Why Poets Do Well In Any Economy

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Poets do well in any economy because no economy has ever been especially good for poets. "The economy is bad?" poets ask. "Well, I'll be darned."

Pick any allegedly extra-active poetic period--the Beat period in the U.S., for example. The economy was riding high after World War II, the Beats were changing poetry, and President Eisenhower was on the golf course. Good times, except for the examples cited in Ginsberg's Howl. Okay, so there were a lot of examples.

By the way, this was back when Republicans behaved as adults; can you imagine the general in charge of D-Day wasting energy and being rude by yelling at someone, a la Rep. Joe Wilson, who is a guest in his professional house? Republicans need to ask themselves, "What would Eisenhower do?" Answer: Pass pragmatic, effective health-care reform, stop going to the well of hate-speech, and not behave like a "jackass," President Obama's term for Kanye West's behavior at one of those awards shows so central to the betterment of humanity. West should have asked what No-Drama Obama would have done (not been at the awards show in the first place).

But back to those Beats. Did they do anything to harm the good economy? No. Did they help? Of course! They filled coffee houses and bars, and they started at least one venerable small business, City Lights Books. When the economy turned sour soon thereafter, you didn't hear poets complaining, partly because they were complaining about other things, such as racism.

At any rate, here is a list of reasons why poets do well in any economy:

1. Poets are used to not getting paid much, if anything, for their poetry. In an odd way, then, they are recession-proof, and they've always had to have a day-job, or a night-job, or two jobs.

2. Poets, unlike many novelists and all pundits, are frugal with words. Poets Know Frugal.

3. Poets tend to be generous with money. If you meet one at a cafe or a bar and buy a copy of his/her chapbook or ask him/her to sign a copy, the poet will be so ecstatic that he or she will buy you several rounds of libations.

4. Poets can smell rotten metaphors right away. So when Reagan's team used "trickle-down economics," all poets knew right away that this wasn't good, especially for those being trickled upon. "The Patriot Act." Poets know the Patriot Act was mis-named and has created not a single patriot. Poets can tip you off to mischievous political speech, regardless of party-affiliation.

5. Almost all poets know enough about what they don't know to stay away from economics, and in a bad economy, the last thing we need is more economists, and in a good economy, we don't need any economists to tell us it's good.

An exception to this rule is Ezra Pound, who, like Ron Paul, got obsessed with the gold-standard and got immersed in especially awful anti-Semitism. He also made radio broadcasts on behalf of Mussolini because he thought fascism had good economic solutions. Because the U.S. was at war with Italy, Pound got arrested and eventually ended up in a mental hospital in Baltimore. After a while, he was allowed to leave and to live out his days in Italy.

A lesson is: Italy is great, but stay away from economics, poets! It is a dismal "science", not a legendary art.

6. Poets often read and write so carefully that they pay attention to syllables, not just words. Note E-CON-o-my. Bernie Madoff and bankers who operated as loan-sharks put the CON in economy, and the regulators did nothing more than say "O, my." Result: Disaster. Poets saw this coming. It was a syllable-thing.

7. You can trust poets at least to do no harm to the economy. True, Wallace Stevens worked in insurance, and James Dickey worked in New York advertising, but neither absconded with funds, ran Ponzi schemes, or cheated shareholders (as far as I know). James Merrill, of the Merrill in Merrill Lynch (by relation), did not get involved in the business and spent a lot of time writing long poems.

8. Poets are highly employable because they're usually socially flexible. Not in every case, but in most cases. There may be times, however, when a manager will notice that a poet is writing a poem on the job (in both senses of that phrase).

9. As Percy Shelley noted, "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Most people focus on the "legislators" part of that quotation. Poets focus on the "unacknowledged" part. Unacknowledged is good. I wish Re. Joe Wilson and Senators Baucus and Grassley would go unacknowledged for a while.

10. Almost all poets have consumed their share of coffee, tea, and/or wine--the kind of basic stuff upon which economies have relied for thousands of years. We do our part.

