In the critical first one hundred days of his government, Obama has the chance of securing political hegemony for years to come. How to do this is very simple, but it requires political decision.
First, Obama faces the challenge of governing a Republican country which has voted Democrat. The Democratic base should be expanded and the best way to do that is by increasing the number of Democratic voters in key southern states. This can be accomplished very easily by declaring an immediate amnesty for all illegal immigrants without criminal records. These people should be encouraged to become citizens in the best tradition of Americna immigrant enfranchisement. This simple strategy will send Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and North Carolina to the democratic side and change the face of Americna politics for decades to come.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Why education cannot be a national priority
For any visitor with a flavor for ethnography, the United States is a land of striking contradictions.
The very outcome of the coming election is itself a classical American excercise in contradiction (and a reminder of the complex legal and political structure that makes these contradictions possible): a liberal politician like Obama, and a liberal democratic Congress will preside over what is actually a conservative (and hence pro-Republican) society.
In the recent debates between Mc Cain and Obama the question of education emerged as one of these contradictory sites of American life. The moderator put forward the following question: we are the country that expends more money per student in the world and yet the results are far from good. American students tend to underperform when compared to students from countries as different as Norway or South Korea. What would you do to correct this problem?
Provided that these statistics are meaningful (something I personally doubt) the answers of both candidates failed to address what constitute in my opinion the cultural root of the problem (and justly so, they are politicians trying to win an election, not intellectuals trying to explain the world). Obama’s solution for the American lagging-behind in education is more investment; Mc Cain’s more accountability.
What no candidate said is that the reason why student’s performance is better in Norway or South Korea may lie in the fact that in those countries education is a highly recognized social and cultural value. In other words, I suspect that in Norway or South Korea being educated, intelligent or cultivated is a ground for respect while often in the US the same attributes are perceived as the mark of a moral flaw or a revelation of a dubiousness of character. Only two weeks ago the front page on-line version of CNN asked if the label of “intellectual” may hurt Obama. This label of "intellectual” is itself interesting. It seems to mean that Obama has a surprising tendency to think problems over. It also seems to suggest that he is not straight ignorant as could be expected from somebody who wants to be president of the most powerful country in the world.
To the gallery of contradictions of American culture the ethnographer of modern life has to add this one: an anti-intellectual culture living side by side with a genuine concern for education.
The very outcome of the coming election is itself a classical American excercise in contradiction (and a reminder of the complex legal and political structure that makes these contradictions possible): a liberal politician like Obama, and a liberal democratic Congress will preside over what is actually a conservative (and hence pro-Republican) society.
In the recent debates between Mc Cain and Obama the question of education emerged as one of these contradictory sites of American life. The moderator put forward the following question: we are the country that expends more money per student in the world and yet the results are far from good. American students tend to underperform when compared to students from countries as different as Norway or South Korea. What would you do to correct this problem?
Provided that these statistics are meaningful (something I personally doubt) the answers of both candidates failed to address what constitute in my opinion the cultural root of the problem (and justly so, they are politicians trying to win an election, not intellectuals trying to explain the world). Obama’s solution for the American lagging-behind in education is more investment; Mc Cain’s more accountability.
What no candidate said is that the reason why student’s performance is better in Norway or South Korea may lie in the fact that in those countries education is a highly recognized social and cultural value. In other words, I suspect that in Norway or South Korea being educated, intelligent or cultivated is a ground for respect while often in the US the same attributes are perceived as the mark of a moral flaw or a revelation of a dubiousness of character. Only two weeks ago the front page on-line version of CNN asked if the label of “intellectual” may hurt Obama. This label of "intellectual” is itself interesting. It seems to mean that Obama has a surprising tendency to think problems over. It also seems to suggest that he is not straight ignorant as could be expected from somebody who wants to be president of the most powerful country in the world.
To the gallery of contradictions of American culture the ethnographer of modern life has to add this one: an anti-intellectual culture living side by side with a genuine concern for education.
Friday, October 17, 2008
La vida es sueño or the present financial crisis of global markets (Second Part of You will never make it...)
