In 2008, I started this blog in support of my run for office. I haven’t used it or thought about it since then. Recently, a friend of mine suggested I resurrect this moribund forum, breaking out some of my observations and putting them on public display. I reluctantly agreed to give it a try. Here goes…
Political Horserace
Political campaigns are usually covered as horse races. Reporters pay little attention to issue differences and, with the notable exception of Politifact (http://www.politifact.com/), there are few reporters that get column space for taking issue with what the candidates have to say. Coupled with the ignorance of many voters (NPR reported that 60% of Alabamans still mistakenly believe that President Obama is a Muslim!) and it is little wonder that political campaigns look more like advertising campaigns than a legitimate debate between competitors for the votes of informed members of the electorate.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I have voted based on what friends have told me in some elections. More recently, I try to get as informed as possible about the potential candidates before an election. In some cases, however, the information that you have about a candidate is overwhelmed by the structure of the political organization that gets the man elected.
By rights, Mitt Romney should not be able to get elected in the United States, let alone be the standard bearer for a major political party. Indecisive, vacillating, superficial, phony, out of touch, and wedded to thoroughly disproven ideas (notably trickle-down economics), Mittens fails as a serious candidate. Rick Santorum is another flip-flopper who has discovered the no-deficit gospel despite the fact that he was in office when the deficit began to explode under the George II administration. Ron Paul is merely an ideologue whose ideas look crazier the closer they are examined but who has garnered the interest of free-thinking republicans because he’s the only one who is bringing any new ideas to the Republican platform. Party insiders will prevent Paul from having any serious influence in the candidate selection process. Gingrich is simply a footnote in this race – only hubris fuels his campaign now.
But the shortcomings of these candidates will scarcely be relevant in the fall because the choice will not be made on the basis of their comparative policy positions but rather on the comparison of public relations campaigns and the activation of political organizations. The issues themselves scarcely register beyond the branding that takes place as part of the process.
Obama has been a center-right candidate who has expanded the role of the private sector in managing health care in the United States. He has continued Bush policies on military intervention (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and detention of enemy combatants (one of the ugliest euphemisms in legal and military history). And his efforts to revive the economy have placed the wealthy and business owners ahead of the debt-burdened tax-payers that are his natural constituency.
Yet Obama is decried as something to the left of Dennis Kucinich and his policies are branded as “European-style socialism.” Little actual information supports this assertion, of course, but images are at the core of politics.
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DC Comics recent attempt to revive excitement in comic sales through the New 52 ad campaign has been a qualified success. Comics have been a source of enjoyment for me for many years as well as a subject of scholarly interest for the past few years. I’ve enjoyed many of the new takes on the titles: Grant Morrison’s run on Action has been super; the new Detective Comics and Catwoman titles are fun; Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E is fun on every page as are Suicide Squad and Justice League Dark. But let me complain about two things. First, despite positive initial press and a great creative team, Mister Terrific is being cancelled. Mister Terrific is a great character and deserves a monthly venue. It is a shame that the sales figures have not supported it.
The other subject that bothers me is going to sound trivial, but it irks me that Animal Man and Swamp Thing are wasting great characters on a silly story line that undermines the well-developed mythology created by authors like Alan Moore and Morrison. The Rot, the villainous entity challenging Animal Man and Swamp Thing defies the clear cosmology of Red (animals), Green (plants), and Gray (fungus), parallels what we know about nature. The Rot adds little to this and, moreover, reduces morality for these characters to an overly simplistic Manichean dichotomy. I’m giving up on these titles despite my love for these characters and general respect for the creative teams involved.
No, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve just finished watching the unbelievably bad documentary called “2012: Science or Superstition”. As many of my readers know, I’m an anthropologist and I try to avoid judging the beliefs of others, especially when those beliefs attempt to criticize the problems of modern consumer culture. In this case, however, what we have are half-baked new-age ideas in favor of there being some kind of Mayan end-of-cycle astrology mixed with some of the most idiotic, irrational arguments I have ever heard. The only reasonable people in the video who criticize the doomsayers, notably Dr. Anthony F. Aveni, professor of Astronomy and Anthropology at Colgate University.
Frankly, the odds of the world ending this year are very small. It could happen. An asteroid from outer space could kill us all, like the dinosaurs. Yosemite’s caldera could blow. Nuclear Armageddon could wipe us out (still!). However, the odds of this happening this particular year are extremely remote and the odds that, after the predicted date of December 21, 2012, we will still have Christmas to enjoy are excellent. I will go so far as to offer any amount of money on this subject, although I think the odds that anyone would take the bet are pretty tiny.
