"Americans have been on an acquisition binge for decades," Quindlen writes. "I suspect television advertising, which made me want a Chatty Cathy doll so much as a kid that when I saw her under the tree my head almost exploded." Quindlen notes: "A person in the United States replaces a cell phone every 16 months, not because the cell phone is old, but because it is oldish." And yet? "Homelessness, which had fallen in recent years, may rebound as people lose their jobs and their houses. For the first time this month, the number of people on food stamps will exceed the 30 million mark."

Right after the go-go, me-me, buy-buy '80s came the bling-bling '90s and Marc Jacobs-handbag early aughts. The nation is coming down from a long spending high, and the purchases we made while we were all cranked up aren't looking so smart. Now, writes Quindlen:

Hard times offer the opportunity to ask hard questions, and one of them is the one my friend asked, staring at sweaters and shoes: why did we buy all this stuff? […] Because things are dire, many people have become hesitant to spend money on trifles. And in the process they began to realize that it's all trifles. Here I go, stating the obvious: stuff does not bring salvation. But if it's so obvious, how come for so long people have not realized it?"

Do we blame TV? Do we blame magazines? Do we blame celebrity culture and the desire to imitate their posh lifestyles? Quindlen says, "My father will be happy to tell you about the excitement of getting an orange in his stocking during the Depression. The depression before this one." Can you picture any modern American kid having the same reaction?

Stuff Is Not Salvation [Newsweek]

Earlier: Do You Own Your Stuff Or Does Your Stuff Own You?

[Image via Material World, by Peter Menzel]

"Finishing Our Work", Thomas Friedman, New York Times: talks about the "Buffet Effect," in which old white guys claimed to be voting for John McCain in the country club locker room, but actually voted for Obama.

Why? Some did it because they sensed how inspired and hopeful their kids were about an Obama presidency, and they not only didn’t want to dash those hopes, they secretly wanted to share them. Others intuitively embraced Warren Buffett’s view that if you are rich and successful today, it is first and foremost because you were lucky enough to be born in America at this time — and never forget that. So, we need to get back to fixing our country — we need a president who can unify us for nation-building at home.

"Transformational Presidency", Katrina Vanden Huevel, The Nation: tells Democrats they should not fear their mandate; they should exploit it for change.

Already we hear calls that the new Democratic majority must not "overreach." That is code for "do not use your mandate." Ignore those calls—- this election was a referendum on conservatism that has guided American politics since 1980.
After years of playing defense, it is time to unshackle our imaginations, build coalitions and craft creative strategies that will move, persuade and push President Obama and a new Congress to seize the mandate they have been offered.

"Brilliant", Rolling Stone:

"Race, Post Race", Michael Eric Dyson, Los Angeles Times: Quotes Langston Hughes and Tupac, credits an Obama victory with reviving our nation's image, but cautions that we should not think racism no longer exists.

Obama, something of a re-founding father, now joins the pantheon of white men who have cast a bright light or negative shadow over the nation's political landscape. His interpretation of America's ideals and destiny will enliven the creeds that have shaped the nation's self-image.

"President Obama", Washington Post: Obama has the chance to repair America's fractured image in the rest of the world.

Mr. Obama cannot erase Mr. Bush's legacy, but he has a chance to improve America's standing in the world, ending such noxious practices as torture and indefinite detention with minimal review that have diminished this country in the eyes of its allies. He has the opportunity finally to set the country on a path to help reduce global warming. He has far-reaching plans on energy, health care and education, but also a realistic understanding that the state of the economy will delimit his ambitions.

"Living History", Anna Quindlen, Newsweek: America is simultaneously concept and country, and it has historically fallen short of its conceptual image. Obama's victory helps forge the gap between concept and reality.

He made the political spiritual. "In the end, then," he said, "what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us." He asked the American people to be fair and just, to be kind and generous, to put prejudice behind them and be one people because that is, not a legal or social imperative, but a moral one.

