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Sunday, February 03, 2008

Throw a couple more older people in this and you've got a damn near perfect campaign video
Posted by Jill | 7:35 AM




This is really, really good. And I know that the people most energized by Barack Obama's candidacy are the young. But historically, young voters, largely because they're more mobile and sometimes less likely to register, don't always show up at the polls at crunch time. Hopefully this year will be different, assuming Barack Obama can pull this out and become the Democratic nominee.

But it isn't just young people who feel a responsibility to the future. I realize that everyone under 35 wishes that all the baby boomers would just put guns to our heads and die already -- preferably all at once because it would make great television. But you know what, guys? You need us to do this. And this isn't about baby-boomer self-centeredness, you even need our parents to help you do this. You need older Americans because there are still people out there who may not identify themselves as racist but won't vote for a black man because they're afraid of "what the blacks might do if one of theirs gains power." You need us because 51% or 52% or even 55% of the vote isn't going to be enough to stop them from shorting the number of voting machines sent to minority districts. You need us because the media are going to start up the Bash the Democratic Candidate chorus that's going to start up again as soon as we have a nominee running against Saint John McCain, the philanderer, Keating Five veteran, and kisser-up to a man who won by smearing his adopted child. It isn't going to stop an already right-wing Supreme Court from handing another close election to a Republican. It isn't going to stop Republican Secretaries of State from making bogus claims of terrorist threats to shut down transparency in the handling of the votes.

We've been down this road many, many times. And while a lot of us have become cynical about the process, we know that we have no choice but to continue to play the game. Jack Shepherd on Lost is often a sanctimonious pain in the ass, but he's right -- we live together or die alone.

In this video, I see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Herbie Hancock -- and that's about the extent of representation from older Americans that I see. And as I said, this isn't about baby boomers. How cool would a video like this be if it included people like Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn? I know you want to think that the WWII generation has all died off, that those born between 1955 and 1964 (of which Obama is one, by the way) all monolithic, that we all sold out and became conservative Republicans and voted for George W. Bush. Or you think that the Triangulation of Hillary is representative of an entire generation in our lust for power, forgetting that Hillary was a conservative Young Republican long before she married Bill.

When I worked on Howard Dean's campaign in 2004, and I went to Meetup meetings to hand-write personal letters to Iowa voters, the average of people who were there was probably around 50 -- and about half were older than I was. We're out here. You need us to do this. And if you shut us out, even symbolically, such as in videos like this one, you're not going to have the kind of decisive numbers to keep the Republicans from stealing another one -- and going to find yourself with President John McCain in November.

Let us help do this. Together we can stop the madness.

Yes. We. Can.

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10 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Wow. You simply cannot do enough for some people.
2/3/08, 4:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Thanks for this. I was going to point out that there seem to be more Jews than Christians, and certainly not nearly enough Muslims, Buddhists, etc. I think we need them to go back and up those numbers a but too. And there were more singers than actors, maybe a little more balance there, and I counted 23 right-handed people to only 5 left handed people! Definitely not diverse enough to get the message of hope spread to enough people. And it's in black and white too. I think it need to be in color so that we can represent all diversity of colors. This seems to suggest the world is black and white... and young.
2/3/08, 4:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
If you don't want us to treat baby boomers as a monolith, B&B, perhaps you can not treat us like one, either?

As a person on the elder edge of Generation X, I've watched the Boomers smoke weed, fight for peace, grow up, sell out, become conservatives, and decimate the planet. But I realize that not everyone of the Boomer age participated in that global disaster.

By the same token, not all of us are arrogant kids who have no historical context. Not all of us are self-centered losers who don't show up on election day. Not all of us, in short, fall into the stereotypes you outline here...even as you ask not to be stereotyped yourself. It takes a village to elect Obama, right? ;-)

All of us have to come together to create a political transformation. So I tell you what...we won't judge you all, and you do the same for us.

