Our Defining Moment

Yesterday afternoon I walked to Whole Foods to pick up a cake, and as I walked through the Financial District in New York everything around me seemed heavy and still, as though the world was on the verge of cracking wide open. Every minute of the day felt somehow momentous, because every minute brought us closer to the moment when everything might change. It sounds so dramatic, and as I was walking to Whole Foods I remember thinking to myself that I needed to calm down, but even as I was talking myself down, I came to a realization: its true that it still remains to be seen how this election will impact the world and our futures, but regardless, this election was, for people my age, the first truly momentous occasion we have ever experienced. Eight years ago, when Bush first came into office, I was in high school. When Bill Clinton was first elected, I was seven. For people around my age, the current dark ages are really all we can remember, and as such my view of the world has largely been shaped by a sense that participation in the political process is meaningless and an ever-diminishing tolerance for patriotism in the face of the United States’ growing list of atrocities and aggressions. The mere thought that a black man could be president, that an intelligent and articulate man could be president, that someone I actually admire could be president, is a new concept to me. The thought that other countries might be inspired by anything America does is something I didn’t expect to see, and the images of people around the world rejoicing in Obama's success have made me feel, to quote Michelle Obama, proud of my country for the first time. The fact is that with the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, we might not know what’s to come, but suddenly I find myself asked to open my mind to the possibility that it could be something GOOD. The fact that Obama could not only get elected, but could win in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and VIRGINIA means that fundamentally, my cynicism when it comes to the intelligence and goodness of people in general may just be wrong. This is the first moment since I first heard a friend say “people are a constant disappointment” that I’ve felt that statement might not be true. And that’s a big fucking deal.

At the same time, I think I’m essentially still in shock. I expected to cry when I saw Barack and Michelle stride into Grant Park as the new president and first lady-elect, but the image so violently clashed with the understanding in my mind that this is not what America looks like, that I don’t think I was even able to fully process the moment. The fact that the new face of America is not white, that the family in the white house will be black, is I think symbolically even more important than we can imagine.

Hm. This is getting quite rambly, no? My final thought is just this: this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever seen so many people celebrate ANYTHING in this country. I stood in Union Square last night and watched a bunch of hipster youth attempting to spread a chant of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” through the massive crowd that had gathered to celebrate, and thought it was probably the first time many of them had ever used that chant, certainly the first time I’d ever enjoyed hearing it, and even if we were experiencing the moment in incredibly different ways and for different reasons, which I expect we were, and even if the coming years prove to be no better or no different, that moment was significant.

BARACK OBAMA IS THE NEW PRESIDENT

AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING.

I am crying.  This is beautiful.

Nov 4th

ok so i have about 3.5 million things i should be doing right now other than blogging. this will be a short post. but i felt the need to say SOMETHING seeing as how tomorrow is...momentous.

i've been talking with friends, and a lot of us seem to be in the same general mental state: TOTALLY FREAKING OUT.

most of us seem too scared to even voice out loud what everyone else seems to be screaming from the rooftops - that obama is going to win tomorrow. the thought of proclaiming it, letting yourself believe it, and then having your hopes crushed is too terrifying. as many people have already said, liberals in this country have forgotten how to be happy, or even optimistic. the emotions we're generally most familiar with are terror, rage, and despair. so we're feeling all of those right now despite the fact that things are actually looking up. so in the spirit of that, i'm not going to talk about anything happy right now. although hopefully it IS something interesting...

I was reading an article today about who-can-remember-what, and it quoted a woman in North Carolina (I believe) who said she was scared of Obama, and that she worried he was planning on changing the American flag to something else. and for some reason that fairly insane fear, out of all the ones i've heard so far, suddenly made me feel this crazy empathy with this woman. Its so easy to see all those supposed masses of "real america" residents who hate and fear obama and think "man, those people suck." but as I was reading this article it dawned on me that if i were her, i'd probably be scared too. The fear is not of Obama himself, but of the symbolic power shift implied in electing a seemingly liberal black man as president - something is going to change, and a lot of people don't quite know what that something is. I don't think I can say it better than my friend Ann did earlier today, so i'll just quote her here:

