This is justly derided as reactionary filth.
But the inference that we're asked to draw is that Obama and the Democrats have a "sharply contrasting vision" that must, insofar as the GOP's plan is so bad, be much better. This is irrational.
I've got an idea: Let's not draw any inferences about the Democrats stand for merely by looking at the Republicans. If you want to understand what the Democrats are about, look closely at their policies and compare them to any plausible conception of social justice. What becomes obvious upon doing this is that the Democrats are only disagreeing with the Republicans about how deep to cut, how far to push the regime of austerity. The parties aren't disagreeing about whether to cut. That question is proscribed at the onset. The "debate" among the two parties is entirely internal to the ruling class policy of austerity.
As I've argued elsewhere, the entire discourse surrounding budgets makes it appear impossible that we could do anything but cut. I call this budget-cut fatalism. This is an ideological blinder that shifts our attention away from what matters and instead focuses us on marginal questions friendly to austerity.
In order to see that this is so, we have only to ask two questions. First, why is there a budget crisis? Second, what is the full range of options available to deal with it?
The first question is easily answered: deficits and budget shortfalls are cropping up in states, municipalities, and counties all over the country because of the global economic recession (brought on by the reckless gambling of investors in the financial sector). Accordingly, as in any recession, tax revenues have fallen off a cliff, while unemployment and demand for social services has soared. Moreover, regressive tax policies have (for decades now) have slowly starved public coffers of much needed funds by in large measure exempting the rich and powerful from paying their fair share. . At the Federal level, the deficit is a combination of these factors, such as economic meltdown and big tax breaks for the rich (I note that the Bush tax breaks, which Obama extended, has cost $2.74 Trillion over 8 years) but others as well, namely, the ultra-expensive wars our government has been bankrolling since 2001.
Though this is obvious and basically uncontroversial, it is shirked by the defenders of austerity. They act as though the budget shortfalls were caused by "reckless government spending". Thus they are able to appear credible in claiming that the government must learn to "live within its means". But for that to be true, we'd have to ignore all of the above evidence while also believing that governments (at the municipal, state, Federal level, in various different countries from Greece to the UK to the USA) suddenly decided to dramatically increase spending between 2008 and 2009. Of course, that's not what happened. As everyone knows, budgets weren't in the awful shape that they're in now only 2-3 years ago, so we have to explain the sudden change from then to now. But anyone who's been conscious the last 2-3 years also knows that this thing, the global economic recession, has kinda been a notable economic event. To say that "reckless spending" is the culprit is ad hoc and unjustifiable. Budgets are in the dumps because the floor dropped out when the recession hit, causing tax revenues to drop dramatically.
Having answered the first question, the answer to the second is rather obvious. Our options are as follows. One is to severely cut the living standards of the majority of Americans through austerity, thus forcing them to pay the price of the crisis they didn't cause, the wars which they oppose, and the tax give-aways to the rich which don't benefit them. That's the option pursued enthusiastically by Democrat and Republican alike.
But there are clearly other feasible options. For example, we could end the wars and occupations right now, thus saving trillions of dollars over the next 10 years (we could also drastically reduce the Pentagon budget). Moreover, we could easily raise taxes on the rich to cover the budget shortfalls: chop from the top, as they say. We wouldn't even have to raise them very much (though, I'm for raising them much more). For starters, we could ask G.E. to pay some taxes at all. We could easily institute a windfall tax of 2% on profits, which makes sense given that the ruling class made record profits (amidst a recession!) last quarter. Similarly, we could institute luxury taxes of various kinds, we could reinstate the estate tax, and we could raise the top marginal rate for income taxation. We could increase corporate taxes and sharply increase funding for enforcing the existing tax laws by cracking down on rich tax evaders. There are lots of options here.
All of these options would have no impact whatsoever on 99% of the population's tax rates. Moreover it would hardly "cripple the economy" or anything like that at all; it would simply tap into the vast, unproductive surpluses of the rich (who have become so at the expense of the vast majority of us). The unjustified dogma that high marginal rates of taxation are incompatible with economic growth is just that: unjustified dogma. From 1945-1973, the longest most sustained economic boom in US history, marginal rates of taxation were twice as high as they are now. They were even as high as 90% at times. So it's just false to say that high marginal rates slow economic growth and its groundless to complain that such rates would "hinder the recovery". What recovery? There has been no recovery yet for working people. Taxing the rich would be a way of stopping the lot of the rest of us from getting worse.
