7 posts tagged “politics”
I hope all my American readers who live in states holding primaries today are voting. I've been following this year's race very, very closely, but unlike the 2004 presidential race, I haven't been writing about it much. I will say that overall, it's been a pretty fantastic primary, all things considered, and that we've wound up with two fairly exceptional candidates. I do think Hillary Clinton would make a pretty good president at the end of the day, and up until a couple of months ago she was my preferred choice for the nomination. But today after work, I'm voting for Barack Obama, because he's got a shot at being not just a pretty good president, but a great one.
I don't really have the focus or the mental acuity needed to try to make my point today, but the simple fact is that a Clinton presidency represents an ironclad guarantee of at least four more years of the same kind of red-state / blue-state liberal / conservative infighting that's poisoning this country's culture down to its very soul, and I honestly don't think I'm being alarmist about the level of that threat. Americans are turning on each other with a ferocity and abandon that I find disgusting. Barack Obama is not an immediate cure for that problem, and honestly, there's a good chance that the sickness will defeat him and he won't transform our political culture. But there is half a chance that he will, because he really is an insightful, talented, and level-headed politician who's thoroughly prepared to take a new approach to the business of government. I do believe that he's every bit as capable and experienced as he needs to be to do this job, and I do believe that he has a better chance than any other candidate of commanding the cross-partisan respect that's needed to communicate with both his ideological opponents and the full breadth of the American people.
No matter which nominee we end up with, I'm confident that the Democrats can win the White House in November. But I'd like to win more than the White House: I'd like to win a lasting victory over the negative forces that are tearing our national culture apart, and it's plain to me that Obama is the only candidate running from any party with the ability to get us any closer to that goal. So: he's got my vote today, and with a little luck, he'll get my vote on November 4th as well.
For an excellent collection of Obama links (although frankly, I think he's taking the anti-Hillary position too far), don't miss Kevin's post today at Ghost In The Machine.
(And yes: You can count me among the pathetic fanfic millions who'd love to see an Obama/Clinton ticket, or even a Clinton/Obama ticket, at the end of the nomination process. The odds are terribly slim, but the Democrats have too much to lose from splitting the party at a time like this, and I worry that some of the more gung-ho supporters of each candidate will be unwilling to jump aboard with the other if things don't go their way.)
OK, this might be the most depressing thing I've read in a long time -- What could $456 billion buy? It's just a simple comparison of the cost of the Iraq War to various other things we could've spent the money on. Obviously there's a fair quantity of speculation and fluffiness in these numbers and analysis, but apparently, the upside is that we could have fed and educated the world's poor for FOUR YEARS and then, with the leftover cash, converted every car in America to run on ethanol. Thereby making much of the struggle for control over the Middle East irrelevant. Not to mention the fact that feeding and educating the poor could potentially have taken most of the fire out of the jihadist movement.
Again, obviously, totally speculative. But it does make you realize that there are better things we could spend our money on, no?
Wow. This graph really says it all about the last five years of economic governance by the Bush administration, doesn't it?
Short version: Every measure of economic growth that benefits average human beings is way down, historically, when compared to other similar economic periods. Corporate profits, on the other hand, are way up. Surprise!
There's a shitload of stuff going on with me right now, but I can't talk about it yet. Maybe later, and behind lots of privacy restrictions. Maybe never.
Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to correct the record: Back in February, I expressed my absolute conviction that John McCain would win the Republican presidential nomination. Boy, have the last two months proven me wrong, and I'd like to recant that ill-starred bit of prognostication right now. I'll be stunned if he can come back from this one...
An e-mail I just sent to the City Commission of Largo, FL (contact them here):
Dear sirs and madams:
I was shocked and saddened today to learn about the recent dismissal of City Commissioner Steve Stanton, a decision that appears to have been made purely because he intends to switch genders. I was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area, and I adore it, but chose to move to New York City to pursue professional opportunities; as my career has developed, I've been able to consider returning to my hometown. But it's behavior like this, and other associated bigotry like Florida's profoundly anti-gay adoption laws, that keep young native Floridians like myself from considering the state to be an acceptable place to live. Frankly, the only reason I would consider returning to Florida is to be able to vote people like the majority of you out of office for reprehensible behavior like this. Those of you on the commission who voted to remove Mr. Stanton should be ashamed of yourselves -- though Ms. Gerard and Mr. Woods, I salute your stand.
