The Democratic National Convention, September 4-6, 2012
Part A: The First Day
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes...
The platitudes traveled from Tampa to Charlotte without hindrance, as easily as neutrinos pass through walls.
I got the impression that if a speaker at either convention was born into the upper middle class or into wealth, he or she would vehemently criticize the candidate from the opposite party right from the outset. But if the speaker was born poor, you can bet that we would hear in detail the latest example of a rags-to-riches story so beloved by both Reds and Blues. Biden said it best, that is, worst: in America, if you're willing to work hard you can become anything you want to be.
In popular culture, this is known as the American Dream. In reality, however, it is the American Pipe Dream. A study proved this. Among major industrial countries, a father's income was compared with his son's. The degree of discrepancy between the two was used as an index of social mobility. You guessed it; America has the highest correlation of all. The American Dream is now the German, French, Italian, Australian Dream. It seems we have outsourced social mobility too.
By the time the young Hispanic mayor of San Antonio told his Dickens-from-Texas version of the American Dream, I was fed up; the implication was that if you really pulled yourself up by your bootstraps you would, well, go into orbit. His was one of many versions of this hackneyed myth. His grandmother was illiterate when she came from Mexico. She taught herself to read both English and Spanish. His mother was the first in the family to attend college. And her twins went on to Harvard and Stanford after which each has launched a promising political career. Yes, it is an impressive story; I am glad for them and glad for our country. But if the study mentioned above is correct, those like them would have been twice as likely to rise to greatness in Canada!
I don't like these riffs on the American Dream ditty for two reasons. First: one rises in the world due to a combination of opportunity, chance, hard work and talent. For every Mayor Castro story there are legions of stories of grandmothers who came from Mexico and never learned English; whose daughters never went to college; whose grandsons went to poor schools, trying to learn while equipped with brains not nearly as brilliantly wired as those of the Castro twins. What would two such young men think of themselves? How come we've been working hard for many years and are still working hard at MacDonald's? If they listened to the convention speakers, they might consider themselves to be abject failures. "Who knows how much work it took/for him to become average?" (This is from a poem I wrote about my working class best friend, who, despite truly terrible odds, became a high school teacher--albeit an average one.) "Vivas for those who have failed!" wrote Walt Whitman. Second: the implicit message is that those that rise from poverty will be better candidates and more in touch with common people. I don't believe that any of the powerful of either party believes this. I will give you an example from the Democrats. Michelle Obama was presented as having brilliantly arisen from a family of modest means. Her husband, we all know, was raised by a single mother, also of modest means. The implication is that this makes them more fit to govern than Romney. Well, Mrs. Obama is now a very powerful woman and is married to the most powerful man in the world. They are very wealthy, and, in addition, have power and influence to a degree neither of their mothers could have imagined. Her two lovely daughters, therefore, have each been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and will have a silver scepter in her hand when she comes of age. I don't envision them ever suffering from the scourge of not being able to find a job they love. In other words, they are extremely priviliged; they are thus two little Romneys. Do you think that Michele Obama thinks that this will put them at a disadvantage if they chose to run for office?
I oppose Romney for his policies and not because of his wealth. Great family wealth might tend to make one more indifferent to the poor than having had to struggle, but his is not necessrily so. Lincoln and F.D.R are widely considered to have been among the best U.S. presidents ever. The former was born poor and the latter was born wealthy. And wealthy F.D.R. did more for the poor and the working class than any president we ever had. What about Teddy Kennedy, who was deservedly praised in a video at the convention?
The height of cant, of course, was Ann Romney's attempt at a Horatio Alger story of her own.. We were informed that she and her husband ate off a dining board in a basement apartment; they only could afford tuna and pasta. She never mentioned that her husband's supperrich Daddy was always just a phone call away. I imagine that the dining board was soon consigned to a maid.
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes...
Part B: The Next Two Days
Things really picked up when Elizabeth Warren spoke. She obviously is passionate about fighting for embattled workers Her speech had substance and was well delivered. Someone at least is fighting for consumers. She rightly faulted Romney for his ridiculous belief that corporations are people. Citizens United, thy name is Romney. But I wish she would have praised corporations too, for without them there would be no medical advances, no tech revolution, etc. Corporate greed needs to be regulated, corporate innovation needs to be supported. I know she believes this, I just wish she had said it. You were looking quite vice-presidential, though Ms. Warren; good luck.
