It meant more to me than I can express to watch this inauguration with my sons in my embrace, all of us appreciating the historic importance of the occasion. It is for them, after all, and for their adorable counterparts Malia and Sasha, that President Obama and I must fix America.
Category: politics
Failure? Oh yeah: not an option
But if all the lionization today and the talk about heroism and miracles seems a little too breathless, I blame — who else? — George Bush. This impressive display of can-do professionalism comes in the final hours of an eight-year interregnum marked primarily by no-can-do incompetence.
You couldn’t ask for a more vivid way to throw the past eight years into sharper relief. America, we were always taught, was the land where an abundance of know-how and elbow grease could defeat the Axis, put a man on the moon, create a succession of world-changing technologies, and be a beacon of justice, progress, and courage for the whole human race. Yet for most of this past decade we’ve witnessed fear dominating our policymaking, the loss of a major American city through neglect, the destruction of our present and much of our future wealth (and the crippling of our very system for generating new wealth), stagnation in the sciences, official disregard for the law, our international alliances in tatters, an assortment of ecological crises growing more severe and numerous by the week, two disastrously mismanaged wars, an avalanche of doublespeak, and a much, much longer litany of abuses and failures than I can bear to put down here but which you can find enumerated in many essays and articles this week reflecting on the exit of the Bush administration. Bush used his farewell address to the nation to make petulant excuses for why things weren’t better under his watch.
That’s not America.
America is where a seasoned pro with a cool hand on the controls can set his disabled jumbo jet in the water and be met by dozens more seasoned pros with a plenitude of training and equipment to rescue passengers who were marshaled out of the sinking wreckage in an orderly fashion by an equally well-trained crew of professionals.
America is where the incoming president has lined up an all-star team of experts and achievers to help him govern, instead of what we’ve grown accustomed to: cronies, patrons, figureheads, and yes-men.
In short, America is where the people are competent. It’s been so long since that was the case, we’ve all forgotten what competence looks like, so that when we see it in action like we did yesterday in the Hudson River, it takes our breath away.
Think of how routinely our parents and grandparents got to see American competence in action, and how little this generation has seen of it. We’re right to laud Captain Sullenberger and the others as heroes, but we’d be wrong to place them on a pedestal. Theirs is the ordinary heroism we should expect from any American in a position of responsibility. If we’re to learn anything from the Bush administration, it’s never to let them lower our standards. No more setting the bar low. From now on, we demand competence.
An open letter to Paul Krugman
Congratulations on your well-earned Nobel prize.
I was heartened recently to read your column, “Life Without Bubbles” — not by the part where you write, “we’re in for months, perhaps even a year, of economic-hell,” which is just acknowledging the depressingly obvious, but by your assertion that “Late next year the economy should begin to stabilize, and I’m fairly optimistic about 2010.”
In dire need of some positive news, of something to look forward to, I seized on that “fairly optimistic” line as many others have done in the week since you published it, despite its vagueness, its throwaway nature, and the fact that it’s mostly beside the point of your article.
But then I thought, “Hmm. Suppose I were Paul Krugman, Nobel-prize winning economist and one of the best-known, most well-respected voices on current affairs. Suppose I knew the basic fact of economics that the public’s collective confidence in the economy is self-fulfilling: when people are optimistic about the future, by and large the economy improves; and even more certainly, when they’re pessimistic, it deteriorates. And now suppose that I, Paul Krugman, believed that things were going to get bad, really bad, for a long time — Weimar Germany bad. Would I tell it like it is — and knowing my own influence, be responsible for the resulting nosedive in public confidence and the economic ruin it would cause? Or would I feel a responsibility to say something positive even if I didn’t really believe it?”
So I’m having trouble knowing whether you’re sincere, or whether you’re secretly with Roger Ebert and just not able to express your sense of doom without hastening it.
Don’t bother replying. If you would write that you were really being sincere, I won’t know whether to believe that and we’ll be right back where we started. But if you would admit that you were being unsupportably rosy in an effort to delay the inevitable, that’s something I’d just rather you not say in public.
Whistling in the dark,
– Bob
Eat your vegetables
[This post is participating in The Cooler’s Politics and Movies blog-a-thon.]
I don’t know how my mom ever got me to watch the film 1776 in the first place. Probably it was by turning it on to watch it herself and relying on the hypnotic spell of the TV to pull me in. Ever since she did, I have spent a large part of my life trying — and failing, mostly — to persuade others to see it too. You see, the movie is almost impossible to describe without making it sound like “eat your vegetables” or “floss your teeth” or “do your homework” — something boring but essential because it’s good for you (shudder), even though it’s actually as entertaining a two hours as you’re ever likely to spend. Its educational value is just a nice little plus.
