Obama Is Only the First Step

/ Eamon / 2 Comments

A professor of mine — a leading star in anthropology with a towering, critical mind — pointed out to us students on Thursday that we should be asking what kind of change Barack Obama will really bring.

Make no mistake: this prof was happy about Obama, and couldn’t hide it. I don’t think he had any intention of dampening the classroom’s euphoria, either (there are like two McCain supporters at SIPA). But it’s his job to think about these things, so I think we’d do well to listen.

What he pointed out was that there’s lots we don’t know about the Obama presidency. Will he deepen the occupation of Afghanistan? Isn’t the United States’ superpower status so predicated on a powerful military that we will need ever more expeditions to stay relevant? Hasn’t Obama worryingly surrounded himself with interventionists like Samantha Power? (In my prof’s view — or what I understand of it from his class — Power’s take on what the U.S. should have done in Rwanda was wrong and didn’t account for the country’s history.) And what of a resurgence of patriotism — even jingoism — that could mean a blank check on dubious policies? (We’ve seen that one before!)

In short, my prof was saying that the president can only be as big as the presidency. I think he’s is right.  And there are far more constraints on Barack Obama than there were on W, for two reasons. One, Obama truly was elected by a grassroots campaign, and so must in some ways be held to the whims of his grassroots. Two, the changes he wants to make — and that progressives hope he makes — are more revolutionary than the kind of changes Bush began 2000.

I had already been thinking about the limits and challenges of an Obama presidency because of some observations I made while canvassing in Ohio. For one thing, there are those in America that hate what Obama stands for. Like it or not, they vote, and we must bring them into the dialogue if we ever want lasting change in our country. Without that, the Christian right will just end up hating Obama as much as progressives hate Bush.

Another thing is that there is certainly not unity among Obama’s supporters on all issues. In the post-euphoria of the election, we shouldn’t shy away from looking at our fellow Obama supporters and asking them what they think about really difficult issues: abortion, gay marriage, immigration, Israel and Palestine. And while we all agree that our current foreign policy is terrible, there is wide disagreement about what the correct one looks like. One Obama supporter told me he thinks Iraqis should pay us back for the cost of the invasion. I totally disagree. The fact that we were able to agree enough on the campaign to drive around in the middle of the night before E-Day planting Obama signs is testament to the power of Obama’s message. But the discussion is not resolved.

We don’t need immediate consensus, but we must have dialogue. We can all crawl back to the rocks we live under — liberal, conservative, coastal or heartland — and wait for Obama to answer all these questions for us. Or we can keep up the amazing hope and dialogue this campaign has started, so we are never surprised by the views our fellow voters come up with, and so that when we hit impasses, we know how to solve them in ways beside shouting at each other, or worse.

Here’s an issue we can start with: Obama’s reported plan to come up with an alternative justice system to replace Guantanamo. Is this what we want? The ACLU has criticized it. On the other hand, it’s a way to get the travesty of Guantanamo off our hands with the quickest consensus possible. I don’t know enough yet to give a strong opinion (though when the ACLU speaks, we should listen). All I can say is: Stay abreast, stay engaged, don’t get passive!

Finally, a shout out to my fellow canvasser and blogger Seth Wessler, who is doing his part to promote this dialogue with his excellent blog posts via Racewire, which is associated with the magazine Colorlines. I love these anecdotes from Ohio (Seth stayed in the same house I did in Lancaster).

Getting Folks Like David to Vote, Again and Again

/ Eamon / 6 Comments

“Are you sure you don’t want to vote?” It was 7:05 p.m. on Election Day and my friend Crissie was making a last-minute phone call from the local Democratic party headquarters to  plead with David, a 20-year-old resident of Lancaster, Ohio, to get to the polls.  “I know, we’re all really tired. But this election is really, really important and what happens in Ohio is going to decide it.”

David had just returned from a long day at school, and said he was just too tired to vote, even though he supported Barack Obama. He even declined the campaign’s offer of a ride.

My friend Matteen and I were in the field office sitting on the couch next to Crissie, along with about 20 other volunteers making similar calls to hundreds of potential Obama supporters in the final minutes of voting.

“Let’s just go to his house and pick him up anyway,” Matteen said, glancing around the room full of tired volunteers. Without a second thought, he and I jumped up. Moments later, we were tearing through the streets of Lancaster in a rented green minivan with an Obama-Biden placard masking-taped to its side door. A local teenage volunteer rode shotgun, guiding us through the dark streets to David’s house, whose address we had from the voter rolls.

