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Heard the news that Caroline Kennedy is going after Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat.

The Kennedy clan’s history is at the same time a tragedy and a mockery of American democracy. When Ted ran for his brother’s Senate seat at age 30, his opponent bitterly complained, “Sir, if your last name is anything but Kennedy, you would have been finished … Your credentials is a laughing stock.” (History Channel’s documentary on the Kennedys) As if to prove his opponent right, Ted won the election, committed several scandals–including one where someone got killed and another one got raped, grew a large brain tumor, but remained to this day the beloved chosen representative of the people of Massachusett.

And he is among the lucky Kennedys who survived the Natural Selection. In other words, several other Kennedys felt so certain that no man-made law could touch them that they challenged God but lost.

Yet year after year, a Kennedy is going to Washington.

Reminded me of what Shakespeare said about Julius Caesar (through the mouth of Cassius while trying to talk Brutus into killing the tyrant of the Republic):

Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk’d of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass’d but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.

Just some interesting facts:
1. The big three at first asked for $34 Billion loan. Congress ready to dish out $15 Billion. Their total market cap? $14 Billion.
2. The big three’s manufacturing capacity is 17 million cars. In 2007, Americans bought only 14 million cars (domestic and foreign).
3. Ford pays, on average, $71 an hour to its workers. The Japanese U.S. plants pay $49/hr. Source see NYT.
4. The auto sale declined the most when gas price peaked after summer. Recently, there is a sales rebound despite poor economy. Trucks rebounds the most. Small cars may actually declined.

Thoughts:
- Undoubtedly the auto industry will shrink and restructure. However,
- The current difficulty is largely due to past sins. In terms of cost structure, the auto industry may be on the rebound. (in Ford, new employees are paid $53/hr)
- The auto industry lacks the vision and business foresight? Well, how about blaming “the American Dream” for a change? How many Americans can stand up and say, “I had nothing to do with this”?

Said a lot more yesterday. But I’d better stick to what I know

Two days in a row I have been reading news reports on the sickening anger among McCain supporters. WaPo had an article yesterday: “Anger Is Crowd’s Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally” and today Politico had a follow up. Reading them gave me shudders: there even have been cries of “kill him” at a recent rally.

The reports reminded me of what happened to JFK. Although he is now canonized as one the greatest Presidents, when he lived he was too hated by a whipped up crowd. So much so that after he was shot, before Lee Oswald was identified, the overwhelming public assumption was that he was killed by a Republic partisan. People flooded local Republican offices with angry mails and phone calls blaming them for the assassination (”Before the Storm“, a biography of Barry Goldwater).

Honestly, I start to fear for Obama’s life. I know it is a very dark thought but I can’t shake it off. American politics always has violence in its DNA. What is even worse is the self-denial in order to sustain the mirage of “a shining city on the hill”, as if the assassinations were just brief exceptions. I remember Benedict Anderson talked about that while building a collective imagination of a nation, there has been constant manipulation of memories of past violence.  And this is very true today. By not remembering the circumstance surrounding JFK’s assassination, the nation lives as if it has always been a tolerant and civil polity and that JFK was a tragic hero. In fact, JFK was a martyr and the nation didn’t become what it is today until after he is killed.

God helps us all.

Feel like laughing on the floor with this story:

An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years.

First, it is funny to think that Devil has sexual preference at all, or sexuality even exists in the after-world. It is every funnier to suggest the only person entitled to define which preference is right or wrong discover that he made the wrong bet after he died … What a sweet revenge:)

Secondly, the irony–apparently, some Christians share the same intense hatred with those Muslims they call “intolerant” (a la the Danish cartoon crowds) toward blasphemy–the only difference is the tool they use to dish out corporal punishment: one uses secular laws, the other religious edicts.

Lastly, this is the comment I posted: [what is happening to Ms. Sabina Guzzanti today] could/might have happened six centuries ago to Boccaccio (author of the Decamerone). When religion and history fight, religion has no chance–history wins every time!

Denis is kind enough to engage me on an earlier post. It took me days to write replies. Nevertheless, I am pretty happy I was able to wrap my arm around this issue.

I don’t have too many things I can call “labor of love”. This is certainly one of those. After writing the last one, I am so exhausted that I didn’t want to think about it any more.

