Thursday, June 18, 2009
Where I'll Be
I will be posting regularly over at the blog for "Vice-Precedence: Being Number Two in the White House," my book and film. Check it out here.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Obama's Secret-Muslismism no Longer a Secret
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/07/obama.economy/index.html
Obama hates pork. He's officially a Muslim.
Obama hates pork. He's officially a Muslim.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Looking Forward: A Hopemoir
I have just completed my political alter-ego's campaign book and "mani-festive" for the future of his country. You can find it online here: http://www.lulu.com/content/4428139 (In paperback first, because hardcovers are elitist.)
You can also read more at JK2020.com and at at MySpace.com/JK2020
Thank you to everyone who has supported Looking Forward in its various forms for the past four years.
- Jason Klamm
Thursday, July 17, 2008
America is in the Fifth Grade
"Ooohhh... You used the N-word..." So would have been a taunt back in elementary school had some poorly-raised classmate uttered the epithet out loud. You knew calling another kid out had better not include the ACTUAL word, or else the kid could, according to childhood rules "tell the teacher on you back," as many times as you might utter the requisite "nuh uh."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/16/jackson.nword.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Jesse Jackson, no surprise, has been making an ass of himself by supporting Obama and then getting recorded talking shit about him, to put it simply. To be frank, I don't care that Jesse Jackson said the word, because I'm not surprised. Why? Because he's a politician. They're notoriously opposed to things that they do themselves. And it's not that they're being contrarian. It's not ALWAYS that they're trying to hide their true feelings - I don't think Larry Craig opposed homos just because he likes penis. It's because that's what people want to hear. And the last thing you want to hear from a leader who marched with Dr. King is that he used a word he tried to ban. So... Mistake. Yeah.
Hypocrisy is funny, even if he did use "the word." But what concerns me most is that CNN, a national news organization, and the one I tend to default to, if only because they admittedly collect their news from all over, has to use the phrase "the N-word." This is an unofficial ban of sorts on the word, similar, of course, to how they might have reported Jackson if he'd have called McCain's supporters "Fucking conservatives," at which point they'd likely use the word "expletive." I understand the need to self-censor (not that I agree with it, but money talks, even to the news), but... at least "expletive" is an adult-sounding word. Isn't there an option? Yes, "racial epithet limited to those of dark skin, usually originating from the African continent" is a bit wordy, but there has to be a middle-ground. Otherwise it sounds like a dirty little secret and, to me at least, draws more attention to what "the N-Word" is and gives it a little more power, which it doesn't need.
Think of the impact of seeing "Jesse Jackson reportedly said that Barack Obama was 'telling niggers to behave,'" in print, and what it tells us about Jackson. It gives his lame apology considerably less credibility and hits home that, just because he's Jesse Jackson does not give him the right to be a douche. It certainly makes that possibility much more likely, but that's, again, because he's a politician. If you've come to expect something else from politicians, then you probably believe Al Franken will one day be president.
Point is, if you're a news organization, grow up. Say "racial epithet" in the headline, because it AT LEAST makes me curious which one Jackson used. Use the word, like a grown up, in the article. This way you aren't talking down to anyone. No one is going to fire-bomb you - I hope - for QUOTING A POLITICIAN. I guess this is one of those words you have to learn to use correctly, as long as its academic. The news media simply hasn't realized that the news ought to be devoid of emotion, which means less catering to our hearts and more to our heads.
I don't like the word, myself. Because using it in a non-academic sense USUALLY means you're a douche or a rapper. And neither of those is ideal.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/16/jackson.nword.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Jesse Jackson, no surprise, has been making an ass of himself by supporting Obama and then getting recorded talking shit about him, to put it simply. To be frank, I don't care that Jesse Jackson said the word, because I'm not surprised. Why? Because he's a politician. They're notoriously opposed to things that they do themselves. And it's not that they're being contrarian. It's not ALWAYS that they're trying to hide their true feelings - I don't think Larry Craig opposed homos just because he likes penis. It's because that's what people want to hear. And the last thing you want to hear from a leader who marched with Dr. King is that he used a word he tried to ban. So... Mistake. Yeah.
Hypocrisy is funny, even if he did use "the word." But what concerns me most is that CNN, a national news organization, and the one I tend to default to, if only because they admittedly collect their news from all over, has to use the phrase "the N-word." This is an unofficial ban of sorts on the word, similar, of course, to how they might have reported Jackson if he'd have called McCain's supporters "Fucking conservatives," at which point they'd likely use the word "expletive." I understand the need to self-censor (not that I agree with it, but money talks, even to the news), but... at least "expletive" is an adult-sounding word. Isn't there an option? Yes, "racial epithet limited to those of dark skin, usually originating from the African continent" is a bit wordy, but there has to be a middle-ground. Otherwise it sounds like a dirty little secret and, to me at least, draws more attention to what "the N-Word" is and gives it a little more power, which it doesn't need.
