I wish I knew more about this photograph , although it is pretty much self explanatory.
Category Archives: Americana
Obama as an empty chair
The Obama that much of the right is against is invisible because he is not real.
Gingrich put it succinctly, I think [Obama] worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true….He was authentically dishonest. Gingrich is saying that what Obama says he believes, and even what he actually does, are cover-ups for some secret agenda. Maybe it is Kenyan anti-colonial behavior, what ever the hell that is; maybe he is hiding that he a Marxist, or a Socialist; maybe, as Romney inferred, Obama isn’t really an American.
As an aside, When Clint argued with Obama, what I found most surreal, was the imaginary Obama swearing. I want to be clear here, I like swearing, Fuck!, I even like to swear – I am not saying that swearing is evil, or bad – but I have never heard Obama swear. I have never even heard about Obama swearing. If Clint was arguing with Rahm Emanuel or Dick Chaney, it would make sense, but only Clint’s imaginary Obama swears. End aside.
I have never had anybody tell me – personally, face to face, in a conversation – that Obama is a Kenyan anti-colonialist, but I have had several conversations where people have said that Obama is a Marxist or a Socialist. At first I thought they were saying this to be argumentative or saying that just to piss me off, but I have come to believe that they actually believe it. Not that they have really thought it out, not that they even want to think it out.
Sure, part of it is good old fashioned racism. But a racism that is powered not by Obama’s blackness but by the fact fact that, as a half white man, he has chosen to identify as black, to marry a black woman, to live in the black area of Chicago. He has chosen to be different, to be the other. It is xenophobia as much as racism. On this subject, atleast, many of Obama’s detractors are a little deranged.
And this derangement has led the Republicans to build the major theme of their Convention – with signs and chants – on Obama saying you didn’t build that. To take the reasonable – If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together – and simplifying it to the point of being a lie and then being outraged. Outraged at something Obama didn’t say, outraged at their projection on the invisible Obama.
Obama is punching back
When the world needs to do really big stuff, we need an American, Mitt Romney in his acceptance speech. What a snide comment! A passive- aggressive line said in a way that tries to leave no fingerprints. The kind of comment that Michael Dukakis, or Al Gore, or John Kerry, would have ignored and then been punished for ignoring.
About six months ago, a conservative acquaintance said that this was going to be a dirty election. I don’t remember the details, but he said it in a way that clearly was saying that Obama is a dirty campaigner and would not wage a fair campaign. I agreed (in a way that tried to make it sound like he was talking about the Republican). And I do agree and I am happy about it. I am not particularly happy about the campaign turning negative, but I am very happy that Obama is willing to punch back. It is one of the things that I most like about Obama.
For all his cerebral detachment, his calmness, his – at times – distressing passivity, Obama is a fighter and he is willing to take Romney on.
The best tweet of the convention
During the very strange Clint Eastwood performance, Jamelle Bouie made the best tweet of the convention (atleast the best tweet I have seen). “This is a perfect representation of the campaign: an old white man arguing with an imaginary Barack Obama.”
Neil Armstrong RIP
Neil Armstrong died today and it has almost no emotional meaning for me. He was the first man on the moon and, somehow, he always seemed like he was a cog in a bigger program. He was a Navy pilot, became a test pilot – including flying the F101 Voodoo which I feel in love with when we were both at Hamilton AFB – he flew combat missions in the Korean war, got shot down1, and he always seemed like he wasn’t real to me.
Even his “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” quote seemed so perfect as to be plastic (a favorite term of disparagement in the 60s). Part of it was the over-choreographing, by NASA, of all the Astronauts (this was the height of the Cold War and it was – in a major way – the Christian west against the godless Commies, it was important that we look good and that only included, for some reason, white men). Part of it was the complete inaccessibly of something so outside our normal, daily, life and part of it must have been watching the whole thing through a low-resolution, black and white, TV camera.
So, while I can remember every detail of my watching the moon-landing and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and my emotional experience, I never felt emotionally connected to the guys on the otherside of the fuzzy, black and white image. The Apollo astronauts never had their Right Stuff movie to make them real. So, it was only when I learned that Armstrong had manually landed Eagle and that it was getting low on fuel – with the Low Fuel light flashing as I remember reading much later – that the enormity of what he had done really hit home with me.
I imagine, driving home from San Francisco – late at night – when the low fuel light comes on and the effect it has on my stress level. Then I imagine that light coming on with no gas stations for the next 240,000 miles: with only enough fuel, not to mention battery power, cooling water, and breathing oxygen to return to lunar orbit, and now the fuel gauge is showing “low fuel”. I imagine not ever having flown a real lunar lander before and having the presence of mind to switch to manual control to find a place to set down.
In a way, taking huge risks right on the edge of oblivion – like the lunar landing – is what the entire Man-on-the-Moon program was about and Neil Armstrong was the Poster Child. What a guy!
1 technically he got shot up, lost the outer six feet of his wing while evading more fire, and managed to fly back to safety.