The Case for Obama and Against Liberal Despair - Mike Lofgren - The Atlantic

I think the Weimar Republic collapsed ... because there were not enough citizens. That's the lesson I have learned. Citizens cannot leave politics just to politicians.
-- Gunter Grass

In The Case for Obama and Against Liberal Despair, Mike Lofgren makes the case for Obama in a way that resonates for me. He lists some objections from liberals to Obama (including the idea that Democrats must win by taking on GOP ideas), but counters with nuggets like these:

• The most compelling argument to support Obama has nothing directly to do with him or his performance in office, but goes to the heart of what self-government is supposed to mean. Since Obama's inauguration, Republicans have engaged in an unprecedented -- in my lifetime, anyway -- campaign of obstruction, feral negativity, and brinksmanship.... To reward a party for such obstructionism would be like rewarding the Southern fire eaters of antebellum congresses for their efforts at shutting down the debate over slavery with the gag rule. 

 Obama, playing his cards right, would have exposed this strategy, but he failed to do so. It is up to the electorate to uphold compromise and reasonableness. Not that we're great about typically supporting either.

Kiwi

Last night

I dreamed that I lived in a tall apartment build but kept losing my key. There was also a massive church in the basement of the building that was giving out free food after the service, but you had to sit through the service to get the food. the really weird part was that I was dressed up as Santa in the apartment build holiday parade, but with purple-colored Santa facial hair instead of white.

Yeah, I have no idea other, except maybe homecoming?

Craig Ferguson on Alcohol

Instrumental Guitar

Mourn the 10

Hurricane Sandy has come through NYC with a mighty storm that coincided with a high tide and full moon for a "perfect combo" of subway-flooding awfulness.

But we knew about it, way in advance, because somehow our computers could tell a week ago that this storm would manage to strengthen in combination with a cold air mass, thanks to high pressure over Greenland and warm water in the Atlantic, plus some horrendous timing.

Manhattan flooded, but the subway was already closed, and the the tunnels/bridges as well. We were ready (at least mostly ready) and amongst the damage and destruction, that's something to cherish as we hold our loved ones a little closer.

Quoting myself

I told a story this weekend about learning the economic theories and equations supporting the willful destruction of perfectly good crops, and how much that messed with my notions of intuition of right and wrong. That with all of my ideas of how things should be, I could be completely off.

That being honest and open with the world sometimes makes it more difficult to enact change. That being honest about my faith is about embracing uncertainty, and giving up part of the rationality that governs the rest of my life. That my utopias aren't and cannot be true utopias. But there I go talking about me.

Life is hard, and it sometimes sucks. The burdens placed on us are not equal, neither in terms of geography, time, or all sorts of other statuses. Sometimes we are at the high place looking down trying to see if there's a net, and sometimes we are holding the net. Sometimes we are looking and holding at the same time, in different contexts. Sometimes we can't just find our glasses, and sometimes we realize that we carelessly knocked someone else's glasses off a few days ago, as I did on Friday.

And maybe, just maybe, we can hold the net a little stronger if we grappled more with the high place. Perhaps, in staying, we can discover what our limits truly are. Sometimes we are fearful of discovering our own potential. At least I am.

Remarkable Weekend

After an indoor soccer game with friends (2-0!), I headed down to Chicago Saturday morning to see a work-friend that has since moved for personal reasons, along with three others from Madison. We had a great ride, topics ranging from the very serious to the very not serious. What makes this blog worthy is that I was intending to see another friend in Chicago, who I met in April at a religious event. I had no idea where in the cite she lived, only knowing that she worked in Lincoln Park. My work-friend lives in Uptown, a few miles away, but as fate would have it their buildings are next door; she actually heard us arrive and unload the car from her bedroom. Just to think, that in a city of 2.7 million, my friends are literal neighbors. Proximity to Chicago has been a subtle blessing to live in Madison, and I've enjoyed every visit. Weekends like this and that of two weeks ago are the foodstuffs of life, though the labor of my life is just as meaningful.

Murmuration

Murmuration from Islands & Rivers on Vimeo.

Beck's "Clap Hands" on SNL

Beck - Clap Hands (Live on SNL) from Maldoror on Vimeo.

Ladybugs Flying

And the start of a new series of internet videos I adore.

RAMdom thoughts

I watched Jon Stewart's statement at the Rally to Restore Sanity again tonight, as well as clips from the Stewart/O'Reilly debate; here are some riffs off of their words.

• We cannot control what our actions are to others, or how they will be interpreted. We can only control our intentions, praying that the trusts we build can sustain us when we fall short, in substance or superficial appearance.
• "We live in hard times, not end times." - There were those who thought America would not survive 2000, 2004, or 2008. But elections do not single-handily change this country - instead, they express or facilitate long-standing patterns or shifts that may be as subtle as they are powerful. Also, if the US can survive Harding, it can survive anyone. Just sayin'.
• Hate speech is the result of capitalism; some people pay for it, and want it. Those who provide it can and do get rich.
• Sometimes the issues at obvious play in an election are less important than the issues that "everyone" agrees upon, which then go relatively undiscussed.
• "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing." - one of the travesties of music today is that in seeking to provide a stronger sound, music tracks must play at a constant high volume, giving up the artistry of dynamics in the pursuit of pushing as much out as possible, in order not to suffer in comparison to the next track. The same goes for speech, and a press that acts like an auto-immune disease in overreacting just makes us sicker. We don't have the national RAM to process all of this.
• "There will always be darkness" - Original sin is in us, with us, and must be accounted for and expected, as much as we seek to go beyond it.

But talk is cheap, including my own. Obama knows and gets most of this; The Audacity of Hope discusses most of it, including the poignant image of senators speaking without listening from the floor of the "World's Greatest Deliberative Body." To some extent we have traded some sins for others, like overt racism and sexism for more subtle forms, or a willingness to overlook adultery with a heightened scrutiny that destroys lives and relationships. These trends are products of our technology and no one can see where they are actually going - though many will guess, some growing rich in their accuracy.

So how do you pursue systemic change? Matt Yglesias said:

"But I'll say that as I've gotten older and wiser, I've learned that fewer problems than I thought are due to misconduct on the part of individuals and more are due to rotten systems.....The design of the game really constrains what people do. And if you try to act in ways that are contrary to the game architecture, you end up getting replaced."

Thus the only people that can change the game are those that have won it - the "statesmen." I've met some of these guys and I don't know if they have the answers, or if I do. It will take an old-young partnership, and a particular moment where Rahm Emanuel isn't the WHCoS.