Andrew Bird is a genius. Anyone who has spent any time with me in the past few months will confirm: I am obsessed. Since being back in Chapel Hill, and realizing how much I have really missed playing the piano easily, and for pleasure, I have started to comp along with his music and have even started to arrange one of my favorite songs for piano.
Spending so much time running his lyrics and melodies through my brain, my fingers, and lips, makes me desperately want to create something so tangible and so important. Relevant. Relevance is key.
Bird wrote for the New York Times songwriting blog recently, saying,
"I’m kind of the opposite of the confessional singer-songwriter who fills notebooks full of poetry and intones them over a bed of chords. Meaning or “the truth that’s in my heart” usually reveals itself well after the record is released. I’m often surprised that the things I care about actually end up in my songs. Until then I’m mostly concerned with shape, tone and texture. I’m really an instrumentalist who sings words and if you care to pay attention you might enjoy them."
Rarely can I analyze an Andrew Bird song, feel it from my head to the tips of my toes, and in my heart, and it feels superfluous. Topics of songs are often difficult to understand at first; I spend hours on song-meanings websites, filtering through what other people find and believe to be true within songs. Whenever a song seems to be about some sort of romantic endeavor, it is always melted and welded into something deeper, transposed somehow from what could be a whiny attempt at mourning something lost or rejoicing something new and lovely into a something true, fresh, and timeless, somehow. It all strikes me as unattainably perfect.
It has been said that lyrics are poems. I guess, judging from the number of songs that have been written to go along with classic poems, or new poems, or just sets of words that make sense all together and convey some semblance of emotion. In any situation. Though so many of them seem trite.
Attempting to understand or apply Andrew Bird's lyrics - especially his older stuff, on Weather Systems - is like immersing yourself in some sort of weird mirror. In The Shadow of the Wind, Daniel says that what you understand from books is a reflection of what you already know and understand. Songs like "Lull" and "Action/Adventure" are sometimes too honest for me to listen to. Sometimes they hit at the wrong time.
"being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun’s never shone
and i fascinate myself when i’m alone
so i go a little overboard but hang on to the hull
while i’m airbrushing fantasy art on a life
that’s really kind of dull
oh, i’m in a lull"
More on this topic, I'm not quite finished.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Realism in its many forms
My first task as an Artist as Citizen intern: write transcripts out for interviews to follow up on the Israel/Palestine project.
This third project holds the title, "The Realists." It's a series of portraits and accompanying interviews of leaders and members of the One Voice movement, which is a really incredible nonpartisan, person-to-person movement to end the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
I had a hard time describing to my father as we had an excursion this morning to Morehead City the relevance of the title. I can't help but notice the irony between what is typically known as the "realist" paradigm of thought or analysis, especially when examining political situations - and the way it is used for this project.
The "realist" that AAC finds in One Voice is this, exactly as founder Daniel Lubetzky said in the interview I'm transcribing, about the Human-ness within these political situations:
Lubetzky says: They are very skeptical that it's going to come about, and they are very hard to mobilize, because if you don't believe that something is going to happen, why are you going to invest yourselves in it? So part of our role is to help people visualize that this thing can end, but it has to require your involvement.
I love that the Realism here is a human truth - a more thorough acknowledgment of human nature. How many zillions of conversations do I have with cynics - "realists" - who insist that the only true way to be a master puppeteer in politics is to look at the sheer numbers. To ignore the humanity is to be effective?
We beg to differ, I suppose.
The way to trump the Realist Paradigm, where practical force - sheer numbers, regardless of their placement in economics, military, or plain old population count; perhaps the role of the individual, ties between bureaucracy and industry, its placement within the government and how that plays into the system at hand - overcomes any sort of soft political power, grassroots movement, or any will of the people not involved in the political infrastructure, is to give humanity its own power. To understand it, to channel it, to empower individuals and push them forward.
More than anything else, I think it's interesting that the hard power capabilities have failed. Formal diplomacy is failing. Is our last resort a grassroots movement of human-to-human power? Lubetzky might say, it is so, and it is time for it to happen:
I very often have doubts about whether we are going to achieve our goals of truly ending this conflict, so that doubt comes with me almost every day, and you have to rise above it, and say, there is no alternative. You cannot give up, you cannot not do this because the alternative is too ugly. And that is what drives me. It's not hope and excitement, it's fear of what will happen if we don't succeed.
This third project holds the title, "The Realists." It's a series of portraits and accompanying interviews of leaders and members of the One Voice movement, which is a really incredible nonpartisan, person-to-person movement to end the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
I had a hard time describing to my father as we had an excursion this morning to Morehead City the relevance of the title. I can't help but notice the irony between what is typically known as the "realist" paradigm of thought or analysis, especially when examining political situations - and the way it is used for this project.
The "realist" that AAC finds in One Voice is this, exactly as founder Daniel Lubetzky said in the interview I'm transcribing, about the Human-ness within these political situations:
Lubetzky says: They are very skeptical that it's going to come about, and they are very hard to mobilize, because if you don't believe that something is going to happen, why are you going to invest yourselves in it? So part of our role is to help people visualize that this thing can end, but it has to require your involvement.
I love that the Realism here is a human truth - a more thorough acknowledgment of human nature. How many zillions of conversations do I have with cynics - "realists" - who insist that the only true way to be a master puppeteer in politics is to look at the sheer numbers. To ignore the humanity is to be effective?
We beg to differ, I suppose.
The way to trump the Realist Paradigm, where practical force - sheer numbers, regardless of their placement in economics, military, or plain old population count; perhaps the role of the individual, ties between bureaucracy and industry, its placement within the government and how that plays into the system at hand - overcomes any sort of soft political power, grassroots movement, or any will of the people not involved in the political infrastructure, is to give humanity its own power. To understand it, to channel it, to empower individuals and push them forward.