"The Next President", New York Times: Obama's victory was such a landslide because America under Bush has failed to protect its citizens.

His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.

"Conservatism Isn't Finished", Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal: Doesn't trust Obama's healing rhetoric, thinks the country is still bitterly divided, but conservatives have also been deeply irresponsible.

Turning our eyes from the presidential campaign to conservative Washington generally, we can see the same overripeness, the same flamboyant contradictions that have long since become too great to paper over. The conservative movement, after all, came to Washington under a banner of "reform" but promptly turned Congress over to lobbyists and opened countless regulatory agencies to the industries they regulated. The movement clamored for fiscal responsibility and proceeded to outsource, at vast expense, every government operation it could.

"The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace", Jeffery Scott Shapiro, WSJ: People have shown the great Dubya "classless disrespect" despite the fact that Bush literally drove the country into the ground. Apparently we should feel bad for Bush because he tried very hard to reach across the aisle and was rebuffed by dem mean old Democrats.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

"Obama's Victory Ushers in a New America", Joe Klein, Time: Focuses on the story of Obama organizer Nate Hundt, who campaigned for Barack in Algona, Iowa and really became part of the community. Hundt and his fellow Obama staffers are the future of American politics.

Indeed, there are — an army of them, untold thousands of young organizers operating out of more than 700 offices nationwide. And they have delivered a message to Rudy Giuliani, who sneered during the Republican National Convention that he didn't even know "what a community organizer is." This is who they are: they are the people who won this election. They were the heart and soul and backbone of Barack Obama's victory. They are destined to emerge as the next significant generation of American political operatives — similar to the antiwar and antisegregation baby boomers who dominated the Democratic Party after cutting their teeth on the Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy campaigns of 1968, similar to the pro-life, antitax Reaganauts who dominated the Republican Party and American politics from the election of 1980 ... until now. They are a preview of the style and substance of the Obama Administration.

"Hail To The Chief", Michael Gerson, Washington Post: Gerson was one of Sarah Palin's earliest and most vocal supporters so it's no surprise that he's acting like someone peed in his cornflakes. He sees no healing, only increasing polarization.

His victory is likely to unleash an ideological and vengeful Democratic Congress. In the testing of a long campaign, Barack Obama has seemed thoughtful but sometimes hesitant and unsure of his bearings. He promises outreach and healing but holds to a liberalism that sees no need for innovation…After a deserved honeymoon, the new president is likely to find that the intensity of this bitterness has only gathered. Because of the ideological polarization of cable television news, talk radio and the Internet, Americans can now get their information from entirely partisan sources.

"Obama and America", Chicago Tribune: Obama's hometown paper disagrees with Gerson. They believe Obama's unwillingness to participate in negative campaigning has already helped raise the level of political discourse, but they warn that America will need time to recoup.

By winning, he raises the hope of a more civil polity. His moderate tone may also ease the pain felt by John McCain's supporters, who will be waiting to see whether his administration is as inclusive as his rhetoric…[But] America's political rancor won't instantly disappear. Pollster Peter Hart recently found that one-third of each candidate's supporters have come to "detest" McCain or Obama so thoroughly that they couldn't accept him as president. Hart asked a Wall Street Journal reporter, "How do you knit a nation back together with this kind of animosity?"

"Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress", The Onion: 'Nuff said.

Yes, She's A Feminist:

"So have evangelicals accepted the sexual revolution? Yes and no. While they generally agree that women should have careers, evangelical women and men still have some traditional social views — that sex should be reserved for marriage, that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that the possibility of abortion on demand, far from being a key to women's happiness, is simply wrong. In other words, like most Americans, they have rejected the more radical elements of feminism."

— Naomi Schaefer Riley, in the Wall Street Journal.

