I ‘m gonna write on video games again here, and I hope eyes don’t glaze over. I had to severely edit this post because it was getting away from me, due to my enthusiasm about the topic. This is the severely edited version. A couple of posts ago, I wrote about Halo 2 and it’s impact on popular culture. I was talking about video games in general and how, like motion pictures a hundred years ago, their impact and artistic merit are being largely ignored by the cultural mainstream. Some might raise their eyebrows that I would compare video games to a financial behemoth like the movie industry, but the truth is, that fight is over. Movies lost. Video games are on track this year to outgross movies by several BILLION dollars. You read that right. The information is out there – its just not making an impression on the evening news. Yet.
Halo 2 made 125 million dollars (place pinky by lips when reading that aloud) in its first 24 hours. No movie has ever done that. Still, at it’s heart, Halo 2 is art in the sense that a ‘Star Wars’ movie is art. It’s great entertainment, and fantastic fun, but it’s not going to convince people that video games are a legitimate artform.
For that, we have Half-Life 2. Let me give a little background. The original Half Life was released in November 1998, which, of course, is 42 Gaming Years ago. It was instantly hailed as the best game ever made. PC Gamer has had six ‘Best Games of All Time” polls since it’s release, and Half Life has won every single one. Why is that? Well, to explain, we need to digress. I know, I know. We’ve already digressed from Half Life 2 to Half Life 1, but this is important. Stay with me. This will all tie together.
The digression will be on the nature of video games. Games in general, well, that’s a huge topic, but video games we can handle here. A video game is basically a 30 second hook repeated for several hours. Look at Halo 2. The 30 second hook is you face a bunch of enemies, you throw a grenade at some of them, you pick off some stragglers while ducking behind some architecture. The scenery changes, the hook does not. Wash, rinse, repeat for 20 hours. That sounds kind of lame, described like that, but it’s not. Great games have a great hook. Bad games have a bad hook. Horrible games don’t have a hook and think their game is about how pretty it looks or how ‘shocking’ they can be. The Halo 2 hook is so well done, and the scenery is so well made, that by some alchemy it becomes a great game. Half Life on the other hand, had that and more. It really made you care about its story. Stories in video game are kind of like stories in porn – an afterthought. If the hook is good, the story doesn’t matter. If the story is good and the hook is bad, then the game is lousy. But if we hit a sweet spot – if we have an intelligent, mature story, and fantastic gameplay….then we really have something. Half Life hit that sweet spot. Gamers immediately began waiting for a sequel. Because the technology of games was getting so much better, and Valve, the company that made Half Life, really seemed to get it, Half Life 2, whenever it was going to come out, was the big hope for the game – the game that would make the legitimate leap from pastime to artform. Rumors swept across the internet. It was like following a soap opera. There wasn’t going to be a Half Life 2. Half Life 2 was going to be a role-playing game, not an action game. Valve had scrapped the original game engine and worked on a completely new engine from scratch, an immense technical undertaking. (This last rumor turned out to be true.) Years went by. No actual information was released. Then, in June 2003, a press release was made. The game was done, and would be released in September 03. There was joy, there was jubilation, there was bellowing in the streets. However – then the game was stolen by hackers. I kid you not. This led to the release date being pushed back by 14 months. There was despair, there was anger, there was weeping and rending of clothing.
Well, now it’s finally here, and I have played it, and it is better than I thought it would be. This is the game that people will point to and say ‘see what this medium is capable of?’
So, what’s the big deal? It comes down to several factors – story, characterization, physics, environments, and polish. I’ll go through them one by one.
Story – the story in Half-Life 2 is phenomenal. It’s about free will, love, fascism, emancipation, slavery, and killing aliens. Don’t turn your nose up at the killing aliens part! The ‘killing aliens’ part is what makes it a game. That’s the hook. The basic storyline is that you are a scientist who awakens in an eastern european totalitarian regime, and wind up starting an uprising. Along the way you meet up with several characters, one of whom you fall in love with. This was definitely not a case of a ‘porn storyline’ By the last third of the game I was playing because I desperately wanted to know what happened. That’s phenomenal for a videogame.
