I just watched the series finale for Battlestar Galactica today. I had managed to avoid seeing any spoilers and any discussion of the finale so far. Though I don’t intend to disclose any detailed spoilers, you should stop reading now if you want pristine mind going into the thing.

I hated it. My strongest belief about humanity is that learning and creativity define us as a species. From the earliest bone tools onward, learning and creativity result in technology. We can debate whether specific technologies are used for good or ill. I do not endorse fully unrestricted use of any technology that we can come up with. To me, the BSG finale had a maddening luddite streak to it. It managed to be both nihilistic and naive at the same time. For a show that did such a grand job of examining what it means to be human, the finale was disgustingly anti-humanistic. I’d like to just forget it. I can think of few shows that I’ve really loved which have managed to disappoint me so thoroughly with a planned series finale. There have been plenty of times where I wished things had ended differently for specific characters, where their ultimate fate was counter to the tone of the show or the arc of a specific character. I’m still bothered by the way Wes died in the Angel finale. I’m not bothered that he died. I think, given the finale’s premise, that it made sense for Wes to die. The moment of death was a betrayal of the character. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the end was a betrayal to an entire show.

I think I’ll just try to forget that final episode.

There’s an internet thing going around where people post about Supreme Court cases in an effort to educate Sarah Palin on some case other than Roe V. Wade. My choice is one of the most shameful Supreme Court decisions of the last 100 years. No, it’s not Bush v. Gore. It’s Balzac v. Porto Rico. In this case, the Taft Court deprived citizens of U.S. territories of the full protections of the constitution. Plaintiff Jesus Balzac filed the case because he had been denied a trial by jury in a criminal libel case. Under the sixth amendment, all citizens should have that right. So for the nearly four million U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico as well as any mainland citizens who visit there, there is no right to a trial by jury if the local statutes don’t demand it. By the language of the decision, the same is true in any U.S. territory or possession. It is unclear whether any constitutional protections apply, based on the language of the decision.

Thanks to Kristine for passing along this article which gives a nice, introductory level overview of how the US’s lower and middle class are among the biggest losers of globalization. The general theme ought to be somewhat apparent to anyone who knows me, reads me elsewhere online or reads this blog closely.

You may have read that Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin has spoken out about the war that took his brother’s life. You may even have seen a widely excerpted quote. I highly recommend reading his short, heartfelt statement about this country, its leadership, and the war. I’ve reprinted it below as it appears at www.truthdig.com.
After Pat’s Birthday

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

By Kevin Tillman

Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

There’s a good article in the Monitor about why the Democrats might take the majority of governorships this year for the first time since 1994 and what the implications of that could be.

The GOP has found and launched its strategy to try to keep control of the House and Senate this fall: smear, smear, smear. In an effort to keep this election from being nationalized on unpopular issues like the war in Iraq and the poor performance of the GOP controlled congress, they are going for smear, distortion, and attack on Democratic challengers, hoping to make them look like risky choices compared with the local incumbent.

Stirling Newbury has an interesting op-ed up at TruthOut on “the new politics”. It’s a little too much of a love letter to Ned Lamont for my tastes. It also kind of reminds me a bit of some of the more naive versions of “information wants to be free, the internet will create freedom and grass roots democracy for all” that we were seeing a in the late 90s during the dotcom boom. In spite of that, it’s worth a read.

John Kerry is running a really interesting campaign for the presidency. He’s clearly running well to the left of where he ran in 2004, especially in primary season. I don’t know if this is a result of lessons learned in 2004 or his best estimate of what the political climate in the party is like right now or some combination thereof. Hell, maybe he’s actually running for president on the same kind of platform his voting record in the senate would indicate he believes in.

He’s given a series of speeches at Faneuil Hall in Boston this year where he has outlined his plan for this or that. His latest is on healthcare. He’s calling for universal healthcare by 2012. One of the first things he does is address the stupid and wrongheaded notion that we can’t afford heatlhcare or that it will bankrupt businesses and slow our economy:

Two corporations show the dangerous path ahead for employer-based health coverage. One used to be the largest company in the world - General Motors. The other is the largest company today - Wal-Mart.

As General Motors goes, people used to say, so goes the country. Well today, General Motors is weighed down with so many health care costs that it’s been called “an HMO dressed up as an auto company.” GM adds $1,500 to the cost of every car and truck it produces just to pay for health care for its workers. To give you an idea of how much this affects American businesses in the global marketplace, Toyota pays only $500 in health care costs per vehicle.

Now this isn’t just a problem for manufacturing industries. The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, said his company spends more on health care than coffee beans. They’re trying to do the right thing, but the people running our country aren’t doing the right thing by them.

Companies like Wal-Mart have adopted a totally different strategy - use workers until they get sick, don’t cover them for check-ups, and then tell them they’re on their own. The nice person who greets you at Wal-Mart’s door is shown the door when illness strikes. Whether it’s because Wal-Mart hires part-time workers and doesn’t offer them insurance, or offers health care packages most workers there can’t possibly afford, passing along enormous costs to families and taxpayers, the bottom line is clear: at Wal-Mart, less than forty percent of the employees have health insurance. That’s 600,000 working Americans on their own. It’s unconscionable and it is unacceptable that five of the ten richest people in America are Wal-Mart stockholders from the same family - worth double-digit billions each - but they can’t find the money to secure health coverage for their own workers and their families.