Hiatus

I am taking a hiatus from blogging and may return early next year. Thanks, Steve Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, Charles2 of The Fulcrum, and others for stopping by through a tumultuous but victorious election season. For the time being, I am going to focus on my non-virtual existence--teaching, writing, living a life.

Frank Rich has penned a masterful summation of the Obama election that I'd rather tip my hat to than try to rival ("It Still Felt Good the Morning After," November 9, 2008). And should anyone care to see a good movie, I recommend The Visitor. This modern Bildungsroman takes place within a very Bushy post-9-11 New York City, a once-vibrant community now splintered by paranoid security overreaches and strangled with xenophobic immigration nets, and we can only hope that the film will begin to appear dated in some respects by early next year. The human element of the film, buoyed by superb acting, will surely not fade, but it's hard to watch this film and not feel bitter about the cruel turn given to American society under Bush and Cheney.

Who won?

Despite the convincing victory of Barack Obama, the question, "who won?," remains.

This victory was not only of President-Elect Obama, nor of the Democratic Party, nor of African-Americans, nor even of dark-skinned people the world over -- and I say that knowing that in each of those cases, the victory was immense and, for each, uniquely so. The victory was also one of all Americans, whose credibility in the world had been severely damaged by 8 years of poisonous leadership. For, at the end of the day, it was the American people who had failed twice to prevent Bush from reaching the White House. It was the American people who had failed to give Bush and Cheney the sound beating in the polls that they deserved. This fact hits hard those like myself who live abroad and who have to brave the opinion of "America" and of "Americans" before it is ever a question of winning anyone's opinion over with one's own personal merits. This, and many other things, account for the fact that I busted a tear not only when the news of Obama's victory was announced, nor only when Obama made his acceptance speech, but again and again: when I watched the videos of many spontaneous celebrations in the cities of America (gathered at www.michaelmoore.com on Nov. 5), when I read celebratory opinion pieces from different points of view, when I viewed photos of others crying in joy, when I scanned a series of political cartoons relating to the event, and, at times, when I sat back and pondered what had happened. There was something in that election victory that surpassed not only expectations but that could not be fully anticipated. The elation could be somewhat imagined, abstractly, but the joy was too great for foretasting or prediction. The fact that so many people, for so many different reasons, could rightly feel victorious in this one man's victory created a global vibration of hope and optimism. I know from my own experience of seeing spontaneous joy on the faces of normally reserved Japanese as soon as the victory of Obama was mentioned.

So, to the question, "who won?," I do not pretend to know the answer. It is clear, however, that many did, and that the reasons for which they see themselves as having triumphed are themselves many in nature.

Of course, this is a post of celebration; and in celebrations of victors there is something forgetful and cruel. However, as celebrations come and go, somewhere, the eye of conscience remains fixed. It's my sincere hope that President Obama greatly reduces the numbers of those who for so long have been on the losing end of blind American military power. Some of his policy statements have given hope in that respect; others have done the opposite. May he be something other than a dark-skinned version of the military belligerent and slayer of innocents that other US presidents have been before him.

The grand democratic hand

Tonight's victory of Barack Obama and Joe Biden signals a defeat for many very bad things. I have no political enthusiasts around me; so, to celebrate, I am going list a few of the horrible people and things that have been smacked upside the head tonight by the grand democratic hand of American voters.

The Republican Party, Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch, John McCain, George Bush Jr., Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, racism, hate, ignorance, corporate fundamentalism, election theft, dirty politics, the Religious Right, and that woman with a big mouth in the video posted below.

These pestiferous people and things will surely not go away any time soon, but it is very comforting to know that, tonight, they have been solidly rejected by a majority of Americans. Do you know how long I have waited for this day? It feels like a lifetime. And it is exactly what I have been asking for ever since I started blogging.