More than anything else, I think it's interesting that the hard power capabilities have failed. Formal diplomacy is failing. Is our last resort a grassroots movement of human-to-human power? Lubetzky might say, it is so, and it is time for it to happen:
I very often have doubts about whether we are going to achieve our goals of truly ending this conflict, so that doubt comes with me almost every day, and you have to rise above it, and say, there is no alternative. You cannot give up, you cannot not do this because the alternative is too ugly. And that is what drives me. It's not hope and excitement, it's fear of what will happen if we don't succeed.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
DAVE: more relevant than ever
The tagline of the 1993 film Dave, reads: “In a country where anyone can become president, anyone just did.” This very simple statement asks audiences to consider what kind of person can participate in politics, as first half of the tagline highlights a vital segment of the American dream: the American rhetoric of equality of opportunity gives “anyone” the chance to become so important and influential as to run the entire country, regardless of their beginnings. The second half, however, sarcastically points out that “anyone” might be able to become president, but really “anyone” does not become president. This contradiction between rhetoric and actual opportunity leads us to ask questions about who, as an electorate, we put into office. Emerging at the end of an era of reliance upon small government and disappointing conservative policies, Dave typifies the political climate of a frustrated American electorate, confused about the roles individuals should play within the political structure, how different individuals utilize that structure, and why individuals become involved in politics. At the dawn of a new presidential administration and the looming possibility of solutions to crucial social problems, this need to make the executive office more accessible to ordinary people becomes even more important in the presidential election of 1992, in terms of who can become president and potentially make the necessary changes to “fix” the country’s problems, and whether this person can be trusted to effectively change the country. The characters in the film express this tension between an optimistic desire for the American democratic system to succeed and the distrust in the specific individuals who become active in our executive sector, as well as expressing the true potential of the system to actually work “for the people.”
This tension between desire to believe in potential of government but skepticism in the individual finds its contextual roots within the political climate of the early 1990s. The electorate continues its “skeptical search for an active government” amidst the legacy of the Bush administration, which came to a close with relatively high unemployment, very low job creation, and a static gross national product, as the level of government ineffectiveness within the working class. As a result of laissez-faire economic policy, middle-class families had become caught in the cycle of “work and spend,” health insurance problems were rising, and incomes had become alarmingly stagnant. The Reagan era saw an increase in the inequality between an economic class of elites that can “bypass institutions it doesn’t like” and the lower classes, which only contributes to the growing distrust in a government that has come to operate out of that elite class. All of these factors cultivated a sense of tangible disparity between the governors and the governed, that the Bush administration had become “out of touch, indifferent, and ineffective.”
The 1992 election saw a heightened emphasis on the individuality of the next president, as a disillusioned public grappled with where it would find the solutions to its residual problems, which, they thought, might lie in the next administration. The promise of laissez-faire economics had all but met expectations, though analysts adamantly argue that material concerns and that type of well-being, like lower interest rates and low inflation, were only “a part of the story” in the political climate of the early nineties, as the real issue for the electorate was “dignity for themselves and their country.” The 1992 presidential ballot posited three candidates with separate possible solutions to the nation’s critical economic and social problems, however the candidate who offered the most persuasive argument for a solution was Bill Clinton.
Clinton attempted to present a “new covenant” with the American public through his campaign of “Putting People First.” This attempt to humanize the electorate appealed to their faith in the democratic process, reawakening national rhetoric about citizenship and equalizing voters across demographic lines with what McWilliams refers to as “a Republic of equals.” Regardless of whether or not Clinton could actually create this “Republic of equals,” he appealed to the dignity of African American voters by addressing them as citizens instead of as an economic class or a voting block, which was especially important after the Rodney King beating and subsequent race riots in Los Angeles in 1992. These problems only emphasized the Democratic Party’s drive to end the “decade of neglect” that resulted from the lack of comprehensive policies of the prior administrations regarding inner city living and lower social classes.
Clinton was voted into office, however, by less than a fifty-percent plurality vote, which further emphasizes the public’s ambiguity on government’s effectiveness. Its inability to completely agree on a candidate paired against the rise in voter turnout highlights the tension between faith that the system of government can take responsibility to respond to its constituents and to serve them, and the skepticism with which they regard the individuals who operate within the government itself, reflecting the kinds of questions Dave asks about our faith in the American democratic system.
Dave takes the type of individual the electorate is used to – President Mitchell – and replaces him with an ordinary guy who just happens to look like the president, asking audiences to consider what kind of person can run the country. Dave’s depiction of President Mitchell giving a speech at the beginning of the film, in which he references his “law school days back at Yale,” with his good friend Jordan Blankfort – “now Justice Blankfort” – argues that this is the normative image of a president that Americans have come to expect. This particular image is of a specific class of people: Ivy League educated, upper class, more in-the-world than of-the-world, who have somehow learned that they can participate in politics, utilizing the structure of government for personal gain and networking, and often acting as if they are above the laws they are employed to enforce. Ironically, the American electorate has come to expect this type of person, and yet still votes anyway, exemplifying the tension between skepticism in the individuals within government and a desire to believe in the power of the government as a whole. The problem with accepting an archetype or expectation of the president comes with the president’s consistent inability to deliver proper aid to his country through the government, as, Dave argues, the class of person who can become president is inherently disconnected from “ordinary people,” who have different ideas about what the government should do for its country.
The elites portrayed by the Mitchell administration are not those who believe in an effective government that will comprehensively and thoroughly work for its citizens, arguing that this class of politicians that enters the executive office has a differing view of the purpose and function than ordinary citizens might. This is apparent from the first scene in which President Mitchell meets with his cabinet to discuss the “Simpson-Gardner thing,” which, he says, “has got homeless shelters. Home start centers. Hot lunches for the little kiddies.” He condescendingly chastises his cabinet members for not having “killed it” in Congress. This bill represents the will of American citizens through their legislative bodies, and, in contrast to the executive branch, the means of articulating interests and needs to the government. The executive branch’s efforts to “kill it” directly argue that this branch is typically constructed of political elites who see public office as a means for personal gain, who are not concerned with actively utilizing the government for the public good. The fact that President Mitchell and his chief of staff, Bob Alexander, push to kill the bill before the president can veto it highlights the importance of the image of the president as a person who works for the people but actually uses the office as a means of personal and economic gain.
