McLuhan on TV

“Do you really want to know what I think of that thing? If you want to save one shred of Hebrao-Greco-Roman-Medieval-Renaissance-Enlightenment-Modern-Western civilization you’d better get an ax and smash all the sets.”

Bringing back the era of big government

One thing that I have been happy to see from Obama over the last month, especially since the inauguration, has been his willingness to define a governing philosophy that actually allows for governing. A new day is dawning for political philosophy. It has actually become acceptable to say that the free market is not only solution to every problem. In fact, you can even say that government might be a useful tool for solving a problem or two. Meanwhile, the party of warrantless wiretapping is suddenly concerned about big government again.

What I love the most about all of this is that the Age of Reagan is officially over. It’s not that I have a particular disdain for Reagan. Removing ideology from the equation, I actually have a strange fascination with Reagan as a political figure; his abilities rhetorically; Reagan as a symbol. What I don’t like is the right’s hero worship of Reagan and the whole “government is the problem” philosophy.

It’s enjoyable to be around to see Obama bringing back the era of big government.

Throwing Shoes in Free Societies

Sin and Suds

Pirates, Terrorists and Zizek

The attacks in Mumbai have me thinking about Zizek again. I have Welcome to the Desert of the Real back out on my desk and I’ve been flipping through; returning to passages outlined; thinking about the nature of terror and stateless actors generally. I am wondering how truly novel these concepts are in the long view of history. We are seeing increased media accounts of these kinds of things; terrorists; pirates; they are not new. Why do the media present them as novelties, or at the very least, why do the media portrayals make them feel novel to me?

Zizek (2002) asks if international terrorists are “the obscene double of the big multinational corporations – the ultimate rhizomatic machine, omnipresent, albeit with no clear territorial base” (p.38). The same framework could be placed on recent pirate attacks. They attack, without sponsorship, whether of a state or a corporate body, not that those two entities are segregated anymore.

The coinciding spectacles of terror and piracy stand in stark contrast to the west’s increasingly blurred lines between state and corporation. Abstruse forces are bringing international capitalism to the brink; poor Allen Greenspan’s ideology failed him, not to mention the rest of us. The invisible hand of the market is slapping us around. We struggle to stabilize our markets, while still trampling retail employees to death. Meanwhile, “pirates are living between life and death…who can stop them? Americans and British all put together cannot do anything."

Contrasting forces are at work; simultaneously pulling the world toward opposite polarities. Terrorists and pirates are the “rhizomatic machines” Zizek describes, the multinational corporations their counterpoint. We have contrasting images of corporate titans begging before congress and terrorists rampaging through Mumbai. The state gradually takes over the economy; we are in the last throes of neoliberalism. Meanwhile, a small cadre of men in speedboats, who are also now shooting at cruise ships, bring international oil concerns to their knees.

The contrast between the two is stark. The free market dies as corporation and state become increasingly intertwined; state power and centralized control increase. Pirates and terror cells decentralize control and challenge the power of states and corporations. Zizek says, “the notion of the ‘clash of civilizations’, however, must be rejected out of hand: what we are witnessing today are, rather, clashes within each civilization” (p. 41). Perhaps we’re witnessing both.

The Countdown Begins

This didn't take very long. We haven't even had the inauguration yet and they're already starting to countdown to the end of Obama's first term. This drives home part of the reason that McCain lost. He, and his supporters, did not give the public a reason to vote in support of McCain; only reasons to vote against Obama. You can't win an election that way.

In 96 the Republicans ran Dole against Clinton and they thought that their hate for Clinton was persuasive enough to convince the general public to vote for Dole. In 04 Democrats did the same thing in the Kerry campaign against Bush. The problem was that the general public did not share the Republicans' visceral hate for Clinton or the Democrats' visceral hate for Bush. There were things the public disliked about Clinton and Bush; but they did not amount to the same level of disdain. McCain's campaign was predicated upon the same disdain for Obama; and that became the only message of his campaign. Attack, attack, attack!

I think negative campaign ads are an important part of the process. I disagree when I hear someone saying how they hate the negative ads and wish the campaigns would not use them. The problem is when the negative ads become the central part of a campaign strategy, as they did with McCain. You have to present yourself in the best light and your opponent in the worst light. If all you're doing is the latter, that negative light starts to reflect onto you. Apparently the group running the above ad on Drudge didn't learn a damn thing last night.

The Obama Turn

It's a good night. And it happened on my son's birthday. He's our little good luck charm. In my paper from the Obama Effect conference I used the phrase the "Obama Turn." Obama himself and his victory symbolize a transition to a new era; for liberalism, the Democratic Party and most importantly, the nation as a whole.

As one last point, Drudge continues the religiofication of Obama. Something I have addressed in my paper and in this space in the past. I'm interested to see how this rhetoric is employed in the conservative critique over the next few years.

