We are stardust, we are golden

we are billion year old carbon

and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden

- Jonie Mitchell, “Woodstock”

Ferrets are more determined than they are bright. Case in point being my own pet ferret, Rosie. Rosie explores nooks and crannies with the unrestrained zeal of a fanatic. Wikipedia tells me that ferrets have been domesticated (they are the domesticated version of the polecat) since perhaps the time of Socrates and Buddha, and all that breeding – for going down holes, for ferreting out pest rodents – has resulted in a lovable freak of nature that behaves nearly suicidally in its compulsion to know, KNOW!, what’s down that hole, or in that crevice! Even if that hole leads to a drop off of ten or more feet (that’s like a twenty story building to a ferret), and a fatal fall, the only thing that will stop a ferret is the loving, exasperated hand of its owner. We can’t understand ferrets in this regard; it’s something they “just gotta”.

Or perhaps we can understand them, and all too well at that. My thoughts are now linked with those of so many others as we contemplate the unspeakable tragedy that is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. As the oil spews out from a mile below, it is staggering to consider how technology has been so horrifyingly misapplied in this instance. Explorers were able, through sophisticated devices, to discover that there is a vast reservoir of oil out there beyond sight of land. Engineers developed machinery that can dig through solid rock, another mile below the ocean floor, in order to get at that reservoir. Because we “just gotta” have that oil! Cruelly ironic that we have developed astounding technology in order to drill through bedrock, but have not developed applications to produce or harvest energy that doesn’t send the environment, our one and only home planet, down a tailspin of degradation. Humans, like ferrets, are more determined than they are bright.

Lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide. It turns out that that is a myth. The whole myth developed like a meme in reaction to some wildlife footage shot in the mid 1950s, and televised frequently thereafter, for a Disney-produced wildlife documentary. Multiple generations watched in horror, on their upholstered couches (and I was among them) as a mass desperation forced the pathetic critters to fling themselves out over a cliff, into the cold, cruel sea, where they swam a futile swim to exhaustion and a watery death. This was a culling process of nature, we were taught to believe; that as their population exploded beyond a certain point, instinct forced them into behavior that they would never otherwise consider, as if a switch had been thrown by Mother Nature. The footage itself, and how it was presented, was hokum. First of all, the “documentary” aspect of the scene that fused itself in our brains has been challenged. The animals we saw were herded, it is now alleged. The rush hour subway density of lemmings was staged in order to heighten their panic. Lemmings do behave radically when their population exceeds a certain quotient. They do fan out in all directions in search of new habitat. They do, if they encounter a body of water, jump in, in order to explore the land, and its food potential, on the other side. But lemmings are very good swimmers. More often that not, as in WAY more often than not, the majority of them reach the other side. Therefore, the fact that they were transported to an inhospitable coast by filmmakers is all the more ghastly. Those critters thought they had a good chance of crossing over, because in a natural situation, they would have. Alas, this all too convenient, and frequently used, metaphor for our own existential situation is forced and inaccurate. We do not have allies among our fellow animals (or at least if we do, it is not the misunderstood lemming) in plunging carelessly toward our own demise. We as a mammalian species are alone in engaging in obviously suicidal behavior, with the concomitant collateral side effect of taking billions of other life forms with us.

And there can be no mistake, this IS the direction we are heading. One of Einstein’s most famous quotes is that problems cannot be solved at the level of consciousness at which they were created, and yet many hasten to assure us that technology, for all the devastation it has wrought since the Industrial Revolution, is nevertheless the solution to the ills we face today. Apparently, according to this way of thinking, it is now incumbent upon our technology to transform itself into Superman, and rescue us from the death trap its Lex Luthor alter ego has placed us in. Uh….right.

Technology is not the answer. Nor is it the problem, per se, so much as it is a symptom. There is a sickness affecting humanity that threatens our very survival as a species. We have lost touch with our center, our very DNA, and are behaving as if we are not part of this earth any more. We base our way of life on a system that will stop working in less time than the duration between now and Shakespeare. It is utter madness, but we go about our lives as if it will all work out somehow. We are the true “lemmings”, and our divorce from our naturalness will not, and cannot possibly be, solved by forcing ourselves even deeper into the ouroboros that is the left hemisphere of our brain, there to extract ever newer technologies to serve as antidotes to the technologies that are being run with such destructive consequences in our modern civilization.

Our survival as a species has nothing to do with technological geekery or, as some technophiles have suggested, “heading out to the stars”. Imagine the audacity! We trash life on this planet, but hey, it’s okay, so long as we learn to cultivate our own moon, or the moons of Jupiter or wherever. The very fact that some would consider this to be a solution is indicative itself that something is really wrong with our current mindset. A species, a contributing member of the biosphere and completely dependent on it, deluding itself that it can pick up and move elsewhere if need be. The Sufis advise us to “be in the world but not of it”. Sound advice when its meaning relates to an individual striving for peace of mind. But for the human race as a collective, the admonition should be, “Be in the world and don’t forget for a moment that YOU ARE OF IT!” Ours has been a history of pulling ourselves out of the real Matrix, the impeccable miracle that is our planet’s propensity to, generously, host ecosystems based on the simplest and most brilliant of exchanges – oxygen for carbon dioxide, food for fertilizer, death for life – and placing ourselves in an unreal Matrix that weakens us fundamentally and threatens us existentially. And we must learn how to stop.

Surely Tokyo, where I live, is one of the most wasteful cities on the entire planet. The foods that are thrown away each day, the electricity used in the neon light signs and giant televisions advertising bubblegum pop music in front of the major train stations; the air conditioners blasting out from four million domiciles in the summer, raising the temperature two degrees (Celsius) higher than outside the city; the appliances and computers and cellphones that are pitched and replaced rather than repaired, etc.; taken together this would easily provide enough food and energy and sundries to supply a city of a million or more people each day. And yet, a mere hundred and fifty odd years ago, Tokyo, or as it was then called, Edo, was a very different place altogether. It was, as has been suggested in a book by novelist/historian Eisuke Ishikawa titled “The Edo Period had a Recycling Society”, the most environmentally efficient city on the face of the earth. The Japanese of Old Edo were not self consciously preserving their environment so much as they were subconsciously aware of themselves as part of the environment. Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the commercial use of “night soil”, a lovely euphemism for human excrement, as a fertilizer. If you were to go back to Edo and stop by a roadside teahouse, you might meet a man who would proudly tell you, “I sell shit”. And why not be proud? While Europeans were risking plague at every turn, throwing their raw sewage out onto the street, the Japanese were living healthily and sanitarily, giving their produce back to the earth, so that it could continue to yield its produce for their use. This is the way of things, it is what Nature teaches us, and yet it is something that we have forgotten. Instead, we eat chemically fertilized foods, laced with pesticides and denuded of nutrients, and dump (literally) that into our water supply, of all places! We have night soil for brains, it seems!

