Politics and personalities

What I am loving about this election cycle is that it's pointing up, unavoidably, the fault lines in our society. I mean, how about that intersection of race, class, gender, and generation huh?

Whole classes can and will be taught, not long from now, on this race. Big irritatingly interdisciplinary classes. They will be enormous fun to teach in Comp I and II.

What I enjoy is that I have to keep checking my head. Am I going to vote for X or Y because of their chromosomes and genes, the sound of their voice, their clothing, their age, their youth, their past and present associations, their endorsements, or their positions? Not being a Vulcan, I find it's a salad sort of thing.

Policy looms large, of course. But then there's all this other stuff.

I can tell you this: as much as many white men don't like Hillary's voice (Shrillary they call her, for raising her voice in excitement and to be heard over crowds, oh my -- a situation in which the untrainded voice goes up an octave to two), I can't stand listening to McCain. It's not that he sounds like my dad. My dad never speaks to me that slowly, or that reassuringly. Even my Grandpa at his most arrogant was never as condescending to me as McCain is when he talks to us. McCain talks like the man who thinks the women (or people) he's talking to are stupid. He makes the issue sound simpler than it is because women (and you voters are all women in this particular power dynamic), well, we just can't handle the complexities. The truth, maybe, but not the whole truth. Drives me nuts. This is how the Straight Talk is just as twisted as the unabashedly political spin.

On a purely personal (political) level, I do not want to move from listening to Bushisms and bravado to listening to McCain talk to us all like we ride the short bus.

Then there's the part where he's to the right of even Bush Co on many points, and just no way. That would piss me off so much that I would run for president. And trust me, that is a job I do Not want.

Personally (politcally), affect-wise, I don't like the way Hillary is playing the old dirty pool of politics. I don't agree with Faludi that this is some awesome display of feminine masculinity and toughness and getting down with the boys. I agree with Ehrenrich that it is wholly possible to be a woman, play hard and Fair, and win. That it's possible to just be a woman and kick ass without being a jackass to do it. I like that she's that smart, and strong, and stubborn, and savvy. Go Hil! I do not like that she's that sneaky. I don't think that foul play is a sign of masculine strength.

I think its a sign in women of the same thing it is in men.

Fear. Avarice. With nice a reduction of revenge and cassis.

I do not need another president with Something To Prove. Been there. Stuck in Iraq, paying taxes to support the debt for a war that means we may not only have more Iraqi blood on our hands than we can Ever karmically redeem, but that we may well, Again, "fuck up the end game" in Afghanistan as Charlie Wilson complained LAST TIME.

And when she used the word "obliterate" in relation to tension with Iran? That was just fuckwittedly irresponsible. Not even wrong. Help Iranians get rid of the mullahs whom most of them detest, or at least defang the bastards, and you won't have to use such words. Sorry sisters, that was the last straw for me.

I mean no other comparison in the following than this next bit says. When Bush was running the first time, I mumbled to friends that voting for him was dangerous. This was back when he was practically ad isolationist and all I was worried about politically was the fundmentalists who wanted to save the world for Christ by making everyone else miserable. But Bush had another facet. He's a recovering alcoholic with something to prove (that he's not a dillitante). Knowing some active and recovering alcholoics, I watched him. He liked excitement too much, glowed in an uncanny way in its presence. What I said was that recovering addicts don't go into action, don't become alive or really engaged until there's an emergency, until it's all on the line. And Bush went golfing a lot until 9-11. Clinton also has something to prove. That she can come back, that she can get power back, that she can get into a position to beat the crap out of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' (which, we now know, there so was). Also, she digs power too much. Clearly will do just about anything to get it.

It's a purely psychological response on my part. Both Bush and Clinton 'read' to me like people with second and even third agendas running behind and even contrary to the interests of the nation and the people. Hence, no vote from me.

