Decrepit Old Fool

Sometimes I wonder if Anne Coulter is secretly working for the Democrats, as when she speculates that Barack Obama might be a “Manchurian Candidate”.  Keith Olberman asks… “Annie!  You ever seen the Manchurian Candidate, the classic original with Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey?  The Manchurian Candidate is about an American war hero, ex-POW, who while he’s in captivity, gets brainwashed by the Chinese…”

Just in case you’re wondering how long the Republicans have been using the same script…

“…Did the Democrats, asked Republicans, intend to give Puerto Rico back to Spain?  Or forget that American lives had been lost in the Philippines?  Weren’t Democratic anti-imperialists like Stevenson, as President McKinley asked, similar “to guerrillas who shoot at American soldiers?”

Sensitive to the concentration of power that accompanied war, Stevenson informed Bryan that imperialism must remain the central issue of the campaign.  His constant subject, after his brief complaints about high tariffs, “which secure unjust advantages for the few”, remained “the greedy spirit of commercialism which has embroiled our government in an unnecessary war, sacrificed valuable lives and placed the American Republic in deadly antagonism to our former allies in their effort to secure their liberties.  For the first time in our history we are boldly confronted with the question of imperialism – the spirit of empire.”

Jean H. Baker, The Stevensons, W.W. Norton & Company, p. 176, on the 1900 presidential race between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan

Iraq Veterans Against The War visited our campus today with a display of boots and shoes.  Lined up in neat rows like tombstones, decorated with a name and in some cases a photo or a medal, each pair of boots belonged to an Illinois soldier who didn’t make it home.  There were also circles of shoes, from Iraqi civilians of all ages.  Veterans were on hand to reflect on the war.

What could I say that is not said by a little pair of fuzzy booties that belonged to a child?  Or by a pair of boots that belonged to a soldier, decorated with his high school graduation picture?  It is bad enough when there is an arguable purpose to it all, but this war is for nothing.  It is a personal vendetta of our codpiece-in-chief.

Mark Twain said; “History does not repeat itself.  But it rhymes.”

Boots in a row

Civilian shoes

Civilian shoes

Civilian shoes

Overview; boots in foreground, civilian shoes in background

Boots

Boots

Civic Boosterism (CB) is a pernicious disease that afflicts city councils and mayors in mid-sized cities.  Call it “Chicago Envy” if you like.  In its early stages it’s fairly harmless or even beneficial; hanging potted plants from signposts downtown, commissioning artists to do murals on the side of buildings, and promoting rehabilitation of 1800’s buildings.

Late-stage CB is another matter.  The victims begin to suffer delusions of grandeur and they hear voices… of highly-paid consultants.  “Growth!” whispers the consultant.  “If you’re not growing, you’re dying!”  (Precisely the philosophy of a cancer cell, as Edward Abbey famously observed.)

“Oh no”, thinks the council person or mayor.  “I don’t want to die!  But the consultant says; “For just a medium-sized wad of taxpayer’s money, I can save you.  I can tell you how to grow…”

Our own city council of Normal, IL fell victim to this disorder some years ago when it decided to provide tax-relief subsidy for an “Outlet Mall” to the West of town.  It was going to be a tourist destination!  It was going to increase the tax base!  We should have done this years ago!

It’s almost completely empty, a vast white elephant wrapped around a gigantic empty parking lot in what used to be a productive corn field.  It reminds me of the “Monorail!” episode of The Simpsons

But apparently CB suppresses the learning centers of the brain.  Our twin city of Bloomington, IL decided they’d give end-stage CB a try and build a $30m arena.  Their consultants said it would revitalize the downtown!  It would turn $2m profit a year right from the start!  Why didn’t we do this years ago!?

Never mind that the arena in nearby Peoria took 20 years to turn its first profit, and as soon as it did the city sunk another $55m into it.

Bloomington voters smelled a rat and forced a referendum, in which they answered with a resounding “NO”.  But the mayor was determined to leave a legacy and the thing was built anyway, right downtown.

Today’s headline in the print edition of the Bloomington Pantagraph reads: Is it worth the price of admission? Long-term profitability of arena still unclear.  The headline pretty much sums up the article that follows.  Of course the profitability of the arena was never unclear to the voters.

OK, so here’s my modest proposal:  big-ticket civic projects must include punishment clauses for the consultants and the city council and mayor who voted for them if it doesn’t turn out like they said.  And by “punishment” I don’t mean censure.  I mean the consultant is publically flogged, and the local pols who voted for it must agree to march naked in a parade in which townspeople throw eggs and tomatos at them.

Hey, if you’re so damn sure this will work…

Of course, my own town of Normal is currently building a hotel and convention center right downtown.  The cost is murky – what’s a subsidy, what’s just urban repair, but it’s in the tens of millions of dollars.  That’s the next chapter in our story.

When “egghead” Adlai Stevenson was running for president, one of his supporters gushed; “Sir, every thinking person in America will be voting for you!”  Stevenson replied; “Thank you, maam, but it won’t be enough.  We need a majority.”

