| Number 174 | October 4, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I refer to opinion polls a couple of times this week, and want to mention that the information that we get from these polls is to be taken with a large grain of salt. Let me suggest that polls in modern-day America have little to do with shedding light on the beliefs and convictions of the citizens of this great nation—although that may be how they are presented—and have everything to do with "market research." The "Marketplace of Ideas," y'know. Still, despite the fact that they don't tell us what we think they are telling us, there is some usefulness in looking at them. When I get around to it, I'll write up my thoughts on the subject. Or, maybe I should take a survey and see if people want me to? Never mind... Whether we go to war against Iraq or not, many of us will be in opposition to the Bush vision for America for many years to come, it looks like. As an aid in understanding the nature of this beast, I offer this week's essay, "Beyond Good and Evil." It ends with a promise of a Part II to come next week but, if the truth be told, I haven't written Part 2 yet, so maybe there will be actually be three or more parts. We'll see. I like to say the Nygaard Notes is an improvisational project, and I guess this illustrates the point rather well. OK, I'm outta room. Gotta go. In solidarity, Nygaard |
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The long and tragic history of the genocide against indigenous people in this hemisphere is not a story that is over and done with. In spite of, and because of, the awe-inspiring fact that many native cultures have survived more than five hundred years of every kind of onslaught imaginable, there are continuing attacks mounted all the time against this hemisphere's first peoples. One of those attacks is being carried out by "educational" institutions, led by the University of Arizona. The mountain in Arizona that the Apache people call Dzil Nchaa Si An—and which the colonial types call Mount Graham—has been targeted by the U of A as the site for the $200 million Mount Graham International Observatory, which eventually (in their dreams) would feature the world's largest optical telescope. The Apache people say that such a project would be a gross desecration of the mountain, which they have considered to be a sacred place for who-knows-how-long. In addition to the problem of desecrating a site sacred to indigenous people, there are at least 18 plants and animals unique to the world that have evolved on Mt. Graham's Galapagos-like, "sky island" Hudsonian forest summit ecosystem. The telescope project would cause untold damage to this unique ecosystem. Earlier this year nine national environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Audobon Society, and the Sierra Club, went on record opposing the project and encouraging any potential partners to withdraw their support. As they pointed out, no self-respecting university would "want to have its good name associated with a project so damaging, so disrespectful to the cultural beliefs of others, and authorized by such a dubious political procedure." I've been following and opposing this telescope project for more than ten years. The U of A has been pushing it for almost twenty years. Along the way they have sought numerous partners to help them make this crime a reality. Many of its hoped-for partners have seen the error of their ways and withdrawn all support for the project, including Cal Tech/NASA (dropped out in 1990), original partner The Smithsonian Institution (1991), the U of Pittsburgh (1994), Dartmouth (2001), and the Max Planck German Institute for Radioastronomy (just this past summer). But it's not dead yet. I am sorry to say that the University of Arizona's desperate search for partners has now led it to the door of my state's largest educational institution, the University of Minnesota. I am even more sorry to say that the University of Minnesota has not rejected the idea out of hand. In fact, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) reported this week that the interim president of the U of M, Robert Bruininks, recommends that the U. should "press ahead" with its plans to buy into the project in spite of protests from all directions. He calls the telescope project a "unique opportunity," and provides "opportunities that are simply not available in any other way." In a letter stating his support for the project, Bruininks remarked that the telescope project "would go forward even if the university pulled out" its support. We used to hear this "If we don't do it, somebody else will" argument from the university all the time back when we were calling for divestment from apartheid South Africa. The argument is as illegitimate now as it was then. Then, he apparently went on to suggest that the university should "honor Apache cultural values" by doing such things as "easing Apache access to the mountain," and "employing Apache students." It's dismaying to realize that a high-level public official can still get away with making such embarrassingly paternalistic comments. The Star Trib reports that "The University's Board of Regents is expected to vote on the proposal next week." To lend your voice to the growing chorus of environmentalists and allies of the Apache people who are trying to talk some sense into the U of M, go visit the website of the Mount Graham Coalition at http://www.mountgraham.org/. There you'll find lots of background, lots of information, and very clear instructions telling you what you can do to stop this latest attack on indigenous rights. It's bad science, it's bad politics, and it's bad morals. Let's try to stop this atrocity. |