I knocked on the door of David’s back-alley apartment, but no answer came. I called his phone from my cell. No one picked up. In only 15 minutes, David’s dwindling opportunity to vote would be a long-gone memory.

The race to get David to vote was the final effort of a weekend-long push to make sure every Obama supporter in the area had made it to the polls. For the last three days, after making the 11-hour drive from New York City, our cadre of eight current and former SIPA students and several other New Yorkers had relentlessly pounded the pavement in Lancaster and other towns in southeast Fairfield County, Ohio — a former Republican stronghold — to canvass for the Democratic candidate for president. With the help of local organizers, we had knocked on thousands of doors. We talked to 92-year-old matriarchs, 18-year-old high school students, young parents and recent retirees. We walked through subdivisions with seas of McCain-Palin lawn signs, trying to motivate islands of hesitant Obama supporters. On the Appalachian fringes of the county, we searched for Obama voters on dirt roads that wound through coves where confederate flags hung in the windows of single-wide trailers.

It was a weekend of not turning back, of going the extra step to approach the places most unlikely to house Obama supporters.

To be sure, there were disappointments. There was the woman who told Matteen she “just can’t trust a Muslim.” There were the provocateurs who came by the campaign headquarters the night before the election and hurled racist slurs.

But more than anything, there were the rewarding moments that showed Obama had real support, in a town where everyone goes to church and the population is 97.4 percent white. There was the young farmer on a rural route who had a giant Obama sign in his yard, and gave an encouraging thumbs up from the seat of his tractor. Or the woman with a country drawl who hadn’t voted in 20 years, but said this time she was going to the polls for Obama. Or the elderly woman I called on Tuesday evening to check that she had voted. She had.

“I’m just so excited about Obama,” she said. “I’m just a-waitin’ on the results, sittin’ on pins and needles.”

Those interactions spurred us on to make sure that every Obama vote in town was cast.

So rather than accepting defeat as we waited outside David’s silent apartment, we tried one last tactic.

“Hey David!” Matteen yelled, with the familiarity of a long-time friend.

There was a pause, and a noise deep within the house. Finally, a reluctant response.

“Yup…”

“Come on, bud, we’re here to take you to the polls,” Matteen shouted. “You only got a couple minutes left to vote.”

Soon David shuffled out with a sheepish look on his face. A tall fellow with braces, he wore sweats and white plastic slippers.

“Ah, OK. Let’s go, man.”

We careened to his polling place, and convinced the poll workers to hold the door open for one last voter — it was 7:29.

When he was finished, David grinned and gave me a firm handshake. It was the first time he ever voted.

It was only one vote, but it was a moment that epitomized the grass-roots basis of Obama’s campaign. Thousands of volunteers throughout Fairfield County, the state of Ohio and beyond had made similar efforts again and again. One and two voters at a time, they had turned Lancaster into a battleground. They won Ohio, and they won America.

So as a mix of local and out-of-state volunteers at a Lancaster sports bar watched the first black President of the United States take the stage on the night of November 4, 2008, tears flowed freely and glasses were raised because, as Obama said, we were the ones who had put him there.

“Above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to — it belongs to you,” Obama said at Grant Park in Chicago.

For once, from Lancaster to Los Angeles, from Albuquerque to Albany, we felt that there really was one America.

Syria Closes American School and Cultural Center in Damascus

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In response to Sunday’s U.S. attack on Syrian soil (which, by the way, Baghdad has condemned), Damascus has closed the American primary school and the American cultural center, according to Al-Jazeera.

These are two of the remaining positive U.S. presences in Syria. It’s a shame, but a reaction like this was certainly expected. I guess those in Washington who made the decision to go in simply do not care.

I wonder how far back our relations with Syria have been set. I’ve poured a lot of energy into trying to change the perceptions of the Americans I know toward Syria. High profile activists have been working step-by-step for years, and have seen painstaking progress. I guess as long as W is in power it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Have our hopes for an evolution to peace been completely dashed?

I can’t wait for a new White House.

New York City Mexican Food Challenge: Any Tips?

