GRATING SPACE

note: This post is long and talks a lot about politics, which ensures that almost no one would have read the whole thing had I not broken it up into two manageable portions.

Read Part one here.

The only thing worse than a hideous monster is a beautiful monster. As I tossed back more and more bourbons it became clear to me that electing Obama president will do little except give oppression a pretty face. The global economic system is so utterly corrupt and geared toward benefiting those with power and wealth at the expense of those without that the perpetuation of it is essentially effortless on the part of power brokers. In fact, one of the most unhelpful things one can do these days to try to support fair global trade, economic equality, etc., seems to be conducting the tired and typical exercises that have come to be the stock actions of leftist social movements, simply because they become assimilated into the push-and-pull political process and end up legitimating the status quo when they fail to create real change (which they almost always do).

This is why one of the most helpful things a person can probably do to counter capitalism today is absolutely nothing at all — like Soviet socialism, laissez faire global capitalism as it exists is an unsustainable system. It will continue to breed social and economic inequality until it finally just breaks. This is heartening to people like myself, because since the collapse of the USSR the Left has been rethinking how to implement socialism in the real world while taking the failures of the Soviet Union into account. Once global capitalism fails and creates a political vacuum, its entirely likely that some form of improved socialism will take its place. The question is: How long will this take? How long can capitalism survive, especially considering its propensity to make people feel comfortable while at the same time stripping them of freedom and instilling in them a strong sense of complacency? Being somewhat of an impatient drunk, this is the question that prompted me to decide to vote for the Maverick and his Alaskan sidekick.

The reasoning is this: As stated, comfortable people have no incentive to push for real political reform. If there’s anything an Obama presidential victory would bring about, it would be a gigantic sigh of relief from left-leaning Americans on all fronts. All those MoveOn.orgs and Planned Parenthoods will kick up their feet after eight years of screaming and congratulate themselves on a battle well won. The anti-war movements will relax and wait for the Iraq withdrawl, and a good portion of them will likely ignore our increased presence in Afghanistan (after all, now we’re going after the real culprits of 9/11). Pro-choice groups will rest well knowing that, in the next four years, no one will be appointed to the Supreme Court who will cast a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Black people will be pumped.

At the same time, the machine will continue to function almost exactly as it has. The World Bank and G8 will continue to impose trade guidelines on developing countries that devalue their exports at the same time they force them to privatize their infrastructures. The West will continue to shape its foreign policy according to the condescending ideas of “tolerance” and “human rights.” The War on Terror will continue to give policymakers excuses to curb civil rights, and the United States will continue to feel free to preemptively attack any nation it can convince the UN might be a threat (although, under Obama, it probably won’t). Obama has obviously made concession after concession over the past four years in order to become a black candidate that the U.S. might actually elect president, and its hardly likely that the pressure upon him to bend and flex his principles will decrease any once he’s in the Oval Office. Long story short: Obama will not do much to fix the broken system — he’ll just make us feel better about it.

The alternative, then, is John McCain. I’ll refrain from going through the laundry list of things I wholeheartedly believe he would make a million times worse if elected president — but that’s exactly the point. If real change doesn’t come until people are made uncomfortable, let’s let McCain make them uncomfortable! Let’s start another war! Let’s continue to deregulate the financial markets! Let’s ban abortion! Let’s privatize social security! Let’s die of old age and let Sarah Palin take over! Wheeee!

A McCain victory would be the equivalent of steering the American car into a concrete wall — and get enough whiskey in me, that’s exactly what I want. It’s going to be ugly. I won’t have a job. Neither will you. We’ll move into our parents’ houses, if they haven’t been foreclosed upon. Food will be really expensive. Travel will be impossible. Crime will rise. Police will crack down. Politicians will be shuffled through office. Eventually, people will be so sick of the broken system that they will demand it be fixed. It will not be fixed, and things will get violent in the streets. Cities will burn. A new system will emerge. It’s the only chance we’ve got…

Needless to say, my friends were beyond dumbstruck when I announced to some of them over the next few days that I would not be supporting Chicago’s new favorite son in the upcoming poll. One became so upset that she just sort of scrunched up her face and started punching me in the midsection and calling me an idiot. I stopped admitting what my choice would be after that.

However, since that fateful night in the Polish pub, I have retracted my pledge to support the downfall of America — at least by way of a McCain victory. It mostly had to do with a lack of faith. What if McCain won and people still didn’t do anything about the deplorable global situation? What if it served to frustrate rather than stimulate efforts toward political reform? Then, a couple days ago, I woke up and read a bit of news that sealed the deal: al Qaeda had endorsed the sonofabitch. What if McCain screwed things up royally, U.S. global rule disappeared, and the vacuum was filled by something far worse? I highly doubt that any sort of “Islamofascist” organization would be able to muster enough strength to fill the slot, but Russia might be able to, and China certainly might. As much as I love almost all the Russian people I know, Putin is a mobster. China is simply the most crazily scary country in the world. My hope would be that Europe would pull its head from its ass and take charge, but it doesn’t seem to me like it really wants to. Maybe no single country would be in charge, and international bodies like the UN and NATO and the G8 would become much more powerful. Maybe nuclear war would break out and I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

I can’t help but feel a bit like Descartes after writing all this out. Descartes posited in a very forceful and convincing argument that all an individual can ever be certain of in the world is that he exists (“I think, therefore I am”). He then went on to meander through a dubious stream of faith-based logic to try to prove that the world, God, and everything else actually exists, despite his first, totally solid point. I feel like I can explicate pretty well why I wanted to vote for McCain, and in light of all of that, I can’t say exactly how I think an Obama presidency will really forward the political reforms that I wish for. Regardless, I sent in my Wyoming absentee ballot the other day with a black blot marked in next to “Barack Obama” (I remained registered there so I could cast an all-important vote for Democratic Congressional hopeful Gary Trauner, who certainly deserves the position more than his dumbshit opponent). It just felt like the right thing to do.

I have tickets to see Obama speak in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night. It will either be a jubilant event or a mass suicide. My neighbor/landlord, who is a photographer for The Chicago Tribune, said he will be on call to make a mad dash down to Ingleside, on the city’s south side, to document the looting and burning that will probably commence in the event of an Obama defeat.

I’ve been having fantasies about being in Grant Park, Obama having won the election. People are ecstatic. The park is packed. The stage is dark and quiet. Suddenly, spotlights blare to life to illuminate a huge red banner behind the podium, emblazoned with a black-power fist. Black men in berets and leather jackets march from behind the curtains with machine guns. The crowd is aghast. Barack Obama walks into sight without a smile on his face. He’s wearing fatigues, combat boots, and sunglasses, despite the darkness. No one is making any noise. He begins his acceptance speech: “Listen, white America, things are going to be different in this country from now on.”

“Yesss!” I whisper to myself. “This is going to be amazing.”