"There is something to the fact that many of the people who actually are afraid of barack obama because of his race, or because of his liberalism, or because of both of them combined, are actually not the most secure people in america. Confused white people in western pennsylvania are not high rollers and their jobs aren't that secure. They might have relatives in prison, and relatives in iraq. The people who are against immigration viscerally are people who fear losing their jobs. The people who are afraid of changing sexuality, are also afraid of having their religion become obsolete and becoming culturally irrelevant. The people who are afraid of a black president probably are playing into the same fear that people have been harboring for centuries in this country, (is this really racist against white people to say) but a white sharcropper mentality. Super racist because your position isn't that secure either, because if I don't have whiteness, I have nothing."

I think that we among the 'liberal elite' spend a lot of time wondering why so many people who are relatively poor vote republican, when the republican party clearly does very little for poor people. But I think Ann's hit on something important which is that if you're a powerless minority in this country, you don't have much to lose. but if you're a powerless member of the majority, whether it be your whiteness, your male-ness, your heterosexuality that ties you to the faces of power in this country, you have a real fear that if you lose that one tie to power, you'll have nothing. For a poor white person, seeing another white person in power is as symbolically relevant as i can only hope seeing a black person in power will be for black people. and i just realized this post isn't as short as i intended it to be, so i need to get back to work.

good luck out there tomorrow.

for your viewing pleasure

obama's 30-minute primetime spot. its good.

dear god

no words.

battle for the earth: Hope vs Skepticism

How many times have i said or heard said among friends that this election really feels like an epic battle between good and evil? The "battle for the earth: heaven vs hell" metaphor seems to really be taking hold as people get more and more concerned about the state of the country, and as the two candidates personalities drift farther to their respective corners (recall tina fey's characterization of barack this week: "when he's talkin' it's like an angel whisperin' in your ear," and barack's joke at the Alfred E. Smith dinner that "contrary to the rumors that you've heard, I was not born in a manger..."). But I think in all the excitement about the battle for the earth, the possibly legitimate fear that john mccain is the modern-day anti-christ, and the overwhelming desire we all seem to have to throw ourselves into this election like it's the only thing that matters, we're accidentally or intentionally overlooking a quieter but in no way less important battle. This battle is also for the earth, but John McCain has nothing to do with it - it's the battle between two Obamas - the one we hope he is, and the one we fear he is.

I like to think of this as the battle between hope and skepticism, or perhaps the battle between great and just 'good.' This article by Mike Davis does a wonderful job summing it up from an economic standpoint, but it's more than just economics: the Barack actually standing in front of us on TV is significantly more conservative, more vague, and less powerful than the Barack we see in our dreams. He promises all of these wonderful things: universal health care, fighting climate change, and a better foreign policy, but we know in our hearts that he has yet to actually make a compelling case for HOW he's going to do these things. We also know in our hearts that he's intelligent, and I think that's the crux of this less thrilling but perhaps more important battle-for-the-earth. We HOPE (and we hope that Obama's message of 'hope' is a wink in our direction) that Obama is so intelligent that he's figured out the system - that his vagueness is his way of getting where he needs to go, and once there he will make the changes we want to see: changes that, if he said them out loud now, would cost him the election. We HOPE that with the possibility of a simultaneous Barack Obama presidency and an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House and Senate, we'll begin to see this country go in an amazing new direction "from day one." But we're also SKEPTICAL because wouldn't that just be too good to be true? We know how American politics work. No one's that good. If Obama's gotten this far, maybe he's not the man we hope he is. Or as Mike Davis put it in the article linked above,

"Am I unduly cynical? Perhaps, but I lived through the Lyndon Johnson years and watched the War on Poverty, the last true New Deal program, destroyed to pay for slaughter in Vietnam."

Is it even possible for Barack Obama to bring us the change he's asking us to hope for? Or are we gearing ourselves up for a slight shift in pace that will in no way actually turn us from the collision course we're currently on with our own demise? It may be impossible to know, but as with all battles for the earth, it's certainly worth thinking about...

colin powell endorses obama

a bit late in the game, yes, but still.



if you don't watch the whole video, please skip to around minute 4:30 - it makes me mad/sad that so few democrats have been willing to say what powell says here, and i'm glad he said it.

