2004 Year in Review
UPDATE: I encourage you to read the comments for this post, as Kelly makes a number of excellent observations.
As I begin this year's annual ultra-meta-mega post, I'm on a shaky flight to Virginia Beach to visit my family for Baby Jesus' birthday. This seems appropriate to mention, since I'm flying from a blue state to a red state. (A red state with a Democratic governor, I should add.)
I often wonder how my conservative, religious family feels about the blog. I'm sure they've read it—every email I send them has a link in the automatic signature that says "Vituperative Bloggery: www.likeyoureallycare.com" No doubt that curious family members have clicked it expecting to find silly black-sheep Arlo doing funny things only to read offensive song lyrics, rants against creationism, and screeds against our president.
So what do they think? Sorry to tell you this, but I'm not going to ask.
You see, last Christmas, I was happy to get in an argument concerning politics with my father or my stepfather because I was confident that Howard Dean would either become our next president or go down in a blaze of glory on November 2 leaving American politics changed forever. I was wrong, and I'm angry in an obsequious way. For my mother's sake, I'm not going to pick any fights during this trip; I'm not going to pull my punches anymore, and I love my family too much to either scream at any of them. God save any of them who pick the fight themselves.
There are lots of theories about why John Kerry lost—electronic voting machines, deceptive Karl Rove tactics, apathetic youth. Sure, these factors contributed but wouldn't have been a big deal had it not been for the fact that the Democrats ran John Kerry. Did the Democrats learn nothing from Dukakis? However, I can't blame the Democrats entirely; Kerry received the most votes in the primaries. So did all of us learn nothing from Dukakis?
As for the election itself, I still find it fascinating that the areas of our country that have the fewest number of homosexuals and the least risk of suffering a terrorist attack overwhelmingly voted for Bush, and yet security and "traditional values" drove their level-pulling and chad-punching claws. As the nerds inquire, WTF?
I re-read the year-end post of 2003, and I'm amazed at how little has changed. We're still seeing Iraq descend into irreparable despair while areas of the world with serious problems, like Sudan, North Korea, and Iran, can't be dealt with properly because we lack the resources. Hell, we don't even have the resources to occupy Iraq. We're still seeing a complete lack of ethics in leadership (see Bernard Kerik, Tom DeLay). We're still seeing the media keep the American public less than adequately informed so they don't see how truly horrible many of these people are.
I can't just sit and dwell, though. It's not about dwelling. It's about looking forward and screaming from the rooftops that privatizing social security is stupid; that teaching students only to pass tests is detrimental to societal growth; that the lie of supply-side economics is that nothing trickles down; that if Starbucks can provide healthcare to its employees, Wal-Mart sure as Hell can; that our country's independence, no matter how bad we wanted it, would seem a lot different if France invaded our country and forced it upon us; that two people who love each other should not be discriminated against; that the religious zealotry of foreign factions does not justify our own religious and jingoistic zealotry.
Plus, there is good news. You may not see this as good news, but I see it as a silver lining. The pharmaceutical industry is getting shithammered. I'm sorry if anyone was struck ill or down by Vioxx or one of any other medicine that was rushed to the marketplace and doctors prescribed with reckless abandon. However, public outrage and opinion should lead government to make some changes to how drugs make it to the marketplace.
Oh, right, the pharmaceutical industry has the government in its pocket. My bad.
As does every other large industry. Damn.
So what are we to do? We can't boycott every company that supports Republicans and/or treats its workers like slaves (or employs slaves overseas). Instead, we have to continue to publicize our opinions in logical ways. Be angry, be loud, but make sense. No conspiracy theories—that just discredits us. All we need are facts. Eventually, our country will come around. It may be a lifelong battle, but we should die trying.
And Nixon's second term didn't go so well. Keep that in mind.
Now is not the time to back down. The next year is only the beginning of a fight that's going to last for several generations. I just can't start at Christmas or I'll make my mother cry. I'm sure you understand.
I always have to mention how I am after another year of blogging. There is finally a light at the end of the school tunnel. Fortunately, the end of that tunnel has a useful degree and ample opportunity. Unfortunately, the tunnel also leads to $40,000 in debt. I turned 30 at a very stressful time in my life. It was very sad and unfortunate, but despite my best efforts, was absolutely necessary. (I won't elaborate more here -- it's not appropriate.) Nevertheless, I came out on top, and now I'm happier than I have ever been in my life, despite all the aforementioned anger. I'm excited about my prospects for the future, and it's about time.
The blog also saw much growth, with the addition of verbose Kelly, raging Temple, and eccentric Richard. I do not consider this my blog anymore; it's our blog. I just get to design it. We also added a comments feature to which many of you are contributing. Thank you for continuing to read and participate and for passing your favorite posts around to your friends. Defiant's web site finally dies at the end of January, so we'll be moving servers soon, which I should have taken care of by mid-January. We'll try to make the move as painless as possible. Blogging has been light this year for me. It will continue to be until I finish school. Kelly, Temple, and Richard will also be here to keep you informed and entertained. Thank you for being you.
As always, we end with music.
