Desiring Machine

I know a lot of people are tweaked out because they say that McCain is invoking Obama in the image of the anti-christ in his latest ad.

But I can’t help but laugh when I see this spot. It truly is funny and wickedly sarcastic. In a sense, it is perhaps the most devastating ad I have seen from the McCain camp. To which I say bravo, touche, and thanks for making me laugh in the time of dire darkness. The Obama people would do well to respond with a sense of humor and lightness to these attacks.

Nietzsche, that self proclaimed “anti-christ”, once said

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn:
he was the spirit of gravity–through him all things fall.

Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of
gravity!

I am fully in sync with the Obama view of the world, but I worry a bit that the seriousness of the campaign might become too heady and we veer off dangerously into deception. This McCain ad attacks a vulnerability of the self seriousness of the Obama campaign. Lest we succumb to this vulnerability we must rise above it. Unfortunately, the response and tone of some blogs seems to be one of gloom and fear that McCain is invoking the Anti-Christ. This is the wrong approach because it reinforces what the McCain ad so deftly attacks.

No, the right approach would be an acknowledgement of the criticism, and with levity, and a lightness of being declare I am not beyond your reproach or criticism, merely immune to it. I have no doubts that Obama will accomplish this. It is the cultists around him that I worry about. For if you can’t seem to see the irony and humor in this ad then you can’t see the humor and irony that it falsely offers up as pomposity and self absorbtion. We all know that Obama does not see himself as the second coming of Jesus. But perhaps his followers don’t realize that yet.

While some would argue that McCain is speaking code language to the religious right, I think on the surface of it the tone is much more anti-religious. It chastises the very religious rhetoric that has seeped into the political dialog. In this sense I think McCain is authentic on this point. One can tell merely by posture and body language that he is uncomfortable with the religious wackos he must make his political bed with.

McCain rightly so reminds us of the problems of taking things on mere faith alone and mixing that in the political realm. And while the object of this attack (Obama) may be incorrect and misguided, nevertheless this ad seems to attack the very dynamic of faith based politics and charisma. This force of faith is a very dangerous force. And although I would rather see McCain deploy the criticism against the more zealous form of faith in the Bush administration, the criticism still rings true no matter who it is directed at. This superabundance of faith and self certainty can lead to so many crises and a kind of illness. As Nietzsche warns us in his book “The Anti-Christ”:

The fact that faith, under certain circumstances, may work for blessedness, but that this blessedness produced by an idée fixe by no means makes the idea itself true, and the fact that faith actually moves no mountains, but instead raises them up where there were none before: all this is made sufficiently clear by a walk through a lunatic asylum. Not, of course, to a priest: for his instincts prompt him to the lie that sickness is not sickness and lunatic asylums not lunatic asylums. Christianity finds sickness necessary, just as the Greek spirit had need of a superabundance of health—the actual ulterior purpose of the whole system of salvation of the church is to make people ill. And the church itself—doesn’t it set up a Catholic lunatic asylum as the ultimate ideal?—The whole earth as a madhouse?—The sort of religious man that the church wants is a typical décadent; the moment at which a religious crisis dominates a people is always marked by epidemics of nervous disorder; the “inner world” of the religious man is so much like the “inner world” of the overstrung and exhausted that it is difficult to distinguish between them; the “highest” states of mind, held up before mankind by Christianity as of supreme worth, are actually epileptoid in form—the church has granted the name of holy only to lunatics or to gigantic frauds in majorem dei honorem….

There is a movement out there called new urbanism that strives to re-imagine our living communities in more effective and vital ways, trying to undo the damage of 60 years of urban sprawl and car culture. The movement really started to gain steam in the 1980s long before “peak oil” was a daily headline. One the original visionaries of this movement is architect Andres Duany. The following are some clips from late 80s where he talks to a group of San Antonio citizens. Watch as he deftly dismantles the delusion of suburban sprawl with great humor and insightful technical precision.

Money
That’s what I’m here for
It’s about money
Or didn’t you know
To make some money hand over fist,
First you give me some of that, and then I’ll give you some of this
I need your money, that’s what I’m here for
It’s about money
or didn’t you know
To make some money don’t throw me no fits
I don’t give four five three or two shits about your problems.
That’s not what I’m here for
They are your problems
or didn’t you know
Money
About Money
It’s Money
My Money
Or didn’t you know
~ Gordon Gano [From the album Hitting the Ground]

Prescient words.

I am very dismayed by Barrack Obama’s decision to reject public financing and therefore the spending caps that it imposes. He seems to be betting that people won’t care. But if his candidacy is really all about the change that he professes then this is a major step backwards. He is basically endorsing unlimited spending for political campaigns and that the principles don’t apply to him. I know many will point out that hey he gets all his money from individual internet donations. Small donors, big donors the effect is the same. With all the campaign cash floating out there it promotes the beast of media time for hire and a leaching permanent campaign manager class. Both negative trends in politics. First, the point about media. The public owns the airwaves so why should our politicians have to spend oodles of money just to get their message on TV? The airwaves need to be taken back during the political season and plenty of free time offered for all the candidates. And run over American Idol and the Super Bowl if you have to. More debates, and more public forums, more C-Span. Not stupid 30 second spots and cutaways to stump speeches. Second, I worry about the entrenchment of a campaign advisory class. Their interests are towards permanent campaigning, not effective governance while in office. So they inexorably lead to culture of permanent campaigning. Mark Penn, Joe Trippi, it doesn’t matter. They all belly up at the trough of lavish campaigns coffers. And why should I as an ordinary citizen fund that? The only way to curb this trend is to diminish the amount of money that actually gets spent in campaigns. And that is what publicly financed campaigns would do.

