Meh. America elects a centre-right, pro-death penalty neoliberal who has promised to expand the arm forces, ratchet up the war in Afghanistan, and who supported a bailout package that did little to ensure that the banking executives who caused this mess will be held responsible.
Terri, excuse me for being rude on your generally very peaceful blog, and feel free to delete this comment if you need to, but... Ahem...
Paul: Get the FUCK over your snide, self-righteous, smug Canadian self.
And remind me *precisely* how your country differs other than the death penalty issue? (A big issue, I grant you that. One which some of us have put our time, resources, energy, and tears into turning around.)
And if you REALLY aren't grokking the significance of this, may I remind you that you're in a country where Blacks died trying to get to the polls not that long ago.
Yeah, you are in the country with all of the problems you mentioned. But you're also in the first settle country in the world to elect a non-white minority head of state. And if you can't grasp the significance of that... And let those of us among the celebrating. Just. Celebrate. The sense that we've been released from prison.
Then shut the fuck up. Ain't nobody keeping you here if you hate it so damn much.
Oh, and the bailout issue. Do tell me, though... Was your government--with its dependent economy--AGAINST the bailout package?
I didn't think so.
Signed:
An Ignorant American who Ohmigod DOES Grasp the Problems with the Bailout Package, Leans Ideologically Marxist, and is YES... Proud to Be an American Today.
P.S. Oh, and shame on you for those capitalist sensibilities, thinking you'd be a more sell-able PhD with an American diploma in your hand. Shame, shame, SHAME on you. I mean, you from your great Beacon of Light of a Progressive Country whose education system is by the people and for the people.
It's my turn to beg your forgiveness for your blog being used in such a way. I miss--really miss--our occasional good-hearted, humorous, intelligent and FUN political discussions, on line and on trains...
Hi Kristin...
"And remind me *precisely* how your country differs other than the death penalty issue? "
Did I say Canada was any better? (Besides the death penalty thing?) Where exactly? Rest assured, I have serious problems with Canada's political direction too.
"And if you REALLY aren't grokking the significance of this, may I remind you that you're in a country where Blacks died trying to get to the polls not that long ago."
I'm well aware. And good on America for getting past that, and good on America for electing a black president. Which at the same time removed the only black senator from office at the same time. While this is an incredible symbolic victory, it means less when you consider, numbers-wise, how under-represented blacks, women (especially women) and other non-white males are in the system--and in the also important halls of corporate power. Is it the start of a serious change? Or an easy way for America to disavow its fundamental racial and gender power imbalances--"Look, we're not racist. We have a black president." Time will tell. I'm not optimistic.
"Yeah, you are in the country with all of the problems you mentioned. But you're also in the first settle(r) country in the world to elect a non-white minority head of state."
No. See:: Kenya, Zimbabwe, and a few others I could name.
"The sense that we've been released from prison."
Interesting way of putting it. How soon under the Obama administration do you expect those very real incarceration rates to go down? The fundamental thing I was trying to express: I'm not sure, on a discursive and policy-making level, how serious a change this represents--especially given that with the financial crisis/bailout, any of the progressive policies that Obama may have wanted to enact (especially healthcare) are pretty much dead issues.
"Oh, and the bailout issue. Do tell me, though... Was your government--with its dependent economy--AGAINST the bailout package?"
No. But like I said, so what? I've got serious problems with them too.
"I mean, you from your great Beacon of Light of a Progressive Country whose education system is by the people and for the people."
Where exactly did I say that? Please don't put words in my mouth.
"Or, in other words, no need to be an asshole about it just 'cause you miss home."
Is there anything I wrote that wasn't true? How does having a point of view that differs from yours, and is based on a different set of political values, make me an asshole?
I would be pleased to discuss further--really. paul (dot) c (dot0 hebert (at) gmail (dot) com.
"Interesting way of putting it. How soon under the Obama administration do you expect those very real incarceration rates to go down? The fundamental thing I was trying to express: I'm not sure, on a discursive and policy-making level, how serious a change this represents--especially given that with the financial crisis/bailout, any of the progressive policies that Obama may have wanted to enact (especially healthcare) are pretty much dead issues."
Yep, sure, I get it. I've written and published academic papers about how representation is not actually the end of things, and no, in fact, it doesn't mean some kind of perfect transformation. I don't believe in perfection, actually, but... Thing is, some kind of commitment to a postructuralist sense of the way history operates...That is, of things not being STATIC, means things can change. Or, you know, maybe some of the most oppressive systems can begin to be turned against themselves. It doesn't necessarily mean an unchecked descent into fascism; and as incomplete as this victory is, some of us needed to be reminded of that in order to keep going.
As for prison. Yes, yes, yes, I'm well aware of our prison situation, thanks. Met and organized with Angela Davis in person and everything. Have done actual activism around this. Have you done anything about it? Then kindly don't lecture me about it, thanks.
What I do think about the analogy: It will mean a whole fucking hell of a lot for those folks who've been imprisoned and tortured in our name, to begin with. And, nope, it won't end while there's an intact CIA (I wrote a master's thesis on this. Trust me, dude, I know you're the Smartest Kid in the Room and everything, but, no, you don't know more than me on this one.).
As for our extensive prison population... Yes, this. Yes, um... I DID know it wouldn't change overnight, if ever. I DO think it severely undermines cultural constructions of blackness as criminality, though. And, fuck yes, that is significant. Do you actually KNOW any Black Americans? I mean, sorry, but just eh... Not quite getting the significance here suggests to me that you've never met an African-American.
I was born three months after the Greensboro massacre and then raised in North Carolina when people still had crosses burned in their yards and got death threats for having interracial *church* services. This shit has been my experience, and fuck you, you're not going to reign on the parade this time. It does mean something. Or, in other words, I FUCKING KNOW PEOPLE WITH FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DIED TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE.
It doesn't mean perfect transformation. It doesn't mean we're suddenly a progressive country. It doesn't mean that any of these problems (which I already knew about before you deigned to educate me) are gone. But YES it does mean something, and if you don't get it, you are utterly ignorant of your new home.
Anyway, yeah, um, about settler countries... Having lived in Mozambique and traveled extensively in Zimbabwe and South Africa, um... The key word was "minority" there, as you have realized.
Anyway, you know... It's just that... You haven't shared the experiences. You didn't grow up watching the Jim Crow South begin to subvert itself firsthand. You don't get it. You don't get to come in and self-righteously cast judgment right now on a situation you haven't done a thing to change. Not, today, goddamnit. And not to someone who spent her life in those battlefields and feared for her life while she watched them unfold.
