Category: Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

One area where I had been willing to give some benefit of the doubt to the new Space Emperor-elect was in whether or not he was actually a racist. I had preferred to imagine that he was cynically manipulating racists by rhetorical means, without himself having strong opinions on the matter. However, blogger Paul Campos makes a point at the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog about the Ben Carson appointment to HUD:

Appointing someone who admits to being completely unqualified for a job, and who also happens to be black, to that very job is exactly what one would expect a racist to do, since that’s a racist’s definition of “affirmative action” in action.

I am no longer able to give benefit of the doubt. This is pure reaction: post Obama, everything swings outrageously the other way. Sad!

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Worth noting: apparently the Canadian government's "immigrate to Canada" website has been crashed by excess web traffic. I am definitely going to be working on my Korean language skills – I see a TOPIK (Korean language skills test) test in my future.

What more should I say? This is an awkward morning for the USA.

I have this germ of an idea that I'm going to try to avoid mentioning the victor's name on this here blog.

In personal news, I stayed at my friend Bob's house last night. Curt and Mr Jin stayed at a B&B a block or so away (since Bob's house is a bit small to accommodate so many guests). I'm not clear what exactly our plans are for today, but they might involve Chicago. 

I'll post more later, I guess. 

[daily log: walking, but how far?]

I awoke before dawn today – but it's not clear to me if this is a sign of a continued jetlagged state or if, alternatively, in fact it is proof of my adaptation to the time zone, since pre-dawn wakings with subsequent insomnia are a very typical part of my day-to-day existence. 

Today is election day, in the US, where I happen to be. With some admitted guilt, I will come out openly and say that I do not intend to vote.

I can justify this in several ways, although I will introduce these justifications with the caveat that I am deeply aware that they are merely that: justifications. 

My first justification is that although I am, de jure, a US citizen, in the de facto sense I have become an emigrant. This may be reversed someday – indeed, it's easy for me to imagine various futures where I return, but at the current moment, taking the broadest possible definition democracy and with a notion in mind of whether or not I am a "stakeholder" in the 230 year old US social experiment, I am definitely a fringe case. If offered the opportunity to vote in South Korea, I would be more likely to consider it.

My second justification is that for most of my life I was a third-party voter. I only broke with that tendency when I voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. I had a lot of optimism about what Obama might represent, in terms of somehow breaking with the old, terrible habits of the US executive. I have been deeply, gravely disappointed. I don't believe Obama is a bad person, but he clearly was unable to break those old habits, due to systemic inertia and his own conciliatory disposition. As a result, I suffer voter's regret, which is an unpleasant if weirdly abstract emotion. In a rather selfish spirit, I do not wish to experience voter's regret with respect to Clinton, and the "main" third party candidates are quite distasteful this round – Jill Stein is dangerously ignorant about the principals of science and fiscal management, and Gary Johnson is just simply dangerously ignorant about just about everything, as far as I can tell. And it's too painful to even comment on Trump.

My third justification is that the places where I am registered to vote (yes, there are multiple places, which is itself uncomfortable and disconcerting, but where, exactly, should I be registered anyway, given my long non-residency and scattered roots?) are not really "in play" with respect to the national election. Both California and Minnesota are "safely blue" and thus there is hardly a scenario under which a Trump victory could be "my fault." I feel I can abstain, following my conscience, with a clear conscience, so to speak.

So there I am. I am not apathetic – I am deeply interested in and engaged with US politics. Rather, I am not voting on various principles, despite the fact that Minnesota, where I sit right now, would undoubtedly let me vote (it is a same-day registration state). Nevertheless I remain curious as to the outcome, and I urge everyone to vote (or not vote) their consciences. 

But try not to vote your "unconscience." That may be the problem that got us to this crossroads. 

I ran across the most amazing thing earlier, as I surfed online a little bit in my predawn insomniac state. I discovered that my friend and former work colleague, Jay Neuman, has a blog. Somehow, I had neglected to notice this before. Jay is a committed Christian, yet he has written what in my opinion is one of the best ethically-oriented evaluations that I have seen of the Faustian choices presented by the current situation. I recommend reading it – even if you are not Christian.

Happy voting.

Today we drive to southern Wisconsin. We can listen to the elections on the radio or something. 

As you may know, sometimes I read politics blogs somewhat obsessively. I generally don't feel particularly passionate about it – for me it's a strange sort of entertainment, as I just observe what is happening in the world.

