Voting for Obama as the First Act in a Long Struggle

If there's any issue on which there's near-consensus among Obama's and younger generations, it's that the rights and privileges of citizenship are meaningless unless they are claimed by the citizens. American political discourse (both local and national) has, since the so-called "Reagan revolution," consisted in the main of the systematic instrumentalization of political power to the designs of economic power. This instrumentalization has occurred on every front imaginable: infrastructural, ideological, cultural and psychological. To vote for Barack Obama today is to acknowledge the necessity of reclaiming this political process for the people. It is at once an act of enormous consequence and an act whose promise will only be fulfilled if (and to the extent that) we mean what we're saying.

Barack & Michelle voted this morning in their & my neighborhood of Hyde Park, Chicago.

If Obama wins the presidency today, it represents the declared reclamation of the ownership of the political process on the part of the nation's citizens. We -- the citizens -- declare our intention to reclaim our citizenship. Simple as that. It's a cause for celebration, and I will breathe a sigh of relief if and when Obama gives his victory speech tonight in Chicago's Grant Park.

It's important for us to remember what this declaration signifies. It doesn't mean that we've bequeathed the power to invent and pursue policy to a unilateral Obama Plan. It also doesn't mean that the wreckage that has been made of our infrastructure and political process is going to be swept away all in one fell....erm....swoop. Most importantly: it doesn't mean that we ourselves no longer bear the scars of a broken meritocratic, Cold War, my-country-right-or-wrong ideal. Our subconscious is littered with the remnants and curios of the past 30 and 50 years of narrow ideological bullshit. Embedded in our very conceptions of self are innumerable contradictions that will at times be painful and at times liberating to work at resolving.

The first step is to recognize it for what it is: to overcome the fear of seeing the shambles for what is. The second step is to declare our intention to repair what's broken.

That's what your vote for Obama means. It's no small thing, but neither is it an end in itself.

Go vote. Paddy, I'm talking to you.

Trouble The Water: go see it.

I kept forgetting to mention this. If you've not seen it, I recommend highly this feature-length documentary, which currently enjoys some form of limited theatrical release.

Trouble The Water gives us a glimpse into the experience of residents of New Orleans' poorest neighborhoods, ignored by the city's meager evacuation efforts -- an 'evacuation' that provided no transportation for the benefit of residents who lacked access to an automobile. These residents were abandoned to endure Hurricane Katrina from the confines of their homes, located in the neighborhoods that were most vulnerable to the flooding that occurred as a consequence of the breach of the infamous nearby levies.

The protagonist of this film is the New Orleans rap artist Kimberly Roberts whose home-video footage comprises some of the most candid and shocking sequences of the film. She and her friends and family sit huddled in their attic for hour upon hour. Footage captured by Roberts from her attic window reveals common street-signs that are almost entirely submerged by the flood waters. She and the other residents of her neighborhood watch as the water-line continues to rise; many fellow residents -- including elderly people -- are trapped in the crevices of their attics, with no way of freeing themselves. Others are left to perish of starvation.

Even after the rain ceases, no government agency, no rescue operation is anywhere to be found. Those confined to the Roberts home are lucky to spot a stray row-boat passing by -- two and a half stories above where the street would normally be. Using this boat, Roberts's husband Scott, along with others, mounts a couple of heroic rescues of nearby residents. Still: no police, no coast guard, no national guard, no FEMA. And yet, "Brownie" -- we are reminded -- is said to have done "a heck of a job."

The extraordinary story continues, following Kimberly and Scott Roberts as they escape to some semblance of safety, only to contend with racism, bureaucracy, long-lines, paperwork and contempt. Through it all, Kimberly Roberts remains at once unflinching in her willingness to speak truth to power, and unyielding in her optimism. She's an absolutely amazing woman.

If you're not one for righteous indignation, this might not be the movie you'll most enjoy seeing, but you should see it anyway. A human being cannot help but get mad at what he sees, as the Roberts and their friends are forced to confront hypocrisy and injustice at every turn, in the fight for their very survival. There are really only a couple of moments at which the film becomes a little preachy. But I think it more than earns the right to be that way a couple of times. Apart from these miniscule, arguable exceptions, Trouble The Water allows its subjects and their circumstances to speak for themselves.