President Mitchell’s façade only makes Dave’s naivete more compelling, as Dave’s ordinariness shows how inaccessible the executive branch is seen to be. Next to Bill Mitchell and his administration, which is full of confident, respected politicians conditioned for the political sphere, Dave seems to only highlight the lack of confidence ordinary people have in their ability to participate in politics; only when he is given power, authority, and respect does he begin to understand that he is just as capable to run the country as any other man.
The main difference, Dave argues, is that the ordinary person wants to use the democratic system to help the masses, while the class of person who actually has access to the executive office would rather use it for some type of personal gain. This perspective is exemplified when Dave fully realizes that he has full executive authority – Bob Alexander cannot oust Dave from the office, as Bob placed Dave there illegally in the first place – and also realizes that he has no actual culpability, considering he is not actually the president. By removing the element of personal culpability, Dave argues that many politicians, utilizing the political structure for personal gain, like Mitchell and the First Liberty scandal, will operate dishonestly to avoid taking responsibility and save their own image. As the ordinary people suddenly given great authority under another politician’s name, Dave and Ellen Mitchell collaborate to utilize his position to run the government the way they, as “ordinary people” uninvolved in politics, think the government should be run.
Subsequently, the choices Dave makes while standing in for the president argue that ordinary people could make the government far more accessible to other ordinary people, and would use executive power to literally make ordinary peoples’ lives better. After Dave and Ellen go to see the homeless shelter, the real problems of real people become most important to ordinary Dave. Dave and his friend Murray, the accountant, rework the entire federal budget – about which, Murray comments, “If I ran my office this way, I’d be out of business!” – and remove stuffy and superfluous industrial, bureaucratic, and economic entanglements to make room for a social welfare bill that could help those specific real problems of real American people. The problem still lies in convincing the president’s cabinet that this is important which, the film argues, can only really be done when officials are held personally responsible for the authority that they wield, as the people in office are too disconnected from their constituents to effectively control their government.
This effectiveness of personal culpability for political elites emphasizes the importance of image for elected officials within the executive branch, noting the ambiguity in a public that seems to see through the image-based front of politics, and yet still strains to find hope within it. Dave, being an ordinary person, is able to force politicians to individually confront their own policy choices to save their images. The scene in which Dave, as President Mitchell, explains the budget changes argues that the individuals who comprise the American government are only interested in utilizing their position to help ordinary people when confronted personally about their actions. Dave directly asks the secretary of commerce, “Do you want to tell an eight-year-old kid he has to sleep on the street because we want people to feel better about their cars?” To which the secretary, reflectively, replies, in the face of television cameras and press representatives, “No. No, I certainly don’t.” It seems that this is the first time the secretary is confronted with a bridge between the gap of the governor and the governed, and his concession to Dave’s question optimistically argues that this bridge is possible, even probable.
By the end of the George H. W. Bush administration, Americans had become disillusioned with the electoral system in general, as there was a general consensus that presidents had “so often abused the national interest for their own political ends” that adherence to partisan efforts seemed unproductive. This same sort of neglect of the American public is seen in the scene in which pundits and representatives urge Dave to cut back on the jobs bill and ousting the First Liberty scandal. A Congressman comments, “We may be able to hold off on this First Liberty thing for a while … but if you’re pushing this new jobs.. Just put us on a spit and bring the sauce.. If you’d just wait a few months!” Dave quietly responds with a “I don’t want to wait. We can’t,” emphasizing that the urgency of social problems in the United States is more important than politicians’ reputations. This ordinary person may not be politically savvy, or, like Bob Alexander, “in Who’s Who in Washington nine years in a row,” but he can see that real political problems are larger than the individuals who orchestrate – or ignore – the solutions.
Interestingly enough, through contrasting the ordinariness of Dave, Murray, and even Ellen Mitchell with Bob Alexander and the president, Dave depicts an administration that has, too, fallen out of touch with the needs of its electorate. Dave argues, however, that the government can be utilized for good – it is just a matter of who can be placed in a position of power and what they decide to do with that power.
Only when the elite class of politicians understands the pressing needs of ordinary people can the gap between the governed and the governors be effectively bridged.
Only when he has nothing to lose does Dave take advantage of his power as president, but he does so in an unexpected way, which, the film argues, is how ordinary people want their government to be used. Ellen Mitchell asks, after she and Dave decide to resign as First Lady and false President, “What would you do if you were still in? I mean, if you had one more chance to be president, what would you do then?” To which Dave replies, “Lots of things.” These “things” all revolve around reactivating a social sector of the government to help other “ordinary people” and, later, exposing the financial scandal involving the president and the chief of staff themselves. These two ordinary persons decide to use their position to the advantage of the ordinary people who are arguably forgotten by the Mitchell administration. The two are able to conspire and expose because of two factors: there is no personal culpability for Dave, as he is not actually the president who owes economic and bureaucratic favors to other people, and he also does not have to make it through the filter of the electorate and can operate as himself under the guise of being the legitimately elected President of the United States.
Under this guise, Dave “takes back” the government for ordinary people covertly, leveling the playing field between those within the administration who are their for personal gain and the ordinary people with noble intentions. By admitting to a joint session of Congress that the First Liberty Scandal occurred, Dave insures that Bob Alexander and President Mitchell must take full responsibility for their actions, which Bob and Alan were going to blame on the vice president. It is interesting that the one “ordinary person” within the administration is the one who has to take the fall for the scandal at first, until Dave rectifies the situation. This situation is not necessarily a triumph of good over evil, but of the democratic process over those trying to exploit it, and this can be done by ordinary people harnessing control of their government and learning that they do have access to it.
