Laila Lalami

Interesting piece by Slavoj Žižek in the LRB.  I think he’s right that far too many political observers get caught in cynically realist positions and don’t see what is happening in front of their noses:

The paradigmatic cynic tells you confidentially: ‘But don’t you see that it is all really about money/power/sex, that professions of principle or value are just empty phrases which count for nothing?’ What the cynics don’t see is their own naivety, the naivety of their cynical wisdom which ignores the power of illusions.

The reason Obama’s victory generated such enthusiasm is not only that, against all odds, it really happened: it demonstrated the possibility of such a thing happening. The same goes for all great historical ruptures – think of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although we all knew about the rotten inefficiency of the Communist regimes, we didn’t really believe that they would disintegrate – like Kissinger, we were all victims of cynical pragmatism. Obama’s victory was clearly predictable for at least two weeks before the election, but it was still experienced as a surprise.

And he goes on to connect the power of illusion and narrative to the way in which the financial meltdown is currently being framed. The piece is freely available here.

There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots to count in California, but it now seems that Prop 8, the disgraceful proposition to amend the State Constitution to take away the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, will pass. Tom Toles of the Washington Post puts it succinctly in his cartoon:

I voted for Barack Obama. I donated money to his campaign several times. I phonebanked for him. So I am very, very happy that he has won; I am relieved; and I am hopeful.

Still, campaign slogans notwithstanding, the idealists who think Obama will change everything have no brains; and the cynics who think Obama will change nothing have no heart.

Obama probably can: nominate liberal Supreme Court judges so that disastrous decisions like those of the past 8 years (e.g., Ledbetter v. Goodyear) can perhaps be avoided; put checks and balances in place to manage the $700 billion bailout (excuse me, the “rescue plan”) so that, instead of being completely fucked, the taxpaper will be maybe, maybe less fucked; reinstate a few of the banking regulations that had been eroded under Bill Clinton and eliminated under George W. Bush; provide incentives for the creation of green-collar jobs; set up some sort of basic health care system; extend the existing dialogue with Iran and avoid additional confrontation there; draw a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq; close Guantanamo Bay. But Obama probably can’t: change foreign policy on Israel and Palestine in any drastic or even significant way; draw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately or unconditionally; bring high-level military personnel who were responsible for torture in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay in front of U.S. courts; take a public stand in favor of gay marriage; or build a Canadian-style or Australian-style health care system.

The United States is headed in the wrong direction. In fact, it would not be too much an exaggeration to say that, if current policies and trends are not reversed, the United States is headed for its demise. American voters have sensed this, which is why they’ve elected Obama. After eight years of disaster after disaster, I think some people were ready to settle for a president who can speak grammatical English. Electing Obama means that the country can start regrouping after neo-con rule and begin the long, slow process of change. It was the smart choice.

But it’s also the symbolic choice. Having an African-American president will go a long way toward opening the office of the presidency to all people–of all colors, races, religions, and creeds. It gives a lot of young voters who worked so hard for their candidate a chance to believe in the future of their country. And it represents the triumph of hope and belief over fear and cynicism.

At last, at long fucking last, a new leadership:

I have to teach today, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to focus. So much is at stake in this election. Please don’t forget to vote!

Remember that awkward exchange between McCain and one of his voters? (She: “[Obama] is an Arab.” “No. No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man.”) Here is Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi’s take on it:

In the most recent issue of the London Review of Books, Adam Shatz has a short piece about “Obsession,” the infamous, anti-Islam DVD that has been distributed to millions of American homes through their Sunday newspaper:

In the last two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. ‘The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,’ the sleeve announces. ‘It’s our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed vote in November.’ The Clarion Fund, the supplement’s sponsor, doesn’t explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just happened to coincide with Obama’s leap in the polls.

The Clarion Fund is a front for neoconservative and Israeli pressure groups. It has an office, or at least an address, in Manhattan at Grace Corporate Park Executive Suites, which rents out ‘virtual office identity packages’ for $75 a month. Its website, clarionfund.org, provides neither a list of staff nor a board of directors, and the group still hasn’t disclosed where it gets its money, as required by the IRS. Who paid to make ‘Obsession’ isn’t clear – it cost $400,000.

Shatz’s detective work is interesting, and you can read the whole piece here. I don’t, however, think that the DVD will have any effect on swing voters. We are so awash in Islamophobia in the States that any voters likely to be swayed by yet another Muslims-equal-terrorists rant are likely to have already made up their mind by now (and it’s not for Obama, let’s face it.)

This weekend we received a pollster call about California’s Proposition 8, and it would have been an uninteresting conversation were it not for the last line.  Here’s how it went down:

Pollster:  Hello, may I speak with Laila?
Me: Speaking.
Pollster:  Could I ask you a few questions of the upcoming election?
Me:  Sure.
Pollster:  Do you know about Prop 8?
Me:  Prop 8?
Pollster:  This is the proposition that would define marriage in the California state constitution as the union of one man and one woman.
Me:  Oh, right.
Pollster:  In 2000, California overwhelmingly passed a proposition that amended the family code in this way, but it was over-ruled by the California courts.
Me:  (silence).
Pollster:  If the election were held today, how would you vote on Prop 8? Yes or no?
Me:  No.
Pollster: oh, ok.  Is that a ‘probably no’ or a ‘definitely no’?
No:  Definitely no.
Pollster: Oh, OK.  That’s all the questions I have.  Well, remember to vote on November 8. [click]

I couldn’t believe it. Here’s a list of all the props on the November 4 ballot.

My husband sent me a link to an old piece by Ian McEwan on 9/11.  It’s part of the Guardian’s Writers on 9/11 series.

During the primaries, I was often surprised at the line of thinking that equated Barack Obama with the status quo, simply because he was not progressive enough.  Of course Obama was not progressive enough.  But now that Governor Sarah Palin–a woman who believes that Iraq is “a task from God”–has been added to the Republican ticket, perhaps we will see a little clarity on the left about what exactly is at stake in this election.

I think Sarah Vowell puts it well in her opinion piece for the New York Times:

I’m convinced that the immediate mass flip-out over the Palin nomination can’t be entirely explained by sexism, elitism or partisan animosity. It was a symptom of just how much the presidential future is a suspense movie scored by Bernard Herrmann. It’s enough of a nail-biter to throw in with a two-person ticket for four years. So if newscasters don’t even know how to pronounce the vice presidential pick’s name upon announcement, the violins of apprehension start to screech “Psycho” shower-scene loud.

The good news is that Governor Palin has sufficient experience in public life to leave behind enough of a paper trail that we can discern her positions on many of the most important issues of the day. The bad news is that after taking this crash course in where she stands, I know that if she were elected I would be afraid to leave my apartment after sundown.

During a gubernatorial debate in 2006, Governor Palin claimed that if her daughter, then 16, were impregnated as the result of being raped, Ms. Palin would hope that the girl would “choose life,” which is a polite way of saying she would expect a tenth-grader to give birth to her rapist’s baby.

Here’s a not-so-polite fact about the United States: According to Amnesty International, a woman is raped here every six minutes.

Having been successful at peddling a war in 2003 by shutting out or co-opting the media, the Republicans hope to do the same trick.  Sarah Palin has been unavailable to the press since the announcement, and any coverage of her in the press has been called “outrageous,” “over the line,” or “sexist.”  Finally this weekend, where her absence on Sunday morning talk shows was glaring, the campaign announced that she would sit down with….Charlie Gibson, the same man who was widely derided for the way in which he handled the Clinton-Obama debate.  Expect a lot of softballs for Palin, and a lot of lies.