Still,could I just smack the daylights out of the pundits, talking heads, and voters who are having their sexist little roll in the shit at her expense? Oh hell yeh. I just love having it confirmed, again, that I live in a world rife with men who hate women. Just plain hate us, no matter how suave they are about it.

And, sympathetically, I know what it's like to work for a good long time for a goal and get smacked down. I've been doing that with the book, the job market, the whole set of goals for my little life for a decade. There comes a point when one feels owed. That feeling is utterly wrong and misplaced. I cringe for her when I watch her win a primary and then Obama gets a click or two closer to the ticket. I cringe for her when I watch her talk on podiums and at interviews, and then the misogynists get there gleeful hate on. I know that part of this not acceding the nomiation is sheer will and a desire to show that a woman won't be sent home by set-backs and insults. And good on her for that. The emotional gut punches that keep coming from talking heads and the voters and the delegates have got to hurt. The pushing through frustration and will are laudable. The bad feeling I have and the dirty pool and the dick-measuring of "obliteration" just won't let me get behind her.

But equally to the misogyny grinning from the TV, it's good to remember that we live in a world of white people who just don't know a damn thing about black people. And are scared of them. Part of white privilidege is being able to get along in life without that knowledge. Sadly, Clinton has played on that too. This is not a democratic gesture, an invitation to become familiar with the other, to transcend ethinicty or religion for the higher goal of the welfare of all the people. That Obama jujitszued the Wright-thing into just such an invitation is astonishing and beautiful and encouraging. While the sociological study I get to do this cycle is very interesting, that was the second to last straw for me. Not Cool. Racism might be handy politically, just like homophobia is, a wedge issue, but it's just not worthy of a vigorous democracy or of the Democratic Party.

Am I in love with Obama? No. Do I tote the Obama line all the way? No. His policy needs tweaking for me. I'm actually a good bit to his left. But, people, whose policy wouldn't need a tweak if you really thought about it? Mostly, I'm good with his positions.

What I'm really good with is that he has nothing to prove, and that he really is trying to do the work of politics and democracy with more seriousness and grace and fair play than has been seen in my whole yearning lifetime.

The difficulties and changes and new directions facing this country and this society right now are many, deep, wide, and very serious. Not only "our civilization" but all civilizations hang in the balance between the hydra heads of global warming, food crises, and energy supplies (and kinds of it), poverty. Let's not even being to think about potable water. Our social infrastructure needs as much repair as our physical one. Our whole understanding of what it means to be democrats (small d) needs to be reaffirmed after the coma its been knocked into by the neocons and their allies. Our economy needs as much attention as all of the above and renewed and smarter sense of oversight and regulation. We do not live in 18th and 19th Century markets, and we should never have been blinkered into believing we do just because Men in Suits say so. Saving social security etc. for our parents and children is going to be a real nailbiter.

Without serious leadership, in short, we are screwed.

We Gen Xers, Jonesers, and Millenials, we have a whole big fat lot of work in front of us. I just doubt that playing dirty or continuing with more of this will be of any use at all.

We simply can't afford second and third agendas getting in the way of working on this set of problems which will, very directly, stick their fingers in the guts of us, our children, grandchilren, and the whole rest of the human world.

I'm not sure of my reasoning, not entirely. I know that other than what I've read of position papers on their websites, I'm dealing with these candidates on intuition. I am fully aware that this intuition is being pinged by their PR and handlers. I also know that we have no other tools than those: some history, some knowledge, and very hopeful guessing according to that internal radar.

Like you, I want a leader. Not just a president. A LEADER. Leaders don't condescend and transmute their embarassments into virtues (McCain), and leaders don't run second and third agendas (Clinton). They work the problems. Hillary felt like a leader to me at first. She felt like my Second Wave older sisters whose steel and dedication I work to inculcate in myself. But after all this time, all this dithering in the crap, I can see that the person up for the position of Leader is Barak. Sure, some won't follow him easily. Some won't follow Hillary easily. And some won't follow John easily.

Even if he looks like the sort of human we are used to following.