Here, I’ll show you what I mean:
1776 is the true story of how the Second Continental Congress, which at first opposed the idea of separating from Great Britain, eventually came to adopt the Declaration of Independence. And it’s a musical!
See? You couldn’t possibly want less to watch it now, could you? The fact that it’s a musical only seems to confirm that it’s a subject so dreary that it needs some added flavor, like oatmeal. Let me try again:
In 1776, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin persuade a reluctant Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, and a reluctant Congress to adopt it.
Ugh, that’s worse. Try this on for size:
Franklin.
Jefferson.
Adams.
They’re not just names in history books. They’re not just stodgy portraits, marble statues, or dry-as-dust lists of accomplishments. They were ordinary people like you and me. 1776 makes them accessible and shows how they achieved the impossible.
Oy. Clearly I’m trying too hard. Maybe if I concoct a modern high-impact movie trailer using scenes from the film and some dramatic narration…
NARRATOR
You know how it ends.
Close up on the new Declaration of
Independence as John Hancock adds his
distinctive signature.
HOPKINS
That's a pretty large signature,
Johnny.
HANCOCK
So Fat George in London can read
it without his glasses!
NARRATOR
But it almost didn't happen.
Congress in session.
RUTLEDGE
South Carolina will bury now and
forever your dream of
independence!
Congress in session.
ADAMS
They stopped our trade, seized our
ships, blockaded our ports, burned
our towns, and spilled our blood!
NARRATOR
In a world that doesn't know
freedom...
Congress in session.
DICKINSON
I have no objections at all to
being part of the greatest empire
on earth!
Congress in session.
RUTLEDGE
Black slavery is our peculiar
institution and a cherished way of
life.
NARRATOR
...a secret cabal...
Franklin indicates Jefferson, Adams, and
himself.
FRANKLIN
(singing)
A farmer, a lawyer, and a sage!
NARRATOR
...defies the mightiest army on
earth...
Congress in session.
THOMSON
(reading a dispatch)
"There can be no doubt that their
destination is New York for to
take and hold this city and the
Hudson Valley beyond would serve
to separate New England from the
other colonies permitting both
sections to be crushed in turn."
NARRATOR
...and an even greater enemy:
apathy...
Congress in session.
HANCOCK
(distractedly)
General Washington will continue
wording his dispatches as he sees
fit, and I'm sure we all pray that
he finds happier thoughts to
convey in the near --
(swats a fly)
-- future.
Outside Congress.
ADAMS
(singing to the heavens)
A second Flood, a simple famine,
Plagues of locusts everywhere
Or a cataclysmic earthquake
I'd accept with some despair
But no, you've sent us Congress!
Good God, sir, was that fair?
NARRATOR
...to attempt the impossible.
Franklin and Adams scheming outdoors.
FRANKLIN
No colony has ever broken from the
parent stem in the history of the
world!
NARRATOR
One man with a vision...
Congressional chamber, empty.
ADAMS
(singing)
I see fireworks!
I see the pageant and pomp and parade!
I hear the bells ringing out!
I hear the cannons roar!
I see Americans, all Americans
Free forevermore!
NARRATOR
...one man with a quill...
Jefferson appears at his window and lets
a paper flutter down to Adams and
Franklin in the street below.
ADAMS
Franklin, look! He's written
something -- he's done it!
(reads)
"Dear Mr. Adams: I am taking my
wife back to bed. Kindly go away.
Your obedient, T. Jefferson."
FRANKLIN
(admiringly)
What, again?!
NARRATOR
...and one man with the savvy to
see it through...
Congress in session.
FRANKLIN
We've spawned a new race here --
rougher, simpler, more violent,
more enterprising, and less
refined. We're a new nationality,
Mr. Dickinson. We require a new
nation.
NARRATOR
...must overcome incredible
odds...
Congress in session.
ADAMS
But it'll never be unanimous,
dammit!
DICKINSON
(pleased)
If you say so, Mr. Adams.
NARRATOR
...their personal prejudices...
Franklin and Adams scheming outdoors.
FRANKLIN
Nobody listens to you. You're
obnoxious and disliked.
Hopkins and Franklin milling about in
the Congressional chamber.