The lovely idea that this ordinary person can rework the federal budget for social welfare programs or expose and “admit” to illegal operations is a bit clouded by the fact that Dave was not actually elected president. This argues that the bureaucracy and technicalities of becoming president prevents “ordinary people” from coming through the system or becoming confident enough to begin the climb up the ladder of public service. Ordinary people need that confidence to make it through the electoral system, with their pure intentions to help people, as American political culture seems to inhibit all but a specific archetype from reaching office. However, Dave also argues that the American public’s faith in their own government structure is not completely unfound, as there is hope at least for “ordinary people” to take back their government and use it as they see fit.
In the particularly thoughtful scene in which Dave invites Vice President Nance to sit and chat, the film presents these questions about the ideology of the “ordinary person,” and its role in politics, Dave argues, can be seen within the character of Vice President Nance in contrast to the rest of the Mitchell administration. Dave asks Nance how he “got started,” to which Nance surprisedly replies, “I was a shoe salesman. But not very happy about it.” In telling his story about how his wife commented, “Why don’t you run for office? You talk about it all the time,” and his subsequent political endeavors, from becoming a councilman with his wife as his campaign manager, Nance indicates that there is indeed room within the political infrastructure for the optimism of ordinary people who want to make a difference in the United States. The placement of Nance’s character as the vice president argues that the ordinary people are on their way to infiltrating the system, but considering his status as second-in-command, ordinary people are not quite there yet.
By cultivating a sense of cooperation and public service within the executive office, Dave continues to exemplify the epitome of American democracy that Americans find inconsistent with the individuals within government. Dave, the ordinary person who without even meaning to believes in equality, cultivates a lovely friendship with his bodyguard Duane. After Dave’s press conference, in which he announces his ambitious and very liberal jobs initiative, Duane comments, “US News hammered us, but they’re always tough. Rosenthal loved us.” The very small shift in Duane’s syntax to refer to their administration as “us” instead of the previous “them” says everything about Dave’s participation: that he is transforming the current administration to be accessible to ordinary people. In this great metaphorical way is Dave itself allowing us to feasibly imagine transforming the government into doing exactly what ordinary people would like it to do.
Considering that it is never revealed to the country that ordinary Dave accomplished all of these wonderful things, the film ends on an oddly optimistic note, highlighting the tension between who can actually engage in politics and who can be elected. The fact that Dave never gets credit for his work indicates that these norms and expectations that the American public has of their politicians are established and probably can endure. However, by the end of the film, ordinary Dave runs for local office, as he has become confident and learned that he does have the ability to effectively serve the public as an ordinary person, urging the ordinary people to understand their own potential within the American political system. The standing tension seen in the American electorate through the 1990s and within the film Dave is acknowledged, developed, and given possible relief with the message that ordinary people can and should understand their own abilities, highlighting the core of the American ideal of representative democracy as, President Mitchell ironically states at the beginning of the film, a government “of the people, by the people.” Dave firmly argues that it is up to ordinary people to hold their government accountable – or to become their own government.
This tension between desire to believe in potential of government but skepticism in the individual finds its contextual roots within the political climate of the early 1990s. The electorate continues its “skeptical search for an active government” amidst the legacy of the Bush administration, which came to a close with relatively high unemployment, very low job creation, and a static gross national product, as the level of government ineffectiveness within the working class. As a result of laissez-faire economic policy, middle-class families had become caught in the cycle of “work and spend,” health insurance problems were rising, and incomes had become alarmingly stagnant. The Reagan era saw an increase in the inequality between an economic class of elites that can “bypass institutions it doesn’t like” and the lower classes, which only contributes to the growing distrust in a government that has come to operate out of that elite class. All of these factors cultivated a sense of tangible disparity between the governors and the governed, that the Bush administration had become “out of touch, indifferent, and ineffective.”
The 1992 election saw a heightened emphasis on the individuality of the next president, as a disillusioned public grappled with where it would find the solutions to its residual problems, which, they thought, might lie in the next administration. The promise of laissez-faire economics had all but met expectations, though analysts adamantly argue that material concerns and that type of well-being, like lower interest rates and low inflation, were only “a part of the story” in the political climate of the early nineties, as the real issue for the electorate was “dignity for themselves and their country.” The 1992 presidential ballot posited three candidates with separate possible solutions to the nation’s critical economic and social problems, however the candidate who offered the most persuasive argument for a solution was Bill Clinton.
Clinton attempted to present a “new covenant” with the American public through his campaign of “Putting People First.” This attempt to humanize the electorate appealed to their faith in the democratic process, reawakening national rhetoric about citizenship and equalizing voters across demographic lines with what McWilliams refers to as “a Republic of equals.” Regardless of whether or not Clinton could actually create this “Republic of equals,” he appealed to the dignity of African American voters by addressing them as citizens instead of as an economic class or a voting block, which was especially important after the Rodney King beating and subsequent race riots in Los Angeles in 1992. These problems only emphasized the Democratic Party’s drive to end the “decade of neglect” that resulted from the lack of comprehensive policies of the prior administrations regarding inner city living and lower social classes.
Clinton was voted into office, however, by less than a fifty-percent plurality vote, which further emphasizes the public’s ambiguity on government’s effectiveness. Its inability to completely agree on a candidate paired against the rise in voter turnout highlights the tension between faith that the system of government can take responsibility to respond to its constituents and to serve them, and the skepticism with which they regard the individuals who operate within the government itself, reflecting the kinds of questions Dave asks about our faith in the American democratic system.
Dave takes the type of individual the electorate is used to – President Mitchell – and replaces him with an ordinary guy who just happens to look like the president, asking audiences to consider what kind of person can run the country. Dave’s depiction of President Mitchell giving a speech at the beginning of the film, in which he references his “law school days back at Yale,” with his good friend Jordan Blankfort – “now Justice Blankfort” – argues that this is the normative image of a president that Americans have come to expect. This particular image is of a specific class of people: Ivy League educated, upper class, more in-the-world than of-the-world, who have somehow learned that they can participate in politics, utilizing the structure of government for personal gain and networking, and often acting as if they are above the laws they are employed to enforce. Ironically, the American electorate has come to expect this type of person, and yet still votes anyway, exemplifying the tension between skepticism in the individuals within government and a desire to believe in the power of the government as a whole. The problem with accepting an archetype or expectation of the president comes with the president’s consistent inability to deliver proper aid to his country through the government, as, Dave argues, the class of person who can become president is inherently disconnected from “ordinary people,” who have different ideas about what the government should do for its country.
