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Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 16 years ago, in 2008, on the World Wide Web.
L. and I received this in the mail a couple of days ago. It’s the front side of an ad sent out by the DNC to convince us to get out and vote for Barack Be The Change,
We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
Community Organizer
Obama, and then, apparently, sit back and call it a day.
The final stop? Even hand-wringing state Leftist Progressives
used to know that you’re damned lucky if it’s even the first.
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I am voting for him — due to Sarah Palin’s shocking Christianist stupidity.
Although; I agree with Arthur Silber’s lengthy comments here:
“Given this background, the nature of many of the attacks on Sarah Palin continues to shock and astound me. Bad enough that much of the hatred for Palin proceeds directly from the loathing of women as such that is one of the pillars supporting Western “civilization” and thought. Bad enough that a great deal of the contempt directed at Palin stems from a thoroughly odious sense of class superiority: “She’s awful, my dear. She’s just not like us. And you know, she’s really — oh, dear, can I say this? But I must! — she’s just trash.” (I see that Walsh is incapable of giving up this line of attack, and her writing about Palin should disgust any decent human being.) It is a measure of how deeply stupid our discourse is that so many people still fall back on the “experience” argument: poor silly Sarah doesn’t have enough of it, don’t you know. Such people never identify exactly what the nature of such “experience” is, given our system of murderously violent militarist corporatism.
It is certainly true that Palin doesn’t speak in the comfortable circumlocutions and deliberately evasive phrases so beloved by Washington pols, and by most writers and far too many bloggers. To me, that is an enormous plus: more than any of the other three major candidates, Palin still appears somewhat recognizable as an actual human being. But for a decadent, murderous Empire entering what is likely to be an especially violent phase (both abroad and at home) as the fabric of day-to-day life shreds and tears apart, actual human beings are a hindrance to be avoided. Now we depend on form without meaning, symbolism drained of all content, vacant gestures designed to assure us that our world is not descending into bloody insanity.
Just for the hell of it, let’s compare two passages from the vice presidential debate. Here is Palin:
Palin offers some telling criticisms of Biden’s record in the first two paragraphs, and then provides details concerning her own views and her actions as Governor of Alaska regarding Darfur. I absolutely disagree with both Palin and Biden on Darfur insofar as military action by the U.S. is concerned, and I’ll return to that shortly.
Palin speaks comparatively plainly, using straightforward, everyday expressions. But her views are clear, and there is nothing notably “stupid” about what she says or how she says it — unless, that is, you have become so accustomed to Washington-speak that you have rendered yourself incapable of recognizing more normal human expression. Yet it is altogether remarkable how much time and concentration so many people devote to demonstrating how much smarter they are than Sarah Palin. Obviously, Palin is not any kind of “intellectual” (also an unqualifiedly admirable attribute in my view), and she is not an Einstein. So let me rephrase the point more colloquially: if you have to devote so much time and energy to proving you’re smarter than Sarah Palin, how pathetic are you? Here’s your answer: very pathetic. Most of those who repeatedly engage in this kind of Palin-bashing are nothing more than bullies. They’re the kind of people who, given half a chance, might torture small animals or pull the wings off flies. Our culture values bullying of this kind more highly than almost any other quality, and most people have learned the lesson very well.”
“What is the attitude of the democrat when political rights are under discussion? How does he regard the people when a legislator is to be chosen? Ah, then it is claimed that the people have an instinctive wisdom; they are gifted with the finest perception …. When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted. … Is there a class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they shall do so.
But when the legislator is finally elected — ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck.”
(From Bastiat’s The Law.)
Roderick,
It’s a paradox of majority rule centric polities in general. When someone doesn’t like a policy; they claim it’s “against the will of the people”. What happens when “the people” want to ban abortion or gay marriage?
Nick,
I’m not voting for Obama, because I’m not voting for any candidate, Republican or Democrat, who voted for the Paulson bail-out package.
But if I were voting for Obama, then I’d still consider the ad completely false, and dangerously misleading to the extent that people believe it. It used to be the case that even statist Leftists knew that, no matter who is elected, it’s vital that people continue to do grassroots organizing in order to put and keep pressure on the folks who are elected, that if people just vote for a favored candidate and then sit back and watch for the next 2-4 years, elected politicians would very quickly continue along the path of least resistance, which means that if there is no grassroots resistance but there is the usual, well-organized resistance from power players, elected politicians will serve the ends of power. That much is community organizing 101.
