Senator Barack Obama was criticized for his popularity by the McCain campaign this week. They compared him to Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise? I always thought Tom was more Johnny Mac-like in his Top Gunnitude. Anyway, the campaign calls the shots and the Neoclones march off to chant the spin of the day. Here are the Marching orders that followed close-on the attack ad comparing Obama to Britney and Paris Hilton that got the Republican rank and file involved this week…

To: Interested Parties

From: Rick Davis, McCain Campaign Manager

Date: July 30, 2008

Re: Barack Obama’s Celebrity

Barack Obama is the biggest celebrity in the world, comparable to Tom Cruise, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. As he told Congressional Democrats yesterday, he has become the “symbol” for the world’s aspirations for America and that we are now at “the moment … that the world is waiting for.”

Only a celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand “MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea” and worry about the price of arugula

Yet, despite all of the fans, paparazzi and media adoration, the American people still have questions: Is Barack Obama prepared to lead? Is being famous the same as being a credible commander in chief?

Obama’s popularity world-wide and his promise as a reform candidate have the Neocons on the ropes. McCain can’t provide a positive image to compete with Obama, so they’ve had to go negative from day one. To encounter a the Rovian tactics — the lies and the smears — coming out of the McCain camp, the Obama Campaign set up a Fight the Smears web site. The inventory of fear mongering and bigotry that is growing daily on this site reflects mighty poorly on John McCain.

The Republicans have set up a site called Barack Obama Audacity Watch, a central location where the hopeless can gather to tear down and attempt to tarnish the image of Barack Obama, the man who has a chance to restore America’s and the world’s respect for the American Presidency. To be clear, the Office is no longer respected. The incumbent and his party have demolished our faith in government at home and our reputation and standing abroad. This is not easy for the Neocon faithful to swallow.

The last few days I’ve been commenting at Jeff Jarvis’ blog, BuzzMachine. Jarvis jumped on the Rovian reframe and smear bandwagon with a post praising a recent Dana Milbank column in the Washington Post that Jarvis said skewered “the presumptive Democratic nominee’s presumptuousness.” Jarvis warned that Obama “could still lose this and hubris could lose it for him.” Jarvis posed as a friend of the Obama campaign by couching his post as a friendly warning. “Let’s talk tactically folks,” he says … “Milbank’s piece was a good warning: Hubris is becoming an issue.” Milbank’s piece was just a PR score for the McCain campaign as the Republicans trundle out their tired old tactics of turning a positive into a negative.

I put a lot of keystrokes into those comments, so I thought I’d collect them here with some context where I’ll be able to find them again. I’ve omitted dozens of other people’s comments and preserved my own just as a personal journal kind of thing. What follows is tedious and can best be appreciated by reading the entire thread at BuzzMachine. If you’re into that. Otherwise mark it tl;dr and get on to something interesting.

Oliver Willis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am

Just too uppity, right Jeff? Keep up the new media drumbeat, not so much the politics.

Aron S Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am

And I’m still not even sure what your beef with Obama is! That’s one of the more annoying aspects of this passive-aggressive political crap you post.

tdc Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am

the more hubris the better.

i absolutely fell in love with this guy when my son met him one day on a public sidewalk on the campus of the university of chicago. weeks went by and my son was a few rows deep in a crowd of well-wishers and obama reached through the crowd to shake his hand and actually greeted him by his first name.

amazing considering i can’t remember what i had for dinner last night.

sam Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 11:14 am

Echoing Ryan. Jeff, you’re unbelievable. You take an Obama quote where he was specifically saying the crowds were not about him, and turn it into ‘Obama has ego.’

Be honest. Admit the mistake. I look forward to your acknowledgment of your error.

Jeff Jarvis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 11:24 am

Oliver,
Don’t play the race card. You’ve just said that I can’t criticize Obama without you calling me racist. How dare you? I am offended. [aside – “Jarvis” has called Obama hubristic, Oliver correctly translates that to “uppity,” Jarvis gets on his high horse and says Oliver is playing “the race card.” Here’s a clear assessment of that bullshit by Jeneane, with a little history of Jarvis racism going back the last few years. Follow her links. –fp–]

Aron,
My beef with him is the same as it has been: I fear he is a cynical politician who feeds rhetoric and feeds off the cheers of the crowd without substance. A little humility would be comforting.

Ryan and Sam,
No but talking about himself in such exhalted messianic terms is precisely what this is about. He represents all America? That’s hubris. George Bush thought he did, too. He was wrong.

Let’s talk tactically, folks. Gore may not have lost the election (just the Supreme Court) but he did blow a big lead by being – why do you think? – dull. Kerry lost what should have been a victory by being – what? – awkward and dull. Obama is neither of those. But he could still lose this election. That’s my point. This level of hubris is unbecoming. If voters feel as if he is being shoved down their throats, as if he is a fait accompli, then I think there could be a backlash.

Milbank’s piece was a good warning: Hubris is becoming an issue.

— later —

Jeff Jarvis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

And by the way, folks, the attempted rhetorical trick of saying that I am not good at politics (because I don’t agree with you) is tired and insulting and doesn’t go to discussing anything of substance. You’re not wounding me with it. You’re boring me.

You’re also not seeing the subtext here: I want to vote for the guy and I want a Democrat to win but I fear he’s blowing it (again). You’re arguing against the wrong side.

