two umbrellas

I’ve been quite busy lately with freelance work that I am slacking a bit on original posts/content. So here’s more from around town…

• A “crisis of belief”: The WSJ wonders “Will this crisis produce a ‘Gatsby’?” and discusses literature, the Depression, and Sherwood Anderson:
  

  In particular, Anderson found the people he met to be imprisoned by what he called the “American theory of life” — a celebration of personal ambition that now seemed cruelly inappropriate. “We Americans have all been taught from childhood,” Anderson wrote, “that it is a sort of moral obligation for each of us to rise, to get up in the world.” In the crisis of the Depression, however, that belief appeared absurd. The United States now confronted what Anderson called “a crisis of belief.”

  (via ALD.)

• DFW in The New Yorker with more and more (via kottke.) I am now sorely missing The New Yorker.
• Guernica interviews Bernard Henri-Levy (from 2008-Nov), who was recently on a roundtable discussion on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, which is one of the few shows that attempts to discuss issues and not politics.

As more bailouts are being distributed and the stimulus package is reluctantly being passed, I worry about the economy of course, but I also worry about the American Way-of-Life. For far too long we have isolated ourselves with our ability to purchase, which has made us very comfortable. There is a false sense of security in that ability. We become patriotic about our purchasing power and that consumerism will save our economy, or rather our Way-of-Life.

But our current Way-of-Life is unsustainable because, in many accounts, it is useless. It has become more important to our economy and our culture to consume – even if we are consuming what we can’t afford or is completely unnecessary. Jim Kunstler writes about the “Poverty of Imagination” when confronting not only our economy but also our Way-of-Life.

The argument about “change” during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn’t, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team — but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper’s $20,000 college loan, and Dad’s yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan… and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place.

If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there’s a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don’t focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don’t get started on this right away, we’re screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors.

The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on any of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses. It’s a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back again. We’ll see a striking illustration of “phase change” as the public mood goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they were, but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what remains of our capital resources down a rat hole.

Since President Obama was elected I have been waiting for him to resound a JFKesque call to the American people that we need to make sacrifices. We know that times are going to be tough and that many people are going to lose their jobs and not be able to pay their bills and because of that things will change. However, we can’t continue to assure the American people that everything will go back to the way it was, that our Way-of-Life will be restored. What has made the US a great country is our ability and freedom to change and adapt to the world and our nation’s needs. Unfortunately, that can also lead to too much freedom where we ignore the needs of the country as a whole and focus on the wants of the individual. Our national pride has changed from having the best to having the most. We are finding out the hard way that without a strong vision of what our country/government/citizens can do, we are left with nothing but bad debt.

Thank you for showing us hope. Thank you for calling upon us. Thank you for showing us that we can do better – together – as a nation. Thank you for making the future brighter for my daughter. Thank you for today and all of the future tomorrows.

I, too, have been pretty jazzed about Jim Webb. In fact, I would love to see an Obama/Webb ticket in November. But, I was surprised to read Elizabeth Drew’s review in the NYRB of Webb’s new collection of essays, A Time to Fight, which even from the first paragraph (below) seemed to fawn over Webb:

Jim Webb, the junior senator from Virginia, who defeated the incumbent Republican George Allen in 2006, is or has been: a best-selling author; a screenwriter (Rules of Engagement, and another in the works); an Emmy-winning documentary producer; the author of a large number of articles and book reviews; an Annapolis graduate; a boxer (he lost a legendary and controversial championship match at Annapolis against Oliver North); an autodidact who grew up a military man’s son and indifferent student but on his own became a passionate reader of history; a first lieutenant and Marine rifle platoon commander with Delta Company in Vietnam, where he won the Navy Cross for heroism (the second-highest award in the Navy and the Marines), the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts; a graduate of Georgetown Law School who then worked on the staff of the House Veterans Affairs Committee; a teacher of English literature at the Naval Academy; and an assistant secretary of defense and then secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. Webb resigned from that position after losing a long battle to block a reduction in the size of the Navy at a time when the Pentagon was under orders to cut its budget. In The Reagan Diaries, the former president wrote, “I don’t think Navy was sorry to see him go.

