Archive for December, 2007
I’m writing this on the eve of the primary season, and it’s looking like Obama may have peaked a few days too soon in Iowa, although it is still going to come down to the wire. If Hillary wins, we’re in for a long year.
The Clintons come from the DLC ideology (which they practically invented) that seeks to curb New Deal excesses but still give hardworking Americans a conceivable path to financial security. Clinton Dems have little time for starry-eyed liberalism, and feel that old lefties, as well as noisy bloggers and online activists have proven utterly incapable of reconciling hard-line ideological views with effective electoral strategies and practical governance. All too often, I believe that can be a fair indictment of liberals. But the idea that centrism and moderation must always be synonymous with sensible and practical, or that it’s always folly to push for sweeping reforms is ludicrous. If a patient is dying, doctors don’t bandage up his paper cut. But to the DLC, baby-steps and incremental change is the perennial answer, regardless of the problem.
To be clear, I have no problem with practicality and compromise. And I think there are some important discussions to be had over things like what is a handout and what is a helping hand, how can we encourage economic growth while limiting corporate largesse, etc. What these “practical Democrats” seem to completely ignore is that Republicans have gone off the deep end.
Most of the GOP presidential candidates lack a basic understanding of foreign policy, or geography even, but still they hype up vague terrorist threats to America with ridiculous propaganda events like “Islamo-fascism” week.
We need politicians who are willing to say the world will never be perfect, and no solution will fix everything, but we as Americans are ignoring the scope of the problems we face and we need dramatic change. Our electorate is too uninformed, our poor are too poor, our oil imports are drying up, and our planet is getting too warm. A great first step in dealing with these issues would be electing candidates who refuse to patronize the American people by “protecting them” from knowing the dangers they face (Clinton), or scaring them into ceding their rights to the government (Giuliani).
Also along those lines, we need to reevaluate our priorities. I won’t care if the next president is for stricter abortion rules or laxer gun laws if he starts subsidizing solar energy instead of oil companies. If we eliminate litmus tests on overemphasized “hot button” issues, we stand a better chance of developing valuable coalitions between groups who share more in common than we often think.
December 29th, 2007
A little over a week ago, Led Zeppelin reunited in London for their first performance in 30 years. Filling in on drums for the late John Bonham was his son, Jason. Zeppelin was the hands down favorite group of many of my friends in high school, and I have probably spent more time listening to them than I have any other band, save the Beatles. My introduction to Zeppelin preceded my introduction to marijuana by a good couple years, but listening to “In the Light” for the first time high - via a nice pair of headphones - is still a standout musical memory for me. Anyway, it reminded me of a frequent high school lament that we could never experience a lot of our favorite bands live. Boo hoo, I know.
The grander point that I think is pertinent is that there just isn’t enough quality music today. There are some exceptions to this, brief eras of creative subcultures; grunge rock in the early nineties, indie rock later in the decade, and then a few impressive years of vibrant underground hip hop that has tailed off in the last year or two. But we don’t have anything equivalent to the tremendous creative output of the 60s that was penetrating the mainstream. In fact, penetration of the mainstream has often been the death knell for many promising musical movements. Many say that this is an inevitability, but I feel that is too simplistic an argument.
Hip hop is the most disappointing example of this. Eloquent discontent became popular enough that many trendsetting artists cashed in on hip rebellion to star in bad movies (see Mos Def in Italian Job) and commercials (Common does Gap ads?), or fell to the wayside, reiterating angry diatribes against the system, album after album, offering little in the way of worthwhile solutions (see Fit To Print).
This isn’t to say music must be revolutionary to be worthwhile. Led Zep didn’t have any strong message other than “look at our huge crotches and loud guitars!”. In fact, preaching often kills potentially good stuff. But when a genre’s success, and in fact, very existence, is predicated on a growing unrest at social inequality (read: underground hh), selfishness by the artist takes on added significance. I would much rather listen to insightful artists who make no pretense of being above looking for a big payday (like Jay-Z, Kanye and Eminem to an extent) than hypocrites.
My “colleague” recently wrote an article about voting with your pocketbook, and I think that is a good suggestion here. You could spend a lifetime listening to good music and watching good movies from the past, or more recent innovative shows on the tele; there is no reason to pay for new entertainment unless it is worth the money.
December 21st, 2007
Al Gore is a the runner-up yet again, this time for Person of the Year. Time chose instead to go with Russian thug, Vladimir Putin. Ridiculous. Of course they’ve given it to Dubya twice, Ken Starr, Gingrich and Giuliani, so who really gives a flying fuck.
Update: Eric Alterman over at Media Matters makes the point that this decision likely resulted from worry that choosing Gore might create controversy. I agree, considering their Person of the Year in 2006 was “You”, literally, with a mirror as the front cover. Of course, I tend to think previous choices of Hitler and Stalin might be a tad more controversial than picking a man who uses empirical evidence and all that to back up his arguments.
December 19th, 2007
Ego, dirty tactics and petty bickering are so embedded in American politics that it is no wonder people are turned off by the whole thing. Yesterday, attempting to refute Obama’s claim that he is “not running to fulfill some long held plans” -which was meant as a veiled jab at Clinton’s naked ambition in response to her assertion that his mother wears army boots as a rejoinder to him holding her to the ground and threatening to drop spit on her but always sucking it up just at the last second - Hillary’s campaign basically issued a press release saying Obama is a liar because he wrote an essay about wanting to be president in kindergarten.
This is not a joke, do not attempt to adjust the dials on your set. They really said that. If you follow the campaign closely (which you shouldn’t), it is quite clear that Clinton is better and less honest with her attacks than Obama is. What is also clear is that name-calling over knick knacks has replaced having a substantive debate about what is wrong with the country and with the candidates. It’s a war without a winner. So Obama saying vote for me because I’m not Hillary is as compelling an argument as “vote Democratic because we’re not Republicans”. That is to say, it might not even be a losing strategy, but it’s not a meaningful campaign to run on.
December 3rd, 2007