Just Words

Well, I don't have an explanation for what happened with the missed entries yesterday and the day before, except that things are not going well in blogland.. Monday was the day that Sam and I celebrated Valentine's Day, so of course I wasn't going to sit down for a couple of hours and hammer out a blog entry, but yesterday was another matter. I typed something up and, after letting it sit for a bit, went to edit it and put in some links. While doing so, I managed to crash OpenOffice AND corrupt the file with the blog entry in it, after which I had a small temper tantrum, folded laundry, and went to bed.

I hate rewriting things that I've written before and lost. It never goes well. I'm always convinced that what I wrote before was so much better than the repeat version, which frustrates me, which makes my writing worse, which frustrates me more, and so on. But I'll do my best, because I liked what I had to say last night.

The Power of Words

It's nice that current events (and kitty litter!) have moved in such a direction that each of my posts can build on the post before. I'm also excited that the topic that I get to build on is language, which is one of my favorite subjects.

I talked a couple days ago about how Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama for being an excellent orator and thus for lacking in substance. I called bullshit on the meme that she invoked, that if the wrapping paper is pretty then there must be nothing in the package. I pointed out how dangerous the meme can be, and how the Democratic party's persistent belief in its veracity has harmed us in the past, and will continue to do so as long as we hold onto it. This was, I'll admit, as much of a defense of Barack Obama as it was a commentary on the power of myths, symbols, and memes, and how they manipulate us into irrational beliefs and actions that work against our self interest. But I also admit that such a defense is too abstract and geeky for the majority of the American public, and even those who would care to listen would probably vehemently deny that it was true; after all, we would quickly discard the symbols and memes that hurt us if we could easily see them for what they are.

Barack Obama Strikes Back

Around the time that I was writing my geeky and obscure defense of Barack Obama, he was defending himself in a more effective and compelling manner, in the form of a speech that stressed the power of words to shape ideas and events. I couldn't find a transcript of his speech, but I did find a video of the last ten minutes of it, which include the now infamous 'just words' passage. I'm presenting it here, and I encourage you all to take ten minutes to listen. Barack Obama is a powerful speaker who gives even this diehard pessimist a sliver of hope.

The trouble came when the Clinton camp claimed that Obama had plagiarized the key part of the speech from another speech given by a close friend of his, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. A few people have taken to calling the whole affair – and prepare for groaning and rolling of eyes – "wordgate".

The whining about Obama's remorseless stealing of words continues, despite the fact that only two words were stolen – "just words" – and despite the fact that they weren't actually stolen; Governor Patrick himself pointed out that he had encouraged Obama to borrow the words from his speech.

As a writer, I take charges of plagiarism seriously. It's not just A cardinal sin among writers, it's THE cardinal sin. If I thought that plagiarism was going on here, I'd be the first person to denounce Barack Obama until I was blue in the face and hoarse from shouting. But writers share ideas all the time, and if an idea or a set of words are used with the permission of a friend, that's called collaboration, which is something that I approve of.

The most hilarious example of this mountain out of a molehill idiocy was when Governor Patrick put in an appearance on Good Morning America, where he was interviewed by Diane Sawyer. Diane Sawyer is clearly a Clinton supporter, judging by her pointed and leading questions, and she must not have done a scrap of research before the interview, because it clearly did not turn out the way that she had expected. The expression on her face as Governor Patrick relentlessly praised Barack Obama despite her every effort to lead him into doing otherwise was priceless. Governor Patrick is a masterful politician who turned what was supposed to be a smear of Obama into an opportunity to praise him to the skies and argue articulately why everyone should vote for him.

Because the Daily Show is on break this week, and thus won't be broadcasting clips from the interview until the 25th, I present it to you here, for your amusement. God knows that we all need a laugh right now!

Especially check out the look on Sawyer's face when the camera cuts to her and she's trying so hard to smile. It's priceless.

Politics and Symbolism

Ever since I got some exposure to Jung and Campbell in college, I have been what I have called a 'goobery Campbell fangirl'. ('Goobery' being a technical term.) I've read a lot of their writings, as well as the writings of others who touch on this field – I read the entire Golden Bough, and anyone who's taken a look at that monster knows that takes dedication. My reading has led me to become fascinated with the myths and symbols that permeate our society, spread unconsciously through the words we choose, the stories that we tell, the way that we see ourselves and choose to present ourselves. We don't realize it, but everything about the way that we see the world is controlled and guided by a symbolic language that stretches back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.

Once I became aware of this symbolic language, I started to see it everywhere. I also realized the way that myth and symbolism could be used by someone who understood it to manipulate people; by wielding symbols in a precise manner, it would be possible, even easy, to control how the public sees the world. What's more, I started identifying who these people are, and how they are doing it.

Of course, the manipulation of symbols is everywhere; it's not as though I'm the first person to discover their power to control others. Advertisers are geniuses at it; if you know what to look for, you can watch commercials and break them down neatly into the symbols they use and the memes they count on to reinforce their message. Politicians are good at it, too.

Dangerous Symbolism

Symbols aren't necessarily a bad thing. They provide a filter through which we can make sense of an increasingly complex world that might otherwise overwhelm us. But the problem that they pose is that not all of them are helpful – some lead us to take unwise actions, to believe lies told to us by people who do not have our best interests in mind, to stereotype people, to hurt ourselves or those around us. Those symbols need to be exposed for what they are, because once we recognize them, their power over us becomes greatly diminished.

