E3 2013: Microsoft Turns On Its Customers and Sony's PS4 May Crash the Industry

There's an electricity in the air.

Yes, once again, it's time for the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, the big annual video game industry trade show in Los Angeles which we always hear is becoming more irrelevant. And granted, we seem to be seeing less games there every year - what with the ever-increasing industry woes I've chronicled my thoughts on here for years - but still, everyone goes and makes it out to be a big deal. There's always awkward technical glitches and nonsense video game system customers don't care about, like attempts to push Sony and Microsoft branded alternatives to streaming services like Netflix and apparently now convince us that we need to manage fantasy football leagues right there on our console dashboards while also watching more commercials. Everyone still goes - except Nintendo at least had the foresight to do a series of their usually excellent prerecorded Nintendo Direct internet broadcast conferences instead of their usual awkward stage show, just showing up to show off the games directly to the press and to attendees on the show floor - and it's generally kind of terrible and embarrassing every year.

And I still write about it. But this year, it's different.

Two Words on Bullying

Oh hey, it's 2013 now, isn't it? And I haven't posted anything here for you guys since last November. Obama was rightly reelected, of course, but predictably, we've only seen the usual disappointment from the government since. That's a matter for another irate ramble, however. Normally, as I've meant to for the past year or two and still haven't gotten to, I'd start out the new year with some big rambling post summarizing things as of late - personal, boring nonsense. There's not much to report as of late, though I'll probably babble enough about it at some point, from my having been freelancing for over a year and a half now to tentative efforts to escape the south that I've been focusing on to present ongoing health problems threatening to derail more than I care to think about.

At any rate, just over three and a half months into the year, I'm starting out 2013 with a couple of things I felt compelled to post.

A Funny Story About 9 and 11

Hey! This is a no smoking city!

Happy Terror Day, everybody! Now that we've hit the ten-year mark, I'd say it's about time we started commercializing this bad boy. Wouldn't you agree? This is America, there's MONEY TO BE MADE! We can turn this tragedy into treasure - and failing that, cold hard cash - or my name isn't Otis Bunkport Jr.! Which it isn't, mind you. But it might be someday, depending on the degree of violence with which people react to my completely tasteful picture caption over there.

You see it? Are you laughing? You're not laughing. Why aren't you laughing?

Let's be honest. It's the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Many people are going to be sentimental and weepy. Others are going to be distasteful and balance that out with some appropriately inappropriate jokes. And others yet are going to make everybody uncomfortable by being angry. Very angry. Blindingly, seethingly, I-spit-fire-and-you-will-be-incinerated angry. And no, not necessarily at nebulous foreign forces perceived to be eternal enemies of 'our freedom,' or 'threats from within,' entailing non-white, non-Christian, non-conservative persons within the United States. 'Are Country' nonsense. Rage that will set your house on fire and possibly neuter your dog. Painlessly, mind you. You should have had that done already, anyway. What are you? Some kind of irresponsible dog owner?

Guess what kind of content is in this post below! You've been warned.

More Like Osama Bin Awkward Joke About Somebody Dying

So, as you've all heard by now, Osama Bin Laden has kicked the proverbial bucket, bitten the proverbial dust, and tripped over the only-halfway-metaphorical toad. Not at all shockingly, theories that he had died years ago were proven untrue. Not quite ten years after the September 11th attacks, the big bad al-Qaeda head honcho we've devoted so much time, so many resources, and so many lives - not only our own, but the countless civilian lives lost in our not-wars-but-great-ways-for-contractors-to-make-money in Iraq and Afghanistan. Should we take to the streets and start singing 'War is Over,' as out of season as that would be? Break out the giant foam hands and wave them while chanting that America is number one until our voices give out and we tire of the redundancy?

Hope Estranged

Oh hey, I do have a blog, don't I?

I've been much quieter than usual this year. I keep promising more content 'soon,' but then not delivering. It's surprising that all two and one-sixteenth of you checking this blog with any kind of regularity have yet to gang up on me in a very small mob and threaten me with a crowbar. Still, there's a reason for my near-silence since early last November. There's a lot to be less than happy about these days - frustration with ongoing publishing efforts, struggles to get a paid writing job, the end of a very disappointing winter, fading hope of escaping the south this year already, my dog's declining health, the shocking earthquakes and tsunami that just hit Japan hours ago, and the state of both the country and the world. All of these things are weighing heavily on me at the moment, but the last one in particular has essentially clogged my resolve in recent months. I've had all these thoughts - intensely negative ones on the whole - stuck in my head for months now, interfering with my sleep, souring the enjoyment of my hobbies, disrupting my daily life, and keeping my stress levels high. I need to wake up earlier. I need badly to get out of this house. And I need to clear this blockage - this post is months coming, but hopefully it'll help.

This post is intended to be something cathartic. It is rambling and unpleasant, but if you feel like proceeding, go ahead and click the title to proceed. You've been warned. I have to admit, though, in finishing this post, I feel it's one of the better things I've written in a while - hopefully a testament to why maybe, just maybe, I should someday be able to make a living on my writing - and I'm sacrificing sleep for it, of course. Maybe I'll sleep better with all this off my chest. I hope to.

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear Liveblog

About a month or so again - perhaps a month and a half - Jon Stewart began teasing an upcoming announcement on the Daily Show. Stephen Colbert, after noting demand for a "Restoring Truthiness" rally in response to terrible Fox News pundit Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally (Which was mostly about a fuck-you to the separation of church and state and general GOP pandering, warning people of those scary "others" coming to get Jesus-loving white people who always vote Republican.), began teasing his own counter-announcement, insisting that his announcement would make Jon's seem like nothing.

Eventually, this escalated to the announcement of dueling rallies - Jon's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen's March to Keep Fear Alive. They spent weeks hyping them up after setting the October 30th date, just in time for Halloween. Jon got a lot of public notice and media attention, including endorsements from Oprah, buses courtesy of Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post, and even mention by president Barack Obama, who appeared on the Daily Show this past Wednesday during their week of shows in Washington, DC.

He held his own as well, when Jon asked some tough questions, and touted his and the current Democratic congress's strong track record of actually getting things done, including vital healthcare reform, financial reform, and effectively stopping a second Great Depression from happening. All true, and all things the right seeks to constantly discredit Obama and the Democrats for accomplishing. (And when I say "the right," I'm generally just focusing on the GOP here - the Democrats are to the left of them, but they're still very much center-right and corporatist. Problematic unto themselves, but more of a problem to be dealt with if we can shift away from the brink as a nation, considering the insanity we regularly hear espoused by the GOP these days.) We've gotten not quite two years to clean up an eight-year mess that will take decades for this nation to likely ever recover from as fully as possible - and some things, like the numbers of lives lost due to reckless decisions by the previous administration, cannot be recovered - and that isn't nearly enough time to undo that kind of damage.

What we have done these past near-two-years, however, amounts to getting a strong, pragmatic start, taking America's recovery one step at a time. Obama's even committed to bipartisanship in ways both conceptually admirable and unwise in application. Still, the fact that he's been so adamant about that speaks volumes about his belief in the political system - in compromise; in actually working together to get things done instead of stonewalling like the Republicans have been since he took office - regardless of how broken its processes currently are. The Democrats - save for those who've lacked the guts to stand by their record these past twenty-ish months - deserve reelection. The Republicans have spent these months crossing their arms and sitting in congress shaking their heads to everything, even policy ideas they had proposed years ago in the first place! No one right of mind should even consider voting for them on Tuesday - not for what they've spent these years representing. I'll get into that more on Tuesday before I turn into a complete broken record, though - I've got an election post coming up then.

Anyway, after all the attention Jon Stewart got - even getting a rally permit for the National Mall, and tying the rally in to a charity to restore and care for the area - Stephen Colbert went mostly ignored, only really getting an endorsement from Rick Sanchez. (Who had a bad day, snapped, and said some terrible, hateful things - lashing out at Jon among others, not having taken being made fun of routinely for all these years so well - and actually had a point in his rant about how underrepresented minorities are in the newsmedia in the next week, losing his job in public disgrace. Unlike Juan Williams, who just lost his job at NPR the other week for his casual anti-Muslim bigotry, Sanchez had the wisdom not to jump to Fox News and went on to demonstrate that despite the things he said, he recognized how wrong they were and at least showed the world that he's not a completely terrible person at heart.) In the end, he came on the Daily Show and signed onto Jon's rally permit, combining the Rally to Restore Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive into a single event - the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

All this? A last minute liveblog that I haphazardly decided to do, since the only other one I can think of that I'll be doing in the future will be the upcoming Conan premiere in a little over another week. Worthwhile content. I was going to be asleep before noon - that was the plan - but instead, once the rally started, I just had to stay up and watch it. So here it all is, my liveblog in its entirety - and now, nearing 4 PM, I'm going to take some time to finish up my severely overdue late-September short story before I crash. And tonight, I'm writing a Halloween-themed short story for you guys just in time for the holiday itself for the October monthly short story. This is how backed up I've been on my blog work here - and this is also my dedication to all of you, the silent millions secretly hanging on my every word and dying for the day I finally get an agent and get novels on shelves for you to buy and gleefully hug to your chests in literary anticipation. (PRETEND.)