The Palin/McCain Ticket

I picked up this screen shot from Gil Smart's blog. It's funny to me that a McCain campaign ad is just a big picture of Sarah Palin.
Who is the Republican presidential nominee again? I guess it's a good idea to give your nominee as little media exposure as possible. Especially in your paid media.

It's even more telling that Palin has already been asked about her career plans for after this election. The implication there being that once McCain is defeated Palin is the natural choice for the GOP four years from now. A prospect I find puzzling considering the disaster she has been in this election. She has fired up the base a little more, but lost the conservative intelligentsia. From David Brooks to Kathleen Parker to Peggy Noonan, the elite of the conservative coalition are not going to be happy with her four years from now. I don't understand how she has not been officially dubbed "damaged goods."

I have occassionally found myself wondering how different this campaign would be if McCain had chosen Tim Pawlenty or Charlie Crist or even Joe Lieberman for VP. I don't think it's going too far to say that with Lieberman McCain would have lost the base but maybe won the election. A McCain/Lieberman ticket may have even created a braoder shift in the electorate, puching some out of the Republican tent, bringing others in and creating an entire new right wing movement outside of the GOP. It's fun to speculate.

Gil Smart - McCain's collapse

Gil Smart - Sarah Palin fans the flames

Lil' O'Reilly

I love this.

American Carol

The New York Times reviewed the new right-wing comedy "An American Carol." Setting aside the fact that, based on the previews, the movie appears to be aimed at the simple minded wing of the conservative movement, my favorite line of the review comes at the end:

“An American Carol” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes swearing and satirical bigotry.

What is satirical bigotry? Does that mean the movie itself has a message of bigotry, but the bigotry is kind of funny? Are they satirizing bigotry?

Ugh

I don't think I will ever understand why the right finds Palin appealing. Didn't they get enough folksy charm from Bush for the last eight years?

Quote of the Week

Oh, the sadomasochistic tedium of McCain's imprisonment in Hanoi being told over and over and over again at the Republican convention. Do McCain's credentials for the White House really consist only of that horrific ordeal? Americans owe every heroic, wounded veteran an incalculable debt of gratitude, but how do McCain's sufferings in a tiny, squalid cell 40 years ago logically translate into presidential aptitude in the 21st century? Cast him a statue or slap his name on a ship, and let's turn the damned page.
-Camille Paglia

As much as I disagree with her some times, when she hits the nail on the head, she really hits it.

Thought Bodies in Social Media

My Ph.D. work has just begun and I find myself reading some work that I had not expected to enjoy as much as I am. The work is in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). While this field is largely new to me, it has not been difficult to find ways that it relates to the area of media studies. The first week of readings is filled with discussions on the arrangement of information, its classification, the defining of terms, the nature and purpose of historical narratives and, most interesting to me, what this all says about the dominant modes of thought of a given time; how power is attained and maintained.

In one of the readings Radford and Radford (2004) relate philosophical questions of post-structuralism to LIS. In their discussion of Foucault they state that he “notes that his statements have the potential to ‘land in unexpected places and form shapes that I had never thought of.’”

They are able to do this because statements are real; they have a material existence and, as such, have the potential to physically circulate among readers. The readers, in turn, have the capacity to ‘manipulate, use, transform, exchange, combine decompose and recompose, and possibly destroy’ those statements. (p. 71-72)

I can’t help but place this view in the context of the newer forms of media. Does it apply to the blogosphere; to Youtube; to Facebook? Does it apply to the realm of social media?

Yes, all social media contain statements, mostly fitting the definition put forth by Foucault and Radford and Radford; statements that are oftentimes disparate parts, combining to make a “concrete” whole; there is most definitely a sense of arbitrary classification in social media, classification that comes from “the crowd” linking one thing to another based on little more commonality than their personal interest in the subject; statements that, however disparate, are subject to a system of rules that govern how discourse happens in a social network, how one conducts him/herself in respectful ways; statements that fit the post-structuralist character of being “fragile and open to subversion” (Radford and Radford, 2004, p. 61), the subversion that comes from a negative comment on a blog or the fragility resulting simply from the existence of the delete button on the keyboard.

At first pass, however, that fragility leads me to conclude that Foucault’s argument about the materiality is not wholly applicable to social media. I am forced to ask if materiality and disposability are absolutely contrary terms. Do these, to borrow Weinberger’s phrase, “small pieces, loosely joined” really have a material presence in any way? Is the monitor of my laptop the material presence of my Facebook profile? If I print out the text of this note does it lose its essence? Is the paper a dead, corporeal representation of the note (or any other artifact of social media)?

Part of the essence of the note (or the Youtube video, blog post, Digg link) is the comment function. Its fragility and openness to subversion (both to subverting and being subverted) is the fact that the page is ever changing or having the potential to change. The blog may have zero comments, but there is always the potential that the passerby may “StumbleUpon” it. When it takes on the materiality of the paper is ceases to exist as it was; it can no longer be linked to, commented upon, updated. More importantly, the links contained within the content are now deceased. Those elements of the page, which connect it to other bits of information, are no longer “live.” The content that is printed has shuffled off of its mortal (html) coil.