Characterization – a big reason why the story works so well is because of the characters. Videogame people are usually just placeholders. I mean, you can see that they represent people, but you don’t ever buy into the fiction that they are people. Well, the characters in this game are absolutely incredible. The facial expressions alone are capable of such subtlety, you can’t believe what you’re seeing at first. You start to relate to the characters, and then, when the storyline gets more involved, you really start to care for them. The technology that valve software created to create the facial expressions alone took 2 years to create. Ah, you gotta see it to believe it.
Physics – Your character, Gordon Freeman, is a man of science. He’s a thinker, not just a killer. In this game, if you’re smart, you can think your way out of situations without killing people. Everything in this virtual environment that’s been created obeys the laws of physics. If there’s a piece of trash on the ground, you can pick it up, and toss it. Early on in the game, I came across a teeter-totter, and placed a doll on one side. It slowly sank to the ground. Then I picked up a large brick and dropped it on the other side. The doll flew into the air in a perfect parabola. As you make your way through the world, you can navigate past obstacles by building bridges and ramps out of found objects. At one point, I built a raft out of old paint cans and a wooden pallet! And it worked. When you’re in an environment where everything acts like it’s supposed to, filled with believable characters – well, the suspension of disbelief is that much easier. I think what I loved most about the physics is that it allowed me to indulge my inner McGuyver and think up unique solutions to whatever problem was in front of me.
Environments – this is the part that will impress people the most. The environments in this game are utterly believable. The totalitarian city you find yourself wondering around really looks like it should. Early in the game I found myself in a loft with sunlight streaming through the windows and I was struck that I could see the dust particles in the sunlight. That’s a level of detail that is simply astounding to me. The game does a great job of placing you in diverse environments, as well. From the opening in the city, you go on an odyssey that takes you through canals, rivers, warehouses, beaches, bridges, prisons, back to the city, and finally a huge citadel. It’s a heck of a ride.
Polish – polish is what you get when every element in the game is checked and rechecked with every other element to make sure they create a seamless whole. It makes the experience greater than the sum of its parts. This game has it in spades. It’s a phenomenal experience that creates the feeling that only great art can do. It’s easily the greatest game I’ve ever played. In the future, people will look back at this game and say ‘that’s when games became art’. In my opinion, it’s the best art of the year.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Incredibles
There’s an interesting thing about this movie. For an animated feature, it really takes its time to get moving. After an action packed sequence as the movie opens, it calms down for the better part of an hour to allow us to get to know about its characters. Bob Parr, the erstwhile Mr. Incredible, works now in a soul-destroying insurance company. Now, if you’re an 8 –year old kid, would you rather watch a frustrated middle-aged executive battle bureaucratic corruption or a red-suited superhero fight a giant killer robot? However, this is just part of the movies cunning plan – it knows that many of the grownups watching the movie will relate to its central subtext – that in growing up, we compromise, but the idealist inside us doesn’t have to die. Mr. Incredible has tried, oh, how he’s tried …to bury the hero he once was, because the world doesn’t want heroes like him anymore. Instead of doing what he most wants to do – help people with his special gifts – he instead has to deny old women their coverage claims. The zenith of the frustration this causes him is when he desperately wants to stop a mugging in progress happening before his eyes, yet his odious boss orders him to do nothing. At this point he snaps and throws his boss through several walls. It’s a satisfying moment, but also a scary one. And it’s meant to be. William Blake has a proverb that I once spent several months trying to understand. “Better to strangle an infant in the crib than nurse unanswered desires.” Wow. That’s pretty intense, no? But think about it. What Blake is saying isn’t that you should strangle a baby. He’s saying that as horrible as that is, the consequences that arise from suppressing your true nature will lead to worse things.
Thus it is with Mr. Incredible. All he wants is to help people, to stop crimes, to be a hero – but the world has no place for that. And this can only be a bad thing. Try as he might, he can’t escape his inherent nature. His wife, Helen, who formerly went by the name Elastigirl, is much better at dealing with this new reality. She’s an elastic person in attitude as well as her abilities. (This metaphor of superpowers mirroring the internal persona plays out with the other characters also – Violet, the teen daughter, literally vanishes when she’s around the boy she likes – she’s a shrinking violet due to her shyness. And Dash’s superspeed is an obvious analog to his AD/HD ness. Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone? C’mon! He’s coooooool.)
