re: Ben's request for a Top Ten list

This was a lot more difficult than I thought. I’m sure someone will think of something I forgot or take me to task for the ranking, both of which I look forward to. And I know, I know, Batman took up four of the spots. But how do you include one of those and not the others? Which do you drop from the list? This was a post that I planned to spend ten minutes on that has now eaten up too much time that should have been spent reading.

10. The Dark Knight trailer: So it’s only a trailer. It’s still awesome. It’s going to be the highlight of my summer. That and spending quality time with my wife and children. The Batman movie is obviously second on that list. It goes, wife and kids, Batman, Fourth of July picnic. That’s the hierarchy.

9. Greatest American Hero: Believe it or not, I just love the theme song.



8. Spiderman I and II (NOT III): Good, not great, but good enough to make the 5-8 range. It’s probably because they’re so recent and Spiderman is a childhood favorite.

7. X-Men I and II (NOT III): see explanation for #8

6. Unbreakable: M. Knight’s best and most underappreciated film. It is an homage to comic books. The nerd in me can’t resist that.

5. The Incredibles: I know it’s a kid’s movie. But it secretly contains liberal arguments for individual rights over the state (a la Harrison Bergeron), the ability of the individual to protect the state and, like in Iron Man, the villain is a defense contractor/weapons manufacturer.

4. Batman (the 60’s movie): “Must…reach…shark repellant…Batspray!”

3. Batman Begins: Christian Bale and Co. rebooted the franchise with a first installment that would make Loeb/Sale and Miller proud.

2. Batman: The Time Burton version that is. Jack Nicholson alone puts this one on the list.

1. Superman I: Christopher Reeve is the only true Superman. The rest are just pretenders to the throne. Again, I’m sentimental. “bum bum bum bum bum…BUM BUM BUM…bum bum bum bum bum…BUM BUM BUM!” I know you can hear it in your head.

More Obama crowd

Drudge features this photo from an Obama rally in Oregon. As I have said here and here, this is going to be a meme for the summer and probably into the fall - Obama as cult leader. This complaint will be accompanied by the people who brought you "compassionate conservatism" and the Bush administration complaining about Obama's supposed lack of substance. They will fail to see how ironic they appear to be.

The word choice, alongside the image, is especially interesting. Beneath a crowd stretching for what feels like miles is the "Obama Mass," dual meaning of mass, implying both greatness in size and religious ceremony. It leads to a conjuring of images of the Pope, or a cult leader holding himself out to be a savior. Most of all, what the right will attempt to do is place in the minds of the voters the idea of the dangerous crowd, a great mass of people, naive, following the commands of totalitarian, unthinking. That is the worst part of it. The attack is on Obama supporters more than Obama. It says his supporters are somehow overly emotional, irrational, they can't be trusted; and so the voting choice can also not be trusted. It's an attack on the candidate through his supporters.

The Subversive Superhero

I should begin this post with a confession. I am a comic book nerd. It’s pathetic but true. I love comic books. That being said, I finally have an opportunity to write down some thoughts about the Iron Man movie after having seen it a week ago. One of the things I find most interesting about film is the way contemporary issues of American foreign policy make their way into cinema. Iron Man is no exception to this rule.

The Nazis have been perfect all-purpose villains for decades. There was no shortage of war movies throughout WWII, not to mention the Office of War Information and its influence on popular culture and public opinion. There is also no shortage of Vietnam and post-Vietnam movies, Rambo of course topping off that category. The cold war worked its way into the American psyche in subtle ways through UFO films; hostile aliens being stand-ins for the Communists. It also presented itself more overtly in one of my personal favorites, Red Dawn. WOLVERINES!

It has been especially interesting to see the “war on terror” play out on the big screen. That’s where we find ourselves with Iron Man. Our hero is a defense contractor. What makes him the protagonist of the story is the fact that, after being held captive by terrorists in Afghanistan, the main character is reformed. He announces to the American news media that indiscriminate bombing is not doing the trick and that we need to find more humane and effective ways to battle the terrorists.

