"I feel like I’m in a parallel universe here, where the facts just don’t sink in."
-Rachel Maddow on MSNBC’s Race for the White House with David Gregory, 4/24/2008
It was early on in elementary school that I learned friends often disappoint. The incipient dynamics at play – literally and figuratively – could radically swing from the thick chains attached to hip-hugging straps, to heights never before achieved, or, from the pinnacle of the jungle gym, precipitously fall from grace. Most of these disappointments were based upon associations – she likes him?/but he doesn’t like me, so I don’t like him./do I still like her?/why can’t she just choose, and if she does, let it be me? – though some were just breaches of trust that strained a young credulity, like someone I knew well enough, kind of liked ok, would talk to occasionally, who now suddenly was caught stealing my Hostess Twinkies from my lunch bag.
This past Monday evening, Barrack Obama was a guest, via live satellite feed, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The banter was innocuous enough, somewhat awkward as most satellite-delayed-by-seconds interviews are. Jon asked Obama,
Sir, we are concerned that ultimately at the end of the day, if you are fortunate enough to get the Democratic nomination, fortunate to become President of the United States, will you pull a bait-and-switch, sir, and enslave the white race? Is that your plan? And, if it is your plan, be honest. Tell us now.
to which Obama replied,
That is not our plan Jon, but I think you’re paranoia might make you suitable as a debate moderator.
Just before the close of the show, after the final commercial break, Jon mused out loud to the audience,
"How will he break our hearts? I hope it's a financial scandal."
Ironic and cynical perhaps, but the confessional joke rang true. And the fact that people, i.e. supporters, would fling this divinity about poor Obama, who is, after all, a mere American politician, a junior Senator from Illinois, albeit a brilliant and inspiring individual, belies our tendency to mythify celebrities. It also reveals the true paucity of our hope – that we actually expect our politicians to disappoint us.
The first part of this observation reflects badly on us, the electorate, the citizenry. It stems from a declined, and rapidly declining, individuation on our part. We have rejected personal responsibility, integrity, ethics, and morals for assimilation into a consensus group-think, media-driven, peer-pressured, focus-group-approved, spin-room recombinant (il)logic. People won’t tell you what they think until it has been strained through the colanders of political pundits, reporters, bloggers, and other mass media articles, editorials, and op-ed palaver. "Reverend Jeremiah Wright: what do I think? How can I respond? Is he an America-hating racist, and therefore so is Obama? Give me a couple of days to read, listen, and lean one way or the other."
The other part of the issue, the mythification part, is a sub-category of declining one’s responsibility for his or her life’s trajectory. We want a leader to fix all of our problems. Barack Obama often states outright that he is imperfect, fallible; he makes mistakes and will make more mistakes. In other words, he is human. He is not a messiah or a prophet, for those who like their metaphors with a bit of religiosity. Nor will he be a philosopher-king. When Obama came to Rhode Island, like 10,000 others, I stood out in the cold, damp, windy morning for hours. When I got inside the venue, crammed in with the 5,000 full-capacity of the room, there was a dearth of air and a surfeit of heat and human effluvium. I listened, applauded, screamed, and left. I didn’t want to fuck him. I certainly wasn’t thinking of ways in which he could disappoint me.
The problems with the "broken heart" conceit, however, are manifold and as obvious as to recoil and illustrate the fatuousness and absurdity of the premise itself, as well as our political system, our prejudicial press, and our instant-self-gratification obsessed, cult-of-personality, anti-intellectual, mammon-worshipping, culture-starved, racist, porn-addicted, flatulent, obese society.
Consider a few of these statistics:
More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17. ...
Or,
•
1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
• 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
• 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)
Or,
Despite "American Idol" taking some well-publicized ratings hits, Fox won its 15th consecutive week in the Nielsens, according to data issued Tuesday.
Last Tuesday's edition of the singing contest hit a five-year-low (23.7 million viewers), while Wednesday's fell to a four-year low (23.3 million). The show's respective season averages are 29.5 million and 28.2 million...
Fox averaged 8.8 million viewers in the week ended April 20, and was boosted by a sturdy Thursday lineup of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" (9.2 million) and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" (9.3 million), as well as by a strong performance from "Hell's Kitchen" (10.6 million).
With "American Idol" claiming the top two spots, ABC claimed the next three with its pair of "Dancing with the Stars" shows -- which plumbed record lows -- and "Desperate Housewives." The suburban soap hit a series low of 15.7 million viewers, down from a season average of 18.5 million...
The top CBS show was "NCIS" at No. 6 (15.1 million), while NBC's top entry was "Law & Order: SVU" at No. 7 (13.3 million). Both are up from their respective season averages of 14 million and 11.3 million.
This compilation could go on and on. Income disparity in the U. S.:
(read, The Middle Is Falling Out of the Economy)
If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.)
We could break down effectual statistics on race, religion, gender, etc. - the implications would not be pleasant. Of course, this whole discourse could be dismissed as elitist diatribe or the musings of a misanthrope. I can assure the reader that the former is not possible. I am as common as flotsam, though as unique as jetsam. A bit misanthropic? Guilty.
Rachel Maddow’s point today was that the cast of petulant males she was attempting to converse with were hell-bent on their individual hierarchical maneuvering for king douche bag while trying to define the media narrative: Obama is getting killed in the white and elderly demographic by Clinton. Jeremiah Wright is appearing on Bill Moyer’s Journal and is going to inflict untold damage on Barack. A race war is brewing. No, they didn’t say that. I just inferred it based on putrid articles like this one by Anatole Kaletsky,
Yes it's politically incorrect but race matters
The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain
Rachel correctly stated the facts that Obama did better in PA in those very demographics than he had done in Ohio and other primary races.
Of course, the sad truth is that race does matter – better said, racism matters – but not based on the anemic conclusions of Kaletsky. Racism is heartbreaking, not Spitzer’s self-destruction as governor.
Markos Moulitsas recently repeated his postulate that class is the third rail of politics. While I don’t necessarily object to that metaphor, I would contend that racism is closer to the mark using the same idea of something deadly to the touch in politics. (Actually, I would say that truth is the third rail of politics.) Racism is roiling beneath the surface of our society and influencing everything from our foreign policy to our politics. Fear and hatred towards Muslims, Hispanics, Blacks, all foreigners (certainly the French), Asians (ask John McCain – he still calls them "gooks") is the feuling dynamic of our manifest destiny.
I’d love to continue. Alas, I came home from work, tried to write this, chowed down some Nime Chow, and, with my wife, I am now heading to Boston to hear Kenny Garrett. I wanted to talk about disappointment. The last time I was disappointed by someone, it was a fictional character in a great short story by Jeffrey Eugenides in the New Yorker called Great Experiment. The everyman main character tragically succumbs to what we are all up against.
I guess I’ll have to take this up in a later post.
Ah, the music.