In every debate Barack Obama and John Mc Cain have been asked what sacrifices they will require from the American people in order to sort the present financial crisis. Neither Obama nor Mc Cain had answered this question. Mc Cain vaguely talked about saving two or three millions dollars on research on Grizzlie bears and Obama mentioned all things he is NOT going to cut.
Perhaps both candidates believe that the exorbitant size of the American economy makes this crisis easy to surmount. The US can still laugh at 700 billion dollars…and to more than that too.
My concern is not related to the size of the crisis, but to the label of crisis itself. A crisis is a fleeting accident that happens to a more or less established structure. There are reasons, however, to believe that the present financial crisis is not a temporary upheaval of a normal economic cycle, but rather than the economic boom of the 1990’s was the real anomaly that is now being corrected. The illusion lasted the last 13 years. What we suffer now is life outside the Matrix. However, as in the matrix, our deeply inscribed neo-liberal self crave that dream from which we don't want to wake up.
Obama hinted to the rudeness of this awakening in the second debate when he said "we have been living beyond our means.” It was Bill Clinton with his absurd re-appointment of Allan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve who inaugurated this style of living "beyond our means." Under Greenspan, the Federal Reserve injected tons of money into the economy at ridiculously low rates. The banks lent that money at equally ridiculously low rates and since money kept coming through the pipeline (uncle Mao was happy to subsidize the American economy so Americans can go shopping for Chinese products) an extended but also deeply false feeling of economic well-being spilled through most of urban and suburban America.
Clinton's idea was to use cheap credit to buy Al Gore into the presidency; but the master plan finally sank in the ashtray of his famous cigar and the costly beer that some American voters decided to have with their pal from Texas. Bush took good note of the example. When the time of his second election came around, America was literally flooded with cheap money. The availability of cheap money affected all the areas of American life: from sports to the real state market, from CEO bonuses to advances for unwritten manuscripts of future best-sellers.
Bush's solution to the current financial crisis (inject 700 billion into the system) ignores that this crisis is as much a crisis of credit as it is a crisis of debt. And since this crisis happens in the middle of a recession it is very likely that the interest services of this debt will outgrowth its potential indirect benefits. Even the argument that the size of American economy is so big that 700 billion is an important but small intervention is partly flawed: this gigantic GDP includes consumer spending and retail performances as one of its main components. Both will be reduced in the next years by the absence of easy and cheap credit.
If seems clear that it is no longer possible to return to the previous levels of liquidity. A mirage that lasted fifteen years is coming to an end. The problem is that fifteen years is a long time; enough time to trick us into believing that what we are living is just a dream from which we will wake up and not the harsh reality that we had escaped for too long already.
Perhaps both candidates believe that the exorbitant size of the American economy makes this crisis easy to surmount. The US can still laugh at 700 billion dollars…and to more than that too.
My concern is not related to the size of the crisis, but to the label of crisis itself. A crisis is a fleeting accident that happens to a more or less established structure. There are reasons, however, to believe that the present financial crisis is not a temporary upheaval of a normal economic cycle, but rather than the economic boom of the 1990’s was the real anomaly that is now being corrected. The illusion lasted the last 13 years. What we suffer now is life outside the Matrix. However, as in the matrix, our deeply inscribed neo-liberal self crave that dream from which we don't want to wake up.
Obama hinted to the rudeness of this awakening in the second debate when he said "we have been living beyond our means.” It was Bill Clinton with his absurd re-appointment of Allan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve who inaugurated this style of living "beyond our means." Under Greenspan, the Federal Reserve injected tons of money into the economy at ridiculously low rates. The banks lent that money at equally ridiculously low rates and since money kept coming through the pipeline (uncle Mao was happy to subsidize the American economy so Americans can go shopping for Chinese products) an extended but also deeply false feeling of economic well-being spilled through most of urban and suburban America.
Clinton's idea was to use cheap credit to buy Al Gore into the presidency; but the master plan finally sank in the ashtray of his famous cigar and the costly beer that some American voters decided to have with their pal from Texas. Bush took good note of the example. When the time of his second election came around, America was literally flooded with cheap money. The availability of cheap money affected all the areas of American life: from sports to the real state market, from CEO bonuses to advances for unwritten manuscripts of future best-sellers.
