Politics

While WILBing around during office hours today, I happened upon a Times opinion piece that calls into question the Obama administration’s verbal distancing from the Bush reign of (war on) terror. In the midst of a bunch of domestic turmoil, it helpfully reminds those of us in the U.S. about the continuation of wars and occupations under new names. It reminded me of a cab ride the band took this past January in Hamburg. Our Turkish German driven, upon discovering we were from the United States, asked our opinions on the election of Obama, and then cut in with something like, “Obama is the same as Bush. For Palestine, Obama is the same.”

I stopped by the New School briefly, which has been occupied by students since last night. You can read about it at the New School In Exile site. Although there are demands being made by the students inside, including for President Bob Kerrey to step down, the demands and the occupation seem not to be linked that strictly — the occupation is for occupation’s sake, i.e. space for students to hang out, study, collaborate, etc.  CUNY is part of a consortium with the New School, but the consortium seems to be on hold at the moment, so I couldn’t get past New School security to get inside.

The chains of signification being mobilized in this last leg of the presidential race — Obama – Hussein – Anti-American/Other (“doesn’t see America like you and me”) -Terrorist – Muslim – Arab — is almost too stunning to catch. By never having to say “Black,” McCain’s campaign and followers are able to disavow race and disassociate themselves from overt anti-Black racism while invoking and reproducing a racialized nationalism and xenophobia that undermines African American political legitimacy all the same. Obama then carries  a doubled-up burden of needing to repudiate the racialized attacks without naming the attacks as raced, while also invoking a xenophobic nationalism (“Borrowing money from China to give to Saudi Arabia”) that threatens to exclude him. And this is topped off by the only permitted public confession of hurt being McCain’s white pain at being called racist. Undoubtedly, when Obama is sworn in as president, everyone but him will be noting the historical event his election represents. He will have to claim it as a victory of “all Americans coming together” that has no special significance for a racially subordinated population. Right?

(With thanks to Jacque for the photo.)

We kept joking about live-blogging the debate last night, and for a moment I thought I really would, but then I died of boredom, making live-blogging no longer feasible. Yawn! Town Hall? Town Lull is more like it. (Sorry, that’s the best I could do.) My favorite part, as per usual, was the commentary after. I enjoy watching people on TV have the exact same conversation I’m having with my friends in front of the TV. I agreed with whichever talking head said that the set-up and the insistence that the audience members have no reaction whatsover to anything pretty much killed the mood. Nonetheless, I felt “that one” did a good job seeming presidential. I thought McCain committed too many personal space violations in an attempt to be friendly. C’mon, John, boundaries are beautiful. I kept thinking about how he probably has gross sour breath but you’d have to act like you didn’t notice. I also thought “the greatest force for good in the history of the world” was something of an overstatement, and was disappointed by Obama’s own American exceptionalism stance. I hope that at his inaugaration speech, Obama opens with something like, “Psyche! I hate this racist, imperialist country! And I hate Zionism. Suckas!”

I’m very enthused about Tina Fey’s return to SNL to play Sarah Palin for what will hopefully be just a few weeks more, after which time she can retire the role, as Sarah Palin fades from memory and American politics resume a normal level of absurdity just below the current level of absolute and utter nonsense.  My favorite thing about Fey’s Palin sketches is how the scripts are often just reproductions of actual debate and interview dialogue. Somewhere there is a Bakhtin scholar, or a Baudrillard scholar, or preferably a Baudrillardian-Bakhtinian who could explain this phenomenon, but I will simply leave you with this (cribbed from a youtube poster before it was taken down… click to play, takes a moment to load):
here

I think Gwen has said it best. Or, the longer version, from Tim Wise.