lisasong.com

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 …

Every once in a while, I will have a Voila! moment when several discrete things all come together and a puzzle suddenly makes perfect sesne.

A while back when Katie Couric asked Palin what newspaper she read. She gave a very awkward and discursive answer. While I laughed at her with others, deep down, it didn’t make sense. Obviously, she read something. She is not the most intelligent person there is but she can’t possibly become who she is without reading anything. Later on, she explained to Lauer that she felt trapped by that question, as if “whatever I say will get me into trouble”.

Her explanation didn’t make sense to me: why the fuss? Just tell Couric anything, how could that have hurt? And many people felt the same way. But we all let it go. What is the big deal, after all.

But the epiphany came to me today. I came across a video of her giving an interview in Alaska. As she was recounting her VP experience and her renewed Alaskan family life, a guy was seen in the background stuffing a turkey–kicking and twisting–down a slaughter machine. As if that wasn’t enough, the guy was shaking and swaying with the bird (to drain blood?) as if in front of a urinal. What is worse, she was said to be there to perform the pre-Thanksgiving turkey pardon.

Then it suddenly hit me: no wonder she is so self-conscious of being trapped by journalists–from where she comes, the level of sensitivity and sophistication is just not there! Although Alaska is one of the highest per capita state of the most powerful nation in the world, it is still a very primitive place. Life’s challenge is still physical and perception of the ambient is largely visceral (Norbert Elias vs. Moose). She must be aware of that. No wonder she over-reacted, no wonder some Alaskan felt misunderstood by the lower-forty-eighters.

Had the economic crisis begun a couple of month late, she could have been our VP. It was as if Queen Sheba came to Israel, and stayed!

I don’t know why I still waste time on her. But the sense of discovery is quite intoxicating, I guess. Also, maybe one day I will look back at the last campaign and re-live the drama through things like this.

Like so many times before when I was witnessing history in the making (6.4, 9.11), I missed the precise moment when it happened.

When the electoral vote count scrolled cross 270, I was getting a lousy beer in the kitchen. When I came out, people are jumping, dogs barking and kisses and hugs and all that shit.

For the last 12 month, I felt like riding in a canoe on a rough sea . He was my choice and his success and failure felt so much more “real” to me than any other electoral events. Whenever arguing for him, either online or face to face, there was always a sense of dread and desperation that he could be marginalized by the great silent American majority.

And how much the mass has been tempted: first it was a name-brand politician seemed to have everything–a faux promise, a faux competency, a faux “historical first” and even a faux marriage. Next it was a great war hero that I could never learn to hate. After that it was a sweet little bitch who appeals not only to the fanatics but also the subconscious longings of a romantic Americanism amongst the common. Besides the main antagonists are all kinds of colorful characters: Jessie “the Nut Cutter” Jackson, Rev. Wright, Joe “the Big Mouth” Biden and a whinning Bill Clinton.

It was not until the financial crisis did the scale finally tipped. On the one hand, I felt quite unsettled that it took a crisis of this magnitude to change the majority’s perception. On the other, however, a close victory keeps the victor humble and driven.

Regardless, this is a wonderful night. When Obama gave his speech of the night, a couple next to me were quietly sobbing. I know how they feel. Historical moments are often remembered with a singularly strong emotion attached to it. Whenever I recall 6.4 or 9.11, I felt anger and vengence. But this is a night I’d always remember with a sense of vindication, joy and hope.

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Per this WaPo article,

The decision to hire McCain (as a naval liaison to Congress) fell largely to the commander of naval operations, four-star Adm. James Holloway, who had known Jack McCain during his liaison days and thought that his son might be aptly suited for the same line of work. “John was a personable young guy who had been brought up in the right atmosphere,” Holloway recalls. “I mean, he had that kind of social education that came from seeing his parents entertain a lot of people from Congress. . . . He had good genes, and he also had a good sense of humor and social skills at a cocktail party. He was a guy who could play poker and help with arrangements, a good fellow.”

Compare that with Obama’s rise, this story echos a larger debate between aristocracy and meritocracy, doesn’t it?

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.

The bailout talk “imploded” tonight.

WaMu was seized by FDIC and sold to JPMC for $1.9B (over $307B in assets).

FDIC has only $45B in the insurance fund.

Short term T bill goes into negative rate in real terms.

Money market, commercial paper markets are tighter by the day.

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!

I can’t believe it has been 7 years. It was a traumatic moment. Since then, I have been witnessing the country turning vengeful, fear-ridden and more receptive to authoritarianism. Politicians like Guiliani milked the event as if they own a larger piece of the tragedy than the rest of us.

I still remember hearing the news of AA F578 crash (two month after 9.11, due to rudder failure). I just checked it again–it was the 2nd most fatal air disasters in the U.S. 260 people died. But in that morning, every one seemed to relax a little bit after hearing it was a mechanical problem. Speaking for myself, I was just hoping that news would go away.

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.