woodenrocketpress

Choose Your Own Argumenture: What Ben Weasel Did

1

You find yourself at SXSE 2011, trying to watch a set by Screeching Weasel, a staggeringly constant fixture in the international pop-punk scene for the past quarter-century. You have your phone out to capture some above-the-crowd footage of the band and you witness a young girl hucking an ice cube at Ben Weasel (nee Foster) after his repeated disgust at the band’s low income for the evening (250 dollars) versus their next night’s show (25,000 dollars). Your phone doesn’t stop recording as Weasel snaps and right hooks the girl in the face, and quickly turns around to shove at another woman. You, like everyone else, begin cheering as Weasel is dragged off stage, and excitedly upload the video to expose the event to the world, though you’re not entirely sure what you believe to be the biggest atrocity in this situation–that Weasel struck a fan, or that that fan was a girl?

If you choose to argue that Weasel shouldn’t have hit the fan because she was in the audience and he was on stage, go to 2.

If you choose to argue that Weasel shouldn’t have hit the girl because she was a girl and he was a guy, go to 3.

2

As the hits on the video start to rise, you notice a string of comments of people upset with Weasel’s actions as a man, but are upset at the larger picture–Weasel, an entertainer on stage promoting music that is meant to be uplifting, meant to be young-people’s music and meant to instill a sense of belonging in its listeners, lashed out and hit one of the fans that so vehemently supported him for 25 years, and upon whose ears and hearts his career and fame are literally founded. Regardless of this fan’s gender, Weasel committed the cardinal sin of hypocrisy.

An internet commenter says to you, “Hey, but he hit a girl! How can you ignore that?”  to defend your position, go to 4

To expound more theoretically on this, go to 5

3

For reasons beyond your understanding, the “anchor beyond its depth” of this argument is that Ben Weasel hit a fan, not a girl. Try as you might, you can not avoid listening to arguments of “Well, ultimately, men and women are equal.” This pisses you right off, because you know how many women get assaulted yearly, how many women are raped, murdered, mutilated, all at the hands of some domineering man that needs to exact power over someone else for one reason or another. You know how you would feel if it was you, or your sister, or your mother, or your aunt, or your girlfriend, or maybe you know how it feels to be assaulted and, for some strange reason, being told that it would have been just as bad if the girl was a guy doesn’t cut it for you.

An internet commenter says to you, “Men and women are equal. The tragedy here is that a fan was struck. This has nothing to do with gender.” To discuss this, go to 6.

To expound on this more theoretically, go to 7.

Trolling and just starting a fight for the hell of it? Go to 9.

4

“How can we continue to demand equality when we baby one member of our equal partnership so frequently?” you start. You argue that women are not weak, that they are equal to men in every way, and that no one should have to suffer violence, regardless of gender. You argue that the women you know are tougher than most guys, and they should never have to take a punch, but they can. Especially, you say, when it comes from the hypocrisy of the power dynamic purported by Weasel. If all things are considered equal, you say, the worst thing about this is violence. Weasel has much to atone for and we should never tolerate artist to fan abuse.

Good argument, you say to yourself. To expound on this more theoretically, go to 5.

Someone phones you and says they have a catch-all answer to the disputes you’ve been having on the internet. To ignore them, go to 9.

To hear what they have to say, go to 10.

5

Weasel has shifted the power dynamic in a disgusting way. Fans pay for the show, the band plays the show, the band benefits, and so do the fans. The band, admittedly, gets the better deal. Some would argue that the fans get to think that they are part of this moment with the band, but with the number of bands that a fan naturally divides its attention between, the fan is the consumer. The band is the supplier, and they get the bigger payoff. But what Weasel did was expose this, which extends beyond rudeness into sacrilege. Not only does the fan now know that they are lesser than Weasel in his mind, but their contract with the band becomes a slave-bind. They are not helping themselves, they are told. They are lying to themselves, they are told. They are just consumers, they are reminded. Though this may be true on some level, it is not discussed. Fans are to be thanked, their hands shaken, their CDs signed. They are to live forever as the reason the band got big, and they are never to be mistreated. Anyone that does otherwise is acting like an entitled prick.

You’re winded from typing so fast. Your mom walks in and you explain the situation. She offers you, what she believes, to be the end of the argument. Go to 10.