Anyway, here it is:
Denis

After reading your last email and my previous one, I realized that I did not make myself clear why I brought up those country cases. What I wanted to say is that people are too accustomed to a stylized way to look at things (oppressors vs. liberators, right vs. wrong, etc.), but may have missed some of the obvious questions which, in fact, outline the dynamics of power politics in a way that scientists use to demonstrate invisible forces.

I recognize that I probably went out of my league when I tried to cover too many cases, e.g. Northern Ireland. What is more, although I had a common theme behind all those questions, I did not spell out the theme for you (as I mentioned earlier). Hence, the cases may have appeared as irrelevant or unrelated to each other.

But they are not. The common theme behind all those questions is that what is unfair may not be unjust. What is fair may not be righteous (e.g. European anger). It is a mistake to consider fairness or
righteousness in a vacuum. Once you factor in power relations the real picture is a lot different from a superficial, stylized impression.

To put it more bluntly, I do not believe there is a universal, INVIOLABLE code of conduct. If I am not mistaken, this thinking is what really abhorred you and led you to comment that “I transposed your logic to other contexts in an effort to reveal how frightening your thinking is if you follow it through”.

In fact, I am aware of the heaviness of my logic. I call myself a cynic not because I use it as a “hedge” to defuse the disappointment I feel when real life turns out much darker then I wished for. No. I do believe in my logic. I think that is the gist of our differences. I reject the promise of a Positivist world view. If such a view may be thought of as the legacy of a Continental tradition that began with Comte or Kant, I belong to a different camp—that of the Anglo-American Empiricist/Pragmatist school. I assumed that you are a liberal particularly because I detected the idealist element in your reasoning.

I should really take a pause here for we are now talking more about beliefs than reason. If I offended you by labeling you, I do apologize in advance. But you must believe me when I say I don’t mean “idealism” in a mocking way. When I use the word, I don’t use it in the vernacular sense (i.e. hot-headed hippy). Rather, it is the foundation of an alternative world view.

This being said, I just can’t find myself subscribe to this world view—it is not valid, nor is it operation-able. Not valid in the sense that it is not backed up by real world events. Not operation-able in
the sense that such a world view cannot be translated into substantial, course-altering action.

Let’s begin with the first point. In almost every case we discussed, there is a significant and enduring (if not permanent) gap between what it should/ought to be and what actually happened. This is the
same thing as the fairness-justice difference I mused about earlier. It is one thing if the discrepancies (between an envisioned world and the real one) appear occasionally and randomly. It is another if they
happen all the time. In other words, when the world always turns out dramatically different from what you think it should be, what should you think—”what is wrong with the world” or “what is wrong with my belief”? For example, after the British abolished slavery, some enlightened English wondered aloud why the Americans didn’t follow their example. After the Americans finally assimilated the Indians, they are now offended when Chinese started to compare the Tibetan issue to the Natives. The arguments were similar—we made the mistake, we know we were wrong. But you shouldn’t repeat our mistakes! You see, it is as if there is a Platonic world out there. However, again, when reality repeatedly violates the Ideal, should you still believe in the sanctity of the Ideal?

On the second point, that the idealist belief is not operation-able, I want to stress that I mean “course-altering” operations. In the case where the Taliban decided to blow up Buddhist statues, there was no lack of consensus on “right” or “wrong”. Yet was that consensus alone sufficient to alter the course of history? Then there is an even more extreme example in the cannibalistic Idi Amin, who, despite being nearly universally condemned, died in the hands of time not man. I raise those examples not to upset your senses or to distract from our discussion. Instead, what I am trying to say here is that the moral outrage (or the appeal of the righteousness) **alone** is rather powerless.

Not that I don’t believe one should hold any sort of standard. In fact, I can’t bring myself to say that “humanity” is an empty word. At the same time, however, I realize that such a standard (same as what you mean by “value system”) works only on those who also believe in such a standard and in a relatively limited sphere (geographical as well as cultural) that is also aligned with raw power (not in the sense of delivering physical violence, but the ability to change course of history). Actually, the raw power needs the standard as much as the other way around. Because people inherently seek transcendental meanings in their daily labor, the significance of symbol, ritual and language are often just as powerful. In short, they are symmetrically important and mutually enhancing (think of Weber’s Protestant ethics thesis and Said’s Orientalism. But there is a lot more to that per
sociologists like Dirkheim, Bourdieu and Geertz).

