You have to feel for the election officials, for the TV commentators, and for those of us who want relief. No matter which channel you turn on – cable or broadcast – it is ballot results non-stop. Even when there are no results to report. There are digital boards and graphic displays and electronic gadgets of every sort, and even they are getting tired. When Steve Kornacki’s toys start playing up, then you know they’re being overused.
Even Anderson Cooper can hardly think of another thing to say – but that doesn’t stop the producers from examining each result and reiterating the status (basically unchanged) in a days-long stream of increments. This is not the first election that is stretched out over days. That’s just how it is.
Pity the sleep-deprived voting officials who have to drag their asses out frequently to report on 20 ballots – to a flurry of whirling updated numbers and percentages – and to be unable to predict when they’d actually be done and to defend the beleaguered counters and the election staff and to explain that they’ve never dealt with so many dropped-off or mailed-in votes. For gawd’s sake, we get it.
Meanwhile, you wouldn’t know that day after day we are reporting the highest number of Coronavirus infections than any country at any time. We are breaking these nasty records, just as Europe too is having surges, but there isn’t enough time to report that. Uncounted people are unemployed and hungry and on the verge of eviction. As individuals we can, of course, turn off the TV altogether – but the country is absolutely saturated with these details and it’s hard to demure.
Why can’t we have an hourly update? And go ahead and break into the other programming if there is a definitive result. This approach just raises the national blood pressure and makes us go cross-eyed with the ridiculous nature of American elections. And I know that in my lifetime I will not see the elimination of the foul Electoral “College” so that the candidate with the most votes wins; nor the fair distribution of Senate seats; nor the end of gerrymandering and voter suppression. This 24-7 minutiae just confirms what a screwed-up structure those slave-owning, land-owning, property-protecting, white-male-privilege-defending Founding Fathers bequeathed us.
I watched the entire Democratic National Convention – all four nights, start to finish. Electoral politics has never been my gig but, like Angela Davis says, we all must vote for the Democrats this time. Absolutely must. I voted for Al Gore in 2000, literally 10 days after I returned from 24 years abroad. And was mortified to see the Democrats politely submit to Repug manipulations because they were just too genteel for a street fight. I remember friends from Europe writing to ask if America needed them to send an independent body to manage the USA’s chaotic and inconclusive elections.
I write this piece as someone who identified as a revolutionary as long as that was a relevant title in the USA: the 60s and 70s. Those were the days when one would introduce herself as an anarcho-socialist queer feminist anti-racist class-conscious activist. Now, in my dotage, under a proto-fascist administration during a pandemic, I find myself forced into dependency on an opposition Democratic Party that is Wall Street and Big Pharm funded, and that is impotent and weak, stuck with worn out leadership and resistant to the energy of the women (and men) of color who are unseating their friends. I write this as someone who is going to vote for the Democratic ticket and is going to encourage everyone else to do all we can to get rid of tRump.
Here are my Highlights and Bummers in no particular order
HIGHLIGHT The music was often wonderful. Billy Porter wrapped up the first night in dazzling style. Billie Eilish accompanied the premiere of her new song with an incisive speech. John Legend is, I believe, the Frank Sinatra of our times. His performance of “Glory” with Common was strong and gripping. Prince Royce was spectacular as he strolled that long wall of graffiti. If I have to listen to the national anthem, then at least The Chicks did an interesting version.
BUMMER What don’t the Democrats understand about the separation of Church and State? All four nights we had wrap-up religious benedictions that mentioned Jesus. Jesus! And the Trinity! The final night they threw in a Rabbi and an Imam, but piled on the God Blesses at the end of speeches. Jews were present throughout, but not named. However, Muslims had been absent, except for a couple of seconds of Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen soldier viciously attacked by tRump. The whole emphasis on Biden’s “faith” was, if not pandering to tRump’s audience, massively inappropriate to the ears of this non-Christian.
HIGHLIGHT I was transfixed the second I saw elevator operator Jacquelyn Asbie, who wore her tie proudly as she delivered the first nomination of Joe Biden. Check her out here:
BUMMER I hated the inclusion of anti-choice campaigner John R. Kasich, and Colin Powell, a military general whose public lies to the United Nations in 2003 cost untold lives, both American and Iraqi. All this emphasis on “traditional” Repuglicans was irritating and unlikely to move many people. Absolutely worst of all was the prominent spot given to Michael Bloomberg. This oinker, who failed to buy the presidency, seems unable to recover from his disappointment in not being the arrogant narcissist who gets to replace the present arrogant narcissist.