And, yes, after the weekend, I'll go back to being Obama's biggest critic. For now, this Proud for Today American says: Fuck You.
Oh, and I meant rain, but well... Speaking of privilege, reign doesn't seem terribly incorrect. That problem with inserting the wrong words when I'm mad b/c of not paying attention totally undermines the zingers. Oh, well...
And, look, except for some assholish moments of misery in Canada in which Terri rightly called me out, I kinda realized that I didn't get it there... I had to ask a lot of questions. Quebecois marginalization didn't--and doesn't--make much sense to me or speak to my cultural understanding of race-based oppression. I didn't get it... I asked. And was humble about that in particular. I still don't get it. But I never lectured Quebecois nationalists in order to impart my "superior" understanding of their politics. You just don't fucking come to a place you don't understand and do that. It makes you an asshole.
And, frankly, you especially don't get to do it as another bourgeois dude from another first world country. And particularly not one that BENEFITS from all the awful shit we do, but where.... Some folks claim moral an alarming sort of moral superiority suggesting that all of this happened in a vacuum and that... Your system isn't responsible--or at the very least implicated--too. Glad to hear you're equally critical of Canada. Were you miserable there too, or did we Ignorant Redneck Fucks just push you over the edge? So sorry we're not better company.
I'm glad to talk with you, but please spare me the "I know you're the smartest kid in the room," the "do you actually know any black people" cracks and the F-bombs. I have no such pretentions on the first count, the second count is untrue, and the third does nobody any good. My ideas are attackable on their own merits, there's no need to get personal--or to call me ignorant.
And I don't think that I know more than you on anything--anything you've written on or otherwise. I think we are, obviously, coming from very different places. No, I've never experienced racism first hand, nor do I come from a family that has--it's a topic I can only understand as a (I like to think reasonably well-informed) outsider. But that does not mean I don't have a desire to see peace and justice and prosperity--and to do whatever little things my meagre abilities will let me do to help deal with the violence, injustice and poverty that racism/sexism/other form of discrimination have created.
You say that this victory will mean a lot to the victims of torture; I'm not so sure about that, I can only imagine their bitterness has taken them well beyond that. But you're absolutely correct--as long as the CIA and the rest of the military-intelligence-industrial system is in play, there will be little substantive change. THIS is the heart of the question for me as to why I'm so frustrated with the situation. I've met too many people in my short time here who agree 100% that a Democratic victory would do little to address the issues that they cared most about, but instead of exploring other alternatives, they got behind, in a big way, a party and a candidate who were fundamentally opposed to their own, deeply-held political beliefs. How many times did I have this conversation: "I want a President who will end the war and the militarization of American foreign policy." "Then why not vote for say, Nader, or the Social Democrats, or Green, instead of for a candidate who wants to ratchet up America's involvement in Afghanistan, threatened to bomb Pakistan, and wants to increase military spending?" "Because they won't win."
Well, not if you don't vote for them they won't. I understand the desire to ensure that the Republicans are kept away from power for a while. And I really do understand what the election of a black president means--I had chicken-skin and welled up when I saw that shot of Jesse Jackson and listened to John Lewis. I get all that. But I hope, really really hope, that you (and thousands more like you) are serious when you say that you'll "go back to being Obama's biggest critic." But what I'm afraid of is that eight years of Bush incompetence will give the Democrats--and the neoliberal agenda--a pretty free ride to use the financial crisis as a way to seriously shift the power balance in a really negative way.
Funny. Do you know why it is I say that, besides the fact that i can't find a beer I like?...is that for the most part--as compared to when I was at ConU, I'm really frustrated by the invisibility of alternative/radical and intelligent politics on this campus---especially where it comes to, say, the Israel/Palestine question, but more generally as well--people seem to care more about football and frats here. It's kind of boring. Notwithstanding being told to "fuck off" and being called an asshole at every turn, I wish I could have more discussions like this. Maybe it's just that I haven't been able to make more time, but It's hard to find someone here who cares and is engaged in the ways that you are.
Oh, but I attacked your ideas on their own merits (Such as they are.) TOO. The insults are what makes it FUN. Man, oh man, so sorry that my "aggressive," working class style of argumentation about things that are important to me offends your delicate sensibilities.
I'd been doing anti-prison activism all along. What have you done to make sure this isn't just further neoliberal ascendancy? Besides, um, educate me.
No, you're right, it doesn't change the fact that people have been tortured. It means that LESS people will be tortured, and it will NOT continue to be mainstreamed in American politics, and MORE people taken on spurious charges will be released. And Guantanamo will be closed.
You shouldn't assume that all US universities are of one piece. I've been at four. Of these, McGill was the second to least progressive, after the one I'm at now.
The most progressive was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There is a left movement there and was after 9/11. It was the first university in the US to have an anti-war teach-in. I was part of it, and we all got death threats. There is an infrastructure of meaningful activism in many parts of the South.
There isn't such an infrastructure where I am now in Pennsylvania. I have no idea how to enter the debate or start anything here because there's no infrastructure, and people don't do activism, and oh yeah, everyone is colorblind.
So, again, please don't generalize us either. And, seriously, your "compliment" there feels supremely patronizing.
"LESS people will be tortured..And Guantanamo will be closed."
Fuck, I hope you're right. I don't believe you, yet--or I'm afraid they will close it and move it to Diego Garcia where NOBODY will know what's going on--but I hope you're right on that one...
as for my activism, from here, it's hard--I've been writing to Canadian MPs/Cabinet members and trying to urge them to deal with issues that I know a little bit about (Afghanistan, the cluster-munitions treaty)...not enough, i know--it was, frankly, a lot easier at ConU where there was a vibrant activist tradition/community. Poor excuse.
Sorry if I sounded condescending. Not like I called you the smartest kid in the room. That wasn't condescending at all.
And i wasn't trying to generalise about US universities, I was talking only about here. Where am I? Ann Arbor. U of M. Go Blue. whatever---for all its reputation as a left bastion, the "people's Republic of Ann Arbor," it's just very, well, liberal. It's hard to find the kind of infrastructure you were talking about--Nader came to speak on Fridat, about 40 people showed up, at least a third of the ones I spoke to not students. there are tonnes of academic talks/conferences that I go to where radical ideas get bandied about, but that's sort of a preaching-to-the-choir thing with no real activist knock-off. The only Palestine/Israel event I've noticed was a talk on middle East gay activism--issues like the settlements and the wall are off the table (and given the ways in which Obama's position toward Israel has moved, that will probably continue to be the case...)
