Matching Tracksuits

election

That that that that caused all the trouble could be a mistake…

Tuesday 17 July 2012

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.

Thanks to an old friend, I revisited the now-famous, allegedly anti-business Obama quote that’s getting conservatives’ dander up across the country. My thinking, though, led me in a slightly different direction than my friend might have hoped. Being a supporter of Obama, I would suspect that he might hope my conclusions might be a little more left-leaning.

Anyone notice what I did there? Hopefully someone asked the question, “Wait — who is the supporter of Obama? You or your friend?” I purposely concluded that paragraph with a sentence using an English teacher’s old nemesis: the dangling participle. Technically, that “being a support of Obama” modifies the nearest noun or pronoun, in this case, “I.” Yet I don’t think many people doubt that I certainly don’t support Obama, though I did vote for him in 2008. Then again, maybe not everyone knows that.

Oh, see, I did it again. This time, I used one of English teachers’ other enemies: the unclear pronoun antecedent. Just what was I referring to when I said “Then again, maybe not everyone knows that?” Just what is “that” taking the place of? There are two possibilities:

  • “Yet I don’t think many people doubt that I certainly don’t support Obama”
  • “though I did vote for him in 2008”?

In this case, it could be either of the two. We just don’t know what I might have been referring to when I said some people don’t know “that.”

Looking back at what Obama said, it’s clear that he’s not being the blatantly anti-business ideologue everyone on the right is accusing him of being.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

What is he referring to when he says, “you didn’t build that“? Technically, as with my first example, it’s modifying the nearest possible agent, in this case, the subordinate clause, “If you’ve got a business.” But look earlier: “Someone invested in roads and bridges.” Could it be that that is the “that” that he’s referring to?

See how confusing “that” can be? It serves so many roles in our language. Among others:

  • Demonstrative pronoun: “That is stupid.”
  • Demonstrative adjective: “That idea is stupid.”
  • Relative pronoun: “On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.” (Woody Allen)

Is it any wonder that that “that” can get just a bit confusing? In other languages, there is differentiation, different words entirely, but not in English.

Obama made a grammatical error. It happens all the time, to all of us.

Granted, Obama should not have even said “that” if he were referring to “roads and bridges.” He should have said “those,” which would have eliminated the confusion. And this leads to a likely conservative rebuttal: “Alright, so he made a grammar boo-boo. It’s a slip, though, that is nothing more than a manifestation of his anti-business ideology.” Possibly, but I don’t see that we can make that claim here. It was an error: in spoken English, even the best of us make mistakes like dangling participles and unclear pronoun antecedents.

Still, it is worrying that so many are making such a big deal out of this. It makes the right look relatively foolish, especially when (and here’s where my liberal friend will likely begin disagreeing with me) what he said was a thousand times worse than merely a clumsy anti-business remark. Look at the whole context of that “that,” with some of my emphasis added:

We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently…We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more …

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

Obama is not simply suggesting that businesses succeed because of others’ work; he’s suggesting that because of that, those who succeed owe something to those who didn’t. He’s suggesting that the only fair thing is to ask those who are successful to pay more than those who are not successful. After all, they got successful off of our hard work as well as theirs. They rode our backs to success. Their success depends on us.

Isn’t that starting to sound familiar? Say, Moscow, circa 1915? No, I’m not suggesting that this is an attempt to recreate a communist revolution in America. I’m not even convinced one can say Obama is a socialist. I do see myself as a right-leaning moderate, after all.

Still, it strikes me as yet another attempt to frame this whole issue in terms of class struggle. “Dang it, those rich folks used our roads to run their dump trucks on to build their fortune.”

So what do we do? We “ask the wealthy to pay a little bit more.”

Yet this is missing the obvious point: the rich did help pay for those roads, and if certain figures I’ve heard bandied about are to be believed, they in fact paid a great deal for those roads. Not only that, but they often are paying for services they aren’t getting: if they chose to spend money to send their children to private schools, they’re paying taxes for public education and tuition for private education. That’s a choice they have and are free to make, but taking that into consideration, it seems a little odd to complain about how they’re not paying their fair share.

So it seems conservatives are really missing the significance of this speech. Obama made a grammar goof that they’re jumping all over while ignoring the real issues in his ideology.