The joy that this movie contains is from seeing The Incredibles – particularly Mr. Incredible – get to express their true natures after suppressing them for so long. After being told his whole life to not run faster than other people, little dash is finally told to run as fast as he can. The look of bliss that crosses his face when he realizes he’s moving so fast he’s running on water is the look of someone who has finally accessed his place in the world. That’s a wonderful feeling. After all the set-up the movie gives you, when you finally do get to the giant robot showdowns, you care that much more.
One other point about this movie. Apart from the explicit critique of the insurance industry (which I loved), it also contains a major theme about mediocrity. It’s possible to say this movie is defending the value of elites. Several times the line “Everyone’s special…which means no-one is.” Gets uttered. I think many people will be uneasy about this aspect of the movie. I am certainly not one of them. ‘All men are created equal’ is a great fiction for basing a democratic government on, but it’s a fiction nonetheless. We’re NOT created equal. It’s okay for people to excel. You shouldn’t feel guilty for excelling. I saw something on the news this weekend that made my jaw hit the floor. Apparently there’s a movement among teachers to stop correcting papers using red ink, because ‘the red ink makes the children feel bad.’ Okay, just for a second ignore the fact that if they start using green or purple ink, soon kids will start feeling bad about seeing those colors on their papers. Instead think about how bass-ackwards it is to think that if a kid is upset because they have red all over their paper, the problem isn’t the kid and his issues, it’s THE FUCKING INK!
The Incredibles subtly points out the ridiculousness of such positions, and for that, it’s a much more solid work of art. It’s a truly life-affirming shot in the arm. This will be a movie that people are watching and enjoying twenty years from now. One of the best of the year.
Thus it is with Mr. Incredible. All he wants is to help people, to stop crimes, to be a hero – but the world has no place for that. And this can only be a bad thing. Try as he might, he can’t escape his inherent nature. His wife, Helen, who formerly went by the name Elastigirl, is much better at dealing with this new reality. She’s an elastic person in attitude as well as her abilities. (This metaphor of superpowers mirroring the internal persona plays out with the other characters also – Violet, the teen daughter, literally vanishes when she’s around the boy she likes – she’s a shrinking violet due to her shyness. And Dash’s superspeed is an obvious analog to his AD/HD ness. Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone? C’mon! He’s coooooool.)
The joy that this movie contains is from seeing The Incredibles – particularly Mr. Incredible – get to express their true natures after suppressing them for so long. After being told his whole life to not run faster than other people, little dash is finally told to run as fast as he can. The look of bliss that crosses his face when he realizes he’s moving so fast he’s running on water is the look of someone who has finally accessed his place in the world. That’s a wonderful feeling. After all the set-up the movie gives you, when you finally do get to the giant robot showdowns, you care that much more.
One other point about this movie. Apart from the explicit critique of the insurance industry (which I loved), it also contains a major theme about mediocrity. It’s possible to say this movie is defending the value of elites. Several times the line “Everyone’s special…which means no-one is.” Gets uttered. I think many people will be uneasy about this aspect of the movie. I am certainly not one of them. ‘All men are created equal’ is a great fiction for basing a democratic government on, but it’s a fiction nonetheless. We’re NOT created equal. It’s okay for people to excel. You shouldn’t feel guilty for excelling. I saw something on the news this weekend that made my jaw hit the floor. Apparently there’s a movement among teachers to stop correcting papers using red ink, because ‘the red ink makes the children feel bad.’ Okay, just for a second ignore the fact that if they start using green or purple ink, soon kids will start feeling bad about seeing those colors on their papers. Instead think about how bass-ackwards it is to think that if a kid is upset because they have red all over their paper, the problem isn’t the kid and his issues, it’s THE FUCKING INK!
