I’m Not Bitter: I’m Mad As Hell (And I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore!)

Okay, maybe making reference to the film “Network” (and the trademark catchphrase-rant of its apocalyptic news anchor Howard Beale) isn’t the most ingenuous (or original) lead-in to today’s blog entry, but it fits so well that I’ll stay with it.

In case you missed it, “Network” was a dark evocation of mass media’s effects on our culture: The triumph of entertainment over information, image over imagination, fear over freedom.

The film ostensibly focuses on Howard Beale’s dismissal from his anchor position with a hypothetical fourth broadcast news network, UBS (Are you listening Katie Couric?), due to plummeting ratings.

As Beale contemplates his own jobless future, he begins a journey into madness—not necessarily insanity (although the clarity of the revelations he experiences and bespeaks are certainly tinged with delusion), but definitely into angriness, and that of an extremely bitter nature.

After an interrupted newcast, during which he announces his firing and declares to viewers his intention to commit suicide on-air as a ratings-boosting swan song, Beale is eventually allowed a second chance to say goodbye on his own terms and explain his earlier meltdown.

Take a look at what the fictional Howard Beale said in 1976 and see if it doesn't seem every bit as apt today:

Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression.

Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad—worse than bad: They're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.”

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You've got to say: “I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell:

“I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

That’s what came to my mind earlier, as I checked the morning cable news shows and watched the anchors and correspondents tut-tut over Barack Obama’s comments last week that Pennsylvanians (like voters elsewhere) are “bitter” at the state of America’s political debate and looming economic collapse: The word “bitter” is too mild a term to convey what I, myself (and millions of other Americans) feel as we see the campaign distracted from life-and-death issues of war and peace abroad and prosperity and peril at home by the slice-and-dice tactics of the Clinton campaign.

That’s when I logged onto www.BarackObama.com, clicked a link to a video of a speech that Barack delivered in Indiana over the weekend where he described the frustrations of folks in Pennsylvania and everywhere else—even my hometown of Decatur, Illinois—at the erosion of virtually everything, in recent decades, that we hold dear: education and environment, investment in our common future via a fair, shared tax code, and economic opportunity and prosperity for all Americans.

After viewing the video, I was invited—as every other viewer is—to share my feelings about the hysterical, ridiculous turn the campaign has taken since Mrs. Clinton’s advisors have latched onto Barack’s use of the word “bitter” (ironically, in a campaign she has pledged to wage to the bitter end), as evidence that Senator Obama is somehow more “elitist” and “out of touch” with blue-collar voters than her megamillionaire self.

Here’s what I wrote then:

I’ve been frustrated and, yes, embittered by Hillary Clinton’s “scorched-earth,” politics-as-usual, “kitchen-sink” campaign style. She has failed to recognize the transformational mood of the electorate during this election cycle and has thus attempted to mis-characterize and otherwise call into question every aspect of Barack Obama's appeal to voters throughout the primary season.

I’m also embittered by the continuing failure of leadership in Washington to address the critical issues that confront our nation: The ongoing, economically-ruinous war in Iraq, catastrophic national debt and trade imbalances, tax cuts for the wealthiest members of our society, a health-care system that leaves far too many children (and their parents) behind, soaring costs for everything from food to fuel (but not the products made in China by virtual slaves), and our crumbling, obsolescent infrastructure and educational system.

In fact, “bitter” may be too kind a characterization for my feelings on the state of the American political system; “disgusted” and “repelled” seem closer to the truth.

That’s why I'm flying to Pittsburgh tomorrow—and to Indianapolis, after that: To do everything in my power to ensure the success of the most transformational, empowering political candidacy since Robert F. Kennedy.

That way, perhaps, my daughter—and her children and grandchildren, after her—might live in an America that represents, and redeems, its promise and potential: What Abraham Lincoln recognized so long ago, when he declared a truly united (and rededicated) United States to be “the last best hope of earth.”

