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Down and Out in Romneyville: But How Should We Feel About That?

Here’s the question: Is a compassionate response to this photograph justified, or would it be yet another extension of perhaps unmerited privilege?

The photo was taken at the Romney election night rally in Boston, but there are many like it to be seen in the papers this week, whether from Boston, Las Vegas, or other sites around the country.  The style in which wealth is worn may vary a bit, but the basic profile is the same: affluent supporters of a certain age appear downcast, even mournful.  Women tend to be featured, but that is typical when emotions are being featured regarding public events.  The important constant is the affluence.  Indeed, as Dana Milbank’s fine report on election night at the Romney gathering in Boston makes clear, the final celebration was to be for the few and the very few.

Which is why I can’t help but wonder: why are they so sad?  These people clearly are society’s winners.  Frankly, they don’t just look well off–they look damn good.  I see attractive men and women who have had the benefit of good genes, money, education, connections, and everything else, and also had the discipline and other qualities to make good use of all those gifts.  They are going to do well no matter what.  Despite what Fox News might say, people of this class are not going to be beggared by Obama’s re-election, and they are likely to see their fortunes rise in the coming years due to the continuing economic recovery that was helped  and will continued to be helped by his policies.  Sure, they might have made more money and had more political influence had Romney won, but they will hardly have to do without.  They will continue to prosper and to be taken seriously in their own sphere, so what is the problem?

Of course, elections do make a difference, as Rachel Maddow has pointed out brilliantly.  But the progressive gains are not moves in a zero-sum game, and not not hurting people doesn’t mean that those who wouldn’t have been hurt now will be harmed.  And note also that the emotional tableau in the image does not include anger.  I can see how any player in American politics would be pissed about losing, but that’s not what we’re seeing here.  Furthermore, since the Democratic victory ensures a commitment to caring for those in need, it can’t be that a Romney loss would provoke anguish for the plight of those not doing well.  So, why would the rich grieve?

I can’t answer that question for want of experience or access to those who might know, although it does seem that one of the characteristics of American politics is that, for those involved, deep levels of personal identification are at stake.  If self-interest is buffered by wealth–that is, if you are going to be well off, win or lose–and you still grieve the defeat of your candidate, that would seem to prove the point.  Or one might claim that narcissism is the real cause, but while that might very well apply to Bill Reilly,  Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and the like, I don’t think it holds here.  (Note how one person in each of the two couples is tending to the other; these people seem capable of seeing beyond themselves.)

And so it turns out that my ruminations thus far have been a bit of a set up.  I don’t know why they grieve, but it touches me that they do, and the pertinent question–for both the study of photography and the conduct of public life–is whether compassionate feeling for their pain is justified.  After all, these are people who would have been celebrating if Romney had won, and Romney’s program was sure to spread misery downward while transferring even more wealth upward.  And if the benefits of affluence help one feel for those in the picture–as one would be less likely to do if they were less attractive, for example–then isn’t that another systemic unfairness, another way in which those at the top get more than their share of whatever good thing is being distributed socially?  And given all the contempt and condescension and vicious moralizing that has been directed against those in the bottom half, isn’t it fair to turn the tables during victory week?  Well, yes and no.

The yes is because I’m among those who savors Gore Vidal’s great comment that “It is not enough to merely win.  Others must lose.”  Which is why, for example, I have loved seeing Karl Rove fall from political mastermind to $300,000,000 loser. Some people just have it coming, and the more they can make fools of themselves in public, the better.

But mostly no.  The beauty of photography is that it can evoke a compassionate response regardless of other biases.  Of course, sometimes those other considerations should prevail, but the problem is rarely that we are too quick to set them aside.  And even if unable to understand the opposing political party, it might help us all if one could at least recognize that they, too, care about their beliefs.  For where there is care, connection becomes possible.

Photograph by Jim Young/Reuters.

