Science Fiction and Fascism

This is a good post about Sci-Fi Fascism, which is something I'm interested in and wish to explore. I made a New Year's Resolution a few years ago to stop calling people fascists. But sometimes I have to. Heinlein could tell a story; but he was a damned fascist.

Worse than Bio-metrics: Smile Gauger

This is really bad news for me. Corporations will start measuring our smiles; as far as I go, this means I'm dead meat. I smile for the camera pretty, sure. But my quotidian quotient of queasy easies is mighty low. I'm doomed.

A Possible Truce Between The Radical Right and The Radical Left

My modest proposal is that we stop calling each other fascists. The left should call the radical right Capitalists, and the right should go back to calling us Commies. Not communists or pinkos, but Commies.

I don't have a better term than Capitalist; but in my book that's harsh enough. It suggests a mercenary, social-darwinist point of view of the universe, and that's what every commie should be against. And it's a name that isn't offensive or loaded with the political-meaning of "fascist." They should be happy with that term; and then I can counter their entire existence (except for Christopher Hitchens) with this simple phrase: Jesus was not a capitalist.

Of course, food for thought: Kligson wasn't a capitalist either.

My Apologies: Dane Cook, comedian for College Republicans

I apologize deeply to all of my regular reader on A&S for my last post. It was unwarranted. There's no need to so scroll down, I'll just tell you instead of showing you. I posted a Dane Cook video. Dane Cook basically represents all that is reprehensible in this world; but he's only a representation. Nonetheless, I shouldn't have posted that video. It's like giving pornography to a preteen--it's a meeting of two things that will happen anyway, but one shouldn't consciously enable it--it's just bad form. I'm on my knees; I'm one-hundred percent apologetic and one-hundred percent sorry. No sarcasm or meta-sarcasm here. I'm sorry. Well, maybe a little sarcasm, I should say. Sub-hiro aka Kat-man wrote me:

Anyways, good luck.....don't forget to
write and keep on blogging, but spare us the Dane
cook, what a horrible routine. I was going to post a
Richard Pryor clip. THe problem with COok I saw from
that one clip is that he can't tell a fucking story.
Pryor was the master story teller...ANd then there is
Groucho...who tops them all......There is a guy on the
Dr. Phil show is has over 200,000 dollars worth of
Star Wars gear (over 6000 pieces) is girl friend had
no idea about his collection until after he proposed
to her!! "I don't think it's obsessive.." WHen Dr. Phil
asks him how many Storm troppers he has the guy says
"Which size? the 3 and 3/4 ones or larger. Packed or
unpacked?" Over 300 is the answer but as the show
progresses the guy says he only wants to lose weight
so he can fit into his own Storm Trooper Suit.....

I added his digression because digression is a form of mutation and mutation is the only form of evolutionary development that is tried and tested and true. Also, my reader usually likes Star Wars stuff. I'll see if I can track down clips from that show. But back to the main point. I was taking a shower earlier thinking about what I'd put on this post; I have a firm commitment not to redact anything I say, but I can contradict myself. As a "Creative" blogger, which is what I consider myself, I feel this is Kosher. But it was not right for me to subject anybody to that youtube clip. Back in the shower, I was thinking of apt analogies for Dane Cook; whether or not he was the Mitt Romney of Comedy, or the Jonah Goldberg of Comedy, or the Live of Comedy (which doesn't ring very well, so maybe it's most apt), or the Thinking Person's piece of midsummer's dead dogmeat sweltering and putrifying the environs. I think the Live of comedy is apt. He's not quite the Dave Mathews band of comedy. For all his faults, Dave Mathews does seem to be self-aware. Maybe he's the Maroon 5 of comedy--I remember they were popular last year. I do like the idea that he's the Jonah Goldberg of comedy, even though Jonah is at least ten years older. Well, let me tell you what I know about Live. They are an old band, because they're in my well-worn copy of Spin's Guide to Alternative Music--so maybe Jonah Goldberg is the Live of whatever it is that Jonah Goldberg does. Anyhow, when I was using Limewire a couple of years ago I was looking for Johnny Cash songs and I found a live Live cover of "Hurt," I listened to it and it really was one of the most heinous things I've encountered. Their arrangement was dreadful from top to bottom; and then, at the end they said, not like an Elvisian dismissive but grateful "Thanyu'vree-mch" they said, "Johnny Cash." And another musician said "That was Johnny Cash. Everyone, Johnny Cash." No you fucking tools. Nine Inch Nails. I like Johnny Cash very much, but give credit where credit's due--especially when your audience is composed of molluscs. So though it's a dated reference, I guess "Live" would be most analogous in my personal cosmology to Dane Cook. Why do I go on about this? I guess the same way the liberal blogosphere goes on about Jonah Goldberg. We have to fight this machine at every level. And just as when Jonah Goldberg equates the normative vast ideology of "Liberalism" to "Fascism," it is analogous to equating the sonic creations of the post-grunge band "Live" as "Rock," as it would be to associate the mewling histrionics of a self-infatuated frathouse blowhard like Dane Cook to the legacy of the great American comedic tradition, be it Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, or, God Help Us, the holy Groucho. The big boys are tackling Jonah properly, hilariously so: I point you to Sadly, No! and The Poorman for that--not to mention the indefatigably obsessive Orcinus (bless his soul.) In the meantime, I will continue to atone for my sins. I will post in the not so distant future some youtube videos that nurture, not enervate.