The antagonist of the film compounds this critique of the American military industrial complex. The character played by Jeff Bridges (warning: spoiler) is also a high level executive in the same corporation as our hero, the soon to be Iron Man. As it turns out, Bridges is a war profiteer. And not just that, he is a war profiteer who has been selling American technology to the terrorists. The leftist in me instantly goes to Prescott Bush, collaborating with the Nazis (or so the rumors go).

There is an explicitly anti-corporate tone to the movie as a whole. At various points Robert Downey Jr. is portrayed as being aloof and withdrawn from his wealth and power. He is shallow, surrounded by unearned financial largess that he apparently does not appreciate. That is, until he goes through the requisite transformational experience that is necessary to all superhero narratives.

The exclamation point on all of this is what may have been a line of dialogue that most viewers may not find to be too significant but I thought summed up these anti-corporate themes. As the antagonist has our hero on the ropes and is about to leave him for dead, as all villains do in superhero stories, he says to Iron Man, “you think just because you have an idea it belongs to you?” And there it is. Throughout the film we see Iron Man labor over technology, his mechanical art, only to have the one character most symbolic of the corporation swoop in and appropriate it for his own means in one twist of the wrist. That line, worded and delivered perfectly, says so much about individual creativity and corporate appropriation of the work of the individual. It seems even more significant that Bridges delivers the line considering that he played Preston Tucker. Iron Man even featured a still from the film Tucker at one point; a movie whose themes are echoed in Iron Man.

Meanwhile, there are also underlying themes of the ability of an individual to outwit a corrupt bureaucracy and accomplish something for the greater good, the role of America as savior to the rest of the world, and the utility of advanced military technology (when it is under the control of that individual rather than the corrupt bureaucracy). In one scene four terrorists are holding innocent Afghani women and children at gunpoint. With a single push of a button Iron Man locks on target and simultaneously kills all four of them. He’s Uncle Sam in a shiny, metal, orange and crimson suit saving the Middle East.

While Iron Man was a surprisingly subversive critique of the military industrial complex and America’s exercising of its power abroad, at the end of the day there is no criticism for underlying assumptions of American military power. The solution is more exercising of that military might, just in more efficient ways and with a benevolent hand that helps people.

"I am weak and materialistic"

Peggy Noonan's Clintonian linguistics

So Peggy Noonan wants to have a discussion about Barack Obama's patriotism.

"Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they're questioning its content, its fullness."

One can't help but get the sense that Noonan wants to debate the meaning of the word "is" here. The right wing's "patriotism dialogue" has become trite and sometimes dangerous. It oftentimes bores me. It's coarse and accusatory from Rush Limbaugh. It's lowbrow and free of thought from Bill O'Reilly.

But no one fills it with pretense quite like Peggy Noonan. Then again Peggy Noonan could probably find a way to make Pabst Blue Ribbon, a hoagie and NASCAR sound pretentious. And I just got done reading an essay critiquing deconstructionist architecture. So you would think that my tolerance for pretense would be on high right now. Nevertheless…

When this talk of Obama’s supposed elitism started I had an interesting discussion with my speech class about it. One of the things that came up was the contradiction of one politician accusing another of being elitist. “Aren’t they all kind of elitist? If you’re a Senator you’re not exactly an ‘Average Joe.’” Coincidentally we had been discussing red herrings and rhetoric the week before. “Aren’t there more important things to debate than what Barack Obama wears on his lapel?”

What Noonan’s column and this on going discussion about lapel pins and hands on hearts really got me thinking about was how differently the two political polls express patriotism. Noonan seems to imply that liberals find patriotism to be distasteful somehow. Of course it’s politically convenient for her to imply such a thing even if she doesn’t believe it. And that’s the big difference in how patriotism is expressed by liberals and conservatives. You won’t see many liberals impugn the patriotism of conservatives for the sake of scoring political points.

I’m reminded of a visit to Abilene, Texas a couple years ago. I drove around the town with my friend who lived down there and everywhere I looked I saw the American flag. The problem is that it wasn’t just on flagpoles. It was on everything. Painted on walls, minivan decals, it was a tool of commerce. And this is what I find to be offensive about the cultural conservative patriotism. It’s not an emotion, or a loyalty to nation or an ideal.

