Patrick Swayze on a Pottery Wheel!

According to our resident Delphic barnacle, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has come “out of nowhere.”

Let’s talk about that.

We live our lives in an online environment characterized by hateful, ideologically violent ad hominem attacks, hit-and-run partisan rhetoric, and the guilt-free savaging of people we call friends. We have done for years. Day in and day out. And you are what you eat.

Women assume all men want to rape them. Whites assume all blacks want to rob them. Blacks assume all cops want to kill them. Americans assume all Muslims want to blow them up. And we all assume that anyone who disagrees with us in any way must be our enemy, and at the very least can never be our friend. And the kicker is, none of these are completely groundless assumptions.

We live in a world of exceptions proving rules.

When I walk across campus, I am nearly run down by people so absorbed in their iPhones that they forget other people exist. We carry on conversations with distant strangers (twits with tweets that we are), while our nearest neighbors are virtually unknown to us. And when I do happen to catch someone’s eye, it’s often hard to distinguish between latent fear and outright dismissal.

We are terrified of everyone and everything. We populate our world with ghosts and specters of threats and danger (we ain’t talkin’ Patrick Swayze here!), and we embody those spirits in the forms of all the Others we don’t know how to approach: Muslims are terrorists, the transgendered are perverts, Mexicans are rapists, and African-Americans are thugs and welfare queens. Full stop.

Then, to put the friggin’ cherry on top, we wrap all this bullshit up in a nice, neat bundle of jingoistic self-satisfaction: we are the U.S.A., dammit, and we’ve stopped by to save the day! Can we help it if the rest of the world is too blind to see how much it needs our “assistance”?

We are a nation of self-absorbed, narcissistic, multiphobic war hawks with a collective God-complex.

Donald Trump? Yeah…what a shocker!…

Apparently, We ARE with Stupid

Momma says stupid is as stupid does.

– Forrest Gump

I would very much like to say that I’m surprised at yet another Trump victory in Nevada yesterday. I would like that so much.

But I can’t.

Nothing we ‘Muricans do surprises me anymore. Horrifies, yes; angers, most definitely; renders apoplectic, indubitably. But surprise went out the window with the Double Down and the wiener-stuffed crust.

So, I’m announcing my candidacy: Toad for President, 2032.

Sure, it’s a little in advance. And I’m a virtual unknown. But it gives me 16 years to hone my xenophobic, nationalistic, ugly American rhetoric. Plenty of time! By then, I should be a perfectly acceptable horrible excuse for a human being. I’m a shoe-in!

Because if Donald Trump can become President of the United States, any old jackass can…

Dollars and Nonsense

High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

– Oscar Wilde

There are thoughtful voters on all sides of the political aisle: Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, and independent. The problem is that those thoughtful folks are trapped between two (much louder) extremes:

On the one hand are the corporations. You know, those people. Money talks. Loudly. And, when money is up for grabs, your average politician’s its mouthpiece.

On the other hand are the clueless. Let me be clear: I ascribe this label to no particular ideological category. They stand both to the left and the right of center. These are the people whose vote is decided before candidates even begin their campaigns, before they even know who will be running. Who say things like “Voting for a ___ is unthinkable.”

This kind of cocksure attitude speaks at a dull roar. In my experience, anyone who says something is “unthinkable” really hasn’t thought about it at all. In this scenario, a vote isn’t a decision; it’s a reflex. And blind certainty is the birthplace of volume. Generally speaking, the more someone yells, the more he thinks he knows, and the more a person thinks he knows, the less he really does.

So, we’re stuck between dollars and nonsense, and like John Kasich and Martin O’Malley, we find it hard to get a word in. The deck of democracy is stacked against us.

It’s hard not to feel that, in the midst of so much sound and fury, we really do signify nothing…

 

Happy Primary Day, NH!

Dear New Hampshire,

Today, as you go to the polls,
through the ice and snow,
challenge yourselves,
challenge the nation
to think and act differently.

Vote Bernie!

Two Wrongs Make a Right Mess

(Image: Reuters/Joe Mitchell)

It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture….I would use whatever enhanced interrogation methods we could to keep this country safe. 

– Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz believes torture is wrong. So it’s a good thing waterboarding doesn’t “meet the generally recognized definition” of torture. Otherwise, how could he excuse using it to torture people?

Incidentally, we don’t know who he means when he says “generally recognized.” More than likely, it’s anyone who agrees with him that waterboarding isn’t torture. Or, anyone who knows it is but wants a loophole that allows them to do it anyway.