They’re hearing what they want to hear.

Of course, being human, liberals are also guilty of that charge, but that’s for a later post.

Inauguration Among 13-year-olds

Tuesday 20 January 2009

At 11:45, we’re in fourth period. A young man, who is often, quite honestly, extremely disruptive, sits silently at the back of a bunch of desks crowded in front of the television. The invocation begins and the young man bows his head. He is soon wiping tears from his eyes. Other students look at him, smiles on their faces, but they say nothing. As the pastor begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the young man joins in. He says his “amen,” smiles at those around him, puts his head down on his hands, watches, and waits.

Fourth Period watches

Fourth period watches

As Obama begins to take the oath, the African American boys — and they are a majority in that class — sit rapt in attention. I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say that I see a certain spark of hope and self-confidence in their face as they watch someone who could look like an uncle or older cousin become the most powerful man on the planet.

While the speech, in their view, drags on (in my view: one of the most nuaunced speeches about our nation I’ve ever heard), the old habits return: the silliness, the talking, the 13-year-old-ness. In short, all the behaviors that make several of them “at risk” students, students who are “underachievers.”

Still, for that moment, it seemed they saw in themselves what I see: potential.

Today was a great day to be a teacher.

My Hometown

Thursday 13 November 2008

Headlining The Nation:

It was hot as Hades on June 5 in the little mountain town of Bristol, Virginia. But that didn’t stop hundreds of southwest Virginians–in the most staunchly Republican part of a state that hadn’t voted Democratic for president since 1964–from streaming into the local high school gym to whoop it up for a liberal, mixed-race fellow from Chicago with a mighty suspicious moniker. Fresh off his lopsided, nomination-clinching primary victory in North Carolina, Barack Obama had chosen–to the mystification of political experts–to launch his general election campaign not in the “battlegrounds” of Pennsylvania or Ohio but in a remote Southern backwater containing 17,000 souls who’d given George W. Bush 64 percent of their vote in 2004.
A New, Blue Dixie.

Voting

Tuesday 4 November 2008

I wasn’t in the States for the 2004 presidential election. I watched from afar, in my small apartment above an elementary school in southern Poland. It was, in fact two, rooms (each with a bath) joined by a opening not in the original plans. It took me almost six months to convince the powers that be to join two useless rooms into one small apartment. My internet connection was supplied by the village planning office across the hall.

It was all done Polish style: “We’ve got a router with an open connection if you’re interested,” the gentleman who worked in the office informed me one day. “If you want, we can run a bit of network cable over to your apartment.” So we took a drill with a very long bit, drilled through the walls just above the doors, and stretched a cable through to my apartment.

Returning from school that Tuesday, I bounced around the internet, looking for very early results: it was only nine in the morning on the East Coast, so there wasn’t much information yet. Throughout the night, I checked; throughout the night, it became clearer that Bush had won. When I finally went to bed, it was with the strange realization that it was the second time — in a row — that I’d gone to bed not knowing the outcome of the election.

And today? Will it be any different?

If Dixville Notch, New Hampshire is any indication, we’ll know relatively quickly:

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 100 percent of registered voters — all 21 of them — cast their ballots just after midnight in the first moments of Tuesday morning. For the first time in 40 years, the town voted Democratic in the presidential election, 15-6. (CNN)

Whatever the outcome, one thing seems sure: people around world are paying closer attention to this US election than to almost any other in history.

They’ve Lost It

Friday 10 October 2008

If they ever had it. Common sense, that is. Republicans see “politically motivated attempts to damage the [Republican party]” everywhere. Even when it’s a Republican-selected prosecutor:

After his investigation, Steven Branchflower, a former prosecutor hired by a Republican-controlled legislative committee, concluded that Monegan’s rebuff of the entreaties played a role in his firing but was not the only reason.

Palin’s supporters argued that the report, released less than four weeks from Election Day, was a politically motivated attempt to damage the Republican presidential ticket. The report initially had been due at the end of the month, but the Democrat managing the investigation said its release was moved to Oct. 10 so it would not come on the eve of the election. (washingtonpost.com).

Shades of Kathleen Parker.

I’m so freaking sick of that — anything critical of the Republicans is just “politically motivated.” Yet this kind of crap is fine:

With Mr Obama leading in the polls and only 24 days to go before the US presidential election, the series of outbursts have sparked the interest of the Secret Service, which guards the candidates and other dignitaries.

