It’s been a tumultuous week for me, personally. Ever-increasing anxiety until election day, elation the day of, depression for the two days following, and, finally, time for reflection. I’d imagine many California (and Florida, Arkansas and Arizona) voters went through the same emotional roller coaster.

First, having Barack Obama elected to be our 44th president is a milestone that all of us should be cherishing, for a number of reasons. The fact that he is both African-American, and the product of a mixed-race marriage (illegal until just a couple of generations ago in many parts of the country), is testament to how far we’ve come as a nation. The fact that he is the grandson of a Muslim, grew up abroad for a time, and has a non-Western European name are milestones unto themselves. They defy many of the unfortunate stereotypes that grew about the United States in the previous eight-year absence of good news.

But in a few underreported ways, Obama’s ascension to the presidency points to triumphs of a different sort. First, the era of divisive, identity politics has, at the very least, taken a hiatus. The religious right’s strangehold on electoral success and its influence on domestic legislation and foreign policy stance have also taken a backseat to a more broad coalition of groups interested in greater inclusiveness, cooperation and dialogue. The electorate is now more likely to give the president-elect reign to take a different approach with respect to health care, financial sector regulation, foreign relations, and other matters, when trying a different approach was previously considered anathema (”appeasement”, “socialism”, etc).

In two important ways, though, Obama crossed the Rubicon. First, he was able to raise a majority of his campaign contributions from 3 million contributors across the country. We’re talking small, $25, $50, amounts. What this means is that the largest “lobbyist group” he is beholden to are, effectively, the American people, who will be holding him responsible to his entire platform, not just a set of pet interests. If he doesn’t deliver? The largest, by far, source of reelection revenue will dry up.

Second, Obama is going to draw on the strong wellspring of support that was granted him from the very start, domestically and abroad. The perception of our country, by its own citizens, and former critics outside the country, was turn on its head after almost a decade of having almost every negative stereotype of Americans confirmed by the actions of an irresponsible government. Sure, with high expectations, there is bound to be disappointment, as unrealistic expectations are confronted with realpolitik. But I firmly believe that Obama’s judiciousness and his surprisingly consistent message and refrain from hyperbole on the campaign trail will suit him well as he sets out to make tremendous changes in the way our government does things.

The fact that he will be working with strong Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress won’t hurt, either.

Moving to a more specific struggle, that of marriage equality, in the midst of a streak of bad news in four states, there is an ember of optimism. Despite the continual passage of anti-equality legislation, each subsequent election and poll shows the gap narrowing. With even Republicans and evangelicals saying that gay couples deserve equal protection under the law, with only the institution of marriage itself something they are defending for heterosexual use only, the debate has taken on a different tenor than it had when gay people were routinely described as perverts, deviants, and sick, by those opposing the granting of equal rights. If the predominant debate is one of nomenclature, then we have also come a long way on the sexual orientation civil rights front.

Finally, in the aftermath of an unusually long campaign that involved record numbers of (especially young) people, one wonders if the momentum of political engagement will continue and spread into both local and international awareness and involvement. Should be an interesting couple of years (you do know that the 2010 elections are just 24 months away?).

This past week saw a powderkeg of an issue lit by the McCain campaign, or the Obama campaign, depending on who you talk to. Obama claimed that the Republicans would try to scare voters by reminding them that he’s “different” - an allusion to his name, age, background and race (”doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills”).

But is this “playing the race card”? The McCain campaign certainly thought so. Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, responded quickly, with, “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

But was Obama playing the race card? What exactly is “the race card?”

The way it’s commonly understood, playing the race card means accusing someone of being a racist in order to score political advantage or deflect criticism. Its practice has been levied towards Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton most frequently, although because of their history in politics and ready interest in speaking on behalf of the entire black “community” (of approximately 40 million Americans), this is not surprising. It had not been used to describe Barack Obama, who has studiously avoided mentioning racism, beyond his deep, balanced treatise on America’s complex history with race, after the Reverend Wright controversy.

It’s difficult, unless you’re hypersensitive to it, to see “my opponents will play up how I’m different from the classic US presidential profile in many different ways” as meaning “if you don’t vote for me, that means you’re racist.”