HOPKINS
You are without a doubt a rogue, a
rascal, a villain, a thief, a
scoundrel, and a mean, dirty,
stinking, sniveling, sneaking,
pimping, pocket-picking, thrice
double-damned, no good son of a
bitch.
Outside Congress.
JEFFERSON
(singing)
Oh, Mr. Adams, you are driving me
to homicide!
NARRATOR
...and their own weaknesses...
Adams and Jefferson in Jefferson's
apartment.
ADAMS
Do you mean to say it's not
finished?!
JEFFERSON
No, sir. I mean to say it's not
begun.
Adams and his wife.
ADAMS
I've always been dissatisfied, I
know that. But lately I find that
I reek of discontentment. It
fills my throat and floods my
brain.
Franklin and Adams in Congress.
FRANKLIN
What will posterity think we
were -- demigods?
NARRATOR
...to prove to the world...
Congress in session.
ADAMS
Certainly we require the aid of a
powerful nation like France or
Spain.
Congress in session.
DICKINSON
Mr. Jefferson, are you seriously
suggesting that we publish a paper
declaring to all the world that an
illegal rebellion is, in reality,
a legal one?
NARRATOR
...that all men...
Adams and Franklin in the Congressional
chamber.
FRANKLIN
Whether you like it or not, they
and the people they represent will
be a part of the new country you'd
hope to create! Either start
learning how to live with them or
pack up and go home!
NARRATOR
...are created equal.
Congress in session.
FRANKLIN
There's no backing out now. If we
don't hang together, we shall most
assuredly hang separately!
Laughter.
HANCOCK
Gentlemen, forgive me if I don't
join in the merriment, but if
we're arrested now, my name is
still the only one on the damn
thing!
Shell game
The United States of Bigotry — that’s us.
The nation was founded on bigotry: the Second Continental Congress refused to adopt Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776 until anti-slavery language was removed; and one war and eleven years later the Constitutional Convention declared a Negro to be three-fifths of a person for census-taking purposes — and for voting, zero-fifths. Our growing nation spent most of its first century internalizing these injustices. When after stealing entire lifetimes from one generation after another we finally got around to trying to fix the problem, it was too late: bigotry was in our DNA and couldn’t be purged without civil war and several more generations of discrimination and institutionalized racism.
Yesterday we elected to our highest office a man who, apart from being the best person for the job, is incidentally a member of that oppressed racial group, and it would appear we finally closed the door on that particular flavor of bigotry — though the job won’t be done until we nail a bunch of boards across that door, shove a chair under the doorknob, and stand permanently to one side with a raised baseball bat. However, in the very same instant we opened the door to a new kind of bigotry as three states outlawed gay marriage — and this after a presidential campaign in which one candidate scored political points by calling the other a Muslim. It’s as if bigotry can’t be ended, it can only be shifted from here to there like some sort of hateful shell game.
In California, where you might least expect a gay-marriage ban to succeed, where did its electoral support come from? In a stunning, epic, historic stroke of irony, exit polls show it came from the very demographic that was motivated by bigotry to turn out in greater numbers than ever before: black voters, who in their (justifiable) eagerness to overcome a legacy of discrimination passed the baton to a whole new class of victims.
Update (7 Nov 2008): My friend Bart points out that this exit polling result is being blown out of proportion to its reliability and may itself be the cause of further bigotry — perish the thought! See “War of the Words: Fear and Hate Behind Proposition 8” on Skepticblog.
Couldn’t I be a little less right all the time?
Preface: It’s remarkable how quickly, after all we’ve been through, it’s becoming irrelevant to bash George Bush. Of course some of this is by his own design: he’s sitting out the election to prevent harming McCain’s chances (any more than McCain and Palin are harming them themselves), and everyone’s bashing energy has shifted to more prominent targets. Very likely, once the election is over, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Bush as he gives the world whatever final fuck-you he has in store; but for now, I’ve got this blog post that I’ve been tinkering with for weeks, and if I want it to have any relevance at all I better wrap it up and push it out the door now, ready or not. Here ’tis.
Global finance in total meltdown. Major cities half obliterated. Peak oil (and peak helium, platinum, indium, zinc, copper, phosphorous…). Deteriorating soil quality in the heartland, and plummeting water tables — in fact, water shortages everywhere. Polar ice caps disappearing. Fishing stocks depleted. Our protective global magnetic field weakening. Vast methane clouds pouring out of their ancient undersea vaults. The U.S. Constitution in tatters.