The Incredibles subtly points out the ridiculousness of such positions, and for that, it’s a much more solid work of art. It’s a truly life-affirming shot in the arm. This will be a movie that people are watching and enjoying twenty years from now. One of the best of the year.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Halo 2
If you're not into video games, the Halo 2 'phenomenon' may well take you by surprise. I mean, Halo was just an excellent shoot-em-up game. Why is the hype for the sequel so huge? I will attempt to explain. First, however, full geek disclosure: I waited at the video game store last night with hundreds of other geeks to get my hands on my pre-ordered copy.
Ok, to understand this phenomenon, we have to buy into the concept known as Sturgeon's Law. Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer in the 50's and 60's who wrote dense, clever, intelligent stories which contrasted with the shallow, giant-robot fighting science fiction that dominated the genre back then. He was once asked, 'Why is so much science fiction crap?" He answered, " Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap....but 90 percent of everything is crap." Want evidence of the accuracy of this law? Go to your movie listing page in the nearest newspaper. Look down the list of movies. See what I mean? Now go to your TV Guide. Yep, 90% crap. For the final proof, turn on your radio. So, if 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of all video games are crap. And boy, are they crap. One has to sift through a lot of crap just to find some mediocre titles, let alone something good. Something excellent - if you get one example of videogame excellence a year, you're doing well.
The original Halo was such a game. Smart story, incredible environments, amazing gameplay, and the ability to do it all with friends with an amazing multiplayer element. People played it pretty constantly for 3 years. And in the gamer world, years are like dog years - a 3 year old game may as well be 21. When I hosted the inaugral Moondog's Gamefest earlier this year, (more on the Glory that is Gamefest later), it was Halo that had everyone staying up late and wondering where the time went. So the sequel - well, everyone that loved the original knew they wouldn't screw it up. Such quality is rare in life. It makes grown men stand out in the cold outside Electronics Boutiques accross the country.
And Halo 2 delivers. It's freakishly good. It's so good non video game people look at it and say "Holy shit!" It contains moments where you forget you're playing a game. That is something that only good art can do - it transports you. The crazy thing is, Halo 2 will probably not even be the best game of the year - that will probably be Half Life 2, due out in 2 weeks time. My theory of video games is that, like motion pictures 100 years ago, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of art - they don't get no respect. It took a few legitimate movie masterpieces - Birth of Nation, Citizen Kane - for movies to be accepted by mainstream culture as legitimate art. Until the masterpieces, theatre snobs just turned up their noses at the movies. The advance word is that Half-life 2 is the game that will do that for this new medium. I'll let you know, because guess what? I have it pre-ordered.
Ok, to understand this phenomenon, we have to buy into the concept known as Sturgeon's Law. Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer in the 50's and 60's who wrote dense, clever, intelligent stories which contrasted with the shallow, giant-robot fighting science fiction that dominated the genre back then. He was once asked, 'Why is so much science fiction crap?" He answered, " Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap....but 90 percent of everything is crap." Want evidence of the accuracy of this law? Go to your movie listing page in the nearest newspaper. Look down the list of movies. See what I mean? Now go to your TV Guide. Yep, 90% crap. For the final proof, turn on your radio. So, if 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of all video games are crap. And boy, are they crap. One has to sift through a lot of crap just to find some mediocre titles, let alone something good. Something excellent - if you get one example of videogame excellence a year, you're doing well.
The original Halo was such a game. Smart story, incredible environments, amazing gameplay, and the ability to do it all with friends with an amazing multiplayer element. People played it pretty constantly for 3 years. And in the gamer world, years are like dog years - a 3 year old game may as well be 21. When I hosted the inaugral Moondog's Gamefest earlier this year, (more on the Glory that is Gamefest later), it was Halo that had everyone staying up late and wondering where the time went. So the sequel - well, everyone that loved the original knew they wouldn't screw it up. Such quality is rare in life. It makes grown men stand out in the cold outside Electronics Boutiques accross the country.
