Earlier today I friended Slutwalk Philadelphia, which my friend Kali Morgan had posted about on FetLife.

What a weekend! Yesterday I tried to do my laundry but couldn't finish drying it because Friday without warning a new management took over my building that's no longer opening the office on Saturday so I couldn't reload my laundry card. So today I had to take the still damp clothes to another place a few blocks away and squeeze in a little petitioning on the nominating paper for Richie Antipuna I only got Thursday, then had just enough time to get the clothes home and the papers downtown for notarizing before they're due tomorrow, then back on SEPTA to get to the PhillyCOR picnic. Whew! And after that it was straight to South Philly for the ICSA meeting!

Comments on a Talk by Milt Rosen

A member of the Left Book Group to which I belong has posted a speech by Milt Rosen, a founder of the Progressive Labor Party, on the occasion of his recent death. This has given me a welcome opportunity to expound on some of my thinking on the relations between politics, philosophy, and psychology. You can read the original speech at http://web.archive.org/web/19980703114256/www.plp.org/pl_magazine/bbwc.html. Here are my comments:

There are some valid points here about the importance of developing relationships with people, even outside of politics, and really listening to them. But I think the implementation of this idea is hampered by the Leninist framework, which tends to lead people to interpret reality more on the basis of what the party (leaders) say, and less on their own experience and that of coworkers and neighbors. This is because of the cognitive dissonance effects that Dennis Tourish (among others) has discussed in his paper, "Ideological Intransigence, Democratic Centralism, and Cultism."

It's interesting that he gives the Chinese Army (pre-Revolution) as an example of how it's possible to incorporate discussion in the context of action. As we now understand, a lot of that "discussion" was probably what the Maoists called thought reform, which they started practicing even before they took power. This involves "struggle," all right, but there's nothing really scientific about it since it involves a high level of psychological coercion. This is also the context in which they developed the concept of "criticism and self-criticism." This doesn't prove that every group employing these terms is a cult, but when they're applied in conjunction with other concepts like democratic centralism that are also conducive to conformity pressure, the hazard to intellectual (and emotional) autonomy is particularly high.

Another key difference with scientific method is that the latter requires controlled experiments. Coming up with a "scientific plan" based on a "correct line" means you are acting on a single hypothesis — not on two or more hypotheses. This means you are not able to compare the relative merits of different ideas, which is fundamental to science. (True, you can compare the relative efficacy of your group's ideas to those of other groups; but you are unlikely either to have unbiased information on which to base such an evaluation, or the psychological ability to evaluate it in an unbiased way, since your group identity is invested in your own hypothesis and you likely regard the other groups as opponents if not class enemies.)

Rosen is doubtless right that sometimes people express differences for selfish reasons and not out of deep conviction. But it's disturbing how readily he attributes some people's "falling away" to an unwillingness to intensify struggle. He claims they had no fundamental differences, but doesn't quote them to prove that they would agree with that statement. On the other hand, this kind of explanation is extremely characteristic of how every cult describes those who leave — it's never for valid reasons, always because the individual was weak or had some flaw. For that matter, one can't even tell from the text that these people actually dropped out of politics; they may simply have chosen to join a different group or continue their activism without an affiliation.

Seen on a bumper sticker: "VERMONT: What happens here, stays here. (But nothing ever really happens.)"

A Revolutionary Answer to the Crisis

At the urging of others, I've sent some messages to our political leaders about not throwing workers and the oppressed under the bus in the name of a budget deal. But these pre-formatted messages don't suggest any way around the impasse. So I decided to send my own message addressing the radical danger of financial catastrophe with a radical solution. This is what I wrote on the White House Web comment form:

The President must put an end to Republican budget terrorism by declaring a state of emergency. He should use emergency powers to:

1) Raise the debt ceiling by Executive Order;

2) Implement the People's Budget proposed by members of the House Progressive Caucus, which would create millions of new jobs while reducing the deficit with a deep cut in military spending;

3) Mandate that all US-based corporations offer living-wage jobs with benefits to any who apply for them, as a condition for keeping their corporate charters; and

4) Repeal or modify antitrust laws so that companies can coordinate to achieve greater efficiencies and, in particular, so that they can raise prices as needed to cover increased labor costs resulting from the previous measure.

President Lincoln addressed an earlier national crisis with revolutionary economic measures, expropriating the entire planter class of the rebel states. President Obama can and must do likewise to resolve the present crisis.

On my after-dinner stroll I encountered someone whose wireless account had run out. I texted his mother that he was at the door.

These Magnets Are Repulsive

I read today on a captivate.com screen that Crowne Plaza hotels are now offering "no-snore" rooms, one of whose features is "magnetic pillows" whose embedded magnets supposedly keep sleepers' airways open. This is of course complete nonsense since magnets have no effect on anything but iron, nickel, and cobalt (and moving electric charges). This hotel chain is shamelessly exploiting some people's scientific ignorance.

