Following my intention to take notice when President-elect Obama makes decisions I approve, I'm pleased to report that his nominee for Secretary of Labor, Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis of California, looks very good, possibly Obama's first Cabinet appointee who could actually be called progressive. (You can take a peek at her voting record here.) As David Macaray says at Counterpunch today,
Solis is not only the daughter of poor Latin American immigrants, she could very well be the first Labor Secretary in history who has firsthand knowledge of what it actually means to “work” for a living. Her father, a Mexican, was a shop steward with the IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters), in Mexico, and her mother, a Nicaraguan, was a former assembly line worker.
That her nomination was greeted "with groans and whining from the business community" is a positive sign too, but it's a reminder that she'll face strenuous opposition after she's confirmed for the post. This will give Obama's progressive supporters a focus for organizing and other activism, if they want it. As Macaray warns, Solis could "hit the ground running" but still "could fail because she didn’t have Obama’s support, because she didn’t have Congress’ support, or because, hardworking and resourceful as she is, she didn’t possess the leadership skills to pull it off. The Department of Labor has close to 17,000 employees and a budget of close to $70 billion. It’s going to take an inspirational leader to have an impact." All the more reason to help her out.
Incidentally, I corrected the spelling of Solis' name in the paragraph I quoted from Macaray above. The first three times her name appears in the article as "Soils", after which it is spelled correctly. We can probably expect that to happen fairly often, even in commercial media. I did a Google search for "Hilda Soils" and got a surprising number of hits.
It’s official! Rick Warren loves us. He says so. His ministry is based on love! He even appeared on the same stage with Melissa Etheridge, of whom he’s a big fan. (Just as John McCain appeared on Ellen DeGeneres’s show. Would a hateful person have done that?) I’m sure the Mormons and the Roman Catholics and every other religious opponent of gay people would say the same thing, so could all you opponents of Proposition 8 and other manifestations of antigay bigotry please stop accusing Warren of hate? It makes you seem so … hateful. And negative. And bitter.
I’m not being sarcastic. The words “love” and “hate” aren't always empty verbiage, but in this context that is just what they are. They are irrelevant distractions, and now more than ever, we can’t afford to be distracted by irrelevancies. The image of a sign inscribed “Love Never Fails,” which I’d used in a previous post, was invoked again by a commenter at Nicola Griffith’s blog this weekend as evidence that the “No on 8” campaign, and the quest for same-sex marriage generally, were all about love. This time (and not for the first time either), though, love not only failed, it fell flat on its stupid face.
Besides, civil marriage, gay or straight, isn’t about love. It’s about property rights and child custody and access to each other’s bodies and tax breaks and pensions and a bunch of other things, and those things endure even if a married couple stopped loving each other years ago. If two people love each other and want to be together, they can exchange vows and have a wedding party and there’s no law to stop them. The parties to a contract -- which is what civil marriage is -- are not required or expected to love each other (do you love your credit card company?). Love is not the business of the state, and it shouldn’t be, any more than any other emotion ought to be.
Even on the personal level, “love” doesn’t tell you much. In one of my all-time favorite movies, Denys Arcand’s Love and Human Remains, one character, who being a psychic has looked into the mind of another, reports to a third:
Benita: He really loves you.
David: There’s no such thing.
Benita [skeptically]: No?
“There’s no such thing” isn’t the reply I’d have made. I’d have asked something like, “What does that mean? Does it mean that he’ll adore me forever, do whatever I ask of him sexually and otherwise, never disagree with me, support me financially, be a doormat?” (And even if he will adore me forever, there’s no guarantee that I’ll return the honor.)
On the personal level, love can be pretty scary. Stalkers love their targets. Abusers love the people they abuse. This hurts me more than it hurts you. If I can't have you, no one will. ... Many people would say that such behavior isn't really love. I couldn't say; it seems to be a matter of definition, since so much of the literature of love from the past to the present enshrines such obsessive behavior. On another level, I recall reading somewhere that heterosexual men often justify their resistance to helping with the housework, by claiming that they show their love for the women in their lives by copulating -- um, making love (via) with them. (And, apparently, in no other way.)
Religiously speaking, the love of God doesn’t tell you much either. God may love you, but he’ll sit up there on his golden throne and watch while you die slowly of cancer, are mangled in a car accident, are tortured at Guantanamo, starve to death in a famine. (According to traditional doctrine, he doesn't just sit back and watch: he does those things to you, perhaps as a test of your faith, but no sparrow falls without his knowing it.) Even when you’re burning in hell eternally for that time you took his name in vain after you stubbed your toe, you will not be separated from the love of God. I call that cold comfort myself, but to each his own. In the Bible, Yahweh is depicted as an abusive husband and father, who will strip his child bride Jerusalem naked in public for her infidelity, and torture his disobedient children for eternity. But it hurts him to do so, because he loves them. If only they would behave themselves, he wouldn't have to punish them (for whom he loves, hechastises). People created such a god to embody their own ideas of what love means, unfortunately.
