Good Will Hunting Part II

Letters to Nowhere

Rovian chickenshits have normalized cheating.
Whereas back in days gone past eight years ago, it was somewhat remarkable. Yeah, back when I was a grownup, cheating used to be a sign that you must not thinkyou’re worthy of achieving life’s little triumphs via tenacity, hard work, integrity and yes, gasp, good will.
Believe it or not youngstas, cheating once reflected poorly on one’s character.
It meant you were a loser, not a “winner” with the chickenshit Rovian turpitude to rig the game in your favor.
The simple act of volunteering for the McCain campaign gives one an immediate opportunity to parttake in cheating.
It seems a Dutch journalist named Margriet Oostveen volunteers for various campaigns to get a layperson’s behind-the-scenes story. She doesn’t expect to be made privy of scandalous goings-on, but it’s her attempt to gain a clearer understanding of various politicians. So, she volunteered for The McPain to Nowhere Campaign and, expecting to be enlisted on the phone bank or some innocuous shit, Ms. Oostveen was surprised with the task of lying and cheating from Day One.
A staffer asked her to write fictitious “Letters to the Editor.”
Which editor?
Why, the editor of the local newspaper, silly.
Which local newspaper?
Any local newspaper in the country that might need a generic, xenophobic, ignorant, blindly-supportive letter to any editor in any town where the rigging of the vote needs to somehow be justified.
It was explained to Ms. Oorstveen that the letters would be signed by various locals, thus ensuring the opportunity to “flood” any given newspaper.
She wrote a letter describing herself as a mother who’s son was, like Track Palin, serving in Iraq. Sticking to the “talking points” the campaign furnished her with, she extolled the virtues of Sarah Palin:

Dear editor,
Being the on-in-a-million executive supermom is not even the biggest quality of Sarah Palin. Her biggest plus to me is that, being amazingly smart and qualified, she managed to remain a woman like us. She is the PTA running hockey moms. She is the working mothers of special needs children. She is every caring mother of a challenging teenager. And most of all, she is just like any mother of a child who deploys to Iraq in the service of this country.
My son too, is there.
And my heart needs him back safe so much.
But when I see him again, I also want to see his face glow with pride. Just like the day he told me he enlisted.
That is why Senator John McCain could count on my vote from day one.
With Sarah Palin, I have even more reason to trust in victory. She represents my heart.
Sincerely,


Salon compiled all of the emails between Ms. Oostveen and various turd-blossomettes with the McCain campaign:

http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2008/09/24/mccain_letters/

Talking points should not be, but have become, another form of cheating.
There is a self-defense tactic called “The Broken Record.” If someone if hassling you, the idea is to repeat the same phrase over and over, rather than engage in a confrontation. It could go something like this:
“C’mon baby, come home with me.”
“I am very happy spending time with my friends here at this bar. Please go away.”
“C’mon baby, you know you want it.”
“I am very happy spending time with my friends here at this bar. Please go away.”
“I got some good weed and some whiskey at my apartment.”
“I am very happy spending time with my friends here at this bar. Please go away.”
“I thought you liked me. I saw the way you were looking at me earlier.”
“I am very happy spending time with my friends here at this bar. Please go away.”

The Broken Record is a way to assert yourself with someone who does not, in any given moment, understand that you are a human being worthy of respect. By repeating the same phrase over and over, the offender is given the opportunity to see that you will not back down no matter what.

The Chickenshit Rovian Republicans found out about The Broken Record, only they call it “talking points.” Instead of actually engaging with people and honoring our intelligence and innate level of integrity, a defensive, Broken Record tactic is employed.
Here’s an example:

“Hi I’m a maverick. Haya America needs some mavericks. Mavericks love Joe the Plumber. Joe the Plumber knows how important it is to distribute the wealth. Mavericks like us know how Joe the Plumber feels. I’m the hockey mom. Voracious reader! Special needs! Pitbull! Lipstick! Moose hunt! You betcha, I said hell no to the bridge to nowhere! Drill baby drill!”

The idea is, just like in a self-defense situation, to wear down the listener. It has worked well in the past, but I think people are tired of if after eight years.


The Terrorist Ashley Todd


And then we have the I-was-assaulted-by-a-large-black-man-and-he-carved-a backwards-B-on-my-face.
Look, if you’re going to cheat, at the very least, have someone else carve into your face. You see, if you carve something into your face while looking in the mirror, it will appear backwards to the viewer. Forensic scrutiny is not a prerequisite.
Ashley Todd, aged 20.
Oh lord, I can’t even bear to describe her idiocy. If you haven’t read about Ashley Todd yet, then google her foolish ass.
Aren’t white people tired of accusing black men of raping white women yet? I mean, sure, black men do horrible things.
Sure.
In this culture, everyone has ample opportunity to do horrible things. It’s one of the rare places where equality actually reigns.
Back in Reconstruction times, whenever white people felt the need to destroy a black community, someone came forward and said that a black man raped his daughter, wife, mother, etc. Then the whites razed the black community. It happened in every state, in every city where black folks flourished. By the time Emmitt Till was killed, thousands of black men and hundreds of black communities had been destroyed via this accusation.
So Ashley Todd is, in my mind, quite the monster of our times. Not only did she grow up in a culture that celebrates cheating and meanspiritedness, not only is she a Republican operative who understands that “winning” is the only thing that matters, she is also a terrorist. Because of Ashley Todd and women like Ashley Todd (Susan Smith comes to mind), women of any race who actually ARE sexually assaulted by men of any race are terrorized by hostile judicial systems and defense lawyers. Every time a woman comes out saying she was raped or assaulted when she, in fact, was not, defense lawyers all over the nation file that shit away in their minds, pre-forming arguments to get their clients aquittals.
An entire rugby team in North Carolina got off, and in fact were portrayed as “victims” by this very scenario. The fact that the rapists were white and the woman they assaulted was black certainly helped things along for the little thugs.