I looked for contact information for Crowne Plaza hotels, and the only thing I could find that's not specifically for guest feedback is this address for the Americas office of InterContinental Hotels Group LLC,
of which Crowne Plaza is a part:

InterContinental Hotels Group
3 Ravinia Drive Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30346-2149

I'm writing them today to call on them to stop promoting pseudoscience!

Speak Up Already!

One area in which I've worked to cease being unduly constrained by social anxiety is interaction with fellow pedestrians. As I've started to overcome this problem myself, I've seen in the City Paper's I Love You, I Hate You that others are still mired in self-righteous/helpless blame-someone-else mode. In response to a 7 July ILUIHU titled "Walk Already," I've submitted the following:

Why do some people rant here when they could address a problem for themselves? If someone is walking too slowly for you, why not just ask them to make way? It's really simple -- just say, "Excuse me, could I get past?" They may not even know there's someone behind them. If you find yourself unable to do this, see a therapist!

Last night I went to my third Purgatory party and played with two people -- the one I played with last time, plus another I met and asked for the first time. The second called me "fearless." What a change from just a couple years ago!

I put a check in the mail this morning for Bothwell for Congress. Cecil Bothwell (www.cecilbothwell.com) is the strong progressive challenging the Blue Dog incumbent in next year's Democratic primary to represent North Carolina's 11th district. If elected, he'll be the first person to join Congress as an open atheist, laying to rest the notion that this isn't possible.

Today I saw a table whose banner announced "The Truth About Drugs." Even from a distance something about the design told me this was a Scientology banner. So as I passed I informed a bunch of people who'd taken pamphlets that they were "Scientology cult literature."

At last week's ICSA meeting, I learned about an unethical dominant who's running a BDSM cult. I'm consulting with someone prominent in the community on how best to spread an alert about this person.

Bradley Manning No Longer in Solitary!

Just got this great news about Pfc. Bradley Manning, who's been persecuted for blowing the whistle on "collateral murder" by US armed forces:

I have some great news from Bradley Manning. He has been moved from his abusive solitary confinement in Quantico to a new cell in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Yesterday Bradley's lawyer released this statement to his supporters:

PFC Manning's overall mood and demeanor has greatly improved. PFC Manning is able to maintain regular contact with his defense team. He receives weekly written updates, phone calls and visits from defense counsel. In addition, he receives regular visits from family. Finally, PFC Manning also receives hundreds of letters from supporters every week. He wishes to extend his sincere appreciation to those who have taken the time to send along their thoughts and well-wishes.

You did this. Thanks to you, Bradley went from being forced to strip naked nightly at Quantico to a new life in Fort Leavenworth. We disrupted the government's campaign of abuse and intimidation, and with your support, we won this fight for Bradley.

There's still so much more to be done in our fight for justice. Can you help Firedoglake continue our important work by chipping in $5 now?

Nearly 60,000 Firedoglake activists like yourself spoke out and rallied for the humane treatment for Bradley Manning. Along the way, we had to fight the Pentagon, the State Department, and even the President himself.

Together, we picked apart claims by government witnesses, doggedly pursued reporters to debunk official propaganda and helped organize actions online and offline that made the difference for stopping the abuse of Bradley Manning.

Bradley is now free to exercise, socialize with other detainees, write and receive letters, and even go outside. He sleeps with a normal pillow and blanket without interruption, and he can keep his clothes on at night.

How do we sustain this kind of campaign? Firedoglake has served as a forceful counterweight to entrenched corporate insiders and ineffective DC groups on issues from Bradley Manning, to auditing the Federal Reserve, and winning student loan reform. But it's hard to sustain our current path when we're up against a corrupt political establishment that is determined to abandon the rule of law.

Can you help us continue our fight for justice and the rule of law? Please chip in $5 to support our work.
This incredible turn of events for Bradley Manning was possible thanks to your continuous support. There's much more to do for Bradley Manning and the pursuit of justice across our country. With your help, we can continue to succeed.

Thanks for all you do.

Onward,
- Brian
Brian Sonenstein
Digital Strategy Director
Firedoglake.com

At the Green Party of Philadelphia meeting Thursday evening, I met the nominee for City Commissioner, Richie Antipuna. I'd been present at the previous meeting where he was endorsed, but hadn't introduced myself to him. I explained that I'd like to help petition to put him on the ballot, but prefer not doing so for the Sheriff candidate, Cheri Honkala, about whom I have some concerns based on my experience in the Labor Party in the '90s. Though he said he was sorry to hear that, he was understanding, evidently having encountered this issue before. He said he'd arrange for me to get petitions with only his name on it.

