either. Apparently Linux simply didn't even know my wireless card was part of the computer. Ethernet? yeah, thats fine. Works perfectly as long as I'm plugged into the wall. Wireless? not so much. To get that working I've got some form of Windows emulator running the XP driver for the wireless card. It works but often at less than full speed. My roommates, who all run some version of Windows, all have faster internet connections than I do. This irks me because we're all connected to the same router and the same internet. And if I move around (say, switch classrooms for a different class) I have to reboot my computer to connect to a different signal. Thats not inconvienent at all.

And watching DVDs? that took awhile to get working too. Even now it only partially works. I can watch the actual movie, but if I want to watch a special feature or anything else (say, deleted scenes or the like) I'm shit out of luck. I'm sure that there is a fix out there, but I'm also sure that it would probably take me over a week to actually get it working properly. Again, time that I don't have to waste on something that should work straight out of the box.

Dual screen was another problem. All of the help forums recommend Xinerama and Dual-view and whatever. None of those worked properly. I finally got xrandr to work (sort of) but only after trying everything else. It also doesn't work quite like it is supposed to. If any of my applications go full screen, they fullscreen onto my laptop monitor. Its inconvienient, but I've gotten used to it.

Oh, and I'm only running Ubuntu 7.10. I was going to upgrade, but then I realized that I don't want to have to fuck around for a month to get everything working again.

There are some positive things about Ubuntu (and Linux distros in general). I absolutely love programming on it. I've never really been a big fan of any super-powered text-editor like Emacs or Vi or whatever. I don't need that kind of power. Gedit works fine for me. But its not just that that makes programming an enjoyable experience on Linux. Its the fact that everything is included. Python? yup. preinstalled. Need a C++ compiler? no problem. How about C? sure. Java? easy. CLISP? got it covered. Being a computer science student I switch between languages a lot depending on what class I'm doing work for. Thank God I didn't have to install and configure a bunch of different compilers just to do my homework.

I'm sure many people reading this are going to be thinking, "If you don't like it, don't use it. No one is forcing you to use Linux." They're right. No one is. However, it seems to me that they are missing the root of the problem. It shouldn't be this hard just to get Linux up and running out of the box. These are all things that just about everyone uses their computers for: watching movies and surfing the internet. Not an extreme use case.

From the Ubuntu Wikipedia page: "Ubuntu's goals include providing an up-to-date yet stable Linux distribution for the average user and having a strong focus on usability and ease of installation." And they're right: it is stable. I've never had it crash on me. It is up-to-date. It is easy to use and install, as long as you don't want to do anything extreme like watch a movie or use wireless internet. But is it a distribution for the average user? probably not.

Oh, and another benefit to Linux? I don't have to worry about viruses when I'm looking at porn.

remorse

originally written in January '04

He walked into the room, half expecting the desks to be out of order and strewn across the room in a random mixture of assorted places and positions. The floor was a cold grey tile pattern, the ceiling a cold grey ceiling pattern, and the walls were the walls; they limited the room while their posters offered a false sense of freedom and excitement. The desks, although not strewn across the room, were still mostly out of place, their positions left over from the drudgery of many students coming and going throughout the day. Most of the seats were worn mostly through while their legs were dented and scratched. There was not a single place to sit that had not been sat in before, nor a place that would not be sat in again. A dull light shown through the windown on the far wall, illuminating the particles of dust suspended timelessly in the air. The air smelled old and stuffy, as if the room had been locked away for centuries in a far off cave buried beneath a mountain. His entrance to the room caused a slight breeze to disturb a pile of papers on one of the desks. The top sheet lazily floated back and forth on its way to its resting place on the floor,beneath the deask. A second peice fluttered next to it, the two sheets alone while floating next to each other.

he sat down at his desk at the front of the classroom tenderly, trying not to disturb the solitude of the room. A low long creak sighed its way into the air as he sat, a moan of protest against his intrusion into the confines of the room. The clock ticked away its seconds agrily, scolding him with every tock, as the chair ceased its creaking. Each second seemed longer than the last, an infinite amount of time passed between each tick, between each tock. Lifetimes had passed between the moment he sat down and the moment that he looked up to survey the old room. There was the desk that had been vandalized by one of his students, but that had been years before. That student, he couldn't remember his name, had gotten married the year before and was expecting his first child in a few months. He, however, was still here, expecting his students to come to class. And they would come, then they would go. There would always be new students to replace them, and other students to replace those, and even more students to replace them. There would be another teacher to replace him. He would be forgotten just as he had forgotten. He was here now, though, his lesson still needed to be taught. It was nothing too important, just another thing to learn. It would also be forgotten. Another second ticked off the clock. The students would be coming in soon.

