Envisioning America

The Democratic Convention looks like way so much more fun than the Republican event last week. The hall looks bigger, more populated and whole lot happier. It's a truly diverse crowd, the future of our country rather than it's insulated past. The faces on the dais were not radically different from the composition of the crowd, as was the case last week. And the total acceptance of gay Americans as full Americans, thanks to the President leading with his acceptance of gay marriage, by speaker after speaker is a refreshing change from...every other convention in U.S. political history.

By contrast, the GOP keep talking about "taking back" America, but the subtext lately has been a return to secession. If we can't "take it back," we won't play. Not exactly patriotic in the "union" sense. Just as the South seceded to create The Confederacy, so does the spirit emanate from our Southern states. It's the spirit of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's ironclad no-cooperation rule. Combined with the overwhelming whiteness of the Republican Convention (not to mention the peanut throwing incident), it carries the aura of racism.

But the most interesting aspect of the secessionist movement is how easily it has blended with the 21st Century Secession of the Wealthy, so perfectly embodied in candidate Mitt Romney. It's been coming for some time. As described by Mike Lofgren in The American Conservative:

I do not mean secession by physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens from time to time—for example, Erik Prince, who was born into a fortune, is related to the even bigger Amway fortune, and made yet another fortune as CEO of the mercenary-for-hire firm Blackwater, moved his company (renamed Xe) to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot.

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?

...

The objective of the predatory super-rich and their political handmaidens is to discredit and destroy the traditional nation state and auction its resources to themselves. Those super-rich, in turn, aim to create a “tollbooth” economy, whereby more and more of our highways, bridges, libraries, parks, and beaches are possessed by private oligarchs who will extract a toll from the rest of us. Was this the vision of the Founders? Was this why they believed governments were instituted among men—that the very sinews of the state should be possessed by the wealthy in the same manner that kingdoms of the Old World were the personal property of the monarch?

Were Mitt Romney to reveal his tax records, the electorate would learn that he has seceded with his money to Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and who knows where else. While it's completely against the interests of the grassroots secessionist whose economic situation won't be improved by the exodus of that capital from our ecosystem, it's a matter of faith.

So what makes this first night of the Democratic National Convention so powerful is how American it is. American stories of real struggle and moments of real triumph, the military wife, the mother of a child with a life-threatening birth defect, the First Lady who came from modest roots. Shared patriotism through trying to make the country just a little bit easier to struggle through for all.

As the chant goes, U.S.A., U.S.A.

Those Funny Candidates and the Convention

Gotta love Michele Bachmann Turner Overdrive:

According to a tweet from NBC News’ Jamie Novogrod, Bachmann responded to the recent raiding of the British embassy in Iran, by saying that if she was President, she would close down the U.S. embassy there.

There’s just one problem: The U.S. has not had an embassy in Iran ever since the Iranian hostage crisis, when revolutionaries from the budding Islamic state held 52 Americans for 444 days.

But that was so long ago, how is she expected to remember??

How about Rick Perry White:

The Associated Press carried the following report on a speech he gave to a crowd at Saint Anselm college in New Hampshire:

[H]e appealed to students who will be at least 21 before Election Day to vote for him. As for those younger than 21, he merely asked them to work hard on his behalf. Doesn’t he want their votes, too? It turns out Perry didn’t know or had forgotten that the voting age in America is 18. The flub caused some whispers in the crowd.

No biggie. In Texas what really matters is the drinking age!

And, finally, Jon Stewart goes all out on Herman "Adam Raised A" Cain, who finally gets nailed on the consensual affair:

The Daily Show

Bachmann was never a serious contender, she just had her flash paper moment before confirming to the Republican electorate exactly what everyone else has known for years. She's not a reliable in the political sense. Or the honesty sense.

Cain was another flash, maybe on route to a Vice Presidential candidacy (take that, Barry Obama!) but that won't happen now. Oooh yeah.

And Perry is most interesting of them all, because he's a very successful politician in Texas, the second largest state in terms of both population and landmass, right near the end of the qualifying period he came riding high to save the day, and all leading up to this, earlier in the year, David Axelrod and the Obama Campaign was always very excited whenever anyone mentioned Perry, then not on the heavy radar, as a possible candidate.

It clear that the Obama Campaign was relishing the idea of running against Rick Perry. And maybe they knew something that wasn't general knowledge, like how much Rove and the Bush people hate Perry going back to when he was Lt. Governor under W. Because his implosion as like a series of Japanese nukes going off one after each other, the last revealingly stupid moment just getting to the dying embers before he did something else even more obviously not ready for any 3:00am calls.

We'll miss these clowns when they're gone for the race, but they'll be sure to pop back up again at the GOP Convention next summer, and if Newt does indeed win, or Ron Paul (which would be the smartest Republican choice, the apotheosis of Ayn Randianist), they'll get Administration positions. I always thought Herman Cain was running for Secretary of Commerce, anyway.

Newt will be funny in a different way -- he's got such a sure sense of self, he can instantly rationalize his way out of any of his shenanigans. I think Newt vs. President Barack would be a classic -- Newt as replay/last gasp of the 1990's vs. an Obama who looks all the more young and together because of the contrast. Newt shut down government and then failed to even make that work. Barack has been working his ass off to make government work, from healthcare to terror defense. His gotten a bill passed and taken out Bin Laden et al.

Could he possibly beat Newt by ten percentage points (55%/45%) or better? Could Newt make John McCain look like an Electoral College overachiever?

As for Mitt, don't worry about him:

As Mr. 1%, I now don't expect him to win the nomination -- unless he turns his trajectory around very, very quickly, and not just with the Bush wing of establishment old-school, but with the rank and file Republicans. Remember, if Mitt becomes President, the clock turns back a generation.

Then there's one other possibility. If the Tea Party is strong enough, and Newt manages to damage his electability profoundly (I say 70% chance) by the Convention, you could see a true political rarity, the brokered convention, most famously held by the 1924 Dems, torn apart by the rural/urban Prohibition conflict. In this case it's the Reagan deal with the Southern Religious Right, come home to roost in Tea Party garb, versus the money side, the hawks and the hardcore Libertarians. Aside from the hawks, the other two can get along on the Libertarian cry for smaller government.

Which is exactly what the Paulites a waiting to have happen.

E3 2011

I went to E3, the largest annual videogame convention in North America, which was about 2/3 the size of years past, much less loud and still lacking a consumer day open to the public (which the Tokyo Games Show, for example, does the final convention day each year). That made it both much more pleasant, dare I say, fun, while also a little sadder.

Nonetheless, there were plenty of great games and without all the long lines it was easier to get play time. There were also some enchanting technological innovations, of which my favorites are:

• Darbee Visual Presence:
  Ingenious interpolative software alternative to clunky 3D TV that gives the illusion of greater 3D without going whole hog glasses and focal points by adding depth information, kind of like adding drop shadow but very subtle, tricking you into seeing some surprising detail and changing how you look at the video image over time.
  
  It comes from brain research and works on the brain a little further back than our rods & cones, as explained to me by Paul Darbee, inventor (in the 1980's) of the universal remote (first to market, licensed by everyone). The software is starting to be licensed to TV, with Darbee just reconnecting with all of his global television manufacturing contacts from the universal remote business, and it will be an ingredient brand. Darbeevision on the inside.
  
  Even better, soon you can get it as an HTMI connecting device from Snakebyte, a European company debuting the little Darbee-converting box at E3, that you hook up between your computer satellite box and HDTV monitor. As for the images, the bigger the better, because I saw both Assassin's Creed looking so much more alive in a side-by-side comparison, as well as an underwater animal video that had such incredible depth -- not any of the painful or dim 3D technologies you've been subjected to in the past, non-assaultive depth, if that makes any sense, there for you to play with rather than work with.

• Fling: Analog joystick for your thumbs for iPad (and mini version for iPhone) that are a blast to use. Each one has two suction cups, and suction onto the screen, lower left and right corners. Then you basically twirl the discs inside each one with your thumbs to play, for example, a killer Asteroids-type game with constant side-scroller shooting action. There's a tension the the inner discs that makes the tactile experience very pleasing and natural. And when your thumbs come up, the games usually pause. Creators, Ten One Design, are in New Jersey!
  

Oh, and I got to be in this:



What an industry.