Posted on Jul 03 2008 at 07:39 am by dooley (see my profile)
So, last week I was watching The Daily Show and Jon Stewart starts tearing into Barack Obama over public financing. Now, I’ve certainly had my fair share of “I’m not voting for anyone, because it’s the whole system that’s messed up” feelings, but in the last few months I’ve started to come around on the idea that it’s really important for us to get some big changes in this presidential election. With these newfound feelings, I was a bit put off by Jon’s attack –- Dude! Don’t destroy our hopes!
But, over the last week I’ve started to think a bit differently about Jon’s analysis. As I mentioned in my last blog, I’m currently reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (which, as a side note, I’d HIGHLY recommend). Now, I’m only about halfway through (so don’t spoil the conclusion for me in any comments), but a reoccurring theme in the book is that our food system has been destroyed by industrialization. Pollan makes an incredibly strong case that the problem at the heart of our malnutrition, shortage, famine, obesity, etc food crises is the homogenization, the monoculturization, the corporatization, and the industrialization of food. Saving food and perhaps, civilization itself, is not going to be about doing the same things a little differently, it's going to be about fundamentally altering our entire food system.
Perhaps the combination of Jon Stewart’s Obama rant and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” got me thinking a great deal about a Noam Chomsky quote I’d heard a ways back:
“Power, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate. The burden of proof is on those in authority to demonstrate why their elevated position is justified. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified.”
Though my initial reaction to Jon Stewart’s Obama attack was hesitancy, the more I thought about it, his critique was right on. It’s precisely the role of comedians, of journalists, of artists, of everyone to challenge authority. It’s totally true that any unjustifiable power does destroy our vibrancy as individuals and is, therefore, “inherently illegitimate.”
I told my partner Liz about these thoughts and she read me this quote from “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom,” the book she’s reading: “Like a volcano that’s about to blow, a society that builds social order on institutionalized soul denial gets progressively violent rumblings, until it looks as if civilization is coming apart at the seems.”
The more I think about it, we do absolutely need big changes in this election -- and the best thing that any next president could do is give power back to the people. If not, as an article in this week’s New Yorker says, “we may well decide not to make this effort. Such a choice to put off change, however, will merely drive us toward it.”
Tags: jon stewart, barack obama, noam chomsky, power, michael pollan, the omnivore's dilemma, election
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