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The un-un-Cola

By Michael J. Smith on Thursday March 6, 2008 06:19 PM

Now that Ma Scorpion has gotten a new lease on life from Ohio and Texas, maybe it's behind the curve to keep talking about Obamania. Still, the phenomenon interests me, on a purely intellectual level.

I've had a few conversations with Obama supporters. These folks are not, admittedly, the perfervid young True Believers depicted in will.i.am's You-Tube videos -- more like grizzled old liberals still hoping, hoping, for a break in the weather, a break that hasn't come since the '40s and certainly doesn't appear to be imminent.

What these folks always end up saying is something like this: Well, he's better than Hillary, isn't he?

Of course they're right. It would be hard to be worse. But note that we now have a recursion of lesser-evillism. We vote for the Democrats because they're "not as bad" as the Republicans -- and among Democrats, we support Obama because he's "not as bad" as Hillary. The Democrats are the un-Republicans, and Barak is the un-Hillary -- a double-Un!

There's a nightmarish Achilles-and-the-tortoise quality to this reasoning -- the sort of vertiginous slide down through orders of magnitude that you get in fever dreams. How small could these distinctions get before quantum effects would begin to be felt? When Obama's necktie knot or cufflinks would seriously be cited as reasons for preferring him?

And at what point would people bail out? How far down the scale will they follow these successive splittings and re-splittings of the difference? How long can this game be kept going?

There's no obvious limit to it. People just don't see the absurdity in arguing for the lesser evil of the lesser evil -- what's the algebra for that? Is it (lesser)2 evil, or (lesser evil)2, and is the latter a polynomial of some kind?

Why not go on to the third or fourth or Nth power in this series? Once the second step has been taken, isn't it just a proof by mathematical induction that you're no longer allowed to get off the train?

Meanwhile of course the ascent in powers can easily be made compatible with a steady diminution in the actual, absolute range of difference. 1.252 is more than 1.00254. So our keepers can keep us busy and occupied with parsing and re-parsing more and more these increasingly tiny differences, until the cows come home -- or the chickens come home to roost.

Chickens! Chickens! Where the hell are those damn chickens? They haven't come home to roost in years.

Comments (11)

ktm:

Life imitates pro wrestling -- the heavy weight title bout is coming to the PPV this fall, right now we have the IC belt on the line between Hil and Obama. With all the Hardcore belts, TV championships, Tag titles, Women's Titles et al. out there, any level of subtle distinctions can be very entertaining.

And excuse me for trying to get some mileage out of my math degree (go ahead an laugh, fuckers), but do you want a geometric series? The dems aren't the republicans, so that's worth 1/2. Obama isn't Hil, so that's gotta be worth a fourth -- 3/4 already! Get the the left of Obama but stay in the fold gets you 1/8... Eventually you'll be within epsilon of 1, even if you don't quite make it there, but it's within epsilon so it's close enough to vote for you, right?

ktm:

Dammit, my first post went AWOL! I wanted to say that Edwards is the 3rd party spoiler in the dem's electoral microcosm. If only he stayed in the race long enough for Kosniks to be pissed and bitter in 2011 over the dumbfucks who voted for him when they should have voted for Obama -- it's their fault McCain got to play TR!

I also wanted to say FIRST! since I never get to do it on TMZ...

Anonymous:

ktm -- the epsilon argument is right on target -- by doing less and less, more and more often, the Democrats are getting us ever closer to the Great Good Place! Brilliant!

It's like the old New York joke -- "We lose a little on every deal, but we make it up in volume."

op:

product differentiation
within a de facto duopoly system

one two three many candidates

likely to have distribution of support
like comparative populations
of different tree species
in a climaxed forest

of course there's the n party approach
as in
the great mcginty

boss akim
"i eeemmm dee reform party "

either way
see dixit stiglitz for nice formalization

Michael Hureaux:

It doesn't matter whether they fit the classic true believer profile or not. The Obama supporters I've met have one thing in common, and that is that they all believe that imperial policy can be put on or taken off like a raincoat. They all believe that Obama can suck up to AIPAC all year this year, and then walk away from Zionist pressure once he's in office. They ignore his consultations with Brezinski, they play off his comments on the "right" of Columbia to "defend" itself from FARC by attacking Ecuador the other day. They believe that a more coherant domestic policy will distract from a belligerant foreign policy, and they're right. And they think they'll be able to control all this once he's in office. One of their people in my workplace actually told me she thought she might even vote for McCain if Clinton wins, because for her, the question at that point would be "who is best able to defend the country".

