fscottbaio
02-15-2008, 12:44 AM
This is a blog I wrote a few days ago that I wanted to post here just to start a discussion. It's aimed mostly at like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds, but I'd like to hear what anyone has to say.
Obama-philia (from an arm’s length).
First and foremost: I am a student (and citizen) of American history, culture, and politics. Regardless if most people know it (and those that do know it voice it loudly), the point of American history we are at right now is pretty significant and historic. Granted every moment of every day is chock full of potentiality for historic significance, but the ebbs and flows of tomorrow's history has now been brought to our metaphoric doorstep. The question is if now we can "answer the call" to make that decision an informed one that is measured and sensitive to both our own society and the world at large.
A Not-So-Brief History of your Narrator
For my own background, I was raised solidly middle-class, white, and suburban. My infancy was spent in the Reagan-era (of which I include Bush Sr.), but my intellectual development largely took place under the Clinton-era (as most of you reading this experienced as well). All throughout junior-high and high-school, I learned about the world from a pretty safe distance. There were no pressing conflicts that threatened America and its way of life and I wasn't yet aware of the conflicts that were taking place in other parts of the globe, relevant to other people of the globe.
I watched the Berlin Wall come down on television with my parents, perplexed as to why we were condoning and cheering the blatant vandalism taking place on our televisions (obviously, the Cold War context was a bit too complex and still near-and-dear for my parents to explain to eight year-old me). I was annoyed at the First Gulf War because it interrupted my dedication to morning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My only experience with US-Mexico politics was the multiple times that my neighborhood was put on alert because "aliens" were being pursued by authorities through our own backyards. I had three black friends up until high school. My first memory of knowing who Bill Clinton was was the cartoon version of him playing saxophone in the opening theme of Tiny Toon Adventures.
I was a very intelligent kid, though, adept at figuring out what my teachers wanted to hear/see from me and obliging them, receiving straight A's in the process. The summer between sixth and seventh grade, though, I made friends with the "bad kids." Most of these kids were Mexican and I became the token white-vato in the groups I hung around with. I start smoking weed and cigarettes and drinking when I was eleven. I got arrested several times for various things, started slicking my hair back, and started wearing Ben Davis and Dickies everyday instead of shirts with wizards and dragons on them. I ditched my Harry Potter glasses for style points, paying no heed to the fact that I had to squint heavily to see at a distance past five feet. I threw away my Oingo Boingo and Weird Al Yankovic CDs in favor of Ice Cube, Outkast and Zapp and Roger. I got overwhelmed by an America that, up to that point, I had never known existed. Out of embarassment for my white-ignorance, I fully committed to being what I wasn't (being "raised on the streets" in Santa Clarita isn't saying entirely much). I was a full-fledged guilty white-liberal.
After several run-ins with the law (it sounds so cool, even if it was just for smoking weed and trespassing), my parents shaved my head and threw away my clothes, CDs, and drug paraphernalia. They gave me thirty dollars and told me to go to Goodwill and get new clothes for the upcoming semester of junior high. From this point on, my love affair with punk rock began and has yet to end. As a youthful white kid with thrift-store clothes and a shaved head, I was the epitome of what it meants to be a suburban punk-rock kid. I flung myself into advocacy of all-things-liberal, from Amnesty International to American Atheists. In high school, I took a test that was supposed to indicate where you reside on the Left-to-Right political scale, and I placed "Left of Lenin" (paraphrased, of course).
My grades took a sharp downward turn, but it was in no way due to lack of intelligence. At the same time that I was being suspended from school for insubordination I was developing a razor-sharp wit and critical thinking process that all but solidified my faux-Revolutionary behavior in the public learning institutions. I had an inflamed sense of self that is almost-necessary for young punk kids to cultivate in the face of "overwhelming social adversity."
The summer I graduated from high school, my parents threw a shit-fit that I protested the Democratic National Convention in 2000. My mom abstained from political discussion to allow my dad's love for all-things-Clinton reign uncontested in the Williams household. We had crossed intellectual swords on a variety of subjects in my political adolescent stage, and while I had sincere intentions I always lost out due to the "You Weren't There" disadvantage.