Patriotism is a tool: a tool of politics, a tool of propaganda, and a tool of commerce.

Patriotism elects presidents; incompetent presidents. Patriotism sells cars. Patriotism publicizes cable news networks. Patriotism propagates wars.

I think the commerce is what is most offensive. My friend and I drove past car dealerships and mini marts all with the word “freedom” or “liberty” in the name and an American flag in the logo. Do you really need to tell me that you love America in order to sell me a car? Can you just tell me about the gas mileage?

Then again, this could be a cultural difference in how one addresses others and expresses his or her feelings to them. When I’m at a ballgame and I see two guys chatting the through the entire national anthem my desire is to walk over and at least give them a piece of my mind if not smack them upside the head. When I see someone flying an old and worn American flag my desire is to pull into their driveway and give them the rundown on proper care and disposal of the flag. However, doing so wouldn’t make me more patriotic, it would just make me a jerk. Questioning a candidate on why they don’t wear the flag on their lapel is the same. It makes you a jerk, not more patriotic.

The again, maybe I’m just a “snooty leftie.”

What has Joe Pitts accomplished in his political career?

The answer to the title of this post? Joe Pitts proved that that human body can continue to live without a functioning heart.

My friend Jerry sent an e-mail to me, I present here verbatim:

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to block the Bush Administration from cutting federal spending on Medicaid benefits for the poor by $13 billion over the next 5 years. Two-thirds of House Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for the bill which had 220 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.. The proposed Bush White House cuts were opposed by all 50 State Governors. The final vote was 369 to 62. Joe Pitts ever the champion of less government spending unless it goes into the pockets of wealthy corporations, joined the 62 members of Congress who voted to preserve the cuts.

Thanks Joe.

I was embarrassed by my representation in the Senate. Bob Casey solved that problem in 2006. Now we just have to do something about the embarrassing representation that Lancaster has in the House.

Obama in Lancaster

Oh Danny Boy

The Obama Crowd

Once again Drudge carries a photo of Obama blending into an audience. This time it's accompanied by a headline about supporters fainting. There is the potential here for a new meme from Obama critics. Andrew Sullivan has discussed this critique of Obama's supporters. It is, to use Hoffer's term, "the art of 'religiofication'-the art of turning practical purposes into holy causes" (p. 6). This is an apparent goal of Obama's opponents in both the Clinton and McCain camps.
First, the claim is made that Obama just gives nice speeches without substance. It's similar to the "all hat, no cattle" criticism of Bush. Second, the "Obama supporter as fanatic" line is going to make its way through the media, especially, I suspect, talk radio and the blogosphere. Drudge makes this statement in a more subtle way through his choice of words and images. The fainting implies the supposedly emotional and irrational nature of Obama supporters.

Image and Drudge

One of the more interesting things about the Drudge Report is his use of imagery. Drudge has never really contributed anything to the journalistic art of word craft. His masterful choice of images makes up for it, even if he didn’t take the photos himself. A few images in particular have stood out and require some commentary. So I have been saving screen shots at different points since the days leading up to Super Tuesday.

The first set of images that started it all for me is this combination of photos of Hillary and Obama. Not to heap too much praise on Drudge, but he chose two images that sum up the nature of the two campaigns. These images have a very different impact when examined side by side as opposed to individually.




















First there is Hillary, standing alone. The emptiness of this photo is a strong contrast to the overcrowded Obama photo. Where Hillary stands alone, the leader of a machine working behind the curtain, Obama blends into a crowd. You almost have to search the photo to find him, a commentary on the nature of mass movements and how their leaders often cease to be individuals but symbolic faces lost in the sea of the movement they lead, almost ceasing to exist. Equally important is the difference in size of the two subjects. Obama is small, in front of a large, mainly anonymous crowd. Hillary, again, is the bigger than life figurehead of a political machine. She doesn’t need individuals to support her.

Hot and Cool

McLuhan classified media as being either “hot” or “cool.” Hot media were those that were “high definition” or gave us all of the information leaving little room for participation on the part of the receiver. Cool media were “low definition” making it necessary for the receiver to fill in the holes, so to speak. In these stark, contrasting photos we find Obama and Hillary personifying McLuhan’s classifications.