Sorry to interrupt Muppet day

But this AP report on the Roast that Barack Obama and John McCain attended was just too funny to not post. My favorite part comes from Obama:

"But to name my greatest strength I guess it would be my humility," he grinned.

"Greatest weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome."

I Got a Crush on Obama

(Subtitle: John Mccain is a Punk-Ass Bitch)

I need to start seeing Barack Obama's therapist.

Seriously. I just finished watching tonight's debate, and of the three debates this one was certainly the most decisive. In the first two, Barack Obama held his own and promoted his policies. In this last one, he shone. My question is how he did that with all of the incredible garbage John Mccain was spewing his direction. If i were him, I would have chewed off my left arm somewhere around the halfway-mark. Even just watching from home, when Mccain started to talk about Roe v. Wade I got so angry my leg went numb. Yet cool-hand Barack never once even fell out of his chair. So yeah, I definitely need some of whatever he's having.

But enough about me. Let's talk about a couple of the more interesting points of the debate. I apologize in advance if at any point I get incoherent or profane.

First, a quick run-down of the candidates themselves:
Obama, as I've already mentioned, maintained his composure in the face of some shit that might have gotten a rise out of Gandhi. Aside from that incredible feat, he also made great eye contact with the camera, maintained at least a semblance of respect for John Mccain, and showed great restraint in refusing to go on the offensive on issues like negative campaigning, while simultaneously standing his ground very well. The result was that he appeared strong, but mature enough to pick his battles, leaving Mccain looking rather childish and petty.

Mccain, as I've just noted, looked childish and petty. He was rude, interrupted constantly, and seemed to be sneering quite a bit of the time. He also rambled on the issues that were really important, only seeming to have a coherent argument when he was on the offensive. The result was that he came off as desperate, and not completely in control. In short, he looked like a punk-ass bitch.

Ok, so on to the issues:

Taxing and Spending: I can only imagine what the comedy shows will be making of John Mccain's new argument in support of his spending freeze idea. Perhaps metaphors were never John Mccain's strong suit, but I've never actually seen a surgeon go in first with a hatchet, and then a scalpel. I'd imagine thats because the result would be instant yet gruesome death. which, incidentally, is probably what would happen to this country if Mccain got elected. But seriously, the Republican notion that taxes are bad, spending is bad, and everything is just going to work out on its own is getting old. Its never worked, no reason why it should start working now. I don't know, for example, how Mccain plans to "reform Head Start" during a spending freeze, but i'd be willing to bet about a million dollars he doesn't know either. Benefits cost money, and people benefit from...benefits. I'm not mad about paying taxes, if it means I get roads, education, social programs, and all that good stuff. And if it meant i got GOOD education, why I might even be willing to pay a little more.

Healthcare: John Mccain clearly practiced his burns before the debate. Most of them were so incredibly petty (I'm looking at you, 'I so admire Senator Obama's eloquence') that I'm surprised he didn't bring Barack's momma into the picture (I hear the only reason your momma graduated high school is ben bernanke said she was 'too big to fail.'*). A lot of those burns backfired. But his healthcare burn was the one that backfired the worst, I think.

"if you like that," he said of Obama's health care plan, "you'll love Canada and England."

Now maybe I'm missing something here, but it's pretty widely known that citizens of Canada and England have access to far superior health care than we do in the United States. So either Mccain doesn't know that, in which case he's even more of a dumbass than I originally thought, or he knows that, but thinks the American public is too dumb to know that. In which case i'm a bit peeved.


Education: McCain REALLY ended on a bad note here. After Obama (to his detriment, I believe) opted out of ripping McCain a new one re: education, and left him with a pretty easy out, McCain refused to take it, insisting on a final snide comment to the effect of (sarcastically) "oh so because there aren't enough vouchers, we shouldn't have a voucher system." ...yes. I think that IS the point, Senator McCain. providing vouchers to a few select people while failing to reform the education system itself is essentially condemning already struggling schools to fail, and with them condemning all the children who did not get vouchers to fail as well. Not really a winning plan. I can't even talk about it more without getting angry.


