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The Sorrows of Race and Gender in the 2008 Election

Jill

Just read it. Jensen is spot-on. A taste:

My sorrow comes from the recognition that the radical analyses of the feminist and civil-rights movements — the core insights of those movements that made it possible when I was young to imagine real liberation — are no longer recognized as a part of the conversation in the dominant political culture of the United States. It’s not just that such analyses have not been universally adopted — it would be naïve to think that in a few decades too many dramatic changes could be put into place, after all — but that they have been pushed even further to the margins, almost completely out of public view.

24 thoughts on The Sorrows of Race and Gender in the 2008 Election

  1. Albright, Rice, and Powell are not the fulfillment of a liberatory dream but are part of our long national nightmare. If Clinton or Obama were elected and continued the same basic policies that allow the United States to consume a disproportionate share of the world’s resources — as they both indicate they will — then they will haunt us as well.

    No shit!

    This has been my problem with all the usual hullabaloo over electoral politics, especially when it starts intersecting with racism and misogyny. Do people really think replacing a cog in the machine, even a large cog, with another cog that operates the same function but is pink or black instead of grey, is really going to make a difference? Do people really expect that Clinton would bring about a system that’s less racist, or Obama a system that’s less misogynist? Or that the stupid comments, slips of the tongue, political maneuvering, campaign backstabbing or heck — even honest personal opinions — that comes out of either camp will have anything to do at all with whether a future Democratic administration is actually less misogynistic or racist?

    Wait, I’ll go further. Do people really think a Hillary Clinton administration would help this country make significant inroads against sexism or a Barack Obama administration would help this country do the same against racism? Sometimes I feel a faint glimmer of hope, but it seems like an awfully long shot — the stuff of delusions or disappointment. It all seems totally absurd to me, this individualizing of people’s anxieties about how fucked up this country is with regards to sex and race onto two individuals and their victory-hungry election campaigns. It’s a distraction from the real substance of problems, which believe me, does not enter into electoral politics very much.

    Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory appearance was a brief moment of the intrusion of radical ideas into the campaign, but even if he wasn’t an attention-seeking incendiary, he would have been swept off the stage as quickly as possible by Obama’s campaign for exactly the reason that Robert Jensen points out when talking about how Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were removed from the picture: radical ideas are not allowed on the national stage. (Note btw that this is not a comparison of Wright to King, yeesh.)

    The most common response I get to that challenge is the claim that these candidates actually have a more radical agenda but realize that they must keep it under wraps in order to get elected. Just wait, I’m told, until after an election victory.

    BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHA liberals, you kill me.

    Sure, I’ll go out and vote for the best candidate I can find who appears to have a reasonable shot at victory. But I’m certainly not giving my money or time or energy to this crap. I don’t necessarily agree with Jensen on his famous critiques of masculinity or pornography. But he’s right when he says:

    If that is the case — and I believe it’s a reasonable account of our society — more than ever the work is not to turn over our time, energy, and resources to any political candidate but to build alternatives on the ground. That is a political response to a political problem. It isn’t a question of hope v. no hope. It’s a question of reality v. delusion. To believe that an unsustainable system can be sustained indefinitely — and to support political candidates who believe that — is a sign not of hope but of desperation and defeat.

  2. @Holly
    Thanks for putting that out there.

    Especially this point:

    Do people really think replacing a cog in the machine, even a large cog, with another cog that operates the same function but is pink or black instead of grey, is really going to make a difference? Do people really expect that Clinton would bring about a system that’s less racist, or Obama a system that’s less misogynist?

    and this point:

    Do people really think a Hillary Clinton administration would help this country make significant inroads against sexism or a Barack Obama administration would help this country do the same against racism?

    As someone who supports neither candidate but is willing to vote for either in hopes of defeating McCain, I have wondered the same.

    I really connected with these particular Jensen quotes:

    The most powerful articulations of feminism and the civil-rights movement did not simply say, “Let’s leave these fundamentally unjust and unsustainable systems in place but put some women and non-white people in positions of power.” They argued for a transformation of the systems. […]

    These are not candidates opposing imperialism and capitalism but candidates telling us why we should believe that they can better manage the system. […]

    While they have plans that may help curb the worst excesses of the imperial state and corporate capitalism, they do not confront the brutal nature of these systems.