For those of you following this - if any - as a point of reference, the rally's also streaming live on Comedy Central's website.

Let's get sane. (All times EST)

(12:00) The Roots! Not sure what song they're performing to open with. I'm going to try to get the names of all the songs performed. The National Mall looks pretty packed - a veritable sea of sanity. Wonder if we'll see a total turnout bigger than Beck's insulting Lincoln Memorial "Honor" rally months back. And hey, where there's signs, they're actually spelled correctly. Fancy that!

(12:10) John Legend joins them! Now performing a song with them. One of the songs performed was a cover of Monsters of Folk's "Dear God." Mellow, relaxing way to kick things off. Befitting of the theme.

(12:15) A second song by John Legend and The Roots, "Hard Times."

(12:19) A third song by Legend and The Roots. I believe that was "Little Ghetto Boy" by Donny Hathaway.

(12:25) A fourth song, written back in 1973 by Bill Withers. Legend recalling the circumstances of when it was written, in the midst of the Vietnam War. And now we're still at war. "I Can't Write Left-Handed" is the song. Legend was also the first to get away with an unedited "fuck" on-air, not quite half an hour in. Ah, live television. Gotta love it.

(12:32) Fantastic extended jam as the song moves toward its close.

(12:34) Another song.  Really energetic rap this time - "The Seed (2.0)." Not a cover this time, but an original by The Roots.

(12:39) And now, the Mythbusters! Adam Save and Jamie Hyneman. Time for them to do some experiments, starting with The Wave. That crowd is ridiculously massive. Cheers for sanity.

(12:43) Adam suggested that the crowd is about 150,000 large. I can see that - this is an incredible turnout. You can't even see where the crowd ends on the horizon.

(12:48) Now they're doing some sound experiments after all the various Waves they had the crowd do.

(12:52) Now they're going to get the whole crowd to jump to create a groundswell. They brought some seismologists and a seismometer to measure the effects of the jump.

(12:54) The results? Not much seismic activity, but still 100 times more powerful than a minor car crash with their second jump.

(12:55) And now the Mythbusters are going. Fun segment.

(12:56) The official opening and Jon Stewart at last makes his appearance as the host of the part of the rally dedicated to sanity! Starting with the crowd standing for a singing of the national anthem performed by four troops. Those ladies and gents can sing.

(12:59) Jon returns! "ARE YOU READY TO RESTORE SANITY!?"

(1:00) Important things first. No littering - the National Mall is a treasure and presently in disrepair. "Let's leave this place cleaner than we found it!" Asking any landscapers in attendance to help out, get some topiaries up. The most important things for a rally? Jokingly, 'Color and size.' "Over ten million people" in attendance - lampooning Fox News's exaggeration of attendance at Glenn Beck's rally. A perfect demographic sample of the American people? Definitely. If you have too many white people at a rally, it must be racist. If you have too many colored people, they must be asking for basic equal rights - something we are not ready to give.

(1:02) With the help of Aasif Mandvi and Samantha Bee in the crowd, they're counting off the exact size of the crowd so no one can doubt the numbers in attendance.

(1:03) Samantha Bee and Aasif Mandvi interviewing crowd members, counting them off and having them identify themselves demographically. And the young ladies can't get enough of Jon Stewart. (STEW-BEEF!)

(1:04) "Jon! Help!" The voice of Stephen Colbert! Trapped in his fear bunker! Comm link on Jumbotron time. Stephen in a very dark place. His fear bunker was 2000 feet below the stage, encased in solid bedrock. Stephen was shirtless in a cave, mostly afraid that no one showed up to their rally. The crowd cheered to let him know they were there. "Are the men handsome? Are the women beautiful? And do they respond to obvious pandering?"

(1:06) He's coming up! An alarm rings and Stephen Colbert emerges to the Colbert Report theme in a Chilean miner pod emergence spoof - clad in an Eviel Knievel style outfit, the always-classy caped jumpsuit. "Chi! Chi! Le! Le!"

(1:08) "Hello America! Hello multitude on the Washington Mall! Oh! Oh, this feels right!" And, of course, "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!" "They're reasonable for now, Jon. But soon they'll be a mindless panicked mob once I release the bees!" "RELEASE THE BEES!" Bees coated with peanut butter. Deliberately fabricating fears that don't exist. Raising awareness of potential dangers and then allowing an informed public decide whether to cower in terror or die bravely. Our media, all right.

(1:10) Whispers instead of cheers in favor of restoring sanity. That's a quiet cheer. And a massive chorus of ghostly "WOOOOO!"s to keep fear alive. Stephen declared himself the winner, the rally over, and thanked The Roots.

(1:12) For a more traditional start - not a book burning! - Father Guido Sarducci, here to deliver the rally's benediction. He was on the Colbert Report a few months back, as I recall. Still around, still funny. Cheers from the crowd for each religion. Observation about Judaism and Islam - "You know, they don't eat the same meat, and yet they don't get along. You'd think they could build on that."

(1:17) Shot of the crowd as Sarducci talked religion. Someone dressed up as Beaker from The Muppet Show with a pro-science sign. Fantastic.

(1:19) The benediction wrapped. When Sarducci thanked god for dogs especially, they cut to someone in the audience dressed as Clifford the Big Red Dog, too.

(1:20) And now Stephen Colbert's inaugurating things with "an poem," now dressed in a leather jacket and American flag pants. To read it? Law & Order's Sam Waterston, infamous Law & Order sound effect in tow. "Are You Sure?" by the Reverend Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.

(1:23) The poem concluded. Lots of memes from our half decade of Colbert Report fun. Jon felt that music could express some emotions difficult for us to express with words. Formerly Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam, performing "Peace Train!"

(1:26) Stephen Colbert interrupted, much to audience protest. Jon had to step in and apologize. Stephen refuses to get on the Peace Train. He has a better train instead, he says, and the conductor has an important announcement to make. Ozzy Osbourne! "Crazy Train," I believe.

(1:29) Jon interrupted Ozzy, refusing to get on that train - it was going off the rails, after all. Back to Yusuf Islam continuing his song! Not even a full minute before Stephen interrupted and threw back to Ozzy. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups sponsor message banner across the screen - I also endorse this candy. Jon interrupted seconds later, and now both are trying to play their respective songs simultaneously.

(1:31) Now things are ruined! They've got no train! Except! Wait! The Love Train! Thus, a performance they could agree on by The OJs. Rally halfway point passed. Wonderful so far.

 (1:36) Performance finished. Jon appeared and announced all these fantastic musical guests again. "Sanity does not mean never having unreasonable moments." And now a look at true stories of unreasonable moments people have had in the public eye in montage. Steven Slater, that flight attendant who had a famous meltdown, and Teresa Giudice of - I believe - that Real Housewives of New Jersey reality show.

(1:39) Now discussing the most important thing about a rally - how it's reported on. Either it was a tremendous success or a horrendous failure staged by a fringe movement. Wyatt Cenac and Jason Jones now covering the rally from both perspectives within the crowd. Wyatt's the optimist, and Jones is the pessimist. Talking to crowd members too. Much shakier camera for Jones. Overhead shots for Cenac to show the huge crowd, while Jones tried to present them as being few in number, nothing more than a disorganized fringe mob. Jones kept trying to rile up a guy in the crowd, and it didn't work.

(1:41) And now giving out medals to individuals who demonstrated rationality and sanity in the face of difficult circumstances. The Medals of Reasonableness all had owls on them.

(1:42) The first medal goes to Venezuelan baseball player Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, who didn't flip out at an umpire who made a bad call. He accepted the medal and spoke well of the umpire via a taped statement.