The elites portrayed by the Mitchell administration are not those who believe in an effective government that will comprehensively and thoroughly work for its citizens, arguing that this class of politicians that enters the executive office has a differing view of the purpose and function than ordinary citizens might. This is apparent from the first scene in which President Mitchell meets with his cabinet to discuss the “Simpson-Gardner thing,” which, he says, “has got homeless shelters. Home start centers. Hot lunches for the little kiddies.” He condescendingly chastises his cabinet members for not having “killed it” in Congress. This bill represents the will of American citizens through their legislative bodies, and, in contrast to the executive branch, the means of articulating interests and needs to the government. The executive branch’s efforts to “kill it” directly argue that this branch is typically constructed of political elites who see public office as a means for personal gain, who are not concerned with actively utilizing the government for the public good. The fact that President Mitchell and his chief of staff, Bob Alexander, push to kill the bill before the president can veto it highlights the importance of the image of the president as a person who works for the people but actually uses the office as a means of personal and economic gain.
President Mitchell’s façade only makes Dave’s naivete more compelling, as Dave’s ordinariness shows how inaccessible the executive branch is seen to be. Next to Bill Mitchell and his administration, which is full of confident, respected politicians conditioned for the political sphere, Dave seems to only highlight the lack of confidence ordinary people have in their ability to participate in politics; only when he is given power, authority, and respect does he begin to understand that he is just as capable to run the country as any other man.
The main difference, Dave argues, is that the ordinary person wants to use the democratic system to help the masses, while the class of person who actually has access to the executive office would rather use it for some type of personal gain. This perspective is exemplified when Dave fully realizes that he has full executive authority – Bob Alexander cannot oust Dave from the office, as Bob placed Dave there illegally in the first place – and also realizes that he has no actual culpability, considering he is not actually the president. By removing the element of personal culpability, Dave argues that many politicians, utilizing the political structure for personal gain, like Mitchell and the First Liberty scandal, will operate dishonestly to avoid taking responsibility and save their own image. As the ordinary people suddenly given great authority under another politician’s name, Dave and Ellen Mitchell collaborate to utilize his position to run the government the way they, as “ordinary people” uninvolved in politics, think the government should be run.
Subsequently, the choices Dave makes while standing in for the president argue that ordinary people could make the government far more accessible to other ordinary people, and would use executive power to literally make ordinary peoples’ lives better. After Dave and Ellen go to see the homeless shelter, the real problems of real people become most important to ordinary Dave. Dave and his friend Murray, the accountant, rework the entire federal budget – about which, Murray comments, “If I ran my office this way, I’d be out of business!” – and remove stuffy and superfluous industrial, bureaucratic, and economic entanglements to make room for a social welfare bill that could help those specific real problems of real American people. The problem still lies in convincing the president’s cabinet that this is important which, the film argues, can only really be done when officials are held personally responsible for the authority that they wield, as the people in office are too disconnected from their constituents to effectively control their government.
This effectiveness of personal culpability for political elites emphasizes the importance of image for elected officials within the executive branch, noting the ambiguity in a public that seems to see through the image-based front of politics, and yet still strains to find hope within it. Dave, being an ordinary person, is able to force politicians to individually confront their own policy choices to save their images. The scene in which Dave, as President Mitchell, explains the budget changes argues that the individuals who comprise the American government are only interested in utilizing their position to help ordinary people when confronted personally about their actions. Dave directly asks the secretary of commerce, “Do you want to tell an eight-year-old kid he has to sleep on the street because we want people to feel better about their cars?” To which the secretary, reflectively, replies, in the face of television cameras and press representatives, “No. No, I certainly don’t.” It seems that this is the first time the secretary is confronted with a bridge between the gap of the governor and the governed, and his concession to Dave’s question optimistically argues that this bridge is possible, even probable.
By the end of the George H. W. Bush administration, Americans had become disillusioned with the electoral system in general, as there was a general consensus that presidents had “so often abused the national interest for their own political ends” that adherence to partisan efforts seemed unproductive. This same sort of neglect of the American public is seen in the scene in which pundits and representatives urge Dave to cut back on the jobs bill and ousting the First Liberty scandal. A Congressman comments, “We may be able to hold off on this First Liberty thing for a while … but if you’re pushing this new jobs.. Just put us on a spit and bring the sauce.. If you’d just wait a few months!” Dave quietly responds with a “I don’t want to wait. We can’t,” emphasizing that the urgency of social problems in the United States is more important than politicians’ reputations. This ordinary person may not be politically savvy, or, like Bob Alexander, “in Who’s Who in Washington nine years in a row,” but he can see that real political problems are larger than the individuals who orchestrate – or ignore – the solutions.
Interestingly enough, through contrasting the ordinariness of Dave, Murray, and even Ellen Mitchell with Bob Alexander and the president, Dave depicts an administration that has, too, fallen out of touch with the needs of its electorate. Dave argues, however, that the government can be utilized for good – it is just a matter of who can be placed in a position of power and what they decide to do with that power.
Only when the elite class of politicians understands the pressing needs of ordinary people can the gap between the governed and the governors be effectively bridged.