Those Phrases

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So far, I haven't noticed too many similarities between Barack Obama and Richard Nixon--not that I've been looking for them very hard. I did think of the two in conjunction when I heard Obama say several times, "Let me be clear." Nixon used to say, "Let me be crystal clear" or "Let me make this crystal clear." Of course, Nixon was and Obama is ambitious, bright, and politically shrewd: how do you get to be president without being so? Even Gerald Ford had to be smarter than he seemed, and he became president only because Nixon resigned.

Nixon and Obama both chose tough, hardened, bare-knuckles men as chiefs of staff--Obama's is Rahm Emanuel, and Nixon's was H.R. Haldeman. Obama's the far better orator, and at least so far, Obama seems to have none of the Nixonian paranoia or tendency toward self-destruction. I do think Obama, like most if not all politicians, has some interesting contradictions to work out, including the issue of gay and lesbian citizens and civil rights. Most politicians choose simply not to work them out but to finesse them, so this will be interesting to watch. Constitutionally, there just seems to be no good reason to treat gay and lesbian citizens differently, but then again, I'm no Constitutional scholar. Morally and ethically, I can't think of a reason to treat such citizens differently either, in terms of civil rights, etc.--the purview of politicians.


Those Phrases

To be honest, I don't know why
I'd start a sentence with "to be
honest," unless I were implying honesty
might be a new technique I was about
to try out. In all candor, I don't
have to say I don't like "in all
candor," but I don't. "I must say"
nothing. When people say, "Just let
me say . . .," to me, they've already
started saying it, so it's not a
question of my letting them. Quite
frankly, I prefer the phrase
"Somewhat frankly" because it's
more entertaining and honest. To
tell you the truth, "to tell you
the truth" is just an expression,
neither truth nor lie but a dweller
on the idiomatic frontier. Let me
be clear, or let me be obscure:
your choice! Confidentially,
and just between you and me, there
seems to be no confidentiality.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Langston Hughes and Barack Obama

(Langston Hughes 1902-1967)

Langston Hughes and Barack Obama

Let's lay down some lines for Langston Hughes

this day of news: 20 January 2009. A fine

piece of the dream's no longer deferred, though

the thought's occurred that Mr. Hughes

might focus on the people out of work or,

working, out of money. (Remember:

he gave even Roosevelt what-for.) Still I see

him in a Harlem bar, sitting next to

Jesse B., speaking in his clipped

Midwest English, having sipped

something fortified, brown eyes bright and wide.

He'd be smoking if they'd let him, saying

or thinking, "Lord, a day has come I never even

dreamed to dream in 1921." He'd go back

to the brownstone with its small garden

in front, sit down, and write a simple, profound

lyric capturing the spirit of President Obama's day.

Cross the Jordan, cross the Nile, cross the Congo--

and that Ocean, too. Cross the Harlem and

the Hudson Rivers. Cross the Mississsipi. Dear

Madame Johnson: Mr. Obama crossed the Potomac.

That's a fact, no not some dream. Think

of Mr. Hughes's rivers. The soul shivers.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Thanks to one of the blogs I follow, the Hyperborean, I was able to read another blog, the Lumpenprofessoriat:

http://lumpenprofessoriat.blogspot.com/

A post there mentioned the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a three-person African American string-band, which the blogger likes. Co-incidentally, I had just seen a recording of their performing on, of all places, the Grand Old Opry, which I almost never watch but which I channel-changed to for some reason the other day. I wrote "of all places" because I don't know whether any African American performer except Charlie Pride has been on the Grand Old Opry.

Of course, traditional rural American folk and "country" music and African American folk and blues music share some complicated roots, but once such music became commercialized in the early 20th century, it became segregated. This circumstance is well satirized in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, when the convicts and Robert Johnson go into the radio station operated by a blind person. At some point in the 1960s, I think corporate Nashville decided it needed at least one Black performer, so Charlie Pride's career was allowed to flourish. The control exerted by corporate Nashville on its product is notorious; hence the hostility that Johnny Cash often showed and the indifference Willie Nelson still shows toward the establishment there.

On the Opry, speaking for the group, the banjo player and singer, a woman, said the group had studied with an older Black folk musician in the Carolinas. The other two performers, both male, play fiddle and guitar, and the guitar-player also plays the big brown jug.

