Bye Bye Bush

We have "only one President at a time," Barack Obama said in his debut press conference as President-elect. Normally, that would be a safe assumption - but we're learning not to assume anything as the charcoal-dreary economic winter approaches. By mid-November, with the financial crisis growing worse by the day, it had become obvious that one President was no longer enough (at least not the President we had). So, in the days before Thanksgiving, Obama began to move - if not to take charge outright, then at least to preview what things will be like when he does take over in January. He became a more public presence, taking questions from the press three days in a row. He named his economic team. He promised an enormous stimulus package that would somehow create 2.5 million new jobs, and began to maneuver the new Congress toward having the bill ready for him to sign - in a dramatic ceremony, no doubt - as soon as he assumes office.

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks. (See TIME's best pictures of Barack Obama.)

It is in the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between. I've been feeling sorry for Bush lately, a feeling partly induced by recent fictional depictions of the President as an amiable lunkhead in Oliver Stone's W. and in Curtis Sittenfeld's terrific novel American Wife. There was a photo in the New York Times that seemed to sum up his current circumstance: Bush in Peru, dressed in an alpaca poncho, standing alone just after the photo op at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, with various Asian leaders departing the stage, none of them making eye contact with him. Bush has that forlorn what-the-hell-happened? expression on his face, the one that has marked his presidency at difficult times. You never want to see the President of the United States looking like that.

So I've been searching for valedictory encomiums. His position on immigration was admirable and courageous; he was right about the Dubai Ports deal and about free trade in general. He spoke well, in the abstract, about the importance of freedom. He is an impeccable classicist when it comes to baseball. And that just about does it for me. I'd add the bracing moment of Bush with the bullhorn in the ruins of the World Trade Center, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles - overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence.

The latter has held sway these past few months as the economy has crumbled. It is too early to rate the performance of Bush's economic team, but we have more than enough evidence to say, definitively, that at a moment when there was a vast national need for reassurance, the President himself was a cipher. Yes, he's a lame duck with an Antarctic approval rating - but can you imagine Bill Clinton going so gently into the night? There are substantive gestures available to a President that do not involve the use of force or photo ops. For example, Bush could have boosted the public spirit - and the auto industry - by announcing that he was scrapping the entire federal automotive fleet, including the presidential limousine, and replacing it with hybrids made in Detroit. He could have jump-started - and he still could - the Obama plan by releasing funds for a green-jobs program to insulate public buildings. He could start funding the transit projects already approved by Congress.

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

808's and Heartbreak....your thoughts of the album

The End of Black Radicalism

The beginning of the 20th century saw the rise of black nationalism and black power organizations as a response to severe injustices suffered by African Americans and black throughout the world. It was a response promoting spiritual and social growth through the destruction of oppressive chains. The rise of Marcus Garvey that inspired millions of blacks to come together to form a government that would protect their rights instead of exploit their humanity, Henry M. Turner who turned God black, Malcolm X whom used religious separatism to inspire spiritual and social growth did so because they felt a black man could and would only go so far in America. It was this premise that gave black radicalism its base.

No matter how you describe black radicalism it was a movement that drew hope from despair. A despair that it fueled if only to galvanize and aggregate the community into movement. And it worked and failed! And we could go through the movements successes and failures that would take a book to dispose. However, what we have to acknowledge today as we witness the historic rise of now President Elect Obama is that black radicalism is dead dead dead.

If the premise of black radicalism is that you will never be equal, you could never be president, white people will never elect a black leader; then how now in 2008 could any black radical leader appeal to its base? This of course is not to say that injustice has miraculously disappeared. Yet, it should shed light to the African American community that suffering and injustice is not our birthright. As early as 2005 I remember a discussion with a African American Studies professor about the need for African Americans to form a force in America to physically fight injustices. This was of course in the wake of Hurricane Katrina when a lot of African Americans felt helpless and those more liberal longed for organizations likened to Marcus Garvey's UNIA. But I think now, as we watch closely Obama assume power and transform the hearts and minds of blacks through imagery if black radicals have a leg to stand on.

The truth of the matter is that we have found hope in this country and there is an opinion for success. Gone are the days when just because your black are you subjugated to despair, hopelessness, and poverty. And truly gone is the option that the only way to cast off injustice is through separatism, reverse racism, and war. In fact, their is little appeal for an ideology now when so many have found hope elsewhere. I know that in the future, my children will be born into a world that they will never know without computer and the possibility that non-whites can be leaders of this country. I honestly do not want them to be urged into any movement out of feelings of hopelessness and despair. In these hours, those blacks that were deemed moderate have been vindicated and those that were radical have been farther marginalized. Fact if Black radicalism...dead dead dead.


Final thought, I wonder what this means for the future of the House?!?

No We Couldn't:Difference Made Constitutional

I should be happy right now. After all, America just took a big step in the direction of realizing its promise. Instead, I am sad. A dark cloud was put over this day by the voters of California, who passes an Indecent Proposition 8, which excluded same sex couples from civil marriage.Yes, it's upside down on purpose. Look up the symbolism. (a pic of the California state flag upside down)I admit, I've argued many times that marriage should not be our biggest priority, when in most states - like the ones where I went to college and graduate school - I could be expelled from college, fired from my job, evicted from my home, and/or have the doors of stores and restaurants slammed in my face, simply because I was seen or thought to be coincidentally be in a relationship with someone of the same sex, as opposed to the opposite one. I've also pointed out that when nondiscriminatory marriages are judicially mandated, they often rest on very shaky political supports. Despite this, I also think that where we have the right to marry the person of our choice, we should fight for it. And given that it's civil marriage, I believe this is a matter of civil rights. When I think of these bigoted laws and amendments, I - as a black man - think not of the Civil Rights Movement, but of my slave forebears, whose relationships were seen as being illegitimate, and not worthy of respect by the rest of society. (After Emancipation, it should be noted, one of the first things many newly freepersons did was to pursue legal marriages.)It was terribly disappointing, then, when the majority of the California electorate decided to vote their ignorance, their fears, and their often polite prejudice. Speaking of that veiled bigotry, how can those of you who think that same sex marriage should be illegal be honestly think that you're not being prejudiced, or that you're not really anti-queer? What fictions and lies must you tell yourselves? Please be very clear: what you - and the people from other places who helped fund your efforts - said was that queers are creatures of a lesser order; that our relationships are sinister and destructive; and that public recognition and legal affirmation of our same sex relationships would somehow harm children. (Maybe you're afraid that we'll convert some of your kids to "faggotry." Is that it?) And apparently none of you saw the irony in that it's not as if YOUR marriage was going to end if Prop 8 failed. Or maybe you thought that if same sex marriages were legally affirmed, Ellen would, on her show, whip out a dildo and pleasure herself; or maybe that a couple of butch guys would knock on your door, proceed to enter your home, and, Rick James-style, fuck your couch.Let me also say to those of you who supported Crock 8, excuse me, Prop 8: I hope you're happy. No, I'm serious. Not at ease, relieved, or - Jesus - content. I want you to be so motherfucking happy that you have a demented, Joker-sized smile plastered on the lower part of your face. Because your decision yesterday has brought great sadness to many millions, both us and our allies, who believe that we should support, as opposed to scorn, those who seek a stable and mutually affirming relationship without regard to gender.Despite this setback, that's all it is - a temporary obstruction. This Proposition will be undone somehow in due course, as will the rest of these vicious laws. Will we undo your condescending, discriminatory actions, and with our allies, move forward with our lives. We will do this because we will not continue to live in shame, or to live your lies. I continue to believe, at the risk of straying into Marxism, that the weight of history is on our side, not yours.But as for yesterday, if nothing else can be said, it shows us where we stand in the eyes of this nation: the most populous state in the country, supposedly a liberal bastion, wrote discrimination into their constitution; the leading presidential candidate gives at best lukewarm support of our rights and dignity; the opposing candidate is openly hostile or dismissive; organizations that seemed nice, like the Knights of Columbus, and many a preacher and rabbi are not to be trusted; and that people all around America will fund institutionalized hatred. I must say, I'm now sympathetic to corporations like Apple and others, who opposed the referendum. And if not before, I now have a special hatred towards groups like Focus on the Family and all those other right-wing organizations devoted to making our lives miserable. I hope from deep down inside that they, and the movement they're a part of, are crushed; their organizations bankrupted; their hateful and false ideology, their leaders and blind followers defeated.One more thing: those of you in California, and, for that matter, in Florida, Arizona, and other places where you've taken the opportunity to vote against same sex marriage (or those of you who've done political work for such, or gave money to an effort, or had a sign or bumper sticker):Please, please , the next time you run into one of your LGBT friends, family members, coworkers, fellow members of religious institutions, and so forth: let them know how you really feel; tell them you think that their relationships are at best unnerving, but more likely a disgusting abomination; tell them that you think that they, in their queer identity, are wrong . Be real with them. Because as unpleasant as that would be, it's at least better than you shaking our hand while pissing on our feet.

By Another Mr. Smith.....