6

The second a person of one gender hit a person of another, this became about gender. Men and women can be equal socially, you start, but they are not equal in every way. That is what makes their experiences unique, and valuable to them individually, is that they had the chance to experience them as a woman, as a man. Just as someone comes from the experience of being black, or being disabled, you would not whitewash their life with your muscular white legs and say “Hey man, we’re all the same.” We’re not. That’s the point. That’s what makes stories worth telling. There is a fundamental difference between men and women that cannot be overlooked, and for Weasel to cross that line with a balled fist is a hideous act. That difference, of course, is…

Physiology, go to 8

Experience, go to 7

7

Each time anyone interacts with anyone, they are at the mercy of history. Your actions, whether you like it or not, are part of a long history of experience, knowledge, and choice. When you are dealing with a people who have been oppressed in any way, any choice you make to act in line with any form of that oppression makes you a reminder of that oppression. This is the foundation of all sensitivity. It does not mean that when you tell a racist joke to your different-ethnicity friend you are a slave driver, but you’re dealing with a form of that separation that has watered down to a form that–I hope–is funny to your friend. But hitting a woman is not watered down. It is strictly the same act as the ideological, social, and physical repression used against women for thousands of years. Hitting a woman is not a dilution–it is the repression. Any man guilty of this is guilty of continuing the defeat of a group of people. That man is guilty of repression at least of that one woman, if not guilty of possibly trying to repress the idea of female freedom as a whole.

Whew! I’m going to go see what’s on TV. Go to 9

Finish your thought. 10.

8

Men and women are scientifically built different. Men are designed with stronger upper bodies and women with stronger lower bodies. Sure, we can have the same jobs, but there is an actual comparative frailty to a woman’s upper body. And for Weasel, who is no 90 pound weakling, to cross her in the face with his fist, he put her in a higher possible risk of brain damage and permanent hospitalization that she could be if she was hit by a woman. There is nothing equal about it. Weasel was bigger, and he hit someone who was smaller, just as any man who strikes a woman is playing to her weaker upper body and dominating it. It’s not bad that Weasel hit just anyone, Weasel hit a woman here. A man hit a woman. And moreover, if we want to get down to the point of “Men and women should be able to take the same amount of pain,” why is Weasel the one suddenly championed as permissible to make this argument? Why is his case special?

“… which leads me to the different natures of men and women’s experiences.” Go to 7.

“…which leads me to a simple answer.” Go to 10.

9

You get distracted by a bird outside the window and close the computer. Tomorrow you will wake up and forget about this and your time as an armchair intellectual, a hammer for the people, will be over. You will continue posting videos and going about your daily life, and you will forget about all of this, which, your friend on the phone believes, would be a colossal tragedy. Do not forget this.

10

The answer is simple. A real man doesn’t hit a woman. You try to argue, but your tongue is caught, your jaw locks, and inside, you feel like a monster.

Harper, Oda, Pacioretty: Fending Off Dangerous Outbreaks Of Democracy.

Max Pacioretty

  ”sports — that’s another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it — you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that’s of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about — [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it’s striking to see the intelligence that’s used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in — they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.”

-Noam Chomsky

Stephen Harper, Bev Oda, Swine Flue, The Vancouver Olympics, Max Pacioretty, Noam Chomsky.

Fending off Dangerous Outbreaks of Democracy.

by Michael Scott 

This isn’t the first time Harper’s government has shown open contempt for parliamentaryprocess, “With this week’s double rulings, the Harper government has set a record: it has been cited more times for ignoring the rights of Parliament than any in history,” (The Toronto Star).  It’s also not the first time that convenient major news events, both of the genuine and fraudulent variety, have distracted media attention from the core parliamentary issues. 

Last year, when Michael Ignatieff demanded a public enquiry to source Canadian involvement in Afghan war crimes, Harper prorogued parliament for two months, sighting a need to focus on budget issues.  I will not go into the details of that even here, because it has it has already be satisfactorily recorded (see the wiki article).  The core of the issue was very different, but the manifestation of the problem was essentially the same: Harper’s blatant refusal to provide documents as requested by the House of Commons.  In the 2010 example, once parliament was prorogued, two predictable, intentional, and highly political events took place: The Vancouver Winter Games, and the campaign of vaccination against the Swine Flue Pandemic.* 

That the games would be a gigantic media circus was a given, and the federally funded Own The Podium program served only to intensify that fact.  Own The Podium gave Canadians a polarizing political issue to discuss that would turn their feverish attention away from civil rights abuses, and the likely involvement of their own government in foreign war crimes.  Of course, Vancouver’s initial bid for the 2010 Olympics came long before Ignatieff’s challenge to parliament, and the Own The Podium program dates back to 2005.  This was not a grand, conspiratory design.  It was simple a case of opportunism.  Harper found a way to dodge the impending political crisis, by essentially pointing at the first thing he saw, the Olympics, and shouting: HEY LOOK! A DISTRACTION!!