And it used to be that the Obama campaign itself, what with all that rhetoric about and and Obama’s history as a community organizer in Chicago, was promoting the very same idea. It’s predictable, but disheartening or grimly funny, depending on how much hope you had to begin with, to see how that notion has been swept away by standard electoralist hogwash, as the Obama campaign has been converted into the official Democratic Party Presidential campaign, and steadily taken over, more and more, by long-time party hacks and smooth operators.
Of course, I think all this is completely unsurprising, because it’s a nearly inevitable function of the way in which political parties and the electoral process itself filter or capture any attempt at serious politics in a .
“Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea—the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator.”
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=comstaticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=78&layout=html#chapter23037
Leaving aside the complexities of socialist movements throughout history; this quote strikes a general bell with me. Not for its inclusion in a chapter attacking socialism, but because I get people positing doomsday scenarios to me when I argue for anti-statism on an issue. They have a Hobbesian or quasi-Hobbesian view of mankind driven by fear. Once; a person justified restrictions on crack cocaine on the grounds that crack addicts aren’t “productive” members of society. Rand would have screamed unbridled collectivism and altruism on that one. Another person told me that they didn’t want addicts breaking into their house to steal stuff to sell for drugs or money or something.
Lost in all of these arguments is any conceptual debate about inalienable rights. Instead; we get arguments about concrete scenarios that require pragmatic resolution — with the power of the state being the means.
This is the abstract conceptual response to make: yes; a world of legal crack cocaine (presuming it survives the disappearance of black market economic incentives) might mean someone somewhere is addicted who will break into a person’s house to pay for it, but you can’t justify a violation of an inalienable right of trade or bodily “self-ownership” for everyone, because a certain individual behaves in an inconsiderate fashion.
And this is when you get dismissed as a utopian dreamer ) :
I just wish to say that the intellectual level of this discussion is inspiring.
Al-Jazeera has done some really interesting man-on-the-street interviews in the US regarding the election as part of a documentary they aired over the past few days around the theme of American exceptionalism.
One young woman stated something to the effect of “I’m voting for Obama, because once Obama is President, we’re all going to live together in peace and harmony, and the American Dream will be realized.”
Quite a vision, some folks have. Would that it were true.
Mike,
It’s scary that people can say such things. I fear they will lose their critical thinking abilities once he becomes elected. Within my own household here in D.C.; my relatives are generally free thinkers, so I am not too worried about them.
Charles,
The neo-fascist Paulson bailout is bad; no doubt. I don’t see how it’s worse or any worse than the potential for socially conservative judges being appointed to the Supreme Court. Aren’t we going to see economic turmoil with either candidate winning? It sounds like you don’t want Obama to feel like he can vote for these things and get away with it. I can understand that desire, but you’re probably in a definite minority here. Many people who disagree with the bailout will still vote for what they consider as the lesser of the two evils. The polling about the bailout showed almost zero support from the majority of the population — much like polls show the majority support healthcare for all or the end to the Iraq War contra the apparent views of government policymakers.
What effect will your ill supported action have in that context? I am going to keep “riding” Obama where he’s the most dangerous in my writing. If enough people aren’t in a faith induced trance about him, then his continuance of past policies will spark a backlash — my stepmom already talks about keeping the pressure on him.
I have no illusions about where America might ultimately be or my ability to do much but intellectually enjoy myself and influence my small circle. I am just saying that you might realistically contribute to warding off Sarah Palin. You say that you usually support the Democrats as an emergency bulwark against the Republicans on your site somewhere. Doesn’t the threat that Palin poses to abortion rights justify treating them as a less then adequate bulwark here?
Read Adam Reed’s blog at borntoidentify.blogspot.com. He convinced me that the right-wing conservative Christianists were gaining too much traction.
Nick,
It’s not.
Very little. But, then, what effect will it have for me to cast a solitary extra vote for Obama on a secret ballot?
I’m actually much more concerned about John McCain than I am about Sarah Palin–and I think it’s interesting and unfortunate that she’s drawn the amount of fire that she has, given her howling bare-fanged fascist of a running mate, who will, after all, actually be the President, as far as I can tell only because it’s much easier in our malestream media culture to pile onto socially conservative women (who are easily dismissed as prudish, stupid, parochial, hysterical, religiously insane, or otherwise not worthy of human consideration) than it is to pile onto socially conservative men, especially when the men’s conservatism is wrapped up in the bloody flag of militarism.
But in any case, do you seriously think that whether I, personally, vote for Barack Obama or not the day after tomrrow is going to make a contribution to warding off anyone? If so, why?
