I started my new, union job yesterday. I've got the SEIU watching my back now. What does union membership get me? About $3600 more per year than the same position at my last workplace, annual cost of living increases and overtime pay. At the last place I worked the clinicians were expected to work 50 or more hours per week on salary. So better pay and 10+ hours more per week to live your life--to blog, start back running (soon, I hope), get a community garden going. That's a pretty sweet deal.
I think that increasing union membership and clout is one of the most important goals that progressives need to be supporting. Since political aesthetics and identity is such a hot topic on this blog; I think it's nice to read this which reports that 53% of Americans say that they would join a union if they could. Maybe the image of unions as mob run rackets that just keep lazy incompetents from getting fired that the corporate bosses is no longer operative. Anecdotally, when I caught the local news the other night they were doing man-on-the-street interviews about the threat of another grocery strike in the near future, and they didn't have anyone on who didn't support the workers and the strike. You know that if the TV news folks had found anyone to bitch about the inconvenience or how those people are already paid too much to bag groceries, they would've been prominently displayed to provide some "balance." I'm not sure how we could go about making the union worker identity a more appealing one, especially to our generation and younger, people growing up entirely in the age of shrinking unions. Maybe humorous, ironic ads would help?
19 comments:
Unions certainly are powerful things. Sometimes I'm not sure how effective they can be within the current economic environment, but perhaps that's just right wing brainwashing.
Tigrenoche - I want to remind you of your promise to explain the problems with Dennis Kucinich. At one point you called him a flake and then completely neglected to back up you opinion. I'm sure you have good reasons for this, but it is often the refusal of the Democratic Party to enage in a dialect with progressives like Ralph Nader that makes people like me so distrustful of party politics.
That should be "dialogue" not "dialect," although perhaps developing a mutial dialect would be a step in the right direction.
Here's a pretty thorough takedown of Kucinich...I hadn't forgotten, just been lazy. And this doesn't even mention that he looks like an elf.
As to unions being somehow outmoded, I think it's bull; there are definite challenges, but in some ways unionizing the current service-based economy makes more sense than unionizing factories. Walmart is always going to need actual flesh-and-blood people working in their stores; that can't be shipped overseas the way an auto plant can. Were there any particular reasons you were thinking they'd be ineffective? Sadly, this idea isn't even really "right wing" brainwashing as it gets spouted just as much by the people supposedly representing the moderate middle, people like Tom Friedman and Joe Klein (New York Times and Time, respectively).
I would encourage the others to check out the link to the "takedown of Kucinich." I think it reveals just how poor many of these mainstream political blogs are. The author was asked to justify his initial assessment of Kucinich ("ugh" was apparently his first take), and does so in a style that I don't find particularly convincing. One thing that the author does not do is mention a single policy issue aside from abortion, which apparently Kucinich has changed his mind about in order to get back in line with the party. Rather he talks about the inability to win an election - an excellent technique for dismissing ideas or individuals that one does not want to engage with.
He quotes the following from Kucinich's statement about a department of peace, and calls it new age crap.
"We can conceive of peace as not simply the absence of violence but the presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness, of respect, trust, and integrity. We can conceive of peace as a tool to tap the infinite capabilities of humanity to transform consciousness and conditions that impel or compel violence at a personal, group, or national level toward creating understanding, compassion, and love. We can bring forth new understandings where peace, not war, becomes inevitable. We can move from wars to end all wars to peace to end all wars.
Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make nonviolence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development for economic and political justice and for violence control."
I don't know about you guys but this discussion of peace and spirituality fits well with the need to add mythical dimensions to a political movement. My parents, two registered republicans, have spoken highly of a department of peace and the idea seems to have inspired them to get more involved in politics. The author's comment that faith in peace or similar values represents the intrusion of religion into the public sphere is complete bullshit. Values such as "freedom" and "justice" are constantly invoked to support policy - we have "faith" in those values and that does not violate the separation of church and state.
If Kucinich really has no chance of winning then why be so afraid of actually discussing his proposed policies rather than make weak personal attacks? This would appear to be excellent evidence for transcritique's initial questioning of the lack of "choice" in the '08 election.