My position is that professions of love and accusations of hatred have no valid place in political controversy. No doubt Rick Warren also loves Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose assassination he advocated on US television earlier this month. Who cares? We shouldn't even kill, torture, bomb, maim, defame or otherwise deny human rights to people we love, let alone those we don't; neither hate nor love is an excuse. I don't see much love, if any at all indeed, in most of the overwrought reactions to Obama's invitation of Warren to pray at his inauguration, from the same people who accuse Warren of hate. Not that I am urging Warren's critics to be more loving: I am urging them to stop pretending they're all about love, and to start developing some political strategies to pressure Obama to be a better president once he takes office. (IOZ says roughly the same thing here, only nastier, bless his heart.) As Mae West might have said (but didn't, as far as I know), Love has nothin' to do with it, honey.
Carol Chomsky has died after a long struggle with cancer at the age of 78. She was a distinguished linguist and educator, and from the occasional interview and video clip I saw, no less interesting a human being than her more notorious helpmeet, a fellow named Noam. This feels a bit absurd coming from a nobody blogger, but I extend my condolences to her family and friends. (Photo from the Boston Globe obituary.)
Probably coincidentally, in a discussion of Rick Perlstein's disapproval of the shoes thrown at Bush at A Tiny Revolution, John Caruso posted a link to this remarkable article by Noam Chomsky from 1971. Written in the wake of the massive protests against the Vietnam War of the past few years, Chomsky discussed the question of nonviolent civil disobedience with his usual clarity and insight.
Henry Allen was impressed, while in jail, by "the tough, almost amused cynicism of people who are no longer surprised that other Americans will sweep them off the streets on charges so ridiculous that no one even bothered to laugh at them." But only the naïve are surprised, these days, at the far more serious matter of brutality and excessive force. Contrary to many reports in the press, those subjected to illegal force, illegal arrest, or illegal detention did not appear to be "indignant when [the system failed] to protect their rights."
Much more ominous, their reaction was the amused cynicism noted by Henry Allen. This suggests growing contempt for the institutions of American society, contempt inspired by the hypocrisy, the lies, the resort to brute force on the part of the Administration, which seems intent on demonstrating—in a trivial way in Washington and on a vast scale in Indochina—that it regards the law as an instrument for its purposes, not as a principle to be upheld. By so doing, it is preparing the ground either for further tumults and insurrections, or else for a still more dangerous submission to what Thomas Jefferson called "elective despotism."
This contempt for law also appears in press commentary. The New Republic editorial comment considers it "paradoxical" that demonstrators should be "indignant" when their rights are denied, and the Christian Science Monitor comments editorially on the "ironies in the situation" as "demonstrators who sought to suspend the process of law and impose anarchy on Washington are now demanding the protection of law."
This remarkable view seems to be widely held. Is it also "ironic" or "paradoxical" for the murderer of dozens of Vietnamese civilians to expect the full protection of the law? If President Nixon were to be charged with war crimes, should he first be beaten bloody by arresting officers? In fact, if an embezzler, a burglar, or a murderer caught in the act were subjected to the abuse and violence directed as a matter of course against a person violating traffic ordinances to protest the war, the press and public would be appalled by this savagery. But there is slight attention when those committing this crime are brave and decent young people, with no thought of personal gain, who are simply demonstrating their commitment to end a miserable, criminal war. Those who are attracted by ironies and paradoxes would do better to look here.
Substitute "Iraqis" for "Vietnamese" and "Bush" for "Nixon" in those paragraphs, and you can see that little has changed in mainstream discourse in the succeeding thirty-seven years. Chomsky has sometimes been accused of harping on the same topics over and over, but that's only because the U.S. government and its journalistic defenders keep doing and saying the same outrageous things.
Well, I managed to avoid writing about Muntadar Zaidi's encounter with Bush in Baghdad (until now, anyway). I can't believe that anyone reading this blog hasn't already heard / read plenty about it. The only thing I can add is that it's no wonder Bush took it so lightly -- he surely knew that Zaidi was being beaten in the next room, and having subordinates or proxies inflict pain on people is one of Bush's well-known personal qualities.
