November 13th, 2010 / 5:28 am
Mean

FUCK YOU LETTERS

I just wrote & published one.

Any & all comments on this one, and sharing, is very appreciated. Also: what are some fuck you letters that come to mind? Any favorites?

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45 Comments

  1. Guest

      I was waiting for the ‘sent from my iPhone’ tag at the bottom.

      But seriously, this is one of the more naive do-gooder type things I’ve come across recently.

      Maybe I’m just reading this wrong. Is this letter satire?

  2. P. H. Madore

      Ken, for a $500 donation I will gladly sacrifice the little joys of new electronics for as long as you do.

      (j/k)

  3. ME

      Worst FUCK YOU ever.

      FUCK YOU

      Best regards,
      ME

  4. zusya
  5. marshall

      like, on the real, tho

      what is “naivety”

      what is “sophistication”

      what is “self-righteousness”

      ppl were like “that’s so naive”

      and you were like “thinking that’s naive is naive”

      which is smart

      because if they can’t come back with “no, it’s not”

      because it would only supports ur argument

  6. Roxane

      This kind of letter completely ignores the complex realities of third world economies. Encouraging people to not buy electronics en masse would only further impoverish the desperately impoverished.

  7. Guest

      Yeah. Seems really weird. I thought at first it was “satire” or a “joke” because it was so “naive” and “self-righteous.” (Like, who are the “we” in “We’re not buying anymore of your shit”? Like, are YOU even included in that “we”?) Then I thought, “this is like really in poor taste, using this fucking horrible situation to make a joke about ‘consumerism’ or something.” But it seems like it’s not a “joke” or “satire.” And if it’s not, it just seems really “stupid,” or something. Like, there’s no way Ken actually boycotts any of this shit, seems like. And there’s like no way you actually advocate for this shit while you advance your television acting and internet writing careers. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. Seems obscene whether it’s a “joke,” or whether it’s just like an “insincere” and “self-aggrandizing” “call for action.”

  8. Guest

      good job

  9. christopher.

      I’m not particularly sure what to make of it either. It seems a bit backhanded to publish a letter about not buying electronics in a medium that specifically requires electronics to consume.

  10. David

      Pretty much every one who’s posted in reply to this thread so far is a cynic, as defined in this post: http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2010/11/cynicism-vs-hypocrisy.html
      Except while Tim Morton is talking about anti-capitalist cynicism, in this thread we have self-serving pro-consumer cynicism, the kind that finds its own self-righteousness justification by circumstance and its own naivety easier to defend as sophistication than to engage in the sophistication of contemplation of what one can do about one’s activities – whether you wind up accepting the usefulness of its method, or rejecting it – that this admittedly minor but important gesture asks.

  11. Guest

      this is like next-level shit-talking

      good job

  12. Guest

      like, on the real, tho

      what is “naivety”

      what is “sophistication”

      what is “self-righteousness”

      ppl were like “that’s so naive”

      and you were like “thinking that’s naive is naive”

      which is smart

      because they can’t come back with “no, it’s not”

      because it would only support ur argument

  13. Roxane

      This kind of letter completely ignores the complex realities of third world economies. Encouraging people to not buy electronics en masse would only further impoverish the desperately impoverished.

  14. Jtchandl

      I don’t know what to think but it’s funny that Marshall mentioned DFW because I just finished consider the lobster and, man, relevant. And here all I was worrying about was whether I should keep eating animals…

      It’s sad that I don’t feel comfortable talking about an issue like this unless it’s in a self-deprecatory, I’m-serious-but-still-cool, way. Thankfully, I don’t really know enough about it to say very much, except that David and deadgod seem to be saying something very important, and everyone else (mostly those opening commenters) I find sadly disappointing. Not that I (or anything?) really matter to them, of course. It’s just frustrating when things *don’t* matter to people, when it’s better to be apathetic rather than perceived as self-righteous.

      It reminds me of southpark’s mockery of Bono. Yes, it does seem like Bono is a huge douche. But he’s also a huge douche that (maybe? I don’t really even know for sure) is doing something to improve lives, to help people in some way. But he’s going to be a douche either way right? He’s a self-righteous douche whether he helps people or doesn’t, whether he’s totally selfish or half-and-half. I think he’s half-and-half. But if he didn’t help anyone, if he was just totally rich, completely apathetic and selfish, then I think he would be an even bigger douche.

