Gee-off's Jeremiad

Where have you gone Joe DiMagio...

2008-11-18T05:39:00.000-08:00

Paul Simon understood the American yearning for heros who confirm the greatness and symbolize the qualities of the nation that sees itself as the city on a hill. Like I suspect many others, I am beginning to feel unsettled about Obama. A nation has indeed turned its lonely eyes to him as the latest embodiment of the American dream. His interest in Lincoln is noted, his wholesome family life praised , and his commitment to uniting Americans in a great common purpose warmly received. His rise to the Presidency is seen as a vindication of the American way - an opinion Obama himself seems to share. Just when we hoped that there would be an end to the 'leader of the free world' style of rhetoric, now we have 'this could only happen in America' to put up with. Obama now routinely wears a flag pin for all to see.

Well, he's just playing the game isn't he? I hope so. Let it be the case that the view that sees Obama as a masterful political operator who knows how he has to appear to mainstream American in order for an agenda of real change to be enacted is an accurate one. May it be so that appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will prove to be a political masterstroke and will provide heft to the effort to end an era of disastrous American imperialism. After all, Hillary was opposed to Vietnam wasn't she?

Talkin' 'bout my Generation

2008-09-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Soon after VE day, Pete Towhshend and I were born 12 days apart in Chiswick, now a distinctly up market part of west London. So when he sang about his generation, he was talkin' 'bout mine too. Those of us that are still around are mostly now either retired from paid employment or close to that desirable state. In another thirty years or so, we will nearly all be history, the few survivors being brought out for public show from time to time as relics of a bygone but interesting time.

What is a generation? Historians have struggled to capture generational experience. It is certainly something to do with the common experience of living in a particular time and place at a particular age. The exact nature of these experiences is difficult to identify and of course individual circumstances are always significant; but as an example I suspect that most people of my age grew up, in England at least, with a clear understanding that the War was a historical event of great significance in the experience of those who had lived through it - and that meant our parents. We all regularly heard the term pre-war and knew what it signified. If you could not quite buy two stone of monkey nuts then and still get change out of a farthing as Tony Capstick once suggested, it was still clear that pre-war, the depression, fascism and the aftermath of the Great War notwithstanding , was a kind of pristine golden age uncorrupted by flashy materialism and moral deterioration. The reaction (mostly men's) in the Second World War to American soldiers - overpaid, over sexed and over 'ere - was an example of the misgivings felt by some when faced with what was both unusual and, even worse, was the way of the future. Did those of us growing up in the fifties internalize those misgivings? Did they interact with the excitement we felt about American music, movies and style to create the oddly dissonant attitude so many of us carry towards the United States? Because of when we were born and what we heard about as children, do we carry with us a degree of awareness of what had gone before that gradually was to diminish for future generations? Did this combine with an ongoing experience of taking on the new and different make us distinct and perhaps historically unique? Is our generational self obsession so extreme that it proves the point of our exceptionalism. When Pete wrote that 'people try to put us down' just who exactly was us?

Lost causes

2008-09-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

As a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Lions, I know all about lost causes. My tendency to back losers unfortunately extends to politicians as well. I was delighted when Michael Foot became leader of the Labour Party. I still consider him to be the onlyLabour leader since Attlee to be worthy of respect. Electorally and politically however he was not successful. Margaret Thatcher benefited from his weakness as an opposition leader, while Blair's New Labour project was a clear repudiation of the kind of Labour Party Michael Foot had represented and believed in.

As we approach elections in Canada and the United States, I am anxious that my penchant for supporting and feeling particular affinity with politicians who lose is about to be demonstrated once again. I was pleased when the Liberal Party of Canada selected Stephane Dion as leader. The alternatives were odious - Rae and Ignatieff are both men of overweening vanity and priggish self righteousness - and Dion seemed to offer a break from the pattern of cynical manipulation of the electorate that had become so typical of Liberal Party politics. Now, as Dion drops ever further in the opinion polls, he seems fated to be blamed for delivering a majority government to Harper's Conservatives and will be looking for employment shortly after October 14th.

Still, like many in the true north strong and free , this year I care more about what happens south of the border. I am not too disturbed by the prospect of a Harper majority government , but the thought of a McCain Presidency leads me to consider whether a permanent return to Europe might be in order for this retired person. I have long felt that there is a strong, fascistic element in American politics. The hyper nationalism with its absurd mythology, the in your face ubiquity of the American flag as well as the hatred which is expressed to those who dare express criticism of the American way are all reminiscent of European fascism of the pre World War 2 period. McCain personally seems to embody many of the qualities of the ugly American and in his absurdity, as Gore Vidal aptly noted, resembles no-one so much as Mr.Magoo. He is precisely the kind of political figure that the worst elements in American politics can feed off and who will be dangerously likely to flaunt, threaten and potentially use that one remaining significant American power - its military power to destroy.

My anxiety then, is that Barack Obama is one more lost cause. Is he too decent and too intellectually honest to electorally succeed? Is he too unwilling to be the kind of political pugilist that pundits seem to admire and that wins elections ? Will the catalogue of lies, rumours and innuendo that have been spread about him be of sufficient significance to deter enough people from voing for him? Most important of all, is his skin the wrong colour? Will we see a McCain win on election after the polls predicted an Obama victory? Polls that people lied to,
unwilling to admit that they would not vote for a black man. Is Obama the ultimate lost cause of our time?

It's a beautiful morning...

2008-09-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

I think I'll go outside a while and just smile. Not exactly the greatest line of a pop lyric ever written, but there is something about that Young Rascals song from 1968 that captures the feeling of waking up to a delightfully sunny, late summer day that is warm rather than hot, the kind of day which is all the more valued because of the imminence of autumn and the inevitability of winter. It is tempting to consider that we may be in the very late summer or early autumn of the western world and that a long winter looms. What is cannot last. Let us enjoy it then while we can. There are some beautiful mornings left.

Molotov lives

2008-09-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Living in a quiet suburban area of a city that has one of the lowest crime rates in Canada, it is surprising to discover that in the middle of the night a molotov cockail was hurled at a neighbour's home just a couple of doors away. Seeing a posse of policemen blocking the street off as they rummaged around for forensic evidence was certainly unusual. My initial thought on what provoked this odd event was that it was a further expression of ancient Balkan ethnic hostility. Gossip from local High School sources however, suggests a drug trade connection. Regardless, it is clear that Molotov has much more significance now eponymously than as a former foreign minister of the Soviet Union. He has gone the way of Caesar Cardini, Henry Shrapnel and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich - the life is forgotten but the name lives on.

It's the end of the World as we know it.. and I feel fine

2008-09-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

The chaos in the financial markets bring REM to mind. Is it the "end of the world as we know it"?
Written history is replete with those events or moments that have been labelled turning points. Sometimes they have been clearly recognized at the time (the French Revolution), but more often not. In time it will of course become clear if the unravelling of the US financial markets is more than just another hiccup in the ups and downs of the global system. There is something about this one though that feels different. The scale of the excess of the economic hubris of the past few decades threatens a commensurate consequence. And that consequence will be a clear end to the general experience of improvement in living standards that has characterised the Western world since the beginning of the Great Boom in the late nineteen forties. It is indeed the end of the world as we know it, but just as REM said " I feel fine".