Oh, that’s right, I’m not allowed to criticize the home team? We would have been a lot better off if people had given Kerry the right criticism to get his act together.

[my sense is that Jarvis is pretty much a Lieberman Democrat, i.e. a Republican. — fp –]

Ryan Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Jeff,
Hubris is becoming an issue because the media (ahem, you) are making it an issue. Absolutely nothing in that quote speaks of hubris unless you’re looking for it. Is Obama a confident guy? Sure. But why wouldn’t he be? He beat the Clinton machine, raised more money than any candidate in history and is on the verge of the presidency as a black man named Barack Hussein Obama.

Jeff Jarvis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Ryan,
Milbank explains it far better than I. I’d suggest reading that link. He hasn’t won yet and acting as if he has could lose it for him.
And, no, I don’t think media is making hubris the issue. He is. Media’s problem for him is allied: the ovation problem that will let McCain play media victim.

Oliver Willis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

You’ve just said that I can’t criticize Obama without you calling me racist.
No, I’m saying the paper, conservatives and now you are buying into the notion that while every politician in America has ambition, when Sen. Obama does it it’s somehow “hubris”. Who does this guy think he is, right? I mean, the nerve of the guy, thinking he can run the country! What kind of person does that?

Oh, right, a presidential candidate.

Jeff, for someone who follows the press as you do, you’re stunningly naive on these things. Obama is acting the same as he always has, it is the right and the press who are making it an issue when to normal people it isn’t. Regular people know that people like Obama and McCain have egos. They would have to to even run for office, let alone president.

Jeff Jarvis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Yes, Oliver, he’s acting as he always has and I’ve always had the same problem with him. I fear he is an empty if grand vessel.

And don’t try to sidestep what you did. You called me racist. I resent it. It was wrong of you. I am insulted and angry and serious about that.

Tom B. Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

…Oliver, using the word “uppity” certainly implies racial tone. If you didn’t mean it that way, you certainly left it up to the readers’ interpretation, which was an awkward way to criticize what Jeff is getting at.

Jeff Jarvis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Tom, I appreciate both the criticism and the defense.

Oliver Willis Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

No, I meant it the way I said it. It’s pretty amazing that nobody speaks about John McCain’s “hubris” at running for president or thinking he could be Commander In Chief, but then Barack Obama does the same and the drumbeat begins. It couldn’t possibly be that some think that Sen. Obama’s too big for his britches and acting uppity, is it? I mean that’s what a top person at the AP pushed out a few weeks ago.

Jeff, I seem to remember you being a supporter of Sen. Clinton, who thought she had the skill to be Commander In Chief. And she shouldn’t have been running unless she thought that was true. Your support for her turned out the same way as your support for the Iraq War (though with less collateral damage) but I don’t seem to remember you lecturing her on hubris. Again, every presidential candidate thinks much of himself. Only in the case of Barack Obama is it now being made a federal case.

My distaste with Jeff’s political musings isn’t because I disagree with him, but because they are so ill-informed. Jeff and I are on the same side of the aisle, yet I’ve found conservatives who don’t fall for the latest GOP/media meme of nonsense the way Jeff keeps doing hook, line, and sinker. For a guy with such wide knowledge of the old media, new media, and the intersection of the two, Jeff is surprisingly succeptible to the Republican outrage du jour and doesn’t seem to think critically before he posts very declarative things.

Before it was that the Iraq War was a good idea, then that Howard Dean would be a disaster at party chair, now its that Barack Obama has “hubris”. I mean, maybe there’s something to filling the Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman role for conservative bloggers to link to (”See, this liberal agrees with me”) but it doesn’t make for very smart observations.

Frank Paynter Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Jeff, it was a racist assertion. Mike G., you too. Evil Pundit… g-d what a crew. Look who you have in your corner, Jeff. As a white baby-boomer male, your support of Hillary is understandable, and not just because she looks good in a suit. There’s a comfort in the thought of a return to the right-centrist Dem administration of the ’90s for you. You get this old and the thought muscles start to freeze up. Imagination and a willingness to risk change yield to quiet conservatism.

Racism of course is another issue separating you from Obama, and the complexity of being able to offer support to the woman candidate while rejecting the ethnically black ought to be between you and your analyst. It was perhaps rude to call you out on your racism — impolite if not inaccurate. White baby-boomers (and their elders) were raised in a cultural context of accepted racism. Many of us have tried — successfully — to deal with that through introspection, self criticism, and consciousness raising. Others are more comfortable in proud denial. Jeff, I think you’re coming from hubris and denial when you say, “You called me racist. I resent it. It was wrong of you. I am insulted and angry and serious about that.” To be honored by the support of Mike G. and Evil Pundit here in this comment thread is of course no honor at all. To have inferred that Oliver was calling you a racist when he was really simply calling your argument fallacious is a tell, a tic, a betrayal of some inner issue.

And holding up warnings that it ain’t over until it’s over, that this thing could still be lost if Obama isn’t somehow suitably humbled, is less than perspicacious. Right now we’re looking at a fifty state sweep, give or take Wyoming where the Libertarians are threatening a strong John Perry Barlow write-in campaign.