It is because this realization or, more precisely, because I am more sensitive to this power-discourse relationship than to the universality of human rights, that I claimed supporting Tibetan independence is the same as challenging China. When I said “every … is a racist”, I was following Said’s statement which, if I dare to speculate, is modeled after Nietzsche’s claim “God is dead”—it is not about whether God is really dead or not, but a cry to shock the ready (but still wandering) minds into attention.

I also take exception with your characterization of my argument on Tibet: I said the Chinese government is violently suppressive only when it comes to Dalai Lama. I am also disappointed that you, as a Tibetan specialist, didn’t give the Chinese government more credit for its respect of Tibetan culture.

To the first point, I would say that, first, I have read Dalai’s autobiography in Chinese. He is no Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela. His view of the world is not lack of ethnic discrimination. Secondly,
because Dalai is the head of a political party that openly advocates Tibetan independence, I consider the tension between Dalai and Beijing not a religious-secular confrontation as widely portrayed in the
Western news media, but a secular power struggle. It is not as if Dalai and Beijing disagree on what is the proper way to prostrate, it is who to prostrate to. I am not saying all power struggles are
equally dirty. But if the world recognizes Beijing’s sovereignty over Tibet, it is Beijing’s prerogative to consolidate political power across the land. If the debate comes down to that the Tibetans choose
theocracy but the Chinese government decide to untie politics and religion by marginalizing Dalai Lama, the West is really in no place to comment on that.

To the second point, I would say Beijing has done what is reasonable for Tibet. You should know that central transfer to Tibet far exceeds resource extraction from Tibet, at least since the 2000s. The notion that China proper is pillaging a resource-rich Tibet is just a slander. I have come across Barry Sautman’s several articles on Beijing’s dealings in Tibet. I don’t know what you think of him, but
he told me things I wasn’t aware before. As a Chinese native now living in the States, I do read China’s defense on its Tibet policy. What Sautman did was to collaborate some of the assertions made by the Chinese government and regular citizens.

If you are a Tibetan specialist, I don’t need to tell you how complicated Sino-Tibetan history has been. The mistrusts, hostilities and conflicts have been there for centuries and, more importantly,
gone both ways. Therefore, today’s ethnic tension and political struggle in Tibet is not unprecedented. It is not like China suddenly decide to invade an innocent Shangri-La where people eat nothing but
organic and practice nothing but yoga. Of course, I don’t believe the other nonsense that Tibetans were slaves to the Lamas prior to 1950. Even if it were true, Han Chinese really have no business to pass judgment, particularly when many contemporary Han Chinese lived no better.

What really happens in Tibet today must be somewhere in between. We don’t know the truth not because we don’t have access to the facts (even the Chinese news lockout cannot prevent cell phone pictures being leaked out on the Internet), but because our perception has been heavily colored by what we like to believe. You keep saying that you are not ardently pro-Tibet. But this is so relative that, as the recipient of this assurance, I still have no idea how far apart we are.

I was infuriated by some of the obvious media lies on Tibet during the height of the tension. You probably have heard (and I saw them myself) that Washington Post used pictures of Nepal police beating up Tibetan protestors as proof of Chinese brutality. CNN cropped a picture where
Tibetan protestors were the aggressors attacking a military truck to tell a complete different story. Many Chinese charged that the Western media conspired to make China look bad. I think that is too simplistic a reading of human nature and the media. Instead, the facts are doctored to tell a more believable story, to construct a more cohesive narrative. In other words, the interaction between the media and the Western public is not as much a “let me tell you”, but “I told you”. Compare the Tibetan story to that of Georgia—the media report on the conflict in that confusingly-named part of the world, at least initially, was a lot more tentative.

Without an opinionated media, the public would be at a loss of how to interpret events happened outside their sphere of senses. But equally true is that, without a readily receptive public, the media would not bother to invest in the effort to tell the story. This is another reason I do not think it is relevant to focus on who is or is not a racist.

