Partial Readings: American Pessimism
Partial Readings: American Pessimism
Partial Readings: American Pessimism
Senate in Shambles
George Packer ventures into the U.S. Senate on assignment for the New Yorker, and doesn?t like what he finds. ?Like investment bankers on Wall Street, senators these days direct much of their creative energy toward the manipulation of arcane rules and loopholes, scoring short-term successes while magnifying their institution?s broader dysfunction.? Senators no longer listen to each other speak, instead ?e-mailing Twitter ideas to their press secretaries, or getting their first look at a speech they?re about to give before the eight unmanned cameras that provide a live feed to C-SPAN2,? while journalists ?hunker down in the press lounge, surfing the Web for analysis of current Senate negotiations; television screens alert them if something of interest actually happens in the chamber.? Senator Tom Harkin estimates that senators spend ?fifty percent, maybe even more? of their free time fundraising. Says Tom Daschle: ?If you?re ever pressed, ?Why did you vote that way???you just walk out thinking, Oh, my God, I hope nobody asks, because I don?t have a clue.?
Going Through the Motions
Eric Alterman?s ?Kabuki Democracy? has sent ripples through the left press with its bold argument: ?[It] does not much matter who is right about what Barack Obama dreams of in his political imagination. Nor is it all that important whether Obama’s team either did or didn’t make major strategic errors in its first year of governance?.Face it, the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign.? In the latest issue of the Nation, the essay has been put to print, along with responses from Michael Kazin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Norman Ornstein, Salim Muwakkil, Theda Skocpol, and more.
Dead Men Tell No Tales
In Gogol?s Dead Souls, the enigmatic Chichikovsky traveled the Russian provinces, purchasing serfs who had died but remained on the tax registry. Jeff Parker revamps the tale for the Facebook age:
Why won?t you friend me, Chi-chi? I looked through all your friends now that you?re friends with my friend Eli. You?re his friend in fact as of today, which is two days after he killed himself. I noticed something interesting looking through all your friends. It seems to me all your friends?almost a thousand?are dead, Chi-chi. Is the reason you won?t friend me because I am living?