In conclusion (sorry...I've always wanted to write a final paragraph that begins "In conclusion..."), go see Trouble The Water if and when it appears at a cinema near you, and tell your friends to do the same.

Obama kicked ass last night and everybody knows it.

I wrote the following paragraphs as a comment on a blog called Media Nation, in which I agreed with an article the blogger had written that the media -- particularly in Washington -- have given too much credit to McCain's performance in last night's presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi, and it's not a surprise that polls are now showing that the public -- particularly undecided voters -- see it the same way I do. What was I doing, you ask, commenting on somebody's blog? My answer is that I've become a complete and utter dork, and it's this election business that done me in.

Those who credit McCain with continually "putting Obama on the defensive" miss the point.

The pundit caste has made a cliche of this notion of "putting the other guy on the defensive." The problem with cliches, of course, is that people forget what they mean. Some of the commentary on last night's debate exemplifies this tendency. This tactic means nothing by virtue of its deployment per se, but rather, as a means by which to gain certain advantages. If those advantages don't accrue to you, then putting the other guy on the defensive means nothing.

McCain's attacks/challenges to Obama's credibility were, one after another, disposed of quickly and tidily by Obama. Obama appeared calm the entire time, while McCain looked at all times to be straining to come up with novel forms of slander. Oftentimes, McCain's soliloquies would stray far off the topic, and he appeared to be hogging microphone time, while Obama patiently waited, exchanging polite glances with Lehrer.

Lastly: while Obama expressed, at appropriate times, his agreement with one or another premise of McCain's answers, while interjecting his differences, McCain appeared at all times to be nervously guarding his territory against ANY possibility that Obama could utter something credible. This had the effect of making Obama appear all the more 'presidential', calm and reasonable. Obama was careful to mitigate McCain's rhetorical excesses and over-the-top insinuations with fair-minded, calm rebuttals.

The overall effect, in other words, is that McCain's assiduousness in striving to "play offense" MADE HIM LOOK DEFENSIVE. Like an impetuous child, throwing a tantrum. The overly nasty and petty nature of many of McCain's attacks became in and of themselves REAFFIRMATIONS of Obama's credibility, savvy and strength of judgment and character.

Think of it this way: poor McCain, in patting himself on his back for his own 'maverickness' and even his own service to his country, his endless repetitions, his inability EVER to cede ground to his opponent, looked like someone who, nervously and twitchily, is scared to death that you're not going to believe him, and even that HE's worried about losing the ability to believe HIMSELF.

I think the media completely missed most of what matters about the debate; they are far too generous in their appraisal of McCain's performance.

In my view, the debate was nothing short of a triumph for Obama. He looked like a responsible adult. McCain looked like an inflexible old coot. I can't imagine a single swing-voter being swayed by McCain's performance. Obama, on the other hand, showed his stuff. He came across as competent, credible and--perhaps most importantly--honest.

Thomas Frank on how and why the Republican Party has spent the last 30 years dismantling the country's public infrastructure.

Author and journalist Thomas Frank, speaking recently in Portland, Oregon. He discusses his latest book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule for about half an hour, after which he takes audience questions.

Frank really hits his stride in this video, by which I mean he delivers a healthy and satisfying dose of eloquent and morally indignant populism. Exactly what I needed to get me through another day of Bailout-talk, with all of the lying, insulting, hypocritical, patronizing cant from Bush, Paulson and Bernanke. Enjoy:

In which I, having set out to enthuse about a new blog on the privatization of Chicago's public infrastructure, instead decry neoliberalism generally.

The following quotation is taken from the initial post of a certain Tom Tresser, whose blog is called Connecting The Dots In Chicago, which is about the privatization of public infrastructure. I am very happy to see that such a blog exists, and, although I as of yet know nothing about Tom Tresser except his initial post, I think I like his politics a lot. Tresser's blog is to be found on The Huffington Post's new Chicago-specific Web site:

[W]hat is the real state of our city finances? Is this trend toward self-financing and privatization really in the best interest of the people? Is Chicago so poor that it has to sell the Skyway and is contemplating selling Midway Airport? Is the Board of Education so strapped that parents all over the city tax themselves through never-ending fundraising in order to add staff, purchase computers and basic supplies for our public schools? Is the Park District so needy that it demands citizens to raise or find two thirds of the funding for local park improvements? Is the city so needy that it is entering into partnerships with anyone with cash or clout that strip the public out of "public assets[?]"