Although I circulated a modified petition in 2008 too, I seem to remember raising the question with a lot more trepidation then, even though I did so with Hilary Aisenstein (now Kane), whom I knew already, and she already had some idea I might want to do so. So I feel the ease with which I acted on my concerns this time reflects the greater comfort I've attained in exercising my political autonomy even within a group setting.

Last night I saw the documentary Two Spirits, about a Navajo teen named Fred Martinez who was murdered because he expressed both masculine and feminine personae -- a characteristic described in some Native cultures as having "two spirits." Traditionally such people were treated with reverence because they were believed able to cross boundaries of other sorts as well in ways other people couldn't.

It's instructive to see how cultures can differ not only in the attitudes they take toward gender-variant people, but even in how they classify them -- "two spirits" is sometimes translated as "transgender" but it may also be applied to those who are simply homosexual, for instance. I think this points to the fact that the map is not the territory, and all our labels are fundamentally conventions which may help us communicate about the world, but nonetheless carve it up in ways that are always somewhat arbitrary.

The film was screened at WHYY's headquarters as part of the Community Cinema series, and one of the panelists discussing it afterward is organizer of the campaign to end SEPTA's policy of requiring gender stickers on Transpasses, which have resulted in denial of service and other forms of harassment for transgender people. During Q&A I elicited some laughter from the audience by pointing out that ironically, this policy also discriminates against heterosexual couples because its purported purpose is to prevent pass sharing between significant others, which only works if they're of the opposite sex.

I've started practicing limited daily fasting, as advocated by Paul McGlothin and Meredith Averill in their book The CR Way, as a means of inducing the physiological state of hormesis, which switches on longevity-promoting SIRT genes. My current circumstances allow me to fast longer during the day than overnight, so I'm simply skipping lunch. Yesterday I fasted over 16 hours, and the day before nearly 17. As I noted previously, it's not very hard to endure a little hunger when you understand that it's beneficial.

...Getting Better All the Time

Two weeks ago, as I reported previously, I finally found myself able to ask people to play with me at the Purgatory party. Last night I did so again, and this time someone agreed. Turned out our interests complimented almost perfectly, and we had a very good time. I'll be friending her on Fetlife.

Dangerous Talk » Atheists as a Political Force

This post by Staks Rosch looks like an excellent idea:

Dangerous Talk » Atheists as a Political Force

It really bothers me that we can’t come together to form a strong voter block. I keep hearing excuses why we can’t do it and that just seems silly and lazy to me.

Atheists are a very diverse group and we are fiercely independent. Yeah, I get that and yes, the only thing we have in common is our lack of belief. I get that too. But I think those within the greater community of reason have other things in common too. We tend to be humanistic, we support reason over faith, education, critical thinking, science, and surprise, surprise most of us are pretty liberal and even down right progressive.

While we are independent thinkers and organizing atheists is comparable to herding cats, I think most of us are smart enough to realize the advantages of electing reasonable atheists to public office. This alone should be incentive enough to work together and get reasonable atheists elected to public office.

I am tired of the excuses. I know that many atheists groups can’t endorse candidates, but as the religious people have shown, there are ways around that. There really is no excuse for the inaction of the greater community of reason.

I am calling for all atheist bloggers, facebook uses, twitter uses, reddit uses, etc. to join together and help to get Cecil Bothwell elected. Leaders of atheist organizations can help too just by using their e-mail list to let people know an atheist is running. They don’t have to endorse a candidate. In fact, they can even talk about the other candidate and let their members choose for themselves who the reasonable candidate is.

In politics, money matters. If we all can donate a little bit to his campaign and that of other reasonable atheists running for office, we can show that we are a political force. Other politicians will start to think twice about invoking religion and some politicians might even come out of the closet and try to get our support.

What we can’t have is this negativity. No more excuses! No more of this “atheists can’t win” nonsense. We have to spread the meme that we can win and that we will do it together. So if you really want to change the overly religious politics in this country, then you have to put in some effort. Not praying is not enough.

I lost my weekly Transpass today, but didn't know this till I got a call from the man who'd found it. He waited several minutes for me to come and retrieve it and declined the dollar bill I offered him for his trouble.

Trumka Running for President?

He hasn't said so, but it's encouraging how blunt he's been lately about his dissatisfaction with Democratic leaders, as described in this article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/09-1.

They're already trying to preempt a challenge from the left: today I saw a sticker on a light pole reading "2012" with the Obama logo inside the "0," and below in smaller letters, "I'm in!" So I wrote "TRUMKA FOR PREZ" on a blank label and placed it directly above; and above that, by way of partial explanation, a leftover sticker for the 9 April antiwar march.

I'm thinking of trying to spread the meme "Trumka running for president" on the Web in hopes of getting it reported as "trending." I heard of someone who successfully did that, merely in a spirit of mischief, for "Muslim leader converts to Christianity."