      Maybe it’s the profound (yes, really, I think so…) influence that DFW essays are still having on me, but I’m thinking I’d rather be looked down upon for being naive, for caring about something, for seeming self-righteous or pretentious or whatever for voicing my opinion about something that I think is important and meaningful.

      Because, as I think BabyCakes said, “Shit matters.”

  15. Guest

      this thread is so sweet

      seems like there are so many things in here to shit-talk:

      capitalism

      the internet

      shit-talking

      cynicism

      hypocrisy

      irony

      hipsters

      david foster wallace

      africa

      like, it’s like a “powder keg”

      a “shitstorm waiting to happen”

      ppl will start to take sides

      ppl will employ “strawmen”

      ppl will use other “rhetorical devices”

      such as “ad hominem” or cuss words

      ppl will use the phrase “red herring”

      someone will say something about white ppl

      ppl are starting to position themselves

      who is gonna win this shit

      who will be defeated

      who has the stamina to “go all the way”

      will this “tarnish” ken baumann’s internet career

      will gene morgan force him into retirement like he did to that wigger-comics girl

      will ken baumann have to commit “internet seppuku” so htmlgiant can save face

      it feels like i’m witnessing some obscure but decisive skirmish on the middle-brow-literature front of the culture wars

  16. deadgod

      zusya, did you check the links in the “letter”? Ken’s not referring to the “rare earth” metals – 97% of today’s consumption of which, as wikipedia and you point out, comes from China, though, of course, this fact in no way refutes ‘blood mining’ of rare-earth minerals anywhere else! – , but rather to metals/minerals that do come from the Congo.

      See especially the link devoted to the argument for minerals certification in the pdf called Congo’s Enough Moment, reachable at Ken’s “and most of the money goes to . . . ” link.

  17. David

      Nice use of quotation marks, here and below, very detached and “above the fray”.

  18. David

      Roxane, I’m in sympathy with this but I also think there’s a more than a little trickle-down-inspired folk economics in the idea that not buying electronics would further impoverish the impoverished, especially in this case. As it stands, the workers in Congolese war mines live under outright or de facto slavery conditions: they don’t really receive a wage in any sense. The warlords exercise dominance through controlling not just their work but their means of subsistence. Part of the US government’s certification of minerals scheme is to try to domesticate the warlords into basically becoming established elites who, in turn, will look to adapt their mine-exploitation to legal systems of waged-based trade. While I’m more than a little sickened by that, I also understand that the pressing urgency of the mass murderous dynamic of the wars makes rewarding the warlords for not fighting the least worst option. But I find it interesting how unthinkable a trade embargo is, for every authority everywhere, from the warlords to Washington. By itself, an embargo would be fairly useless, China’s trade role in Africa right now, including Congo, is outside US jurisdiction and little less than atrocious, but – from what I understand from what I’ve read from activist organizations on this – an embargo that was combined with pressure to include confiscation materials at the borders that were then disallowed from trade (to address systemic corruption in the Congo’s government and overlap with the warlords), coupled with strong and generous refugee protections that relocated as a priority the poorest and least defended away from the conflict, seizure of all funds both of the warlords and the complicit elites in Rwanda and Uganda from all accessible international accounts (the Swiss, in particular, need a caning on this account), and quarantines of weapons influx to the Congo up to and including permanent trade bans and/or mandatory disbanding of companies found trading with the main actors (companies the US and other Western nations also trade with) could go a long way toward sapping the energy of the conflict while sidestepping the use of poverty as a smokescreen for the international logic of trade that grounds its free perpetuation. Long story short: I don’t think the consumer signal this letter asks us to send is in and of itself misplaced though it’s not in and of itself the answer, either.

  19. deadgod

      The “letter” does not ignore the complex realities of third-world development, but rather takes the side of political-economic structure and long-term justice over short-term fake survival, with respect to desperately impoverished miners, farmers, traders, and others in eastern Congo.

      Ken is making the ‘blood diamond’ argument, the ‘boycott apartheid-based South Africa’ argument, the ‘don’t ride buses in Montgomery’ argument: deny resources to an institution that systematically keeps desperately poor people trading their long-term self-determination for short-term desperate poverty.

      Of course there’s no perfectly rational, painless ‘solution’, and no hypocrisy-free position to argue from (except maybe for saints like Mandela), but if consuming less planned garbage concentrates less wealth and decision-making power in the hands of fewer gangsters, win-win for the consumer and ultimate producer?