That’s why I’m posting this entry now: To encourage us all to remember the words of Howard Beale and take them one giant, effective step further.

Go ahead: Get mad. But don’t run to your window and start screaming like a madman. (That’s Hillary’s turf, anyway.)

Instead, get busy. Do all you can, whenever you can. Go to Pennsylvania to help get out the vote. Make calls. Mobilize. Donate. Speak out. Act.

Recognize the moral imperative that Martin Luther King described as “the fierce urgency of now.”

Then consider how well labor organizer Joe Hill’s last words still apply today, and can inform and inspire us all during a month when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination: “Don’t mourn me. Organize.”

Hillary Huckabee & the Writing on the Wall

If you read my earlier entry, The Politics of Hope and the Politics of Fear (and Loathing), you know that I’ve already stated my revulsion to the divisive, total-war strategy the Clinton campaign employed to carve out narrow popular-vote “victories” in the Texas and Ohio primaries.

In case you’re wondering, that revulsion has only deepened in the days since, as I’ve continued my phonebank work in Pennsylvania and contemplated the damage that HRC’s desperate race-, gender-, and fear-based tactics may inflict on Senator Obama’s candidacy—at least, until she eventually (one can only hope) reads the writing on the wall and ends her doomed candidacy.

Want to add some writing on the wall of your own to express the disdain you may also feel for the Clinton campaign and its vicious, attack-dog politics of fear, loathing, spin, and manipulation?

I just discovered a way to do just that—one that may even serve to give Senator Obama the time and focus it’s going to take for our candidate and party to prepare a coordinated reponse to the onslaught we can expect from Hillary’s “kinder, gentler” GOP counterpart, John McCain (and his party) until election day.

So if you feel, as I do, that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the embodiment of the top-down, ego-driven, business-as-usual approach to politics that we can no longer support, make your feelings known.

In fact, here's a link to a petition that I just signed that you may want to sign, too:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/obama725/petition.html

The petition, addressed to the Democatic National Committee, states its signers’ willingness to vote for Barack Obama, but not Hillary Rodham Clinton, in November. It also provides a space for signers to include their own rationales for that stand. Here's what I wrote:

“Hillary Clinton is a divisive, polarizing figure who has consistently placed her own political ambitions above her obligations to the nation and to the party. The desperate “scorched earth” campaign she has unleashed against Sen. Obama is deeply offensive to me and amounts to a political hatchet-job undermining a truly transformation and generational realignment of the American political system to the benefit of no one, except Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

That’s the truth, from my point of view, at least. I used to respect Senator Clinton. But I don’t any more.

To me, her campaign, most notably and regrettably since Iowa, has operated from the exact epicenter of all that’s wrong with our country and its politics, and serves mostly as a blatant example of what Barack Obama has committed himself to ending, via his candidacy: the endless gamesmanship, cynicism, hypocrisy, distortion, ad hominem attacks, and the bankrupt, short-sighted “us-versus-them” mentality that’s defined our politics and divided us all for too long already.

I simply cannot imagine a scenario that would permit me to allow myself to vote for Hillary Clinton, under any circumstances, should she be able to mudsling and character-assassinate her way to the nomination.

And while I don’t believe that we’re going to lose a single contest from here on out, and I’m committed to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening (Back to the phonebank lists, Jim!), I hope you’ll join with me (and, at last count, 2,652 other Obama supporters) and add your own digital signature to the writing on the wall addressed to our very own “Huckabee,” Hillary Clinton, and members of the Democratic National Committee.

As Robert Kennedy often pointed out, during a remarkably similar campaign in a remarkably similar time: “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

Let’s do what we can to help Hillary Clinton see the light.

Mississippi Forecast: Sunny with Scattered Landslides

That’s my read of the way things are shaping up, anyway, from the vantage point of my trusty telephone in Tempe, Arizona.

