The Plan for the New Year

So, this is the second time I've posted a plan for how I'm going to operate this blog in the coming months. Last time, I came up with a new plan and then, instead, continued to follow my previous schedule of posting articles mostly randomly, about once a week. But this time I'm going to stick to the plan I'm laying out.


December turned out to be a very good month for my thespainic activities but not such a good month for posting to the blog. I have a lot of stuff written out and, thanks to my wonderful parents, now have some dictation software to make 'typing' up those essays much easier. I will endeavor to make my postings here more frequent


My current plan is to try to do at least two postings a week, on Tuesdays and Thursday. Sometimes I will make additional postings. I will also try to provide more thoughts / snippets via twitter.


In the new year I also hope to expand the blog not only in terms of my own postings, but also in terms of readership. If you read a blog posting that you really like (or really hate) pass it along to a friend. If you have a specific response to something I say, please comment. And, as I've said before, if anyone wants to write a posting of their own for me to post on here, please shoot me off an email (the parrhesianprogressive@gmail.com) and I will be more than happy to post it here.


So, happy new year, it sure looks to be an interesting one.

The Season of Giving

Its the ‘holiday’ season, which means its time for most Americans to spend lots of money. On presents, on food, on travel, whatever you like. At the root of all of this buying is supposed to be the idea of giving. Giving is also one of the key tenets of any Progressive political agenda to the extent that living a Progressive lifestyle is a commitment to personal giving. We believe that government should be of and for the people, but that does not diminish the profound impact that an individual’s actions can have. There are many types of giving, but I want to concentrate on the most popular way, monetary giving. 

We live in a capitalist system and denying the great impact money has over our lives and society would be about as delusional as one can get. The most basic form of giving is donation, giving without receiving something material back (beyond a super cool button, t-shirt, or bumper sticker). As soon as someone begins to having some disposable income, they should try to save at least a small percentage of it to donate. Give within your means, of course, but give. Pick an organization you support and work in giving them a dollar a day, a dollar a week, a dollar a month. Odds are, if you’re reading this, you can probably afford one of those options. From birth, materialism teaches us that spending money is a means to a personal end. The progressive response must be to try to spend money in support of  causes rather than a products. Think of it as a ‘I wish my tax dollars went to support x‘ option task. If you do not have a specific cause you want to support, lend a hand to support independent, publicly controlled media. Supporting old-steadies like NPR and PBS are fine ideas, but also look into the wide range of (more truly) Liberal podcasts like The Majority Report, The Best of the Left, or The David Packman Show among others. Or give to your friendly cyberhood political blogger :). 

In a capitalist system we (at least the 99%) spend most of our money through purchasing products. Every dollar that we spend can be seen as an endorsement of the merchandise we are buying and a rejection of its competitor. When its 8 in the morning and I’m craving a bacon egg, and cheese, I head to a cart a few blocks away from me rather than stopping at any of the delis on the way. Why? Because I have a somewhat inexplicable love of street food. I drink Pepsi rather than Coke partially because of the baseball teams they endorse. I will always pick a green toothbrush if given a choice. Always.

We make value judgements with our purchases every day. It is important to understand just how much power your dollar, and thus, that judgement, can have. Let your socio-political beliefs consciously influence where your money goes. This may mean buying organic food, not supporting companies that have ongoing labour disputes, or choosing to shop at a local business rather than the nearest Walmart. Above all it means making more of your decisions consciously thought out, including your humanitarian and political beliefs in that decision making process. 

Once again, this does not have to be just for liberals. After all, there’s very little easier in America than to use your purchasing powers to support gigantic multinational corporations. If that’s your politics, go ahead, make some investments in Canadian Oil Sands and buy the biggest cars you can find to help burn that gas. The only thing required to start using your purchasing power to further your political goals is a little work. Transparency is still the exception to the rule, but you can still find a bit of background information on almost anything you buy. Spend even half an hour a week clicking around the web and you will find yourself fantastically more informed than you were before. If you are reading this blog, odds are you can find that kind of time. The adage that in a capitalist system we vote with our dollar is absolutely true. December, when we are likely to be spending more of our money than usual on nonessentials, is the perfect time to remember that. 

The Demise of Cain

The Herman Cain presidential bid is over. At first glance, it collapsed under the weight of seemingly endless allegations of sexual misconduct. But a closer look will uncover a slightly different set of events. After all, though the previous allegations may have distracted Cain from his intent to only talk about 9-9-9, it is hard to blame his dip in the polls on them. In many ways, particularly in terms of fundraising, being accused of sexual harassment (or, really, being accused of being accused of sexual harassment) actually helped the pizza mogul. Cain lost ground in the polls not because people began to fear him as a seemingly-serial sexual harasser, but because they are beginning to understand that, sex scandals aside, he is completely unprepared for the job he was supposedly pursuing. But, according to the story that the mainstream media spun, it was this affair which finally made him unfit for the presidency. So, what is different about (the perfectly named) Ginger White? 

If you listen to those same media outlets, it would appear that White had a lot more proof of Cain’s dalliances than the other women. The many late night phone calls, for example, have received a lot of attention.  While yes, that does seem like some good evidence, it can hardly be seen as more convincing than knowledge of the existence of settlements for multiple women. The proof surrounding the seven (or more) accusations of sexual harassment was just as strong, if not stronger, than Ginger White’s. 