Only when he has nothing to lose does Dave take advantage of his power as president, but he does so in an unexpected way, which, the film argues, is how ordinary people want their government to be used. Ellen Mitchell asks, after she and Dave decide to resign as First Lady and false President, “What would you do if you were still in? I mean, if you had one more chance to be president, what would you do then?” To which Dave replies, “Lots of things.” These “things” all revolve around reactivating a social sector of the government to help other “ordinary people” and, later, exposing the financial scandal involving the president and the chief of staff themselves. These two ordinary persons decide to use their position to the advantage of the ordinary people who are arguably forgotten by the Mitchell administration. The two are able to conspire and expose because of two factors: there is no personal culpability for Dave, as he is not actually the president who owes economic and bureaucratic favors to other people, and he also does not have to make it through the filter of the electorate and can operate as himself under the guise of being the legitimately elected President of the United States.
Under this guise, Dave “takes back” the government for ordinary people covertly, leveling the playing field between those within the administration who are their for personal gain and the ordinary people with noble intentions. By admitting to a joint session of Congress that the First Liberty Scandal occurred, Dave insures that Bob Alexander and President Mitchell must take full responsibility for their actions, which Bob and Alan were going to blame on the vice president. It is interesting that the one “ordinary person” within the administration is the one who has to take the fall for the scandal at first, until Dave rectifies the situation. This situation is not necessarily a triumph of good over evil, but of the democratic process over those trying to exploit it, and this can be done by ordinary people harnessing control of their government and learning that they do have access to it.
The lovely idea that this ordinary person can rework the federal budget for social welfare programs or expose and “admit” to illegal operations is a bit clouded by the fact that Dave was not actually elected president. This argues that the bureaucracy and technicalities of becoming president prevents “ordinary people” from coming through the system or becoming confident enough to begin the climb up the ladder of public service. Ordinary people need that confidence to make it through the electoral system, with their pure intentions to help people, as American political culture seems to inhibit all but a specific archetype from reaching office. However, Dave also argues that the American public’s faith in their own government structure is not completely unfound, as there is hope at least for “ordinary people” to take back their government and use it as they see fit.
In the particularly thoughtful scene in which Dave invites Vice President Nance to sit and chat, the film presents these questions about the ideology of the “ordinary person,” and its role in politics, Dave argues, can be seen within the character of Vice President Nance in contrast to the rest of the Mitchell administration. Dave asks Nance how he “got started,” to which Nance surprisedly replies, “I was a shoe salesman. But not very happy about it.” In telling his story about how his wife commented, “Why don’t you run for office? You talk about it all the time,” and his subsequent political endeavors, from becoming a councilman with his wife as his campaign manager, Nance indicates that there is indeed room within the political infrastructure for the optimism of ordinary people who want to make a difference in the United States. The placement of Nance’s character as the vice president argues that the ordinary people are on their way to infiltrating the system, but considering his status as second-in-command, ordinary people are not quite there yet.
By cultivating a sense of cooperation and public service within the executive office, Dave continues to exemplify the epitome of American democracy that Americans find inconsistent with the individuals within government. Dave, the ordinary person who without even meaning to believes in equality, cultivates a lovely friendship with his bodyguard Duane. After Dave’s press conference, in which he announces his ambitious and very liberal jobs initiative, Duane comments, “US News hammered us, but they’re always tough. Rosenthal loved us.” The very small shift in Duane’s syntax to refer to their administration as “us” instead of the previous “them” says everything about Dave’s participation: that he is transforming the current administration to be accessible to ordinary people. In this great metaphorical way is Dave itself allowing us to feasibly imagine transforming the government into doing exactly what ordinary people would like it to do.
Considering that it is never revealed to the country that ordinary Dave accomplished all of these wonderful things, the film ends on an oddly optimistic note, highlighting the tension between who can actually engage in politics and who can be elected. The fact that Dave never gets credit for his work indicates that these norms and expectations that the American public has of their politicians are established and probably can endure. However, by the end of the film, ordinary Dave runs for local office, as he has become confident and learned that he does have the ability to effectively serve the public as an ordinary person, urging the ordinary people to understand their own potential within the American political system. The standing tension seen in the American electorate through the 1990s and within the film Dave is acknowledged, developed, and given possible relief with the message that ordinary people can and should understand their own abilities, highlighting the core of the American ideal of representative democracy as, President Mitchell ironically states at the beginning of the film, a government “of the people, by the people.” Dave firmly argues that it is up to ordinary people to hold their government accountable – or to become their own government.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
It's not your fault you have to go to one school over another.
From my limited experience with DC public schools, I have come to understand that they need help.
DC Mayor Adrian Fenty has this pseudo-plan called the "buff-and-scrub" program to essentially beautify schools.
"
According to the Washington Post, the kinds of improvements that the buff-and-scrub program includes are cosmetic, janitorial. After trying my best to be a tutor with Coaching for College this semester at Shaw Middle School, I can tell you that these are not unnecessary changes - Shaw was painted in the last couple of years, it looks like a turquoise, orange, and yellow prison for the most part, with metal detectors at the entrances and brightly colored bars on the windows - but I have to say, the girls I spent time with on Saturday mornings seemed like they could benefit from something else.
The first thought I had when I went for the first time in January was that it looked like a prison. Even Shepard looked better than that. What's that maxim, if you get treated like something long enough, that's how you will begin to act before long? One of the girls I spent time with said it felt like jail. I asked why she came on the weekends for CFC if she hated it so much (we meet in the yellow and orange cafeteria in the basement of the building). She said, because she wants to leave she has to come, she wants to go away to college, so she has to come.
The entire CFC experience was interesting - frustrating, and oddly inspiring. The problems I saw with the weekly meetings became, over the course of the semester, reasons for me to not want to go. After walking back across town on yet another Saturday when my seventh-grader didn't show up for tutoring, I ranted and complained about how the program could be far more effective. I hated that I didn't want to return. All I could think about was how dedicated the coaches were, from such diverse backgrounds and interesting arrays of professions, sincere reasons why they would come week after week, and how inefficient and ineffective I felt. It bothered me how I wanted to help, but was instead frustrated. Over dinner, Alex Goolsby said, "Why don't you start your own? Fix its problems, make it better?" He is not the only one.
