...The paradox is that although war is waning in the classic configuration of brigades fighting an enemy on foreign shores, we are not rid of its specter, burdens, threats, costs and restrictions. What should we make of wartime that has the appearance of peacetime?

Mary Dudziak’s new book, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences, is a crucial document. Dudziak, a legal historian at the University of Southern California, argues that we are experiencing “not a time without war, but instead a time in which war does not bother everyday Americans.” Her smooth foray into legal and political history reveals that in not just the past decade but the past century, wartime has become a more or less permanent feature of the American experience, though we fail to recognize it. She doesn’t say so explicitly, but we are experiencing a reverse Orwellian situation, in which the state, rather than elevating war to perpetuate itself, obscures war to perpetuate itself.

more

SOME SAY THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES. I SAY BARACK OBAMA IS HOT! This may, of course, be merely a selection effect (as opposed to a selection effect which nonetheless says something important), but it seems to me that I'm much more likely to run across liberals who really like Democratic politicians and feel proud of them or protective of them, and conservatives who really dislike Republican politicians and hold their noses in the voting booth.

If I'm right about this, what should I make of it? A lot of op-ed types seem to take any expressed conservative disillusionment with the overall GOP field as a sign of weakness or bad conscience--even the right-wingers know they're wrong! I tend to view it in the exact opposite light. I generally take this divergence as an indictment of liberals (detainees? what detainees?) but I do realize that my tendency toward political despair is at least partly the result of my own incompetence in forming political judgments. If I talk about explicitly political issues on the blog you can be sure I really, really mean what I say (e.g. on marriage, or torture) because most of what I've learned since I started the blog in 2002 is how often I have nothing of value to contribute.

In turn, this has made me really viscerally aware of how much our political judgments rely on personal trust (since the amount of knowledge we would need to amass to be respectable wonks, combined with the amount of political philosophy we'd need to do to sort through and assess that knowledge, is simply astounding), which I think has made me more personally negative toward both politicians and people who "like" politicians or have favorite politicians. You can like things about people who are politicians (I like Michelle Bachmann's commitment to foster parenting) without feeling any warm fuzziness about their public service or business acumen or whatever Little Father mishegoss we're supposed to accept.

A TRIVIAL POSTSCRIPT. While sometimes it is accurate to attribute actions you approve to "Obama" and actions you despise to "America," or vice versa, most of the time if you use that formula you're being a self-righteous jackass. Similarly if you can recognize either good or bad qualities in American culture but can't recognize these exact same qualities when displayed by Obama. As I think we should all be well aware by now, he is as American as anybody.

...Is this one of my meta-pharisaical posts again? "I'm so glad I'm not self-righteous like those other people!" Still, it seemed worth saying.

WE'VE SEEN THE LAST OF GOOD KING RICHARD: MLY says:

I think it's either about King Richard and King John, or Nixon and Kennedy, or both. (Definitely not about Saul and David, however.)

here you go

ATTACK ADS OF THE FOUNDERS. Probably via Jesse Walker.

POLL: 1 IN 5 AMERICANS BELIEVE OBAMA IS A CACTUS. Real posting soon, but for now, have something which made me laugh. Via PES I think.

DISCO PURGATORIO: I have finally listened to all of Janelle Monáe's Metropolis: The Chase Suite, and I can tell you what I was pretty sure I'd tell you: You need this. Monáe is an opera-trained lady nerd who's created an amazing pop album centered on the story of an enslaved android who falls for a human, endangering both their lives.

"Many Moons" is still the standout, unstoppable song. You can get a taste of the song, with amazing video, here; the album version is actually better, believe it or not. But "Cybertronic Purgatory" is beautiful and haunting, and in general, Monáe's versatility of style makes this album a unique history of the past fifty years. ("Smile" I like mostly for the quick Elvis "thank yuh" at the end, but that gesture retroactively reshapes the whole song, makes it even sadder and even more obviously an attempt at reclamation of and reconciliation with the American past.)

"Mr. President" is a classic of retrofuturism, as if the 1970s had time-traveled into the Obama administration. I'm not sure it succeeds as a song, rather than a document, but Lord how it made me ache--and ache, also, for Obama himself, who is called upon to be "Moses" and who is generally treated, here, like a Shakespearean king and not an American president.

Anyway, I'm about to order the new album, "Archandroid," about which I've heard nothing but good. "Metropolis" is an amazing reinterpretation of more or less everything I love, Metropolis itself crossed with Invisible Man (the Ellison one) crossed with BET's Gospel programming. Philip K. Dick and Octavia Butler and Q107, Washington's Top 40!... and the black man at Union Station with the saxophone, playing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."

YOUR AMAZINGLY AWESOME THING OF THE DAY. Via Mark Shea among many others.

Where do you watch the blog?
I'm not telling you, I'm asking you....

Amy Welborn says a lot of good, provocative things, although I disagree on at least two points: 1) Obviously I think Ta-Nehisi Coates is more right about hip-hop culture than Juan Williams (on the one hand, I've already heard more than one anecdote about kids essentially pulling up their pants because of Obama; on the other hand, how old and/or obsessive do you have to be to remember the slogan, "Clean for Gene"?), and

2) I really do think America's "identity crisis" is a huge deal--for us, and for the people we bomb.

Culture11 Confabulum: James Poulos shares my deep dysPepsia. Yes, you can indulge your consumerist whims! (The weirdest, for me, is that the Pepsibama banners replaced the Union Station American-history-by-decades banners. Have you noticed that Washington, DC, is an actual place, and not merely a stage for your rose-petaled commercial Ascension?)

Interestingly, I just read someone talking about how great it felt to be watching the TV all day for an event which wasn't tragic. All I can say is, I think inaugurations in this our bad age are either tragic or horrific. And after a horrific presidency, I truly hope Barack Obama's inauguration proves tragic. It's the very best I can imagine.

More, and with real hope, in the next post.

IN THE DESERT, MAYBE YOU CAN REMEMBER YOUR NAME!: Seven silver linings for right-wingers.

#1: Your hangover will go away eventually. I suggest sports drinks if you can (I never can), Tylenol, and sleep. Tomato soup, esp. w/curry powder, might help. Cancel all your appointments except those with the Porcelain God and/or the confessional.

#2: A big-government candidate who thinks the First Amendment is really more of a suggestion lost!

...To another big-government candidate who etc etc. But hey,

#3: The Fairness Doctrine won't apply to blogs!

#4: No, for real though, the daughter of a slave voted for a black President. There aren't words to convey how amazing that is. God bless America, for real.

#5: The candidate who flip-flopped on torture (despite his amazing personal story and general staunchness on this issue) because the Republicans decided to go bats crazy lost.

#6: Just remember, we're the party that believes in the necessity and meaning of suffering--and especially humiliation. So really, we win again! Offer this $#@! up, y'all.

#7: Conservatism is inherently a tradition of complicity, satire, internal conflict, and cynicism. So with the Messiah as our next president, we're in like Patricia Quinn!