On the 527s, big deal. I know they are harsh and vicious, but it is speech. Obama says he needs to build up the coffers to take this on directly. Bad idea. Why not focus on McCain directly? Don’t take your battle to the thousand gnats. Let the grassroots handle that. And if a problem shows up then make the opposing candidate accountable for it. Make them reject it in a public forum. But really this urge to take on all the 527s seems to be hubris and the folly of consolidating power under a single individual or campaign. People on the ground have a lot of different opinions. And besides why should all my political donation effort money go to a single campaign structure. Spread the wealth a little bit perhaps. Because when “donation fatigue” sets in it is not the big guys that get hurt it is the smaller more specialized organizations that get hurt. More diversity more groups, more interests that is what democracy is all about. Not a mondo efficient internet based money operation run by a single man.

I have yet to make a political contribution this year. And if Obama thinks that he can just gleefully forgo public financing then I have another reason to avoid donating any money to his campaign. It has so far been mostly about a lack of money that has kept me from donating, I have tried to give time helping out with the occasional website or two to a local candidate. But now I have another more principled reason. I stand with Feingold and McCain on this particular issue. Just makes me wish I had campaigned a little hard for Edwards.

With all that being said, from a Game Theory perspective I can totally sympathize with Obama’s position. It is just disappointing to seem him be the first defector.

I want to extend a proposal to the many Obama fans out there. Don’t accuse me of being a racist if I don’t want to vote for Obama and I won’t accuse you of the rampant and implicit misogyny that fuels much of the Hillary hatred out there. And I won’t remind you of a few choice quotes in the history of oppression in this country.

“The only position for women in this organisation is prone”.
~Stokey Carmichael Black Panthers Leader

Of course John Lennon and Yoko Ono put it very succinctly when they reminded us that “Woman is the nigger of the world.”

I can understand the calls for Hillary folks to ease off of Obama, but it is also important that the followers of Obama ease off on the Hillary bashing, otherwise known as Huffington Post and Daily Kos comment threads.

Peace.

This video pretty much showcases all that is wrong with America.

Hillary should purchase a 9 minute block of time and run this as an ad during American Idol.

I know it will never happen, but just once I want to see Hillary Clinton play Eminem’s “Business” at one of her rally’s just to get these lines put out there:

Quick gotta move fast, gotta perform miracles
Gee willikers Dre, holy bat syllables
Look at all the bullshit that goes on in Gotham
When I’m gone time to get rid of these rap criminals
So, skip to ya lou, while I do what I do best
You ain’t even impressed no more, you used to it
Flows too wet, nobody close to it
Nobody says it was till everyone knows the shit
The most hated on outta all those who say they get hated
On eighties songs
Exaggerate it all so much
They make it all up

If applied to the Clintons and their treatment by the media, truer words have never been spoken. And the more they hate on her the more and more I think she is right for the presidency.

And now for a little transmission from Gotham.

Every so often someone comes along and just spits the truth and it is beautiful.

They gotta war for oil, a war for gold
A war for money and a war for souls
A war on terror, a war on drugs
A war on kindness and a war on hugs
A war on birds and a war on bees
They gotta a war on hippies tryin’ save the trees
A war with jets and a war with missiles
A war with high seated, government official
Wall street war, on high finance
A war on people who just love to dance
A war on music, a war on speech
A war on teachers and the things they teach
A war for the last 500 years
War’s just messin’ up the atmosphere
A war on Muslims, a war on Jews
A war on Christians and Hindus
A whole lotta people just sayin’ kill them all
They gotta a war on Mumia Abu Jamal
The war on pot, is a war that’s failed
A war that’s fillin’ up the nations jails
World war one, two, three and four
Chemical weapons, biological war
Bush war 1, Bush war 2
They gotta a war for me, they gotta a war for you!

~Michael Franti “We Don’t Stop”

I would be the last to defend Paul Begala and James Carville, just on grounds of taste. But they have been pushed off of CNN until after the democratic primary due to complaints from the Obama campaign. In this brave new world of equal time are we willing to suggest that Harpo productions should close shop for the next few months? If I was to really stand here and suggest that Oprah should remain off the air because of her endorsement of Obama people would laugh. And I would gladly except the criticism that my suggestion was borderline fascist. Come on Obama if being an agent of change means repressing individuals freedom of speech, press, and assembly then I am not sure I like the change that you are peddling.

And just a little disclosure. CNN sucks, every time I watch that network I cringe, but that doesn’t mean that I think candidates should have a say on who should or shouldn’t be on the airwaves. If there are true conflicts of interest let the FCC and the FEC take that up. That is what those agencies are for.

I guess I just didn’t know there was a fried squirrel eating demographic. God bless regional differences.

As a side note I guess it is not the eating squirrel part that confounds me. Many people eat many different things all over the world. But the fact that it was prepared with an air pop popcorn maker, that’s downright creepy.