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An Indymedia reporter from the excellent radio show Democracy NOW! called 70 U.S. Senators last week and asked them what they are hearing from their constituents about Bush's plans for war on Iraq. All of the Senators' offices reported a huge volume of calls—hundreds per day, thousands per week, in many cases. The calls were running "overwhelmingly" AGAINST going to war with Iraq. Both Republicans and Democrats reported large percentages in opposition to a U.S. war on Iraq. Democracy NOW! played the tapes of the phone calls, and several Senators' offices reported 99 or 100 percent opposition; the lowest percentage of opposition reported was 70 percent. Even at the offices of the powerful "conservative" from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, calls have been running at about "average [of] 150 against per day...about 15-24 supporting the President," a ratio which has been true "for a few months," according to his staff. The aide to Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon reported that they had received "about 400 calls already today." Asked how many had been in opposition to war, she replied, "That would be 100%." The list goes on, with the offices of both Democrats and Republicans reporting that the calls are "heavily opposed," or "pretty overwhelmingly against any intervention in Iraq at this time." Local community radio station KFAI reported this week that calls to MN Senator Mark Dayton's office on one day ran about 500 opposed and 12 in favor of the Bush plan. It may surprise many readers of the mainstream media to hear these facts. I called my own U.S. Representative, Martin Sabo, and they told me that their calls were running "99 percent" in opposition to war. What are we seeing here, besides a de facto media blackout of a quite surprising and newsworthy level of anti-war sentiment in the nation? Could it be a new anti-war movement being born? Time will tell. |
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The "President" likes to talk about Good and Evil quite a bit, and apparently something about this simple message is appealing to a lot of folks, judging by such things as approval ratings and opinion polls. Many of us may have a gut feeling that the "President" is off-base with such simple talk, and the polls show that we are not alone (most of the recent ones indicate that a majority thinks that the country has gone "off on the wrong track.") Still, it can feel pretty isolating when our friends or co-workers start talking about the state of the world and seem to get suspicious when we say (or even hint) that we don't wholeheartedly support the "President" and his War. While I can't tell anyone "the answers," I do have a method for thinking about such difficult subjects that goes beyond oversimplification but, at the same time, isn't really all that complicated. I'd like to briefly explain it here. The Dualism Trap One of the problems about arguing with the "Good vs Evil" crowd (I'll call them the GVEs) is that many United Statesians have been trained to think dualistically. That is, they think that there are only two choices to make on most issues (maybe all issues). One of the consequences of such thinking is that you come to believe that, if you don't go along with a given argument, you must agree with the opposite of it. Let's use the so-called "Cold War" era as an example. For all those years, the either/or choice was "America" or "The American Way of Life," on the one hand, and "Communism" on the other. There wasn't really much of a choice, since everyone knew the right answer: Love America and hate Communism. Under the dominant rules of dualism, if one hinted that one's love of "America" (as represented by U.S. policies or officials) was less than total, then, logically, one must love Communism, or at least not hate it, which was just about as bad. Likewise, if one hinted that being a Communist was maybe not evidence of total Evil, one would be accused of hating America. Two little stories will serve to illustrate the lunacy of this period. The first comes from writer and commentator Gore Vidal. He tells the story of a woman rising at a political meeting during the Cold War in Orange County, California, to say to him, "I have two questions. First, what can I do as an average American housewife to fight Communism? And, second, what is Communism?" The other story is from my own experience. In my high school, in rural Minnesota, the junior class was responsible for organizing the junior/senior "Prom" (a major social event in the life of many U.S. adolescents). This organizing included the raising of significant funds to hire a dance band, decorate the gymnasium, and so forth. In 1970, it seemed to me that there were better things for us to be doing, so I ran for the presidency of my junior class, with my major platform being to eliminate the Prom. My idea was that we would still go through the same fundraising process, but instead of spending the several thousand dollars on a dance, we would instead donate the money to someone who would do something useful with it. (Although my personal preference was to support some political group—I think I mentioned the Socialist Party—I quickly came up with a list of dozens of possibilities, ranging from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to the American Cancer Society.) Soon I was being labeled a Communist—literally, in whispers at the drug store and on main street—by any number of the city's respectable leaders, inside of the high school and out. I should note that, not only was I not a Communist, I didn't really know the meaning of the term. And I doubt anyone in my small town knew much more than I. But, no matter: I opposed a symbol of Americana, therefore I must be a Communist. The point of these stories is to illustrate the power of the simple, dualistic, model that United Statesians are encouraged to use in organizing their thinking about the world. The good woman in California wanted to do the right thing, so she was trying to understand Evil, which she had heard was Communism. Little Nygaard opposed the Prom, which was Good, so therefore he must have supported Evil, which the townsfolk had heard was Communism. I didn't figure all this out until years later. At the time I just thought I was surrounded by lunatics. Choice A or Choice B? (Or....?) Now, fast forward to the year 2002, and you see that such dualistic oversimplification is still the order of the day. "They" are Evil, "we" are Good, and all of us had better line up in the right place or risk the consequences. So, what's the alternative? If one rejects the GVE model—Choice "A"—is it necessary to take a "postmodern" position—Choice "B"—and "reject universal values and ideals," which "leaves little room for unqualified condemnations of a terrorist attack?" as the New York Times stated in the wake of the September 11th attacks? I don't think so. I think there is an entirely different way to go about it, and it has to do with philosophy, ideology, and values. Next week, in Part II of "Beyond Good and Evil," I'll talk about that stuff, and I hope to offer some ideas about how to escape from the—new and improved!—Dualism Trap that is being constructed for use in the War Against Terrorism (the WAT?!) Stay tuned. |