We have to, metaphorically if not literally, return to the wilds and become creatures of the forest again. In a forest, absolutely nothing is wasted. Not air, not sunlight, not a drop of rain or sweat, not a carcass or a pellet of shit. A forest can run, continually rejuvenating itself, for millennia, once a system is set in place. In a place called Gaviotas, in Colombia, a group of scientists and environmental engineers figured out a way to put a rainforest back where the desert had encroached, and not by simply planting trees. They built it up from the ground floor, beginning with the small plants that would have originally grown there, and moving forward incrementally. Almost miraculously, the birds began to appear as if from nowhere. And the lizards, and the rodents. Over time, the forest was back, and all its creatures were working in harmony. Gaia knew what to do, and just needed a nudge.

I am not idealizing forest life as if it is some sort of trans-species hippiefest waiting to welcome us back. In any given clump of dirt in a forest that you may happen to pick up with your bare hand, an atrocity is occuring. The little things of this planet dispense with each other in ways so gruesome and cruel that they would blush the faces of the most depraved Medieval torturer. It can easily be surmised that the very terrors of the natural world have impacted our psychology and seeded our destructiveness. We needed to learn to use our brains for protection, for offense and defense. We would not have survived had we not learned to attack, fight for our very lives, take without asking. It’s part of who we are and it was bequeathed to us by Gaia. We are her legacy. Nevertheless, that is not an excuse to stay on our present course as it leads down a road toward extinction. We can use our minds to imagine, and create, a new Eden. Our children can be the butterflies and birds that spread the seeds and nectar, through their vigor and curiosity. Our senior citizens can be the massive sycamores that hold the very life of the forest in their hearts and minds. Every one of us must discover our place in this new “human forest” before we can reintegrate ourselves with the broader ecosystem both on our terms and its. Because what we are really wasting more than anything is our minds, and what we are destroying is our humanness. We have to remember what that means first, to be human. If we want to be sane again.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

The day is here.  What memories do you have of this day?  Do you remember a kindness that you and your father shared?  A secret you cherished, one your siblings did not know?  An ice cream cone he bought you?  Playing catch?  Your Dad meeting your date?  The hug he gave you. Teaching you to swim, ride a bike, read a book…….?

I was my Father’s caregiver the last couple months of his life and I think it was the closest we ever were in our lives.  Since that time , Fathers Day means more to me now than when he was alive.

Share a thought with us or just post him your wishes.

I have many memories I could share but just to start his day off, here’s a one of the good ones.

Perhaps the most lasting influence my Father had on me was his involvement in the Union (first picket line at and the Democratic Party (first election at 9), and a “need” to help improve  working peoples lives.  But on to a story….

This story has to do with a gift my Father gave to me.  A gift I am quite sure he never knew he gave me.
My dads work required him to be on call all the time, we never knew when he would be working and when he would be off.  When I was in high school I was involved in sports, one of them being “Track & Field”, one of his H.S. activities.
On certain days my dad would get off work, and instead of going home (or to the bar) he would stop by either my practice or a meet.  I would be occupied in the practice, look up and just happen to see him there talking to my coaches, or if it was a meet, catch a glimpse of him cheering me on, there on top of the fourth corner.  Nothing was ever said later and I never told him how much it meant to me.  Such a little thing.  But it felt as if he was saying “I care about you- I’m proud of my son.”  I have thought about that for many years and it always gives me a warm feeling. Just that little gesture.  Unknown to anyone but me.

I know fathers Day is highly controversial and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.

Oh, I’m a good old rebel,
Now that’s just what I am,
And for this yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I’m glad I fought agin ‘er
I only wish we won.
I ain’t asked any pardon for anything I’ve done.

I hates the yankee nation and everything they do.
I hates the declaration of independence, too.
I hates the glorious union, just dripping with our blood.
I hates the striped banner, and fit it all I could

I road with Robert E. Lee,
For three years, thereabout.
Got wounded in four places,
And I starved at point lookout.
I caught the rheumatism
Campin’ in the snow.
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I’d like to kill some more.

3 hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in southern dust.
We got 3 hundred thousand
Before they conquered us
They died of Southern Fever
And southern steel and shot
I wish there were 3 million
Instead of what we got.
I can’t pick up my musket
And fight ‘um down no more
But I ain’t gonna love ‘um
Now that is certain sure
And I don’t want no pardon
For what I was and am
I won’t be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn

Oh, I’m a good old rebel,
Now that’s just what I am,
And for this yankee nation,
I do not give a damn.
I’m glad I fought agin ‘er,
I only wish we won.
I ain’t asked any pardon for anything I’ve done.

As many times as I’ve heard/read those lyrics, I still get a chill when I consider the tremendous bitterness that went into their composition.

Did the Confederacy that this “Good Ole Rebel” fought for gradually fade away and disappear between 1865 and the end of the 19th century? Or has the South risen again? Are we living in an era of nascent  Neo-Confederacy? Are Southern cultural values finding their way into the national psyche?

The first question might be: what are Southern Cultural values?

A number of studies would include the following traits:

A high value placed upon personal honor and a willingness to use violence to defend it.

Religious conservatism.

Strictly defined hierarchy in family life, with males in the dominant or leadership position, and women and children subservient.

Distrust of formal governmental institutions and law enforcement.

High value placed on gun ownership and the ability to use weapons.

High value placed on property ownership and respect for the rights of property owners.

Mistrust of “outsiders” and hostility toward racial, ethnic, religious and cultural groups considered “inferior.”

Are we experiencing the 21st century “Southernization” of American culture? If the Republican Party has its way, the answer would be “yes.”

Matthew Iglesias, after noting how many Southern whites believe that Barack Obama was not born in this country (a considerably higher percentage than white in other regions) comments:

“I think Republicans have basically given up on the battle of trying to win more Hispanics over to their side. Which leaves them with the medium-term objective of trying to get non-southern whites to act more like southern whites.”

When we take a look at the characteristics of Southern culture noted above, how many of them sound familiar compared  to the Tea Party “values” of 2010?

Do people like Joe Wilson, who felt safe in shouting “You lie!” to an African-American president, or Joe Barton, who abjectly apologized to the CEO of BP for the “shakedown” he had allegedly “suffered” at the hands of Barack Obama — both from Southern states — represent the attitude of Southern states toward our current government?

A Louisiana State University study on the roots of Southern violence makes a connection between religion and violence in the South:

“The religious beliefs of the Scots-Irish immigrants also played a role in theirhigh rates of violence. They were the predecessors of the fundamentalist Christians of today, they were considered the first radicals in America (Webb 2005) Some
research suggests the favorable attitudes toward violence may have its historical
and contemporary roots in the fundamentalist, Protestant religious culture of the
South. It has been argued this religious world view lends support to the
legitimization of both formal violence, e.g., capital punishment, and informal justice
done by the hands of the populace due to low levels of formal social control agencies
that, though perhaps illegal, has, or at least had historically, a source of
legitimization in the religious culture (Borg 1977; Ellison , Burr, and McCall 2003;
Ellison and Sherkat 1993).”

The Republican Party, the religious right and the Tea Party, whether they overtly claim it or not, are increasingly finding their base in the South and their roots in Southern culture. And they’re in an evangelical mood these days.

The Huffington Post has gone Vegas.

