Rhinocrisy

Rahm Emanuel is being forced to apologize for saying something was “fucking retarded” because the use of the word “retarded” is unconscionable in modern America. Savvy commentators are pointing out that the lede is being viciously dumped here; what Emanuel thought was “retarded” was that some liberal advocacy groups are considering running ads against conservative Democrats whose stance on health care they disagree with.

Fair enough; let’s use this incident to exemplify a key principle of American politics: holding office is paramount, and representation of the public interest is only important insofar as it aids that end.

Utopianists might wish for something close to the inverse: where the office and the office-holder mean almost nothing, but public participation is 100%. A ‘representative’ should be little more than a delegate, a mouthpiece, a channel. The wonderful news is that nowadays it’s actually feasible to involve large numbers of people in the political process through “technology”. Unfortunately, we’re still saddled with a political edifice as recalcitrant as bone. This arrangement, where lordly Senators cling desperately to their thrones and curry favor with whatever seedy pimp will allow them to stay there, seems ready to topple. Time for something else.

The new Obama administration White House website is very snazzy, and apparently done by the same folks who designed his campaign website. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed, though. One of the things I loved most about the Bush website was the easy availability of press briefings. Transcripts were available almost as soon as the briefing was finished. By contrast, the Obama website has nothing, yet. Maybe that will change.

Anyway, to business: Gibbs’ response regarding drone attacks on Waziristan/Pakistan:

Q Exactly. There is skepticism among Republicans whether or not this could happen. What kind of reassurances is he giving? Then, on Pakistan, was he consulted before the strike, or did he consult with Pakistan on that?

MR. GIBBS: Well, let me take your Pakistan question first. As you know, I’m not going to comment on those matters.

What the fuck? If this is “transparent”, I’m going to go replace my windshield glass with corrugated cardboard.^*

^* I just realized I don’t have a windshield glass!^†
† No, it wasn’t stolen. I don’t have a car.^‡
‡ No, my car wasn’t stolen. I never bought one.

Barack Obama gave what we are told was an important speech on race last night, wherein he addressed the claptrap surrounding his former preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The speech is a mixed affair, reflecting Obama’s fine and dark qualities. He defends his preacher as a friend and as a good man, despite their disagreements, a brave stand to make, I think. But he also is clear in divorcing himself from the man’s statements and placing himself firmly in the consensus of the American political class:

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

I gather it’s unnecessary for me to outline the many ways in which I disagree with this paragraph, the core of Obama’s speech, and the most important statement he made yesterday with respect to his candidacy. I’ve always felt that Obama, since his first appearance on the national stage, has given short shrift to the oppression of black people, of the impact that institutional and otherwise racism has on the lives of many - most - black Americans today. And in the end, after outlining all the ways that racism divides America, Obama’s speech, in demanding unity, in demanding transcendence of race, denies the specific problems plaguing the black community. After stripping away his eloquence and his acknowledgment of their difficulties, Obama’s recommendations are kin to those of any white conservative - mend your own house, and stop thinking about race.

He’s right - many of our problems do transcend race. But many do not, and Obama has made these largely invisible. For example, I’ve been dismayed that no one in this presidential election has raised the subject of prisons, and that Obama ignored the opportunity to discuss it. Right now, 3% of all black people in this country are behind bars, and many more will end up there over the course of their lifetimes. More black men will end up in prison than will go to college. This is not an accidental difference - it is the product of specific policies which, whether or not they were made to victimize black people, nevertheless end up disproportionately affecting them. A similar comparison might be made of urban public schools - again, disproportionately black, and overwhelmingly in worse shape due to our negligence. And let’s not forget the most egregious example of public aid failure in the past few years, the sad treatment of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. America consistently fails to guard the futures of black Americans.

It’s sad to see America’s first black president ignore these failures, or gloss over them to advance some mythical notion of unity. It throws black anger back into their faces. We all know who will be remembered and who will be forgotten in a ‘unified’ America.

Three of the most-viewed videos on YouTub today are of Hillary Clinton allegedly crying, or “tearing up”. I, for one, don’t buy it. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

Clinton is giving a relatively boiler-plate speech about how much she “cares about our country”, and how she “passionately believes” in what she is doing. That, I DO buy: her passion is lust, and we all know what she’s lusting for. But what is she “tearing up” over? Who can tell?

This morning I woke up to some lady on NPR marveling at Hillary’s display of genuine emotion. She interviewed the lady who asked the question, and several others who testified that Hillary’s tears^* had convinced them to vote Clinton! at the very last minute. After vomiting on my pillow, I thought to myself “How the hell am I going to clean this up?” “My God, are we really so starved for political theater that we’re willing to swallow whatever horseshit act some politician can throw at us?” The lady who asked the question, incidentally, did NOT vote Clinton - she voted Obama, because the previous night, Obama’s stirring speech had “moved her to tears”.

I’m truly astonished that people can maintain this level of vacuousness. And not, apparently, a small handful of people - the majority of American adults. Shouldn’t there be an epidemic of head-implosion going on?

^* Which, frankly, are not in evidence in the video to mine eyes. Can you see ‘em?

