Two Things I am Not Trying to Understand

These two things I am not trying to understand.

1. Supportive, positive, intentional association with the views and practices of a man who promotes a false flag discussion of Sandy Hook.
2. Intentional use, repetition, and promotion of rhetoric supportive of institutional and personal abuse of women, African Americans, Latinx individuals, Muslims, and refugees.

Since the United States voted this week to elect the man who will be our new president in two months, we have heard and read many sentiments and statements. We've heard much about needing and wanting to understand each other, to learn why people we know and disagree with voted for someone whose actions and words we characterize as abominable, dangerous, or unfathomable.

I have said that now is not the time to invest further in understanding why the unfathomable was done.

I believe and strongly, painfully feel this because there are two things that I know go beyond a lack of understanding on my part. I don't want or need to understand why someone that I know - as a human and often as a friend - supported the national, world, and cultural leadership of our president elect.

May I be clear: 

I do not say this is "not my" president elect. That is, he is my president elect.

I do not say that I cannot respect, empathize with, care about, or learn from my friends whose vote supported our president elect.

I do not say that a friend who practiced her or his civil right in support of the president elect believes that no children died at Sandy Hook, no teachers died, no parents grieve, no grandparents mourned, no siblings... Nor do I say that such a friend believes abuse is good or that hateful rhetoric is a positive trait in a leader.

I do not say that a citizen must or does agree with everything a candidate says, does, or promotes.

I do not say that a candidate for U.S. president must or does agree with every person or group who campaigns for him.

I am saying that there are things about which I will not compromise because these things are so wrong and simultaneously so integral to the character - at least as it is portrayed - of a leader.

I am saying that, given the length and mass-social mediation of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, I do not believe or have hope that I will hear something new addressing a good, worthy reason to act in favor of a leader who practiced the two things listed above. I don't feel a sense of responsibility or desire to listen to explanations that don't acknowledge the evil in those two practices.

I am not linking to online sources which have received mass, repeated, and diverse attention during the many months before this week. They not only are there, they have been there; now is not the time for us to re-state and re-link to examples as if fresh data or a fresh debate is that one thing we need. (If you are genuinely unsure what the number one point I list above is, and you want to expose yourself to that information, you can do a google or human-conversation-search for Al*x J*nes. [Fill in the vowels.])

Good will not come from our discussing the relative significance of the two practices listed above. Perhaps right now we might not need to know for whom our friends voted (or why). We do need to know how each other hurts and what each other celebrates. This is one of our high callings.

Let's try to understand the economic and other social struggles and pain the federal government may be able to lessen, and how we can participate in that work of justice and relief. Let's acknowledge, even if not in fraught conversation between you and me, that there is nothing good to say in excuse for two unfathomable practices of our president elect.

The Campaign: "How's My Hair?"

In 2012, I wrote a series of movie reviews to coincide with a "Faculty Film Series" I produced on Elections and Presidents at my former academic institution. Here's the crankiest one I did.

The Campaign. Dir. Jay Roach, 2012.

Love it or hate it.

There. Now that I’m done with my review of the new movie, The Campaign, I shall move on to some more interesting business at hand.

Oh, sorry. You were expecting more? Really, don’t.

The Campaign is a Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis comedy directed by Jay Roach. If you’ve seen almost any Roach-directed (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents), or Ferrell (Anchor Man, Talladega Nights) or Galifianakis (The Hangover, Due Date) -acted movies, you have a good idea of what to expect from this over-the-top, crass, stereotype- and cliché-driven story of a couple of sometimes sort of well-meaning doofuses running against each other and the system for congress.

Roach, Ferrell, and Galifianakis are each talented and successful moviemakers and performers, capable of nuanced, thoughtful, and, I would argue, culturally valuable work (see, just for one example apiece, Recount, Stranger Than Fiction, It’s a Funny Kind of Story). The Campaign is not one such product.

The story follows incumbent North Carolinian congressman Cam Brady (Ferrell) as he faces a series of scandals jeopardizing his run for reelection. Enter Marty Huggins (Galifianakis), conservative, naïve, and awkwardly lovable pawn in billionaire businessmen the Motch brothers’ (John Lithgow and Dan Ackroyd) plot to manipulate government regulations. The two campaigns one-up each other with increasing horribleness (and success) in their bids to win.

The Campaign gives us a tightly paced script built on a rhythm moving from endearing moments of empathy for underdogs to fart jokes and in-our-face offensive scenes of children describing unhealthy sexual experiences – all loud, exaggerated, and then over quickly enough that we can laugh and move on if we don’t get mired squirming in discomfort. Ferrell plays a familiar character, the cocky, popular guy who’s not as smart or together as he looks, while Galifianakis gives us his socially and physically awkward outlier who’s sometimes deeper than his shtick.

The script offers one relevant, contemporary reference after another (clear nod to the billionaire Koch brothers’ underwriting of apparent grass roots politicians, easily swayed masses, empty rhetoric) and running sight gags (out of control politicians competing to kiss babies, anti-hero so dumb he can’t work a doorknob).

