Call Me an Elitist. No, Really, I Want You To.

The campaigns are spending a lot of time talking about "small town values" and people who are "real." The Republicans jump at any chance to call Obama an elitist, even as Bill O'Reilly took him to task in a recent interview for "stealing from the rich to give to the poor" when he talked about giving tax cuts to 95% of people. Doesn't sound all that "elitist" to me, but apparently there's something about arugala that I missed...

The whole draw to Palin is that she's "just like me." She "understands what I'm going through," because she's just a regular person. One pundit (I'm put the link up when I find it again) took Obama's camp to task for critiquing the fact that she went to 5 different colleges before finally graduating from one. See-- a regular person, just like you and me... oh, wait. Not like me at all.

Anti-intellectualism has been a cultural truth in our country for at least 100 years. They were already writing books about it back in the 1930s. Intellectuals were regarded with suspicion-- they couldn't be "real men" because they didn't make their living doing "real" work. Reading and writing and thinking didn't constitute the type of work that allowed someone to fashion himself as a self-made man--the epitome of American Manhood.

Fast-forward to the 21st century and not much has changed in terms of the American imaginary. But a lot has changed in practice. Since the end of WWII, an unprecedented number of people have attended and graduated from American Universities, but in many ways the degrees they've attained are not the same degrees given out 80 years ago. Rather than this new population rising to meet the challenges of a rigorous Liberal Arts education, University's changed to meet the needs of their new graduates.

Take English as an example--at one time, students were expected to know the classics, in their original languages, and understand how those classics informed literature. With the 1950s came a push for the "New Criticism." Suddenly, all you needed to know was in the text itself. It wasn't a straight causal relationship, but there was a relationship between that transformation. Don't get me wrong--I'm fairly happy that I don't need to know Greek and Latin to do what I do, but the overall effect of the influx of new students wasn't to make a more intellectual population. Instead, it made college into job training.

I see it in my own students every semester. They're not taught to see college as a learning experience for the good of their intellects or characters. Students most often pick majors that will make them money-- that's why business colleges are so huge in Universities. They give out practical, real-world information. (Except that they don't.)

This is a very personal issue for me. My family seems to be proud of the fact that I'm getting a Ph.D., but really only in an abstract way. For them, being a college professor will never really be any different than being a High School teacher. Actually, some of them think it makes me less qualified to be a HS teacher--less important than they are. They won't see a distinction between them, especially since I probably won't be getting paid that much more than one--at least at first. They won't understand that getting a Ph.D. in English doesn't prepare me to read a textbook--it prepares me to write them. They already don't like it when I talk about things that I know, because a HS english teacher shouldn't know any more about politics or history or culture than they do. It makes me into a know-it-all who doesn't know anything. Except that now, I really actually do know quite a lot.

But the ambivalent reaction of my family to my chosen profession is mirrored in the entire country's reaction to the Obama campaign and Palin draw. They forget that it should mean something to have gone to Harvard, to have been a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. That Palin's stupid quip about not knowing what a VP does should make her look ridiculous--especially since she has a polisci minor.

Instead, we live in a country where we strive to get our children into colleges--4 year, of course, because nothing less will do--but where we don't place any actual importance on those degrees. We live in a country so obsessed with the appearance of equality that we food ourselves into thinking that one type of education and knowledge can't be more important than another. How dare Democrats say that Palin's education isn't good enough?!? Obama must be an elitist. Except that the President is supposed to defend and uphold the constitution, wouldn't it be nice if they understood the history of Constitutional Law??

So call me an elitist. Because we've already had 8 years of a "just like me" president who barely passed his way through business school. Because that didn't work out so well. Because I don't want the average Joe-shmoe to lead our country. Because I want a president who has an extensive education that has trained him or her to think well and deeply about the complications of the world we live in, rather than relying on us v. them arguments. Because I believe there is value in intellect and silly chants like "drill, baby, drill, leave me cold and disgusted. Because I want my leaders to be better than me, smarter than me, more intellectual than me--not less.

Our founding fathers weren't everyday Joes. They were brilliant, learned men who had a specific distrust of the masses. It's why we have the electoral college; they just didn't trust that the average mass of people could really be trusted to make the best decisions for the country. I used to think that was fairly narrow-mined of them, but more and more I'm starting to think they were right.

In the end, though, wanting a candidate to be educated and intellectual isn't wrong. Sure, education doesn't make someone a better person than someone else, but it can and should prepare them for things in ways that "average folk" just aren't prepared to deal with.

Would the real Dick Cheney Please Stand Up

Dear Ms. Palin and republic cronies everywhere,

In last night's caustic speech, you criticized Barack Obama by claiming:

"Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?"

Let me just say that if this is a country where we stop worrying about reading people their rights, I want out...immediately.

The moment we forget that our enemies are human, the moment we treat them as though they do not breathe and hope and hurt just as we do, is the day we become something truly evil. I do not want to live in a country where we are so weak, so afraid, so hateful that we cannot afford the most basic human rights to even the most despicable human.

That my dear Ms. Palin is what used to make us better than whatever it was lurking out there. That is what made America a land of promise--that we saw all people as...people. Humans that deserved the same treatment as any other human.

