Cancerning John Ibbitson's front page commentary, “Obama Turns Left,” in the Globe and Mail

This is a re-posting of something I originally hung up yesterday, in which I suggested that there might have been racism at play in the matter under discussion. I have not repeated those comments because that’s not the issue of immediate concern. Besides, we can return to that aspect of things, and perhaps will, another time. My observations otherwise remain much the same. What I have added is more of what John Ibbitson said, and a link to the front page feature in the Globe and Mail. What have been lost are some asides, comments on the original post, and my responses. My apologies, FSJL.

I’ve blogged before about people who claim expertise but who really aren’t expert because they lack the attention to detail, the commitment to finding out what’s true, the bothering to check and double-check that identifies persons who care about their work, care about not misinforming those who repose confidence in what they say. Being expert isn’t easy and I’m glad that I make small claim in that direction. But if you say you are, then deliver the goods! If not, the price for those who believe you may end up being very high!

One presumes a considerable degree of expertise on the part of someone writing on politics for a major newspaper. I’m referring to John Ibbitson’s front-page piece, “Obama Turns Left” in the Globe and Mail of April 4. Before I make any comments, though, I have a story. It happened a while back, pre-election and just pre-Global Devastation, if I recall rightly. I’m watching a discussion on the Wall Street Journal’s website. I’m pretty sure that’s the source, but it doesn’t matter much if it isn’t. Can’t remember their names, but two men are discussing Barack Obama’s economic policies and one is describing European economies. He says they grow at about three percent annually, people are accustomed to taking four weeks or so of vacation time, workers are pretty laid back. These economies, the way of life, might be characterized by the word ‘equality'. While he’s talking, I’m thinking, “Good. Someone who sees the virtue of an economic engine with the goal of enabling producers to stop and sniff the flowers, enjoy their families, read, travel, have time to share stories with their children.”

Imagine my surprise when I discover this is not what’s being approved of at all. The European ‘equality’ approach is not such a good thing, it turns out, because it’s not the kind that allows for risk-taking, for the enterprise that has always been the engine of American industry and commerce, and underwrites the American way of life. It seems the American economy can be described by the word ‘liberty,’ its virtue being that people can take risks and become wildly successful entrepreneurs and concomitantly, production can grow, not by modest three percents but by leaps and bounds.

I’m relying on memory here but I’m pretty sure I’m reporting the essence of what was said. Certainly I was knocked over by the discussants not even admitting that the European approach had, as seemed obvious from their own descriptions, much to recommend it. Naaaah! I gathered that I was supposed to think that these economies might be ‘equal’ but were somehow less ‘free,’ and to be watchful lest Barack’s policies lead Americans down the backward paths to socialist unfreedom.

So now to John Ibbitson’s comments on Obama’s turning left. I quote Mr Ibbitson’s first two paragraphs:

“In the space of a few months, the United States of America has been transformed from the most entrepreneurial society on Earth to one so state-directed that even the Europeans are raising their eyebrows.

The government has become deeply enmeshed in the banking and insurance sectors, a chunk of which it now owns. It holds or guarantees $5-trillion worth of mortgages. It is directing the future of the automotive industry.”

Mr Ibbitson then refers to the [American] conservatives’ accusation that President Obama is a socialist and, in doing so, employs a courtroom device that we are all familiar with from crime shows on the TV. He proceeds to quote one conservative, thus…

' “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead," Mike Huckabee, former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said recently, "but the Union of American Socialist Republics is being born." '

Ibbitson follows with the comment, “It's a wild claim.” But as in the case of the lawyer who asks and then withdraws a question when the judge rules it objectionable, the damage has been done. Obama’s policies have been tainted by the Russian connection (made by Huckabee, true, but effective nonetheless), and people have been frightened by the comparison between the USA and the USSR – an unthinkable one, prior to this!

There’s no space here to properly analyze the article and the accompanying graphics, and, thanks to the Internet, readers may see for themselves – sort of. The graphics were pretty grand! Suffice it to say that, were I still teaching English, this would be an excellent piece to take into the classroom for students learning about bias and subtle manipulation in journalism.

So those reading this post can see the feature themselves, here is the url: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090403.wobama03/BNStory/International/home

One buys the Globe and Mail because of some good news reporting and some good columnists, and because one can almost invariably count on fine letters to the editor. The readers were quick to pounce. Ian and Angela Trowell asked, “What on earth were you thinking when you blazed across your front page a red striped text and a blue cluster of hammer and sickles? To inflame Americans, who are inherently fearful of socialism in any form, is utterly irresponsible.” Janis Svipilis rebuked: “The parody of the U.S. flag may have seemed clever, but it's a deadly insult to the democracy south of us… As the son of refugees from Stalinism, I find your front page offensive and, worse, morally incoherent.” There were no letters published that supported Ibitson's analysis.

