This Week: 2010 Year in Review

"Quotes" of the YEAR

The 2010 Nygaard Notes Year in Review: War, Wealth, Race, and Empire

The Nygaard Notes Book 2010 Update

Greetings,

Every year I offer a look at the previous year in Nygaard Notes. As I always point out, there are three reasons why I do this. The first is that long-time readers may have forgotten, or failed to read, some pieces that they might find interesting. This will jog their memories. Secondly, new readers of the Notes will get a sense of what they missed, and what to expect. Finally, these reviews help me to notice the patterns of coverage, what things were missing, what were strong points, weak points, etc. from the past year.

In 2010 I published in these pages about 80,000 words, taking up about 170 pages. That's about 10,000 more words than 2009, and they came out in 25 issues, which is the same number as last year. (How can that be? There were more double-sized issues this year.)

This Year in Review is all about the year that is ending. As for what is in store for 2011, your guess is as good as mine. If you have any issues or ideas you'd like to see discussed, send me a note. I'm always looking for ideas. Not that there's any shortage of ideas here at Nygaard Notes World Headquarters, but you may have some better ones.

Thanks for all of your support in 2010. I'll keep doing my best to deserve it as the Empire continues to decline and we continue to try to shape a better society that can take its place.

A Happy New Year to you all!

Nygaard

"Quotes" of the YEAR

As I look back on 2010, two separate "Quotes" seem to stand out as candidates for "Quote" of the Year. In my mind they are closely related, since they both have to do with how we think.

The first one, from Issue Number 460 of August 1st, has to do with how we think about racism. Specifically its structural, or institutional, forms, about which many people have a hard time thinking. I quoted the 2007 Minnesota Legislative report card on Racial Equity, which in turn was drawing on the ideas of the Applied Research Center http://www.arc.org/

"Institutional Racism is when racial disparities are created and/or exacerbated by key societal institutions such as hospitals, public schools and private corporations. Disparate outcomes are the measure of institutional racism—regardless of whether there is racist intent by the institution or the individuals acting on behalf of the institution. Racial profiling, predatory lending, and disparities in health treatment are examples of institutional racism."

Just a month later, in NN #462 of September 2nd, I quoted the late Howard Zinn, who was talking, in more general terms, about how we think. In the process he summed up a big part of the reason why I do this Nygaard Notes thing and, I think, why you read it. These words are from his book "Declarations of Independence":

"How we think is not just mildly interesting, not just a subject for intellectual debate, but a matter of life and death. If those in charge of our society—politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television—can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."

The 2010 Nygaard Notes Year in Review: War, Wealth, Race, and Empire

The year 2010 began with a focus on Empire, and ended with a focus on our inability to find the resources to meet the needs of our population. That is, the Deficit. And how intimately connected are those two themes! But what did Nygaard Notes talk about in between those two bookends? Let's have a look back...

The first issue of 2010 featured a verse from Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "The White Man's Burden." The point I developed here was that most USAmericans at the moment seem to share a set of ideas—wonderfully articulated by Kipling—that I call The Imperial Mindset, which requires an acceptance of a hierarchy in which some people give the orders and some people take them. The Empire is declining, I said, and I quoted a French academic saying that "de-imperialisation is likely to be a long and possibly traumatic process." And traumatic it is.

In February I reported on a little-noticed phenomenon called the Army Experience Center, a multi-million-dollar video establishment in a shopping mall in Philadelphia. I used this example to illustrate a fallacy believed by many in the media, that the closer one is to a story, the better one understands it. I paired the Army Experience Center story with a story about the Boy Scouts and their Explorers program, which "is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence." What ever happened to helping the frail elderly cross the street? The times, they are a' changin'!

I took some time explaining exactly why it is that getting closer to a story is not always the best way to understand the story. In a nutshell, there are three reasons: First of all, a close-up view tends to place the focus on individuals rather than institutions. Secondly, close-ups leave out history and context. Finally, and most importantly, "close-up" reporting relies on a certain way of thinking that, given the power of the media in U.S. society, has the effect of reinforcing certain ideas and excluding others. And this, I explained, is a big part of the Propaganda that the corporate media inevitably, and often unwittingly, perpetuate.

In the spring I reported at length on the huge global corporation Cargill, and their palm oil operations. I found out that a lot of people do not know that palm oil is now the most widely-used vegetable oil in the world, a fact that impacts indigenous people all over the place—and not for the better.

March 2010 brought the first-ever Nygaard Notes book review. The book is called "Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia." I highly recommended it. Get it at your local independent bookstore.

Here in Minneapolis we have a new baseball stadium which cost roughly a half-billion dollars, most of which was paid for by county taxpayers. Since Minneapolis is hardly unique in facing this phenomenon of billionaire sports team owners asking for public funds, I took the occasion of the opening of the Major League Baseball season to have a look at the two main arguments that these rich folks trot out to justify this particular type of socialism. I discussed "civic pride" at some length, noting that "civic pride" has nothing to do with private ownership, so we might be better off having publicly-owned sports teams, if we're going to pay for them anyway. If we're going to have socialism, might as well benefit the non-billionaire majority, I was thinking.

I then took a look at Afghanistan, specifically the area called Marjah, where the U.S. and its henchmen mounted a "major offensive" in February. I showed how the reporting by the U.S. media on this offensive appeared at every moment to be almost entirely propaganda, passed directly from the mouths of officials hewing to a well-crafted "message" geared to winning the "war of perceptions" both here and abroad.