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There’s a place on 16th Street between Valencia and Guerrero in San Francisco where you can get one, delicious soft-sided taco for $2.95. It comes with fresh salsa, grilled chicken, onions, radishes — and a heaping portion of homemade tortilla chips. Get two of those babies and an horchata, and you are good to go for the night.

Every hood in San Francisco has its own taqueria highlight, especially the Mission, Outer Mission, Excelsior and Bernal Heights. I grew up taking them for granted.

No more. After a year in New York, I have not been to a really good Mexican or Central American restaurant in the city that supposedly has everything.  (I have been to some pretty terrible ones. Think the Amsterdam Chevy’s, if that exists. I found a place like that on Flatbush.)

On Saturday night I made the mistake of getting hopeful. I was on Houston and went to a little joint named El Paso. The owners made an effort to have a nice classy feel, and the waiters wore ties tucked into their shirts above little aprons. Prices were commensurate with the location and ambiance. They were not, unfortunately, commensurate with the food: cheesy and lacking spice. The salsa looked like bean soup. The meal was preceded by a salad (?) of iceberg lettuce with “Italian” dressing.

Then I realized: There is a taqueria in a car wash in San Francisco that serves better Mexican food than the best Mexican restaurant I have been to in New York City. I’m talking about Bayshore and Army/César Chávez right there at the intersection of Bernal, Bayview, Mission and Potrero.

What’s the deal, people? New Yorkers say I’m hating. There’s a taco truck in Queens that does it right, they say. I don’t know, but I think a taco that takes an hour to get to doesn’t count. Does that mean there’s nothing in the island of Manhattan?

I invite my ten regular readers to submit some suggestions, because I’m at a loss. And please don’t recommend the spot on Amsterdam and 108th. It’s close, but I’m looking for the real thing. I’ll privilege suggestions from Californians living in NYC.

Bill Maher Is Annoying

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You’ve probably seen the coverage of Bill Maher’s controversial new movie, Religulous. Looks like a pretty funny, broad-based criticism of religion along the lines of Christopher Hitchens.

From the trailer, it looks like Maher’s movie makes fun of believers of all stripes, makes them look like imbeciles, and generally interviews the least articulate of them.

But a film like this does nothing to advance the dialogue on religion. To change people’s minds and not just appear like an arrogant jerk, you need to have at least a modicum of respect for the people you talk to. Especially if they represent massively popular phenomena.

It also misses the real story. The tragedy is not religion but a certain kind of religious practice. Intellectual traditions in all religions are under attack. Perhaps there was never much room for being a doubter or a mystic in mainstream religions — and of course, in Europe in the past you could have gotten into a lot of trouble for expressing such things. But more and more, they don’t seem like an option (even though they would easily stand up to Maher-style logical debunking, because they claim very little in the way of specifics).

Religiosity, literalism and fanaticism are on the rise all over the world, and the diversity of interpretations is decreasing. I’m thinking specifically of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. You’re either with us or against us, the literalists say. Stuff like Maher’s film only amplifies the restrictions that only give us two choices.

So Mr. Maher, if spiritual life has been an aspect of all human societies since the dawn of time, then we cannot just misanthropically dismiss all the inclinations people have to “oceanic feelings”. (I’m with Jung, not Freud, on this one.) We really need a good criticism of religious fanaticism at this time — it is corrupting our most beautiful instincts — but this film looks like it’s only going to further polarize the debate.

And I wish you could have waited until after the elections to release this! Sarah Palin can have a field day.

This Is How You Get Got

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So apparently pirates now have spokespeople, and it turns out they’re pretty damn articulate.

This Times article made me think of the Mos Def song “Got”. I.e., this is what happens when you sail an “estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry” down the coast of one of the most beleaguered, ungoverned countries in the world. It gets gaffled.

Was the arms deal really part of a secret shipment to southern Sudan? Hopefully, we’ll find out.

Learning to Live New York

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I was walking home about 11pm on 123rd Street near St. Nicholas. I passed the little jazz bar on the corner. It was about half full, and a live band’s melodies murmured out. People were having drinks and talking; the night was cool.

A spontaneous smile grew on my face, even though I wasn’t a part of the scene, and couldn’t be, because I had to hurry home and read for class.

For me, that’s learning to live New York City: appreciating and being aware of everything that is going on around you, without feeling you are missing out.

It’s impossible to partake in everything this city has to offer. So I try to savor the aroma of its little blossoms even if I can’t possibly pick them all.