Not that long ago, when my friends and I would get together and discuss our biggest concerns, they were along the lines of, “With the world so peaceful and prosperous, how will we keep our kids (when we have some) from growing up into spoiled trust-fund brats?” We were looking for solutions a little more subtle than worldwide strife and deprivation to teach them some humility, but I guess worldwide strife and deprivation will have to do. It worked for “the greatest generation,” after all. (Careful what you wish for!)
Honestly, it’s almost worth it to see everything turning to shit all at once, just to be able to say that, when I warned four years ago that the world couldn’t afford another four years of George Bush — that no scenario of devastation was too far-fetched — I was exactly right. It wasn’t hyperbole when I said George Bush could destroy the world. He now has.
Ahh.
Of course the destruction of the world could have taken many different forms. Here’s one way I’ve thought it might happen. Don’t you just know that this is exactly how Bush would respond to this kind of crisis? Imagine with me now…
EXT. GOLF COURSE - DAY
AIDE
Mr. President, Space Command has
detected an extrasolar object in a
geoconverging orbit, exhibiting
nonballistic maneuvering capability.
Here's the report: "Alien starship
will reach earth in three months."
BUSH
"Space Command"? We have one of
those? You're shitting me.
AIDE
Yes sir, but the report --
BUSH
OK, you've covered your ass. Now
watch this drive.
INT. UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
AUTO EXEC
Dammit, Dick, these new CAFE rules
are killing us. Building more
fuel-efficient cars adds almost a
full percent more to the cost of
manufacture!
ASSISTANT
But the public wants these cars and
will pay a premium --
AUTO EXEC
The public? Bah! You're fired!
ASSISTANT
But the free market --
AUTO EXEC
Get out! ...Sorry you had to see
that, Dick.
CHENEY
I know how it is with these kids who
"care." Say, don't I remember
reading something highly classified
about an alien starship...?
AUTO EXEC
A what?!
CHENEY
Oh it's probably nothing... except
it's just what the doctor ordered
for your fuel-efficiency problems.
AUTO EXEC
Thanks Dick, you're the best.
CHENEY
Yes. Yes I am. Fuck you.
INT. OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT
BUSH
My fellow Americans, an alien
spaceship is approaching earth. It
will arrive in two months. Top
scientists have analyzed it and
determined it is likely that its
intent is hostile. I urge the
Congress to release one point six
trillion dollars to fund my
planetary defense program. In the
meantime, this government is taking
all possible steps to ensure the
safety of all Americans. I have
suspended fuel-efficiency rules so
that automobile manufacturers can,
ah, include lead shielding in the
passenger cabins of all new
automobiles as protection against,
er, a possible alien death ray.
INT. PRESS ROOM - DAY
MILBANK
Yes, Harvey?
HARVEY
What is the president's response to
reports that MIT scientists have
deciphered transmissions from the
alien ship and determined its
mission is peaceful?
MILBANK
The president sees through that
transparent ruse. I direct your
attention to this report, released
yesterday by the NSA, pointing out
that Al Qaeda operatives received
the same transmissions.
HARVEY
Of course they did, everyone on
earth rec --
MILBANK
Next question -- Paul?
INT. U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - DAY
A REPUBLICAN
Madame Speaker, I move to end debate
and vote on the proposal to release
the one-point-six-trillion dollars
that our commander-in-chief requires
to defeat the Al Qaeda terror
spaceship.
PELOSI
Very well. If there be any opposed
to the proposal to fund the
president's Al Qaeda space-defense
program --
KUCINICH
Hang on, that spaceship has nothing
to do with Al --
PELOSI
Shut up, Kucinich.
(bangs gavel)
Without objection, the measure
passes.
INT. ALIEN STARSHIP
LIEUTENANT
Commander, sensors indicate a
massive missile launch from the
planet's surface.
COMMANDER
Target?
LIEUTENANT
Computing... sir, I don't
understand. The missiles are
heading straight for us, but --
CUT TO:
INT. WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
ADVISOR
(frantically)
--those missiles don't have enough
fuel! It's what I've been trying to
tell you! They're intercontinental
missiles, they can't even achieve
low earth orbit, let alone--
CUT TO:
INT. ALIEN STARSHIP
LIEUTENANT
--our geostationary orbit is far out
of range.
COMMANDER
(sighs)
I had hoped for a cultural exchange,
but I can see these people are both
warlike and stupid. Incinerate
planet.
LIEUTENANT
Aye sir... planet incinerated.
Let’s hope that if aliens do come — or whatever the next disaster is — it’s not in the next seventy-seven days.
Real reform now or nothing
Here’s what real-life heroism looks like. Watch it now.