This is all a way of saying: if you want to support the Dems merely because they are the lesser evil, then fine. But don't pretend that they're not an evil. Don't talk as though they actually represent a progressive force in the US. Don't pretend that they are looking out for the interests of the vast majority of us. They are a party dominated by ruling class interests and their policies and actions in government make this painfully obvious. If the best you can muster is the lesser-evilist argument, then fine. But you've got to admit that that's thin gruel. So refrain from buttering the Dems up and pretending that lesser evils are something more than what they are. If you, like me, aren't satisfied with the lesser-evil... the answer isn't to project your political ideals onto them. This is wishful thinking, a paradigmatic failure of rationality. The answer is to get up and organize, mobilize, and be part of rebuilding the Left in this country.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Don't let it fool you
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Democrats Push Austerity in New York
Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo has "struck a tentative deal" in New York that includes big tax breaks for the rich and deep cuts to health care and education:
The deal would end a temporary income tax surcharge on high-income New Yorkers, which some have called the "millionaire's tax" even though it affects incomes starting at $200,000 annually.Predictably, the NYTimes paints this as a prudent move and speaks of "bloated" health care programs. This is treasonous as far as I'm concerned- to say that our already inadequate public health care and education institutions are bloated is horrifically misguided. If anything is bloated- it is the massive, record-breaking profits raked in last quarter on Wall Street amidst widespread social misery, unemployment, and, as above, steep drops in working class living standards. Chopping from the top is a perfectly fair and efficient approach to balancing budgets that were sunk by those at the top. There's nothing risky about it- it's rather simple actually. Thus we must ask: why is it that Democrats staunchly refuse to pursue such a course of action? Why are they dead set on forcing the majority of the population -who had no hand in the causation of the economic crisis- to clean up the mess caused by Wall Street? Any honest answer would have to include the fact that the Democrats are not a progressive political force. When push comes to shove, they side with their own- the ruling class. So while Democrats are busy breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for not being as extreme as Scott Walker, the rest of the country would do well to recognize that they are still pursuing a program of austerity for working people. They don't bite the hand that feeds them- when it comes down to it they'll pass the tax breaks for the rich before they preserve the schools of the poor.
Mr. Cuomo’s aggressive and strategic approach to negotiations appeared to have yielded significant victories, including a year-to-year cut of more than $2 billion in spending on health care and education, the two largest drivers of New York’s ever-growing budget.
As I keep pointing out, the proper way to assess the Democrats is to ask where we'd like to go and whether the Democrats are a good means of getting there. Crudely put, what the majority of us want is simple: to end the wars, to tax the rich, and to fully fund health care and education. Are the Democrats a plausible vehicle for attaining such goals? Well, they passed a health care "reform" bill written by insurance industry lobbyists when they had supermajorities in the Senate, so that's a clear "no" on the health care front. And, as we know, Obama gladly inherited two wars, sharply escalated in Afghanistan, and has now intervened militarily in Libya. Moreover, the Democrats pushed through a continuation of the Bush tax cuts and have been steadily chipping away at education and health care at the same time. Obama's "race to the top" education policy is a more aggressively conservative program than "No Child Left Behind". At the very least, liberals have to concede that the Democrats are a rather poor vehicle indeed. I would say that instead of an actual vehicle the Democrats are more like a virtual reality ride at a carnival (you know, the ones with screens inside that make you feel like you're flying but in fact take you nowhere at all). The sooner that progressives dump the aptly-described "graveyard of social movements" that is the Democratic Party, the better. What we need are independent left-wing organizations, with political clarity, that are rooted in workplaces, campuses and neighborhoods, which are organized and ready to fight for social justice.
Instead of buying into the "de-escalate and let us handle everything" message of the Democrats, what we need is precisely the opposite. We need to reject the idea that the Democrats are the legitimate leaders of Left movements and we need to embolden the burgeoning progressive fight-back that is growing out of this crisis. Wisconsin was inspiring because of the explosion of ambitious political energy that grew out of the big protests and demonstrations. It has ceased to be as inspiring of late because the Democrats opportunistically jumped on board, extinguished it, and transformed it into an electoral gain for them the next election cycle. This is instructive for the Left. If I were in an organization that dogmatically latches itself to the Democrats no matter what (e.g. like Democratic Socialists of America, Progressive Democrats of America, and others) I would be doing some serious soul-searching right now.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Proyect on Primary Challenges to Obama
Here.
As usual, I'm tempted to chuckle whenever I read anything put out by the PDA. They sort of remind me of George McFly from Back to the Future: "Now, now, now Obama...". On the one hand, they have it tatooed on their foreheads that "we will dogmatically, till death do us part, always cave in and vote for Democrats". On the other, they expect the big wig Dem leaders to take their "threats" seriously. You've got to be kidding me. It's as if they're saying "Obama, you'd better not be so right-wing, or, or... we'll get really good and mad at you!".
Everyone and their brother knows that the Democratic primary is a race among a small crew of people who have raised the big money from the big donors. How the hapless, powerless PDA thinks they can actually challenge Obama, or any of the mainstream candidates, within the corporate-stymied presidential primary cycle is beyond me. It's delusional. I'm sure that many of the rank-and-file PDA members feel that they're doing the right thing, but at some point they've got to realize that they are wasting precious resources and political energy. They're doing more harm than good at this point. Whether they realize it or not, they are simply part of the effort to close the "enthusiasm gap" and corral frustrated progressives back into prison of the American duopoly.
And worse still, when the PDA doesn't get their way in the primary, everyone and their brother knows that they'll just cave in a vote for whoever the Democrats run for president. I'm sure they wouldn't think twice about spending all their time and energy getting out the vote for Erskine Bowles if he was up against Alan Simpson. They'd probably write letters to, say, The Nation exhorting us to believe that the Bowles/Simpson "face off" was the "most important election of our lives". Delusional.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
On the Politics of "Enthusiasm"
If you ask people swept up in the desperate scramble to keep Democrats from losing seats, the most important thing that needs to change right now is "enthusiasm". If you ask the Democrat politicians themselves, "enthusiasm" levels are the only thing that needs changing.