I suppose one can argue that policy can be interpreted at will, and so John Ibbitson is within his right – ha-ha – to paint Obama pink. Ha-ha some more – a doubly ironic guffaw this time. It would be an occasion for loud cackling except that this (Canada) is a nation presently being governed by ill-advised conservatives, voted in by a too-small percentage of the enfranchised. Many Canadians don’t vote. One must conclude that they don’t grasp what will happen if they fail to exercise the franchise. In such a context, the importance of responsible journalism cannot be overemphasized.

There’s no doubt that Ibbitson got one thing very wrong. Early on he remarks: “Mr. Obama is the most activist president since Lyndon Johnson. Mr. Johnson's presidency failed.” Reader Kurt D Lynn to the rescue, this time, to point out that Lyndon Johnson’s presidency cannot be deemed ‘failed’ by any stretch of the imagination. “Mr. Johnson's legacy includes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Higher Education Act of 1965, Medicare (health care for the elderly) and Medicaid (health care for the poor). Moreover, with his focus on cleaning up America, it's not a stretch to say his presidency marked the start of true environmental concern.” Lynn allows that Johnson “expanded the war in Vietnam and that his public persona… left a lot to be desired,” but he concludes that Johnson’s “footprint changed the course of America's social consciousness.” All true. There’s evidence too that, but for some conniving on the part of Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War would have concluded on Johnson’s watch. Instead, Nixon’s intermediaries persuaded the South Vietnamese government to wreck all-party peace initiatives and kept the war alive so that it might be an election issue.

So, for those who know the runnings, i.e., how it really go, Ibbitson's comparing Obama to Johnson turns out to be flattering. If Obama lives up to anything like Johnson's legacy, he'd have done a great deal. Finally, one wonders how much John Ibbitson knows about Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers. I do believe a recent Globe and Mail carried an article from the New York Times that should lay his fears to rest.

John Ibbitson and the Globe and Mail need to do much better next time.

A thank you, and maybe a glimpse of Big Brother?

The next visitor to the site is the 1000th, so I thought I'd mark the moment. Thanks so much folks. Appreciate the support and hope to keep going in 2009, Inshallah.

Here's how I find the blog. I type my name into google, and the urls come up, Jahworld is near the top and I click on it, and I usually see that little number there on the right hand side in the corner that tells me how many sites mention "Pamela Mordecai". (That's what it indicates, yes?) Well, it's nice — and important for an author — that the number has kept going up, but it's a useful bit of data for other reasons too. Here's a recent coincidence. All of a sudden a few days ago the number jumps from near eight thousand to twelve thousand seven hundred. That's weird, I think. Suddenly the world is very interested in me. It's also an oddly round number and I wonder why. It stays that way for a couple of days, two, maybe three, then reverts to where it was before.

I check the comments on my last post in the interim, a post that cheers Barack Obama, the new American president on, and suggests we pray for him, and wish him and the American people well, etc., etc. It's there for anyone to read. But guess what? We've had a visit at Jahworld from Afghan Citizen. (Many thanks Baktash, for visiting! Come again!)

I make no comment. Those are the facts. I know Geoffrey Philp, who has had blog adventures too, will smile.

Perhaps not a bad time to note that the press is not just reporting, but showing us that we suddenly have a clear online aerial view of the residence of Vice President Joe Biden and Mrs Biden. It was veiled in blurred pixels while the previous resident was in office... Semioticians might find a lot to talk about in that. Us ordinary folk just wonder what on earth Dick Cheney might have wished to hide.

Bon chance, President Obama! Here's hoping!

But you see my dying trial! In an age of three card sharkism, celluloid, animation, videotape, holograms, all kinds of Anansi webs and nets, smoke and mirrors, in other words lie and 'tory raised to de infinite power, the man wants transparency! Barack, dost though know where thou sittest down to sup? Hast thou thy long spoon?

I can’t hold a watching brief where the 44th president is concerned. I have to believe that the fact that 50 million people voted for this man means that a creature, Decent America, evolving by some unearthly grace, has stirred and is struggling to its feet. I must trust that it will get up, must will it up, and even if it’s wobbly at first, hope that it will find firm feet, then walk, and perhaps even in due course, trot along. I’m refusing to be detached, distant, world weary. It's not my style, and it's such a tired pose.

What Americans do, how they and their government behave, materially affects us all. This Earth, which North Americans (Canadians especially) pollute with their abuse of energy resources, is my planet, our planet. This World, which Americans have felt is theirs to mess with as they wish, is my world, our world. And Jah (who has a sense of humour, BTW — how else to explain a man named Hussein being president of the USA at this hour?) occasionally puts his foot down. S/he has just done exactly that.

If you mess where you please, when you want, because you feel like it, eventually you will foul your own backyard. If you are greedy and nyam up everything in sight, then your bowels will be full, and the excrement you deposit will be (1) trillions of mounds high, (2) stink to heaven and (3) require a large number of backs and buckets to move it. I will resist obvious remarks about who have been history’s hewers of wood, drawers of water and movers of night soil. What's the point at this point? As Obama says, Americans had all better “pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start remaking America”. Much the same applies to the rest of the world!

The Toronto Star published a feature http://www.thestar.com/news/uselection/article/572960 about Barack Obama when he was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Read it and you’ll see that he isn’t a product of the last three years, a media artifact, a 'spun' fiction. Who he is now is pretty much who he was then. I find that encouraging. Cool is not something he learned last year. Nor is entertaining other people's opinions, especially those that diverge from his. There is, after all, very little point in ideology that works our undoing. We don't need the help of ideology – we're managing our undoing quite well otherwise!

I cannot think what madness has possessed this man to want to do this thing, for the job of President of the USA is not one anybody in their right mind should want at this moment. Let it be said, though, that God is good, and makes provision. History, blood, sunsum, intellect, temperament and character (for they are different) and broughtupcy have uniquely equipped Obama. He says ‘Thank you’ constantly; he and Michelle applaud other people all the time.

And he uses "we" a lot, so when he says "I," you listen up.

So here's to all of us. Here’s to good will. Here’s hoping! Perhaps we should all pause at midday, or midnight, or just every now and then, and wish Barack Obama and his administration well, wish one another well, wish all earthlings well, and bless the planet itself. It wouldn’t hurt and it might just make a difference. Selah!

A New Day, A Great Day...

A great day, this, to be back online, and a new day, hopefully, for American politics. I'm wishing that the Force be with Barack Obama, 44th President of the USA, whose inauguration day it is. He's going to need a seriously Superior Force in the days ahead, not a fighting force, but a moral force – a committed, courageous, bold and decent force of men and women of good will. A sober inaugural speech, and the hallmark Obama graciousness on the part of him, Michelle and his daughters. Such a treat to look at a presidential family of real people (not dumb people, Sarah, real people!), whose faces occasionally show tiredness, who touch each other and other people in a natural way, whose children are confident and self aware but not cocky or rude. And Joe Biden and his wife and family cut of the same jib, smiling real smiles, looking truly rejoiced. I'm celebrating with our neighbours to the South, and struggling not to entertain a Nunc dimittis feeling... Such a pleasure, too, to see so many black people, indeed to see the faces of so many races on the screen. Where were they all this time, I wonder? I have to confess that Rev. Lowery has found himself a fan! Worn pebbles of cliché transform in his mouth to pearls of great price! He prayed for an America in which "...black won't have to stand back, brown can stick around, yellow will be mellow, the red man can get ahead man, and white will choose right..." Got away with that, I tell you! And a final signifying on that lovely verse in Micah: "Let those who do justice and love kindness say 'Amen'!" And the people said a resounding amen. Maybe we finally have something with which to face the mageddons that assail us.

I've been away working on a play, among other things. EL NUMERO UNO OR THE PIG FROM LOPINOT had a great 3-day workshop at the Lorraine Kimsa Young People's Theatre in Toronto last week. Amazing actors, a wonderful director in ahdri zina mandiela, a stalwart, indulgent dramaturg in Stephen Colella, and great support all round. Allen MacInnes runs such a fine establishment. Thanks so much, señors y señoras. Go visit LKYPT soon! And I promise to keep you updated on progess with UNO, and maybe post a scene or two.

Also been revising my novel, CIPHER, or perhaps WRITING HOME. More on that in due course too. Put the revision one side because I got snared by a discussion started by Nalo Hopkinson on Facebook, about reverie and the advisibality of its use in fiction. I read all the posts in a pretty long discussion and am standing in my shoes and wondering.

So what's reverie?

The reverie is the moment when the protagonist (or on occasion another character) meditates on his own character, usually in terms of a flashback, to achieve a "profound dialogic and polemical nature of self-awareness and self affirmation" (Bakhtin). ... What should already be known to us, the context of the world, is delivered as memory, and more specifically, as story. ... Reverie and self-contemplation, far from creating depth, break the sense of immersion in a society, and are fundamentally antithetical to either character development or an immersive structure. It is a false mimesis that reminds us that we are in a narrated text and that the protagonist's version must be true." Dr. Farah Mendlesohn in THE RHETORICS OF FANTASY.

