GeoCities will be gone forever as of Monday, October 26.

Sometimes my capacity for nostalgia surprises me. That's because I lie to myself, and the lie that I tell myself is that I'm not nostalgic. The impulse to tell that lie must be machismo, inscribed in my male DNA. Nostalgia seems soppy, feminine (or maybe too Irish?) and scatter-brained: A sign of physical and mental weakness.

See? I'm already babbling incoherently.

For people my age and possibly for other people the decade of the 1990s triggers our nostalgia reflex like no other. It seems like it was such an innocent and simple time. Only we Americans, who live in a condition of total culture industry-immersion, could possibly be self-indulgent enough to cast matters in that light.

Really, it wasn't a time of innocence at all, but rather, of myopia and wealth. If the myopia was the kind of myopia that accompanies great wealth, the wealth was the kind of wealth -- think "Dot-Com Bubble" -- that depended upon myopia for its sustenance: irrational exuberance, half-baked math and coke-addled entrepreneurs gaming venture capitalists for millions of dollars in order to get chihuahua-enthusiasts.com off the ground.

But then again, it was an innocent and simple time, and maybe its innocence was partly to do with its simplicity. To be sure, the Reagan 80s were an even simpler time that bombarded us to an unprecedented degree with big spectacles of consumer populism, products, images and myths that knew no class divisions, preferring to treat us all like idiots: the Magic Of Spielberg® ™, Family Ties, Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" shit, NASA, Eddie Murphy, when he got really really lame, New Coke, Sylvester Stallone, Flight of the Navigator, etc., etc.

No wonder everybody was in such a celebratory mood in the 1990s. By the end of the 80s, culture had basically gotten as bad as it could possibly get. So it was time for Big Capital to steal, to gut, to bastardize and to...erm...monetize* a fresh batch of attitudes, fashions and tropes. Remember My So-Called Life? And, uh, 120 Minutes (actually begun in the 80s, but whatever...). The "Seattle sound" stuff was kind of refreshing for a couple of seconds to those of us teenagers who hadn't previously been cool enough to know about Fugazi, The Minutemen and Big Black. And before long, we had amazing music to get into, like Stereolab (rest in peace, Mary Hansen), Lush, Gastr del Sol, Jim O'Rourke, Pavement and -- last but not least -- Oasis.

But I'll leave aside my sure-to-be-interminable observations about music for another day. the important thing to observe for now is that through the vast majority of that halcyon decade, that obnoxious "Pitchfork" bullshit had yet to rear its head and poison everything with its vile, vapid, retrograde shittiness.

No, in those days, the decade of Bill Clinton, we had GeoCities.

And the point of this post is to inform those of you who may not already know it that GeoCities -- the Yahoo corporation's once-ubiquitous, trusty, colorful, untrendy, gauche, un-ironic, un-self-reflexive, fun, free Web site-hosting service -- will be closing in just a couple of short days.

I'm going to miss GeoCities. Just having it around. It's been around for over 15 years! For some reason, it honestly just feels weird to contemplate a world without tons of decrepit old GeoCities Web pages that nobody ever looks at anymore. Isn't it in repositories such as this that is to be found proof of (the decline of) Western civilization?

Read Yahoo's lame non-reasons for euthanizing GeoCities. (I'll get over it. Some day....)

And click here or the image below to learn -- at this, the eleventh hour -- how to help the venerable Web site archive.org to save archives of your favorite GeoCities sites as a service to history and to humanity. In twenty years, when you write your two-volume History of the Internet, you'll thank yourself for having had the prescience to ensure the preservation of a deserving GeoCities site.

Am I the only one who's going to miss GeoCities?

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* I feel like I should say ten Hail Marys or something for having used that phrase, even in jest... You can take the Catholic out of the Church, but you can't etc., etc. Turns out this is true even when he takes himself out of the Church, crying tears of joy and toasting to his imminent liberation from his oppressors every step of the way.

Obama is right not to intervene in Iran protests.Why the GOP's demand for 'stronger' response is self-centered & opportunistic.

It is increasingly clear that Obama has been correct all along in refusing to weigh in 'more forcefully' on the Iranian protests in the wake of the rigged reëlection of Ahmadinejad. I find convincing the point of view that Obama has, in effect and by design, already weighed in, in the most consequential way possible, on the issues at play in the present Iranian situation. That is, with his Cairo speech, he emboldened in an unprecedented way the resolve of forces of resistance in Iran.