No, we don't need a change in the basic structure of society. We don't need to change the political trajectory of this country. We don't need a break with the more or less continuous set of neoliberal policies running through the presidencies of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-W-Obama. No, it turns out that we don't need to change anything whatsoever about the system itself. Everything is as it should be in the contemporary USA.
The only thing that needs to change is people's levels of enthusiasm.
This is, quite obviously, the position of the Democrats and those who apologize for them. But surely any reflective person must ask here: what kind of politics underwrites this injunction to "be happy" and get pumped to vote for Democrat politicians? It seems to me that there are two important components to the political ideas underwriting the fuss about enthusiasm.
The first is the idea that "the problem is not the system, it's you". This is an idea that has become firmly entrenched in social and political life in the United States over the last 40 years. This is the ideology of "personal responsibility": for any large-scale social problem whatsoever that may afflict you (e.g. wide-scale layoffs, economic turmoil, wage repression, etc.), we can safely say that it is not really a social problem at all. It is merely an individual level problem that has to do with you (e.g. you didn't work hard enough, you didn't try hard enough to get a job, you aren't talented enough to get hired, etc.). This is not a "conservative" idea in the sense that it is only accepted among hard-right think tanks like the Cato Institute: this is part of the basic fabric of mainstream political life in the US and it is a set of ideas firmly shared by both of the major parties.
Here's how this idea applies to all the fuss about "enthusiasm". You might have thought that politicians only deserve the support of their constituents to the extent that they share and attempt to implement political goals that their constituents endorse. In other words, you might have thought that representatives of the people should be held accountable based on what they do (or don't do) in office. But, as Obama is fond of telling us these days, this is dead wrong. It doesn't matter what they do in office. That is beside the point. The job of the supporters of the Democrats isn't to make demands on them whatsoever: their job is to be "enthusiastic" no matter what they do.
In other words, the problem isn't that Obama and the Democrats haven't done anything remotely progressive. The problem has nothing to with the Democratic Party at all: the problem is all with the damned voters. Why aren't they more enthusiastic? What's their fucking problem anyway? How dare they not be prepared to re-elect tepid Democrat incumbents with a smile on their face?
What to do? One solution has emerged already. Why not use the funny-men on the picture-box to get them to turn out? If "enthusiasm" can't be restored by actually giving people something concrete to be enthusiastic about, why not trot out the comedians to get them prepared to do what their better judgment tells them isn't worth a damn?
The second component is even less plausible than the first. It is the idea that the only "realistic" thing we can do is to resign ourselves to the way things are. If we feel righteous indignation at a society that forces austerity onto working people in one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression amidst fabulous wealth and profits for the few... we're simply not being realistic. If we think that our deeply irrational and unjust for-profit healthcare system, far and away inferior to the systems of comparable advanced capitalist nations, ought to be changed... well you're just a dumb utopian.
"Politics", these boneheads will tell us, is supposed to be the "art of the possible". But who decides what is possible and what is not? Deciding where to draw the line is an extremely delicate political move. And what's possible in part depends on what people think they are capable of doing at any one time. If people are led to think that they can't do something that it is in their power to do, this is a sense in which they are oppressed. For instance, the belief that we must either vote for the Democrats or the Republicans reinforces the idea that our only means of political agency are to accept the terms of this choice and operate within its parameters. But that belief itself demobilizes people, resigns them to existing states of affairs, and convinces them that they couldn't possibly ask for mer. And when that belief is widely held enough, it becomes self-fulfilling... the belief itself actually circumscribes the realm of possible actions that could take place. Radical politics thus begins when circumstances and experiences of various sorts shatter that belief: be they active struggle, political argument, historical shifts, or otherwise.
A quick glance around the world, and at our own history, shows how utterly false this restrictive, oppressive injunction to "be realistic" is. What is said to be "utopian" in the US is commonplace in other parts of the world. And what is said to be "utopian" today was, in many cases, an inspiring and widespread phenomenon throughout our own history (e.g. the struggles for the 8hr day; the sit-down strikes that erupted in the 1930s; the movement in the 50s and 60s to push for racial justice and an end to Jim Crow, etc. ). Thus this demand for "realism" shows itself for what it is, a demand that we resign ourselves to the way things are (even though history and other national contexts show us that they could be different). This "realism" is the worst sort of cynicism and political apathy possible.
As those in power are well aware, convincing people that the set of "realistic" possibilities is a small one is a fantastic way of keeping them docile. And once you've done the work of cementing that view their mind, the only question becomes: how do we make them happy and cheerful about accepting things as they are? How do we force them out of the disillusionment and alienation that it's natural to feel in the face of an inconsequential choice between conservative party A and conservative party B? That is the meaning of the present obsession with enthusiasm.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Democrats in Denial
Here. See Gary Younge at 4:32. Interestingly, all of the criticisms he makes of the Democrats are immediately interpreted as arguments for the Republicans. I think denial is a rather accurate way of describing how the Democrat-apologists respond here.
