Tag Archives: 2012

Politicians as Would-Be Movie Stars

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James Hillman died last fall at the age of 86.  Even though I only met him twice at lectures, I’ve read his books for decades, and he is one of only a few people who deeply shaped and changed the way I see the world.  Hillman was an influential post-Jungian thinker.  As I said in my “About” page, from Hillman I learned to search for the fantasy in our “realities,” and the reality in our “fantasies.”

James Hillman

Hillman considered literalism one of the great diseases of our time, but one area where I have trouble “seeing through” the illusion of “fact” is election year politics.

On Sunday I got a clue about why so much of the rhetoric sounds like bad dialog in a B grade movie – to a great extent, it is!  A guest on Sunday’s edition of Moyers and Company was Neal Gabler, a film historian, cultural critic, and author of Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (2000). Gabler says our politicians are trying to play movie heroes.  We-the-people demand it, but it makes us cynical because we know it’s a sham:  “we’re…in a campaign season where what we’re really watching is not so much political debate, though it’s called that, as we are watching a movie in which candidates are contending to be our protagonist-in-chief.”

Neal Gabler

Gabler continues:

“There’s a kind of American schizophrenia about our politics. On the one hand we love to sit back and see these people be compelled to seduce us because elections are basically about seduction…But that also gives way to an incredible cynicism about the process…And one of the reasons we’re cynical is because we get it. We get how it works.”

Gabler says now that we have an Occupy Wall Street movement, we need an Occupy Media movement.  We need people fed up enough to say, “I want a real debate on issues.”  Otherwise, “if we don’t start asking those questions we can’t move this forward at all. All we’re going to get is punditry and analysis of who’s winning and who’s losing and a movie. We’ll get nothing but the movie. But the problem is movies don’t answer the pressing questions of America. Policy answers the pressing questions of America and we have to demand to know what these guys are going to do and what choices they’re going to make.”

I personally don’t have much hope that it’s going to happen in this election cycle.  Meanwhile, Gabler’s image of the candidates-as-would-be-actors, trying to be Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, makes their actions intelligible.  There is Hillman’s “fantasy in the reality.”

If this sounds as interesting to you as it is to me, you can watch the 20 minute interview or read the transcript here:  http://billmoyers.com/segment/neil-gabler-on-how-pop-culture-influences-political-culture/

The good news is, Moyers promised to have him back on the show as the election year continues.

Little Free Libraries

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Todd Bol and Rick Brooks, with their Little Library

Todd Bol’s mother, a book lover, died a decade ago. Two years ago, to honor her memory, Bol built a miniature library, filled it with books, and set it in his front yard in Huron, Wis.  He and his friend, Rick Brooks, an outreach program manager at the University of Wisconsin, thought the idea could grow.  It has.  Bol and Brooks estimate there are 300 to 400 little libraries in 24 states and 8 countries.  Their website, http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/, has plans for people who want to build their own, places to purchase the small structures, and a map to track their locations.

“Take a book, leave a book,” is the operating principle.  Right now, a group of Wisconsin prison inmates is building libraries for new communities.  In New Orleans, Bol plans to make libraries out of debris left by Hurricane Katrina.  In El Paso, Texas, an elementary school where illiteracy was a problem now has two Little Libraries.  Lisa Lopez, the school librarian, says books are circulating “like crazy.”

“People tell us over and over, there’s something about the physical feel about the book in your hands,” Bol says. “It has meaning. There’s a spirit that can’t be found electronically.”

from an article in USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-21/little-libraries-lawn-boxes-books/53260328/1

Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC is Worth a Million Dollars

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Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, the Super PAC started by Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission yesterday stating that it has raised $1,023,121. “How you like me now, F.E.C? I’m rolling seven digits deep!” Colbert wrote in an addendum. http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/31/news/economy/colbert_super_PAC_filing/index.htm

Colbert, who has been using his show to explore the murky world of campaign finance added, “It’s the way our founding fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”

Documents filed by Colbert showed that most contributions were less than $250, but listed some interesting exceptions.  Gavin Newsom, the Lieutenant Governor of California, gave $500.  Newsom said, “I applaud Stephen Colbert exposing the absurdity of our current political financing system. I’m proud to support Colbert’s message with a donation. And I like his haircut.”

It can hardly be an accident that Colbert filed his report on the same day that Mitt Romney completed his purchase of the 50 Florida delegates using Super PAC funds.

I spotted an interesting article in the morning paper, drawn from the Washington Post:  “GOP super PACs may give Obama a run for his money.”  Unusual so early in an election year – no high-sounding phrases about the will of the people or selecting the best candidate.  Just a bare statement of fact that the winner will be the one who buy the most airtime on TV.

On the January 20, Bill Moyers interviewed David Stockman, former budget director for Ronald Reagan, who shared his disillusionment:

“we also have to recognize the pessimism that the public reflects in the surveys and polls is warranted…The Congress is owned lock, stock and barrel by one after another, after another special interest…So how do we turn that around? I think it’s going to take, unfortunately a real crisis before maybe the decks can be cleared.” http://billmoyers.com/

On the same program, Moyers interviewed Gretchen Morgenson, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for The New York Times and author of the 2011 book, Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon.