The Political Puberty of Your Narrator
I was solidly backing Ralph Nader in 2000, and had my first opportunity as an adult to first-hand participate in the political process by picketing the DNC of 2000. While Al Gore enthusiastically accepted the nomination inside the Staples Center, I was getting pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets outside like a good-little-liberal-wanna-be-street-soldier. Take your pick of political issues, I was half-informed but full-advocate on every one of them:
Free trade? Fuck that, the poor Latin American countries needed their government inteference to buffer them against the Walmarts of the world.
Death penalty? Fuck that, cops lie all the time and put the wrong people in jail.
Military spending? Fuck that, both parties are slave to the military-industrial complex.
Environmental sensitivity? Fuck that. Bush was an oil-man from Texas and Gore was a primary shareholder in Occidental Oil, which was displacing native people all throughout Latin America.
Church-state seperation? Fuck that, they both were Christians and were importing Judeo-Christian values to government.
See a pattern emerging here? Every one of my political views was punctuated with a well-placed and emphatic fuck you. The two parties were much too similar to receive my support and enthusiasm. It wasn't apathy, mind you, that drove me to alienation from the major parties. It was the exact opposite. I cared too much about the world to cast a vote that would only consolidate the two-party rule.
I drove home from the DNC bruised and bloody (literally), but vindicated in my position of advocating alternative politics. I could care less when Bush won the '00 Election at the time. Gore was no better. We were fucked either way. I sat on my friend's couch in Canyon Country, watching the votes be tallied and the elections being called first for Gore, then for Bush, then for Gore again. I sat with complete disdain for mainstream American politics. Watching the newcasters enthusastically approve the corruption-of-politics known as American democracy. I had perfected my scowl through the years, and had a perfect chance to use it that night.
I won't bore you with the narrative of the next eight years, but suffice it to say that I grew bitter with punk-rock politicking parallel to America growing bitter with partisan politicking. From the alienating blunders of the Bush administration to the passivity of the Democratic Congress: partisan politics seemed to be in its dying throes, be it punk-rock, Republican, Democrat, or what-have-you.
The Current Stage of American Politics According to your Humble, but Enthusiastic, Narrator
I came into this election with a slight Clinton bias. My dad had proven correct: a Democratic president surely would have run this country better than Bush. Sure it would have still been pretty fucked up, but less fucked up.... right?
Especially with the new adoration for Gore running rampant because of An Inconvenient Truth, the liberals who voted for Nader in '00 felt a lumbering but hidden guilt for what had transpired in the past eight years. We would never admit it out loud, but we felt that our hatred for the "Lesser of Two Evils" system had backfired. We had received the greater of those two evils because we had refused to make the choice. Surely '08 was our chance to make amends for the terrible mistake we had made in '00.
It was with this slight-Clinton bias that I went into the debates of the '08 season. I liked Barack, but I couldn't take a gamble on voting for a non-electable candidate like I had in '00. I'd forego the fancy-latte that was Barack Obama in favor of the sobering and bland morning-coffee that was Hilary Clinton.
Everyone that seemed to be for Barack would stammer and stumble when I asked them why. No one really knew why, they just liked the guy and thought he was charming. Most of these people were younger, or had not been into politics their whole life. My group of people, the people who voted for Nader in '00, seemed united that we would redress our former mistake with a solid voting base for Clinton in '08 with the added benefit of getting a woman in the White House. It satiated our Feminist-leanings while also comforting us that we were picking the experienced and seasoned veteran of politics, not just throwing away an idealistic vote. This generation of reckless liberals had matured and grown up. We would participate in American politics the way it was supposed to be, all the while feeling the pangs of our former liberal extremes.
We're sorry Bill Clinton, for straying from you after your eight prosperous and peaceful years, and regretfully we'll get back in line.