One of the biggest whoppers had to be that the candidates facing off in Colorado had "extremely different philosophies". Sure. One believes in cutting taxes for the rich by 25% and other believes in 50%. Or one believes in closing 100 schools and the other believes in closing 300. That evinces a great deal more agreement and consensus on key points than most Democrat-apologists seem to grasp. When you just stop and think about what's really important on the one hand, and what the two major parties stand for on the other, you realize that the gap between you and the two parties is far larger than the gap between them.
Let's just add up the best arguments that the Democrat-apologists put forward in the piece:
-It's all the Republicans fault because they stone-walled Obama, they're the "party of no", etc.
-"Progress takes time"
-The Republicans are even worse
-Everything bad about legislation passed in the last 2 years is fault of Republicans
These claims don't even have surface-level plausibility. We all know that in 2008 the Democrats had a popular new president, a super-majority in 2008, and crushing majorities in the House. Moreover they faced a divided, demoralized, and marginalized Republican opposition. If the Democrats didn't seize the initiative and pass sweeping reforms, it's because they had no intention of doing so (confirming the basic conservatism of the Party) or because they were not competent enough to get things done (less likely, but still a criticism not to be deflected onto the Republicans).
Obama enthusiastically expanded the war in Afghanistan, thus inheriting and further entrenching us in Bush's war-mongering in the Middle East. And one of his first actions as President was to embrace Bush/Paulson's plan to bailout the banks. When health care finally came up for discussion, the President was so intent on pleasing corporate "stakeholders" that he shut single-payer activists out of meetings, and dashed hopes for the (already weaksauce) "Public Option" early in the game. Obama's education plan is more conservative, and a good deal worse, than Bush's No Child Left Behind. And deportations and raids on immigrants have increased substantially under Obama.
The Republicans had very little role in any of this. This is more or less pure Democrat. It's not for nothing that Kevin Phillips calls them "America's second most enthusiastic capitalist party".
The other argument, that "progress takes time", might be translated into: sit down, shut up, and let the elected officials "do what they do". In other words we might translate it as "stop trying to hold elected officials accountable". Imagine someone telling civil rights activists to stop with the civil disobedience: "hey, relax, progress takes time! just vote Democrat!". Complete bullshit.
Why is it that so many people have bought into the lie that politics is merely about is stopping the worst of the worst from taking office? Isn't it reasonable to expect that in a real democracy, the needs and interests of the vast majority would be registered by basic political institutions? Is that really too much to ask? When I am coerced into checking the "D" or the "R", I'm not expressing my needs or interests. I'm caving in to one or other of two factions of one business party. Separated from others, alone in that ballot box, I'm powerless. But when working people, the vast majority of society, get together and organize there is no way to stop change from moving forward. Real freedom and political agency wouldn't be about effectively lobbying some elite to let some crumbs fall from the table... real freedom and political agency would be about the people themselves collectively running society in their own interests.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
different context, but still relevant
This is aimed at a very different situation from the one we have here, to be sure. But just about everything that is said about the Lib Dems in that post could very well be said about the Democrats in the US. And it needs to be said, especially now that we're in the midst of the "shut up and give us the votes" season in which the hapless Dems use the carrot and the stick to corral their "base".
The message is particularly important for those who still find themselves under the illusion that the Democrats are "progressive" in any meaningful sense. I think "the most craven power-licking integrity-less liars" in government, describes rather accurately what the Democrats are about.
When the Republicans slash and burn our public sector, we're supposed to get angry and send checks to Moveon.org. But when the Democrats do it, we're supposed to smile and..... send checks to Moveon.org?
Something is awry in this strange positive feedback loop. It needs to be broken. Because it's us or them: either the rich and powerful are going to balance the budget on our backs, or we're going to have to find a way to create the kind of pressure that wins the change the vast majority of us are looking for.
Monday, October 18, 2010
More on Obama's Legislative (Non) Accomplishments
Check this out. As Henwood points out, the already tepid public option was more or less taken off the table because the "stakeholders" (i.e. the for-profit insurance industry, hospital industry, etc.) were virulently opposed to it.
So when you hear liberal apologists for Obama asking that you forget recent events and join in endorsing empty propaganda about how successful Obama's presidency has been for progressives, recall who was calling the shots when health "reform" was being decided. Recall that nothing substantial changed at all, and that the "weak sauce" Public Option was proscribed because Obama cares more about placating powerful capitalists than about the well-being of the American people. And we should be clear not to place all of the blame on him as a person, of course: the entire Washington political system, and especially the Democratic Party, represent Wall Street, not the majority.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
"How pervasive is Democratic dissatisfaction?"
Read Glenn Greenwald's generally excellent post here.
Can there be any doubt that the Democratic Party's apologists think that Democrat power is a good thing in itself? That is, these hacks don't claim that Democrats in power means we get good consequences (progressive legislation, etc.). They just baldly suggest that there is some self-justifying sense in which Democrat majorities are good for their own sake.
