It’s surprising that it took this long for the classic 1960’s series Dark Shadows to take it’s turn getting the retro-update treatment. The series has everything you could ask for, 60’s camp, iconic characters and even classic theme music. It’s a prime property to pick the pockets of middle-aged folk who almost all look back with nostalgic fondness for that simpler time and who can be counted on to pony up for a few hours of reliving it. This lucrative demographic is what has fueled a literal avalanche of remakes of iconic material from the 60’s and 70’s. The sad part generally, and with this latest Dark Shadows version in particular, is that these remakes are terrible and do nothing but remind us all not only of how interesting the originals were, but how dismal and imagination-free the current generation of entertainers are. And worst of all, how shamelessly egotistical they are. And no one is more guilty than Johnny Depp.

There can be reasons for remakes. Ian McKellan’s, Richard III set during World War I reveled in the timeless relevance of the play, but also spoke to a war that remains unexplainable almost a hundred years later. It was not staged solely to satisfy the I-wanna-play-dressup ego of its powerful star, or to make a fast buck at the mall cinema, it had a point. Tom Cruise’s hamfisted “Mission Impossible” series? Not so much. They had nothing to do with the classic series and were made for no other reason than to pull people into theaters to watch Cruise masterbate.

The same, sadly, can be said of Johnny Depp’s entire underachieving career. Lacking the gravitas to take on serious material, nor as his embarrassing and disastrous turn opposite Angelina Jolie in The Tourist demonstrated, enough masculinity to be a romantic leading man, Depp relies instead on goofy make-up and costumes and casual, take-nothing-seriously, cool to pose as his generation’s Dean Martin. Certain that nothing beyond just showing up to play the clown is ever really necessary to cash in on his brand, Depp shuffles through all of his ego driven vehicles on slacker’s auto-pilot. Like Martin, instead of actually stretching his talent and doing any real work or developing any new material, Depp just slaps on some make-up and relies on his wink-wink charm to keep the millions pouring into his bank account. He doesn’t give a shit.

But, like Cruise and the cadre of pandering re-makers, in catering to his own gargantuan ego, Depp does a great disservice to those who he mocks. His dreadful and tasteless turn as Willie Wonka overshadowed the wonderful job that Gene Wilder did in making that role a beloved classic. Wilder’s first few speechless minutes in his film blows away anything the gormless Depp did anywhere in his BFF Tim Burton’s anethestized version. Wilder was funny, menacing and endlessly charming because was a good enough actor to express those qualities. Depp was not funny, not charming and was really nothing but a white painted face hiding an entertainer far, far out of his depth. It’s a shame that audiences will be confused into straying from the original.

Like so many of his generation, Depp was transfixed by Dark Shadows, and by Jonathon Frid’s Barnabas Collins. While Frid’s menacing cool is probably lost on audiences today, in the late 60’s, like another supporting character from a low-budget TV show, Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, Frid’s Barnabas made him one of the biggest and most instantly recognizable stars of his day. With the power and money Depp culled from his Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Depp could get to be Barnabas Collins just as he got to be Willie Wonka. But, instead of exploring any of the rich themes of life and love that could be mined from Dark Shadows, he just once again just put on his white make-up and tried to turn it into the slapstick comedy that he and Burton have showed over and over again they don’t have to wit to do. It is just stoopid.

But there is a larger lesson here. Dark Shadows was not Richard III. What made the otherwise pedestrian soap opera a cultural phenomenon was Jonathon Frid’s performance which captured the imagination of a generation. That can’t be replicated no matter how much money and power you have. Dark Shadows, and Frid’s character, deserved better than to be turned into bad screwball comedy. Like the recent Star Trek reboot, it could have at least tried to be a serious endeavor that was respectful to both the original and those who loved it. But to be serious risks scrutiny. It’s so much easier just to be a joker.

We’ll see how Depp feels in 20 or 30 years when someone who’s a kid now grows up and wants to play Jack Sparrow in some hologram version of a Pirates re-boot. But, like Dean Martin, Depp won’t give a shit about that either as long as the check banks.

Yesterday with some free time in the afternoon, I thought I’d do something I hadn’t done in years, watch a baseball game. That is a baseball game that wasn’t a playoff or a World’s Series game, just an old school, Saturday afternoon baseball game. I remembered that every year as I watch the end of the season I promise myself I will get into the game the following Spring, so I decided to make good on that promise to myself- but was surprised to find that there wasn’t a game on. I trolled the network channels that used to always have games on, but there was nothing. So, I did a search and found that there were actually several games on, but they were only available if you ponied up hundreds of dollars for a premium dish channel. So much for that idea.

But still curious, I did another search to see when the next game would be on either network or basic cable and the best I could find was one “regional” game every week or so. By regional, what they mean is they won’t say until gametime who’s playing and which game it is. So, if I like to follow any specific teams, with no idea who’s playing, there’s no reason for me to mark the date. I nevertheless looked at the possibilities they offered which were mostly habitually bad, small market teams. And I realized why I never get into baseball until the playoffs start. It’s because baseball has the same problem America does- it’s broken and while everyone knows how to fix it, no one is willing to do it. While the NFL thrives, baseball sits moribund like Blockbuster watching Netflix run them into the ground.