I gotta go to class, but briefly... Where do you Canadians GET your smug attitudes about beer? You're not Belgium, for fuck's sake. Oh Canada, land of Labatt Bleue.
I mean, minus a cultural tradition of superior beer-making, it ain't like we haven't *globalized* beer consumption? What *could* you get there on a regular basis that you can't get here other than Labatt Bleue and Leffe Brune (which is good, yes, and Belgian?).
To wit, from a person who isn't terribly knowledgeable about beers... Just a few very good ones (American and imported) off the top of my head that can be bought easily all over the US:
Newcastle Brooklyn Brown Ale Blue Moon (if you like that IPA crap) Magic Hat brand stuff everything from Flying Dog Brewery Leffe Blonde (I can't find the Brune kind that I actually liked though...) Swithwicks Guinness
There are more, but I'm late to class...
Pretty much anything in the grocery store in the upscale grocery store section and not the Budweiser section. Jesus...
And even some of our crap beer is much more drinkable than that Labatt shit. Like, say, Yeungling, especially Yuengling Black and Tan. Or even some stuff from Sam Adams or Killians.
I was going to get all motherly and order them to their rooms until they could behave in a civil manner towards each other ... but I really like popcorn.
On a more serious side: Martin Luther King was assassinated on my 17th birthday and that moment blew me out of my cosseted, privileged, upper-middle class, white life and into activism. I couldn't even imagine, at that moment, how anyone could kill such a great man. I learned.
Over the years I've exposed (and probably bored to death) my kids to the causes that I became educated in and took up. From ban the bomb (then U.S. cruise missiles test flights in northern Canada), the Viet Nam War (and all the following wars), ardent feminism and civil rights, Nelson Mandela and arpartheid, equality for gays and lesbians, etc. etc. etc.
Last night I and everyone I know were glued to the TV with tears in our eyes as President Obama took the stage. It was history in the making and the whole world knew it. No one is unaffected by how the U.S. conducts its internal and external affairs. To pretend that it is otherwise is to live in an alternate reality.
The American Ambassador up here couldn't believe how wrapped up in the election Canadians were. Here in Vancouver, there were election parties in homes, in bars, and at the U. When Obama was declared president, it was announced on the score board at the Canucks Hockey game and the audience arose with a roar for a standing ovation.
This is not a time for cynicism, but a time for hope. As one American said, in an interview on TV, this time she was voting FOR someone rather than choosing tbetween the least of two evils. Let's face it - how often do we have a really great choice?
I've never missed voting in any election as I feel strongly that it is my duty to educate myself on the issues and cast my vote. There are too many countries in the world where the idea of a free vote is a pipe dream.
You say you don't think that one person's vote counts? Don't try telling that to the Member of Parliament for South Vancouver. His seat was confirmed, after a recount, by 20 votes. You can be damn sure that his rival wished that just 21 people that supported her had dug themselves off the couch and actually got their fat asses out of their houses and voted.
I'm not naive enough to think that Obama is the savior of the U.S. but I think that he's an intelligent, calm, strong man with great consensus building skills. He's got a hell of a job taking over a country in the worst of times from one of the worst presidents in history. Give the man a break. It's not like he's taking over a prosperous country from Clinton.
Whew! I feel much better after all that. Pass the "real" popcorn please.
Cynthia
PS
If you've only been exposed to Quebec, you haven't been exposed to the rest of Canada. They are a very different experience. Two nations, one country. Very confusing.
I've got three degrees from universities in three different Canadian provinces. It was like the three bears of universities: one was small, one was medium-sized, and one was large. They were completely different experiences politically and in just about every other way. You can don't have to go to an American university to hate the experience or the people you're forced to share classes with.
Beer ... love it. It no longer loves me unfortunately. When I was younger I loved Blue. During my master's at the U of A, there was a beer strike in Alberta. This was a crisis of monumental proportions. The grad students' club had a great selection of beers from all over the world. So ... when we ran out of Canadian beer, we "lowered" our standards to American ones and surprised ourselves by actually finding a few we liked. (We didn't talk about that.) When we drank all the American beer, we moved on to the European and Asian beers. It was a truly educational experience worthy of the high standards of our U. Since then, I've had a much broader appreciation of beer. I highly recommend that kind of cross cultural experience to everyone.
In fact, I didn't get *quite* through the weekend without succumbing to reality. That said... It's not all bad news. Among the list of 200 Bush initiatives to be overturned immediately are: the global gag rule, restrictions on stem cell research, and limitations on women's reproductive rights. Given that all of these things *do* mean something and a Dictatorship of the Proletariat doesn't actually seem where we're headed... I'm still glad he won.
yes, I'm still reading--but am also bogged down with a nasty paper to write, so any further replies may take a day or two. I will sign the petition and pass it around to my people. The Summers thing is almost as disappointing as seeing that Obama was surrounded by folks like Volker and Buffet (who was actually present by phone at the meeting that preceded the conference or something? I didn't quite catch it...). And to hear him going off on Iran for trying to be a nuclear state and being a state supporter of terrorism (If you didn't read Juan Cole's blog entry on this, check it out...)
And I DO NOT want this to turn into me saying "I told you so..." 'cause I know that none of this comes as a shock to you. And this is where I apologise--and ask a couple of the questions I should have.
You're right--crapping over Obama for his politics the day after the first black man gets elected president was a shitty thing to do. I am truly sorry. I never lost sight of the fact of his election was a huge deal and an incredible milestone. And more than that, perhaps, looking a bit beyond the race question, I am hopeful that the people that Obama attracted to the political process--in part because of the colour of his skin, but in greater part, I argue, because of his ability to articulate a vision for a better society--will stay with the system and hold the system and their candidate to their expectations. I still think there's a serious gap between the vision that Obama expressed and the realities of the politics he will bring to the table. But it was wrong of me to play politics on that day.
And now a question--what if it hadn't been Obama but say Condoleeza Rice or Allan Keyes or Clarence Thomas who won on Tuesday night after expressing their kind of view for what America should be? I understand the overlap between race and party politics, and I don't think race trumps politics (my turn to make an assumption about you based on little--you wouldn't have gotten behind a Thomas campaign. Or maybe I'm wrong....but I doubt it.) Would the political gap between John Lewis or Jessee Jackson and a Rice candidacy been too great to allow them to embrace a dyed-in-the-wool conservative as the first black President?
Hey, thanks. I appreciate what you've said here. And I certainly didn't read it as an "I told you so."
I have to be brief (have a couple of papers that need to be done soon too). No, no, of course I wouldn't have gotten behind a far-right candidate who happened to be non-white. I'm not planning, for instance, to support Jindal in 2012 because he's Indian (He's also a right wing fundamentalist Christian). And I didn't support, say, Sarah Palin based on the fact that she has a vagina. But Obama is not a far-right candidate even if he leans neoliberal. Nor is he an ignorant, shoot-from-the-hip sort of politician who will invade a country in order to avenge his father. I am sure that there will be many disappointments, but I'm glad that I supported his candidacy. The difference is... He's a center-right person who is attentive and who can be reasoned with as opposed to a fascist-leaning git who thinks nothing of remaking the US as a proto-fascist state.
Honestly, though, having seen what happened to my country in the aftermath of 9/11... I'd have voted for any Democratic candidate who won the nomination. Even though I don't much care for the Clintons and was disgusted by their race-baiting during the primary, I'd have happily voted for her if she'd been the nominee. Because there is a difference. "Lesser of two evils" turns out to make substantive differences in people's material lives. Believe me, I tried to do reproductive rights education in Mozambique under the global gag rule.
That Obama is black does add meaning to it, though, for us Americans who have watched this history unfold. It's not transformative, and it certainly does not mean that racism is over in the United States (This was the consensus of some of my students last Friday. Did I mention that I don't like where *I* live now either?). But to suggest that it doesn't mean anything at all (which I see now that you did not mean to imply) is a little dismissive of the suffering and pain that led to this point in the first place.
It's also a bit of a button-pushing thing for me... Now in Pennsylvania--the most racist place I've ever lived--I hear unchecked sentiments about the "racist redneck white trash bigots" down South. In all fairness, I never heard anything quite that classist until I got here.
I think ANY Democrat would have been an improvement. McCain would have been an improvement (he has brain cells.) And even a right-wing President would have elicited some celebrating. (People hate Thatcher, but it still says something when people feel they can elect a woman to PM.)
But I definitely think there are multiple elements which led to this Obama Moment. He's already this young, good looking, eloquent, charismatic guy... he's coming after 8 years of one of the FUCKIEST administrations of all time, whom people all over the world get SICK just thinking about him... you toss in the final insult: The Wall Street meltdown... and THEN you add the fact that this man is African-American. What you got there is a Love In! A Broadway musical!
I don't actually agree that *anyone* would've been better. I went around for years stating that any human would've been better than Bush--even Martha Stewart. But then... We got the specter of a Palin presidency. And see, she's against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. She wants to invade Russia. We'd have had a much more emboldened theocrat in office there than we had in Bush. And the fact that McCain may not have *believed* in all that in his heart of hearts doesn't mean much given that (1.) he may have died in office anyway and (2.) he moved to the far-right in order to appease the scariest elements of his base. So... When one follows that agenda, it doesn't actually matter whether one is a True Believer. It still affects *my* life in the same way. Whether or not your *heart* is in it when, say, you defend the Defense of Marriage Act still means... Well, fuck you, McCain, you wanted to undermine *my* civil rights by federal law. I would not have celebrated a McCain victory. I'd have seen it as a continuation of the exact same policies--if not worse.
And so... While I do agree that a center-right liberal Democrat (of the sort who always wins the nomination) is better than Bush, and better than McCain would've been, I don't think Any Person At All fits the bill. My voting standards, in other words, had not become *so* low as to be completely meaningless.
In the aftermath of the election, what's scaring me most is how close the country came to an eventual Palin presidency. The idea that someone with that kind of theocratic bent (and she's a True Believer) with that little common knowledge of how the world works (..and what a "country" is) can get so close to the Oval Office represents a massive failure on the part of the system.
For all I've said in my life about politics being designed to keep ordinary people away from power so that the system works to ensure elite interests, Palin's nomination tells me that 1. I was wrong and 2. I need to re-evaluate the issues I have with the idea of keeping "the people" away from power. If Sarah Palin is "the people," I'm all for keeping them as far away from political power as possible. Maybe re-instating the monarchy or something. I'd take enlightened dictatorship over someone who doesn't know what NAFTA is any day of the week.
On the other hand, watching Fox News trip all over themselves with indignity at sexist attacks on Palin has been a hoot. Like they didn't do Hillary in the same way a thousand times over.
Re. "anyone besides Bush" - yes, I was exaggerating. And lack of brain cells wasn't necessarily his problem anyway, since he surrounded himself with lots of smart people.
In the beginning I wasn't SUPER out for McCain. I don't mean I would EVER have been glad to see a Repub president, but if I had to choose between lesser evils I would choose McCain (sans Palin) over Bush. They share the same political space, but McCain strikes me as a deeper thinker. One of Bush's most maddening traits is that whole "I'm the Decider" thing--his inability to EVER change his mind about ANYTHING no matter what new evidence comes to light.
But once Palin was brought on board... o man. I can see why he did it, because I take it the GOP has been moving somewhat away from its original base which she personifies. (Though apparently her super-right-lady routine has alienated some Alaskans who used to like her for being more center-ee. Which makes me think she's more of a pragmatist than she appears to be. I mean, being super-right-lady was why she was hired by McCain, so again, pragmatic.)
But man. Man O man. I have no more words for that woman than she has for the question "What newspapers do you read?"
40 comments:
Meh. America elects a centre-right, pro-death penalty neoliberal who has promised to expand the arm forces, ratchet up the war in Afghanistan, and who supported a bailout package that did little to ensure that the banking executives who caused this mess will be held responsible.
PS, that was me.
-Paul in the US of A. I hate it here.
Terri, excuse me for being rude on your generally very peaceful blog, and feel free to delete this comment if you need to, but... Ahem...
Paul: Get the FUCK over your snide, self-righteous, smug Canadian self.
And remind me *precisely* how your country differs other than the death penalty issue? (A big issue, I grant you that. One which some of us have put our time, resources, energy, and tears into turning around.)
And if you REALLY aren't grokking the significance of this, may I remind you that you're in a country where Blacks died trying to get to the polls not that long ago.
Yeah, you are in the country with all of the problems you mentioned. But you're also in the first settle country in the world to elect a non-white minority head of state. And if you can't grasp the significance of that... And let those of us among the celebrating. Just. Celebrate. The sense that we've been released from prison.
Then shut the fuck up. Ain't nobody keeping you here if you hate it so damn much.
Oops, that was supposed to read "settler country."
Oh, and the bailout issue. Do tell me, though... Was your government--with its dependent economy--AGAINST the bailout package?
I didn't think so.
Signed:
An Ignorant American who Ohmigod DOES Grasp the Problems with the Bailout Package, Leans Ideologically Marxist, and is YES... Proud to Be an American Today.
P.S. Oh, and shame on you for those capitalist sensibilities, thinking you'd be a more sell-able PhD with an American diploma in your hand. Shame, shame, SHAME on you. I mean, you from your great Beacon of Light of a Progressive Country whose education system is by the people and for the people.
Um... Sorry, Terri. I am mad.
Or, in other words, no need to be an asshole about it just 'cause you miss home. Something I had to learn when I was miserable THERE.
Terri-
It's my turn to beg your forgiveness for your blog being used in such a way. I miss--really miss--our occasional good-hearted, humorous, intelligent and FUN political discussions, on line and on trains...
Hi Kristin...
"And remind me *precisely* how your country differs other than the death penalty issue? "
Did I say Canada was any better? (Besides the death penalty thing?) Where exactly? Rest assured, I have serious problems with Canada's political direction too.
"And if you REALLY aren't grokking the significance of this, may I remind you that you're in a country where Blacks died trying to get to the polls not that long ago."
I'm well aware. And good on America for getting past that, and good on America for electing a black president. Which at the same time removed the only black senator from office at the same time. While this is an incredible symbolic victory, it means less when you consider, numbers-wise, how under-represented blacks, women (especially women) and other non-white males are in the system--and in the also important halls of corporate power. Is it the start of a serious change? Or an easy way for America to disavow its fundamental racial and gender power imbalances--"Look, we're not racist. We have a black president." Time will tell. I'm not optimistic.
"Yeah, you are in the country with all of the problems you mentioned. But you're also in the first settle(r) country in the world to elect a non-white minority head of state."
No. See:: Kenya, Zimbabwe, and a few others I could name.
"The sense that we've been released from prison."
Interesting way of putting it. How soon under the Obama administration do you expect those very real incarceration rates to go down? The fundamental thing I was trying to express: I'm not sure, on a discursive and policy-making level, how serious a change this represents--especially given that with the financial crisis/bailout, any of the progressive policies that Obama may have wanted to enact (especially healthcare) are pretty much dead issues.
"Oh, and the bailout issue. Do tell me, though... Was your government--with its dependent economy--AGAINST the bailout package?"
No. But like I said, so what? I've got serious problems with them too.
"I mean, you from your great Beacon of Light of a Progressive Country whose education system is by the people and for the people."
Where exactly did I say that? Please don't put words in my mouth.
"Or, in other words, no need to be an asshole about it just 'cause you miss home."
Is there anything I wrote that wasn't true? How does having a point of view that differs from yours, and is based on a different set of political values, make me an asshole?
I would be pleased to discuss further--really. paul (dot) c (dot0 hebert (at) gmail (dot) com.
OOOPS.
Misread your comment on settler colonies. You are correct. My apologies-p.
"Interesting way of putting it. How soon under the Obama administration do you expect those very real incarceration rates to go down? The fundamental thing I was trying to express: I'm not sure, on a discursive and policy-making level, how serious a change this represents--especially given that with the financial crisis/bailout, any of the progressive policies that Obama may have wanted to enact (especially healthcare) are pretty much dead issues."
Yep, sure, I get it. I've written and published academic papers about how representation is not actually the end of things, and no, in fact, it doesn't mean some kind of perfect transformation. I don't believe in perfection, actually, but... Thing is, some kind of commitment to a postructuralist sense of the way history operates...That is, of things not being STATIC, means things can change. Or, you know, maybe some of the most oppressive systems can begin to be turned against themselves. It doesn't necessarily mean an unchecked descent into fascism; and as incomplete as this victory is, some of us needed to be reminded of that in order to keep going.
As for prison. Yes, yes, yes, I'm well aware of our prison situation, thanks. Met and organized with Angela Davis in person and everything. Have done actual activism around this. Have you done anything about it? Then kindly don't lecture me about it, thanks.
What I do think about the analogy: It will mean a whole fucking hell of a lot for those folks who've been imprisoned and tortured in our name, to begin with. And, nope, it won't end while there's an intact CIA (I wrote a master's thesis on this. Trust me, dude, I know you're the Smartest Kid in the Room and everything, but, no, you don't know more than me on this one.).
As for our extensive prison population... Yes, this. Yes, um... I DID know it wouldn't change overnight, if ever. I DO think it severely undermines cultural constructions of blackness as criminality, though. And, fuck yes, that is significant. Do you actually KNOW any Black Americans? I mean, sorry, but just eh... Not quite getting the significance here suggests to me that you've never met an African-American.
I was born three months after the Greensboro massacre and then raised in North Carolina when people still had crosses burned in their yards and got death threats for having interracial *church* services. This shit has been my experience, and fuck you, you're not going to reign on the parade this time. It does mean something. Or, in other words, I FUCKING KNOW PEOPLE WITH FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DIED TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE.
It doesn't mean perfect transformation. It doesn't mean we're suddenly a progressive country. It doesn't mean that any of these problems (which I already knew about before you deigned to educate me) are gone. But YES it does mean something, and if you don't get it, you are utterly ignorant of your new home.
Anyway, yeah, um, about settler countries... Having lived in Mozambique and traveled extensively in Zimbabwe and South Africa, um... The key word was "minority" there, as you have realized.
Anyway, you know... It's just that... You haven't shared the experiences. You didn't grow up watching the Jim Crow South begin to subvert itself firsthand. You don't get it. You don't get to come in and self-righteously cast judgment right now on a situation you haven't done a thing to change. Not, today, goddamnit. And not to someone who spent her life in those battlefields and feared for her life while she watched them unfold.
And, yes, after the weekend, I'll go back to being Obama's biggest critic. For now, this Proud for Today American says: Fuck You.
*Sorry, Terri. Hope we're still friends.*
And I know I just trampled all over your White Middle Class Parlor Manners there, but if I may also just say:
Checking privilege. Learn you some.
You, meaning Paul, not Terri.
Oh, and I meant rain, but well... Speaking of privilege, reign doesn't seem terribly incorrect. That problem with inserting the wrong words when I'm mad b/c of not paying attention totally undermines the zingers. Oh, well...