But when we strip away rights-- in the name of fear and of "protection"--we do not make America stronger or more safe.

We simply become one of the bad guys.

And that is unforgivable.

Mean and Stupid Comments

I've never really gotten a mean comment before. (Not that many people really read this thing.) So when I got one today, I did what any sane person would do-- I deleted it.

And then I immediately regretted deleting it, because now it's gone and no one else will ever see it. No one else can respond to its stupidity and anger.* All because, in my last post, I suggested that the pope not act quite so happy to meet one of the "worst" leaders in the world.

Apparently it's the "worst" claim that got someone's proverbial panties up in a bunch. Because he only waterboarded three people. Because there are so many worse leaders, like Ahmadinejad. Apparently, the commenter thinks I'm a kool-aid drinking idiot for believing all the hype about Bush.

But honey, I've read the Parade magazine top ten most horriblest dictators article (congrats Mugabe, you're up 4 points!) I realize that compared to say, melagomanic psychopathic dictators Bushy is a walk in the park. Duh. But that doesn't make anything this administration has done in the way of crushing human rights, well, right. Only three waterboardings is three too many.* We're supposed to be better than that.

And damn straight I'm irritated at the pope. The priest abuse scandal was unequivocally unconscionable. Period. And the Church sat on its hands and protected those who abused rather than protecting those who were abused. I am a Catholic, albeit not the best Catholic around, so I have a stake in this whole mess. Every time I don't say, "I used to be Catholic," I reaffirm my stake in this mess. The Bush administration started a war that the last pope condemned. It is for capital punishment, something that the Church supposedly condemns. The social injustice that the Church just recently condemned as a new breed of sin is what this administration feeds on. Tax cuts for the wealthiest, anyone? Can you say Katrina? All I'm asking is that the pope at least address these things. He's the friggin' pope for goodness sake! You know, God's right hand man. He doesn't need to be polite. Lord knows he's not when it comes to certain other issues.

Give me a break. If I want to say that Bush is one of the worst leaders in the world it doesn't make me a brainless lemming. I'm not just following some bleeding-heart crowd without thinking through these things myself. I don't care if killing ten kittens is worse than killing one. The one is enough for me.

uf.


*but darn it, if I wanted to have people say nasty things about my politics I'd go talk to my family, the good conservative republicans that they mostly are.

Moving Beyond Black and White- Obama and Race

Yesterday, Barack Obama gave one of the most important and articulate speeches about race that I think our country has ever seen. I've been waffling between Clinton and Obama, unable and unwilling to decide which I really, really preferred. Yesterday's speech--all thirty-eight minutes of it--convinced me, unequivocally that Obama needs to be our candidate, our president.

The speech was an exercise in rhetorical brilliance. And yet, it was a dangerous speech for him to give. Responding to recently uncovered footage of his pastor giving what might be called "un-American" or "racist" sermons, he refused to disown the pastor even while he condemned what he said:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

In this speech, he put in articulate and bluntly honest terms the racial problems that our country still faces, the problems that underlie the tensions we still feel. He quoted Faulkner, reminding us that "The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past." And he's right. For all of our reluctance to use the "N" word, racism is still a fundamental part of our national consciousness. It is ingrained in our American psyche. We still speak in the terms of "us" and "them," even those of us whose fore bearers were no more considered "white" when they first stepped off of a boat than illegal immigrants are now.

What I found powerful about Obama's speech was that he refused to turn race into an issue easily dichotomized. Instead, he uncovered and made explicit the underlying issues that still haunt us. He openly discussed the residual anger in the African American community for slavery, for discrimination, for being kept in the position of second-class citizens for hundreds of years:

That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

But he also exposed the residual anger of white Americans--

Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

It's an anger that underlies the fear of "the race card"--as though race can be quantified and contained in such simple terms. It's the anger that underlies my own family's racism-- the discussions of "those welfare mothers" who refuse to work and buy Cadillacs and expensive clothing for their ever-increasing number of children, the anger over affirmative action, the fear of losing some privilege or position to someone who couldn't possibly deserve it.

But Obama's speech was a dangerous one for him to make. When he could have just as easily distanced himself from the entire issue, could have continued to ignore the rhetoric about race and racism that continues to build around this campaign, he addressed it head on. By exposing the black community's anger--and by arguing that this anger can be unproductive--he risked angering the black community, being seen as a traitor. By calling out the often unspoken anger of certain segments of white America, he risked distancing those voters as well. By moving beyond simplistic divisions between black and white, he exposed the gray area--he exposed the ways that these divisive ways of thinking, talking, and acting about race keep us all at a standstill and keep the entire country stagnant. He challenged Americans of all colors to see that the only way to begin healing a wound that began when the first slave ship alighted on our shores is to deal with the complexities of the issue:

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

But to do this it means that all Americans need to re-examine their own preconceived notions, develop a deep understanding of the historical traumas of those not like themselves, and to practice a form of empathy unlike any we have ever experienced in the more than two hundred years of the Union. It means letting go of angers and fears that define our very existence. It means recognizing that what your parents and friends taught you about how to look at and judge others may not be right. It means understanding that humanity overrides any skin color and that we are all in the same, sinking ship.

