(First 11.5 minutes of today's press conference with President-Elect Barack Obama announcing his national security team; does not include conclusion, acceptances and press questions)
I woke up at an odd hour today, my sleep definitely out of whack, and after deciding I would not be able to drop right back off, I turned on the television hoping for more than diet tips and small claims court. I was just in time to see yet another Barack Obama press conference, this one announcing his national security team, as follows:
Secretary of State -- Senator Hillary Clinton of New York
Secretary of Defense -- Robert Gates (currently in this position)
Attorney General -- Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States
Secretary of Homeland Security -- Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona
Ambassador to the United Nations -- Dr. Susan Rice, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
National Security Advisor -- General James Jones, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and former Commander, United States European Command
A transcript of this press conference is available from the Chicago Sun-Times here.
Let me begin by saying what an unholy relief it is to be able to once again face speeches from a President (Elect) with trust and interest, instead of fear and embarrassment. I know you know what I mean.
I think Obama is using this series of pressers in a number of ways. First, he's assuming power, respectfully but definitively, and it's being ceded to him by our frat-boy loser who patently cannot wait to go cut mesquite an hour north of where I live and be allowed to openly drink himself into oblivion. (Deeper oblivion, I should say.) To quote Vice President Elect Biden from today's speech, "These are extraordinary times, and that's not hyperbole". We are in death-rattle need of leadership, and watching it pull on hip boots is giving everybody except the End-Timers a chance to breathe again.
Second, he's re-educating America to expect communication, useful information, and respect from its government. Like, speaking in, whoa, complete sentences, you know? No code words, no bluster, no shoddily-concealed lies, no fear-mongering, and no "dumbing it down". I'm pained by how unusual it looks and sounds. And I very much appreciate how he is all business. These are not joking matters he's bringing to us. I'm more than ready to be around grown-ups again.
It reminds me of my second-favorite "News of the Weird" story, concerning a deputy sheriff who went to an isolated campground on his patrol and had to use the outdoor toilet there. A one-holer with a large aperture, to be specific (it matters to the story). As he was pulling back up his pants, his wallet fell from his back pocket and into the opening. However, he thought he was lucky because the offal had not been emptied in quite a while and was both at a high level and relatively thick, in viscous terms. His wallet remained on the surface in plain view, a few feet down. He grabbed hold of the side and leaned in -- money can be washed, after all.
You can guess what happened. When he splashed upright, he was up to his neck in it. He hadn't radioed in his pit stop, and no one thought to look for him for hours. He wound up spending the night standing in the crapper. When they finally found him the next day, and he had been safely extricated, one of his colleagues began laughing. Bad move: The deputy tried to kill him.
We have a long way to go before we'll feel like laughing about what's been done to our nation. If ever.
Obama is also using his professorial skills, so very evident in his campaign, to teach us how to think logically and deeply again. He is an oddity, a charismatic who is not an ideologue but instead a pragmatist. Intelligent thought and analysis is at its heart very practical. Our current rule by punditry is full of white boy sound and fury passing as intelligence, but is usually more emotion-laden than a slumber party prank phone call spree.
In particular, Obama seems to be trying to teach our media how to ask rational, probing questions, a skill few of them apparently possess. Today the press corps was obsessed with Hillary (CDS in full spate) or if Obama wanted India to bomb Pakistan for the Mumbai tragedy. He dealt with both graciously the first time, even managing to get a laugh at one reporter's expense by (gently) pointing out how the press wants to dredge up campaign rhetoric again. The second time he was asked the same questions, he was more clipped and brief, but not in that sulky, dim-eyed Republican way. He simply wasn't going to reward bad behavior, and the issue on the table was not Clinton or threats of war. In fact, when you heard Clinton's acceptance, it was extremely clear she's making herself part of Obama's administration. Her remarks were the most eloquent of all the acceptances, and the most supportive of him as a leader. But -- right over the heads of the press corps.
Watching many of these reporters try to adjust to direct, clear language, complicated ideas and responsible government is like watching Vince Vaughn discover his new girlfriend in a movie actually wants to have conversation with him: They're simultaneously resentful and intrigued. This should be fun to watch unfold.
Years ago, I had a chance to hear Anne Lamott speak at the annual Art and Soul Conference at Baylor University. She said things that literally changed the direction of my life, but when she paused to drink down a glass of water before taking questions, she gave us her personal ground rules: She wasn't interested in being attacked or disrespected, and would not participate in any form of it, even that deft academic version which leaves working class folks like me wanting to say "What the fuck do you mean?" She said she only wanted to hear honest questions, not pontifications or arguments. If someone wanted to pontificate or argue, they could write their own books, thank you. And if somebody chose to ignore her guidelines, or tried to slip one over on her, she said she would smile at him (she added it was almost always a him, because men having such a hard time listening to powerful women without arguing at least in their heads) and go on to the next questioner without reply.
