American Views Abroad

It's time out for total hip replacement surgery. The so-called merry month of May will be devoted to learning how to walk again and to take some time off from observing the political circus and all the ill winds it brews up in wars, torture and running the nation aground. It will be time to read books again. Novels, for example, The Sorrows of an American by Siri Huvstvedt, and an interesting book sent over by a good friend in Pennsylvania, Three Cups of Tea --- One Man's Mission to Promote Peace---One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, as well as Das Wochenende by Bernhard Schlink, among others.

Back in the late 70s working on an MA in England, it was perplexing hearing other Americans mock Jimmy Carter for taking time-out to think about things before making decisions. Real Americans know on the spot how to make decisions. Think about that 3am telephone call. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea for all of Washington to take some time off and get a grasp at what is really happening in the world outside.

Till sometime in June......

Putting things into perspective before the voting begins tomorrow, a letter from Washington: Campaign stereotypes are spoiling the race by Albert Hunt.

'And Barack Obama isn't an elitist. When he graduated from Harvard Law School he didn't join a Wall Street firm or serve on the board of a big company; he became a community organizer at a fraction of what he could have made. ……Judging by polls and conversations with some voters, rank-and-file Pennsylvanians see through the phoniness of bittergate.'

www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/america/letter.php

Of course, there isn't anything left to do but wait and see till early Wednesday morning.

No one can point it out better than Dick Cavett. Memo to Petraeus &Crocker: More Laughs Please:

And no one need be unlucky enough to be dead or hideously wounded anymore. Those unfortunates are merely 'casualties' ---- a sort of restful-sounding word. I have a friend who would like to say to our distinguished warrior, 'General Petraeus, my son was killed in one of your challenges.'

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/11

The fat lady isn't singing yet, but she is humming a mournful song. Why do we applaud political races that resemble a scene from the Coliseum? Throw your opponent to the lions, maul him, spin away as much as possible and the media laps it up. Why not? It sells newspapers.

Take that 3am red scare ad and ask how much this has to do with films and TV and how little it has to do with reality. Did 9/11 come in the middle of the night while the children were sleeping? No, it came at 9am on a clear, sunny, cloudless day while they were attending school. At a time when there should have been plenty of response, but there was none. At a time that perfectly attracted the world-wide media. Does attacking an opponent in a political race and standing back testing his or her immediate response prove that candidate will later be the better President? It isn't necessarily snap judgments 24/7 that are needed as much as the ability to grasp in-depth knowledge on just about everything going on in this world. It is probably far more important to be able to have the best advisors around and the ability to listen to them and then decide on a course of action.

What comes across this primary season 'over here' is a vivid sense of democray being played out and an interestingly new perception of the US. It suddenly isn't the red states vs the blue ones. Rather there are those states, often sidelined in an election season, that seem far more interested in experimenting in change as opposed to those crucial large states that seem to clutch to the status quo. Residents of New York and California see themselves as front-runners on all things new and progressive, but that is not the signal these primaries are sending out. It is a pity that one candidate sees things too much through the lens of the Electoral College, which still denies the principle of one person, one vote.

Postscript: In Dreams from Obama by Darryl Pinckney at www.nybooks.com/articles/21063:

Black people can appreciate as much as white people the inclusiveness of his mixed-race heritage and that his story is in part that of an immigrant. But this is not a color-blind election. People aren't voting for Obama in spite of the fact that he is black, or because he is only half-black, they are voting for him because he is black, and this is a whole new feeling in the country and in presidential politics.

Interesting Comment from An American Citizen who has been living and working in Washington, DC for many years:

I read this op-ed (Wash Post 2/17) by David Ignatius about Obama's experience or lack thereof. He looked back at the first 18 months of the Kennedy administration, which were mostly spent in a very steep learning curve, especially in terms of foreign affairs, culminating in the Cuban missile crisis. We tend to forget that Kennedy was not exactly a glittering success in domestic policies and the only reason he looks good in the Cuban missile crisis is because Russia backed down. Then there was that whole Bay of Pigs ugliness.

It suddenly occurred to me that one guy looking on with great interest must be Vladimir Putin. He definitely has ambitions and may well be licking his chops at the chance to test Obama. We Americans tend to view the world in terms of an unending Manifest Destiny, whereas Europeans I think see things more in terms of Empires that come and go. And clearly you could make the case that the American Empire is going, going, maybe gone. A guy like Putin who clearly has great ambitions and would love to head up a newly resurgent Russian Empire may well see this as his moment. Certainly if you look at the classic signs --- a weakened economy, the decline in cultural literacy, destructive wars fought far from home --- America fits right into the mold of an empire on the decline.

I can remember walking down M Street with H. sometime in the late 60s and saying to him that I couldn't see how the USSR could possibly survive. I based that on the belief that no country that fucked up could possibly endure for long. H. just sort of humored me but I remember that conversation well and I have that same sort of feeling now that something big is coming our way and it ain't good.

Oddly enough, I also have the feeling that Obama could be the one guy who could turn things around in terms of getting the world to see us in a better light. Are we looking at win-win or lose-lose? And what would happen if Hillary or McCain wins? I guess we are doomed to live perpetually in uncertain times.

He included an added comment on Putin when agreeing to have his words put up here:

As for Putin, you should definitely be worried. This is one scary guy who definitely has plans. The collapse of an empire is always a dangerous time and the repercussions may take a few decades to full unfold. Here we have two empires --- the old Soviet empire and the new American empire ---- that are in various stages of decline and birth.

Kosovo may prove to be a revealing snapshot of where we are. The 20th Century started out with a war that had its initial spark in that region. Hate to see history repeat itself, but this whole situation is so reminiscent of the entangling alliances that caused so much trouble before.

The David Ignatius column at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502962.html