[POLITICS] "If Obama Wins..." Redux

I've been thinking a lot about how to deal with this kind of...well, what passes for thinking. Should I be angry with them? More empathetic and understanding? The Christian thing to do would be to love them. But is that patronizing? From what little Nietzche I've read, I gleaned that he believed it to be disrespectful not to express anger.

In my better moments, I tend to favor appealing to people's better side. I also think the people in that video are straight-out terrified, and we have to understand that shouting at frightened people does not help.

But man. It's all well and good to empathize with ignorant, scared people – until they do damage. So at what point do we move from reaching out to shutting them down? Throughout our history their ilk have enabled more cynical, powerful people to do a terrific amount of damage. How do we stop it from continuing to happen?

[POLITICS] "If Obama Wins, the Black [sic] Will Take Over"

This is profoundly sad and disturbing. I don't like it when people equate a politician's supporters with him, and I don't mean to do that here.

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Small-Town America

This is one of the angriest Daily Show clips I’ve seen, about the “small-town" and "real" America that the McCain campaign has been touting so much.



Some highlights:

1. The church-going guy drinking at the saloon during the day, wearing tattoos on his shoulder of half-naked women representing his wife, mistress, and another girlfriend (the last of whom he brags is almost identical to her tattoo)
   
2. The mayor of Wasilla saying, unequivocally, that her position prepares one for the vice presidency of the United States, even though she does not run the fire department, schools, or any social services…and can’t describe what she actually does day to day
   
3. The head of the Alaska Independence Party, who says that Todd Palin was a member

I'd like to say that again: the spouse of a major candidate thinks his state should secede from the United States of America. We have a secessionist standing behind a vice presidential candidate. What am I missing here that makes this okay? Since when is it American to be a traitor to the United States? Please, someone, enlighten me. This is also why I don't understand how a true patriot can fly a Confederate flag. What is America about? Are we about the Constitution? Or is being an American purely about culture, and therefore open to interpretation state by state, region by region, town by town, religion by religion, and race by race?

I understand that there is more to being American than the Constitution, but I lean heavily toward the Constitution as the thing that defines my country, and I'm very, very afraid of people who think that being American has little or nothing to do with our founding document. The content of the Constitution isn't the only thing that makes us unique; it's also the fact that every other country in the 18th century defined itself purely on ethnic and cultural terms. The Russians were Russians, the French were French, and the Japanese were Japanese because of their cultural heritages. Of course, it's more complicated than that, and exceptions abound: human history is marked by constant racial and ethnic mixing, migration, and the expansion and collapse of empires. So to be, say, an ethnic Greek living in the 18th century among Arabs (both Muslim and Christian), Armenians, and Jews in what is now Lebanon was to be an Ottoman subject. (His circumstance and disposition at any given moment may have dictated whether he would identify himself as Greek, Ottoman, or Levantine.)

But by and large, most countries other than the United States identify themselves in ethnic and cultural terms. I believe that the point of the United States was that we had a different idea. This has always been challenged – we have had and always will have our share of ethnic and racial conflicts. But those conflicts can be resolved more effectively in the United States than anywhere else; you don't have to have a certain kind of name, religion, or skin color to be American. Most other countries will always have more of a problem, because to be French or Japanese or Danish means much more. And much less.

/////

The Daily Show also does us a service by showing us some outdoor scenes of this "small town": Main Street, which is not a small-town street, but rather a massive arterial full of through-traffic; and the huge Target and Lowe's. I admit that I've never been to Wasilla, but it doesn't look like a small town to me, judging from this video. This doesn't look like a place where someone can walk to the local store, or let his daughter walk anywhere for fear of her getting hit by a car.

Then, at the end, is the Ground Zero footage. Like I said, this is an angry segment.

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Veep Debate Drinking Game

This email is going around:

The Presidential VP Debate airs tonight at 9pm ET. The VP Debate "Shots" Game is simple: Whenever you hear one of the following phrases you must take a shot of whatever you're sipping on.

With that said, many will not make it to work tomorrow!

"Great State of Alaska"
"Bridge to Nowhere"
"Russia"
"Hockey Mom"
"Pipeline"
"Reformer"
"Maverick"
"Shore Up the Economy"
"Shake Up Washington"
"Executive Experience"

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Is this a Parody? I Can't Tell

Tina Fey's imitation of Gov. Sarah Palin is frightening for its near lack of exaggeration. It's noteworthy that Fey and Amy Poehler simply replayed some parts of the Palin–Couric interview verbatim, but I'm actually amazed the SNL writers felt compelled to write anything for this sketch.

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Urgent Secret Business Relationship

This is making rounds via email. I've removed some articles to make it more like those Nigerian scams.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is matter of great urgency. We need blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

I still don't quite know what I think of the bailout. But the urgency of it, and Paulson's proposal to control fully what goes on, are dubious, in my opinion. Also, after years of being lectured by the Bush Administration not to intervene in their economies, foreign governments are not blind to the irony of what Mr Paulson is now pushing. More on this later.