9 posts tagged “politics”
24 is back on, so yay to that. Last season was completely over the top, but that didn't keep me from bouncing up and down on the couch when it returned. Is there a bigger badass on television than Jack Bauer? I say NO. I mean, he's died for real at least twice, and successfully faked his death once. And he killed his own brother. The man is unstoppable.
Over at What's Alan Watching, there's been quite a fuss over the use of torture on 24. Oh, the hand-wringing. What message does it send? How can we say we're against torture and still love this show? Just about the only thing I haven't seen is "shouldn't we think of the children?"
I'm as progressive as one can be without being a full-on socialist, and, yes, the torture kind of freaks me out. It's supposed to. But for real, I just don't care. I mean, it's television. Insane, absurd, mock-worthy-but-still-great-at-tension television. Half the fun is figuring out who the mole is, when Jack will end up A Man Alone, how much time it will take for the hard perimeter to be breached, and just what he has in that manbag of his.
A few of us dissented:
I said (some repeating of what I've said here):
I'm as bleeding heart as they get, but I'm with Shara on this. It's just outrageous, over the top fiction. The torture freaks me out a little, but I don't think it means anything, except that the showrunners want 24 to be as nuts as possible.
I'll be planted in front of the TV on Sunday, and will no doubt watch the entire season. The only thing that's bugging me is that I already know Tony is alive.
Someone responded:
To Maura and Shara,
24 is indeed fiction but there are cites that people in the Bush CIA and Defense department used 24 as justification for things that were done. As cuture it does have an impact. I remember reading that memos had to be cirulated with regard to the show and I think I even recall reading that the producors specifically filmed something for the government basically saying something like, "We're just TV; Don't do what we do!" I like the show but feel it peaked with season 2 but it isn't accurate to just dimiss its impact.
I said:
Oh yes, I'm aware of that. But those people are crazy, and will find any justification they can for their behavior. I can't put the blame on 24 and more than I would blame Dexter if there were a rise in serial killers only murdering bad people.
As Shara said, viewers will accept behavior from television characters that we would never accept in real life. How else can you explain the popularity of Gregory House, Al Swearingen, Tony Soprano or Don Draper? Even Lorelai Gilmore did things that would make me want to smack a real life friend. I wouldn't want showrunners to make every character palatable and bland because of nutjobs who will misinterpret the behavior of fictional characters as proof that such behavior is acceptable.
I hate the idea that characters should be dumbed down because someone might misinterpret their behavior. Showing bad behavior is not the same as condoning it. Amy Sherman-Palladino was not saying "It's OK to run off and have sex with your high school boyfriend/the father of your child because you just had a fight with your fiance", when Lorelai did just that. She was saying "this is what Lorelai Gilmore would do, because she's impulsive and emotionally immature, and Christopher makes her feel better, even though he kind of sucks sometimes." 24 was not saying "How cool. Jack just tore some guy's throat out with his teeth. Oops, he's dead." There was no message. They just wanted to be as insane as possible.
No normal person thinks torture is a good idea. If someone is so horrified by the torture on 24 to the point where they can't watch it, I sure as hell get that. There are no adjectives strong enough to describe how awful real life torture is, and the previous administration's approval of it turns my stomach. If they had to turn to an outrageous, crazy-ass, no-basis-in-reality fictional show to justify their actions, they don't have a leg to stand on. But I refuse to accept that 24 is in any way responsible for their criminal behavior.
If you don't like 24, don't watch it. You can always tune in to Two and a Half Men, starring that pillar of the community, Charlie Sheen.
I can't say I blame the Iraqi reporter who did this. I guess Bush thought he was on sort of victory tour. Yeah. Not so much.
At least all that working out paid off. He ducks with the best of them.
Joe the Plumber speaks for you. And he'll speak to you for just $19.95.
Downtown Durham, NC celebrates the Obama win.
You know how every year the retailers start whining some time in October that Christmas sales will be down this year? There's panic everywhere, lamenting about the amount of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and how people won't have time to do their shopping, and OMG what will we do, we're already in trouble because of job losses/gas prices/the elves are striking/ Santa hates Americans, [insert dumbass crisis here] and for the love of all that is good and lovely about Christmas, please STFU. Do they really think that one less day between Thanksgiving and Christmas will keep shoppers from buying presents? If they're planning to go shopping, they go. If retailers gave their sales people and their drivers and their warehouse workers big fat raises during good years, I might care about sales being "down". They only panic because they're worried about executive bonuses and stock prices.