There is a repeated pattern of the news media using photographs of Hillary Clinton that are very unflattering. In this particular shot Hillary’s most distinct feature is the redness of her cheeks. The viewer’s eyes are drawn to them. More importantly Hillary is the hot medium of the race. The information is all there for us to consume. We know everything about her. There is little room for participation.

This is contrasted by the angular coolness of the Obamas. Much criticism has been leveled at Obama for the vague platitudes of his performances (as if the other candidates use their stump speeches to present position papers). The vagueness is part of the appeal and why he has been successful. He is “cool” in the McLuhanian sense of the word. The outline is there, the receiver gets to fill in the holes. Obama reflects what the viewer wants him to reflect.

These two photos have so much more to say beyond “cool” and “hot” media. There is also a subtle statement about marriage, that I’m sure was unintentional on Drudge’s part. The Obamas have a young, fresh and happy marriage. Hillary stands alone, in the glare of the media. A glare that was, at least in part, caused by a downward spiral resulting from her husband’s outbursts against Obama. The Hillary photo is also very reminiscent of the "big brother" ad that made its way through the media.

Recurring Themes

Hillary and Obama have recurring themes for the photos that Drudge uses. For Hillary it is the machinations of power coupled with femininity. Here she is being prepped by makeup artists on a TV set, an image that recalls the opening to Fahrenheit 9/11 with Wolfowitz licking his comb or John Edwards coifing his hair before a talk show appearance.

















In another Drudge draws a connection to the Iron Lady.






Finally, we have the little girl sleeping under the Hillary signs. Suddenly, in defeat, Hillary is transformed into that little girl. Power eludes her.

Obama’s recurring imagery is the mass audience, usually contrasted with an opponent who stands alone. Above I discussed this with Hillary. Here we find the same contrast with McCain. On top of the implications about level of support from the public are issues of age. McCain seems to be struggling to walk, Obama is moving with ease, smooth and cool. McCain’s photo is slow, Obama’s is fast.




















Just today the Obama crowd photo resurfaced on Drudge. In this case the mass nature and disappearance of Obama was emphasized by the absence of his face. Obama stands with his back to the viewer, faceless and merging into the crowd. Again, he is the cool medium waiting to be filled in by the viewer.

Image is always a driving force in politics. Obama has largely missed the critical eye of the camera. This is even more noticeable when considering the negative photographic representations of Hillary, not to mention George W. Bush, both of whom are not friends of the photojournalist. But photos say things through more than just the candidates’ facial expressions and postures. Sometimes their surroundings are just as, if not more important. Obama is the “cool” with mass support. Hillary stands alone, larger than life and struggling to balance femininity and power. McCain is just plain angry.

Quote of the week

Sometimes she gets it right, a lot of times she gets it wrong, but Paglia is never boring. In this case she hits the nail on the head.

John McCain's courage under torture during the Vietnam War deserves everyone's gratitude and respect. But as a national candidate, the stumpy, uptight McCain is a lemon. Oy, that weaselly voice and those dated locutions and stilted intonations. Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse in the White House? This isn't a smart game plan for the war on terror.

-Camille Paglia

The Romney campaign ends on a note of nonsense

Mitt Romney proves once again that, after the Bush years, the only thing the Republicans have left is the fear appeal.

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win,” he said.

“And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”

-Mitt Romney

I would like to know what kind of person takes a comment like that seriously.

My little brother is a sumo wrestler

He's the one in red.

Montel Williams gets it right

I'm not a big fan of Montel Williams but he makes an excellent point here. This is something that students in my media and press classes bring up. Why is it that the media spent so much time on celebrity news and not enough time on more serious issues? That is not to diminish the tragedy of Heath Ledger's death. It's very sad. It's probably a safe bet that the reason the folks on Fox News don't want to discuss the tragedy of a soldier's death is because it reminds the public of why it is they've been questioning the Iraq war and the administration's handling of it.