It was an interesting cultural moment to observe. The all-white Opry audience was polite and even joined in a sing-along, but they were restrained, somehow. Cool. Marty Stewart, who hosts the Opry now and is probably trying to bring it into the modern age, came out and joined the band for the last song. He also tried to get the crowd to stand up when it applauded, but no one would get up. I had to wonder how much the rise of Obama's political fortunes had to do with the appearance of the Carolina Chocolate Drops on the Opry. Maybe nothing.

At any rate, I love the music they make--at once fresh and authentic, definitely Old School, injected with three young persons' zest for refurbishing old music. So here's a shout out to the group, to Marty Stewart (for showing some class), to the Hyperborean, and to the Lumpenprofessoriat. The internet works in mysterious ways.

And here's a link to the group's site (from which I got the photo):

http://www.carolinachocolatedrops.com/

The group will be in Seattle, in May, for about a week, at the Seattle Children's festival.

To Where Do Conservatives Think of Exiling Themselves?

When Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II were elected, I often heard leftward-leaning folks threaten to leave the U.S. Usually this threat was expressed right before the election. "If Reagan gets reelected, I'm moving to Canada"--for example. I don't actually know anyone who ever exiled themselves thusly. I do know one fellow who has insured that he and his family now have dual citizenship in the U.S. and a European nation, just in case self-exile becomes an option.



Someone in class today raised the question of where rightward-leaning folk threaten to move to when elections disappoint them greatly. I owe this person a debt of gratitude because I had never thought about this question before.



As the person and others noted, Canada is probably out because many conservatives like to point to it and its healthcare system as embodying a cautionary tale. Is Dubai a possibility? I have no idea.


I've heard one can stash money in some place called the Cayman Islands, which I think are in the Caribbean, but I don't know if these islands are especially welcoming to conservative Americans.


I presume almost every nation in Europe would be unacceptable. Sweden has a shockingly effective combination of capitalism and socialism. The Swedes have universal healthcare, free college education, generous parental leave, and so on, but they also produce steel and cars, and they have a trade-surplus. They also talk very deliberately, and they listen during conversations, so Sweden is really not a comfortable place for most Americans, who like to talk first and listen later.



I think Swedes make their own jet-fighters, too, so they don't buy a lot of military equipment from us, and ever since the 18th century, they have become positively allergic to going to war--but we must remember that they did quite a lot of raiding for about 200 years way back when, circa 700-900 A.D.E. Maybe they got war out of their system, so to speak. Who knows? And there are only 8 million Swedes total, so with regard to possible invasions, the options are limited. They fought Norway a long time ago, and all the issues were settled. They don't like how Danes speak, but otherwise, I think they're okay with Denmark. They get along fine with Finns. They seem to pretend Russia doesn't exist, except for that terrible Chernobyl thing. They focus like a laser-beam on what to do during the summer. Is that a liberal or a conservative trait?



Conservatives seem to loathe France. Dennis Miller said that "France is dead to me" when the French leader balked at supporting the invasion of Iraq, for example. The French seem to have been unaffected by this announcement. How odd. One would think Dennis Miller's sentiments would hit France like an earthquake. :-)


Alaska is a possibility, I should think, because, well, look who's governor there--and you don't actually have to leave the nation. You just have to take a long flight, and in you're in a state governed by a person who galvanized the Republican base.



Numerous poetic possibilities exist, including "Sailing to Byzantium," in which Yeats dreams of "living" in a kind of permanent world of well wrought art, and Dickinson's poem about dwelling in possibility. Possibility is a very good town indeed.



Probably so-called conservatives and liberals have much in common, including the fact that neither actually exile themselves after a disappointing election, or at least very few of them do so. Also, for a long time, many people have argued that the Democratic and Republican parties are more similar than they pretend to be.