It’s based on pre-election phonebank interviews that I conducted over the past three days with 256 registered Democratic voters in Mississippi who—incidentally and unexpectedly—moved into a virtual tie with Vermont and Wyoming voters (at least, in this reporter’s practiced eye) as the most polite, and enthusiastic, Obama phonebank call-recipients in the nation.

All results are unofficial and preliminary, of course, but this observer believes that they will borne out by early-afternoon exit polls while tomorrow’s voting is still in progress in the Magnolia State.

My prediction for an early projection of the state for Obama by the newschannels tomorrow evening? I’ll go way out on a short limb and guess that the first “calls” of Mississippi for Obama (by CNN, MSNBC, and FNC) will come in somewhere between 7:00 p.m. and 7:01 p.m. CST, 30 seconds or so after the polls close.

The “slash-and-burn” campaign tactics of Senator Hillary Clinton were rated as a significant factor powering their individual choices by survey participants, who preferred Senator Barack Obama, in this sample, by a margin of 66 to 6. [No kidding...about that, at least, although some kidding is coming. Keep reading and see if you can spot it.]

The unofficial tally for my phonebank sample is as follows:

1. Barack Obama: 66
2. No Answer: 54
3. Line Disconnected/No Longer in Service: 44
4. Left Message: 43
5. Refused Call: 19
6. Line Busy: 14
7. Hillary Clinton: 6
8. Undecided: 6
9. Fax/Modem Line: 3
10. Republican: 1

When asked for a response, a hypothetical spokesman for the Clinton campaign (pontificating inside my own head) immediately downplayed the survey’s results, arguing that Senator Clinton shouldn’t be judged by results in states she loses or in which she otherwise “underperforms.”

“Besides,” my imaginary Clinton spokesperson sputtered on, “if you assume that Senator Clinton would carry 80-plus percent of the ‘No Answer’ and ‘Line Disconnected/No Longer in Service’ voters—which we believe is our natural constituency and plays to Senator Clinton’s strengths as an experienced leader and a vital change-agent in a dangerous, dangerous world—then you factor in all the 3 a.m. calls that President and Senator Clinton will make to all the superdelegates, and multiply by why?, this race is a statistical dead-heat.”

“And, hey,” my internal Clintonspeak spokespecialist shrugged, eying the results one last time for a glimmer of the spin that campaign absolutely lives on (and for), these days: “Senator Clinton is beating the pants off the ‘Fax/Modem Line’ crowd. That proves something, right there.”

The Politics of Hope and the Politics of Fear (and Loathing)

After making 118 calls to Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas yesterday, I'd say that I'm (literally and figuratively) still bushed, but, by george, I don't have the energy—or any sense, at all, of hillary-ity.

Still, I’ll comment on two calls that truly were amazing, both for what they reveal about about the potential power of a single phone call and the fragility of the hope that unites us all.

The first revelation came during my last call of the day to Ohio, just before the 9 p.m. cutoff, and it centered around a wonderful 85-year old woman in Ohio named Mary, who admitted at the outset that she just couldn't make up her mind between HRC and Barack.

I asked if I might be able to help her sort through her feelings about the relative merits of each candidate, and a half hour or so later, a brand-new Obamacrat was born!

The call was so special, and touched upon so many of our mutual dreams, that I almost hated for it to end, and Mary seemed in no real hurry to end it, either. Still, we both knew our long-distance relationship couldn't last—especially when I pointed out that it was only 8 p.m. in Texas, and another difference might be there to be made in our now-mutual cause of cultural liberation and societal transformation.

So after Mary assured me that she does, indeed, have a ride to the polls today (with her son, whom she pledged to deliver for Obama, too), and she thanked me for my time, I told her that the appreciation was mutual and the honor had been all mine: “In fact, Mary,” I told her, “you just made my whole day.”

Then, I told her something else that might sound corny or silly in the retelling, but which seemed true then and still seems true now: “I’m going to miss you, Mary.” Pause. Heartbeat. Drumroll. “But we’ve got to win this thing.”