Before I get to 2004, I want to change my choice from last year, which was The Rapture's Echoes. I listen to maybe two or three songs on that album still, and many of the other songs just annoy me now. Prefuse 73's "One Word Extinguisher" is still in rotation, and I should have chosen more wisely last year, which I believe I did this year.
The latest Beastie Boys album was a huge disappointment. Bjork finally became completely unlistenable. All of those albums that we were looking forward to this year just let us down. I'd also like to be the first one to say that the Modest Mouse album, while better than most music out there, is the most overrated album of the year.
I did thoroughly enjoy, though, new music from The Hives (most underrated album of the year) and Interpol. If I had to make a choice for the best album I heard this year, it would be The Arcade Fire's "Funeral." However, I'm not qualified to make a grand statement about the best album, only my favorites. This year, it's a tie:
- Madvillian's "Madvilliany" renewed my faith in hip-hop. Thanks to the collaboration between Madlib and MF Doom, I have gone back to listen to Jay-Z and other hip-hop artists to see exactly what they are doing. For reminding me what a great genre of music hip-hop is and for supplanting the first Wu-Tang Clan release as my favorite hip hop album, "Madvilliany" should remain on my iPod for a very long time.
- The 80s are all of a sudden cool again, with groups like Franz Ferdinand (also highly overrated) wearing skinny ties and playing their powerchords as arpeggios. However, one band this year aped New Wave and actually breathed new life into it with fascinating vocal harmonies and song arrangements that tell verse-chorus-verse structures to go screw themselves with a coda. That band is The Futureheads.
2 Comments:
Very nice wrap-up amigo. Good luck with the family. Consider yourself lucky to have a family that burns with righteous indignation that your political views are antithetical to their own. It is a painful blessing to have an enemy on the inside; avoiding them on the outside can make a man soft. In the spirit of niggling bloggery, I just a few disagreements with your post:
Kerry is no Dukakis. Nor was he a weak candidate. Conservatives feel that they have rock-solid evidence to the contrary: if he wasn’t a weak McGovern/Dukakis-type candidate he would have won. Don’t believe it. Kerry was right about virtually everything and ran an excellent campaign for President of the entire country – gunning to represent all Americans. The problem is that Americans don’t want that. They want an ideologue. They want a killer, a brute. The problem wasn’t Kerry, it was red state America. Kerry, like Dean, didn’t defeat himself (regardless of what the blubber-headed fucktards at FoxNews say); he was defeated by the baser instincts of the human animal. Brute force will always triumph over wisdom in the short-term. But in the long term the truth will move like a glacier and grind fools into dust.
Secondly, we do have the resources to deal with the problems of the world. We’re simply not using them. We’re biting off more than we can chew, which doesn’t mean that we can’t finish the meal – we just need to eat responsibly. Recall Bush’s call after 9/11 for Americans to go shopping. We had an enormous amount of natural resources, financial resources, and international good will. Bush burned it. He’s still burning it. However, we still have enough to do the right thing. Will we? That’s the question.
Finally, media are not doing a bad job. Some media are. Again, the “the fault dear Brutus lies not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings”. Legitimate media are locked in a galactic struggle with “infotainment”. It’s a competition for attention. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – it makes sense and abides by the laws of human nature. It’s a battle we ought not run from; it’s one we should win. Fortunately, the truth is incredibly entertaining and endlessly fascinating. In 2005 perhaps we can use this to our advantage more than we have in the past.
As for music, I’m a complete dipshit. However, I did just buy harman/kardon SoundSticks II, and man alive are they nice. My little apartment is finally jumpin’ with sweet noise. I nice CD of MP3s would suit me just fine…nudge nudge.
I meant by the Dukakis comment not that Kerry is a Dukakis-type of candidate but that Kerry was run similar to a Dukakis candidacy -- unable to thwart attack and placed in contexts that make the candidate look silly to those who are easily swayed by that red-state mentality, i.e., Dukakis in the tank, Kerry duck-hunting. Plus, the Democrats could stand to run someone just a little more likable, don't you think? I know it's primary voters who are to blame, but the party pushes someone, and they pushed Kerry, not Dean (a tonic to Bush rhetoric) or Edwards (certainly likeable).
You are right about the resources, but I also included intangible things when I said "resources," like international goodwill, which you mentioned. I perhaps should have been clearer.
Some media, sure. Perhaps even more aptly: most media. And it even goes both ways -- I'm sure there are good things going on in Iraq every day; I just don't hear about them. I think we agree, though; in general, we get soundbites and sensationalism, not news. If the mainstream news media got as in depth about Iraq and the economy as they do about Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson, who knows how different our zeitgeist would be. One way to start is in our schools, but training kids only to pass tests will only make it worse. (That's not a conspiracy theory, just a correlation.)
I should mention that I had many political conversations with my father and stepfather during my visit last week, and all of them went well. We found many topics on which we agreed, and though we disagree on the methods to which to reach our goals, we actually have some very similar goals.
I also got a good dig on my stepfather when, as he proclaimed the need for a decent mass-transit system in the Hampton Roads area and ways to persuade citizens to use it by increasing the fees for driving and parking, I said to him, "Coercing people to share a resource? Wow, how socialist of you." That felt damn good.
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