As I said when I was writing about Ron Paul, there are certain issues that constitute poison pills for me. If a candidate takes the poison pill, I will not vote for them. Hence, I would not vote for Ron Paul, who I agree with far more (statistically speaking) than Barack Obama, because I will not vote for anti-abortion candidates and I will not vote for candidates who are significantly worse than the status quo on immigration. I won’t vote for Barack Obama, either, because I feel the same way about the bail-out package. (His opportunistic vote on the FISA bill didn’t help, either.) If Obama is going to win, he can certainly do it without my help.
As far as bulwarks go, I am working on building other bulwarks, involving other people, and by other means, which I think are more likely to hold up under attack. Certainly, given Obama’s established voting record on issues I care about, I know that his political party and his administration won’t.
Charles,
I am too swamped with school work to respond to this seriously right now. I did want to introduce you to some McCain related comedy though!
“MCCAIN: And right now in Iraq we have a, a wonderful general there, General Petraeus. He’s very courageous. He is very broad-shouldered. He was beaten by his captors for five and a half years. And when you get close to him, very close, there is the distinct aroma of fresh-baked pie. And, and the first thing we have to do is let General Petraeus finish the job of securing Iraq for the Iraqi people, a proud and united people, so that it doesn’t fall into the hands of their enemies, the Iraqi people. FB: Well that sounds good, John McCain, but how do we really get the Iraqis to stand up for themselves against the Iraqis? MCCAIN: Oh, we already have, by arming the Iraqis to fight back against the Iraqis and make sure they can live in peace without fear of Iraqis. But if we don’t stay and finish the job Iraq will fall to Iraqi influence, and we cannot allow that, my friends. FB: See I used to be all confused about all this, but it just makes so much sense when I hear it from you! Now between half a million and a million Iraqis have been killed since the start of the war, in a country of twenty-nine million Iraqis. Do you feel kinda glass-half-full about it, like “hey look at all the Iraqis we got left!” Or is it kinda glass-half-empty, like “oh man, look at all the Iraqis we got left!” MCCAIN: Oh, no, no. With time I believe we can eliminate the threat of Iraq within Iraq. The first thing we have to do in order to win is to win, which I believe we can accomplish through means of winning. And the second thing we have to do is cut taxes and pork-barrel spending. Let’s not tax these dead Iraqis, my friends. Let’s kill them again so they don’t have to pay three million dollars for a planetarium in Chicago.”
Hah; yeah, it’s unfortunate dark humor that that about sums it up.
http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/fafblog-interviews-john-mccain.html
*unfortunately dark humor that about sums it up
¨I’m actually much more concerned about John McCain than I am about Sarah Palin—and I think it’s interesting and unfortunate that she’s drawn the amount of fire that she has, given her howling bare-fanged fascist of a running mate, who will, after all, actually be the President, as far as I can tell only because it’s much easier in our malestream media culture to pile onto socially conservative women (who are easily dismissed as prudish, stupid, parochial, hysterical, religiously insane, or otherwise not worthy of human consideration) than it is to pile onto socially conservative men, especially when the men’s conservatism is wrapped up in the bloody flag of militarism.¨
Rad Geek-
McCain in an angry and abusive man, a warmonger, a patriarch, a defender of privilege, an excuser of torture, and an advocate of a repressive and intolerant society. I certainly loathe the bastard and would never wish to minimise his flaws. He´s close enough to fascism that I don´t feel like arguing the details with you.
That said, Palin is fully a horrible person in her own right- and her political approach is at least as close to fascism than McCain (I say at least because she is a more plausible populist). She is prudish, parochial, and fanatically religious. ´Insane’ or ´hysterical’ (the latter word probably has no valid application), no. Stupid? Um, yes, I do think she can fairly be described as one of the dimmer bulbs in the room, an attribute she shares with George W. Bush. And I do think this is worth commenting on when discussing politicians.
I agree that some of the attacks on Palin, from both right and left, have been sexist- and that this is repulsive. But there´s nothing sexist in pointing out that a horrible person is a horrible person, and something is wrong when a fear of appearing sexist prevents us from speaking clearly against an individual who is, among other things, a Christian fundamentalist and thus a virulent anti-feminist. I don´t doubt that much of what is awful about Palin is the product of a patriarchal society and shouldn´t be entirely laid at her spiritual doorstep, but that´s true of McCain also (his attitude clearly has much to do with his military family upbringing), and in any case understanding Palin´s personal context should not lead us to downplay the very real danger a person like her poses in a position of power.