Bush's solution to the current financial crisis (inject 700 billion into the system) ignores that this crisis is as much a crisis of credit as it is a crisis of debt. And since this crisis happens in the middle of a recession it is very likely that the interest services of this debt will outgrowth its potential indirect benefits. Even the argument that the size of American economy is so big that 700 billion is an important but small intervention is partly flawed: this gigantic GDP includes consumer spending and retail performances as one of its main components. Both will be reduced in the next years by the absence of easy and cheap credit.
If seems clear that it is no longer possible to return to the previous levels of liquidity. A mirage that lasted fifteen years is coming to an end. The problem is that fifteen years is a long time; enough time to trick us into believing that what we are living is just a dream from which we will wake up and not the harsh reality that we had escaped for too long already.
You will never make it
Barack Obama keeps repeating a line that didn’t work for Al Gore and is only half working for him now: Mc Cain’s tax cuts is for the five or ten percent of wealthiest Americans, while his tax cut is directed to the large (although shrinking) middle class. (Also known as "the rest of America", homless excluded).
The reason why the message wasn't sucessful in the past and is half working now, is that many Americans don't like to think of themselves as this "vague" middle class that struggles to make ends meet. They rather prefer to think that they will make it.
If we consider the statistical side of the expression "middle class", we can see that the concept itself is an illusion and that Democrats has little to win by invoking it. According to the census bureau, the average household income in America was 50.233 dollars in the year 2007. In actual percentage, around 25% of American families actually live with that income. These people pay little taxes and no tax break can help them. A tax break can only be significant for those making above 100k, a 32% of households in 2005, of which 60% is solidly Republican.
But statistics are not the real reason why the Democratic message takes so long to sink. The real reason lies, of course, at an imaginary level. Anybody who grew up watching American television knows that outside the world of "The Wire," all American policemen live in five bedrooms houses with hard wood floors and spectacular views of the Golden Bridge or the New York skyline. The so-called middle class, and more importantly the actual middle class, had bought a fairy tale that tells them that, somewhat, they will climb the ladder of social rank to the very top. They can make it to the million dollars! Why not? Mark Cuban did it and Mark Cuban is one of us. This lovely trait of American hyper-rich people of looking like normal people is transformed in the minds of middle class America into the mirage that since Mark Cuban uses the same trashy t-shirts I use, I can become ultra-rich as he his. It is on this fantasy that Republicans prey election after election.
A strategic fight for political hegemony in the US should include this harsh, direct message: NO. You will not make it. You will never make it. Never, ever, ever. The odds of you making it are as good as your odds of walking from a Vegas casino with 100k in your pocket. This simple existential awakening should have definitive social and political consequences. People may stop ignoring their actual lifes in favor of a life they will never enjoy. They may even actually measure themselves by something else than their bank accounts, how much money they will leave to their children and how they are going to pay for their own funeral. And I am convinced that politics gets much better when people like their lives. The whole system of expectations changes when the postman and the teacher, the employee and the lawyer, demand to be happy on the bases of what they actually are and not on the bases of what they will never become.
The reason why the message wasn't sucessful in the past and is half working now, is that many Americans don't like to think of themselves as this "vague" middle class that struggles to make ends meet. They rather prefer to think that they will make it.
If we consider the statistical side of the expression "middle class", we can see that the concept itself is an illusion and that Democrats has little to win by invoking it. According to the census bureau, the average household income in America was 50.233 dollars in the year 2007. In actual percentage, around 25% of American families actually live with that income. These people pay little taxes and no tax break can help them. A tax break can only be significant for those making above 100k, a 32% of households in 2005, of which 60% is solidly Republican.