In many ways this most recent ‘scandal’ shouldn’t have as much impact on Cain politically. There is no indication that his affair with Ginger White impacted his job in any way, while all of the sexual harassment certainly did. This affair was a completely consensual, legal, and private unlike the nonconsensual, illegal, public reports of sexual harassment. 

Of course, it should come as no surprise that an extra-marital affairs has brought about the end of another political career. Ethics violations, treasonous statements, and war crimes are all acceptable baggage, but non-normative sex certainly is not. From Bill Clinton to Tiger Woods to (until recently that is) Newt Gingrich, public figures are brought down for having consensual sex at an alarming rate. Rather than looking at the plethora of the ‘scandals’ as proof that we need to seriously re-evaluate the institution of marriage and our devotion to preaching strict monogamy, they continue to be used as grounds to attack every level of the ‘transgressor’s’ character. The lesson of the Herman Cain scandals are, after all, much more about how our media and how we as a nation react to sexual harassment than to sex itself. It is no surprise that a consensual sexual affair should be considered legitimate grounds to destroy a career.

But why is the reaction to the, in my mind and before the law, far more serious allegation of sexual harassment so different? Well, there are two specific reasons, both of which point out the ingrained sexism of our culture. The first is that the ‘accusers’ (not victims) are immediately look at as over-sensitive, gold-diggers, or both. Our media and our politics still propagates the myth that the most trustworthy person is the highest ranking (usually white) male. If you step back and think for a second, is it really all that surprising that the usually vicious men who gain positions of extreme economic or political power treat their female underlings without respect? Of course not. And yet, whenever stories like this are breached, the media seems to always take the side of the much-maligned Boss against his ‘accuser.’ And that’s true in America even if the Boss is French. 

The second reason is the more insidious one, and it is the claim that the entire idea of sexual harassment is, for the most part, a farce. From winks by the boss to shouts on the street, the idea that being actively objectified is a compliment rather than an affront is one held by a great number of men and, scarily enough, women. How can we expect our society to respond negatively to harassers when it has such a culturally conservative attitude in it? Accepting this kind of treatment as complementary, or even just natural automatically places all women in a different sphere from men. Whether this belief is accepted or tolerated because we’re all sexists or because we don’t fully understand its implications I don’t know, but if we are to truly overcome the cultural history of sexism it cannot be tolerated. 

Perhaps we have begun to devolve back into the morality of the past centuries. Perhaps we never really grew out of it. But this sexism, alive and well in twenty first century America. Women, as a group, must still be classified as a minority. Being a minority is not just about how many of you there are, its about having the minority of power. Its about time everybody admits to themselves that women are facing the same types of barriers to shifting that balance that they always have, barriers that may have been slightly weakened, but which still hold a particular protected place in the American-–and global––mindset. 

One thing the Occupy Movement has done.

The Occupy movement that has spread like wildfire around our country and our world is has had and will continue to cause myriad repercussions. I jotted this down while I was out last night, about what I think is one of the most important changes in an Occupied world.


What has Occupy done? It has made it acceptable to talk about our sociopolitical feelings in public. It is acceptable to express a belief in the role of government in something as broad as income distribution or as specific as protecting historical buildings (both conversations I have overheard in the past few days). Everyone wants to know everyone else's opinions. From young lovers, to friends, to a married couple who both, frankly, seemed surprised that the other person had any political beliefs whatsoever, everyone in New York City at least is, tentatively, talking politics. The beginnings of these conversations are always a bit halting, checking to make sure its ok to have 'serious' talk. Topics which half a year ago would have been almost taboo are becoming commonplace. People are beginning to believe that sharing the political, social, historical, and personal knowledge they have, maybe even forming some kind of opinion on it, is cool. This may seem like a small step, but it is a fundamental shift from a culture which has moved further and further towards embracing and encouraging ignorance. Our public spaces may be scattered, but we can begin to take them back with just a simple conversation. Functioning, populist Democracy does not require that we are all Occupiers. It does not require that we are all activists. It does require that we are able to comfortably and openly discuss our ideas. Don't look now, but conversation is making a comeback.



In other news, I'm sorry for the lack of stuff posted recently. I have made it my New Year's Resolution (wow, I must be becoming a real person) to concentrate more of my time on the blog, and I'm going to begin that a bit early. With Thanksgiving coming up, I may be too full of turkey to do much of anything, but starting next week postings will be much more frequent.

What happens with 'small' government?

One of the fundamental questions our world is finally beginning to ask is where in our society we want power to be controlled. Conservatives would have you believe that the choice we have to make is between putting power in the hands of government (your friendly neighborhood faceless bureaucrat) or keeping the power for yourself. Especially right now, with the government basically refusing to govern effectively, if at all, that choice seems pretty simple.

But, of course, that is clearly not the actual choice. America is not made up of small, family driven western towns any more. Once the government has given up power over a specific function: health care, education, law enforcement, infrastructure building, street cleaning, etc. then the power that once rested in the hands of that government (and therefore, at least by the books, in the hands of the people) is now controlled by a private corporation. These are not small mom and pop corporations. These are huge corporations interested only in the financial wellbeing of their richest shareholders. Deregulating the economy will lead to more control of the market by these gigantic corporations, not less. If its not a government bureaucrat looking over your medical records it won't be your friendly family doctor down the road, it will be an employee of that privately owned corporation. More than likely that person will live in India and make just enough to keep them over the poverty line (that's sixty five cents a day, if you're counting). Not exactly the picture of society that you had in mind?