I don't know where to begin, except to comment on what is happening at Durham Academy this summer. Sam and I found out about this by accident, when a very effervescent Duke graduate told us about his summer. The summer program is for Durham Public Schools students, it begins for rising sixth graders to, generally, help them understand the power that they have to start their own organizations, do well in the public school system, and become leaders in their local communities. Anyone who is at all familiar with DPS could tell you this is a really wonderful cause and, from what we've seen so far, is locally mobilizing an entire regime of idealistic and motivated college students who sincerely want to create a force of change within a community that could really, really use it. Forrest, our informant, is teaching sixth-grade science this summer and two electives: martial arts and food science. He hopes that, within that environment of excitable and motivated college students, the middle school students can not only get a head start on their upcoming academic year, but start environmentally-friendly clubs and forces at their schools and in their homes.
I would like to salute the student speakers at GW's 2008 Commencement, both of whom gave very pointed remarks that mesh perfectly with the kind of life-philosophy that is developing inside my brain, up from my heart (or maybe it's the other way around). Either way, in her really gorgeous and accessible speech, Sara Ray commented on the inaccuracy of the general attitude toward our generation: that we are apathetic, reserved, quiet, distanced, and uncaring. If anything, our generation as a force is a testament to how much we do want to create change and help other people, in any way we can. Student U is just one place you can see it. I wonder if it can spread, if we could begin something like this in Washington?
In my current state of Liberal Idealist, I have to wonder if all people who end up making decisions about where money goes (re: public education) began here as well. Just like the First Lady says in Dave, do they all get involved to help people and just get caught up in bureaucracy? Lose sight of where they are going?
In Dave, Dave himself, pretending to be the president and "taking responsibility" for his illegalities (this sounds a lot more complicated than it is), comments to Congress that he was "hired to do a job" for the American people, "and just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had 250 million people paying me to make their lives a little bit better."
Ah, personal culpability, where are you now? We need you in so many places.
The other student speaker at Commencement was Christine Handy, who asked everyone to take a look at their own tables of contents, noting that we need particularly to inventory civility and integrity.
What if we could ask Mayor Fenty the most important of questions, like, "why are you closing so many elementary schools? Do you really think this is the best move for individual students?" In the same way I would like to ask the President, "would we move our military into another country if your daughters had to do it?"
DC Mayor Adrian Fenty has this pseudo-plan called the "buff-and-scrub" program to essentially beautify schools.
"
Smith, whose firm, William C. Smith & Co., spent $150,000 at Ballou High School last summer, said developers thought last year's effort was a "one-time deal."
"The city needs to get out a clear message," Smith said. "We need to get our hands around what the long-term plan is."
According to the Washington Post, the kinds of improvements that the buff-and-scrub program includes are cosmetic, janitorial. After trying my best to be a tutor with Coaching for College this semester at Shaw Middle School, I can tell you that these are not unnecessary changes - Shaw was painted in the last couple of years, it looks like a turquoise, orange, and yellow prison for the most part, with metal detectors at the entrances and brightly colored bars on the windows - but I have to say, the girls I spent time with on Saturday mornings seemed like they could benefit from something else.
The first thought I had when I went for the first time in January was that it looked like a prison. Even Shepard looked better than that. What's that maxim, if you get treated like something long enough, that's how you will begin to act before long? One of the girls I spent time with said it felt like jail. I asked why she came on the weekends for CFC if she hated it so much (we meet in the yellow and orange cafeteria in the basement of the building). She said, because she wants to leave she has to come, she wants to go away to college, so she has to come.
The entire CFC experience was interesting - frustrating, and oddly inspiring. The problems I saw with the weekly meetings became, over the course of the semester, reasons for me to not want to go. After walking back across town on yet another Saturday when my seventh-grader didn't show up for tutoring, I ranted and complained about how the program could be far more effective. I hated that I didn't want to return. All I could think about was how dedicated the coaches were, from such diverse backgrounds and interesting arrays of professions, sincere reasons why they would come week after week, and how inefficient and ineffective I felt. It bothered me how I wanted to help, but was instead frustrated. Over dinner, Alex Goolsby said, "Why don't you start your own? Fix its problems, make it better?" He is not the only one.
I don't know where to begin, except to comment on what is happening at Durham Academy this summer. Sam and I found out about this by accident, when a very effervescent Duke graduate told us about his summer. The summer program is for Durham Public Schools students, it begins for rising sixth graders to, generally, help them understand the power that they have to start their own organizations, do well in the public school system, and become leaders in their local communities. Anyone who is at all familiar with DPS could tell you this is a really wonderful cause and, from what we've seen so far, is locally mobilizing an entire regime of idealistic and motivated college students who sincerely want to create a force of change within a community that could really, really use it. Forrest, our informant, is teaching sixth-grade science this summer and two electives: martial arts and food science. He hopes that, within that environment of excitable and motivated college students, the middle school students can not only get a head start on their upcoming academic year, but start environmentally-friendly clubs and forces at their schools and in their homes.
I would like to salute the student speakers at GW's 2008 Commencement, both of whom gave very pointed remarks that mesh perfectly with the kind of life-philosophy that is developing inside my brain, up from my heart (or maybe it's the other way around). Either way, in her really gorgeous and accessible speech, Sara Ray commented on the inaccuracy of the general attitude toward our generation: that we are apathetic, reserved, quiet, distanced, and uncaring. If anything, our generation as a force is a testament to how much we do want to create change and help other people, in any way we can. Student U is just one place you can see it. I wonder if it can spread, if we could begin something like this in Washington?
In my current state of Liberal Idealist, I have to wonder if all people who end up making decisions about where money goes (re: public education) began here as well. Just like the First Lady says in Dave, do they all get involved to help people and just get caught up in bureaucracy? Lose sight of where they are going?
In Dave, Dave himself, pretending to be the president and "taking responsibility" for his illegalities (this sounds a lot more complicated than it is), comments to Congress that he was "hired to do a job" for the American people, "and just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had 250 million people paying me to make their lives a little bit better."
