Thursday, October 2, 2008

Liveblogging the (V.P.) Debate

9:31 - Biden's daughters are total hotties. And with that, I'm through.

9:30 - I think it's fairly predictable that Palin will benefit from low expectations. A blowout for Biden, but by whatever weird calculus prevails, I'm guessing it will be known as a draw.

9:28 - Biden's point about not questioning motives is huge. Not just presidential, but poetic. I'm not so sure it's true, of course - personally I imagine Jesse Helms was a corrupt fuck, but as a PR gesture it's got its merits.

9:25 - Palin doesn't come back at Biden on the Bork thing . . . this is a core conservative issue and it seems she's not even familiar with it, again.

9:23 - Biden may be closing this thing down. He's been visibly pissed off for most of the debate, and the question is whether people will identify more with that or with Palin's recycled Bush folksiness.

9:22 - John McCain is "the man we need to leave - I mean lead." Classic.

9:20 - She attributes "Shining city on a hill" to Reagan? I think that about sums up the depth of not just the McCain campaign but the Republican party.

9:16 - Palin completely fails to address the question of Cheney's interpretation of the VP's position outside of the executive branch. It strikes me that she's not even familiar with the issue. Biden gives the sensible answer that Cheney is self-aggrandizing.

9:14 - It's funny, Palin mentions "having a conversation" with McCain, and I can't even picture it. I can only see McCain holding her in barely-concealed contempt. McCain is flawed, but at least he's substantive. The idea of Sarah Palin in a position of authority in the U.S. national government is frankly frightening, just as much as it was before the debate.

9:12 - Palin on Biden's schoolteacher wife: "Her reward is in heaven, huh?" For a secular person, this comes across as weird and vaguely threatening. I wonder if this will be spun as a blunder.

9:10 - I'm starting to notice tone more than anything. She's clearly a charming performer, very Bush-like. But also like Bush, she's completely without substance, without a thought process. There's nothing back there. I just really wonder whether people will notice this, and whether they're going to make the right decision.

9:08 - Okay, I'M tired, I can't imagine what those two are feeling.

9:01 - "It's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider . . . " I can't say I hate Palin, which surprises me somewhat. But she's clearly a Barbie doll in the worst possible way. There's absolutely no substance here, she's regurgitating slogans.

9:00 - Biden seems to be getting tired. Repeating himself on Afghanistan.

8:58 - "Facts matter." There is no important principle that distinguishes the Democrats and Republicans.

8:56 - More incoherence from Palin on nuclear weapons . . . srsly.

8:56 - Biden takes the opening and runs down all of the places where there has been no declared difference between McCain and Bush.

8:53 - Biden's critique of Bush admin in Israel is harsh and pointed. But can h connect it to McCain? Again, he refuses to take the attack dog role. Palin - "I'm so glad we both love Israel." Creeeeeeeepy.

8:51 - Again with the "second Holocaust." Downright offensive.

8:49 - And now she's failing to distinguish between "sitting down" and "diplomacy." Biden points out the ridiculousness of the McCain campaigns attempts to square the circle.

8:48 - What I'm most impressed by is that Palin can say "Akmedenijad" (sp?) without showing her pride. Her answer is not just vague but outdated even by standards of debate rhetoric, going back to the "talking to dictators" line against Obama. Wasn't that like, three months ago?

8:47 - Okay, Palin is predictably ineffectual, going back to Iraq. The McCain campaign must know that this isn't much of a selling strategy.

8:46 - Biden on Pakistan vs. Iran is strong, but I'm on the fucking edge of my seat waiting for Palin. This will be where she lives or dies - international affairs.

8:45 - Okay though, Biden on McCain's fundamental understanding of the war is fairly devastating.

8:43 - There's just nothing spectacular or really interesting happening here so far. Biden has gotten mad a couple times, and that's good stuff. But they're both really just regurgitating vague outlines of party positions.

8:42 - I have to confess that even I am simply tired of talking about Iraq, to the extent that even if I did think a withdrawal was surrender, I'd be excited about it.

8:40 - On to Iraq. And I notice George Bush has not been mentioned a single time.

8:39 - And Biden seems to have gotten something interesting, apparently no difference between gay and straight couples civilly.