In the end, the root of the conservative populist message is a yearning to return to the 'uncomplicated' days of the old West, where government was too far away to really do much of anything, where men could be men, women could be property, and anyone not white could basically be in constant danger of being shot/raped/enslaved. Not only is this unpalatable desire entirely impossible to recreate in a country like America, it is spread around as subterfuge, something to hide the true message and desire of the conservative elites: the desire to create (or, truly, re-create) a world where the options available for the upper 1% of society are radically different than for the rest of the populous.


So, for those true libertarians out there, or even for the strange American brand of libertarian who can somehow believe in small government everywhere except for on social issues, I urge you to stop letting the neo-conservatives steal your populous (well, questionably populous) message while pushing a deeply anti-populous platform, a platform designed to benefit only the elites. Libertarians, religiously-motivated voters, small government austerity-backers, you have every right to feel discomfort at probably having to vote for Mitt Romney. As much as we on the left might dislike Romney, I think hardcore conservatives have even more reason to despise him. He's interested in small government only to the extent of deregulating massive corporations. He talks about the debt crisis because, in the current political climate, he has to, but you can tell its not as monumental an issue to him as it is to say, Ron Paul. And he has no real stomach for any kind of legislation on social issues. Some of the most passionate movements in this country, seen in both the Tea Party and many parts of the Occupy movement, is a move towards extremely limited government and towards (less in the Occupy movement) a greater Christian influence in that limited government. The fact that there will not be a candidate whose platform really includes either of those things is a disgrace. As I said in my previous post, truly the only way we can solve this schism is to break down the two party system.

That being said, the election of one of those American Libertarians to the office of President would have the potential to be even more dangerous than Romney. There are very few examples that can be called upon in terms of comparable governments to the one they might try to envision. However, want an example of a mostly isolationist, religiously motivated government with extremely limited social programs? Just check out Muammar Gaddafi's Libya.

Herman Cain: Why we should all be worried...and ashamed

For a few weeks I have been trying to come up with a coherent response to the candidacy of Herman Cain.  I have shared that struggle with basically every news source I could get my hands on, on the right or the left. Indeed, it seemed like Herman Cain himself hardly had a coherent response to himself. This is a campaign which seemed very unwilling to be a campaign and an equally unwilling or at least woefully unprepared candidate. His campaign staff leadership is made up entirely of ex-Koch brothers employees, his advisors remain either nameless or nobodies, and his debating style can best be described as willfully ignorant.


However, Rachel Maddow's November 4th summed up this candidacy in a bold and undeniable report. Herman Cain is running not as a candidate, but as an anti-candidate. The root of Cain's message, even more than the importance of corporations, is that politics is a farce, that someone with what is clearly becoming a joke-candidicy can rise to power. Herman Cain is leading by example, running to prove that government and the people who can get elected into it are unworthy of the power bestowed onto them.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but here's one I am beginning to believe. Herman Cain's campaign is, as Maddow labels it, a piece of performance art, albeit with quite a strict script. It is being funded and run almost singularly by the Koch brothers, two men who perhaps best express the greed and depravity of the upper 1%.  They are running Cain not, as one generally thinks of puppet candidates, as a means of giving them specific political power, but rather as a means of discrediting the entire political process and government itself and further increase the power of corporations in America.


Rachel Maddow's report can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Ze-ejTC7c . Watch it, now.


We must seize upon this moment. There is a high probability that the steps taken by the Koch brothers on behalf of Cain may be illegal as well as immoral. A full investigation should be ordered, which will no doubt uncover more problems in the billionaire brother's books. We must use this to add more fuel to the fire to try and regulate, or in many cases re-regulate, the influence that money can have in politics, be it working to get rid of corporate personhood, push for public financing of elections, or limiting the affect of lobbyists groups and PACs. But we must all allow ourselves to spend a moment being ashamed. The fact that the Cain campaign has had and, most likely, will continue to have success suggests that our fragile Democracy may be closer to what Cain's 'brothers from another mother' are after. If we are to remain a true 21st century Democracy, this trend cannot continue.

A Call for Parties in a time of Partisanship

The American political system is broken. It is clear that rather than being the fault of a particular person or persons, the structure of American politics itself has collapsed. One of the supposed strengths of the American two party system is the fact that it can never be held hostage to the confused squabbles of true multi-party democracies. We sacrifice specificity of message for responsible governance. Not only is the idea that a decision between two choices should be enough inherently un-American, it has proven to be an inadequate means of representing the varied interests of the people of this vast land. Rather working to elect politicians from parties specifically addressing the concerns of their constituents, citizens are asked to cast their vote for the people they disagree with––or fear––less than the one other option available to them. 