(1:44) Stephen interrupts with his own medal: the Stephen Colbert Fear Award. His medals depicted a naked man running with scissors. He awarded it to all the news organizations that barred their reporters from attending Jon and Stephen's rally out of fear that they'd be accused of a liberal bias for covering it. Those organizations? ABC, CBS, the AP, The New York Times, and NPR! With no one in attendance to present the award to, he decided to present it to someone with more courage: a seven-year-old girl. Stephen asked if she was scared to be there, and she said it was fun. Stephen warned her about a cooties epidemic you won't hear about on NPR.

(1:46) The next two performers? Here from Chicago, which means they must have been cursed out by Rahm Emanuel. Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy, performing "You Are Not Alone."

(1:50) Performance complete. Second Medal for Reasonableness time! This one went to Velma Hart for respectfully asking Obama some very tough questions at a CNBC town hall meeting. She came out to accept her medal live. "He gave me his answer, and he's been giving us our answer every day since!" A sane, reasonable, respectful lady. Another good call.

(1:52) Time for the second Feary! (Fearie?) Given to Anderson Cooper's tight black t-shirt, for being with Cooper while he covered a number of scary things over the years.

(1:54) Nobody knows what's next on their program - then it's PK Winsome. An important message from a friend, played by none other than Tim Meadows, of course. Presenting PK Winsome's Commemorative Merchandise Mart, as opposed to his usual deadly pharmaceuticals in his Colbert Report segments. Complete with surplus souvenir mousepads for the movie Antz, as well as "Mice Mice Baby" Vanilla Ice mousepads. He's really desperate to get rid of those mousepads.

(1:57) And now Jon's in an American flag windbreaker. He thanked the crowd for attending and Stephen came out in the same pullover fleece zip-up, as Jon elaborated. Stephen announced that Jon was desecrating it since it matched Stephen's pants. Stephen demanded he take it off. Arguing over who could wear American flag sweaters.

(1:59) And now Stephen and Jon singing about why they love America, dueling over that love with their pullovers. Very awkward start for Stephen as he struggled to find the right pitch. Jon stumbled when he started too - not exactly as rehearsed as their duet on A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! Of course, that also benefited from not being live. You can only get these awkward moments live. Jabs in there at Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez, too. Wonderful and well-deserved. The chorus is about the country being "the greatest, strongest, country in the world." And even a shoutout to straight men who like Glee. Technically in that demographic myself.

(2:03) Toward the end of their song, they're holding up mics to audience members and getting them to sing where they're from to alter the lyrics in "From ____, to _____" form, eventually crescendoing back to the chorus, deeming no one more American than we. Jeff Tweedy backed them with the acoustic guitar.

(2:05) Jon apologized for our having to hear him sing and said we wouldn't have to again - it worked in rehearsal. Then it was time for the third Medal of Reasonableness. Going to wrestler Mick Foley, who seems like a pretty decent guy too, despite what one might think of pro-wrestlers. For exemplifying reasonableness in everything but his day job, he was given the medal. Foley came out to accept the medal live. "Civility is cool" indeed.

(2:07) And the final fear award went to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who naturally wasn't there to accept it, valuing his privacy more than he does yours. (They've sold a lot of private user data over the years.) Facebook has opened up new forms of fear, too, as Stephen pointed out, since now you could see if your ex found someone cuter - everybody's greatest fear, of course. Stephen accepted the award since Zuckerburg wasn't there and told him to friend him - he was going to post a photo of him wearing the medal on his own Facebook wall. All reminds me that I still need to see The Social Network since that looks legitimately very good. (Plus, these really well-constructed trailers - a rare case of TV spots actually getting my attention for a movie - introduced me to Sigur Ros's Jonsi's music. Wonderful stuff.)

(2:08) Jon gave out one last award, refusing to end their awards with fear. To the "Dude, you have no Koran!" guy from one of the planned controversial Koran burnings back in September- Jacob Isom. Stephen yanked it away and announced "Dude, you have no medal!" Then Isom got his medal and tossed it out into the crowd, walking away wordlessly. I praised that guy on Twitter back in September, and he's still the man. Respect.

(2:10) Another musical guest, performing with Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock. They performed a new song, "Care." T.I. taped a green screen thing for the, since he couldn't be there. He was one of the collaborators behind the song performed. Not the cheeriest song, seemingly about not being able to change the world - the opposite of the message we need to believe in now.

(2:16) And now another song. I'm going to assume this is another new one they're performing here - I can't find a name anywhere. I'm not a fan of either of them, so I'm kind of looking forward to this part being over - I actually like all of the previous musical guests, though I haven't made a habit of listening to any of them with regularity.

(2:21) Done. Whew.  And now an important announcement from Stephen Colbert. Our keynote speaker for the afternoon: Jon Stewart.

(2:23) Stephen interrupted Jon's keynote, noting that every point must have a counterpoint. FORMIDABLE OPPONENT! Stephen needed to be empodiumed - though it's not a word - in now challenging Jon to a debate. First Formidable Opponent segment where Stephen's not just debating himself - they never do this segment enough on the Report. Jon's arguing for reason, while Stephen's arguing on the behalf of fear. Where Jon turned to history, Stephen turned to the bible. Jon invoked FDR's infamous quotation, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." As Stephen pointed out, Nixon said, "People respond to fear, not love." That's why Stephen proposed to his wife by hiding the ring inside a rabid badger.

(2:26) Jon called out media fearmongers, while Stephen wanted to know what the new, latest thing to be afraid of was - Jon turned to korbamite (Corbamite?) from the first season of the original Star Trek, all the way down to citing the specific episode referenced.

(2:28) And now Jon's calling out fearmongering against Muslims. Excellent! Truth. Oh, hey, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! There to represent Muslims - "No matter our religious positions, we're all on the same team." Yes indeed.

(2:31) And in calling out Stephen's bigotry toward robots, an appearance by the one and only R2-D2, "one of the good ones." They even invoked the infamous R2-scream when Jon mentioned that there was a blender backstage with its eye on him.

(2:32) Jon's reasonableness is poisoning Stephen's fear, so he's summoning... FEARZILLA! A big papier-mache Stephen Colbert, throwing to a montage of mainstream media fearmongering. They like to ask "Could it be in your neighborhood?" a lot.

(2:34) Stephen declared himself the winner and high-fived his papier-mache self, but Jon insisted that most of the fears in the montage were overblown and would never come true. Then Stephen threw to media and political hyperbole with violent shots back and forth between the right and left - the right's worse and gets much, much, much more coverage and focus, being allowed to push the narrative as they do, but we've had some embarrassing moments on the left well worth calling out too. (Though compared to the rest of the globe, our "left-wing" and "liberals" here are pretty much sane centrists.) Another montage that demonstrated well - like the one prior - how horribly broken the media and our political discussion are.

(2:36) Stephen declared himself the winner again. Jon admitted the montages were pretty dispiriting. Jon brought out his hotel remote to point out that it's a weapon against the media - something we can use to turn off the TV or change the channel to escape the media. Stephen threw to an Early Show segment (And other morning news show clips) on the dirtiest things in hotel rooms where the horribly disgusting things found on hotel TV remotes were discussed. Stephen declared the Daily Show over and said Jon would be missed, declaring Jon killed.

(2:38) John Oliver is here! In forest green tights as Peter Pan, no less, calling Jon completely dead, telling him to stop talking. And since Jon died and needed the crowd's help, Peter-John appealed to them and told them to clap for Jon. Jon insisted that he appreciated but really didn't need their help since he wasn't dead. John tried to get people to do the Hambone, or the Arsenio - a little jig. Next up was chanting - chanting, "Will this help?!" And the chanting started killing Stephen Colbert, the American joining together to chant as one, burning and melting Stephen and his powerful fear - My preciousssss - sending him to the ground along with his puppet, officially dead. John dragged Stephen off-stage and stagehands took the puppet away.

(2:41) Now Jon was alone on stage. He addressed the incredible musical performances they'd had, and some technical comedy too. And now a moment - however brief - for sincerity, possibly violating that comedian-pundit line. He discussed how we could've looked at today's gathering, and discussed how they wanted to put on the best show possible - our time was valuable, so they didn't want to waste it, and were honored to perform for all of us in that beautiful space, on the National Mall.

(2:44) "What exactly was this?" He can't control what people think it was, he can only state his intentions. It wasn't a rally to ridicule people of faith, activism, the heartland, people of passionate argument, or to belittle the difficult times we live in. "But we live now in hard times, not end times! And we can have animus and not be enemies! But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke." Addressing the broken 24-hour newsmedia, and that while they didn't cause our problems, its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold a magnifying glass up to our problems and illuminate otherwise unseen issues, or they can use it to light ants on fire - they do the latter. "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing." "There are terrorists, racists, Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned!" He went on about our tendency to thoughtlessly throw these labels about, doing a great disservice to the actual horrible people in the world - "just as our inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more."