We also don’t know, because he didn’t say (nor did anyone ask him), where he got his claim that the legal definition of torture specifies “excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems.” The UN definition references “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person” and which is undertaken “at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

I dunno. Sounds like waterboarding to me…

Of course, Cruz at least tried to maintain a foothold on the moral high ground. Then there’s Trump, who in characteristic fashion hurtled the wall between good and evil and left it in the dust: “I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” The Donald may be right: Ted Cruz may not have a heart. But it’s fairly obvious that Trump has no conscience. It’s not that he’s not aware of the difference between right and wrong. He just doesn’t really care.

So, we have one guy who’s at least inferentially open to whatever form of torture is most likely to yield results, and another guy who’s redefined the concept of torture into near meaninglessness, so that he can do whatever he wants. And, heading into New Hampshire’s primary, these are the two Republican front-runners.

See, hard as David Muir tried to shed light on a murky subject (murky, at least, to those who believe ends justify means), he only granted the candidates leeway to make it even murkier. Why? Because the question he asked wasn’t the question that needs asking.

Not “Is waterboarding torture?” Because if we can argue, however transparently, that it is not, then we can remove it from the larger conversation of right versus wrong. If torture is wrong, but waterboarding isn’t torture, then waterboarding may be conceived of as value-neutral, merely a tool of truth’s trade. And so “enhanced interrogation techniques” enters the American lexicon, by way of dodging moral obligation and our own national rhetoric.

The real question is this: “Whether or not it fits Webster’s definition of torture, is waterboarding right?”

We can say, with Marco Rubio, that there is a difference between law enforcement and anti-terrorist operations–which, while true, avoids the question instead of answering it. Does the presumed urgency of a situation alter its moral nature, or our obligations within that situation? Maybe yes, maybe no–either way, we have a much richer conversation here than with either Cruz or Trump.

But even Rubio’s dodging the question: this is as much about where we’ve been as it is about where we’re going. So much of our self-image as a nation seems to rest on a fictitious moral superiority that, when the least bit of scrutiny is applied, vanishes in a puff of smoke and mirrors. And we know it. And it scares us. So we jingo all the more.

You see, we never ask the same question Muir never asked the Republican candidates last Saturday night: Is what we’re doing right? We never ask; we just assume it is because of Who We Are. We are America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. And our shit smells of rose petals and lavender water.

If any other nation on earth treated American prisoners the way we have treated Middle Eastern prisoners, we would go to war. (Incidentally, perhaps we’ve solved the riddle of continued radicalization around the globe.) Just like if another nation tapped our president’s phone; or anytime another country shows signs of developing nuclear capability. We can do whatever we want, and it’s in the interests of Truth, Justice and the American Way. If anyone else does it, they’re chalked up as a Bond villain at best, the devil himself at worst.

As we gear up for November, and face the real possibility of having our own raving megalomaniac at the switch (pick your poison), it pays to think these things through. Newton taught us that every action produces a reaction; the Eastern sages taught us that karma’s a bitch; and anyone who ever ran up to a moving carousel knows that what goes around comes around, and tends to knock one on one’s ass.

We cannot just assume we are right, or change the definitions whenever it suits us. What we do as a country, who we are as a people, how we behave ourselves as global citizens–these things matter. And there is more than semantics at stake here. If a given action is deemed evil when enacted by our enemy, then it is equally evil when we do it ourselves, no matter how just we judge our goals to be.

Two wrongs do not make a right. No matter how hard we insist that they do.

 

Surviving the Morning After (Redux)

There is something to be said for social media. I’m just not sure what it is.

I signed back on to Facebook yesterday, hoping against hope that the tenor of all those political squabbles because of which I signed off in the first place might have changed. I discovered (sadly, as I feared) that some things never change. But if you watched President Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday/Wednesday, you too might have heard a statement that’s stuck with me. (And, by the way, for all those folks out there who’ve been going on and on about the “inspirational” nature of the speech: Go back and check out the one from 2008. It’s pretty much the same speech. Which is a tad worrisome. But I digress.)

The president noted that, while at times our national conversation may experience what might be called a discursive breakdown, that is in itself a sign of democracy at work, and a privilege which should be cherished. There are, he reminded us, people around the world laying down their lives “just for a chance to argue.” This is a sobering thought.

So, my Facebook friends…Fire away.

