[Vision2020] The Auntie Establishment and Brother Carl Show(March 5, 2006)

[g. crabtree]

Mr. Campbell, I agree with you that this must be fairly complicated  or 
perhaps I'm just not very bright. Please help me understand. To castigate 
Wal Mart because it sells items  that are made in China is good and noble. 
To turn around and reward Whatever Mart with your shopping dollar even 
though it sells the same items is no sin. This seems to me to not only be 
inconsistent, but hypocritical as well. To use your own analogy it would 
seem to me that you are saying, people who do not stop at the grade school 
crosswalk  are a danger and then you proceed to blithely  race through every 
other crosswalk in town.

I note that there must be glitch in your mail program that clipped the end 
off your Emerson quote "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little 
minds,adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. As long as 
famous quotes are the order of the day please allow me to add "All 
reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as 
big as they can pay for."

Regards,
G. Crabtree
From: <joekc at adelphia.net>
To: "g. crabtree" <jampot at adelphia.net>
Cc: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>; "Tom Hansen" 
<thansen at moscow.com>; "Lois Blackburn" <lblackburn at turbonet.com>; "Joan 
Opyr" <joanopyr at moscow.com>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Auntie Establishment and Brother Carl 
Show(March 5, 2006)


Mr. Crabtree,

I keep meaning to reply to this line of argument but I've been busy with my 
day job.

It is not a sign of inconsistency that one points out a moral flaw for 
organization A yet not a similar flaw for organization B, even though A and 
B are equal with regard to said flaw. This was the point of the Tommy story. 
Many of us see people doing things we dislike everyday -- failing to stop in 
a crosswalk, for instance -- and only once in awhile do you choose to say 
anything about it. Doesn't make the folks who escape without criticism 
right.

This is a complicated point and I'm not trying to make it too simple. Lots 
of businesses trade with China. That in and of itself does not justify such 
trade; nor does it require that one can only criticize one of these 
businesses without criticizing them all. This is a huge problem. If we want 
to change things, and respect the idea that all persons have rights, we have 
to start somewhere. Some of us choose to start with Wal-Mart, since they are 
symbolic of the general problem.

You might say that this is inconsistent but to that I reply that "a foolish 
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

--
Joe Campbell

---- "g. crabtree" <jampot at adelphia.net> wrote:

=============
Ms. Opyr, Your conviction and enthusiasm for human rights in China and 
elsewhere is laudable. Just to be sure I understood you correctly, are you 
telling all of us here on the list that you will not be patronizing *any* 
business that sells products that are in *any* way connected with the afore 
mentioned countries? Or does your righteous indignation begin and end with 
Wal-Mart?

G. Crabtree
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Joan Opyr
  To: Tom Hansen
  Cc: Moscow Vision 2020 ; Lois Blackburn
  Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 10:28 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] The Auntie Establishment and Brother Carl 
Show(March 5, 2006)


  On 5 Mar 2006, at 17:20, Tom Hansen wrote:


    Greetings Visionaires -

    This afternoon's show, although not likely to be mentioned on this 
evening's
    Academy Awards Show, was definitely not worth missing.

    After a trio of songs dedicated to Phil Nisbet, a recently silenced 
voice of
    Moscow's Vision 2020, Auntie and Bro "C" commenced to lampoon President 
Bush
    and Dick Cheney, while generously flavoring the show with an excellent
    selection of music.

    Those of you who failed to tune in, possibly due to a post-Mardi Gras
    hangover, may download the show from:

    http://www.tomandrodna.com/Auntie_Establishment_and_Brother_Carl

    Aside from this afternoon's show I would like to make a couple 
dedications
    myself:

    1) Posthumously to Phil: Your opinions, although criticized by many
    (including myself), have served to provide backbone and strength to the
    Vision 2020 "soap box". This is only Sunday and already your voice is
    missed. Although I am not Jewish, this one's for you, Phil:

    http://www.tomandrodna.com/Sounds/Shalom_Aleikhem.mp3



  Thanks, as always, to Tom for recording the AE & BC Show and making it 
available online. For those who are interested, Carl and I played a trio of 
songs for Phil:

  "Hallelujah" by k. d. lang (the live version she performed at the Juno 
Awards)
  "Never Saw Blue" by Hayley Westenra
  "Cowboy Take Me Away" by Dixie Chicks

  All are beautiful songs. lang's "Hallelujah" is, in my opinion, one of the 
most beautiful songs on record, along with Jane Siberry's "Calling All 
Angels" (recorded with lang on harmony) and Eva Cassidy's cover of "Danny 
Boy." In addition to books and poetry, Phil and I exchanged music. What a 
surprise -- our tastes were very different. The first time we ever met in 
person (about a week after we'd buried the hatchet, thanks to his incredible 
willingness to sincerely apologize and to take that awful, heart-stopping 
risk of rejection) he brought me a great book about Jewish women and some 
truly awful klezmer music. I thought about playing the klezmer music 
tonight, but then I thought, no, I hate that stuff. And I told Phil that I 
hated that stuff. Instead, I'm going to go my own way and play some songs 
that reflect how Carl and I felt about Phil. It seemed to me that that might 
be more personal . . . and more annoying to Phil.