(2:47) "The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we get sicker! And perhaps eczema." "That being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good." Because the image of Americans reflected by our media and political processes is a false one - it's essentially a fun house mirror, distorting everything. Every day we hear about how we can't work together to get things done and how we're on the brink of collapse, but it's untrue - "we work together to get things done every damn day!" "The only place we don't is here or on cable TV! But Americans don't live here or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals, or conservatives. Americans live their lives as people just a little late for something they have to do - often something they don't want to do, but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises we all make."

(2:51) Jon looked at images of cars in traffic on camera and described the kinds of people out there in them, all the little things that make us different and all the things that unite us. Every car is filled with "individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear," often in sharp conflict with one another, but they still have to funnel into little off-turns and navigate the roads together, each compromising constantly and taking their turns as we drive where we need to get to go. And occasionally we see selfish jerks who rush ahead and cut other people off, but those people are rare, scorned, and not hired as an analyst. "Because we know instinctively as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we always have to work together. And there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land - it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together."

(2:53) Jon said that our presence was what he wanted at the rally - that was all he'd wanted. "Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here and the kind of people you are today has restored mine." Uproarious applause and cheering.

(2:54) Tony Bennett is out to sing "America the Beautiful." Fantastic closing.

(2:56) Jon thanked everyone for coming today and thanked Stephen, who came out then too. They thanked everyone on their shows, and all the musicians who came out to share their time with us.

(2:57) And now all the musical artists are out for one final song, along with all the other guests and award winners, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, R2-D2, the seven-year-old girl, and all the correspondents. The musicians then joined together in their final song. Not sure what the song is. I'll try to get that next - "I'll Take You There," I believe. End credits rolled.

(3:00) Over. I'll finish polishing bits of extra info in this liveblog, then it's done and I need to finish a short story here before I sleep. Crazy.

Final thoughts: the right-wing laden media (Which they even called out in many mainstream outlets being afraid to cover the rally and risk being labeled "liberal," pathetic as that witch hunt has always been) will try to label this as a failure to fire up the left to vote on Tuesday and stop the teabaggers from wrecking the nation. And we'll undoubtedly see as much negative slant against Jon, Stephen, and everyone involved here as possible. It probably will fire up a lot of America's youth, especially, though - and I'd bet that most if not all of the people in the crowd and viewers on TV will vote, and the majority of them probably won't be voting Republican. It was all more mellow entertainment mixed with a call for reason and rationality than it was any leftist manifesto, and as great political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow observed on Twitter, a lot of it sounded like a college freshman stoner session. And he's not wrong - the themes were pretty typical to that sort of stereotypical thought. But in their simplicity and appeal, they're not wrong or any less beautiful.

I doubt we're going to be seeing any kind of a return to sanity in the end for all this - things are going to take a horrible turn if the right gets the massive gains they're expecting next week, and if we manage to stop them and keep the country focused in a better direction, the discourse is only going to get shriller and nastier - but for what it all is, and for the sentiment expressed, it was still a good way to spend three hours. Three hours in which we could all sit back, listen to some good music, laugh at some awkward comedy, and join together in just wanting to feel like the world hadn't lost its mind for a little while. And these days more than ever, as stressful and trying as the times are, we need to be able to feel that way. To separate ourselves from the consuming madness; to look about us; to look at each other, even; to clear our heads; and to say to ourselves, "I haven't lost to all this yet."

Now the remaining questions are, what happened to Stephen's "Ghost of Jon" song and the winners of the sanity sign and fear costume contests they were going to show?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Triple Evils

I've made no secret of that a recent blogging trend for me has been to start a post on one subject or another, and then lose track of time or get distracted by or preoccupied with something else and I end up putting off finishing the post for weeks. This one was originally started back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 18th. Obviously, more than a month has passed since then. But, while we're in the last week of February now, it is still Black History Month, so hey, it's a relevant time for the subject in question.

I was reading an interview with Martin Luther King III last month that made me aware for the first time of the "Triple Evils" that Martin Luther King Jr. railed against. While we learned about him as a great civil rights crusader - and one of the most important historical figures in the American 20th century - the focus in public schools was largely placed on his fight for racial equality. This is all well and good, of course, but at the same time, one has to wonder why we didn't go over the other issues he focused on in addition to racism. Placing these issues under the microscope, it's hard not to feel there's some political motivation behind avoiding discussion of the other two of the Triple Evils.

Healthcare Reform: How 'Bout It?

It's been a little while since my last political entry, so I figured it was getting to be about time. (I did say I'd get another post up while it was still August - maybe not in those exact words, but close enough!) And with all the insanity buzzing around the very notion of reforming our broken healthcare system here in the United States, I felt like it was time for me to weigh in. (Particularly to honor the recently deceased Ted Kennedy in this case, an admirable politician with high ideals who fought hard for healthcare reform up until his death to brain cancer the better part of a week ago. A sad, troubling time in which to pass on, but his funeral on Saturday was a fitting tribute to in many ways the most important Kennedy family member in American politics.)

Let's start by looking at the heart of the basic problem of healthcare reform. What's wrong with this country? The insurance industry, of course. Even I grew up thinking the basic concept was screwed up. "Really? We pay other people for the promise of helping us with our healthcare, and they do everything they can to avoid paying out? Why are we trying to make money on going to the doctor?" Legally, we place more importance on making sure everybody has to buy CAR insurance than we do making sure people have access to healthcare. We place more value on liability insurance for our vehicles than we do our own national health. (In fact, you can't even be legally issued a Driver's License here in North Carolina without car insurance.) Yes, it's safe to say that our priorities are more than a little screwed up. Here in America, we have a $400 billion industry standing as a giant barricade between the people and the healthcare that the rest of the developed world deemed a human right quite some time ago. When faced with a money-wall that dauntingly dense, corporations that have indeed placed prices on human lives - lobbying Congress like there's no tomorrow, keeping as many politicians as deeply in their pockets as possible from both parties - those of us fighting for reform face a seemingly unbeatable beast. And it's imperative that we - not only as moral creatures who care about others than ourselves, but as human beings in general - defeat this monster birthed by our greed.

Back in 2007, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's Sicko highlighted the serious problems of this corrupt industry and made a strong argument for public healthcare. Over 40 million Americans are uninsured. Moore covered this, along with the focus on profits for shareholders at insurance companies - talking with former employees, who discussed the cost-cutting lengths they'd go to in denying service. (In short, even having insurance is no guarantee of actual healthcare. Their end goal is to take your money and give you as little back as possible for it - ideally nothing at all. It's a crooked system in its very conception.) He also looked at the right's framing their opposition of healthcare reform and nationalization as a Cold War era style battle against Communism, appealing to the Baby Boomer generation that actually responds to this kind of fear propaganda. Two years later, here we are seriously fighting for healthcare reform with a historic moderate president in office keen on mopping up long-term right-wing political mistakes, and the right's attacking reform through exactly the means Moore brought up. He even found that the origins of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 were rooted in a conversation between John Ehrlichman and Richard Nixon (President at the time) in which Ehrlichman spoke of the HMO system being expanded in a way to focus on profit for insurance companies through giving the public as little care as possible. Nixon - in this, one of the many obviously regrettable conversations he taped - remarked that it sounded just fine to him. He also looked at the healthcare systems in Canada, France, and the UK - all of which are far better than the US's, and far less expensive than this bloated mess our love affair with unregulated capitalism has wrought. (Despite what Libertarians often espouse, the "Free Market" will not "take care of everybody." In fact, from what we've seen repeatedly here when deregulation occurs - and in this case, when we try building a for-profit industry on an essential service - the "Free Market" will screw everybody it possibly can given the opportunity.) And this description is merely the tip of the iceberg - Moore addresses the problem in his documentary far better than I can in a blog post, but I'm taking a crack at it regardless. Typically, the far right has written the contents of the documentary off, as they're not exactly shy about their hatred of Moore - in particular because he tends to back up his arguments with facts they can't exactly counter. When you get to the bottom of the matter, the big issue is that healthcare itself is an essential service - the sort of services that the government has socialized virtually all of for a very long time. No essential service should ever be a for-profit industry. We could not run the post office, police, or fire departments as for-profit industries without shutting out a dauntingly large portion of the nation. This is exactly what we are doing with our healthcare system.

