Back again. I think this whole "Internet" thing may catch on, but its having trouble staying up for me. Ah well. I've written a couple items that I'll backpost soon.
In the meantime: For Amanda (and anyone else who might be interested in clicking it).
Well, OK, it's not really *from* the DNC, I'm here in Detroit. Maybe thoughts from me about the DNC is a better way to say it.
1) Clinton was good, wasn't he? There are still plenty of things to be unsettled about with William Jefferson Clinton, but the man can speak, and it's easy to forget how moderate he was. And all things considered, he lied to the nation in an investigation of his sexual activities that should never have happened. This is quite a step away from lying to the nation in justifying an act of aggression risking the lives of American military forces.
I'm not sure that I want him back, but he sure looks good next to the two choices I've got coming this November.
2) In today's postmodern political world, the labels are far more important than the policies. *Being* a Republican or *being* a Democrat is what matters, not your actual views. Clinton is a good case in point for this, being one of the most conservative Democrats out of the last 30 years, yet still hated with incredible vitriol by "Republicans" for being such an incredible Liberal. Bush II is really not particularly conservative being
--against a balanced budget
--pro spending increases
--pro large government programs
--pro interventionist foreign policy
--against state's rights in most cases
--pro-industy protectionism
and yet he is derided by most "Democrats" for being such an incredible Conservative. Consider that under the "environmentally-friendly" President Clinton, CAFE standards were frozen for light trucks, and under the "environmental travesty" of President Bush, the freeze was lifted and CAFE standards were increased. As I've said before, Bush hasn't been an environmental dream, but he has done some very good things to benefit the environment. Yet, because the environment is a "Democrat" issue, you won't hear about any of those things.
So it seems to me that people have a deep personal attachment to being "red" or "blue", in a way that is totally unrelated to the politics those things are supposed to stand for. It's a social and group-identity thing first, like choosing Ford, Chevy, or Dodge trucks.
3) It was fascinating to watch first hand the way the media marginalize and isolate minorities. I listened on the radio to Al Sharpton's speech at the convention, and I thought it was fantastic. I, like many, had an image of Sharpton as a modestly-insane, intentionally divisive, muckraking radical. But his speech was none of that. It was honest and reasonable, but also forceful and challenging to those in power and without, to make the country as good as its promises. Far and away, I still consider it the best speech of the convention.
Truly, it made me proud to be a black man. Given that I am not, in fact, a black man that feeling passed, but still I felt an incredible pride and happiness that someone was out there representing.
Less than two minutes later I got to hear the commentators talking about Rev. Al saying that the Emancipation Proclamation had accomplished nothing and that we spend too much money on terrorism. I had just listened to the entire speech, and he never said any such thing! While responding to President Bush's request for the black vote, Sharpton had said that while the Republicans were the party of Lincoln and he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the Republicans hadn't subsequently delivered on their promises to secure that freedom. And while speaking about education, he said "The promise of America says we will guarantee quality education for all children and not spend more money on metal detectors than computers in our schools."
It's very easy for me to understand how African-Americans feel disenfranchised by the political process. In addition to being deliberately purged from the voting rolls in places like Florida, they get to experience the cognitive dissonance of hearing a speech one minute and then hearing people unashamedly lie about that same speech.
By the way, this ocurred on the supposedly "liberal-slanted" NPR coverage. I saw what the coverage in the "straight-media" did to it the next day, not to mention FoxNews and Company.
There are still plenty of things about Sharpton that make me nervous, and I still don't think he'd make a good President. But to intentionally defame the man's words only a few short minutes after speaking, that's amazing to me. I suspect that if I really was a black man, I wouldn't find it so amazing, but rather just one more thing. At the least, I'm going to avoid making judgements based on what the news tells me.
4) Barack Obama was pretty good, but he wasn't nearly as transcendent as everyone is rushing to give him credit for. I do think he'll continue to be a great speaker and has excellent potential. But I still haven't seen any of his policies or actions in office, and the only thing I know from the speech is that he wants to stand for Unity. But still, you have to make political choices sooner or later, and I'm curious to see what they'll be.
Already there seems to be a lot of talk about a presidential run for Obama. It seems highly premature, given the fact that most don't really even know what his policies are. Still and all, I hope he could unite the country enough to get elected. That would be an important step that could accomplish far more than any affirmative-action law toward genuine healing.