The Trump thing disturbs me, as I've commented before.

Michael Moore – a political persona whom I normally abhor – makes a set of salient points to support his prediction that Trump will win in the fall. I actually believe he's on target, and will be curious to see if his idea pans out. My caveat must be, as Moore's is, that predicting a Trumping in the fall is not the same as supporting the man. He is a frightening narcissist. If America is Rome, then Trump can be her Nero. 

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

"PGH" is a kind of shorthand for Park Geun-hye, Korea's current president, who I also like to refer to as The Dictator's Daughter. 

Recently she has been on a high-level visit to Iran, now that Iran is "open for business" under the new nuclear agreement, and she can do so without antagonizing the Imperial powers in Washington and Brussels. Korea's economic presence is already huge in the region – bearing in mind that it is Korean construction contractors who have built major portions of infrastructure in Iran's neighbors United Arab Emirates to the south and Uzbekistan to the north. The Burj al-Khalifa might be in Dubai, but it was built by Koreans – a point of pride, here. 

Anyway, her visit is all over the news. I keep the Korean 24 hour news channel running sometimes on my TV at home. I noticed something that frankly surprised me, that vastly increased my estimation of President Park's intelligence. It's minor, perhaps: she has made a point of wearing an Iranian-style headscarf during her state visit to Tehran. Somehow this strikes me as a remarkable bit of cultural sensitivity. It's hard to imagine a European or American female politician making such a cultural concession. It may antagonize those who object to the clearly anti-feminist nature of the Iranian regime, and I have sympathy for that. But we should also acknowledge that PGH is no feminist – if she were, she'd never have won the presidency in Korea. It was just such gestures of obeissance to patriarchy that have made her political career possible in Korea. Basically, that she can extend such symbolic behavior into the international sphere speaks well of her level of political savvy and machiavelianism. 

I'm not saying I like her, but I think perhaps she is easy to underestimate. 

[daily log: walking, 6km]

One realization I had in looking at the election coverage yesterday (both on my TV and on the internet), was that my long-standing characterization of Ilsan (and Goyang) as fairly conservative is simply wrong. I don't really know what the basis was for that impression, but I've probably mentioned it more than once in this blog. Yet in looking at the election data, I can see that northwest suburban Seoul (indeed, most of suburban Seoul) definitely leans leftward.

What really made me notice this was the breakthrough realization that the electoral district just to the east of where I live (called 고양갑 Goyang-gap) is the home district of the just re-elected left-most member of the National Assembly, Sim Sang-jung (심상정). I had this realization in studying the electoral map, where the yellow stands out (because it represents only two districts nationally). The yellow represents the Justice Party (정의당), which is a left-leaning party – the color choices are based on party "brand" colors, but seem to be somewhat coordinated for contrast between the groups (whether by some government agency such the elections commission, I'm not sure). The map below is reproduced from wikipedia.

Anyway, I after making this realization, I took the time to look back at previous electoral maps, and indeed, this leftward slant on Goyang is not recent. So I have no idea where I got the idea that Goyang was conservative – the electoral evidence belies it. So consider my earlier characterizations retracted. 

[daily log: walking, 6km]

The following is an incomplete thought.

There is the confusion of character and luck. I've been struck by this, for example, in the thinking of my students… but I can't quite figure out if it is more closely related to their being Korean or to their being children. I suspect both factors may be involved, at some level. There is something childish about thinking this way, but there is also a strong cultural trope in the Buddhasphere, related to notions of karma, which tell us that one's luck is tied to one's moral character, which is a result, in turn, of the idea of accumulating merit (and/or demerit) across multiple lives.

Recently, this thought crystallized for me, though, in relation to some writing about Trump. Trump appears to espouse this conflation of luck and character, and in general, it seems to be a way of thinking that is on the increase in American culture. Hence, Trump's condemnation of McCain as a loser, for example, since McCain had the bad luck to be captured by the North Vietnamese.

An economics and political blogger named Chris Dillow labels this type of thinking "feudalist," and although that is true, I'd simply say it is "pre-modern," since it underlies all kinds of caste-based systems, from untouchables in India to know-nothingism and the eugenics movement in America.

Speaking of which, I'd like to label Trump's new movement "neo-know-nothingism" – it has a nice, hard-to-pronounce euphony.

[daily log: walking, 6km]