The Republicans, Michael Steele's proclaimed "Party of No," have NO interest in the future of this country or the quality of life for the average American. (No reform, No empathy, No intellectual honesty. We're seeing a veritable "Let's run this shit into the ground!" mentality blossom in this George W. Bush/Sarah Palin era where incredibly ignorant fringe politics are considered mainstream. Opposition for opposition's sake.) This is a point that they have both established and hammered to death since this administration took power earlier this year. And with the extremely high deficits forecast for the future, they'd like now more than ever to shut down all nonmilitary government spending (And the military takes up an inordinately large part of our spending as a result of the travesties the previous administration pushed us into abroad. There absolutely shouldn't be any of the buzz we still hear here and there about a potential war with Iran, either. If the chaos around the recent stolen election there shows anything, it's that their leadership is definitely corrupt, but the people? Absolutely not. And if we attack Iran, it's the people who suffer the most. They are not our enemies, but we will be making them into them and giving them every reason to hate us if we attack them.) in the name of reducing the deficit. (An issue they curiously didn't care about with our trainwreck of a previous president, who cast us headfirst into a deep fiscal well as a nation. They'd rather put all the focus and blame on Obama as though he were responsible for the numerous terrible decisions made by the Bush administration.) Of course, this is also a completely unrealistic concept that they like to cling to because a government that cannot spend money is a crippled, ineffective government. And if they could shut down the Obama administration's spending, that would ensure the collapse of their support and give the insanely far right another opening to pursue election as their party's disturbing ideologies continue to slide further from mainstream acceptance. They talk about "reform" every now and then, but offer up nothing of value, deeper in the pockets of the insurance companies than even the Democrats. For them, this is all about "defeating" Obama with dangerous fringe politics and the inciting of fear, with the incredibly ignorant Sarah Palin (Who seems to lower the glass ceiling another inch every time she opens her mouth.), hateful Rush Limbaugh, and openly deceitful Fox News (Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly as standouts) at the forefront. If these people win with their politics of hate, fear, ethnocentrism, incitement of violence, and class warfare (With the rich deified and the poor vilified - after all, "If you're not rich, you're just lazy!"), this country has no future.

While numerous lies have been told about healthcare reform - all by people who haven't actually read the bill, and tend to come up with "It's too long to read!" as the best of their flimsy excuses - one in particular has stood out in recent weeks, made especially popular by Sarah "Dingoes/gubmint/Good healthcare ate/tried to eat/might eat in the future/does a concept have an appetite? my political prop/grandpa/baby with Down's Syndrome/normal baby that I also use as a political prop!" Palin. She claimed in a Facebook post (The real blogging outlet for all serious politicians who resign halfway through their only term in elected office out of personal narcissism. The same page has been full of all kinds of ugliness toward the Kennedy's since Ted Kennedy's death as well - representative again of how low her followers' political discourse is, if you can even really call it that.) that the government would begin forming these so-called "Death Panels" to determine who would live or die, and suggested rather blatantly that she would be forced to stand before one in order to justify her child with Down's Syndrome's existence. This, of course, is based in this meme-like claim from the right that universal healthcare will take away our freedoms and choice in regard to our healthcare, that not only will we not be able to choose our own physicians, but that there will be forced abortions and mass killings of the elderly once it's no longer "cost effective" to keep them alive on things like life support or to pay for expensive medical equipment in general. The thing is, that's the exact opposite of universal, socialized healthcare - specifically because it's a program designed to operate at a loss, funded by taxpayer dollars like all other essential services, because the private sector can't do a better job providing these services. In fact, the "Death Panels" spoken of already exist in many capacities - sure, they're not forcing anybody to abort their Down's babies, but they sure as hell are looking for every excuse they can to abandon their clients, citing any "preexisting condition" they can to drop coverage and justify not paying for things as so to avoid taking losses. There may not be a "bureaucrat between us and our doctors" like they claim with nationalized healthcare, but we've certainly got businessmen with profit incentives behind denying healthcare coverage between us.

Who put all this "Death Panel" talk in Sarah Palin's head? None other than Betsy McCaughey. On the last Daily Show, Jon Stewart took her to task on her criticism of end-of-life counseling and claims that the healthcare bill makes it mandatory. She had the bill right there in front of her on the show, and still could not back up her claims with anything in the bill. The claims she's made stemmed from her twisting her own misinterpretation of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's writings on making the most ethical medical decisions about organ transplants when supplies are low into claiming that he was advocating the rationing of healthcare based on age and disability. (And from there, Sarah Palin took that to a whole new level of stupid, and ta-da! Death Panels.) Ultimately, McCaughey's proven herself to be a very unreliable source of commentary on the issue of healthcare reform, writing from a perspective well established as being in no way rational or objective - geared instead toward giving the Republicans ammunition with which to sink legislation aimed at improving the American people's quality of life.

Even when McCain made some halfhearted efforts to defend Obama and the administration at a town hall meeting last week, we saw an audience ultimately filled with the kinds of daunting ignorance and hate that Palin spent their campaign last fall whipping up. And with things like that Facebook post intended to incite, she continues to do so alongside with Fox News. These are the kind of dangerously radical far right wing people that actual conservatives should have stepped up to and quieted as they started to get rowdy instead of gorging themselves on the adulation of the racist and ignorant. A political party that now builds itself on ignorance and hate has no future and is no better than the enemies it claims exist around the world seeking to destroy us. Their platforms these days are largely constructed in an unsustainable manner to cater to the last people who need the government looking after their interests, while shutting out those who need assistance the most, with the usual "bootstrap" excuses, as though every problem in this country can be solved by "hard work." (And accusations of "laziness.") A very popular right-wing myth that they - in all their corporate love - have helped to successfully make a myth.

Also getting media attention as of late is the stepping up of comparisons between Obama and Hitler. While you'd think this might have come from the same crowd shrieking about "socialism" (See: Surrogate terminology for racism-derived anger in no way socially accepted as a form of expression anymore, like the constant focus on Obama's "Hussein" middle name throughout the election, in many of these cases.) and "Getting government out of my Medicare!" (Despite Medicare being a government program and nothing but.), it didn't. (Not that they don't enjoy seeing that kind of rhetoric, of course.) Rather the blatant Hitler comparisons come from a cult of personality of sorts around a man named Lyndon LaRouche. He's a creep, a criminal, a fascist (The actual kind - not what the Republicans mean by the word here.), and a crook, with a long-established history of fixation on linking everything he can to Hitler and the Nazis. Basically, he's the worst kind of cult internet celebrity. There's no sanity or value behind the "contributions" to discourse we get from his followers. (Not to mention people outright shouting "Heil Hitler!" at Jewish people over the healthcare reform issue now. It's both a little scary and beyond ridiculous how the extreme right is trying to label those fighting for a better healthcare system - for that all-important first part of "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" - as Nazis while themselves invoking the Holocaust in the name of their own brand of ignorance and fear-driven political oppression. For all the talk of "fascism" from the left, while we're seeing fascist mentalities publicly expressed in this country out of fear and ignorance, the left's the last place it's coming from.) Hitler comparisons add nothing of value to a political debate, when you get down to it. All they do is serve to insult all who died in the Holocaust. We've certainly had some terrible people in power over the past few decades - Obama and Clinton are not amongst them - but even as bad as things got under Bush, he didn't deserve Hitler comparisons either. In fact, while we've had quite a few terrible presidents, none of them have anything on Hitler's brand of "terrible." But the Hitler image isn't about a comparison with any kind of basis. It's all about manipulation through McCarthy-esque fear mongering - not unlike what the Bush administration used throughout their years in power following the September 11th attacks in 2001. It's the lowest of the political tactics, the most effective way to counter facts and rationality - with emotion and irrationality. If you can't win on facts or anything reflected by reality or human empathy, you shift gears to focus on bringing out the worst in humanity in the name of your cause.

There are people fighting against healthcare reform saying that so many people don't "deserve" healthcare because they can't afford it in our current broken system. This is downright sociopathic - however, most people who say this have no idea what they're actually saying and lack actual understanding of our problem at its root. There are people worth tearing into over this issue - those who knowingly spread deceit and sow the seeds of rage and fear - but those being deceived by these individuals gain nothing by having their anger met by anger. They may have lost sight of reality after listening to twisted, lying individuals with their own anti-reform agendas to push in their opposition to this administration - elected in the very name of reform - but odds are for all those who won't listen, there are still undoubtedly a few whom reason has a shot at reaching. Antagonizing these people achieves nothing, and antagonizing those who refuse to listen doesn't achieve anything either - rather than acknowledging them, we should remain steadfast in keeping our focus on making our voices heard far more clearly as the masses we are. The right's whipped up a potentially dangerous, vocal minority, but what they amount to is hot air - sound and fury lacking substance and significance. It's with empathy and reason that we can stand against an enraged fringe - in standing against what they do with the methods they use, all they do is serve to vilify themselves.