Then it was President Bill Clinton's turn. His delivery was breathtaking, and I don't use that term lightly. You had the illusion that he was speaking to you while you sat together at the kitchen table; a wise uncle who had much to say to you, his potentially wise nephew, to whom he spoke without a trace of condescension. He engaged the audience in a thoroughly impressive way; it was a beautiful Call and Response session between a loving congregation and a loving teacher. I'm not talking about what he said, but about how he said it. His speech, however, was not without important details. We learned, among other things, that the Democrats have created many more jobs over the years than did Republicans. He also said what I've been saying for long time--namely that the 2008 recession was the worst since the 30s, and the 30s downturn took a dozen years to resolve. A housing crisis takes an especially long time to correct. No one, especially one who was hindered by the Tea Party from initiating a large back-to-work program, could have cleared up this mess in four years.
Evgeny Kissen is one of my very favorite pianists. He plays Listzt's extremely difficult transcription of Schubert's Erlkoenig better than anyone alive today, period. I had the impression that Clinton's speech almost reached an equivalent height. I was awed.
We learned that Obama has accomplished a lot in a very difficult political and economic environment. One wonders why Obama has failed to communicate his achievements to the American people. If only Obama could channel his inner Clinton and appear less supernatural and more super-natural!
Then came Biden and Obama the following day. Vice President Biden was a bit too stiff and overly serious. He no doubt was told to inform us that Obama has a backbone of steel, which he very portentiously did. (I am not doubting this, Obama has been admirably tough when needed--I'm talking about foreign policy here-- as illustrated by the death of Bin Laden.)
Obama's speech, as you might imagine, was vastly superior to Romney's platitudes. But he didn't engage the audience the way Clinton did.
In short, I thought Warren and Clinton appeared more vice-presidential and presidential, respectively, than did Biden and Obama. Fact is, though, that the former pair is not running for office while the latter pair is so vastly superior to Ryan and Romney that the upstaging was of no consequence.
Additional Dorsett blogs:
thomasdorsett.blogsspot.com
bachlittlepreludesandfugues.blogspot.com
thomasdorsettpoetry.blogspot.com
dorsetttranslations.blogspot.com
Part A: The First Day
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes...
The platitudes traveled from Tampa to Charlotte without hindrance, as easily as neutrinos pass through walls.
I got the impression that if a speaker at either convention was born into the upper middle class or into wealth, he or she would vehemently criticize the candidate from the opposite party right from the outset. But if the speaker was born poor, you can bet that we would hear in detail the latest example of a rags-to-riches story so beloved by both Reds and Blues. Biden said it best, that is, worst: in America, if you're willing to work hard you can become anything you want to be.
In popular culture, this is known as the American Dream. In reality, however, it is the American Pipe Dream. A study proved this. Among major industrial countries, a father's income was compared with his son's. The degree of discrepancy between the two was used as an index of social mobility. You guessed it; America has the highest correlation of all. The American Dream is now the German, French, Italian, Australian Dream. It seems we have outsourced social mobility too.
By the time the young Hispanic mayor of San Antonio told his Dickens-from-Texas version of the American Dream, I was fed up; the implication was that if you really pulled yourself up by your bootstraps you would, well, go into orbit. His was one of many versions of this hackneyed myth. His grandmother was illiterate when she came from Mexico. She taught herself to read both English and Spanish. His mother was the first in the family to attend college. And her twins went on to Harvard and Stanford after which each has launched a promising political career. Yes, it is an impressive story; I am glad for them and glad for our country. But if the study mentioned above is correct, those like them would have been twice as likely to rise to greatness in Canada!