8:37 - Wow, Biden says something that sounds very strong - no constitutional or legal distinction between straight and gay couples.

8:35 - Palin is good on energy, and she's getting a lot of time on it.

8:32 - "If you don't understand the causes, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution." Biden is good here. Although "clean coal" is total bullshit.

8:31 - Ooh, climate change, this should be good. Sounds like Palin is hedging a bit . . . maybe there is some human effect. And now she's just babbling . . . "I'm not interested in debating the causes, I'm here to talk about how are we going to get to positively effect the impacts." Her manner collapsed in the course of one question.

8:30 - Palin dodges mortgages to talk about Energy - I'm not sure that's going to play well. I have to say, though, she seems confident, and her smiling manner is compelling.

8:26 - "I hope the governor can convince John McCain to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies like she did in Alaska." This sort of jiu-jitsu seems more common this cycle - complimentary but convoluted.

8:24 - Okay, Palin is off-topic, but she's performing well on her tough stance against tax breaks for oil companies. It's got Biden defensive for the first time. She's even gotten Biden praising her.

8:21 - Biden's analysis of McCain's healthcare plan is impassioned and compelling.

8:19 - The tax cut thing seems pretty clear cut. Palin's response isn't completely incoherent, which is kind of like hitting it out of the park. That seems like a theme here.

8:15 - Biden actually knows the details of McCain's positions - how many times has he supported deregulation? 20. Palin turns around and has numbers of her own - 94 times Obama didn't reduce taxes. Biden rebuts with overwhelming strength - McCain did the same thing 477 times. Palin goes back to her mayoral term . . . that's what's known as being on your heels.

8:10 - Oh, who do we blame subprimes on, to Palin. This should be good. Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like castigating the fox for eating chickens. And she's calling for strict oversight, weird from a Republican. The message about restraint is a good one for a Republican, hits the good messages about conservatism and responsibility at a time when it makes sense.

8:09 - Palin's literally incoherent, babbling sloganeering is just creepy.

8:08 - The effect of Palin talking about McCain nonstop has a bit of a weird vibe to it. Biden's doing it a bit with Obama too. It's kind of like they're competing car salesmen.

8:06 - Palin goes to soccer moms as economic belwethers . . . and my own mom next to me sighs in disgust. That seems like a signal that folksiness isn't selling.

8:04 - First question on the bailout. "The worst economic policies we've ever had." But will he relate it to McCain? Well, going more positive than that - pro-Obama.

8:04 - "Can I call you Joe?" from Palin. Well-calibrated folksiness.

8:02 - The most anticipated VP debate in history . . . and Bryan Williams puts that in perspective immediately by pointing out what a weird pick Palin was.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Utopian Community and the Critique of Liberalism

The social failures of utopian communities, whether based on religious stricture, as in the case of Warren Jeffs' polygamist sect, or on the liberal universalism and enlightenment, as in the case of Auroville, seem to end in similar sorts of failures. In both Auroville and the Texas polygamists' ranch, there were accusations of child abuse and neglect, abuse of power, and general dysfunction.

The "mother" who runs Auroville concieved it as "a universal town where people from around the world could live together in harmony and unity, without having to worry about food and shelter." Setting aside for a moment the implicit scientific utopianism of the second part of the claim, the social utopianism of the first perfectly encapsulates the overtly stated goals that underpin much of modern Western society. And, as both David Theo Goldberg and Carl Schmitt would predict (from vastly different perspectives), this universalism leads quite directly to an oppression that must be actively disavowed - according to the BBC article, local Tamils have great difficulty becoming members of the exclusive (universalist) club at Auroville, a contradiction that would seem difficult to maintain. Is this an instance of the need for supposedly universalist humanism to covertly exclude some as "non-human" in order to sustain its enterprise?

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Contemplating the Rhetorical Uses of "History" as a judge.

The use of “history” as an abstract replacement for God or moral law is pretty noticeable these days - as in George Bush's “History will judge our actions.” I saw an episode of Battlestar Galactica the other day that used the same phraseology, and maybe since the show usually puts me in a thoughtful mood, it jumped out at me. What's the warrant underlying such a statement? What, really, are the moral groundings and the ensuing moral consequences of a stance that leaves some sort of ultimate judgment to History? What exactly is the nature of that judgment? What, ultimately, are the consequences of making an abstracted History the compass for our actions, or the justification of them?