"Palin grew up in an age when many of her female counterparts chose to reject marriage and husbands. She grew up in an era when many women decided to send their children to day-care or not to have children at all. She grew up in an era when women could pursue the most masculine of careers and make a good living doing so. […] If feminism is about giving women choices, she should be cheered as an example of the success of feminism."

— Karin Agness, on Townhall.com.

"Sarah Palin represents a new feminism. . . . And there is no bigger threat to the elites in this country than a woman who lives her conservative convictions."

— talk show host Laura Ingraham. From a story by Robin Abcarian, in the Los Angeles Times.

"On the one hand, her political views (she's anti-abortion and pro-gun and an evangelical creationist) seem directly counter to the until-now traditionally liberal tenets of feminism. Yet at the same time, she's a powerful governor and mother of five, a combination that seems the very definition of what the women's movement was fighting for. […] Palin is a classic third-wave feminist, benefiting from all that came before her in terms of the women's movement, while remaining the embodiment of patriotic, religious, small-town values. […] Certainly, she's the change agent they might need: a right-wing politico in the body of an attractive modern "executive", wife and mother."

— Barbara Lippert, in Adweek.

"On that stage last night, Sarah Palin represented everything the feminist movement claims to strive for: a successful working woman with a happy family life and a husband who helps raise the children. Yet, rather than hailing her accomplishment, the feminist establishment has sat by silently as she's savaged for being a working mother. Turns out old feminism is really just a bunch of good 'ole girls telling you what to think. […] Where is the condemnation for the sickening misogyny, such as the DailyKOS's mock Playboy cover with Palin? The Huffington Post's photo montage of Palin, headlined "Former Beauty Queen, Future VP?" The Washington Post's Sally Quinn criticizing Palin for being a working mother? Well, I suppose she could've stayed home and baked cookies."

— A column by Kirsten Powers for the New York Post, via FrontPageMag.com.

"Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion. The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in."

— Tammy Bruce, in a column for the San Francisco Chronicle.

No, She's Not

"Really, most of the 'feminism' talk is coming from conservatives appropriating the language of the movement to push a ridiculously anti-feminist candidate. But what I find even more upsetting is the Palin/feminist talk coming from mainstream outlets who are demonstrating absolutely no knowledge of feminism. Take the Adweek article, for example, which says 'Palin is a classic third-wave feminist, benefiting from all that came before her in terms of the women's movement...' So by this definition, any woman who has benefited from feminism is a feminist. So, all women are feminists? Uh, yeah."

— From a post by Jessica Valenti, of Feministing.com.

"The Palin pick is disheartening on so many levels. For starters, even what little we know about the Alaska governor's policy views is enough to make a traditional feminist weep. The staunchly conservative Palin not only opposes abortion rights (even in cases of rape or incest), she also supports abstinence-only sex education and takes a strict free-market approach toward health care. Of course, these days, the feminist mantle is claimed by pro-life conservatives and pro-choice progressives alike. Palin herself is a proud member of Feminists for Life. Feminism seems no longer to denote a particular set of values or ideological agenda; it is merely a label appropriated to proclaim that one is committed to the best interests of women—whatever one believes those to be."

— Michelle Cottle, in an article for The New Republic, September . (Here's a reaction piece by Emily Bazelon on Slate.)

"Conservatives have probably used the word 'sexist' more in the past week than they have in the past 50 years. This would all have been entertaining if it were not such rank hypocrisy. These are people who have inveighed against affirmative action, a version of which undoubtedly played a part in this selection. […] The governor has talked about the choice she and her pregnant teenage daughter have made, but would deny other women the right to make their own choices. She talks about fighting the old boys' network and corrupt politicians, but would turn over the private reproductive decisions of American women to both. […] But she could certainly help move the inevitable tide of women's rights, the tide that has floated her own boat, by demanding that she be honored with the same tough scrutiny the guys in this race get. Which was, in case these improbable born-again friends of feminism missed it, the entire point of the exercise in the first place."

— Anna Quindlen in Newsweek.