And Halo 2 delivers. It's freakishly good. It's so good non video game people look at it and say "Holy shit!" It contains moments where you forget you're playing a game. That is something that only good art can do - it transports you. The crazy thing is, Halo 2 will probably not even be the best game of the year - that will probably be Half Life 2, due out in 2 weeks time. My theory of video games is that, like motion pictures 100 years ago, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of art - they don't get no respect. It took a few legitimate movie masterpieces - Birth of Nation, Citizen Kane - for movies to be accepted by mainstream culture as legitimate art. Until the masterpieces, theatre snobs just turned up their noses at the movies. The advance word is that Half-life 2 is the game that will do that for this new medium. I'll let you know, because guess what? I have it pre-ordered.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Four Columns From The Times
I'm gonna stop talking about politics for a (little) while - I want to use this blog to talk about some other stuff too. But I wanted to include these 4 columns from the NY Times Op-Ed page - they seem to really get how I feel about this last week, and the next 4 years. Read on!
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD
With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.
"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."
Democrat: Heal thyself.
W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.
The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."
The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?
While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.
"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.
Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."
He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.
Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.
But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.
Invading France?
No Surrender
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: November 5, 2004
Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.
Democrats are now, understandably, engaged in self-examination. But while it's O.K. to think things over, those who abhor the direction Mr. Bush is taking the country must maintain their intensity; they must not succumb to defeatism.
This election did not prove the Republicans unbeatable. Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. Without the fading but still potent aura of 9/11, when the nation was ready to rally around any leader, he wouldn't have won at all. And future events will almost surely offer opportunities for a Democratic comeback.
I don't hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush's second term, but I do expect them. The resurgence of Al Qaeda, the debacle in Iraq, the explosion of the budget deficit and the failure to create jobs weren't things that just happened to occur on Mr. Bush's watch. They were the consequences of bad policies made by people who let ideology trump reality.
Those people still have Mr. Bush's ear, and his election victory will only give them the confidence to make even bigger mistakes.
So what should the Democrats do?
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that's what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, "We've got to close the cultural gap." But that's a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Does this mean that the Democrats are condemned to permanent minority status? No. The religious right - not to be confused with religious Americans in general - isn't a majority, or even a dominant minority. It's just one bloc of voters, whom the Republican Party has learned to mobilize with wedge issues like this year's polarizing debate over gay marriage.
Rather than catering to voters who will never support them, the Democrats - who are doing pretty well at getting the votes of moderates and independents - need to become equally effective at mobilizing their own base.
In fact, they have made good strides, showing much more unity and intensity than anyone thought possible a year ago. But for the lingering aura of 9/11, they would have won.
What they need to do now is develop a political program aimed at maintaining and increasing the intensity. That means setting some realistic but critical goals for the next year.
Democrats shouldn't cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges - even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will.
It's all right to take a few weeks to think it over. (Heads up to readers: I'll be starting a long-planned break next week, to work on a economics textbook. I'll be back in January.) But Democrats mustn't give up the fight. What's at stake isn't just the fate of their party, but the fate of America as we know it.
O.K., Folks: Back to Work
By BOB HERBERT
An iron rule of life is to be careful what you wish for.
President Bush can take his re-election victory to the bank, and his political portfolio has been bolstered by enhanced Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. That's the good news for the president. Nearly all the other news is bad.
A story in the business section of yesterday's Times noted, "Even as President Bush was celebrating his election victory on Wednesday, his Treasury Department provided an ominous reminder about the economic challenges ahead."
With budget deficits exploding, the government will have to borrow $147 billion in the first three months of 2005, a quarterly record. But the record won't stand for long. The government is hemorrhaging money, and the nation has a war to pay for. A new record is almost sure to be set before the year is out.
Managing money is not one of this president's strong points. Plus and minus signs mean nothing to him. If he were actually writing checks, they'd be bouncing to the moon. The federal government's revenue was $100 billion lower this year than when Mr. Bush took office, and spending is $400 billion higher.
Yesterday, at his press conference, the president made it clear that his campaign promise of more - not fewer - tax cuts for the wealthy is at the top of his second-term agenda.