These connections, these links, are the essence of social media, of web 2.0. This discursive formation’s perceived materiality within the confines of a computer network stands in contrast to its true immateriality when it is given the same material form of the book on the library shelf: paper. Yet, the statements of the social network do have material effects. A negative comment on the blog has the same material affect as a negative comment in person; the anonymity of the comment may increase the affect on the psyche; the absence of comment, the silence, is equally affecting at times. The comment is affect “as stimulus…a state of relation…intensities between” (Seigworth, p. 1). As Greg Seigworth states, “thought is itself a body” (p. 2). But does that “body of thought” continue to exist as itself when it moves from mind to blog? Does Facebook contain the “intensities between” when I logout?

The answer is yes and no. Those “intensities between” are of our own creation. As Radford and Radford (2004) state “the world a person sees and experiences is one that is created by the relation of stimuli to other stimuli and not some ‘pure’ perception of the world as it really is” (p. 63). There is no “pure” existence of a Facebook page or a blog. I “author” the layout of my pages. I move, remove and re-move the elements, the stimuli, in relation to other stimuli. My virtual bookshelf is moved from bottom to top to show visitors what I am reading; my wall is shifted downward; I “poke” a friend; the Obama widget on my blog is featured at the top, beside the first post, the blogroll is deemphasized in favor of a tag cloud. But when all the work is done and the laptop is closed, does that content exist in the same way a book does?

Friends are another set of stimuli within the social network. There is randomization to who is at the front of my page when I login. When I receive a friend invitation I am always told who connects me to my “new” friend. We are all statements and the network of social media is contextualizing us for us. We are stimuli and Facebook "sees and experiences us" and tells us how we relate to other stimuli. But how material are our effects/affects? When my fingers are no longer tapping the keys and the bits of information are floating through the network they no longer have the material effects/existence that continue when I leave a book on a shelf. Do they really “continue to physically circulate among readers?” Or are they thoughts without bodies?

“Over my cold, dead, political carcass”

The words stand out for some reason. It's not that the rhetoric of the cold and dead is anything unusual in politics. We had Charlton Heston's "cold, dead hands" a long time ago, which certainly wasn't the first time. This post at Think Progress is littered with tough talking politicians going after McCain on his stance on the 1922 Colorado River Compact. But the above quote stands out from the rest for me.

“Over my cold, dead, political carcass” -Bob Schaffer (R-CO)

The issue in question is not important to me. What I find interesting is the use of the word political. The connection between the abstract, elitist, withdrawn realm of the political and the corporeal. Strauss, among other philosophers, talks about the political realm as being separate; a concern for the elite. Schaffer has made it a physical divide; a sort of dualism. Maybe he could have said "over my cold, dead political soul." Turning the political into the secular religion; not too big of a leap for a Republican.

In this metaphor Schaffer has two bodies; his physical body and his political body. His legislative accomplishments, his career, are given a physicality. If he were to lose his bid for the U.S. Senate to Udall it would be, in a sense, an actual death. He will cease to exist in the political sense, and his "cold, dead, political carcass" will be powerless in its attempts to stop anything. If he runs for another office in the future it will be the attempted reincarnation of his political corporeality. Like Nixon's pheonix, rising from the ashes of his failed California gubernatorial bid to run again for the presidency.

The Daughter of the Sheriff, The Daughter of the Judge

I just watched We Jam Econo, a documentary on the Minutemen. That's the awesome band, not the wacko vigilantes trying to keep Mexicans out of the country. It's a great film. I even got a little choked up when they talked about D. Boone's death. The Minutemen are great, but also love Mike Watt's solo stuff, especially Big Train. This video even had my little girl singing along.

Bob Casey

“We’ve got a mountain of problems, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 32.”
-Bob Casey Jr., on Pennsylvania News Makers this week

I forget who it was that called Bob Casey Sr. the "last of the new dealers." I've been reading the Drury book on Strauss, Pierson's book on the Kennedy assassination, Zizek, Foucault's biopolitics lectures and there is one thing that I've been thinking, especially in the context of current events, what we really need right now is a good old fashioned New Dealer.

Quote of the Week

"Libertarianism is a politics born to be subsidized."
-Thomas Frank, in The Wrecking Crew, explaining why the number of libertarian think tanks in the U.S. is higher than the number of libertarians (h/t Political Wire)

Faux News at its best

From the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Georgia I've gotten the feeling from most of the coverage that Russia has been portrayed as an unprovoked aggressor. If there has been more balanced coverage I haven't seen it. Of course I would not argue that Russia is justified in invading Georgia...like Sheppard Smith says, there are a lot of gray areas in war.

I love when a conservative expresses moral ambiguity.