Garrisons of the mind - USA and Jamaica

It’s campaign silly season again and the candidates are busy trying to do as much damage to each other as possible. I am personally fatigued by the bickering over the minutiae and the media’s perpetuation of these inconsequential matters while acting as if they are valid news stories – Hillary’s beer and whiskey shots, Obama’s bowling etc. These stories are supposed to give an insight to the soul of the candidates and help voters gain a personal understanding of these people. None of these gets us any closer to seeing how they lead. The last election all of America voted on who they wanted to “have a beer with” and got George Bush as President. Now they probably wouldn’t even want to share a table in the bar with the guy. His beer drinking facility spoke nothing about his leadership abilities. This politics of personality is petty, and can be destructive, as it distracts the focus from genuine issues. However, some of these non-issue stories reveal character traits and can give us a glimpse into how they would lead. Cindy McCain’s plagiarizing of Food Network recipes and Hillary’s lying about Bosnia is dishonest. Hillary as a Candidate did herself damage by showing she has no problem bending the truth to serve her own purposes. She appropriately paid the price by the dip in the polls of her trustworthiness ratings.

Now Obama has gone and messed up his sweet ride by lumping together bitterness, God, guns, anti-immigration sentiment etc. The media is making a big hoopla over the story but has once again missed the point. The statement was made in response to a question of how race factors into his difficulty getting working class whites to vote for him. He was in essence defending these people by saying it was not race related but due to the fact that people don’t always vote their economic interests. They instead vote on issues where they feel they will get some results like religious and gun issues as opposed to one’s where they would be neglected – economic issues. This is nothing new. I learned of this phenomenon watching shows like Chris Matthews Hardball and Joe Scarborough’s Morning Joe. They have often referred to poor people voting against their economic issues to support republicans because of these other issues – God and guns. It’s a well known phenomenon. Obama stated it inarticulately and he has apologized but defends his sentiment. The media pretends to have no clue of what he meant and his rivals call him elitist. They do not mention that he was denying accusations of racism in his inability to get white voters and that he was trying to get people to realize that poor people are angry over a lack of government responsiveness on economic issues over the last 25 years.

The upshot of all of this is that both Clinton and McCain have said that they do not believe he is an elitist but is statement is. His defense is that he and his wife has working class roots, dragged themselves up from the circumstances of their birth and fought hard to acquire the things they now have. Now all the candidates vie to prove the same record of working class roots and I believe they all have validity. Some, like Obama, stayed in this class longer than others, while other like McCain and the Clinton’s moved up a while ago. All of them did this through hard work and sacrifice. However, elitism is not only an affliction of the wealthy, because as a philosophy on government and social organization, anyone holding those views, even with middle class or working class status, can be elitist. So this “I am rich, but once was poor defense” is inconsequential.

According to www.dictionary.com elitism is:

1. Practice of or belief in rule by an elite.
2. Consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group.
and
1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.
a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
b. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.

Is Obama an elitist? No. Was his statement elitist? No. I do not see, based on these definitions, how such conclusions can be drawn from Obama’s statement or subsequent explanation. How can a statement defending working class poor that encourages them to consider their economic interests in choosing a leader be seen as elitist? I really don’t know. If Clinton and McCain don’t believe he is elitist why accuse him of this then. The simple answer - political expediency. They cater to the simplest base instincts of people, telling them what to feel, what to think and how to interpret these “complex” issues. They do not trust the electorate to consider these issues and draw their own conclusions. They make sure they know they should be outraged. Even if they do not believe the charges, they will make them because they know they can gain political mileage.

This theory of winning by all means is even more disturbing to me coming from Hillary Clinton because as it stands she has no real path to winning the nomination except through the super delegates. She is willing to tear down Obama and damage her party to acquire power. She trails in elected delegates and says these party officials have no obligation to follow the will of the voters. The super delegates, on whom she is banking to hand her the nomination despite the popular vote, know better than the ordinary voter what is best for the country, and that is her. She is behind in number of states won, and calls the small ones she hasn’t won “boutique” states. What does that mean? The people in these states are mere decorative trinkets in the democratic process. She has a lead, albeit dwindling, among the super delegates, the true party elites, whom she has an inside track to because of her years in Washington. Her supporter James Carville was so upset at Bill Richardson’s support for Obama he called the Governor “Judas”. How dare he go against the Clinton’s who had given him so much? Doesn’t he owe his allegiance to this dynasty? He had no right as an elected official and servant of the people to think in the interest of those he represents only to give loyalty to the former and aspiring dynastic rulers. These things are by definition elitist. They reflect a belief that she is part of the ruling class and that the will of the people can be ignored as necessary to get her to the seat of her power, the White House.

Someone should call her on this, but the media has abdicated its role as an unbiased provider of information to the masses and is now an entertainment source providing “witty” sound bites taken out context and the shallowest most sensationalized analysis. The 24 hour news channels are perhaps the worst things to happen to democracy, they crave ratings so much that they dare not do their job for fear of upsetting their advertisers and losing their economic lifeline viewers. They underestimate their viewer’s intelligence and pander, like the politicians, to the lowest instincts. It is this failure which allowed the government to go unchallenged into Iraq. No one dared asked the hard questions. At the onset of the Iraq war they focused on “Shock and Awe” and put up eye-catching graphics while reporting from the dessert, excited about the sensationalism of being on the battles frontlines. No one asked where were the WMDs or how the country could prove they didn’t have it (How can you prove a negative?). In 2000 they all wanted to know who would Americans most like to have a beer with. Now they act all outraged over the Iraq war and amazed at Bush’s failures but still refuse to make real probing news. Now the media is more concerned about Obama’s “bitter” comments, how they are being interpreted, and how they affect his ratings instead of putting the comment in the appropriate context and discussing the validity, or invalidity, of his assertion. In this election can we move beyond the bar shots, bowling alleys and cow farm bottle feedings please?