I've noticed that there are times when I sit down and simply cannot remember all the things I wanted to write about, because one particular issue is in the way and won't budge until I give in and address it. This is one of those times, and the issue is our Messiah-Elect's selection of pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguaration in one month. Of course there's been a flurry of comment on it, in the blogosphere and elsewhere. My no-longer-so-ambivalent Obama-supporter friend left a message on my answering machine yesterday, gloating over the reactions of the "ultraliberals." (Were you serious? Trying to provoke me to post about it? Or were you being satirical? People often say that you can't tell when someone's being sarcastic on the Internet; well, you can't always tell even viva voce.)
My friend's analysis was that it was a brilliant ploy on Obama's part, reaching out to the Christian Right to try to draw them into the big Democratic tent. No doubt that was a major factor; Obama said so in less crassly Realpolitik terms at the press conference where he defended his choice of Warren. I think Glenn Greenwald did a nice, judicious job on this argument at Salon.com; I'd only add that if he really wanted to show his willingness to reach out to religious "extremists", Obama should also consider mending his rift with Jeremiah Wright. He won't, of course: it's only right-wing extremists he's interested in appeasing.
But then, as Obama also pointed out at that press conference, he invited Joseph Lowery to deliver the closing benediction at the inauguration. Since Lowery has previously shown a tendency to be mildly inflammatory himself, in his eulogy at Coretta Scott King's funeral, he may surprise Obama as much as he surprised Bush. One may hope; one may dream. But using Lowery to balance Warren is classic Clintonian triangulation. Obama had previously shown his readiness to pal around with Warren, a readiness that Warren exploited; and Lowery showed his ownwillingness to hold Obama to lower standards than Bush. Warren has reportedly assumed a high profile on AIDS in Africa, but the competition among evangelical leaders in that arena is not exactly stiff, and there's evidently reason to doubt his greatness on any scale. This is something I hope to look into more soon, since semester break is upon me and I'll have more time.
I disagree that it's "ultraliberals" who are angry about Warren, though of course these categories and labels are hard to pin down. It seems to me that those who are angry are mostly what I'd rate as moderate liberals, those who were willing to forgive Obama a great deal all through his campaign. Those I think of when I hear the term "ultraliberals" would be those who were skeptical and critical of him all along, and so they (we) were not surprised by Obama's choice of Warren. It's interesting that people can overlook the selection of a bunch of war criminals and assorted other thugs for his cabinet, some of whom are known to have Christian-Right ties as unsavory as those Obama has been revealing for some time now; and what upsets most of them is Warren's antigay stance, not his endorsement of the assassination of foreign leaders.
But at the same time, I recognize that a lot of people who had looked to Obama to bring Change to the Oval Office now feel betrayed, though it's not clear what most of them intend to do about it. "There’s nothing more to say ‘cept Barry — you are DEAD to me," David Ehrenstein boldly wrote on his blog. I know what you mean, David, I defriended him on Myspace too. I expect him to come crawling back, begging forgivenness, any minute now.
Yes, I've lived here in my guilt museum quite awhile, rocking endlessly in my mother's chair, surrounded by these little trophies of my past. Here, let me show you a vintage faux pas, Gaucherie 1956, bottled even before I had entered kindergarten. Or something in a classic 1959 mistake: the chrome still as dull as the day it came off the production line, the tires flat and dusty as a crone's breast, heh heh. Sometimes the passage of time imparts a kind of deceptive polish to these old wrecks (the way a suit gets shiny from wear, you know) and I have to spend a good many hours in the lab restoring them to show just how bad they really are. ... Hm, perhaps I could perform a musical composition for you, one of my early forays into dissonance, D. C. Mitchel, Op. LVII (1962), Rondo for Solo Stumble? There's so much here, you could spend days going over it -- I do. And how about this unfinished mural depicting, or attempting to depict, that time back in 1964 when I failed miserably to -- You're not leaving already? What a shame. Well, it was time for me to consider dusting my treasures, and to think about what the future holds for my little collection here. (Why, I've barely filled up this one room so far; can you imagine what I'll have in ten years? Sometimes I just sit here rocking all evening, running my hands over some fine old blunder and daydreaming, you know. You have to pay attention to these antiques or they wither and die, after a fashion. It's almost as if they were alive.
--5/9/72 dedicated affectionately to David, for no sensible reason except it's the first good thing I've written in months
I wish I could bring this video to Jonah Goldberg's attention, as a hopeful sign of the backlash against hate ads attacking culturally conservative religious denominations. These two guys must be Mormons -- who else would mount such a vicious, irreverent, blasphemous assault on one of the holiest texts in gay male culture? It is a slap in the face to everything that Homo-Americans hold sacred. We culturally conservative devotees of Gloria Gaynor won't hold still for this! (Oh, and can I date the pianist? In the biblical sense?)
