Obama has had some difficulty adjusting to the role of nominee after defining himself as an upstart. His keynote address at the 2004 DNC remains his most impressive moment, but there were flashes tonight of the powerhouse he could become. It took him about half of the speech to get going, but once he did it was powerful stuff. Forget the inevitable mythologizing of the American spirit and the recitation of his policy points - where Obama really succeeded was in framing himself within a continuum of historical progress and by extension painting his opposition as stalwarts of a bygone era.
Invoking everything from labor movements and suffragettes, to Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton, and finally Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama evinced an iconic confidence that even a cynic like myself can appreciate. His critique of McCain and Bush were by far his most forceful yet, but they didn't come off as mean-spirited or gratuitous. He was able to attach the gravity of our current situation to the need for bold change, and do so convincingly, which is rather nice after the aw-shucks, stay-the-course mentality of the last eight years.
Now I'm only commenting on his speech as a speech, I have no idea if he'll be able to pull it off. But it was truly exciting to watch him hit his stride, to hear his cadence establish a natural rise and fall, and his aping of Dr. King's flow at speech's end, with the repetitions of "America, we cannot turn back," rose well above homage, and could well become a touchstone moment in Democratic politics.
On the pragmatic side, the stage managing of the event could have been better. I sometimes wonder if it would be better to take these things as you would a Hollywood film, and judge them according to the same criteria. The DNC would be a bit like Spiderman, assuredly over-the-top but still entertaining and ultimately affecting. It was, however a poor choice to show video clips of Obama making stump speeches, as some of the same stock phrases showed up in his acceptance speech just minutes later. I got the impression that Obama himself wasn't thrilled at repeating those phrases. It seemed like he hurried through them, to get them over with.
I also feel that he may come across as arrogant to some, or possibly aloof, though that's more an issue of people's warped perceptions than anything he should concern himself with. To me McCain comes off as a fool when trying to mimic the gee-whiz folksiness of Bush, but maybe some people gravitate to that, I don't know.
In the end Obama did an admirable job and left no doubt that he understands his moment and has completely embraced it. It's not at all sure that he will succeed. Something in me worries that America may still be slow in accepting such radical change. But it is clear that Barack Obama is not pandering or pulling any punches, and that is something to be proud of.
28 August 2008
26 August 2008
Joy Division
Grant Gee, director of the Radiohead tour documentary Meeting People Is Easy, offers another excellent example of pop music cinema. Stylistically, the film is more of a traditional documentary than the Radiohead film, constructing its narrative through interviews with various denizens of the Manchester post-punk scene, bandmembers Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris included.
The formalist experimentation of Meeting People Is Easy does reappear at various moments, most successfully in montages contrasting modern Manchester with the decaying metropolis of the late 70s. Gee is skilled at framing shots of urban landscapes that exude a certain bleary ennui. That theme was a main component of Meeting People Is Easy, and of Radiohead's OK Computer, but here a better connection is drawn between Joy Division's restless, relentlessly modern music, the society that shaped it, and the cutting edge production techniques of Martin Hannett that made Unknown Pleasures and Closer such bracing listening experiences.
Furthermore, while the Factory Records saga has been dramatized a couple of times in recent years, it is still exhilirating to hear principle figures such as Tony Wilson, Paul Morley and Peter Saville recount their experiences. What is most striking is the element of social critique present in the commentaries. One gets the impression of the Manchester scene as a collection of serious individuals who were well aware of the attack they were levelling against modern society, whether explicitly or implicitly, as in the disquiet at the heart of all Joy Division songs. Perhaps it is inevitable that a retrospective film would gain deeper insight, but it is still remarkable to contrast the cogent awareness of the Manchester principles with the flailing discomfort of Thom Yorke in Meeting People Is Easy.
Some sort of generational (perhaps educational?) divide separates the two bands and allows the Manchester punks to be commentators with a directive, i.e. socialism, and yet prevents Radiohead from being more than essayers of alienation. Joy Division drive straight to the heart of disaffection, and while clumsy, their WWII allusions at least attempt an analogy to explain modern suffering. Radiohead, a truly great band no doubt, have always seemed hamstrung by the possibility of saying too much, as if this late in the game there is no possible cause or ideology to get behind.
Then again, this could be further proof that Radiohead are the perfect embodiment of their own time, just as Joy Division were in 1979. And of course its impossible to ignore the fact that Ian Curtis gave up on life. But still the attitude of the Manchester scene and the simple, direct power of the music illustrates the basic destitution of modern pop music. Its just a shame that the promise of Joy Division was snuffed out on May 18, 1980.
The formalist experimentation of Meeting People Is Easy does reappear at various moments, most successfully in montages contrasting modern Manchester with the decaying metropolis of the late 70s. Gee is skilled at framing shots of urban landscapes that exude a certain bleary ennui. That theme was a main component of Meeting People Is Easy, and of Radiohead's OK Computer, but here a better connection is drawn between Joy Division's restless, relentlessly modern music, the society that shaped it, and the cutting edge production techniques of Martin Hannett that made Unknown Pleasures and Closer such bracing listening experiences.
Furthermore, while the Factory Records saga has been dramatized a couple of times in recent years, it is still exhilirating to hear principle figures such as Tony Wilson, Paul Morley and Peter Saville recount their experiences. What is most striking is the element of social critique present in the commentaries. One gets the impression of the Manchester scene as a collection of serious individuals who were well aware of the attack they were levelling against modern society, whether explicitly or implicitly, as in the disquiet at the heart of all Joy Division songs. Perhaps it is inevitable that a retrospective film would gain deeper insight, but it is still remarkable to contrast the cogent awareness of the Manchester principles with the flailing discomfort of Thom Yorke in Meeting People Is Easy.
Some sort of generational (perhaps educational?) divide separates the two bands and allows the Manchester punks to be commentators with a directive, i.e. socialism, and yet prevents Radiohead from being more than essayers of alienation. Joy Division drive straight to the heart of disaffection, and while clumsy, their WWII allusions at least attempt an analogy to explain modern suffering. Radiohead, a truly great band no doubt, have always seemed hamstrung by the possibility of saying too much, as if this late in the game there is no possible cause or ideology to get behind.
Then again, this could be further proof that Radiohead are the perfect embodiment of their own time, just as Joy Division were in 1979. And of course its impossible to ignore the fact that Ian Curtis gave up on life. But still the attitude of the Manchester scene and the simple, direct power of the music illustrates the basic destitution of modern pop music. Its just a shame that the promise of Joy Division was snuffed out on May 18, 1980.
25 August 2008
Why We Fight
Today's NY Times contains an article about the struggle to teach evolution in Florida's public schools. In recent years many school districts around the nation have actively sought to limit or indeed ban evolution from biology curriculum. "Intelligent Design" has become a buzzword for supposed alternative theories, but the real conflict is not between two theories of natural life, but rather between those who utilize science in the quest for knowledge and those who discount science outright.
Over the last 50 years a continual %50 of American adults have proclaimed to believe that human life was created by God, fully formed, roughly 10,000 years ago. No other First World nation shows such bizarre belief in creationism. It speaks to some element of the American psyche that predicates the idea of knowledge on unquestioned leaps of faith, on received wisdom delivered from on high. Namely, it speaks to a nation of followers, eager to be led, eager to have their belief systems laid out for them, and eager to be dominated.
Is it any wonder that so many people would be so gullible in believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, or that the Iraqi regime had something to do with 9-11?
Eugene Jarecki's film "Why We Fight" analyzes the American impulse for war, as well as the mechanisms that both make war possible and sell it to the public. It is not so far a leap to connect the American willingness to wage foreign wars with the prevalence of anti-scientific sentiment both in the American public and in certain intellectual circles. There is a definite element of American thought that aims to repeal the principles of the Age of Enlightenment. It seems implausible in the year 2008 but it is impossible to deny.
Pre-Enlightenment thinking embraced the concept of divine ordination. The monarchies of royalist Europe derived their power from the notion that they were only one step below God's holy authority. Even without President Bush's evangelical fervor, the repeated insistence that the American public unflinchingly put their faith in the moral righteousness of their Commander-in-Chief cannot help but reek of feudalist despotism.
As we come up on a critical election season it is worth noting that the mechanisms of domination and aggression are deeply entrenched in the very fabric of American politics and also lay at the core of public thought in America. No simple change in executive leadership can undo those shackles.
But it is also worth noting that when Dwight Eisenhower warned us to guard against the unfettered rise of the military-industrial complex, he was doing so as a precautionary measure against something which had yet to happen. True, in the last 40 years a vast consolidation has occurred across the spectra of power, but what has been built can also be dismantled, and 40 years can be but a mere blip in the biography of a nation. One thing a leader can do, though it is risky, radical, and - as the assassinations of the 1960s showed- often fatal, is to seize the reigns of the power and have the fortitude to steer things in a path of rectification rather than destruction. It remains entirely unclear whether anyone in the current political climate has the gall attempt such an action.
Many words have been spent on the 2008 election, and many more will be before November finally rolls around. But the only real issue is whether the next President will choose the to continue to write the biography of the United States, or author its obituary.
Over the last 50 years a continual %50 of American adults have proclaimed to believe that human life was created by God, fully formed, roughly 10,000 years ago. No other First World nation shows such bizarre belief in creationism. It speaks to some element of the American psyche that predicates the idea of knowledge on unquestioned leaps of faith, on received wisdom delivered from on high. Namely, it speaks to a nation of followers, eager to be led, eager to have their belief systems laid out for them, and eager to be dominated.
Is it any wonder that so many people would be so gullible in believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, or that the Iraqi regime had something to do with 9-11?
Eugene Jarecki's film "Why We Fight" analyzes the American impulse for war, as well as the mechanisms that both make war possible and sell it to the public. It is not so far a leap to connect the American willingness to wage foreign wars with the prevalence of anti-scientific sentiment both in the American public and in certain intellectual circles. There is a definite element of American thought that aims to repeal the principles of the Age of Enlightenment. It seems implausible in the year 2008 but it is impossible to deny.
Pre-Enlightenment thinking embraced the concept of divine ordination. The monarchies of royalist Europe derived their power from the notion that they were only one step below God's holy authority. Even without President Bush's evangelical fervor, the repeated insistence that the American public unflinchingly put their faith in the moral righteousness of their Commander-in-Chief cannot help but reek of feudalist despotism.
As we come up on a critical election season it is worth noting that the mechanisms of domination and aggression are deeply entrenched in the very fabric of American politics and also lay at the core of public thought in America. No simple change in executive leadership can undo those shackles.
But it is also worth noting that when Dwight Eisenhower warned us to guard against the unfettered rise of the military-industrial complex, he was doing so as a precautionary measure against something which had yet to happen. True, in the last 40 years a vast consolidation has occurred across the spectra of power, but what has been built can also be dismantled, and 40 years can be but a mere blip in the biography of a nation. One thing a leader can do, though it is risky, radical, and - as the assassinations of the 1960s showed- often fatal, is to seize the reigns of the power and have the fortitude to steer things in a path of rectification rather than destruction. It remains entirely unclear whether anyone in the current political climate has the gall attempt such an action.
Many words have been spent on the 2008 election, and many more will be before November finally rolls around. But the only real issue is whether the next President will choose the to continue to write the biography of the United States, or author its obituary.
19 August 2008
From Russia With Love
In all the coverage of Russia's current adventures in Georgia/South Ossetia, I've yet to see one person relate the crisis to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strike. It's hardly surprising that the US, which unilaterally invaded Iraq, has no standing to criticize Russia's own actions. This is the fallout from the Bush Doctrine and the dangerous precedent it set. It just doesn't seem as if anyone is willing to admit it, not even the "liberal" New York Times. Are we really doomed to watch the press dutifully ignore this glaring issue when the next belligerent nation decides to annex territory? Imagine what China thinks of the ineffectual West. We all know of China's designs on Tibet, and really, who is to stop them?
Let me be clear - I'm no hawk. The United States neutered itself with the bombs it dropped on Baghdad five years ago. And as we reap what we have sown, the harshest losses will fall on the people of Georgia, who now realize how fickle an ally the US really is.
Let me be clear - I'm no hawk. The United States neutered itself with the bombs it dropped on Baghdad five years ago. And as we reap what we have sown, the harshest losses will fall on the people of Georgia, who now realize how fickle an ally the US really is.
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