HIGHLIGHT Bernie’s speech on the first evening was the most practical, policy-based presentation of the Convention, in contrast to the usual patriotic pablum and platitudes.
BUMMER While we were forced to listen to too many Repugs, Julian Castro – the only Latinx candidate in the primaries – seems to be the only former candidate (other than Marianne Williamson who surely has more fans than Kasich) who was not invited to speak. Why? And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had 90 seconds in which to nominate Bernie – and then no other mention. This was a grave mistake. With well over 3 million social media followers, with stunning primary victories over Wall Street-funded establishment Democrats, she is the voice of the present many of us are listening to and the star of the future. Snubbing her was a slap in the face to her many constituencies: progressives, young people, Latinx voters, anti-capitalists, etc.
HIGHLIGHT Michelle and Barak are clearly aghast at what is going on under tRump. I just wish they hadn’t waited till now to be speaking out and getting involved – although some say their timing is just right for strongest impact. I don’t see the point of elegance and restraint in their non-response to all these years of public abuse by tRump.
HIGHLIGHT & BUMMER Three out of four of the moderators hit just the right note, staying in their role as MCs and moving things along: Eva Longoria, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Kerry Washington, all women of color. Only on the final (and arguably most important night) did moderator Julia Louis-Dreyfus display her tin ear to give us a discordant “jokey” tone. It was an odd decision by the convention organizers.
HIGHLIGHT The many clips of everyday people talking about their lives were powerful, not the least Mexican-American Kristin Urquiza, who lost her dad to Covid. She said, “His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump.” Here’s the clip:
There were also stories of Joe Biden’s compassion – many many many stories – including the special speech by 13-year-old Brayden Harrington, a kid who stutters and who was encouraged by Biden, a former stutterer himself.
BUMMER Three themes became excruciatingly repetitive: 1. Biden listens and cares 2. Biden is a man of “faith” 3. Beau Biden was a saint who continues to guide Joe Biden “from above” in all he does and thinks. The ghoulish focus on his dead son, over and over and over and then some more, became fetishistic. I was squirming. Biden’s other two children, themselves forced to speak about Beau when we finally saw them, must feel a certain way.
HIGHLIGHT I had been complaining over the first days about the absence of spokespeople with disabilities – even in the midst of a strong commitment to diverse images – at least in the first days. So I welcomed the piece about Ady Barkan’s struggle for health care around his ALS. It was odd, though, that as a fierce campaigner for Medicare-For-All, that phrase was not included in his presentation.
HIGHLIGHT It is widely agreed that the roll call (on night two) was the most brilliant chunk of the Convention. I was absolutely captivated at seeing so many different kinds of presentations from the States and territories, not the least Native people in their own clothes and settings. Let me finish on a high note by posting it here.
For years I have railed against particularly deceptive, misleading, euphemistic words and so I’m going to start an occasional series of blogs dealing with these words.
JOB CREATOR Tom Steyer, the multi-billionaire vanity candidate for president who built his wealth as a hedge fund manager, has assaulted us with a barrage of TV and radio ads. He brags: “I started a tiny investment business and, over 27 years, grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars.” His argument is that he is a superior capitalist pig to tRump. With no governmental experience whatsoever, he brags that as a “job creator,” he is capable of running the world. His campaign has spent $17 million on ads so far.
What does it mean to be a job creator? McDonalds and Walmart and other minimum wage companies – they’re all job creators. They’re also union haters, do not pay a living wage to their employees, and in most cases offer no benefits. I don’t know how many or what type of jobs this Steyer “created” – these hedge funders usually just buy, ransack, and then sell companies. But what he really means is that he managed to exploit the labor of enough people to make him so rich that he can attempt to spend his way into the position of president of the USA. As a “job creator” he wants to create that one additional job – for himself.
I'd love Trump to pick Palin as his running-mate. The Alternet article says that the shortlist consists of Kasich, Cruz, Rubio, Christie, and Palin. As there is little comfort in any of those candidates, and even less to distinguish among them, I hope it'll be Palin. Yes, I said Palin, and why not? I have a personal stake and it could give new life to the book about Palin that I wrote during her campaign, Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin.
It all started with her selection. I began blogging about this unknown the night she was named. Who was she? Why was she selected? Each day I would dig out another piece of dirt from the interwebz and after a number of postings I was contacted by Harvard Perspectives Press. Would I write a book about Palin in three weeks? No, I said, but I’ll do it in four.
