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It is hard having not written anything for a long while. But a well-written essay is like a good meal that can jolt me into action.

The opening paragraph of Frank Rich’s column was the most delicious part:

WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean,  … So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not [even] a memorable villain  … He is smaller than life.

Well said. Recently, I watched the 95 movie Nixon where Antony Hopkins played the most Shakespearean President in history. Now another, “Frost and Nixon”, is playing. As I was watching the trailer, I was just thinking along the same line …

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.

I always liked David Brooks (ever since the Bobo book). Just read his column on NYT today, his basica idea: the GOP that used to live on ideas is now gone forever. Palin is just the latest figure in a movement that has fundamentally changed the character of the party:

Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. … What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment.

I take no comfort in the demise of the Rockefeller Republicans. Whenever a viable opposition becomes an enemy, it posions not only politics but civic society too.

I don’t know what goes on in McCain’s mind right now: sure, he knows this is his last shot at the presidency. Sure, he feels he is more entitled to be the POTUS than Obama. But by degenerating the campaign into personal attacks–is that what he spent 5 years in prison for?

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.

Not that I don’t have any thing good to do. But I have to say I am furious over the bailout plan. The more I heard about it, the less I like it. The bottom line? I don’t think Wall Street is contrite enough–they haven’t told us exactly what went wrong, why it went so wrong or how to right the wrong. How do I know $700 billion is enough?!

Anyway, here is some midnight ramble I sent to Congressional politicians from WA:

I am writing you to voice my strong OPPOSITION to the Wall Street Bailout Plan of 2008.

The plan, as it stands today, amounts to an extortion, like a polluter asking for Federal funds to clean up by saying it doesn’t have the money to do it itself. It might makes sense financially but fails to address the issue of public wellfare and fairness. After all, at $700 Billion, it is NOT about money any more. I urge you and your fellow Congressional colleagues to immediately reject the current version of the the plan.

First, the current crisis is the result of a loose monetary policy in combination with a corrupt regulatory ecosystem. The immediate consequence is the formation of a “financial-political complex” that usurped the monetary policy setting power of the Federal government.

Secondly, because the plan was drafted by Wall Street insiders, it may pay lip service to political consideration. Yet the entire process has been extremely undemocratic and un-American. I refuse to accept the notion that the financial industry is so complicated that only experts have the exclusive right on how to preserve public wealth.

Thirdly, Congress must act quickly and decisively to send a clear message to the entire industry of what lacking in the proposal, and to reassure investors of its political leadership.

I like to elaborate further on the above three points:
1. The Wall Street extortion. By playing up the complexity of financial dealings and by addictively committing large sum of public wealth into risky investment schemes, the Wall Street gang has been acting like a polluter who pours huge amount of posionous material into air and river. He reasons–correctly but shamelessly–that if the problem is bad enough and the scale is large enough, they can reap the benefit on the upside but force the tax payers to cushion the down side.

On Wall Street, a clique of large firms acted just like polluters: they sliced up the bad loans and sprayed them onto every other securities so that no one can escape the wrath of a meltdown. They lobbied to have their leverage level raised from 30-1 to 40-1 so that they could generate credits regardless of Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. The corrupt relationship between the money man and politicians is also amply reflected in the severity of this crisis. The examples are: Fannie and Freddie’s account scandals were not properly addressed; An industry lobbiest (Cox) became the head of SEC; Populist politicians openly pressured the Fed to further loose credits so they (the politicians) could garner a few more votes from some despicable parasites.

2. The plan is undemocratic. In terms of dollar amounts, $700 million is administrative, $7 billion is budgetary but $700 billion is political. It amounts to $2300 for every man, woman, child, senior of this country! Yet what do we, as regular tax payers, get in return? A promised financial order that was there in the very beginning and only got lost thanks to the very people we are told to bailout.

Where is the social justice? Where is the political accountability? Remember, $700 billion is political–at this point, it is NOT about money any more! If we are asked to pay $2300, we should be given a chance to recount whether we had ever benefited that much from the boom. Otherwise, where is the justification of that $2300–is it a tax? An appropriation based on Emminent Domain?

3. The urgency. People have been asking how to act rationally in a time of extreme urgency. In this case, the best action should be a decisive and clear worded Congressional rejection of the Bailout, telling Wall Street, “you are not contrive enough; you have not cede enough.”

I like Senator Dodd’s proposal which requires a public equity stake in every financial institution benefited from public funds. In addition, I suggest Congress collect a one-time rememdy taxes on people who have paid capital gain tax in the last five years to pay for the Bailout.

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.

 Beijing Olympics is over today. I think many people I know are letting out a sigh of relief. Given so many misfortunes and unrests happened earlier this year, the summer Olympics once felt like a giant bubble ready to pop. Now it is over, all of a sudden, it dawned on me that 2008 was the best Olympics in my life time. 