Another real problem we face is that we're enamored with the myth that "America is this way, it's the way we're SUPPOSED to be, this is the pinnacle of civilization, those who succeed do so by their power and their power alone, all those who fail are lazy and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, change is bad." Naturally, it's a myth the far right continues to try to sell, drifting further and further from reality. (Frankly, you'd have to fairly out of your mind to think that consumer capitalism is the pinnacle of human civilization. It's insane to think that there's any permanence to where we are now, given that the entirety of history has shown us that there is no such thing as permanence - nor is there such a thing as perfection, though some Republicans seem to take offense to the idea of America's imperfection. Part of the whole narcissistic "patriotism" shtick.) There are some things in this nation we should not uphold - like the insurance system. Its existence is an obstacle to obtaining the kind of humanistic healthcare the rest of the developed world provides their people. We're absurdly obsessed with the concept of an individual's power and the idea that free market capitalism can save everyone and everything, while relying heavily on government-provided services and opportunities on a day to day basis - there's a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance on the part of the conservative "bootstraps" crowd that lives to pat themselves on their back and insist that their every accomplishment was achieved solely because they "worked hard." It's utter nonsense in a society ruled by corporate interest. There is no level playing field - hell, the whole existence experience itself is pretty damn rocky unless you were born into wealth and privilege. (And yet we can't get enough of trying to make dramas about how hard it is to be a rich white teenager on TV here. Pretty hilarious.) It's in their interest that this "free market" delusion remain popular, since it makes it easier for them to avoid proper regulation and more effectively fight off competition. Even the insurance industry itself has no real competition, and there isn't much inter-company competition, as they're all focused on the same goal - not one that results in healthcare being treated like the human right it is.

What does all this say about us? We on the left (Or frankly, all of us left of dangerously far right on our arbitrary political spectrum) got plenty ugly when Bush was in the White House. But we played NICE compared to the far right now. Since Obama made it to the general election and even more since his successful election to the office of the president, the racists have come out of the woodwork in this country, reminding that despite how far we've come, we haven't really come anywhere near as far as we should have. We have prominent political thought in a major political party that still harbors and feeds racist thought, all in an era where we've seen Republicans claim for years that we have a "post-racism" society where we no longer need important programs like Affirmative Action. (Naturally, they're completely wrong and they've only proven just how wrong they are to a scary degree in the past year.) But while racism is absolutely a big factor in all of this, it isn't the whole picture. Our conservative-leaning media (Fox News now terribly being the most popular 24-hours news network in America, they have no room to claim there's a "liberal media" in any sense. Their accusations only played a big part in further drifting away from objective journalism and into profit, sensationalism, and fear-based territory where there were always "two sides" to every story, and where the "left" and "right" had pundits being dragged onto TV to duke it out over every issue with zero real journalistic regard for where the actual truth lies. This is the kind of journalism that led to Walter Cronkite passing on deeply saddened by the pathetic state our newsmedia has sunk to.) openly works to keep the public misinformed now, with their owners (In Fox's case, the openly crazy-far-right Rupert Murdoch) having their own narratives they want to press upon the public. The newsmedia has failed us and helped to break this country.

As much rage as we get over "socialism," these McCarthy-esque claims are being made by people who have no idea what actual socialism is - and those who do are simply lying to manipulate older generations with whom McCarthy style paranoia strikes a nerve. The Republicans and their cable news network took this nation in a very dangerous direction with Bush, and now that they're out of power, they're hellbent on doing whatever they can to tear down whatever hope we have left of real change and reform away from the terrible things they represent. Unfortunately, we have no real leftist, progressive political presence on the national stage in this country. (Dennis Kucinich is probably the most progressive Congressman we've got, and even he's just one representative in the House.) Instead, we have a somewhat moderate right-leaning party in the Democrats, in which corporate lobbyists have taken a depressing amount of control, and then we have a dangerously far-right fringe party in the Republicans, completely in the pockets of the interests of corporations and the wealthy.

As for real healthcare reform, however you look at it, unless the Democrats stop trying to court the Republicans - who've made it clear that they want no part in real reform - and fight to push through a major overhaul of the system with a strong public option, we're not going to get anywhere near as much change as we need. (Though I would absolutely love to be wrong. PLEASE prove me wrong, Congress.) At this point, even something incremental and some real regulation of the corrupt insurance industry would be welcome, but until we start to study the healthcare systems in Canada, the UK, France, Scandinavia, and most of Europe in general, we're not going to get the real overhaul that we need. During the Bush years, "bipartisanship" meant pushing Democrats to vote for Republican legislation. Now during the Obama years, the very concept of bipartisanship is sadly essentially dead thanks to terrible, ignorant individuals leading the Republican party. When they cannot win on logic, rationale, and honesty - and they even tried to make "empathy" into a dirty word during Sonia Sotomayor's historic Supreme Court confirmation hearings (Implicit was that her sympathies should lie solely with the rich, white, and conservative, serving the same function as Bush's Supreme Court justices, Roberts and Alito. The conservatives seem keen on the Supreme Court being a last stop to forcibly ensuring a backwards status quo, rather than making the difficult decisions without a blatant right-wing slant.) - all they have left is fear and threat of violence. This is a political party encouraging oppressive values, and whipping up the absolute worst in America in what - in any sane reality - should be the beginning of the end of the party's political viability. It's time we start using our hearts and brains and move toward a more empathetic - and less greedy - national philosophy, toward a future with stronger left-wing and moderate politics, away from the right, which hasn't served this nation well. And away from the corporate kings who essentially rule the nation in so many ways and have broken our political system. A great first step would be in continuing to push for public healthcare for the masses - competition and regulation the corrupt insurance industry has long needed. For the good of the people.

Healthcare reform was a major theme at Ted Kennedy's funeral on Saturday. The Lion of the Senate was known for fighting the good fight for the right causes and not backing down. Once he died, the most disgusting people in this country began to verbally dance on his grave across the internet, and Republicans who respected him - including John McCain - began to try to politicize his death in their favor, claiming that in this one case, he would have backed down, given in, and compromised with them. Despite the fact that this is not what he was known for, and the last thing he would have done - and they know this. They knew his death would be politicized - and as one of our most important politicians of the 20th and early 21st centuries, that's only natural - but not in the direction they wanted it. (Rather, his death deserves to be politicized as he wanted it to be politicized - in fighting all the harder in his name to achieve his life's goal. He may not be on the Senate floor to cast his vote when the time comes this fall, but he'll be there in spirit.) So instead of being honest, they went on to disrespect him, claiming that were he still alive, he would have done exactly what he wouldn't have, just to continue their push against his own proclaimed life's cause. A worthy cause for one of our most important and respectable politicians. But the way the right's handled his death in trying to use it in a push against healthcare is downright sleazy. You'd think that out of respect, they'd avoid addressing Kennedy's passion for it, knowing that he was an opponent who wouldn't back down in the face of their fear mongering. But instead, they chose to go to another low.

This is where we are as a nation. Over one of the most important human rights. You're sorely missed, Ted.

Right to Choice: A More Complex World

I spent last week talking about video games at E3 (And I'm planning one more post at some point soon for third party game coverage. A lot of it confirms stuff that had yet to be officially announced back in the Third Parties Sane Gaming series post. I'm not too keen on being overly redundant.), but this time, I'll be looking at something more important and relevant.

Now for a new political commentary entry, addressing - at least here in America - a rather controversial topic.

Abortion. The issue of a woman's right to reproductive choice, family planning, the reality that there's no such thing as a 100% effective contraceptive and abstinence is no convenient cure-all to creatures to whom physical intimacy is of great importance - naturally so - all the complexities in reality and life that extremists like to dumb down to "baby-killing," without a hint of sympathy or understanding for the difficulties others face, seeking instead to saddle them with unwanted children as punishment. Whether for rape, lack of forethought, or simply bad luck.

It's a touchy subject. Understandably so. One which many would rather not understand the grays of, instead focusing on trying to dumb it down to a black and white issue, while ignoring the aspects that could be seen as more black and white. (Such as the tragedy itself of bringing any unwanted child into the world.) Across history, women have died in no insignificant numbers as a result of complications from unsafe abortion - thousands still happen across the globe each year even now. The majority of these more recent deaths have occurred in nations where women's rights are limited, and the government fails to recognize their reproductive rights - an issue important in the ongoing advancement and development of globally recognized human rights. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as:

"Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence."