Them's fighting words to a poet, being as poetry must have that essential, "recollection in tranquillity", ergo reverie, element. But maybe that's poetry, and so, different. Let's try to infer, working with the quote we have: our critic says that reverie is a "false mimesis", for it reminds us we are in a narrated text. That means, I guess, that it interrupts our suspension of disbelief. So a true mimesis is a text in which reverie is omitted, our credence is uninterrupted and we remain immersed? I'd have thought that reverie, as dream, or self-reflection, or merely mulling over things, is what makes us homo sapiens and if we are faithfully reported, we must indulge in reverie. After all, homo ludens needs to take a break from just doing fun stuff or tragic stuff or war stuff! Nor does the protagonist's version in a reverie necessarily have to be true. Surely you can write it slant, so the character can be undone by his own reverie? And there have been texts in which several protagonists explore the same events in reverie, and what is described acquires depth and density just so. But it is a useful matter to think about. Might it be an issue of writing reverie well, a matter of craft? Does this dictum apply to the fantasy genre alone, and preclude other fiction? Do the discourse devices of the linguistic code have any bearing? Suppose the language of the text is uninflected for the past, would that make a difference? What of the proposition that all literature is reverie?

Your thoughts welcome, bredren and sistren. Blessings and peace and warmth and plenty be upon you in 2009!

President Obama: the Long View and the Periphrastic Moment

I listened to Barack Obama's acceptance speech – twice. Live on air, and again last night. One of the pundits commenting right afterward thought it was long. It was longer than might have been expected, at the end taking a historical view, using the story of the life of African American voter, Anne Nixon Cooper of Atlanta, aged one hundred and six, who cast her vote by "touching her finger to a screen," to trace the arc of history (as I think Senator Obama referred to it at one point) and so to show how far the USA had come in the course of her life: to demonstrate in living – as in Miss Cooper's life – historical colour the mantra of his campaign, "Yes we can!"

What I want to talk about in this post is the difference between the pundit's point of view, that a presidential acceptance speech needs to be brief, hit the high points, be done with it, and Mr Obama's choice to extend his comments, and in doing so, to look back over the previous hundred years by way of a story. (I have no doubt the gigantic crowd, hanging on his every word, would have listened to him go on all night.)

The difference turns on several things. One is that we who have had to fight our way forward are continually aware that we live in and by accretion; that today is indissolubly connected to yesterday and tomorrow; that, as I put it in one of my poems, "is hand holding hand that see we/survive these many historical years." (See “Blessed Assurance” in CERTIFIABLE, page 82, ad on this page.) That hand-holding is another image of which I am fond, a cruciform image of community: hands joined together, at present (synchronically), and hands extending backwards – and forwards – through time (diachronically), the two sets of joined hands intersecting at this moment, now. I think we in the African diaspora see ourselves living within that arc of history, forever at the periphrastic moment, always aware of what is about to happen, as we are aware of what has gone before. We cannot have an investment only in the present because it is impossible to understand ourselves that way. (I don't think we are the only people who view ourselves so, but it's us with whom I am presently concerned.)

Some people seem to have difficulty with this idea. I'll give an example. When my husband, Martin, and I were writing CULTURE & CUSTOMS OF JAMAICA (see ad), there came a point at which we had to explain that we could not usefully say anything about the culture or customs, literature, music, arts, language or indeed, geography of the island, without taking a historical view. The editors balked. They wanted us to describe the country as it is, at present – no going back into history. We held firm and they eventually gave in.

A little diversion that may provide some help. My niece, Sweet Caroline, sent me an e-mail yesterday: a photo of a black man in an all black T-shirt with the inscription in bold white caps on the back: "BLACK MAN RUNNING AND IT AIN'T FROM THE POLICE." God’s truth – that picture, colours and all, worth a thousand words! Black man running and he get where he going. And ain’t no black man never get there befo’. So the black man, he get to say his say and he get to talk as long as he want.

No doubt, too, that Mr Obama realized it was a teaching moment. (Black people see their leaders as teachers, perhaps another difference?) He knew, as I'm certain all of the Americans in Grant Park knew, that the night of November 4, 2008 was a time that had not been before and wouldn't be again; that it wasn't just itself, but it stood for far, far more than itself. (I explored this idea in a post on his speech in Berlin that I've just hung up again.) The moment was ephiphanic, and he seized it.

And there is the matter of ritual, which some people appreciate and others less so. A look at the faces of the crowd showed that people understood that they were witnesses, and that what was happening before them said something about themselves and their country, something crucial and good. It was a moment, an event, a circumstance that spoke about the fact of them, as a people, moving to close the gap between a great ideal – "liberty and justice for all" – and a reality that at times in their country’s history could not have been more terrible. They understood the Behold! factor: that what was being shown to them was themselves, made new. And they affirmed it.

It wasn't a moment for a short speech.

