American Exceptionalism

I was sitting in one of my Oregon haunts, the Wild Goose - in the bar in back - one afternoon a few years ago when two guys walked in. They took a seat in the corner and Dennis the bartender quickly had two beers at their table.

There were two guys at the bar speaking German. (I know this because I speak pretty good German.) I don't know if I sensed something or what, but I started paying attention, because something wasn't right: The dudes who had just walked in had immediately become very uncomfortable. They looked like they were about to shit their pants, to be truthful, and it was all about the two guys a the bar—speaking a foreign language. The Germans weren't doing anything other than talking—they were just sitting there, talking. They hadn't even looked around the room that I noticed. 

The two dudes in the corner didn't say a word to each other. They sat in stunned silence. It was as if they had walked in to find a goat on top of the bar being raped by a gorilla. And nobody cared! Everybody just sat there, as if speaking in a foreign language was some kind of okay thing to do! Why wasn't this outrage being stopped?!

After just a few minutes the two dudes suddenly got up from their table and walked, arms swinging, toward the door.

"So long guys!"called Dennis from behind the bar, oblivious to the dudes' outrage.

"Yeah," mumbled one, looking back over a pumping shoulder. "We'll be back, and when we do WE'LL TALK ENGLISH!" and SLAM, out the door they went, I'm sure with a feeling of great conquest in their loins. The Germans never even noticed them.

Every time I hear the phrase "American exceptionalism," I remember that afternoon.

"Going on Strike From One's Culture"

Matt Taibbi with second thoughts about OccupyWallStreet:

Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.

That's a really good way to look at it: It's a bit bigger than we understand right now. And that's okay.

And not just "American society," I think it's "modern society."

Beating Non-Violent Protestors

These are big tough guys beating young men - and women - and really wailing on them - with nightsticks. This is just cowardly crappy shit.



And some more crap: UC Police Captain Margo Bennett said the protesters deserved it because they linked arms - and LINKING ARMS IS "AN ACT OF VIOLENCE."

I want to kill something.