Here in America, conservatives continue to push for abstinence-only sex education for the youth, which has been found repeatedly in studies to be deceptive and ineffective in preparing the nation's young people for anything resembling an adult sexual relationship with all of its potential repercussions. Even from my own experience with public education on that subject here, I don't recall sex ed being touched on too much in general. Though after years of efforts to bring honesty back to education, Obama recently eliminated abstinence-only education funding from the 2010 national budget. Naturally, conservatives were displeased, but in addition to trying to push sex as something intended for reproduction only - something they undoubtedly do not practice as they preach (And if they do, it's hard to imagine them having anything resembling healthy relationships or happy marriages.) - as you get over to the more extreme right, you see more open opposition to contraception, family planning, and reproductive health services in general. Everything dumbs down to the argument that as soon as an embryo forms (Or, looking at the extremists opposing the Plan B morning-after pill, as soon as an egg is fertilized), it's a fully functioning living human being and its termination is tantamount to "baby-killing." Anybody familiar with the stages of human development - as interesting as it is - can tell you that it takes quite a while before we're anything more than unthinking, unfeeling lumps of arguably parasitic flesh. Many people seem to have a very difficult time grasping this, but while there's nothing horrible about how we start out, there's nothing distinctly human, either. We're a zygote and then an embryo. Then a pulsating, growing lump over the months as our stem cells differentiate and we develop into something baby-esque in appearance. And if we're wanted - if we're lucky - we'll end up popping out a healthy baby with that small amount of consciousness we start out with. If the pregnancy goes well, we'll be a little human in the end. But we are not human beings at or anywhere near conception.

Propagandizing

To provide a personal anecdote from my last year of college - this took place in either the autumn '06 or spring '07 semester - after having heard and read about anti-choice activists and their demonstrations, I had my own encounter with them on campus that semester. A group had scattered across the sidewalks on central campus, and was thrusting propaganda booklets on all the passer-bys they could. Unfortunately, I didn't notice them in time to avoid receiving one myself as I passed one of them by on my way to class that morning. I stopped, took one look at its interior - which contained a lot of gruesome aborted fetus photos - and tore it in half in front of them, tossing it in the nearest trashcan.

Shock tactics like that, obviously, are what people resort to when they can't make a good argument with words and rationality alone. In this case, that's because the anti-choice movement is not a movement of rationality or human sympathy, but rather one of anger and occasionally violent passion. Hatred toward a world and individuals who violate a very narrow code of irrational ethics they've chosen to adopt and seek to force upon the world.

Late Term Abortion

Many call for the end of late term abortion as well. That's no simple issue, either. Late term abortions generally never happen because the child is unwanted - if someone doesn't want a kid, they're going to go through the procedure as early as possible. Late term abortion is necessary and sought for two particular reasons: birth defects, as many wouldn't want their child to suffer in the world as severely disabled or disfigured, and health threats to the mother by the act of childbirth itself. It may be a great literary and cinematic cliche for a woman to give up her life in childbirth, but in the real world, most women are hesitant to leave their children motherless, with only a grieving father. In books and film, this is often portrayed as a selfless, heroic act of self-sacrifice by the mother. In reality, this is manipulative and dishonest in facing what else the choice can mean. It's always tragedy and hard-hitting for the family to face when a late term abortion is necessary - but those who seek to ban abortion have no sympathy for these people either. They'd force mothers whose bodies couldn't take childbirth to die, and force the birth of children suffering from severe defects, who are less likely to ever lead anything resembling a full life, let alone a happy one. And in many cases, like the example below, they may not even be capable.

In April, 23-year-old christian Canadian single mother Myah Walker made an internet spectacle of herself through a blog about her anencephalitic baby, Faith Hope. Her tragic farce of a story reflects the need for late term abortion, being an individual who - in rationality - should have had one. As tragic as her story is, she brought it on herself in deep delusion. The Canadian right - which can be as despicable as here in America - sought to exploit her as an anti-choice icon for what little time they could, praising her for her "miracle baby," and deriding the medical community for not expecting the infant to survive long after birth, accusing them of not understanding anencephaly. (In which a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp is missing.) In the end, the brainless baby died after a few weeks instead of getting a magically grown brain from god as she thought, supported by a very sick and exploitative conservative circle of support online. (You had to tape your baby's eyes in to make sure they didn't fall out because her body was basically rotting? Clearly nothing is wrong and this is a miracle from god! She's a normal, healthy baby and nothing else! The doctors are liars!)

The internet mocked her and the child's scummy father (Who turned up on the SomethingAwful.com forums briefly and only made himself out to be an even bigger creep there.), and in part this is understandable, cruel though it was - she broadcast all of this openly, and on the internet, that's basically asking for the kind of reception she received. However, that doesn't make her story any less sad, and only makes it all the clearer that Walker needs some real professional help. You have to detach yourself from reality considerably to get into the kind of mindset she was in around her baby-lump. (If it could feel pain, its entire existence was likely nothing but excruciating suffering - however, the anencephalitic infant had no consciousness whatsoever with which to feel said pain. Only enough of a brain stem to do things like digest food, while its body gradually decayed and tried to die, surviving as long as it did only because of external mechanical support.)

Religion's Assault on Reproductive Rights

Much of that story, like many bad ideas in human history, was largely derived from religious belief. Religion itself can ultimately act as either something to instill love and respect, or something horribly destructive and repressive. Unfortunately, here in America, we tend to see the latter far more openly through fundamentalist extremist Christians and Catholics.

Even in recent months, the Catholic church has handed down some terrible decisions through the Pope. On one hand, they eventually stopped attacking science as much and now no longer denounce evolution or many scientific findings. On the other, they recently denounced the condom-based AIDS relief teachings in Africa - pushing their anti-contraceptive beliefs on the one continent that needs them most in an act tantamount to encouraging further AIDS death. (All while blaming the crisis on a lack of morals and ethics.) This after the positive effects of condom use there in stymieing the spread of the disease became apparent.

Conservative Hypocrisy

Politically, those fighting against abortion rights tend to align themselves with the same party now hypocritically screeching about "rule of law" and "the Constitution" after clamming up for eight years while their party leaders showed zero respect for either while in power. What they're calling for isn't so much the actual rule of law or respect for the Constitution, but the maintenance of a conservative wealthy white straight christian male patriarchal dominance of America, which they see as threatened by Obama's recent nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. (Bringing out racist conservative pundits in droves who, in turn, are desperately trying to label her one - many of these same pundits calling for a wall "to keep the Mexicans out" across our southern border, as opposed to anything resembling meaningful immigration reform. After all, that would mean giving illegal immigrants a legitimate shot at citizenship and allowing many more immigrants in each year. Resistance to immigration reform itself is largely openly fueled by xenophobia and the perceived threat to their increasingly niche demographic's political and cultural domination of this country.) This after Bush destabilized the Supreme Court, tipping it dangerously further to the right in pushing justices Roberts and Alito through their confirmation hearings, in which the Democrats failed to put up the kind of fight they should have. Alito himself had a track record that made apparent that he'd be a friend to those seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade and end women's right of choice. (An especially vocal movement in the later Bush years that kept pushing for statewide ban legislation to go into effect should Roe v. Wade go into effect. A movement that fortunately fizzled in their efforts to combat women's rights despite having one of the friendliest presidents to their oppressive movement in quite a while.)

Even in the 2008 election and the debates leading up to it, the conservatives looked down on women's right to choice, many acting as though an abortion was a thoughtless act perpetrated by cruel, heartless women on a lark because they just didn't feel like using protection. John McCain openly sneered at the idea of these rights in one of his debates with Obama. That he did as well in the election as he did is pretty damn terrifying, all things considered. These people have no sympathy for those who need access to these services, and simply build themselves up into these towers of moralistic superiority, glaring down at all who dare disagree with their own insulated, ignorant stances. Of course, these were all rich white men - they couldn't care less about women's rights and needs. Women's health and rights iare not things that should be politicized.