Baseball’s problem is the same as Wall Street’s, and America’s writ large. A few greedy people formed a network that rigs the system to advantage their own wallets at the expense of the game that provides their livelihood. They are happy to cook their golden goose and eat it today with no thought to what tomorrow might bring for even them, let alone the next generation. The very same problem we have as a nation. But this should come as no surprise because baseball has always been a mirror to the American soul. Baseball excluded black players until the post-war period just as the country did. Baseball also gave women the opportunity to join the game during the war, only to shut them down after to usher them back into the kitchens to the tune of Doris Day ditties as soon as it was over. But now, baseball has created it’s own grisly death spiral to which all Americans should take notice.

In it’s century-long heyday, baseball provided us with several virtues. First, it was above all an equalizer. Everyone went to baseball games, and most importantly, segregated seating obviously aside, they all sat together. You could have the mayor of your city, or your United States Senator, sitting in the row in front of you telling at the umpire and eating the same hot dog you were were. Now, your mayor sits in a luxury box sipping champagne while most baseball stadiums struggle to put regular fans into the seats. More and more teams play in almost empty venues. And there are good reasons for that.

Tickets to an average baseball game in 1965 cost around $2.25, or about $13 today adjusted for inflation. Today, decent seats for even the lowly Oakland A’s, who were featured in the recent film Moneyball, would set you back $30 to $50. And then, of course, you tack on parking for $17, and $8 for a hotdog, and a day for a family of four at the ballpark becomes an enterprise of several hundred bucks because everyone is shamelessly after their own pound of flesh.

In it’s glory years baseball was a family game and was a place that men in particular bonded with their children. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written eloquently about afternoons she spent with her father at Ebbets Field. Families shared team allegiances and followed their players and scores and those who didn’t go to the ballpark on a Saturday afternoon watched on television. America was in the game. Today, the vast majority of hardcore baseball fans who are willing to spend $225 on products like DirecTV’s MLB Extra Innings to have access to televised games are middle-aged or older. The only people who grow up with baseball now are the sons and daughters of that ever winnowing demographic who are privy to premium cable and dish services. Once the great equalizer, baseball has now all but disappeared from the lives of the working class and the poor for whom it used to be a cultural staple.

But baseball’s problems go beyond television. Another reason for empty stadiums is the grotesque disparity between the quality of the teams. Small market teams, and those like the Oakland A’s who have small pocketed owners, are not seriously competitive. They are, literally, farm teams for the First World teams. If you were going to splash out to take your family to see a game would you cough up $200+ to see the Blue Jays play the Astros? Probably not.

Meanwhile, the NFL thrives. Thursday’s NFL Draft, where the teams did nothing but select players from the college ranks, was a huge ratings success for ESPN. Sure, much has been made of football’s appeal to a contemporary American culture that craves violence over finesse, but that’s far from the whole story. The NFL thrives because it’s regulates itself. It instituted profit sharing and a salary cap to equalize the sport and avoid any single team being able to horde the talent. The Green Bay Packers, whose stadium essentially can hold their whole town, and a low-income town to boot, were the best team in the game for most of the season. Some teams are habitually better than others, the Steelers and Patriots always field teams that will be in the championship hunt, but it’s never because of money advantage. They just know who they are and what kind of players will work for them. That’s identity and a legacy that fans can relate to, and part of the reason you see Steeler’s jerseys in the stands wherever they play. And, by having NFL games available on network television in every market on every Sunday- with no teams owning their own networks to cash in for themselves- the NFL ensures the next generation will be engaged in the sport and that virtually any kid who wants to can be part of the conversation the way baseball fans used to be.

The NFL has it’s own problems to be sure and, at an average ticket price of $60, stadium attendance is down. It will have to address this at some point because half-full stadiums don’t make for good television. But the moral of the story here is one we should all consider during this election year. An open, unregulated market that allows people to realize their greediest, most selfish and least patriotic drives at the expense of the greater whole is one that will inevitably eat itself. We all blithely followed George W. Bush, brandishing the banner of Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of American social cannibalism, to the very brink of ruin. Unless we yank control of our economy back from the banks and energy and health insurance corporations who are literally feasting on the flesh of our children and shitting out toxins we will be living in an empty stadium with a few rich people in luxury boxes as we all look around, and remember the cheers and camaraderie of days long gone- and what it used to be like to be American.

Normally when an iconic celebrity dies, the media spends a few days reliving their lives with an onslaught of the movie and television clips, sports moments, music or speeches that made that person a household name. Jonathan Frid, known to a generation as Barnabas Collins, and musician Levon Helm, both of whom who died today, will no doubt deservedly be remembered over the next few days through songs and video from Dark Shadows just the late Monkees singer Davy Jones recently was.