I continued with Afghanistan in May, when I tore apart the idea that the ongoing occupation is a "multinational" operation, or an "international" operation, or a "coalition." I showed how it's actually run by NATO, which in turn is actually run by the United States. I showed how U.S. propagandists attempt to impose upon both the U.S. and the Afghan people "a single narrative that emphasizes the inevitability and rightness of the operation's success."

In June I did a long special issue on a widely-misunderstood country: Rwanda. I challenged the conventional narrative (of mindless tribal genocide with the U.S. standing by helplessly), offering for consideration a more complex story, one in which the United States was a more active player, one that is pursuing its own interests in the region. I offered many resources for further reading on this important story.

The month of July was devoted to an issue that I think is huge here in Minnesota, as it is in the nation in general, and one that gets very little coverage. And that issue is racial disparities in almost every imaginable realm: incarceration, wealth and income, health care, education, you-name-it. Again I offered many, many resources for people to use in following up on this story, which should be all over the front pages on a regular basis, but is not.

Late in the summer I ran a series on what I called the "Public Relations-ization of U.S. Culture." I explained what Public Relations is, and what it is not. I introduced the idea of "Internalized Public Relations," or IPR, which is when journalists have learned their Propaganda ABCs (Attitudes, Beliefs, and Conceptions about the world) so well that they no longer need to be told what those in power want them to say—they unconsciously and automatically do it!

Later in September I wrote about Social Security. It's constantly under attack, and I constantly defend it. There'll be more of this in 2011. It may be the greatest single government program we have, and it is not in crisis. Repeat: NOT IN CRISIS. Can't say that often enough.

I came back to Afghanistan in October, when I looked at the claim that "public corruption" is "the single greatest threat to the Afghan government and the American mission" in that country. I suggested instead that corruption IS the American Mission—in Afghanistan and beyond—and I explained why I would say such a thing.

Unusually for Nygaard Notes, I did a little election analysis in November of this year. I couldn't help myself; this election was really interesting to me, despite the fact that most media seemed to miss the main points most of the time.

December has been the month of Deficit Mania, both in the nation and in the pages of the Notes. The basic issue in this discussion is not "fiscal responsibility" but rather Inequality. I'll finish up with the Deficit talk in the first issue of 2011, when I plan to expand the discussion into realms that I haven't figured out yet.

Finally, the Fall Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive was the most successful one ever. Thank you all – Nygaard Notes lives on!

The Nygaard Notes Book 2010 Update

The book update I published in last year's Year in Review was headlined "Update on the Nygaard Notes Book: Delayed But Not Dead." The same headline applies one year later.

In the intervening year I have said very little about the book in these pages. But work has continued—especially during the summer, when I had more time. I remain committed to the book, and remain tremendously grateful for the support and encouragement I have received as the work proceeds, however slowly.

I am genuinely disappointed in the pace of the project, and here are a few of my guesses as to why it's been creeping, instead of leaping, forward.

In the two-plus years that I have been working on writing this book, I have come across four main barriers to what I expected would be a fairly rapid completion. I'll call them Book Completion Barriers, or BCBs.

The first BCB is that I have two other (paying) jobs in addition to Nygaard Notes, and balancing the three jobs is challenging. The book itself is my fourth job, and it's very difficult to consistently work on all four. That's partly because a book requires sustained periods of concentration, and so does a high-quality newsletter. With all this need to earn money, it's hard to find those sustained periods for thinking, and the ones I do find have lately been devoted to the newsletter you are reading.

Let me say right here that the reason that Nygaard Notes keeps coming out, and maintains its high standards, is because of the generosity of ALL of you who have made Pledges of support to keep it going. Because of you I can literally AFFORD to keep it going. Thank you!

The second BCB is related to the first. I had never even thought about working on a project of this scale until two years ago. As I began work I thought I knew what it would involve, but I didn't, and this led to my unrealistic estimates about how long it would take. Once this book gets done I think I will have a better idea of how to manage such a project, and maybe I will be more realistic about the next book, even assuming my life remains as fragmented as it appears to be. (I have ideas for several other books, assuming I ever get the first one done!)

The third BCB is that I have responsibilities in relation to a relative who is aging and ailing, and that takes a surprising amount of time and, perhaps more importantly, emotional and psychic resources (see: "sustained periods of concentration"). And it cannot be put off; it's happening now. For example, the essay you are reading was interrupted more than a half-dozen times in relation to this issue, which is not uncommon these days.

The final BCB is class-related. I like to call myself a "working-class intellectual." In case this sounds romantic, or you think it's just a term I invented to give myself an identity, I'll explain a little bit about what it means to me. Part of what it means is that I have to spend a lot of my time working. I have no financial reserves, no institutional support, no fellowships, no sabbaticals, no semester breaks, no time to go off on writing retreats, etc etc etc. Most of all, when I get offered paying work, I have to take it. This is how it is for someone like me. It's partly the result of choices I've made over many years, and partly it has to do with luck and social/economic structures that don't support people like me. My class location has a huge impact on the perspective and knowledge I bring to my writing. While I embrace this, as it is part of what makes Nygaard Notes unique, I need to acknowledge that there are difficulties, as well.

In conclusion, I'll say that the only thing that I'm talking about here is timing. I have not given up on the book, I have not decided it can't be done, I still think it will be worth reading. I've just stopped predicting when it will be done. I'll keep working on it. Write and ask me if you're wondering how it's going.