It has instituted a clever way to have commenters engage in what can only be seen as a form of slot machine gambling.  I noticed this  after learning HP had started some kind of  “badges” system.  I visited the site and saw a curious form of differentiation occurring amongst the commenters.  Now there were  symbols next to the individual members which served as an additional set of descriptors.  It gave the promise  of  a member becoming  something of a  Huffington Eagle Scout skilled in all sorts of communications Huffington.  As far as I could tell, if you tweeted Huffington, Face Booked Huffington, networked Huffington by smoke signal and semaphore, you could obtain a badge of some sort.  As Questinia, I saw I had a badge.  A level 1 badge of some sort.  It meant something. Although I found out what it meant in the badge identifying page, I  forgot what it means.

BUT! As I was observing the merry calvacade of HP all-stars, trolls,  data plodders, the marginalized and the up and coming, I saw my badge had been taken away! What had I done?  I reviewed my comments as tried and true Questinia and saw nothing that merited the  demerit of  badge removal.   I promptly inquired HP as to why my badge had been taken away with a modicum of feeling pathetic.   But,  as a “good girl” with my reinforcements of yore including a brief stint in Catholic school,  I responded to this virtual punishment with pique;  without explanation, I was duly given back my badge.  It was odd, but I realized they had gotten me to modify my  behavior (caring to ask what happened) by tapping into my school-girl’s deeper parochial brain. Now, I was intrigued.

A parallel phenomenon appeared to be taking hold at HP:  That of whirlwind fanning.  Members were now fanning one another in declaratives “I Fan You!”.  “Faved and Fanned!”, etc…  giving the site an air of part boy’s High School locker room high fiving after a big team win and a ceremony of title bequeathing.  It seemed partially gratuitous, as genuine appreciation, as a new form of LMAO, at times as a form of barter, as a way to give a message, as a way to get back at someone.  Even as sex.   I saw one fanner write “I am fanning you SO HARD right now!!”.  My only hope was that the person getting fanned wasn’t getting fanned in the fanny.

I thought HP was engaging in some sort of blog site social experiment while possibly driving up it’s membership and number of comments made.  Some moderator in the backroom must be earning a PhD.  So I thought of conducting a simple experiment of my own.  I began to play with socks to see how people would respond to various personae.  What came out of it was somewhat interesting.  All the socks attracted different people.  Although I tried to keep the tone of my posts similar, it was clear  that different personae attracted different people and they were duly fanned and faved.   Then, for some reason, I found myself wanting more fans.  I wanted to hit a payload of fan accolades.  I wanted to see if I could increase my odds of getting repeatedly fanned, good and proper.  I wanted an all out gang-fan. I wondered why I was feeling this way.  What became clear to me was the site is now set up as a smoky Vegas slot hall with intermittent reinforcement keeping posters more or less compulsively commenting.  Now, HP was always that way to an extent, but one couldn’t overlook the muted mid-brow frenzy of fanning, and faving and flagging.  All in the presence of croupier moderators.  But, in the olden days a fan was hard earned and was more or less disconnected from the comment timewise.

You remember intermittent reinforcement.  It’s what gets people searching for that high, it’s what keeps gamblers hoping for that big win, it’s what certain unscrupulous men use on women as “fractionation”:  That deadly and effective psycho-strategy of paying incredibly focused  attention to the objects of their desire then suddenly and without warning withdrawing.  It’s the push-pull.  It gets women into bed in a heartbeat.  It’s all based on that form of learned responses called operant conditioning.  An operant is a modifying condition which changes a behavior.  With positive reinforcement, the desired behavior is always matched with a reward, say a rat always gets the pellet.  It is an easy behavior to extinguish since the rat begins to always expect the reward and therefore becomes a bit blasé to begin with.  When the reward ceases to be forthcoming the rat goes “meh”.  The negative reinforcement schedule is essentially one where the desired behavior is reinforced and learned by averting a punishment, say an electric shock to a rat’s front privates.  These types of paradigms are continuous.  That is to say, a behavior is always met with a reward, either a positive one or a negative/averting unpleasantness one.  Each of these forms of learning are fairly easy to extinguish.  Simply uncouple the behavior and the reward and the behavior decays over time.

However, with intermittent reinforcement, there is discontinuous rewarding.  It is intermittent.  It can occur after every fifth attempt at obtaining a reward, or tenth , under certain light conditions, after different amounts of lapsed time.  The most important feature of intermittent reinforcement is that it is very difficult to extinguish.  It provides the foundation for obsession and compulsive behaviors.  Under continuous reinforced learning, the behavior to be extinguished is never given the reward. Therefore it is easy to stop.   However in intermittent reinforcement, the subject has become used to going for periods of time without a reward so they will continue to engage in it.

My goal was to make the intermittent reinforcement a more positive continuous one by making me more irresistibly fannable. One in which I would  nearly always get a fan.  For that, I had to strategize what name, avatar and type of comment I should use.  I chose a furry, cute, dysmorphically dwarfed,  creamy orange kitten with  parted red Clara Bow, blowing-kisses-lips on a baby blue blanket.  It’s name was to be a shamelessly manipulative play on pity-fuck.  I named it Pity-Fan Me.  As to type of comment,  I chose humorous, punny or sarcastic.  Sometimes abstruse and esoterically knowing.  Occasionally precious.  The name and moniker alone gave me a shower of fans.  Nearly everything I wrote was faved.  Mostly,  people commented on how cute my avi was.  I increased my odds by leaving overly serious main threads and  by repairing to posts like “Tokio Hotel Band member OD’s on Viagra”.  It worked.

I decided then to have a goal which would make the entire fanning system appear absurd all the while earning me more and more fans.  I declared to the bloggers that I wanted to accumulate more fans than Hume Skeptic.  That I wanted to initiate a “Fan Drive”.  At least I wanted to outdo Rich Misty or Thunderclap Newman.  I even went up to Hume and taunted him  by saying I was on his heels  ( I SHOULD have said fanny!)  and I had only 2, 243 more fans to go.  So…he fanned me.  To make things fair, I fanned him back.  I got a few fans from people who evidently had some hidden animosity toward  Mr. Skeptic.  Even though I obtained many fans that way, my trifecta winning moment came when I composed a poem about oil fuck-up Oynes called “Oynty Doynty”.  I got about five fans in a single swoop.  I was batting .500.  I had roughly 50 fans at 100 comments, but then lost a few for some reason when I got cocky and wrote “Hello my name is Pity-Fan Me and I am a fanaholic”.  Maybe I was hitting too close to home.  In keeping with my shamelessness,  I then shored my fan number with a reinforcement of my old socks just to pad the numbers.  So what?  I cheated.  I don’t run any NIH studies so don’t worry.  The point is, I found myself commenting more and more. When the magic seemed to be  wearing thin,  I commented more foolishly and desperately.  Saying things that Pity-fan wouldn’t write.  After eight un-fanned comments, I noticed I was on a losing streak.  Since I am by nature not an addictive person I quit while I was ahead and didn’t waste any more of my time.

And because I am also very familiar with the power of  intermittent fanning, I got bored.

Pity-Fan Me.

