American Patrol

Frequently the reaction to a news story is far more informative than the story himself. Our latest national Rohrschach test seems to be last week's announcement by the Census Bureau that white people will no longer be a majority in the US by the year 2042, which has engendered oddly heated commentary from several quarters. That is to say, from several quarters inhabited by white people, who seem to be reacting as if this were some sort of announcement of their imminent extinction.

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Representatives of the Obama and Clinton camps announced today that Clinton's name will be placed in nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month. Why? Damned if I know. Hillary, apparently, is hearing voices again, and wants us to hear them too as a means of "catharsis" for her former supporters. Some of those supporters, convinced despite fresh revelations in the Atlantic this week that their candidate headed a cluster fuck of a campaign in as inept a manner as any major candidate this side of Dole '96, remain convinced that they wuz robbed, and despite Clinton crony Lanny Davis' remark that the Senator will have "little sympathy" for those of her supporters who try and use this as a means of disrupting the convention, several of these folks are likely to have big stinky catharses all over the convention floor.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama, already having given Clinton and her ex-POTUS husband prime time speeches on two consecutive nights, has now devoted a third to, as the joint Clinton-Obama announcement puts it, "honor and celebrate these voices and votes." You know-- the ones who couldn't defeat him in the primaries, whose template for tearing down his candidacy has been adopted wholesale by McCain and the Republicans, who refused to acknowledge his victories and have never really given him his due as the nominee of the Party.

Why is he doing this? Again, damned if I know, but I can damn well guess. Disappointing as it is to admit, this reeks of the kind of Democratic timidity that has plagued the Party for thirty years, and suggests that among the things we overestimated about Obama were his guts and his intelligence. Disappointing? Sure. A reason to regret his nomination over Clinton, much less vote for McCain? Oh, hell no. Will it get played that way? Most bloody likely.

Anyone expecting that this year's Presidential election campaign was going to be some kind of high-flown exercise in "the new politics" (and one wonders what planet they've been spending the last few decades on) is invited to take a close look at the current "debate" on energy policy taking place between the two campaigns and join me in despairing over what a complete bullshit-toss it has become. While said bullshit, as might be anticipated, originated from the nether regions of the McCain campaign, both sides have managed to cover themselves in it pretty thoroughly, and their reasons for doing so provide the basis to a fairly wide indictment indeed.

The shit in question is McCain's contention that offshore oil drilling is a dandy solution to our country's energy needs and to the economic hardship caused by rising gas prices. This has lately taken the form of a nice, reductive chant: "Drill here!! Drill now!!"

The smart answer to which, of course, is "Okay, then, go ahead," followed by an outraged "Whuddaya MEAN you can't drill here and now? Whuddaya MEAN offshore drilling can't produce any oil anytime this decade or for most of the next? Whuddaya MEAN this won't make a damn bit of difference to energy prices?" , followed by a landslide defeat of a candidate willing to lie so readily to the American people.

This result, of course, is perhaps a bit much to expect from the Democratic Party. Rather than making any point about the McCain plan's status as ineffectual bullshit, congressional Democrats have emphasized their role as saviors of the planet, standing up for the environment over the depredations of the nasty oil men-- a point of its own, to be sure, but the wrong one to be making now. As for Senator Obama, his attempt to become the voice of reason by accepting safe, environmentally sound offshore drilling as a compromise element in a larger package has both opened him to flip-flop charges and put us on notice that he is willing to compromise even on, well, utter ineffectual bullshit. Again, the wrong point made, the wrong message sent.

The largest share of blame, however, needs to go to the folks who are causing the above professional politicians to act that way: we, the People, the majority of whom are willing to eat this crap with a spoon and pretend its chocolate pudding if it means we don't have to make any real sacrifices to end this energy crisis. Guess what, folks-- we do, and if our response to this energy wake up call is the same as our response to the last ones, we are a nation of idiots who deserve what we get.

Though almost a week late in saying so (God bless computer problems, time constraints, and my children, and while you're at it, me), I was interested in Krugman’s NYT column last Friday, which took off from Nancy Pelosi's statement to The Politico regarding an attempt to block an offshore drilling amendment: “I’m trying to save the planet.” Krugman went on (at length) on the subject “Can This Planet Be Saved?” before deciding, well, maybe, maybe not, and certainly not by John McCain.

I was struck less by the content of Krugman’s column than by his unquestioning acceptance of and expansion upon Pelosi’s statement. While I am keenly aware of the realities of environmental degradation and supportive of any rational measure designed to prevent and reverse it, I cannot help but wonder if the environmental movement in particular and the human race in general isn’t being ill served by the romantic and inflated rhetoric of planetary salvation.

When we speak of “saving the planet,” we are, unfortunately, talking utter bullshit. The planet went on without us for many millions of years before we got here and will go on for many millions more after we’ve gone. And, eventually, we will be, our species sloughed off its surface like the opportunistic infection that we are. Our efforts to “save the planet” are really about trying to maintain it as a viable ecosystem for us— that is to say, about saving our own sorry asses.

Crude as that sounds, I can’t help but think it would be a more effective and compelling argument in favor of our environmental efforts than our current (and for some, eminently dismissible) hodgepodge of Gaia worship, huggable trees, and cute wild animals. Dead polar bears are one thing, dead children and grandchildren (not to mention selves) quite another. Each is a possible outcome of global warming. By elevating self-preservation from a mere side effect of the great quest of planet-saving to the point of the exercise, we may be able to change the minds of those who are currently hostile or indifferent. Nothing like a little imminent death to concentrate the faculties...

No, it’s not particularly noble or edifying—but it just might work.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Wednesdays were celebrated in Minneapolis as "tabloid day," the day when the city's two free weeklies, the Twin Cities Reader and City Pages (referred to collectively as the "Reader Pages")were circulated, insuring at very least adequate bathroom reading through the weekend. The nasty capitalist machinations that took the Reader out of the equation have been old news for quite a while. Less remarked upon is the City Pages deterioration into what folks in the newspaper business used to refer to as a "one dumper"-- skim the letters, read The Blotter, Tom Tomorrow, and Savage Love, wipe, and flush.

Particularly disappointing is the Pages' tendency towards feature stories that seem to be geared to their author's hoped for a sub-Diablo Cody leap into careers writing teleplays for the Lifetime Movie Channel. This week-- an abused mother and children who fled (in the '90's-- news value?)to Amsterdam as "refugees". A couple of weeks back-- a story on gay Lutheran seminarians featuring a woman who received a message from God during a worship service informing her that she should go to seminary and, by the way, was a lesbian, that oddly enough missed the obvious mental health angle completely. One slogs through these multipage behemoths in vain trying to find some point larger than "Gosh, folks sure are mean," only to be left with a turnable page and a review of a restaurant one either can't afford or has no interest in. In a metro area this size with so many identifiable civic issues, the waste of journalistic forum is nothing short of breathtaking.

Still, having the Pages around does come in handy for stuffing the chimney starter for my barbeque (though I find that using the Onion imparts a bit more flavor) and for use as "City Place Mats" when I'm feeding my sons. Hey, reuse and recycle, right?