In what ways does History have the capacity to serve as a stand-in for these monumental constructions of ethics – or even for the more recent administrative ethic of efficiency and good management?

What are the consequences of History’s judgment? Are they parallel with those of Heaven, Hell, Evil or Waste?
If the sort of judgment implied in these statements is a moral one, then the stakes are in part the memories held of us by future human beings. The punishment of such a proclamation ostensibly would be that our grandchildren would, if they decide to, remember us as fools, criminals, sinners.

There's a bit of a conundrum here – if History is our judge, then we are claiming that it takes the role of an ethic. But we must imagine that those figures that we imagine in the future (and who are in turn remembering us in the past) have some different ethic, some absolute ethic, some way to judge the rightness of a decision using capacities that we have not yet developed.

In this sense, the invocation of history as a judge of our actions has much in common with the logic of cryogenics - we don't have the power of judgment now that would be required to judge these actions, but in the future, our more advanced successors will have that power.

Of course, much of this speculation would be irrelevant if we interpret the statement in a second possible way. When we say “History will be our judge,” maybe we are not referring to the people who will judge us on new and better ethical grounds, but to some objective set of outcomes that will be clearly decipherable as vindicating our action. In the Bush case, once you do a little reading, it's clear that this second goal is what's in effect, since it's still believed by at least a few that the democratization of Iraq will have long-term positive consequences in the region, such as destabilizing state sponsors of terrorism.

But really, this is only a further deferral of the problem already presented, as it nonetheless assumes that our descendants will have the ability to experience their own surroundings in some sense in relation to an imagined alternative outcome. It also presents a curious problem of regression - if we are deferring the judgment of our actions to some hypothetical future point at which their consequences will become clear, must we not in turn defer the judgment of those consequences until their consequences become clear? This is the problem of all logic that tries to justify current suffering in the name of future outcomes.

Another implication of these sorts of claims is that WE DON'T KNOW what the outcome will be. In what way does this statement position us relative to our ignorance of our actions’ consequences? I have a colleague who, as far as I can tell following on Derrida, makes quite strong claims about the ultimate undecidability of the consequences of actions. But he often seems to me to be making the mistake of taking this as supporting an ethical undermining of all supposedly 'progressive action, making of it nothing more than self-delusion. I, on the other hand, feel that confronting and overcoming this vacuum of knowledge of the future - acting despite our ignorance - is fundamental to being human, or for that matter alive.

The problem with the appeal to history, just as with my friend's deconstructionist ethics, is the inevitable ethical abdication – the refusal to stake a claim on any element of one’s judgment. If we can only appeal to history as an ethical standard, rather than to some piece of our own understanding, expectations, even hopes, we are distanced from the consequences of our own actions. We take less responsibility for them insofar as we defer judgment.

The core aspect of these statements is exactly that deferral of judgment. Strip away some strong layers of implication, and you'll notice that there is often no overt claim that History will find us to be right - only that history will judge us. In other words, this is a slightly fancier way of throwing up our hands and saying "Meh."

One final series of questions - what are the cultural circumstances that allow history to take on this moral role? For something so frequently used by Bush, and evangelical Christian, it's striking how much that statement smacks of Enlightenment. If History is judging us, who's not judging us? You guessed it - God. And whether you are more convinced by my reading of the History here being invoked as "future enlightened ethicists" or "objective administrative outcomes," the progressivism, humanism, and technologism here are obvious.

So, does "history" have good or bad implications for decision making? I would say both - positive, by my lights, exactly to the degree that it implies a pragmatic, outcome-oriented decision-making process. But the far more powerful implication also seems to be far more ethically dangerous - the idea that the wisdom of our present decisions will be truly unknowable until some uncertain time in the future. This may be the true ontological nature of human experience - of, in fact, all existence - but it does not have an ethical consequence. The truly ethical act is to traverse the terror of that ultimate, cosmic uncertainty, and act with the best knowledge you have, and stake one's own ethical status on that what is possible within our narrow human capabilities.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Hillary Clinton purged Indiana voter rolls of blacks and students . . . probably.

Edit: This story has been shown to be a serious misinterpretation of the evidence - I didn't realize how little respect Black Box Voter had in the blog community when I first read it. I leave it up here because some of what I wrote still holds water, and as an object lesson in the risks of flying off the handle.


Huge numbers of voters purged from the rolls in Indiana.
Especially heavily hit was Porter county/Valparaiso, where MORE THAN HALF of all voters were removed from the rolls - and which also happens to be a college town. Almost as bad was Gary, where about a third of the current total of registered voters were purged - and which also happens to be one of the most densely black cities in America.

Removing huge numbers of college students and black people from the voter rolls before the Democratic primary - who might that benefit? Things that make you go hmm.

The post above just contains raw numbers, without any irresponsible speculation - so let me inject some. If this story gets some legs, I'm betting that a minimum of vetting on this purge will turn up yet more evidence that despite any policies we might like, what Hillory Clinton and her coterie really bring to the table is exactly the same political playbook as Bush. And have you guys seen the clips of her from yesterday? Her gas-tax holiday has been universally mocked and debunked, including by, apparently, every economist who has been asked about it. Stephanopolous (amazingly) actually pressed her on this a few days ago, and her response was that she wouldn't "throw her lot in with the economists. Sound familiar? Part of the whole anti-elitist thing she's apparently glommed onto lately. Here's video of the whole shameful, embarrassing thing.

I'm not one of those "I'll vote for McCain" loonies, but this whole scenario just gets more and more depressing. Hillary herself remained at least a pretty damn inspiring historical figure until she realized (it seems) that she had to turn completely to the dark side if she had any hope of killing . . . well, hope. All of the intuitive antipathy I've felt towards her from the start of this is being completely borne out by hard evidence of just how bad she really is.

-David

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Burial - the ghosts of what



I just picked up the new Burial album from emusic. On first listen, it's beautiful and genius. Trip-hop seemed to burn itself out fairly quickly back in the mid-90s, largely because the darkness at the heart of artists like Tricky got turned into premillenial lounge music in the hands of halfsteppers. But now we've got not half, not even whole, but even two-steppers, with their stuttering and woozy and delicate beats (as opposed to the monolithic slowdeath of the trip-hoppers). It's ghostly - as has been mentioned by many a blogger, haunted by what exists behind it, what is left out. The vocals are ripped out of context, one or two melodic words clipped and shorn of context, their meaning carried in semiotic echoes that are echoed by audio echoes (a self-enfolding tripling of signifying tactics).

An impolitic question - what are the chances that Burial is a black guy (or even girl)? The desperate and bereft emotion of the music is such that - well, rewind. The evidence is there in the music, a communication of the beautiful and totalizing loss and reclamation that has taken on the name "blackness." The sound somehow conjures images of shadows, of second selves and contradictory identities.

Myspace

Sunday, November 11, 2007

DBR and the Mission: Fuck these guys.


I’m not usually the guy at a show with a notebook, especially when it’s a show I’m actually hoping to enjoy. I really expected the Friday Hancher performance by DBR and the Mission, billed as a ‘hip hop orchestra,’ to be good, or at least interesting – so I took a girl instead of a pencil.

But from almost the first note, I knew in my belly that the show would be a spiritual, aesthetic, and moral clusterfuck - and, being the mean-spirited prick that I am, that’s exactly what inspires me. So there I was, stuck with no pen and paper (an object lesson for aspiring writers). Luckily modern technology saved the day, in the form of my cell phone, with which I clumsily hacked out a few sparse notes. I’ve left the original notes intact here, complete with typos and crude abbreviations, and added some clarification. I’d like to say thanks to Motorola for allowing me to chronicle the shittiest, most depressing concert I’ve seen in years.

Nobody is going to get drunk in the auditorium and smash a head in or grope a stranger Everyone will just get their little bit o the other and head on home

This was the textbook definition of music for people who are indifferent to music . Of course, Hancher Auditorium is this all too typical monstrosity designed for classical orchestras and piano recitals, a place whose every aspect tells you to sit down and shut the fuck up. We walked through a spacious atrium, past smiling ushers with spanking red vests on, to sit in plush red (fake) velvet-covered seats. And this is supposed to be a hip hop show, you say?

A mtg bt conservatory lab jazz and ca nine-five trip hop n i dn give a shit about witnessing that limp wristed sweaty palmed introduction followed by air kisses


These guys are full of book learnin’. The bandleader and composer, whose real name is Daniel Bernard Roumain, has dreads down to his ass and wears red patent leather shoes and a motorcycle jacket, but you can tell they’re all at home in the concert hall. After about the fifth song that duke announces as “Hip Hop Study in G sharp” or whatever, I come to the terrifying conclusion that he’s not being ironic.

It’s not the chitlin circuit it’s the triscuit circuit and it sucks the life out of the music w e it may have anywey


It’s not that I don’t think classical and hip hop have interesting things to talk about – I mean, I’m here, right? But this is a soulless gimmick, mostly lockstep violins faking the funk over tepid, played-out rhythms. The musicians smile out at the audience and trade solos. All the crackers in the audience love it . They’re just so impressed and excited you can feel it in the air. They whoop and holler, their voices breaking like they’re not sure exactly how yelling works. I feel my stomach sink into my testicles.

Noodly fake funk bullhit

The drummer and the bass player do an improvisational duet. It’s incredibly self-indulgent – lots of notes held too long as the bassist leans portentiously over his weapon, staring at the ground like he lost a contact. Plus, whoever’s running the show doesn’t have a clue how to mic drums, so the beats sound like someone’s hitting wet paper bags with paintbrushes.

When he shouts out some names in bt sng patter romney gets as many cheers as richardson wtf


Seriously, at a “hip hop” show, Mit Romney got cheers. And no, they were not ironic.

Talking about his composing process
Never good

A perfect example of how to tell the difference between something that’s actually good and something that got picked up because it fits the institutional needs of a huge, state-funded organization. The thing that really pissed me off about this warmed-over garbage was how many actually good musicians there are out there doing exactly this sort of thing. Put Dalek up there – their work is actually part of a conversation that people who care about music are paying attention to. They could have used the money, pleased the kids, and given the cultural tourists a little bit more of an experience. They probably also would have cursed, though, so they're out.

Omg theyre clapping
Make it stop


Clapping in rhythm, mind you, with their hands up above their heads, and inviting the crowd to join in! Just like an old Negro spiritual!

This one is really really funky he says
god save us all


If you have to tell people the shit is funky, you’ve already lost. These guys apparently have an album or two out on Thirsty Ear Records, and frankly they exactly epitomize what’s wrong with most releases on that label, which seems to specialized in releasing bricks of multicolored shit which they sand all the rough edges off of and masquerade as ‘future music.’ They even let him call the album "etudes4violin&electronix" - misspelling be mad dope fresh, yo!

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Joe Biden: Racist Piece of Shit, or Hydrocephalic Cracker-ass Cracker?


From the NYTimes:

[Sen. Barack Obama is] the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

-Joe Biden, the next President of the United States!

(Translation: "He's clean and articulate, and all around a darn bright boy! Give that darkie a pair of gloves, and I wouldn't mind letting him carry my bags!")


Biden's comment, like most racially-loaded comments that explode in the face of politicians today ("Macaca" excluded), is objectionable in relatively subtle ways. Of course, it clearly plays into perennial stereotypes of blacks as "dirty," reinforcing the idea by pointing out just how exception Obama's status as "clean" is. Kudos to Sharpton for apparently reassuring Biden that he bathes every morning. I'm certain that sets the Senator's mind at ease, especially considering that he has to share the Senate bathrooms with a few of "those people." Clearly, Biden isn't free of the repressed racial terror that haunts most whites in an integrated society.

But, of course, the comment is also ignorant in a way that's not even strictly speaking racist - Biden clearly doesn't know the history of the office he's declaring his candidacy for. There have been a bunch of African-American candidates for President, most notably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And while Jackson is a little before my time, as far as "articulate" goes, I can tell you Sharpton was a beast in the '04 debates.

Luckily, in this case, you can have it both ways - the comments may reveal Biden as both a repressed racist and a historically ignorant buffoon. It's like cake and ice cream! At the same time!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BIDEN '08! WE'RE GOING ALL THE WAY!

(Seriously, though, for the good of the party, Biden needs to drop out. Now. And awkward, defensive press conferences aren't helping us.)