I find Kucinich's appeals to spirituality appalling, and I don't think my grounds for this are aesthetic at all (I find this sort of thing inoffensive (although still wrong-headed) in books on spirituality or the liner notes to records). I think it shows a clear disregard for speaking to the broader public--both atheists as well as most people who practice mainstream religions. I'm okay with people's spirituality informing their politics, but when it comes time to put policies on the table they'd better have motivations that are acceptable to people of different religious and spiritual beliefs.
The Kucinich quotese all way too vague to get any feeling for what his actual policies are. As you pointed out, DM, this may just be the blogger being unfair; all politicians have to talk in broad, unclear terms much of the time. A discussion of his political positions would have been nice.
It seems like the other problem with Kucinich is that he's pretty ineffective both in and out of office. He's just plain not a very good politician, whether his ideas are good or bad.
A - I'm not sure if understand your problem with K's spirituality, at least not in the manner that it is expressed in the quote concerning the department of peace. Perhaps spirituality isn't even the best term here. It seems that what Kucinich is trying to do is advance an alternate system of values - one that promotes peace over war. Although such concepts are vague this is common within politics - like Bush's use of "freedom." It may be true that K. is ineffective in advancing policy but I think there is still a place for individuals who seek to change the values on which policy is based. I see Kucinich pushing for a particular world view. In some ways this is exactly the kind of move the democrats need to make in order to counter the "traditional family values" approach of the republicans.
Kucinich is a joke and he's only got himself to blame for that. I remember seeing him on TV in '04 talking about how "I'm running for president...and looking for a nice single woman to maybe be my first lady" C'mon. People legitimately expect a certain seriousness from someone wanting to be their president and Kucinich blew it right there, without even getting to the new-agey stuff. There's always novelty candidates for president, but outside of really crappy Robin Williams movies they don't win.
Which brings me to my next point about Kucinich: His appeal I think rests largely on a certain liberal fantasy that gets made into a horrible movie every couple years (Head of State, Bulworth, that Robin Williams thing) and was also largely the basis for Ralph Nader's appeal--the fantasy that if someone would just cut the spin and speak the straight truth, everyone would automatically be bowled over by their honesty, realize that their positions were right and they'd win in a landslide. But it doesn't work that way. Kucinich ran in 04; he participated in all the primary debates; he was out in Iowa and New Hampshire for the first primaries, small states where personal appeals to the voters are theoretically what matters. When he began the race he was in no better a position financially or name recognition-wise than Howard Dean. NO ONE WAS KEEPING KUCINICH FROM BEING HEARD OR REFUSING TO ENGAGE WITH HIS IDEAS--people saw him, heard him, and didn't like him. He didn't have broad appeal. Just like Al Sharpton, who at least had the advantage of being a hell of a public speaker. I'm sure you could find plenty of blogs out there supporting Kucinich, but the most popular liberal blogs, the ones with tens or hundreds of thousands of readers that are pretty representative of liberal/dem demographics, generally don't support him. Because they don't like him. These are people who follow politics very closely and know all the candidates positions, but don't support Kucinich (even if they agree with his positions) because he's not an appealing candidate.
Prior to his speech at the 04 convention, Obama was less well known and had less political experience than Kucinich. But Obama is an appealing candidate. He looks and sounds like what people want a president to look and sound like; he's easily the most charismatic and rhetorically gifted politician to come along in my lifetime. And his stance on most issues, while still way too vague on the details, are pretty good and solidly liberal. This is why Obama is drawing crowds of over 10,000 people to his rallies a year before the first primary, and why he almost matched Hillary in fund-raising while drawing much more heavily from small donations. Why vote for Kucinich when you can vote for Obama? Charisma, speaking skills, appearance--these things matter; maybe more than they should, but what are you going to do about it? For a variety of reasons, Obama has enormous appeal; I'd say he might almost add a mythical dimension to our politics; he's an incredibly inspiring figure and if this ends up landing him in the white house, it'll provide him with a lot of room to enact some pretty bold, progressive legislation--if that's what he wants to do. He's got the ability to persuade people to support liberal ideas that they might not otherwise support. Kucinich doesn't have that.
