Rahms away

After the election in November, Obama is going to need to shake up his administration by bringing in some new blood. Apart from replacing Gibbs, who I have always felt was a bad press secretary, Obama might think about changing more substantial positions within his staff. Today's announcement by Chicago mayor Richard Daley that he will not seek reelection, might be a good thing. Would anybody on the left really miss Rahm? Replacing a chief of staff constitutes a major change that can revitalize an administration, and it is something that happens regularly. Bush had two chiefs of staff, and Clinton had two in each of his two terms. Maybe it's time for Rahm to pull the trigger on his long desired mayoral bid.

Open Up

On a tip from Crooks and Liars, I checked out this Democracy Now! interview with Max Blumenthal in which he discusses his book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. He says an interesting thing in this interview; in a discussion about Frank Schaeffer, an important figure in his genealogy of the religious right, he reports the following:

And his son says, you know, “My father would have been so upset to see what the Christian right and the Republican Party has become today. He despised the homophobia of the movement.”

And what Frank Schaeffer told me, which is most interesting, is that “This movement, we were like oncologists. We needed a crisis to keep occurring in American society in order for us to stay in business.” And that’s what we’re seeing with the healthcare debate, too. I mean, we’re seeing a movement that’s terrified that the government will start to be able to solve people’s crises, because they survive and thrive on manipulating people’s personal crises.

I found this really interesting, and it reminded me of something that my friend Nathan said to me the other night. Blumenthal's argument, in part, is that the religious right's M.O. is to oppose any and all efforts by the government to solve the problems of everyday people for the simple and cynical reason that by doing so, the government infringes on its territory--religion's capacity to serve as the crutch for any and all personal problems, no matter the size. This is an interesting hypothesis that potentially enables us to understand why the health care "debate" has taken the form it has.

But as Nathan, Anne and I were discussing health care, town halls, and the absolute weirdness of the right's characterization of Obama as an Orwellian overlord, Nathan made an interesting comment that I think better explains for me, at least at a topical level, the off-the-wall paranoia of recent conservative descriptions of Obama. In Nathan's view, the right promulgates a view of Obama as a dictator because it serves a psychological function; the Democractic dictator is the fantasy of the Republican party and the far right generally. Republicans would rather have a Hitlerian Democrat in power than a moderate one because such a situation allows the party to frame all political questions in terms of crisis. In other words, in addition to an ideology in which personal responsibility falls within the ken of a religious community, the right also thrives on the politics of enmity. Think of it this way: without a clear and present enemy like bin Laden or Saddam Hussein to rally around, the right has invented a new enemy. It's not a coincidence that the Right has tried each and every label on Obama. If they can't win an election against a "Muslim," maybe they should reach further back into the past and label him a socialist (not to mention a racist). Maybe that will work.

Maybe. The point here is not that this strategy doesn't work--in fact, it has worked well recently--but that by painting Obama as a 21st century Mao indoctrinating school children along party lines, the Right is in its element: he's not a citizen, Americorp is indoctrination, Obama is inflating the census count of minorities to redraw congressional districts, he introduced swine flu to the country, they're building death camps in the southwest, the legislation is going to result in rationing. On and on and on. These are just examples that I pulled off of the top of my head; they by no means represent a complete list of the crimes that the Right fantasizes about Obama committing. By creating this monster, the Right gets to relive the past; it's spring of 2003 again. And the reason for doing this is simple: the only way to win this fight is for the Right to change the subject. Never mind the crisis of health care; this is a constitutional crisis that strikes to the heart of American values.

Or so the logic goes. But buyer beware: that feeling of self-congratulatory righteous indignation that the Right is cultivating--it's is a placebo.

On Enmity

Let's talk about Al-Qaeda. According to the Washington Post, some faction or other within Al-Qaeda is now endorsing John McCain:

Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

This is sure to get people on the left smiling, though it should be noted that Hamas endorsed Obama not that long ago. Great.

It's interesting to look at the way our country deals with statements uttered by "terrorists." During an election, the Right is happy to believe Hamas when it says it wants Obama to win. During an election, the Left is happy to believe that Al-Qaeda means what it says when it endorses McCain. But credencing either of these statements is an act of bad faith on the part of politicians and the talking heads. Neither puts faith in the statements of "terrorists" because, according to the logic of absolute enmity, terrorists are not capable of speaking the truth. It is for this reason that nobody pays any attention when Bin Laden releases a video; as an absolute enemy, what he says cannot be trusted.