Not that I wish it happens again any time soon. Like the Pyramids, and many other human spectacles in history, the success of Olympics is built on the sacrifices and sufferings of counterless unnamed. If Acropolis is a reminder of Athenian democracy, and the Great Wall determined national defense, what is being immortalized by the statdiums? Prosperity? At $2000 per capita, that is a stretch.

Here are some of the good and the bad as I saw them:

The Good:

The competitions! Really a treat for a sports fan. In the States, I missed watching volleyball, handball and track/field. Bu now I have them all together. Badminton is always fun (watching the top players play gives me a sensation of watching human pin-balls). The marathon run around the city and the road bike race to the Great Wall were very photogenic. Although I don’t care for diving or gymnastics, they are surprisingly competitive even to my layman’s eye.

The soccer match between the Nigeria and Belgium is one of the most memorable in my life time. Had there not been so much Michael Phelps (over) coverage, I would have enjoyed swimming even more.

Track is perhaps the most exciting. I played so many ball games in my life, but I don’t always feel an adrenaline surge before every match. Track is different. I can always recall how hard my heart pumped every time I stood behind the starting line. The sensation of turning the last curve and seeing the finish line at the end of the track is beyond words. It is fair to say I play balls for fun but run for the adrenaline.

Yesterday, watched the marathon live on NBC. When the Kenyan runner (he was just so graceful) entered the stadium, the first shot was from his back with the bright light at the end of the tunnel in front of him. Immediately, the view switched to another camera that panned in half the stadium. When the dimunitive runner figure emerged from the tunnel, I could see the stadium erupted in cheers. I trembled. Good God.

The Bad:

I will save it for another day.

Just heard the news that Nancy Pelosi is contemplating another massive tax rebate. From macroeconomic stand point, this doesn’t make sense: the material and commodity prices are already high, indicating a maxed out productivity. The monetary policy is already very loose, if the fiscal policy follows suite, inflation in its most brutal form will sure re-emerge.

Politically, this may be expedient but awefully shortsighted: the economy is going through a painful reajustment period from which a more balanced supply-demand equilibrium should emerge. By interfereing with this process, the congressional follies not only disrupt this self-adjustment process, but also wasting any influence government may have on economy: when the inflation does materialize, what else can the government do? When stagflation does happen, it just sets up the stage for another Reagan-Bush populist demagogue.

??????,?”???????”. ?????, ???????????????5?????”??”.

??“??”???? ?????“????”:

“… ??????????????????????????????4??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????“6·28”????“????”… ??“??”?????????????????????????????google?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”

????????”????????”. Although the title was inaccurate (Weng An is not part of the Gui Yang municipality), the connection may not be far off. But that is just fascinating!

1. China has had few (none notable enough that I read) semi-free elections (i.e. direct vote and open candidacy) beyond village level. That is something Whiting drilled into our heads. So how significant is this event?

2. The change of procedure comes right after a widely reported riot and amidst widespread cynicism, I don’t know whether this is a sign of weakness/desparation or that of confidence? How much this is used as a ploy to defuse tension, or is this an instance where local reformers/a new generation of leaders are trying to find space to maneuver?

3. Isn’t this an unique opportunity to measure/observe how ready (local) civic culture is to reshape politics? The setting is perfect: something dramatic is happening in the political periphery, like ????, ????, Deng’s reform, etc. If a participatory and disciplined civil culture is there but dormant under suppression, then this is an opportunity where a new equilibrium (it may take a long while) may form. However, if there is no such a civic culture, the vacuum will be soon re-filled by petty despotism.

What would Elizabeth Perry say?

It was always a pleasure meeting like-minded folks. This is true for hillbilly racists, white working class laborers, liberation theologists, too-poor-to-own-property-but-enough-to-afford-a-latte-a-day liberal activists. So is it true for immigrant intellectuals from the Orient.

ZDS is a professor in law school. We are of the same age but took quite different routes to the same spatial and temporal location as we did this afternoon… that is too much. We met in his office about my coal mine paper.

But the conversation diverged soon after. I am pleasantly surprised that he’s a fan of Foucault and Said too (more so of the latter and P Bourdieu). His has a insightful view concerning the two: Foucault is too concerned with domination and permeation. Said, however, expands Foucault’s thesis and dares to contest the symbols that were created by the powerful.

Our different views of recent events: Tibet, 08 election and the Western liberal democracy, echo our choice of favorite between Said and Foucault. I suspect his training in law and legislation breeds in him a more optimistic outlook for the outcast surviving in democracy. After all, his job is to protect the right to be different.

I am much more pessimistic about where the liberal legacy in the U.S. is heading to. Now think of it, I may have been “shocked and awed” by the collective reactions following 9.11. But the force of conformity is unmistakeable.

Will an Obama presidency change the paranoia, the hysteria of fear and the intolerance of dissent? To me, that is the hypocracy and the weakness of popular democracy, for it creates a paradox that is unsolvable: even if Obama’s election will change the political ethos of our time, he cannot win unless sufficient majority are ready for the change. If, just for the argument’s sake, the majority is wrong, irrational or stupid, what’s in liberal democracy that can bring a change to this sorry reality?