Since Obama has taken office, the only thing he and his fellow Democrats have insisted on is lowering expectations, extinguishing demands from their supporters, and generally pushing for a conservative acceptance of the status quo. The results of the Democrat's conservatism are clear to everyone: continually rising unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, social misery, massive losses of wealth due to foreclosures, skyrocketing evictions, etc. The Republicans are irrelevant here: the Democrats, with massive majorities and control of all levels of government, failed to do anything that might actually address these problems. Would the Republicans have done better? Of course not. But that's irrelevant. The question is whether we should continue to accept such tepid, conservative policies from what we're continually told is the "only choice" for those of a Left persuasion.
Throughout the first two years, Obama has bowed before power, before Wall Street. He's kissed the asses of the elite, he's even done a fair amount of "reaching out" to the Republicans.
But for the masses of people who really wanted to see change, who voted enthusiastically for Obama and the Democrats in 2008, the man has nothing but disdain.
Although there are objective, concrete reasons why people are rightfully disaffected and frustrated that Democrat super-majorities have produced more of the same old garbage... the strategy from the White House seems to be: attack ordinary Americans who want real change. The message is clear: "buck up, fall into line, shut up, and just vote for us."
This is complete bullshit. You can't shit all over progressive and left-wing people, court the Right and big-business with smiles, and then expect that a bit of rhetoric months before election day should be enough to "mobilize" the so-called "lethargic base".
The sad truth, which Democrat officials are never likely to grasp, is that the last two years of Democratic hegemony have made crystal clear that the American people don't have a real choice in our electoral system. They are made to choose between two factions of one pro-business party every two years. And no amount of sugar-coating, sophistry, or patronizing rebuke from Democrat apologists can obscure that fact.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Obama: Sit Down, Shut Up and We'll Take Care of It
Read Obama's remarks here. If you're on the Left, if you wanted to see things really change after 8 years of Bush, then his message is for you. How dare you place demands on your elected officials? How dare you demand something in return for voting for Democrats? Don't you understand that the Democrats don't have to earn your vote? They are owed it no matter what they do, evidently.
Let's be honest: this is patronizing garbage. It's a completely raw deal for his supporters, and he knows it. In what universe can elected officials get away with claiming that they get to make all of the demands and give nothing in return? That's the way the Democratic Party functions. In effect, every 2 years they say the following to progressives and left-leaning people: you'd better vote for us or else. We've got nothing to offer you except rhetoric, and we know damn well that there is no one to our Left that you could vote for instead, so cough up the money and uncritically support us.
In a way, we can't be entirely surprised that this happened, given the basically conservative role of the Democratic Party in our economic and political system. But that isn't obvious to lots of people for a variety of reasons, most of which aren't their fault. There is hardly a Left voice to be found in the consensus media. America is not a center-right nation, but it's political institutions and media are. The disconnect between people's needs and demands and the conservatism of the political system is remarkable. I don't think we should continue to put up with it and take it on the chin.
I happen to agree that we won't get more by settling for less. But that's exactly what those who are fastened into the two-party straight-jacket will try to convince you that you should do: believe that you'll get more by settling for less and less.
History is crucial here: we didn't get the Civil Rights Act by settling for less and hoping that the Democrats would do the right thing. Women didn't get the vote by sitting on the sidelines and placing all their hopes in the "benevolent will" of the so-called lesser evil. Free public education was not won in this country by mailing friendly letters to Senators and friending them on Facebook. Social Security and the progressive income tax wasn't won by uncritically turning out to punch the card for the second-most enthusiastic capitalist party in the US.
All of these gains were won against the wishes of the wealthy and powerful. And all of these gains were won by the efforts of organized social movements, independent of the two major parties and in opposition to them. That's what we need. Not more bullshit about how maybe it will be better this time if we just try to keep the Republicans from gaining ground. We need to build the movements and be part of forming new ones.
Just one closing thought. Think about the difference in tone and demeanor that Obama employs when speaking to his supporters on the one hand, and powerful elites on the other hand. When he speaks to the latter, the aim is reassurance: please continue to fund mine and other Democrats campaigns, please don't worry because I won't rock the boat or do anything remotely progressive, you'll get your way when the bill is written, etc. When he speaks to his supporters in an election year, however, it's nothing but contempt. What does that say about Obama? What does it say about our political system? What does it say about the configuration of power in this society? What can we do to change this state of affairs? Get involved.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Means and Ends
It is obvious to anyone remotely "left wing" that the Republican Party is not an agent of progressive change. But if this is straightforward, the issue of how to assess the Democratic Party from a left-wing perspective seems to perplex many liberals, "progressives", left-leaning people, etc.
A common problem with most left-leaning assessments of the Democrats is that they run together two importantly distinct (but nonetheless related) matters: fundamental goals and tactical strategy. Or more simply put, ends and means are not distinguished from one another. The result is a distortion: "politics" itself is transformed into narrow electioneering strategy and PR rather than a subject about how to change the status quo.
This is what I mean. At best, the Democratic Party could only ever be a mere means for progressive change. That's it. Ostensibly, we elect representatives because we think they are most likely to carry out changes that we want to see. We don't elect representative or parties for their own sake, but for the sake of what they do.