It worked like gangbusters. Only one guy tried to weasel past the verbal barrier, and she did exactly what she'd warned: He and his multisyllabic quasi-harangue was left hanging as she called on the next person. We all roared in laughter, the weasel crept away, and the questions (and answers) got very, very interesting. Obama is likewise trying to give us all room to be smart, connected, and decent, to have a conversation where we may disagree without shouting each other down or scoring points off each other. We sorely need it.
Another irritating attempt at "gotcha" journalism which surfaced twice was repeating the Right-Wing derision about assembling a "team of rivals", as if the only form of governance of value is surrounding yourself with those who dare not argue with you. (We see how well that's worked.) Obama brushed by it. I wish he'd used the chance to point out that McCain tried to run his campaign on how much he disagreed with Duyba, a myth we all saw through, and that was never questioned by the right-of-center press as unworkable difference of opinion.
My other major impression of this particular press conference was jubilation at seeing 50% of the population of my nation represented among his choices. And not just sisters, but one of them a Sistah. Susan Rice's background is in African affairs, which may not be spotless but certainly bodes well for Africa being treated as a player on the world stage.
But next time, folks, can we please either have a dais for short people to stand on so they aren't blocked by mics on the podium, or, even better, raise the camera angle so we get a full view of their faces?
I'll leave the commentary on the political meaning of these appointees to others, except to say none of them would have been my choice. But, then, I'm a liberal. I'm sorry to see Senator Clinton leave the Senate. She's been a strong force for women there. Likewise, I'm sorry to see Arizona lose Napolitano as Governor. I wish Obama's team wasn't so loaded with hawks, but then he is a hawk (and definitely not a liberal), so it was to be expected. I agree that Gates isn't of the same stripe as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, but that's hardly a recommendation, is it? Still, I'm willing to accept Obama's exhortation that he's interested in competence and effectiveness over ideology, at least for the time being.
That's another bit of job retraining he's having to bring to our government, the ability to recognize competence and effectiveness, to reward it and learn to expect it once again. What a concept.
[Cross posted at Group News Blog.]
Monday, December 1, 2008
OBAMA'S NATIONAL SECURITY PRESS CONFERENCE, 1 DECEMBER 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
META WATERSHED IS ONE YEAR OLD
(Maggie in Calcutta, 1956)
In 2001 I had the chance to hear one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, speak at the annual Art and Soul Conference at Baylor University. The talk she gave that night altered my life in more than one way, but what I want to share with you here is how she began her Q & A session. She said something like this: "I'm opening the floor to questions. If what you want to do is argue with me, or present your point of view, I hope you'll go find a place where others want to listen to that and not force it upon us here. If you try to do that here, you'll get no response from me. When you are done, I'll simply move on to the next person who, hopefully, will have a real question. I will not be taken in by any tricks you may employ to disguise your pontification or rebuttal as a question. I say this especially to the men in the audience, because I have found that men in our culture have too often been raised without the ability to listen respectfully to women speakers, without arguing in their heads and then out loud."
This drew a huge laugh, and a simultaneous air of relief and tension settled on the audience. She had to use her technique twice -- both on men, both men white and well-spoken, who needed to tell her why she was full of shit, they could not wait another fifteen minutes to prove her wrong. When each was done, she pointed to the next hand in the audience without a word, which again drew gleeful laughter and, increasingly, a sense of connection among the rest of us.
It seems to me that in our current culture, we are in the midst of a great experiment of pitting "free speech" against the deleterious effects of having to listen to unrestrained hostility, disappointment, and oppressive language disguised as thought. I personally think it is an experiment which is failing. As in, Epic Fail. It's poisoning our elections (which is, ahem, affecting the survival of the planet) and shutting up people who are the very voices we need most desperately to hear.
A recent article at The Onion began:
'In a statement made to reporters earlier this afternoon, local idiot Brandon Mylenek, 26, announced that at approximately 2:30 a.m. tonight, he plans to post an idiotic comment beneath a video on an Internet website. Mylenek, a moron, prepares to publicly address the "dumbest shiz [he's] evr seen!!!1!"
"Later this evening, I intend to watch the video in question, click the 'reply' link above the box reserved for user comments, and draft a response, being careful to put as little thought into it as possible, while making sure to use all capital letters and incorrect punctuation," Mylenek said. "Although I do not yet know exactly what my comment will entail, I can say with a great degree of certainty that it will be incredibly stupid."
