Obamaesque

The weirdest thing about the news coverage of Barack Obama's impending inauguration - or maybe, the weirdest thing about my view of Obama - is that every time the media refers to Obama as "the first black president," I'm somewhat taken aback. I mean, of course I'm aware that it's tremendously significant that Obama, as an African-American, was elected president...but for me, it's so much more present in my mind that he is, say, a thoughtful man, an intelligent man, a reasonable man, that the fact that he's black recedes into the background. (Of course - as nearly everyone reading this probably already knows - I'm not black, and I suspect that if I were, Obama's blackness - and the significance of his being elected to the highest office in the nation as an African-American - would be far more present in my mind.)

It's not that I "forgot" he was black...or that I'm "colorblind"... But for myself, at least, once the primaries began to shake out and it was clear I'd end up choosing between Obama and Hillary Clinton, the qualities that stood out for me in making Obama the superior choice loomed independent of his race...and in fact, the qualities that turned me against Clinton (I was never exactly in her camp...although I surely would have voted for her had she been the Democratic nominee) were related to Obama's race: the way her campaign used similar subtly racist demarcators to position herself for white, working class Americans as "normal" and "known" versus Obama's purported status as political outlier, cultural elitist, and untested unknown. The way those attributions tied cleanly to certain unpleasant racial notions, and the way Clinton attempted to exploit certain voters' discomfort with Obama, repulsed me from her campaign...and even though I was aware of the extent to which her campaign (and, of course, far less subtly, McCain's) worked racial metaphors and assumptions, I still found myself weighing Obama's qualities on a scale that somehow all but erased race as having any input.

I should say too that the views of certain conservatives about Obama...the ranting about "socialism," say - seem to me to be not much about race, and more about a generational or cultural shift, of which Bill Clinton was the first signifier, in which an older, hierarchical order gives way to a more egalitarian, inclusive order. Race is certainly among those qualities leveled by this new order...but more important is the way it assumes such issues as being negotiable. Contrast that to Cheney et al....who clearly believe, it seems to be, in a natural order of things wherein some people (almost invariably, "some men") are simply better suited to rule than other peoples...and certain surface traits, seemingly unrelated to leadership potential, function to predict leadership capabilities (or, maybe more accurately, such peoples' ability to get along and go along with the old, entrenched orders).

The simplest, shortest way to sum all this up is that I've always viewed Obama politically - as a politician, as someone whose politics were far more amenable, far more practical, than Bush's...and, even though I knew those politics were far to the right of mine (and who knows how much of his rightward positioning is genuine and how much is politicking?), the fact that he seems the sort of man to weigh evidence rather than rely on faith or prefab labels, that in itself is enormously hopeful. I have no doubt he'll disappoint me sometimes, perhaps frequently...but I also have little doubt that when he does so, he'll have reasons for it, reasons which will either be spelled out or be essentially transparent. He is not doctrinaire by any means...but neither is he unprincipled. And it's that latter quality that most recommends him to be: though he recognizes politics as the art of compromise, he realizes also that artless and thoroughgoing compromise is not politics, but surrender...something else entirely.

for the little ones

For real.

won't get fooled again?

Those looking for a relatively concise, impassioned summary of just how much George W. Bush has fucked up this nation should read yellojkt's four-part "Epic Fail" series (the link is to a convenient Google search that lists all four entries). I'm not sure who the remaining true believers are - oh, except probably for asshole jerks like our county executive Scott Walker, who's parading "ideological principles" as to why he wants to flush the county (and mostly, the city) down the toilet, since he's thinking that will help him in his upcoming gubernatorial run with the rest of the state ("I Killed Milwaukee" will be his slogan, should he get his wish) - but if there's a silver lining in this cloud of disaster, it might be that maybe, just maybe, folks will wise up to politicians hypocritically claiming to run for elected office "against government." Not that they're lying, exactly - they want to make sure the government stays well out of the way of their own power and wealth. The rest of us? Useful (in the voting booth) idiots, disposable otherwise. Can't find a job? Hey, the military's still hiring...but don't expect that, if you get injured, you'll actually get coverage, or even an honorable discharge, since they've got folks working to redefine your situation as pre-existing or not combat-related...