But the hypersensitive might exactly be the group that the McCain campaign would like to exploit. What the McCain campaign, which has been much more heavily reliant on negative campaigning against his opponent than Obama’s, has been quick to play as an opportunity for itself is the “race-card card,” or tapping into white resentment against perceived use of the race card by African-Americans.

Resentment against Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton reached a fever pitch last year during the Don Imus controversy, when Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team players “nappy headed hos“. Right-wing bloggers and commentators at right-wing sites like The Free Republic and Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air fumed with indignation. (For a different reason, some black commentators also wondered both why Jackson and Sharpton felt the need to inject themselves in the debate, and why right-wing pundits were obsessed with their reaction.)

But did Obama’s original comment have any merit? Has he been an target, or did he raise the spectre of racism to a naive electorate? Let’s look at the attempts to highlight (or even fabricate) Obama’s “differentness”:

• conservative online magazine Insight publishes story alleging that Obama attended a Muslim religious school, a madrassa (not true)
• Larry Johnson alleges that he has a video showing Michelle Obama calling white people “whitey” (not true)
• many right wingers feel the need to highlight the fact that Obama’s middle name is Hussein (which is true, but would most certainly never be mentioned if it were John, or Sidney, for example)
• Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is constantly called a racist (which is not true; referring to the disgrace of the US’s racist past does not make you a racist)

While these sorts of rumors are not directly attributable to the McCain campaign, they are popular memes circulated in right-wing circles, and can only help McCain’s candidacy. And the campaign is quick to invoke the race-card card, while it largely remains passive when stories that can be easily proven to be untrue are circulated.

Publius at Obsidian Wings had this to say:

But the bigger problem here is that the Race Card Chorus plays on white resentment — which remains a poisonous brew. I’m a child of the rural South. But you know what? Actual racism is a lot less common there — we have a ways to go, but there has been real progress on that front. The more serious problem is white resentment. A lot of white people honestly think they have been significantly deprived of various things because of minorities. And it’s hard to overstate how deeply these feelings run. It’s not so much animosity toward people who are different — it’s the animosity of the aggrieved. They feel like they are the victims. That’s why race is a losing issue for Obama — it’s not so much that people are racist, but that they feel they are being punished because they’re white (yes, I know how completely absurd this must sound to the black community). And so this whole “race card” business feeds these flames (quite consciously, I think).

The race-card card might be more effective than the race card itself.

The New Yorker got a lot of heat last week when it featured a cover that lampooned enduring myths about Barack Obama, that had heretofore only been circulated via anonymous emails. The caricature showed Barack in “muslim garb”, fist-bumping his wife, who, with an Angela Davis afro and machine-gun on her back, smiles as an American flag burns in the fireplace and a picture of Osama bin Laden graces the walls.

Was the cover offensive? I don’t think so. As a subscriber to the New Yorker, I understand their taste for satire. Last week’s cover was certainly not denigrating Obama or impugning his or his wife’s patriotism - it is making fun of people who parrot those bigoted memes and believe them to be true. Seeing all of the ultra right-wing fantasies parodied on the same page was, well, really funny.

Not to be outdone by its rival, Vanity Fair published its cover (which it thought was) capturing the same satirical spirit and aesthetic inspiration, but applied this time to McCain. He’s shown with a walker, his wife carrying pill bottles, the Constitution is burning and George W Bush accenting the wall above the mantle. Also funny, but perhaps not quite as aggressive in its caricature - otherwise, Cindy might be lying on the floor with a black eye.

The fact is, though, that McCain doesn’t suffer from anywhere close to the same degree of fabricated rumors as does Barack, having his religion, patriotism and allegiances impugned by political operatives. So, the Vanity Fair cover falls a little flat. I mean, he is old, he does admire Bush, and his wife does have a certain way with pill bottles. The only image that condemns is his burning of the Constitution.

So why did both the Obama and McCain campaigns condemn the Obama cover? It’s clear that too many people don’t understand satire, and will misread the cartoon as a representation of the truth (they might even think it’s a photograph!). Innocent Harry Potter suffered at the hands of a lasting email meme that J.K. Rowling was encouraging satanism among children (it was screamingly funny satire by The Onion, who, in a rare move, took the article off its site).