Much has been made of the support Mr. Bush has gotten from religious people. He's going to need all of their prayers that some miracle happens to suspend the laws of simple arithmetic and keep his fiscal house of cards from collapsing.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq, overshadowed by the election, is as grim as ever. Insurgents blew up a critical oil pipeline on Tuesday, the latest severe blow to efforts to get the Iraq economy on track. Three British soldiers were killed in an attack yesterday. The assassinations, kidnappings and car bombings continued. The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders announced that it would cease operations in Iraq because of the unrelenting danger. And Hungary became the latest U.S. coalition partner to announce that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
In other words, nothing has changed. Mr. Bush's victory on Tuesday was not based on his demonstrated competence in office or on a litany of perceived successes. For all the talk about values that we're hearing, the president ran a campaign that appealed above all to voters' fears and prejudices. He didn't say he'd made life better for the average American over the past four years. He didn't say he had transformed the schools, or made college more affordable, or brought jobs to the unemployed or health care to the sick and vulnerable.
He said, essentially, be very afraid. Be frightened of terrorism, and of those dangerous gay marriages, and of those in this pluralistic society who may have thoughts and beliefs and values that differ from your own.
As usual, he turned reality upside down. A quintessential American value is tolerance for ideas other than one's own. Tuesday's election was a dismaying sprint toward intolerance, sparked by a smiling president who is a master at appealing to the baser aspects of our natures.
Which brings me to the Democrats - the ordinary voters, not the politicians - and where they go from here. I have been struck by the extraordinary demoralization, even dark despair, among a lot of voters who desperately wanted John Kerry to defeat Mr. Bush. "We did all we could," one woman told me, "and we still lost."
Here's my advice: You had a couple of days to indulge your depression - now, get over it. The election's been lost but there's still a country to save, and with the current leadership that won't be easy. Crucial matters that have been taken for granted too long - like the Supreme Court and Social Security - are at risk. Caving in to depression and a sense of helplessness should not be an option when the country is speeding toward an abyss.
Roll up your sleeves and do what you can. Talk to your neighbors. Call or write your elected officials. Volunteer to help in political campaigns. Circulate petitions. Attend meetings. Protest. Run for office. Support good candidates who are running for office. Register people to vote. Reach out to the young and the apathetic. Raise money. Stay informed. And vote, vote, vote - every chance you get.
Democracy is a breeze during good times. It's when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there's a hell of a wind blowing right now.
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
The Red Zone
By MAUREEN DOWD
With the Democratic Party splattered at his feet in little blue puddles, John Kerry told the crushed crowd at Faneuil Hall in Boston about his concession call to President Bush.
"We had a good conversation," the senator said. "And we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together. Today I hope that we can begin the healing."
Democrat: Heal thyself.
W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.
The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."
The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?
While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code.
"He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now," one Bush insider predicts. "He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war." Never mind that the more insurgents American troops kill, the more they create.
Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: "This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world." Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And "confident" is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji.
Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage."
He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq.
Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.
Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."
John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.
Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.
But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.
Invading France?
No Surrender
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: November 5, 2004
Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.
Democrats are now, understandably, engaged in self-examination. But while it's O.K. to think things over, those who abhor the direction Mr. Bush is taking the country must maintain their intensity; they must not succumb to defeatism.
This election did not prove the Republicans unbeatable. Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. Without the fading but still potent aura of 9/11, when the nation was ready to rally around any leader, he wouldn't have won at all. And future events will almost surely offer opportunities for a Democratic comeback.
I don't hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush's second term, but I do expect them. The resurgence of Al Qaeda, the debacle in Iraq, the explosion of the budget deficit and the failure to create jobs weren't things that just happened to occur on Mr. Bush's watch. They were the consequences of bad policies made by people who let ideology trump reality.
Those people still have Mr. Bush's ear, and his election victory will only give them the confidence to make even bigger mistakes.
So what should the Democrats do?
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that's what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, "We've got to close the cultural gap." But that's a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Does this mean that the Democrats are condemned to permanent minority status? No. The religious right - not to be confused with religious Americans in general - isn't a majority, or even a dominant minority. It's just one bloc of voters, whom the Republican Party has learned to mobilize with wedge issues like this year's polarizing debate over gay marriage.
Rather than catering to voters who will never support them, the Democrats - who are doing pretty well at getting the votes of moderates and independents - need to become equally effective at mobilizing their own base.