The Republicans may have to work on redefining themselves, however, at least for the purposes of the political spectacle. For a long time, they were very effective at demonizing "liberals" and thereby defining themselves by defining the "Other." They also once at least pretended to stand for fiscal restraint, but Reagan and Bush II pretty much ruined that with massive deficit spending. Ironically, Clinton seemed more economically prudent than they. Also, the Republicans wedded themselves to a particular strain of American Christianity--a mixture of wealth, interest in politics, and fundamentalism, best embodied, arguably, by Pat Robertson, who rails against a women's right to choose abortion, against homosexuality, against liberals, and against feminism, but who has accumulated a great deal of financial wealth (no camel-through-the-eye-of-the-needle stuff for him) and even ran for president once.




I wonder if they could go back to their not-so-distant roots and become Eisenhower Republicans. Eisenhower golfed a lot a balanced the budget, didn't he? Also, he didn't like Nixon. I think Eisenhower would find people like Rove, Gingrich, the writers at The Nation, the people on Fox News, et al., as just too petty and mean--and wound up a bit too tightly. I think that after you've directed a war against Hitler, you get some perspective.


The Democrats, of course, will have to learn how to handle success. They tend not to handle it well. (Nor do the Republicans.) If the Democrats were crafty, they would pursue some items on the Libertarian agenda, especially those connected with restoring civil liberties.

I really like discussing politics and occasionally blogging about politics because I know almost nothing about the subject, so I'm unencumbered by knowledge and experience. I especially like talking politics in the presence of one friend, in particular, who possesses a wealth of theoretical, social-scientific, and practical knowledge of politics. I suspect he simply hums songs in his head while I'm talking, and when I stop opining, he says something like, "That's interesting."



I'm not quite through gas-bagging, unfortunately, although undoubtedly you've stopped reading by now. So I'll just add that it is a well known fact that the Democratic Congress did the Democratic President Carter no favors, and I do wonder if the same will happen with Obama. I also wonder if right-wing radio will lower the temperature of their remarks; it's a genre that seems almost addicted to borderline hate-speech. I'd rather listen to a conservative countepart of the more-or-less liberal Thom Hartman, who engages in calm debates with conservatives. It's conversation-radio.



And who shall run for president in four years? Palin? Gingrich? Romney? I do hope Ron Paul runs again. I liked hearing him bring up going back to the gold standard. No one ever seemed to want to engage him on the issue. Go figure.

November 8, 2008

Politics is a cynical, spectacle-driven, money-saturated, grinding business, but sometimes its results transcend its nature.

I think of the resilience of African Americans over 389 years, all the degradation suffered, now at least symbolically overcome.

I think of the strange turns of fate--that Obama's father is African, not African American; that if Gore or Kerry were to have won, Obama may not be the president-elect; that so many women I know gracefully shifted support from Clinton to Obama.

I think of writers whom I never knew (although I got to shake Baldwin's hand and speak with him) but whose words have always drawn me to their spirit and views: Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, James Baldwin, so many more.

I think of certain colleagues, friends, current and former students.

I think, finally, of my friend from high school, with whom I still keep in touch--Ronn English.

I think of President Obama. Keep him safe.

Socialism

Candidate Obama has been labeled a "socialist," and "socialism" seems to be especially visible and audible in the media these days, so I thought I'd check with the venerable OED (albeit the online version) for a definition of "socialism":

"1. A theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc., by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all. Freq. with initial capital. Christian socialism, a doctrine or theory, promulgated about 1850 by F. D. Maurice, C. Kingsley, T. Hughes, and others, advocating a form of socialism on a Christian basis.
1837 Leeds Times 12 Aug. 5/1 Socialism.Messrs. Fleming and Rigby.On Monday evening..these two gentlemen attended [sic] an audience..on the topics of the real nature of man. 1839 J. MATHER (title), Socialism Exposed: or ‘The Book of the New Moral World’ Examined. Ibid. App. 22 To explain and expose what Robert Owen's Socialism is. 1840 Quart. Rev. Dec. 180 The two great demons in morals and politics, Socialism and Chartism. 1850 Daily News 13 Mar. 5/2 The infection of..‘Christian Socialism’ is spreading to Whitehall. 1863 FAWCETT Polit. Econ. II. i. 181 Socialism, as first propounded by Owen and Fourier, proposed that a society living together should share all the wealth produced. 1881 STEVENSON Virg. Puerisque 89, I do not greatly pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of Socialism.