They launched a brief investigation after a man was heard — but not recorded — by several journalists shouting “kill him”, when Mrs Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, was speaking of Mr Obama’s links to Bill Ayers, a former domestic terrorist who is now a professor in Chicago. The two men sat together on educational committees but have rarely been in contact for six years.

Before a rally in Pennsylvania this week, local Republican leader Bill Platt warmed up the crowd by several times referring to “Barack Hussein Obama,” focusing on the Illinois senator’s middle name, trying to highlight his differences with other Americans.

When John McCain asked “Who is the real Barack Obama?”, a supporter shouted back: “He is a bomb.”

Chants of “Nobama, Nobama” mingled with cries of “terrorist,” as one banner in the crowd declared: “Go ahead, let the dogs out.” (telegraph.co.uk)

Astounding: was it a political rally or a potential lynch mob?

They might as well have said, “Turn the dogs loose on that darky socialist pink commie bastard, boys!”

A comment on the Post piece pretty much sums up how I feel about McCain now: “Well that’s the end of her political career. Now McSame has no where to go. Just think this was a man I use [sic] to respect. Now with all of his hate motivated rallies leaves him with shame. HOW SAD.”

And just below it:

Remember to Win Back America:

Last census
Whites=80.2% of population
Blacks=12.8% of population

Proof positive that this is bringing out the worst honesty in people. And here are two videos to prove it:

The McCain-Palin Mob in Strongsville, Ohio, Part I

The McCain-Palin Mob in Strongsville, Ohio, Part II

Two for Palin

Thursday 9 October 2008

First a joke my friend sent:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher,whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.

The old rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Palin is a ‘Post Turtle.” Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain.

‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, and she doesn’t know what to do while she’s up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with’.

Second, the Palin debate flow chart:

The Palin Debate Flow-Chart - The Atlantic

Issues or Popularity

Wednesday 1 October 2008

I’ve been thinking about writing, for some time, about the coming VP debate. “Palin won’t touch the issues,” I was going to say. “It will be a personality show. She’ll tell some cute stories and avoid saying anything of substance.”

The BBC beat me to it.

“She has an amazing ability to turn a 45 second answer into a folksy story… she’s never been forced to know the issues.”

Mr Halcro said Mrs Palin’s biggest strength is her ability to “fill the room with her presence”. (Palin: The great debater?)

The article goes on to suggest that the economic crisis might make a difference, that people might expect the candidates to know the issues.

And it’s clear Palin doesn’t know the issues:

Why Palin Scares Me

Saturday 13 September 2008

Palin scares the living daylights out of me, and I think, sadly, with her anywhere near the chief leadership position in America, we won’t have four more years of the Bush administration; we’ll have four years of the Bush administration minus whatever slight, vague, microscopic, nano-second-lasting bit of sense it has. I mean, the woman is talking about starting a shooting war with Russia.

But what’s just as scary as she is are some of those supporting her.

Here, for example, is the Forerunner’s three-point election plan:

1. Vote Constitution Party. (I vote my conscience and cannot support McCain even with Palin.)
2. Hope and pray for McCain/Palin to win. (I am an idealist, but also a realist!)
3. Pray for John McCain’s salvation and pray specific imprecatory prayers if he fails to pro-actively defend the sanctity of human life. (Source)

Pray for the Republican candidate’s death? I’d be terrified to know what sadistic things he requests God to do to Obama.

At least he’s not advocating a more active role like this fellow:

Jesus told us to love our neighbor, but hate the evil inside them. Sometimes, if the evil inside them is so great, our neighbor will have to be stoned. We do each stoning with sadness for the individual, but with brighter hopes for the community. (Source)

I swear, put this guy on an island with one extremist from each religion and turn it into a reality show — “The Weakest Extremist” or “Lost, for Good” — and save the planet as an added bonus.

Hagee and the Messiah

Monday 31 March 2008

This race has been odd for the religious right. First, there was the issue of whether or not to support a Mormon — a non-Christian in the eyes of many Evangelicals. Now comes the troubling Hagee endorsement of McCain.