ADS financial corner

Direct from Phil Proctor (Firesign Theatre):

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would
have $49 left. With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000. With
AIG, you would have less than $15 left. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer
one year ago, drunk all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling
refund, you would have $214 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily.

can't believe it's been a week!

it is teh awesome...

Found this floating around the Facebook, where all those young whippersnappers hang their virtual...

and they're off...

My mind is sponsoring a race right now. It's between "how fucking outrageous and stupid will they get?" and "how idiotic will enough people be to buy it?"

As P.T. Barnum never said, you'll never go broke betting on the obnoxiousness of right-wing race-baiters...

Welcome to the Palindrome

Have you heard the one about how Obama chose his running mate so that their names, together, would sound the first line of a hymn to a weapon deified? "O Bomb abidin'..."

Okay, that hasn't happened yet...but I wouldn't be surprised. What's also amusing is that such lame punning on candidates' last names has been indulged in by Republicans...in the likely subconscious form of Sarah Palin choosing the odd verb, one which almost sounds like her last name, "palling" (as in "palling around with terrorists"). Somehow, working together a decade ago with a man who, when Obama was 8 years old, advocated violence in the anti-war effort, constitutes "palling around with terrorists." I love the plural, by the way...I mean clearly Obama spends most of his off-hours hanging out with every terrorist on the block, shooting hoops and passing arugula-haters.

I wonder if Palin, in her "pro-life" stance, has ever met with any of the folks who winked at or even applauded the murder and terrorization of abortion providers. And I wonder why, even though every homegrown terror group of note over the last two decades has been right-wing (Oklahoma City, anti-abortion, arguably Waco), this flimsy accusation of "terrorist" against a man who once worked with a man who's worked with both Democrats and Republicans on various educational issues has any media traction at all.

making a mountain out of an ACORN

One political party is accusing the other of trying to steal the election. (Also, a pot called a biracial kettle "black" in an attempt to scare certain voters.)

This time, though, it's the Republicans claiming the Democrats are trying to steal the election, by the rather dubious means of registering enough bogus voters to win. Uh, how would that work again? If I register 25 voters in the name of (as this article notes) the Dallas Cowboys, that doesn't mean the Dallas Cowboys are going to show up to vote - and certainly not to vote for a particular candidate. It's pretty obvious (as finally made clear in the last paragraphs) that fraudulent registration in the names of fictitious or ineligible "voters" occurred primarily in order for the registration worker to earn more money...since at one time, such workers were paid by how many voters they registered.

That's clearly a bad idea - but the few cases of fraud it led to were not voter fraud, but fraud against ACORN, in that they fooled or attempted to fool ACORN into paying workers for voters that they had not actually registered. This method of pay has been changed...but the record demonstrates, again and again, that voter fraud is a vanishingly small problem.

No wonder: who would risk a large fine or jail time just to cast one vote for a candidate, as if that's going to turn an election? Almost nobody...and again, the very few instances of purported fraud turned out to arise from bad registration info (outdated addresses, incorrect initials, and so on), or from confusion (ineligible voters unaware of their ineligibility) and not from an 88-year-old guy trying to vote a third time as "Brett Favre."

If the Democrats wanted to steal an election, they have far better examples of how to do it, drawn from recent history.

everything you always wanted to know about John McCain*

An excerpt from Tim Dickinson's "Make-Believe Maverick":

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

* but were afraid to ask for fear McCain would haul off and punch you in the nose.

departures

A feature article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel the other day described the journey of comedy director David Zucker (a native of a Milwaukee suburb, Shorewood, and best known for his involvement with brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams in the production of the Police Squad and Naked Gun movies) from his liberal background to his current conservatism. At first, my reaction was, okay, some guy becomes more conservative as he ages - nothing very unusual there - but at a specific point in the article, I realized Mr. Zucker had departed the plane of reality. He's quoted describing Barack Obama as "an extreme left-wing candidate who doesn't represent the country."

Uh-huh. Exactly which positions of Obama - who's reliably liberal on social issues (as are most Americans) and moderate on economic issues (as are most Americans) - are "extreme left-wing"? Funny how the folks who make such accusations never back them up (nor are asked to: bad enough in a biographical puff piece like this one, but plain irresponsible in political reporting). And that "doesn't represent the country"? Apparently all those folks who voted for Obama in the primaries, and who gave Obama lead in most polls, must not be from this country. And Zucker has swallowed the lie that McCain represents "lower taxes." Here's a chart (whose presentation, from wealthiest to poorest taxpayers, gives casual readers a false impression), demonstrating that for most Americans, except the very wealthiest, Obama's tax plan will lower taxes considerably more than McCain's will.

And, sadly, dirt and grime have at last vanquished their mortal enemy: I refer, of course, to Mr. Clean: the actor who portrayed the eponymous cleaning products spokesperson, House Peters Jr., has died at the age of 92. That New York Times article describes the career of Peters - one of many bit actors who are all but forgotten now - but fails to explain where the rather exotic (for its time) image of Mr. Clean came from. I mean, nowadays bald-headed, muscular guys sporting white t-shirts and an earring are everywhere (although few have the illustrated Mr. Clean's bushy white eyebrows), but back then, that look must have seemed quite bizarre.

Reese's Musical Politics Cup

To encourage people to vote, Wilco has made available a free download of a live version of Bob Dylan's classic "I Shall Be Released," recorded with vocal contributions from Fleet Foxes in concert last month. And all you have to do to get the download is pledge to vote and fill in the blanks in the following sentence:

"Two of John McCain's pet names for his wife Cindy are 't-----p' and 'c--t'."

(Okay I made up that last part.)

campaign sign

(saw this in a photo taken at an Alaskan anti-Palin rally - so I made my own...)

looking him in the eye

We didn't watch last night's debate (no TV), but here's an interesting post at The Angry Black Woman on McCain's body language. Be sure to read the comments as well.

parodists unemployed

Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin! - has called Henry Kissinger - Henry Kissinger! - "naive," for understanding that diplomacy sometimes involves talking with people with whom you disagree. Kissinger - naive?

I mean, Kissinger is many things - world-class war criminal, say - but on the list of adjectives that aptly describe him, "naive" is approximately 49,537th. And for Sarah Palin to be the name-caller...

I keep waiting for Andy Kaufman to take off the McCain mask he's been wearing the last few years, and say "surprise! it's me! I'm not dead - but the real John McCain was the only one who knew I was alive, and as he was dying we came up with this great idea..."

I'm pretty sure Caligula's horse was more qualified to be a Roman consul than Palin is for VP.

legerdemain

I'm trying to work out the logic here.

Representatives of various industries that employ large numbers of immigrant workers (food service and hotels, retail, agriculture and food processing) have formed a group to lobby for regulations that would allow guest workers into the country on a limited basis tied to their employment. These workers are "essential," the group says, because they're needed for jobs American citizens won't take. But these groups don't want regulations mandating a higher minimum wage - even though you'd think a higher wage might entice citizen workers to take those jobs - because, you see, "the market determines wages" (this is from a director of the American Meat Institute).

So: government action that mandates a minimum wage, that's "interference." Government action that creates a whole new class of worker - workers who, from desperation and powerlessness imposed by their guest-worker status (nearly similar to that of indentured servants), drive down everyone's wages...well, that's not interference at all.

It follows that "the market" includes industrial groups lobbying government on behalf of their interests, but it does not include labor groups lobbying government on behalf of their interests. Apparently the famed invisible hand is "invisible" only from the wrong side of a sort of two-way economic mirror: from that side, nothing can be seen but the reflection of one's fruitless efforts to have one's interests recognized; from the other side, the hand is visible indeed, and in full control of industry, who use it to steer profits and benefits exclusively their way.