2. A state of society in which things are held or used in common.
1879 H. GEORGE Progr. & Pov. VI. i. (1881) . . . ."

A mere citizen and poet, I am obviously no expert on politics, political economy, or philosophies of government.

However, my lack of expertise, as usual, does not impede the offering of opinions.

Judging by definition #2 in the OED, the U.S. seems to have decided (to the extent a nation can be said to decide) to operate as a society that combines capitalism, socialism, repbulicanism (small r), democracy (of sorts, small d), and imperialism. By the latter term, I mean simply that the U.S. decided to control a lot of lands and countries outside its boundaries, rather aggressively. I give you the Puerto Rico, Iraq, South Korea, a piece of Cuba, and Afghanistan as examples, not to mention bases in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. We make the Romans look like provincials.

I think the capitalist aspects of U.S. society are self-evident. I think some socialist ones are, too. The latter include national parks, state and interstate, highways, public schools, public universities, the Library of Congress, national monuments, social security, and Medicare. That is to say, in a manner of speaking, citizens or "the government" "own" these things and entities; or rather, these things and entities are a "commons" we share. Theoretically, at least, some of my taxes go to support Yellowstone Park, and I may visit there, enjoy myself, but not act as if I own it in the way I own a third of an acre in some suburban tract. It seems to me one great question with which a society must grapple is what parts of the society should constitute "the commons," as opposed to private or corporate property. I happen to think national parks a are a heck of a good idea, for example.

I happen to think health care should be part of the commons, something of which we all take part and something we all support, each according to our capacities. Everybody needs medical attention at some point, no exceptions. Most adults have something to contribute to a common pool; those that don't have something deserve assistance anyway because they are our fellow citizens. When somebody's that far down on their luck or their health, you don't just help them out, ad hoc, you think ahead and develop a system that's there to help them out. It's called being compassionately practical, or sensible.

Some kind of comprehensive (definition = everyone eligible to be covered) system, not necessarily nationalized but coordinated nationally, stands a very good chance of being more economically efficient and easier to navigate than the incomplete, expensive, inscrutable system we have now.

Further, I'd assert that almost all, if not all, Republicans and Democrats (including McCain and Obama) combine capitalism and socialism in their views, policies, and plans--with very little difference between them (the views, policies, and plans).

Let us now see if I, a mere citizen and poet, can get even more simplistic in my analysis:

I think a remaining piece of the socialism the U.S. is moving toward accepting is, indeed, a "universal" health care system. I think it will not look like the one in Italy or Sweden, but I think the politicians will be forced to pass laws that give almost everyone access to health care up and above visits to emergency rooms. Oddly enough, I think such a system will assist capitalism as practiced by small businesses and large corporations, and this assistance may be the capitalistic impetus required to achieve socialistic ends. Wouldn't a sensible, more-or-less universal health-care system help all businesses and corporations to assess and to control their overhead better and therefore operate more efficiently?

Then, this question: Are the combined armed forces an example of socialism? They are controlled, allegedly, by "the government," and they are funded by tax-dollars. On the other hand, how much say do citizens have in how armed forces are deployed? The last war formally declared by our elected representatives was WWII. Are the armed forces an example of capitalism (the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned)? Are they a form of oligarchic dictatorship? Did "we" decide to invade Iraq, or did Bush and a few others?

However one might define our combined armed forces politically, they present the U.S. with quite a problem. The U.S. spends almost immeasurably more money on its military than almost every other nation; the U.S. is broke; the U.S. probably needs to shrink its armed forces. Will it shrink its armed forces, whether McCain or Obama is elected? No, I think not. I think the system is self-perpetuating.

But back to the original question about socialism: all mainstream politicians blend capitalism and socialism, and many of the programs that fit the definition of socialism (like highways and bridges) keep the politicians in office. Pork is a variety of socialism, that is. Even the most right-wing politicians who rail against "socialism" support projects owned collectively by "the people." Even Bernie Sanders, the independent, socialist politician from Vermont, harbors some capitalistic tendencies. So A) let's not kid ourselves, B) let's stop hurling "socialism" and "socialist" around as if we were calling people werewolves or vampires, C) let's fess up to the fact the our system does combine and will continue to combine capitalism and socialism, and D) let's admit that we don't know how to stop spending so much money to maintain our imperial status.