During and right after the mortgage crisis some were talking about the commercial crash and how that would soon hit.  At the time I thought, in a tunnel vision sort of way, Commercial Real Estate, which could be partially true but that would not even be considered the medium banana.  To get a sense of where the next credit problem is festering, think Private Equity(PE) Firms.  The crash is likely to happen because of Leveraged BuyOuts that have put many well-known companies in serious debt.  This excerpt is from “The Buyout of America”, a book by Josh Kosman:

It is late 2011 months before President Obama will run for reelection.  The U.S. economy is gradually recovering from four years of hovering on the brink of disaster.  Banks are lending money again, at least to strong companies and employment is stabilizing.

President Obama has finally begun to breathe a bit more easily, when the Secretary of the Treasury walks into his office one day.  “You better sit down,” the secretary says, “I’ve got bad news.  First Data, the largest merchant credit card processor, has defaulted on $22 billion in loans.  Clear Channel Communications which owns more than 1200 radio stations is on the brink.  The other credit tsunami that we knew was out there has begun”…….

“Considering what we have already been through, how bad can it be?” asks Obama  “Well”, says the Treasury Secratary, “PE firms  own companies that employ nearly 7.5 million Americans.  Half of those companies, with 3.75 million workers, will collapse between 2012 and 2015.  Assuming that those businesses file for bankruptcy and fire only 50 percent of their workers, that leaves 1.875 million out of jobs.  To put that in perspective, Mr President, NAFTA caused the displacement of fewer than 1 million workers, and only a slightly higer 2.6 million people lost jobs in 2008 when the recession took hold.”   A spike in unemployment will mean more people will lose their homes in foreclosure, and the resulting nosedive in consumer spending will threaten other businesses.  The bankruptcies will also hit the banks that have financed LBO’s and the hedge funds, pensions and insurers who have bought many of those loans from them.”

“Is this bigger than the subprime crisis?”

“It is similar in size to the subprime crisis meltdown.  In 2007, there were 1.3 trillion of outstanding subprime mortgages.  As a result of leveraged buyouts, U.S. companies owe about 1 trillion.  Sir, we are on the verge of the Next Great Credit Crisis”

President Obama is no longer smiling.

This picture painted by the Treasury Secretary is not total fantasy, nor is it worst-case scenario.  There are people in the financial world, including the head of restructuring at one of the biggest banks, who predict this outcome.  Some knowledgable observers predict the carnage will start sooner.

So, how will these Private Equity firms contribute to such a scenario?  PE firms buy companies with other people’s money by structuring the acquisitions like mortgages, but not quite like the average American would take out a mortgage.  PE firms have the company they are buying take out the loan for the acquisitions, making the company responsible for re-payment.  The PE puts down cash equal to 30 to 40% of the purchase price and the acquired company borrows the rest in what is termed as a Leveraged Buy Out(LBO).  From 2000 to 2007 PE’s bought firms that employed nearly 10% of the private sector(10 million people).  These loans taken out by the companies have balloon payments due 6-8 years down the line.  In the meantime, the PE manages the company and because there is little risk to them, they do not manage for long term success, they usually will turn around and sell the company five years down the line.  But while they are managing the company, they are also collecting management fees.  They are always looking for ways to cut costs and they usually do so by downsizing, selling off divisions, replacing current management, cutting back on customer service, raising prices and turning up production with fewer employees and cutting corners on the finished product.  With these cost cutting measures, they could re-invest back into the company, but they use those cost cutting measures instead to bring up the value of the company.  When they sell, it is not because they have actually brought up the market value by investing and growing the company, but rather by cutting back.  They manage to satisfy short term greed, not long term survival.

To give you an example of what could happen in a worst case scenario, Mervyn’s and Linens n Things were both LBO’s and both have filed for Bankruptcy and liquidated within the past few years.  With Mervyns the PE was only really interested in their real estate holdings.  When they started managing the first thing they did was to split the company, retail side and real estate side.  For many years Mervyns had succeeded because of their real estate holdings.  After the LBO, the retail side was barely solvent.  They had assets of $674mm and liabilities of $664 mm and were left with negative capital unable to pay debts of $22mm.  On the real estate side they borrowed $800 mm and increased the pressure on the retail side by raising rents to market value in order to pay back the loan.  Rents went from $80mm to $172mm and they closed 33% of the stores.  In the meantime, the PE took dividends and distributions of $400mm (which was taken away from the original loan).  The retail side tried to obtain financing to work out of the BK but could not secure because they no longer had the real estate to back the loan.  When Mervyns closed their doors in 2008, they let go approximately 18,000 workers with no severance and no vacation pay.  Mervyns could have survived if not for the rental increases.  The PE responsible for all this and who took no losses was Sun Capital Partners.  Apollo Management did the LBO for Linens n Things.  They received $15mm in transaction fees, plus $2mm per year management fees.  In the space of 2 years, LNT filed bankruptcy closing 589 stores and letting 17,500 employees go.

You are probably asking why a company would do this and why the banks would loan the money on these acquisitions.  The banks, just like in the subprime crisis, lent the money because they knew they were going to package the loans up(80%) and sell to another buyer down the line while collecting the fees for the exorbitant loans.  The tax loopholes that make this damaging activity possible have never been closed.  The company can treat the debt similar to capital expenditures – as an expense deducted from profits through depreciation tax schedules, greatly reducing their tax burden.  In an ideal situation, the company could use that savings to pay down the loan but new management is usually brought in to run the company and it does not happen.  In general the PE will also look at the company as “parts more valuable than the sum of the whole” and sell off piece by piece.

Beatrice, who owned Samsonite, Tropicana, Peter Pan PB, Avis, Swift, Wesson and CocaCola bottling plants was broken up in just such a transaction.  Because the principle for the loans for these acquisitions are not due until between 2012 and 2104 and most issued bonds due in several years rather than pay the interest, underfunded pensions that are counting on PE firms to save them are going to be in bigger trouble than they are now.  In 2006 when speciality retailers, Burlington, Michaels and PETCO took out such loans, Moody’s gave them a B2 rating which means ”assurance of loan compliance over any long period of time might be small.”  They said these companies would probably not be able to pay the loans within 1000 years let alone 6-8.  For another example of an LBO gone wrong, go to Wiki and take a look at MGM Studios.  Prior to reading this book, I would have looked at their recent troubles and thought, “Boy are they mismanaging things”.  But that is not the case, the PE is the one who is mismanaging things and a grand old tradition in Hollywood is being eaten up piece by piece.  Warner Records, founders of Atlantic, Electra and Warner have also been the subject of an LBO and have seen the company broken up.  First Data Resurces was also taken private and as a result have taken on $22b in debt.  While they have not made major changes yet, there are rumors already that their Dallas offices will soon be shuttered(see link below), moving the operations from Dallas to Omaha, their biggest facility.   I have been to the Dallas facility and they employ alot of people.  They have their own campus just outside of downtown Dallas.  The Hugo Boss factory in Ohio is scheduled for closure at the end of April, another LBO.  This closure will put approximately 375 more workers on the unemployment line.  Danny Glover brought attention to their plight at the Oscars and encouraged a boycott of the Hugo Boss label.