I put on a pair of pajamas and over 28 days and nights I became a Palin expert. We developed a routine. I researched a topic, wrote a chapter, sent it to Barry Hock who edits everything I write, got it back and integrated the copy-edits he suggested, then sent it on to the publisher who prepared it for publication. Then on to the next chapter. The artist Sandy Oppenheimer, created a collage portrait of Palin for the cover. (It’s for sale if you know somebody who’s a fan.) The publisher took care of the front and back covers, some supplementary information, and all the publication arrangements.
I will point out that I changed my pajamas often, but it was rare for me to exit my office chair let alone my flat. I simply stopped after 28 days and nights because that was the deal. On the 29th day my publisher had Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin available as an ebook and a mere ten days later he miraculously turned up with hard copies. Local Democratic town committees invited me to read at their election events. Bookstores refused to stock it because, they claimed in a puzzling approach to books, they’d have to have an author/book from the “other side.” I’m talking about indie bookstores. I’m talking about Brookline Booksmith, for example, despite probably a dozen requests from potential readers. My publisher and I hired Gail Leondar-Wright, the literary PR person, who within a week had me set up for dozens of interviews on progressive radio shows. I did those in my pajamas as well. I managed to remember how to dress myself when it came to doing readings.
Why the huge rush? There were only a few weeks between when we got the book out and when the election was held, after which the book was dead wood. My publisher worked the online marketing angle and as a result the reviews are split. The mixed reviews are divided between those who consider Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin "a comprehensive analysis of Palin's record and stands on various issues but also a blast to read," and those Palin fans who considered it "a vitriolic spewing against her."
And then it was over. I beat her. Of course I don’t claim to have single-handedly taken down Palin. However now, given the choices, I hope that she runs again. Sure, there are plenty of books out there about Palin at this point, and sure, mine is outdated. But it was the first such expose and I kinda broke all sorts of stories, such as her charging victims for rape kits in Alaska and about her promotion to McCain by the evangelicals. There must be a nostalgia market for quickie books about loser politicians.
People who remember Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin despite it being written in the computer version of a frantic scribble ask me if I intend to write a book about Trump. I don’t. However, I have lowered the price of the Palin book (Kindle at 99¢; paperback at half-price) so that everyone will be able to afford to read it as an historic document if she is permitted to revisit her previous role. I can only live in hope.
The Republican candidate for Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat has pulled ahead of the Democratic candidate according to one poll. The election is on Tuesday. I’m not a fan of either party and find electoral politics in the USA to be – how to put this delicately? – a great big cow pie. But I am living in Massachusetts, that most Democratic of states (other than its governors). Like everyone else, I’m curious about how things got this way. After all, the stakes are high, not the least the challenge to Obama’s Senate majority.
Martha Coakley, the Democrat, is the state attorney general. Her face is familiar, she’s well-connected to the powerful Massachusetts political scene and she used to be many points ahead. Coakley’s campaign was complacent from the start: they did little fund-raising or reaching out, giving the impression that they were sure that it was in the bag. She had one ineffective (if not counterproductive) weird, talking head ad that was played endlessly, and little else.
Not, that is, until her opponent Scott Brown and the Republicans realized they could build on Obama's descending approval rates and a poll came out a few days ago saying Brown is ahead. Brown is a right-wing, anti-choice, healthcare reform-hater, who is a former model, including a nude pretty white-boy-centerfold for Cosmo. One of his most important weapons in the fight for women’s votes is his daughter. As the Washington Post points out, Ayla, who “as a basketball star and ‘American Idol’ semifinalist -- was far more famous than her father at the start of the campaign.”
As Brown closed the gap, the Democrats suddenly woke up. Now we’re being flooded with a variety of (mostly negative) ads from Coakley, Clinton is in town today and Obama, says PBS, is arriving on Sunday, despite the pressures of Haiti and health care legislation. John Kerry wrote his email list asking for money, Victoria Kennedy has made joint appearances with Coakley and many of us have received robo-calls from Obama – all this in just the last couple of days since the polls rang the alarm.
The Republican Party too has stepped up with national figures and resources. John McCain did a YouTube endorsement for Brown and Rudy Giuliani was in Boston today.
The failures of Coakley and her team are going to force me to go out and vote for her on Tuesday because I would hate to be that one vote that allowed in this Tea-Bagger to “represent” me – and that does not endear me to her, her party or this system. I already voted for a Democrat last year and what did it get me? A healthcare bill that attacks the health of women, that has no caps on the double/triple premiums the insurance companies can charge people my age, not a single step forward for the queer community, more wars mongering, more unemployment, no Guantanamo shut-down, bans on shoes and underpants on planes (okay, not quite) and the bonus class sucking my class dry. Sigh.