But then we have Dick Clark, whose death prompted celebrities of all stripes to fall over themselves to pay tribute to him as an icon, trendsetter and other such vague banalities uttered for want of a more meaningful noun. And the clips we saw accompanying this outpouring? There were, of course, no songs, no poetry, no inspirational speeches or anything else. All you’ll see is Mr. Clark holding a microphone introducing others, from musicians to a glittering New Year’s Eve ball. What will sadly go unremarked on is Mr. Clark’s real enduring legacy- a talent for nothing but relentless self-promotion.

Unlike Allen Freed, who loved and understood Rock and Roll music and was the high priest of it’s spirited infancy, Dick Clark, never understood it or cared the slightest thing about beyond how it might line his pockets. For Clark, music was product, pure and simple and he gleefully lorded over its crass commodification. While millions of people did indeed watch American Bandstand, and a few serious acts like the Doors did appear (Clark famously asked Jim Morrison to wear a tie), what Bandstand viewers primarily saw were only those acts willing to be sufficiently diluted into mushy, inoffensive pablum to satisfy corporate sponsors. As Rock and Roll grew from Boogie Woogie dripping with sexual innuendo into increasingly raw and unambiguous expression of a new and brazen youth culture that was questioning the status quo from every angle, Clark’s Bandstand did all it could to preserve the safe sock hop era from which Clark himself emerged. The show, like the host, was square, devoid of relevance and glaringly sexless.

From the beginning, Clark sought to sell one product above all else, himself. He wanted to establish that a guy who did nothing but read sales charts and introduce other people was somehow worthy of fame and celebrity in his own right. He started by making sure his own name became synonymous with the show’s and took willing bands on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand tours to further promote himself and his brand. By the early 70’s, though it did stay on the air, the antiseptic Bandstand was played out and Clark had to branch out. He gravitated to the most obsequious media genre- gameshows. He forged a second career throughout the 70’s and 80’s hosting forgettable variants of the $10,000 Pyramid. But he also saw an opening for a New Year’s Eve show and launched Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve to continue his ride on the backs of the talented and useful. His name, naturally, at the top. In 1981 he went back to radio with, you guessed it, The Dick Clark National Music Survey.

Clark also turned his formidable ambition towards producing- the raw, brass knuckles, business side of entertainment- and in 1984 he signed professional baffoon and yuck yuck oaf Ed McMahon to host the NBC series TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes. He also produced or hosted a string of other dismal, lowest of the low brow fare, including gameshows like Scattergories, the Challengers and Greed. He branched out into the awards show genre and produced the Golden Globes and, as if there weren’t enough award shows already, founded the American Music Awards.

Ever the glutton, Clark pushed his self-aggrandizing merchandising operation beyond television and radio and opened a chain of restaurants, for which he was famously called by filmmaker Michael Moore for exploiting poor women employees for paltry wages in despicable working conditions (the clip from the film Bowling for Columbine, shows unrepentant Clark for the breathtaking asshole he really was.). They included “Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grill”, “Dick Clark’s AB Grill”, “Dick Clark’s Bandstand — Food, Spirits & Fun” and “Dick Clark’s AB Diner.” He also opened “Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Theater” in Branson, Missouri and a theater and restaurant called “Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Music Complex” in Tennessee. You may have noticed a pattern. The man loved the sound of his own name.

When he died this week, leaving a legacy of media excretia behind, his tireless self-promotion had nevertheless amassed a $200 million dollar fortune, setting the standard for the scrum of talentless, game and reality show rodents who now rule over our televisions and stare back at us from supermarket tabloids. Dick Clark was the shameless trailblazer for them all and anyone curious how they can make it big in show business, regardless of how tone deaf or witless or unable to do anything to contribute to the culture, need look no further than the nauseating case of Dick Clark, forever the patron saint of self-promoting hackery.

Last week the remnants of the “Occupy” movement paraded up my street in their Vendetta/Guy Fawkes masks waving their hackneyed cardboard signs. A few months back this same parade was a few hundred enthusiastic people strong with a police escort, but now it was about fifteen to twenty followed by a single police car. One of the paraders amused himself by repeatedly giving the lone cop the finger, to which the officer’s visible response was “whatever.” Like the rest of “the 99%,” the cop was over it.

The Occupy Movement was just the latest farcical expression of futility that allowed those who actually control our economy and politics to clink glasses of fine scotch, chuckle to themselves and rest even more easily than they already do- which is pretty easily indeed. Every protest, every encampment and every second of press attention the Occupy Movement got weakened the clout and cause of the vast majority of Americans who have to suck daily on the bitter fruit borne of the poisoned tree of corruption that dominates our landscape. It remains, same as it ever was.

The success of protest movements depends upon two core principles- a simple and coherent point that will resonate with increasing numbers of people, and a physical and visible expression of that point that encourages people to participate. Take, for example, the protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square or the movement to remove Slobodan Milosevic from power in Serbia, which drew more than 70,000 people into the street. Those successful movements were about one, simple thing- the ouster of a leader who had grown unpopular. The success of the Civil Rights protest movement in this country was largely due to the dignity and comportment of the protests themselves. The images of non-violent, unarmed protesters walking hand in hand over the Edmund Pettus Bridge to face billy club wielding cops in riot gear, and so many others like them, touched the heart and soul of our nation and spurred lawmakers and judges into action.