Incidentally, the famous Helen Keller (pictured) liked socialism and thought of herself as a socialist.

And, deploying another abrupt, non-transitional transition, let me mention that I just finished reading a fascinating nonfiction book: Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Partnership that Defined America. Co-monopolists, Carnegie and Frick basically cornered several related markets: coke (not cocaine but raw material for steel); steel (making and selling); iron-mining; and railroads (which required steel to operate and which hauled the coke and the steel). It was all a magnificent closed loop, one that made them surrealistically wealthy but that brutalized their workforces, and I'm not being melodramatic. If you made steel, your body was basically ruined by age 40, and your family was left broke.

Ultimately, the two men became sworn enemies, owing in part to the strike at the Homestead steel-making factory, the attempted strike-breaking by the hired Pinkertons, and the eventual take-over of the factory by the military, which was not pro-union, to say the least. Monopolism triumphed. Strangely enough, however, Carnegie eventually decided to "redistribute" almost all of his massive wealth. He just kept giving it away. He gave it away ostentatiously, true; that is, he made sure people knew he was giving it away. But he still gave it away. He was a mightily conflicted man. Frick, not so much. He was an unconflicted, uncomplicated, albeit very bright and ruthless capitalist, monopolist, and anti-unionist. Anyway, the book's a great read, regardless of your own economic perspective, whether you are a capitalistic purist, a muddled centrist, an anarchic syndicalist, or just a person who works, sleeps, eats, and then occasionally votes.

I'll end with two final hopelessly simplistic rheotrical questions: Isn't almost any program of taxation, even in a capitalist society such as ours, a form of redistributing wealth, even if the wealth distributed is comparatively trivial? Did any truly wealthy person ever become unwealthy because of taxation?

Change

"Change" is in the air, I mean the word, amplified by microphones, broadcast by networks.

Obama and McCain both represent change, according to their campaigns. The credit-crisis is alleged to foretell enormous changes in global economics.

Last week, when the market "crashed"--it didn't really crash; otherwise, it couldn't have glided a bit higher this week--I told a colleague that, if the stock-market gets really awful, all people will have left is change (you know, quarters, pennies). Okay, so it wasn't a very good joke. But I can report that he chuckled.

After either Obama or McCain become president, I wouldn't mind if he sought to rein in the powers of the Executive Branch, not just as expanded by Bush II but by presidents since and including Roosevelt. I'd like the shared-power concept (not really a balance of power) embedded in the Constitution to be effected more greatly. This is a kind of change that would please me. I'd like a lot more, and more transparent, judicial and congressional and private oversight of corporations, banks, and surveillance-organizations, including a review of how civil liberties have, arguably, been eroded.

In that spirit, and without veering into non-clinical paranoia, I did notice that an army brigade had been redeployed from Iraq to the U.S. to join the newly created Northern Command. That is, the 3rd army isn't just coming home from a tour; they're being redeployed to a nation called the U.S. Bush II created this Northern Command. Is he preparing for martial law? Is that an outrageous question? I don't know the answer to either of these questions. That I don't know the answer springs, I hope, from ignorance, and not from concern that is somehow valid. I can live with my ignorance. I'm used to that. I'm much less comfortable with the possibility of martial law, or, less dramatically, with the concept of a Northern Command. Anyway, here's a link to a discussion of that redeplyoment:

http://www.kinism.net/index.php/forums/viewthread/397/

The redeployment bears on the issue of the "posse comitatus" statutes, and that issue goes all the way back to the brokered presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, who effectively ended Reconstruction. It's a wicked web, pax Robert Burns.