There’s an urban legend that Dwight Eisenhower was shocked to learn that fully half of US school children are of below-average intelligence.  He wanted immediate action to correct the situation.

So it’s suddenly a big deal if Barack Obama says;

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” he said.

“And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he added.

FOX News about had a giant spontaneous newsgasm over that one.  They spent the whole afternoon (and will probably spend the next several days) calling Obama an elitist.  John ‘flip-flopper’ McCain said that Obama was “out of touch with average Americans.”  (Excuse me, isn’t ‘average’ pretty much an analogue of ‘typical’ as in “typical American?”  Just asking.)

And surely the funniest comment of the day was made by Hillary Clinton, who said voters did not “need a president who looks down on them.” Sorry, I should have warned you to turn down the gain on your irony meter there. 

Remember when Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire” and everybody freaked out, but Andy Rooney (no fan of Reagan’s) said; “Would anybody care to argue that the Soviet Union is NOT an evil empire?”

Well, would anybody care to argue that a lot of rural American voters are NOT bitter about the sustained loss of their good jobs?  Or that some of them aren’t clinging to their guns as if Armageddon were right around the corner?  Or that many voters aren’t trying to elect a right-wing mega-church version of Jesus Christ into the White House?  Anybody at all?  Bueller? 

OK, so Obama was telling the truth.  No wonder FOX news is so upset.

We have had just about enough of of a president who’s an “average guy”, who’s “in touch with the average American” (whatever that is). I want someone who’s in touch with other cultures too.  Someone in touch with inner-city poverty.  Someone who’s in touch with race issues in a way no other president ever has been.  I want someone who knows something about Muslims. Someone with a clue about science. Someone who knows our frakking constitution forwards and backwards.  Someone with the guts to call stupidity by its real name.  I want someone with some pretty damn elite abilities for our next president.  If he doesn’t watch NASCAR, I can live with that.

I’ve heard Obama tell automakers to quit whining and get competitive.  He’s told school kids that it’s nice they graduated 8th grade and all, but tomorrow’s another school day and they better study even harder.  I’ve heard him keep a level head debating an absolute whackjob, Alan Keyes.  He told white Americans not to expect patriotic hymns from older blacks, but then he turned around and told the black community not to expect white Americans to be happy about affirmative action.  That’s a person with some serious knuckles. 

Lots of people seem to vote on “Hey!  He didn’t suck up to me enough!” or “He didn’t promise me enough!” or “He said something that could be interpreted as not complimentary to my demographic group!”  Well tough.  You know the biggest demographic group that needs to get a frakking clue?  Americans.  And the clue we need to get is, that we’re not the world’s savior; we’ve got a log in our own eye.  We’ve lost the moral high ground, the esteem of many of our allies, the value of the dollar, and any chance of a head start on climate change.  It’s time to stop whining and start fixing. 

(Cross-posted to Stupid Evil Bastard)

I don’t know what could be funnier than watching FOX News rooting for Hillary because they’re in Full Panic Mode over Obama.  They think McCain has a chance against Hillary and they could be right.  They’re even pushing the idea of an Obama/Hillary ticket.  Anything to get Hillary on the “Democrat party” ticket.

In other news, the US is becoming slightly more popular overseas.  I’m gonna take a wild guess that the success of the Obama campaign has a lot to do with that.  ‘Cause that’s the only thing that’s different lately; Bush is still a sanctimonious jerk, still taking no serious action on carbon emissions, still stuck in a pointless war, and we’re overrun with religious zealots.  But we have a man equipped with a working moral compass running for president and making some headway at it.  That’s got to help.  Or maybe it’s because we’re starting to forgive France for being too stupid to go along with our Big Iraqi Adventure.

Well don’t get too excited; our overseas fan club has “surged” all the way from 31% to 35%.

Recently I’ve been wanting to ask people driving giant SUV’s, “What is it exactly that you love so much about Saudi Arabia?”  But it’s just a passing thought.

Then today I got one of Kent Ashcraft’s infamous emails.  You may remember him from the Dear Dr. Laura bit of doggerel where he asks how to apply the Leviticus to his gay neighbors.  This time, he’s on about ‘Patriotism”, and in an election year, it seems like a fit topic.

“This much is certain: We Americans owe our existence as a nation to the American patriots who fought in the Revolutionary War. As a result of that debt, we generally consider patriotism to be one of the greater virtues people can possess. In reality, it’s somewhat more complex than that.

First of all, the patriots of the American Revolution were not fighting in support of their country, which at the time was England. They were fighting against their country for the right to break away and establish a new one. It’s only in retrospect that we view them as loyal to the (present) fatherland; in reality they were the opposite of loyal…

Oh noes!!! How can you say that about our founding fathers?!!  Rebels against their country, with the help of France no less ?!!!