What about the issue with his stint as mayor of Cleveland? He comes off sounding like a liberal twin to Bush as far as management goes--stubborn, refuses to listen to opposing views or work in good faith with the other members of the city govt. This is his only experience in an executive capacity and he blew it. Not a good sign, I think.
And addressing the new-agey stuff: The negative ads just write themselves--Imagine footage of him giving one of his new-age spiels, or else just a photo of him looking particularly elven, as someone sounding like the teenaged Krusty-Burger employee from the Simpsons reads it "Spirit joins with matter...etc" Then the voiceover "Apparently John Kerry wasn't a big enough fag for the Democrats; this year they've nominated Dennis 'Moonbeam' Kucinich, with his groovy, far-out ideas for a department of peace. This is a tough world we live in. Al queda is still plotting attacks, Iran is developing nuclear weapons. We need a president who understands this and will provide tough leadership for a tough world (footage of 9/11 and Osama on the screen). We need America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani (or decorated Veteran John McCain)" And that'd be it... Eight more years of Republican rule.
The "Department of Peace" quote isn't really that objectionable, beyond being so vague as to be meaningless. If he's pushing for a re-evaluation of our values, he's failing miserably at it, at least in this quote. But you're right, DM, there's no explicit mention of spirituality or the grounding of the department of peace on some spiritual ideas in this quote, and I probably conflated it with some of the other stuff Kucinich said.
My real beef is with the other quote--the "spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe" one. It's almost like he wants to alienate himself from the people he claims to want to represent.
One of the aspects of the Iraq war that most democrats still refuse to take responsibility for is the desire to control Iraqi oil. Kucinich's Iraq plan contains specific points that limit the access of the US to Iraqi oil and the involvement of private corporations in reconstruction efforts. If we see Iraq as part of the broader agenda of neoliberal imperialism then any real opposition must address the use of public money (the US military) to secure resources for private interests (Haliburton and others). Kucinich appears to be the only major candidate who is moving in this direction.
It is probably true that K. would never be elected and would be a poor president if he were. However to continually marginalize him with personal attacks prevents the Democratic party from responding to a truely progressive voice. In terms of policy K. does represent a marked difference from Hilary and Obama, but he is being ignored.
One more note on spirituality. Although for some K.'s words are inherently silly, I think this just shows the militaristic mindset that we have been locked into. It is only "tough talking" candidates who are thought to have a chance of winning, despite the fact that these candidates don't necessarily represent the world views of many Americans. Unless you want to continue to promote the "tough on terror" brand of politician (here the link between aesthetics and politics should be clear) it is time to start acknowledging other ways of conceptualizing the world. "Spirt joining with matter" only sounds funny because we are not used to thinking in those terms. In order to promote the "weness" that many of us embrace then we must not be afraid to take chances in our use of language. We don't necessarily need to elect a spiritually minded president in '08 but we should begin actively cultivating other world views.
DM:
Are you saying that I have a militaristic mindset? I don't think I do.
Do you think that fundamentally unclear, seemingly false, or silly-sounding language is always justifiable on the grounds that it is a means to "reconceptualizing" things, and reconceptualization is needed? I find talk about the "master race" generally unclear, silly, and where clear, false. Should I not be so quick to judge those who claim that there is a master race that ought to rule the world? If we need to reconceptualize things, this is one way to do it.
My point is: New or different ways of talking about things need to be justified by something more than the fact that we need new or different ways of talking about things. I see no such other justification for some of Kucinich's statements. (And the things he says that I do take seriously, like what to do with Iraq's oil, don't seem to require any reconceptualization).
I agree that it would be a shame to lampoon Kucinich's ideas merely because he is unelectable. I'm not electable, and I hope people take me seriously.