I hate when politicians and media speak condescendingly and patronizingly to people. When we are not properly informed we are unable to make decisions in our best interest. Knowledge is power and perhaps some of these characters enjoy keeping us in the dark, distracted, and upset over trivialities so we don’t have enough time to focus on the real issues affecting us. I use to think America had no garrisons, but apparently I was wrong. If you are trapped into a purely politically biased stream of thought so that you cannot rationally consider other alternatives then you are in a mental garrison. It is as much a state of mind here as it is for the people in Rema and Tivoli. No one kills each other over the politics but they operate on the same narrow minded levels. Apparently politicians and media are the same the world over.

I really hope one day to be able to start a Political and Economic think tank in Jamaica that caters to Jamaican people, particularly those in garrison communities and other ghetto areas. It would be non-political but educational, giving people information in an unbiased way to be able to assess economic, political and social issues independently. I know many people have the foundations of this through life experiences but people with formal education they are better equipped through wider and deeper exposure. I hope to give more people the tools to be able to do this. How they vote after that is their business. I just wish they would think.

P.S. – This was written before the last debate in Pennsylvania. That debate raised new distractions and resurrected some old ones. However, the constants of questionable media behavior and inordinate focus on issues of no value to voters remain. I’m so over it and apparently so is most of America.

Spring and Cherry Blossoms in DC

This weekend was the Annual Cherry Blossom Street Festival/ Sakura Matsuri in Washington, DC. This is the largest Japanese festival in the USA. It featured Japanese and Asian cuisine; a Japanese beer garden; exhibits of Japanese arts and crafts; Japanese and Asian products; the new “J-POP Land” highlighting Japan’s modern youthful society; martial arts demonstrations; and live performances of both traditional and popular Japanese culture. What started as a rainy day, with threats of storms, turned out to be a pretty cool day to be out and about. This was my birthday present to myself and I enjoyed it. I could not find any one to go with me to the event but did not miss the company really.

I got there just in time to see the second staging of the acts and they were great. The Imajin Taiko Drummers, an act from Okinawa could be heard far down Pennsylvania Ave. and people moved quickly, but orderly, to the stage. I jumped up on a street side planter and got some good pictures before the cop came and told me to get down. Those guys had attitude and charm. I like Japanese boys and always think they are cute. Those guys were no exception. The Imajin Nix Hamaya Karate Daiko groups which perform martial arts with the Taiko were too tired from their earlier from performances to do the afternoon show. I was disappointed. Other acts in the dance and drum vein followed and were entertaining. Happy Fun Smile, a group of performers from New York that includes a couple of white guys, a Brazilian and Japanese girls were very good. They gave a performance of traditional Japanese street music and Japanese rock. I loved their costumes and believe their name is really appropriate. The last act Mitsumassyu was exceptionally cute. The lead singer had a good voice and I think I got the gist of her songs despite not speaking any Japanese. These two groups had the audience rocking.

Unfortunately, because of my hesitation to go out in the bad weather I missed a lot of the activities including the Cos play fashion show. That would easily have been the highlight of my day. At day’s end I bought myself a family crane origami piece. It expressed the sentiments of my birthday wish: family, love, success and peace.

As for my trip to Japan the latest is that I was not placed for May as the company had promised. I was disappointed but still I am still hopeful that an August date is possible. Om March 31, I received an email addressed to Adam about a placement in Yokohama for the end of May. I wrote back, trying to confirm if this was meant for me. At the same time, I became distracted by a family situation and lost focus. I did not follow up, even as I waited on the response and none came. Yesterday, 15 days later, I realized I had not checked my junk mail for a while. This shocked me because I had made a habit of doing so but I guess I just slacked off. There on April 1 was the response from my recruiter that the email was meant for me and I had a placement for May. What?!! After emails back and forth I learned the placement is no longer available but we will still be working for August.

This brings me to Jamaica and my dream job there. I was bitterly disappointed in March when I was looking forward to going home for the interview to be told casually by the same HR person that the interviews were conducted in December and people were already placed. WTF! I was mad, bitter, hurt and disappointed. My friends and family warned me of my folly and now said “see I told you so, so you shouldn’t be surprised”. They all thought that this woman had her own agenda and people who she wanted to get this job because she thought, me as a foreigner wouldn’t be interested in the small pay and life in Jamaica. It hurt because I had agonized over my choices and decided I was willing to take the small pay and make the sacrifices as part of my goal of serving my country through the civil service. I decided this despite the advice of friends of family, save a very few. It hurt because this HR person made unfounded judgments about me and my intentions. It hurt because once again the system of cronyism and inefficiency in Jamaica had beaten me. I know that if I was well connected enough she would have moved mountains and cleared paths to make it possible. I know this because I worked with this Ministry and was one of those bottom dwellers who moved mountains and cleared paths for the well connected. I asked her why she never told me about the interviews and she said she that didn’t think I could make it to the interview. She never asked me, despite the fact that in each email and call, of which there were several, I reiterated my interest in the post and availability for the interview. After going through the grieving it really makes me wonder what I am fighting for. Life can be easier elsewhere and with encouragement from people like her it’s no wonder people choose the easier way. If I do get to go Japan, it won’t be my dream job, but I won’t have to deal with this from my own people.

Here are some videos from the festival: