Joe the Plumber was the hero of the final presidential debate. If you’re like me, you were probably scratching your head wondering why this guy was the centerpoint of the debate, and whether he in fact is also Joe 6-Pack.
Below is the YouTube clip from FOX News (apologies) showing Joe the Plumber questioning Sen. Obama.
Over the weekend, I attended the NBA’s first outdoor game, held in Indian Wells, CA just a few miles east of Palm Springs. The game featured an utterly boring preseason match between the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets. Although it was fun to see Steve Nash and Shaq, basically no one showed up fro the Nuggets mostly due to injuries. No Carmelo Anthony; no Allen Iverson; no Marcus Camby. And on the Phoenix side, Amare Stoudemaire is still recovering. What can I say? Oh, and the temperature plummeted to a brisk 50 degrees, making it feel more like a Pittsburgh Steelers game than an NBA one.
All that being said, something special happened. Before the game, a massive American flag was brought out and held over most of the court. I’m talking about a basketball court-sized flag. That’s big. That’s really big. It’s not uncommon to see these types of flags at professional sporting events, particularly tennis (which was actually the venue for the outdoor stadium). The special thing that happened was that I got chills during the national anthem. I’m entirely sure why. Maybe it was something as obvious as the sheer cold and wind that felt worse while standing up. But I think it was a visceral reminder that patriotism and national pride still exists. Perhaps I was alone in my feelings, but I don’t think this is the case. I bet others out there got chills as well.
These weeks leading up to the election have been filled with lots of smear politics. Whatever. Some folks are saying that the America’s youth have no national pride. I disagree. I think teens and young adults have been given little be proud of. Let’s pretend someone is 19 and voting for the first time. They have vague recollections of Bill Clinton and they were probably in 6th grade when September 11 happened. They have had the misfortune of associating the presidency with GW43. If a young adult only is aware of politics from a macro level, the things that come to mind are a president who is a poor public speaker, a failed war in the Middle East, and inability to catch the mastermind for arguably the worst unprovoked attack in American history, a devastated economy, rising food and gas prices, and total disrespect towards our nation on the international stage. But at least the Redeem Team earned us a Gold in basketball in Beijing. My point is, despite all the macro-level failures of our political leaders this century, I still argue that there is a deep-rooted believe that we can still be the greatest nation in the world. I don’t think we are right now. I think we’re like that 2004 basketball team in Athens that thought we could dominate anyone and then lost in the first round to Puerto Rico en route to a bronze medal. Americans want America to be great again. There are still chills when we see the flag because it’s like our long forgotten friend. It’s a symbol of struggle and overcoming that struggle. It’s a reminder of the sacrifices people before us have paved so that we could have an easier way of life. It’s a reminder that our best days are still in front of us. And it’s a hope that temporary shortcomings will ultimately just be an irrelevant bleep in our nation’s history.
The desire to want to be more is not something that can be attained by watching political chatter on CNN or FOX News. It’s not even something teachers can impart to impressionable elementary school students. It’s something you pick up along the way in everyday life. As a country, we are tired of what’s been happening. Lots of folks are disagreeing these days on the solutions to the problems, but the consensus seems to be that WE CAN BE BETTER THAN WE ARE, AND WE WILL BE!
It’s the end of the world! The economy is doomed! ATMs will have no money left to spit out. Take your money from the banks and stuff your mattresses! Congress has no idea how to solve the problem. The Street hit the panic button today!
WE ARE ALL DOOMED! If I find a window, I can’t promise that there will be an subsequent posts on this blog 
I for one have decided to invest in the one commodity never affected by financial crises. Bubble gum. That’s right. Good ole American bazooka! Trust in gum and you won’t go wrong! As our founding fathers said, “In gum we trust!” It was the neoliberals who changed “gum” to “God.” Go figure!
But in all seriousness, now’s not the time to panic. You have to wonder whether the McCain camp will take a significant beating in the polls for the utter obliteration of our economy under the Bush administration.
