getting carded

John McCain played his 'Obama played the race card' card a little early, which shows some desperation to change the narrative from inevitable Republican defeat in November. However, this might be McCain's best strategy: spin out absurd over-reactions to justified criticisms of the Republican playbook (from Atwater to Rove). Otherwise, he is reduced to blaming Obama for high gas prices, which only shows that surrealism is alive and well.

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Photo credit: McCain for President web site

a model for negative social thought

After everything, the only responsible philosophy is one that no longer imagines it had the Absolute at its command; indeed philosophy must forbid the thought of it in order not to betray that thought, and at the same time it must not bargain away anything of the emphatic concept of truth. This contradiction is philosophy's element. It defines philosophy as negative.

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Each of those thinkers [Xenophanes, Aristoteles, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx] found his own truth in critique. Critique alone, as the unity of the problem and its arguments, not the adoption of received theses, has laid the foundation for what may be considered the productive unity of the history of philosophy. In the progressive continuity of such critique even those philosophers whose doctrines insist on the eternal and the timeless acquired their temporal nucleus, their historical status.*

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*T. W. Adorno, "Why still philosophy," in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords (NY: Columbia University Press, 2005), 7, 8

Photo credit: Jeremy Shapiro (Horkheimer and Adorno [center]; Habermas [far right]).

war cathexis

Obama is willing to lose the war in order to win the election in the fall: this is the message of John McCain, who believes he 'wins' on war. Hence, he cannot afford to suggest anything that would wind down the war in Iraq or ratchet down tensions with Iran. 

The 'Surge' is McCain's political Viagra.

McLame

John McCain, taking a page from the Clinton campaign handbook, is accusing the 'media' of having a love affair with Barack Obama in a TV ad titled 'Love'. However, the 'media bias' claim is wearing thin. After months of being called "Hussein" and "Osama bin Laden", and wading through the muck of Rev. Wright et al., Obama finished ahead of Clinton and is leading nationally versus McCain. Of course, it is still early in the campaign and things could change. But it is interesting that all the arguments against Obama (not experience, not ready, is a closet Islamist, hasn't done anything in his life, etc.) have not enabled McClinton to gain a decisive and expected advantage. I doubt that 'media bias' alone explains this. It is an unusual year and all of Sean Hannity's horses and men have not yet been able to put the Republican Party back together again.

the last word -- the last laugh?

When one moves from one apartment to another, old treasures are unearthed. Thus, I came upon a 'farewell' note I posted to co-workers at a job I held just before heading to graduate school. Despite its dated Adornoean style, the content remains remarkably timeless.


In most cases when one leaves for greener pastures, the usual pleasantries conveying thanks for years well spent and memories made are laid out not unlike merchandise which awaits purchase at a twenty-four hour clearance sale. It is as if the unwanted product of many years spent poorly, in actuality, must be gotten rid of lest it trail behind indefinitely, cluttering one's mental inventory. I will spare you these mundane expressions, however -- not so much as to save time, but as not to insult your intelligence. The situation as it has been is well-known, that only through sheer obstinacy has sanity been retained. Indeed, it is 'no fun' to work in a bureaucracy, yet this situation is intensified in the present surroundings. It may be that never before has so little difference in educational experience between some and others meant so much in terms of salary and respect. Of course, this difference is so precarious that it must be enforced. The overall, over-active ego, which is constantly at work, weaves the magical veil of authority, yet, in spite of itself, seeks to downplay the power that it so desperately wants. The inane and clumsy chatter which marks the social interaction between groups belies the often promoted team concept. What is misunderstood is that in a situation in which authority has no legitimacy there can be no real power; and the meagerness of the carrot which matches that of the stick dangled before the low ones adds to the stalemate of powerlessness.

centering

Having vanguished the suddenly populist Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama is now tacking back to the center of the political spectrum and, in the process, has unnerved legions of the American Left (namely, the MoveOn.org crowd). Suprisingly (mock shock) he is not so absolutely against 'free trade' (and what President has been?). He thinks the government spying act (i.e., FISA) is acceptable in its current version. He wants good old boys in downstate Illinois who elected him to the Senate to be able to keep their shotguns. And he wants to expand the role of churches in social welfare provisions. Has Obama suddenly become G. W. Bush as suddenly as Hillary Clinton became William Jennings Bryan?

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The short answer is "no." One weakness of the Obama campaign has been its failure to pick battles to fight more judiciously. Hence, it floundered in responding to every provocation emanating from the Clinton camp. Perhaps he has learned a lesson. It is not a winning or worthwhile proposition to reject free trade as the potential president of a capitalist economy. As Claus Offe pointed out long ago, government policies that give an incentive to corporations to disinvest are self-defeating when one wants to simultaneously impact areas such as poverty or health care reform. On the Supreme Court's 2nd amendment decision, why stir the hornet's nest of the NRA needlessly. Let the sleeping lunatics lie. FISA is a bit tougher sell for me. However, as President, Obama can seek to use the powers it authorizes more judiciously; in other words, he can submit his own use of FISA to more oversight than Dick Cheney could stomach. Finally, on 'faith based initiatives,' this is very understandable: Obama's community organizing background undoubtedly brought him into contact with 'progressive' churches (such as the one he recently abandoned) which don't seek government funds only for the purpose of imposing evangelical morality on the people whom they help.

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All of these moves are reasonable from a person who seeks to run a truly national campaign (not the typical presidential campaign that focuses on a few swing states to the neglect of all others). Obama is hunting on McCain's expected safe territory; finally, a Democrat is not simply conceding Red States and religious fundamentalists. If Obama can actually co-opt the Fundies (especially those under 30), he will have broken the stranglehold of the legacy of the Moral Majority, which would be an accomplishment equal to getting the USA out of Iraq in a timely manner.