I understand your criticism largely lay in my statement’s broad inclusion. I regret if it offended you. After this long contorted effort to explain myself, I hope you can see better where I came from,
or why I chose not to qualify my statement.

It has been exhaustive writing down my thoughts. But I find the experience very rewarding. For that, I want thank you for your participation in this dialogue, for your thoughtfulness and encouragement. I truly feel endebted.

Just heard the news that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as veep. It is a good choice, at least good enough to get an Obama supporter like me worried. I like what I heard about Palin so far. She has a life story that is positive and can be related to.

However, this episode is just a distraction of the core contention in this presidential race. To me, this contest is ultimately about race and racism: can America finally get over the mental hurdle of having a minority commander in chief? Or is the political process the real playing field in selecting a President?

To me, both questions are particularly poignant after eight years of unchecked paranoia and fear mongering. America did not get a chance to naturally transition into a minority Presidency: e.g. a black VP after 8 years of peace and prosperity. Instead, Cheney-Bush left the nation in a state of division and confusion: are we really insecure? what’s needed to safeguard America? does government still have a role in national economy? or what is that role?

At this juncture, whether the populace can trust a blackman to be their president really tells how entrenched racism is in America.

First of all, the experience argument is total bullshit. If experience equates to seniority, then Robert Byrd ought to be POTUS 10 years ago. If experience equates to executive credentials, then why not Jack Walsh? Obama ran a half billion dollar (in less than a year, mind you) operation and succeeded in becoming the leading candidate in the race. But he got so little credit for this deed as if he is supposed to be able to do that. Well, if so, how can anyone say that he is too young or too inexperienced?

Secondly, those who bought the experience argument are the usual suspects of racial bigots: white working (hard working, per HRC) Americans. Or sons and daughters of the Southern “heritage”. They are not stupid. They know how to read. They know how to Google (right before Palin was chosen, someone was updating her Wiki entry anonymously). They chose to believe the lack-of-experience crap because even they are embarrassed of what they truly believe.

A recent poll asked people in PA, Ohio how they liked the two parties. The result was almost 2 to 1 in favor of the Democrats. When asked about McCain and Obama, suddenly, the result was tied. If one finds John McCain somewhat un-Republican like, then what is it in Obama that is so un-Democrat? Why those Joe-six-packs love the Democrats in general but not Obama in particular?

Finally, it comes down to this: although Americans have been saying how proud they are of the Tocquevillian democracy, they still give high premium to things outside of democracy, namely, heritage, race and religiosity. Another way to describe this hypocracy is to say that Americans pay lip service to meritocracy but act out aristocracy.

To say things “outside of democracy” is to say they are exogenous to the democratic process–nothing in this process can alter one’s heritage, race or religious affiliation (most of the time). If one looks just at the endogenous factors only, then Obama is the most successful politician in generations: after he stepped out of UChicago campus, he’s lost only a few races. In the heart of darkness that is Chicago politics, he mananged to stay clean while engaged. He was considered an insurgent (not unlike Howard Dean four years ago), but is now the one favored to win: he is doing very thing right within the system and, in terms of achievements, he’s outpaced not only all the pundits bad-mouthing him, but also all his opponents–John Edwards couldn’t even defend his own Senate seat. Clinton has yet to successfully completed anything she initiated on her own (be that Healthcare or the primary). And McCain? He was embroiled in Keating Five when he was at Obama’s stage.

Yet a large portion of the nation still don’t trust him, calling him inexperienced. And more likely than not, it is those people who constantly think of the rest of the world as less democratic, thus less fortunate, than they are.

I am not a religious person, but I do believe in redemption. Hopefully, Obama winning the Presidency will deliver that.

Finally, I sort out the graduation mess. Something is going my way for a change. Obama’s apparent ticket to nomination certainly helped too. I am sure I will cherish the memory of the 2008 election.

HRC said something quite explicit: the hardest working class, white American’s support of Obama is weakening, or something like that. It was pretty upsetting when I first heard of it. But then again, it really helped me to understand HRC a lot better. In a way, she is a politician’s politician. She has a mind that is powerful and clairvoyant. The demographics are so lively and obvious in her mind, she had to say something like that. It must be therapeutic to her: “I don’t know how I can make this any more clearer than what I have been saying all along. Just let me be myself for a moment …” Yeah I had those moments. Actually a lot recently.

