the submersible dirigible

Some prominent DIY Noise musicians, including Deathbomb Arc’s Brian Miller and Lightning Bolt/Black Pus’s Brian Chippendale, have recenty launched a website advocating for Barack Obama.  Young people, the only sort that can tolerate/enjoy noise music, have historically  historically had little impact in American politics.  In Iowa, young first-time caucus goers were largely responsible for Senator Obama’s almost 10-point victory over Clinton and Edwards.  With the GOP energized (inexplicably) by McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, its wonderful to see young people, always overwhelming favorable to Democratic candidates, stepping up to close to gap.  Check out Noise for Obama.

Political non-participation in my social sphere often stems from not wanting to ‘play the game.’ But I’m pretty sure that if you are standing in a city, driving a car down a public road, emailing whoever for whatever, or eating food not grown within walking distance (and even then) you Are playing the game. Earth (and beyond) is the board, and it needs your help to stay a cool place to play.  Your town, the country, the entire planet is interconnected now more than ever.  We share resources across the globe and we need to participate in our little corner to hold the whole puzzle together.  It would probably take me about half a day to walk to Boston or half a day to fly to China.  One big neighborhood.  I vote in all my local and national elections, and though it won’t solve my every problem, it might effect something. It might mean more money for science, or a more flexible, inspired educational system.  It might mean marriage rights for all or government incentives for new energy research. Sure it’s a “maybe”, but it’s an easy one to reach for.  Picture a huge heavy ball with hundreds of people trying to push it, add your little bit of weight and at that moment it may give, the ball is rolling.  Four years ago Lightning Bolt was in on tour in Europe right before the election watching the debates when we could, I specifically remember watching Edwards debate Cheney. Cheney, his pals probably seizing contracts to rebuild Iraq already.  What a scheme they had, blow a country up and get everyone to pay you to put it back together.  At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush had an adviser with a bodybag company.  These people are my representatives?  Touring in Europe and apologizing to everyone for being from the USA.  My country, a country that invades sovereign nations.  A country that from the rest of the world’s perspective is a thuggish bully with the capacity to nuke the planet to atoms.

My eyes welled up with tears listening to Obama speak at the DNC, finally a person who I can be proud of, a figurehead who respects intelligence and speaks with intelligence.  Politicians constantly promise this that and the other thing so I listen between the lines, trying to judge if this person has the ability to reason, learn, listen and empathize and has a humanitarian perspective. But of course while a president needs first and foremost to be able to filter information they don’t work in a void, they have a wealth of experience around them.  Hillary will be there with all her fire and knowledge; McCain (for better or worse) will be there with his military experience. Biden will be there with his grip on foreign policy, Kucinich will be there with his vision of peace, but Obama will tie it together and make the mature decisions to put us on the path towards reason and renewal.

And on top of that I love voting. Providence always moves my spot around. Me being in a not so wealthy area, they are probably trying to shake us off the trail. So I’ll wander into whatever school gym or apartment complex lobby I’m assigned too and say “chippendale” and the volunteers will all giggle and I’ll make a joke about my rich stripper uncle or something like that. Then I’ll vote, we will all smile and I’ll get my “I voted” sticker and walk out happy that I shared a moment with a few new people from some other walk of life. All of us participating in this grand democratic experiment. — - Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt, Black Pus) 8/30/2008

image: Houston St. Obama graffiti.

(h/t AnimalPsi)

recommended election reading: Marc Ambinder (election reporting), Talking Points Memo (reporting, commentary and multimedia), FiveThirtyEight (polls and projections), and Andrew Sullivan (commentary)

Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters by Andrew Sullivan

The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama. It has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals’ and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics. It has little to do with Obama’s considerable skills as a conciliator, legislator, or even thinker. It has even less to do with his ideological pedigree or legal background or rhetorical skills. Yes, as the many profiles prove, he has considerable intelligence and not a little guile. But so do others, not least his formidably polished and practiced opponent Senator Hillary Clinton.

Obama, moreover, is no saint. He has flaws and tics: Often tired, sometimes crabby, intermittently solipsistic, he’s a surprisingly uneven campaigner.

A soaring rhetorical flourish one day is undercut by a lackluster debate performance the next. He is certainly not without self-regard. He has more experience in public life than his opponents want to acknowledge, but he has not spent much time in Washington and has never run a business. His lean physique, close-cropped hair, and stick-out ears can give the impression of a slightly pushy undergraduate. You can see why many of his friends and admirers have urged him to wait his turn. He could be president in five or nine years’ time—why the rush?

But he knows, and privately acknowledges, that the fundamental point of his candidacy is that it is happening now. In politics, timing matters. And the most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.

Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you.

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a mo­mentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

cont…