A, I take you seriously...you're probably pretty electable, too, at least up to a certain point (I could see you as a back-bencher in the house of reps no problem). Of course, I think that if you did feel strongly enough about some issue or issues to run, you wouldn't then blow it by using the media attention you got to try to pick up chicks.
As I said earlier, Kucinich has (and will again this year) competed against Hillary, Obama and all the rest in the party debates and primaries. Whether people evaluate him based on policy or personality, he does get to make his case to the people who choose the Democratic nominee. In '04 when given this opportunity, he used it instead to score dates.
DM, you write "If we see Iraq as part of the broader agenda of neoliberal imperialism then any real opposition must address the use of public money (the US military) to secure resources for private interests (Haliburton and others)." I would say that, while a lot of people do see Iraq that way (including, if you'd follow them for more than a post or two and read through the comments, all the big liberal blogs), the typical American probably doesn't; they see it now as a terrible mistake and tragedy, but start talking about neo-liberal imperialism and their eyes are going to glaze over.
This is why Kucinich's message and policies aren't winning over the masses. You, I think quite rightly, defend Evangelicals against claims of false consciousness, identifying their need for a satisfying identity as a legitimate need; but you don't seem to want to extend that same courtesy to the majority of Americans who don't want to get lectured on America's real imperialist agenda. They want someone who'll just end this whole Iraq mess ASAP and let them feel like America's a decent country again; they didn't care about the oil going in, and I doubt they'll care about the oil getting out. I truly hope the next president will have a pretty clear picture of the folly of invading other countries to secure their oil supplies, but I bet they'll be very, very careful talking about this, because doing so is incredibly risky, as it confronts too directly the self-image that American's want to hold.
All the last two weeks I've been reading up for work on doing therapy with schizophrenics, and the main idea behind all the different approaches to working with this population, is that you can't directly challenge the hallucinations and delusions, as this just makes the client defensive and further entrenches the delusional system. You've got to build trust, rapport, then very, very slowly and non-confrontationally start to question the delusions; but never challenge them directly, at least not until the therapy is well along and the client has started questioning them him/herself. America's a pretty delusional country in a lot of ways, and I think this approach to treating schizophrenia is probably pretty applicable to moving politics leftward as well.
Alternatively, if you think that American's should face squarely up to their involvement in neo-imperialism, then you need to actually persuade them that they should; craft some convincine arguments and advocate for them, don't just bitch that your arguments are being ignored. And if you want these arguments to win anyone over, you're going to need a more convincing messanger than Dennis Kucinich.
Wow, I love these deep comments buried within posts on a slightly different subject! I just want to congratulate Tigrenoche on the union membership, as it is one of the few vague reminants of a political existence that used to define the daily lives of millions. And as his post points out, the union as a form of collective political subjectivity is by no means completely contained as a force of change-however defined- within the right wing image world that denies such possibilities as TN pointed out elsewhere. Despite the roles of ALF-CIO type unions in "depoliticizing" the unions over at least the last fifty years, the return of a more "activist" model of union should be celebrated. I remember listening to KBOO histories of amazing union victories including the californian nurses' union that has made a major impact on the Kaiser health system, and in fact the way we understand health systems today. I don't remember the details at all but just the idea that the ascendant sectors of new economic modes of accumulation should be sites of active unions seems very important. While they pose a clear threat to the remaining monopolies of the "current economic environment" as DM described the present- and this language has its own history that has long been tied to the labor vs. capitalist struggle- I would not want to dismiss them outright as old, ineffective sink holes of a lost economic world. That is, against my own resistance to any easy embrace of the union as a political form, I think they remain an object of vast potential- if only in the sense that the youtube movie presents; an older form of collective economic identity that has some history and a memory of struggle (albeit usually a fairly reductive one). I suspect that the Seattle 'victory' of a transnational labor discourse that can confront the neoliberal forms of power can be revived through these unions and against the ahistorical visions of the current moment. I am uncomfortable in recognizing this possibility not so much because I think that unions are dead or anything like that, its just that, like the Democrats, it is clear that they have had a considerable role in the rise of the right during the last thirty plus years. The last few years however have seen the transnational labor fronts beginning to address the changing conditions of globalization and therefore posing a challenge to the entrenched institutions of labor that have made "strategic choices" to relinquish all imagination and power to the hands of the right.
