idleworm

First: Joe Bageant, author of “Deer Hunting with Jesus”, passed away. Damned Cancer strikes again. And there’ll be more of that killer, anon.

Joe described himself as a redneck socialist, and he was. He was profoundly concerned with the fate of the people he wrote about, those who worked hard all their lives and ended up with nothing. Funny: I’ve never met a socialist who didn’t care about others, or a capitalist who did. The truth is that a great many decent people are on the wrong side of the intelligence curve, don’t come from families that send their young to university,and can’t protect themselves from the corporate lawyers and bought legislatures.

It wasn’t a pose. He really and truly, honestly, demonstrably and implausibly, had no interest in money. He lived for some time in Hopkins Village in Belize, a seaside community of black, downscale Garifuna and, when some money began to come in from Deer Hunting, regularly gave it away to help the locals. He didn’t have a sainthood complex. He just didn’t care. He wanted books, a guitar, friends, internet, wine, and occasional substances not approved of by DEA. No pretenses. Drop acid, not names.

A real hero – like Robert Anton Wilson, another working class American boy made good, who never let success or money go to his head, and treated both with the contempt they deserve. An example to everyone.

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After an initial burst of popularity following this game, new readers and emails stopped flowing in to idleworm as the content became increasingly grim from 2003 onwards. As Jung said, “People can only take so much reality”. What passes for the left in the US prefers their dissent in glib, Jon Stewart-shaped irony. The curse of the “Daily Show” is a subject for another post.

In life, it’s important to be able to take a hint. Spend the remainder of one’s existence screaming into the abyss, or get on with (hopefully) more meaningful things.

Today arrived a peculiar email, which seems to make damning accusations (hard to tell):

So Buddy,

It is wrong when Bush blasts Iraq but it is fine, when Obama blasts Libya, right?

Anyway sweet Buddy, one or another, US military participates to war in order to slam down bloody tyrants, arabic or african, who cares??? Tyrant , they are, anyway.
Right or wrong, I ain’t know, only history ‘s gonna tell us.

Whatever, let’s give us a little animation about your Hero Obama and operation Odyssey Dawn.

Take care Buddy.

A >> fan <<
Right from China

The emailer seems to make a couple of fallacious assumptions: that silence on Obama equals support. A second error: this site has not been silent on Obama; though the old archives are gone, even a quick trawl through recent posts should correct the error that idleworm is a WarLib site.

Nevertheless (and apologies if the email is being misconstrued), a quick comment on Obama and his latest escapade:

It didn’t exactly come as a shock when the Democratic “base” lost their anti-war appetite once it was their guy in office. Hell, idleworm has linked to enough articles in the “Exile”, Dennis Perrin and Joe Bageant for even a casual reader to know where this site stands:

Obama & the Democrats are just the other half of the War Party. “The Business of America is Business”, a creep from the early 20th century once said. Well, “The Business of America is making weapons, and seeing to it that those weapons find ready uses and markets” might be more accurate.

Some might choose to see idleworm as a paid job – whose task it is to create anti-war cartoons (unpaid, of course) attacking whichever lying war criminal scumbag happens to be in office – regardless of which of the “parties” is in office. In reality, this site has consumed thousands of hours of man-time, money, and energy – which will not be recouped. This isn’t a complaint, just a statement of fact. This, clearly, was not a situation that could continue indefinitely.

And things that can’t go on forever generally don’t go on forever. Like Empires, and Growth-based economies on finite land-bases. Like the Romans of 475/6AD, modern people will learn this lesson, again.

The gulf war game – linked to above – was an education in itself. When it went viral, it was seen by millions of people. More visitors came to the site then in one day than visit it now in a year. The log file alone grew to 2 gigabytes in about 13 days, and choked. The game was shown on TV stations around the world, and seen by many more.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands of emails would arrive in a single day. That can make your head spin. The majority were supportive of the game’s anti-war message, though this majority declined to about parity amongst US emailers. There were only a tiny handful of pro-war boosters from outside the US…maybe a half dozen at most…an amazing thing to note.

Here’s the interesting part: in all of those thousands of emails, pro and con (as well as the vile hate mail and threats of violence), not one emailer said the following, or even came close to it:

Watching your cartoon made me reconsider my opinions.

Now don’t choose to misinterpret: only a fool would expect a cartoon to have any meaningful impact, and generations of cartoonists have said the same: that cartoons only reinforce existing opinions. They don’t change minds.

So, hopefully people will understand the decision that was taken: not to spend the next 10, 20 or 30 years pissing into the wind.

If you’re going to piss into the wind, it’d be nice if someone paid you for it, or at least were offered some sort of support/collaboration from fellow minded souls.

Neither of these happened.

And yes, Obama is no different from Bush. His wars of “Liberation” are no different, and the vile cant about freeing Libya from tyranny is particularly shallow. It’s feeling like a replay of the Yugoslavia playbook (dusted off by the reprehensible Clintons, now that they’ve got their greasy hooks back on the levers).

It should be noted that Libya stands on 2% of world oil reserves – and supplies 10% of the EU’s oil. Not only that, but the oil is exceptionally sweet and pure. It only costs ~$1 to refine a barrel, currently trading at ~$100. So the emailer doesn’t need for history to tell him what this is about. Geology and the markets are more than adequate.

In 2004, after seeing this David Goodstein lecture on Peak Oil (on the night of the Bush/Kerry “debate”), it seemed pretty clear that the future wasn’t going to be an extension of the “Happy Motoring Utopia”. After becoming involved in an L.A. Peak Oil group, and seeing the utter futility of trying to convince people by handing out leaflets on the side of the street, a simple (or simplistic) idea sprang to mind: why not make a short animated film about peak oil? Just take a few graphs, and make a 1 minute long primer on this very complex subject.

Well, that was six years ago. “How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life”…

So,  now the film is 34 minutes long, and very close to release. Will it change any minds?

Magic 8-ball says: “Unlikely”.

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After moving to Canada to work, back in 2007, there were a few rough weeks where things seemed pretty pointless – to the point that the option of moving back to Ireland was seriously considered. A couple of strokes of good luck helped to lift spirits. One was a friend calling out of the blue to suggest a move to Portland Oregon, (done, and thanks for that). The other was a friend who emailed with the information that Joe Bageant had included idleworm.com in a list of websites that he had found useful in his book, “Deer Hunting with Jesus”.

For years, I’ve been meaning to email Joe about that, and how/why he saw fit to do include this site – it was a great lift. Now, we’ll never know.

Seize the day, eh?

Oh, do yourselves a favour and buy “Deer Hunting with Jesus”. Time to put his final work “Rainbow Pie” on the to-read list as well. Unlike political cartoons, those books will make you reconsider your opinions.