I didn't like Hillary, but would always defend her against her critics. Everyone that was attacking her seemed to be where I was in '00. If only you guys knew, I thought, how misplaced your good intentions are. It doesn't work. I wanted to vote for Barack, but I had learned my lesson. I'll support the tried-and-true campaign of Hillary, not the idealistic campaign of Obama.
I shit you not, I was freaked the hell out when I cried during Obama's victory speech in South Carolina. I'm embarrassed I did, and never thought that any public figure (let alone a fucking politician) would get me to the point of tears. I watched the entire speech, enraptured by Obama's charisma and speaking ability, his Kennedy-esque stature and his seemingly-genuine enthusiasm for rallying American people.
Slowly but surely, over that seventeen minute speech, Obama successfully chipped away at my fake-Clinton-advocacy. I knew he was trying to pull on my heart-strings, but I let him do it anyways. It felt like I was falling in love with a stripper. A professional who's livelihood depends on manipulating my emotions, I was embarassingly falling for Obama and moreover: I didn't seem to have to hesitate anymore. I didn't have to vote to redress my eight-year-old mistake. I could vote intelligently and realistically for someone who I could be proud of.
So it's with great hesitancy that I look with adoration on Barack Obama when he gives his famous speeches. He's won me over, and I support him full-heartedly. He's convinced me that he really can rise above partisan politics (on both sides) in order to really point America in the right direction and move towards a better tomorrow. A tomorrow without the bitter divisions of Republican-Democrat or Liberal-Conservative. A tomorrow with the proud face of an African-American representing America to the world-at-large. A tomorrow with a genuine appreciation for the betterment of domestic society in education and healthcare. And perhaps most importantly, a tomorrow where the bitter Nader voters of '00 can rest comfortably that we've made up for our mistake and supported a truly great presidential candidate.
"In the unlikely story of America, there has never been anything false about hope."
So I pronounce today that I am enthusiastically a Barack Obama supporter. I have a flourishing man-crush on the guy, and will be pretty damned pleased when I see him sitting in the White House. But, and it's a big but, if he turns out to be a filthy liar like the politicians we're used to: I have no qualms about killing strippers.
Look upon this video with a great cynical eye, my group of people. It's cheesy, but why not identify with it:
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Thoughts/opinions?
Obama-philia (from an arm’s length).
First and foremost: I am a student (and citizen) of American history, culture, and politics. Regardless if most people know it (and those that do know it voice it loudly), the point of American history we are at right now is pretty significant and historic. Granted every moment of every day is chock full of potentiality for historic significance, but the ebbs and flows of tomorrow's history has now been brought to our metaphoric doorstep. The question is if now we can "answer the call" to make that decision an informed one that is measured and sensitive to both our own society and the world at large.
A Not-So-Brief History of your Narrator
For my own background, I was raised solidly middle-class, white, and suburban. My infancy was spent in the Reagan-era (of which I include Bush Sr.), but my intellectual development largely took place under the Clinton-era (as most of you reading this experienced as well). All throughout junior-high and high-school, I learned about the world from a pretty safe distance. There were no pressing conflicts that threatened America and its way of life and I wasn't yet aware of the conflicts that were taking place in other parts of the globe, relevant to other people of the globe.
I watched the Berlin Wall come down on television with my parents, perplexed as to why we were condoning and cheering the blatant vandalism taking place on our televisions (obviously, the Cold War context was a bit too complex and still near-and-dear for my parents to explain to eight year-old me). I was annoyed at the First Gulf War because it interrupted my dedication to morning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My only experience with US-Mexico politics was the multiple times that my neighborhood was put on alert because "aliens" were being pursued by authorities through our own backyards. I had three black friends up until high school. My first memory of knowing who Bill Clinton was was the cartoon version of him playing saxophone in the opening theme of Tiny Toon Adventures.
