i can no longer resist posting about politics

[danschank]

(this entire post is kind of a re-tread of a conversation in olamina's comment threads...)
the optimistic narrative of the 2008 election, i suppose, has been about "moving past" race and gender. the official dialogue has been an awkward attempt at cultural invisibility, with the clinton and obama campaigns both trying to appear as un-controversial as

Comments

Agreed

[cut_dead]

I'm glad that Obama made a speech that provoked a more open discussion about race by being all-inclusive [natch]. In a PC society, far too often the discussion closes once you throw labels like 'racist' around & merely end up with simplistic knee-jerk reactions from both sides.

Re: Agreed

[danschank]

what i liked best about it was the sense that it wasn't necessarily easy questions he was raising. it wasn't "inclusive" in the sense that everyone gets a gold star for participating or something-- it was like "let's all commit to this, and acknowledge it's complicated."

[ceciliaj]

I'm so swoony over that speech. I completely agree that what made it so special was that he was addressing the American public as if we were the intelligent, open-minded adults he hopes we are. Brilliant. It was the perfect speech to analyze with my students, because he is such a rare, shining example of a human with a lot at stake who will take seriously the cruelest, least fair things people have said about him, because he takes his opposition to be made up of serious human beings, who also have a lot at stake.

[danschank]

can you discuss it with students? it seems like it would be tough in a political campaign, without being partisan about it? i guess it overrides all that though, hopefully.

there's a few bits i don't like (i.e. when he buddies up to the israeli gov't, for example). but yeah, mostly it's really refreshing...

[ceciliaj]

I was surprised by the Israel statement, but I think it was necessary. (Obv we can disagree on that

[danschank]

ahh rhetoric... my writing would probably be much better if i had taken it in college.

good points. especially about how politics assert themselves in college. when i used to teach, there were usually a few far right students (a la huckabee, actually) who would always be really great in critiques. imo, the worst students are the middle brow ones-- the ones who don't give a shit. when students have an agenda, they typically want to share that agenda, and push for it. accordingly, i'd encounter people who were just plain old sick and tired of "cultural diveristy" or whatever, and they'd usually get the ball rolling as quickly as the more conventionally "open-minded" folks. i had a student once who very aggressively defended being superficial, and it always sparked the greatest debates. she had this really strange agenda-- and was really sharp and confident in defending it. it drove the class crazy, but it also really got them chit-chatting.

[olamina]

thanks for the nod to huckabee. i remember when i was in the states a few months back, i stayed with my lefty lesbian pastors and we were watching the news and much as they couldn't ride with a lot of his social politics there were definitely things about him that appealed to us, there was clearly something there with him to be explored.

by the way comment of the day: in content, this is a lie. huckabee is rather upset with gay people... and secularists... and probably women's vaginas.

i think the scary or exciting (depending on how you look at it) thing about obama is precisely that he makes this turn toward a more substantial democracy, a more participatory system. i hope he gets this presidency more than anything because i am interested to see what happens his ideas ram into the machine of it all. i'm hoping for some ingenuity, i'm wondering how/if the People will get to play along. sitting here and simmering on žižek i don't see how it'd be possible and furthermore whether it'd be any good.

[danschank]

yeah, like we were saying before-- it's the dynamics that make him interesting. and the dynamics are about participation. i think he could go further, honestly (i'd like to see more of the populism of edwards' campaign). and i'm not sure that on an economic level, he's gonna change much of anything. but the dialogue could shift, definitely, and that speech makes that clear.

also, i'm not tempted by third party people this time out, which is kinda nice. i think rin paul is ridiculous (i'd vote mc cain over him any day of the week), gravel-- who i liked best-- just joined the libertarian party (WTF?), and nader is looking sillier and siller (despite his largely spot-on policy stuff, imo).

[olamina]

is it too much to hope for edwards for veep?

[danschank]

i'm kinda mad at edwards for not coming out and backing obama... i mean, can you really run on a populist platform and play quiet in hopes that clinton will pick you in the end? c'mon man, step up to the plate already...

on a pragmatic level, i think BOTH democratic candidates would be crazy not to run with wesley clark. there's nothing like a handsome, rhoades-scholar, retired-army-general democrat to buffer mc cain's strengths on foreign policy. if he's not clinton's choice, i'll be shocked...

in a perfect world (at least pragmatically), as far as i'm concerned, the ideal VP would be GORE GORE GORE. obama/gore would be tough to beat, i think.

[glazomaniac]

fags are bad, god is great, abortion is murder

i object to the middle sentiment being included in what is implied to be the list of negative aspects of huckabee's campaign, & i'm agnostic.

[danschank]

i considered re-wording that, but figured people would be familiar enough with huckabee to contextualize the sentence. plus i liked the sound of it.

i'm not trying to imply that any belief in god is bad. i should have worded this differently. but huckabee has stated publicly that if elected he would push to amend the U.S. constitution, so it reflects the ten commandments. i think that's pretty radical, and awful-- not to mention bigoted. also he's been the most vocally anti-evolution of the campaign, which i think is also rather willfully ignorant (we could go into a long debate here about how i think that whole debate actually undermines the idea of "faith" more than science, but whatever). huckabee is using his faith as a rallying cry, and a platform upon which to react to decadent modern society-- and i think on that level, he's at his least contemplative. when he uses "god is great", a lot of xenophobia goes into it, as far as i'm concerned. but i didn't necessarily make that clear.

[glazomaniac]

it was definitely an objection to the wording, not the intent. i knew where you were coming from, & it's true huckabee wields god in the same way he wields homophobia & pro-life sentiments. i just felt it should be noted.

if it's not too personal, may i ask if you are, in fact, planning on voting for obama?

i'm come completely clean here

[danschank]

i am planning on voting for him. part of the reason i posted this is because i'm more confident about doing so because of the speech. as far as this campaign is concerned, my heart-of-hearts was with gravel or kucinich, initially. as i said above, gravel has just thrown himself in with the libertarian party (an ideology i dislike... and that seems out of sync with his own platform), so he's officially no longer tempting to me. kucinich says things i agree with, but i think he has such a silly public persona that he ends up hurting progressive causes as much as he helps them (ditto nader). not that the media, with its bullshit questions about aliens and shirley mac claine, is any help-- but he's proven himself incapable of handling this kind of pigeon-holing, or re-structuring the conversation to his advantage

[gordonzola]

Interesting. I pretty much agree with you here. also, did you notice Huckabee's refusal to denounce Wright? Clearly it comes from a particular place but it was refreshing. and adult.

[danschank]

haven't heard about that. i'll look into it. whenever i hear huckabee, i feel this weird tension. i DETEST everything he says about social behavior, and i'm unconvinced about his policy stuff (though his environmentalism and bigger gov't ideas has the republican big wigs HATING him, apparently). but i also feel like he's got the kind of temperament that could lead to a real discussion. like,w ith the country as divided as it is ideologically, he seems like someone i could have a conversation with. or that i could crack a joke with and he wouldn't get offended. obama has this too. i feel like this open-ness-- as superficial as it may seem-- is actually a refreshing development, politically.

[gordonzola]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/19/huckabee-defends-rev-jer_n_92346.html

[danschank]

wow. yeah, surprsingly diplomatic. that guy is an oil and water mix of a lot of different things.

also, i have to say... i've been watching a lot of youtube stuff lately from that morning joe show (i'm fairly obsessed with the election), and every time joe scarborough starts that patronizing flirty bullshit (like at the beginning of the clip) with mika brezinzski, i just want to ring his fucking neck. grrr... what an asshole!