Notes:
Text of Sharpton's Speech (judge for yourself)
Here's a profile of Obama's positions in 1998 (he refused to fill out the survey in 2004). Banning all semi-automatic weapons? That'll make it tough to unite the country for damn sure.
[This article has been backposted to the date it was originally written because of technical failures.]
It seems likely that most of you have already seen this, but if not, go ahead, its silly, pointless political fun, that doesn't really seem to take sides.
Also I saw a thing on the company, which is two guys who make advertising videos. So even if you've seen it, head back anyway to increase their advertising revenue.
For those who were contemplating the Jeopardy! Drinking game, here are the official rules.
A carryover discussion from Comments on the last entry: How true are movies to the novels they are based on? And how much does it really matter?
Andy has been discussing his confusion over Chris Suellentrop's Slate article on I, Robot and how it gets Asimov wrong. Andy, and then Laura have both taken the position that "I, Robot" (Will Smith and all) gets Asimov pretty well.
Its funny, I had a similar experience watching Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers", which while not the finest piece of film-making I've ever witnessed, was pretty good. But I kept hearing people complain about how it got Heinlein totally wrong, and I really didn't see it. To be fair, Verhoeven's personal politics are quite distinct from Heinlein, some of which editorializes its way into the movie, but I think he hit most of the themes pretty well. But more importantly, how can anyone capture the depth of philosophical thought found in "Starship Troopers" in a two hour movie, and who would want to watch it? Sure, Verhoeven could have expanded the classroom scenes from 4 minutes to 40 minutes and gone into a more indepth exploration of the concept of civic duty, but it would have been a terrible thing to watch.
So I think there are two things happening.
1) People are expecting a 2-hour movie to somehow encompass the same depth of ideas as a 300 page book. The problem of course is that film is a visual medium, intended to transmit images and emotions rather than communicate ideas.
2) People automatically expect a movie to screw up the book version and so are only looking for the differences, rather than paying attention to what they get right. A great example of this from Starship Troopers is the insistence on combat armor. While the armor as described in ST the book was cool as hell and an interesting concept, it was essentially set dressing, and Verhoeven (wisely, I think) avoided a whole lot of explication on what all this crap was and just cut to the core of the infantry experience rather than complicate things.
I haven't seen "I, Robot" (or read the book, or much at all of Asimov) so I can't comment on that one. What do ya'll think? Any other examples?
(Links to be added later)
Battles over language and sensitivity rage on, but one thing remains clear to me. Those refusing to discuss history are doomed to repeat it.
Mother Teresa is like Hitler. In fact, the other 1.038 Billion Catholics in the world are like Hitler. If you were to examine every human being that has ever lived, they are all in some way like Hitler. And reading the news it seems like more and more people are becoming like Hitler every day. These are all irrefutably true statements. But are they necessary?
Recently there have been a number of fairly high profile items in the news about people being compared to Adolph Hitler for one reason or another. The favorite target of late has been George W. Bush (and here and here and here (Pravda!) and here etc.), although John Kerry, Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, Zionism, Christianity, Ivan Stang (earthly leader of the Church of the Subgenius), Bill Clinton, and The Estate Tax have all become recent targets.
All this comes at a time not too far removed from another recent attack of righteous outrage on both sides when a Bush Campaign ad displayed images of Hitler counterposed with prominent Democrats. The images came from short ads that had been displayed on MoveOn.org, and so the Bush Campaign claimed that the images of Hitler were just stand-ins for MoveOn.org and not a comparison. While I'm no fan of MoveOn and its tactics, the ads appearing on its site were not created by MoveOn.org, but by outsiders partipating in the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest MoveOn sponsored. They appeared on the site along with 1100 other ads, and as soon as MoveOn was made aware of the ads they were removed from the site and denounced by MoveOn. So I think referring to them as "Ad Sponsored by MoveOn.org" is a bit of a stretch.
