…that even Canada doesn’t like the US these days. Kristoff, in this regard, is another ignorant American who hasn’t noticed that Canada hasn’t liked the US for some time now.

TAMARA BAKER notes how Bush’s top advisor on “legal reform” admitted to having lied under oath. She should have put this at the top of her essay, but instead buried it in the middle of an article about the corporate news media burying important facts in the middle of articles.

…(Jerry Useem in Fortune):

“Wal-Mart in 2003 is, in short, a lot like America in 2003: a sole superpower with a down-home twang. As with Uncle Sam, everyone’s position in the world will largely be defined in relation to Mr. Sam. Is your company a “strategic competitor” like China or a “partner” like Britain? Is it a client state like Israel or a supplier to the opposition like Yemen? Is it France, benefiting from the superpower’s reach while complaining the whole time? Or is it … well, a Target? You can admire the superpower or resent it or–most likely–both. But you can’t ignore it.”

Wal-Mart began in the suburban and ex-rural South, far from the big population centers. It still has yet to appear inside most cities (though Useem notes it’s just opened a prototype in-town store in LA). Big-city-based media people are still amazed and shocked upon learning how big and influential the chain is. Political people, of course, know. The chain’s late founder Sam Walton was one of Bill Clinton’s first big backers. The whole Republican campaign strategy is wrapped around appealing to Wal-Mart’s target customer base.

You already know about the chain’s notorious censorship policy regarding music CDs and their packaging. As it becomes the nation’s biggest video retailer, it could weild similar power over movie content (even more, and more draconian, than is currently weilded by Blockbuster).

Which means those of us who demand more than a discount-supercenter selection of cultural or other merchandise will need to vigilantly support those who can supply it.

For those of you who love overgeneralized dichotomies, here’s a new one:

America might be polarizing again, this time into Wal-Mart Nation (limited diversity, one big smiley-faced authority system) vs. Internet Nation (everything and everybody you could ever imagine in a big chaotic and contradictory spectacle).

You should know by now I’d rather live in the second world.

IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN offers a different theory behind the warmongering. He suspects it’s not for oil nor for “liberation,” but plain ol’ warmongering for warmongering’s sake:

“The hawks… believe that the world position of the United States has been steadily declining since at least the Vietnam War. They believe that the basic explanation for this decline is the fact that U.S. governments have been weak and vacillating in their world policies. (They believe this is even true of the Reagan administration, although they do not dare to say this aloud.) They see a remedy, a simple remedy. The U.S. must assert itself forcefully and demonstrate its iron will and its overwhelming military superiority. Once that is done, the rest of the world will recognize and accept U.S. primacy in everything. The Europeans will fall into line. The potential nuclear powers will abandon their projects. The U.S. dollar will once again rise supreme. The Islamic fundamentalists will fade away or be crushed. And we shall enter into a new era of prosperity and high profit.

“We need to understand that they really believe all of this, and with a great sense of certitude and determination. That is why all the public debate, worldwide, about the wisdom of launching a war has been falling on deaf ears. They are deaf because they are absolutely sure that everyone else is wrong, and furthermore that shortly everyone else will realize that they have been wrong.

“It is important to note one further element in the self-confidence of the hawks. They believe that a swift and relatively easy military victory is at hand – a war of weeks, not of months and certainly not of still longer. The fact that virtually all the prominent retired generals in the U.S. and the U.K. have publicly stated their doubts on this military assessment is simply ignored. The hawks (almost all civilians) do not even bother to answer them.”

…getting up from comfortable nihilism and going to the big marches today, here’s some encouragement-of-sorts from Robert Byrd, one of the few US Senators who currently dares to show a backbone:

“To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a

last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any

President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation

which is over 50% children is “in the highest moral traditions of our

country”. This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be

having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner

so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our

own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.”

…has been spending the past year and a half denouncing “pluralism” and “diversity” as ideologies that breed terrorists. I’ve been looking for the proper way to say “bah” to that particular malarkey.

I found it in this essay by the late philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin.

