7 September 08

Satire In The Park

The San Francisco Mime Troupe made their annual visit to Davis this afternoon, setting up their outdoor theatre in Community Park on a hot day ( it always seems to be hot when they come to town). This year’s musical political theatre was entitled “Red State” — the plot centering on the down-and-out town of Bluebird, Kansas who because of a improbable electoral tie and a voting machine malfunction wind up with the job of determining the result of the 2008 presidential elections after all the voting has ended everywhere else.

The trouble with political satire these days is that reality is now more outrageous than the satire.

Posted by at 11:12 PM in Politics | Link | Comment

31 August 08

Trap, Metatrap, or Stupidity?

It’s been 40 hours since I first heard of Sarah Palin and I’m still shocked by McCain’s choice of a running mate. She has such an underwhelming resume that there is surely some hidden strategy here. First, maybe it’s a trap: McCain figures that the scorn that the Democrats will heap on her will lead to a huge backlash and her gathering a large sympathy vote from women voters. Second possibility: it’s a trap at a much higher level. McCain isn’t making a play for the disaffected Clintonistas at all, rather it’s a play for the hardcore rightwing fundamentalists. Indeed, this marks abandoning any pretense that this election is about policy at all, instead it will continue the metaphysical debate brought to the fore in the past two elections about pluralism versus fundamentalism in this society. (See LithiumCola’s excellent post today on DKos about this theme.) Third possibility — it’s simply stupidity on McCain’s part. His legendary rashness finally comes to the fore. Seeing that the Democratic Convention was turning out to be a spectacular success, McCain panics, backtracks on his plan to select Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was apparently his choice earlier in the week, and finally settles on Palin at 11 AM on Thursday, needing a game-changer at this point.

It’s bizarre. But as they say, no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people, and that is the scary thing about this choice. There are plenty of people out there who think “oh cool, this women has five kids and got to be governor, and now she might be V.P.!”, only less coherently than that. People vote for who they identify with, and low-information voters are a trouble spot for Obama.

But I have a lot of faith in the strategic mastery of Obama’s campaign team, and think they will turn this campaign twist to their advantage. Put another way, Obama is playing go while McCain can only master craps.

Posted by at 12:43 AM in Politics | Link | Comment [2]

4 July 08

Lapelgate

The opening scene of Schindler’s List features the main character getting ready to go out in the evening. Combed hair, pressed shirt, tie, handkerchief. The final touch? The Nazi lapel pin. This will function for him as a pass-card; it’s membership in the club of the powerful and terrifying. Industrialist Oskar Schindler is mostly interested in making money, and he makes a fortune thanks to the Nazis and their war. The lapel pin gets him places. Really nasty places, and his story of redemption is the story of a struggle with his conscience, of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, and because you can: it’s a choice.

I grew up in Franco’s Spain near the northern Madrid Guardia Civil headquarters. We’d see them wandering, always in tricornered pairs, always with tommy guns; but when they drilled at the Quartel, they’d pass under the Spanish flag (in those days it said “Una, Grande, Libre” (one, great, free) unlike the confederate version so in evidence during the recent Eurocopa) and kiss it. Kiss the flag. Take it in their right hands and press their lips to it. The motto of the Guardia Civil was “Todo por la patria” — everything for the motherland. Everything: extreme suppression of dissent, torture, intimidation, wiretapping. Everything. No freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to assemble, nada. Behave and we won’t hurt you. Everything. Por la patria.

My country, right or wrong, in other words.

One of the most striking things about the Declaration of Independence — and the U.S. Constitution, which I’ve only recently read for the first time — is how they both assume that citizens not only want to be, but are, in fact, grownups. They reject the model of the powerful parent, either monarch or state, and instead require that the government serve at the pleasure of the people.

Of course this requires that the “people” take their civic responsibilities seriously; that they engage; that they inform themselves; that they vote. It is not a model of blind obedience. It’s hard work, citizenship. It involves wrestling with the angel of democracy, as Susan Griffin says in her new book. Not for kids. Not for fearful adults or stupefied zombie-like drones (see Wall-E for an example of how frightening that could really be). Grownups.

Ever since 9/11 the flag-fetish has become a cudgel. Ever since I’ve been alive I’ve been aware that Americans hang flags more, much more, than Europeans; even in Fascist Spain, it was only the state and associated enforcers who engaged in it. Here, lots of people hang flags. It’s called “patriotism.”

So now they’re going after Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin. The omission is somehow his entry into the club of world terrorism, a sign that he secretly hates America and wants to blow it up. He’s not “patriotic” enough.

It remains to be seen whether the damage inflicted on the citizenry by these crazed fearmongers will prevail in November.