So we had a night or two flushed with optimism and hope in early November. But what do we have now? We’ve got unjustified, unending wars, a wretched economic crisis, horrible new legislation being pushed through by a lame duck government of war criminals no one is impeaching or indicting, union busting and a whole world we have crippled. On top of all that, we have an extensive list of other annoying or painful developments. Here are the ones that are especially irritating me at the moment. You probably could add a few of your own.
Rick Warren: Obama was glad to have the support – financial and volunteer – of a whole raft of progressives, but he now awards to a fundamentalist lunatic the biggest platform in the history of media by inviting him to give the invocation at his inauguration. This creep Rick Warren not only fanatically supported California’s Proposition 8, removing rights from lesbians and gays, he compares homosexuality to pedophilia and incest and he bars membership in his church (!) to unrepentant gays. What the hell is Obama doing honoring this foul reactionary, who also opposes stem cell research and compares abortion to the Holocaust?! Warren doesn’t like non-believers very much, either. Obama was happy to change his mind about Reverend Wright. It’s time for him to disinvite this nasty man from the inaugural spotlight instead of throwing sexual freedom under the bus.
Bernie Madoff: Yet another rogue capitalist has taken down unknown lists of institutional, foundation, charity and personal fortunes through a Ponzi scam built on snobbery and high-class secret handshakes; and where is the man? Is Madoff in jail after his indictment? No, he is in one of his many million-dollar homes with a little ankle bracelet. He is enjoying the fruits of his crimes in the warmth of his ill-gotten gains. At the same time, there are apparently more black men in American prisons today (thanks to the “war on drugs”) than there were slaves back in the day. I’m fuming. Lock this crook up now or throw him to his victims.
Caroline Kennedy: This daughter-of and niece-of decides she wants Hillary Clinton’s senate seat – and everyone seems to be saying, Okay. What are Kennedy’s positions on the important questions of the day? Abortion? How to deal with New York’s economic crisis? Education policy? Queer marriage? Anything? The woman has been hiding for decades – perfectly her right – and has only even been voting in about half the elections, so what right does she have to get this plum? It is the decision of one man – Governor Paterson – and he’s already received calls from all sorts of important Democrats, including Obama’s boy, Rahm Emanuel. This is foul. This isn’t democracy; this is dynasty.
Kennedy = Palin: I wanted to write a whole blog about the similarities between Sarah Palin’s sudden entry onto the national stage and Kennedy’s. The latter has even copied Palin’s claim that one of her main qualifications for the job is that she raised a family! Yeah, that narrows it down. Kennedy is even now refusing to answer legitimate questions from the press, instead relying on expensive high-profile PR firms to handle her message. Sound familiar? I hate to say it, but at least Palin ran for and won elections before being catapulted into the big-time. Kennedy has studiously avoided politics. What’s similar is the complete lack of public record on national issues. Palin floated on a sea of fundamentalist support; Kennedy thinks DNA is sufficient.
Detroit Bailout: I’m not a big fan of Detroit automakers, especially having lived abroad for a couple of decades where people do perfectly well with efficient little cars that can move 4 or 5 people from here to there without pretending to be the butch vehicle of the apocalypse. However, this refusal of Congress to bail out these manufacturers without union-busting conditions is blatant exploitation of the economic crisis to promote the reactionary agenda. Reminds me of how Cheney and Bush used 9/11 to push through wars and legislation (like the Patriot Act) they had earlier decided they wanted. Not only were the bank and finance workers (or execs) put under no conditions, no one can find the hundreds of billions poured into those sectors that were supposed to turn into credit for actual citizens, but never did. Some report that the money is supplementing massive executive salaries, hot tub conferences and shareholders’ checks. Why aren’t Democratic congress-people going ape-shit and why aren’t we on the streets complaining about this rip-off?
So, as always, we’re back to questions of class. Rich criminals enjoy house arrest in posh surroundings. People with pedigrees trump those with qualifications when perks are being bestowed. White collar criminals are treated with handouts while workers are punished for their bosses’ incompetence and greed. And wealthy powerful Christian fundamentalists who build their base on self-righteous hatred are invited to shine in the name of “inclusiveness.” As one of the many, many commenters wrote to Obama on Change.gov, “This is a turd in the punchbowl.”
