History Repeats Itself: A presidential election in Upton Sinclair's Oil!

I read Oil! a few months ago because, of course, of There Will Be Blood, and it is, of course, wildly different from the movie, particularly in the second half. (I promise the following won’t ruin anything for anyone who actually intends on reading it:) It ends with what is practically an apocalyptic orgy during the presidential election returns, which the conservative candidate—Calvin Coolidge—who represents the interests of Big Oil, wins. It’s especially effective when juxtaposed against his dire descriptions of the poverty the poor live in, as well as their often fatal attempts to form unions.

I know that Obama is in the lead right now, but I felt that the following excerpt was an appropriate reminder of how important this election is, displays how this election could turn out if it goes the wrong way, and also has freakish similarities to today, in spite of taking place in 1924.

"There would be election returns read, more of those triumphant, glorious majorities for the strong silent statesman; and a magnate who knew that this victory meant several million dollars off his income taxes, or an oil concession in Mesopotamia or Venezuela won by American bribes and held by American battleships—such a man would let out a whoop, and get up in the middle of the floor and show how he used to dance the double shuffle when he was a farm-hand; and then he would fall into the lap of his mistress with a million dollars worth of diamonds on her naked flesh, and the singer...would perform the latest jazz success, and the oil-magnate and his mistress would warble the chorus:

"What do I do?
I toodle-doodle-doo,
I toodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-doo!"

Tales from Phone Banking: Bothering the Electorate

I just got someone on the phone while phone banking who angrily stated that she just voted for McCain for the sole reason that his campaign didn’t hound her with calls.*

I’m sorry, but this is probably THE most irresponsible action I have EVER heard of—yes, almost as irresponsible as leaving your infant in your car on a hot day. You’re going to choose your fate—and the fate of the nation and, unfortunately, the WORLD—for the next four YEARS, if not all of history, because of a few annoying phone calls???? Are you kidding me???

Sure, vote for McCain because of your misguided economic theories, but because of his less aggressive marketing techniques? Excuse me, but this is a democracy. I’m sorry, but it is. Should we overhaul it and set up a monarchy so you WON’T BE BOTHERED??? Well, maybe that’ll happen one day, but at the moment, this is a fuckin’ DEMOCRACY, lady, and democracy is about PARTICIPATION, and I’m sorry if that PARTICIPATION has resulted in your being BOTHERED by fellow voters, but that shouldn’t affect your decision as to who you feel represents your views the most!!

The idiocy of the people I’ve contacted confounds me. I’m actually this close to wanting a monarchy, as well. :P

*Yes, I know that she could have just been saying that, but given all the other craziness I've encountered through phone banking (e.g. "I'll just decide who to vote for when I get in the polling booth") that I'm really apt to believe her.

Leonardo DiCaprio: Serious Fucking Business

I gotta hand it to DiCaprio: he's worked with some of the best directors in the world and is seemingly adamant about not appearing in stupid big-budget action movies like even the best actors in his echelon do (now watch, he's gonna get attached to play the villain in Spider-Man 4). He clearly takes the craft extremely seriously, and I respect that.

Nevertheless, he's essentially picked the same part to play for the last several years: these sort of earnest-yet-tough do-gooders in The Gangs of New York, Blood Diamond, The Departed, and now Body of Lies, albeit each with a different accent. And from what I can tell from the trailer of Revolutionary Road, he plays pretty much the same character in that, too.

That's all well and good--clearly he's doing exactly what he wants to do--but it just seems to me that he's unintentionally type-casting himself. I haven't seen the Aviator, so I suppose this analysis isn't exactly fair, but come on, he hasn't done anything remotely light, for instance, since Catch Me if You Can. Would it kill him to do a comedy? Not some stupid Adam Sandler thing; maybe something like the Coen brothers. I'm not saying I'm just dying to see Leo in a comedy; I just find it odd to see him year after year in the exact same role, especially since we all know, mostly from movies long ago (Gilbert Grape, Basketball Diaries, Total Eclipse, etc etc etc) that the guy's got an amazing range.

Favorite Wikipedia quote of the week

This is in the article on "Germanic strong verbs" (I was curious about the irregular verbs with the past participles ending in -en). I suppose it's unfair to take it out of context, but the context doesn't really change anything, trust me.

"Possibly in some cases the a may be an example of the a-grade of ablaut, though this is controversial."

Nothing more controversial than the a-grade of ablaut.

Introduction: How I Became a Democrat

Last weekend I went out to Nevada to canvass for the Obama campaign—which was great, I recommend it to anyone, check out barackobama.com for info on volunteering these last few crucial weeks. The standard policy for canvassing is that you do one of three things, depending on what the person you encounter tells you: if they’re already for Obama, you ask them to sign up to volunteer. If they’re for McCain, you say thanks and get the hell out of there. And if they’re undecided, then and only then do you try to tell them the facts and get them to sway to the Obama camp.

The line of thinking as to why you don’t try to convince the McCain people is that it’s a waste of time: they’re rooted in the way they think and it’s more effective to galvanize undecided voters rather than to get into a screaming fight with McCain supporters. I would also add that a McCain supporter is just gonna slam the door in your face anyway, so you won’t even get the chance to argue.

Now, this strategy seems absolutely logical when it comes to canvassing, but what about in general? What I mean is, what was it that made those people become McCain supporters, and what life experiences or thought processes would have made them otherwise?? I.e. what makes someone decide to have one political belief instead of another (and therefore, hopefully, what can help us change people's minds)? A lot of it seems to be culture, especially ethnicity and religion, but even within those confines, there is a lot of gradation.

And what about undecided voters??? As the Daily Show has depicted, people are facepalming themselves over how the hell someone could be undecided this late in the game. I’m even gonna take that a step further and say that I don’t understand “swing voters,” probably because I just don’t understand why someone reasonable enough to vote for Democrats would ever even consider voting for a Republican.

But I’m gonna get into all of that later. Right now I’m just going to introduce my latest series in my blog that no one reads. I want to get down and dirty into the nitty gritty of what forms people's political opinions. Because we can throw around insults all day, bickering over who said what and Bill O’Reilly this and Keith Olbermann that, but at the end of the day, we’d be shouting for and excusing precisely the opposite people if they believed what we believed. So I just want to talk about what we believe, getting down to the very atoms of opinion.

And of course, this is not going to be a scientific or psychological process by any means. This is an examination by a layperson to all fields (hence a philosopher? HA!), merely an anecdotal and biographical examination of the development of political opinion. And where best to start but with myself, with how I became a Democrat.