What this election clearly ain’t about is change, although both candidates are now waving that banner. After two weeks in the US, I’m now about to leave for Costa Rica, and not a moment too soon. The combination of crass urbanism and lack of substance in the politics is more than I am willing to put up with, although fortunately my mother is as angry as I am with the state of play.
A country that has CNN discussing the brands and shops where Michelle buys her clothes, or where Hilary supporters can decide that they will vote for McCain because he has a woman for VP is beyond my comprehension.
Commonly here, real life is compared with the movies, and it’s hard to work out which is which. One columnist compares Palin to ‘Mr Smith goes to Washington’, another with ‘Miss Congeniality’. Both are comedies.
Over dinner with friends in New York, after a refreshing visit to the MOMA, (some of my best friends are paintings), the serious question was raised: Do you really think there is enough difference between the candidates to offer hope for the US? Well, not really. The only hope is that Obama might stir enough people so that IF he got elected they would then get themselves up to hold him accountable.
But all the evidence of my eyes and ears tells me there ain’t much chance of that. Even in New Jersey, which has long been one of the ‘blue’ or Democratic states, the flags are waving everywhere, without ever a doubt about how wonderful that kind of intense nationalism is.
Nothing makes me shudder more than unblinking acceptance, especially when they come in pairs. It wouldn’t surprise me if the dollar shops started selling reliquaries:

There are no half-way opinions here, and that just makes me more extreme in my own convictions. A casual chat on the bus to NY leads to the accusation that I am a ‘limosine liberal’. I tell the husband of a childhood friend that I do climate change presentations for Al Gore. He says ‘Now I’ve lost all respect for you’, and is only half joking. People watch a lot of TV, but few read books (or blogs) among the bunch I’ve been exposed to. National Forum might be one of the few places where opposing views are side by side.
The Institute for Public Accuracy, via BEAU GROSSCUP, points out that “McCain was shot down over Hanoi while participating in a strategic bombing campaign intended to make civilians suffer so they would lose the will to fight.” He says the U.S. military put civilian deaths [from Operation Rolling Thunder] at 52,000, and others estimate they were much higher. Civilian deaths in Iraq are many times higher, but who’s counting?
Is it reasonable to ask what makes a war hero? Is it possible to respect someone’s courage while seeking an end to the carnage? Or question the motives that led the US to Vietnam in the first place? All of this is outside the boundaries for dialogue here. And McCain has consistently voted against better funding for the Veterans Administration, and against the new GI Bill. In fact, he has voted with Bush about 90% of the time – that ain’t change.
No one mentions that the US has 750 military bases in 180 countries (yes, of course in Australia) or that maybe the US wouldn’t like it if the Russians were setting up missile shops in Canada, as the US is in Poland, via their proxy NATO. Or that the greatest contributor to greenhouse gases on the planet, as an institution, is the US military.
These are not topics to raise while zipping along in a boat, out on a bay, while visiting a beautiful home in Surf City. This barrier island, just a long sand bar really, is too loaded down with expensive real estate to ever contemplate vulnerability. Even I wouldn’t heed an ex-pat (and therefore suspect) Cassandra who talks about sea level rise, if this was the only summer playground I knew:

But as I pack up to leave, my original views before visiting rebound.I conclude there ain’t much difference between these guys: both will maintain the privitised form of health insurance that serves Americans so badly, both support increased military spending, both will continue to kow tow to Israel, both will drill for oil everywhere and anywhere, and both will provide vast subsidies for the nuclear power industry (because it can’t exist without these). Neither has mentioned the concept of conservation in their climate change strategy to any great extent, because that ain’t what people want to hear.
Hating big government is one thing, being expected to take responsibility on a personal level for change is quite another. The American way doesn’t admit to compromise. Don’t know if or how I’ll be blogging from Costa Rica, but I close with two perspectives, old and new, of what the American way has been.
The first is an old, but once servicable and modest home, typical of the area I grew up in:

The next is more a reflection of today’s expectations, a bigger home for bigger people:

My Spanish is good enough to read in El Diario that Hispanics are worried about the Republicans taking away health clinics, or clamping down on illegal migrants. This is already a big issue in California. The paper says they are told to ignore the policy, and look at McCain the man. But it ain’t necessarily so.

