Bashing bullshit laissez-faire

A while back, Tso gave me a bootleg copy of Simone. I didn't expect it to be the best movie in the world, and as a result, I put it on the bottom of my Things to Watch List (right below When Bad Stunts Happen to Jackasses and The Joy of No Sex), but there eventually came a Sunday afternoon when I had nothing going on and decided to watch it. For those ignorant of the plot, Simone deals with a movie producer's (Al Pacino) efforts to create a digital superstar. Later on in the film, people begin wising up, wondering if Simone even exists in the first place. Pacino's daughter poses such a question to her mother, who responds: "There's no proof Simone doesn't exist."

"Look at what you're saying," the daugher retorts. "Is there any proof that she does?"

I couldn't help but notice at the time that such a question mirrors the whole WMD quest currently underway in Iraq. There's no proof that there are, or ever were, weapons of mass destruction in Hussein's hands, but the position of the hawks has always been "There's no proof that there weren't, either." Stupid position, really--leaving my own war stance aside for a minute--to look for proof for a negative. Rhetorically speaking, it's a dead end. I can't prove Santa Claus doesn't exist; I can't prove that the Easter bunny isn't hiding somewhere with a basket of goodies for me next April, and I sure as shit can't prove that, to use John Proctor's words in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, there isn't "a two-headed dragon under my wife's bed." Such questions are little more than a cat chasing its tail.

But that's irrelevant. The question itself ("are there weapons?" "are there not weapons?" "should we be doing what we're doing?" "why shouldn't we be doing what we're doing?" "shouldn't all women sleep with Gregg?") reveals a bias, and, as most liberals would be only too happy to point out, everyone's got a bias.

So who do you trust?

Who do you trust to give you unbiased information when such information isn't even possible? How can you trust the media, or politicians, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to provide you with "just the facts, ma'am," when the facts themselves, carefully selected, arranged and ordered so as to prove a singular point, are no more reliable or incontestable than the tea leaves a psychic reads at the bottom of your mug?

Well gee golly gosh, I guess you can't.

Now such an admission might seem defeatist. Far from it, I say. Knowing that biases exist does not make any information thrown your way completely worthless. Nor does it excuse you from formulating opinions of your own (that's right, Cisco, I'm talking to you here).

See, just because presentations of the facts are skewed doesn't mean your own perception is. Never mind my own positions for the moment--I'm talking about having a position in the first place. Too many people today equate terms like "evidence" and "facts" with "proving my point" when really it's all about discovering the truth. If I were to come across something, evidence, a written piece, whatever, that would make me believe the war on Iraq was a good thing, I would probably find my opinion influenced. Maybe even changed. Because I'm not about proving myself right. I'm about discovering whatever truth I can.

From poet and educator Taylor Mali:

I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door.
Lilly is writing a research paper for me
about how homosexuals shouldn't be allowed
to adopt children.
I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Like Lilly Like Wilson at my office door.

She's having trouble finding sources,
which is to say, ones that back her up.
They all argue in favor of what I thought I was against.

And it took four years of college,
three years of graduate school,
and every incidental teaching experience I have ever had
to let out only,

Well, that's a real interesting problem, Lilly.
But what do you propose to do about it?
That's what I want to know.

And the eighth-grade mind is a beautiful thing;
Like a new-born baby's face, you can often see it
change before your very eyes.

I can't believe I'm saying this, Mr. Mali,
but I think I'd like to switch sides.

And I want to tell her to do more than just believe it,
but to enjoy it!
That changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Or even that minds are like parachutes,
that it doesn't matter what you pack
them with so long as they open
at the right time.
O God, Lilly, I want to say
you make me feel like a teacher,
and who could ask to feel more than that?
I want to say all this but manage only,
Lilly, I am like so impressed with you!

So I finally taught somebody something,
namely, how to change her mind.
And learned in the process that if I ever change the world
it's going to be one eighth grader at a time.

Shifting gears for a moment, let's assume that there's value in an average opinion. Maybe just having this opinion isn't going to move mountains, but by God, you 've got it--that's why we live in America in the first place, right? To have opinions? To learn shit to shape and mold our ideologies and the person we want to be? To help mold the country into what we perceive it to be?

To change the world one eighth grader, one high school student, one person, one ideology at a time?

Is that an idealistic way to look at things?

Not remotely. You don't agree with me? You're wrong.