It's funny to me how these right wing people accuses anyone who questions the war of not supporting the troops but when someone tries to recognize the tragedy of an American soldier being killed those same right wingers don't want to hear it. The Fox people in the above video go down a list of excuses for why there is a paucity of media coverage on casualties. And we can't forget Sinclair broadcasting refusing to broadcast the Nightline episode eulogizing members of the military killed in Iraq. You would think that episode would be something they would support. Then again, "support the troops" is just a political slogan to some people.

(h/t reddit user zewar)

Declaring preemptive war on John McCain

A pretty strong argument could be made that John McCain is the GOP’s strongest general election candidate. For some reason, which I can’t fathom, the conservative base really seems to dislike him. Maybe the fact that I (and others like me) don’t have a gut reaction against him in the way I do at the mention of…say…Dick Cheney, is one explanation.

Whatever the reason for the base hating him, he’s their best chance at keeping the White House. The Clintons have to know that there aren’t any red states that go blue for Hillary, against McCain. With that in mind, it seems to me that Team Hillary is launching a preemptive attack to nip the McCain candidacy in the bud.

First, the New York Times did Hillary the double favor of endorsing her while giving McCain the kiss of death. Now we have what amounts to an attack from Bill Clinton. The former president says, "[Hillary] and John McCain are very close…they like and respect each other." If the conservative base needed one more reason to distrust McCain, there it is. Of course, McCain didn’t “like and respect” Hillary enough to say anything when a woman at one of his events referred to Hillary as “the bitch.”

This is why the Clintons win elections. They’re tough and smart. While they pound away at Barack Obama, they kill McCain with kindness. It’s why the Democratic Party, unfortunately, seems to need them. Without Clinton the Democrats would probably have had twenty-eight years out of the White House. Maybe this year we can find a way to win without them.

Psychology, Fear and Politics

One of my favorite topics, as you will find here, is the use of fear appeals in political rhetoric. It’s a simple yet effective way for a leader to get the electorate to do what he wants them to do. So I read with great interest this article from the New Republic.

There are two really important points in this article. First is the depth of the connection between fear/mortality and political decisions. Second is the lengths the Bush administration went to exploit that (including exploiting 9/11 imagery).

The basic gist of the Judis article in TNR is that a group of political psychologists, through a variety of experiments, found a connection between being forced to confront one's own mortality and political inclinations and behavior. For example, in a study published after the 04 election they found a connection between reminders of 9/11 and feelings of mortality (duh). They also found a connection between reminders of 9/11 and increased votes for Bush (again, duh).

The control group that completed a personality survey, but did not do the mortality exercises, predictably favored Kerry by four to one. But the students who did the mortality exercises favored Bush by more than two to one. This strongly suggested that Bush's popularity was sustained by mortality reminders. The psychologists concluded in a paper published after the election that the government terror warnings, the release of Osama bin Laden's video on October 29, and the Bush campaign's reiteration of the terrorist threat (Cheney on election eve: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again") were integral to Bush's victory over Kerry. "From a terror management perspective," they wrote, "the United States' electorate was exposed to a wide-ranging multidimensional mortality salience induction." (Judis, para. 22)

At the end of the article Judis comes to the same conclusions that I have. First, for the public in general thoughts of 9/11 have been crowded out by Bush's incompetence on things like New Orleans, not to mention Iraq, and the GOP in general is being pulled down with him. This is why Democrats won in 2006. The “public mind” is not thinking about terrorism and for the most part 9/11 is far enough behind us that it doesn’t have the impact it once did. This is why we see the conservative rhetoric turn to nonsensical and offensive comments like calling for another 9/11.

Second, the one GOP candidate who can win in 2008 is Rudy, because he is the only one who can, in the “public mind”, invoke 9/11 in a credible way, using it as a mortality reminder and presenting himself as a protector and the Democrats as weak (the same way Bush did to Kerry). Can you picture Mitt Romney trying to use 9/11 in the way Bush did?

However, Judis is a little overly optimistic in hoping that "the moment of September 11--and the reminder of mortality that it brought--may well have passed. And with it, too, the ascendancy of politicians who exploited the fear of death that lies within us all." It would be nice if it were so, but fear is part of politics. Rudy started it months ago when he echoed Cheney with his “a vote for the Democrats is a vote to get us attacked” comment.