  3. The comment by Holly is a core basis of why I think George Lakoff’s framing is a distraction, and not a useful set of directives.

    People accept the frames they are *given*. The main *dispenser* of frames is generally the mass media, either directly, or through close family and friends.

    The very attempt to *use* framing in order to get ideas unwanted by TPTB is a fool’s game, because all it would do is reinforce the strategems that *they* use.

    We have to focus more on delivering media ourselves, with radical ideas for the use of 3G and figuring out ways to get people to accept other devices, maybe not so rigorous as something *read*, but something easily generated everywheres that people can accept structural elements of heuristics from.

  5. Do people really expect that Clinton would bring about a system that’s less racist, or Obama a system that’s less misogynist?

    Well, some people are that naive. I’ve often thought of social change proceeds in much the same way as biological evolution – incredibly slowly most of the time, with the occasional equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion. Clinton as President wouldn’t change much, but it’s often incremental changes that pave the way for those who come after, by making it that little bit easier for the next woman President, for example.

  6. TPTB – The Powers That Be.

    I agree with him but I think he’s being a little negative. No, we don’t have Presidential candidates proposing radical social change, but we do have Presidential candidates endorsing family leave, the right to a safe abortion, the right for states to allow gay marriage, and a whole host of issues that would have been unthinkable forty years ago. Just because the changes aren’t happening as fast as we would like doesn’t mean that change is dead.

    I think the conversation has changed since those halycon days, and that we’re in a conservative period, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way forever. Just look at all the people criticizing the institute of marriage in light of the gay marriage issue.

  7. I agree with him but I think he’s being a little negative.

    I was nodding along until I got to this apocalyptic thinking (page 3):

    When I was younger, I thought that trajectory would play out over many decades, maybe even centuries. As we see the consequences of dead power mounting — in human and ecological terms — I now think we have decades, maybe only years, to correct our course. But most of the modern world, especially the narcissistic United States, is unwilling to even think about what it will take to change that trajectory.

    Yes, we need to get our shit together about global warming and the environment, but this smacks a little too much of End Times-type thinking. When you become convinced that you’re living in The Most Important Time in All of Human History and that the whole world is going to end if people don’t do what you say, that’s an ego thing 90% of the time.

  8. “are no longer recognized as a part of the conversation in the dominant political culture of the United States.”

    Were they *ever*? Maybe I’m just too young to remember such a period, and the histories have been whitewashed. But as far as I can tell, such analyses went from marginalized, to slightly less marginalized, to mocked, to marginalized.

    “….have been pushed even further to the margins, almost completely out of public view.

    For example, when I talk about these ideas with students at the University of Texas it is for some the first time they have heard such things. It’s not that they have rejected the analyses or condemned the movements, but they did not know such radical ideas exist or had ever existed. ”

    Perhaps his views are colored by being at a university, where such ideas *were* in wide circulation — but I suspect most people never knew such radical ideas existed during the 60s or 70s either.

  9. Sara, 3G is new cell phone tech…I sorta used it as a shorthand for (largely retarded in the US) personal communications revolution.

    Persia, I, and I think, Holly wasn’t really talking about gay marriage, abortions, and family leave. These issues are trimmings, iterative issues from the main branch of potlatch power politics. Control is being marketed to patriarchal preachers and their flock and women at large, marketed between the managerial class and the working class, but at large, this control is only being *leased* out. If there are steps forward, it can be taken back as needed, and the control of large minorities of people guided by the idiot box or email chain letters, or by xenophobic leanings of whatever stripe can be used to stampede a larger but more fragile consensus.