And the truth is Barack Obama can make a speech, the tradition out of which he comes being one of, as Roger Abrahams calls it, "the Man of Words and Talking Sweet". It is a tradition of proverbs and stories, aphorisms and memory gems, exhortation and warning. And however much some spoke of it with scorn, sneering as they allowed that Mr Obama could inspire with his words, people's faces plainly said they had been waiting a long time for someone who would talk to them just so – about goodness, and truth, and ideals, and justice, and unity and possibility. About hope.

Their faces said so, and their votes.

I add now my blessings on President-elect Obama and his family, blessings "...pressed down, shaken together, running over,” the blessings of the gospel chronicler, Luke, encapsulating richness in an image straight from the markets and roadsides where people measure out those staffs of life – rice, wheat, corn – and pass them on to their fellowmen so that they too might live. I pray for the Obamas' safety. I pray especially that the Senator's bold hope for his country will prevail and out of it will come new possibilities for all of us. Selah!

Barack Obama in Berlin (Originally posted July 28, 2008)

So the Democratic candidate for President of the USA, Senator Barack Obama, attracts a crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin, the largest one so far in his campaign. There is so much to say about the Senator, the manner and message of the man, the mere fact that he is the Democratic candidate – so much to say about the deep irony of his drawing his biggest crowd in Germany, of all countries. So just a couple of comments here. To begin with, having been in the USA during Civil Rights, I honestly never thought I would live to see the day. That it has indeed come says a great deal for the American people, in particular for young people in the United States. Among many other things, it says that far from being turned off, disillusioned, blasé, consumed only with celebrating themselves on Facebook and MySpace, they are alert, aware and prepared to respond to an inclusive message, a message that empowers them and advances nation building as a common cause. Whatever one's political persuasion, Senator Obama must be given credit for articulating such a view and persuading people that he means what he says. Of course, what lends credibility to his message is the fact of who he is, the fact that his life is witness to the "Yes-We-Can-ability" to which he now calls his country. Anyone who was there back then is bound to appreciate the awesomeness, the enormity of the now. What Barack Obama stands for is a great deal more than can be communicated by the simple statement that he is the first black man to run for president of the USA – as astounding a fact as that may be – even as the crowd in Berlin listening to him speak is a great deal more than a large gathering of white people in a European city listening to a black man who may well be the next leader of the most powerful country in the world. The bleakest moments in human history and our power to transform them are alive inside this man, and brood inside that crowd. And lastly – for now, for there's a great deal more to be said – the World, the one that begged America not to go to war in Iraq, the one that is frightened about whether we have so ruined the planet that it's about to heave us off its back the way a dog shakes off water, the World that's scared that it may shortly be ravaged by disease at the same time that it is bereft of resources, that World is desperate to find someone who is prepared to give it hope, to tell it that there's a way out. So mock the Senator, call him the Messiah, if you will, but know the times are critical, and admire him for having the courage to want to step into the breach.

President Obama?

I was touched by the fact that Senator Obama's grandma voted – voted, then died. There's a woman who knows about being a good citizen! It's a lesson, really, about what we are called to do. Couldn't she hang on one more day? Maybe it wasn't so important. Maybe when she saw her grandson about the present business of his life, she felt she could give herself a pat on the back, say to herself, "I tried my best, and he hasn't let me down!" and, having made sure to vote, pushed on to some real R&R.

I've had a Joe the Plumber Day! Like him, I'm unlicensed to do the things I've been doing, but, as my Ma would say, "Necessity is the mother of invention." I'm about to go look how things are coming in the land beneath us on the map, but I wanted to share some things I've found in my little campaign to help Catholics and Evangelicals (strange bedfellows, what?) see that it's perfectly alright to vote for Obama. I found some eye-openers.

Here's a quote from a Catholic man planning to vote for Barack Obama: "Before abortion was an issue for people, the plight of the african-american was an issue. That issue has never totally been resolved, largely because radical reconstruction in the post civil war era was highjacked by scared white people who didn't like the fact that African-americans were threatening to take the majority away from the whites in southern states... The civil right's movement brought us a little bit closer to equal rights, but not quite all the way. As this issue has been one for longer than the woe v. wade issue has been in existence, I'm voting to settle the problem which has been in longer need of correction." (I've quoted him verbatim...)

I find "Woe vs Wade" a poignant slip of the fingers. ('Roe' had been raped. One needs real courage to carry a baby conceived after a rape, though I have known one woman who did it. She has a fine daughter, who now has a daughter of her own.)

I find it revealing that the voter sees casting his vote for Obama as a way of settling "the problem which has been in longer need of correction." I'm very interested in any comments on his point of view.

And now to see the future...

How can a pro-life person vote for Barack Obama?