We can change this country. We must, actually. And I fear that Obama won’t be fast enough or radical enough to pull us out of the economic slump, but he’ll certainly make more and better progress than ANYONE else would or could, whether or not they look good in a suit. Let go of Hillary and get on board, the train will soon leave the station.

And by the way, you are not good at politics. Obama and Gore are entirely different men with affects and public presences so dissimilar that your comparison of them shows you don’t know what is happening this year. Obama does not have an “ovation problem.” He has charisma, a strong following, and the ability to inspire people. People like him and trust him.

Mike G Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 9:35 am

Jesus Christ, Frank, could you possibly be any more the stereotype of the smugly superior liberal. In one paragraph you manage to dismiss everyone else as racist, senile and afraid of change. It’s a wonder you didn’t use the word “sheeple.”

Why don’t YOU try clearing your sclerotic cranial vessels out long enough to look at what people actually said, not what’s easiest for you to slam them with. There’s nothing easier than throwing accusations of racism around– and nothing cheaper, either.

Frank Paynter Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 11:13 am

Mike G., Dude, you’re still invited… The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. Obama faces the challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of his own limitations. But he also faces it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then we can be absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.

Mike G Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Substitute “L. Ron Hubbard” for “Obama” in that post and that’ll tell you how it sounds to me.

Frank Paynter Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:01 pm

Amazing comparison… so I take it you are a McCain supporter?

Mike G Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Even if I was an Obama supporter (and I actually did vote for him in the primary, but that has more to do with the fact that only one primary matters in Illinois), it would never ever occur to me talk about any politician in such quasireligious terms. In fact, it frightens me.

“Mike G said he was frightened by a black man running for office!” –Oliver Willis

Glyn Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Look, instead of calling Senator Obama “black”, why don’t you just call him “white”? (since he’s 50-50)?

Would that solve the problem?

Puzzled, from London.

Frank Paynter Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Thanks Glyn, but American racism is special… on a par with South African apartheid in terms of classifying people with progenitors of native African descent as black, and stigmatizing that classification. Fortunately fewer and fewer of the young white people in this country are so prejudiced.

Mike, Dude, regarding “The journey will be difficult…” I simply restated in the third person the rhetoric from the campaign speech that you Republicans have insisted on bastardizing and misquoting in this comment thread. It’s rhetorically compelling because it marks the point when it became clear that there is a chance for change this year, that we can again hope for more from our leadership than a dumbed down TV Guide world-view. I understand why you and Jeff are upset and conflicted enough to vote for someone like McCain simply to help block the choice of millions and millions of Americans who are stepping up to take ownership of the political process. It’s the reactionary thing to do.

We used to call our position progressivism, and we used to classify guys like you and Jeff as elitists and reactionaries. Now, in a marvelous reframing, you maintain your posture in support of the wealthy, the moneyed class, while name calling and categorizing those who support the democratic process as “smugly superior liberals.” The good news from my perspective is that people’s positions are becoming quite clear early on.

Excuse me, I’m off to tax and spend, tax and spend.

# PSGInfinity Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 11:04 pm

Jeff, by all means, blog away about politics, news, springer spaniels, or whatever else suits you. Dana may have been trying to gently chide Obama, but wound up scoring a direct hit. You can tell by the level and vehemence of the flak.

(Reaches out and pats Frank on the head)

# Frank Paynter Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 8:25 am

(Slaps PSGInfinity with three day old dead trout…) There’s really no political issue here, nor is there a question of who will win in the fall. You old farts aren’t used to being confronted regarding your ill humor and hidebound ways, so you misinterpret.

# Frank Paynter Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 3:39 pm

lulz
# PSGInfinity Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 6:47 pm

(Pats wee widdle Frankie pn the head again)
(Now, where’s the boy’s diaper bag?)
# Frank Paynter Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 11:09 pm

Dude. I’m chastened!

(slaps PSGInfinity up side the head with another dead trout)

# kat Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 am

-”That’s how slaves and abolitionists resisted that wicked system and how a new president chartered a course to ensure we would not remain half-slave and half-free.
-That’s how the greatest generation—that’s how the greatest generation, my grandfather fighting in Patton’s army, my grandmother staying at home with a baby and still working on a bomber assembly line, how that greatest generation overcame Hitler and fascism and also lifted themselves up out of a Great Depression.
-That’s how women won the right to vote, how workers won the right to organize, how young people like you traveled down South to march, and sit-in, and go to jail, and some were beaten, and some died for freedom’s cause. That’s what hope is.
-I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”
This arrogant man is comparing his campaign to overcoming fascism, abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage. Oprah has the gall to call him “THE ONE” and he has deemed himself a symbol–like what–the second coming of Christ?. That scares me–are we going to be asked to worship him like dictators demand they be worshipped? What evil is he comparing to Hitler–those that don’t buy into his crap? Does that make me evil? It won’t be long before he will be comparing himself to Jesus.
People who can’t see his arrogance choose not to see it. It is there in plain sight and his words reek of it but we country hicks turn to guns and religion and don’t understand the true meaning of his parables.
# Frank Paynter Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Well, the GOP claque, the so called “Audacity Watch,” would like you to believe there’s something frightening in these observations. And perhaps for them, for the likes of Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter and their boosters, there is something to be afraid of.

But when Obama says, “It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign — that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol,” then I think there is room for a more generous interpretation.

The American people, the American democracy, this election will not be subverted by the Public Relations media echo chamber propaganda machine that Jarvis here enables and that is so adroitly manipulated by corporate hired guns.