Berlin (1909-97) believed, as I do, that dogmatic ideology (any dogmatic ideology) is the eternal ruin of the human race, and that the only way out of that trap is to acknowledge we’re a complex species in a complex world, to resist the temptation of too-easy answers, and to expose oneself to highly divergent points of view. But Berlin also distinguishes this pluralism from “relativism,” the unquestioning acceptance of other viewpoints (or the tolerance of intolerance):

I do not say “I like my coffee with milk and you like it without; I am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps”—each of us with his own values, which cannot be overcome or integrated. This I believe to be false. But I do believe that there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek, and that these values differ… And the difference it makes is that if a man pursues one of these values, I, who do not, am able to understand why he pursues it or what it would be like, in his circumstances, for me to be induced to pursue it. Hence the possibility of human understanding….”The enemy of pluralism is monism—the ancient belief that there is a single harmony of truths into which everything, if it is genuine, in the end must fit… that those who know should command those who do not. Those who know the answers to some of the great problems of mankind must be obeyed, for they alone know how society should be organized, how individual lives should be lived, how culture should be developed.

“This is the old Platonic belief in the philosopher-kings, who were entitled to give orders to others. There have always been thinkers who hold that if only scientists, or scientifically trained persons, could be put in charge of things, the world would be vastly improved. To this I have to say that no better excuse, or even reason, has ever been propounded for unlimited despotism on the part of an elite which robs the majority of its essential liberties.

“Someone once remarked that in the old days men and women were brought as sacrifices to a variety of gods; for these, the modern age has substituted the new idols: isms. To cause pain, to kill, to torture are in general rightly condemned; but if these things are done not for my personal benefit but for an ism—socialism, nationalism, fascism, communism, fanatically held religious belief, or progress, or the fulfillment of the laws of history—then they are in order.

“Most revolutionaries believe, covertly or overtly, that in order to create the ideal world eggs must be broken, otherwise one cannot obtain an omelette. Eggs are certainly broken—never more violently than in our times—but the omelette is far to seek, it recedes into an infinite distance. That is one of the corollaries of unbridled monism, as I call it—some call it fanaticism, but monism is at the root of every extremism.”

The election-stealers and the demagogues in DC now tell us we have to fall into line with their brand of intolerant monism, or risk being accused of supporting an overseas gang’s brand of intolerant monism. This situation blantantly stinks. We must demand better, and millions of us are doing so.

But while you protest, ask yourself what type of “regime change” you’d like to see in the US. I’ve read a lot of “radical” political schemes and utopian dreams over the years. Most of them would require a “benevolent dictator” or philosopher-king, or a ruling caste of philosopher-kings. Even some of the Eugene anarchists of WTO infamy want to make everybody conform to a single way of life (even down to what clothes we’d be allowed to wear and which foods we’d be allowed to eat).

I wish I knew who first wrote the old cliché, “One man’s utopia is another man’s dystopia” (or reign or terror, or just plain hell). We’ve gotta get the country out of its current, ultra-stupid situation. But there’s a larger task beyond that—helping build a nation, and a world, that’s more friendly toward real pluralism, real diversity, real debate, and real complexities.

A lot will have to change to make that happen. And it’s the kind of change that can’t be accomplished just by putting somebody in charge to order changes.

AN EDITORIAL in the NYC suburban paper Newsday offers some serious, detailed, far more viable options to an Iraq war—if the right-wingers have any actual goals other than going to war under whatever excuse is at hand.

Amid the ongoing ickiness of war and rumors of war, Shuttle Explosion II came along to remind us that American techno-might does not equal invincibility; that Americans can needlessly die horrific deaths at the hands of their own government’s wrong decisions (such as NASA’s chronic corner-cutting), with no overseas enemies involved.

If the deaths of these six Americans (one of whom was born in India) and one Israeli have any meaning at all, it will be to help dissuade a few more citizens from blind faith in their government and its promises.

WHILE MUCH OF THE NATION was being reminded about the frailty of technology, I spent the weekend (when I wasn’t moving the print MISC into stores) being reminded about the eternal strength of the plain ol’ human body, at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival at Town Hall (a former Christian Science church). There’ve been countless erotic-art group exhibitions in town before, but never this big or this well-publicized.

The Friday-night opening and auction left over 150 people lined up outside waiting for the chance to enter the filled-to-capacity auditorium. Once inside, many patrons removed jackets to reveal the requested “provocative” attire. (Signs were posted at all doors leading to other parts of the building, announcing “CLOTHING REQUIRED Beyond This Point.”)

There were guys in leather chaps or Utilikilts or puffy pirate shirts. There were ladies in thong bikinis with body paint, or thongs and burlesque pasties beneath see-thru dresses, or vinyl hot pants and ’70s-esque knit halter tops. There were lots of corsets and other cleavage enhancers. The wearers of these costumes (some of whom were older and/or wider than the standard “model material”) all glowed with the pride of being admired, being desired.