    Why do you think Democratic party members have been on the right side of issues, over and over, but haven’t been able to capitalize on it? A large minority that does not give a shit about fair play who have been able to stymie conversations on their obsession and make it all about them than have a productive conversation. The classics are usually based on wildly illogical “deserve” logic eg pitting a fertilized egg or sperm against a grown and healthy woman, or the brown people are lazy and dangerous and dirty and don’t deserve to get jobs. This is because the *frames* that guide the construction of these social meme control devices are cheap and easy to construct. Lakofftian framework is simply not friendly to the substance of ideas and ideology that admits to complexity, and just about all truely liberal ideas that can reshape our world for the better–example–truly universal health care–instead of iterative focuses on more widely spread insurance.

    What’s more important to recognize is that framework is easy to recognize. If someone who has control of the media wishes to stick to lowest common denominator, then unless liberals want to do lowest common denominator (which is kind of what many revolutionaries do, despite so much lofty rhetoric and expensive words–It’s still We’ve Got To OverThrow The Man, but well, Che Guevera only lasted so long), liberals, no matter *what* frames they use, cannot get the message out into communities where it can be watered and grown, because the suits will *always* catch on to it, because the frames would inherently have more joints than the lone hero kills everything in sight! Think about the frames on BattleStar Galactica, and how it attracts your attention all the time–then I might sneakily ask of you, think of the frames in the show’s themes. The ones that make up Athena’s role are fascinating to me, the ones about how the Other must submit to the (w)Right(eous). Lots of frames there, huh?

    Another element of the use of TV, is the use and celebration of violence. I’m not sure how much people understand how acceptace of violent imagery interrupts a community’s ability to cohere.

    Distributed mass communications is the only way to disintermediate power brokers who support the kyriarchy. Of course that would lead to many distributed forms of oppression. Can’t kill Maya like that, but well, this is why Kali exists, for a distruction that hopes for the better.

    Lastly Persia, watch, watch, WATCH, this episode of Joss Whedon’s Angel…5.14, with a transcript for Smile Time here. It has a pretty damn direct rebuttal of your thinking, and the illustration is pretty convincing. This episode was SO truth-telling that WB cancelled Angel’s last season the week before this show aired. It’s also, to put it very mildly, completely hilarious.

  11. This is how I feel after this primary also. When I hear feminist who I respect making the same arguments to ignore racism as the general public that makes me sad. When I hear feminist excusing Ferraro’s comments or saying things like “We don’t need another Hussein” or saying “Why can’t he just wait?”. It doesn’t make me angry like it does from most people, instead it makes me sad that those I see as allies have been only speaking PC and hiding their true feelings which aren’t anymore evolved then anyone else’s. It is so disappointing because I can make a statement about Hillary only being in it because she is a woman and a Clinton and it is understood what damage it causes but the same apologist excuses that others would use to pardon this statement comes out of the mouth of those feminist in defending Ferraro. I also saw just how invisible sexism is to the Left. Race is visible and intense before the Left media and bloggers but at the same time, sexism hasn’t been treated like it never existed. It is treated like at best whining coming from a small group of people who you can choose to be nice to and pacify or ignore completely without any real issues coming out about it. All of this has left me feeling like regardless of who becomes the nominee, we will have to look at each others as a community and see how truly divided we still are. Where do we go from here?

  12. The irony is that Clinton and Obama, who today are viable candidates because of those movements, provide such clear evidence of the death of the best hopes of those movements. Those two candidates have turned away from these compelling ideas so completely that neither speaks of patriarchy and white supremacy. These are not candidates opposing imperialism and capitalism but candidates telling us why we should believe that they can better manage the system.

    I had to stop reading after this. Did I miss something? Why is this “spot on”? Clinton and Obama are not simply walking billboards of white woman and black man, they do not simply represent these groups. Simply because political and cultural figures are from this group does not mean they need to run around discussing “patriarchy” and “white supremacy”. It is certainly not “sorrowful” that they chose to not engage with race and gender in exactly the way this writer wished them to. They obviously did choose to engage in dialogues of race and gender in lots of different ways, not approved by this author apparently.

    As a young woman of color I am dismayed by the rampant sexist in the media, but the only feminists that are speaking up seem to be the Ferraros of the world. Splitting more definately the feminisms of the Betty Friedmans and Gloria Steinems, and what it has become today. This differences are visible to all who are following the elections, they are gelling from theory to practice, and I for one, am ecstatic that it’s taken center stage.