Judis even points out that in one experiment when the subjects are told to take their time and think about the message rationally they are less likely to be influenced by the mortality reminder. The subjects that are not encouraged to take their time and think have the opposite response. The same voters that were moved by Bush’s fear appeals also tend to be Rudy voters. Which just goes to show, after Katrina, the quality of health care (even for the insured), the state of our foreign policy, an increasing gap between the top and bottom of the economic scale and the general moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration, the only thing the GOP has left is fear.

More UK Politics

I am enjoying my time here in the UK quite a bit. It is especially nice in relation to my interest in comparative politics. There are obviously some big differences in what the media report and the topics of discussion in the politics.

There are a few things at the top of my list of interesting stories today. First, the BBC had a story about a cyber attack on Estonia. You can read about it here. Our modern technology presents new opportunities for foreign threats as you’ll see in the article.

Second, Salman Rushdie is once again under attack from religious fanatics. He was dubbed Sir Salman Rushdie recently, which has made a few people unhappy.

Finally, to the politics of England. Social engineering is on the agenda for the Tories here. For those of you who don’t know, the Tories are the English equivalent of Republicans, except they don’t seem to have a Dobson wing to their party. London is Washington turned upside down. It’s a place where the left and center-left run the show. Even my Tory friend here referred to Tony Blair as “center of the road.”

The social engineering the Tories are proposing is what we in the states would refer to as a marriage tax credit. They want to give a tax break of about £20 a week (what amounts to $40) to married couples. This, of course, is in the hopes that this will encourage couples to get married and stay married rather than living in sin.

They argue that this would save marriages, give children better homes and “prevent social breakdown.” Sounds nice; at least the conservatives here openly call their policies social engineering instead of pretending to be libertarians. I would say there’s nothing wrong with tax credits for married couples, especially those with children. I would also ask, why it is that children whose parents get divorced don’t deserve to have those extra resources and if there is actually a person alive who would say “this marriage isn’t working out, but I really can’t give up that extra $40 a week.”

Where is the liberal bias at the BBC?

Pictured here: Abi, me, Joanna plus baby #2 and our English friend Heather; above our heads, Durham Cathedral.

The media coverage of the Live Earth events has been a long exercise in Eric Alterman’s question, “what liberal media?” Before leaving for England, where I currently sit typing, I was driving around listening to I don’t know what generic rock radio station. The station was playing a Lenny Kravitz song, after which the DJ mentioned that Kravitz was going to be playing at Live Earth, “Al Gore’s thing” he added, a bit dismissively. The next day, the same station, same DJ, played the same Lenny Kravitz song (surprise, surprise, corporate radio, the same six songs over and over). This time the DJ again mentioned that Kravitz was playing at Live Earth.

Then came the talking point. “Ya know, a listener e-mailed me and made a good point. How much energy are they going to waste just putting on that concert? Just something to think about I guess.”

And so the same right wing fallacy was repeated over and over. I heard it from some radio DJ. It was on Drudge. Worst of all…I heard it on the Beeb; of all the places in the world to hear a right wing talking point, the supposedly “liberal” BBC. I’ve been in England since Thursday. Every time I’ve seen some coverage of Live Earth since I’ve been here the report has made some mention of the energy that would be used for the concert.

Even the coverage during the concert involved some kind of counter message. The BBC interviewer was talking to a global warming skeptic while the concert was in the background. Now, I’m all for multiple viewpoints being heard, even if I believe that one of those viewpoints is ridiculous. My complaint isn’t that someone I disagree with is having his say. What bothers me is that even after the right wing talking points get inserted we still have to hear claims of liberal bias.

Where is that liberal media I keep hearing about?

The other point is that this claim is a fallacy; a diversion. You don’t need to address the claims being made by Al Gore and environmental scientists. You just need to call rock stars hypocrites.

James Taylor on Sesame Street

Our daughter Abi has a Sesame Street video that she really loves. It's a collection of songs. Her favorite is the James Taylor song.

New PA 16.com article

I have a piece published at NewPA16.com on Internet radio. Please take the time to check it out, but more importantly go to SaveNetRadio.org.