I don´t see why a feminist should not fully criticise Palin. It´s one thing, in the manner of Dworkin´s Right Wing Women, to try to understand such a person, quite another to want to defend her against critics who are, in this case, on the right side. Feminism, after all, means the view that women are the equals of men and should be regarded as such and, in the end, judged as such. I know this becomes difficult given the fact that women often do not have their talents nurtured, are not given the same respect, and are not treated equally throughout their lives in patriarchal or semi-patriarchal societies. Yet even when you separate out circumstances from what is truly a matter of who a person is, Sarah Palin is still accepts ideas which imply great harm to all of us, women especially. And the carefully contextual standards one should apply when judging someone´s moral worth are a different matter from the standards one should apply when judging whether a person is good at a public task. And one must do the latter when one is dealing with people who might potentially wield such vast power. An analogy would be that if one is concerned whether a person can fly a plane, one needs to choose a person who has this knowledge even if a more intelligent person was unjustly and arbitrarily prevented from attending flight school. (obviously, in this case one long term priority is to change the structural injustice).
Sarah Palin is a person whose convictions are both barbarically irrational and extremely dangerous. I can imagine how any politics concerned with the reason and women´s rights can do anything but oppose and condemn her. I personally find, on balance, that the intensity of the critical public response to her placement on the Republican ticket is obviously a very good thing for women and other living things.
Anonymous,
I have no problem with suggesting that Sarah Palin is a bad person, or a dangerous one, or that it would be a bad thing for her to be Vice President or President or to hold any other elected office. I believe all these things are true, and I have no problem with folks saying that they are. I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that I did, and if I did suggest that, I’m sorry for misspeaking.
What concerns me is the tone and the focus of some of the attacks she has gotten, and the utterly disproportionate degree and intensity of criticism that she’s gotten compared to McCain, who is as bad or worse than her on more or less every single issue and in every facet of his personality, and who, after all, is the one running for President, and therefore the more immediate threat. I think that Palin’s sex is part of the reason that she’s drawn the amount of fire she has relative to McCain, and I think that’s unfortunate. It’s not necessarily that I’d like to see less fire directed at her (although I would generally prefer to see different kinds of fire directed at her than what I see); it’s that I’d like to see more directed at him.
To take a somewhat analogous case, think of the degree of rage that male Right-wingers vented at Hillary Rodham Clinton ca. 1992-2000. Of course, Hillary Rodham Clinton is, as far as I can tell, a truly shameless opportunist, a really awful person, and certainly politically very destructive. But why so much spleen and so many personal insults directed at her, specifically, when the real political problem at the time was with her husband? I don’t think that her gender had nothing to do with that, either.
I certainly wouldn’t use that as a reason to say that people shouldn’t have criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton at the time. But I do think it is a fact worthy of noticing.
When you describe Obama as a opportunist for his FISA vote; do you mean he jumped at the chance to increase executive power. That was a line of analysis quoted on Arthur Silber’s blog. The guy he quoted said Obama criticized telecom immunity but not the expanded powers or something.
All fair enough. I agree with all you say above; I´ve long felt precisely the same concerning the way Hillary Clinton was treated.
Nick,
Well, I suppose he may have voted for it in part because he contemplated himself having the powers he was voting for once elected. I don’t know. But the kind of opportunism I had in mind was simply the fact that he very publicly caved to the Bush Administration’s surveillance state agenda because (at least in part) he didn’t want a specific Congressional vote that would mark him as in the upcoming election. So threw his stated principles out the window in order to protect his campaign from Right-wing attack politics.
I expect that similar calculation went into his voting for the bail-out bill: the fear was that if he did anything that broke with Washington consensus, it would provide an avenue for attack; whereas if he went with the consensus, it wouldn’t provide a wedge issue to differentiate him from Gothmog. Since he didn’t care to fight on this particular issue, and would prefer to keep the debate on other topics, he went along to get along.
Barack “I-will-leave-a-‘residual-force’-in-Iraq-and-send-an-extra-three-brigades-to-Afghanistan” Obama’s foreign policy is defined as a poison pill in my book.
We could debate endlessly over what really goes on in Obama’s head. The Democrats have historically shown themselves to be friendly to corpoate statism and warfare statism. It’s not improbable that Obama is no different in that regard from past Democratic presidential candidates or party members with clout.
I would not want to endorse histroical determinism, so I also concede that Obama may really be against what he says he’s against sometimes — despite acting differently.
At the end of the day; I am more concerned about what his actions in office are. It can be useful to understand his spirit to predict his actions, but we can’t fuse ourselves with him mentally, so we can only obtain certainity bounded by the limits of human perception/analysis of the world.
What Obama’s supporters should not do is contiunally give him a pass for his pragmatic behavior — if it truly be motivated by a desire to save political face. If it is, then I’d say Obama deserves spiritual condemnation for lacking integrity and being a shallow power addict rather than acting to achieve the good.