Love you, by the way. :-) - ModFab
2/3/08, 9:41 PM  
Blogger Jill said...
ModFab, you know I adore you like a brother, but this notion you have that the people who used to smoke weed all sold out and became Republicans is just plain wrong. Some of the people born between 1946 and 1964 were always Republicans. Believe me, it wasn't ex-hippies who elected George W. Bush. It was the guys in the plaid pants in my high school yearbooks who supported Nixon, narced out the druggy kids, and supported the Vietnam War but made damn sure they didn't have to go themselves.

As I've said to other younger commenters, the people born during those two decades were hardly monolithic -- and from where I'm standing, those of us who were out there fighting the good fight may not have succeeded, but we sure as hell didn't elect this bunch. We didn't elect Reagan, either.
2/3/08, 11:41 PM  
Blogger adam k. said...
Well I'm very much okay with switching support to Obama now that Edwards is gone. I wish Edwards would just endorse him already, though. Is he angling for a job in a Hillary administration? Cause I can't think of any other reason why he's not getting behind Barack big time. I mean, he was doing it while he was still in the running, for Chrissake.

I love that Obama's into unifying simply because that's the only way the Dems will get the numbers to win decisively in this election, and then continue to build on that victory. Hillary can't do it. Even if she wins, she'll only have 51% behind her; the other 49% will still hate her.

I really hope people look long and hard at those polls that say:

McCain 46 - Obama 49

McCain 49 - Clinton 46

...and make a good decision about who is really electable in the general.
2/4/08, 12:45 AM  
Blogger Lynn Hayes said...
Thanks for posting this Jill, it's really wonderful.
2/4/08, 6:40 AM  
Blogger Douglas Watts said...
I agree. Nelson Mandela was too young for me, when he was young, and too old for me, when he was old. We need more diversity in the age of Nelson Mandela so he does not offend young or old. And let's not get into the fact that he's a man and not even very dark black.
2/4/08, 6:42 AM  
Blogger Douglas Watts said...
How cool would a video like this be if it included people like Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn?

Make one and include them in it. Nobody is stopping you.

If you read Will.i.am's account of how this was made, you will see it was done very very quickly and without any involvement of the Obama campaign.
2/4/08, 6:51 AM  
Blogger Melina said...
I dont know what the big deal is about grouping ALL gen xers and ALL boomers anyway....
It seems to be the people on the edges of the suspect groups who are drawing the fragile delineation the most often. And why do you need a whole group to blame? How about just saying that percentages are one thing or another, rather than a whole group "sold out"...I mean, speak for yourself, as one who could be maybe closer to the boomers than who is represented in this video, some people doth protest too much.
obviously, there are people of different political persuasions, and the country has been divided in half, more or less, since forever, as part of that check and balance thing...Its impossible to believe that MF, as an intelligent adult, thinks that ALL of the baby boomers did one thing or another. Its also impossible to believe that Jill looks at this video and ONLY sees its flaws, or feels completely unrepresented. First of all, Thats not truw, and second of all,Its a music video, fer chrissakes...not a commercial. But if you added some older folks, it would make a good commercial. Its is not an official Obama film, and if it is to become one, I think they will have to cut it to add more people and to shorten it.

And as someone who is right up there almost on the edge of boomerhood (which I dont even know if I am, because I dont pay attention to silly crap like that unless it is for a much bigger sociological reason than to just say that they or we did one thing or another..Im 46...what am I?) it seems like MF might well be damning himself; throwing the baby with the bathwater, as they say in not understanding that he is, himself, of a group in between that is so finely drawn that history will not recognize which one he was or which one he wasn't. This is some extent of navel gazing, and if I didn't know that you two ARE like brother and sister, I would suggest it, because these are the kinds of squabbles in families that go on forever.
So Jill wrote that she would've liked to have seen more older people...It would have worked the same, honestly, and been just as beautiful...and will.i.am threw this together quickly and grabbed whoever was in his blackberry, according to reports...
I think that will.i.am should enlarge his friend pool, and check out some folks on the other side of the divide that Ive heard is so huge as to be able to blame one side or another for all the ills of society.

but, you two are clearly just pushing eachother's buttons, as if this delineation makes any difference at all in the problem that we have in front of us....and especially in a world where we have so few people who are actually like family members that we can squabble with, I don't see how this is the most important thing. especially when you see the numbers between the 2 dem candidates and McCain! Now there is something to worry about, and I don't know if you're gonna be able to break that down into tidy groups of age perfect constituents, because of religion and war and fear, and all those niggling problems.