There was a glorious vibe in the air of joyous celebration, of taking a vacation from winter blahs and sharing a form of instant intimacy with several hundred other adults. Unlike much of the “sex industry” (porn, strip clubs, advice manuals, etc.), there was no mercenary hard-sell attitude; not among the viewers and exhibitors and not even in most of the art.

There were 80 or so artworks on auction night, and over 200 artworks in the subsequent weekend exhibit. (About half the auction pieces were also on display the following two days.)

The artworks themselves encompassed most of the popular visual-art media. There were photos, paintings, drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and collages, in all sizes and shapes.

The subject matter of the works hewed close to a rather narrow variety of scenes, rather than the full possibilities of erotic expression.

There were many solo “figure studies” of women and men of assorted adult ages, nude or in fetish garb.

There were many bondage scenes, of a woman or man either tied up alone or being disciplined by an always-female dominant.

There were scenes of kissing and/or groping among lesbian, gay-male, and even a few hetero couples.

There were two or three scenes of fellatio, but none of cunnilingus.

There were no scenes of what used to be called “the sex act,” hetero intercourse. (One of the event’s organizers told me no such scenes were submitted.) The only penetrative sex shown was in a large painting of a gay orgy. (Once again, I thought, the Seattle art world’s reverse double standards were more open to gay-male sexuality than to straight-male sexuality.)

My first thought about the prevelance bondage art: “It’s just so 1998.” Some of the S/M scenes depicted the attitude of aggressive egomania that helped make the dot-com era so annoying. Others seemed intended to be “shock art,” as if we were still living in an era before there were adult novelty stores in half the nation’s strip malls.

But others recognized a more playful spirit to role-playing. Although the exhibition’s contributing artists come from all over North America, I pondered whether I was seeing the birth of a particularly Nor’Western flavor of erotica, and what that could be.

I decided it would be an erotica based on playfulness, closeness, and comfort. Instead of the “are we being transgressive yet?” bombast found in much NY/Calif. “alternative” sex art, or the artsy pretensions found in much Euro sex art, NW sex art would acknowledge that people have been having sex since before we were born, and having all assorted types of sex to boot. Het, lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, pain/pleasure, monogamous, nonmonogamous, multi-partner, solo, etc. etc.—none of it’s outré, all of it’s fun for those who’re into it. It’s all about connecting with other bodies and souls, keeping warm and passionate during the dreary winter days, being creative and positive, gentle and brash.

Sidebar: Before the exhibition, I’d seen the video Sex Across America #8: Seattle. It’s part of a series in which some hard-porn performers and their camera crew travel to different cities. This one featured hotel-room sex scenes taped in the (unnamed but obvious) Seattle Sheraton, Edgewater, and Inn at the Market, plus a billiards bar I’m sure I’ve been to under other circumstances; as well as clothed tourist scenes at the Space Needle, the Pike Place Market, and around Fourth and Pike.

While merely location-shot here by LA porn-biz people, the sex is a lot closer to personalized lovemaking than to most of the emotionless hot-action usually found in LA corporate porn. Especially in the final scene, with a real-life local couple (who’d previously appeared in an “amateur” sex video for the same director). Prior to showing off their well-practiced lovin’ technique, the couple’s female half is interviewed by the director: “So I hear the women in Seattle are really horny,” he says. The woman smiles back, “Yes! It’s all the moisture.” It’s a cute, charming prelude to some cute, charming nooky.

So there can indeed be a Northwestern eroticism. Another, more vital question: Can eroticism save the world, as has been pondered on this site and elsewhere?

The answer, like so much involving sex, is complicated.

The wide-open decadence of Berlin and Paris in the ’30s didn’t prevent the Nazis. Indeed, these scenes were among the Nazis’ first targets.

The ’60s hedonism didn’t do much to stop the Vietnam war or prevent the rise of Nixon’s gang.

The ’70s cult of individual pleasure merely foreshadowed the upscale “lifestyle” fetish of more recent times.

But a strong, supportive gay community, built largely around sexual enjoyment (and around demanding the right to it) is the dominant reason new AIDS infections have been stemmed in urban North America.

And today’s most pressing social problems all have sensually-based potential solutions.

Both fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity seek to repress sex, as part of authoritarian ideologies encouraging obedience and disconnectedness.