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Palin Heavy: Paul Ryan on the National Stage

Someone needs to say it: Paul Ryan is this year’s Sarah Palin.  This comparison is not to deny the considerable differences between then: Ryan has far more government experience, influence within his party, and facility with the English language.  Indeed, he is touted as the intellectual among his Republican peers, the man of New Ideas and Big Ideas.  Palin, by contrast–well, we don’t need to go there.  In any case she was known primarily for her clothing and performative panache.  No professor or liberal, she.  Or he, for that matter:

This image of Ryan hitting the stage in Fisherville, Virginia, could be right out of a country western concert.  Look at those boots, for example–not typical gear in either Wisconsin (where he lives) or at Miami University of Ohio (where he went to college), but he’s stylin’ now.  (Likewise,  Sarah from Alaska had no trouble shopping in New York City; it’s where you’re going, not where you’re from, right?)  More to the point, every detail of Ryan’s entrance is pitched perfectly for the big stage.  He is a young, energetic, accomplished performer, and he knows how to play to the crowd.

And that’s where the comparisons start getting more than skin deep.  Palin and Ryan are energizing the same, extreme, right-wing base of the Republican party.  They both look good where it really counts: they are ideologically doctrinaire, populist demagogues who can light up a stage because they have boundless ambition and no qualms about anyone or anything else.  And, most important, they are equally vacuous about any of the policies they pitch.

Despite his superior polish, Ryan has said nothing that is any better than Palin’s garbled nonsense.  His new ideas are the same tired, flawed, failed ideas that Republicans have been pushing since 1980: cut taxes, cut government services, and deregulate all business, all to transfer wealth upward in the hope that a bit more will trickle down again.  And big ideas?  Well, these are the same ideas as above but scaled up for maximum impact: Don’t cut taxes, make them ever lower at the top and ever more regressive across the board; don’t negotiate workable solutions, ram through draconian policies and count on the market to take care of everything else.  Ryan can’t deliver the goods–actual programmatic details, actual budget numbers, independent budget assessments–any more than Palin could.  He just sings better.

It gets worse, as Palin probably was so out of her league that she didn’t have to lie.  She could just make stuff up because that’s all she knew.  With Ryan, however, it’s harder to believe that he isn’t knowingly bending the truth.  The Times article accompanying the photo put the matter well when it said that “his convention speech was like Christmas morning for fact-checkers.”  Which is odd, because intellectuals aren’t supposed to lie, or to be so deluded that they can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.

Paul Ryan is no more an intellectual than Sarah Palin.  In fact, he is Palin Heavy: just a more expensive, higher impact version of the original.  Neither one should be entrusted with the hard work of actually governing in a democratic society.

Photograph by Josh Haner/The New York Times.  The photo accompanied this profile of Ryan in the New York Times Magazine.

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The Instruments of World Making

The scene is actually a street in war torn Aleppo, where Syria’s rich cultural and historical legacy is being rendered in rubble and ashes by a revolution that seemingly knows no bounds or ends, but truth to tell it could be any number of war torn countries, now and in the recent past.  At first glance the man walking away from the viewer appears to be carrying a grenade launcher or some other kind of weapon, cautiously at the ready.  But on closer inspection – and with the help of a caption – it turns out he is actually carrying a guitar.  And not just carrying it, but actually playing it as he walks down the street.

The photograph is extraordinary in this regard, for while the individual dominates the scene, so much hinges on whether we see a guitar or a weapon.  If the first, we might be inclined to cast him as something of a troubadour, strolling down the street, feeling safe, or at least safe enough to express himself on a deserted public thoroughfare with music; if the second, we might be inclined to see him advancing cautiously, nervously, through a war zone, vigilant against the dangers that presumably hide behind closed doors and shuttered windows or on rooftops.

But of course even in the first case we cannot assume that he feels too safe, as signaled by the automatic weapon he carries slung over his right shoulder, apparently ready to choose to employ one or the other as conditions dictate.  And so perhaps what see really is not a dialectic between the instruments of artistic expression and war so much as an allegory for the human condition of everyman, tragically faced with the choice for how he might engage and seek to (re)make the world, through art or violence.  Sadly (or is it tragically?), the photograph offers no real resolution to this problem.  But what it does is to remind us of the possibility of the choice. And it is that possibility—perhaps only that possibility—that enables the hope to keep walking down such corridors.