(On the larger issue: the path to citizenship should be much simpler, and if NAFTA and the like allow capital to flow freely across borders, then workers should be able to move just as freely in search of better wages.)

pink fluffy cotton-candy snowstorm in Hell

Karl Rove has condemned the McCain campaign for being dishonest.

I'll pause a few moments while the paramedics restart your heart.

No, really: it's even on video:



I'm pretty sure this proves that Swiss experiment to duplicate conditions just after the Big Bang did, in fact, swallow the universe in an enormous black hole...and now we're in Bizarro World.

If Dick Cheney appears on TV tomorrow, cuddling a kitten and funding soup kitchens, we'll know for sure.

linkfest!

I'm on vacation this weekend, so just a few links. All political, I'm afraid...but entertaining for all that:

1. Paul Krugman on the Republicans' "blizzard of lies"

2. Scott Bateman animates and comments on an excerpt from Charlie Gibson's Sarah Palin interview (via The Jestaplero).

3. Momus proposes political memes for the Obama campaign.

"Since the beginning of time, mankind has yearned to blot out the sun."

Thus spake Montgomery Burns (if not in exactly those words), and if the humor of that remark comes from the absurdity of Burns's assumptions...well, the assumption itself may be absurd, but that he assumes it's shared does reflect a certain reality: one of the major levers grasped by anyone seeking to manipulate the public (advertisers, politicians, etc.) is the potent resistance many people have to believing that others actually and genuinely have opinions different from their own.

You can see this in the culture wars underway on behalf of the Great American Middle Class (everyone's middle-class in America! but only some of them are white, which remains unspoken), kindly engineered by the sort of folks who lose count of how many houses they own, in which a sinister significance is attributed to one's preference in vegetables, heated beverages, or ostentatious display of nationalistic bric-a-brac. Not only are such odd preferences different, which is just weird, but those who profess to enjoy the latte that dare not speak its name are suspected of doing so merely to mark out their difference and their superiority from the riff-raff, and to toady to some imaginary overclass ("the elitists") whose mission seems to be to denigrate the tastes and preferences of "real Americans" in lieu of the trivial, the ephemeral, the fashionable, and - worst of all - the French. (Don't try to tell me "latte" is from the Italian - it sounds French, so it is French. And what's the difference anyway? They all wear fancy-ass shoes, and they lose wars like the Phillies lose baseball games.)

This is why it's such a seemingly short leap from trivial questions of taste to the more serious matter of insincerity, fifth-columnism, and hidden agendas: if you're willing to pretend to like bizarre vegetables and elaborate coffees, there's no telling what else in your life is a pretense, a sucking-up to expectations...so all the flag pins, nice suits, and patriotic speeches mean nothing, because you'll say anything to curry favor.

And god help you if you prefer to deliberate, analyze, plan, or do anything other than kick ass and react from the gut. Real Americans - which is to say, real men - don't waste time cogitating and hawing and hemming, they get out there and play some rapid-fire chin music. You don't see John Wayne heading the debate club, do you? My favorite story in this regard involves a former co-worker of Rose's who, after Rose argued such-and-such, citing various facts, statistics, etc., replied that Rose's opinions weren't as valuable - because Rose had relied upon what she knew, and on ideas, whereas the co-worker felt what she did from the heart. Or, in the other common phrase, she operated from a gut feeling.

You know, you can't really figure out what your guts are up to from an upright position. I think the optimal view probably comes from bending over backwards and sticking one's head straight up the poop chute.

Another advantage to that position: you won't be bothered by that demon sun.

Vet the candidate? What's her pets got to do with it?

Today's letters column in The New York Times features several writers making excellent points about McCain's selection of Palin for VP. I especially liked the points raised by John Jeffries Martin, Ginny Blanford, Claire Bushey, and Pam Arnold. And Milwaukee's own Ellen Bravo points out that even if it's less likely that Palin's ability to spend adequate time with her children would have come up with a male candidate, the policies she and McCain endorse regarding sex education, childcare, and family leave only make it harder for families with fewer resources.