  I'm not a superstitious woman, but a strange thing happened when I got 
home this evening. I opened up my email to find that my most recent computer 
disaster -- I tripped over my Apple's power cord and broke the copper 
charger off in the machine -- meant that once power was restored and the 
battery recharged, at the top of my email was a message from Phil. It was a 
week or two old, and I'd drafted a response but I hadn't sent it yet. Phil 
wanted me to know that he'd been plugging my book on a poets/screenwriters' 
chat group he belonged to called zoetrope. The zoetrope chat group is 
serious business, and Phil was a serious poet. (Phil said that Francis Ford 
Coppolla had been known to hang out there.) Anyhow, having read the first 
chapter of my book on my website, Phil said he had high hopes for me and 
that he was going to contact some screenwriter friends and send them copies 
of the book. What a damned generous guy. He also sent me some more of his 
poetry to read and to comment upon. Jeez. I had some preliminary comments 
for him, both praise and criticism, and now it's . . . well, hell. Just for 
the record, I feel like a complete shit-bird. Phil called here on Tuesday 
night, and he talked for a long time to Rose because I was doing something 
or another and couldn't -- or rather didn't -- come to the phone. And you 
know, it's funny -- if you've ever had a phone conversation with Phil, then 
you'll know that when you talked with him, you had to hold the receiver 
about four inches away from your ear because he wasn't just passionate, he 
was loud!

  He reminded me in many ways of my late grandfather. Obstinate. Funny. 
Stubborn. Difficult. Complex. Provoking. Charming. And, as I mentioned 
before, passionate and generous. Quiet voices are silenced and they 
disappear, but a good, loud, strong voice . . . that you don't forget. You 
don't forget a worthy opponent or a stirring debate. Moscow has lost one of 
the many strong characters that make this place so interesting, and we are 
the less for that.

  Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
  www.joanopyr.com

  PS: In memory of Phil, I've decided to stick not just my hand but my head 
into the hornets' nest. I have sound economic and ethical reasons for 
opposing Wal-Mart, but just to make things more interesting around here, let 
me offer up a confession. I believe, as Donovan has so often accused, that 
it is wrong to shop at Wal-Mart. It's wrong to shop at a company that relies 
on slave, child, or prison labor. Don't talk to me about percentages -- if 
any company uses a single prisoner, a slave or a six-year old, that company 
is wrong, and you are wrong to buy from them. It's wrong to shop at a 
predatory retailer that screws its workers and its suppliers. Once you know 
exactly how Wal-Mart is able to sell you four water glasses for a dollar, it 
is morally reprehensible to choose to benefit from the misery of others. 
When you shop at Wal-Mart, you and your dollar bills are saying "F**k those 
Chinese child workers" or "My American pocketbook is more important than 
your Honduran civil rights." We are what we buy, and I don't buy abuse. And 
here's a hot one for you, Donovan/Gary/Jeff/Dale Courtney -- I don't think 
you should have the unfettered right to buy abuse either. Pat Kraut believe 
George Bush has the right to wiretap without a warrant; I believe that I 
have the right to trample on your stinkin' buying power.

  Wal-Mart sells 60,000 products? Hoo-ray. What percentage of those are 
cheap-assed versions of better things available at better stores? What 
percentage are things you could get for even less at Goodwill? I'm not 
buying a toy for my kid that's made by a kid even younger than my kid. You 
catch my drift? I'd rather buy less, shop less, and own less than consume on 
the backs of pennies-a-day foreign labor. And, what's more, I'm willing to 
step out to the very edge of my swaying limb and say, "Not in my backyard, 
Donovan. Go buy your cheap shit in Pullman, Gary. Take the Wheatland 
Express, Jeff Harkins. Ride your bike, Dale Courtney. Hoof it, the lot of 
you." I don't give a monkey's brasses if that inconveniences any or all of 
you. Why? Because the free market be damned; I don't want to look at a 
200,000-square foot store squatting on a piece of ex-farm land adjacent to 
the Latah Trail, directly across from the Moscow Cemetery, and that will 
obstruct my view of Paradise Ridge. Call me selfish. I'll agree; I am.

  I guess this polemic makes me the un-Bruce. Oh, well. Bruce is always 
reasonable; I'm often not. I got a good look at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in 
that hideous collection of strip malls they call the Tri-Cities. It was a 
giant carbuncle of a building, an ugly behemoth, a complete and utter 
bastard. I don't want one of those beasts here in Moscow. The contrast 
between that . . . thing . . . and downtown Portland, or our own beautiful 
and lively downtown, couldn't be more striking. Let others make the 
reasonable arguments. I've given up. >From now on, I'm going for the gut. 
Keep that hell-hole out of my town. Keep its crap products and its cheap 
prices and its tire and lube center away from the Troy Highway and way the 
hell away from me. Go find somewhere else to wreck. Moscow's too good for a 
Super Wal-Mart. Way too good.

  BTW, you can hop right on that last sentence, Jeff Harkins, because I mean 
it to be both absolutist and elitist. That's what keeps me (unlike Donovan) 
off the Pepcid AC. Hot dog!




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