Horizon Effect

originally written on March 1st '06

The lady at the furniture store didn't seem all that happy to see him as he walked in the door. Dirty pants, dirty jacket, and a dirty face; all he wanted was a dining room table.
"Can I help you?" she asked, a hint of disgust flavoring her voice.
He looked at the saleslady for a long while before he slowly answered in the affirmative. "I was wondering if you have any tables here for cheap."
Her Face fell a little at those last little words. They weren't much, but they told her volumes.
"I have a couple. Here, this one is pretty cheap" she said as she led him to the back room, revealing a table that lookied as if it had survived a tornado. "Is this what you're looking for?"
He didn't answer her right away. He was too busy with the table. Running his hands along the oak wood he could feel its cuts and scrapes, its blemishes and imperfections. He could tell that, once, long ago, this had been a wonderful table. It had stood proudly in someone's dining room, beautifully adorned with the finest silver and the most expensive china, wonderful feasts piled high upon the platters. Even now the wood warmed to his touch. The scratches and the bangs and the indents all badges of service. Each a remnant of a fine meal proudly served to the patrons.
"This is quite the table" he said after a long pause.
"yeah, it is. It used to be owned by the Byrons, but they got a new one a few years back to replace it, and I've had it ever since. At first I thought that it would sell in a flash, but as time went on I realized that this table wasn't just for anyone. It needs someone with character, with a past. This table is for someone with history."
She kept droning on, giving her sales talk to him, but he wasn't listening. He was too busy noticing how old she looked, her face starting to wrinkle and her blonde hair had a touch of gray in it. Her eyes had lost a lot of the sparkle they had once had, and her nose had started to droop.
Then it hit him.
Her jacket. It wasn't right. It was too new. Too red. Too festive and colorful and full of life. It didn't look right on her. She was too old and too dead. It didn't look right in this furniture shop. The couches and chairs and tables and lamps and desks and beds were too used and dusty. Her jacket was like a fire burning alone in the dark night. It just didn't fit in this gray and dirty shop.
She was still talking. Droning on about the quality of the wood and a lifetime guarantee. The facts and figures about this table that only a salesperson would ever bring up. He couldn't get over her jacket.
She caught his eyes for just a moment, and in so doing caused her to pause for just a second. She looked away sheepishly and smiled a little half smile before looking back at him again. For the first time in a long time she was at a loss for words.
"So what do you think of the table?" she asked.

Stegosaurus

originally written in December '03

"Keep quiet. We don't know what's out there." The soldier's eyes darted back and forth over the darkening field as he felt his feet sink further into the muddy earth. The squelch his boot made when he picked up his foot was deafening to him; he cursed himself silently. He'd be dead if they heard him. He clutched his rifle tightly against his chest, cocked his head slightly, strained his ears and listened.

Silence. Not even crickets chirping. No wind, no birds, no movement; just him, his troops, and the endless rows of corn stretching forebodingly into the darkening distance. Even the shadows were silent.

Trying to get as low as possible, the soldier slowly started to creep towards the old gray barn about a hundred feet in front of him, all the while signalling his men to stay still. Every couple of feet he'd pause and listen for something, for anything. It was too quiet. Even the usual insects weren't making any noise. Silence. His troops weren't making any noise.

He glanced backwards to where his men where. Except his men weren't there. There was nothing there. Nothing. Just an endless field of corn, a rundown barn, and a slow trickle of sweat running down his cold chin onto the ground. Fear clenched his heart as he realized he was alone, that they had gotten his troops. They got his troops. Took them from right under his nose. Impossible. The whole thing was impossible. He would have heard. Impossible. He would have heard.

The sound of a corn stalk snapping broke the silence. Dread seeped into his skin, freezing him in place: it was right behind him. Another stalk snapped. Another trickle of sweat worked itself down his face. It was getting closer. Time slowed down as he waited for something. Anything. He couldn't move, couldn't turn around to see what was behind him. Couldn't do anything. He could almost feel the icy fingers grabbing the back of his neck, tearing his life from his body, limb by limb, sucking his soul from his flesh. His body.

Snap. He couldn't take it anymore, couldn't wait for it, couldn't bear the silence. He whipped around in the air as he threw himself onto the ground, opening fire with his rifle, stabbing the night with 6 cold bullets, each ringing out and disappearing into the darkness. The world came to a stop.

The silence following his shots was bigger and more powerful than anything he had felt in his life. The entire world was focused on him, watching and waiting for the right moment. Time slowly ticked away. There was no movement. The seconds melted into minutes. Nothing behind him, nothing above him, nothing around him. Only stillness.

There was no way they didn't know he was coming now. They were probably watching him right now, peeping through the rows and rows of corn, watching. Laughing. His hairs bristled as a long cold shiver ran down his back. Eyes darting back and forth, he strained to find some sign of life. Anything. An insect. A bird. Them. But there was only silence. It surrounded him, engulfing him in its nothingness. Alone.

Hours passed in a few minutes times. He wasn't even sure how long he had lay on the ground waiting for them to find him and take him away, wasn't sure how long he had been slinking through the endless field of corn, who he was fighting, why he was there. Wasn't sure if he was alive or dead, or somewhere in between. Wasn't sure.

He lay there for hours longer as the night sky continued into icy blackness. He knew day wasn't coming. It couldn't. It was too dark. All he could do was wait.