But I seriously digress, because I had to get that little rant out of my system. Right now, I'm just as irritated with the Democrats. They're so close to winning this one, and one week before the election day, they've created a problem that doesn't exist.
I love Rachel Maddow. She's smart and funny and, as a bonus, she's not a mean-spirited lunatic who makes ugly remarks and then tries to pass them off as jokes. But what in hell does she need to "talked down" from?
Come on, Rachel and Governor Dean. My inference is they're worried about undecided voters, but there are plenty of reasons that more people haven't already voted. Work schedules, family lives, procrastination. They could even like the ritual of having one day set aside for everyone to vote.
The Dems' fecklessness has been the subject of jokes for years now. They couldn't organize a car wash for fear that a volunteer might refuse to wash an SUV. Are they such doomsayers that they can't even be cautiously optimistic? And for the record, this refutes their claims. So for the love of all that is good and exciting about the 2008 election, stop whining and STFU.
More insanity in PA. This time it's Pottsville, another thriving metropolis in the Keystone State.
Is it possible that Obama supporters are behaving the same way but we're not hearing about it? Anything is possible, right? But I doubt the Repubs would let it go unnoticed.
In his October 25 column, Frank Rich defends the White American. My objective side agrees with him that white people are not screaming racists who would shoot Obama if they were given the chance and the gun. But this campaign season has me questioning my belief that things have gotten better over the last 40+ years. Maybe these virulent racists are like deadheads. You'll find the same people at every event. Perhaps the crazies in Ohio are literally the same crazies in PA are literally the same crazies in NC are literally.... You get the idea. The difference between deadheads and right wing zealots? Deadheads take acid. The zealots are trippin' all on their own. Also, deadheads don't want to kill everyone who looks different.
I found the Pottsville video on Artzy Carmen's Vox blog. Go check her out.
Judith Warner's September 25th column on Sarah Palin didn't give me pause. It gave me friggin' heartburn. Before I start on a tirade about Palin though, I have a thing or two to say about Judith Warner.
Warner's weekly column, Domestic Disturbances, generally makes me roll my eyes. She writes about modern parenting, or rather, Modern Parenting Through the Eyes of the Privileged, which, seriously, I couldn't care less about. Unfortunately, I get sucked into reading her columns on occasion. I think she's a little young to legitimately be a baby boomer, but she engages in the same navel-gazing, "my mother's hairbrush is a metaphor for life" syndrome that my generation is so embarrassingly fond of. So I approach her columns with some trepidation. She's semi-heir to Anna Quindlan, whose persona was "I'm just a mom who happens to write for a newspaper", except Quindlan was politically savvy and only made me want to tear my hair out about 25% of the time. Warner, on the other hand, often gives me a migraine.
OK, so: Poor Sarah. Warner, upon seeing a photo of Palin sitting next to Henry Kissinger, has a lightbulb moment during which she realizes that Palin is in over her head, knows it and is afraid of being found out. Well, some of us knew that from the get-go. And I have yet to meet anyone who didn't suffers from Imposter Syndrome. So that's not what I would call a unique position for Palin to be in. Maybe it's unique to her, because I can imagine her being so arrogant that it never before occurred to her that she didn't know what she was doing.
Then Warner has the almighty gall to call Palin our Inner Elle Woods.
I think I’ve seen it now. In her own folded hands, her hopeful, yet sinking posture, her eager-to-please look. Sarah Palin is their — dare I say our? — inner Elle Woods.
I had thought of Elle Woods, the heroine of the 2001 and 2003 “Legally Blonde” and “Legally Blonde 2” films, a great deal during the week that Palin became McCain’s running mate and made her appearance at the Republican National Convention. The thoughts didn’t actually originate with Palin; my daughter Julia had recently discovered the soundtrack of “Legally Blonde: the Musical” and then the movies that inspired the Broadway show.
Re-watching the movies with Julia, I’d been surprised at how time, and motherhood, had tempered my affection for Elle Woods — a frilly, frothy blonde who charms her way into Harvard Law School and takes the stodgy intellectual elitists there by storm with her Anygirl decency and non-snooty (and not-so-credible) native intelligence.