Photo Credit:  Stringer/Reuters

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The Ritualistic Means of Politics

“War,” say the realists, is the “continuation of politics by other means.”  But of course war—whether symbolic or actual, whether fought with bullets or with words—is also arguably the last resort of the incompetent; a means of managing power when all other manner of negotiations have been frustrated and exhausted.  War, of course, inevitably leaves carnage in its wake, whether it is fought on a literal battlefield or in a legislative chamber.  And so rather than to concede the purportedly “essential truth” of the realist mantra and all that it portends we should perhaps consider the possibility that the political process operates best when it dances to a different drummer.

“Dance” is not an idle metaphor here, for it calls attention to the artistic and ritualistic quality of politics.  Politicians, after all, are courtiers, and whether they are courting votes from their constituencies or courting an opposition with which they must co-exit, they are engaged in an important ritual of cooperation.  I submit that this is important in almost any political system, but that it is especially so in a democratic polity where the very legitimacy of the process relies on the mutual commitment of any opposition to a common cause that supersedes any particular outcome.  Rituals of cooperation that underscore civic friendship, whether feigned or not, prefigure the grounds on which the dance of political compromise might precede.

And so we come to the photograph above which appeared in numerous publications this past week, both in print and on-line.  Representatives John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, the Majority and Minority leaders of the House of Representatives respectively, ritualistically cooperate in the building of the platform on which the winner of the November election will be inaugurated in the new year.  Of course, it is perhaps one of the few places at which they have cooperated at anything over the past four years, and so one might read the image as cynical political theater. We should not ignore that possibility too quickly, and truth to tell the photograph was cropped in some publications so as to focus tightly on Boehner and Pelosi and the somewhat surprised look on her face in a manner that cast the scene as one of awkward discomfiture. But rituals need to be seen against a broader horizon of activity and interaction, situated in a context that locates the performance in a symbolic history of repetition that underscores their longevity and normative significance.

That is why I like this image shot from below and with a wider angle that takes in an emblematic representation of the presidential seal, a reminder that the inauguration platform–which here, and importantly, is a work in progress–is the physical site of a formal ritual that presumes to stand above party in the name of a united “people. ” The photograph also features the smiling and interested Senator Lamar Alexander as he observes the ritual, and he appears to do so approvingly.  Senator Alexander is not only from a different legislative body, but more to the point, he is one of the more bi-partisan members of the U.S. Congress.  A member of the Republican party, and one time candidate for his party’s nomination to the presidency, he nevertheless breaks ranks when conscience and good sense tell him that it is the prudent thing to do.  Of course, such bi-partisanship is hard to find in Washington these days, but perhaps the simple staging of this event for the photographer’s lens—itself a political ritual—is a small sign that even those who have failed to cooperate in recent times recognize the need to keep the longer, historical possibility alive.

Photo Credit: Like Sharrett/NYT

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Lying: The Essential Republican Strategy

No matter how wealthy, no matter how handsome, any American presidential candidate is still out there on a smile and a shoeshine.

He has to be a pitchman, a crowd-pleaser, the guy who can sell snowballs at the North Pole.  Anyone with any experience in electoral campaigns knows that, and we all ought to cut the candidates some slack when it comes to stretching the truth or getting tripped up by an open mic.  Even so, whatever the concessions made to wrapping oneself in the flag and playing the role of Someone for Everyone, there are limits.  At some point, you are supposed to be talking about real problems and workable policies, and you are supposed to be making sense, not talking nonsense.

And eventually there is a tipping point.  It seems that point was crossed this week by the Romney/Ryan campaign, and what had been a long series of increasingly implausible or disturbing or offensive campaign statements has become a cascade of distortions, false insinuations, and outright lies.  The latest news in this regard–but soon to be outdated, I’m sure–is that the claims of massive campaign donations far in excess of Obama’s were, well, just a tad inflated: OK, actually five times greater than what Romney could actually use on his own race, with the rest committed to other Republican campaigns.