It's a job that seems monumental and impossible, but Obama gives us a first step:

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

His speech was elegant, articulate, dangerous, and beautiful in its complexity. It will not go over well. It was too long. It lacked the absolutes that Americans like from their politicians. It quoted an author that I'm sure our current president can't even read without Cliff's Notes and a cheat sheet. The signs are already there--on the NY Times Opinion Page, some readers seem angry that he refused to outright reject his pastor. They think it a grave sin that anyone (especially a black man) should speak so vehemently against white Americans, and that anyone who associates with such a man must be just like him. It's an understandable argument, but I find it odd that no one suggested that all Catholics were pedophiles when certain priests were outed and when the Church continued to cover up the issue. It seems that racism is the bigger, harder to erase and more contaminating sin.

And that, to me, is sad. Our country deserves someone who can think so complexly, who can articulate those complexities so articulately, who is willing to put a campaign in jeopardy in order to say something that needs to be said. Who is willing to call us all out in order to help us move on. I don't know if our country is or will ever be ready for it.

Dear Blonde Chick-a-dee on The View

The free market cannot solve our healthcare problems. The free market means that firms need to "maximize their profits"--the only way for health insurance companies to maximize profits is to minimize payouts. The way to minimize pay outs is to not give people the treatments they need, to not allow people who are sick to get insurance, and to not cover expensive procedures.

Sorry to break your little republican red heart, but the free market isn't always the best way to take care of people. Adam Smith, afterall, wasn't Jesus.

About Obama

I like Obama, I really do. I like watching him speak. I think he has some great ideas. But todays NY Times piece by Paul Krugman makes me think twice about giving him my vote.

Krugman says that with Obama there's virtually no chance of us achieving universal health care in the next administration. That, to me is a deal breaker. When I think about the problems my husband has had with health insurance, prescription coverage, and heath care costs, I know we need a universal heath care system-- socialize away, just as long as we can stop people who are treatable from suffering or dying from diseases that are absolutely treatable or curable.

There's a very strong possibility that Little Man could also have Crohn's, or some over digestive track ailment, and the idea that with the system we have today, his future would be limited by the very real need to have a job that comes with outstanding benefits. Without those benefits, prescription costs can run $400 a month, medical treatments can run $5000 an infusion, the cost of doctor's visits can be staggering, and the cost of surgeries unapproachable.

I hate to be a single-issue voter. I try not to be. But this is my issue. It's shameful that in the richest country in the world health care is not a right. And whomever I vote for tomorrow and in November has to be solid on this issue.

Bush for Hillary '08?

Reports have come out that in Bill Sammon's upcoming book, The Evangelical President, Bush predicts that Hillary is a shoe-in for the nomination. I don't want to put too much stock in what our xx leader has to say--he's been wrong before, after all. But the issue of Hillary's viability as a candidate is interesting for me.

You see, I'm not sold. I wish that I were, but I'm not.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, is absolutely convinced--but not because of Hillary's politics. For my second-wave, march-on-Washington, hold-an-undying-grudge-against-Phyllis- Schafly MIL, Hillary's campaign is the dream of Geraldine Ferraro revived and made real once again. For her, the opportunity for a woman to hold the highest office in the land trumps any voting record or political past. It's the feminist dream of the 1970s come to fruition.

I want to sympathize with that sentiment. I want to see a woman in the White House doing something more than hosting a polite gathering of tea cups. I want to believe that a woman could do an even better job than a man. I want to believe that Sally Fields is right-- "if women ran the world there would be no God damn wars in the first place." But I know that it's too reductive. And as much as I have the impulse to second those sentiments, I know that they actually continue and preserve the stereotypes that keep women making, on average,only 81% of what men make for the same jobs.

I want to like Hillary. I want the vote I cast for her--if it comes to that--to be one I'm excited about making. The problem is, she keeps giving me reasons to doubt. I watched her interview with Tim Russert last Sunday on Meet the Press hoping that she could give me a reason to change my mind. It didn't happen. I keep waiting, but it doesn't happen.

Here's my problem-- I get irritated by one issue voters. I hate that the last election was most likely decided because people were voting pro-choice and anti-gay. I hate that people can actually buy into Bush's rhetoric about a culture of life when he's pro- death penalty and instigated what seems to be a hellish and un-winnable war. It simplifies the issue too much. I think the reason politics have become so dichotomized in recent years is because Americans tend to cling to one-issue campaigns and fail to examine the complexities of each issue. We don't like complexity. We live in the echo-chamber, listening only to the opinions that please us. And that's dangerous, I think, for democracy in general. But still, I can't get over Hillary's vote for going to war, her continued (until recently) support for that war, and her reluctance to admit the mistake of those votes. I don't want to be a one issue voter, but I feel like I am with her.

I want a woman in the White House, but I also want the right person in the White House. We've had the wrong person for seven years now.

I do think it's interesting, though, that Bush himself thinks that she's the one that has a shot. He doesn't predict victory for the Democrats, but, like I said, he's been wrong about stuff before.