Sunday, November 30, 2003
(7:26 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Running buck-wild like a concubine whose mother never held her hand
On the way home, I listened to Beck's classic album Midnite Vultures, and the completely irrelevent title of this post is a lyric from the first track, "Sexx Laws." In my opinion, it's one of his weaker albums, but it does have a couple good songs, particularly "Hollywood Freaks." Another song from that album to which I can relate is "Debra," mainly because of his extensive use of falsetto and his longing for two sisters simultaneously.
This weekend I visited my crazy Grandpa Kotsko, and perhaps inevitably, the conversation turned to politics. My dad was with me, and being the faithful right-wing radio listener he is, he naturally assumed that people who do not support President Bush are Somewhere Else -- California, Vermont, etc. Little did he know that Grandpa Kotsko is completely opposed to the president, for surprisingly sensible reasons. For instance, he noted the fact that the government is running a massive deficit, but apparently there's money to fly the president to Iraq for a casual two-hour visit. He also pointed out the "fact" that the president brought 5,000 companions along with him. This is when things started to fall apart.
Thankfully for my dad, Grandpa Kotsko has it in for President Clinton as well. You see, Clinton has stayed holed up in New York ever since he left office, because he's afraid that if he travelled abroad, he would be brought to Geneva for crimes against humanity, just like Milosevic. His crime? Supporting abortion rights. I noted the many occasions when President Clinton has travelled out of the country since leaving office, the fact that he's one of the most beloved political figures in the world, and the fact that the UN supports abortion rights. He was relatively unaffected. My dad threw in the remark that "liberalism is a religion, and abortion is its holy sacrament," but he recanted after I told him that that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
After the human rights thing didn't work out, Grandpa Kotsko shifted gears to say that President Clinton may well be elected secretary general of the UN, which seems implausible to me as well, but I'm no expert. We then began discussing Rush Limbaugh's drug use, and this led to a nice discussion of drug laws in general. Grandpa Kotsko has a theory about how the vast prison system and the war on drugs are set up entirely to strip people of their right to vote. He thinks the law against marijuana is "silly," and I tend to agree. My dad and my uncle (who, through a genuinely unfortunate series of events, is living with his parents) started hashing out stories of smoking pot and how it affected them, and I just waited that one out.
Our political discussion concluded with an analysis of the ways that the credit card companies and the Federal Reserve team up to screw people over by means of creating pretend money. The Federal Reserve is a big deal in his world -- it was the topic of a very awkward conversation following the Oklahoma City bombings. Apparently (get ready to feel shocked and outraged) all the ATF and other federal agents who normally would work there were all off work the day of the bombing. Why's that, you ask in your shock and outrage? Because the Federal Reserve Bank Corporation employs the ATF and other federal agents to do their bidding, and the Federal Reserve Bank Corporation masterminded the whole bombing thing as part of their plot to -- oh, I don't know. I was never quite sure how the bombing was supposed to help the Federal Reserve. Either he didn't tell me, or I stopped paying attention.
Conspiracy theories do run in my family. My dad has succumbed to the relatively mild Rush Limbaugh conspiracy, whereas my grandpa's is way off the scales. Right now I'm shopping around for a conspiracy. The Media Whores Online-style conspiracy would be a natural fit, since it's just an inversion of the "conservative" conspiracy I grew up with, but I still don't feel very passionate about the Democrats. Marxism seems to work -- I always enjoy political analysis by Marxists, mainly because they have utterly no stake in either dominant political party or "worldview" (liberal or conservative). They also offer a more overarching scheme than the various single-issue conspiracies, such as feminism, queer theory, environmentalism, the various racial advocacy groups, etc.
That's about all I have to say about conspiracy theories for tonight. Thank you for your time.
IRRELEVANT UPDATE: Atrios is now selling t-shirts.