Note To Mainstream Media: Sarah Palin Is NOT A Feminist [Feministing]

Brown takes a page from Ralph Ellison and calls over-50 females "invisible women." Younger women aren't voting for Hillary, she posits, because "The very scar tissue that older women see as proof of her determination just embarrasses their daughters, killing off for them all the insouciant elation that ought to come with girl power in the White House." Brown suggests that Hillary team up with Chelsea and hold some mother-daughter rallies in Pennsylvania to appeal to the under-30 set.

And why isn't that generation voting for Hillary? Young Jessica Bennett treads on well-worn territory when she argues that the "universal sisterhood" idea doesn't appeal to 20-something female Obama-philes. In a Q& A with Newsweek, Hillary herself explains why young women do not flock to her: "It's hard for young women to really feel the emotional connection because they didn't live through what we lived through. When I was a young woman, there were colleges I couldn't go to, jobs that I couldn't have ever had, a set of expectations that were pretty much imposed—and so women my age, we have gone through this extraordinary movement ... But the true beneficiaries are our daughters and our granddaughters."

But these 20 and 30-somethings who vote for Obama still feel guilty about not voting for Hillary, perhaps, as Jessica Bennett argues, because "[We were] reared at a time when Hillary was ever present, a sort of surrogate mother to us all."

If the Hillary-as-mother trope makes women feel guilty, it makes men feel a Freudian rage, says Kathleen Deveny. Deveny believes that much of the sexism directed towards Hillary is based in men's primal feelings towards their mothers and these men "mean 'mother' in the nagging, scolding, mom-jean-wearing sense, and not in a reassuring, brave and noble 'founding father' sort of way. Because since our mothers were often the sole authority figures in our childhoods, powerful women can bring back uncomfortable, if not emasculating, memories."

Speaking of emasculating, many have compared Hillary to another powerful old broad, Margaret Thatcher. Writer Julia Baird makes the point that though Thatcher pranced around her home "peeling potatoes" and "baking cakes" to soften her iron-woman image, she's not the only politician to do so. "Like men, women have exploited their gender when it suits them," Baird says.

Anna Quindlen takes the idea of Hillary's gender role throughout this race and puts an interesting twist on it. Obama has been allowed to show a more feminine side to overwhelming praise because "while [Clinton] felt the need to prove muscle and mettle, he has been making human connections. Here's the deal: that's because he could afford to. A male candidate owns all the guy stuff simply by virtue of his birth; he can then go on to show that he's caring and communitarian."

By virtue of his birth, Obama is also a black man. For Allison Samuels, her desire to see someone in the White House who cares about black issues "trumps [her] desire to see a woman in the White House." Samuels continues, "I can't afford the luxury of fighting two battles when one is so clearly a matter of life and death."

Last but not least, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wonders whether this year's election will settle the question of identity politics once and for all. "Perhaps," Lithwick wagers, "at the end of all these months of peering in the mirror, we can stop looking for the candidate who embodies every slight and insult we've ever encountered, and contemplate which of them is better suited to govern." What might fell Hillary is not her gender, says Eleanor Clift in yet another essay, it's her personality, marred by a combination of "hubris and naiveté". Focusing on the policy and the temperaments of the candidates instead of their genitalia or the color of their skin? Why would anyone want to do that!

Hillary And The Invisible Women [Newsweek]
Am I Betraying The 'Sisterhood'? [Newsweek]
'A Common Experience' [Newsweek]
Leave Your Mother Out Of It [Newsweek]
Still Stuck In Second [Newsweek]
The Legacy Of My Grandmother [Newsweek]
Scenes From a Tea for Two [Newsweek]
Enough About Us. What About Them? [Newsweek]

Earlier: 30 Women Hate On Hillary In 30 Different Ways

You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations.

How Much Jail Time? [Newsweek]
Libertyville Abortion Demonstration [YouTube]
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