Morgenson agrees that another crisis, worse than 2008 is inevitable, because nothing has changed, and expects it to happen within the next 10 years.  After listening to her sadness and anger, Moyers asked Morgenson if there was anything that gave her hope, and she said yes:

“What makes me optimistic is that people are understanding this now, that Main Street gets it, you know, the thing that I found compelling about the Occupy Wall Street movement was that it seemed to be tapping into this anger. Previous to that there was just this kind of silence, you know, people were maybe too flabbergasted by what had gone on.
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But we still don’t know it all and until we do we can’t really protect ourselves going forward. But I do get a sense that there is anger, that there is rage and that maybe, maybe, just maybe somebody in Washington might pay attention to that.”

Career Suggestion for Newt: Science Fiction Writer

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The Republican reality TV show is basically over.  The biggest difference I see between the “debate”/primary sideshow and American Idol is that I don’t think the winner of Idol is predetermined.

While the rest of us bit our nails once or twice as illusion kicked in and it seemed for a moment like Perry, could conceivably get elected, the men behind the curtain had their moment of fear in South Carolina.  You could almost hear Romney and the Republican honchos mutter, like Apollo Creed in Rocky I, “This guy thinks it’s a real fight!”

Don’t get me wrong – I am not a Gingrich supporter, but I am grateful to him for exposing the farce for exactly what it is.  The moment it seemed like he actually had a shot, the machinery kicked into high gear.  Bob Dole and John McCain got dragged in for endorsements.  Untold amounts of superPAC money flowed in to buy the election for the most qualified candidate, the one who appears to check the polls each week to see what he believes.

So Newt has to face the fact that the game was rigged, the status quo wins, and his political career will soon be over.  BUT, I have good news for him – a far greater opportunity is his if he chooses to seize it – rich and famous science-fiction author!

I used to think of Newt as a loose cannon, until I heard of his plan to colonize the moon.  I was delighted!  In this tapioca pudding election year, to hear a “serious” candidate talk of lunar outposts changed my estimation of him.  This man has too much imagination for politics!  He could be the next Ray Bradbury!  Think of it – he has enough name recognition to guarantee publication.  He could either devote himself to learning the craft or hire a ghostwriter.  Heck, if Sarah Palin can “write” a book…

All of us have known defeat in our lives, and it’s hard, but Newt, if you ever find yourself with enough time on your hands to read this blog, just please give it some thought.  And meanwhile, in the words of a very deep thinker, “Live long and prosper, dude.”

The News on Page 13

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Just some quick notes on a story I have been following, in large part because it is so important and yet so downplayed in the US media. By coincidence (I assume), the latest saber-rattling news was back on page 13 of the Friday the 13th edition of the Sacramento Bee.  The front page headline story involved the closing of a local shopping center.

US carrier in the straits

Thanks to the internet, and especially British news sources, we learn that yesterday, Iranians accused the US of sending one of its ships into the 10 mile “maneuver zone” where the Iranian navy is conducting war games.  In response, Iran threatened to close the straits.  The Obama administration said this would be a “red line act,” that would provoke a military response.

On Wednesday, a top Iranian nuclear scientist died in a bomb blast after a passing motorcyclist attached a bomb to his vehicle.  He was the fourth top scientist to be targeted in the past two years according to a Jan. 12, editorial in the Los Angeles Times, which said, “That’s the kind of clean, covert assassination method favored by Western intelligence agencies.”  Although Secretary of State Clinton denied US involvement, the Iranians don’t believe her, and the Times was skeptical:

“[Clinton] went on to deliver a lecture about the need for Iran to shut down its nuclear program, which we agree with. But we also think the bombing merited something more – a strong statement that the United States decries political assassinations. The U.S. is already on shaky legal and ethical grounds with its own program of targeted drone assassinations of suspected terrorists. But at least we’re at war with al-Qaida. State-sponsored extrajudicial killing is a serious violation of international law, and car-bomb assassination is a tactic little different from the methods used by terrorists. It would be nice to hear Clinton, or President Obama, emphasize such principles.”

The Times editorial went on to say economic sanctions do not appear to be working, but that may depend on who you ask.    I caught an NPR interview with a correspondent in Iran who said, yes, they are working, just not perhaps as we want them to.  He said he went to the store to buy an Oral B toothbrush and there wasn’t even toothpaste available.  The citizenry doesn’t really understand the nuclear issue, but it does blame the US for mounting hardships.  Meanwhile, I’m guessing Iranian leaders are not suffering a lack of toothpaste.

Iranian warship test fires a missile in the Straits, Jan 1

The LA Times noted, you can’t assassinate collective knowledge.  Sooner or later, Iran will have nukes.  Another middle-east war will not close Pandora’s Box.  Yet I still find it hard to believe that this is all about nukes.  I’m thinking of Col. Andrew Bacevich’s 2008 predictions.  http://wp.me/pYql4-1AT.  Until we take the quest for energy independence seriously, armed conflict over oil will be our future.

In 2011, Wikipedia estimated that the price of Tomahawk cruise missile was $830,000.  How many scholarships would that buy for future energy scientists?  How many studies of alternative fuels would that fund?  How many lives and dollars are we prepared to spend trying to push back the river?