Visiting the US, one is everywhere reminded of the power this country has assembled, and the history it draws on. Last week I renewed my acquaintance with the treasures of the Frick Collection, established by a 19th century entrepreneur and connoisseur, who built a mansion on Fifth Avenue to display them:

(Apologies if these pics are a bit big and slow to load, but this is a new computer and software, bla bla the usual excuses from the technologically challenged)
Frick was a fairly benign character, and had a falling out with the more ruthless Carnegie. But both were major donators to the cultural life and economic power of the US. New York still radiates this might, much of it very impressive:

But change is constant, and everywhere I see signs that in little ways (so far) the ground is shifting towards a new way of structuring society. Take for example, the appearance of bikes where I didn’t notice them on previous visits, here chained up on a subway entrance, next to the very sign that prohibits this practice. It leads me to the conclusion that on my next visit, there will be bike racks:

While it is hard not to gawp at fine buildings and great art, I am constantly reminded that I come from a more modest tradition of migrants and labor. My home town was founded after the European revolutions of 1848, which I know little about, except that a guy named Carl came and brought social attitudes that persisted in my childhood, in the form of a local beer hall (now the site of the town hall) and an annual parade for school kids that ended wth sugar cookies, pink lemonade and ham sandwiches. Free schools were part of this history:

Over the years, this European love of culture, music, and art has found expression in my mother’s life long membership in a German choir, and a perhaps less elevated appreciation of miniatures:

And still in the neighborhood are people who grow some food, still connected to their migrant backgrounds:

It is in this context that I watched the Spectacle of the Democratic Convention. It was as well engineered as the Pope’s recnt visit to Australia. While I was somewhat cynical about Obama, learning more about his background and that of his wife Michelle won me over. Both have worked for social issues in their careers, and she set up leadership programs in poor areas of Chicago. Both come from ‘battler’ type families, and his running mate, Joe Biden, while hawkish on Iraq, is reputedly one of the least wealthy Senators in Washington. That has to be good news.
Watching the Clintons, and the next day Al Gore, giving Obama their solid endorsements, one could believe in Obama’s potential to finally unite the country for change. The words are still rather tentative, for my liking, but in the US one doesn’t tread to far too quickly in the direction of reform. Gore was particularly good, and you can see him on You Tube. Obama promised to end the US dependency on overseas oil within 10 years. That in itself would lessen the sword-rattling. His support of nuclear energy was less impressive, but I doubt that nuclear will get a go, once the huge subsidies it requires are made more transparent. Besides, the world doesn’t have the time for that cumbersome and dangerous solution. Hopefully Obama will listen more closely to Gore.
The book by Paul Krugman, The Great Unravelling, which I am finishing this week, shows all too clearly how the media and particularly the Cheny-Bush alliance, has enacted crony capitalism that will not stop until the US has been reduced to the state of Zimbabwe. That might sound extreme, but democracy is an edifice that, like the Arctic ice, can become weakened to the point of no return.
The placement of compliant regulators in every area of government oversight: electricity, chemicals, energy, finance, you name it, has led to the crumbling of each.
The Clintons and Gore and Obama mentioned all of this, in light and soft ways, but we know that they know, and I believe Obama would act to turn back the tide of deregulation. (By the way, Australia now has a Dept of Finance and Deregulation, I’m not making this up.) Gore spoke of Bush’s ‘contempt for the Constitution’, and reminded us that McCain voted Bush’s way 90% of the time, not exactly the sign of an independent thinker, much less the ‘maverick’ the media likes to paint him as.
The McCain field can’t say similar things, all they can do is wave the flag. They don’t even mention the dreadful neglect of returned veterans, or the scandals of the Walter Reed Veterans hospital. The Dems did, and promised to fix it. Both Parties saw the need to trot out lines of returned veterans and generals on the stage, a chilling reminder of the importance of the military establishment in the US. Can you imagine Rudd or even Howard appearing on TV with a bunch of generals? I can’t, and don’t want to.
I will end with just a small indicator of how much things need changing in the field of medical insurance: 70 m Americans have medical debt or trouble financing medical care. My mother was recently hospitalised for 7 days, and had a medium serious level of surgery on her neck. The bill was $68,000, which fortunately she doesn’t have to pay, since she is covered by an older form of employer health insurance that is a legacy of my father’s union.
However, this excellent coverage, through a company that was Blue Cross Blue Schield, but is now called Horizon, is talking about privitisation. If Obama gets elected, hopefully such talk will stop. Even Bush had to back down on privitising Social Security, but not for lack of trying.
Please don’t think smugly ‘that couldn’t happen in Australia’, because already defined benefit superannuation schemes have been drastically cut back. Just ask anyone who has lost money from their ‘privitised’ super scheme this past year if they enjoy that risk.
And to those that wonder where the money could come from to fund public provision, maybe we need to revisit the more humble times before ‘socialism’ became a dirty word. The rich have been creaming it in the US for a long time, the corporations paying less and less tax as they are allowed to move into off shore tax havens. Follow the money, all the way Down Under.