Anyway, all this talk of change, as alteration or as quarters and dimes, led to a poem:


Unsparing Change


Ritual, routine, and regulation distract
us from noticing the universe is never the
same, is reconstructed every second or less.
That King's Boulevard intersects with
Alpine Avenue is a sad wee show of stasis,
reminiscent of the joke Joe told every Friday
at the tavern before he lost his mind and the joke
and the tavern burned down. Every day,

every human's supposed to act like one
not bewildered by constant crashing change.
Sometimes we pull off this performance
of counter-reality to an audience of one or two,
or fifteen or more. Otherwise, nothing much
disguises disintegration, space's silent
screaming alteration, time's vulgar variety
show starring rot, riot, and ruin. This
is not a happy poem, but I'm determined
to be more upbeat, but not beaten up, I
hope, later today, when things will have changed.

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

A Poet's Questions for Obama and McCain

I think I speak for all poets when I say no one can speak for poets, who are harder to herd than cats and, in politics, are mere noise in the data, at best, and crackpots at worst.

Situated somewhere between noise in the data and cracked-pottedness, I therefore launch my questions for the only two people who seem to be semi-serious candidates for the presidency, which in my opinion has become awfully close to a dictatorship; "has become" may be naive, however, for if the Constitution started with an electoral college and by putting the head of the executive branch in charge of the whole military, then it looks like "we" always had a hankering for a Strong Executive, or Dictator Lite. In any event, the questions:

1. The obligatory--but, I would add, a deceptively useful--one: who are your favorite poets, and what are your favorite poems, and why, gentlemen? Think of how revealing the answers to this question would be. I predict McCain would refuse to answer, perhaps get angry. I predict Obama would stall, go over the options, and then go with something wry or populist, such as "Bob Dylan".

2. Specifically, what will you do to reverse the growth of secrecy and privilege in the Executive Branch. Examples include "signing statements" (meaning "I won't obey the law you just passed, but thanks for playing"); claims of privilege that block Congress's ability to look at documents and interview employees; the unprecedented growth in "classifying" documents (new ones and old ones, paper and email) as secret because of "national security"; the excessive politicalization of the Justice Department; and so on. I predict McCain would simply revel in all the expanded powers of the Exec. Branch--which have developed over decades, even if Bush II accelerated things. I predict that Obama . . . would do the same. But this is unfair of me. Let the lads speak for themselves.

3. What, exactly, and please give us the math, will you do about the three "items" that drive the budget, which seems to have grown beyond Pluto [to which the arrows point in photos accompanying this post], which isn't even a planet anymore: defense spending; Medicare; Social Security. As far as I know, the rest of the budget is, comparatively, mere fluff. Bob "Roseanne" Barr talks about cutting the Education Department, for example, which would be like cutting one whisker from a mountain man's beard, although such analogies are probably not used much in economics circles, including pie-chart circles.

4. Why shouldn't every citizen have a health plan as good as yours? This is not a rhetorical question.

5. What will you do, if anything, about spying sans warrants on American citizens? I predict McCain and Obama would both mumble something platitudinous--and then leave the system as Bush created it. Both seem in favor of the current FISA bill, for example.

6. Okay, what will you do about torture? How about an Executive Order, written on your first day in D.C., outlawing it? I predict that whether it's Obama or McCain in office, the torturing and "rendering," also known as kidnapping as a prelude to torture, will continue.

7. Who's your favorite philosopher and why? I predict both lads would go for the joke here, if they answered at all. Neither would mention the name of a vaguely legitimate philosopher. But as with the poetry question, think of how revealing the answer would be!

8. What is the lie you told in your life (so far) that you regret the most?

9. Specifically, what will you do to roll back all the anti-trust excesses, including those in the oil industry and the media? I predict neither has any interest in dismantling media conglomerates.

10. What is the biggest line of bullshit you've uttered so far in your quest to become president? Nothing personal here, lads. Everybody knows all candidates have to speak bullshit to get elected, or just to pass the time, or to give the frenzied crowds what they want. Which line of bullshit do you yourself have trouble saying?

11. Speaking of Pluto, as we did in #3, will you promise to reinstate it as a planet? I realize the territory known as "Pluto" isn't strictly under American control, but that has rarely seemed to be an obstacle in American foreign policy, and we're just talking about restoring planetary status, not occupying the place.