Thus, the ascendancy to power of the Democrats should never be taken to be an end in itself; it must be seen merely as a potential means to achieving other goals. And, of course, it is always an open question whether or not some particular means are actually effective in bringing about some particular ends. There is no a priori way to know whether some X is a good means of bringing about some Y; the only way to know about such things is to try and see.
So, if left-leaning people should support the Democratic Party at all, it should be because it acts in their interests to bring about the sort of society left-leaning people endorse. In other words, left-leaning people should support the Democrats only on the condition that it acts as the best means available for bringing about left-wing change.
Now it should never be taken to be self-evident that the Democrats are the best means to winning left-wing change. It would be extraordinarily conservative and dogmatic to claim, in defiance of any evidence to the contrary, that the Democrats must always be and remain the best means of progressive change. Unfortunately, whether or not they realize it, many liberal pundits are conservative and dogmatic in precisely this way.
Rather soon, if not already, many liberals and "progressives" will begin to panic about the possibility of a Republican victory in the November elections.
We'll hear a lot about the Tea Baggers, Republican idiocy, and the dangers of allowing Republican majorities to re-emerge in Washington. The basic idea is that our fear of the Tea Baggers should carry the day here: no further reflection or thought is required to assess our present political situation.
But notice what's missing from the demand above that we go all out to aid Democrat incumbents attempting to dodge anti-incumbent anger. There is nothing said about the rather straightforward claim above about means and ends. It is merely assumed that the Democrat's control of Congress is good thing in itself. But should we really just assume that this is so? Is this really self-evident?
As I said above, the only way to know whether or not some entity is a good means to achieving some end is to try and see how it works. Here, recent events are indispensable. The Democrats won crushing victories over the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. By January of 2009, they had a popular young President in the White House, punishing majorities in the House, a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, and millions of Americans who were extremely eager for things to change.
But what happened?
Given everything that has happened in the best of all possible circumstances for the Democrats (massive majorities, filibuster-proof senate, popular president), how can anyone really believe that voting for, supporting, and funding the Democrats is really all there is to politics?
When do we say "enough is enough"?
The rational conclusion to draw here is that the Democrats are part of the problem, not the solution. The rational conclusion is that channeling all of our efforts and resources to the Democrats is a bit like casting our efforts into political black hole. The answer isn't to simply vote a different way; the answer here is that we need to look at other means of struggling for the things that matter, like fighting for a green society that might allow us to avert ecological catastrophe, or getting single-payer health care.
History is instructive here.
As Peter Camejo observed, "every major gain in our history, even pre-Civil War struggles such as the battles for the Bill of Rights, to end slavery, and to establish free public education -as well as those after the Civil War, have been the product of direct action by movements independent of the two major parties and in opposition to them".
Even if the Democrats were to hold onto every single seat in November, the task of the Left remains the same: build the movements and struggles capable of demanding (of the entire political system) that things change, whether or not those atop ruling institutions like it or not.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Democrat Double-Speak on Social Security
Of course, Obama is right to say that the GOP is patently hostile to the very existence of a popular program like Social Security. But, what is concealed by this claim is the fact that the Democrats themselves aren't averse to placing Social Security on the chopping block. The difference between the two parties here is mostly one of rhetoric. One tells you that they're about to screw you, the other says one thing and does another.
Sure, the Dems may not be quite as strident in their neoliberal zeal to privatize Social Security. But they are still interested in making punishing cuts to both Social Security and Medicare, and Obama is on the front line of this assault. Who is going to stop them?
Yes, the Republicans are openly hostile to Social Security. But ask yourself this: will merely voting for Democrats (or, closer to liberal rationalizations: "voting against Republicans") keep popular social programs off the chopping block? The answer is already provided by what's happening right now. So the real question must be: What can be done to stop the Democrats from imposing austerity and punishing cuts? The answer, any reflective person will note, has nothing to do with acquiescing to the two-party straight-jacket.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Who Cares about Colorado? Against Electoral Politics Part II
NYTimes is thrilled about this, but I don't see what the big deal is. Who gives a shit?
Ostensibly, elections are held to elect representatives so that they will pass legislation that the people want. People wanted an end to occupation and war, significantly increased social spending (in particular on health care and education), increased taxation for the rich, and so forth (polls repeatedly bear this out). None of these social needs have been satisfied.
Instead we got a smooth continuation of Bush's policies re: Wall Street, increased aggression in Afghanistan, attacks on Medicare and Social Security, a tepid health "reform" bill with not even a Public Option, broken promises to labor and glbt movements, 180 on oil-drilling, and so on.
But according to the NYtimes, this is the wrong way to think about elections. Elections aren't for the sake of something else (e.g. social change); on the contrary, elections are important for their own sake. A sports analogy will help: mainstream media act as though we should take the same interest in electoral politics that we do in, say, baseball. It's an endless cycle of seasons and games, where the rules are fixed in advance, and the only two legal teams are managed by wealthy elites. If you don't like this kind of "politics", well, then too bad for you. You must just have different "entertainment preferences" in the "marketplace of political ideas".