I’d found the “Legally Blonde” movies fun the first time around. Viewing them in the company of an enraptured 11-year-old, who’d declared Elle her new “role model” after months of dreaming of growing up to be a neuroscientist in a long braid and Birkenstocks, was another story.
“You can’t,” I’d admonished Julia, “accomplish anything worthwhile in life just by being pretty and cute and clever. You have to do the work.”
Let me tell you about Elle Woods. She was a bubbled-headed sorority girl whose innate smarts were stifled by parents who never expected any more from her than to marry rich. She was treated like an idiot when she arrived at Harvard because she was in foreign territory and didn't know the rules. But, BUT, despite what Warner says in her column, Elle did do the work. Has Palin done any of the work? Not only that, but after Elle's been humiliated at a party by one classmate and told by another to go back to her sorority, Elle says "At least if you showed up at my sorority, I would have been nice to you." And she would have. I think if Palin were humiliated like that, she would have made everyone's life a living hell. Who became Elle's best friend in Legally Blonde? A blowsy manicurist who had terrible self-esteem and who used to live in a trailer. Would Palin be caught dead hanging out with someone like that? She'd probably treat her like a servant, and not in the "she's just like a member of the family" way.
This, though, is what sent me over the edge.
You don’t have to be perennially pretty in pink — and ditsy and cutesy and kinda maybe stupid — to have an inner Elle Woods. Many women do. I think of Elle every time I dress up my insecurities in a nice suit. So many of us today — balancing work and family, treading water financially — feel as if we’re in over our heads, getting by on appearances while quaking inside in anticipation of utter failure. Chick lit — think of Bridget Jones, always fumbling, never quite who she should be — and in particular the newer subgenre of mom lit are filled with this kind of sentiment.
You don’t have to be female to suffer from Impostor Syndrome either — I learned the phrase only recently from a male friend, who puts a darned good face forward. But I think that women today — and perhaps in particular those who once thought they could not only do it all but do it perfectly, with virtuosity — are unique in the extent to which they bond over their sense of imposture.
I saw this feeling in Palin — in a flash, on that blue couch, catty-corner to Kissinger, as her eyes pleaded for clemency from the camera. I’ll bet you anything that her admirers — the ones whose hearts really and truly swell with a sense of kinship to her — see or sense it in her, too. They know she can’t possibly do it all — the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders. And neither could they.
Really? REALLY? They know she can't do it all, so they want her to...have it all? Even though she won't do the work? Why would a woman with any smarts want a VP who's so intimidated by meetings with foreign leaders that she can't hide it? Are we going to play the girl card now?
There's no doubt that the Repubs carry some blame in this. After all, they're the ones who chose her, and yes, they're using her. But is she really at the beck and call of The Men? Some people think McCain is the one who's being used, and that he should probably get a metaphorical soup taster. Palin is indeed over her head, but she's no delicate flower who needs to be protected.
Like any grown-ass woman, Palin should have put on her Big Girl Pants and thought about whether she was up to the challenge. Now she's in it and her ego and her ambition won't allow her to get out of it. So I'm not feeling too sorry for Sarah Palin right now.
I might as well join in the frenzy. Sarah Palin is the scariest woman to come along since Phyllis Schlafly. In case there's anyone out there who hasn't heard these stories yet, here are a couple links:
She's anti-choice, even in the case of rape or incest. She's pro-death penalty. She believes in abstinence only sex education, and she thinks creationism should be taught along with evolution. (Geez, even the Pope knows better).
Her snide remark about community organizers ("I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities," said during her acceptance speech on Wednesday at the Republican convention) is the topper. The Republicans have been all about community organizing ever since Bush the 1st's Thousand Points of Light speech. They don't want government money going into social programs. They want people in the community to raise the money themselves. Doesn't she know that the right-wingers who get themselves elected to the school board, in order to ban books, stop sex education and force creationism into curricula, are community organizers? I'd love the hear the discussions about damage control going on at McCain headquarters.
With all that stuff, I couldn't care less about her being a lifetime member of the NRA. It's the only thing that makes her seems remotely normal.
Palin is a the example of the worst kind of woman in our post-second-wave-of-the-feminist-movement world. She's a mean girl. queen bee her little world, a world where she can fire anyone who doesn't bow to her demands. They will not have a date for the prom if she has any say in it. And forget about making cheerleader.