As with the sub-prime problem, the PE firms have also spread out to Britian and Europe so if a crash comes, it is going to pretty much be global, not localized to the United States.  Banks, although they have sold most of the loans, will suffer.  Hedge funds that invested heavily in LBO financing will suffer as well as CLO(Collateralized Loan Obligations), investers who took insurance will lose.  Purchasers of the even more derivitive vehicles built out of CLO’s will also lose.  Sound familiar?  It should, it is a miror of the sub-prime crash.

As is the case with most financial issues, it is almost impossible to correctly predict a crash as day to day so many things can happen to change the financial standing of any company, however if half of the total owed by these companies only causes a small tsunami, the workers and communities affected will not fare well.  Nor will our fragile economy so soon after the mortgage crisis.  People in the business of Private Equity firms will not be hurt except for their reputations and their are some pretty big players who are either now or have been in the business.  Some of the players are and have been: Mitt Romney(Bain Capital), David Rubenstein(Carlyle Group), Goldman Sachs, Ray Kravis(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), Cerberus(John Snow/Treasury Sec/Clinton) and others.  Some of the companies involved in LBO’s: General Motors Acceptance Corp, Hertz, Michaels, PETCO, TXU(Texas) Energy, Sealy and Simmons Mattress Co, Hugo Boss, Burlington(Coat Factory), Warner Records, MGM, Mervyns, Linens n Things, General Instrument, Hospital Corp of America, Spire Healthcare, Vanguard Health Systems, Iasis Healthcare, Capella Healthcare, Ardent Health Services, Essent Healthcare, Hilton Hotels, Alltel, Clear Channel Communications, Harrah’s Entertainment, Kinder Morgan(pipelines).  And if you are looking for the banks who participated, they are the same villians as in the mortgage crash, BofA, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank.  In fact, Wells Fargo may have been brought in by default because Wachovia is in the mix and Merrill Lynch could bring more exposure to BofA.

If you know what you are looking for, you can find many articles and commentaries on this potential looming crisis, I have provided a head start below.  I certainly do not wish this tragedy on any of us or the companies involved, but it is better to be forewarned than to be surprised.  It is also better to educate yourself on these issues, I know it will change how I look at businesses being bought and sold and who I put my trust in for the future, it would, and should, factor into decisions in the employment search of any individual.

The Buyout of America, Josh Kosman(it is a surprisingly easy read for a financial industry book)

First Data

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/first_data_having_hard_time_paying_EyeJ8g003qxnrNh41me4GM

Pension Funds waiting for payoff on equity

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03equity.html

Hugo Boss

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/hugo_boss_takes_heat_in_ohio_9xwRqtjqhzRTdQgBRTrH7J

Buyout of America Website

http://www.joshkosman.com/private-equity-news

Texas has just officially doomed generations of their children to ignorance and being oddities in their grasp of history and reality…because neither of those items supported the political views of conservatives and Republicans.

I normally keep my quotes to a minimum but there is so much outrageousness here, I couldn’t pare it down:

From the NY Times:

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By James C. Mckinley Jr.
March 12, 2010

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

There are seven members of the conservative bloc on the board, but they are often joined by one of the other three Republicans on crucial votes. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

“Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.

Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?scp=1&sq=texas%20education&st=cse

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 926 active hate groups in the U.S. in 2008—that’s a 54% rise since 2000.  And those are only groups, lone wolves—no one knows how many. Statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation report the incidence of hate crimes showed an eight percent increase between 2005 and 2006. Over 50 percent of these crimes were race-related, with the remaining incidents triggered by sexual orientation, religion and gender differences.

FBI counterterrorism expert John Perren said of “lone wolf” domestic terrorists, “It could be anyone. It could be the guy next door … on the Internet just building himself up with hate … to a boiling point and finally using what he’s learned.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 14, 2009

Who are these people who hate? What do they want? What do they believe? It’s hard to lump them all together, as they have different ideologies and display different characteristics, and they all have different objectives. The white supremacists want whites on top of the food chain, want a white Nordic world; the militias are paranoid about the New World Order, or the ZOG, or the federal government coming to put them in FEMA camps or some such takeover; the KKK wants Jews and African American banished from our shores forever, or dead; The Christianists want dominion over--and forced conversions of-- the entire planet, and they want gays killed or at least imprisoned. Some of these groups have imagined grievances; some just hate everyone who is not them.  But they all have one characteristic in common: Intolerance.

Intolerance is generally defined as the state of being unwilling or unable to endure the beliefs, perspectives, or practices of others. It also involves a lack of recognition for the fundamental rights and choices of others.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF HATE

Are they really mentally disturbed, mentally impaired, downright crazy? Some are, but most are not. As far as hate crimes go, one would think individuals who commit these acts to be mentally unstable, however a study carried out by the University of California showed differently. Out of 550 hate crime criminals profiled, researchers found aggression and antisocial behavior to be prevalent, but no personality disorders. Perpetrators were described as typically “normal” with a high tendency towards destructiveness and violence.

Mary H. Guindon, PhD, Alan G. Green, PhD, and Fred J. Hanna, PhD from Johns Hopkins University say that there should be a new designation in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for people who hate irrationally.

“It is our intention to explore the possibility of an intolerant personality disorder as a previously unrecognized and unacknowledged type of psychopathology that causes harm to people from many cultures and has been destructive in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Antisocial, borderline, paranoid, and narcissistic personality disorders are examples of personality styles that are or can be harmful to others. The question is as follows: If intolerance of others in certain forms is indeed destructive and a source of pain and anxiety to its victims, should it not also be categorized as a mental disorder?”

They are part of a growing movement in the mental health community. They do not want to medicalize intolerance or to make it a disease.  But they and others believe it is important to name extreme intolerance as pathology.  They want to document and research the problem in order to develop treatments that can be part of the solution to profound social injustice concerns. Labeling intolerance as a personality disorder has the potential benefit to rehabilitate these people and lead to increased tolerance, which helps us all.

Whether feelings of hatred are rational or irrational, the logic system behind these feelings is distorted. Sigmund Freud classified all forms of behavioral expression as defense mechanisms used to protect one’s self-image. As such, hatred expressed inwardly or outwardly becomes a self-protective measure that works to maintain one’s sense of identity. Intolerance can also be viewed as a defense against change, acting as a form of self-protection. It is a sick defense mechanism.  Suspicion and distrust are perceived as necessary protection against a threat of harm.

The Johns Hopkins team lists these

Symptoms Of Intolerant Personality Disorder:

(a) holds a rigid set of beliefs that assert the intrinsic superiority due to race, religion, culture,or gender of the person’s own group ;

(b) lacks empathy for one or more particular populations, such as Latinos, African Americans, gays, lesbians, or women;

(c) exhibits interpersonal behavior that ranges from covert or overt antagonism and hostility to exploitation toward one or more specific or targeted populations;

(d) seeks to overtly or covertly block, deny, impede, or cancel the social, organizational, psychological, or financial advancement of someone of a group believed to be inferior;

(e) uses power or other means to inhibit or prevent free expression of contrary or intolerable ideas;

(f) has a sense of entitlement based on membership in a privileged group and believes that others should recognize his or her superiority without commensurate achievements or valid credentials;

(g) manifests a pervasive pattern of disregard for the human rights of members of particular populations; and

(h) shows lack of remorse as indicated by being callous or indifferent to having hurt, restricted, mistreated, or maligned members of selective populations.