Media manipulation has become laughable and most of us are laughing. There are a few who have been so frightened by the Bush administration’s War of Terrorism, the color coded fear alerts, the absurd homeland security screenings in and out of the country, the seven year investigation of an anthrax scare that looks like it was at least used by a leadership more interested in manufacturing evidence and guiding public opinion than in finding truth and administering justice — and those few can be led by the PR specialists who plant hints and releases and word of mouth campaigns designed to create an up-swelling of indignity around the latest synthetic rallying point manufactured to provide some focus for opposition, no matter how absurd.

Milbank’s column was one of dozens and dozens media mentions of Obama’s “hubris,” in the July 29 – 30 timeframe. It was less than original. It was inaccurate. It was a puff piece bolstering an attempt to frame Obama as “uppity” in comparison to that humble servant of our country, Johnny Mac. Milbank’s column and Jarvis’ wink and nudge, slap and tickle reference to it were just part of a well managed PR play. Kat’s comment reads like one of those bizarre emails that circulate amongst the Lawrence Welk fans, the kind that are easily debunked at Snopes and serve as an electronic equivalent of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and saying loudly to others with differing perspectives: LALALALALA… I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!
# Mike G Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm

“When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help… We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures.” –Tom Cruise
# Frank Paynter Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:09 pm

Cool. Creative way to keep the spin moving. Did you get one of these?

* * *

To: Interested Parties

From: Rick Davis, McCain Campaign Manager

Date: July 30, 2008

Re: Barack Obama’s Celebrity

Barack Obama is the biggest celebrity in the world, comparable to Tom Cruise, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. As he told Congressional Democrats yesterday, he has become the “symbol” for the world’s aspirations for America and that we are now at “the moment … that the world is waiting for.”
# Mike G Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 pm

No, I came up with the opinion that he and his followers are dreamy-eyed and full of hot air by myself.

You’ll never guess how.
# Frank Paynter Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 pm

“Followers” is a twitter thing. Here in the real world, in our democracy, many of us are proud (I underscore PROUD) to be Obama supporters. IPolls suggest we constitute a majority. Followers are more what you have when party discipline and a consistent spin is more important to you than a candidate who demonstrates appropriate self-regard, self-respect, and a presidential bearing. Senator McCain has followers. Senator Obama has supporters.

(Frank exits to his own blog with no illusions that he’ll actually have the last word humming “Bomb, bomb, bomb — bomb, bomb Iran…”)

Civil rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis is accusing John McCain and Sarah Palin of stoking hate, likening the atmosphere at Republican campaign events to those featuring George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate.

“What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history,” Lewis said in a statement issued today for Politico’s Arena forum. “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.”

“George Wallace never threw a bomb,” Lewis noted. “He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Senator Obama’s response:

“Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States ‘pals around with terrorists.’ As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead,” said Obama-Biden spokesman Bill Burton.

I received an email today from a disturbed nanotech geek working on a government grant at some state school down south. He said it was okay for me to post his message. Here it is:

as a university professor, I understand the liberal viewpoint of many of my colleagues..
However, I FIND THIS PETITION /DISGUSTING /… Ayers was a terrorist and still is a terrorist
as far as any rational person is concerned.. he avoided jail for the bombings due to illegal wiretaps..
he does not regret what he did! that says it all about the character of this man.. he may be the smartest guy in Illinois but that hardly mitigates his criminal anti-American behavior? shame on any professor who degrades the honorable teaching profession by supporting a terrorist..

To which I replied:

The word “terrorist” has gotten a lot of play in the last twenty-five years. Without getting into a lengthy disquisition regarding the tactics of terrorism and whether they apply to the revolutionary cadre that grew out of the 1962 SDS Port Huron Statement, I’ll remind you that the decade long Vietnam war was a time of great social unrest in the USA, and men of good will with opposing perspectives did great violence. The National Guard at Kent State University were neither more nor less culpable than the “Weather Underground” at that time.

The faction that escalated civil disobedience and non-violent protest to violent confrontation has never had my support, but neither have I questioned the good will or the patriotism of those who struggled to change US policy at that time. I reject the polarization that a desperate Republican presidential candidate is attempting to use to gain office and to “otherize” his opponent.

I thought that was pretty straight forward, but I soon received a follow-up message blaming Kennedy for the war (he did after all send in “advisors”), and denying any moral equivalence of Weather Underground violence with the murderous assault on the protestors that day in May 1970 at Kent State University, eight years after a “New Left” came together with its activism intentionally centered on the universities. In 1962, those earnest young reformers thought a social democratic revolution could be accomplished using the university as a springboard and their own earnest selves as the leadership cadre. They said:

1. Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools. The university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one, and action to be informed by reason.

2. A new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country. The universities are distributed in such a manner.

3. A new left must consist of younger people who matured in the postwar world, and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people. The university is an obvious beginning point.

4. A new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis.

5. A new left must start controversy across the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed. The ideal university is a community of controversy, within itself and in its effects on communities beyond.

6. A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.

But we need not indulge in allusions [sic]: the university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a better life. From its schools and colleges across the nation, a militant left might awaken its allies, and by beginning the process towards peace, civil rights, and labor struggles, reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter. The power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the South, and in the reform movements of the North.