Yet it’s not only those on the left side of the spectrum that are troubled by this — or at least, it shouldn’t be. Those same Evangelical Christians who hesitated to support McCain should also be leery of Hagee and his less-than-orthodox theology, as seen below:

[Video removed from YouTube.]

Odd Support

Wednesday 27 February 2008

In France’s 2002 election, socialists and other left-wing party members backed Jacques Chirac (who is, despite what many Americans think, on the right side of France’s political spectrum) in order to avoid the far right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning. That’s like communists voting for Bush.

Many in America seem unwilling to do something similar.

Two things:

First, many conservatives are upset with the McCain nomination:

“I’m really depressed today because this is the first time that I find myself in a position that I will not work for the nominee (McCain),” said a caller to host Rush Limbaugh’s conservative talk-radio show on the verge of tears. (Reuter’s)

Second, Michelle Obama, on the possibility of Hillary winning, said:

GMA: Could you see yourself working to support Hillary Clinton should she win the nomination?

MICHELLE OBAMA: I’d have to think about that. I’d have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone.

GMA: That’s not a given?

MICHELLE OBAMA: You know, everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is. I think that we’re all working for the same thing. And, you know, I think our goal is to make sure that the person in the White House is going to take this country in a different direction. I happen to believe that Barack is the only person who can really do that. (Source)

It seems odd to me that people — Democrat or Republican — would risk someone they vehemently oppose (i.e., the opposing party’s candidate) winning because they didn’t like their own party’s candidate.

Out Before the Count

Tuesday 29 January 2008

If Giuliani is a prize fighter and the primary season is a title bout, Giuliani just bonked his head on the way out to the ring, knocking himself unconscious to the cheers of virtually no one.

Mike’s Personal Beliefs

Monday 21 January 2008

On his “Issues” page regarding marriage, Huckabee writes,

I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life. (Mike Huckabee for President – Issues)

If it’s a personal belief, why literally make a Federal issue out of it?

One Vote

Tuesday 22 October 2002

Sunday 27 October 2002 saw the equivalent of mid-term elections in Poland. Locally, it was time to elect a new mayor. Unlike probably any other contest in the nation, there were only two candidates to mayor.

Murzyniak

First was the incumbent, Mariusz Murzyniak. Some said he was the favorite because of his experience in the office. Yet he’s an “outsider,” hired by the previous mayor and the appointed mayor when the then-mayor was elected to the Sejm (Polish Congress) a few years ago.

Jazowski

His challenger was Bogdan Jazowski, a history teacher in the high school and director of the middle school. Some said he was the favorite because of his native status. Yet his lack of political experience have counted against him.

Most of the people I asked about it during the weeks running up to the election said there was no clear favorite. That night, after the election while the votes were being counted, a friend who’d been in the office where they were counting said it was too close to call.

The results the next day are somewhat staggering. “Too close to call” is a ridiculous understatement. Murzyniak, the incumbent, won by a single vote. One vote. It seems almost too bizarre to be true.

Recall the political wrangling after the 2000 election? Count, recount, re-recount. The difference there was a matter of several thousand votes. Here, one. One. And Jazowski’s reaction when he came into the teachers’ room that morning and was asked how things were? A shrug of the shoulders and one word: “przygrałem.” “I lost.”

If one who’d voted for Murzyniak had stayed home – perhaps an emergency of some sort, or sheer laziness – there would have been a tie. If two had stayed home…

Or perhaps there are two Jazowski supporters out there who didn’t go vote because they didn’t think their vote would make a difference…

One class that Monday were working on passive voice, so I introduced the lesson by talking about the election, then writing on the board, “It is said that the election was won by one vote.” Gotta see a teaching opportunity in everything . . .

Election 2000

Tuesday 7 November 2000

Today is Election Day. Today America chooses its next president. And to be honest, I couldn’t care less. No matter who wins, nothing essential is going to change in America. While Clinton likes to take credit for the current economic prosperity, there’s much more to it than his presidency that made it possible. It’s like Regan and Bush taking credit for the fall of communism, as if they accomplished what six or seven presidents before had all tried but failed.