Sincerely,
-Chris Conroy
Brooklyn, NY
I wish I could live in Florida, I honestly do, but my ethics prevent me from allowing my tax dollars to fund bullshit like this. Thanks to Rachel for the heads-up on this.
I am a Democrat, as anyone who's even sort of paid attention to me for any length of time can probably figure out, and as of right now, I'm supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2008. As I see it, there are only three real contenders for the Democratic nomination:
--Hillary. The bottom line is that I like her. She's profoundly intelligent, she's tough under pressure, her experience is unmatched among the current crop of nominees, her stances on issues are always thoughtful and considered, and even when I don't agree with her I can trust her to never advance a policy that's flat-out batshit insane. She's obviously a shit-magnet on a level that politics rarely sees, but at this point I really think I do subscribe to the argument that there is nowhere for her to go from here but up. She actually is a likeable politician, and as Americans start to see something other than the caricature, I think they'll get on board. Obviously she starts with a pretty broad-based "no" vote staring at her that will never switch, but it's not enough on its own to deny her a victory.
--Barack Obama. There's certainly plenty to like about Obama, but I honestly do feel he's both too young and too inexperienced. In fact, pursuing the nomination this early in his political career tarnishes him as a person and a professional, in my opinion. There's also the fact that really, from a policy perspective, just what the hell does he stand for? I do think a Clinton / Obama ticket would be unbeatable, even with the whiff of patronization it entails, but at this point it is, sadly, kind of a distant pipe dream. Oh well.
--John Edwards. I'm the least drawn to him in general, for two reasons: one is simply the fact that he was part of a losing campaign, which is a crippling liability in the modern super-saturated political landscape, and the other is that he's got kind of an untenable position on gay marriage -- from an ethical standpoint, anyway, though I guess the "I'm conflicted" line is potentially saleable to the part of the American demographic who shares his views. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not deluded enough to think any of the Democratic nominees will legalize gay marriage with one fell swoop the moment they get into office. I could foresee it as an outside-shot second-term development for Hillary, but that's about it. However, the way you talk about the issue matters.)
So yes: Go Hillary. I want a female President (though a black one would be great too [and a gay atheist one would be even better. Maybe a polyamorous Hispanic one with a lot of tattoos and piercings]). The good news is, I wouldn't be upset if any of these three people won the nomination, or the Presidency. So things are already looking bright for 2008, when (cue game show voice) one of these three contestants will face... JOHN MCCAIN! Seriously, I'm going on record, if he doesn't win the Republican nomination I will burn a $20 bill and photograph it. Hold me to this. Also, read this depressing article on McCain's recent campaign hires... oh, Mr. Ethics, where are you now. Though I suppose there's a reasonable counter-argument to say that he's locking up this kind of firepower in order to make sure that somebody with an even shakier moral grounding doesn't get their hands on it...
So: have you seen the video for U2 & Green Day's "The Saints Are Coming" yet? I have. And it's another resounding toll in the death knell of U2's artistic credibility.
(Let's get the song out of the way first: It's good, not great, another example of U2 trying desperately to come across as a band that can really Rock, rather than just being the purveyors of uplifting church / grocery-store "rock." It's not embarassing, however, and Bono's voice sounds good with Billy Joe's, so there's no real reason to complain from a musical perspective.)
If you were too lazy to click that big old YouTube link and give up three minutes of your life, here's the premise: Footage of New Orleans, flooded after Hurricane Katrina, is altered to add U.S. Army planes and vehicles swarming the city en masse to rescue survivors, distribute food, etc., while a news ticker scrolls "TROOPS REROUTED FROM IRAQ TO NEW ORLEANS." The last shot of the video is of a hand-painted sign on a telephone pole: "NOT AS SEEN ON TV."
Now, as a concept, this is kind of cute: throw a backhanded slap at the failure of the Bush administration to bail out New Orleans by reminding them of one of the real costs of deploying our soldiers in a worthless war. But there are a couple of problems, and they're interwoven. One problem is that this footage is the video's entire schtick: it's a short song, so screen time is limited, but there's no development of this theme, no narrative arc, just shot after limp shot (often with somewhat embarassing visual effects) of the same kind of rescue operation, over and over. In fact, many of the shots aren't even of Army troops being used to do anything productive; they're just jet fighters flying over the Superdome, the Mississippi, etc., doing nothing except appearing triumphant. Those images strike a disturbing tone, sending a mixed message that seems almost celebratory as opposed to elegaic; they're shots that have always been shorthand for "The American military is bad-ass!" and their context here isn't strong enough to override that message. It's meant to play critically, but it just winds up looking like disaster porn: Weepy images of destruction, juxtaposed with images of American might that play on the desire of Americans to see their military do some good. It's President Bush in a cowboy hat at Ground Zero, and the final shot comes too late after those images to override their mixed significance.
