The Weak In Rock

Those familiar with this space know where I stand politically.  Basically, wherever Dubya doesn’t.  H.L. Mencken once said “Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”  I’ve often commented that Dubya is exactly the President Americans deserved to get in 2000.

Since 2000 I’ve dumped on Al Gore a fair bit.  His campaign for the Presidency was feeble, at best.  But I’ve given him credit time and again for sticking by his convictions.  Had Gore swallowed his convictions and asked Bill Clinton to campaign for him I have no doubt that he would not only have won the election outright (and not by the slim popular vote margin he did, in fact, win by) but by a landslide.

Al Gore served as Vice President in an Administration that oversaw the greatest economic prosperity this nation has ever witnessed.  For all his flaws (and it would take a library full of books to give them any justice) Bill Clinton was a massively popular President.  The vast majority of Americans trusted him to run the country well, if not to keep his dick in his pants (or to tell the truth to his friends, his family or even a Grand Jury).  If the Gore campaign had been run by simply putting Bill Clinton on a stage to say “This man was right there with me for the last eight years, if you like the way things have been going, vote for him” then Al Gore would have kicked Dubya’s ass so hard he’d have been tasting shit for a month.

But Al Gore does have convictions, and one of those convictions is that you don’t win at all costs.  You don’t sell out your belief that telling the truth is more important than winning an election.  By all accounts, after Clinton admitted that he’d lied to his staff, his friends, his family and the Grand Jury, Vice President Gore shut himself and his staff off from Clinton and stopped supporting him.  One story even puts it so far as to say that Gore only spoke to the President when necessary from that point on.   To then ask Bill Clinton to campaign for him and with him would have been hypocritical.  So, without the big guns in his camp Al Gore lost the election due to shifty maneuverings by the Bush camp, a suspect ruling by the US Supreme Court and a spineless Democratic party who insisted that he concede defeat.

What Gore has done since losing the Electoral College vote and the White House with it can only be described as admirable.  His film, An Inconvenient Truth is causing people all over the US to actually think about global climate change in a meaningful way.  And his continued advocacy for the poor and for improving American public education have made him, oddly enough, a front-runner for the Democratic Presidential ticket in 2008.

I really hope Gore throws his hat in the ring.  He could be a very good, if not great, President.  What concerns me is that, should he run, he would bow to the advice of campaign strategists once again and run a campaign that is too soft and doesn’t let anyone actually get to know him.  I also fear that he dislikes campaigning so much that he’d refuse to acknowledge that this time, at the very least, he needs to win at all costs.

Have a look at this short film, produced by Spike Jonez in 1999 during the campaign.  It was never used, and that’s unfortunate, because what clearly comes through is that Al Gore is a good man.  Sure, he tries to use his talking points when the camera is just on him (his big issue in 1999 was education reform - an important issue that voters basically don’t give two shits about), but when he’s with his family you see someone we’d all be proud to have leading our country.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link to Spike’s film.

Technorati Tags: H.L. Mencken, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, An Inconvenient Truth, 2008, Spike Jonez

Ok, so the new Superman movie is out, and no, I haven’t seen it yet.  I never dug Superman when I was in my comic book consuming phase as a kid.  The whole premise just annoyed me - he’s invulnerable.  Gee, I wonder how this comic will end?

Alright, I know, it’s a given that all super heroes are absurd constructs.  Batman is really the only plausible super hero because he’s just a crazy rich guy.

Anyway, I didn’t really get Superman until I was older.  If Batman is crazy then Superman is batshit loony.  Why?  Well, ok, just think about the challenges Kal-El has living on earth.  And if you can’t quite contemplate them some kind denizen of the net has reprinted Larry Niven’s brilliant essay on the subject, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Superman, Batman, Kal-El, Larry Niven

We have plenty of these in the US, and if you have any European friends you’ve no doubt been lectured once or twice (or thirty times) about how awful the racism of America is. So, it’s actually somewhat refreshing to be reminded that some of the biggest racist nitwits in the world live in Europe.

Case in point - Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen is a fixture in French politics as the leader of the right wing, fascist-tinged National Front party. In 2002 he ended up in a run-off with Jacques Chirac for the Presidency of France, which tells you a little bit about how broad-minded the French polity is. They ended up choosing a President who comes from the businessman’s section of the right-wing over someone who comes from the ignorant and unschooled day-laborer section of the right wing.

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s (and right here I have to point out that for a guy who talks so tough he sure has a girly first name) latest attempt to draw attention to himself came prior to the French team’s victory over Brazil in their quarterfinal match of the 2006 World Cup. Le Pen was recycling comments he’d made in 1998 after France won the championship that the French people really cannot rejoice in their team’s victories because there are too many black players on the squad.

I’ll stop here and let you ruminate over that for a second.

Now I will repeat his assertion - because there are quite a few black players on the French team it is difficult for French people to be truly proud of their victories. He also suggested that the French coach ought to put more white players on the field so that the team will be more reflective of French society.

This man wins the award for nitwit of the month of June.

First, he’s just plain dead wrong about the composition of French society. I haven’t been in France for several years, but the last time I was in Paris all the available hues of humanity were in abundance. France is one of the more racially diverse countries in Europe and has been so for quite a long time. Historically speaking, when black American soldiers were stationed in France during WWI and WWII they found a society that hardly noticed their color. Many ended up choosing to stay there rather than return to the US and deal with the racial inequity here. Others who returned home did so with a vision of what America might be like if the racial barriers were to come down and they threw themselves into the civil rights movement here.

Secondly, as wonderful as the acheivements of the American civil rights movement have been it’s been my opinion for quite a long time that diversity on the playing fields of our professional sports has done more for racial harmony and acceptance of diversity in America than any other single force. Think of it this way - lots of white boys grow up with posters of great black athletes on their bedroom walls. Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Donovan McNabb, etc. have adorned the walls of a whole generation of kids by now. Prior to that group you’ve got Magic Johnson, Dr. J., Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson and so on.

If you grow up worshipping someone because of his skill on the field, even though he doesn’t look like you, you’re more likely to grow up judging people by what they do in this world, not what they look like, and that is how it should be. My guess is that the French national team have done the same thing for French kids since at least 1998 when they won the whole shebang. I’m quite sure that there were tears of joy throughout France when they beat Brazil the other day, and Le Pen and a few old coots were probably the only people who gave even half a thought to what the ratio of pink to brown to black was on that field.

Fortunately, it would seem that France’s soccer players are quite a bit smarter than the nation’s politicians are. Lilian Thuram, one of the star players on the French national team had this to say about Le Pen’s comments:

“When we take to the field, we do so as Frenchmen. All of us. When people were celebrating our win, they were celebrating us as Frenchmen, not black men or white men. It doesn’t matter if we’re black or not, because we’re French. I’ve just got one thing to say to Jean Marie Le Pen. The French team are all very, very proud to be French. If he’s got a problem with us, that’s down to him but we are proud to represent this country. So Vive la France, but the true France. Not the France that he wants.”

Vive la France indeed.

Now stick it to those dirty cheating Portuguese!

Technorati Tags: Jean-Marie Le Pen, National Front, Jacques Chirac, 2006 World Cup, Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Donovan McNabb, Magic Johnson, Dr. J., Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson, Lilian Thuram, Vive la France