*waves at Terri*
And, look, except for some assholish moments of misery in Canada in which Terri rightly called me out, I kinda realized that I didn't get it there... I had to ask a lot of questions. Quebecois marginalization didn't--and doesn't--make much sense to me or speak to my cultural understanding of race-based oppression. I didn't get it... I asked. And was humble about that in particular. I still don't get it. But I never lectured Quebecois nationalists in order to impart my "superior" understanding of their politics. You just don't fucking come to a place you don't understand and do that. It makes you an asshole.
And, frankly, you especially don't get to do it as another bourgeois dude from another first world country. And particularly not one that BENEFITS from all the awful shit we do, but where.... Some folks claim moral an alarming sort of moral superiority suggesting that all of this happened in a vacuum and that... Your system isn't responsible--or at the very least implicated--too. Glad to hear you're equally critical of Canada. Were you miserable there too, or did we Ignorant Redneck Fucks just push you over the edge? So sorry we're not better company.
Kristin,
I'm glad to talk with you, but please spare me the "I know you're the smartest kid in the room," the "do you actually know any black people" cracks and the F-bombs. I have no such pretentions on the first count, the second count is untrue, and the third does nobody any good. My ideas are attackable on their own merits, there's no need to get personal--or to call me ignorant.
And I don't think that I know more than you on anything--anything you've written on or otherwise. I think we are, obviously, coming from very different places. No, I've never experienced racism first hand, nor do I come from a family that has--it's a topic I can only understand as a (I like to think reasonably well-informed) outsider. But that does not mean I don't have a desire to see peace and justice and prosperity--and to do whatever little things my meagre abilities will let me do to help deal with the violence, injustice and poverty that racism/sexism/other form of discrimination have created.
You say that this victory will mean a lot to the victims of torture; I'm not so sure about that, I can only imagine their bitterness has taken them well beyond that. But you're absolutely correct--as long as the CIA and the rest of the military-intelligence-industrial system is in play, there will be little substantive change. THIS is the heart of the question for me as to why I'm so frustrated with the situation. I've met too many people in my short time here who agree 100% that a Democratic victory would do little to address the issues that they cared most about, but instead of exploring other alternatives, they got behind, in a big way, a party and a candidate who were fundamentally opposed to their own, deeply-held political beliefs. How many times did I have this conversation: "I want a President who will end the war and the militarization of American foreign policy." "Then why not vote for say, Nader, or the Social Democrats, or Green, instead of for a candidate who wants to ratchet up America's involvement in Afghanistan, threatened to bomb Pakistan, and wants to increase military spending?" "Because they won't win."
Well, not if you don't vote for them they won't. I understand the desire to ensure that the Republicans are kept away from power for a while. And I really do understand what the election of a black president means--I had chicken-skin and welled up when I saw that shot of Jesse Jackson and listened to John Lewis. I get all that. But I hope, really really hope, that you (and thousands more like you) are serious when you say that you'll "go back to being Obama's biggest critic." But what I'm afraid of is that eight years of Bush incompetence will give the Democrats--and the neoliberal agenda--a pretty free ride to use the financial crisis as a way to seriously shift the power balance in a really negative way.
Thanks for taking the time,
-p.
Kristin...
"I hate it here."
Funny. Do you know why it is I say that, besides the fact that i can't find a beer I like?...is that for the most part--as compared to when I was at ConU, I'm really frustrated by the invisibility of alternative/radical and intelligent politics on this campus---especially where it comes to, say, the Israel/Palestine question, but more generally as well--people seem to care more about football and frats here. It's kind of boring. Notwithstanding being told to "fuck off" and being called an asshole at every turn, I wish I could have more discussions like this. Maybe it's just that I haven't been able to make more time, but It's hard to find someone here who cares and is engaged in the ways that you are.
-p.
Oh, but I attacked your ideas on their own merits (Such as they are.) TOO. The insults are what makes it FUN. Man, oh man, so sorry that my "aggressive," working class style of argumentation about things that are important to me offends your delicate sensibilities.
I'd been doing anti-prison activism all along. What have you done to make sure this isn't just further neoliberal ascendancy? Besides, um, educate me.
No, you're right, it doesn't change the fact that people have been tortured. It means that LESS people will be tortured, and it will NOT continue to be mainstreamed in American politics, and MORE people taken on spurious charges will be released. And Guantanamo will be closed.
Paul,
You shouldn't assume that all US universities are of one piece. I've been at four. Of these, McGill was the second to least progressive, after the one I'm at now.
The most progressive was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There is a left movement there and was after 9/11. It was the first university in the US to have an anti-war teach-in. I was part of it, and we all got death threats. There is an infrastructure of meaningful activism in many parts of the South.
There isn't such an infrastructure where I am now in Pennsylvania. I have no idea how to enter the debate or start anything here because there's no infrastructure, and people don't do activism, and oh yeah, everyone is colorblind.
So, again, please don't generalize us either. And, seriously, your "compliment" there feels supremely patronizing.
*waves again at Terri, knowing she generalized about Canadians based on Montreal--and was wrong to do that*
Where *are* you in school exactly?
"LESS people will be tortured..And Guantanamo will be closed."
Fuck, I hope you're right. I don't believe you, yet--or I'm afraid they will close it and move it to Diego Garcia where NOBODY will know what's going on--but I hope you're right on that one...
as for my activism, from here, it's hard--I've been writing to Canadian MPs/Cabinet members and trying to urge them to deal with issues that I know a little bit about (Afghanistan, the cluster-munitions treaty)...not enough, i know--it was, frankly, a lot easier at ConU where there was a vibrant activist tradition/community. Poor excuse.
-p.
Sorry if I sounded condescending. Not like I called you the smartest kid in the room. That wasn't condescending at all.
And i wasn't trying to generalise about US universities, I was talking only about here.
Where am I? Ann Arbor. U of M. Go Blue. whatever---for all its reputation as a left bastion, the "people's Republic of Ann Arbor," it's just very, well, liberal. It's hard to find the kind of infrastructure you were talking about--Nader came to speak on Fridat, about 40 people showed up, at least a third of the ones I spoke to not students. there are tonnes of academic talks/conferences that I go to where radical ideas get bandied about, but that's sort of a preaching-to-the-choir thing with no real activist knock-off. The only Palestine/Israel event I've noticed was a talk on middle East gay activism--issues like the settlements and the wall are off the table (and given the ways in which Obama's position toward Israel has moved, that will probably continue to be the case...)
-p.