Good satire should give thinking people something to laugh and reflect about. It can expose and challenge the absurdities that we give thoughtless acceptance to. But not everyone exposed to such images will understand their intent; the danger appears when people accept them at face value. And, in an election where candidates spend hundreds of millions of dollars for mindshare, a satirical image is just bad PR.

Jesse Helms, a former North Carolina senator, died on Friday, July 4th, aged 86. Depending on whom you talk to, Helms was a principled firebrand, or proof that only the good die young.

My suspicion is that reactions have generally mirrored those accrued to the death of Jerry Falwell last year. Both Helms and Falwell were either admired as forces of good, or reviled as forces of evil, depending on who you talk to. [Reactions collated by the AP]

A tragic legacy of his bigotry towards the gay community (”Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches”), however, is the current HIV travel and immigration ban, a law spearheaded by Helms in the late 1980s (the “Helms Amendment”). The PEPFAR bill, passed by the House in February, added a repeal of the HIV travel and immigration ban in the Senate version, led by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore). Top-ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden (D-Del) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind) also supported adding the removal of the ban. Rep Barbara Lee (D-Calif - our representative here in Oakland) has pushed to have the House adopt the Senate version with the ban repeal attached.

What might make Helms turn in his freshly-dug grave is there seems to be very little opposition to turning over the ban. Two Republican senators objected to specific funding provisions of the bill, but no one took issue with the repeal of the travel & immigration ban. The bill will probably come up for vote this week.

One thing everyone can agree on is that Helms prided himself in defending unpopular positions. But whether you consider his political steadfastness admirable, or symptomatic of a sclerotic outlook on an ever-changing world, also probably depends on your political proclivities.

The Economist has a great article in this past issue about how more and more of us in the U.S. are living in “landslide counties” - local regions where political proclivities are pronounced and tend to vote consistently, and strongly, one way or the other. The reason? The article suggests people are choosing to move into neighborhoods where they feel their neighbors share the same values as they do.

Although this is not an entirely new phenomenon - there are conservative parts of the country, and liberal ones, the whole red state-blue state sort of explanation - this brings home the greater granularity with which this sort of division is shaping up to be.

I remember shortly after the 2004 election, Dan Savage wrote that this country is not composed of red states and blue ones, but rather an urban archipelago that is deeply blue, and a red suburban and rural America that is just as richly hued. In other words, urban Texas is more likely to vote Democratic than rural California. The map to the right describes the phenomenon well, and another (which I can’t find right now), shows the same map but distorted to reflect the relative size of voting populations (which demonstrates that red & blue are almost evenly matched).

I can’t argue with the logic, personally. I like living in cities, and have much more in common with people of different sexual orientation and ethnicity in cities, with respect to my values, ideas around leisure, entertainment and culture, than other gay white people living in rural and suburban areas (they do exist, but probably not as great in number). There’s something to be said for the ability to have a decent, respectable conversation with your neighbors about something deeper than the weather. In today’s volatile and sharply-partisan political climate, maybe that’s not possible in “mixed” neighborhoods.

As long as they don’t resort to insults or violence, I am perfectly content to share a block or even a building with people who share different values from my own (and I suspect that I already do, although I haven’t polled people in my apartment building).

The question that might come up, however, is if we are just setting ourselves up for stony silence and pent-up hostility, interrupted with the occasional flareup, between adjoining communities that used to intermingle and share resources. That scenario reminds me of what the Dutch called zuilen, a perverse form of which sprouted up in South Africa.

The New Yorker had a fantastic piece on the Keith Olbermann phenomenon, one that Olbermann himself agrees wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for its diametrically-opposed counterpart, the O’Reilly phenomenon.

Olbermann’s success, like O’Reilly’s, is evidence of viewer cocooning—the inclination to seek out programming that reinforces one’s own firmly held political views. “People want to identify,” [MSNBC Vice President Phil] Griffin says. “They want the shortcut. ‘Wow, that guy’s smart. I get him.’ In this crazy world of so much information, you look for places where you identify, or you see where you fit into the spectrum, because you get all this information all day long.”

