Martin times two times two

I don't link to either Martin often enough. Two of the most thoughtful and perceptive bloggers on my blogroll. Here's two from each of them.

Martin Meenagh:

1. Just two questions: On the disparity between the capitalist mainstream's response to the banking and auto industries

2. Sarah Palin should Keep On Trucking: A lovely appreciation of Sarah Palin, that I particularly recommend to Jogo. I liked these bits:

"I do get annoyed with those in desperate search of the righteousness that sometimes is invested in religion, and who follow the bourgeois tribes that own and operate this country whilst pretending to radicalism. You probably have an idea of the kit and caboose they drive; global warming-without-the-science, yearning for anti-apartheid, Israeli boycott, bombing people for out-of-proportion rights-based ideologies, that sort of thing. I'm afraid that I could never hitch a lift on that...

[Palin] also tended to expose something that is never really acknowledged in the USA, which is the reality of class, and of class attitudes. Palin's demographic was a group who generally are asked to fight America's wars and then patronised or socially regulated by people who often have lower personal morals than them but who have more money, albeit on credit.

Any whiff of association with things trailed as working class--guns, patriotism, churches, McDonalds, and so on--and those educated at the mills of conformity and licensees of acceptable radicalism that great western universities are will get snide quickly."

Martin also links to Camille Paglia, a fantastic essay that Jogo also sent me, which I'd strongly recommend, even though I don't agree with all of it.

Martin in the Margins:

1. Lazy anti-Americanism in charity's reaction to Obama win: including a great footnote about the idea of a "Muslim country".

2. The limits of blowback theory: on the white "backlash" against Obama, concluding:

"To be consistent, the Guardian's comment pages will need to cover this story in the following manner. Madeleine Bunting will have to write a hand-wringing explanation of how the attacks are an inevitable reaction to the 'provocation' of Obama's election, while urging us to understand the hurt feelings of a minority that has experienced systematic discrimination against its white supremacist beliefs. Jonathan Steele will surely need to remind us that these incidents have nothing to do with a supposed racist 'ideology', but instead have their root cause in the complex interplay of disadvantage and prejudice suffered by white people. And Seamus Milne will conclude that we shouldn't blame the perpetrators of the attacks but rather the American people, for having dared to elect a black president: in other words, as always, America is to blame."