My love for life, or, what fascism means to me

Richard the Lion-Hearted, Napoleon.
I don't know if you'll like living in our time.
Then I'll have to remold it to my liking.
-- Khan Noonian Singh

This is a good one.

Comedy subject to prior approval: Dane Cook, Fascist?

I think at one point the cultural critics of the 80's said that comedy was the new Rock N Roll. This was the time of John Belushi et al. Of course I guess most every medium has been called the New Rock N Roll. But Dane Cook has pretty much killed one medium. He's basically a secular Ted "It's like a Rock N Roll Concert" Haggard.

I went to the bookstore last night and asked for the new Jonah Goldberg. I missed the Dane Cook show, even though I saw the commercial for his show while watching Futurama a thousand times. I just got a collection call from CON-EDISON (???) I told them I had no money, which is pretty much true.

I guess there are reasons why we should be careful about how we use the word fascism. Why couldn't I get a look at the copy of the new Jonah Goldberg book at Barnes & Noble? I ask you, who are the real fascists?

But seriously, Liberalism is fascism, at least in my old way of thinking. A few years ago I used to call almost everything fascism. Liberalism in the continental sense is a form of fascism; that is, letting free reign for the oligarchs and plutocrats is liberalism and ends up in consolidated power regimes that institute essentially fascist or pseudo-fascist regimes. The democracies under plutocratic control are not platonic democracies, but oligarchical spectral-democracies. But only invisible bullets can kill my invisible soul. So, fuck you.

Diligently Anti-diligent?

Here's a compelling argument against work. Here's a quote that connects with the last post:

Usually—and this is even more true in "communist" than capitalist countries, where the state is almost the only employer and everyone is an employee—work is employment, i.e., wage-labor, which means selling yourself on the installment plan. Thus 95% of Americans who work, work for somebody (or something) else. In the USSR or Cuba or Yugoslavia or Nicaragua or any other alternative model which might be adduced, the corresponding figure approaches 100%. Only the embattled Third World peasant bastions—Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey—temporarily shelter significant concentrations of agriculturists who perpetuate the traditional arrangement of most laborers in the last several millennia, the payment of taxes (ransom) to the state or rent to parasitic landlords in return for being otherwise left alone. Even this raw deal is beginning to look good. All industrial (and office) workers are employees and under the sort of surveillance which ensures servility.

Diligence: No Privacy Protection in the Workplace

Cursor has a great link to an article about Commercial Espionage:

These ex-spies apply a higher level of expertise, honed by government service, to the cruder tactics already practiced by private investigators. One such ploy is pretexting—obtaining information by pretending to be somebody else. While private detectives have long posed as freelance reporters or job recruiters to get people to talk, former agents have elevated pretexting to an art.

At Diligence, a New York private-investigation firm founded by former C.I.A. and British agents, ex-intelligence officers have taught newcomers how to construct false identities by using fake business cards, creating phony websites, and directing incoming calls to cell phones reserved for each separate identity. "You are establishing a cover, like in the C.I.A.," said a former Diligence employee, adding that there are people who know investigators only by their phony identities.

Diligence.

Korean E-2 Visa: It used to be so easy; Post-Boho Reflections; Still afraid of Bosintang

Check out this form, I'm not sure if it's from my potential employer, or from the consulate:

New E2 Visa Reforms
The reason for changing the visa laws for E-2 visas
The number of ESL teachers who break the social laws in Korea are getting more severe.
- 2007.9.5 KBS 2TV program exhibited an expose on native (English) teachers; drugs, fake degrees.
- Due to the recent pedophile search by Interpol and that teacher having taught English in Korea, there is much concern about native English teachers.
- The issuance of E2 visas with regard to the qualifications of teachers and their social conduct in Korea has become an issue.
- A system of protection must be implemented so that sexual criminals, unqualified teachers, and drug addicts do not come into contact with students.
?? Changes to the System
- When applying for an E2 visa, a criminal background check and medical health report must be submitted.
- After arrival in Korea, applicants must get a medical health report from an approved government hospital, public health clinic, or general hospital.
- After an applicant has filed for an E2 visa at an embassy/ consulate, the applicant must have a personal interview.
- Applicants who have been issued an E2 visa in the past or have been verified to have certified documentation will be issued an E2 visa faster.