It’s an interesting development, and one that dovetails with the viewership march from the mainstream media to the blogosphere to get news. Is this a reaction to information overload? When confronted with an overwhelming onslaught of news items from an increasing number of global sources, do we turn to someone to follow the news, digest it and parse it for us in a form more easy to assimilate?

I know that Timothy Ferriss, the Four-Hour Workweek guy, says that he doesn’t follow politics at all, and just asks a friend or two that he trusts to tell him whom to vote for each election cycle. He’s an incredibly busy guy, he has his own dreams to follow, and doesn’t feel that following each detail of the lengthy political process gives him any more necessary perspective than his friends’ advice give him when it matters.

The Information Age has given those of us with access to the internet’s resources freedom to go both broad and deep on data as never before. But, at a certain point, each of us has to make some choices as to what to limit our exposure to - we don’t have the time or mental energy to dig through everything and still have time to get work done. Might it be fair for matters of politics to turn to our favorite partisan blogger or “news analyst” to both inform us on what’s important and also shape our opinion?

I’m not so sure. I personally find myself turning daily to the Drudge Report, a right-leaning news page, even though I’m left-of-center myself. Why? My other purviews into the world of politics are decidedly mired in a Democratic/left political ethos, and I wonder what else I’m missing out there. And although Drudge doesn’t provide any of his own commentary besides the shaping of his headlines’ titles, he does exert an editorial bias on which stories he publishes (and how long he keeps them up).

I feel it’s important to keep a pulse on the sentiments of people who you might not necessarily agree with, but whose line of thinking you can at least consider rational enough to respect. But this is just one man’s opinion. In today’s politically-polarized atmosphere, maybe true neutrality is something that’s too much to ask for.

The United States, until now maintaining observer status in the 2-year-old United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC; the successor to the UN Commission on Human Rights), has decided to withdraw except in cases of “deep national interest.” The reason? It claims that the body has become dominated by Middle Eastern and African nations with an interest in bashing Israel over all other human rights concerns.

A look at the current members (with staggered three-year terms) shows a handful of countries that would happily enjoy criticizing Israel at the expense of taking a hard look at their own abuses: Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, there’s at least one that would probably defend Israel (Canada) and others that would shy away–abstain–from being overly critical of Israel (Japan, South Korea, France, UK, Netherlands, and most European countries).

Turning to the record, the UNHRC does show itself to be a bit of a joke. In its first year, 9 resolutions were leveled against Israel, and none against any other country (like Sudan, Zimbabwe or Myanmar). While there might certainly be human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, they pale against those committed in Darfur. This disparity is really impossible to overlook.

What say those members who don’t have an axe to grind against Israel? Maxime Verhagen, the Netherlands’ Foreign Minister, has said, “At the United Nations, censuring Israel has become something of a habit, while Hamas’s terror is referred to in coded language or not at all. The Netherlands believes the record should be set straight, both in New York and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.” It’s not difficult to infer from his words that the Netherlands would rather see its voice be heard on a panel where it might be dominated by differing interests, than capitulate that voice altogether.

Juliette de Rivero, head of Human Rights Watch offered, “Having the US at the table was very important to building a stronger, more effective Human Rights Council. Instead of ceding the field to those who want to shield abusers from scrutiny the US should have redoubled its efforts to make the Council work as it should.”

Reasons for the US withdrawal range from it not wanting its own human rights abuses aired on an international stage, to wanting to sap the power and legitimacy of the Council (much like it did to the League of Nations 90 years ago). Since there hasn’t been any official announcement, we’re left to guessing its motives along with the impact it will have on the body.

This brings up a number of interesting questions:

• Should the US participate in the UN Human Rights Council?
• How do international bodies prevent “the tyranny of the majority” from setting the agenda?
• How do international bodies prevent a “bully” from setting the agenda?
• Who should act as neutral arbiters in cases of human rights abuses?
• Does the UNHRC fulfill a useful purpose?

Although it’s not exactly news anymore, Obama’s issue with Jeremiah Wright is not behind us, not least because another preacher from the same church bashed Hillary recently. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of significance to the entire matter.