They didn’t get how offensive they sounded with that part about “beginning the process towards” civil rights. But their hearts were in the right place and in the next few years they’d learn that there were communities of concern outside the university where much was being done.

Alas, my correspondent wanted to simplify the Obama/Ayers terrorist conflation along the lines that the McCain/Palin campaign has drawn — lines which lead straight to fear of the unknown: Who is this black man who would be our leader? What does he REALLY believe? Is he a LIBRUL?

I wrote back:

Indeed I do equate the use of armed force with loaded weapons against protesting students [in 1970] to the actions of Ayers and his associates. The country then was as close to insurrection and rebellion as it has been since the civil war. Reconciliation following a conflict requires willingness from each side to understand and offer a measure of forgiveness. The current propaganda campaign is odious. It does nothing but open old wounds to no purpose but right wing power retention and aggrandizement. The right wing concern for victory overshadows their concern for truth and justice. Lacking distinct policy alternatives to differentiate themselves from the corporate representatives in today’s White House, they have embarked on a campaign of hateful and fearful division. The Ayers matter has been adjudicated. He and his family are fortunate that he received no prison term. Similarly, Gordon Liddy and that bunch have “paid their debt” for their felonious behavior and been welcomed back into society.

I find people who respect Gordon Liddy to be as ethically challenged as you seem to find people who respect Professor Ayers. But those who would coddle the Republican criminal element are in power today and so their acceptance and forgiveness have more value than mine.

A more interesting exercise might be to compare Weatherman actions in support of ending the Vietnam war with right wing militia actions in the bombing of the Murrah Building or the militia conflicts with ATF in Montana, Michigan Texas, Florida and elsewhere that marked the Clinton years.

The Republican candidate for Vice President is uncomfortably close to the separatist movement, and for the last eight years no effective action has been taken against the expansion of right wing cults and militias. Now, as the struggle for power turns on the election, the Republicans seem to be engaged in a disinformation campaign, mobilizing those who are convinced that a turn toward left would be terrible. [one brief but incoherent rant about straw men and red herrings omitted here]

As McCain and Palin mobilize those whom they call Patriotic Americans to join their hate campaign, we are perilously close to the edge of a Weimar moment.

Well, the dude said I was rambling, and my prolixity was without value. He said, “[S]ure glad it was Clinton days when some of the govt wrongs occurred so you can’t blame it all on the GOP.” And of course he is right that there was plenty wrong with the Clinton era, but none of the things I mentioned. You see, when the right wing militia terrorists blew up the Murra Building, it wasn’t clear what the hell they thought they were doing. And when Clinton’s ATF and FBI clamped down on the whackos in Waco, they put an end to a very bad thing. So right here I had the sense that my correspondent and I were on hopelessly different wave-lengths.

My correspondent continued: “if anyone is inciting divisiveness today it is Sen. Obama who has not so cleverly injected the race issue into this election with I don’t look like other candidates, etc.. now, sadly, regardless of who wins, there will likely be nationwide antagonisms by folks with racist inclinations on both sides (blacks & whites).. not good for America either way.”

I’m still pondering WTF he means by “racist inclinations on both sides (blacks and whites).” I THINK what he means is that if McCain loses, that will be an excuse for white bigots to act out, wear sheets, burn crosses, bomb churches, lynch black people, that kind of thing. And I think that he’s projecting some kind of acting out on the part of black America if Obama loses, and he’s calling that black racism. What I think he doesn’t get, and Palin and her REAL Americans don’t get, is that the Obama campaign is not about race. Obama backers are overwhelming white. If Obama loses and there is another uprising in this country, it won’t be a racial thing. It will be a social thing.

[tags]you say you want a revolution, street fighting man, something is happening here[/tags]

I’m bummed that Proposition 8 passed in California and I’m delighted that Obama won. As a supporter of same sex marriage and a supporter of Barack Obama, I want to weigh in on an unfortunate bit of pop-political analysis that implies that it is somehow the black communities’ fault that same sex marriage was defeated in California.

I’d rather blame Christians, that oppressed group of true believers who—when urged to “turn the other cheek”—are totally lacking in a sense of humor. Faith is color blind… except, I suppose, for the Mormons. In any event, I was saddened to hear a friend in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer community say that she thought blacks should understand discrimination and therefore oppose Prop. 8. The following excerpt from an SFGate article reflects my thoughts too:

… demographers say the focus on one race not only disregards the complexity of African American identity but also overlooks the most powerful predictors affecting views on same-sex marriage: religion, age and ideology, such as party affiliation. Prop. 8’s racial fallout raises the question of how the groundbreaking multiracial support of a presidential candidate could coincide with the racial scapegoating now following a failed state ballot campaign.

“It’s just a shame to see the sort of coalition that came out behind Obama, and then you come back to California and you see white gays say ‘black people cost us the election,’ ” said David Binder, a white gay San Franciscan and a polling expert who spent the past two years working for the Obama campaign. “It bothers me that people look at the race of the people involved rather than factors that are more explanatory.”