  20. Guest

      sweet

      like

      this is sweet

      like, say something about quotation marks

      say something sarcastic

      what do i do now

      like

      did you defeat me just now

      if i respond, will i become less powerful

      i feel invincible right now

      like i’m neo at the end of the matrix

      NEO: ur saying i can dodge bullets?

      MORPHEUS: i’m saying, when ur ready, you won’t have to

  21. Guest

      “now who else wanna fuck with hollywood cole”

  22. deadgod

      ppl will turn to screenplay format

  23. Paul Joseph

      Ken,

      This is a great letter, and it’s dismaying to see how many people jump in to blurt out their rancid desires to leave our dystopian economies exactly as they are. Deadgod is right on.
      -Paul

  24. Jtchandl

      I don’t know what to think but it’s funny that Marshall mentioned DFW because I just finished consider the lobster and, man, relevant. And here all I was worrying about was whether I should keep eating animals…

      It’s sad that I don’t feel comfortable talking about an issue like this unless it’s in a self-deprecatory, I’m-serious-but-still-cool, way. Thankfully, I don’t really know enough about it to say very much, except that David and deadgod seem to be saying something very important, and everyone else (mostly those opening commenters) I find sadly disappointing. Not that I (or anything?) really matter to them, of course. It’s just frustrating when things *don’t* matter to people, when it’s better to be apathetic rather than perceived as self-righteous.

      It reminds me of southpark’s mockery of Bono. Yes, it does seem like Bono is a huge douche. But he’s also a huge douche that (maybe? I don’t really even know for sure) is doing something to improve lives, to help people in some way. But he’s going to be a douche either way right? He’s a self-righteous douche whether he helps people or doesn’t, whether he’s totally selfish or half-and-half. I think he’s half-and-half. But if he didn’t help anyone, if he was just totally rich, completely apathetic and selfish, then I think he would be an even bigger douche.

      Maybe it’s the profound (yes, really, I think so…) influence that DFW essays are still having on me, but I’m thinking I’d rather be looked down upon for being naive, for caring about something, for seeming self-righteous or pretentious or whatever for voicing my opinion about something that I think is important and meaningful.

      Because, as I think BabyCakes said, “Shit matters.”

  25. Mose

      The substance of this letter, I think, is great. And for calling people’s attention (my own, at least) to the main concern here, the letter is greatly appreciated.

      But, I think the introductory call to arms undermines the letter’s impact. Yes, perhaps the best solution is to boycott purchasing new electronics equipment. Maybe not, I don’t know. But, and maybe this is obvious, either way that’s really hard to do. Your phone will break, new software incompatible with your hardware will be released, your HP printer will run out of ink and you will need new HP ink to print your resume (to work at a job where they use HP printers?), your Epson printer will break and you will need a new printer to print a writing sample, you will be at a friend’s house and he will ask if you want to play some playstation. They stopped broadcasting television in analog. Why wouldn’t they eventually only broadcast in 3D?

      Our laptops last 5,6,7 years maybe. I’ve gone through 4 iPods. It’s like they’re not made to last. Actually I don’t think they are. They’re just to hold you over till you’re ready for the next one.

      Acquiring new technology, using technology, being immersed in the latest products seems largely unavoidable and inescapable. It’s not as easy as not buying their shit, it requires a radical change in a person’s lifestyle and networks in which they work and live. I think that’s what some of the negative comments here were responding to.

      And certainly, posting and disseminating such a letter on the internet highlights the very nature of this problem.

      But if the letter’s boycott proposes too easy a solution, it does raise the discussion. Our technological inconveniences are dust on the scale when compared to the troubles faced by people in Congo, or lots and lots of their places.

      What do we do? Is there anything to be done? Does it involve boycotting goods, changing the way we live, pressuring corporations some other way, educating the public? I don’t know. But seems like a discussion worth having.

  26. Janey Smith

      Ken? You have a friend.

  27. Ken Baumann

      David: Thanks for this thoughtful response.

  28. Ken Baumann

      deadgod: Thanks for not missing the forest for the trees; couldn’t say it better.

  29. Ken Baumann

      Thank you, Paul.

  30. Ken Baumann

      Thanks for this, Mose.

  31. efferny jomes

      sghalsjadfhadjhadfjhaehjerhkjbhkqejhqbebnklhneriepqetbkhqmb

  32. zusya

      QFT@roxanne, in a comment below: “This kind of letter completely ignores the complex realities of third world economies.”

      “We take 66 percent of (the profit) to pay back the infrastructure and the mining investment and the balance leaves 34 percent which will be shared out between the shareholders,” he said, meaning the arrangement would result in the Chinese state and companies combined taking 89 percent of the mine’s profits. (Wed Oct 27, 2010 from: http://af.reuters.com/article/drcNews/idAFLDE69Q10C20101027?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0)

      governing a country isn’t easy. criticizing how others do is.

  33. Ned Vizzini
  34. deadgod

      [in reply to zusya]

      And criticizing ‘criticism’ is the rare-metal standard for “easy”. There’s a critical difference between reasonable, constructive criticism of governance and ranting or whining nonsense – and it’s corrupt governors who depend on this distinction not making a ‘difference’.

      Let’s look at that article you link us to: you quote the article to the effect that the Congolese representative and advocate of the deal implies that “89 percent of the mine’s profits” will go to the Chinese participants in the proposed deal. The argument in favor of this “balance” of return on investment would be that it’s the Chinese who are taking the ‘risk’ in the first place.

      What does that mean here: ‘risk’? Copper might no longer be useful after the mine becomes fully operational? The geologists are truly baffled as to how much copper is there to be mined, and there is, in this case, a high probability – even a fair-to-middling probability – that enough copper isn’t there to pay for the mine? And in the cases of health care for the miners and environmental degradation due to the mining itself – who ‘risks’ more: China or the Congo??

      And look at the deal itself: the money to get and keep the project going – $5bn “loan” + $1bn “equity” [‘equity’ here sounds to me like ‘leverage for the repo man’, as it were; how is that distinct from a ‘loan’?]; “$6 billion overall” – this money is being loaned to the Congo by China.

      Do you see what’s happening, zusya? – I’m lending you $$ so that you can pay me to extract a resource from your property – most of the profits from which extraction I’ll keep.

      That is a “perfectly balanced” relationship – in biology, it’s called predation. When it’s ‘Western’ companies doing this, we lefties get all panicky and boycotty – should we be less active in the case that the predator is China??

      Even the infrastructural improvements connected to this copper deal stink of ‘racket’: China will lend the Congo money to build roads so China can extract the copper less expensively.

      I saw nowhere in the article that the Congolese “coordinator for the Sino-Congolese Cooperation Agreement” said anything about Congolese miner wages, safety, or long-term health, Congolese citizen ‘equity’ in the mines or the copper, or Congolese residents’ environmental concerns. Are these economic interests addressed in the “not fully public” proposed contracts?

      This is the history of ‘post’-colonial Africa, isn’t it? – a local elite, educated in the ways of modern technology and commerce, sells out its ethnic and/or national community/ies to international penetrators of that region’s economy/ies for the ‘thirty pieces’ of regional political-military control.

      I don’t think this copper deal is better for most people in the Congo than no deal at all, and I don’t think this deal is the only possible way for the Congo to exploit its natural wealth.

  35. zusya

      what can i say other than get out of suburbia and do something if you actually feel this impassioned about this: http://www.volunteerabroad.com/search/congo-republic-of

      A Zambian court has ordered the release on bail of two Chinese mine managers accused of attempted murder after they allegedly shot a group of miners. / Eleven workers were injured in the protest about pay and conditions at the Collum coal mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe last month. (2 November 2010, from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11679207)

      i have to admit, deadgod, i really don’t understand why you may be inclined to think i don’t agree with you.

      i also must admit i think it’s a particular significant waste of time debating whether or not its a bad thing for the powerful to abuse their power over the people they’re meant to be governing.

      sounds like an interesting place, the congo: “Dichotomies warp the mind. A State in a state, a Stateless land in a state of disrepair, a State beyond the point of no repair, perhaps. There is no State! The rusted morsels of Kinshasa were inherited by the undergrowth generations ago, every layer since came to rest through 50 years of stagnation. It is stuck in neutral. Seen ’28 Days Later’? Or ‘Shawn of the Dead’? They wouldn’t seem so spooky anymore.” (from: http://ezinearticles.com/?Diary-of-a-UN-Volunteer-in-the-Congo&id=3699225)