And I’m shocked, shocked to hear this.  Just as the Bush administration was not going to be fettered by the “reality-based community,” the Romney/Ryan campaign, in the immortal words of their chief pollster, Neil Newhouse, is not going to “be dictated by fact-checkers“?  Google “Romney lies” or “Ryan lies” or “Tea Party lies” and you’ll see that there is a cottage industry developing just to keep track of the deceit.

At some point, however, you have to ask: why are these guys lying so much? The short answer is always the same: because they have to pander to the far right, Tea Party, Young Guns, Jacobin core of the contemporary Republican Party.  Those are the people who controlled the nomination and are the activist base for the election, and they seem to thrive on delusion.  OK, fair enough, but the general election is all about the swing voters in swing states, and by definition they don’t qualify as right-wingers.  So, why do Romney and Ryan have to lie so much?

The answer is simple: they are caught in the contradiction of running for office in a democracy, but in order to govern on behalf of the wealthy.  They need mass support to get elected, but their policies benefit only the few and the very few.  Those policies involve the abandonment of public institutions and infrastructure, and destruction of the ideals and the social contract that have been the basis of America’s promise and its prosperity, and only to continue the massive transfer of wealth upward that began in the Reagan administration.  They would make most Americans poorer and social mobility ever more difficult, so that those who have the most could get most of the rest.

And who would vote for that?  As a result, the campaign for a feudal America has to lie.  You might say we need a new word in the language: a word for policies so far removed from reality or decency that they cannot be advocated without lying.

We don’t really need a label, however, but rather better, more centrist Republican policy proposals–the kind that don’t have to depend on deceit–and a similar return to more sensible public discourse.  Indeed, I remain open to the idea that Republican candidates can tell the truth.  And if they want to prove the point, they can start any time.  If that means that they have to adjust their promises, alter their policies, return to bipartisanship, and make a good faith effort to help the American people thrive in difficult times, so much the better.

Photograph of Romney on the stump in Omaha, Nebraska, May 10, by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press.

Bonus link: Don’t miss “A Conservative History of the United States” at The New Yorker.

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Someone New is Working the Edges of a Post-Racial Society

Now that the Chicago teachers strike has been resolved, the Monday morning quarterbacking can begin.  One question of likely interest to readers of this blog is whether the Chicago Tribune should have refused to publish this ad:

The interesting thing here is that the Tribune did refuse to publish the ad.  Given that the paper has not exactly been known to be either a supporter of unions or a bastion of unbiased journalism, or in such sound financial shape that they can kiss off full page ads, they must have believed that something important was at stake.  Supporters of the ad say that the reason given was the ad’s “‘racial overtones,'” but that “‘the message of the ad has nothing to do with race.'”

And it is even more interesting to consider that they may both be right.  It seems that both sides agree that the photograph of The Stand at the Schoolhouse Door was all about race.  Alabama Governor George Wallace may not have liked unions either, but he was standing to stop racial integration–first, last, and always.  But a photo of injustice and intransigence in one domain such as race relations certainly could be appropriate to use in another domain–for example, progressives would not be likely object to the image being used to oppose gender discrimination.  And enough change has occurred socially and demographically that one can imagine that a group once oppressed now could themselves be part of an organization that is blocking reform.

Indeed, some progressives have argued unions are obstructing progress. Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer set out this conundrum in two sentences: “Unions are a crucially important part of our economy and society.  Unions have become overly protectionist and are in need of enormous amounts of reform” (The Gardens of Democracy, p. 7).  So, one could conceivably use a racially charged photograph with a post-racial intention.  And one might believe that the message of the ad had nothing to do about race, because “message” would mean what those making the ad intended to say.