A study carried out by the University of California on persons who committed hate crimes also revealed that the majority of the participants had a family history of violence and abuse. With this type of background, individuals are more prone to internalize feelings of self-hatred as a part of their overall self identity. As far as defense mechanisms go, one type in particular—projection—is attributed to the experience of hatred directed towards another.

Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously directs feelings felt about oneself onto another person. This is a coping mechanism put in place to protect a person from harmful thoughts and feelings felt toward the self. The antagonistic feelings by someone towards the target of his hatred are, in effect, the same feelings he has with himself.

Understanding hate groups is essential for successful intervention strategies, which depend on an understanding of the hate process. According to FBI profilers, their observations show that hate groups go through seven stages in the hate process. Unless stopped, haters pass through these seven successive stages without skipping a stage. In the first four stages, haters vocalize their beliefs. In the last three stages, haters act on their beliefs. A transition period exists between vocalization and acting out. In this transition period, violence separates hard-core haters from rhetorical haters.

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin/March 1, 2003

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Irrational haters seldom hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities. Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members’ status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols. Group-specific symbols or clothing often differentiate hate groups. Group rituals, such as hand signals and secret greetings, further fortify members. Hate groups, especially skinhead groups, usually incorporate some form of self-sacrifice, which allows haters to willingly jeopardize their well-being for the greater good of the cause. Giving one’s life to a cause provides the ultimate sense of value and worth to life. Skinheads often see themselves as soldiers in a race war.

Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause. By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status. In skinhead groups, racist song lyrics and hate literature provide an environment wherein hate flourishes. In fact, researchers have found that the life span of aggressive impulses increases with ideation. In other words, the more often a person thinks about aggression, the greater the chance for aggressive behavior to occur. Thus, after constant verbal denigration, haters progress to the next more acrimonious stage.

Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose. In this stage, skinheads typically shout racial slurs from moving cars or from afar. Nazi salutes and other hand signals often accompany racial epithets. Racist graffiti also begins to appear in areas where skinheads loiter. Most skinhead groups claim turf proximate to the neighborhoods in which they live. One study indicated that a majority of hate crimes occur when the hate target migrates through the hate group’s turf.

Stage 5: The Hate Group Attacks the Target Without Weapons

This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive, prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets. Violence coalesces hate groups and further isolates them from mainstream society. Skinheads, almost without exception, attack in groups and target single victims. Research has shown that bias crimes are twice as likely to cause injury and four times as likely to result in hospitalization as compared to nonbias crimes.

In addition to physical violence, the element of thrill seeking is introduced in Stage 5. Experts found that 60 percent of hate offenders were “thrill seekers.” They seek an adrenaline high. Each successive anger- provoking thought or action builds on residual adrenaline and triggers a more violent response than the one that originally initiated the sequence. Anger builds on anger. The adrenaline high combined with hate becomes a deadly combination. Hard-core skinheads keep themselves at a level where the slightest provocation triggers aggression.

Stage 6: The Hate Group Attacks the Target with Weapons

Several studies confirm that a large number of bias attacks involve weapons. Some attackers use firearms to commit hate crimes, but skinheads prefer weapons, such as broken bottles, baseball bats, blunt objects, screwdrivers, and belt buckles. These types of weapons require the attacker to be close to the victim, which further demonstrates the depth of personal anger. Attackers can discharge firearms at a distance, thus precluding personal contact. Close-in onslaughts require the assailants to see their victims eye-to-eye and to become bloodied during the assault. Hands- on violence allows skinheads to express their hate in a way a gun cannot. Personal contact empowers and fulfills a deep-seated need to have dominance over others.

Stage 7: The Hate Group Destroys the Target

The ultimate goal of haters is to destroy the object of their hate. Mastery over life and death imbues the hater with godlike power and omnipotence, which, in turn, facilitate further acts of violence. With this power comes a great sense of self-worth and value, the very qualities haters lack. However, in reality, hate physically and psychologically destroys both the hater and the hated.

Symbols, Rituals, and Mythology

Fully understanding hate groups involves identifying and defining their unique symbols rituals, and mythologies. Symbols give greater meaning to irrational hate. Haters use symbols for self- identification and to form common bonds with other group members. Additionally, they often swear allegiance to these symbols.

Symbols, however, are not enough to unify a group; therefore, more organized hate groups incorporate rituals, which serve two functions. First, they relieve individual group members from deep thought and self-examination. Second, rituals reinforce beliefs and fortify group unity.

The hate group’s experiences, beliefs, and use of symbols and rituals combine to create group mythologies. Mythologies unify disparate thoughts and act as filters through which group members interpret reality. Group mythologies can have profound effects on its members. A group with a powerful mythology results in one resistant to ideological challenges, and, therefore, it is more dangerous.

RECRUITMENT

Hate groups have always been interested in getting brighter people into its ranks.  They are looking for is its future leaders, its tacticians and strategists who can create a second revolution—as opposed to those who can just beat up a few people. The internet really helps them meet this goal. Their primary target is often teenagers. In their view, impressionable youth represents the only hope for the future of the “white race.”

Leaving aside the intergenerational, within-family recruitment, the young are being actively recruited in large numbers and through specific tactics. Many adolescents today find themselves alienated from their families. Occasionally this is because the family is brutal or alcoholic, but more often the alienation arises in a home where the parents possessed no other values than the pursuit of money; where the parents are psychologically absent. The fascist youth group in particular offers these alienated kids a substitute family, an environment of mutual concern, and a substitute set of values. For many young people, a fascist group may provide their first real exposure to commitment, to courage, to unity of thought and action, to the motivation of non-materialistic values. Like any good gang.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

Hate groups concentrate their recruiting efforts primarily in high schools and, to some extent, in colleges and universities. They even offer scholarships.  And the Internet seems tailor-made for reaching disaffected young people: teenagers spend far more time on it than their parents do, and many teens consider the virtual world of the web their “home away from home.”

Hatemongers now target young people directly, through hate “music” and special web sites. Young people may be susceptible to online racist propaganda because they don’t have the experience or facts at hand to refute the lies and myths being fed to them.

Although the Internet is a relatively new way to reach young people, the techniques hatemongers use to attract them are still very traditional. Here are some of the strategies hate groups use to attract young people on the Internet:

Music

The rise of white power rock ‘n’ roll has been very important to the racist movement. It’s extremely violent in its rhetoric and lyrics. The songs call for murdering black people or creating a racial holy war or a whites-only revolution, and they’re increasingly being sold to teenagers and people in their early 20s. It’s a great strategy--music is a compelling way to influence young people. When kids surf the Net for music, they may chance on sites that sell hate music, or even offer it free for downloading. Such Web sites often also provide links to hate-promoting brochures, pamphlets, newsgroups, chat rooms or Web sites.

