V: 1983 & 2009, Part Five: The Role of Women & Minorities

The Role of Women
The Resistance
1983: Julie, medical student and reluctant resistance leader. She is unsure of herself, and this is made worse by her interrupted Visitor Conversion attempt.
Diana, is merely one captain in the larger V squadron. Her primary source of authority comes because she is the lover of the Supreme Commander.

2009: Erica, FBI agent, part of 5th Column (5th Column as assimilated the resistance in this series) even has a feminized man's name. The most feminine thing about her in terms of attitudes prevalent in the 80s is that she is alien abductee whose fetus was modified by the Visitors. This fits in neatly with modern conspiracy theories as to why the "Grays" are here.

The Visitors
1983: Diana is merely the captain of one starship in a larger squadron, her position in the Visitor's hierarchy is assured through her sexual relationship with the Supreme Commander. While she is hard edged and successful enough to run a ship, she has not yet proven herself able to manage and lead a larger population. She engages in kinky sex with a subordinate, in this case kinky is defined as wearing their human skins.

2009: Anna is Queen of the Visitors, a position she secured by overthrowing her mother. She controls her people through dispensing a chemical called Bliss to her species. Her reptilian nature is emphasized more strongly in this series by her mating to produce an army of warriors. We later find out she is unable to produce additional non-drone children of her race. The future of her species depends on her daughter Lisa laying eggs and becoming Queen. Unfortunately, they are far from a suitable planet for her offspring, necessitating the transformation of Earth into a planet better suited for the Visitors.

V is fortunate though to have two strong females going head to head as leaders of different teams. I don't recall seeing anything like that before. This seems to indicate a growing acceptance of female leadership.

The Role of Minorities
1983 - Elias, a street hoodlum and criminal before the Visitor's arrival, and then a freedom fighter and resistance leader afterwards. This reinforces mid-80s American fears of black urban youth, to which even Jesse Jackson admitted having. Additionally, the Hispanic resistance fighter promotes cultural stereotypes of Mexican immigrants.

2009 - Ryan, the primary black character in the 2009 V, is a Visitor and member of the 5th column who may turn on his fellow freedom fighters for his own benefit making him a triple spy. Essentially he is an immigrant who assimilated but may retain allegiance to his original civilization. This corresponds nicely with the Zeitgeist of the home-grown home-radicalized domestic terrorists attacking us. There have been a number of these attacks or attempts from Ft. Hood to Times Square, and there is a fear of more out there. V uses a black character to embody this fear, presumable out of PC sensibilities of using an Arab, and a desire to avoid causing controversey.

The Coming Political Realignment

The fractious competition in both the Republican and Democratic presidential selection process threatens to tear asunder the coalitions that have undergirded both for years. The nomination of John McCain will alienate most supply siders and free speech libertarians. Rudy Giuliani's nomination will alienate the values voters, and Mike Huckabee's nomination will alienate non-evangelicals and non-christianists as well as all right thinking Americans who think it's an abomination that Southern States incorporated the Confederate Battle Flag into their state flags during the push to end segregation. Mitt Romney's nomination obviously will alienate the evangelicals and anyone who prizes ideological consistency.

The likely nomination of Senator Clinton will split the black vote along generational lines. The younger generation of black leaders already is questioning the unwavering support of the black community for the Democratic party, and the Clintonian savaging of Barack Obama will cause them to take a second look at the Republican Party. House Democratic Whip James Clyburn's recent acknowledgement that Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen did much to advance civil rights is one reason for this second look. Additionally, the black community likely will come to realize that the Clintons are pitting Hispanics against them and will resent that.

All of this means that parts of both parties will be alienated and up for grabs post the 2008 Presidential election regardless of which party wins. It's conceivable that Republicans could regain their share of the Hispanic vote and enlarge their share of the black vote, while Democrats would gain the allegiance of more social and fiscal libertarians (provided they keep to their DLC roots and don't revert to their big spending LBJ era ways).

Bill Clinton Undermining Hillary's Campaign

The continuing controversey around Bill Clinton's remarks about Senator Obama and the civil rights movement, as illustrated by the reaction of House Majority Whip and Civil Rights Leader Jame Clyburn, illustrate why he should shut the hell up and get out of his wife's way.

While I'm a Libertarian, I give credit where it's due. Bill Clinton was a much better President than Republicans gave him credit for, and Hillary Clinton was rated as one of the 100 best lawyers in America by Legal Times years before she became First Lady. She is smart, accomplished and completely able to run her own campaign and win without Bill's surrogate/public appearances and attendant media coverage. (Though she would be a fool not to take his advice behind closed doors as he is likely the greatest American politician since Lincoln).

Everytime Bill Clinton says or does anything on Hillary's behalf he becomes a news item. This detracts from news coverage of her and potentially damages her campaign. The lastest "fairy tale" quote being a perfect example. I believe his explanation and wathcing the video clip in its entirety validates it, though the statement itself was inartful and not the best example of Bill Clinton's exemplary speaking ability or rhetorical style. (I also believe what Senator Barack Obama said recently about not wanting to undercut John Kerry in 2004 by voicing an opinion on the Iraq War contrary to his own party's nominee - call me naive, but I like to take people at their word especially when they're not obviously dissembling - which doesn't mean to that I believed Bill Clinton in 1998 about Monica Lewinsky)

My point being that Bill Clinton's comments, miscontrued as they were, were broadcast widely and loudly throughout the media establishment. This sucked the oxygen out of the air for anything newsworthy Hillary did or wanted to do. Afterall, the media are only going to cover the Clinton's so much and it's either one or the other.

