Politics is ephemeral, which is why I would never put this in the book, and why I’m posting it here.

I’ve lived my entire adult life under the Bush administration. I was 17 years old when he took office. I couldn’t even vote.

I have no idea what it’s like to be a proud American. I have no idea what it’s like to have a leader with a decent national vision, who wants to lead America forward instead of back into the Dark Ages.

And here comes this guy.

People say he’s just an image. A myth.

Well, images and myth have the power to change things.

It’s hard not to be inspired.

One of my favorite cartoonists, Steve Brodner, says it better than me:

As members of the fraternity of satiric artists and people who contribute to mainstream and independent media we must focus intensely on Obama; what he says, how his positions may veer off the right course. He needs criticism from us more than a Republican, because he can do more damage in his way. And he can be moved (he reads!)

But for tonight I think pausing and feeling this moment is a good thing. It is hard to be cynical and pissed off tonight, for me. Because there is nothing in our lives to compare this with. It, to me, is the good part of America, after all the sludge it has been covered with, and all its own flaws that have contributed for so long to its isolation, finally reasserting itself. Struggling back into the daylight. And here is the messenger, flawed, gawky, seemingly out of nowhere. But he’s right enough to pin hopes on. And if you are a praying person, to do that too. Things have gotten pretty bad very fast. Here is a thing that reminds us that we are made of better stuff. Sure we’ll take this guy apart as we go. That’s the drill. But here’s hoping he has the talent to transcend, not only tonight, but the horrible trends we and human kind have set in motion. Go Barack.

see it bigger

“It’s not just a story about numbers, it’s a story about people and about how good people go bad. Our system not only allowed it to happen, but also almost encouraged it.”—Director Alex Gibney

I’m always amazed by how a documentary film can pack so many ideas and so much human drama into 2 hours. This one has it all: compelling story, great characters, and a kick-ass soundtrack (excellent opening and closing songs by Tom Waits).

In a company drowning in such a macho culture (Lou Pai had strippers in his office, Jeff Skilling organized these ridiculous daredevil excursions on motorbikes…) I think it’s no coincidence that the whistleblowers were women (Bethany McLean reporting for Fortune Magazine, and Sherron Watkins as Vice-President of Corporate Development).

Watch the whole thing on Google Video.

My question to you: if the most relevant fable in our times isn’t “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” what is?

Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. Why describe it when dozens of reviewers already have:

Bageant mixes a reporter’s keen analysis, a storyteller’s color, and a native son’s love of his roots in this absorbing dissection of America’s working poor. Returning to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, after 30 years of life among the elite journalistic class, Bageant sought to answer the question of why the working poor vote for Republicans in apparent opposition to their own interests. (Booklist)

This is a great book. Like Drew Westen’s The Political Brain, it sets out to explain why democrats just can’t capture the hearts and votes of working class America.

There was a particular passage that I thought synced up nicely with Barack Obama’s recent “race” speech, where Obama said:

As imperfect as [Reverend Wright] may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

The passage from Bageant quote concerns religion, but it has the same theme—your people are your people, and they’re a part of you, no matter what:

Only another liberal raised in a fundamentalist clan can understand what a strange, sometimes downright hellish circumstance it is — how such a family can despise everything you believe in, see you as a humanist instrument of Satan, yet still love you and be right there for you when your back goes out or a divorce shatters your life. How they can never fail to invite you to the family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

It must be plain that I do not find much conversational fat to chew around the Thanksgiving table. Politically and spiritually, my family and I may be said to be dire enemies. Love and loathing coexist. There is talk but no communication. At times it seems we are speaking to one another through an unearthly veil, wherein each party knows it is speaking to an alien. There is a sort of high, eerie, mental whine in the air. This is the sound of mutually incomprehensible worlds hurtling toward destiny, passing with great psychological friction, obvious to all yet acknowledged by none.

After a lifetime of identity conflict, I have come to accept that these are my people — by blood, even if not politically or spiritually. I have prayed with them, mourned with them, and celebrated their weddings. I share their rude tastes and humor, and I am marked by the same fundamentalist God-instilled self-loathing. No matter how much I may change or improve my condition, I cannot escape their pathos. I go forward, yet I remain. I wait anxiously and strive for change, for relief from what feels like an increased stifling of personal liberty, beauty, art, and self-realization in America. They wait in spooky calmness for Jesus.

Highly recommended. Thanks to Jessa Crispin for the tip.

Links:

• Buy it on Amazon
• Joe Bageant’s site

Last night we went over to the Austin City Limits studio to see a Q&A with David Simon, former newspaper reporter and creator of the TV show The Wire. John Pierson was the moderator, and he did a really great job— he asked Simon intelligent questions and then sat and listened while Simon gave intelligent answers.

Discussed topics: the decline of the newspaper industry, journalism and Homer Bigart (“his method: ‘Hi, I’m an idiot and I can’t talk…please help me’”), dumbass editors looking for lame stories about “Dickensian” children (“Pulitzer Sniffing”), Iraq, No Child Left Behind, stealing from Greek Tragedy, the drug war, jury nullification, creative writing students (“my god, you guys are an industry”), books he hasn’t read (Brothers Karamazov), the creative use of profanity, The America That Got Left Behind, and of course, Baltimore (“my favorite character”), and The Wire.

As usual, I doodled and took a lot of notes:

Really cool night, and awesome to finally see the Austin City Limits studio. Thanks to Janet for inviting us!

Links:

• Daily Texan article about the talk
• Believer interview

UPDATE:

I wanted to point out Amanda Marcotte‘s post about the evening (relayed to me by Gerry Canavan):

Awards: A good excuse for fan wanking disguised as academic inquiry

It was a productive hour and a half of discussion, which is somewhat surprising, since they opened the floor to questions, which is usually an invitation for a bunch of assholes to pretend that everyone showed up to hear them talk instead of the speaker. There were a couple of people who asked questions where the question was a minor pretense for them to bloviate, but on the whole, the question askers were respectable and the questions were good.

It’s such a perfect, hilarious observation, a subject that Meg and I constantly complain about: too often Q&As are just a huge waste of time. This one wasn’t, but I drew a cartoon about it last night, anyways…I just didn’t post it. Here it is, now:

This documentary was so good and so long (145 minutes!) that I made two pages of notes. Particularly great were the monologues by Noam Chomsky and Ray Anderson.

Link:

• An excerpt from the film dealing with the relationship between American corporations and Nazi Germany