If I caught someone trying to steal from my children I would pursue him to the ends of the earth. How is the current kleptocratic regime’s looting of my children’s country’s heritage any different? They must be stopped.
I was so impressed by Representative Kaptur’s speech that I created an ActBlue page for sending her thanks in the form of monetary contributions. I suggest a contribution of $20, which you would think nothing of spending in a week’s worth of trips to Starbucks, and what has Starbucks done lately to save the world from history’s most audacious thieves?
The Sue-S-of-A
I’m on a mailing list where, earlier today, a discussion arose about patents, the lawsuits they can spawn, and whether the great early American inventors had to contend with anything like today’s legal environment. One participant made an offhanded comment about “200 years ago, before society became so litigious,” and so I emerged from the woodwork to write the following.
Oh yay, someone triggered one of my favorite rants.
Though it’s common to hear people say so, it’s not true that our society is qualitatively more litigious now than it was in some halcyon past. Americans have been suing the pants off each other since even before we were Americans. A notable feature of colonial America was the litigiousness of its people compared to their British counterparts. (Indeed, compared to all the rest of Christendom.) And though it’s easy reflexively to decry this aspect of American society, I would like to persuade you that this is actually the very root, or at least a reflection, of American greatness.
What does it mean for a citizenry to be litigious? Does it mean that they have more grievances against one another than elsewhere? Almost certainly not; neighbors have had the same complaints about each other throughout recorded history. Does it mean they’re more vindictive toward one another? More spiteful?
No. It means that when disputes arise, even the lowliest commoner has such faith in the law and such equal access to it that he readily turns to the courts for redress. Not to individual reprisal. Not to generational vendettas. Not to local strongmen. The law. In America the courts are and always have been accessible to everyone who wishes to bring business before them. This was not true in 18th-century England and is still more true in America than in most other places. So when Americans disagree and can’t settle the difference themselves, they sue each other, and they trust the justice that’s dispensed, and they abide by it, and it’s the very height of civilization to do so.
Obviously it’s better when people can work things out themselves, but they can’t always. What better next step is there (when the issue is not frivolous) than to sue? Why must there be such a strong negative connotation attached to it? It’s your right to sue that keeps honest those people who might otherwise have inordinate power over you: your doctor, your accountant, the makers of your car, of your food, the executives of companies in which you own shares, etc.
We’ve been convinced to equate the right to sue with frivolous, wasteful lawsuits that line the pockets of greedy litigators. It’s only because of that association that we think nothing of routinely waiving that right. It is now ubiquitous for corporations to insist on binding-arbitration clauses in contracts with individuals who are all but powerless to negotiate them away. This is as un-American a practice as I can imagine and I urge everyone to agitate against it.
You are not doing enough to save the world
When John McCain and Sarah Palin win the election and then finish off the destruction of the planet that Bush and Cheney began, will you be able to say that you did everything you could to stop it? Did you give the maximum allowed by law to the Obama campaign? Did you register voters? Did you work the phones or knock on doors canvassing for votes? Did you change any minds? Or were you too busy shopping and watching TV? Was it a good movie? One where the hero saves the world and you thought, “Wow, if only I were cool enough to save the world”?
The worst form of government except for all those other forms
When Barack Obama becomes President of the United States — there’s no point saying “if,” because if he loses, then what John McCain will be president of won’t really be the United States any longer — things will start to get better. Almost certainly not fast enough, and some things will have to get worse before they get better, but at least things will start to get better.
However, nothing can fix the fact that in 2000, the American people did not revolt when the Supreme Court halted a legal recount and handed the presidency to George Bush on the flimsiest of pretenses. Nothing will change the knowledge that in 2004, after things had already gotten terrible, America re-elected Bush because they were persuaded by repeated insinuation that John Kerry was a flip-flopping coward from France. And there’s no erasing the fact that Obama is running almost neck-and-neck with a lying, hateful, ill-informed, septuagenarian, unhealthy, misogynist warmonger and his lying, vindictive, ill-informed, unpatriotic, thieving, scandal-plagued running mate.
America, WTF? Yes, we’ve all imagined our own versions of the strangely familiar feel-good comedy that ensues when McCain croaks and Sarah Palin has to step into the Oval Office to become the sassy, brassy commander-and-working-mom-in-chief. She’ll give the world some tough love and a dose of what it really needs, right?
Wrong. If you really want to see that, that’s what we have Hollywood for. The election is about people’s lives. It’s about the fucking qualifications.