I honestly hate to hear what F is going to be saying today. “I’ll kill myself if Bush wins.” Unless

  1. Bush gets to appoint two or three Supreme Court Justices in the next year;
  2. someone gets a case challenging Roe vs. Wade before the Supreme Court within the next year or so after that;
  3. they decide to overturn Roe vs. Wade; and,
  4. Fahy gets pregnant at that point or later and wants an abortion,

then nothing is really going to change in her life. We’re all solidly middle class folks and we’re not really going to feel anything.

Yesterday at work was hellish — especially in the beginning. I had the disgusting realization that my job consists of sitting in front of a computer all day long. That’s one of the main reasons I try to write in here in the morning now — otherwise, I won’t do it. I don’t really want to come home and flip on the computer when that’s what I’ve been doing for the last nine or ten hours. Anyway, I got in and my password wasn’t working, so I spent the first thirty-five minutes of my day waiting for someone from IT to show up and re-set my password so I could get something done. Add to it the fact that in general I hate my job and it’s not difficult to see why my day got off to such a shitty start.

I had a thought yesterday about going to Lipnica. I remember trying to figure out whether I should break up with K or not and it suddenly occurred to me — the desire to break up with K is enough.1 I was trying to justify it, trying to legitimate it, when it had all the legitimation it needed. Now I’m experiencing the same thing with this desire to go to Lipnica. I keep trying to think of some way to “sell” it to C, to convince her that it’s for the best and all that nonsense. Yet I’m just doing the same thing — I’m just trying to make it sound plausible, trying to make sure that I have a response to every objection she has. In other words, to make it seem as logical to her as it seems to me, to make her say, “Oh, I see. Well, in that case, you should go. Absolutely — no question whatsoever.”

Last night we went to see Wonder Boys then stopped for sushi at Gyuama’s on Boylston afterward. The movie itself was okay — it seemed to lack direction at some points and I found that to be a little tiring, but overall I liked it. Dinner was good — I was surprised at how filling the sushi was. But that was about the extent of our evening — fairly boring in many ways, I guess. There’s a lot we could talk about, but I just don’t have the guts to bring it up.

Things like what Mona and Shrikanth said when they came over to dinner Sunday don’t help: it’s a great place — you have to stay here for as long as you can. True enough, but I don’t want not to go to Lipnica just because I don’t want to give up a nice apartment. That’s the heart of the problem — I hate living in a place where nice yet affordable apartments are so hard to come by. I’m sick of living in a place that has such an inflated opinion of itself that a two bedroom place can cost $1,000 a month and leave me thinking, “Wow, that’s a good deal.

Time to get ready to go.

With 15% reporting, here’s the results:

Electoral Vote
Bush185
Gore193
Popular Vote
Bush52% (10,193,077)
Gore46% (9,085,897)

It seems that there’s a real possibility that the seemingly unthinkable will happen: the candidate more people want as president will lose. Is that true democracy? If Gore wins on electoral votes but not on popular votes, Fahy, Bishop and others will be thrilled — but if the opposite were to happen . . .

The electoral college is nonsense anyway.

Literally, moments later:

Electoral Vote
Bush186
Gore197
Popular Vote
Bush51% (15,041,768)
Gore47% (13,850,417)

And Nader seems to be getting the support he needed:

1 That was six years ago. I find that difficult to believe now. It seemed like it took six years to make it through the first year. Now I’ve no idea where Kathe is, and I don’t really care to be honest. I finally realize that you can’t hold on to every single relationship in your life. It’s only natural that you drift apart after some time.

Election Thoughts

Thursday 2 November 2000

I really get tired of the notion some like to express that life will not be worth living if Bush wins the election. Fahy said something about being “very scared for my life” if Bush wins, then made a joke about people having to “stop me from killing myself if Bush wins.” She’s solidly middle class living a fairly typical American life — her life will probably won’t be even slightly different if Bush wins. The most that will happen is she will have to pay more or less taxes — depending on whether you buy Bush’s “plan.” But it won’t result in drastic curbing of personal freedom; even though he opposes gun control, I doubt that his presidency would result in lots of people running around with guns “legally.” In fact, I bet if I asked her, “Just how exactly will your life deteriorate if Bush wins — give me three concrete examples,” that she might not be able to provide any real reason why she’s saying this except that she’s liberal and doesn’t like the idea of a Republican — any Republican — running the country. She’s playing the role of a liberal, middle class, liberal-arts educated, white, pro-choice, Democratic woman.