All maybe true, but not at all insightful or particularly creative in treatment. A bumbling idiot might be funny in contrast with his surroundings and situation if the bit reveals some insight into self or culture (see Mr. Bean at the Olympics). But it offers little when it’s just a repetition of gags in the context of redundant juvenile taboo-breaking.

Full disclosure demands I admit Meet the Parents is on my most-hated-movies-I’ve-ever-seen list and I didn’t find The Hangover (or – controversially! – its gender counterpart Bridesmaids) enjoyable. The most interesting thing I noticed about The Campaign was this R-rated film ran attached previews for Nickelodian and Disney produced movies, appealing to the under-17 cravings in its audience at an over-17-rated movie. The Campaign doesn’t aspire to leave us reflecting or conversing, but Roach, Ferrell, and Galifianakis give us what their previous box office numbers (and the frequently LOL’ing audience I saw the film with) have voted for many terms over.

It’s a presidential election year, and a little exploitation of the current cultural happenings can’t be all bad. There are quite a few politically themed movies out there that take us a little deeper than The Campaign attempted to go.

(From original 2012 post; included here for context. This fall’s Faculty Film Series goes there. I’ve selected from dozens of great options four films on the theme of Elections and Presidents, including some familiar and some less known, some serious and some sometimes silly. Over the course of the semester, we’ll go to 1970’s U.S., 2000’s Iran, and a couple settings in between, to enjoy creative, thought- and conversation-provoking film treatments of democracy in action (and comedy). Join us for screenings and conversation beginning with Iron Jawed Angels. This contemporary dramatization of the last days of the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. reminds us what it cost in the past for us to vote in the present.) 

Originally posted at http://blogs.gordon.edu/facultycentral/2012/09/06/film-review-the-campaign-as-election-fodder/. Image from official movie site.

Say Something Nice

How to reduce tension, get along now and in the future, exude the tasty fruit of kindness...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/30/greene-if-you-can%E2%80%99t-or-can-say-anything-nice/

Eventually (maybe!) this election cycle will end. And we will have (maybe!) results, which will take, at minimum, months to play out in any tangible every-day-life ways.

Our rhetoric and our conversations now are necessarily different from what they will be after next Tuesday, given the urgency some feel yet to make a persuasive difference in the voting process. Still, what we say now has consequences for relationships and reality now and into the future.

Is it possible to be passionate, driven, righteous, wise, even angry, and at the same time able to see and speak of goodness in neighbors with whom we disagree?

Group hug-it-out in five days!

{semi-cross-posted on Fake-I-Mean-Facebook}

Conversation

If you didn't already watch it on PBS this week, you have an hour to spare, and you're interested, I recommend the Bill Moyers interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, available (in two parts) here.

Vote early, vote often

I'm a qualified optimist. I like to vote.


I like the symbolism of taking action in situations which seem otherwise to be paralyzed by rhetoric, posturing and non-productive competition.

I like the elderly poll-workers who take my name, give me my ballot, show me where to go and what to do.

I like the elderly citizens who lean over the minimal divider while I'm in my "booth" and ask me to read them the small print on the ballot. "Do I just pick one?" I look at the column and instructions at the top. I like the fact that I sort of have to move it back and forth myself a couple of times, squinting and imagining that it might be time for me to get reading glasses. Because I've always liked the look of pince-nez half-glasses. "Choose no more than 25," I answer. "Okay, thanks," the octogenarian says as she and I then both try to figure out what we're voting for and if there are in fact even 25 names to choose from in this local political committee list.

I like the feeling I get when I put my ballot in the box. Like I've really done something, not just talked about it. (But I don't like thinking about whether or not I really believe that.)

Every time I've voted at my local precinct, in the community room of a multi-storied senior housing project in my neighborhood, I've thought about how easy it would be to return later in the day and vote again. (When I checked out this morning, the gentleman almost checked off my next-door neighbor's name after I gave him my address. "Valerie?" he verified. "No," I corrected, "Catherine," and leaned over to point to where I was on the list, taking in as many of my neighbors' official party status as I could in a quick glance. I'm a "U," unenrolled, so I can vote in either primary. I like that my state lets me do that, since I'm at my core opposed to a (two) party-system. I like guessing or being surprised when I find out which party, if any, an acquaintance affiliates with. And I like that I can respect and even love them whether they're an "R," "D," or "U." I like the fact that I know my being a "U" doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy or can't make decisions, but that it's an actual value-based stand in itself. But I don't like thinking about it too much, lest it become a stumbling block to me.)

A high school Sunday School student of mine this week told me "George Washington warned against it." I didn't have a Sunday School lesson prepared for this week because I thought my teaching partner had it covered, but he didn't show up. So we talked about how our faith and Scriptural/kingdom values should inform our voting. I like going to a church where the answers to that question are not (assumed to be) deceptively simple.

There are a lot of things to be skeptical, frustrated, or otherwise bothered about in our political process. But I like voting.

I can't wait to vote again on the way home tonight.

(Just kiddin'.)

It's not a Game, but since the Constitution says I can't win by virtue of my Foreign Birth, here's how I'm playing it...