Raymond Leon Roker said in the Huffington Post last week:

Excuse me? I voted against Proposition 8. I’m among the 30 percent of black Californians that did so. And as much as I can condemn the homophobia and intolerance that drove a portion of the 70 percent of blacks that voted in favor of Proposition 8’s ban on gay marriage, it’s an outrage to lay its passage at their feet. I’ve read several editorials already about how the ungrateful blacks betrayed gays right after America gave them their first president. I know there are some wounds and frayed nerves right now, but this type of condescending, divide and conquer isn’t going to help at all. And it’s a gross oversimplification of what happened.

Blacks, whites, Latinos… and everyone else who went to church in California before the election was likely to have heard a call for the passage of Proposition 8 based on Christian principles. What the LGBTQ community needs to do is meet their Christian friends in their homes, their workplaces, and their neighborhoods and educate them, convince them of the righteousness of supporting equal rights for residents of the State of California and the USA. The gay rights message needs to be spread simply and directly. The protests happening now are great in terms of reminding people that an injustice has been done by the passage of this referendum proposition, but to win the next referendum more minds need to be changed and it’s my opinion that demonstrations aren’t likely to change those minds.

Cambridge, Massachusetts was in the news this week. A city cop busted a black professor on his own property following some verbal hassles. The professor was understandably freaked out by the cop’s behavior. The cop interpreted that as disrespect for the law or disorderly conduct or something. Basically, the effect of the arrest was to underscore the bust ’em if they’re black and sort them out later practices of too many police departments across the US. It underscored too, the powerless rage that a lot of people have when confronted or challenged by police authority.

My first thought was that this is just another case of Driving While Black, only this time it’s about forgetting your keys so you gotta go down to the station to get it sorted out. It was probably more nuanced than that.

That it happened in Cambridge is an eye opener. The cop lives in Natick, a town that’s more than 90 percent white and less than two percent African American, and a place where housing is more affordable than Cambridge. That old Unitarian pederast and Harvard graduate, Horatio Alger, was perhaps Natick’s most notable resident. He retired from his Cape Cod pulpit to Natick, disgraced by his “imprudent behavior” with some teenage boys in Brewster. His reputation did not follow him when he left Natick, moved to New York, and befriended young bootblacks who provided inspiration for his tales of young men who found success through constant striving.

Doug Flutie, who exemplified Alger’s “Strive to Succeed” philosophy, went to Natick High School. The Hostess Twinkie factory (think Dan White, famous San Francisco policeman) in Natick is closed but I suppose that the Cambridge cop could still get them retail at the Quik Trip Market. I know. That’s not fair.

So here we have a white working class cop from Natick, and an upper middle class black professor with the reasonable expectation that the shit could hit the fan simply because of the racial dynamic within the Cambridge university community–I’m surprised no one got tazed.

But I wasn’t there…

Chantal Laurent, The Haitian Blogger, published an informed article yesterday on her blog and in Salon, an article that underscores the irony of Obama’s appointment of Clinton and Bush to lead “an international campaign to help Haiti recover from the earthquake there.” America’s interventionism in Haiti’s affairs, deserves a closer look.

The noble “international community” which is currently scrambling to send its “humanitarian aid” to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti’s people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s phrase) “from absolute misery to a dignified poverty” has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.
— Peter Hallward, The Guardian, January 13, 2010

According to Hallward, “Since the late 1970s, the relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti’s agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums.” He says, “These people were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.” Around 75% of the population lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% – four and a half million people – live on less than $1 per day.

Tom Friedman wrote in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, “‘The Golden Straitjacket is the defining garment of this globalization era. The Cold War had the Mao suit, the Nehru jacket, the Russian fur. Globalization has only the Golden Straitjacket. If your country has not been fitted for one, it will be soon”; and, “Once your country puts on the Golden Straitjacket, its political choices get reduced to Pepsi or Coke – to slight nuances of taste, slight nuances of policy, slight alterations in design to account for local traditions, some loosening here or there, but never any major deviation from the core golden rules. Governments which deviate too far from the core rules will see their investors stampede away, interest rates rise and stock market valuations fall….”

What Clinton and Bush must do is work with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to forgive Haitian debt, to declare a cease fire in that neoliberal assault, to release the country from the bondage of Friedman’s Golden Straitjacket. It would be a nice gesture if they welcomed Jean Bertrand Aristide to join them in helping with Haiti’s reconstruction. If Bush and Clinton can work together for Obama, well… politics do make strange bedfellows.

Wrote this email in response to a thoughtful, optimistic essay regarding the epigenetic nature of the American character. Sharing it here out of context, but I used so many big words I thought “What the hey! People need to read this!”

I had to put tongue in cheek to reply regarding “national character.” I agree that racial or cultural stereotypes are socio-economic in origin and generally based in ignorance. I don’t quite agree that the positive stereotypes should be parsed differently from the negatory. A stereotype is a stereotype, and they can be used as tools of oppression in different ways. Positive stereotypes buttress arguments for American exceptionalism — not a good thing. Also, the story of the empathizing Americans characterized as warm-hearted and full of goodwill belongs to the twentieth century. I think there’s a whole new story for the 21st… the American character has mutated to some kind of snivelly, whiny, fear-driven slugs with a sense of entitlement that they haven’t earned.

Environmental pressures from Bushism, Corporatism, Terrorism, and bizarro libertarian capitalism have forced the production of socio-cultural enzymes that have torn away vast slices of the American national body’s chromosomes and an unrecognizable monster is emerging. Perhaps the new traits of smug religiosity, hypocrisy, and fear-based belligerence will not be inheritable and so will only be here for a single generation.