Tiny Revolution points to this story about Barack Obama’s decision to “seek foreign policy advice” from Colin Powell. Since Obama’s campaign apparently leaked this news, we may surmise that the intent is less related to actual advice and more related to tying Obama’s image to Powell’s, establishing him as a respectable, establishment figure rather than some loose cannon leftist. This seems to me to be almost trivially true - if Obama really WERE a maverick, a progressive and a force for change then he could not possibly have garnered the level of support he has - tens of millions of dollars worth of support. No - Obama is simply a well-spoken, intelligent man with resolutely centrist politics who happens to be black.

I’ve felt this way about Obama from the very moment he hit the national stage, back in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. Then a lowly state legislator, Obama gave the keynote address at the DNC, catapulting him to fame and a Senatorial seat. I remember many liberals speaking glowingly of Obama^*, but upon reading his speech, I wasn’t exactly sure what they were so pleased with. Obama’s speech was rife with the usual plaudits for traditional Americana. “God, what a great country we live in!” was the sense I got. Yes, put a goatee and glasses on the man and he might look like Malcolm X, but he is a long way away from “By any means necessary”.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.

The words of this speech would ring completely hollow if they were spoken by any white politician. “That we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm,” might seem ironic to most black people in this country, who suffer with worse - hah - infant mortality than all of the developed world and at rates more than twice as high as whites. If a black Republican had made a speech like this it would have been roundly rejected as slavish and sycophantic.

I’ve found relatively little worthy of praise in Obama’s political stances. For example, his behavior during the reprehensible Israeli bombing of Lebanon last year was, appropriately, also reprehensible. True, he has “opposed the Iraq war from the start” (though with what level of energy and devotion might be in dispute). This, however, is a fairly minimal criterion from which to proceed. The Bush Administration is now, quite clearly, a bunch of maniacal thugs. Prudently stepping back from crazed thuggery does not make you a model human being, and I would be disappointed if the only result of the past eight years was to make us sigh in relief to be back in the dessicated cradling arms of our usual liche-kings.

^* The racial politics of most liberal’s adoration of Obama should pretty much go without comment - “He’s black, but he’s not too black.”

I just got home from the victory party of one of the few true liberals who took or kept office tonight. This was Chris Daly, a supervisor here in San Francisco, who uses hardball methods to keep business in check to labor and developers in check to those they could displace. He’s a capitalist who applies basic humanism to the process of wealth creation — something that has been lacking on the national stage for decades.

Meanwhile, on the cable teevee, liberals across the country are dancing to “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, blogging furiously and generally over-enthusing for the marginal victory by the less reactionary party in our national electoral contests.

Personally, I am thrilled to see that dirty tricks and November surprises didn’t break up all the Democrats’ momentum (though they might have wiped out a few house and senate seats). I am a partisan for fair play. But I’m not going to wet myself over the success of a bunch of imperialists over the more-ignorant-and rapacious imperialists to their right. Hell, I’m not even wetting myself over the victory of an avowed leftist just to the south. (You don’t think that’s close? Don’t forget that Nicaragua is closer to Texas than Texas is to Washington, DC.)

The thing is, revolution doesn’t happen because a few new faces sit in leather chairs in Washington. Revolution is inside each of us. And as long as 100 to 200 million people in the world’s richest nation think that money is the ultimate goal in life, that force solves problems and that the eternal salvation awaits those who impose the “Good” Book on others, I don’t think this country has much chance of becoming a force for good.

And changing those attitudes requires going out and talking — and more importantly, listening — to people. Something that the Democrats, to their credit, did some of in this campaign. I would like to be able to say the same of us bloggers.

update after a bit of sleep: Does this election validate the Naderite line from 2000, that having George Bush in office will take down the U.S. empire? Latin America, the Arab world and BRIC are all rebelling, and now there’s a Socialist in the Senate. Interesting.

I know we’re not supposed to take Internet polls seriously, but the one on this Boston Herald article was too good to pass up:

Are you surprised by the N.H. poll that found such high negatives for Hillary Clinton?

9%Yes, she is a viable candidate

83%No, she is a self-serving politician

8%It’s as irrelevent as N.H. is in the big picture
Total Votes: 3,034

This is deeply fucked up.^* A children’s book to teach little kids about “Democrat values”. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. I mean, look at this sample page:

Truly abominable. Instead of teaching kids that praxis of good values has merit in itself, these authors (and apparently their readers) will tell them that merit is derived from their association with the correct tribe.^†

I’m not some sort of shameless individualist, but herd mentalities give me the heebie-jeebies. An incisive observer of the world is one who appreciates nuance and does not cut the world into broad swathes. The opposite tendency is the hallmark of dullards. “You should all grow wheat,” Stalin says to the peasants in the USSR. “Oh, crap,” say all the Kyrgyzstanis, who have herded sheep for eons, and promptly starve to death.

I found this kind of shit-flinging tribalism especially offensive after the 2004 election, when plenty of Democrat associates of mine fulminated about those troglodytes in the “red states” and their lack of basic human decency. A message to you, Rudy: get over your need to draw battle lines over political allegiances. Baring your teeth and snarling at each other is what dogs do. Just be humans.

^* Incidentally, is there any more powerful way to express condemnation than to say that “shit is fucked up”? I don’t think there is!

^† Especially when this particular tribe contains some notably virtue-less individuals.