Of all of the problems this kind of political situation creates, one of the worst is the absolute disconnect between voters and the people they are voting for. The two party system, which strictly controls all levels of national, state, and local American politics allows for massive top-down control by party bosses in terms of choosing candidates. Launching a campaign without the backing of one of the two major parties (and thus without their money) basically necessitates one a single qualification for running for office: massive personal wealth. It should come as no surprise that the 112th Congress, filled of course with ‘independent, populist’ tea partiers, is 25% wealthier than the 111th. Citizens still vote for their representatives, but the process to even get on the ballot let alone have a chance of being elected nearly always requires insider support, personal wealth, or both

The two party system also creates a false standard of legitimacy. With Democrats and Republicans filling basically every elected office, running as a third party candidate is seen as automatically being outside of the 'mainstream' and having views that only a small fringe of society would agree with. In fact, we have seen that it is quite often more beneficial for a candidate to run as a pure independent, running on a cult of personality rather than a party manifest. For a candidate to succeed, or even be given a chance to succeed, he or she (usually he) must meet the standards of the party bosses before being presented to the people. 

The two party system also gives the government––and by nature the party bosses, the insiders, etc––the power not only to dictate policy, but to dictate the kinds of questions being asked of the government, to dictate the facts by which our world supposedly runs. For longer than my entire life, the basic debates in the halls of Washington DC have not been whether or not to pursue a neoconservative/neoliberal military driven agenda, but how best to put such an agenda in place. Not whether or not to support the exponential growth in the power of money and the one percent who control most of it, but how best to help them. These are not arguments worthy of a Democracy, and yet, until the past few years, we have simply accepted that that was the way that government was, the way our government worked. Chief among the many reasons for this is the ability of the two parties to have seemingly different agendas but to ultimately serve the same Master: the establishment, big business, the military industrial complex, the one percent. It is in the interests of every insider, Republican or Democrat, to campaign hard against their 'foe' but harder against anyone threatening their false duality. 

Both parties are beginning to be held responsible. Mistrust in every level of government is up, and while it is still important to point to specific poll numbers being low, it is clearly a general trend across all government rather than with a specific person, party, etc. People are fed up with every aspect of politics in this country. The disarray caused by the Tea Party within the Republican caucus may be matched with a similar discord among Democrats spawned by the Occupy movement (though in this cause there could and should be a reaction on the right as well). However, there is really only so much we can do within the strict confines of the status quo. The Republican party is being split in two (actually, a number of smaller groups could easily be formed out of the Republican party, but the two major groups would be the Bush/Romney/Cheney neocons and the Paul/Ryan/Bachmann libertarians-except-for-social-issues). This is a moment we must seize upon, not as Democrats hoping to score massive political points against our rival, but as Progressives pushing for greater accountability and transparency in government. After all, who knows better than us how many people have to hold their noses while they vote Democrat. I would argue that there have been few times in the history of this great land where the time was more ripe for true multi-party democracy. We must not let this moment pass. 

To anyone paying attention to the world today it is obvious that many structural changes are needed both in our society and in our politics. In many of those situations, the power to make that change lies only nominally in the hands of the people. Changes to laws, to the structures of government, to the practices of business all require at least some measure of complicit help from within those organizations (baring revolutionary action). The disintegration of the two party system does not.  Political parties are not made up of candidates, they are made up of constituents. We the people have the power to not only demand this kind of change but to actualize it. 

This is not a process that can be rushed. The system is set up to perpetually give the Republicans and Democrats power over all challengers and the party bosses will not give up their monopoly without a fight. Insiders on both groups have been and will continue to be willing to cast aside party differences not for the good of the country but for the good of the political status quo. This is also not something which can be done only by the right or by the left. We must do this not as liberals or conservatives but as the 99%, the people who, lets face it, both Democrats and Republicans would rather trick than actually help. Before we can even get to pushing for a specific agenda to be passed, we must force the actual issues to be discussed, jobs, true financial reform, civil rights, etc.. If you need any further proof, just look at the people who will be leading the tickets in the next election. Romney and Obama share more commonalities than having daddy problems. In a societal political atmosphere filled with passionate civilian arguments for libertarianism, progressivism, theocracy, and collectivization among many others, our choice will be between two centrist neoliberals. 

We can do better. 

O'Reilly on Poverty and Race

Though I would certainly understand not doing this on a regular basis, everyone should go look at the interview from The O'Reilly Factor last night (Tuesday the 11th). To discuss the specter of poverty in our country, O’Reilly invited Professor Cornel West and activist Travis Smiley. West and Smiley are two of the most vocal crusaders for the poor and underrepresented in our country and watching them in action is fantastic. I haven’t had a chance to check out Smiley’s new PBS documentary series, the Poverty Tour, but I certainly hope to do so. Both of these men present the economic issues facing the country fantastically well and if anybody is looking for clarification on these issues I would point them in either West or Smiley’s direction. 

However, the real person to watch is O’Reilly. O’Reilly clearly spells out the current mindset of the American conservative movement on two issues. The first is on poverty itself. Of course he repeats the old trope that the poor are only poor because they are lazy (and in a drug-induced haze). Forget trying to argue that that statement is as incorrect now as it has ever been, even introducing the idea there might be some force in society (beyond evil socialist government) contributing to the rise in poverty is considered taboo. O’Reilly and the forces of modern conservatism aren’t interested in just defending their corporate pay-Masters, they purport that advocating that there should be transparency or accountability in the financial world as an unpatriotic waste of time. The same people who  declare they are against government or say treasonous statements about our President and other members of government lash out at the slightest hint condemnation of Wall Street elites. However, as I mentioned in my article about the Occupy Wall Street protests yesterday, the idea of holding Wall Street and corporations accountable is becoming far more unifying than dividing. One of the great successes of the OWS movement so far is to begin make the dividing line more clear to many Americans. O’Reilly, Romney, Cain, Perry and the rest of them are all viscously trying to protect the interests of the 1% and they realize that actually having to own up to that publicly would be bad politically. 