And then there’s the Occupy movement which lacked all of these essential components. Was it about economics? Corporate corruption of lawmakers? The challenges of “people of color?” The increasingly dismal plight of the Palestinian people? Affirmative Action? The closure of public libraries? Affordable housing? The shortage of places that sell pizza by the individual slice? Yes, it was in the end about off of these things and as a result it had no coherent message. The Occupy movement had no actual point that anyone could glean from witnessing it, but worst of all it lacked dignity. All it left behind was confusion, finger pointing and internal dissension over tactics and motivation, broken windows and the piles of garbage and excrement that others had to clean up. From beginning to end, it showed no respect for the public or it’s property and it set back the cause of the shrinking Middle Class and the poor immeasurably.

But while the Occupy fiasco alienated the majority of the American people, the core challenges we all face have not diminished. Consider the image above of 25-year-old Iraq war veteran Eric Jasinski which illuminate both Occupy’s motivation and the confusion. As a veteran who served in Iraq, Mr. Jasinki’s right to be alienated is undeniable. He signed up to serve his country, trusted our military as an institution, and was carelessly cast into the cauldron of Hell for reasons no one really knows. But in addition to his camouflage shirt, he has added the iconic peace sign from the 60’s. Which means what exactly? Like so many of the returned Vietnam veterans is he now opposition to war in general? Jasinsk also wears an American flag bearing a crude, gold dollar sign and a person with a line through them. What does this all mean? That America cares more about money than people? Yawn. Lastly, he sports a Guy Fawkes mask, featured in the movie Vendetta. And this means what exactly? Does Jasinki know who Guy Fawkes actually was? Or is it just a cool-for-the-moment movie mask? Does he support the overthrow of the American political system in favor of anarchy? Does he, or anyone else who sports that mask know what anarchy would actually mean? Shall we really turn off all the traffic lights?

I once had a young protester at UC Berkeley, who was about to occupy the campus’ iconic campanile tower over Affirmative Action, tell me how much he envied the Civil Rights protesters because “you knew who the enemy was.” Therein really lies the problem for “the 99%.” Though this kid was about to get himself arrested over Affirmative Action, he couldn’t actually explain what it was to me. It was just “Ya know…Affirmative Action.” Well, no, I don’t actually know and neither does anyone else because it’s a generic and variable term that means different things to everyone. But we all do know that corporate banks and bankers rigged legislation to allow them to feed at the trough until it broke. We do know that health insurance corporations do nothing but charge us exorbitant fees to ration our care to us. We do know that while corporate America provides us football, celebrity gossip and American Idol, it is a giant python that is squeezing us all to literal death. And we do know that by sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill and be killed we are only presenting ourselves as a nation to be hated and retaliated against. Eventually, we’ll figure out that chanting, waving signs, parading in masks and turning pubic spaces into restrooms won’t change anything in America. It’s about the money and hopefully we’ll all get that the way to make those who are in power in this country finally stop laughing over the comedy of Occupy will be to go after their wallets.

Anyone who saw Game Change over the weekend had to have been horrified anew that someone of such modest intellectual capacity as Sarah Palin could have gotten so close to the most powerful office on the planet. It was actually quite terrifying. Palin’s problem is not that she is a stupid person, she is not. Palin’s problem is that she lacks curiosity- the worst intellectual failing for a politician. Like a lot of folks, Palin freely uses terms, like “the fed,” to make points when she doesn’t know what the term actually means. The great problem is not simply that she doesn’t know what the Fed is, but rather that she could never be bothered to find out. Like a lot of religious conservatives, Palin thinks that she already knows enough to make the monumental and consequential decisions required of the President of the United States of America. Consider the stack of index flash cards with terms like “NAFTA” that Palin was overwhelmed by in prepping for interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric- and what that stack would have looked like piled up around the floor of the Oval Office.

But what’s all the more terrifying is that so many people in positions of power and influence, including the sitting United States Senator who had secured the Republican Party’s nomination, thought she was acceptable and championed her cause. The system failed in a very seriously dangerously way.

But Palin was not our political system’s only failing by a long shot. While the Game Change dust will soon settle, over on the other side of the party line, the trial of John Edwards will soon be cranked up to offer us all another gruesome glimpse from the “what could have been” file. While Sarah Palin might be unstudied, incurious and lacking the intellect to be president, she is a fine and decent and moral person. Edwards, for all of his smarts, has the opposite problem. He is a amoral sleazeball of truly stunning and nauseating proportions. With Edwards, as is ever the case, it’s not about the sex it’s about the coverup and no one in modern political history ever reached lower into the scum of deceit to cover up like John Edwards.