In fact, they have made good strides, showing much more unity and intensity than anyone thought possible a year ago. But for the lingering aura of 9/11, they would have won.
What they need to do now is develop a political program aimed at maintaining and increasing the intensity. That means setting some realistic but critical goals for the next year.
Democrats shouldn't cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges - even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will.
It's all right to take a few weeks to think it over. (Heads up to readers: I'll be starting a long-planned break next week, to work on a economics textbook. I'll be back in January.) But Democrats mustn't give up the fight. What's at stake isn't just the fate of their party, but the fate of America as we know it.
O.K., Folks: Back to Work
By BOB HERBERT
An iron rule of life is to be careful what you wish for.
President Bush can take his re-election victory to the bank, and his political portfolio has been bolstered by enhanced Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. That's the good news for the president. Nearly all the other news is bad.
A story in the business section of yesterday's Times noted, "Even as President Bush was celebrating his election victory on Wednesday, his Treasury Department provided an ominous reminder about the economic challenges ahead."
With budget deficits exploding, the government will have to borrow $147 billion in the first three months of 2005, a quarterly record. But the record won't stand for long. The government is hemorrhaging money, and the nation has a war to pay for. A new record is almost sure to be set before the year is out.
Managing money is not one of this president's strong points. Plus and minus signs mean nothing to him. If he were actually writing checks, they'd be bouncing to the moon. The federal government's revenue was $100 billion lower this year than when Mr. Bush took office, and spending is $400 billion higher.
Yesterday, at his press conference, the president made it clear that his campaign promise of more - not fewer - tax cuts for the wealthy is at the top of his second-term agenda.
Much has been made of the support Mr. Bush has gotten from religious people. He's going to need all of their prayers that some miracle happens to suspend the laws of simple arithmetic and keep his fiscal house of cards from collapsing.
Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq, overshadowed by the election, is as grim as ever. Insurgents blew up a critical oil pipeline on Tuesday, the latest severe blow to efforts to get the Iraq economy on track. Three British soldiers were killed in an attack yesterday. The assassinations, kidnappings and car bombings continued. The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders announced that it would cease operations in Iraq because of the unrelenting danger. And Hungary became the latest U.S. coalition partner to announce that it would withdraw its troops from Iraq.
In other words, nothing has changed. Mr. Bush's victory on Tuesday was not based on his demonstrated competence in office or on a litany of perceived successes. For all the talk about values that we're hearing, the president ran a campaign that appealed above all to voters' fears and prejudices. He didn't say he'd made life better for the average American over the past four years. He didn't say he had transformed the schools, or made college more affordable, or brought jobs to the unemployed or health care to the sick and vulnerable.
He said, essentially, be very afraid. Be frightened of terrorism, and of those dangerous gay marriages, and of those in this pluralistic society who may have thoughts and beliefs and values that differ from your own.
As usual, he turned reality upside down. A quintessential American value is tolerance for ideas other than one's own. Tuesday's election was a dismaying sprint toward intolerance, sparked by a smiling president who is a master at appealing to the baser aspects of our natures.
Which brings me to the Democrats - the ordinary voters, not the politicians - and where they go from here. I have been struck by the extraordinary demoralization, even dark despair, among a lot of voters who desperately wanted John Kerry to defeat Mr. Bush. "We did all we could," one woman told me, "and we still lost."
Here's my advice: You had a couple of days to indulge your depression - now, get over it. The election's been lost but there's still a country to save, and with the current leadership that won't be easy. Crucial matters that have been taken for granted too long - like the Supreme Court and Social Security - are at risk. Caving in to depression and a sense of helplessness should not be an option when the country is speeding toward an abyss.
Roll up your sleeves and do what you can. Talk to your neighbors. Call or write your elected officials. Volunteer to help in political campaigns. Circulate petitions. Attend meetings. Protest. Run for office. Support good candidates who are running for office. Register people to vote. Reach out to the young and the apathetic. Raise money. Stay informed. And vote, vote, vote - every chance you get.
Democracy is a breeze during good times. It's when the storms are raging that citizenship is put to the test. And there's a hell of a wind blowing right now.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
The Aftermath
If you're happy that George W Bush won the election, enjoy your moment. If,like me, you're experiencing an emotional hole that mere words can't easily describe, remember this feeling.