Palin is no friend to women. She's no friend of the less fortunate. She's no friend of the environment. I'm not a praying woman, but I might become one. Should McCain actually win the election, I'll be praying for his safety every night.
My best and oldest friend, Lynn, came to visit JP and me this past
weekend. I haven't laid eyes on her in almost two years and I can't
remember the last time we spent any time together. We both suck at
keeping in touch with people, so we don't even talk or e-mail all that
much. When she called me a few weeks ago to say she was coming in, I
was so excited you would have thought it was Christmas, my birthday and
an Aretha Franklin concert all rolled up in one.
Lynn and I were raging liberals and budding feminists in the late
sixties/early seventies. We supported McGovern although we were still
too young to vote. We read Germaine Greer and worshipped Daniel and
Phillip Berrigan.
I have gone from liberal to irritated and progressive. Lynn has become
more conservative over the years. I don't discuss politics with many
people. I admit I'm not well versed enough to have an in-depth
discussion. I generally go with my gut feeling and what I was brought
up to believe by my eternally Democratic family.
I accepted long ago that Lynn had become more conservative, because
it's not my place to not accept it. But I can say I was shocked to find
out she voted for Rick Santorum in the last election. I was almost
speechless. All I could say was "You did?", with wonderment. She said
she hated his opponent Bob Casey so much she had no choice but to vote
for Santorum.OK. I can't knock her for that. I was an avid Kerry
supporter because I despise Bush with a hot, flaming passion. But then
she said he really isn't that bad. I just didn't know what to say.
I've been thinking about that conversation since then. As an adult, I
have tended to gravitate towards people with the same political views
as mine. It makes social situations much easier. Despite my general
discomfort with political discussions, I've spent more than one evening
talking about conservative assholes with no clue about what's going on
in this country - post 9/11 behavior by our government, rabid
anti-abortionist demonstrations (in addition to less acceptable forms
of protest), anti-gay scare tactics used to distract citizens from
other, more important issues. Everyone's in agreement. And I do have a
major problem with extreme conservatives. But I've read quite a few
colums and heard several commentators over
the last year stating the political atmosphere in America has become so
combative and divisive that it could be irreparable. We only read
columnists we agree with, and listen to commentators to say what we
believe. We judge actors by their politics. We throw names at people
because they're members of the opposite political party.
I hate to think that, if I had met Lynn as an adult, I would have
rejected her as a friend because of her moderate conservative views, a
conservatism that makes her disgusted with Bill O'Reilly and Sean
Hannity. She's always been a patriot, in addition to being just plain
awesome. I would have been worse off not to know her and claim her as
my best friend. I hate to think I would reject anyone as a friend
because their political views didn't match mine exactly.
It could just be our history that allows me to not care about Lynn's
politics. Or it could be that I know people are complicated and
interesting enough to bring them into my life even if I don't agree
with everything they believe in.
I could never give up Lynn's friendship. She brought me dark chocolate Hershey kisses.
Hmmm. although I'm very anti-torture and highly left-wing, 24 has always been one of my favorite shows. Until last season, anyway, when everything just fell apart. I had gone the entire run of the show without ever missing a SINGLE episode when it aired, and halfway through last season I just stopped watching because it was so painful. But, after several previous seasons that I seriously enjoyed, I'm willing to give it another chance this season.
I find a lot of the criticism of the show in general to be unfair (although bash away at last season). I see it as a show about people in high stakes situations seeking resourceful ways to operate in situations where they have very limited options. In order to maintain the suspense, characters have to be placed in danger; since there are a finite number of characters, they're gonna be put through the ringer (wringer?). I don't mind the torture, because its fictional. With fictional heroes, we get to witness their character development, moral code, and sense of honor - therefore, it is easier to trust a fictional character to make decisions (i.e., when torture is appropriate) that I would never consider trusting a real person to make. I trust Jack Bauer to make the right decisions, to protect us, and to find the real bad guys and stick it to them. Like Batman - I would trust Batman with the cell phone sonar technology thing in Dark Knight, but I would never trust a real person to do that. I guess that's how I can justify watching a show that glorifies something I would never condone (like most action movies, spy movies, and military movies that I also find myself able to enjoy).