"Mylenek, who rarely in his life has been capable of formulating an idea or opinion worth the amount of oxygen required to express it, went on to guarantee that the text of his comment would be misspelled to the point of incomprehension, that it would defy the laws of both logic and grammar, and that it would allege that several elements of the video are homosexual in nature.'
It's funny, except it's not.
A year ago today, thanks overwhelmingly to the support of Liza Cowan, I began an individual blogger. This was not primarily a wish to express my opinions -- I do that already, to great effect. (I be a WRITER.) Instead, I wanted conversation and exchange of ideas, hope, insight. I had been inspired by an essay on Bitch Ph.D. on how to be a responsible blogger, which emphasized moderating the hell out of your comments. You cannot build an online community AND tolerate anger-filled idiots. They have to get their therapy elsewhere. I compare it to the problems public libraries are now facing, since so many homeless people seek libraries for shelter during the day and so many of them (a majority) are mentally ill: patrons who want a quiet place to read or research have gone elsewhere in most major cities.
There's at least one major blog I no longer read because during this last campaign cycle, it allowed its commenters (and too many of its posters) complete freedom to trash a woman candidate in whatever language they could dredge up from their woman-hating ids. This continued even after her campaign had come to an end -- it was a culture, by that point -- to such an extent that one of their major diarists, a gay man who was the only poster I still wanted to read, made a comment to the effect that the bashing could and should now stop. His remark had some effect. Still, the damage was done. I wasn't her particular supporter, but a blog which will allow that is going to allow other shit that I don't want to see, either. I want to save my reading time and energy for that which is positive, not that which I have to wade through for islands of clarity.
The reality is, when angry voices are allowed to dominate a conversation, they will be overwhelmingly male, white, raised Christian, power-seeking rather than cooperative, classist, and add absofuckinglutely nothing new to what has run the world (into the ground) for 2000 years. It's over; time for a new paradigm, whatever means it takes to bring it through the door.
Appropriately, my first post here was entitled Who Feasts and Who Famishes.
I'd like to thank the folks who come here and read for being an impeccably intelligent, kind, open-minded and diverse community, who treat one another with respect and interest. As I build Meta Watershed, I'll do my share to insure this stays a genuinely safe place: Safe not as in "no divergent views allowed" but safe as in "you will not be called names for your divergent viewpoint".
Happy anniversary, ya'll. A little more after the fold.
Another segment of the Anne Lamott talk mentioned above resulted in my writing a poem which won acclaim. Her story was about something that actually occurred in the period immediately following the liberation of Europe after World War II. American aid workers poured in to help the destroyed communities of Europe -- the civilian casualties of this war, as in all wars, was exponentially greater than military losses. In particular, there were vast numbers of orphans or lost children. Huge encampments were set up by Americans to feed, clothe, and treat these children as some surviving member of their family was attempted to be located.
One relief worker talked about his experiences with these children. They were ravenous in every regard (when they weren't catatonic) and for the most part, the adults looking after them allowed them to eat as much as they wanted. One little boy, emaciated and starved beyond belief, ate his fill but still woke up every single night with screaming nightmares. The relief worker would hold him until he went back to sleep, but often the nightmares recurred the same night. This went on for weeks. Finally, one night as dinner was ending, the little boy picked up a loaf of bread from the table and slipped it under his shirt. The relief worker noticed this act and didn't interrupt. When the little boy went to bed, he put on his pajama, then hid the loaf under his pillow. After the lights went out, he retrieved the loaf and held it clasped in his arms.
He had no nightmares that night.
He knew he would be eating the next day, even if all the adults disappeared.
Offering succour to those who are damaged to this extent means giving them a loaf, yes. But it has to be a real loaf, not simply listening to the screams of nightmares.
HOLDING BREAD
Filling up on bread,
leaned against our deep old sink so
as to not be tempted
by the meal she'd just dished out
enough for us, not her
Talking to us around the fridge
so we could still call it a family meal
There are worse things than
watching your children go hungry
Worse than watching after
having grown up hungry
Worse than the anger of your oldest
because all he can stand to feel is deprived
Worse than the silent daughter
who swallows shame with every bite
you are not taking
Worse than teaching the baby
to not accept meals from the neighbors
Better to go without
than to settle for a public slot at the bottom
Worse of all
is to die with the bread all eaten,
last crumbs pressed up by moistened fingertips,
no new loaf on the way.
Generations of you.
I bake for your graveside altars
but I take the first slice for myself.
© Maggie Jochild, 24 February 2001, Waco, Texas
Published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Fall/Winter 2002
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