Every year in North America, more than 70,000 white power CDs are sold. Resistance Records (the largest North American distributor of hate music) gross more than $3 million in 2007. Resistance Records has a stable of a dozen high-quality Skinhead bands like a cute girl-band that takes up the mantle from the defunct groups Prussian Blue. Their products can be ordered directly over the Internet. Resistance Records, as well as such established organizations as Aryan Nations and the Christian Identity Posse Comitatus, hold Aryan concerts, Aryan Youth festivals, or annual Aryan Youth Congresses.

Another white power music broker, Byron Calvert, distributed 30,000 CDs in 2007. The campaign is dubbed “Project Schoolyard Volume II” and targets teenagers with a 25-song sampler that features tracks such as “White Power” and “Some Niggers Never Die.” “Remember,” he wrote, “we don’t just entertain racist kids, we create them.” The CDs are on sale for 30 cents each, but Calvert is including several free with each order from Tightrope, his Arkansas-based website that offers hate music and other racist merchandise.  He said he also uses multiple MySpace accounts that are not overtly racist to reach white students at schools where racially charged incidents have occurred.

Skinhead Girl Warrior (Les Vilains)

Militia : May 17 Patrol & training music video

“Let’s see out the Fuhrer’s dream/To break the back of the eternal jew/Rid the world of the evil we’ve seen/Make it safe for me and you.”
— From “Under the Hammer” by Brutal Attack

“When the battle is over and the victory is won/And the White man’s lands are owned by true white people/the traitors will all be gone.”
— From “White Warriors” by Skrewdriver

And there are a few thousand more music videos! If you thought such unabashedly bigoted music was available only from underground sources, you’d be as surprised as I was. At Apple’s iTunes website you can buy albums and songs from white supremacist groups. But iTunes it’s not the only mainstream music distributor selling racist and offensive tracks. Amazon.com also sells music from many of the same white supremacist bands.

Games

Another strategy used to attract young people is white-power versions of popular computer games. Teens may go online looking for the latest cool game, and may find the “hate version” instead.

For example, Resistance Records has produced Ethnic Cleansing —a computer game whose object is to kill “subhumans” such as Blacks and Latinos, and their “masters,” the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil. Players can choose between dressing as KKK members or skinheads. Even very popular mainstream games, such as Resident Evil5 have definite racist overtones.

Books

Many sites have chat rooms and I’ve noticed members often ask about books that promote their ideology. Stormfront and the Nationalist Coalition, to name just two, offer books for teens.

Activities for kids

Some hate sites offer special sections for kids containing games and activities. For example, on the “Creativity for Kids” section of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator Web site, children can try their hands at crossword puzzles with racist content. The purpose of the children’s section is ”to help the young members of the white race understand our fight.” Of course, most hate groups home-school their kids, and the bigger sites, like Stormfront.com provide learning materials.

Re: Join the SCOOTS Reading Club…..Promoting Childhood Literacy!

Hail All!

I just wanted everyone to know that the program is a free program for children 2-18. The sponsorship portion is for those that don’t have children, but still want to contribute to early literacy, the love of reading, and family togetherness.

I highly encourage participation from all our children ages 2-18 years of age. It is free and when you meet the goals you have the ability to choose your prizes carefully selected with our Folkish children in mind!

What better satisfaction than to help a child to form a love for reading, or for those avid readers, what better way to get rewarded for a job well done! If you teach a child to read, he or she can truly do anything!

I look forward to hearing from everyone for this program!

__________________
For Faith, Folk, and Family
Lucy

(Stormfront chat room)

Cartoon spokescharacters

Some hate sites use cartoon-like or animated characters, similar to (or identical to) those used in children’s media to attract young audiences.  They don’t even have to invent new ones, as Disney and many other old cartoons provide many racist characters.

OTHER COMMON STRATEGIES

Racialism

White power and white supremacy sites typically deny that they are racist organizations. Instead, they focus on the need to protect white people from assimilation and/or direct threats from non-white groups.  They call this perspective “racialist” as opposed to racist.

The 14/88 Society is a good example of this dynamic. The site’s name combines two hate slogans popular in the white supremacy movement:

• 14 refers to the 14-word slogan: “We must secure the existence of our race and a future for white children”

• 88 represents HH (H being the eighth number in the alphabet), which stands for Heil Hitler

Overtly racist sites, like 14/88, are the easiest to identify because they conform to the mainstream image of the neo-Nazi skinhead hate group. However many hate sites attempt to conceal a racist agenda behind a more moderate message.

Pseudo-Science and Intellectualism

Many hate-mongers use pseudo-scientific intellectualized language and incorporate the work of university-based academics to make their views seem more credible. Canadian professor Phillip Rushton’s work on the different intellectual and physical abilities of different “races” is a case in point. In addition, the late Dr. William Pierce operated a publishing company that released a steady stream of neo-Nazi literature. Pierce’s fictionalized account of racialist revolution in The Turner Diaries is said to have inspired the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Historical Revisionism

Holocaust denial is a frequently used strategy. Haters who “revise” history argue that the Holocaust either did not occur, or was less significant than the historical record indicates. And they are insidious. Let’s say your child is given a school assignment to write about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most likely, he or she will go to the internet and search for Martin Luther King. What they could easily find is pretty scary—and despicable. On one site I found this Discovery Channel movie trailer claiming that whites are the indigenous Ice Age North Americans.

ANTI GOVERNMENT SENTIMENTS AND RECRUITMENT

At a deeper level, recruitment into the neo-fascist movements is based on the on-going crisis of capitalism, especially in North America.

Worsening economic conditions, political instability, a perceived sense of injustice, or a struggle of groups for self-identity or power are among the conditions that may precipitate planned or spontaneous outbursts of violence by groups against individuals, other groups, or the state.

Research on genocide, group violence, and hate crimes have shown that such factors as economic problems, political conflict, or rapid and substantial social change interact with group characteristics such as the need to scapegoat or devalue other groups, the inclination to hinge a better future on identifying enemies who stand in the way, and a pattern of aggression.

Corporate downsizing, declining real wages, changing technology, increasing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, and the steady decline in manufacturing jobs replaced by lower paying, less secure jobs in the service sector, have all combined to leave the average American worker feeling vulnerable and betrayed. For rural Americans, economic uncertainty is compounded by threats to traditional rural industries like logging, mining, ranching, and farming. These are the conditions in which hate groups thrive.

