Ah...for the love of the other 53%: Bow to your masters!

Republicans thought their path to winning this election was calling the president a Muslim, un-American, apologist (failed strategies from 2008) and asking if we were better off now than 4 years ago.  Believing strongly in that strategy, they felt they could nominate an animatronic candidate who lacked humanity and empathy (hence, is right on the Republican message).  Problem is that they are so out of touch, so in the echo chamber that they only talk to each other and had no sense of how bad off most people were 4 years ago and how better off most now think they are; not recovered, not where they want to be, but better off and unwilling to hear about how destitute they are from some rich stick figure.  Most of us remember the Bush years, even if the Republicans prefer that we not do so.  Sure, some 30% of the country, their base, believes that the president is a “foreigner aiming to destroy the nation” – if Obama saved their mother from drowning, they would say his goal was to make her dependent on the “nanny state”.  Still this strategy has thus far failed because one things most people wanting their president is some sense of humanity - something either Romney never had or he has sworn to suppress to stay in the good graces of his party.  Problem is there is much more money to be spent to try to sell him to us and, failing in that, the Republicans have another clandestine strategy that could steal the election via suppression of the vote.  Romney’s high profile gaffs have distracted attention from efforts by Republicans at the state level (e.g., Rick Scott) to, in the name of saving the vote, block average Americans from exercising this most basic right.  Be it new exotic IDs or dropping people form rolls and forcing them to prove they belong, chances are many will be disenfranchised this election; the Republicans involved have brazenly admitted this.  Yes, the party that wraps itself in the flag and Bill of Rights is actively working to deny government “by the people”.  Of course, they admit this and it is logical to the elitist Republican mind, convinced as it is of its moral rectitude; as revealed in Mitt Romney’s 47% fundraising comments, they believe there are people who will always disagree with Republican ideology and they consider that a disqualifying condition - those people hate freedom and thus do not deserve to vote.  Hence, they see nothing wrong in denying the right to vote of those who do not agree with them.  This is the American future the Republicans envision where only their base, their constituency matters.  If this is not reminiscent of the "Hunger Games", I am not sure what is.

To all those burning US Embassies

It is abundantly clear that you have lived under one form or another of totalitarian rule (whether secular or sacred) for many centuries, that most of you now protesting have not known anything else for your whole lives.  You obviously expect a government to tell you how to live, what to say, who to worhip and so on.  Hence your seeming cluelessness about the US - your idea of freedom is terribly immature.  Your behavior evidences your unpreparedness for real freedom - as with many of our own conservatives here, your under-developed idea of freedom begins and ends at what you want, not what others may do.  The freedom to be me and, quite frankly, fuck with you.  I know you might say that you are not so different than those zealots who shoot physicians or bomb their clinics for religious reasons.  I'd like to disagree, but....

I would like to let you in on a secret (it's not really secret, but you - and like minded folks here - don't seem to get it).  Our government here in the US does not tell us what we can say or what religion to practice  or God to pray to (even though some of our own people do not seem to realize this either and frequently seem to bemoan it).  We are free to piss each other off and do so on a regular basis.  Fortunately only a few crazies kill each other over it.  Here in America, any asshole with a camera and a few bucks and a desire to start shit can make any piece of shit film he wants (please note that this looks like it was made by a 5 year old with a video camera - this is not our best work!) and put it on the web.  The government does not control this nor does it censor the web.  I am not sure what is sadder - that jackasses do this or you look at it and think it is art.

To be honest, some of those making such films want nothing more than to cause trouble, create chaos and further their own ends - I am sure they appreciate you joining in their cause by fulfilling their image of you and your religion.  They want you to act just as you are, in a way that most civilized people find abhorrent, to act out their pre-conceived notions and unflattering images.  It may be that the real violence is not your doing, that you are merely content to burn home-made American flags and throw bottles, write catchy slogans on walls, and hang up black banners.  But the violence being done in the name of your outrage does you discredit, just as the bull shit being said in ours does to us.

Man debates chair to a stalemate

Clint Eastwood’s man v. chair improvisational theater was a sad commentary on his current mental status; I guess making movies with a script and time to think and do a second take is easier than extemporaneous character assassination.  But even more than that, it provided a great revelation for anyone who has consistently pondered the Republican (mis)perception of and hyperbolic rhetoric toward the President.  Eastwood’s “debate” with an imaginary President revealed his own biases and his party’s distorted vision of President Obama; it is a perfect metaphor for the ongoing dynamic between the Obama that Republicans rail against versus what many of us see.  If, like me, you have as often as not disagreed with Obama’s choices but have found the vision of him as “Muslim, socialist, unpatriotic hater of America, apologist, not one of us” inaccurate and hyperbolic and bizarre, then take heart - you now have some insight into this clash of perceptions.  Republicans have, for 4 years now, been arguing with and against that empty chair, projecting their fears, frailties and hatred onto it and imbuing it with positions and properties that are untrue and distorted.  That they do so also stokes the fears and frailties of their base, creating a primal, unyielding hatred of a manufactured inaccurate image.  To be honest they have always done this, but this time there is a twist.  Obama is not simply a blank or ambiguous canvas like an empty chair. He is not a neutral stimulus; his distinct defining characteristic (his race) inherently taps into their fears of “the other”, those less definable fears about a changing nation that is racing past them, their diminished place and power in it and the frailty of their vision.  It is hard to divorce their nostalgia for simpler times from the substance of those fears - their America is, for better or worse, a thing of the past and it is not coming back.  They see the enemy they desperately want and need to see in Obama; his race is a symbol of all that frightens them.  They are like small children, seeing shadows in the closet.  The arguments they use against such racial interpretations are impassioned - it is not about race, they assert - but the spectacle was there, nonetheless, and it is Obama's race that gives their attacks substance with those who lap them up.  I am not a Freudian, but even modern cognitive research shows that humans process very few stimuli and do so rapidly in "deciding" how to react to a stimulus.  Such limited but salient stimuli activate certain anticipatory schemata that include behavioral and emotional responses.  It is clear that some political strategists are aware of this process and know how to use it to get the reactions they want from their constituents.  In fact, this process is likely the basis of politics.  Hence, while excruciating to watch if one has ever enjoyed an Eastwood movie, the two empty images debating on stage was an excellent demonstration of a skewed, self-constructed perception of reality and a glimpse into the collective conservative mind that shares it, the fear that they feel and are trying to tap into, and the distorted vision they possess in response to the "Obama-stimulus".  The revelation was not comforting, but it was illuminating.  Indeed it was an entire convention that railed against opposing positions it has created out of thin air using lies it has manufactured from the same; Eastwood simply brought this duplicity into stark relief.