I know this is getting long, and is not even that terribly coherent, so let me skip over the tirades I was planning on going into re: human rights (and John McCain's newfound disdain for them) and racism (John Mccain's new best friend). I think Obama blew McCain out of the water on the whole "negative campaigning" issue, so I'll let it lie. I will, however, leave you with this thought to ponder:

People have, throughout this long campaign, raised the idea of a cult of personality around Obama more than once. Obama's supporters are referred to as "obamamaniacs," "obamaholics," and "obamacons." Obama himself is jokingly referred to as "the one" (or more recently, THAT one). And I just want to address that issue, because I think it's an interesting one. I think Obama does inspire devotion unlike any politician has in recent history. I found myself looking forward to his closing remarks tonight like a dog looks forward to "time for a walk." Every time he gets two or more uninterrupted minutes to speak, I start getting excited. I expect that his soaring rhetoric will make me weep with joy and longing for what could be. (With respect to that expectation, the closing comments were a bit lackluster, but i assume that's because he's saving the good stuff for his acceptance speech come November.) When he talks, I find myself listening like there is nothing else going on around me. I have a lot of friends who feel the same. But is that a cult of personality? Or rather if it is, what exactly does that mean? I think the truth is that it's so incredibly rare not only in this country but in this world for people to have the opportunity to rally behind someone in a position of power who is intelligent, articulate, and appears to have a basic respect for the intelligence and dignity of 'the common man,' that when such a person does come along, people lose their minds. I don't think anyone thinks Barack Obama is god. People are just legitimately excited by the possibility of a president they can be proud of, who legitimately values human rights, and who might even just have their best interests in mind. Its possible we need to stop thinking about cults of personality, and start thinking about the reasons behind the severe dearth of inspiring "personality" that has shaped our lives since before I can remember.

thats all for now.

*credit to my friend lizz for making up that zinger

another tidbit

if you haven't yet read frank rich's op-ed about the terrifying new twist the campaign trail has taken, please do. its one of the best op-eds i've read in a while, and simultaneously one of the most chilling.

a tiny point

i'm trying a new tactic: sprinkle in some short one-liners among the way-too-long posts. that way it looks like i'm updating all the time, but i don't have to think that much.

my point for today: how is it ok for mccain/palin to be using "we cant allow another holocaust" as a talking point? palin's said it twice now while i've been watching and mccain once. all of those were in reference to israel, not darfur (an ACTUAL genocide). comparing the conflict in the middle east to the holocaust is wrong both morally and factually.

and newsflash to the mccain team: you're not winning any special points for being anti-genocide. i'm pretty sure obama's not "pro."

Dr. Dumbass, or How we Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hockey Mom

Alright, before I get into the post I recognize that I probably owe you some sort of “explanation” for my long absence from blogging. Its like this: as you may know, we started this blog because there’s a lot of really f*cked up shit happening in the world that makes us mad. Hence the tagline “we rage, so you don’t have to.” Blogging is actually a really great way of channeling some of that rage into slightly less negative energy, I’ve found. But recently, what with the presidential campaign heating up and the economy spiraling down the drain, there’s just been so much to rage about its hard to make a coherent sentence. So I’ve been reading a lot, writing…not so much.

BUT good news: I’m back. Time to channel all that rage into something productive again. If things go well, expect this to be the first in a series of blog posts that are NOT weeks apart from each other. And I apologize in advance: they may be lengthy. The topic of this one: well, the title says it all, I think.


Ok so down to business:

The remarkable and terrifying ascent of Sarah Palin to the national stage is so problematic in so many ways that I could probably write quite literally a hundred separate blog posts about it. There’s the sexism, the republicanism, the global warming, the foreign policy, the fucked up campaigning, the terrifying ambition, the cold heartless and oh-so-creepy way in which she responded to gwen iffil’s question about “what if the worst were to happen,” the accent that I think she may be exaggerating…seriously, the list goes on for miles. But today I’d like to focus on just one issue, and this is one that is not entirely Sarah Palin’s fault, although she’s surely not helping. I call it the war on intelligence.