"The essence of democracy is that you can lie about who you voted for." - Charles Krauthammer (on why Caucuses are unfair)

So I went searching for a neutral website that would give me all the presidential candidates' positions at once. And I found one that also provides a mechanism for determining which ones I agree with.

Not one of those mini-quizzes where you answer 10 questions which are impossibly worded so you have to take extreme positions and utilizes some complicated logarithm to calculate who you should vote for without apparent depth (or logic). *I took one of those, too; see below.*

MyElectionChoices.com functions on the basis of rhetoric and choice of interest, and if you visit it and participate, it's like an amusement park theme ride.

Here's the basics: You choose from a list of about 15 "issues." They suggest you choose only one or two to begin with, because it's long: each one provides you with maybe 30-40 direct quotations from candidates, which you read and check off any you agree with. The beauty of the thing is that, because the quotations are uncredited at this step in the process, so you're going through them blind, the rhetoric takes front stage. You might read ten statements (quotations from speeches, official websites, debates, etc.) that basically take exactly the same position if the speakers were allowed only to vote "yes" or "no." But, the way they say it becomes so powerful. I'm sure as I went through the pages and pages of quotations, I checked off some statements which would (ostensibly) result in the exact same legislation as ones I did not check off because I did not like something about the way a speaker presented his (or in one case her) position. Sometimes it sounded pandering (just words, no tone or body language), sometimes it sounded like a lie! How can you tell if something is a lie when it's someone's claimed opinion and it's only in writing? I don't know, but I'm fascinated by the question.

So, first I just went through two issues, and looked at my results. Any time I checked that I agreed with the statement, the candidate who'd said it got a point. The results showed me a chart with every candidate I'd agreed at least once with in a line from most to least. On the two issues I agreed with something like 7 Democrats and 5 Republicans. On two issues!

((SPOILER ALERT))

I was amused and intrigued by my results. I'd been a little concerned, and rightly it turned out: I agreed with John Edwards twice as much as I agreed with anyone else. McCain came in a lower second, with Huckabee soon behind him. Not surprisingly, to me, Mitt Romney and Hilary Clinton were in the bottom. Somewhat surprisingly to me, Obama was closer to the bottom than the top.

Following on one of the questions from the New Hampshire Democratic debate on ABC, I don't like Edwards! (I like less poor Clinton, whose feelings that hurts, she said, and really really dislike Romney.) I like Obama, and McCain has a way of popping up in my estimation when I least expect it. (I liked Huckabee for about a day in December, but haven't cared for much I've seen or heard since.) Yet, even in a system based on rhetoric, it proved I align myself most with the candidate whose positions my gut told me I most supported but whose person I'm not attracted to. Person and rhetoric. They should be connected, shouldn't they?

So I added a couple of issues. One at a time. Edwards remained at the top for almost every single one of the sets of quotations I went through over the course of a couple of hours last weekend. Other candidates moved around from time to time. Clinton inched her way up and was at the top on one issue. (Not the top of the cumulative total, just of that one issue. But then, I think Fred Thompson was at the top, or second on one, too!!!) Obama started moving up pretty consistently, and for about half the time as I moved my way through the whole set of issues and quotations he, McCain, and Huckabee hung out tied in second place to Edwards at the top.

Then, with just a couple of issues left, Obama went out in front, and after I'd read and responded to every issue and quotation the site provided, Obama and Edwards are basically tied in first, with Hucakbee and McCain not too far behind in second. Clinton and Kucinich are tied in the middle (the site also includes several more non-viable and dropped-out candidates I'm not listing who spread the results out) with Guliani a little ways below her, while Ron Paul, Romney, and Fred Thompson are bottom three. (TMI?)

The process is interesting in several ways. First, because you can choose which issues you want to respond to on their own or in combination with others (you can't, apparently, rate them against each other, though - so I ended up doing all but the first two in alphabetical order), you can see how if you're a one-issue voter you might have quite a different result than if you're a conglomerate player. There might be an issue I don't really care about, but if pressed, I do have an opinion, or I can at least tell you if I agree with a statement or not. Should this influence my voting, or not?

It's also fascinating to think that I probably agreed with both Clinton and Romney's stances (? maybe, not sure about Rom) on literal position more often than the results suggest, but something in my mind registered that I did not trust (or at least just did not resonate with) how they presented their case. And I really did do it pretty much blind. I didn't linger on quotations trying to figure out who said it, and only recognized maybe two actual statements based on either details in them or my having heard the original delivery in a debate.

Alas, how helpful was any of this? No less so than any of the other ridiculous mechanisms in place for "helping me decide," like ads and most (not all) talking-point Sunday morning interviews. (And the great thing about my job is, I can always use waste-of-time or questionable-quality media activities as Classroom Learning Examples.)

I recommend the site, if only for the fun with layers of meaning and signification.

(I took a mini-quiz on another site which required me to choose one answer from three on only 17 questions: my personality loathes that kind of thing, which is why I always mess up the poor Meyers-Briggs types by canceling out all my trends with opposing answers. Nevertheless, it told me my top candidate was John Edwards, too.)