The distribution of Swine Flue Vaccine, though, was a more considered and nefarious matter.  The timeline of the huge media push, designed to sway Canadians into vaccination, follows that of the Afghan debates incredibly closely, predating the proroguement event by only two months.  Correlation does not equal causation, but with hindsight, we can see how blatantly absurd the H1N1 story actually was.  In 2009, the year leading up to our current discussion, only 428 people had died from Swine Flu in Canada, compared with 4-8000 deaths from conventional flu in Canada every year (Health Canada).  I can find no reliable fatality statistics relating to the 09-10 flu season, leading me to believe that the event was comparatively insignificant.  Some might see this as evidence that the vaccination campaign was a success, but only40% of Canadians were vacinated (CBC), not much more than usually receive the standard flu shot, meaning that proportionally, even with vaccinations factored in, the H1N1 event was less then 1/10th as severe as a standard flu season. It is also possible that the Canadian Medical industry simply goofed, that the virus simply “did not mutate,” (Margret Chan, World Helth Organization) as expected.  Certainly, there was pressure from WHO, but previous pandemic responses in Canada, to SARS or Avian flu, were not so dramatic. It is most likely that the intense vaccination scramble and resulting media feeding frenzy were a complete and intentional fabrication, designed to protect Canadians from a dangerous outbreak of not flu, but democracy.

I am hesitant to mention the horrific events of the Haitian earthquake, which occurred twelve days after the prorogation of Canadian Parliament, for it is not my wish to reduce the continued plight of the people trapped in this desperate situation to the level of a rhetorical device.  Of the three major natural disasters in 2010 — being the Earthquake in China, the Flooding in India, and the Earthquake in Haiti — the Haitian quake was by far the most devastating, killing 230,000 people more than 200 times that of the other two disasters combined.  It is not surprising that the quake in Haiti received so much more coverage than the later Chinese event. For the purposes of this discussion, however, parallels between the Haitian situation and that in Japan must be drawn.

On March 14th, we Canadians are sitting with another potentially polarizing story about abuse of government power; another rumour about a spring election possibility, and our Prime Minister is again giving lip service to sport:

“‘I just say this as a hockey fan: I’m very concerned about the growing number of very serious injuries and in some cases to some of the premier players in the game,’ Harper, who has worked on a hockey history book and who has a son who plays the sport. ‘I don’t think that’s good for the game and I think the league has to take a serious look at that for its own sake.’”

-Business Week

Hockey players get injured all the time.  Why is the case of  Pacioretty so unique?  What is motivating Air Canada threaten to pull its NHL sponsorship?  How did this become the only thing on anyone’s mind?  My guess is: Harper.  Politicising sport to depoliticize politics.  I’m not saying Harper payed Zdeno Chara to try and kill Max Pacioretty. . . actually, come to think of it, that’s exactly what I’m saying.  And when Pacioretty survived, Harper went to Air Canada, and bribed a few key figures to make idle threats against the NHL.  He probably used money from the padded 9 billion dollar defence contract, or the money soon to be ex Minister Oda saved by cancelling the KAIROS funding.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government is also dodging questions from all corners of the island and abroad, about the severity of the nuclear emergency there.  Some things they honestly don’t know, I’m sure, and somethings they are hiding to prevent panic.  Another earthquake, this one causing a typhoon causing a nuclear emergency.  The death toll will, conservatively, top 10,000, and that’s discounting the very real possibility of nuclear melt-down.  It is an event, like the Haitian quake, too profoundly sad to ignore.  An event which, like the Haitian quake, is timed perfectly to shield Conservative transgression from the public eye. 

It is supremely unlikely that any government is in possession of a Tesla Oscillator (if the Mythbusters have disproved the existence of such a device, who am I to challenge them?)  Even if the machine does exist, there is virtually no likelihood of one being in Canadian hands; we simply aren’t that interesting a country.  So this is not about ability, it’s simply about willingness. Would our government be willing to intentionally decimate a civilian population purely as a distractionary tactic, as a way to mask its own trespasses against democracy?  We went to Afghanistan to help George Bush do just that.  

All Canadians – including Harper, I imagine – view the recent weather events in China and India as heartbreaking, and profound human realities.  Most of us view the Japanese, and Hatian earthquakes in the same way.  For Harper and his government, though, the earthquakes are different.  They are happy accidents.  Tools to reinforce his autocracy. 

My only provable point, I suppose, is only how strange it is that this has happened the same way twice over.  A cry of contempt in Ottawa.  A domestic sporting controversy.  A massive foreign earthquake. 

Keep your ears open.  I bet we’re less then three weeks away from a public health crisis. 

by Michael Scott

http://woodenrocketpress.com

*The link here describes the pandemic out break of the year 2008-2009 flu season, one year before the vaccination campaign.  I have found virtually no information about H1N1 in the 2010 season.

the lacanian mirror phase of Charlie Sheen’s whirlwind of destruction

I like to toss the occasional psychological bon mot around. Tack that together with the boolean buzz magnet that is the english words “Charlie+Sheen” and you’ve got yourself a surefire internet hit. Not since Britney’s bad driving or the season premiere of celebrity rehab have we been forced to so closely watch someone we love* and squirm in our seats, itching at the chance of intervention. But Sheen has done something unthinkable. He’s broken the narrative of our obsession with celebrity, and made us look on the nature of that contract for what it really is: a joke, a lie, a sham.