The other factor is the ever-present undercurrent of racism and exclusion rearing its ugly head. Hiding behind a banner of supposed color-blindness and ‘tolerance’, O’Reilly and American conservatives everywhere continue to spread their insidious racism. The way that O’Reilly treats West and Smiley, two authorities on a subject he clearly clearly knows very little about, is absolutely abominable. In the same way that Romney and other Republicans have been shaking their heads sadly and declaring that, even though they like Obama personally, the poor guy has bitten off more than he can chew, O’Reilly treats these experts as though they are in over their head and just confused by all of the information. The tone he and other white conservative (and some not so conservative) pundits, politicians, and pollsters take when talking with or about people of color sometimes makes it seem like their next speech would quote Kipling. That is, if they are up on their late 19th century poetry. The problem is, of course, about the same facing women. Just look at any of the town hall meetings Romney has where he answers questions from females (like the ones highlighted in this article: http://politics.salon.com/2011/08/26/romney_women/singleton/ ). They cling to the belief that a white male is the natural authority on all issues and they believe that their (primarily white) audience will lap it up. 

No, the fact that the conservative establishment is, on the whole, racist, sexist, and hates the poor is hardly news. However, I would like to believe that we are beginning to live in a world where such attitudes will, in the broader electorate, hurt them more than it helps them. It is, of course, important to spread around news stories that support a Progressive point of view. But a second task for the active Progressive is also unmasking conservatives for who they really are. The next time someone says we’re living in a post racial world or that the economic plans put out by conservatives favor anyone but the upper one percent, show them this or plenty of other clips. Don’t let conservatives claim the banner of acceptance or even tolerance when their message is clearly rife with hatred and societal exclusion. 

And above all, don’t let their feigns and misdirections distract from the fact that in a time where the poor and middle class are faltering, the conservative’s economic plans clearly still favor only the upper one percent of society. To quote a different late 19th century poem, There is no shape more terrible than this, more tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed, more filled with signs and portents for the soul, more fraught with menace to the universe. 

For a very interesting interview on the way race is playing a role in the Obama presidency, check out the interview from today’s installment of the Majority Report with Sam Seder at http://majority.fm/. He interviews Professor Randall Kennedy, author of the recently published book The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency. 

For more information on the Poverty Tour check out http://www.povertytour.smileyandwest.com/ and http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/ 

For information on how to take the fight actively to conservative talk show hosts (and their listeners) check out this website. http://www.truthticker.com/ 

A New Message in American Political Discourse

House Majority leader Eric Cantor has taken a step back from his recent comments that the Occupy Wall Street movement represented a mob. However, a recent article on Businessweek.com, Canter is quoted as saying he still greatly opposes the movement, and any attempts to legitimize it, because it supports “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” He also uses this supposed attribute of OWS to provide a contrast with the Tea Party movement, which he says was only interested in taking on government (he doesn’t seem to realize that the government is also made up of Americans, including himself). Even if Cantor was right about the attitude in Liberty Square, we only have to look at the audience reaction in the recent Republican debates to see that the Tea Party is all about pitting Americans against other Americans, particularly if they are people of color, women, homosexuals, the uninsured, or non-Christians. However, after spending a large amount of time amongst protestors in Washington Square and Liberty Square, I feel I can confidently say that Cantor’s evaluation of the protesters is completely wrong. 

Everyone in the media has been trying to find a way to sum up what has been going on in New York and now all over the country. They are looking for a particular cause that everyone can get behind, a particular message. Well, I have one word to suggest: inclusion. As much as the corporate media and their puppets in government would have you believe, this is not a movement of radical leftists. Ron Paul supporters are seemingly everywhere, as well as plenty of other groups I would not usually think to find myself in solidarity with are there: Spiritualists (some of them Christian), libertarians, communists, decentralists, the hardcore anti-debt lobby, the list goes on. One of the reasons it has been so hard to plug down a specific message behind these protests is that there isn’t one, at least not one we’re used to hearing

What nobody in the media, from the corporate media to the left wing blogosphere seems to realize is that we cannot judge the success of Occupy Wall Street the way we would any political party. There is no superstructure behind everything trying to get specific candidates elected to public office or specific initiatives carried through at elections (and that is a true distinction between this and the corporately and Christian fundamentalist-controlled Tea Party). The key message behind the Occupy Wall Street protests is that the average citizen needs to be more heavily involved with the governance of his or her nation. That a functioning Democratic state requires an active, educated, and united populous. There is no message more central to the Progressive agenda. And it is a message which protestors believe 99% of Americans can get behind. I think they may just be right.

Cantor’s quotes can be found at: 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-11/cantor-drops-mobs-description-of-wall-street-protesters.html

I will continue to write on the OWS protests, provide video of public events, and participate in my own way. If anyone would like information on a specific topic from me please email me or post a comment. If they would like to find out more about the protests, I urge them to start their search at http://occupywallst.org/ and then just click around news sites. 