Here’s one of the ramifications of the Democratic Party’s refusal to support gay marriage: all three ballot attempts to ban gay marriage passed. Florida, Arizona and California – where 17,000 same-sex couples have already married, best friends of mine among them – all voted to limit the civil rights of their citizens.
Obama and Biden were both as clear about their anti-gay marriage stand as they were on their support of Roe v Wade and – waddya know – all three anti-abortion initiatives (South Dakota, Colorado and California) were defeated. Colorado’s rejected initiative was especially sinister: it attempted to define human-hood as starting at the moment of fertilization.
That’s leadership, Barack Obama. For good and for crap.
There were a lot of other Propositions to interest people. According to Ballotwatch, “Overall, 92 measures were approved, 54 were rejected, and 7 are still to be decided.” Animal rights propositions to stop commercial dog racing in Massachusetts and to define acceptable housing space for California’s farm animals succeeded. Bond proposals got a friendly hearing but tax cuts were sensibly rejected, including an attempt to end income tax in Massachusetts.
And the two states that often fight to be Trendsetter of the Nation took different decisions about dope: California will not be decriminalizing possession, while Massachusetts is only gonna fine you if you’re holding less than an ounce of weed. Now Massachusetts residents can enjoy a lesbian or gay marriage while stoned in a well-resourced dog-friendly state. This could be the economic life-raft we’ve been looking for.
However one of my oldest dearest friends Tracy Moore is married to the wonderful Rabbi Lisa Edwards of the world’s first lesbian and gay synagogue Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) in LA. They’ve conducted 42 weddings since July 17th and this moving film by Pam Postrel (with Dan Fogelberg singing a Judy Collins song) gives evidence of the nightmarish devil’s rituals these homophobes have put a (temporary?) end to.
While I have written a volume on Sarah Palin, quite literally, I have not talked much about Barack Obama. As we approached November 4th, I was continuously on the edge of tears. With Obama's victory, I wept - along with all those folks who came to Chicago from Texas and Mississippi and Illinois, along with Jesse Jackson and Jon Stewart. It was not only a global moment, but one very personal to me.
I came of age as a young teenager in a disturbingly segregated Pittsburgh. My friends and I started a civil rights group, but there was not a single institution in town that would host our inter-racial meetings. No school, no church, no community center.
My parents allowed us to meet at our house until eventually the Unitarian Church opened its doors to us. Threatening midnight phone calls were just one price my parents paid, but in those days Jews were widely committed in very concrete ways to the civil rights movement, coming as it did right after the profound lesson in racism called World War II.
Watching Obama's impressive, competent, steady, unruffled campaign unfold has been breathtaking. Matt Frei on BBC America put it this way: "Obama has managed to look like a cool designated driver of a country in peril." His unflappable temperament and his inexhaustible energy have been almost uncanny. As someone who has made a career out of flapping and ruffling, I know that Obama kicks butt.
There is so much about this that is right and right on. The world is super relieved. People of color are heartened. Progressive activists have hope for the first time in a long time. Democratic politicians have themselves been tarted up in his reflected success. His vision is so strategic that one is a tiny bit less afraid of the grossly crappy economic and political state of the world.
But let us not forget that Barack Obama is more than a stirring, welcome historic figure. He's also a moderate politician with views - and not all of them are fabuloso. For example, he does not support gay marriage. It would have been easy to take that stand, but he didn't do it. He supported the bailout, which is proving to be increasingly corrupt and, just as lefties predicted, just another means of stealing from the people to give to the bastards that took us all down in the first place. He opposed the war on Iraq, but Obama talks like a war-monger when it comes to Afghanistan - the country that historically eats empires that think they have the right to trespass. His position on Israel and Palestine is utterly problematic and one-sided. Some accuse him of sucking up to the American Jewish community, and he seems unaware that many Jews here and in Israel oppose the occupation of Palestine. Many worry that he is accepting at face value the advice he gets from Dennis Ross, a leftover and discredited advisor from Clinton and Bush administrations that failed to achieve peace, or even humanitarian relief in the territories.
You got to feel for anyone going into a new high-profile job with such a mess to clean up. But then, you've got to wonder about the person who so badly wants that job. But that's another topic. If we have to have a president and it can't be Nelson Mandela or Emma Goldman, then let's definitely have Barack Obama.
I've collected many inspired music clips that I haven't included in my blogs. This wonderful one is from manze dayila, a Haitian New Yorker who adores Obama.
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