positive politics.
(Apologies to those who might have seen this already on carol83.)
I'm playing a little game over in my non-fandom journal right now, and I thought the more people play along, the better. Here's the explanation:
Sarah Vowell was on the Daily Show [last night]-- fantastic interview. (I love, love, love her contributions of This American Life. She's just so damn dry about everything. It is fabulous and I love it.) Vowell was on to talk about a new book she's just published, but really she was on to be witty and blank-faced and to provide some delightful commentary on the current apocalypse.
Talking about the rather glaring lack of leadership from some of our elected officials recently, Vowell said that, rather than read the newspaper, she went online and looked up FDR's "Fireside Chats." In what was probably the best line of the interview, she said that since there wasn't any coming from today's sources, she was looking back to the 1930s for some reassurance and leadership. Very amusing, in a slightly terrifying sort of way.
That line, in concert with the severely underwhelming debate [last night], made me think that it might be some time for a little political nostalgia. Some anachronistic escapism and inspiration, if you will. So let's play a little game. Since, as Vowell said, we don't seem to have any useful leadership in the White House right now, let's cherry pick some from the past. There's some good stuff in American political and legal history, and I don't think it's a bad idea to remind ourselves of that every now and again.
So here's how it goes:
Tell me about your favorite part of American political history. What have we done right in our two hundred and thirty-two years together? Gimme your favorite piece of legislation, your favorite Constitutional Amendment, a Supreme Court decision that makes you stand up and cheer, a particular speech that makes you cry-- and not with rage. If you've got a particular fondness for one of the Federalist Papers, tell me about it. If you've got a crush on Abigail Adams, or think James Madison doesn't get the credit he deserves, feel free to rhapsodize. See if you can dig up just one little thing about our political history that doesn't make you want to claim to be Canadian when you're traveling. (And if you can't, think harder. There's got to be something.)
I think election season can be brutal for our sense of optimism at the very best of times; this year, at this particular moment in history, I think we're particularly vulnerable to cynicism. Hell, looking to the White House right now would probably crush the optimism out of Pollyanna. So if we're not getting reassurance from the present, why not look to the past?
I'll go first.
You know what I love? I love Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience. To be fair, I loathed reading it at school-- but I think that impression was mainly colored by having also to read Emerson at the same time, who I always found a little creepy, what with the talk about "transparent eye-balls." But over time, I've learned to forgive the association, and to get past some of the more tedious nineteenth-century literary pretensions. And while I doubt I'll ever be completely convinced that "government is best that governs least," there is something remarkably splendid about proclaiming that if law "requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." Ghandi and Martin Luther King both acknowledged On Civil Disobedience as being a crystallizing point for both of their movements. In the 1940s, the essay was a touchstone for the Danish resistance during World War II; in the 1950s, for American citizens fighting McCarthyism; in the 1960s, it became a rallying point for opponents to apartheid in South Africa. Truly, I can think of few other American works of political theory that have had such effect.
So way to go, Thoreau. I think you were a weird, overly self-righteous little guy who spent too much time alone, but you sure wrote a hell of an essay. Full marks.
I'm playing a little game over in my non-fandom journal right now, and I thought the more people play along, the better. Here's the explanation:
Sarah Vowell was on the Daily Show [last night]-- fantastic interview. (I love, love, love her contributions of This American Life. She's just so damn dry about everything. It is fabulous and I love it.) Vowell was on to talk about a new book she's just published, but really she was on to be witty and blank-faced and to provide some delightful commentary on the current apocalypse.
Talking about the rather glaring lack of leadership from some of our elected officials recently, Vowell said that, rather than read the newspaper, she went online and looked up FDR's "Fireside Chats." In what was probably the best line of the interview, she said that since there wasn't any coming from today's sources, she was looking back to the 1930s for some reassurance and leadership. Very amusing, in a slightly terrifying sort of way.
That line, in concert with the severely underwhelming debate [last night], made me think that it might be some time for a little political nostalgia. Some anachronistic escapism and inspiration, if you will. So let's play a little game. Since, as Vowell said, we don't seem to have any useful leadership in the White House right now, let's cherry pick some from the past. There's some good stuff in American political and legal history, and I don't think it's a bad idea to remind ourselves of that every now and again.
So here's how it goes:
Tell me about your favorite part of American political history. What have we done right in our two hundred and thirty-two years together? Gimme your favorite piece of legislation, your favorite Constitutional Amendment, a Supreme Court decision that makes you stand up and cheer, a particular speech that makes you cry-- and not with rage. If you've got a particular fondness for one of the Federalist Papers, tell me about it. If you've got a crush on Abigail Adams, or think James Madison doesn't get the credit he deserves, feel free to rhapsodize. See if you can dig up just one little thing about our political history that doesn't make you want to claim to be Canadian when you're traveling. (And if you can't, think harder. There's got to be something.)
I think election season can be brutal for our sense of optimism at the very best of times; this year, at this particular moment in history, I think we're particularly vulnerable to cynicism. Hell, looking to the White House right now would probably crush the optimism out of Pollyanna. So if we're not getting reassurance from the present, why not look to the past?
I'll go first.
You know what I love? I love Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience. To be fair, I loathed reading it at school-- but I think that impression was mainly colored by having also to read Emerson at the same time, who I always found a little creepy, what with the talk about "transparent eye-balls." But over time, I've learned to forgive the association, and to get past some of the more tedious nineteenth-century literary pretensions. And while I doubt I'll ever be completely convinced that "government is best that governs least," there is something remarkably splendid about proclaiming that if law "requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." Ghandi and Martin Luther King both acknowledged On Civil Disobedience as being a crystallizing point for both of their movements. In the 1940s, the essay was a touchstone for the Danish resistance during World War II; in the 1950s, for American citizens fighting McCarthyism; in the 1960s, it became a rallying point for opponents to apartheid in South Africa. Truly, I can think of few other American works of political theory that have had such effect.
So way to go, Thoreau. I think you were a weird, overly self-righteous little guy who spent too much time alone, but you sure wrote a hell of an essay. Full marks.