Do We Need Another Hero?

I am not a citizen of the United States, I do not vote in the elections, but I live here and have been following this year's electoral process with a great amount of interest. The past eight years have been quite a moral struggle for me, I have been very uncomfortable with the war, US foreign policy, as well as with things like the health care and educational systems. So I tuned in to both parties' conventions to check out what they're saying. On a basic level whole process is quite mad I think, but I get it--it's rah! rah! time for each parties--greasing up the electorate and getting everybody excited about winning. But I have to say that I found the Republican convention distasteful on many levels--not the least of which was the complete lack of grace and charm exhibited by pretty much every single speaker trundled out to spout out their rhetoric.It wasn't even what they were saying--that's another matter, it is the utterly distasteful and mean-spirited way they say what they say.

The approach seems to be; make fun of rival candidates and diminish everything they stand for or have done whilst continuing to create a culture of fear by constantly evoking 9/11 and America's enemies over and over. The Republicans seem to like war, or prefer it to other things anyway--it serves their purpose which is to generate such fear and concern amongst the populace that they manage to stay in power in spite of the terrible approval ratings of the current administration. Bulldogs with lipstick are the preferred type, aggressively engaging with 'enemies' rather than seeking a different path--don't they get that aggression usually leads to more aggression? George Bush wasn't even at his own parties convention--reduced to a brief satellite talk, but largely edited out of the equation, much like the Stalinist's edited their history. Conversely, Obama was derided for a being a 'community activist' apparently a laughable vocation and hardly one that qualifies a person to lead the nation, even though I was under the impression that this was a core American value? But of course, in many ways, community activism is leading from below, it is about being on the ground, and grassroots, rather than hierarchical and from the top--it is a 'peace' path and obviously that is what riles the opposers so much--even though, as Jon Stewart pointed out on his television show, the reverse side of McCain's convention flyers was emblazoned with the word 'service' in gold.

    Of great concern with me is the 'hero' approach. Now far be it from me to take away someone's service to their country or the awful humiliation and pain of imprisonment and interrogation etc. but I don't see what that has to do with anything really--the idea that America needs a 'hero' in the White House to lead us in this difficult time is a problematic posture for me--without being facetious, I want to say that it is a 20th century idea, something I think the most recent Batman movie hints at--our heroes, or the relinquishment of certain activities because of them, is what creates many of our social problems and keeps us from maturing and evolving as humans. Railing at enemies, creating a culture of fear, constantly talking about 'small town values'--what the fuck are they? Probably not saying fuck, but I don't know what they are and nobody told me, but I think it is a myth. Railing against the establishment and the cultural elite--and this from the group that have been in power for the last eight years in Washington, and McCain has been there for 26 years--there is so much bullshit in politics--from both sides.

   But as I said, it was the tone as much as anything else that disturbed me--and that tone has been the general climate of the past eight years in my opinion and I don't think we need anymore of it. The worry, is that all that fear and hate-mongering pays off. This fear and anger is not 'American,' as far as I am concerned, it is much bigger than that, it lives in all of us, and if tapped into unleashes things we are not fully capable of containing. Perhaps it is about thinking versus aggression.

When I was in England a couple of weeks back, I gave a talk called, Live By Gandhi/Learn by Google--about living with faith in a digital culture. I have spent some time with Gandhi lately, and his view of non-violence is called Sataygraha--and it is not simply non-violence, but non-violent protest, achieving certain goals by resisting them, it is also a form of community activism, because it is about grassroot community based response to needful social change and transformation--the power of Empire was rendered ineffective against this, maybe there is something there that resonates.

I have tried not to be 'political' here, because I am trying to get at something else, something I felt as I watched things unfold over the past couple of weeks. Of course, it is pretty east to work out where I am politically, or at least assume certain things about me, but my political views are secondary here, I realize that politics, particularly National election politics, are cut-throat but I think that decency and charm are always better 'family values' than fear and hate-mongering of any kind.

Comments

[Curtis A. Bronzan]

Yes.