Out for a walk last night and thinking about the caucus experience, I remembered Norman Mailer's famous essay, 'The White Negro,' which he wrote in 1957. It was about the way in which hipsters created themselves by incorporating Black culture into their interests and presentation of self. (You can still read it here: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=877) Part of his thesis was that the authoritarianism and conformity of the prior decades had created a rebellious group of young people who looked to Negroes (then the appropriate word but now apparently considered derogatory) to show them how to carry their anger because they--Negroes--had had such a long experience of surviving with their anger at a repressive majority firmly intact. There is much more to the essay and to the fallout from it, but i felt some resonance from the caucus experience. Here was a group of people desperate to feel hopeful, looking to someone, an African-American, who could tell them how to translate that hope into reality. After all, if Obama isn't discouraged, why should everyone else be?
Then I recalled hearing about a piece in the L.A. Times, referring to Obama as the "Magic Negro,' a term which originated elsewhere, but was at this point appropriated by Rush Limbaugh in his customary vicious and scurrilous fashion. You can read the L.A. Times piece here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-center
The point of Ehrenstein's article is that Whites create a Black figure with a murky past who comes to rescue Whites in their time of need as an act of pure generosity. Obama's supporters, he argues, have little to make of his past or his experience, but trade in his hope and inspiration. Interestingly, these supporters don't seem driven so much by the aggressive 'We Shall Overcome," as by the more passive "Amazing Grace" or "We Shall Gather By the River." My guess is that if Obama is not nominated, they will take their toys and go home, deeply disappointed that the political system was not able to recognize the depth of their feelings, convinced that racism defeated them, and ready to give up on 'politics,' which is to say on democracy, that worst form of government except for all the others.
Well, I can hardly deny that we are in need of some kind of rescue, but I doubt that hope is, now or ever, a plan.
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"Hope is no answer to a miserable life." - Garrison Keillor
If some of the Obama people don't vote if Clinton wins the nomination - or if some of the Clinton people vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination (to grossly oversimplify things), then the Dems lose either way, so perhaps our only hope is for Huckabee to split the Republican party?
I am reduced to thinking; "Well, at least McCain isn't a total idiot, unlike some presidents we could mention." Hard times, these.
Sure McCain's a total idiot. How is he not a total idiot? How does one embrace the entire Neocon ideology without being a total idiot? The only possible point of difference is that McCain is arguably a little less enthusiastic about torture, but not so concerned that he would actually support yesterday's torture prohibition bill. And anyway, that point is moot: it's been illegal since the Geneva Conventions were signed, sixty years ago. Watch this video clip if you want to compare McCain's and Bush's IQs side-by-side:
Valentine Movie from Daily Kos
Well, the neocons don't unilaterally like McCain; Rush Limbaugh doesn't like McCain. He is seen as being too liberal by these people.
The real question may be as to whether it matters to the voters as to whether someone's a total idiot. The jury's still out on that one.
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