I have had lengthy e-mail exchanges with two persons, one my Evangelical Christian niece, the other a Roman Catholic acquaintance, who are concerned that they can't vote for Obama in the US election because he is pro-choice. Because it's an important issue, I thought I'd share a slightly altered version of the letter I sent to my Roman Catholic friend. (Perhaps I'll share my notes to my niece too, in due course. We'll see.)

Before I do that, however, I'll mention an article by Connie Brook in THE NEW YORKER (November 3rd) called "Odd Man Out", about Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who is described as "a graduate of a Catholic high school, who is pro-life and supports school prayer". Brook quotes Hagel (who enjoys a good relationship with Obama and has indicated that he would serve in his cabinet if asked) thus: “There was a political party in this country called the Know-Nothings. And we’re getting on the fringe of that, with these one-issue voters—pro-choice or pro-life. Important issue, I know that. But, my goodness. The world is blowing up everywhere, and I just don’t think that is a responsible way to see the world, on that one issue." I'd like to emphasize that the 'blowing up' to which Senator Hagel refers entails loss of life as well.

Thus spake a pro-life Republican.

Here now is my [amended] response to Jennifer, whose letter to me had cited Christifideles Laici, Pope John Paul II's 1988 "Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation," as well as observations made by Mother Theresa.

Dear Jennifer:

Neither the Pope nor Mother Theresa has had a child, or lost a child, or had to face the cruel choice of terminating an ectopic pregnancy, or had a child who has been raped and is pregnant come to them, devastated. I respectfully submit that we who bear and have borne and raised children have something to say on these matters.

I don’t believe in abortion. I do believe that those who don’t "play the game” ought to be a little less arrogant, a little more respectful, a little more like Jesus when they spout the rules.

These are important issues, complex ones, that we need to talk more, and more intelligently, and more honestly, about. Take ectopic pregnancies. Up until roughly the middle of the last century, the Catholic Church forbad the termination of these pregnancies, never mind that the foetus was unquestionably doomed. Then in the 1940s the Church reinterpreted the teaching to allow the foetus to be aborted. (One wonders how many women died carrying those doomed babies before that reinterpretation?) I think the principle applied here is called the principle of double effect, according to which, in order to save the mother's life, the taking of the life of a foetus that without question will not survive is permitted. The decision admits a value that seems not to have been recognized before, which is that the mother's life is a life that counts as well.

Here's something else that is pertinent: we don’t know when conception occurs. We do know about some things that bear on the matter. We know that the zygote that forms identical twins often doesn’t split till days after the egg is fertilized. Does that mean that one human being exists when the sperm enters the ovum and that that single human person splits into two people when the fertilized egg splits at three or four or five days old? These things have ethical implications. The Catholic Church is aware of them; I certainly didn’t dream them up – it’s the rumination of (at least some) Catholic thinkers, scientists and ethicists, that I’m repeating here.

We also need to remember that if a woman does not feel that she has done wrong in having a pregnancy terminated, she has done no wrong. Sin is in the will: it occurs when a person commits an act that is evil, in the full knowledge that it is gravely wrong. It is therefore true that many of those who abort babies are not guilty of any sin. Nor are these babies shut out of heaven – also a teaching of the Catholic Church, albeit, if I'm not mistaken, a recent one.

I believe that we arrive at wisdom and discernment in our decisions by prayer, meditation, contemplation of the Word of God, and fasting, in deep humility and with a great reluctance to judge. That is what I, at any rate, feel that I am called to – a journey far more difficult than mere observation of The Law. That Old Law is, after all, fulfilled in a New One, and according to that New Law – "Thou shalt love the Lord the God with thy whole heart and thy whole soul and thy whole mind and all thy strength; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself..." – I am very hard put to see Sarah Palin and John McCain as loving their neighbours.

And I know there’s no guarantee that what they say they will do about Roe vs Wade, they will in fact do, or be able to do. Nor is there any guarantee that, the law having been changed, women will keep their babies. People know how to get abortions, and doctors will always be found to perform them.

One needs to decide, then, what one wishes: the ‘righteous’ satisfaction of having a law enacted, or the real triumph of building a society in which men and women revere sex for the happy gift it is and have babies that they want and keep.

So I would rather pray for courage on the part of women who carry babies in these last days. I would rather pray for a media that stops reducing the relationships of men and women to mere rutting, a mating that is without context or grandeur or grace. I would rather pray for an America that does not exploit parents who wish homes of their own in which to raise their children, an America that works to supply jobs that can support families, an America that provides parents and children with adequate medical care, and the opportunity for a sound education.

I would prefer to pray for an America that doesn’t incarcerate young black men in disproportionate numbers, depriving so many children of their fathers.

And I remember Jesus who knew when he was here that invoking laws never drew anyone to holiness. He rarely threatened people with the law – most markedly the merchants in the temple and the Pharisees. He told stories instead, and called people that way to the great challenges of virtue.