NEXT—HATE IN AMERICA, Part 4:  What Can Be Done

(with apologies to Salvador Dali)

I am bothered by movies, such as “Saw” and “Hostel”, that, to me, serve no purpose other than to depict the extremes of human pain and cruelty. I confess to having never watched a film from either of those series, nor have I watched a Hannibal Lector movie, or a Chucky, Freddy Krueger or Jason movie (which, I imagine, at this point seem almost quaint in their depictions of cruelty), so it is not only what is depicted on the screen, which I haven’t even seen, that disturbs me. It is the very fact that such movies exist, and that they pull in audiences. To me, they are a depraved sub-genre of moviemaking that elevates torture to their prime, even sole, raison d’etre (indeed, they have been dubbed “torture porn” and “gorno” by critics), and that bothers me. Are people really entertained by all that blood and gore? And if that is not the right word, what IS the experience that they crave, as they settle their butts into aisle seats? As to the people who make such films, why on earth do they spend precious hours of their lives depicting demoralizing, black spectacles of the last things that any of us would wish to experience, or even wish upon our worst enemies? Oh, believe me, I know the obvious answer to my question (they DO make money after all, and frankly, how hard can they be to make? We all know what we don’t wish to experience; all one has to do is pick up a camera and film that!), but is even money worth the de-humanizing that I feel must go on in the process of creating such films?

 I am not arguing against the presence of violence in films. Indeed, some of my personal favorites, such as “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas”, contain numerous scenes that are not for the squeamish. If push came to shove, I could probably even be called upon to defend Wes Craven’s notorious, ultra-violent 70′s sleeper, “Last House on the Left” ( which took its plot from Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” and borrowed heavily from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”). One might well ask, what’s the difference? Well, in the case of LHOTL, this was an amateurish film by a freshman director, depicting amateurish villains who epitomize the dumb, self absorbed, amoral, societal outcasts we can easily imagine committing the atrocious crimes we see onscreen (and read about in the papers). They are not the incarnations of sadism one finds in slick gorno movies, creatures right out of our nightmares who are intelligent and irredeemably evil, sparing no expense to devise the most ingenious and horrific methods by which to dispense with their victims, for no other purpose than the pleasure that they get from doing so. To arrive at an understanding of the villains of the gorno movies, to place them in any sort of context, we need to go back to a French nobleman from the Age of Enlightenment whose writing was so over the top that he provides the very name for the “ism” that is out and out cruelty toward another living being.

 Sade’s “libertines” (one should not refer to them as  “villains”, when to him they were heroes) were precisely the kind of monsters we see in todays horror movies. Smarter and more powerful than their victims, they operated without restraint, and with no other purpose than to inflict pain. In Sade’s stories, the only way to escape victimhood was to allow yourself to become corrupted by your torturers, to become just as merciless and sadistic as them. These were the only triumphs he would allow in his nightmarish fables, that some would “liberate” themselves from any moral or empathetic impulses, which he insisted came from society, the real “villain” he himself was at war with. One can read Sade’s stories and accept them as he intended, as all-out assaults on society and civilization, on anything that limited individuals from behaving exactly as they themselves chose to. But that would naturally lead one to ask, if people could do anything they wanted to, why would they do that? Looking deeper, I believe that one can find a more pathological motivation, one which is readily on display in today’s torture porn movies as well; a deep seated hatred of the human body.

 Oh, Sade loathed bodies!  He wanted them sliced, diced, beaten, pulled apart, you name it. The one thing he didn’t want was for them to keep their original, native form, to be allowed to go on about their ways in peace. To him, an intact body was a challenge, perhaps even an affront, to his aesthetic. He treated them with nothing but the utmost disdain. And yet, it is telling that for all the descriptions of cruelty he filled page after feverish page with, he was particularly vicious toward the parts of the body that give birth to and nurture other bodies. Although there is no question that his writings and ideas have spiced up the sex lives of numerous couples throughout the years (and hey, whatever gets you through the night…), in the works themselves sex was anything but a life affirming, life celebrating activity. Genitalia, breasts, pregnant women, and fetuses are mercilessly tortured and destroyed by Sade’s libertines. The family itself is attacked viciously. In his stories, fathers rape their daughters, and corrupted daughters do unspeakable things to their mothers. The very reality of biological life seems to infuriate him.

 What’s going on here? In the face of such depravity, one naturally searches for answers. Even if the knowledge goes nowhere toward ending man’s inhumanity to man, we strive to somehow make sense of things so dark and twisted they seem to defy explanation, for the sake of our own sanity if nothing else. My belief is that we see in Sade’s writing a psychological phenomenon that has its roots in the very nature of our sentience. It is the mind’s hatred of the body, because it can suffer, and take the mind along with it as it does so. 

 It is hard to imagine anything more painful than being eaten alive from the hind legs forward, and yet this is a fate that befalls thousands of our fellow creatures, in forests and savannas, every day. The vast majority of human beings will come to far more benign ends, but the important distinction is that we are well aware of what could happen to us, if we are not careful, or just plain unlucky. The fact is that, unlike animals, we can think about things happening to us that are every bit as frightening and unwelcome as the things that are shown in the torture movies. It is with our minds that we think about them, but it is our bodies that we imagine experiencing the suffering. We are the only species that has a distinct separation, a schism even, between mind and body. We can actually live lives, of a kind, outside our bodies. No other creature can. We can daydream, create stories, make songs, paint pictures, have sexual fantasies, relive memories vividly, conceptualize, invent, etc. We can easily imagine a life involving no body at all! Indeed, we have created science fiction stories where our minds are placed inside computers, thereby living eternal, pain-free lives. People who are stricken with cancer or other long term, debilitating and painful illnesses frequently describe themselves as “prisoners” in their bodies. What I am positing is that there is an element of human consciousness that chronically feels this way. Sade was expressing this, first and foremost, I believe, though he himself was perhaps unaware of it and presumedly would have denied it. It is ironic that he, due to his atrocious behavior as well as his writing (which outraged the Emperor Napolean), spent much of his life as a prisoner, in jails and mental asylums, creating through his mind an outward experience of the very thoughts that drove his writing. 

 The mind is frightened by the amount of pain, seemingly limitless, that the body it is merged with can experience. Although our central nervous system has evolved the sensation of pain to keep us from burning or bleeding or freezing to death, this impeccable biological system renders us horrendously vulnerable. So averse to its demise is our body that it keeps pain sensations active even as we lie helpless, and crushed, under the rubble of an earthquake, or trapped inside a burning room, on the off chance that we will somehow manage to get ourselves out of our predicament. Isn’t it plausible that our minds, aware of the stubbornness of the body, and its survival-at-any-cost imperative, would develop resentment against it? Why can’t we shut the pain mechanism down when we want to (apparently some yogis have developed this very ability, but it takes years of rigorous training)? When there is no hope of escape? Every king, dictator, Grand Inquisitor and mafioso throughout history has exploited this “flaw” in the body’s design. In fact, it is impossible to imagine the worst forms of government even existing without it, as such regimes are propped up by the fear they induce in the common folk. All of that suffering, down through the ages; no wonder the mind is pissed!

 And so, the mind acts this out, through the mediums that it has developed, the “art” that is Sade’s writing and today’s gorno movies. Each time the mind, represented by Sade’s libertines or Hannibal Lector, or any of the demonic, merciless,ingenious psychopaths who fill our screens as well as our nightmares, gleefully tortures to death somebody else’s body, it has its revenge, momentarily. That’s the experience viewers are after, I feel. Though I am disturbed by such movies, and by the large following they have, I ultimately see them as merely symptomatic, and don’t expect them to go away. They, or some similar manifestation, will be with us so long as we have the ability to contemplate, and fear, our fate.