Zizek videos now on youtube

As promised, the my videos of Slavoj Zizek are now on youtube. You can also find transcripts and some better quality video at http://occupywallst.org/


Also on the youtube account is a video of a small speech that Mohammed Ezzeldin, an Egpytian citizen who had been part of the Arab Spring revolt and is now studying in the United States gave on Saturday in Washington Square Park.


For a bit on Mohammed Ezzeldin, check out: http://acmcu.georgetown.edu/227740.html


I'll try to post more videos like these in the future, maybe even with little more camera (or phone) skill.

A New Course

So, when I decided to start this blog, I had the somewhat naive idea that I would be able to churn out esseylets on a semi-daily basis. Though I obviously have not been able to do that, I feel like my failure has caused me to think more about exactly how to use this forum. Though I will still post my little essays about my thoughts on the world whenever I come up with one coherent enough to, I hope to change this site from one which simply showcases my ideas to one that acts as a sounding board for the ideas of others. 

The most basic way I will be doing this is by posting more links articles I feel are important, for some reason or another, to read. Sometimes I will post them with a direct response, sometimes I will let them stand alone. I strongly encourage anybody who reads through those articles and has any kind of reaction to post some ideas of your own. I hope these articles will be a means to creating a discussion, not an end point itself. 

I also would very much like to open up this website to other voices, not just in the comments but in the articles themselves. I know some people have already stated their desire to contribute every so often. If you feel you would like to write something, either on some kind of weekly / monthly basis or just a one off article, please contact me. These do not have to be treatises, tirelessly edited and full of pith. Send me your a journal entry, a school paper, a simple recollection of thoughts. And, of course, send me your ideas for anything you would like to see on this blog. 

I will be posting a few videos I took at Washington Square Park and Liberty Plaza over the course of the weekend. You’ll be able to find them on my youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/ParrProg?feature=mhsn. Great apologies about the quality and shakiness, they’re all from my iphone. 

The "Party of Life"

Branding is as potent a force in our politics as in any other part of our culture, and no political branding has worked better to grossly simplify and mislead the American people than the Right’s claim to being, as Rick Perry recently put it in an interview, the “party of life.” When it comes down to it, conservatives seem only interested in protecting the beginning and end of life. Rather than trying to improve the situation for those in their prime of life, conservatives use their resources to increase the number of unwanted children and to deny the terminally ill the right to die in a manner of their choosing. Why is this? And why is the protection of one stage of life placed in opposition to others. 

This distinction comes down to how one defines life and where (and when) that definition comes from. The conservative approach seems to be about as basic as you can get: nobody has the right to end the possibility of life. Nobody apart from the state, of course. This can clearly be seen as a pre-Democratic view of life. It derived from the belief that your life does not belong to you. It belongs to your Lord (God) and Master (Chief, King, Emperor, Arch Duke, etc). You are expected to live your life in services to the institution you were born into. In return you are promised safety (by the Master) and salvation (by the Lord). For those of you with a passing grasp of history, philosophy, or sociology, yes, this is the basic idea of contract theory and this is where the conservative position on life stems from. It comes from a time where the average denizen did not have control over his (and certainly not her) own life. 

Ever since the idea of government began to be serving the people rather than simply ruling them, the definition of life has become much more nuanced. Many of us now believe it includes the right to certain unalienable rights. The right the education, the right to a life free of fear and violence, the right to love whomever you please, the right to food, clean water, health care. Rather than having the focus of government be to improve the lives of the select few who rule it, it should be to improve the lives of all citizens, to give every child an equal chance to succeed and to ensure that every single human being be treated with respect and kindness. 

What the reactionary conservatives fail to realize when they call on people to ‘just take care of yourselves’ is that we already have. Government programs like public schools, medicare, and social security are the ways that we, as a nation, have decided to protect ourselves. It is not enough to protect our literal lives, we must protect and maintain the quality of those lives. What the reactionary conservatives are really saying when they tell you to take care of yourself is to do it alone. They are trying to encourage you to give up one of the most effective and most important rights of a citizen––the right to collectively bargain. They are asking you to flee the public institutions that have been created to protect us and, once again, offer ourselves into their unregulated hands. 

So why is this? Well, it’s because, when it comes down to it, the reactionary conservative movement just isn’t on board with this new definition of life. They do not believe that the government should have anything to do with quality of life, just protecting it (with anti-abortion legislation, the military, opposing the right to die) and ending it (the military, the death penalty). Do not mistake this for wanting to leave you alone. They have simply realized that it is easier to weaken a Democracy than to rule it directly. The conservative movement answers not to the rural farmers they splash all over their posters but to the massive corporations they have helped make, legally, citizens. 

I can certainly accept debating the amount the government should be doing to protect and better the lives of its citizens. What I cannot accept is the outright rejection of the idea that the role of government in protecting life has evolved. Understanding and supporting this evolution does not make you a socialist or a liberal, it means that you understand and agree with the basic tenets of Democracy. We have to face the fact that the conservative movement may not. 

America's Disaffected Youth: And why we can’t let reactionary conservatives take the moral high ground

A friend of mine suggested I check out David Brooks’ latest essay in the New York Times (which can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/if-it-feels-right.html) and I’m very glad she did. Brooks is writing about a new book called “Lost in Translation” which deals with the moral compass of the American teenager and young adult. The book, written by Notre Dame’s Christian Smith, describes a very real problem––the listlessness that has come with an extreme adoption of moral relativism. Far too few young people are willing to take a stand on any issue, preferring the non-committal answer of ‘it just depends on your perspective.’  More information on the book can be found in an interview that Smith did with Christianity Today at www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/21.34.html?start=4 .

The entire article left a bad taste in my mouth, but I didn’t realize quite why until the last paragraph. For all of the truths that seem to be identified in this book, namely that America’s youth doesn’t seem to have the words or education to describe moral judgements, the conclusions drawn by Brooks, Smith, and the rest of the crew are dangerously reactionary in nature. Rather than really delving into why young people today feel this way, they turn to the old standstill––the decline of religion, religious teachings, and the morals and standards of the days of yore. Ever since there have been people defining morals, there have been people decrying their downfall. It is an argument that has also traditionally been used by those in power to keep down those without it. 

The general bent of this argument is that the future of the world is in peril, morality is crumbling and we really need to go back to the way things were when things weren’t so crumbling. Since this argument has been seen in basically every generation, one has to wonder just how far back these reactionaries really want to go. What exactly do they want to go back to?

Above perhaps any other interest, I love history. My childhood memories are filled with stalking around ruins, reading “Horrible Histories,” and collecting figurines from every possible time period. The one of the first things I learned about history was that the further back you went, the cooler everything seemed to be. Imaginative religions, powerful warlords, exploration, the list goes on. As I began to actually study history, I learned that this ‘coolness’ didn’t really count for much in terms of quality of life. As much as I may have wanted to try being a Norse Warrior or  a Roman Emperor, there were plenty of people in those time periods that I knew I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be a boy crucified by the Romans just for stealing bread, one of the thousands of women raped by Genghis Khan, or anyone who encountered one of the famed European explorers (really, encountering most explorers seemed like a seriously bad idea).

Modern reactionary conservatives can probably laugh those examples off with an “of course we don’t want to go back that far!”. Then how far? Back far enough where there are rules blatantly denying citizens of this country the right to vote? Back to where it was nearly impossible, socially and legally, for women to get a divorce even from an abusive husband? Back to where there where sewage ran through the streets, our skies were clouded with smog and children worked twelve hour days? Historically, most average people’s lives were nasty, brutish, and short. It wasn’t until quite recently that anybody seemed to think of this as a bad thing and until even more recently that anyone began to do something about it. Where exactly is this morality of bygone years that the reactionary conservatives are yearning for? 

Of course, when it comes down to it, the Genghis Khan comparison is more apt than they realize. What these people really want is the structure of that the majority of pre-democratic societies had and still have today. They want the many to listen to the orders of the few as wholeheartedly as possible. The unspoken side of this argument is that it doesn’t really matter how the few acted as long as the many listened to their precepts, and that is why this model for society is an outdated failure. This is an argument that can be brought back to Plato’s Philosopher Kings. If there were truly a group of people who were clearly more wise, more moral, and far more incorruptible than the rest of us, then a very strong argument could be made that they alone should be given the power to decide what is right and what is wrong. However, if there is any lesson of history it is that these people are few and far between and are more likely to be hunted down and killed by their governments than to rise to rule them. This brings us back to what exactly is wrong with the moral compass of young adults in America.  America’s youth has not rejected morality outright, we have simply rejected having to follow the same paths that consigned our forebears to lives of unquestioning submission to an arbitrary authority. 

The problem, if we should really call it that, that Smith’s book is actually describing is that the old fashioned top-down version of morality hasn’t really been replaced with anything yet. We know a lot of what we do not want, but we have not yet found a suitable replacement. As long as the two choices seem to be continuing in moralistic isolation and returning to the flock (which, by nature, means constantly listening to the Shepherd, or his far more hands-on friend, the sheep-dog) much of America’s youth will remain in this moral limbo. It is the role of Progressives in society to define this as our generation’s great task and to show us that we do not have to go it alone. Individually it is impossible to create an idea for morality, but together a new type of morality can emerge. One where war crimes are punished more severely than posting a sexually explicit picture of yourself online, where transparency in the public and private sector is seen as a necessity, not an imposition, and where everyone has truly has power over themselves and their destiny. 

The Left Has an Obama Problem... and what we can do about it.

The day Barak Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States will probably remain one of the most memorable days of my life. It seemed like every voice in my small mid-western college erupted as one as we poured out of our dorms. Screams ‘of U-S-A, U-S-A’ could be heard from every direction. Student leaders and professors gave impromptu speeches celebrating what we saw as a monumental achievement. My friends and I who had spent our teenage years in George Bush’s America had never seen this kind of joyfulness from the American Left. This, it seemed, was a brave, new world. We felt as though we hadn’t just defeated John McCain and the Republicans, we had defeated the status quo. We had defeated the racists, the bigots, the nativists, everybody who was responsible for the budget deficit, the wars in the Middle East, and meanness everywhere. 