Now what role Dennis K's 'department of peace' might play in this shifting terrain of older political forms returning with a vengeance I cannot say much. But I do like TN's interesting description of 'america' as delusional and the need to apply politics as if we were "treating schizophrenia". This is fascinating and also troubling, but I can't help but feel like it does somehow reflect the national reality. This would offer a clinical mode of politics through which rehabilitation of our people could proceed by addressing the pathological origins of our psychosis indirectly, building trust and slowly begin questioning ourselves without reinforcing the system of delusion. While this clinical mode works to point out certain analogies between individual and national subjects, I am not yet convinced we can entrust our collective treatment to the Democrats who are in part responsible for our pathological condition. As appealing as a department of peace sounds coming from a despised, if not rogue member of said party, I also don't feel like we should feel compelled to decide our individual choices based on some vague notion of their appeal to the masses, especially since we have recognized already that they are in a condition analogous to schizophrenics as TN suggests. Clearly we need to make our decisions with the best tools available and embrace the ones which can reveal a world beyond the system of delusion we inhabit. Just as unions have a longer history of struggle which exceeds their own reductive forms, we need not exclude the analyses of imperialism and their histories of struggle which can provide many people, no matter how entrenched in pathological states, the tools to make better choices for themselves. And I think no matter how bad we want to forget about Iraq, we should not let the forces which brought this system of delusion into reality escape into the glorious “restoration” of “normal” political delusion without reinvigorating the critique of the deeper crisis in foundations which our schizophrenia expresses. But not to get stuck in the pragmatic vs speculative politics debate again, I just want to conclude this comment by saying that older things like unions, fascism, myths and imperialism are obviously on the rise today but that they take on very different means of expressing these forms. Pharmaceuticals, experiences, and other medium of identification are clearly consumed and produced on a scale well beyond those which produced these older forms. We need not “re-conceptualize” these forms through “silly” language but perhaps we can orient ourselves towards a better understand how and where the good ones (unions, strikes, peace, movements for change etc) offer viable possibilities for addressing the changing conditions and confronting the functions of the bad ones (fascism, imperialism, racism etc) by better understanding the changing ways they are deployed by the forces responsible for intensifying the inequalities where ever they exist.
I also like the schizophrenia metaphor, but I also agree with transcritique that a fear of offending the masses or a desire to appeal to the masses shouldn't prevent us from an honest evaluation of the factors that led us into war in the past and will lead us into war in the future. It also seems to me that given the current shift in public opinion it might be time for the democrats to try some "treatment" for the "masses." I personally doubt that the democrats are any more interested in drawing attention to the capitalist imperialism that was driving the Iraq invasion than the Republicans, but assuming they are it seems that now might be the moment for this to take place. And who better to bring this message than Kucinich, a man who could be easily written off as a new age crazy if the tide of opinion shifts. However, I still feel that his message is being obstinantly ignored - most likely because it offends party leaders who are just as (or nearly as) beholden to corporate money as the right. TN comments that K. participates in all debates, but he forgets that the whole reason this topic came up in the first place is that in listing the positions of dem. candidates, TN neglected to mention K. at all. The Daily Kos, one of the few blogs I've heard of, found it fitting to simply dismiss K. with an "ugh." I've never heard Kucinich's name on NPR during my moring commutes. My understanding was that the whole "date" thing was a desparate plea for some media attention. I don't think there's any doubt that K. is being ignored and it is because of his policies, not the strange things he says, that accounts for this (all politicians say and do strange things).
I guess I'm wondering if the dem leaders would ever be willing to take the treatment to the next level and actually begin breaking down the delusions and hallucinations. These are hallucinations that have accounted for hundreds of thousands of deaths.