Prayerfully and pro-Obama,

Pam

If you don’t laugh you will cry: two 'jokes' about the upcoming American election

In a comment on my last post, “Why imagination is necessary for governance,” jdid said, referring to the recent Canadian election: “lol, all I can do is laugh.” When I remarked that he must be “a man of extraordinary courage for [he was] clearly… laughing in the face of enormous adversity…” his response was “Clarabella, if I don’t laugh I would cry.” I owe him an apology. I should have recognized the backdrop of sobriety, the typical Caribbean modus operandi of “taking serious ting make joke”. I should have twigged to it because it’s the MO I employ in my own writing, whether prose or poetry. I've more than once explained that it’s not just possible but necessary for me to infuse humour into serious subjects because this is what we do in the Caribbean. “If we doan laff, we haffi bawl!” Since Whappy was a bwoy, laughter has been our strategy of survival in the midst of grief, pain, devastation, ruin.

That brings me to two ‘jokes’. I owe the first to fsjl, who passed it on:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the nigger!" Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the nigger."

I can’t remember where I saw the second, and so reproduce it from memory.

Obama is at the pearly gates, and St Peter says to him, “What makes you think you deserve to enter here? What did you do on earth to distinguish yourself?” Obama replies: “Well, I was the first black President of the United States.” “Oh!” replies St Peter. “And when did this take place?” Obama replies, “About twenty minutes ago.”

I have to admit that these are ‘jokes’ in the tradition of – what? Black humour? Dark comedy? (The ironies here are so numerous that I’m finding it hard to breathe.) “Black humour” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “often uses farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character.” [In the case of joke number one, character, and joke number two, fate?] We should remember that it was traditionally the clown in the king’s court, the one playing the ‘fool’, whose job it was to “speak truth to power,” as the popular lingo now puts it, and that clowns and their comedian progeny have always been serious folk, tellers of unpalatable truths – witness, in modern times, Pryor, Gregory, Goldberg, Carlin, among many others.

The Democratic presidential candidate and those who surround and advise him, and see to his security, are obviously well aware of these truths.

Consider the second matter first. Senator Obama was given a heavy security detail very early in the campaign and Christian prayer warriors – another kind of security detail, if you will – ‘cover him with the blood of Jesus,’ both groups acting out of the recognition that what he is doing is something that puts his person at risk. Coming to terms with this must require a deep, continued and abiding courage on the part of himself and his family, knowing as they do that throughout American history, harbingers of change, both white and black, have paid the ultimate price.

And consider the first tale, a slice of life so convincing, I think it’s precious – a promise of willy-nilly perception so madly possible, it’s exhilarating! If those who conceive of black people as niggers will nevertheless vote for a nigger as president, then there must be a means by which understanding can well up in people, never mind that their attitudes are confused and conflicted and wrong-headed and deeply offensive. Believers would say it’s the Spirit Wind, blowing “where it listeth.”

So I do not find either 'joke' offensive. They present boldly and baldly contemporary realities that the American public ignores at their peril. By having them presented as jokes, people are jolted into facing what is, terrible as that prospect may be. And Americans, many of them, perhaps most of them, either won’t be able to laugh, or won’t be able to stop laughing, for fear of being overwhelmed by tears that leave them beyond being comforted.

More notes on spin...

It’s said that there are youngsters who think that you can shoot somebody dead and the person will be able to get up and walk away. This apparently explains some incidents of shooting by kids. They don't really understand what guns do. If, after all, a movie star dies in a movie, and is very much alive on TV or in the newspapers the next day or the next week, then obviously shooting doesn't make the person dead. Alarming, to say the least!

We really do not know enough (never mind that there have been so many studies) about what TV, movies and electronic media do to the way people perceive, to how they mediate what they see and hear on film and television. (Might this explain why people in Jamaica, despite being constantly warned, still drive their vehicles into overflowing gullies and get swept away and drowned?) Nevertheless, what we do know makes it clear that the combination of images and the spoken word has an enormous and immediate effect on people and certainly provides a sufficient basis for the spin doctors to spin things very effectively, so that, as jdid says, “…it’s not even about the real message anymore; its about who spins it better.” When jdid expresses concern about people still being convinced that Barack Obama is a Muslim despite the brouhaha about his going to the church pastored by Rev Jeremiah Wright, a Christian minister of religion, he's pointing to an example of how people can – what? Uncomprehend? Perskewceive?

The first 'academic' article I ever published discussed strategies for English teachers who were trying to teach students to mediate TV and film. (It's less of a problem with radio, since images, which are very powerful things, aren't part of the message there.) This discernment skill has to be taught, especially as media become more and more pervasive. Determining bias in written material is hard enough! Never mind how bright we are, we will have difficulty construing what's in the newspapers, what's on TV, what's on the net, what's in the movies, unless we have somehow learned how to deconstruct these things. And I don't mean that word in any highfalutin sense. I mean literally pull these things apart so that we can see how they are made, and so understand how they work.