Our relationship with celebrities follows a narrative. We watch them struggle from small-time appearances to bigger and bigger venues, all the while counting the drops of sweat on their foreheads with excitement and admiration, knowing that whether or not we like the celebrity, we admire their dedication, and whatever they’ve done to get to where they are, they must deserve in some respect. Next, we watch as they strike it big, and we feel rewarded in our faith that they would make it all along. We support them through the rough times, and we cheer when they get back out on top. When their career reaches the long slow twilight of its end, we remember fondly with mid-day movie marathons (or iPod shuffle surprises) of their earlier work, and become poised, if they have what it takes not to give up, to support them on a comeback, all-the-while feeling like the crutch beneath their arm, or the cup of water at the finish line. Their success and millions of dollars becomes our success, a small percentage. A finder’s fee. If a celebrity betrays us and goes down a path we do not agree with, we expect atonement. We supported them, we built them up to that point, and any excuse they can offer for letting us down may just barely be enough. If they come out on top, we mend the trust that has been torn apart over time, interviews, and morning coffee with what used to be Regis.

What’s fascinating about Sheen is not his lascivious behaviour. That’s old hat. This is a man who’s been tearing apart realdolls in his house for years. We are genuinely terrified of him and nothing has changed that since the early 90s. Also not fascinating to us** is how Sheen managed to snag the coveted spot of highest-paid personality of television. For some reason, people love 2.5 men*** enough to afford him this lifestyle for 9 seasons. But with his recent thread of rants and tirades, unapologetically owning up to everything he’s done as awesome, unregrettable, and somehow, better than smoking cigarettes, what remains to be learned from Charlie Sheen is that we are most fascinated by the fact that we cannot stage an intervention, no matter how hard we try. We can not complete the narrative arc.

I could expound on old ground forever about our fascination with celebrity, but I think the most interesting part about this recent interest in Charlie Sheen’s disastrous lifestyle is that it has taken a tone of intervention. Like an entire hemisphere of people sitting down creepy Uncle Charlie and asking him to care more about his lifestyle. Well hell, it worked with Lindsay and Britney to some degree, where enough media attention eventually forced them to recant and withdraw from the spotlight. But it’s not working with Charlie****.

We’re at that phase in our development where we are forced to look in the mirror and realize that the body staring back at us is, in fact, us and by attachment, all other bodies are not. Our heated and growing fixation on Sheen (and Sheen’s belief that he is the Keith Richards of the 8-830 timeslot) needs to end with the almost orgasmic realization that just because we love celebrities, does not mean they are family. This narrative of building them up and watching them fall is not assured, and sometimes people let you down. We have no place to interfere, to demand intervention. Charlie Sheen is finally coming out and showing the world that the way he lives his life is his problem and his problem alone***** and no amount of “concern” from people will incite an apology. He’s brought everyone’s fixation on the private lives of the very rich right back to their face and demonstrated that we don’t get anything out of the relationship. Not a thank you, not a card. Not a happy ending. All that’s happened here is that we’ve bet on the wrong horse. Time to move on.

In the end, it remains that sometimes people do let us down. They always will. And we can never sacrifice this narrative arc because people will always love a story like this. The archetypes are in our blood.******  What we can do is try to focus our energies on rooting for better men, people who take our support and not LOVE us for it–I hope I’ve argues enough that asking for this is impossible–but do less damage with it. Maybe they have a career where they help people. Maybe they’re already good men. Men who are strong men, manly men, men men men.

Doo wop.

*Like the uncle that ruins every thanksgiving

**And I don’t know why, because it’s sure as hell fascinating to me.

***now THAT is fascinating.

****Furthermore, who are we to judge when we are merely enablers? We buy him the drugs, we buy him the women. If we don’t like how he spends the money we’ve afforded him, well, I think we should probably stop watching the show, don’t you? He owes us nothing, not even thanks, because that’s not in Charlie’s MO.

*****This does ABSOLUTELY NOT excuse Sheen’s behaviour towards women, or other people. BUT consider the amount of media attention his drug use and lifestlyle is getting OVER the amount of abuse, emotional and physical, he’s slathered on to his ex-wives and girlfriends. He should be taken to jail a thousand times over. This man is a deplorable person, but for some reason recent focus has been on “how he’s doing,” and “his inner demons,” and if that’s the game we want to play, fine. Then my only focus for this short piece is to let people know that this relationship with celebrity does not work that way. We can either demand justice, or a good story. Not both.

******Replacements for Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen should be Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung