Election Night '08

Nov. 10, '08.

Last Tuesday 'yes we can' changed tense to 'yes we did.' On this truly historic election night, a geopolitical game of Othello had red states flipping blue; states that had--since LBJ--ridden on the back of an elephant suddenly thumbed a ride with the donkey.

I was at San Diego's Civic Center Tuesday night, 1) hoping for an Obama victory and, 2) hoping that the purportedly leftwards shift of the socio-political climate was enough to defeat Prop 8. How, in 2008, can you have a ballot measure that features the phrase 'an amendment to eliminate the rights...?' It's like casting a ballot to put Rosa Parks back at the rear of the bus. Then again, the Civil Rights amendment has been brought to the Supreme Court more often to defend corporate rights than it has civil rights (!). So is our nation...

Prop 8 was narrowly passed and, to punctuate the point, Prop 8 supporters stormed Golden Hall following the Obama call chanting, "Yes on 8!' with evangelical passion. And I say 'evangelical' literally, because the coterie of '8' supporters seemed to be a church youth group led by a pastor alarmingly resemblant of Bill Richardson. Golden Hall became a volley of chants: "No on 8, no on hate" and all its variations; and the insistent 'Yes on 8.' Jay Bakker--where were you to mediate?

The stand-off made me realize just how divided the populace still is. After two questionable elections and two election-night CNN dissertations on the popular v. electoral college vote, we are undoubtedly aware that a 'landslide vote' is anything but. There was much jubilation on Nov. 4th--globally even--but, and as the punditry has made evident, a good deal of resentment. Rush Limbaugh has declared, "Let the games begin," and Sean Hannity is still insisting Obama's gonna bomb a church the day he takes office.

To illustrate the idea of resentment: at Golden Hall, big-screen televisions broadcast election night coverage, what with all the fancy CNN touchscreen maps and celebratory/concessionary speeches. John McCain appeared on-screen and the lot of us gathered around the tube to listen. Rather, I should say 'read.' The noise at the center was too loud to actually hear McCain's speech and so we had to read the closed-captioning subtitles. There was immediate bristling from the progressive crowd as we read the words: "...and I concede to Senator Obama EVEN THOUGH HE CHEATED." Did he just say that? We were aghast. But, as McCain continued and the closed-captioning soberly and now accurately broadcast McCain's words--his anecdote about Booker T. Washington haing been invited to Teddy Roosevelt's White House, his compliment of Obama's decency--we all realized that the claim of 'election fraud' came from whatever bitter citizen was in front of the closed-captioning keyboard. Probably some guy with an 'ACORN drives me nuts' T-shirt and a bumper sticker proclaiming 'Obama/Marx '08.'

This indeed is a strange time. Having mentioned Marx, I have to quickly comment. McCarthy and his whiskey-liver have been dead and pickled for over fifty years. Last I checked, McCarthy was the buffoon of this past political century. He created a big-top out of the House of Un-American Activities, lavished in the celebrity of a burgeoning TV culture, deposited the 'Bachmann-of-her-day' Ayn Rand on the stand, and found a Red under every rock (especially them Hollywood rocks). And every night he would, as Halberstam reports, eat a stick of butter to buffer the body-shock of liquor he'd drink in bars up and down Capitol Hill.

Why, now, is McCarthy suddenly the go-to model for civic behavior (that first part at least, maybe not the bourbon+butter part)? Why is Fox News quoting the 'Communist Manifesto' when interviewing Joe Biden? Why does the phrase 'redistribution of wealth' leave a bitter taste in the mouths of who utter it in nationally syndicated forums? Wow--the Cold War may be on ice, but we can sure defrost its language in the RNC microwave when we want a vernacular snack.

And now that socialism's greatest hits are being spun on the punditry turntable, I want to urge you to take a studied look at what is heralded as the 'Great Nationalization' of our banks ('nationalization' is the juiciest of socialist words--it's the low-hanging fruit plucked by the Hugo Chavezes of our day). Perhaps many of you were confused as I to read of history's most Neo-conservative administration (talkin' about 'W' of course) "partially nationalizing the American banking sysytem." Even my CEO uncle, former employee of Bechtel and avid over-seer of data-mining, has said: "Hank Paulson sure ain't acting like a Republican." Still, Paulson wins support from my 'Grand Ole Uncle' and--on a broader scale--Paulson surely isn't being hammered from the Right with questions about Das Kapital. Why the disconnect? Why are there Obama bumper stickers featuring hammers and sickles and there hasn't yet been a Photo-Shopped image of Paulson's bald head besmirched with Gorbachev's birthmark? I went to my favorite media watchdog--Naomi Klein--to garner perspective.

N. Klein is the author of 'No Logo' and 'The Shock Doctrine'--two of the most important reads I think one can have in their library (right next to 'People's History of the United States' byHoward Zinn). Klein has been adamant in documenting modern (read: post-Eisenhower) history as a narrative of Chicago School thinking and Friedman-ite excess. In a time where we ideologically confuse confuse democracy with the free-market, there remains a persistent historical chain-of-evnts pointing towards an in-fact disregard of democracy and an aggressive forward of laissez-faire greed.

Currently, Klein's attention has been placed on 'The Bailout.' The Bailout was--if you remember--rejected almost universally upon its revelation mid-October. Then came the McCain-Obama support, thn came the famous DOW upswing (momentary upswing I should say). At this point, with a revelatory Obama win, I think it's easy for the populace to forget mid-October (and today's market fluctuations) in ieu of Mr. November's win. But the Bailout is happening right now and--in a Lame Duck period--there are billions of irretrievable tax dollars being 'pre-1/20' shed to AIG's Wall Street. Obama only presides at the Bully Pulpit right now--he is not yet at the Presidential Podium. He can't change anything just now. This remains an important time to get informed and act accordingly with regards to bailout legislation.

Which leads me back to my original thread: Klein and Klugman and Stieglitz and Phillips (R) answered my questions with regards to bailout cash-flow. There does NOT exist a partial nationalization of banks, but--rather--a partial privatization of the U.S. Treasury. The consensus is saying the bail-out is lacking the regulation we as the populace need. Money is indeed being funneled to the Wall St. collective, but it's being handled by ethically-hollow consultants. Federal oversight is legally absent and, for the most part (and because they're not legally obligate) banks aren't loaning a dime. The point of the bailout was to get the banks loaning again, like in Europe. It ain't happening. Remember the AIG outrage? It's happening tenfold, under-reported. Golden parachutes are flashig 14K as they descend into the green flash horizon. And banks are merging into big swollen nothings. Why loan when you can conglomerate? (A symbolic t-shirt reads: I'm not fat, I'm American).

Considering the economy is Obama's chief concern (though he's got a thing for Kashmir...)--and the economy is the #1 concern of exit pollsters--let's keep vigilant. We all know the 'Executive Mandate' game is going to happen regardless--Bush forwards uranium mining, Obama repeals it, etc. (the aforementioned Othello game). But we really don't know which way the economy's gonna turn. Down absolutely. But then?

I read the World Bank's predictionary report a few months ago and already it is obsolete. Global recession was predicted for mid '09, but it's already here.

At Golden Hall I was ecstatic. Jenn was crying and my toddling son was wide-eyed with the spectacle of everything. It's 2008, the forty year anniversary of the most politically active year in the globe's recent history: 1968. On a lighter note, it's the anniversary of the Rolling Stone's 1968 anthem: 'Street-Fighting Man.' My son tunes into Will I Am's 'Yes I can' video as easily as he nothing-claps to Jagger's jagged lyrics. This is a good time. Even if uncertain.