Palin is beyond help

If the thought of Sarah Palin wielding executive power has not yet stunned you, you should listen to her take a completely wacko prank call completely seriously for nearly 6 minutes. After provoking her repeatedly with nonsense claims and irreverent comments, the prankster has to come out and tell her "you have been pranked" before she realizes what she has been rolling in giddily. This comes after the prankster, for instance, refers to Johnny Holliday as his "special American advisor" (in fact, he's a miserable French pop star) and praises "Nailin' Palin," a porno flick that derides Palin which the prankster calls "a documentary they made on your life." Palin, ever the shrewd one, thanks him joyfully for complimenting her on the "documentary." Throughout the entire conversation, Palin keeps pushing out the memorized "good energy" phrases, flatters "Nicolas" (who sounds nothing like Sarkozy), and generally acts like she's about 9 years old and in the midst of her first sleep-over with friends.

Executive material, you think?

It is no wonder that many prominent conservative commentators have abandoned the Republican ticket for the first time in modern history.

A plea for Barack Obama

I do not have the time before November 4th to present a fully reasoned endorsement for Barack Obama. This is partly because I have many other responsibilities before me and partly because the reasons for the choice are too numerous to be explained in a few words. However, it seems to me that the vicious tenor of the McCain-Palin campaign -- both its strategy to bury its main opponent with tireless mud-slinging (an example?) and the concomitant rage and ignorance that flared up among McCain-Palin supporters -- is a very pregnant sign about not only what sort of leadership those two would provide, but also of what sort of country the United States would become with them in power. In short, McCain-Palin promise more years of divisiveness, hate, aggression, government-fed falsifications and bald-faced denials of substantiated wrongdoing, increased social stratification and increased wealth distribution to those few at the top who least need it.

There are those toward whom I would be silent if they gave their votes to McCain and Palin: for instance, the super wealthy, who clearly have it in their interests to see Bush's tax cuts for the super wealthy become "permanent" in accordance with McCain's will. Or, again, those for whom anti-abortion rights legislation is the only issue that matters. I do not fathom that such people will ever be persuaded to see the world differently; they shall forever be led by the rigors of their single ideological pursuit: making all abortions illegal. However, there is apparently a stunningly large number of people who are ready to vote, or who have already voted for, McCain-Palin simply out of a spirit of partisanship or on the basis of an erroneous and misguided sense of what that ticket may offer them. For these masses -- many of them fans of Fox News, the Drudge Report, or Rush Limbaugh -- I think the best response might be something like the full-page advertisements taken out over the past few years by the religious right in an attempt to persuade homosexuals to "convert" to heterosexuality. That advertisement campaign was offensive for its erroneous assumption about the nature of homosexuality; but the strategy might well fit if applied to those who apparently cannot learn from the eight-year example of failure upon failure that the Republicans have put on display for them in virtually every domain of government. After all, no one is born Republican. And certainly no one without special issues is born incorrigibly stupid.

Of course, time is tight, and the resources for such an advertisement campaign are lacking. Nonetheless, should any Republican supporter read these words and feel moved, by courage or other human sentiment, to testify that they are determined not to be duped any longer, and not to be brought once again to vote against their own economic and political interests on the basis of bogus fears, kindly leave a few comments below and join the more perfect Union that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have the dignity and resolve to lead us towards.

Oh, here are some of you now!



Is it just me, or are 95 percent of the reasons given for opposing or fearing Obama truly just cooked up somewhere?

I close this post with lines sent to me from a friend who works in Cleveland, Ohio. A sign of the times, for sure:

I volunteered one afternoon for the Obama campaign to knock on doors to encourage voters to vote early. One registered voter told me he wouldn't vote for Obama because he said Obama was a Muslim and would use weapons of mass destruction against America. I started chuckling because I thought he was joking and tried to continue my conversation with him. When he continued to stare at me without saying anything, I realized he was serious. These people are out there.

I've always hated college football coaches who run up the score against weak opponents. That being said, I have a lust for running up the score in this election.