It's that mixed tone that results in a lack of strength and focus that damns the whole video. The simple fact is that the destruction of New Orleans is one of the biggest open wounds on the American psyche of the last fifty years, and if you're going to make a statement about it, you need to do the immensity of the event justice: a watered-down, backhanded, catty swipe isn't going to do anybody any good. Why do the images of the people responsible for this tragedy -- and make no mistake, it's the fault of people, not nature -- ever appear in the video? The question of why we didn't help on a logistical level is addressed -- our resources were committed to Iraq -- but the question of why we failed on the social, moral, and emotional level is skimmed over entirely. Again, there's not much screen time to play with -- just a little over three minutes -- but a full minute at the start is wasted on an egregious, self-important, black-and-white The Artists In The Studio Record This Touching Music sequence, in which Billy Joe sings with eyes squinted shut in Artistic Intensity and Bono transparently betrays his need to have his vocals mixed much higher than anyone else's on the track. Why do U2 and Green Day even have to appear in this video? What artistic statement is made through their presence, other than a self-congratulatory impulse to connect themselves to this daring and visionary political statement? The military-rescues-the-survivors footage could've been shown during this minute, freeing up another two-thirds of the video to engage in more imaginative, more focused attacks on the apathy and toxic culture that caused this disaster. And don't even get me started on including the live-performance footage recorded at the opening game of the NFL season: Aesthetically, it doesn't even begin to fit, looking for all the world like a car commercial cut into the news reportage.
It's not like they'd be taking any kind of commercial risk by making a powerful statement of blame. Green Day are the most popular American rock band in the world right now, and they have goodwill and political capital to burn: hitching to their wagon was a smart move on U2's part, but why squander the opportunity? The answer is obvious, and it's the number-one reason why I honestly believe that U2 will never record anything truly surprising or important for as long as they are still together: Because Bono refuses to offend any senators. Bono is a political lobbyist now: he is in every way a part of a political machine, forced to play by its rules, rather than exerting his own rules from a position of power outside the system. Bono needs every vote he can get for his AIDS relief agenda in the U.S. Senate, and he's not willing to step on any Republican toes to do it, even if most of the bastards responsible for New Orleans are Republican flunkies (and the culture of entitlement and disregard for the lower-class that made it possible in the first place is largely a Republican invention). Back when he first started working for Jubilee 2000 in the late 90s, he made a lot of noise about using the power of U2 to further his goals: He said he'd take the band into any district where the Congressman wouldn't support debt relief and play a show, urging the audience to vote against the representative. That never happened, and it's never going to happen: with this video he was given the opportunity to make a sharp and directed attack on a fundamental force of badness in this world, and he walked away from it in order to avoid offending the powerful and influential people in his e-mail address book, even though politically and culturally they're at their lowest ebb of power and influence.
I'm tired of being the petulant fan who bitches that their favorite band won't do things their way, and what I'm about to say is obviously a cliche that those fans always spout, whether they're angry about ticket prices being high or synthesizers replacing guitars or artwork decisions they don't like. But I truly believe that U2 are betraying the ideals they've sold to their audience for years, and are asking their fans to follow them into territory where they cozy up to, and make life easier for, the kinds of people their music and politics have always rejected. Musically, they're as compelling as they've ever been -- I do sincerely love their last album -- but culturally and socially, it's not going too far to say that they're becoming almost poisonously apathetic. I know that they think about these things, and that Bono believes that the problem of Africa is bigger than the United States culture war. But it weakens his moral authority to merely pretend to engage with that issue when he prioritizes something else above it: It would have been better for him to not talk about Hurricane Katrina at all then to engage with it in such an insultingly simple-minded, pussy-footing and ineffective way. He's making me respect him less every time he opens his mouth, when I want nothing more than to be able to back him up on his goals. It really has become a classic case of the process crushing the message, and something has to change.