We have certainly had unprepared, unqualified, dim-witted presidents who’s stupidity wreaked havoc on our nation, Harry Truman and George W. Bush at the top of the list (and while we certainly had some dipshits before, the presidency was not anywhere near so powerful an office in Warren G. Harding’s day.). But Palin and Edwards- both in serious contention within the last decade- represent an extremely worrying proposition. Certainly in Palin’s case, had the McCain folks done their due diligence, she would never have been considered. But Edwards is a trickier case because his failings were in his personal life out of the public view. While not understanding the Queen of Great Britain’s role in politics should have been an instant deal breaker for the McCain folks, it would have been almost impossible for the Kerry Campaign to know what videos Edwards was shooting up to in his hotel room.

But the moral of these stories- true stories that imperiled our republic- should be this. People knew and didn’t speak out. Those who surrounded these two people- who represented a far greater threat to our country than communism or al Queda ever have- put their own careers ahead of our nation. Yes it would have been extremely difficult for John McCain to step up to a microphone and tell us all that he had fucked up so stunningly, and it would have ended his campaign. Andrew Young would have had a very hard time ending his own career in politics by relaying the galling tale of Edwards pressing him and his wife to claim the baby he’d helped create. But in both cases it would have been the right, and patriotic thing to do.

But lastly, we- all of us- bear some responsibility too. We didn’t ask enough questions ourselves either. We all gave these two grotesque people a pass and put their signs on our lawns and their stickers on our cars. Both were bombs that, fortunately for all of us, didn’t go off. But what about the next time? When asked what kind of government we were to have, Benjamin Franklin famously told a woman on the street “a republic, if you can keep it.” We will all have to do our part to make sure we can by making it as hard as possible for the Palin’s and the Edwards’ to get anywhere near the levers of actual power.

With the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial today in Washington D.C., Dr. King finally and formally takes his place among the pantheon of national heroes. But, as we find ourselves in a time of simmering turmoil, there is one glaring difference between Dr. King and the rest of the American icons whose marble eyes gaze out over the Potomoc River - he’s the one we could really use right now.

Dr. King certainly saw himself as a moral leader, and for good reason. His morality is what drove his actions, but it is those actions of which we find ourselves today in such admiration and in such dire need. As eloquent as his Letter from Birmingham Jail and other writings were, what we miss most today is not just what he said or what he wrote, it’s what he and his cohorts actually did. Had King restricted his work to writing and speaking he would be a historical footnote today. Like previous revolutionaries, King understood that they way to change was not through words alone, which are so easily ignored, but through action that can’t be. Boycott.

When Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, it was a bold but not unprecedented action. Others had done the same, but what highlighted Ms. Parks refusal was the boycott of the bus lines primarily used by African Americans. It was the boycott enjoined by so many people in solidarity, not the incident on the bus, which sparked what we now call the Civil Rights Movement. The boycott hit those who sought to oppress their African American neighbors where it really hurt, not in their hearts or minds, but in their wallets. The reaction was swift, and King’s house was bombed and he was put in jail, which helped him become a national figure and provided a stage for his brilliant talent as a speaker. The boycott lasted over a year and culminated in the Supreme Court upholding a lower court ruling that de-segregated buses.

King’s model for Montgomery was Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March of 1930. While Gandhi and his people could not live without salt, the power of the non-violent march culminating with the production of it in disregard of the law imposed by the British was seminal to the end of their rule. King recognized that the equation for modern revolutionary change is a basic one: justice+non-violent action+financial action=revolution. All three components must be present for change to happen.

What King could share with us, if he were to miraculously re-appear today, would be to show us that the equation of today’s protest movement is incomplete. Since King’s time, we have seen untold numbers of protests in our country, which have done nothing. All the protesting over the Vietnam War, upon which so many ensuing efforts have been modeled, where wholly ineffective and polarizing. The War far outlasted the placard waving and chanting and did not end until a full five years after the tragedy at Kent State. Similar protests over the Iraq War were even less influential.

The greatest lesson Dr. King left to us was not just how to be righteous, but how to be righteous and win. You don’t win by simply clogging streets and parks and waving signs. No one who works on Wall Street is even remotely threatened by the “occupy” movement, and in fact the smart ones are no doubt thrilled to watch the opposition to their avarice turned in to a Renaissance Faire farce. What will worry them, and in fact send them into a panic however, is if the opposition to them- supported by a majority of Americans- gains enough momentum and support to actually organize financial action.

Today, in addition to reflecting on the great words of Dr. King, we should also reflect on his greatest lesson. Revolutionary change will come not just when we are righteous, not when we are righteous and demonstrate non-violently, but when we are righteous and demonstrate non-violently in long lines to take our money out of the banks who rape us daily and who have brought our country, literally, to the brink of financial ruin.

Change is not something we need to believe in. It’s something that we have to create.

Like all other American cities, Oakland, California is not “occupied territory.” Not even close. Not even symbolically. Have banks or engines of any financial muscle been seriously picketed, hampered or boycotted? Government offices? No. Oakland’s business as usual, dysfunctional and pathetically self-defeating as always, goes on despite this latest street theater farce in Frank Ogawa Plaza. Ogawa Plaza, what passes for Oakland’s city center, is apparently the only site the usual, anarchist wannabe suspects can think of to don their hoodies and make jokes of themselves. What is most troubling is that tired and silly pseudo-60’s pantomimes like these are what now purports to be “the Left,” ensuring that real themes financial disparity and social justice remain undefined clichés is particular and written off in general. While the Tea Partiers gain more and more political clout and power, clowns like the “occupy Oakland” crowd make sure that alternative voices are not taken seriously. And for good reason.