I really hope not, because what was embodied in the Declaration of Independence — and later in the Constitution — is nothing less than faith in the ability of reasonable people to arrange their lives, reasonably. How civilized. And, on this Fourth of July, what a great gift to the world.

Posted by at 09:28 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [5]

25 June 08

Hardy and Hillary

I’ll admit it, in public, and in fact have on one of those “books you hated but everyone else loved” websites: I can’t stand Thomas Hardy. Labored, ponderous, not quite getting it right with his female heroines, and they such drips. Tess should have clocked a bunch of people around the face before setting to them with a knife.

But he straddled, didn’t he, Victorianism and Modernity. Someone had to do it. Woolf went to visit him, it is said, not too soon before he died in 1928. She straddled that same divide, more on this side than that. He paved her way.

How could he stand it? How could he stand those bloody complacent Edwardians? Well, he couldn’t, so he kept WRITING.

Hillary has straddled a similar divide. Before her, woman-as-president was laughable. She has facilitated, like Hardy, a cultural transition. Not for herself, perhaps, but for all who come after. It still pains me to recall her speech two weeks ago, when she was passionately, and vocally, and authentically Hillary (as opposed to whatever the guys managed out of her). If she had been that in, say, Iowa, Obama would have had no chance.

I’ve been as much of a fan of Hillary’s as I have of Hardy’s. It had a lot to do with how she voted on the war, and how she refused to acknowledge she’d been duped. But she’s made a lot possible for little girls (and big girls) to dream, and I salute her for that.

Posted by at 08:42 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [5]

4 June 08

Vetinari Ascendant

We’ve reported on how Barack Obama bears more than a passing resemblance to Lord Vetinari. This scene in the Senate today could have easily been written by Terry Pratchett, especially the bit about smiling up at the press at the end.

Posted by at 11:51 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [1]

3 June 08

Being a Political Junkie is Over till Tomorrow...

We don’t write much about politics on Feathers of Hope.

But tonight, I have Hope, and the November election’s looking pretty good.

Hillary Clinton fought hard, harder than I’d ever have expected. I wish she had done so more fairly, without inciting her supporters to racist vitriol. The constant pleasant/vicious flip-flopping became really predictable after a while and I’m glad it’s over.

Because it really is over, and now we can look forward to the task ahead, which is getting rid of these scoundrels who throw lives into the hopper on a whim and who scoff at the Constitution. Can we?

Yes we can.

Posted by at 08:52 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [2]

30 May 08

Batting Average With Delegates In Play

Over this primary season a blogger going by the name of Poblano has been producing some remarkably accurate predictions of the election results based on some sophisticated demographic modelling.
Today Poblano outed himself. It turns out his name is Nate Silver, and he is a whiz baseball statistical analyst by profession. He is a managing partner of the publication Baseball Prospectus, and developed the PECOTA system for projecting players’ future performance based on historical pattern. As a data geek I am delighted to see such overlap between baseball and political analytics.

Closer to home the UC Davis Aggie baseball just won its first NCAA Division I playoff game! They beat Stanford 4-2 on a complete game pitching performance by Eddie Gamboa. A few years back the UC Davis students voted to move the athletic program to the highest NCAA division. The 2007-2008 academic year has been the first year since the move that the UCD sports teams have been eligible for the playoffs, and the baseball team has done very well for itself this year.

Posted by at 11:41 PM in Baseball | Link | Comment

21 May 08

Board Elections

Tonight was the last meeting of the Yolo Audubon Society for this school year, and we all got drafted onto the YAS board for another year. The YAS board elections are hardly competitive; rather, the task is to hunt far and wide to find somebody who wants to be hospitality chair.

This is quite unlike the elections for the Davis Food Coop board. The annual election is underway, the ballots are to be submitted in a week, and we don’t have a clue who to vote for. The annual member meeting was this evening, but we had the YAS meeting to go to, so we missed that opportunity to learn about the candidates. Heated letters about the candidates have been appearing about the candidates in the local paper for several weeks now. Nine candidates are up for four slots. We only really like one of the candidates, and are not sure how to fill out the ballot.

Posted by at 11:40 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [1]

10 May 08

Our Lord Vetinari

Apologies to those who are not fans of Terry Pratchett, but I think axmxz is on to something when he suggests that there is more similarity between Barack Obama and the gently Machiavellian ruler of the city-state of Ankh-Morpork than one would suppose at the outset.

Posted by at 11:05 PM in Politics | Link | Comment

18 March 08

Speech For The Ages

Barack Obama gave an amazing speech today on race and politics. Don’t just read the commentaries on it — it’s well worth the time to watch or listen to the video of the speech, or at least read the complete text of it, all of which can be found here.

Posted by at 10:32 PM in Politics | Link | Comment [1]

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