  13. I accept Jensen’s point that a president isn’t going to cause radical social change, but I kind of feel like thats irrelevant. Its like saying that the next Prime Minister of England is unlikely to influence the cost of bread in Ohio. Sure, its factually true, but it is a statement of zero significance.

    Radical social change (or even minor social change) rarely comes from the top down. Sure, expecting high elected officials to enact major change is foolish, but so is not caring about who is in positions of power. Take the black civil rights movement as an example. King was going to march no matter who was in the White House, the prevailing winds of society were going to demand change, that was never up for discussion. What was up for discussion was how people in places of power would respond to that change when it came. Would they support it? Would they ignore it? Undermine it? Fight it? The fall of the Soviet Union can be seen in the same way. The people had had enough, a popular revolt was going to happen, but the response from the Kremlin would have been different had it been someone more like Stalin in charge rather than Gorbachev.

    The fundamental flaw in Jensen’s argument seems to be that he expects some powerful figure to come and make things right, some force to coerce greedy people into being less greedy. Jensen doesn’t seem to believe that Obama or Clinton are likely to be that force, but that force is a daydream. A political leader pushing and enacting a radical social agenda is about as likely as Jesus coming back and saving us all. It might be a pleasant fantasy, but it isn’t even remotely connected to reality.

    Its difficult to see, but some significant social change has happened over the past few decades, the past century. Virtually all of those gains have been the product of individuals at the street level fighting. That doesn’t mean we have no where more to go, our accomplishments represent the first steps down a staggeringly long path, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t done incredible things. Women’s suffrage, no fault divorce, legal and obtainable contraception, abortion, the end of Jim Crow, the end of conscription, legalized sodomy, the widespread abandonment of the closet, marriage equality right around the corner. These are amazing accomplishments, even a little movement is shocking, but the pace of change has hardly been glacial. It just seems that way because we have so far to go.

  14. Its difficult to see, but some significant social change has happened over the past few decades, the past century. Virtually all of those gains have been the product of individuals at the street level fighting. That doesn’t mean we have no where more to go, our accomplishments represent the first steps down a staggeringly long path, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t done incredible things.

    I doublechecked to make sure this metaphor works, but to use a cliche, it’s like we’re climbing Everest. We just got to the Everest Base Camp, looked around, and realized that we have another 20,000 feet and four additional camps to go before we get close to the top.

    Base Camp is a pretty high place — it’s at 17,000 feet — so it’s a pretty good accomplishment to have made it there. That doesn’t mean the journey is over, or that it’s hopeless to continue on because it took us so long to get to the first pausing point and will take us even longer to get to the next. It does mean that we need to realize how much further there is to go and not fool ourselves that these things are going to be solved in our lifetimes, or even our children’s lifetimes.

  15. Simply because political and cultural figures are from this group does not mean they need to run around discussing “patriarchy” and “white supremacy”. It is certainly not “sorrowful” that they chose to not engage with race and gender in exactly the way this writer wished them to. They obviously did choose to engage in dialogues of race and gender in lots of different ways, not approved by this author apparently.

    It’s sorrowful because the way they’re engaging with race and gender are thoroughly centrist and tailored not to rock the boat or challenge any existing racist, misogynist power structures. Which makes sense because they’re vying for a place in those structures, and can’t be expected to try and topple them. (And the idea that they’re going to secretly do that is just laughable, as I mentioned earlier.)

    It’s sorrowful because the ways mainstream political candidates have to engage with race are those that are non-threatening and non-challenging to white people. They ways they have to engage with gender are non-threatening and non-challenging to men. Anything more is not allowed on the stage; it’s pushed to the margins. Of course, a lot of assholes out there are challenged by the very fact that a candidate is a woman, a candidate is black. And that just drags everything further in a non-threatening direction to try and capture the center.