What is the definition of an idealist? Someone who sees only goals and not the real world? Okay, take that definition for a moment and then look at the facts (or my own rhetorically selected snippets of the big picture, if you want to be snotty):

The 2000 election has created a serious mar in the American population's perception about the weight their own votes swing. Such a mar may well result in an even lower voter turnout next term, with many citizens voicing their trepaditions in language such as "If my vote doesn't count, why bother with it in the first place?"

The war on Iraq, arguably speaking, was carried out contrary to 30-40 percent of the nation's opinion, and pretty much anathema to the entire world's opinion (minus Tony Blair, who, in the minds of the hawks, constitutes England itself). So why protest it? If it's going to happen anyway, what's the use in speaking out against it, or voicing arguments (reasonable or otherwise) as to why it should not take place?

The University of Michigan's affirmative action debacle will get a bunch of white people (not a significant percentage, I bet, but a percentage nonetheless) deciding that, if it comes between me and another qualified minority, it'll go to the minority, so I'm screwed anyway. So what's the point?

And with Rehnquist, O'Connor and Fitzgerald stepping down from the Supreme Court, only to be replaced by other conservatives (if I had to lay money down, that's what I'd envision) will result in a stronger conservative government, leading many Democrats and liberals to shake their heads and wonder what they're beating their heads against the wall for.

All of these are, more or less, seen as no-win situations through the lens of certain mindsets. Bullshit.

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Now why would I say that? Why would I, a pinko, peacenik, liberal subversive get the nerve to make such a statement? Are these not facts, garnered as objectively as possible? Has history not taught us that resistance in the face of an overpowering, ideologically entrenched majority rule is sometimes suicidal, usually futile?

From To Kill a Mockingbird:: "Just because we were licked two hundred years before we started fighting is no reason for us to not try now." Atticus Finch. Good night, Gregory Peck.

From The Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King: "Andy didn't say anything [in response to someone asking him whether his letters to the prison board would do any good] except to ask what would happen if a drop of water were to fall on a cinder block for a thousand years."

And my own personal favorite, from Amelia Earhart: "Courage is the price the world exacts for peace of mind."

You see, just becuase a battle may not be won is no reason to fight it. So fight it.

I don't care if it never does any good, even though history has shown us that the right numbers in the right places with the right words can change anything. Anything.

You don't agree with me? You're still wrong. And fuck objectivity and bias.

From Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States:

Student protests against the ROTC [with regards to the Vietnam War] resulted in the canceling of thsoe programs in over forty colleges and universities. In 1966, 191,749 college students enrolled in ROTC. By 1973, the number was 72,459.

From a news dispatch in Atchison, Kansas, 1886:

"At 12:45 this morning the men on guard at the Missouri Pacific roundhouse were surprised by the appearance of 35 or 40 masked men. The guards were corralled in the oil room by a detachment of the visitors who stood guard with pistols . . . while the rest of them thoroughly disabled 12 locomotives which stood in the stalls." (This strike occurred as a result of the Texas & Pacific Railroad's attempts to quash a union for workers' rights (for an eight hour day, safe working conditions, etc.). After fiery meetings, police brutality towards strikers and even the trials of avowed anarchists (see entries on the Haymarket Square riots and the Homestead act), despite a long and bloody road, workers' rights are now ensured.)

And don't tell me today's ruling on sodomy laws in Texas had nothing to do with the Rainbow Coalition's efforts, trying to promote homosexual relationships' equality with heterosexuals'.

These are just a couple of examples off the top of my head. There are numerous others, some of which are so obvious it would be insulting to bring them up (King's nonresistance protests; the women's suffrage movement; the Native Americans' tribal attempts to circumvent the use of their land by the federal government). In all cases, however, you see a group of people working in concert to change something.

For every one of these examples, there are probably ten to twenty others that failed miserably.

That, to me, does not spell a reason to give up, sink into apathy, and not put your own hand in.

You see, I may not know a lot in this world for sure, but I do know that one way to make sure you don't get what you believe is right, or don't change anything for the better, is to do nothing.

That attitude, and my unwillingness to lie down and let those in power walk over me when I perceive them to be doing so, doesn't make me an idealist.

It makes me a fucking realist.

Note: on a less serious note, if you really want to see the risks of not making your voice heard, consider the Onion's American People Ruled Unfit to Govern. Scares me a little, I tell ya.