So, rather than being about social change, fighting oppression, justice, what have you, politics is only about elections. And what are elections about? The NYTimes would have us believe that elections are about the reproduction of some party's power as an end in itself. It's not what a party does, it's not what their principal goals or values are, it's not whose interests they represent... no, no politics is merely a matter of latching onto the narrow strategic maneuvering that the political class employs to keep their own power intact (war-chest spending, rhetorical packaging, marketing, PR, etc.). The result is that politics is no longer about people having some external claim or demand on the system itself. On the contrary: politics is only about internalizing the narrow strategic calculations made by wealthy, "visible" campaigns waged by one or other of the two big corporate parties. This is, in essence, the subject matter of the "political" coverage on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NYTimes, WaPo, etc. etc.
Rather than being a mere means to some end, elections come to be ends-in-themselves. This is completely ass-backwards.
"Progressives" or people on the Left in general, have no independent interest in seeing the Democratic Party reproduce its power as an end in itself. The liberal argument was supposed to be that left-leaning people ought to support the democrats because they will allegedly pass progressive legislation.
Of course, when the Democrats don't do anything progressive (but do quite a lot of damage in the meantime), that is, when they show their true colors as an organization enthusiastically committed to Wall Street and Big Business, the liberal argument above should be obviously refuted. There should no longer be any good rationale to uncritically support the Democratic Party as an agent of progressive change.
The correct inference to draw here is this: Left-leaning people shouldn't throw their weight and resources behind a basically conservative, pro-Business political organization that has too much invested in the status quo to change it.
But this isn't the inference we're encouraged to draw by the mainstream liberal press. There, the political line is identical to the one described above in the NYTimes: left-leaning people have an interest in the continued reproduction of Democrat control of congress, as an end in itself. It matters not what they do. "Left" doesn't connote some determinate set of political principles or demands; on the contrary, "Left" just means "whatever the Democrats do". Thus the grounds for criticism melt away, and the status quo is insulated from serious scrutiny. How can the Democrats do anything wrong if whatever they do is ipso facto "Left"?
Once you accept this bit of sophistry, you're prepared to accept another bit: if whatever the Democrats do is automatically "Left", then any criticism of them must be from the Right. In other words, any critique of the politics of the Democrat establishment only helps the Right wing. Hence, the media obsession with the Tea Baggers (while excluding innumerable expressions of popular left-wing anger), appear to license the inference that left-wing people must uncritically return to the Democrats in order to stave off a right-wing backlash. The message is clear: sit down, shut up, and vote Democrat because we don't want a "Tea Bagger Nation".
How long are we prepared to continue this never-ending cycle of conservatism? Republicans get elected --> Democrats pose as the agents of progressive change --> infuriated voters reject GOP --> large Democrat majorities emerge only to demonstrate the obvious: the Democrats basically keep the political program of the GOP intact and shamelessly bow to Business --> GOP poses as populist critics of the Democrat Machine --> repeat cycle ad infinitum.
As Peter Camejo observed, "every major gain in our history, even pre-Civil War struggles such as the battles for the Bill of Rights, to end slavery, and to establish free public education -as well as those after the Civil War, have been the product of direct action by movements independent of the two major parties and in opposition to them".
Just to name two of the most obvious recent examples: the Social Security Act arose in a context created by militant sit-down strikes in 1934 that put the fear of God in the Ruling Class; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was reluctantly passed after massive extra-electoral struggle and unrelenting black rebellion against the existing order forced the issue.
The formal political system in the united states is a symptom of other factors: shifts in economic configuration, the level of class struggle, the power and organization of social movements, etc.
The electoral system is not a prime-mover; the big shifts in policy arise from shifts in economic power and social struggle. Focusing intensely on the symptoms to the exclusion of the causes is a recipe for perpetual political exclusion.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Kucinich Sucks
Read this, for instance. This actually isn't news to me. I thought the guy was a turd way back in 2004. Recall that he ran a presidential campaign on two planks: 1. ending the Iraq war and 2. single-payer health care. Of course, in deference to the time-honored tradition of getting progressives prepped for acquiescing to the Democratic Party, Kucinich ended up endorsing pro-war, anti-health care candidate John Kerry with a big smile.
Couldn't he at least have tried to make some demands? Joe Lieberman just about single-handedly axed the provision in the Senate bill that would have lowered the age requirement for Medicare. Couldn't Kucinich at least have exacted some compromises in return for rolling over like a docile old Labrador?
The Democrat establishment loves Kucinich. He gives the people who believe in, say, education and health care fodder for nourishing their illusion that the Democrats are actually a progressive force in US politics. Kucinich is a marginal force in the party, and he always has been. But the worst part is that he (and his ProgCaucus counterparts) are content being marginal. They are comfortable being irrelevant and co-existing with the forces that demand that they stay irrelevant.
The Dems have got to have a clown like him around, just to keep up appearances. And it's important that he's a clown... because they need someone who folds easily and makes no fuss when it's all said and done. Can the same be said for the right-wing of the Democratic Party? No. It seems to me that when those blue-dog fuckers talk, the Party bosses listen. And my sense is that when your politics are in step with Big Business (as the blue dogs and all right-wingers very much are) you have a lot more power and influence with Democrat leaders.