Additionally, Bill Clinton still evokes visceral hatred from Republicans and conservatives alike, which means that everytime he speaks on his wife's behalf conservative commentators have an opening to trash her more and the Republican base gets a bit more riled up against Hillary. She might have a fighting chance of getting some Republican votes if he'd shut up since most Republican opposition to her in the 90s was based on, to quote a friend, "the fact that no one elected her to do shit, and she was never confirmed by the Senate for anything." A lot of GOP angst about Hillary started to dissipate once she was elected to the Senate in her own right.

I have no doubt this is unconscious behavior. Professional women are often warned not to bring their husbands to business dinners because the husbands will subtley undercut them unconsciously. Bill Clinton is doing the same thing.

Hillary has showcased him enough. It's time for her campaign to ship him off to Antarctica where he won't be able to garner any media coverage. He is a distraction that hurts her whenever he opens his mouth.

Obama NH Campaign Victim of "David Duke Effect"

After his stunning upset in Iowa, the NH polls suddenly showed a giant uptick for Obama, which was not reflected in the outcome of tonight’s election. A large portion of this was undoubtedly due to the David Duke Effect. The David Duke Effect is named after a Senate candidate in Louisiana in the late 80s/early 90s named David Duke who was a Ku Klux Klan member. Polls of the race consistently showed him garnering the support of fewer than 10% of Louisianans. On Election Day he received substantially more votes than that. The general conclusion: racists didn’t want to admit they were supporting Duke and gave the “correct” answer.

Given my previous post, you likely know I believe the same thing happened in New Hampshire this year. People in NH didn’t want to admit they were not supporting Obama, but said they were anyway, because it was “the right answer” after his Iowa victory. The tragedy is that the Obama campaign believed the polls and discounted the David Duke Effect. Being ahead, especially after a hard fought victory like Iowa, his staff undoubtedly started believing their own press and unfortunately got complacent.

None of which to is to say that Hillary did anything untoward. The point is that while neither campaign knew it (and Hillary's almost imploded over it) Hillary Clinton was always ahead and winning, albeit narrowly. Therefore there really is no point in asking how she recovered. However, her near implosion and the Obama campaign's overrconfidence do betray a strong faith in America and our collective journey away from racism. That those at the heights of power believe this is both reassuring and comforting in some small way.

I wish them and their hardworking staffs the best of luck for the rest of the campaign season.

New Hampshire Racism Imperils Obama Momentum (Field Report One)

I've been doing some volunteer campaign work recently for one of campaigns. Doesn't matter which one or where (but it's not Obama - I'm a Libterarian and am VERY pleased with Ron Paul's 10% result in Iowa).

One of my colleagues on another campaign told me that they have a South Asian volunteer who has been harassed, threatened and called the N word more times than anyone can count. While I am EXTREMELY pleased with what Obama's Iowa victory says about our nation slowly transcending race as an issue, the treatment of this volunteer by New Hampshire residents is discourgaging in the utmost. Not being representative of the country in terms of diversity is ok if you're openminded (witness Iowa last night), BUT BEING LILLY WHITE AND RACIST is just one more example of why New Hampshire should lose its first in the nation primary status. I don't support Obama due to policy disagreements, but the way New Hampshire is treating this volunteer indicates that he has a hard row to hoe there.

Putting on my analyst/pundit hat, this does not bode well for the Obama campaign and New Hampshire racism could halt his momementum and pitch the race towards Hillary or Edwards. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are good Americans who hate racism and don't want to win this way. It's just unfortunate that this racist little state will get to kneecap Obama before he can really take full advantage of what President George H. W. Bush referred to as "The Big Mo." I mean, it's not like this is happening in the South where such things are to be expected.

I wish our country would finally embrace MLK's dream of judging us by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. New Hampshire residents obviously don't share this dream.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised - after all New Hampshire is populated by former Boston residents, and it's no secret that Boston is one of the most racist cities in the country.

Is Battlestar Galactica Racist?

The mini-marathon last night got me thinking about this. And I'm not talking about the complex human-cylon relationship - I'm talking about in real American terms. The original series had a much better integrated cast and black characters that were greater parts of the show. Does adding central hispanic and asian characters really make up for the lack of black actors on the show?

Out of the entire human population in the civilian and military fleets, there have only been two black characters. One completely minor, and the other the subject of an entire episode (which exposed Admiral Adama's abandonment of him in Cylon territory previously.

How do we even attempt to measure racism in a science fiction show? Is it just that there weren't that many blacks that escaped Caprica, the colonies and New Caprica? Earth presumably represents the Atlantis-like 13th Colony, and those settlers came from the same places as the other members of the fleet. We know empirically that earth has a diverse racial/ethnic mix (which are meaningless terms outside of politics - biology and genetics have demonstrated that there is more variation within racial groups, than there is between them).

At least the show makes up for the extreme lack of diversity by beginning to address class issues that exist on the fleet and its original (now destroyed) civilzation.