    Of course William is absolutely right that it’s ridiculous to expect anything more from national electoral politics. It simply is not how real change has happened or will happen. Which is why all the fuss over Obama’s comments or Clinton’s comments is simply not about actual sexism or racism at all. It’s about what a few people said in pursuit of centrist liberal power, which is not going to affect much of anything.

  16. Holly–>

    First of all, Comparing Jeremiah Wright to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X? What? The idea that blacks and whites deserve equality is not “radical”, but preaching that “US spreads HIV/AIDs to blacks” is.

    Secondly, the power of “radicalism” (however you want to define it) to “change the world” is HUGELY overrated. In fact, if anything it has often pushed us back a few hundred years. Bush was very very radical.

    Thirdly, suggesting any of the candidates (clinton OR obama) would be the same “cog in the machine” is ridiculous. One of my lasting irritations is this fallacy that all politicians are the same. We listened to this rant when Gore was running, 2000. Gush, Bore? Remember? Do you honestly believe this country would have been the same under a Gore presidency? No. They were not the same. Your choices make a difference.

  17. William stole my analogy. 🙂 Sometimes it sounds like people expect Clinton or Obama (or some other hugely popular, respected politician or public figure) to enact the second coming of Christ and usher in a golden age with a flip of their magic wand and wiggle of their nose. Christ wasn’t able to do that even the first time around.

    People like Obama and Clinton are often the figureheads of the movement, held up as examples or devils, as the case may warrant. Martin Luther, Gandhi, King, Malcolm X are quickly becoming figureheads as well, but they started as people, people who wanted to make a difference at the ground level, their level. (Christ is about the best example of a good person who wanted to make a difference going on to become a figurehead, often attributed with more power than he actually had.)

    Christ was a carpenter who died a horrible pointless death and a couple hundred years later someone dusted him off and said ‘hey, I can take advantage of this’ and gave rise to modern christianity as we know it. (Which emperor was it? Justinian? Constantine? I can never remember his name. He claimed to have seen a glowing cross in the sky on the way to battle and converted and after winning the battle, offered a small sect of rebels protection from persecution, eventually making christianity the official religion in the empire.)

    Luther was a monk pissed off at the conditions of the church and wanted to fix things. Same with King and Gandhi. They wanted to make things better *for their people* and ended up doing a lot more besides. It will be interesting to see who King and Gandhi are treated in a hundred years…

    Obama and Clinton are great figureheads, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t look to them for change. I look to regular people who want to make a difference. I look at homosexuals who live openly even in places where that can kill them. I look at people like Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop who recently married his partner. I look at the people who applied for marriage licenses in California. I look to regular people who draw a line and refuse to budge.

    When it comes to Obama and Clinton, my greatest hope is that when that moment comes and they are faced with that *moment* they react the way they should. With openness instead of a clenched fist. More King’s March on the Mall and less Wounded Knee, if you know what I mean. That will make them great.

  18. First of all, Comparing Jeremiah Wright to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X? What? The idea that blacks and whites deserve equality is not “radical”, but preaching that “US spreads HIV/AIDs to blacks” is.

    This is what Holly said:

    Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory appearance was a brief moment of the intrusion of radical ideas into the campaign, but even if he wasn’t an attention-seeking incendiary, he would have been swept off the stage as quickly as possible by Obama’s campaign for exactly the reason that Robert Jensen points out when talking about how Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were removed from the picture: radical ideas are not allowed on the national stage. (Note btw that this is not a comparison of Wright to King, yeesh.)

    The emphasis is mine–really, it was lazy of her not to put that bit in bold for your sake.

    Secondly, the power of “radicalism” (however you want to define it) to “change the world” is HUGELY overrated. In fact, if anything it has often pushed us back a few hundred years. Bush was very very radical.

    Wrong again. The word for someone who wants to take humanity back several hundred years–and who’s got plenty of precedent to work with–is not “radical.” We call those people “reactionary.” Bush was not interested in changing society at its roots, but in exploiting its oldest prejudices and weaknesses in order to demolish every progressive change this nation had managed over the past century or so. Radicals were the ones arguing that mainstream Democrats couldn’t be trusted not to cave to that agenda. And, hey, now we’re lionizing one Democratic candidate for refusing to support an illegal, impossible, gerrymandered, graft-septic war waged by shameless incompetents on behalf of shameless partisans.