I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion that skin color is irrelevant to both problem and solution. If, for example, it could be shown that my fellow scandinavians indeed ARE stolid and stupid, that a rude taciturnity is built into our genes, the epigenetic turning of a subgroup of linguistically deprived Utah pioneers subsisting on a diet of grains and honey from stolid and morose knuckle-draggers to light-hearted gregarious friends and neighbors might be due to some enzyme balance shift caused by diet and excessive sunlight.

The offspring of these people would likely return to their natural condition if returned to a more natural dark and frigid environment with a dietary shift back to salt cod, salt pork, potatoes, and the occasional holiday blood sausage.

So, if we could nail down the genetic predictors of behavior, personality, and modes of social interaction then we should be able to identify the stressors that in all likelihood cause epigenetic shifts of character. For example the Swiss, in their own milieu, are partial to lederhosen and yodeling, while when they are isolated in an urban culture of poverty and oppression they turn into rappers and hip-hop aficionados.

(I’m late for my telomerase injections, so I may have to cut this short.)

Fearing for their safety, USian rescue workers in Haiti are having a hard time organizing work parties to shift rubble, set up field hospitals, distribute food and water. Is this an epigenetic effect, I wonder, or perhaps simply the product of minds so saturated with the propaganda that has been used to justify exploitation that the leaders of US rescue teams are paralyzed into inactivity by their own xenophobia?

How much xenophobia is a genetic “otherization” trait that supports the survival of small groups, and how much is the product of marketing (or propaganda, as they call marketing in the political arena)? Or does the marketing merely underscore and enhance genetic tendency?

Lamarck was fairly evolved for a dude lacking even an electron microscope. Spontaneous generation has always been a favorite idea of mine.

The only people more cruel than kids are grown-ups. One day last August Rahm Emanuel reminded us of that when he called liberal activists “retarded.” I’m sure he brought that insult with him as baggage from the school yard. Early last week his off-hand insult was dredged up by Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Wallsten and Emanuel was taken to task for his use of the R word.

“Retarded” has always had a pejorative connotation. Back in the day, degrees of mental retardation as measured by IQ tests carried labels including imbecile, idiot and moron. These words too are more often used as insults than descriptors. In the early sixties families and communities caring for developmentally disabled children found a less loaded label in the term “neurologically handicapped.” But this is such a catch-all phrase that it includes recovering polio patients, cerebral palsy victims, Down syndrome children, paraplegics handicapped by war wounds and many, many more. “Developmentally disabled” has more recently emerged as an acceptable and descriptive euphemism for mental retardation.

We need euphemisms because of the cruel and indiscriminate use of the R word that begins on the playground and ends in the White House. Just as people with other than heterosexual preference have been offended by the “Q word,” Americans of African descent abjure the “N word,” and every other ethnic or culturally different group contends with some kind of appallingly pejorative label applied by a socially dominant caste, so are the developmentally disabled hurt by the R word. The insult carried by some of these appellations can be blunted. For example, the sexuality and gender identity-based culture that was “the gay community” eventually embraced the Q word and became the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered and Queer community.

The coarse humor and aggressive posturing of pre-adolescents (“You queer!” “You retard!”) forming their own identities and groups can be moderated and modified by parents and teachers, but there will–I believe–always be otherization as a way to cement cultural identity. Raising children to recognize and value differences is a way to develop a welcoming, friendly community. Children who think differences involve some kind of zero-sum transaction (“You’re queer, I’m not!”) will grow up to become the Dick Cheneys, the Rahm Emanuels, the Rush Limbaughs of the future.

As a Democrat I’m left with the thought that Rahm Emanuel may be, like Dick Cheney, a morally stunted, aggressive prick; but–he’s OUR morally stunted, aggressive prick. The Wall Street Journal has snookered us again with well timed dysinformation. The good that came out of it was the conversation about our concerns for the well being of people who are hurt by thoughtless, uncaring name calling.

The environmental crisis, racism, the growing gulf between rich and poor… where to begin this Woeful Wednesday? Cultural disintegration? The collapse of community and family, the destruction of public education, the tear-down of knowledge and the ruination of the scientific edifice that once promised increasing abundance for all… humanity really must solve some structural problems if we hope to share a decent quality of life on planet earth.

Fortunately, there are people working hard to do just that.

The Climate Mobilization is organized to urge global governments to mount a World War 2 scale campaign against environmental degradation. American leadership seeks solutions in time-frames that no longer will work to cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to halt warming and to reverse the acidification of the oceans. Hillary Clinton has stepped up to the issue and published a plan for shifting from carbon based electricity generation to solar power and other renewables. Sadly, Clinton’s plan offers too little in the way of structural change. The proposed implementation time-frame will be too late. The Pope has spoken up too. On May 24th this year he published Laudato Si — On Care for Our Common Home, an encyclical letter encouraging all earthlings to come together around the problems we face. Franklin Roosevelt, he ain’t, but it’s encouraging to hear him talk in terms of taking on our common enemy. We really are at war and we really must get mobilized if we don’t want to suffer the miserable consequences of defeat. It’s an existential thing.