Consider this from participant and oaklandlocal.com poster Richard Wright:

“Although the movement has been open, inviting and encouraging of People Of Color (POC) involvement, it still requires POC organizers to enter a space that can be culturally alienating, and the power dynamic of POCs bringing POC issues to a predominantly white forum, even with the best intentions of progressive and radical white folks…. can be problematic.”

Where to start with so dopey an observation? First of all, there is no “movement,” and Mr. Wright’s delusions of grandeur aside, there are no leaders to “invite or encourage” people of color. If it were a movement, invitations would not be necessary and people from across the social and cultural spectrum would be involving themselves as they did during previous social upheavals. That’s what happens in real social movements.

But second, and more tellingly, is the galling sense of patronizing self-importance of Mr. Wright and his cohorts who time and again involve themselves in flash in the pan demonstrations that serve only to underscore their impotence and cement their status as poseurs of the first order (or sadly to debase the memory of Oscar Grant, the young man killed by a BART police officer, by smashing windows and grabbing free sports shoes). Does Mr. Wright really think that “people of color” are so dim-witted and unaware that they need invitations? Or would he argue that such is the weight of social oppression upon them that they require aid to enlighten them? Even the briefest of History lessons would clue Wright in that people of color have not in the past found protest to be “a space that can be culturally alienating.” Perhaps instead most people, regardless of background, simply find these comic events to be self-defeating and stupid and would never consider being associated with them?

It’s certainly understandable that we all- even the top 1%- are extremely nervous and uncertain about our collective future. There is a palpable sense that everything around is going off the rails and few among us think the next few years will be good for us personally, nationally, or globally. Our financial institutions, unbridled by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, have created a snarled, worldwide mess that will almost certainly wreak havoc upon all of our lives in the near future. Our political system is totally paralyzed as it was largely intended to be, and can and will do nothing. The lackluster, if well intentioned, Barack Obama has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that “change” ain’t coming from the government and the thanks he’ll get for trying is a one-way ticket back to Chicago next year to make way for Mitt Romney, the poster boy for the 1%.

Of one thing Mr. Wright is undoubtedly correct- that the only positive change for the rest of us that will happen in this country will indeed be by dint of a social movement, but it will be a financial one. Instead of trying to replicate the 60’s and 70’s with meaningless crowd gatherings and hackneyed chants and signs that most people tune out, it will happen by collective financial action. If we all stopped dividing ourselves by perceived color and/or social lines and realized that WE- all of us- loan banks money to operate and not the other way around, we could wrest control of finance in ways Marx could only dream about. If the big five banks faced the real prospect of even 1% of their customers lining up in the same week to withdraw their money, they would lie prostrate before us all. Five bucks to use my ATM card? I don’t fucking think so!

But as long as the best we can muster for social action is to have a bunch of bored youth who play dress-up like zombies, actively seek the most unattractive hairstyle imaginable and tattoo and face staple their way out of being taken remotely seriously, camping out uselessly on streets and in city centers, nothing at all is going to change. At least nothing good for the 99%.

In the year to come, we’ll be flooded with an endless avalanche of polls and great hype will be put on a variety of numbers. We’ll hear about the President’s approval and “likability” ratings, nation-wide preference, “right track/wrong track” and on and on. But in the end, there’s only one set of numbers that matters, the Electoral College.

The Republican challenger, less some dramatic late entry, will either be Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, and given where the party is right now, it’s Rick Perry’s to lose. If he can stay on his message and not go off on some campaign ending diatribe, get caught taking an envelope of money or get filmed performing oral sex on a undocumented busboy, he’s the guy his party wants so badly to love. And love him they almost certainly will. A win for Perry in New Hampshire primary seals the deal and those in the White House who are licking their chops bursting with confidence that Perry to too radical to win had best look again at the electoral map. And a History book because the map could very likely end up looking like the one here.

First, there is the issue of voter turnout. As the first African American to be the nominee of his party, Barack Obama enjoyed not only over 90% of the African American vote, but the black turnout was far and away the largest ever, particularly among black voters in the 18-24 year-old range (up to 55.4% from 44.7 in 2004). The black vote was crucial in Obama’s wins in Indiana and North Carolina. But it’s hard to see how Obama maintains those numbers with unemployment over 20% among African Americans and given that you can’t vote for the first black president twice. Congressman Maxine Waters from the Congressional Black Caucus is publicly exasperated with the president and she’s by no means alone. He’s done virtually nothing to connect with black voters as president. Obama also enjoyed support from the Hispanic community but has likewise done nothing as president do shore up that support. Then take a look at the Progressive vote. Obama has hardly been a progressive champion and what progress he has made, on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for example, was so long overdue it’s almost hard to consider it an achievement. You see the pattern. Obama decided early on to eschew communities and his base to focus his appeal on middle-of-the-road Independent voters and as a result there is just not going to be a groundswell of enthusiasm coming from any corner for the president.