This has been a common theme in politics for frankly as long as I can remember, but now that I’m old enough to care, I have to point out that it’s getting dangerous. The idea that it’s more important for a candidate to sell him/herself as likeable, and “average,” than it is to provide policy recommendations and prove him/herself knowledgeable in areas of domestic and foreign policy is deeply, deeply troubling, and nowhere is it more clear than in the Republican Party's marketing of Gov. Sarah Palin.

As Palin quite literally can’t seem to stop saying, she’s a “Washington outsider,” a “hockey mom,” and all those other run-of-the-mill, joe six-pack type terms that, when overused, can turn a vice presidential debate into a disastrous drinking game. Say it ain’t so, joe! Doggone it, she’s gone just a little overboard trying to be folksy and down-home. But my real problem with this is not how f*cking annoying she gets when she says “you betcha” for the ten millionth time, its that people actually LIKE this shit. People enjoy it when she replaces substance with fake authenticity. And yes, I realize that’s an oxymoron. at least i know what an oxymoron is.

As Barack Obama would say, “let’s be clear:” I understand why people want a president or vice president they can relate to. You want someone who you think you can trust to share your values. You want someone who appears to have respect for people like yourself, because if they don’t respect you, they may not have your best interests in mind. I get that. I agree with it. But that’s no longer what this is about. With Sarah Palin, you’re not getting a politician you can relate to, you’re getting a politician who IS you. And YOU are not qualified to run this country.

I think it was Maureen Dowd, shockingly enough, who verbalized it so well in a mock-conversation (god, she loves those) between Barack Obama and President Bartlett from The West Wing. Bartlett, in Dowd’s column, says, “Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence.” That’s just it. What in the name of all that is holy is everyone’s problem with excellence? Relatability is important, but more important, I want the person or persons I elect to office to be intelligent. I want someone capable. I want someone who understands economics better than I do, not someone whose confusion reminds me of my own and evokes my empathy. I want someone whose foreign policy plan would consist of something more than not second-guessing Israel. Sure, I want someone who reads the newspaper often enough to know which newspapers she reads, but that’s setting the bar a little low, no? I’d rather have someone who reads several newspapers and understands the nuance of what she reads. I’d rather have someone who not only understands economics better than I do (another seriously low bar), but understands economics well enough to handle the current crisis. I’d rather have someone excellent.

Running the country is a big job. Its one that I, after four years at an “elite” college, am in no way qualified to do. I would hope that the people who are actually campaigning for the job would have an interest in proving to me that they, in fact, know more than I do. But instead, the Republican Party seems intent on proving that they’re exactly like me. Worse, they seem intent on proving that I, with my Ivy League education, my love for arugula, and my newfound ability to pronounce Ahmadinejad, am “elite,” and that they are even more “average,” which in their twisted world means “better.” *I* recently injured myself trying to hang a picture on my wall. I like to dream that come January, our country will be led by people who pride themselves in being smarter than me.

To be honest, the really troubling part about all of this is the fact that I think we all know by now it’s not just the presidential election. The war on intelligence has permeated most aspects of American life. Being smart is just not cool. Our public education system is terrible, but being a champion of education will not get you terribly far politically. Creativity is excessively undervalued in this country, and, whether it is an accurate representation or not, the image of the “average American” that is being put forward by politicians is one of an unambitious, hard-working, not terribly bright, white man who likes beer and hunting, loves his family, and has no interest in politics outside his home town. My suspicion is that very few people actually relate to that characterization of the “average American.” The idea that white Americans living in small towns across the U.S. care about nothing other than working 9 to 5 and getting health care is frankly insulting: my suspicion, and by all means correct me if I’m wrong, is that people all over America have diverse interests beyond their basic human needs, and that given the opportunity to give their children a better education, no one would turn it down because it’s “elite.” So enough of this nonsense. I say we fight back and say “no” to mediocrity. And while we’re at it, dear god can we please say “no” to Sarah Palin?


Ok, I'll leave you for now, but here are just a few things I feel compelled to share with you, that I couldn't quite work into the post:

a great op-ed in salon on media reactions to palin

and this:



that's all, folks!

Sigh.. seriously?

On the heels of a particularly moving acceptance speech by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, Sen. John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate for the upcoming Presidential election.