What blocks our ability to tackle the biggest crisis civilized humanity has ever faced is our lack of civility and common concern for each other. The rich are divided from the poor, and white people in general are wandering about in a fog of entitlement and privilege ignoring the challenges faced by people of color. Is there anybody reading this who doesn’t understand the context and the reason why #BlackLivesMatter trumps the sentiment that “All lives matter?” If so, leave a comment and we can have quiet conversation here on this blog, away from all the Facebook friends and twitterers who have moved on from social justice issues to profound veganism and what-not.

I read yesterday that a group of hedge funds are calling for Puerto Rico to close schools, reduce university subsidies and fire teachers so it can pay back its debt (to those same hedge funds). “Austerity” is one way we keep the rich rich and the poor poor. Another way, of course, is with the gun. Contrary to the slogan on the picture above, banks and guns enjoy more complementarity than clash. Disparities in law enforcement are intensified by weapons in the hands of the police. It has always been so. The poor and the marginalized are suppressed by an armed force chartered by the rich. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” That simple-minded bullshit, the second amendment of the constitution of the United States of America comes to us with some baggage. The security they’re talking about there is founded in the fear of slave revolts. While the second amendment bolsters the right of gun nuts, fetishists, and hunting afficionados to own firearms, the real “well regulated militia” we all live with is the heavily armed network of state and local police forces. And while the arguments for gun control go back and forth around the tragedies and the atrocities that civilians endure and mutually inflict on each other, the real danger–the gun owner most feared by people in the black community–is the cop.

As an older fellow, it has long been my observation that younger generations feel the need to re-invent, to re-state knowledge and understanding, to re-learn (sometimes painfully) the lessons of history. In politics there is constant back-pressure from conservatives to re-write laws that they find offensive. Some of this back-pressure comes from cynical ploys to drive the poorer classes apart with wedge issues. Whether the scapegoat of the season is ACORN or Planned Parenthood, the only “good” that comes from the scapegoating is the divisive influence brought by the rich against the poor so they will vote against their own interests. Other reasons for the back-pressure are more direct, more obvious. Rich people want to protect their wealth, and one way to do that is to eliminate progressive income taxes. Many of those rich people want to increase their wealth and one way to do that is to take money from the government. “Corporate welfare,” subsidies to agriculture and industry are among the obvious ways to redistribute wealth. Another way is to tear down the support infrastructure. When laws protecting the environment, or providing a social safety net, or supporting reproductive justice are overturned, who benefits? Maybe we can take a closer look at that question in the next Woeful Wednesday blog post.

Homework assignment: Learn about the Ludlow Massacre and perform a citizen’s arrest on at least one oligarch.

It’s Woeful Wednesday, a day I’m allowed to whine and rant and wail. Today I have something a little self-revealing. I hope anyone old and white and nominally progressive who reads this might ask himself, herself: What is he on about? Is he trying to suggest that I might have some racist roots too? You see, I am suggesting that, suggesting in the context of accepting the #blacklivesmatter movement activists’ choice to disrupt progressive politics as usual to get their message across…

So here’s my confessional moment that I think provides a foundation for why I agree that we have to disrupt our nominal progressive allies in order to advance the BLM movement:

See, I think it’s about racism and denial. Some of my best friends (irony intended) are white people who are in denial about their racism. Many of them were fortunate enough to have been brought up to believe that ALL lives really do matter. Others were brought up in rougher circumstances and suffered some cognitive dissonance around just why dad thought Archie Bunker was funny and mom did not. If you’re white like me you were brought up in a rough and tumble playground setting where mutual segregation was the norm and racial epithets were in the air because what’s wrong with that really? (You can’t write about this without a bunch of intentional irony). If you’re white like me you heard some pretty bad jokes at the expense of black people, and you laughed. You may even have repeated the jokes. If you were naive enough not to even understand them, well–you’re better off.

If you’re from the North and white like me, you grew up understanding that the sons and daughters of the Confederacy were racist yahoos, but you were content that the Yankees had kicked Confederate butt and freed the slaves, and so how racist could we be, really? If you’re working class white like me you worked for every dime you had from middle school until you found your first real full time job… the paper routes, the ice cream bike, the short order cook, the library assistant thing… if you think about it you might notice that none of the Madison newsies were black, the Street Treats guy only had white kids riding for him… if you think about it now. Odds are, you didn’t think about it then.

If you’re white like me you may have a memory of that time a black friend who was working in the dorm dish-room one summer gave you a ride home and your mom quizzed you a little too harshly about who that was? You aren’t going out with her are you? (You knew you’d be lucky to get a date with her, but to your shame you let mom influence your behavior).

If you’re an old white man like me you’ve been confronted with a couple of generations of feminists since the sixties, and if you’re really lucky maybe one or two of your grandmas were first wave feminists too. But that doesn’t inoculate you from the R word. Maybe in college you learned about red-lining and you supported civil rights activists. Maybe, god help you, you put down the hash pipe and got clean for Gene.

The fact is, if you soak a cucumber long enough in brine, it becomes a pickle. A lot of my best friends are pickles. I certainly am. We’ll never be cucumbers again, but unless we get over the denial about what a pickle we’re in, we’ll never be able to let go of the self-righteousness that obscures our understanding of why #blacklivesmatter.

(As always, none of this is sponsored by the old-white-guy-patriarchy, and my employer–if I had one–would as likely as not wonder what the hell I’m talking about).