It's such a relief to witness the emergence of efforts like Tresser's to expose in digestible terms and with local/familiar points of reference the privatization of public assets, neoliberal politics, sleazy oligarchic alliances between government and big business.

It's my hope that the contributions of hard-working, clear-thinking and morally/ethically engaged people like Tresser, there will result an increased public consciousness of and capacity to think critically about:

1. the accumulation of facts on the ground of ongoing cynical and corrupt instances of the selling-off of public infrastructure -- which for apparently structural or market-dictated reasons don't seem to be covered under the beats of any mainstream or even formally 'public' news media I can think of,
   
2. and the ways in which the past 30 years of Republican neoliberal governance and strong-arm politics -- capitalizing on and perpetuating the latent fears of the so-called 'middle-class' -- has distorted in pernicious ways the very rhetoric that we use on a day-to-day basis to refer to a host of things economic, political and even personal. Namely, the 'logic of the marketplace' -- and its corollary, the 'our rights as consumers' -- has crept into sectors of society and human life in which it simply should have no place.

To elaborate on #2: a theory that I've seen floated (I think in an article in Slate, if memory serves, commenting upon the recent Wall Street Journal piece "Why no outrage?" by James Grant) about the lack of 'outrage' with respect to recent instances of the federal government doling out what in essence are welfare checks to corporations and wealthy investors. The author in Slate theorized that it has precisely to do with this 30 years of ideological work conducted by the GOP slogan-machine on behalf of the economic Right, including, obviously, corporate interests.

The result of this conditioning is that many of we Americans who probably lack completely either comprehension or even conscious allegiance to this neoliberal ideological agenda (and corporate profit-making agenda) associate ANY public ownership of infrastructure, no matter how big or how small, with inefficiency, ineptitude, and a kind of decline in economic dynamism, and thereby, an overall decline in the efficacy of the American project, which is, after all, built upon things like the vitality and industriousness of the atomized, private individual, acting in his own interests(!).

This GOP strategy by which public rhetoric and sentiment is conditioned against public infrastructure is, it seems to me, choc-full of weaknesses. One of the reasons we are seeing its stranglehold over the populace – and its stranglehold is greatest, let’s face it, over the ‘middle class’, broadly construed, and the ‘baby boomers’, narrowly construed – begin to unravel is because the sexy illusion that declares the privatization of all aspects of ownership and governance to be in everyone’s best interest can only sustain itself for as long as, in the main, economic prosperity continues to appear to march forward. In other words: the illusion can sustain itself only for as long as people keep their jobs and make pay that they’re happy with. The illusion is unlikely to fracture on the basis of our cognizance of other people’s declining economic status and opportunities. We have too many illusions to obscure us from that cognizance.

But, once our individual leg up begins to disappear, it becomes more and more difficult to avoid recognizing that something’s up. Private interest starts to seem in fact to stand in POSITIVE relation to public interest (a novel idea, that!). When private citizens can no longer afford to buy enough privately distributed gasoline from the privately owned gas station to drive to work everyday in their private cars, it becomes increasingly apparent that – to our shock – that the lower our private economic means, the more that the curbing of public ownership amounts to the curbing of our ability to rely on the ownership of anything at all! Without that ownership – be it public or private – we lack access to amenities and services. And without access to amenities and services, we lack the capacity to improve our quality of life.

Especially in the short-term, however, plenty of us who have been brainwashed by the GOP’s neoliberal agenda will continue to hold onto the dream, even as the dream starts to seem like more and more of a nightmare. When we lose our job, we will blame ourselves for not being hard-working enough. When gas prices become too high for us to afford, we will redirect our resentment and anger, and aim it squarely at people who look and speak differently than we do.

After all, it’s no secret that the GOP machine currently and since Richard 'Tricky Dick' Nixon at least, capitalizes upon the middle class’s resentment of that which is unfamiliar, and preys upon the middle class’s self-pity at the notion of having to think for so much as a moment about the interests of those who look different and live differently than it does. In other words, the resentment of the haves toward the have nots. A resentment revolving around such intangibles as fear, paranoia, historical but usually sublimated racism, and – of course – the myth of American meritocracy, with its built-in relief from having to feel guilty about how much more you have than other people. When you think about it, the fact that the GOP since Nixon was able to capitalize and perpetuate a resentment of the poor than flows from the top to bottom of the economic ladder – despite how clearly counterintuitive this would appear – is quite astonishing!