All I have to say is that I am sick of this entire election/ordeal and am pretty royally pissed.  What an underhanded tactic.  I only hope that former Hillary supporters that were otherwise unswayed by Obama will not be easy to move to vote for McCain simply because a woman is on his ticket.  I am a woman and a feminist myself, but looking at some of Palin's super conservative stances (pro-life?) I don't think that I could be convinced to vote for her, not at all.

Blah.  This just goes to say- make sure you're registered, and that you get out and vote.

Politicians for Ohio

1.) I know our posting habits have been utterly atrocious, so you know- sorry for that.

2.) I'm visiting my family for a tiny tiny stint here in my beautiful home state of Ohio (I saw a Mommy duck and her baby ducklings crossing a road this morning!  Say it with me: Awwwww!) and as I was watching the local channels with my Mom I came to a realization- I have managed to avoid most campaign commercials in NYC.  True, I don't often tune into the local news (damn internet generation) but I know that I soak in all sorts of television, news and media.

It wasn't until I was inundated with "Time for a Change" and "No New Taxes" and "I am Barack Obama/John McCain and I approved this message" commercials that I realized just how serious everyone already is about this election in Ohio.

Clearly Ohio is one of the most major swing states and like, a prized jewel for all presidential hopefuls, but geez.  The moral of the story is, I'm definitely coming home and casting my vote in person- especially after the "let's not count any absentee ballots" fiasco of 2004- so that I can help dear old Ohio break out of her fucking up elections habit.

Make sure that you're registered to vote, if you aren't already- and whoever you think you'll be casting your vote for, make sure you're at least educated on their stance regarding the issues that most affect you in your day to day life.

a momentous occasion

you know its big news when i risk being seen blogging at work, but i had to stop everything for this breaking news: maureen dowd has written an op-ed that is completely reasonable, rational, and respectful. i agreed with it, and enjoyed reading it.

seriously. my world is turned upside-down. the big M.D. managed to lay off the liquor, put down the haterade, and sit down at her computer completely sober, as far as i can tell. and the result is a really valid point - what IS with this american aversion to having a president who is actually somewhat intelligent? because of course when they say obama is elitist, they mean intelligent. they can't possibly mean he's the beneficiary of centuries of privilege like every other president we've ever had, so what they mean is he's the beneficiary of years of very recent privilege in the form of an ivy league education. and that he's not trying to pretend like that's not the case. oh, right, and that unlike our current president, he actually made use of that education. i see what they mean. that IS terribly elitist. lets vote in some more of bush's boys. they may be billions of times more privileged than obama, but at least they'll never admit it to our faces. i hate honesty.

brace yourselves

i know its been a while. what can i say, i get lazy from time to time.

so after much internal debate, i'll give in and write my first (most likely of many) post about michelle obama. lets start it out on the right foot: the woman is fly as hell. did you SEE that purple dress the other day? damn. she clearly puts the right kind of effort into her wardrobe. i find that although you should never "judge a book by its cover," its always a good thing when someone takes the time to look good. if michelle obama were unshowered, for example, i'd be concerned. but no troubles on that front.

moving on: i can't even (don't even want to) IMAGINE the kinds of racist and sexist shit we are in for between now and november. if i were michelle obama, i would have put my foot down the first time barack mentioned the whole "running for president" idea and said "frankly, i don't feel like it." because god knows she is going to have to go through a world of pain for this. its already started, with the accusations that there's a video out there somewhere that shows her using the word "whitey," and with the heightened media hubbub surrounding the idea of michelle obama in general. i've read about a thousand "who IS michelle obama" articles in the last week. a thousand. and the level to which they invade her privacy is sort of unreal. the kicker for me was the recent piece of news everyone's seemed to grab on to: they've somehow forced the release of michelle's college senior thesis on being black at an ivy league school in the '80s, and everyone is dying to dissect it, to the point where i even read an article today that quotes the "dedications" page of her thesis. think for a moment about how humiliated you would be as a grown-ass successful woman to have the media close-reading something you wrote when you were barely 21. ouch.