My view is that progressives need to divest from the Democratic Party. Even the most cursory glance at history tells us that real change does not happen merely at the ballot box. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed reluctantly when there was a large Democratic majority in both chambers and the most leftwing President ever to hold office. It was passed because the people in Washington did not have a choice: they were faced with a massive, independently organized social movement that was demanding (not sending checks, not asking nicely) that things change.
The same can be said of the militant, labor activism that paved the way for the Wagner Act and Social Security.
Progressives need to stop:
- apologizing for the Democrats on blogs and in op/ed columns
- self-censoring in writing in order to "be realistic" about the Democrats
- sending money to organizations that are not independent of the Democrats
- volunteering for and funding Democrat candidates
- defending center-right measures (like the health care bill) from far-right critics (like Tea Baggers)
- heavily investing themselves in the short-term success of the Democrats
What's unrealistic, is electing a massive numbers of Democrats to office and then sitting back and just hoping that they will do the right thing. It's not going to happen.
Notice also that I'm not claiming that we should simply stop voting, or vote for some non-Democrat. I am making an entirely different kind of claim. What I am claiming is that we need to stop putting so much emphasis on elections when it comes to organizing, activism, and funds. We need to direct our energy, time, creativity and money elsewhere: the Democrats are a political black hole.
We need to build the social movements and be involved in starting new ones.
There are plenty of existing organizations, movements and fights that are already underway that we can be part of. Look around. No matter where you are there are struggles going on. For example:
Health Care:
Education (fighting school closings, cutbacks, etc.)
Campaign to End the Dealth Penalty
- Here's the IL org, but I'm sure there are others.
- Immigrant Solidarity.org
- Join the movement spurred by the recent march on Washington.
- Join local struggles against evictions and foreclosures. Here's notes from a recent struggle in Boston. Here's the low-down on a successful struggle in Rogers Park, Chicago.
- Join the movement that grew out of the Prop 8 struggle.
- Help build for the Equality Across America conference coming up.
- See the International Socialist Organization's activist news page
Monday, March 22, 2010
Krugman's Prescient 2006 Words
(via New York Review of Books)
A mere shift of power from Republicans to Democrats would not, in itself, be enough to give us sensible health care reform. While Democrats would have written a less perverse drug bill, it's not clear that they are ready to embrace a single-payer system. Even liberal economists and scholars at progressive think tanks tend to shy away from proposing a straightforward system of national health insurance. Instead, they propose fairly complex compromise plans. Typically, such plans try to achieve universal coverage by requiring everyone to buy health insurance, the way everyone is forced to buy car insurance, and deal with those who can't afford to purchase insurance through a system of subsidies. Proponents of such plans make a few arguments for their superiority to a single-payer system, mainly the (dubious) claim that single-payer would reduce medical innovation. But the main reason for not proposing single-payer is political fear: reformers believe that private insurers are too powerful to cut out of the loop, and that a single-payer plan would be too easily demonized by business and political propagandists as "big government."
These are the same political calculations that led Bill Clinton to reject a single-payer system in 1993, even though his advisers believed that a single-payer system would be the least expensive way to provide universal coverage. Instead, he proposed a complex plan designed to preserve a role for private health insurers. But the plan backfired. The insurers opposed it anyway, most famously with their "Harry and Louise" ads. And the plan's complexity left the public baffled.
We believe that the compromise plans being proposed by the cautious reformers would run into the same political problems, and that it would be politically smarter as well as economically superior to go for broke: to propose a straightforward single-payer system, and try to sell voters on the huge advantages such a system would bring. But this would mean taking on the drug and insurance companies rather than trying to co-opt them, and even progressive policy wonks, let alone Democratic politicians, still seem too timid to do that.
Compare this with his claim yesterday that the bill in congress represents a "triumph for the American soul".
Monday, February 8, 2010
"Don't get too upset...and keep supporting Democrats"
That is the message coming in loud and clear from the likes of Dissent these days. I can't imagine a more hopelessly deluded and impotent political position.
On the one hand, liberals like Walzer and Gitlin surely want reforms like single-payer, robust funding for education, higher taxes on the rich, a WPA-like public works program to create jobs, etc.
But when it comes to the question of what it would take to actually achieve these reforms, the Dissent liberals are content to sit back and claim either (1) that "the country isn't ready for them", or (2) that we simply need to ask those in power more politely. In either case, Walzer, Gitlin, et al. are committed to a never-ending apologia for whatever the Democrats do.
Thus it was no surprise to read that the headline for Walzer's contribution to the Dissent forum on Obama's first year was titled "It Could Have Been Worse". Can you imagine a more conservative assesment of the status quo? The message Walzer is articulating is clear: resist the urge to be realistic or sober about Obama's first year. Just keep whispering to yourself the lie that the Democratic Party is a progressive force in contemporary politics. Keep consoling yourself with the fantasy that simply voting for Democrats, supporting "consumer organizations" and so on will be enough to win the reforms people are demanding. But don't expect Walzer to even be too involved in those activities. His conception of political action seems to consist solely in writing tepid, apologetic opinion pieces for Dissent. The less one actually does, the more one implicitly endorses Walzer's politics.