So, now, as it becomes increasingly difficult for Joe Suburb, who’d construed himself previously to be a have to ignore the fact that on a day-to-day basis, he’s more and more of a have not, the GOP will perhaps discover an ideological task for itself that on paper should be much easier than the one it’s been up to for the past 30 years. All the GOP has to do is reorganize its ideological energies around the notion that outside forces, particularly in the Middle East – tapping in, naturally to existing but mostly sublimated racism, fear and anti-Arab sentiment – is responsible for having taken the opportunities of the American middle class away! Indeed, the Right has already been at it, laying the groundwork not only for the neoconservative idea of attacking Iran, but I would argue, for the neoliberal idea that Middle Eastern oil-rich nations are, as it were, 'infringing upon the American, free-market-derived right' to buy and sell oil/gasoline at a 'fair’, price that’s not ‘artificially inflated’ by ‘evil-doers’ who look different than we do.

Again, if the GOP was able to tap into the resentment of the haves toward groups of have-nots who ‘look, talk, act and pray different than we do’, it should be fairly easy for it to redirect that resentment toward people who not only ‘look, talk, act and pray’ differently, but who live on the other side of the world, and who are portrayed as the actual culprits for the decline in the standard of living in the United States’s middle class. Oh, and by the way: ‘they’re all terrorists, and they hate our freedom’.

After all, one of the hallmarks of the aforementioned 30-year ideological project is that it undertakes to becloud the bright line that should, of course, exist between good governance and good economics. Between the public good and the good of private industry. Between democracy and capitalism! The Chinese Olympics, after all, is a kind of apotheosis of the alliance of gentlemanly economic goodwill between the USA and China that was brokered originally by Nixon and Henry 'Realpolitik' Kissinger.

At present, there is justifiable outrage on the part of activists and ordinary people globally toward China’s extensive past and continuing human rights abuses. But, do you know what I find awfully telling? The fact that you’d have to look much harder indeed to find people expressing outrage at an even more pernicious and even less containable evil: that of authoritarian capitalism. I believe that only a paranoid lunatic would suggest that any mainstream politician or business interest in the USA actually favors authoritarianism. What I am pointing to is the fact that there appears to be such an alarmingly meager amount of discussion of the ways in which the combination of authoritarianism and capitalism is a blueprint in and of itself for widespread human, political and economic injustice.

It’s easier, after all, to talk about human rights abuses – be they systemic or discrete – because it just makes more human sense as offensive to those of us who see ourselves as having a moral conscience. It functions in much the same way as the recent spate of corruption and abuse in Washington DC through alliances between federal government and private sector interests: I’m speaking of course about Jack Abramoff, et al. As Tom Frank’s new book apparently discusses (I haven’t read it yet, apart from the excerpt published in Harper’s), such lobbying/contracting/special interest abuses are SYSTEMIC in Washington. But the way business is done in DC, there are one or two ‘fall guys’ chosen from among a number of powerful participants, the ‘fall guy’ is prosecuted in a big-headline-generating, sex-scandal-type way, and life goes on, as though the whole thing was a discrete, unique, even bizarre or unusual infraction of a system that basically works.

As more and more of us begin to realize, the system of course doesn’t work. And I’m happy to see that Tresser’s blog has been set up for the purpose of addressing these tendencies on a local level, where they’re familiar and palpable. Where we ordinary Joes can trace trends and tendencies as they unfold before our eyes, in addition to taking to task on a case-by-case basis individual politicians and shady businessmen for their corruption, neglect or the deliberate creation of opacity from public scrutiny. So that we can all begin to recognize intuitively that the outsourcing of public infrastructure to the marketplace is in effect the outsourcing of democracy itself; the destruction of our rights to scrutinize, to protest, to oppose, and to vote in accordance with our beliefs, ethics and political preferences; a gag order against the use of our own voices as citizens. So that we have a shot at realizing that the outsourcing of our public infrastructure is in effect the outsourcing of the public good.