Changes to the Application Process
1. Criminal Background Check
To prevent applicants with convictions for drug offences or sexual offences from entering the country, a criminal background check must be submitted.
Issuers of Criminal Background Check and Expiration Date
- Only local, provincial/ state, or federal government law enforcement agency issued checks will be accepted.
- The criminal background check must have an apostille*.
The countries that do not have an apostille agreement with Korea, (like Canada and China), will have to submit the criminal background check for verification at the applicants closest consulate/ embassy.
Applicants in Korea must receive the criminal background check from the applicants' embassy in Korea. The notarization or seal becomes unnecessary.
- The criminal background check is only valid within 90 days/ 3 months of the E2 visa application.
- Standards for the screening for E2 visa
- Any applicant who has any kind of criminal record will not be issued an E2 visa.

What is an Apostille?
An Apostille or postil is a seal applied by the Department of State to authenticate a document in a foreign country in order to assess the authenticity of an official signature. The Apostille is recognized as form of an international notary seal. An Apostille can be used if both countries (the country issuing the document and the country in which the document will be used) are part of the international "The Hague Apostille Convention".
2. Medical Health Report
A medical health report is necessary for an E2 visa to protect Korean citizens from applicants who test positive for narcotic drugs, communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS physical and/or mental ilnesses.
After entering Korea, applicants must submit themselves to a medical check at an approved govt. hospital public health clinic or general hospital.

The media in Korea has been sensationalizing the foreign influence of English teachers in Korea. Make no mistakes, there are a lot of weirdo foreigners who go there (like me.) But maybe it makes good sense. It should be interesting getting a criminal background check. I have no drug or sex offense convictions so it should be no problem.

One thing about working in the US is that a lot of people I think are getting worried about the information that your potential employers can find out about you through myspace and facebook and blogs. Now I'm getting paranoid. When I was living my neo-bohemian lifestyle I really didn't give a shit about people spying on me. As a fiction writer I spout a lot of bullshit, say offensive things, and generally have an unprofessional attitude towards the goings on about the world. I feel that that is my right as a writer. I may never be published, but first and foremost I consider myself an outside observer; and I consider it my human right to play with my observations in public and private. This does not accord with the homogenized, astro-turf culture of corporations and what-have-you; and this is exactly why I adopt this attitude. I have made concessions. I try not to call people fascists anymore. It has been, if not always a word to diffuse; it is mere name calling. I don't what, but I'm sure its use by both liberals and conservatives falls within the taxonomy of Logical Fallacies, namely, Spock's Brain.

It was fun, though. Maybe that's it. The enigma is somewhere in the idea of calling someone a fascist, just as it is fun to call yourself a bohemian. Both were phenomenons, as far as I can tell the were most evident before and after WWII. Jason and Wendi, who live in Pittsburgh now, were my Bohemian Crew. We watched Aki Kaurismaki's La Vie de Boheme innumerable times. Read, wrote, drank, explored NYC, held parties and wakes. But it was an unsustainable lifestyle. But I still love the ideology, and I hope to capture it again, if in a different, global and digital form. I will go more into my ideas when I have laid some groundwork. I just know so many creative people, and this society does not seem to have an appreciation for creativity, unless it's creativity that leads to profit. But it seems that the netroot activities of like-minded people on dailykos and mydd can be applied to artistic types. Even though myspace is owned by News Corps, it's great because so many people can share their creative ideas--namely music. I will go more into this later. I am no longer interested in what is "fascist." Though I still use the term. It's just a fun epithet. But I learned a much better F-word from my fellow neo-Bohemian Jason. Fucker.

Oh yes, my other Neo-Boho friends CyphergodnessHellion and Erorocka Bomb-ya have transferred some of their work from their Velvet Underground inspired band Nylon-Coated Cats onto their Rad Unicorn website. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm going to download, listen to it and judge it to within a micron of my life.

I will use a video of my stair-antics to bumpily slop back to the main voom-voom of this post:


I like the idea of living my professional life in Korea, and my artistic life in the US. But the paradox is that I'm importing culture there so as the Koreans can better understand and assimilate into Western culture. I'm not a total anti-globalist (obviously, otherwise, why would I take these jobs), but on the other hand, my Korean employers could take things the wrong way. Or, worse, the right way.

It's complex, and I'll see how all this plays out.

But it's going to take a couple of months to process my Visa this time around--last time it was processed extremely quickly. Maybe it's due to some reactionary elements in the Korean government--If I'm not mistaken, the new PM is a rightist. And I talked to many students who longed for the pre-democratic days of General Lee (I believe that's who he was.) Interesting. Anyhow, looking forward to seeing my friends and eating the best bulgogi in town, and by town, I mean the world. Who knows, I might try some bosintang this summer.

ps, trawling my old blog posts, I found this one. Indeed, the very idea chills me to the bone.


pps, a scrimp pop of optimism.

ppps, oh long and loyal readers, LEST WE FORGET!

Cops complaining about other cops busting them

via Mother Jones Blog.