Meanwhile, let’s turn our attention to Mitt Romney’s concession speech. I’ve also been hearing heart-wrenching things about this speech. For Pete’s sake…Chris Matthews, with tears in his eyes and a cowlick on his head, called it a “moment of wonder,” a great act of statesmanship. Well, okay then. For my part, I thought it was a fairly standard piece of political pleasantry. He conceded, which in itself is to be admired, given the tendency of presidential elections since 2000 to degenerate into litigious circus-acts. But the speech–sorry, nothing special.

But in the midst of the speech, he too said something which caught my ear (and which I hope was truly sincere). He said: “The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work.” Now, given the partisan gridlock of the last several years, the combative nature of pretty much every congressional statement made on any news network by anyone anywhere, and the fact that the exact same folks–with a few important exceptions–are back in the capitol, I find it hard to take that comment with anything but a giant grain of salt. Especially coming from the figurehead of the party that stated its purpose explicitly, not as governing the nation, but as preventing Obama from scoring a second term. But, cynical as I tend to be, I really, really, REALLY hope he meant what he was saying. Even more importantly, I hope his party, leadership and constituency, was listening when he said it. Beyond that, I hope all the Democrats out there quit their cheering and jeering long enough to hear him, too.

Over the coming days, weeks, months, and years, as our political discourse ebbs and flows, as we trade digital punches and counterpunches on Facebook and Twitter, I hope we all strive to balance these two vital features of a healthy democracy in action: the freedom to argue, and the willingness to listen. I hope that the arguments we have are on the important issues facing us all, each one of us as American citizens, and not over whether or not the president’s accent changed when he went down South. I hope we remember (myself included) that at the end of the day, when all is said and done, counting on each other must trump counting coup, that all the insults in the world never fixed an economy or got anyone a job. What moves us forward is us, plain and simple, not I but we, not my needs but yours. The US of A.

Surviving the Morning After

Election day is at hand, and the question on everyone’s mind (at least insofar as my television tells me so) seems to be “What’s going to happen today”? Meanwhile, the question foremost in my mind is “What’s going to happen tomorrow”? Because that’s when we really find out what lies in store for the American polity over the next four years (and beyond). And, to my mind, this has very little to do with who wins the popular vote (or the electoral one), because I’m convinced, cynic that I am, that either way, we stand a good chance of losing.

Since the last election, we have lost an important element in our political process: our minds, collectively and individually. It might be argued that, between 2008 and the present, a greater percentage of the American electorate has found a voice, but I’m not convinced that this is a good thing. It should be, mind you. It should be the greatest thing about a democratic system. It should be resoundingly wonderful that, in this country, groups like the Tea Party and other grassroots start-ups have the freedom to come together and have their collective say on the state of our Union. But the benefits of that freedom tend to be drowned out by the language used to express it. And I don’t mean profanity–I have a great fondness for certain four-letter words judiciously applied–or issues vocabulary. I’m referring to the languages of fear, hatred, prejudice, closed-mindedness–in short, the languages we’ve all been increasingly guilty of using lately. Let me be clear: this is a non-partisan observation. Neither side of the proverbial aisle is in any position to throw that first stone, unless they do it straight up in the air so that it hits them first.

Our “dialogue” has been co-opted into guerrilla sideshows (the Birther movement, the “secret Muslim” brigade, etc.) and a do-nothing Congress in which victory goes to him what don’t cry Uncle. One side finds itself compelled to ramrod legislation that the other side then finds itself compelled to block in whatever way works. We don’t talk to each other anymore; we talk at each other, about each other, at each other’s expense. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen groups of rogue voters roaming the streets, beating each other with campaign paraphernalia (but, hey, Election Day is young). We have descended into a Mad Max politics that threatens to divide us as a nation to the point of total impotence, a nation in which a broken financial system and a growing debt are weapons to be used rather than problems to be solved. And this is only Tuesday…

Tomorrow, we will wake up–hopefully–to discover that one candidate or the other has won in a decisive fashion (so as to avoid the kangaroo solution), and when that happens, we have a choice: we can dig our heels in, throw ourselves on the floor in a grown-up temper tantrum, and spend the next two to four years rubbing it in or cussing it out; or, like mature, intelligent people deserving of the democracy we supposedly honor and cherish, we can reach across the ideological divide and embrace those who oppose us, try and actually carry on a conversation that doesn’t involve insults or invective. You know, actually, like, get something useful done.

What will it be: the land of the free, or the home of the deranged?