I doubt if Ashley Todd put much historical thought into her actions and choices. She instinctively knows what white people will respond to and she did her best to become a kind of cheating hero.
It is very sad that a 20-year-old would come up with this scenario, but she is a product of our culture.
A monster, like I say, of our times.
I don’t know how the Ashley Todds of the country will pull through when cheating is no longer the way to get things done.
I don’t in fact know if cheating will ever again be viewed as a character flaw.
Nonetheless, I continue to hunt for good will.

Hunting Good Will, Part I

Don't Get Him Started

The other night I watched Good Will Hunting for the first time since it busted a move on Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s respective careers. Came out in 1997. Dazzled at the Oscars, la, la, la.
I have a hard time remembering movies and books, so it was kinda like watching it for the first time. I do recall enjoying it, but if you’d asked me what it was about, I’da said, “Oh yes, Good Will Hunting. It’s these two white male students who go to some fancy college in the east. Robin Williams plays a professor who helps them to defy the odds and reach new heights.”
Triumphant poignancy ensues.
That’s not what it’s about.
It’s about Matt Damon’s title character, a foster kid/working class math genius who provides custodial services to MIT. During his shift one day, buffing the floor, he pauses to solve an impossible mathematical formula on a chalkboard in a hallway outside a math theorist’s classroom. Earlier that day, you see, the teacher put the problem on the board and promised any student who solved it a chance to appear in some bigshit math journal.
Later on, some passing students see that the problem is solved, they find their professor, and all go to the hallway. While they stare in wonder at the board, the teacher asks who did it. None of the students know. So the next class day, the teacher asks all of the students who solved the problem. No one cops to it. This leads the teacher to find Will Hunting, who is in jail for assault. The teacher gets him sprung, under the condition that Will gets into therapy, enter Robin Williams.
Triumphant poignancy ensues.
There’s a shocking sticking point in this plot—one that still very much lingers in my mind.
When the professor asked the packed lecture hall full of students who solved the problem, I was astounded to realize that I expected someone to take credit, but no one did.
Ten short years ago, there weren’t that many cell phones. Folks in the movie use pay phones. There are no lap tops in classes, no text messages, MySpace pages or other myriad barriers between humans actually engaging with one another. Most of all, there was no C- president who lied, bullied and cheated his way into the White House for eight years, committing war crimes and looting various nation’s financial infrastructures, ours included.
I am now accustomed to people not paying attention to each other, to lying, bullying and cheating. Inspiring teenagers to commit suicide through sordid MySpace machinations.
So when the math professor asks who solved the problem, I was shocked that no one took credit. Worse, I was shocked to find myself shocked for this commonly decent act of normal human good will. No one cheated, or tried to steal Will Hunting’s thunder. I totally expected someone to raise their hand, and NO ONE DID. The wife had the exact same experience and we paused the DVD to recollect ourselves. It was seriously jarring shit.
The viewer knows Will Hunting solved the problem, but that is not the point. In just over one decade, we have become a population of lying, bullying cheaters—that’s the point.
Is it really possible that folks have devolved so dramatically in one decade? People in Good Will Hunting largely dress and talk the same as we do now, but the level of integrity I used to take for granted was freakishly, disappointingly, refreshing.
If no one answers the phone, it really means they are not home.

I told my dear friend Riz about this. He is older than me, and said, “It’s Bush. Don’t talk to me about not blaming Bush for everything. The president sets the tone for the way the people act, period. Reagan brought the “Me Decade,” you remember that? It went like this: Cocaine, me, me, cocaine, me. Bush took that shit to a whole new level. It’s disgraceful.”
Then he said,
“Don’t get me started.”

I was too young to have a frame of reference when Reagan became president. I was a teenager and it was very important to me to act like I knew what was going on. The grownups around me were the ones who showed me how to show I knew what was going on. And I did cocaine a few times too. I never gained an understanding about cocaine.
It hurts your nose.
(“Oh no, not pure cocaine, honey, this is pure shit. It won’t hurt your nose.”
Yeah, right jackass. Snorting baby powder would hurt your nose. Noses aren’t engineered for snorting. They’re engineered for blowing and breathing.)
And it makes you talk like a fool for hours on end and then you stay awake for three days.
Mmmm, fun. Cocaine.
Anyway, I didn’t see the 80s as a grownup. I saw the 80s as an insecure teenager—who, at all costs, must not let on that I am in any way insecure because it will Ruin My Life if anyone finds out how terrified I truly am—trying to figure out how to make my way in this society.
Which was, evidently, the Me Society.
In much the same way that anyone under 30 probably has no frame of reference for good will, intergity and actual human engagement.
Humans are really amazing creatures. Give us 8 years of unmitigated bullshit and we will learn to accept that bullshit is human nature.
Yes, indeed, I am an olden timer, harkening back to days of yore, when folks might actually notice your presence because they aren’t text-messaging their cousin who is pregnant with her best friend’s boyfriend’s baby and nobody’s mom knows yet, and the sht iz gna slam d fan. Im sayn: sht-fukn-strm.