I don't like these riffs on the American Dream ditty for two reasons. First: one rises in the world due to a combination of opportunity, chance, hard work and talent. For every Mayor Castro story there are legions of stories of grandmothers who came from Mexico and never learned English; whose daughters never went to college; whose grandsons went to poor schools, trying to learn while equipped with brains not nearly as brilliantly wired as those of the Castro twins. What would two such young men think of themselves? How come we've been working hard for many years and are still working hard at MacDonald's? If they listened to the convention speakers, they might consider themselves to be abject failures. "Who knows how much work it took/for him to become average?" (This is from a poem I wrote about my working class best friend, who, despite truly terrible odds, became a high school teacher--albeit an average one.) "Vivas for those who have failed!" wrote Walt Whitman. Second: the implicit message is that those that rise from poverty will be better candidates and more in touch with common people. I don't believe that any of the powerful of either party believes this. I will give you an example from the Democrats. Michelle Obama was presented as having brilliantly arisen from a family of modest means. Her husband, we all know, was raised by a single mother, also of modest means. The implication is that this makes them more fit to govern than Romney. Well, Mrs. Obama is now a very powerful woman and is married to the most powerful man in the world. They are very wealthy, and, in addition, have power and influence to a degree neither of their mothers could have imagined. Her two lovely daughters, therefore, have each been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and will have a silver scepter in her hand when she comes of age. I don't envision them ever suffering from the scourge of not being able to find a job they love. In other words, they are extremely priviliged; they are thus two little Romneys. Do you think that Michele Obama thinks that this will put them at a disadvantage if they chose to run for office?
I oppose Romney for his policies and not because of his wealth. Great family wealth might tend to make one more indifferent to the poor than having had to struggle, but his is not necessrily so. Lincoln and F.D.R are widely considered to have been among the best U.S. presidents ever. The former was born poor and the latter was born wealthy. And wealthy F.D.R. did more for the poor and the working class than any president we ever had. What about Teddy Kennedy, who was deservedly praised in a video at the convention?
The height of cant, of course, was Ann Romney's attempt at a Horatio Alger story of her own.. We were informed that she and her husband ate off a dining board in a basement apartment; they only could afford tuna and pasta. She never mentioned that her husband's supperrich Daddy was always just a phone call away. I imagine that the dining board was soon consigned to a maid.
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes...
Part B: The Next Two Days
Things really picked up when Elizabeth Warren spoke. She obviously is passionate about fighting for embattled workers Her speech had substance and was well delivered. Someone at least is fighting for consumers. She rightly faulted Romney for his ridiculous belief that corporations are people. Citizens United, thy name is Romney. But I wish she would have praised corporations too, for without them there would be no medical advances, no tech revolution, etc. Corporate greed needs to be regulated, corporate innovation needs to be supported. I know she believes this, I just wish she had said it. You were looking quite vice-presidential, though Ms. Warren; good luck.
Then it was President Bill Clinton's turn. His delivery was breathtaking, and I don't use that term lightly. You had the illusion that he was speaking to you while you sat together at the kitchen table; a wise uncle who had much to say to you, his potentially wise nephew, to whom he spoke without a trace of condescension. He engaged the audience in a thoroughly impressive way; it was a beautiful Call and Response session between a loving congregation and a loving teacher. I'm not talking about what he said, but about how he said it. His speech, however, was not without important details. We learned, among other things, that the Democrats have created many more jobs over the years than did Republicans. He also said what I've been saying for long time--namely that the 2008 recession was the worst since the 30s, and the 30s downturn took a dozen years to resolve. A housing crisis takes an especially long time to correct. No one, especially one who was hindered by the Tea Party from initiating a large back-to-work program, could have cleared up this mess in four years.
Evgeny Kissen is one of my very favorite pianists. He plays Listzt's extremely difficult transcription of Schubert's Erlkoenig better than anyone alive today, period. I had the impression that Clinton's speech almost reached an equivalent height. I was awed.
We learned that Obama has accomplished a lot in a very difficult political and economic environment. One wonders why Obama has failed to communicate his achievements to the American people. If only Obama could channel his inner Clinton and appear less supernatural and more super-natural!
Then came Biden and Obama the following day. Vice President Biden was a bit too stiff and overly serious. He no doubt was told to inform us that Obama has a backbone of steel, which he very portentiously did. (I am not doubting this, Obama has been admirably tough when needed--I'm talking about foreign policy here-- as illustrated by the death of Bin Laden.)
Obama's speech, as you might imagine, was vastly superior to Romney's platitudes. But he didn't engage the audience the way Clinton did.
In short, I thought Warren and Clinton appeared more vice-presidential and presidential, respectively, than did Biden and Obama. Fact is, though, that the former pair is not running for office while the latter pair is so vastly superior to Ryan and Romney that the upstaging was of no consequence.
Additional Dorsett blogs:
thomasdorsett.blogsspot.com
bachlittlepreludesandfugues.blogspot.com
thomasdorsettpoetry.blogspot.com
dorsetttranslations.blogspot.com
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