but the big thing with michelle obama, the thing i predict will continue to be the biggest issue she'll have to deal with, is obvious even now: white people all across america are trying to decide whether or not she is, in fact, an Angry Black Woman. and they are looking for any reason they can to label her as such. the whole "first time i've been proud of my country" thing was a nice firm start, and paved the way for people to go crazy over the "whitey" video that does not even exist. i can only imagine what's in store for the future. its clear at this point that michelle obama is an intelligent woman who thinks a lot about race, and frankly, thats probably not going to win her any popularity contests. unfortunately for the obamas, america doesn't love it when you're smart enough to understand how fucked up she is. soooo moral of the story: i'll probably be posting soon in outrage about some new shit the media did to michelle obama. brace yourselves, people.

on the plus side, maureen dowd has, for the first time possibly ever, earned my respect by writing this piece. the 12-step program is working, M.D. i'm proud of you. you may turn out to be aiight after all.

"Obama wins nomination, CNN projects"

I hate projections- they stress me out.  Somebody please get me when they get an official word.

democracy's last hurrah

ok so i stole that title from a friend, and i'm not even going to write about it until later in the week.

right now i really should be getting to bed seeing as how i have to be up mad early in the morning, but i figure if i don't post this now i'll forget, like i do every day.

this is what i've been saying for some time now. except i've been saying it to myself and my roommates. not the new york times. i know speeches aren't going to like, change the world or any shit like that, but hillary still really needs to make one. so kudos to this chick for pointing it out.

and on the subject of politics, stay tuned in a few days after i get some rest and rehydration for me going apeshit about obama quitting his church and the rumblings about this michelle obama video. anger management, here i come.

on a similar note...

i know, i know, i wrote that other post a while ago so i cant just pick up where i left off as if a week hasn't gone by. wait, yes i can. this is my blog and i do what i want.

so like i mentioned, my "pet peeve" (and by pet peeve, i mean thing that makes me go into a blind rage) is when people are completely lacking self-awareness and/or the desire to think self-critically. one of the areas of life where this seems to be coming out more and more (and thus bothering me more and more) is of course the presidential race.

reading blogs is like, the new fun thing with kids these days, and since i quit celebrity gossip, my attempts to be cool have mainly revolved around various politically-minded blogs. recently, however, i've begun to run out of blogs to read because i've had to delete them from my favorites, one by one, as they become too frustrating to enjoy. here is the conundrum: all of the black people blogs i read support obama and hate clinton to the point where they refuse to acknowledge any sexism in the race, or any flaws in obama's campaign or his politics. the feminist-type blogs i read support clinton and hate obama in a conveniently mirror-image approach.

to anyone who fits one of those descriptions, i would like to pose a question: what the fuck is wrong with your brain? or, in the words of one of my friends from work, "its like a brain trauma ward in here." is it that you just want the other side to see your point SO badly that you exaggerate to the point of untruth? do you think you'll look weak if you admit that they're right on certain points? newsflash: this is not middle school, its real life. racism and sexism both exist. fucking deal with it, get over yourselves, and stop pretending like you have some sort of moral high ground when you KNOW you don't.

or more disturbing: perhaps you really don't know. maybe i'm just reading the opinions of a lot of black men who have never in their lives thought about or cared about the privilege they get from being male, and who have never bothered to notice sexism, and a bunch of white women who've done the same thing with their privileged status in this society as white. possibly the only thing that makes me more angry than a rich white male who is comfortable in his privilege is a minority who thinks that this one thing that makes him/her different from that rich white male is the most important thing in society. which brings me back to my point from my last post: not all of us have that luxury.

anyways, its late and it would be unwise for me to start lecturing you on intersectionality because frankly my spelling is deteriorating as we speak. but my point i guess is this: if the so-called 'liberals' in this country can't even open their eyes wide enough to see each other, we deserve another 8 years of bush.

also i'm expatriating.

running headlong into the abyss

so this is going to be a post about Obama and Reverend Wright. how could it not? but i'd like to start out with a quote i was reading today on the train: it's from Jean-Paul Sartre's preface to Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth." Sartre is talking to the white european audience, explaining the value of listening to what i'm sure today's media would call Fanon's hate speech. He writes:

"Our victims know us by their scars and by their chains, and it is this that makes their evidence irrefutable. It is enough that they show us what we have made of them for us to realize what we have made of ourselves...But, you will say, we live in the mother country, and we disapprove of her excesses...You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name. ...Have the courage to read this book, for in the first place it will make you ashamed, and shame, as Marx said, is a revolutionary sentiment."