A - I agree with you that reconceptualization for its own sake doesn't necessarily serve a purpose. However, I'm not so sure that a shift in language isn't at least slightly necessary in order to bring about a shift in policy. The stranger of Kucinich's quotes on the Kos blog come from a meeting for people involved in something to do with alchemy and peace, so I'm guessing he was speaking a language his audience could understand. Anyway, I think the basic mindset that one must be tough on terror in order to defeat one's enemies can be contrasted with the Kucinich approach of using peace and love to avoid making enemies. It is the difference between using lies and military power to steal another nation's resources, and finding some compromise that allows peaceful coexistence. These are dramatically different approaches and I think shifting to the latter involves constructing a world view that is based in language. This language need not be abstract, but the new words will most likely need to be used to represent new values.
TC08 sez: "That is, against my own resistance to any easy embrace of the union as a political form, I think they remain an object of vast potential- if only in the sense that the youtube movie presents; an older form of collective economic identity that has some history and a memory of struggle (albeit usually a fairly reductive one). I suspect that the Seattle 'victory' of a transnational labor discourse that can confront the neoliberal forms of power can be revived through these unions and against the ahistorical visions of the current moment." I sez, huh?
TC08 sez: "I am uncomfortable in recognizing this possibility not so much because I think that unions are dead or anything like that, its just that, like the Democrats, it is clear that they have had a considerable role in the rise of the right during the last thirty plus years." I sez: explain this more/better; Explain this role of the unions and democrats. Not saying yr. wrong, necessarily, just not accepting yr. point w/o further evidence. I say: the culture studies/critical theory/academic left has had a "considerable role in the rise of the right during the last thirty plus years" Seriously. Support yr. position, I'll support mine.
DM:
I'll remain skeptical about the need for "new words" and "new values" until someone shows me what's wrong with the old words and values, and also shows me both what the new words and values are, and why I should adopt them. And in any case, I see no new words or values in the quotes from K. He appeals to peace and love. I'm with him there, and I think a lot of other people would be too if they could see beyond the hippie dippy stuff, which K has in boatloads.
But maybe we're talking past each other here, DM--I'm not fully sure I get what you mean by "new values." Do you mean changing which things people value? Or suggesting we value something that nobody has thought to value before? Or that we give up concepts like "good" and "bad" for something else? (the last seems crazy to me...).
Regarding treating schizophrenics:
I think this method is really the best, and most responsible, way to get anyone to change their minds about things. It's really the Socratic method--you have a dialog with someone that leads him or her to reach new beliefs on his or her own. Let's not take the analogy too far by calling Americans delusional or schizophrenic--we all have something to learn, after all.
In his comments on a different post, Tigrenoche challenges me to put my money where my mouth is - if I like Kucinich so much why don't I give him some cash and try to convince others to do the same? There are a number of ways I could respond to this. First, I don't necessarily want K. to be our next president. If his performance as mayor of Cleveland was really as poor as the fellow who wrote the book about mayors claims, then he probably isn't a great leader. However, I originally raised the issue not to advocate that we elect Kucinich in '08 but to question why someone who clearly has a number of interesting and useful ideas has been so thoroughly ignored by the media and democrats in general. I'm not satisfied with the answers I've received to this question and I'm left with the feeling that mainstream democrats are afraid to challenge the capitalist imperialism. I think Kucinich symbolizes the limits of what the democratic party is willing to do.
On giving money to politicians, I suppose this is how you support your candidate but I've always found it a little distasteful. At this point it seems to have become like the stock market. It doesn't matter if a business has no real product or viability, if enough people buy the stock then it is worth something. Apparently there was a time when you gave politicians money because they could use it to purchase things that were necessary for their campaign (balloons, buttons, and this sort of thing). Today you give money so that they can say they received more money. It's sort of like voting before the vote. The signifier becomes separated from the signified. It is just money and there is nothing else. Again it comes back to that somewhat frustrating question of compromising one's values in order to create change or boycotting the entire system. I can see the logic behind compromise but that doesn't make me feel good, and as I've argued elsewhere, feeling good is important. So if I'm going to give someone fifty bucks I'm not going to give it to Kucinich or Clinton, I'll probably give it to my neighbors who are planting an orchard in abandoned lot down the street. Maybe the fifty bucks to Kucinich would someday create a world where there is an orchard in every neighborhood. I doubt it, but even if that were the case I don't find that type of action personally satisfying.