Obama knew that his pastor was prone to making controversial outbursts (although wasn’t apparently present at the sermons that have been getting so much coverage on YouTube and on the news). However, he chose to stay with the church, only recently distancing himself from Rev Wright, arguably for political expediency. Hillary Clinton said very forcefully that she would not have stayed with the church had she heard Wright say the sort of things that he said after 9/11.

Forgive me for getting on the soapbox here, but I suppose that’s what Dyalogues is for, anyway. I side with Obama on this.

First, I don’t think language critical of the U.S. (”God damn America”) is something profoundly evil to say. The United States is an institution that, like any institution can be condemned. If this country weren’t open to severe, biting criticism, it wouldn’t be the country that it is. Countries that forbid self-criticism either through law or officially-fomented nationalism are, well, not exactly the kinds of countries that inspire envy. (I’m thinking of North Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc.) Unsurprisingly, the U.S. has indeed survived Wright’s criticism, and doesn’t seem to have borne any permanent scars.

Second, as an adult, I’m sure Obama can sort out what he can seek spiritual guidance from his reverend on, and what to politely dismiss and ignore. It is not as if he were a child that can’t make those sorts of judgment calls. And it’s clear, from many, many long-time parishioners’ accounts, that, for the most part, Rev Wright was an inspirational, uplifting figure, that spent decades doing good work for his flock and thousands of suffering people in the Chicago area.

The fact that Wright made a number of outbursts seems to have come as no surprise to either Hillary Clinton’s pastor nor John McCain’s; both actually defended Wright. They know that delivering a sermon can be an emotional experience, and occasionally prone to stirring eruptions on the pulpit.

But the most important issue, in my mind, is this: How can we bridge the divides that separate us in this country if we turn our back on people we disagree with? This is something I feel very strongly about, and it is the main reason we started Dyalogues. Engagement with people that you disagree with is the only way you ever have any hope of finding some sort of compromise or understanding that you can live with. Refusing to engage at all with people unless they see things the way you do is a quick way to end things in a hopeless stalemate.

As a gay person who has strong feelings about gay rights, including the right to marry, it can sometimes feel infuriating to argue with someone who doesn’t feel like we’re entitled to the same rights that they enjoy. But, provided they’re simply not an unrepentant bigot, it would be a mistake to write them off and not understand at least where they’re coming from. You can only guess at what a person’s reasons are for holding a different position from yours until you actually talk to them.

So this is where Obama’s argument that he can bridge the divide in Washington, ironically, gets a little substance. And this is where Clinton’s similar claim tends to ring empty.

The dustup over Obama’s “bitter” comments made at a San Francisco fundraiser a couple of months ago brings up an issue entirely different from Obama’s feelings about small-town folk. But the story itself was broken by an unusual persona - a blogger/citizen journalist whose presence was allowed at an event excluding members of the press.

Mayhill Fowler, who had participated as a citizen journalist on the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus subsite, published her story several days after the fundraiser, and with the heavily editorial and highly familiar style common to bloggers. She had already donated the maximum $2300 allowable to the Obama campaign, and was probably perceived as a strong Obama supporter. But her scoop was clearly critical of Obama, and has been seized upon by Clinton, McCain and the mainstream media.

Blogs present some game-changing characteristics:

• publication can happen immediately - there is no wait for an editorial scan or for the printing presses to warm up
• syndication via RSS is almost immediate - popular blogs’ entries can show up on readers’ iGoogle, NetVibes or other start pages, often showing up alongside headlines from mainstream news outlets
• prominent bloggers are after the scoop as much as reporters are - they are often the first point of contact when someone wants to break a story, and timestamping allows easy embargo compliance

This sort of blogger is an entirely different sort of animal than the guy who runs his small Obama fanblog, and most politicians know it.

But with blogs like Huffington Post, the line can get blurred. HuffPo arguably has its own proclivities (obviously towards the left, maybe more subtly towards Obama), but its growing clout also gives it greater access to newsmakers and increasing incentive and ability to scoop a story. Which, paradoxically, makes it a tougher invite than the smalltime fanblogger, which the Obama campaign thought they had in Mayhill Fowler.