I’m quite peaved over MSNBC’s decision to demote Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. Variety reported on it this morning. I agree fully that MSNBC’s coverage had become exceedingly biased towards liberals. It was not balanced journalism. I don’t hold MSNBC, Olbermann, or Matthews accountable however. MSNBC only did what they had to do to compete in a cut-throat world of 24-hour news media. MSNBC chose to become the political liberal network in primetime. It was a move designed to combat the likes of conservative FOX’s O’Reilly Factorand the equally satanic CNN’s Glen Beck.
The FCC is to blame for the current ridiculousness of news media. I’m disgusted that you can’t even watch the news if you tune into CNN’s Headline News in the evening. Instead you’re subjected to relentless hours of Showbiz Tonight, Headline Prime, and Nancy Grace.
The bottom line is that news media need to be cleaned up. They have a constitutional obligation to provide unbiased news. Right now there is so much spin - politically, militarily, religiously, ethnically, and economically that it is almost impossible to decipher fact from opinion. If you’re going to demote Olbermann and Matthews, you need to make Fox toss O’Reilly too. Now’s the time to clean up our country’s media outlets. It cannot be about news ratings; it needs to be about credibility and public service.
I always like to play a fun game with reading news. Visit the websites for Fox News, BBC UK, and Al Jazeera. If you mix the three together, you’ll probably get a fairly decent idea what exactly is going on in the world.
The Democratic Convention is currently on. There’s no escaping it if you turn on MSNBC. You’d think it’s the only newsworthy event out there. Senator Obama picked Senator Biden as his running mate who I’m hoping will turn out to be less of a Sith Lord than VP Cheney.
What strikes me most about Obama is that he reminds me a lot of the good qualities of Batman’s Harvey Dent before he becomes Two Face. Much like All the King’s Men’s Willie Stark, Obama is the beacon of hope for a lot of disgruntled Americans right now after eight long years that have greatly damaged the opinion of our country within the global public sphere. Much like in the Dark Knight, I think a good portion of Americans so desperately want to believe in America and her ideals. They want to have hope that Obama can restore a golden era to a country whose economy has been sullied by two never-ending, uncontrollable wars, rising fuel costs, a collapsing aviation industry, natural disasters (some people still don’t have their houses back after Katrina!!!), etc.
So two things worry me most about Obama. He may not live up to his own hype. I think we want him to be this hero so badly, that if he turns out to just be a pretty decent politician, we’ll be disappointed. But I guess he needs to win the presidency before we can even measure that. I just would hate to see him fall like Dent or Stark. Albeit those are fictitious characters (though Stark is based on Huey Long), I think one can learn something from both characters. They’re people who are so grounded in ideals that once things start going right, it’s easy for corruption to set in. I wanted to support Edwards. I wanted to believe in him when others called him an ambulance chaser. Now Edwards is just another immoral politician. I hope Obama is better. I hope he lives up to the hype. I want him to. The other thing that worries me about Obama is that someone might do something stupid. I am truthfully worried that someone might go after Obama if he’s elected (or even en route). I have very mixed feelings about Senator Biden. This isn’t going to deter me from supporting Obama, but there is certainly racism still in America. I would hate to see Obama end up as a martyr rather than as a great president.
On the flip side, I don’t think McCain is a bad dude. At this time, I no longer agree with the neoliberal ideals of the Republican party at president, but I don’t think McCain himself is bad. In fact, I even think George W. has good INTENTIONS. He might have no idea how he’s messed things up so much. The overall approach to the neoliberal movement across the world seems to increase social stratification and only benefit certain people. I want to believe that everyone should have a shot to be more. It’s tough to support economic and political policies that benefit less than the majority of a nation.
So I’ll conclude with a line from the Dark Knight: “The night is always darkest before dawn.” I hope America gets her hero, and I hope that hero does not become a Two Face.