It is shame, also, that we as a culture and that currently white americans in relation to this reverend wright thing, run from at all costs. we would much rather feel hate than shame, because to feel hate is to find somewhere else to put the blame, but to feel shame is to know you must change. More than anything else, i think this is what is coming out as Jeremiah Wright returns to the media spotlight.

I watched Wright's interview on Bill Moyer's Journal, and I have to say I thought it was actually pretty great. but apparently i'm the only one. the word "narcissism" seems to be ringing from the hilltops, which i think is surprisingly narrow-minded and infantile, even for the new york times. its true that Wright's media fling will probably not do great things for Obama's campaign, but i very much doubt he's throwing Obama to the dogs just to get his 15 minutes of fame. He's going on national television because his belief system, his way of life, and pretty much everything he's ever known is being attacked from all sides, and this is quite possibly the only opportunity he will have to defend it. Like it or not, this campaign is forcing the nation into at least a shallow discussion on race, and that might be the best we're going to get for a while. I don't blame him for trying to add to it.

So here's the deal: Wright is being called a bigot, a hate-monger, and just plain crazy from all sides. Obama is running to get away from him, and is still getting criticism for not running fast enough. The NY times is pointing to Wright's "embracing Louis Farrakhan's anti-semitism" (aka Wright's refusal to right Farrakhan off as nothing but an anti-semite), his "crazy" yet somehow very prevalent notion that the government is CAPABLE based on past and current actions of using AIDS to kill off black people, and his apparently hateful and shocking statement that America's hands are not clean of terror as proof that Wright is everything that is Wrong with black america.

fuck.
that.

I could go point by point, starting with the fact that what Wright actually said was that he may not agree with Farrakhan, but that "when he talks, black people listen" (true), but i'm slowly learning that there's not much point in laying out logical arguments about shit like this, because bottom line, it comes back to what Sartre was saying and why i put that quote at the beginning of this post: it may be cowardly, but its easier to "pretend to forget" than it is to look at yourself through the eyes of your victims. I listened to the longer clips of Wright's sermon about 9-11 and america's chickens coming home to roost, and his "god damn america" sermon, and they were brilliant and beautiful. He makes points about how god blesses people but does not bless the governments who fail them, and about how, in his words, "violence begets violence." I read the transcript of his national press club interview and found it to be quite the opposite of "unhinged" and offensive:" he talked about the need for the United States to apologize for the atrocities we've committed in the past. He talked about reconciliation as if he'd been coached by Desmond Tutu himself. Of Louis Farrakhan he said not "i agree with him" but "he is not my enemy." He refused to stoop to the level of condemning Islam, the only kind of condemnation that everyone still loves to hear. but to admit that there is even a grain of truth in his words would be to admit your own complacence in, and the ways in which you benefit from, the oppression of black people here in the US and the terror visited on poor people across the world as a result of american imperialism and american exceptionalism. to admit he might have a point is to admit that even though Farrakhan "did not put him in chains," you did. and that doesn't look great in the mirror.

this whole argument, i'm starting to feel, is a lost cause. our generation more and more seems to be incapable of self-criticism and self-reflection, and thus incapable of seeing ourselves through anyone's eyes but our own. I think that reverend wright's resurfacing in the media was a chance for people to think critically about the things he's saying that have so offended 'liberal' white america's sensibilities, and to think critically about why some 6,000 people would choose to attend his church if his ideas were so 'radical.' but its much easier to dismiss one man as crazy than it is to confront the reality that there is an entire population within this country that thinks those same thoughts, and that while many of us may not know those people at all, may have no idea what their lives are like or why they believe the things they do, those people know us very well indeed. they "know us by their scars and chains." and they have the ability, if we choose to listen, of helping us to truly know ourselves. but if this controversy has shown anything, its that we do not choose to listen, and we do not want to hear.

"It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name, it's not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself." - Jean-Paul Sartre