Ah, personal culpability, where are you now? We need you in so many places.
The other student speaker at Commencement was Christine Handy, who asked everyone to take a look at their own tables of contents, noting that we need particularly to inventory civility and integrity.
What if we could ask Mayor Fenty the most important of questions, like, "why are you closing so many elementary schools? Do you really think this is the best move for individual students?" In the same way I would like to ask the President, "would we move our military into another country if your daughters had to do it?"
& So it begins
Caution! Ramblings below!
i don't feel smart enough, and i worry i never will, but i desperately want to work hard enough so that i can be. that weird kind of humility would either help me or screw me over.. but i hope in this stage of observing and asking questions it will only be beneficial.
i have never been poetic or mathematically-minded but i am learning to see things prismatically. often this means i can't come up with one conclusion and i think of too many things to say at once, so nothing coherent comes out, and seems to only give credit to robin's way of saying, "humanities majors are just stupid." in truth, i have too many thoughts & i am never sure if any of them are valid. last year in honors conferences about my papers, Erika, my very favorite professor ever, said that in her class she prefers my way of writing about many ideas instead of just pushing one and refuting everything else. in college, she said, she never did well because she credited everyone's opinions more than hers, finding them more interesting and complex.
i like new ideas. more than my own, often.
in boston last year, paul domanico came for business and we had adventures. i told him i felt stupider since going to school, i can't speak anymore! he said i have too many thoughts to focus on grammar and not to worry. it was a good thing.
i want to learn to respect my own opinions. strangely, in order to do that, i need constructive feedback. here, it will begin, thanks to carolyn who said, "laura! you should write a blog." and give yourself some direction.
if you're reading this, i appreciate it, and i promise to have something important to say quite soon!
just because i can't speak in metaphors or rearrange words so they mean different things or do complex equations and Think Logically does not mean i am stupid. just like i knew plenty of people in high school who were brilliant in many ways but weren't cut out for standardized testing does not mean they won't do great things. Just because i'm not inherently unhappy - until recently? i have to pull myself out of it, i am not enjoying this at all - doesn't mean i don't care, or wouldn't listen, or that what i do understand isn't valid. just because i am nineteen does not mean i don't know what i'm doing. at the same time, it doesn't mean i know exactly what i'm doing so CUT ME A BREAK PLEASE! maybe it means i have to cut myself a break. i hate this, i wish i knew what was happening to my brain and my life.
and just because i'm a college student doesn't mean i'm not a real person. if anything, it gives me unbridled freedom to consistently evolve into a better one. Chandula says i hold myself to too high a standard and that sometimes i have to let myself be In It. but that is terrifying to me, i don't know about that one, this makes me feel finite and unlimited, everywhere and nowhere, all at once, and Alarming is the only word i can find to begin describing growing like this.
beth-next-door told me once that her heart soared to save the world until evan was born. and now saving the world has become saving his just, daily. i get overwhelmed thinking about the different paths my life can take at every choice, and i want to leave room for anything to happen, but that means i am afraid to take anything. i feel things strongly. i tend to go all-or-nothing. i don't know what the Right way to do anything is. Debra from the plane said there isn't. she's married with a kid and pretty happy about everything but still waiting for things to come together. she said it's easier once you just accept it.
i don't feel smart enough, and i worry i never will, but i desperately want to work hard enough so that i can be. that weird kind of humility would either help me or screw me over.. but i hope in this stage of observing and asking questions it will only be beneficial.
i have never been poetic or mathematically-minded but i am learning to see things prismatically. often this means i can't come up with one conclusion and i think of too many things to say at once, so nothing coherent comes out, and seems to only give credit to robin's way of saying, "humanities majors are just stupid." in truth, i have too many thoughts & i am never sure if any of them are valid. last year in honors conferences about my papers, Erika, my very favorite professor ever, said that in her class she prefers my way of writing about many ideas instead of just pushing one and refuting everything else. in college, she said, she never did well because she credited everyone's opinions more than hers, finding them more interesting and complex.
i like new ideas. more than my own, often.
in boston last year, paul domanico came for business and we had adventures. i told him i felt stupider since going to school, i can't speak anymore! he said i have too many thoughts to focus on grammar and not to worry. it was a good thing.
i want to learn to respect my own opinions. strangely, in order to do that, i need constructive feedback. here, it will begin, thanks to carolyn who said, "laura! you should write a blog." and give yourself some direction.
if you're reading this, i appreciate it, and i promise to have something important to say quite soon!
just because i can't speak in metaphors or rearrange words so they mean different things or do complex equations and Think Logically does not mean i am stupid. just like i knew plenty of people in high school who were brilliant in many ways but weren't cut out for standardized testing does not mean they won't do great things. Just because i'm not inherently unhappy - until recently? i have to pull myself out of it, i am not enjoying this at all - doesn't mean i don't care, or wouldn't listen, or that what i do understand isn't valid. just because i am nineteen does not mean i don't know what i'm doing. at the same time, it doesn't mean i know exactly what i'm doing so CUT ME A BREAK PLEASE! maybe it means i have to cut myself a break. i hate this, i wish i knew what was happening to my brain and my life.
and just because i'm a college student doesn't mean i'm not a real person. if anything, it gives me unbridled freedom to consistently evolve into a better one. Chandula says i hold myself to too high a standard and that sometimes i have to let myself be In It. but that is terrifying to me, i don't know about that one, this makes me feel finite and unlimited, everywhere and nowhere, all at once, and Alarming is the only word i can find to begin describing growing like this.
beth-next-door told me once that her heart soared to save the world until evan was born. and now saving the world has become saving his just, daily. i get overwhelmed thinking about the different paths my life can take at every choice, and i want to leave room for anything to happen, but that means i am afraid to take anything. i feel things strongly. i tend to go all-or-nothing. i don't know what the Right way to do anything is. Debra from the plane said there isn't. she's married with a kid and pretty happy about everything but still waiting for things to come together. she said it's easier once you just accept it.
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