But as we all learn, it is easy to say more than one intends, not least because the meaning of what is said (and shown) also depends on how it is interpreted.  It could well be that the Chicago Tribune was connected closely enough to its readership and its community to believe, perhaps correctly, that this photo from the civil rights era could be incendiary or at least distort and damage the negotiations and public discussion by making race more of a factor than was right.  More to the point, some might have felt that its use was a slap in the face for African-Americans: indeed, how could the ad not be insulting when it equated union negotiations over working conditions with white resistance on behalf of a society that was profoundly unjust, inhumane, vicious, and destructive, and suggested that poor schooling was not the legacy of racism and poverty but rather the work of a multiracial union.

To which the reply would be, again: “But that’s not what we meant.”  And it might not have been; if you look at the other ads put out by The Center for Union Facts, they do not look like a Tea Party organization.  I mention the Tea Party for good reason, as it has provided many–way too many–examples of people making patently racist jokes, drawings, Photoshopped photographs, and other vile statements about Barack Obama and then claiming that they were not being racist.  And maybe they really did believe that about themselves: to lack that much sensitivity requires staggering deficits in both knowledge and empathy, but ya know. . . .

But I digress.  Some scholars of rhetoric argue that persuasion, and particularly the ethical dimension of persuasion, comes down to our assessment of the speaker’s character.  (See, for example, For the Sake of Argument, by Eugene Garver.)  Thus, once you get enough evidence of a person’s character, you can start making judgments about whether to trust what they say, and what they say about what they say.  Some of that evidence is provided in the saying, but sometimes you simply can’t tell.  In the case before us, one photograph intentionally taken out of its original context may not provide enough evidence to judge.  Or once again, where you stand may depend on where you sit.

In any case, we might want to avoid becoming too wrapped up in one photograph and one ad.  On the one hand, it is but one example of many, many cases of how people–particularly conservatives, but some progressives as well–are working the edges of the idea that the old identitarian politics no longer apply since Obama has moved beyond them.  On the other hand, there are many photographs that suggest that something beautiful already has happened: that a multiracial society really is emerging in the US.  If that is so, it doesn’t resolve the controversy about the ad, or about how to best improve urban schools.  It is interesting, however, that to see that change you need look no farther than the Chicago Tribune slide show on the teachers strike.

 

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Real Democracy in Charlotte, North Carolina

It looks like the Democratic National Convention is going to really push those who like to think that there are no real differences between the two parties.  For one, the Democrats won’t have to make stuff up to make their case.  For another, instead of seeing one, very narrow slice of the American demographic, this week you can see everyone else.  And you also can see this wonderful photograph.

 

Three men are sharing a laugh at a shoe shine stand.  The one up high is George Davis, who is married to a delegate from Georgia.  George from Georgia probably has got nothing to do this week but have fun, and it looks like he’s making a good start.  His shoes are being shined by William Robinson, while Isaiah Jones is free to wholeheartedly enjoy the joke.

The electrical connection looks a bit shaky, but otherwise the place is in nice shape.  No one is rich, but no one is starving, either.  The guy on top probably makes a fair amount more than the others, but not enough to make anyone uncomfortable.  The three gentlemen have had different lives, but they have a lot in common as well.  And one of the things they have in common is having lived in America as it was transformed from a Jim Crow society to a nation where Barack Obama is president.  No wonder the American flag is proudly displayed across George’s shirt.

This is a beautiful photo, because it captures the beauty of a democratic society: one in which simple association among equals can happen anywhere, because no one has to pretend that they are inferior to those who happen to have more wealth or status or authority.  Preachers of prejudice and exclusion love to say that progressive ideals of equality, social justice, and the general welfare would nullify differences in achievement.  That is nonsense, of course, but it is dangerous nonsense.  The men in the photograph aren’t pretending that they all make the same amount of money or have the same connections to political power.  They don’t have to, as they already share something far more valuable: the joy of civic friendship, which is the capacity to trust one another enough to enjoy life lived in common.  That’s not a uniform way of living directed from above, but very much the opposite: a life of small differences, shared suffering, and the human comedy as it can be seen and enjoyed in everyday life.