But statistics are not the real reason why the Democratic message takes so long to sink. The real reason lies, of course, at an imaginary level. Anybody who grew up watching American television knows that outside the world of "The Wire," all American policemen live in five bedrooms houses with hard wood floors and spectacular views of the Golden Bridge or the New York skyline. The so-called middle class, and more importantly the actual middle class, had bought a fairy tale that tells them that, somewhat, they will climb the ladder of social rank to the very top. They can make it to the million dollars! Why not? Mark Cuban did it and Mark Cuban is one of us. This lovely trait of American hyper-rich people of looking like normal people is transformed in the minds of middle class America into the mirage that since Mark Cuban uses the same trashy t-shirts I use, I can become ultra-rich as he his. It is on this fantasy that Republicans prey election after election.
A strategic fight for political hegemony in the US should include this harsh, direct message: NO. You will not make it. You will never make it. Never, ever, ever. The odds of you making it are as good as your odds of walking from a Vegas casino with 100k in your pocket. This simple existential awakening should have definitive social and political consequences. People may stop ignoring their actual lifes in favor of a life they will never enjoy. They may even actually measure themselves by something else than their bank accounts, how much money they will leave to their children and how they are going to pay for their own funeral. And I am convinced that politics gets much better when people like their lives. The whole system of expectations changes when the postman and the teacher, the employee and the lawyer, demand to be happy on the bases of what they actually are and not on the bases of what they will never become.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Who is the real Barack Obama?
When Barack Obama first started campaigning for the democratic nomination his name was synonymous with popular, vital politics. In Ohio, where the Clintons enjoyed the almost total control of the Democratic political apparatus, Obama's backers mounted a campaign using as "database" a list of laundromats's and hair dressers's clients. He didn't win Ohio, but for somebody starting from scratch his performance was just short of spectacular.
The enthusiasm elicited by Obama's candidacy was clear in the sudden politization of very young people: sometimes as young as six, seven years old. In some places in California, kids went to school wearing Obama's t-shirts. The movement was, if anything, spontaneous. Its effects shocked the democratic establishment. The politics of the apparatus was confronted with a wave of militants that Obama was recruiting right and left. Most of the time, he or his people were not even recruiting. Obama's supporters just showed up or started campaigning on their own. And Obama's speeches many times reflected this reality: he talked about mobilization, community, and people on the street. (In Ohio, Obama voters marched to the polls cutting the flow of traffic in the streets). The press first welcomed this breeze of fresh political air. But when became clear that Obama will clinch the democratic nomination, things started to change. By the end of the Democratic primary the media launched a vast program of domestication of the wild candidate.
This process of co-optation started the same night of Obama's triumph over Hillary Clinton. For more than a week after the election, NBC, CNN and other big media corporations, run programs and analysis of the primary election that turn all around the question of how was that Hillary Clinton has lost. Everything was about the mistakes that Hillary made, the stubbornness of her advisors, the arrogance that doomed her campaign, the lack of due attention to caucuses etc. Barack Obama did not win. Hillary Clinton lost.
It is true that Obama became more "presidential" after clinching the democratic nomination. But the media had made a point of ignoring the less conventional aspects of his candidacy. Instead we hear, now and then, reports about the "enthusiasm" elicited by Obama among young voters, a description soon followed by doubts about these young people actually showing up on election day. Even when Republicans attack Barack Obama asking "who is the real Barack Obama"?, they don't have in mind the street organizer (as one Republican voter put it in a TV interview: he worked to gave houses to people who could not make the payments), but rather a very petty-bourgeois system of associations that connect a former "terrorist" to a living room in Chicago. Obama is never attacked by his militant, radical liberal past (let's hope that also present). Some people don't even want to hear that these things are actually possible.
The Barack Obama representing a rhetoric of popular participation has vanished (or perhaps it has been banished) from the media. This teaches us a lesson in methodology. The system starts its work very early. As all those who live in the land of the free know, sometimes, as early as kindergarten. It seems that they couldn't get Obama at that early age. But they are going after him now.
The enthusiasm elicited by Obama's candidacy was clear in the sudden politization of very young people: sometimes as young as six, seven years old. In some places in California, kids went to school wearing Obama's t-shirts. The movement was, if anything, spontaneous. Its effects shocked the democratic establishment. The politics of the apparatus was confronted with a wave of militants that Obama was recruiting right and left. Most of the time, he or his people were not even recruiting. Obama's supporters just showed up or started campaigning on their own. And Obama's speeches many times reflected this reality: he talked about mobilization, community, and people on the street. (In Ohio, Obama voters marched to the polls cutting the flow of traffic in the streets). The press first welcomed this breeze of fresh political air. But when became clear that Obama will clinch the democratic nomination, things started to change. By the end of the Democratic primary the media launched a vast program of domestication of the wild candidate.
This process of co-optation started the same night of Obama's triumph over Hillary Clinton. For more than a week after the election, NBC, CNN and other big media corporations, run programs and analysis of the primary election that turn all around the question of how was that Hillary Clinton has lost. Everything was about the mistakes that Hillary made, the stubbornness of her advisors, the arrogance that doomed her campaign, the lack of due attention to caucuses etc. Barack Obama did not win. Hillary Clinton lost.
It is true that Obama became more "presidential" after clinching the democratic nomination. But the media had made a point of ignoring the less conventional aspects of his candidacy. Instead we hear, now and then, reports about the "enthusiasm" elicited by Obama among young voters, a description soon followed by doubts about these young people actually showing up on election day. Even when Republicans attack Barack Obama asking "who is the real Barack Obama"?, they don't have in mind the street organizer (as one Republican voter put it in a TV interview: he worked to gave houses to people who could not make the payments), but rather a very petty-bourgeois system of associations that connect a former "terrorist" to a living room in Chicago. Obama is never attacked by his militant, radical liberal past (let's hope that also present). Some people don't even want to hear that these things are actually possible.
The Barack Obama representing a rhetoric of popular participation has vanished (or perhaps it has been banished) from the media. This teaches us a lesson in methodology. The system starts its work very early. As all those who live in the land of the free know, sometimes, as early as kindergarten. It seems that they couldn't get Obama at that early age. But they are going after him now.
The Historical Meaning of the 2008 Election
Let’s be clear on this. The 2008 election is an absolutely historical election for both American and World History.
To realize the epochal significance of this election, we just need to pay attention to the possible outcomes and their historical significance.
If Obama wins the election, he will become the first black president of the United States.
If Mc Cain wins, he will be the first Latin American to become president of the United States (There are some technicalities here regarding the status of the Panama channel before the transference of sovereignty, but Latinos are already claiming Mc Cain for them)
If Mc Cain wins and dies, the first female president of the US will be Sarah Palin.
If Obama wins and dies, Joe Biden will become the first person crushed in a primary who will actually become president of the United States.
In this way, not only the historical meaning of this election is guaranteed, but also these four candidates will join a unique gallery of people who, as they were inaugurated as presidents, represented also first time achievements.
By way of example, let’s list
George Washington, the first president to become the first president of the United States.
John Adams, the first president with the name “John” to serve as president (not a minor achievement in the Anglo-Saxon protestan world)
Thomas Jefferson, the first president to be the third president of the United States.
James Monroe, the first president to have the same first name as the previous president. (James Monroe also holds the distinction of being the first president to share his last name with the alleged lover of a future president)
Van Buren, the first president to be confused with Von Braun and other names that sounds like appliances.
Woodrow Wilson, the first president to have identical name and last name initials. (Wilson’s achievement was so fantastic that pretty soon other presidents follow on his trail, like Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover whose names continue the tradition, first started by Van Buren, of sounding like commodities. Underwears and vacuum cleaners in this case).
To realize the epochal significance of this election, we just need to pay attention to the possible outcomes and their historical significance.
If Obama wins the election, he will become the first black president of the United States.
If Mc Cain wins, he will be the first Latin American to become president of the United States (There are some technicalities here regarding the status of the Panama channel before the transference of sovereignty, but Latinos are already claiming Mc Cain for them)
If Mc Cain wins and dies, the first female president of the US will be Sarah Palin.
If Obama wins and dies, Joe Biden will become the first person crushed in a primary who will actually become president of the United States.
In this way, not only the historical meaning of this election is guaranteed, but also these four candidates will join a unique gallery of people who, as they were inaugurated as presidents, represented also first time achievements.