At the end of the day, even the most "progressive" Obama supporters aren't thinking things through. And that means big trouble for the rest of us down the road.

David D:

Whoa Captain, take a look from the crows nest! You're talking to Obamania supporters on an intellectual motive? Don't waste your time w/ too much of that. If they represent the XorY demographic all they know is Okra Opprahhhh. True believers no sir, simply sold hot chocolate on a cold day. Hope hope hope via U-tube promotions. Their greatest reason is he's better then a scorpion? Sounds like a convenient failure to return a phone call on their part. Probe deeper before using monte carlo methods on your formula Capt. What does the Obmania snuff film tell us? Everyone from my Y and the X is, "incantatory repetitive leaders name in the back ground"..uhh...searching for..uhhh..something to uhh..hope for like..uhh.cleaner earth and uhh stuff. The mice just want to be heard but they have nothing to say, never fear.

Well, if weakening and someday killing the DP vampire is the aim, then it is quite true that Killary is your lady. She quite obviously is going to rely on the patented Klinton formula of lying to the left during the campaign, and then doing the dirty work the right after, all while steadfastly refusing to look down at the sea of mostly-poor non-voters. Obama is certainly not to be trusted, but could conceivably be forced to talk slightly differently in order to compensate for white/Latino flight.

More likely, he joins up with Killary after she super-greases her way to the nomination. She'll need that teflon armor he has. In exchange, I'm sure he'll extract her promise to implement change in the area of things and stuff and issues and junk like that.

Speaking as someone born in the alleged "peak" Baby Boom year (1957):

I think the issue's not so much that Boomer politicians are egg-sucking disappointments as it's the fact that all the truly promising activists and dissidents of my g-g-g-g-generation, people like Hoffman, Rubin, Dohrn, Cleaver and Davis, were too busy taking real constructive action, heeding the advice of CSN's "Long Time Coming" -- no, no, no, don't try to get yourself elected -- and when the time came that the Boomers were old enough to seek "elected" office, all that was left to that was shallow opportunist hacks and losers like Ma'n'Pa Klinton, Al Gore and GWBush.

(actually, I also think the Post-Boomers' issues stem not so much from any sociopolitically-based resentment as it does from the fact that -- let's face it -- most of their generation's bands suck. And now, let the flamage begin.)

op:

Hoffman, Rubin, Dohrn, Cleaver and Davis,

what a list !!!!

i could probably top it
with a case of chivas regal
and the bird droppings
from last nites
elks club meeting

none btw are boomers mike

but middle to late dirth

David D:

Mike,..... the Playmates (via:1958) were a part of your generation from a musical perspective so not all that glitters is gold, sir. True sounds that sooth the soul today are overly unoriginal but I suspect your detest is the same every generation has had to the next. Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee were not exactly greeted w/ open arms, nor the other pioneers of modern musac. I agree, painfully, that well.. creativity in music is synonoumose with a moose giving a blow job. However, your generation is the provider of that by carrying the flag of producers like sun records by continuing the manufacture of shit for profit.

David D:

Mike,..... the Playmates (via:1958) were a part of your generation from a musical perspective so not all that glitters is gold, sir. True sounds that sooth the soul today are overly unoriginal but I suspect your detest is the same every generation has had to the next. Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee were not exactly greeted w/ open arms, nor the other pioneers of modern musac. I agree, painfully, that well.. creativity in music is synonoumose with a moose giving a blow job. However, your generation is the provider of that by carrying the flag of producers like sun records by continuing the manufacture of shit for profit.

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