    Thirdly, suggesting any of the candidates (clinton OR obama) would be the same “cog in the machine” is ridiculous. One of my lasting irritations is this fallacy that all politicians are the same. We listened to this rant when Gore was running, 2000. Gush, Bore? Remember? Do you honestly believe this country would have been the same under a Gore presidency? No. They were not the same. Your choices make a difference.

    How ’bout Kerry-Edwards vs. Edwards-Kerry? Given that we’re talking about comparisons between two Democrats here–Democrats whose platforms are almost identical–it’s only realistic to argue that they wouldn’t be all that different in office. They won’t. And pretending, yet again, that mainstream Democrats can be trusted to represent the interests of the progressives they alternately demonize and ignore is not the way to make a responsible candidate.

  19. Piny —

    we’re lionizing one Democratic candidate for refusing to support an illegal, impossible, gerrymandered, graft-septic war waged by shameless incompetents on behalf of shameless partisans

    .

    What are you talking about? Are we lionizing Clinton? What war? The Iraq war?

    Wrong again. The word for someone who wants to take humanity back several hundred years–and who’s got plenty of precedent to work with–is not “radical.” We call those people “reactionary.”

    Radicals and reactionaries are cousins. You are arguing with me over semantics. Please. My point was the power of “radical politics” to change the world more than “centrist” politics or “leftist politics” or “rightist politics” or “martian politics” is overratedly overrated overrated. What troubles me is that your argument implies that Obama or Clinton should get on that podium and rant about “white supremacy” and “patriarchy”. As dictated by these people over here, let’s call them “radicals”. As if the way the candidates do engage with race and gender will not change anything. Which is simply not true at all. As if only one mode of discussion (“radical”) will change history. Which is not true at all. (note my use of quotes, all of the terms we are using are ill-defined).

    How ’bout Kerry-Edwards vs. Edwards-Kerry? Given that we’re talking about comparisons between two Democrats here–Democrats whose platforms are almost identical–it’s only realistic to argue that they wouldn’t be all that different in office. They won’t.

    First of all, I was talking about Obama vs. McCain. I have stopped thinking about Clinton as a viable candidate. I should have been more clear. I am assuming we agree that McCain vs Obama is pretty significantly different and they are not cogs of the same machine.

    But even between Obama and Clinton, there are significant differences that shouldn’t be just ignored. Presidents get to create national dialogue; and do you honestly believe that that narrative would be same under both Obama and Clinton? I certainly don’t. It’s a mistake to assume that all politicians are the same, even if they are both democrats. That was simply my point.

  20. P.S. On my last point (about Obama/Clinton/Mccain), sorry about that. That was my mistake. I keep forgetting what I said, confusing my point. Hopefully that was clear (my point).

  21. Do you honestly believe this country would have been the same under a Gore presidency?

    I don’t think it would have been substantially different, not beneath the surface, and not in the ways that this country affects the world. I’m pretty sure we still would have waged the same wars and done the same shit to the planet — yes, even if Gore were president. Do you really think it’s something PERSONAL about Al Gore, as opposed to the positions he ends up in, that makes him a champion of the environment? Because I don’t. Cogs. In. Machines. Politicians are barely different. If I woke up and were president tomorrow, I doubt *I* would be much different. The best we can hope for, if you ask me, is that some people in positions of power are less corrupt and greedy than others and take less advantage and ruin our economy less.

    I’ll still vote for a Democrat because as a huge political machine, they’re a little bit closer to values I’d like to support, as opposed to beholden to religious fundamentalist interests that aren’t going to do anything except try to drag us all back into the 17th century. On a broad level, there are some small differences between parties. Sure, I’ll vote for Obama over McCain. Obama over Clinton? I don’t really care. I voted in the primary because I feel it’s important in principle, not because I thought it would make a difference. (And practically speaking, it didn’t anyway since the candidate I didn’t vote for took all the delegates, and ridiculous voting problems in my district made things even worse.)