I was a very intelligent kid, though, adept at figuring out what my teachers wanted to hear/see from me and obliging them, receiving straight A's in the process. The summer between sixth and seventh grade, though, I made friends with the "bad kids." Most of these kids were Mexican and I became the token white-vato in the groups I hung around with. I start smoking weed and cigarettes and drinking when I was eleven. I got arrested several times for various things, started slicking my hair back, and started wearing Ben Davis and Dickies everyday instead of shirts with wizards and dragons on them. I ditched my Harry Potter glasses for style points, paying no heed to the fact that I had to squint heavily to see at a distance past five feet. I threw away my Oingo Boingo and Weird Al Yankovic CDs in favor of Ice Cube, Outkast and Zapp and Roger. I got overwhelmed by an America that, up to that point, I had never known existed. Out of embarassment for my white-ignorance, I fully committed to being what I wasn't (being "raised on the streets" in Santa Clarita isn't saying entirely much). I was a full-fledged guilty white-liberal.
After several run-ins with the law (it sounds so cool, even if it was just for smoking weed and trespassing), my parents shaved my head and threw away my clothes, CDs, and drug paraphernalia. They gave me thirty dollars and told me to go to Goodwill and get new clothes for the upcoming semester of junior high. From this point on, my love affair with punk rock began and has yet to end. As a youthful white kid with thrift-store clothes and a shaved head, I was the epitome of what it meants to be a suburban punk-rock kid. I flung myself into advocacy of all-things-liberal, from Amnesty International to American Atheists. In high school, I took a test that was supposed to indicate where you reside on the Left-to-Right political scale, and I placed "Left of Lenin" (paraphrased, of course).
My grades took a sharp downward turn, but it was in no way due to lack of intelligence. At the same time that I was being suspended from school for insubordination I was developing a razor-sharp wit and critical thinking process that all but solidified my faux-Revolutionary behavior in the public learning institutions. I had an inflamed sense of self that is almost-necessary for young punk kids to cultivate in the face of "overwhelming social adversity."
The summer I graduated from high school, my parents threw a shit-fit that I protested the Democratic National Convention in 2000. My mom abstained from political discussion to allow my dad's love for all-things-Clinton reign uncontested in the Williams household. We had crossed intellectual swords on a variety of subjects in my political adolescent stage, and while I had sincere intentions I always lost out due to the "You Weren't There" disadvantage.
The Political Puberty of Your Narrator
I was solidly backing Ralph Nader in 2000, and had my first opportunity as an adult to first-hand participate in the political process by picketing the DNC of 2000. While Al Gore enthusiastically accepted the nomination inside the Staples Center, I was getting pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets outside like a good-little-liberal-wanna-be-street-soldier. Take your pick of political issues, I was half-informed but full-advocate on every one of them:
Free trade? Fuck that, the poor Latin American countries needed their government inteference to buffer them against the Walmarts of the world.
Death penalty? Fuck that, cops lie all the time and put the wrong people in jail.
Military spending? Fuck that, both parties are slave to the military-industrial complex.
Environmental sensitivity? Fuck that. Bush was an oil-man from Texas and Gore was a primary shareholder in Occidental Oil, which was displacing native people all throughout Latin America.
Church-state seperation? Fuck that, they both were Christians and were importing Judeo-Christian values to government.
See a pattern emerging here? Every one of my political views was punctuated with a well-placed and emphatic fuck you. The two parties were much too similar to receive my support and enthusiasm. It wasn't apathy, mind you, that drove me to alienation from the major parties. It was the exact opposite. I cared too much about the world to cast a vote that would only consolidate the two-party rule.
I drove home from the DNC bruised and bloody (literally), but vindicated in my position of advocating alternative politics. I could care less when Bush won the '00 Election at the time. Gore was no better. We were fucked either way. I sat on my friend's couch in Canyon Country, watching the votes be tallied and the elections being called first for Gore, then for Bush, then for Gore again. I sat with complete disdain for mainstream American politics. Watching the newcasters enthusastically approve the corruption-of-politics known as American democracy. I had perfected my scowl through the years, and had a perfect chance to use it that night.
I won't bore you with the narrative of the next eight years, but suffice it to say that I grew bitter with punk-rock politicking parallel to America growing bitter with partisan politicking. From the alienating blunders of the Bush administration to the passivity of the Democratic Congress: partisan politics seemed to be in its dying throes, be it punk-rock, Republican, Democrat, or what-have-you.