DM:
As to compromise, I feel your pain. I agree that it is uncool and unsatisfying. But that's just the nature of the beast, politics. Unless you think we can get to a point where every single person agrees about everything (and soon!), it is absolutely necessary. So perhaps politics is inherently ugly.
Kucinich and anarchists may be inherently cooler than Democrats, but what makes them cooler is that they are exclusive and uninterested in compromise. As a result I find both politically not viable.
In the 90s a lot of folks, myself included, felt that the Dems were too beholden to corporate money; that for this reason there wasn't any real difference between the two parties, and that it made more sense to "send a message" by voting for Nader. Obviously that's worked out real well.
In '04 there was, at least early on, only one candidate that was speaking out clearly and forcefully against the Iraq war (and speaking up for returning the dem party to its more progressive and populist roots), but he wasn't considered a top tier candidate, and early on wasn't getting any press. But a lot of people liked his message, he had a great web site that asked people to donate whatever they could and throw house-parties and other grassroots, community level stuff to get the word out, and pretty soon he was raising as much as the better known and better connected candidates, and for a while he became the front runner. Of course this was Howard Dean, and he showed that if you excited enough people to support your campaign, you could pretty much skip out on kissing up to the big-money corportate donors. I think that this is a huge development. This year Obama seems to have taken Dean's spot as far as fund-raising goes...whether he'll use the theoretical freedom this gives him to run a real progressive campaign remains to be seen.
Yes, the coverage of who's making more money risks overtaking policy or even personality coverage as the sign of who's winning, the same way that the entertainment shows love to report opening week grosses regardless of how crappy the movie was. But campaigns cost money, and that's not going to change anytime soon. We can strive to have candidates who are beholden to hundreds of thousands of small-sum donors, or to a small number of corporate donors who are going to demand a good return on their investment. I know which one I prefer.
I'm curious that you addressed my question re: donating money to Kucinich, but not the second part of the question--donating time. Do you find this distasteful as well? This is especially curious to me as elsewhere you seem to be arguing for some sort of movement that would be furthering a progressive agenda while providing a satisfying aesthetic or even "mythic" element for people to be involved in. I remember my brief involvement in supporting Dean in 04 and then Kerry/the DNC later on: this was one of those rare (for me) being-part-of-something-bigger experiences. I suppose that most of the people that the wife and I went up to Wisconsin to do get-out-the-vote work with before the election weren't as hip as anarchists--there were a couple housewives, some retired people, a lot of UofC undergrads (all huge dorks); the teamsters bought us pizza--but they were all people who were pretty freaked out about the direction the country was heading and felt obligated to do something about it. I don't know if that's mythic, but it was pretty cool.
I don't know; it seems like you're arguing that being hip is the highest value (at least for you personally). But being hip is just one variety of elitism. I don't mind elitism when it's about mostly harmless stuff (music, e.g.) but think it's a lousy basis for a politics.
I suppose there's nothing wrong with getting involved in politics. I do think people sometimes let the fact that they vote or give money to a politician to eliminate their guilt at living an otherwise non-political lifestyle (driving an SUV, eat non-local produce, not attending protests, not paying attention to local politics, etc.). For me it really comes back to that issue of scale that I brought up in relation to ZZ Top. As noted before, by the time a politician makes it to the national stage their policies are usually so watered down that it is hard for me to get excited about them. My ZZ Top/ Obama analogy made in a previous post was largely based on another Harper's (this is where I get all my news) article from a few months ago that describes how he rapidly became beholden to big corporate money after making it to Washington. I can try to distribute that article if you haven't seen it. I like to think that if I ever lived some place for longer than a year I would make up for my apathy concerning national politics by getting involved in something at the level of the city. I still think that time and money is better spent on the local, but of course that shouldn't prevent a person from doing both.
Post a Comment