Today John McCain gave himself the big shot in the foot (or maybe head) that may be decisive. He has chosen as his Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is known for taking on the oil companies in Alaska, which she has been governor of for 18 months. Prior to that she was mayor of a town of 5,000 souls, where she apparently acquitted herself well. She has no background in national politics, and this could work badly against McCain when he tries to claim that Obama has limited experience.
Seeing the (sorry, but it was so obvious) badly dressed and coiffed Alaskan commentators on the media about this surprise appointment, it was clear that Alaska is an outpost of little national significance, except as a source of oil and gas. Palin has made her rather small reputation as someone who has opposed the Republican corruption in her state, while encouraging oil exploration.
Alaska is a state much affected by global warming; you may have seen the videos of Eskimo villages collapsing as the permafrost melts under sea side homes. It is, of course, the area where drilling for oil in the Arctic Wilderness areas is hotly contested. One might have expected her to make clear her full support of this drilling, and to offer some justification of it. But no, all she offered was platitudes and the information that her son will be going to Iraq in September.
Coming from Australia, the importance of the military in government campaigning here is kind of disturbing. Almost no dimension of life is free from the flags, the professions of support, the reminders of past and present sacrifice. But there is very little mainstream reminder that just maybe Vietnam was as big a mistake as Iraq is proving to be. That would introduce cognitive dissonance, and they couldn’t handle that. It would put McCain’s heroic war record in a different perspective. My mother said something precient: someone who has suffered as much as McCain as a prisoner of war has got to have been affected, or maybe distorted by the experience.
Only the Democrats are willing to look at the lessons that still need to be learned about American adventurism, and I’m not convinced they are looking as deeply as they should be.
What becomes irritatingly apparent here in the US is the gap between what is said online and the TV comments. here was little or no mention of her being under investigation. No one seemed to mention her support of creationism, or the environmental issues in Alaska, although in a quick search on the internet, those details of her life pop up quickly.
She is also opposed to gay marriage, but has granted some benefits to partners of gay people. She is opposed to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and is an evangelical Christian who thinks creationism should be taught as an ‘alternative’ in Alaskan schools.
Palin is 43, and has 5 children. The last is just 4 months old, and has Down’s Syndrome. Presumably, the task of looking after this brood, and particularly the special child, can be outsourced. Family values would seem to sit well with privitisation in this case.
In announcing her candidacy, McCain mentioned that she was on the Parent and Teacher Association, and along with her long term membership in the National Rifle Association, who could doubt her ability to run the world’s most powerful military force, if McCain (and I certainly don’t wish it on him) should have a third recurrence of melanoma?
In short, she is a small town player in a very big game. So far she has been assisted by having been up against people who were either corrupt or widely disliked, and she is popular in Alaska. But in her speech, with McCain at her side, she mentioned nothing of any significance or interest. There was no sharp indication of great intellect, or passion, or knowledge. After seeing the outstanding individuals speaking the last few days at the Democratic Convention, she came across as a third rate candidate, clearly not up to national office of such ranking.
Having passed a law on ethics reform, she is now herself under investigation for ethics. The suspicion is that she fired a Public Safety Director because he would not fire her former brother in law. Said ex-brother in law apparently is a jerk. It is all up in the air, but reinforces the idea that these are small people occupied with small and parochial issues.
Tomorrow I’ll present a prespective on the Democratic Convention, where my former cynicism about Obama was subsumed by information about his background and that of his wife.