I gotta go to class, but briefly... Where do you Canadians GET your smug attitudes about beer? You're not Belgium, for fuck's sake. Oh Canada, land of Labatt Bleue.
I mean, minus a cultural tradition of superior beer-making, it ain't like we haven't *globalized* beer consumption? What *could* you get there on a regular basis that you can't get here other than Labatt Bleue and Leffe Brune (which is good, yes, and Belgian?).
To wit, from a person who isn't terribly knowledgeable about beers... Just a few very good ones (American and imported) off the top of my head that can be bought easily all over the US:
Newcastle
Brooklyn Brown Ale
Blue Moon (if you like that IPA crap)
Magic Hat brand stuff
everything from Flying Dog Brewery
Leffe Blonde (I can't find the Brune kind that I actually liked though...)
Swithwicks
Guinness
There are more, but I'm late to class...
Pretty much anything in the grocery store in the upscale grocery store section and not the Budweiser section. Jesus...
And even some of our crap beer is much more drinkable than that Labatt shit. Like, say, Yeungling, especially Yuengling Black and Tan. Or even some stuff from Sam Adams or Killians.
Gotta go too...
Guinness doesn't travel well. only to drink in Ireland. Tried a local ale last night that I liked (Two-hearted Ale, I think...).
take care.
-p.
and saying "Labatt Blue is representative of Canadian beer" is like saying Budweiser is representative of American beer.
From you I've come to expect better.
Peace.
-p.
I'm scared...
Should I be getting popcorn? I feel like I should be getting popcorn.
We need VIRTUAL popcorn!
I was going to get all motherly and order them to their rooms until they could behave in a civil manner towards each other ... but I really like popcorn.
On a more serious side: Martin Luther King was assassinated on my 17th birthday and that moment blew me out of my cosseted, privileged, upper-middle class, white life and into activism. I couldn't even imagine, at that moment, how anyone could kill such a great man. I learned.
Over the years I've exposed (and probably bored to death) my kids to the causes that I became educated in and took up. From ban the bomb (then U.S. cruise missiles test flights in northern Canada), the Viet Nam War (and all the following wars), ardent feminism and civil rights, Nelson Mandela and arpartheid, equality for gays and lesbians, etc. etc. etc.
Last night I and everyone I know were glued to the TV with tears in our eyes as President Obama took the stage. It was history in the making and the whole world knew it. No one is unaffected by how the U.S. conducts its internal and external affairs. To pretend that it is otherwise is to live in an alternate reality.
The American Ambassador up here couldn't believe how wrapped up in the election Canadians were. Here in Vancouver, there were election parties in homes, in bars, and at the U. When Obama was declared president, it was announced on the score board at the Canucks Hockey game and the audience arose with a roar for a standing ovation.
This is not a time for cynicism, but a time for hope. As one American said, in an interview on TV, this time she was voting FOR someone rather than choosing tbetween the least of two evils. Let's face it - how often do we have a really great choice?
I've never missed voting in any election as I feel strongly that it is my duty to educate myself on the issues and cast my vote. There are too many countries in the world where the idea of a free vote is a pipe dream.
You say you don't think that one person's vote counts? Don't try telling that to the Member of Parliament for South Vancouver. His seat was confirmed, after a recount, by 20 votes. You can be damn sure that his rival wished that just 21 people that supported her had dug themselves off the couch and actually got their fat asses out of their houses and voted.
I'm not naive enough to think that Obama is the savior of the U.S. but I think that he's an intelligent, calm, strong man with great consensus building skills. He's got a hell of a job taking over a country in the worst of times from one of the worst presidents in history. Give the man a break. It's not like he's taking over a prosperous country from Clinton.
Whew! I feel much better after all that. Pass the "real" popcorn please.
Cynthia
PS
If you've only been exposed to Quebec, you haven't been exposed to the rest of Canada. They are a very different experience. Two nations, one country. Very confusing.
I've got three degrees from universities in three different Canadian provinces. It was like the three bears of universities: one was small, one was medium-sized, and one was large. They were completely different experiences politically and in just about every other way. You can don't have to go to an American university to hate the experience or the people you're forced to share classes with.
Beer ... love it. It no longer loves me unfortunately. When I was younger I loved Blue. During my master's at the U of A, there was a beer strike in Alberta. This was a crisis of monumental proportions. The grad students' club had a great selection of beers from all over the world. So ... when we ran out of Canadian beer, we "lowered" our standards to American ones and surprised ourselves by actually finding a few we liked. (We didn't talk about that.) When we drank all the American beer, we moved on to the European and Asian beers. It was a truly educational experience worthy of the high standards of our U. Since then, I've had a much broader appreciation of beer. I highly recommend that kind of cross cultural experience to everyone.
I love Obama! Yes We Can!
Shayna: Yes, we DID, actually. :)
Terri's Mom: Thanks. That means a lot.
Also, just noting that, in case you think I implied that US politics don't affect the rest of the world, I was far from saying that.
And yes to multicultural beer consumption.
Oh, and... You all need to see this. Funniest thing EVER. Says this former adolescent Les Mis fangirl. *totally wanted to be Eponine*
Obama Headquarters on November 3, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ijYVyhnn0
FYI: Petition against Larry Summers as US Secretary of the Treasury. Those with US addresses would be eligible to sign.. Are you still reading, Paul?
http://fetchmemyaxe.blogspot.com/2008/11/petition-against-larry-summers-for.html
In fact, I didn't get *quite* through the weekend without succumbing to reality. That said... It's not all bad news. Among the list of 200 Bush initiatives to be overturned immediately are: the global gag rule, restrictions on stem cell research, and limitations on women's reproductive rights. Given that all of these things *do* mean something and a Dictatorship of the Proletariat doesn't actually seem where we're headed... I'm still glad he won.
Kristin--
yes, I'm still reading--but am also bogged down with a nasty paper to write, so any further replies may take a day or two. I will sign the petition and pass it around to my people. The Summers thing is almost as disappointing as seeing that Obama was surrounded by folks like Volker and Buffet (who was actually present by phone at the meeting that preceded the conference or something? I didn't quite catch it...). And to hear him going off on Iran for trying to be a nuclear state and being a state supporter of terrorism (If you didn't read Juan Cole's blog entry on this, check it out...)
And I DO NOT want this to turn into me saying "I told you so..." 'cause I know that none of this comes as a shock to you. And this is where I apologise--and ask a couple of the questions I should have.