These same hateful politics come from individuals who proudly tell themselves that they live their lives by a hypocritical book written thousands of years ago. That this book somehow empowers them to a level of moral superiority - to the point of the worst of the extremists essentially being moral supremacists - despite how little much of it pertains to the modern world we live in today. Typically espousing religious faith based on hypocritical writings, there's no shortage of hypocrisy within the self-proclaimed "pro-life" movement itself. (Murderous tactics, clinic bombings, mindless support for war and violence on the far right politically, cultural genocide, the death penalty, even willingness to kill in the name of requiring and FORCING the birth of unwanted and horribly disabled children, as well as those whose birth will likely be fatal to their mothers. As human beings, it's impossible not to be hypocritical in some way or another in our existence, but there's a difference between simply being a hypocrite at one point or another, and using said hypocrisy to oppress others and increase their suffering and misery, or even to destroy them.) Many "pro-lifers" don't seem to know exactly what they're fighting for in objective terms. Banning abortion and taking away women's right of choice doesn't magically slap a band-aid on the "baby-killing" boogeyman issue - but that's all many seem to see it as. So much more of it is an argument for taking away people's control over their own lives.

The Murder of Dr. Tiller

A man of faith himself, Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in his own church just over a week and a half ago by a known anti-choice activist, following decades of constant harassment, intimidation, and death threats. His clinic was bombed in 1986. And he was shot in both his arms in 1993. Putting anybody through all that, and killing him as they did - these are not exactly "pro-life" actions to take. Let alone "christian."

As you can imagine, this incident was what spurred me to write this post. Dr. Tiller was a hero who spent his life fighting on the front lines of women's reproductive rights. Hounded, harassed, and eventually killed by extremists for decades, he endured more hell - with a calm resolve, no less - than most of us have or ever will. He understood what so much of humanity still has yet to achieve a basic grasp of, a simple sympathy for. And end the end, he died at the hands of a violent psychopath denounced by his own movement, but who in his actions has only helped to further weaken the argument against women's right of choice. When your side's argument boils down to physical threats, violence, and even murder, it's the extremists who carry the argument and detract from any perceived legitimacy on the part of those who do not sink to this. (Even the anti-choice are as still as human as any of us - whether they're on the most violent end of the spectrum like Roeder, or simply ordinary people who don't like the practice.) Since abortion was legalized in America in the early '70s, the extremists have largely hijacked the ever-irrational anti-choice movement, harassing doctors and nurses at abortion clinics, assaulting them, bombing clinics, harassing and tormenting women who get abortions, and even killing any of these people involved. It's sad when trying to mislead people with shock propaganda full of dead fetus photos is on the lighter side of the spectrum in the movement. But you basically never hear about them sitting down and having rational discussions of the issue, let alone addressing all aspects of it, instead cherry-picking simplistic reasons to fight against it when it's hardly a simple issue.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Tiller's funeral was protested, but with police and federal marshals providing heavy security, the funeral went smoothly as an appropriate tribute to the man's life. Outside the church, there were even pro-choice supporters proclaiming his heroism. And apparently, he was even a Trekkie. One hopes he got a chance to see the new Star Trek movie before his tragic demise.

This is Not a Black-and-White World

The bottom line of it is, you can't turn reality from gray to black and white. You can't construct a society or civilization of simplistic black and white absolutes. Human history is filled with examples of this, and even today, humans struggle to accept the complicated nature of our own existence and the complex moral dilemmas we face that cannot simply be cast aside with a cheap absolutist maxim.

That's the story of human civilization - an ever-ongoing struggle within and against ourselves in seeking ways to simplify existence. To make it easier to stomach, to eliminate the need for critical thought, to vilify victims of societal injustice and spit on them, to make life itself worry-free, to convince ourselves that our beliefs are absolutely right and that those who do not stand with us are either wrong or inferior. And this kind of nonconstructive - and even deconstructive - thinking does nothing but hold us back as a civilization and as a species, continuing to hold the same arguments over and over for centuries when one side has nothing rational or compatible with the grays of reality to present.

When these sorts of things hit extremes, as history has shown, violence only results. When humanity stubbornly refuses to open their hearts and minds, to think critically and accept that there's more to the world than simple "good" and "evil," we effectively admit we have no good argument left and seek to get rid of that we deem undesirable by literally wiping out dissent. Whether cultural, theological, philosophical, or political. We've seen a great deal of political disenfranchisement and outright witch hunts carried out by the right wing here in America over the nation's history. And over much of the globe, we've seen even worse, all the way down to genocide - the most famous case in the previous century going without saying, as I'd rather not go out of my way to invoke Godwin's Law in cliche here.

Suffice to say, to advocate the abolition of abortion rights - and typically with it, the important focus on women's sexual health care in society - is tantamount to supporting a return to the tragic days when the death of women as a result of botched back alley and manual abortions was horrifically commonplace. You cannot get rid of abortion. You can take away freedom and call for the unnecessary death of scores of women - but abortion itself will never disappear. If one hopes to reduce the incidence of unplanned pregnancy, we need to fully support the proper sexual education of the youth - including all contraceptive options - and ensure that contraception is both easily affordable and available all across the globe. Unfortunately, the same groups that oppose women's freedom of choice and family planning also tend to oppose contraception, following this moralistic supremacist ideology wherein human beings are only supposed to have sex with intention to reproduce. But sex has never been that simple for humans - and it isn't for many animals, either - it's something to be had for the expression of deep affection, and even without that, enjoyment. It's a key part of society and culture and has been for all of human history. As long as we exist as creatures who derive tactile physical pleasure, it will continue to be that important. And human sexuality itself is a beautiful thing, so long as it isn't used in the name of abuse. (Which itself tends to be more about power than sexual pleasure, from what I understand.)

It's a shame that so many have such a difficult time grasping something so wonderful in both its simplicity and complexity as a concept. Humans atrophy without one another, love and attraction are amongst the both greatest and saddest things a human being can experience - crucial in fully experiencing life itself. These experiences are accompanied by highs and lows, tragedies and triumph, and opposing abortion rights is an act seeking only to intensify the lows and potentially disrupt the highs in the name of this perceived moral supremacy, attempting to inflict a nonexistant simplicity upon a complex issue. The murder of Dr. Tiller was an absolute tragedy - the sort of thing that we, as human beings, all need to work toward ensuring will not be repeated.

Tragedy is murder committed in the name of oppression. Tragedy is death by botched abortion. Tragedy is the birth of unwanted children. Real life isn't an uplifting movie where unwanted children are always transformed into blessings that make their parents happy - even wanted children can potentially destroy relationships and marriages. Not all children put up for adoption end up getting adopted and leading happy, healthy lives, either - in fact, most don't. But many are happy to focus on that because it's usually the white children who get priority in adoption. While research has shown that unwanted children - including those put up for adoption - often grow up to be miserable people, never having had a family who wanted them, and in plenty of cases, criminals.

These days, we have more to be concerned about than the Department of Homeland Security would even release during the Bush years, right-wing extremist violence now being noted by the government as a potentially real threat to domestic security. (Not exactly a complete shock now, considering how much widespread talk there was of concern over the possibility of Obama being assassinated after his election, especially around Inauguration Day back in January. Unfortunately, since and as a result of this past election, racists and white supremacists have come out in droves in this nation, showing openly once again that there's no lack of racial hatred in this country, even now in the 21st century.) This finding has, of course, outraged the right-wing's extremists in this country even more, Bush largely having founded the Department of Homeland Security to focus on Islamic terrorist threats, in a mentality the conservatives themselves praised, while those of us on the left were rather wary, considering how much of the Bush years were spent trying to scare the American people into voting Republican as they tore this nation apart. And now in these past 24 hours, a security guard at the Holocaust Museum was killed by a white supremacist. In these past two weeks alone, two acts of domestic, ideology-driven terrorism committed by far-right extremists.

If it's something humanity still often lacks these days - notably so on the right-leaning side of our oversimplified political spectrum - it's sympathy for one another. Rather than taking the time out to understand and sympathize with others' complicated suffering, we'd rather cast them aside and call their suffering justified - whether you look at it as divine punishment or something else. Too many people crusade for things they lack a full understanding of - as much of the anti-choice movement does. Too many people are too busy being angry and blowing off hot air to take time to understand exactly what they're fuming about. You can't live an extremist, hard-line life in a complicated world.

To Conclude

You did women a great service while you were still with us, Dr. Tiller. You'll be remembered well, and always have the gratitude of those of us supporting and fighting for women's rights. We'll keep fighting for a world where doctors like you won't have to risk life and limb in helping women to act on their right of choice - as difficult a decision as it is to begin with - and receive the safest and best of legal health care when undergoing pregnancy termination. You boldly went where few men dared and carried out heroic deeds. You lived long and prospered. All of us who stand with the world's women thank you.