Next, of course, is both the dismal economy and, fairly or not, Obama’s perceived impotence in dealing with it. Unemployment will almost certainly be about 9%, closer to 15-17% in real terms and with Washington in gridlock, nothing much will happen in the next year and a half and the American people will be even more scared and out of their minds with frustration. We’ve seen poll numbers like this twice before- low consumer confidence, “right track/wrong track,” etc- and that was in 1980 and 1992, the only times America has denied a president re-election since Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Now consider Governor Perry’s constituency. Should he be the nominee, Perry would energize the base of Evangelical and socially conservative voters who dutifully line up to be bussed to voting booths- and who were the margin for George W. Bush’s wins and were so unimpressed by John McCain that they conspicuously stayed at home in 2008. Perry would also have the wild card of a running mate, which would almost certainly be Florida’s Marco Rubio. The equation of motivated Republicans versus demoralized Democrats does not bode well for the crucial swing states that will decide the election.

So, now let’s look again at the map. There are the states that are never in play, such as California, Utah, and Texas. President Obama won several traditionally red states in 2008, such as Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. He won’t win any of those in 2012. The race, as it usually is, will be decided in a handful of states in the Mid-West and Florida. The winner on either side will almost certainly have to win two out of three in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. The math is almost impossible otherwise. Perry would obviously hold all of the solidly Republican states in the South and West, while Obama would surely hold on to the West Coast and North East. Any defections would signal a landslide of epic proportions. With an energized base behind him, Perry would look a very good bet to carry the purple states of Colorado, New Mexico and Missouri. With Rubio on the ticket, Florida almost certainly goes red despite the unpopular Republican governor. Without Rubio it would just lean red.

So that leaves the real battleground states. The new picture ID voting law in Wisconsin will no doubt significantly reduce turnout of low income and voters of color and makes that state a tossup. If you give Obama Pennsylvania, which would be generous to put it mildly, he would still have to win Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire to reach exactly 270 electoral votes to Perry’s 268. Perry’s appeal in the “Live Free or Die” state would be significant, and it could very easily come down to those three electoral votes.

There is still time for President Obama to do something to improve his standing and his image as a weak, well-meaning ditherer. He has announced a September speech that will outline a proposal to address unemployment, but given his pattern of nibbling around the edges of policy wonkish tax credits and patent reform and his tedious and ineffectual calls to “come together to solve problems” it’s unlikely he’ll produce anything but yawns. And yawns ain’t gonna win you Ohio.

In 2008, most of America thought Barack Obama was a new political colossus that had been given the keys to the most powerful office in the world and would change America forever. The Right feared he would usher in a new era of higher taxes and legalized weed and same sex marriage to sound of James Brown beat out on African drums. The Progressive Left hoped that the web of evil corporations would be driven back into their caves, the planet would be saved from the disaster of climate change and the social safety net would be defended. While both extremes were unrealistic, neither side was prepared for the shockingly ineffectual president that Barack Obama actually turned out to be. In reality, almost nothing has changed at all and there has been, to put it mildly, no Obama Revolution.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to burn our money and our people, Guantanamo Bay is still open for its horrific and indefensible business, “too big to fail” banks operate on even riskier lines than before on borrowed money, Goldman Sachs people still run the Treasury and “climate change” has virtually disappeared from politics, despite epic weather events and record heat waves. And one hopes that no one seriously brings up the words “heath” and “care” in the same sentence in Obama’s defense. The monstrosity that was finally dismantled enough to pacify, and obscenely benefit, the health insurance lobby to be signed into law was not only a farce but it was not even his plan to begin with. From the start he punted to Congress who naturally turned to lobbyists to write the legislation.

The President handled the debt ceiling disaster, which was created in the vacuum that he himself so naively left in the lame duck sessions in December, exactly the same way he’s handled every political challenge that has come before him, and no one should be surprised. Instead of being on the field mixing it up and pushing the ball forward, he opted to play referee and we all should now clearly understand that this role is essential to who the man is. He is conflict adverse himself, but relishes resolving the conflicts of others, and that is exactly how he has seen his presidency from day one- to be the person who could bring “red and blue America” together, and to become the Lincoln of our times. But he, and we, were all tragically mistaken. He never got that he was supposed to lead the blue team. A referee who treats all parties impartially and instinctively steers towards the middle ground was the very last thing we needed. It’s why America got half a lifeboat in the storm and is now essentially leaderless and in political crisis.

What Barack Obama didn’t understand was that his election in 2008 was a handoff from the American people, not the start of a working relationship. People worked to get the vote out and then cried in joy on election night, drank toasts on inauguration day and then went back to work, at least those of us who still had jobs, and expected him to get on with making the world a better place. And then a funny thing happened. Nothing. He proposed no legislation, laid down no directives, set no parameters and basically just spoke in mushy, professorial generalities. Were it not for the dynamism of Speaker Pelosi, who politics aside was one of the most skilled Speakers for decades, we would certainly not have seen any of what was produced in his first two years, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act- or even the dismal Health Care bill which never felt Obama’s fingerprints until he signed it.