In my opinion, what we look at here in politics-land is that you have, usually, one chance to capture people, and if that was the clip or commercial that they saw, (which it will be for many people, young and old, who only watch MTV , the nightly news, or whatever,) it might not have been enough to touch the older set.
Even older than US!! (hard to believe, I know)
And I also think its way too long...but whatcha gonna do about that?
Some X-ers vote, alot don't, more Boomers vote, as is shown by statistics...but who cares? The point is not to place blame, but to find out what to do about it in a universal way without pandering to one group or another.
No one monolith sold out...people grew up and did what they had to to survive. People got tired and older and more isolated. People had kids to support with 3 jobs in this perfectly american life, and a mortgage if they were lucky!

I hate to say it MF, but it happens, even in the world of Fabulosity. The denial of aging and death, and the need for an independent self is what causes this knee jerk reaction and the overly precious hanging on to some group label, as if there isn't the next group breathing down your neck, that is gonna turn around and tell you that YOU did everything wrong. As the mom of teenagers, this is very familiar to me.

Believe me, as a cusp gen-x boomer myself (heh, I made my own group...see?) who grew up in the land of fabulosity, I can say that it happens to us all. Movie stars and the old doorman at Studio 54... there is no way that you cant do something wrong that is looked at by the younger set as unforgivable, and you have to accept it because its what lets them carve out their own identity for whatever thats worth in development, until they get old enough to see how universal everything is as you hit the spiral down....
But that doesn't mean that we lose our spirit...and it certainly should not lead to this childish bickering about something that is minor if you take the ego out of it.
Can't we all just get along?
You two love eachother...go catch a movie and leave the age thing out of it! (No Country for Old ME, perhaps?)

xoxox
2/4/08, 8:21 AM  
Blogger Jennifer Briney said...
I'm new to this blog (and I hope I'll be welcomed back after this comment), but I read this post and the responses, and find myself annoyed. I'm 25 and I've got to tell you, I'm sick of all these ridiculous labels those older than myself have made up to divide us with. Either boomer or Gen X. Either liberal or conservative. Either Dem or Rep. Either red or blue. Do these divisions even exist in the real world?

My father marched against the Vietnam war and then voted twice for George W. Bush. What is he? Do we really care or do we just need him to fit neatly into one of our little boxes?

Jill - I love the underlining theme of your post, "Together we can stop the madness." This is the only way we will stop the madness. But the way you try to define the way a younger generation thinks about the boomer generation doesn't seem correct to me at all. Plus, in all honesty, how would you know?

I can't speak for my entire generation (and I believe it is silly to try), but it seems to me that the Boomers are still the ones in power. Boomers are in Congress. Boomers currently have the presidency. Boomers have the money. Can you really claim that the younger generations are keeping the boomers out of anything?

This feeling of hopelessness is being felt by an entire country, not one generation or another. The Boomers have been around longer. That is the only real difference between us.

Despite what my parents and their peers may think, I don't sit down with my friends and blame the sins of the world on them. It just might seem that way because the only history we've been taught is recent history. Our textbooks were full of American myths as opposed to honest, brutal truth. The only truth we know what we have seen with our own eyes. That's been Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush. Hence, why they get the blame.

No one I know has ever suggested that they wish the boomers would, "just put guns to our heads and die already". The death of the labels though, created in order to fit people and their thoughts into categories for easy digestion... the death of those labels are something I hope I live long enough to see.

What I saw in this music video were celebrities. Why didn't they include Howard Zinn? Because no one my age has a clue what he looks like. Very few of us know who he is. Kate Walsh and the hot guy from Grey's Anatomy though - we know who they are.

As one of your commentors said,"thou doth protest too much, methinks."
2/4/08, 7:51 PM  
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