  36. zusya

      what can i say other than get out of suburbia and do something if you actually feel this impassioned about this: http://www.volunteerabroad.com/search/congo-republic-of

      A Zambian court has ordered the release on bail of two Chinese mine managers accused of attempted murder after they allegedly shot a group of miners. / Eleven workers were injured in the protest about pay and conditions at the Collum coal mine in the southern town of Sinazongwe last month. (2 November 2010, from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11679207)

      i have to admit, deadgod, i really don’t understand why you may be inclined to think i don’t agree with you.

      i also must admit i think it’s a particular significant waste of time debating whether or not its a bad thing for the powerful to abuse their power over the people they’re meant to be governing.

      sounds like an interesting place, the congo: Dichotomies warp the mind. A State in a state, a Stateless land in a state of disrepair, a State beyond the point of no repair, perhaps. There is no State! The rusted morsels of Kinshasa were inherited by the undergrowth generations ago, every layer since came to rest through 50 years of stagnation. It is stuck in neutral. Seen ’28 Days Later’? Or ‘Shawn of the Dead’? They wouldn’t seem so spooky anymore. (from: http://ezinearticles.com/?Diary-of-a-UN-Volunteer-in-the-Congo&id=3699225)

  37. deadgod

      if i was mistaken to think that you were scolding me for being irrationally critical of misgovernance, then that’s my mistake

      contradicting poor arguments (as made by the “coordinator for the Sino-Congolese Cooperation Agreement”) and reinterpreting terms in order to interpret data are “do[ing] something”

      so is changing consumption “do[ing] something” – which accurate labeling of source, or accurate information from, say, consumer reports, would take giant steps to accomplish.

      but there probably has to be a large anti-teabag swell of public/government opinion/action before Gadget Shack will label its shelves with accurate ‘fair trade’ info. hence, the argumentative data-raking

      as long as powerful abusers are enabled by pooh-pooh discourse, smiting even this tiny, tinnily indecorous drum is not a waste, is one of my choices

      perhaps also one of yours

  38. deadgod

      if i was mistaken to think that you were scolding me for being irrationally critical of misgovernance, then that’s my mistake

      contradicting poor arguments (as made by the “coordinator for the Sino-Congolese Cooperation Agreement”) and reinterpreting terms in order to interpret data are “do[ing] something”

      so is changing consumption “do[ing] something” – which accurate labeling of source, or accurate information from, say, consumer reports, would take giant steps to accomplish.

      but there probably has to be a large anti-teabag swell of public/government opinion/action before Gadget Shack will label its shelves with accurate ‘fair trade’ info. hence, the argumentative data-raking

      as long as powerful abusers are enabled by pooh-pooh discourse, smiting even this tiny, tinnily indecorous drum is not a waste, is one of my choices

      perhaps also one of yours

  39. hv

      Thinking that an approach is naive/will have little to no impact is not the same as *not caring.*

      I already don’t buy new electronics until my old stuff doesn’t work/is incapatable with everything. Should I feel good about myself for that? Am I already helping people in Congo with that?

      I guess my point is that not buying something shouldn’t give you this ‘I’m-really-doing-my-part’ feeling.

      I’m afraid this kind of political ‘effort’ has more to do with assuaging western middle class guilt than helping the Congolese.

      I am also certain that a quick google search will yield a number of organizations doing work in and around Congo that accept donations of money/goods/time.

  40. deadgod

      if i was mistaken to think that you were scolding me for being irrationally critical of misgovernance, then that’s my mistake

      contradicting poor arguments (as made by the “coordinator for the Sino-Congolese Cooperation Agreement”) and reinterpreting terms in order to interpret data are “do[ing] something”

      so is changing consumption “do[ing] something” – which accurate labeling of source, or accurate information from, say, consumer reports, would take giant steps to accomplish.

      but there probably has to be a large anti-teabag swell of public/government opinion/action before Gadget Shack will label its shelves with accurate ‘fair trade’ info. hence, the argumentative data-raking

      as long as powerful abusers are enabled by pooh-pooh discourse, smiting even this tiny, tinnily indecorous drum is not a waste, is one of my choices

      perhaps also one of yours

  41. zusya

      i know what we’re talking about!

      will you not marry me?

  42. deadgod

      no

      it’s the keys i’m tapping right . . . then

  43. zusya

      heh.

  44. Riazmohd

      FUCK YOU

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