In any case, in the swirl of all this Nazification and counter-condemnation, it seems worth asking, What is an appropriate use of these comparisons? My argument is that for purposes of personal and partial comparisons, Nazifying is never appropriate. It is true that George W. Bush has encouraged legislation that has eroded civil liberties, and this is something that Hitler also did. So What? It is also true that Hitler was raised Catholic, just like Mother Teresa. How does dissecting one small portion of a person's life or work justify a comparison between the people? Isn't saying that he has eroded civil liberties enough justification without needing to point to the greatest political bogeyman in history? People who make these lame arguments that "I'm only referrring to his record on fiscal policy, not the Holocaust" are being intentionally misleading. There are Billions of people in history, many of whom are famous and well-known. The only reason someone makes a comparison to Adolph Hitler, the Nazi's or the Holocaust is to inflame passions irrationally. Is there anyone anywhere that isn't aware of how emotionally charged Hitler and Nazism are as a symbol?
I'll say it again: There's no good reason to compare someone to Hitler, unless that person happens to be a short Austrian who attempted to seize power from a country but failed and was imprisoned and then wrote a book while in prison about his political philosophy and got out and gained power through national elections on a campaign of fear and xenophobia, then engaged in a land-grab attacking his neighbors, all while engaging in a secret plot to commit genocide on a very large segment of the population and enact a police state to silence all opposition and then start a war involving most of the countries on several continents finally commencing in defeat and suicide. With a mustache. Any partial comparison carries the entire emotional weight of Hitler's legacy, and is unfair both to the subject and to the very real evil that Nazism represented.
However, I would argue that it is very important to look at parallels in history. It is important that we understand the ways in which Nazism and the Holocaust happened, or ignore them at our own peril. So I think it is entirely appropriate to examine ways in which the policies of countries, and their treatment of issues of immigration, policing, civil rights, and military struggles compare to Germany from 1933-1945. Refusing to do so is a dangerous oversight. Let's just skip the next step of saying that any country who is on any part of this dangerous path is being led by the New Hitler.
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Producer fired examining parallels between American and German Culture in 1938
Godwin's Law (Usenet law of Hitler comparisons)
Comparisons between Bush and Hitler amount to Holocaust Denial?
Grover Norquist on The Estate Tax (Fresh Air Audio)
View the "Bush in 30 Seconds" Hitler Ads
Boondocks strip (hosted for a limited time to get the point across, after which you should sign up or buy a book.)
(I'm a big fan of Boondocks and McGruder, but consider this to be guilty of the attitudes I decry in this article)
[Taken down, go to the site]
Note: Some modifications were made to this article on 15JUL to make the argument clearer.
Out of town for an Improv Reunion weekend. I'll have more when I get back. In the meantime, check this out. While it is *very* left-leaning, it is also an innovative new approach to populist political action.
The bottom line: They send you an email with an issue that they are spotlighting and have taken a position on. If you agree with that position, just reply to the message and hit send and it will automatically generate a fax to your congresspeople. So you get to filter what you are for or against, and thus, unless you are against *everything* this group has to say, it is an opportunity to participate without doing much work. Lazy social change!
EFF's action center has a similar system where you go to their website and just click on the issues you want to respond to, but TrueMajority.org takes things to a new level of laziness, which I fully support.
If you've never seen Richard Linklater's film, "Before Sunrise" you've missed a truly outstanding film experience. It came out in 1995, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and is exquisitely wonderful. David Edelstein of Slate movie reviews describes the experience as "embarrassingly emotionally intimate", and I think he's spot on. It is really one of the most intimate and immediate and emotionally intense films I've ever seen, and it is basically a long conversation. You need to see it, and soon.
In addition to all the reasons above that you need to see it, I'll add one more. Linklater has just released a sequel, taking you further in the story. And after seeing the first, you'll wish there was a sequel, and you, unlike me, get the opportunity to know that not only will there be one, but that it is coming out in theaters as we speak right from the moment you see it. I'm not alone in my insistence on this film, read Edelstein's "non-review review" on Slate of the sequel here.
I've enjoyed all the films that Linklater has done, from the artsy and bizaare but still fun "Waking Life" to the fun ensemble piece "Dazed and Confused", he's a really great writer and director. But there's something about Before Sunrise that is both transformative and reaffirming. It captures the essence of emotional attachment and intimacy in a way that feels like an assault, but makes you stronger in the long run. Find a way to see it, and soon.
Note: Those of you that I know who are near me, I own a copy and would be happy to loan it out. (But it better come back.)