“…We admire them for their commitment to their cause, as well we should. But we shouldn’t confuse that commitment with the unthinking advocacy of one’s country of birth. Your country is like your family; the natural tendency is to love it unconditionally, because it’s yours. That’s not something we have to work at – it’s just there. Even if your family (or country) is dysfunctional or does not deserve your love, chances are you will love it anyway. Doing what comes naturally cannot be considered a virtue.

Is it a virtue to be proud of one’s country? Even less so, in my opinion. In classical literature Pride is described as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and even if we don’t go quite that far, I think we can agree that pride is appropriate only for our own accomplishments. The appropriate emotion in response to the accomplishments of others, if they have given us a better life, is gratitude, not pride. I was given my American citizenship at birth – I didn’t earn it. I’m proud of my best marathon time (2:47:29 just to brag), but I’m not proud to be an American. I’m fortunate to be an American.

What we often call patriotism today would be more accurately termed nationalism. It’s the blind obedience to national authorities that characterized German and Japanese citizens in the 1930s and ‘40s. Patrick Henry and Paul Revere would not have fit well into those societies, and I’m proud to say I would not have either. In summary, I don’t wear an American flag lapel pin, but I do love my country, in spite of its flaws, for whatever that’s worth.”
- Kent Ashcraft

Can we fit that into a campaign slogan?  How about into a song by Randy Newman?

Insights into round numbers and the changing shape of holes in families and society:

“…these numbers, round or otherwise are nonsense. They’re worse than meaningless. They allow us to care about this war on cue for some fraction of a news cycle. But by the time we’ve gone to the fridge, grabbed a beer, and slapped our fat asses back down on the sofa, things have moved on to the story of the drug-addled starlet’s custody fight with her 5th ex-husband. In six or seven months, when the number’s climbed to another round increment, the press will spare a few more minutes of air time and remind us to care again briefly. Between now and then, most of the deaths will be back below the fold on page A-39…”
- Zoologist Mike Dunford, Numbers and Tragedies, Statistics and Losses

There’s a lot more – go read!  Mike’s wife, a doctor, has been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Update links:

• PZ Myers gets over himself and mourns 300 million dead

• Dick “other priorities” Cheney says “Hey, they volunteered!” and allows how “the president carries the biggest burden, obviously.”
• Which leads ***Dave to haul out some sympathy for our suffering president in The Bush Man’s Burden

President Bush, speaking by video conference to military and civilian workers in Afghanistan:

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks,” Bush said.

Tip ‘o the hat to Terry

There’s a certain quality to some people.  The first time I heard Jesse Jackson speak, I was wishing he’d shut up before he got to his third sentence, and he hadn’t even finished thanking the people who organized the event.

But Barack Obama is at the other end of that scale.  I’ve been following his career since Paul Simon (the Illinois senator, not the pop singer) sent a letter of support for him. I saw him maneuver through the Illinois legislature without getting devoured by that machine. I saw his cool handling of that raving maniac, Alan Keyes.  I’ve seen him say to crowds exactly what they did not want to hear, while deftly finding the thread of higher nature in his audience.  He doesn’t rattle easily, Barack Obama, and when he takes the oath of office, he’ll actually know what he’s talking about when he pledges to “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  He will never dismiss our constitution as “just a .. piece of paper.”

A couple weeks ago his pastor said some inflammatory things about race.  Now this should hardly be news; Republican candidates routinely have long relationships with preachers who believe certifiably nutty and destructive things, while Wright’s remarks contain more than a grain of uncomfortable truth.  But those few seconds of video have been reified from the life of a preacher we don’t even know, and trumpeted 24 hours a day on cable news and right-wing blogs as if they were the secret agenda of Obama himself.

On Tuesday Obama delivered his famous speech on race.  For too long race has just been a card one could play for political gain, a lever to pry out reason from discussion leaving only divisive emotions, a minefield across which white Americans, no matter how good their intentions, could see relationships explode from the slightest misstep.  Barack was having none of that; he spoke about race with stunning completeness and painful honesty, saying for the first time things I have wanted to hear someone say but until now nobody had the guts or the credibility.

I cannot improve on Jon Stewart’s perfect description: “At 11:00 am on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to the American people about race, as though they were adults”.

Notes:

• Campaign site: Full text of speech

• Chicago Tribune: The Obama I know: “Terrific listener goes wherever reason takes him”.  Outstanding editorial from one of Obama’s former colleagues at the University of Chicago Law School
• Joe Irvin has insightful commentary about Obama and the voter around the speech
• The discussion at Stupid Evil Bastard is, as always, not to be missed
• Winston at Nobody Asked says;
  

  …He eloquently and effectively delivers with the same style as Dr. Martin Luther King, a passionate style that captivates an audience with deliberate, methodical rhythm and repetition. The effect is indeed powerful and convincing. Not all leaders have this ability, but all truly great leaders are masters of oratory. They use their talents to persuade and motivate people to dream, to hope, to achieve. Barack Obama is such a leader…