I had fond fantasies of doing a lot of writing last weekend, but like so many fantasies they failed to materialize. I did manage to read and watch some movies, so I don't feel totally useless. The reading was mostly old Lawrence Block mysteries, originally published in the 60s and 70s under pseudonyms but recently reissued under his real name; but I finally finished reading James Traub's very annoying The Freedom Agenda, which I'll discuss at greater length another day. I also reread Noam Chomsky's pamphlet The Umbrella of U.S. Power, on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, mostly to get the taste of The Freedom Agenda out of my mind; and began Pearl Cleage's 1993 book of essays Deals with the Devil, and other reasons to riot. I'm also going through Alan's War, a graphic novel/memoir by the French artist Emmanuel Guibert about a young American's experiences during and after World War II.
The movies I watched were, first, The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), an action film starring Geena Davis and directed by her then-husband Renny Harlin. Davis plays a former CIA assassin who emerges from eight years of amnesia and thwarts an Agency plan to fake a terrorist attack in the US. Of course, it will be a real attack, killing 4000 people, but it will be blamed on "the Muslims." This scene has apparently excited a number of people who see it as a foreshadowing, if not a prophecy, of the September 11 World Trade Center attacks... which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a post on conspiracy theories, but that too will come later on.
I hadn't watched The Long Kiss Goodnight in several years, but having just bought the DVD, I sat down Saturday afternoon and had a look at it. Like most action movies, The Long Kiss Goodnight isn't particularly coherent, but it has some good set pieces. I spent too much time looking online for a clip of one of my favorite scenes to embed here, where Davis's character kills a hitman in an alley, but no luck.
Sunday I watched Pedro Almodóvar's La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret), the 1995 melodrama that makes a sort of fulcrum between his earlier 'outrageous' films and his later 'mature' ones. I had also watched Flor before and was curious to see it if it would move me as much as it had the first time. It didn't quite do so, but I still enjoyed it. It's a little less color-coordinated than many of his later films, which share with his earlier work a tendency to bright, almost blinding primary colors. Here the production design is generally more subdued. The script may not hold together as well as, say, Volver or All About My Mother -- I haven't really made up my mind about that -- but it has some deeply felt emotion, with a minimum of campy irony.
Flor is the story of Leocadia Macías (Marisa Paredes), whose ability to write the trashy romance novels (under the nom de plume Amanda Gris) that have made her well-off is deteriorating along with her marriage. Grasping at straws, she decides to try writing literary criticism for a newspaper literary supplement, which leads her into an ambiguous friendship with Ángel (Juan Echanove). Ángel is a grey-bearded, red-eyed butterball, in contrast to Leo's handsome, lean and hungry-looking husband Paco (Imanol Arias), a career military man on peacekeeping duty in Bosnia. I'd quickly and uncharacteristically developed a crush on Ángel the first time I saw Flor, and he's even cuter now. One thing that had prompted me to revisit this movie was the remark of some critic that Ángel is gay, which I hadn't remembered and wanted to check. I don't see it. Presumably the critic made this leap because of Ángel's passion for old movies like Casablanca and his fondness for Amanda Gris' romances. But he seems to be interested romantically in Leo, and I didn't see any subtext.
Still, I enjoyed seeing La Flor de mi Secreto again, and will probably return to it sometime. Another attraction for me in Almodóvar's films is his use of music. There's a scene in Flor where Leo, having hit bottom pretty hard, sits in a coffeeshop while a gorgeous old woman in a red poncho sings on the TV. I liked the song and the performance, so I looked for it in the credits: it's "En el Ultimo Trago" by Chavela Vargas. I couldn't find a clip of that performance online, but the one at the beginning of this post will give you some idea of it. Vargas was born in Costa Rica in 1919, but moved to Mexico as a teenager and built a career there. Almodóvar apparently is a friend of hers and has used her music in several of his films. In the past few years, she came out as a lesbian, bless her. (According to Wikipedia, there are rumors that she and Frida Kahlo were once an item.) Look at this 1968 clip of her; she's evidently always been a knockout, as she is to this day.
Following my intention to take notice when President-elect Obama makes decisions I approve, I'm pleased to report that his nominee for Secretary of Labor, Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis of California, looks very good, possibly Obama's first Cabinet appointee who could actually be called progressive. (You can take a peek at her voting record here.) As David Macaray says at Counterpunch today,