  22. I don’t think it would have been substantially different, not beneath the surface, and not in the ways that this country affects the world. I’m pretty sure we still would have waged the same wars and done the same shit to the planet — yes, even if Gore were president.

    Not substantially different? Say that to the millions of Iraqis and American soldiers and families who have lost their lives, their homes and their loved ones. The US presidency went “beneath the surface” for them. Ridiculous statement. No, Gore would not have gone to war with Iraq.

    Do you really think it’s something PERSONAL about Al Gore, as opposed to the positions he ends up in, that makes him a champion of the environment? Because I don’t. Cogs. In. Machines.

    umm… what? So basically your argument is Gore wasn’t “personally” invested enough?

    Politicians are barely different. If I woke up and were president tomorrow, I doubt *I* would be much different.

    umm.. I think our lives would be different if you were president. lol. what?

    The best we can hope for, if you ask me, is that some people in positions of power are less corrupt and greedy than others and take less advantage and ruin our economy less.

    I think that’s basically super pessimisstic. And I don’t buy it. It’s not worth my time. It doesn’t help anyone do anything. What is worth my time is checking out websites like this. And trying to actually understand our system, and who we elect. Instead of lazily buying some tired old cliche about all politicians being the same.

  23. I spent years saying there was no difference between Dems and Repubs. I voted Third Party in the general election for a couple decades just to make that point. Then came the GWB’s decision to invade Iraq after 9/11, and I have changed my mind. I honestly don’t think Al Gore would have led us into that war.

    But back to the original article, I have had similar mixed feelings about this election. I, too, have thought of the Clinton and Obama candidacies as “cogs” in the System. But I’ve lived through enough changes to see that historical firsts *do* make a difference, just not in the ways we would all like to see. One difference is that my 7-year-old niece, who is bi-racial, is growing up in a world in which she will totally take it for granted that women and people of color run for president. The difference from when I was 7 is astounding. (I was 7 in the ’60s.)

    The radical movements and ideas make the more moderate changes possible and acceptable. This will continue to be true.

  24. Holly, do you have any good reason to believe the Iraq War would have happened if Al Gore had been president?

    We might well have invaded Afghanistan, yes. (Although, maybe not. I often wonder if 9/11 would have happened *at all* with Gore at the helm; the sheer incompetence involved that permitted more than one of those planes to hit their targets was remarked on by bin Laden himself.) But Iraq was completely a war of choice, and it was Bush’s choice. And that war has contributed substantially to our dire economy here at home.

    How about the global gag rule? Clinton got rid of that; Bush put it back.

    How about how slow we have been to respond to both global warming and to peak oil? Both would have been great concerns of Al Gore, who was concerned with the environment when he was a Senator, let alone a VP. The reason we did nothing whatsoever about serious issues facing our nation is not that the position of president would have forced anyone to ignore this shit, but that we had a particularly incompetent, stupid and intransigent president who was married to Big Oil. As Al Gore’s partners at the dance were Big Communications, Big Entertainment, and Big Tech, he would not have been stupidly beholden to Big Oil; Big Tech, after all, can make money out of green solutions. Even if everyone is married to big corporations, *which* big corporations makes a big difference; Big Oil and GE/WarMachines and Halliburton make money off war; telecom, entertainment and technology make their money whether there is war or peace, and honestly probably prefer peace because it’s easier to sell shit overseas that way.

    I don’t think Al Gore was that special and great. I think George Bush was that specially *bad*. *No* one has been as studiedly incompetent at everything he did as Bush was. Most American presidents do what the circumstances require, at least in part; Bush did exactly the opposite of whatever circumstances we were in. Get attacked by terrorists from Saudi Arabia who are hanging out in Afghanistan? Invade Iraq. Face a recession caused by nationally being depressed about getting attack? Gut the budget and buy everything on credit in the name of paying off the rich. It *mattered* that we elected this fucktard, because he took eight years that we could have been making slow forward progress and did his best to drag us back. And no, Gore would not have done that.

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