Obama's speech was successful specifically because he eschewed the self-centered, Cold War-style rhetoric favored by the administration of George W. Bush. The GOP's predilection for musty and mechanistic cant evinces a Cold War-era conception of what it means to be pro-democratic in one's interactions with the international world in that it perceives the line between a free Occident and a repressed Orient to divide exclusively competing military and economic alliances. In other words, it pays no attention to what freedom and democracy actually mean.

By contrast, Obama, in his Cairo speech, spoke to Iranians -- and to inhabitants of the Middle East broadly -- with respect for their capacity for self-governance. It should be no surprise that, upon a population as highly educated as that of substantial portions of Iran, Obama's direct, serious-minded and non-patronizing address should have exercised a galvanizing effect.



An individual going by the name math4barack formulates the connection between Obama's Cairo speech and the events in Iran (from the Daily Kos):

The Iranian Revolution. First and foremost, it must be emphasized that this is an internal revolution. It comes from the people, the people that live there. They deserve all the credit. They are the ones who are putting their lives on the line and they are the ones who are providing the images and video. Nevertheless, without President Obama (ie under President Bush or President McCain), this revolution would not have been successful. For, both President Bush and a President McCain would have made the protesters look like Western, American pupptets [sic] by speaking intemperately.

Back on June 15, a blogger called Kalash offered an analysis that appears to support this favorable reading of Obama's approach (by way of an item in Media Nation):

The election results remind us that the will of the people is not the deciding force in Iranian politics. All candidates were screened by the Supreme Council. The leading challenger was Mir Hossein Mousavi. He is now seen as a "reformist" but that is a relatively meaningless term. Afterall [sic], he was once considered a radical.

[...]

Mousavi withdrew from political life in 1989. His resurgence has been interesting to watch as supporetrs [sic] have flocked to him in defiance of the current government. But there was no reason to expect much to change in Iran if he had emerged victorious. He is no Barack Obama. He is one of the boys, otherwise he wouldn't have been allowed to run.

Whether or not Mousavi had the election stolen from him, it seems clear the ruling class has made a calculating move. Anti-American sentiment is one of the strongest cards those wretched clerics hold. By merely softening the tone Tehran hears from Washington, Obama has weakened their hand considerably. But re-instating Ahmadinejad ensures that US-Iranian relations will continue down a rocky road. What happens next is crucial. If Obama takes a firm position as a result of what's happening, the mullahs may emerge victorious.

That would be a real shame. The system of governance in Iran is terrible. There is no democracy to speak of. The people are ruled by despotic men of 'faith' who do nothing to advance their country's interests. Aside from keeping Iran in the headlines, Ahmadinejad has done nothing to improve his country's standing in the international community. It should come as no surprise that so many Iranians are opposed to him.

[...]

Hopefully what is happening right now is a homegrown phenomenon. Iran needs another revolution if it is to rid itself of the backwards theology pulling the strings. Mousavi is hardly the right person to lead such a movement, but what's important is that the people rise up. The process won't be easy. We may be witnessing the beginning of something huge… It won't happen overnight, but the "Islamic Republic"' is bound to fall one day or another.

The people of Iran deserve better than Ahmadinejad and the clerics who give him his orders. The current regime is a complete disaster, but the media tends [sic] to focus more on the less important issues. In other words, this is not about Israel. Iran's position on Zionism and the question of Palestine is a just one. The problem is the lack of civil freedoms and democracy, not nuclear weapons.

John McCain, whose latest stunt aimed at getting people to pay attention to him consisted last week of joining the GOP chorus clamoring for Obama to use "stronger rhetoric" against Iran has since expressed appreciation for Obama's more recent comments that stressed the United States' opposition to any infringement upon rights of protest and of fair political representation, as well as restating the exceedingly good point that to turn the United States into a foil for Iran would undermine and disrespect the very cause for which the protesters are fighting.

A close look at McCain's aforementioned comments -- made on the CBS program Face The Nation -- gives weight to the view that the Republican call for "stronger rhetoric" is both politically opportunistic and evidence of a worldview that is obsessed not with actual events in the world -- not with, for instance, the success of the Iranian protesters' plea for substantive democratic rights:

"America's position in the world is one of moral leadership," the senator said. "It's not about what takes place in the streets of Iran. It is about what takes place in America's conscience."

Not about what takes place in the streets of Iran, but about America. Go figure. Thanks for clarifying, Angry Johnny. That speaks volumes.

Continuing the Iran discussion.