Arthur Silber pointed out how “Progressives” who tout political idealism can turn around to tell you “it’s just how politics is” when you point out Obama’s inconsistences.
Bob,
I am about to preach to the choir here. I am just extremely angry that Obama is being treated as this “Progressive” change agent.
Yes; Obama still says he will do what the Bush admistration is allegedly doing in Iraq.
Prevent a civil war or genocide.
Fight terrorism.
Train, advise, and otherwise back up the security forces of Iraq.
How can you withdraw all combat troops by 2011 and still do all of the above? Beats me.
The U.S. should not give one single dollar to the corrupt theocracy it has midwifed in Iraq. We may well see Iraq become an Islamist threat it wasn’t in the future. The U.S. is already allegedly trying to prevent various Islamist-tribalistic thugs from causing further mayhem by mindlessly throwing cash each way. If the U.S. were to re-intervene in the context of a Sunni-Shia-Kurdish civil war esque bloodbath that may approximate some definition of three way genocide, then it would be back to where Bush has brought us.
The Bosnian and Kosovo wars are an excellent example of how you become tangled up with bad guys in even seemingly humantarian ventures.
To quote from Arthur Silber’s blog:
“As part of this destabilising process, the USA permitted the movement of Mujihadeen forces from the Middle East and Central Asia to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs.
In 1993, as documented in David Halberstam’s seminal War In a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals, President Clinton gave a ‘green light’ to the arming of the Bosnian Muslims by Iran and Saudi Arabia, even though this defied a UN embargo against arming any side in the Yugoslav conflict (8). From 1993 to 1996 there was an influx of weapons and military advisers into Bosnia, largely organised by Iranian and Saudi officials. This opened the floodgates to the arrival of Mujihadeen fighters from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria and elsewhere, to fight with the Bosnian Muslims. All of this took place under the watchful eye of a Clintonian policy of ‘no instruction’ – in short, such movements should not be interfered with and, if possible, should be encouraged by a ‘green light’ (9).”
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/07/liberal-hypocrisy-in-name-of.html
I am no expert on the Balkans, but I highly doubt everyone loves each other right now due to Western military intervention. What do you expect to happen when you take sides in wars fought by military organizations with a complete disregard for human rights? Why were the Bosnian Muslim fighters more worthy of our support then Serbian ones? Serbian forces under Milosevic behaved very badly; no doubt. This doesn’t make it rational to back ideological compatriots of Bin Laden or Albanian nationlist thugs in response.
Not if you want to actually see human rights triumph rather than perpetually police warring factions — a la contempoary Iraq. “Liberals” who argue the U.S. shouldn’t arm Sunni tribes with little respect for the norms of liberal civilization should also acknowledge that the same principle applies when it comes to Albanian tribes versus Serbian ones.
Especially not Bin Laden connected separatists.
“The march was organised by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is seeking an independent Kosovo as part of a Greater Albania. The KLA functioned as the political proxy of the United States during last spring’s war against Serbia, and has utilised NATO’s intervention to establish its own political control of Kosovo, expelling hundreds of thousands of Serbs and other minorities.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/feb2000/nato-f24.shtml
Ironically; the Republicans pointed out the gross nature of the KLA:
“In 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, [17] and in 1999 the Republican Policy Committee of the U.S. Senate expressed its troubles with the “effective alliance” of the Clinton administration with the KLA due to “numerous reports from reputable unofficial sources (…) that the KLA is closely involved with: the extensive Albanian crime network (…) [and with] terrorist organizations motivated by the ideology of radical Islam, including assets of Iran and of the notorious Osama Bin Laden (…)”. [18]”
Here is a link with more extensive information:http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=/content/analysis/a09.incl
I admit that I am sort of sympathetic to internationalist coalitions of some nature taking some kind of action about this stuff, but I’d prefer such an organization to differ from contempoary nation-states. I’d also like to see less emphasis on militartism as the end all be all cure. You should also not make alliances with groups like the Shia clerics of Iraq, Albanian ethnic separatist thugs, and Afghan warlords. If you really want to do a humantarian intervention using military force, then you should be prepared to face the possiblity of killing people from both sides of a civil-genocidal conflict.
Whew; I kind of went off topic, but this is relevant, because Biden was big on pushing interference in the Balkans. I suspect Obama-Biden will bring us a war in either Iran, Russia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistain, or Pakistan. Probably more than one place.
Well, if it is true that Sarah Palin is “dim”, I’m not sure why that would matter at all. Dim power-monger verses clever power-monger… is it obvious which is better?
Does Obama read this blog? I just heard a passage in his victory speech that sounds as though it was written in response to the above post.
Obama would have to resign the presidency if he took Charles “too” seriously ( :