End of the world concerns (like Y2K or the delusions of the book of Revelations or the predictions of the end times suggested by doomsayers throughout history) are bullshit, pure and simple. The end of the world will come, for humans, but it won’t come because some jackass predicted when it would come or why. It will happen due to natural processes that could be explained by reasonable scientific inquiry, although, of course, there will be no one around to perform the autopsy. The death of the sun is the most likely cause of the end of the Earth. What kills our species will likely be the failure of our species to adapt to the inevitably changing environment of the future.
Obsessions of this kind are emblematic of a type of fantasy life that people have indulged seemingly forever. We have always fantasized about end times, usually when we are unhappy with the way things are RIGHT NOW. The book of Revelation, for example, was written during a time of religious repression of early Christians. Other claims related to the end of times have been gladly taken up by disenfranchised peoples who have yearned for an upset of the game board rather than continuing the play of a losing round. So far, it hasn’t happened yet.
I should make it clear, I believe that this is not the best of all possible worlds and I yearn for improvement on a number of fronts. However, I believe this change will take place as a result of hard work on the part of reformers and innovators rather than on those that abandon the process and take up residence in a cave some place.
More depressing is the consideration that apocalyptic thinkers/believers have developed a culture that perpetuates the problems that plague us all. A cult of believers has arisen that holds conferences, sells books and t-shirts, and consoles one another about this foolishness. Who can forget the people who gave up their life savings (and their children’s education funds) because of the idiotic predictions of end times in 2011? The worst aspect of these delusional people is the fact that the production of proof to the contrary seldom changes anyone’s mind… Alas.
Further, even fantasy apocalypses, like those in video games (”Mass Effect”) or “The Walking Dead” TV show encourage people to disengage and avoid resolving the problems that bedevil them in their day-to-day life. Sure, you can lose your job, your health insurance, your home, and your civil liberties. But you can still drop out and play your game or watch your show and fantasize about the END OF DAYS.
“Après moi, le déluge” said Louis the 14: “After me, the flood.” That is, after me, the end. Consoling yourself in this fashion is hardly new, but it is no less foolish.
Eventually, one of these dorks will be right. Coincidence will eventually seem to validate any jackass, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. But it will be coincidence, not foresight.
So, it’s been over two seeks since my last posting. I went to a conference in Baltimore: the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings. Baltimore’s a great town: good food and great hospitality. I drove up from Tampa. On the way, I listened to some great music: Le Butcherettes, Saint Vincent, The Black Belles, and my favorite 1970’s punk collection, Rhino’s “No Thanks”.
I also listened to an amazing pair of audio books. The first was the relatively short but hilarious Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt. A wonderful rumination on life today and growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The other was altogether more impressive: David Graeber’s Debt, the First 5000 Years.
The paper I presented in Baltimore was a comparison of the Tea Party Movement (TPM) with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Graeber’s book helped me dovetail the two groups of activists. What are they angry about? I think they are both angry about the revelations caused by the financial meltdown. The difference is the way that each movement is framing their response.
The Tea Party’s formal mission statement is the neoliberal mantra of “Small Government - Lower Taxes – Less Spending” but the blog postings around the websites complain about some of the things that Occupy folks complain about. They resent the attention paid to Wall Street. They resent the fact that the government has not given them the same kind of bail out. Where the Tea Party differs from OWS is their argument that the problem is the consolidation of resources in the form of the government. TPM, a genuine form of citizen outrage, has been hijacked by the same kind of ideas that fuel Fox News. Discomfort with the real problems faced with America, coupled with a fear of the change associated with Democrats in general and Obama in particular caused the backlash in 2010.
Graeber’s book about debt directly addresses the underlying problem: debt. While both major corporations and wealthy Americans owed money, the government provided assistance to the bad bets they placed on the stock market. They provided only token assistance to debtors like you and me, who will now be obligated to pay both our debts and the debts of the wealthy through taxes and the simultaneous cuts to services that the newly revived budget hawks on the right will demand be made to pay for the deficits created by the bailouts to the wealthy. Meanwhile, we continue to engage in massive defense spending, which directly moves American tax dollars into the hands of the wealthy owners of defense related industries. Americans, on the left and right both remain in debt peonage, unable to leave their jobs, unable to get services, and regarded as nuts if we do anything to question the status quo.
And no, quoting Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman is not questioning the status quo. It is reinforcing it.
Talking about this stuff is maddening – complex ideas make lousy bumper stickers. However, it is important.
What we need is what Graeber calls a jubilee – a cleaning of the debt slate, a universal debt amnesty. Imaginary money is at stake here! I’ll talk a little more about this in my next post.