Is this still a racist nation? There always have been the first black something: ball player, Justice, movie star, etc. Always a big deal at the inauguration but then the country learned to live with it. If this pattern holds and BO is elected, it is another learning process and we will move on. However, given the success HRC had lately (would Wisconsin still go Obama had its primary took place post-Wright?), I am quietly rationalizing for a McCain presidency.

One thing for sure, Cindy McCain is classy and … oh lala. Really like the picture above. So funny.

Just saw the news that Obama openly repudiated Rev. Wright. Also, there are reports that the Wright appearance in the Press Club was in part orchestrated by a Clinton supporter within the organization.

I have never been so disgusted by the political process since I came to the States. I can barely think now.

1. Why the liberals can’t appeal to more Rockefeller Republicans but have to pander to the Reagan Democrats? I would rather give in to the R.R. on tax cuts, law and order, and restrained regulations, rather than to the guns and religon of the racist hillbillies. Is it ever possible to keep a mass of ignorant, easily manipulated, and even reactionary people happy and to commence progressive social changes at the same time? What is the point to keep those people in the tent, so to speak? Do their votes help or hurt the liberal cause more?

2. What Obama is doing is to repent in public: I have sinned for knowing this man. What he did is no different from what a jailed dissident has to do in a Totalitarian regim: he can only be released after he confesses his “crime” and begs for forgiveness. What Wright said is extreme but is well within the limit of freespeech (and is true too!) But the mob society just quartered this guy: humiliated him ruthlessly and played him subtly. Apparently, this is not enough. Obama has to confess too. Otherwise, how best can the powerful mob ensure that Obama, who is running to be their President, is sufficiently disciplined and obdient than forcing a black man to repudiate another black man for protesting against racial injustice–in public and in earnest?!

3. Hillary Clinton is perhaps the most deserving President for this mob society. Not unlike what Bush and Cheney did after 9.11, she knows how to appeal to the worst in human beings. To ascend to the pinnacle of power, to fulfill her own imagined destiny, she is more than happy to pimp herself out to the dirtest fetish of the least desirable group of men, and the insecurity of the pettiest group of women.

NYT just identified the prostitute Spitzer hired that night. It turns out she was from a broken family, abused drugs, went homeless at times, and moved to NYC hoping to launch a singing career. She is pretty but neither exotic nor classic. Her hands stand out as anti-climatic. Her boss sent her out for $1000 an hour but she couldn’t pay for the rent on her own.

That is all I know about her. But what struck me the most was her own words. Before going to see Spitzer, she was alerted that he might want to do something “unsafe”. Her reply was nonchalant yet embued with I-am-in-control kind of confidence, “Listen dude, you really want the sex?” Today, however, when interviewed by NYT report at the court house, she said only, “I don’t want to be remembered as a monster”.

I don’t know whether I am in a position to feel sorry for her. Nor do I know whether that is what she is looking for. She is only 22 and still calls home when she is in trouble. But her story made me feel like living in a Kafka-nesque world.

Why does NYT has to parade her in front of the public? Because she ruined so much promise for NYT and what it stands for? What recourse does she have to defend herself or even “opt out of the game”? She begs not to be remembered as a monster, but how she’s perceived is already out of her control.

I thought about posting comments on NYT online or even write to their editors. But then again, how different am I from “Kristen” in front of the machine that has no face, no name yet is omnipresent? If NYT doesn’t pick her out, someone else might. All in the name of public’s right to know but actually is out of the public’s desire to know. I feel a chill to the bone.

Had a lousy day today until got hit by this news: “Spitzer Is Involved in a Prostitution Ring“. I have been following this guy the way once I followed McCain. I thought he had a good shot at the Presidency if he learned well at the governorship (the most recent New Yorker article seems to suggest this way).

Still it is hard to feel sorry for him: he can always go back to law practice; he has a well to do family; so far, he’s invested some but not all he has (money, life, reputation, etc.) into the political career so he’s not gonna go bankrupt or being missed much.

That just shows Bill Clinton’s audacity, ain’t it? Also, just can’t imagine what a day Leno’s crew is having today …