Today’s war fever is profoundly anti-sexual, promoting cold ruthless ambition at the expense of almost everything to do with freedom or compassion.

Our contracting economy keeps most of us shackled and frustrated, while rewarding a tiny elite of whip-lashing doms.

The suburban landscape is a wasteland of beauty-deprived arterial roads and subdivisions keeping people apart and isolated.

Sex and erotica, by themselves, won’t solve any of these. A consumerist, self-centered definition of sex could even help these problems get worse.

But it’d sure help if more people used sensuality as a way to become more aware of the world around them, and if more people used sexual intimacy and to learn how to empathically bond with people, to help bring back a sense of community.

And, of course, sex is always a good way to advertise a progressive movement. Spread the joy, share the (consensual) love, propose a world of more satisfying possibilities, and have tons-O-fun doing it.

Come out of the shadows and into the warm pink light.

…at the US administration that could only be printed in Britain, by John Le Carre and Harold Pinter.

…this is the next-to-last day for America, what with the deliberate official drives for more wars, more pollution, more social injustice, and more of just about everything that’s bad for everybody but George Dubious’s zillionaire cronies.

HERE’S YET ANOTHER, more lucid and better argued, critique of the US media, by the website most learned Bush-opponents have adopted as their favorite source for US government news—the UK paper The Guardian.

A LOYAL READER going by the moniker The Raven asked me to pass this tidbit on to y’all:

Hi Clark:I propose to rename the USA to “Anglosaxland,” basing on the following reason:

As everyone knows, our “great” leader Richard Cheney told, after GOP “won” the election, that finally this is the land of Anglo-Saxons, and therefore the stolen election was not stolen at all.

BTW, this very Cheney is Norman by origin, descendant of those who conquered these very Anglosaxons in 11th century. Please submit your ideas on how to rename the USA in connection with this, to theraven@linkeseite.zzn.com.

The Raven

I haven’t heard of the statement from which the above correspondent is quoting. I have, of course, heard of the Norman conquests that temporarily drove the proto-Brits into northwestern France (and of The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn’s too-clever-for-its-own-good ’70s play about a hapless Brit middle-class philanderer).

The title of Michael Moore’s movie The Big One came from his facetious suggestion of that as a new name for the nation. I’ve heard other suggestions in recent years, such as “The Home Office” and “Home of the Whopper” (not to mention the ol’ standby “Amerikkka”).

None of these fully express (and perhaps no one name can express) my vision of Usonia (a name derived from Frank Lloyd Wright) as a big polyglot mongrel mishmosh of ethnic, lingual, religious, and subcultural cliques, all under the increasingly heavy thumb of the corporate overlords and their wholly-owned politicians. If you’ve got an idea, let me and the Raven know.

FOR SEEMINGLY EVER, the right-wing sleaze machine has dismissed liberals and progressives as naysayers, doomsdayers, and what Spiro Agnew called “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Commentator Jeff Madrick opts to disagree. He claims the politicians who claim there are inevitable limits to what we can do for our people and our land, who dismiss as unviable any attempts to improve the lot of the nonrich, are the real pessimists. Those of us who believe this nation must and can do better are the real optimists.

In this regard, the spring print MISC will be all about the “Positive/Negative and Other Opposites.” We’ve interviewed a self-help promoter about thinking your way to a better life. We’re going to interview an author-editor who wants leftists to focus more on promoting positive solutions, rather than settling for protesting and complaining. A metaphysical expert’s tentatively slated to write a piece about the “love based reality” vs. the “fear based reality.”

As usual, your contributions are also most welcome. Email your ideas now.

And the winter print MISC is just a few pages from completion and should be in subscribers’ mailboxes and at select retail outlets any week now.

One thing we’ve learned from the five-month stretch it took to make this “quarterly”: Yr. humble editor can no longer do the whole job. So we could really use more artists, designers, ad sellers and biz-side folks, not just writers. Wanna help out: Contact the email addy above.

…email me links to the same site, I know there’s a buzz goin’ on. Such is the case with DubyaDubyaDubya, a Flash animation comparing the ongoing political-military nonsense with a home-electronics breakdown.

THERE’VE BEEN MANY long, ponderous anti-Bush screeds in UK papers lately. This one claims many Republicans don’t want to go as far rightward as Bush, correctly fearing a less-than-completely-triumphant outcome to an Iraq war could bring long-planned schemes for permanent Republican hegemony to collapse.