Stephen Harper's baby blue sweater may have persuaded many people that he is a warm family man. However, many others have been made aware – by all the talk about the blue sweater and what it was intended to do – of how images are used in the attempt to sway their opinions. Two days ago, Mr Harper (having finally, one week before the election, deigned to present the Conservative platform) suggested that the devastated stock markets were an opportunity for people to snap up good investments! So much for the warm fuzzy family man!

So it’s a problem that’s serious and needs to be addressed. I suspect that there hasn't been enough of an attempt at teaching these – as Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner called them – 'crap detection' skills to students in junior and high schools. Because that's where it has to begin – indeed, starting earlier wouldn't be a bad idea. So, yes, fsjl, Caribou Barbie and her "Hiya solja!" and "Drill, baby, drill!" acts represent a real threat. God bless us with a spirit of discernment – in Canada over the next week, in the US over the next month!

The American Public

I have for a long time had a theory about the role of media in the way the worst kind of capitalism works – all capitalism not being by any means bad. I'm not an economist, nor a political scientist, nor a sociologist, but I have my own little theories. jdid says I overestimate the intelligence of the American public. I've known the American public since I went to college in the US, at age seventeen, and I respectfully submit that the Democratic Party would not have a black man named Barack Obama running for president in the upcoming US election if the American public of now, this day and time in October 2008, were stupid people. I've already written about this. As I’ve said, I never thought I would live to see a black person as a viable candidate for president of the US. That it has happened in my lifetime says a lot of very positive things about our neighbours to the south and I rejoice in that. But being a victim of Bad Capitalism can leave a person open to manipulation. Here’s how it works. Bad Capitalism is rapacious. It has no conscience and its greed is limitless. Bad Capitalism wants to control not just the economy, but also the political system, the educational and health care systems, the transport system, the media, the entertainment systems, and so on, and so on. Once it controls all those systems, it ensures that they work together to achieve one purpose: making Bad Capitalists richer and more powerful. The Bad Capitalist system makes everything really hard for all but the privileged few: hard for a person to get a good education unless they have parents who can afford private schools or afford to live in areas where there are good public schools, so many middle and lower income folk have to make do with schools that aren't so good, and getting from those to college or university isn’t easy. It’s hard to find a job anyhow, and a not-so-well-qualified person must fight to get one, and must often work two or three jobs to make ends meet. The two- or three-job person gets caught up in a daily grind where work dominates and takes up all their time, and stress affects their health. Because this person is working so many hours, it’s hard to find time to spend with family, much less find time for reading books and newspapers to keep abreast with what is going on. Now, here's where some of the Bad Capitalist owned media come in on behalf of the greedy Bad Capitalists: they offer the public, not serious analysis and solid facts, but sound bits-and-bites and biased packaging of information. (jdid, you are absolutely right in this regard.) Television becomes a place where an exhausted person can sit and be diverted – by almost any foolishness. (I'm telling you. I know. I've been diverted in this way more hours than I care to count, especially if I'm depressed and frightened about how to meet the next month's mortgage payment.) And there is mostly foolishness on the Boob Tube. So the tired overworked person ends up picking up information where and when he can, and doing the best with it that he can, with two consequences. (1) He or she can end up reading and trusting only some kinds of programs, newspapers and magazines, and end up under-informed or misinformed. (For example, there’s an article on John McCain in Rolling Stone by Tim Dickinson (online, posted October 19th) that’s worth reading, whatever your politics. But it’s long, and though it’s well worth reading, many people will just not stick it out.) (2) People can end up thinking that such a person is stupid, because they are pressed and stressed by a difficult life. The amazing thing is, this overworked average Joe or Jemima in America really has not been fooled in recent elections. Let’s ignore for a moment that George Bush may well not have been elected President in either of the last two elections. (Lots of evidence for this, for anyone who is interested.) But if one takes the number of voters who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and calculates it as a percentage of voters eligible to vote (estimates say between 55 and 60% of voters actually did vote in the 2004 election) then President Bush was most certainly NOT elected by the majority of the American people. Gallup polls distinguish between eligible voters and likely voters in their polls. Give thanks, that never mind things are so hard for so many people, never mind that their lives may be squeezed into very narrow spaces, they manage to find the truth. which means, for me, that the Spirit is alive and well and blows where it wishes. I have one plea this fall. Say your prayers, if you pray, fast if you fast, and for the sake of God and good citizenship – be a likely voter! Go out and vote. Once more, your life may depend on it… Selah!