I'm going to talk about one of those dangerous symbols today.

Recently, Hillary Clinton has been manipulating symbolism in her standard attack mode against Barack Obama by claiming that while he is an incredible orator, he lacks substance. This plays on a meme that we have in our society that people have a certain number of "points" that they get to distribute – or have distributed for them – so that people who get to look good and have a strong, charismatic presence don't have enough "points" left over to also be intelligent or effective, whereas people who lack charisma have more "points" free to give them the qualities necessary to be hard-hitting politicians who Get Things Done.

Examples of this meme in action pervade in the stories that we tell. Bookworms are portrayed in books and film as socially awkward, plain, or even ugly. (The exception being the sexy librarian – but mankind has found a way to sexualize everything. If you doubt me, the internet will disabuse you of your charming innocence.) Models and strippers are generally considered to be stupid and/or uneducated. Would you be surprised to learn that a supermodel had a masters degree in economics?

For the most part, the democrats have swallowed this meme hook, line, and sinker, which is a shame, because it's dangerous for a political party that wants to get its candidates elected to positions of power in this country. Our belief in this falsehood is why we keep losing. We assume that the less charismatic, droning candidates are more substantive, and therefore the only responsible choice, and so we end up with "winners" like John Kerry. And then we wonder why they lose, when their ideas are so good, their positions so well thought out and substantial. What we refuse to see is that if their droning voices put Americans to sleep, no one gets to hear about their ten point plans to rebuild the country.

Hillary Clinton is trying to cast herself in the role of the kind of policy wonk that the party loves by claiming that Obama's charisma is an empty facade that obfuscates a lack of real ideas or strong policy. And because of the dangerous meme of points allocation, she's succeeding. I've heard a lot of people who clearly don't know what they're talking about parroting her words.

It isn't true. Here is the transcript of a speech that Obama gave recently at a GM assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. (I tried to find a link to a video of the entire speech, but no dice.) It opens up with the usual Obama-esque soaring rhetoric – Washington is corrupt, people are hurting, politicians are sold out, he comes on a golden wave of hope to bring change and prosperity and unity, blah blah blah. But then he gets into the second part of his speech and directly addresses hard economic realities one by one, and talks about the solutions that he proposes, and those that he has already proposed. Agree with him or don't on his policy, but he lays out in-depth ideas. It would be hard not to call what he has to say in that speech substance.

You want the truth that transcends the symbols that have chained our minds to strategies that don't work? Here it is: Once in a generation, someone comes along who can talk economic policy and make it sound riveting. Barack Obama is that man.

Democrats Contemplate How to Lose -- Again.

If any of you caught the blank entry I've had posted for most of this morning, sorry about that! I had to post an entry to get the code for the video at the bottom of the post (stupid YouTube!) and I couldn't figure out how to delete the entry.

Delegate Manipulation

I've heard a lot of talk recently about the possibility that the election results from Florida and Michigan may be used to help decide who becomes President. Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton was the only one who campaigned in Florida – and you know she campaigned; her entire victory speech was a big old Florida pander – and she was the only one who was even on the ballot in Michigan. The party line is that it's unfair to deny these states their part in the electoral process, as though some other entity, a vengeful god acting against the will of the DNC, had capriciously imposed the punishment. They're also claiming that it would be unwise to alienate voters in two swing states, something they maybe should have thought of before they locked Florida and Michigan out. Hillary Clinton stayed silent on the issue all the way up to when she realized that she was in a close race with Obama and she was polling well in Florida and then – only then – did she start talking about fairness and inclusiveness.

Because Hillary Clinton took the most electoral votes from Florida and Michigan, the only reason to include those states in the total tally would be to tip the balance of votes in her favor. And you know, if the democratic party wants to shoot itself in the foot, changing the rules for the purpose of crowning their establishment candidate would be an excellent way to do it. I've already talked about how if Hillary is nominated when the popular vote has gone to Obama, a good portion of democrats are going to take their ball and go home. If she's nominated through rule-bending when the popular vote would have otherwise gone to Obama, that number gets even bigger.

The other option would be to hold new primaries and/or caucuses in both states, allowing both candidates a chance to campaign first. Despite the fact that this would still give Hillary a slight advantage (since most of the people who voted for her before in the unfair primaries will probably vote for her again) Obama's camp has agreed to this. Florida, however, is digging in its heels, saying that caucuses would be unfair to its elderly and its military, and primaries would be prohibitively expensive, and Michigan Senator Carl Levin said that it "would be neither practical, nor fair" to hold new caucuses in Michican.

I'm hopeful that this talk is just that – talk, totally unfounded on reality. If it were any group of people who had ever in their lives impressed me as being competent individuals, I wouldn't believe a word of it. But these are the democrats we're talking about here. All I can hope is that Obama manages to sew up a big enough lead to make such vote manipulation irrelevant.

Yes We Can

I was amused to discover that my remarks on the awesomeness of "Yes we can!" a couple of days ago were right on the money. Recently, I ran across a link to a video wherein a whole bunch of various artists, actors, and famous people sing 'Yes we can!', with occasional interruptions for a bit of oration from Obama. The overall video isn't actually very good, but even so, it's powerful, and it's powerful because of the repetitions of 'Yes we can!'. I thought I'd go ahead and link it here so you can get the idea.

Yes, I know that it's stupid to make political decisions based on what celebrities think, but most people do it anyway.