As hard as it seems to believe, it's going to pass. In a week or so, you'll be amazed at how much better you feel. And that's good - humans aren't built to feel this kind of disapointment for long periods.
Here's a couple of things that I believe strongly in, and that I think it's important to remember. Number one, of course, is that this was a close election. Bush won by 51 to 49%. If you imagine the voting public as a group of 100 people in a town hall, 49 of them agree with YOU. The other 51 people agree with the other guy. Think about that. It's important because the Bush folks want to paint this as a 'mandate'. They won fair and square (this time) but it's not a mandate. All we need to do is convince 2 of those folks to change their mind and we win.
The trick is, how do we do that?
There are some who think we should 'move towards the right' and abandon some liberal principles in order
to get elected next time. I disagree. Clinton moved the dems as far to the right as they could go and not
be repubs. I mean, the new senator for Oklahoma wants to ban gays from being teachers and install the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Do we really want to move closer to that?
Here's why those 2 people went with Bush rather than Kerry. They liked Bush more. He connected with them. They were scared, and thought he could do a better job of protecting them. Those 2 people are not the straw-munching, bible bashing rednecks we keep hearing about. They're regular folks who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. In four years I don't think they'll be wanting to do that again. I really don't.
The problems that smart people (you know, like us) can see now are going to become obvious even to dumb people in the next four years. Iraq, the environment, the economy. There are no simple quick fixes to these issues. And as soon as they get worse (and believe me,they're going to get worse - a lot worse) then they will trump sideshows like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. Things on planet earth are gonna get as ugly as a Liza Minnelli honeymoon night.
Of course, that doesn't really make us feel much better, does it? We wanted to win. And not just to be right. We wanted to win because 4 more years are really going to make the world a more dangerous place, in many ways.
So what now? Well, we keep at it. We keep working, we hope that the world won't be irrevocably wrecked in the next 4 years. We do all we can to convince those other two people in the town hall to walk over to our side of the room.
And we keep our sense of humor, because without that, we're really fucked.
As hard as it seems to believe, it's going to pass. In a week or so, you'll be amazed at how much better you feel. And that's good - humans aren't built to feel this kind of disapointment for long periods.
Here's a couple of things that I believe strongly in, and that I think it's important to remember. Number one, of course, is that this was a close election. Bush won by 51 to 49%. If you imagine the voting public as a group of 100 people in a town hall, 49 of them agree with YOU. The other 51 people agree with the other guy. Think about that. It's important because the Bush folks want to paint this as a 'mandate'. They won fair and square (this time) but it's not a mandate. All we need to do is convince 2 of those folks to change their mind and we win.
The trick is, how do we do that?
There are some who think we should 'move towards the right' and abandon some liberal principles in order
to get elected next time. I disagree. Clinton moved the dems as far to the right as they could go and not
be repubs. I mean, the new senator for Oklahoma wants to ban gays from being teachers and install the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Do we really want to move closer to that?
Here's why those 2 people went with Bush rather than Kerry. They liked Bush more. He connected with them. They were scared, and thought he could do a better job of protecting them. Those 2 people are not the straw-munching, bible bashing rednecks we keep hearing about. They're regular folks who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. In four years I don't think they'll be wanting to do that again. I really don't.
The problems that smart people (you know, like us) can see now are going to become obvious even to dumb people in the next four years. Iraq, the environment, the economy. There are no simple quick fixes to these issues. And as soon as they get worse (and believe me,they're going to get worse - a lot worse) then they will trump sideshows like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. Things on planet earth are gonna get as ugly as a Liza Minnelli honeymoon night.
Of course, that doesn't really make us feel much better, does it? We wanted to win. And not just to be right. We wanted to win because 4 more years are really going to make the world a more dangerous place, in many ways.
So what now? Well, we keep at it. We keep working, we hope that the world won't be irrevocably wrecked in the next 4 years. We do all we can to convince those other two people in the town hall to walk over to our side of the room.
And we keep our sense of humor, because without that, we're really fucked.
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