You're right--crapping over Obama for his politics the day after the first black man gets elected president was a shitty thing to do. I am truly sorry. I never lost sight of the fact of his election was a huge deal and an incredible milestone. And more than that, perhaps, looking a bit beyond the race question, I am hopeful that the people that Obama attracted to the political process--in part because of the colour of his skin, but in greater part, I argue, because of his ability to articulate a vision for a better society--will stay with the system and hold the system and their candidate to their expectations. I still think there's a serious gap between the vision that Obama expressed and the realities of the politics he will bring to the table. But it was wrong of me to play politics on that day.
And now a question--what if it hadn't been Obama but say Condoleeza Rice or Allan Keyes or Clarence Thomas who won on Tuesday night after expressing their kind of view for what America should be? I understand the overlap between race and party politics, and I don't think race trumps politics (my turn to make an assumption about you based on little--you wouldn't have gotten behind a Thomas campaign. Or maybe I'm wrong....but I doubt it.) Would the political gap between John Lewis or Jessee Jackson and a Rice candidacy been too great to allow them to embrace a dyed-in-the-wool conservative as the first black President?
Take care...
-p.
Hey, thanks. I appreciate what you've said here. And I certainly didn't read it as an "I told you so."
I have to be brief (have a couple of papers that need to be done soon too). No, no, of course I wouldn't have gotten behind a far-right candidate who happened to be non-white. I'm not planning, for instance, to support Jindal in 2012 because he's Indian (He's also a right wing fundamentalist Christian). And I didn't support, say, Sarah Palin based on the fact that she has a vagina. But Obama is not a far-right candidate even if he leans neoliberal. Nor is he an ignorant, shoot-from-the-hip sort of politician who will invade a country in order to avenge his father. I am sure that there will be many disappointments, but I'm glad that I supported his candidacy. The difference is... He's a center-right person who is attentive and who can be reasoned with as opposed to a fascist-leaning git who thinks nothing of remaking the US as a proto-fascist state.
Honestly, though, having seen what happened to my country in the aftermath of 9/11... I'd have voted for any Democratic candidate who won the nomination. Even though I don't much care for the Clintons and was disgusted by their race-baiting during the primary, I'd have happily voted for her if she'd been the nominee. Because there is a difference. "Lesser of two evils" turns out to make substantive differences in people's material lives. Believe me, I tried to do reproductive rights education in Mozambique under the global gag rule.
That Obama is black does add meaning to it, though, for us Americans who have watched this history unfold. It's not transformative, and it certainly does not mean that racism is over in the United States (This was the consensus of some of my students last Friday. Did I mention that I don't like where *I* live now either?). But to suggest that it doesn't mean anything at all (which I see now that you did not mean to imply) is a little dismissive of the suffering and pain that led to this point in the first place.
It's also a bit of a button-pushing thing for me... Now in Pennsylvania--the most racist place I've ever lived--I hear unchecked sentiments about the "racist redneck white trash bigots" down South. In all fairness, I never heard anything quite that classist until I got here.
(Doh! I posted a response, and it didn't upload.)
I think ANY Democrat would have been an improvement. McCain would have been an improvement (he has brain cells.) And even a right-wing President would have elicited some celebrating. (People hate Thatcher, but it still says something when people feel they can elect a woman to PM.)
But I definitely think there are multiple elements which led to this Obama Moment. He's already this young, good looking, eloquent, charismatic guy... he's coming after 8 years of one of the FUCKIEST administrations of all time, whom people all over the world get SICK just thinking about him... you toss in the final insult: The Wall Street meltdown... and THEN you add the fact that this man is African-American. What you got there is a Love In! A Broadway musical!
I don't actually agree that *anyone* would've been better. I went around for years stating that any human would've been better than Bush--even Martha Stewart. But then... We got the specter of a Palin presidency. And see, she's against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. She wants to invade Russia. We'd have had a much more emboldened theocrat in office there than we had in Bush. And the fact that McCain may not have *believed* in all that in his heart of hearts doesn't mean much given that (1.) he may have died in office anyway and (2.) he moved to the far-right in order to appease the scariest elements of his base. So... When one follows that agenda, it doesn't actually matter whether one is a True Believer. It still affects *my* life in the same way. Whether or not your *heart* is in it when, say, you defend the Defense of Marriage Act still means... Well, fuck you, McCain, you wanted to undermine *my* civil rights by federal law. I would not have celebrated a McCain victory. I'd have seen it as a continuation of the exact same policies--if not worse.
And so... While I do agree that a center-right liberal Democrat (of the sort who always wins the nomination) is better than Bush, and better than McCain would've been, I don't think Any Person At All fits the bill. My voting standards, in other words, had not become *so* low as to be completely meaningless.
In the aftermath of the election, what's scaring me most is how close the country came to an eventual Palin presidency. The idea that someone with that kind of theocratic bent (and she's a True Believer) with that little common knowledge of how the world works (..and what a "country" is) can get so close to the Oval Office represents a massive failure on the part of the system.
For all I've said in my life about politics being designed to keep ordinary people away from power so that the system works to ensure elite interests, Palin's nomination tells me that 1. I was wrong and 2. I need to re-evaluate the issues I have with the idea of keeping "the people" away from power. If Sarah Palin is "the people," I'm all for keeping them as far away from political power as possible. Maybe re-instating the monarchy or something. I'd take enlightened dictatorship over someone who doesn't know what NAFTA is any day of the week.
On the other hand, watching Fox News trip all over themselves with indignity at sexist attacks on Palin has been a hoot. Like they didn't do Hillary in the same way a thousand times over.
Re. "anyone besides Bush" - yes, I was exaggerating. And lack of brain cells wasn't necessarily his problem anyway, since he surrounded himself with lots of smart people.
In the beginning I wasn't SUPER out for McCain. I don't mean I would EVER have been glad to see a Repub president, but if I had to choose between lesser evils I would choose McCain (sans Palin) over Bush. They share the same political space, but McCain strikes me as a deeper thinker. One of Bush's most maddening traits is that whole "I'm the Decider" thing--his inability to EVER change his mind about ANYTHING no matter what new evidence comes to light.
But once Palin was brought on board... o man. I can see why he did it, because I take it the GOP has been moving somewhat away from its original base which she personifies. (Though apparently her super-right-lady routine has alienated some Alaskans who used to like her for being more center-ee. Which makes me think she's more of a pragmatist than she appears to be. I mean, being super-right-lady was why she was hired by McCain, so again, pragmatic.)
But man. Man O man. I have no more words for that woman than she has for the question "What newspapers do you read?"
Post a Comment