An hour or so later, a second revelation popped up during my last call of the evening, this time involving Michael, an African-American Obama supporter in Houston.

Michael told me that he and his wife had already cast their ballots for Barack, and had even taken their daughter along so she could bear witness to the role their family would play in selecting America’s first African-American major-party candidate. (“I told her, Jim, that voting is, like, holy," he told me, “that men have died...” Then his voice trailed off.)

So I reminded Michael how important it is to participate in tonight’s caucuses, and he assured me that they’d all be standing up for Obama there, too.

And even though he told me his dinner was getting cold, Michael was only warming up to the topic he really wanted to talk about: The role of superdelegates, and whether or not they might eventually be arm-twisted into denying the nomination to Barack and handing it to Hillary.

I explained that superdelegates are elected Democrats and party officials, and pointed out that they’d have to be crazy and stupid to let themselves be used that way.

Still, Michael reminded me that stranger things have happened, and Barack is running against a Clinton.

And even though we both agreed that Billary’s already had eight years in the White House—a time during which, not uncoincidentally, the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress and had to suffer through an impeachment process that, to Bill Clinton, centered mostly around what the definition of is was—they're still around, and still mostly focused on what's good for Hillary and Bill.

We both had to admit the real risk that undeniable state of affairs represents, especially given the shrill, slimeball, “kitchen-sink” campaign they’ve hurled at Barack in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island over the past few weeks.

Maybe the Clintons really do have no shame, we seem to decide mutually, right then and there. And maybe they really won’t stop at anything to tear Barack Obama down and put themselves back on top and aboard Air Force One for another victory lap or two, crassness and divisiveness be damned.

That’s when I told Michael that, should Hillary “win” at the convention the same way that George W. Bush “won” the elections of 2000 and 2004, the nomination wouldn’t be worth having.

Then I even surprised myself by saying what I said next, which I hadn’t known until that minute might actually be true: “If that's the way it goes down, I won’t vote for her.”

That’s when the revelation came, when I realized that—this time, the way this campaign is playing out (and no matter what your definition of is, is)—I’m actually capable of doing something I've never done in my whole life: Voting for a Republican for President of the United States.

We were both aware of the strange turn the conversation had taken, but Michael only agreed. A dream deferred does offer all sorts of advantages over a dream destroyed—especially when the dream in question has been denied, as ours has been, for nearly 40 years, since the 1968 murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy nearly erased it altogether.

I could almost feel Michael's head nodding assent through the long-distance connection, when he seemed to decide for both of us: “I mean, we’ve waited this long. If we have to, we might as well wait four more years. I mean, if we have to...”

His voice trailed off at that point, and Michael told me that his wife was hollering at him to get off the phone so I could make some more calls, and maybe rustle up some more votes for Barack Obama.

I told him that he was my last call of the night, anyway, but his dinner was probably getting cold, maybe even as cold as Hillary Clinton’s heart—or, at least, her brain.

We both laughed and started our goodbyes, but then I remembered that I’d just threatened to do something I now realized was plainly impossible: vote for John McCain.

I felt obligated to point out that impossibility to Michael and emphasize the need for us both to hope — especially in a campaign as tacky and tragic as the one that's being waged against Barack Obama.

“We’re gonna win, Michael. This time we have to.” Pause. Heartbeat. Drumroll. “And don’t forget to caucus.”

As I put down the phone, I felt myself cringe inside at the thought of voting for John McCain and four more years of war and occupation in Iraq.

Still, I also noticed that I didn’t cringe (or feel any real self-loathing) at the prospect of voting for (and, maybe, even actively supporting) Ralph Nader, should Michael’s fear of yet another “political fix” turn out eventually to come true.

Let’s all hope it doesn’t.

And speaking of hope, I’ve gotta run. I’ve got more calls to make.