The presidents America remembers as great are the ones who seized the debate and, well, dictated. That really is what we want. Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt steamrolled legislation over the congress often with dubious legal authority and we love them for it. Even Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush managed to get their disastrous way. Barack Obama is not a stupid man, quite the contrary, and as the Ossama bin Laden episode testifies, nor does he lack the guts to gamble. But while he’s gifted at painting in broad rhetorical strokes on the campaign stump, he clearly lacks “the vision thing” and the ability to drive the agenda. But the Tea Partiers have clearly overplayed their hand and now is exactly the moment for him to break out and really show some leadership. The country is ready, begging for it, and we can only “hope” that he will “change.” But, sadly, don’t put any money on it.

And so we should all understand how the stage is set for the rest of the Obama presidency, however long it lasts. The Republicans will continue to show resolve born of conviction and the Democrats en mass will continue to waffle and squeal ineffectually about “fairness” and “hypocrisy” as they get spanked and backpedal from a debt they can’t defend. They will continue to look at each other in the hope that someone else will step up and make a play, but no Democrat will because that’s the president’s job. But this one ain’t gonna do it either. And since no Democrat is going to present our first black president with a primary challenge no matter what he does, so unless Obama slams his fist on the table and starts hitting back, we can look forward to the Republicans being the only team on the field and controlling the debate for years to come.

Soon it will be “Morning in America” again. We’ll see endless iconic images of farms and statues and fireworks and candidates will play dress-up in flannel and sit on tractors and shake hands in diners they would never otherwise dream of urinating in unless they were truly desperate. The American people will be urged yet again to “take America back” from the enemies which threaten our very existence so that we might return to a mythic and idyllic past when a cold glass of milk and a slice of pie waited on the kitchen table for every kid after school.

Those who are surprised by the emergence of Michelle Bachmann as a serious player in this game need a history lesson. Gaffes and breathtaking displays of ignorance and stupidity have never been disqualifiers in presidential politics for those like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush who can play the part in the big arena political theater. They only kill the Gerald Fords, Walter Mondales and Barry Goldwaters who can’t.

Many Democrats hoped that former California governor Ronald Reagan would win the Republican nomination in 1980 because they were sure he was too right wing, and too stupid, to actually win a general election. Like Bachmann, Reagan said some jaw-dropping things, such as that he saw no problem with the University of California selling off it’s collection of Mark Twain’s handwritten pages as long as they photocopied them first, or his “seen one redwood tree you’ve seen ‘em all” line. His subsequent adoption of “Star Wars” missile defense boondoggle made good on the rich promise of his dim-wittedness. But what Democrats didn’t count on was an actor’s ability to play a scene and for a simple man’s ability to connect with simple people.

Reagan’s staff borrowed the Nixon Playbook and reduced their candidates narrative to that of a cowboy facing the impending menace of a Soviet bear ready to pounce any moment and maul what was left of “the shining city on the hill.” His 1984 Bear in the Woods campaign ad, with it’s horror movie music and dire warning, worked just the same way exterminators try to sell you on the threat of termites to your healthy house so that you might engage their services. There was no “bear in the woods,” of course and the Soviet’s never budged an inch after World War II. The best they ever managed was pathetic proxy wars in places like Angola. Nor was there ever a remotely serious threat of “commies” here in America. Communism posed as much of a threat in the 20th Century as “Sharia law” does today, but that doesn’t stop the Nixonian fear mongering.

As Michelle Bachmann’s campaign proves, that old theater schtick still works. She catapulted herself into the national spotlight reading from the Nixon script, telling MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that congress should investigate “anti-Americanism” not only among her fellow congressmen, but specifically concerning presidential candidate Barack Obama. She did not, of course, actually define what “anti-Americanism” is or make any specific accusations. Vintage Nixon.

What Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes understood, and what Bachmann clearly gets, is that politics in a democracy, is the game of making the complex appear simple to simple people. Those candidates who are the most successful are not those who cite CBO figures or discuss tax policy, but those who are able to stir the imaginations of the people and then enlist their support to their imagined shared goal. The pertinent skill is to produce meaningless, fluffy cliches such as “Putting People First,” “Morning in America,” and “Hope and Change” and let the anxious people who care, or are frightened, enough to vote fill in the blanks as to what they mean. Republicans aspiring to the “Southern Strategy” with its bounty of uneducated, uber-religious voters trained to eat garbage and accept things unblushingly on faith without any evidence have an even easier job.

Don’t be surprised if a nation with 15% real unemployment standing wide-eyed and mesmerized with fear as airport employees rummage through their underpants lines up behind this year’s Reagan model. If Ms. Bachmann plays her media cards right, as Reagan did, and doesn’t say anything really stupid, she could send Hillary Clinton sprinting to the bathroom to hurl and become the first woman to become President of the United States. It would be as American as apple pie.

Newer Posts »