The Current Stage of American Politics According to your Humble, but Enthusiastic, Narrator
I came into this election with a slight Clinton bias. My dad had proven correct: a Democratic president surely would have run this country better than Bush. Sure it would have still been pretty fucked up, but less fucked up.... right?
Especially with the new adoration for Gore running rampant because of An Inconvenient Truth, the liberals who voted for Nader in '00 felt a lumbering but hidden guilt for what had transpired in the past eight years. We would never admit it out loud, but we felt that our hatred for the "Lesser of Two Evils" system had backfired. We had received the greater of those two evils because we had refused to make the choice. Surely '08 was our chance to make amends for the terrible mistake we had made in '00.
It was with this slight-Clinton bias that I went into the debates of the '08 season. I liked Barack, but I couldn't take a gamble on voting for a non-electable candidate like I had in '00. I'd forego the fancy-latte that was Barack Obama in favor of the sobering and bland morning-coffee that was Hilary Clinton.
Everyone that seemed to be for Barack would stammer and stumble when I asked them why. No one really knew why, they just liked the guy and thought he was charming. Most of these people were younger, or had not been into politics their whole life. My group of people, the people who voted for Nader in '00, seemed united that we would redress our former mistake with a solid voting base for Clinton in '08 with the added benefit of getting a woman in the White House. It satiated our Feminist-leanings while also comforting us that we were picking the experienced and seasoned veteran of politics, not just throwing away an idealistic vote. This generation of reckless liberals had matured and grown up. We would participate in American politics the way it was supposed to be, all the while feeling the pangs of our former liberal extremes.
We're sorry Bill Clinton, for straying from you after your eight prosperous and peaceful years, and regretfully we'll get back in line.
I didn't like Hillary, but would always defend her against her critics. Everyone that was attacking her seemed to be where I was in '00. If only you guys knew, I thought, how misplaced your good intentions are. It doesn't work. I wanted to vote for Barack, but I had learned my lesson. I'll support the tried-and-true campaign of Hillary, not the idealistic campaign of Obama.
I shit you not, I was freaked the hell out when I cried during Obama's victory speech in South Carolina. I'm embarrassed I did, and never thought that any public figure (let alone a fucking politician) would get me to the point of tears. I watched the entire speech, enraptured by Obama's charisma and speaking ability, his Kennedy-esque stature and his seemingly-genuine enthusiasm for rallying American people.
Slowly but surely, over that seventeen minute speech, Obama successfully chipped away at my fake-Clinton-advocacy. I knew he was trying to pull on my heart-strings, but I let him do it anyways. It felt like I was falling in love with a stripper. A professional who's livelihood depends on manipulating my emotions, I was embarassingly falling for Obama and moreover: I didn't seem to have to hesitate anymore. I didn't have to vote to redress my eight-year-old mistake. I could vote intelligently and realistically for someone who I could be proud of.
So it's with great hesitancy that I look with adoration on Barack Obama when he gives his famous speeches. He's won me over, and I support him full-heartedly. He's convinced me that he really can rise above partisan politics (on both sides) in order to really point America in the right direction and move towards a better tomorrow. A tomorrow without the bitter divisions of Republican-Democrat or Liberal-Conservative. A tomorrow with the proud face of an African-American representing America to the world-at-large. A tomorrow with a genuine appreciation for the betterment of domestic society in education and healthcare. And perhaps most importantly, a tomorrow where the bitter Nader voters of '00 can rest comfortably that we've made up for our mistake and supported a truly great presidential candidate.
"In the unlikely story of America, there has never been anything false about hope."
So I pronounce today that I am enthusiastically a Barack Obama supporter. I have a flourishing man-crush on the guy, and will be pretty damned pleased when I see him sitting in the White House. But, and it's a big but, if he turns out to be a filthy liar like the politicians we're used to: I have no qualms about killing strippers.
Look upon this video with a great cynical eye, my group of people. It's cheesy, but why not identify with it:
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Thoughts/opinions?