The following is a response that the Blogger had attempted to post in response to the most recent comment from "DMA" in an ongoing conversation on the Iran protests and its political ramifications domestically and internationally, and other matters about which neither party has expertise or insight.

Do you mean the first "I" in "situation"?

Anyway, let's take a step back from the goings-on in Iran and consider the political positioning that is going on domestically: the GOP is -- as is to be expected -- attempting to capitalize on our visceral reaction to the repugnance of the absurdly titled "Supreme Leader" and regime. Particularly before the SL's Friday speech, which threatened the protesters with violent government retribution, the line was: "Well, Obama needs to stand up more for the people," etc.

Now, this is a familiar dynamic: Obama's initial expressed reaction, as you and I discussed previously, was in fact pitch-perfect. Not because it somehow eschewed expressing solidarity with the protesters' cause, but because it honored their cause, in its independence, the fact that it is rooted within Iranian society and not imposed (or 'rigged') by external ideological forces and because a more robust reaction would have ham-fistedly undermined the expressed purpose and function of his massively successful Cairo speech. Which, by the way, almost certainly had a galvanizing effect on the Iranians' perceptions of their own capacity for self-assertion and self-governance from within.

The Republicans, by contrast, wanted to come across as "heroes" of freedom and democracy, replicating -- as is to be expected -- the tenor and rhetoric of the Cold War and applying it to a situation to which it is inapplicable. Specifically, the posture that McCain would advocate that the president adopt is to in essence underestimate and misconstrue the very autonomy that the protesters are expressing in their demand for political and social emancipation. McCain's and Company's is the old-fashioned, patting-ourselves-on-the-back version of international policy, in which we appropriate the courage and hard work of movements in other countries -- even educated ones like Iran -- and decide that it's suddenly all about the United States. That the United States should somehow be in the spotlight, in essence, playing the tough guy and speaking on behalf of those who know perfectly well how to speak for themselves. The GOP, as always, embodies the seediest combination of paternalism, braggadocio, myopia and ignorance of historicity.

Part of your post, DMA, reminds me of why the Republicans are so willing to display these traits, flaws and all:

I saw in the paper today the Supreme Allah-Prophet Douchebag Over-Religious Cocksucking Bearded Motherfucking Shi'ite Jizz-Guzzling Leader said something threatening a crackdown on the protests.

I'm not singling DMA out, because this formulation could as easily have been my own -- well, minus the weird anti-Islam slurs and probably without the knock against beards, which I find to be a perfectly acceptable and at times exceedingly tasteful fashion as regards facial hair...

Anyway, the point is that Americans are right to experience seething rage against something or someone on the international scene who is perpetrating injustice. However, when we are in John Wayne mode, we're not always doing our best thinking. And I don't mean this in the way it might seem: I'm not suggesting that it is problematic for us to feel pangs of moral indignation. Quite the opposite: I think that the kind of thinking that this reaction beclouds is precisely our moral thinking.

In what ways? For one thing, we'll often end up feeling moral outrage vicariously and as though on behalf of a foreign population. In other words, we'll start seething so much against the foreign despot that we forget entirely about the REAL cause for celebration, which is the courage of the protesters. In essence, we let our hatred for the despot occlude the actual stars of the show altogether. This is more than simply hazy moral thinking. This kind of myopia in American discourse lies at the root of the most appalling and immoral actions our government has perpetrated in its interactions with the international world.

For example: think about Iraq. We had to make Saddam Hussein into our enemy. That he was an enemy to his own people was pure afterthought (and anyway, implicates the USA for having installed him and armed him in the first place). Anybody who thinks otherwise should ask himself: how many Americans have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war? I bet you have a rough estimate in your head. For the record, it turns out that the current number is 4,316, each and every one a tragedy. Now, ask yourself: how many Iraqis have died in the war? Admit it: you have no idea. I sure don't. In contradistinction to its familiarity with the American death toll figure, even Google News is apparently stumped by the Iraqi death toll question. Still think the Iraq War is all about the Iraqi people? To point out that most Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam is a spineless and patronizing evasion of the question.

Now, having said all of this, I think that after Friday's demagogic speech on the part of the "SL," it's probably a brand new situation that is poised to get really ugly really quickly. If the logic of the punditocracy is sound (a big if), the whole idea of negotiating over the nuclear program is basically off the table now, one way or the other, and, according to this thinking, Obama is apparently already transitioning to his, as it were, liberation theology mode, wherein celebrating the cause of the protesters and exposing as much as possible the thug-like brutality of the authoritarian regime are the orders of the day. Could be interesting.