Enmity is a concept without content -- or rather, it is a category that must be perpetually constituted according to local and temporary needs. If Bin Laden says that he wants the US out of Israel, it is regarded as a ploy for some greater, more sinister purpose, be it Islamo-fascist theocracy or total war. Yet, if a "terrorist" admits under duress at Guantanamo that he or she planned an attack or engaged in terroristic activity, that's another story. Because such statements fulfill local and temporary political functions, the terrorist may speak a "truth" that is otherwise inconceivable. The same goes for the current elections; Hamas or Al-Qaeda is allowed to demonstrate a preference for one or another candidate in a foreign, democratic election if such statements fulfill the needs of our domestic political environment.

The point here is that the war on terror, in a historically novel way, abrogates the basic conditions of veracity that make politics a meaningful category of human discourse. If the possibility of a "terrorist" uttering a true statement is permanently witheld, there is no real enemy to fight at all--there is only our mirror image of who we are as a people. We are damned to perpetually dream up our own worst enemy--and fight ourselves to the death.

GOP terrified of the "real" America

OK, this is the last post of a Brave New Film video, but I think this one about ACORN is simple and to the point. This is maybe the one theme that I think the GOP has been able to push on the media and win on. That isn't to say that it will make a huge difference in the election outcome necessarily, but it does enable the GOP to peremptorily change the legitimacy of an Obama presidency, as well as poison the post-election political environment. At the same time, I can't quite understand why this story of all stories has found traction in the media. It has some sort alchemy to it suggests that McCain isn't dead quite yet.

Russian roulette

I really haven't had much to say about the election, mostly because I have been so hopelessly hooked on the strategic aspects of the race. But as the race turns into the last month, and the McCain camp is starting to spin out of control, I am gripped by a sense of worry--not about the election, but about the bigger picture. The new round of smears goes way beyond the pale. Here's TPM on McCain's behavior today:

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

"Kill him," someone yelled. Allow yourself to imagine it for just a moment. If that were to happen between now and election day, it is hard to imagine the backlash. And who would we blame if such a tragedy were to occur? Well, McCain for starters. And then his party as a whole. And then the media and every one of McCain's supporters that acted as a megaphone for what is clearly an inflammatory and racially tinged rhetoric. And the entire poltical process wouldn't come off unscathed, either. And what would happen to the country in such a scenario? I can imagine that the LA riots of '92 would look tiny in comparison to the riots that would ensue. Given the economic meltdown, wouldn't such a situation amount to a total collapse of American society?

Measure your words, John McCain: you're playing with fire.

The Message is the Medium

Sweet Jesus: The Boston Globe has wordled the campaign messages of Obama and McCain. The result? Crooks and Liars says, "It should come as no surprise that John McCain’s message is overwhelmingly about Obama and overwhelmingly negative. Seriously, just compare the top 4 words on each; it tells you all you need to know about this election."

It's almost as beautiful as the wordles I did of Ulysses and Paradise Lost. Almost.

200,000 people showed up in Berlin today to hear Obama dish it out. Apparently his speech was preceded by reggae a concert.

Nader on Obama

Barack Obama: "The Corporate Candidate"? So says Ralph Nader on Democracy Now!

Barack Obama really now has to be examined very carefully. He has worn out the word “change.” We now want to know what change is involved. And it’s quite clear that he is a corporate candidate from A to Z. In his voting record, he voted against reform of the Mining Act of 1872, which gives away our hard rock minerals. He voted for a terrible class-action restriction law that the corporations wanted him to vote for. He, in many ways, has disappointed people who had greater hopes for him. He’s voted for reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. He refuses to even discuss—he’s vigorously against impeachment of Bush and Cheney. He won’t even support his colleague Senator Russ Feingold motion to censure the Bush administration for systemic repeated illegal wiretaps. He—you know, he’s letting the corporate-dominated city of Washington, the corporations who actually rule us now in Washington, determine his agenda. And that does not augur well.

It is regrettably true that Obama opposes impeachment, but to imply that he is pro-Patriot Act is misleading, even if he did vote for its reauthorization.

Obama

Gerry Canavan brings us back to the moment that started it all.