By way of example, let’s list
George Washington, the first president to become the first president of the United States.
John Adams, the first president with the name “John” to serve as president (not a minor achievement in the Anglo-Saxon protestan world)
Thomas Jefferson, the first president to be the third president of the United States.
James Monroe, the first president to have the same first name as the previous president. (James Monroe also holds the distinction of being the first president to share his last name with the alleged lover of a future president)
Van Buren, the first president to be confused with Von Braun and other names that sounds like appliances.
Woodrow Wilson, the first president to have identical name and last name initials. (Wilson’s achievement was so fantastic that pretty soon other presidents follow on his trail, like Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover whose names continue the tradition, first started by Van Buren, of sounding like commodities. Underwears and vacuum cleaners in this case).
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Isn't your candidate concrete enough? Return him. In America satisfaction IS guaranteed
I watch the presidential debates on CNN. After each debate, CNN shows a focus group (a bunch of common people living in common places such as Ohio or Missouri) and their reactions to the debate. In the first two debates, it was common for the people in the focus group to vent their disappointment about the lack of concrete proposals by the candidates. They did not say anything specific –the complaint continues- about how they plan to handle issues such as the financial crisis or health care problems. The reporter would side with the common people and face the camera with an expression of unspeakable suffering, concluding something like: "Obviously, these folks think that the candidates are out of touch with the concerns of main street America." However, the truth is that both Mc Cain and Obama are very clear about their plans and priorities. The charge so often repeated in these focus groups that the candidates "don't say anything" is plainly false. The question, then, is: why can't the American people hear them? Two possible explanations. The first is that American people are not used to political discussions anymore. Perhaps the slow but steady destruction of common spaces that took place under neoliberlism is finally taking its high toll on American politics. The reason the audience thinks that Mc Cain and Obama only say "general things" which don't concern them (the audience) is perhaps because they (the audience) are no longer able to identify themselves as part of something general, a public. A second explanation is also possible. Often candidates have to phrase answers in such a way that their message doesn't offend a public sense of property and politeness. Republicans have found this rule of courtesy very useful when defending themselves in a context in which they can be blamed for so many things that it is a miracle that they have a candidate actually running for the presidency. The rule of courtesy helps Republicans because at its center there is an article of faith that reads: it is unpatriotic to criticize America. Candidates, above all Democrats, have to be very careful in phrasing their observations in such a way so that, even as they denounce the fact that the health system is broke or that the financial institutions have withered away into thin air, they simultaneously uphold the idea that this is the best country in the world, the most progressive force in history and that its institutions are the envy of the whole civilized universe. Let's go back to the focus group for a moment. The person waiting for a "concrete answer" to his concern (health care in this case) doesn't want to hear that the problem lies in the speculative practices in the pharmaceutical industry or in the fact that the hospital networks in low and medium income areas are underfunded. He wants a solution for him, not for the problem, because attacking the problem entails the possibility of embarking on an un-American journey.
These two attitudes, the impossibility of conceiving of a public dimension and the impossibility of criticizing America constitutes a sort of shopping mall mentality. Voters, citizens or consumers (whatever they are) crave some kind of personalized attention because this fake friendship is the one they get in their everyday doings with corporate America. As for the conviction that criticizing America is un-patriotic, it seems rooted in a form of pre-emptive satisfaction active in corporative mentality. In every Starbucks there is a sign that reads: if your drink is not good, let us know and we will do it again. Corporations are smart. They know that there are only so many times that you can send your drink back.
These two attitudes, the impossibility of conceiving of a public dimension and the impossibility of criticizing America constitutes a sort of shopping mall mentality. Voters, citizens or consumers (whatever they are) crave some kind of personalized attention because this fake friendship is the one they get in their everyday doings with corporate America. As for the conviction that criticizing America is un-patriotic, it seems rooted in a form of pre-emptive satisfaction active in corporative mentality. In every Starbucks there is a sign that reads: if your drink is not good, let us know and we will do it again. Corporations are smart. They know that there are only so many times that you can send your drink back.
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