Granted, the Senator has a lot of accomplishments and seems like a sharp leader; but, I’ve never read a review quite like this.

The NYT surveys writers for recommended summer reading lists for the candidates. (Macbeth was recommended twice for Clinton.) Lorrie Moore, Junot Diaz, Steven Pinker, John Irving, Francine Prose, Michael Pollan, Robert Pinsky, and Gore Vidal (just to name a few) weigh in.

If you live in PA, please don’t forget to cast your ballot.

Last Saturday mr. twoumbrellas and I went to see Lawrence Lessig give a presentation for Barack Obama at UPenn. I was quite impressed (not that I wasn’t impressed with his presentations before). I’ve only ever seen his presentations online so it was a treat to see it live.

Since he was – in my case – preaching to the choir, as they say, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the presentation; I’ve seen so many speeches and listened to the candidates and their supporters for so long that I tend, not quite to lose interest, but my excitement wanes with all of the repetition. Lessig had a few interesting arguments that I had heard him talk about in previous slide shows. What struck me the most interesting was Lessig’s point that change – real change – is not just about action (or ideas of what actions to take) but it is also about perception. How we perceive things are happening in government is just as important as how they actually are happening; transparency can ultimately lead to trust – and a fair government that is working for the people’s best interest.

While I should be very excited about this year’s presidential election, I am, unfortunately, somewhat disappointed in the playing field. For weeks I have been upset – no, angry – at some of the rhetoric that seeped into the campaign. I am not naive to think that this election could somehow transcend politics as usual. However, after seven long years of the current administration, I am tired of feeling like I am weak.

On 08 January, Gloria Steinem wrote an article in the NYT where she posited the question in weighing Senator Clinton versus Senator Obama as candidates in the primaries: “So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?” I’m not sure I know the answer to her question, other than that, as a woman, I don’t find gender (or race) to be an issue in my decision for whom to vote. Maybe for other Americans gender, race, or both are contentious issues – but for me they are not.

There was another statement, however, that she made in the article that I actually had more trouble with:

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

I am under 30 (not by much – but still under) and yet I am considered part of the “youth” vote. While that classification may be semantically easy to justify, I disagree with the common conception that because I am a “youth” that I do not understand the current struggles of our country or what it means to overcome them and what is at stake if we don’t. What is even more striking is the accusation that young people are not as radical as those who are over 50 and 60. Just because I am a woman does not mean I should or I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Not voting for Senator Clinton does not mean that I am not a feminist or “radical”. I can make an intelligent voting decision based on criteria other than gender. I am free to do so and nor does that make me naive. It may not be radical to base a decision on whether or not something is good for everyone and not just women. My generation may have different versions of the same struggles (poverty, war, terrorism, education, the economy, personal liberties – issues that transcend race, gender, and age) that older adults have lived through but I don’t resent them for it. But maybe, just maybe, it could be radical to want our country and its leaders to look ahead rather than to the past.

I am voting for Barack Obama not because I am young. (Actually, I won’t be voting for anyone in the primaries; I am a registered Independent and in PA that means no vote for me.) I do not want the same politics that I have lived through my entire life with the same kind of politicians. I’ll admit, on most issues, all candidates have similar ideas. It is the approach that matters. 2008 cannot be a repeat of 2004 or 2000 (or even 1992 or 1996).

aside For an excellent articulation, see Lorrie Moore’s article in the NYT: “Does her being a woman make her a special case? Does gender confer meaning on her candidacy? In my opinion, it is a little late in the day to become sentimental about a woman running for president.”

Lawrence Lessig writes about the heated Democratic debate last Monday night:

Watching the debate last night, I wondered what happens when we become as bad as they. (WE=Dems; THEY=Karl Rove GOP). For there was a cheapness and dishonesty in the exchange last night that I haven’t quite recognized before. Why I hadn’t registered this before is an obvious question — for of course, cheapness and dishonesty in presidential politics has been with us for a long time. But I recognized something about it last night I hadn’t recognized before…disappointment is one thing; (this word sounds too harsh, I know, but) disgust is something else.

One of my favorite literary magazines, Bookforum, has added a new (and not so surprising) direction – politics. I’ll be interested in how the print version changes and how it will compare with another favorite, NYRB.