And that is why this photograph from outside the convention hall is all about the speeches being delivered inside.  And about other speeches as well, not least the vicious screeds by Hank Williams, Jr. and Chuck Norris, who claim that the “Muslim president” will bring “a 1000 years of darkness.”  (And have you noticed how bad these guys look?  Hatred and vicious idiocy must really wear on a man.)  Against a politics of fear, exclusion, and expropriation, the Democratic party is, for all its problems, at least moving forward toward the full realization of the American dream.  We should not forget that some would destroy that dream, but it is even more important to recognize how it is already here.  Not everywhere, but here and there, North, South, East, and West, down the street and around the corner, whenever two or three people can enjoy a common life secured by freedom and equality.

Photograph by Linda Davidson/Washington Post.

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Happy Labor Day, 1882-

Labor Day was first celebrated by the Central Labor Union on September 5, 1882 in New York City and by 1885 the celebration had spread widely.  The first state to recognize Labor Day was Oregon in 1887, followed swiftly by Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.  Following the violent clash between the U.S. military and marshals and railroad workers during the Pullman Strike which resulted in thirdy deaths in the summer of 1894, the U.S.  Congress designated the first Monday of September as a national holiday to honor labor.  Labor Day was recognized by the release of the Labor Day Stamp in in the White House Rose Garden on September 3, 1955.  The  stamp features a design from the mosaic “Labor of Life” by artist Lumen Winter which can be found at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.

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The White Party National Convention

Sometimes the facts are right there on the face of things.

I don’t mean to make light of what is almost a touching moment as Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is being made camera ready by his wife, Maureen.  (Nice Scottish name, McDonnell, and Maureen is a fine Welsh name as well.)  They will have the skills, and the stress and strain, of any political couple, and this is not about them.  But does every woman in the picture have to be blonde?

Photographs are not logical arguments, and any one image is an extremely small, partial view of reality, so there is no need to remonstrate that some Republicans are people of color.  We know that, and if there is one black swan then not all swans are white, and if the convention speakers include a Hispanic or two then there is more to the Grand Old Party than a country club of blondes.  But when people gather for a specific purpose, the camera can do a good job of identifying how basic tendencies are there to be seen on the surface of things.  And because photographs do capture whatever is in front of the camera, they can be very good at revealing what is taken for granted or generally assumed or tacitly required for membership in a social group.

And at least since Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, there do seem to be some basic demographic tendencies in the GOP.  Tendencies regarding, say, race and gender, as you can see in this photo of convention pages.

Nor are those biases likely to go away, as the pages will become leaders for subsequent generations of the party.  If there is a party.  (I could joke about an all-male party having trouble reproducing, but not all women are alienated yet by its program of gender hierarchy, and the Democrats still have a way to go on that point as well.)  Obviously, blonde is in fashion here as well, and in any case a narrow range of cultural conformity is already evident.  And if a great many Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable in this crowd, I don’t think their absence would be noticed.  With the Romney/Ryan (English/Irish) ticket, the Republicans have doubled down on whiteness.

That’s not how I would build an institution for the 21st century.  But I have this crazy idea that America’s beauty emerges from its diversity, and particularly so when everyone can work together to do their part for the common good.  When a major political party willfully ignores that idea, their campaign rhetoric can become even more obnoxious than usual.

The letters are colored white, as if to emphasize just who “we” is.  But that we didn’t build America or the Tampa Times Forum or the stage sets for the convention; nor do they clean the building at night.  Photographers have been challenging this arrogant delusion at least since Gordon Park’s “American Gothic,” which this photograph echoes.

It may be that the Republican Party core commitment goes beyond transferring wealth upward, but it certainly does not yet deserve to become a majority party.  To do that, it would have to learn how to live with the rest of the country, not just employ them.  The prospects are not good, however, because that would require changes that are more than skin deep.

Photographs 1 & 2 are by Lucian Perkins/Washington Post; no. 3 is by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

Update: I had forgotten about a previous post that provides more context, verbal and visual, for this one.  So, you might want to also read America in Black and White.

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