Think of the impact of seeing "Jesse Jackson reportedly said that Barack Obama was 'telling niggers to behave,'" in print, and what it tells us about Jackson. It gives his lame apology considerably less credibility and hits home that, just because he's Jesse Jackson does not give him the right to be a douche. It certainly makes that possibility much more likely, but that's, again, because he's a politician. If you've come to expect something else from politicians, then you probably believe Al Franken will one day be president.
Point is, if you're a news organization, grow up. Say "racial epithet" in the headline, because it AT LEAST makes me curious which one Jackson used. Use the word, like a grown up, in the article. This way you aren't talking down to anyone. No one is going to fire-bomb you - I hope - for QUOTING A POLITICIAN. I guess this is one of those words you have to learn to use correctly, as long as its academic. The news media simply hasn't realized that the news ought to be devoid of emotion, which means less catering to our hearts and more to our heads.
I don't like the word, myself. Because using it in a non-academic sense USUALLY means you're a douche or a rapper. And neither of those is ideal.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
...Minorities...
A very close friend who critiques most of my work not with kid gloves but with an eye for truth pointed something out to me about my most recent blog on gay marriage. An ironic mistake on my part. A glaring misinterpretation of the world based on my own personal biases. I said women were a minority.
Firstly, that was a stupid mistake. I meant something more along the lines of "person of a group which historically has been treated as a second-class citizen." I do find it funny, however, that in my attempt to be so even-handed and to feel enlightened, I still managed to default to something so innacurate.
Everything else, though, I'm pretty sure I meant.
Firstly, that was a stupid mistake. I meant something more along the lines of "person of a group which historically has been treated as a second-class citizen." I do find it funny, however, that in my attempt to be so even-handed and to feel enlightened, I still managed to default to something so innacurate.
Everything else, though, I'm pretty sure I meant.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The Sanctity of Marriage
Once every few months, I find myself having to write upon the issue of gay marriage yet again. This doesn't directly come from the fact that I have some friends in loving gay couples, but it is inextricably related to that fact. It is more related to the fact that this is the one glaring civil rights issue used regularly to distract from "bigger" issues, especially when that issue is the death of thousands of American soldiers overseas.
All of the major candidates for President, even before Hillary was out of the running, believed that "gay marriage" as a term, should not exist, to protect the sanctity of the marriage of a man and woman. Basically, what they're saying, is that they would support a law that limits the term "marriage" to the union of a man and a woman. So they support not just the idea, but the legal enforcement of the idea, of separate but equal. And two of those people are minorities.
I can't say a WHOLE lot about the "responsibility of the minority" to not forget what their people have gone through - I'm a white male. Nor do I suggest that there is a collective "black people," or a collective "women." We all have different, often inexplicable characteristics or tendencies that baffle those who have already come to accept us for our differences. Take the Log Cabin Republicans. Those guys are nuts.
My problem with anything claiming to "protect the sanctity of marriage," especially a law, is that it is misuse of the law as a system. The law exists to protect people. It has never existed explicitly to limit the rights of others. Certainly, it has been abused to those ends, but that is not the prescribed purpose of law. We have a law against murder to prevent lives from being taken. We have a law against theft to protect the personal economy of citizens. How am I and my future wife going to be safer - and from what? - because two lesbians call their marriage a "union?"
Why are homosexuals left to the Gay fountain, which looks exactly like the Straight fountain, with the exception of the sign above it that so strikingly reads "GAY?" We're both drinking the same water. I guess they just need to be reminded of their place. Over there.
When law takes charge of how I live my leave peacably, it infringes upon my civil rights. Blacks were prevented from voting by Jim Crow. They had to sit at the back of the SAME bus - it wasn't a different bus, because they were people, too - as white folk. The illusion of equality by the use of the same label for different circumstances, or a different label for the same circumstances, is a lateral hierarchy. They use the term "civil union," defined by having the same rights as any straight "married" couple, to separate the gays from the straights. When you say "But you'll have the same rights," you're lying. They no longer have the right to call their relationship a marriage. They don't have the right to feel like they belong, after a lifetime of fighting to be accepted for who they are. It seems like a simple word on a piece of paper or a sign to some, but so was the word "Colored" at one point in history.
Please stop copping out by saying that "states have their right to choose." They also had the right to choose whether or not to adopt or abolish slavery. Jim Crow laws were not stopped federally for the same reason - States' rights. The rights of the people will ALWAYS trump those of the state. Infringing upon them - even refusing to stop said infringement, or leave it up to someone else - is against everything we have worked to turn this country in to.
Without the 19th amendment, Hillary wouldn't have stood a chance. Without the 13th, neither would Obama. And it was 103 years, and not until MLK was assassinated, before that amendment really started to take effect. Should we have to wait for something drastic? Does a new leader who daringly defies those self-appointed liberal groundbreakers have to show their head and risk being taken down for simply opposing a single policy of those who symbolize a "New Hope" for America? It shouldn't have to happen. We've seen enough historically to allow equality to blossom. Yet ignorance, politics and personal preference are, yet again, standing in the way of personal freedom. Just not in the way of those who have had the way paved for them.
Maybe you are trying not to offend your constituency, but that's a poor excuse. You're offending the rest of your constituency - those who believe in the truth of The Bill of Rights - by perpetuating intolerance.
All of the major candidates for President, even before Hillary was out of the running, believed that "gay marriage" as a term, should not exist, to protect the sanctity of the marriage of a man and woman. Basically, what they're saying, is that they would support a law that limits the term "marriage" to the union of a man and a woman. So they support not just the idea, but the legal enforcement of the idea, of separate but equal. And two of those people are minorities.
I can't say a WHOLE lot about the "responsibility of the minority" to not forget what their people have gone through - I'm a white male. Nor do I suggest that there is a collective "black people," or a collective "women." We all have different, often inexplicable characteristics or tendencies that baffle those who have already come to accept us for our differences. Take the Log Cabin Republicans. Those guys are nuts.
My problem with anything claiming to "protect the sanctity of marriage," especially a law, is that it is misuse of the law as a system. The law exists to protect people. It has never existed explicitly to limit the rights of others. Certainly, it has been abused to those ends, but that is not the prescribed purpose of law. We have a law against murder to prevent lives from being taken. We have a law against theft to protect the personal economy of citizens. How am I and my future wife going to be safer - and from what? - because two lesbians call their marriage a "union?"
Why are homosexuals left to the Gay fountain, which looks exactly like the Straight fountain, with the exception of the sign above it that so strikingly reads "GAY?" We're both drinking the same water. I guess they just need to be reminded of their place. Over there.
When law takes charge of how I live my leave peacably, it infringes upon my civil rights. Blacks were prevented from voting by Jim Crow. They had to sit at the back of the SAME bus - it wasn't a different bus, because they were people, too - as white folk. The illusion of equality by the use of the same label for different circumstances, or a different label for the same circumstances, is a lateral hierarchy. They use the term "civil union," defined by having the same rights as any straight "married" couple, to separate the gays from the straights. When you say "But you'll have the same rights," you're lying. They no longer have the right to call their relationship a marriage. They don't have the right to feel like they belong, after a lifetime of fighting to be accepted for who they are. It seems like a simple word on a piece of paper or a sign to some, but so was the word "Colored" at one point in history.
Please stop copping out by saying that "states have their right to choose." They also had the right to choose whether or not to adopt or abolish slavery. Jim Crow laws were not stopped federally for the same reason - States' rights. The rights of the people will ALWAYS trump those of the state. Infringing upon them - even refusing to stop said infringement, or leave it up to someone else - is against everything we have worked to turn this country in to.
Without the 19th amendment, Hillary wouldn't have stood a chance. Without the 13th, neither would Obama. And it was 103 years, and not until MLK was assassinated, before that amendment really started to take effect. Should we have to wait for something drastic? Does a new leader who daringly defies those self-appointed liberal groundbreakers have to show their head and risk being taken down for simply opposing a single policy of those who symbolize a "New Hope" for America? It shouldn't have to happen. We've seen enough historically to allow equality to blossom. Yet ignorance, politics and personal preference are, yet again, standing in the way of personal freedom. Just not in the way of those who have had the way paved for them.
Maybe you are trying not to offend your constituency, but that's a poor excuse. You're offending the rest of your constituency - those who believe in the truth of The Bill of Rights - by perpetuating intolerance.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I'm No Xenophobe, But...
No good sentence ever started with those words.
But this CNN article slightly concerns me:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/19/greencard.marine/index.html
I’m aware how sweet the El Salvadorian/American soldier looks and that fighting for our country is noble.
However.
Just taking a devil’s advocate position here, but… The article says 37,000 people have risked their lives to become U.S. citizens. Firstly, I’m offended. And only because they’re making me look bad.
Secondly – We’re training foreigners to kill and then not just allowing them entry to the country but making them citizens? That's not inherently wrong, but why are people still complaining about a Mexican/American fence when we’re inviting people in?
Sure, you have a higher chance of dying in Kabul than at Ellis Island, but come on. We distract people FROM the war by hating immigrants while THOUSANDS of immigrants are keeping the war going so that they can entry the country legally? That's one hell of a vicious circle.
And again – We are training foreign nationals to kill with our weapons. Just saying.
And they should seriously stop making me look bad. I'm going to go wave a flag now.
But this CNN article slightly concerns me:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/19/greencard.marine/index.html
I’m aware how sweet the El Salvadorian/American soldier looks and that fighting for our country is noble.
However.
Just taking a devil’s advocate position here, but… The article says 37,000 people have risked their lives to become U.S. citizens. Firstly, I’m offended. And only because they’re making me look bad.
Secondly – We’re training foreigners to kill and then not just allowing them entry to the country but making them citizens? That's not inherently wrong, but why are people still complaining about a Mexican/American fence when we’re inviting people in?
Sure, you have a higher chance of dying in Kabul than at Ellis Island, but come on. We distract people FROM the war by hating immigrants while THOUSANDS of immigrants are keeping the war going so that they can entry the country legally? That's one hell of a vicious circle.
And again – We are training foreign nationals to kill with our weapons. Just saying.
And they should seriously stop making me look bad. I'm going to go wave a flag now.
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