Not only that, it seemed like the entire world felt joined in our celebrations. Rather than hearing more and more stories about how everybody hated us, every day statistics from all over the world declared Obama more popular than any domestic leadership. After the embarrassment of the Bush years, it seemed like everybody loved Americans again. Politicians, pollsters, and citizens declared the coming of a new era of politics, one where any divide could be bridged. It wasn’t just that we wanted to change the world, for a brief time during the buildup to the inauguration and in parts of the first year of the Obama presidency we felt sure that change had begun. And we were not shy about it. Perhaps no move appears, in retrospect, more impulsive and rash than Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. After all, it was awarded for what? Saying nice things about other countries? Not having tendencies that put him in the same boat as many war criminals? Both admirable qualities that had been missing in our previous President, but certainly not deserving of one of the most supposedly distinguished humanitarian awards in the world.  This was just one of the self-congratulating actions that the left bestowed on itself and its new champion. We weren’t sure what the change was that was right around the corner, but we knew its name: Barak Obama. 

There were two major problems with this. First, like the words of Obama himself, this all sounded really great and meant about nothing. Obama was not about to declare himself President of the World. Other than the Democrats basking in the glow of their seeming-victory, little action was taken to capitalize on this. All of this pageantry freaked the hell out of the Right. Nothing scares nativists and xenophobes more than an overseas celebration of a non-military decision their country has made. The idea of Obama as ‘other’ or ‘unAmerican’ certainly began earlier, but it was certainly bolstered by the backlash to the reactions of both liberals at home and abroad. 

There was just one other problem. Obama just wasn’t quite on board. It would have been one thing if Obama’s own actions had earned this conservative reprisal. If he had say, grievously endangered our national security by closing or just increasing transparency in our internationally-based prison camps, or by starting to destroy free enterprise by nationalizing industries, increasing funding to the arts, or working to close tax loopholes, or even if he’d tried some gimmicky communist plot like introducing the metric system or suggesting that schools should focus more on teaching depth and critical thinking rather than simply focussing on standardized testing. But no, Obama is not a socialist. He’s not even a European-style Leftist. He is just a relatively inexperienced centrist neoliberal with a fantastic speaking voice. That is to say, he is the perfect embodiment of a modern American Democrat politician. 

Whenever I make this point, the usual rebuttal from my friends is ‘But look at him, he’s the one that finally passed Universal Healthcare, he’s the champion liberal!’ While that’s certainly enough to prove that he’s a Democrat, there are plenty of voices, at home and abroad, who believe in Universal Healthcare that one would not normally describe as ‘liberal.’ Even in the United States, Healthcare has been a major priority for the Democratic party at least since Hillary Clinton first tried in the 90s. And let us not forget that, for all the uproar, we still do not really have Universal Health Care as other countries would describe it. Particularly the whole ‘universal’ part of it. 

Am I suggesting, as a number of bloggers have brought up over the past few weeks, that Democrats should be regretting their choice of Obama? In a word, no. Its not that simple.  The three Democratic candidates for President with a chance to win the 2008 nomination were Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the man who at the time was my choice, John Edwards. I don’t think its possible to say for sure just how a Clinton administration would have dealt with the problems Obama has been facing, but it is safe to say that the programs they might have supported would have been relatively similar. And, well, in terms of John Edwards, his extra-marital extra-political affairs make Bill Clinton look like the Pope, and the conservative backlash that would have known no bounds. Obama was and still can be the man for the job. 

I titled this introductory essay ‘The American Left has an Obama problem,’ but that it only part of the situation. The Presidency of Barak Obama has been a perfect example of what the American Left looks like today. It speaks beautifully, but when it comes to policymaking, the litmus test seems to be ‘well, at least its more liberal than what the Republicans proposed.’ I’m certainly not suggesting that the Republican alternative presented is preferable. However, since it is widely known that the Republicans now basically answer to the far right, now really the time to consign us to always just having to pick the lesser of two evils? Or, to put it another way, are we so unsure of our principals that we allow the opposition to dictate what choices are available? 

And that brings us back to our Obama problem. During the 2008 election, one of the messages of the Obama campaign was that we needed to place winning the election over pushing any individual policy point. Rather than give money to interest groups that supported a particular policy that you may have felt more strongly about, everyone was called upon to close ranks and just give to the Presidential campaign. After eight years of Bush, the idea that having a Democrat in office was the first priority rang true to many citizens and the push was a big success. This did two things. First, it left a lot of Progressive organizations with budget gaps. Money which would usually have been donated to them went instead to the Obama for President campaign. Second, it created the idea in the Obama administration that it didn’t need those organizations, it could go it alone. This is why, from the beginning, Obama has turned his back on traditional allies. He simply feels as though he does not need their support to govern. 

Since the election, local progressive groups across the country from Wisconsin to Ohio have been slowly reinvigorated almost entirely without the help of the President. In his recent Labor Day speech, Obama somewhat hypocritically paid homage to a number of local labor movements that have, for the first two years of his Presidency, captured the national attention far more than his own. Perhaps this is showing a greater appreciation for the actual desires of the people who elected him. Liberals, especially the past few months, have made it known that they are generally dissatisfied with the job Obama is doing.The question, particularly with the current candidates leading the polls for the Republican nomination, is not whether or not Progressive interest groups will support Obama in the upcoming election. A primary challenge, just like a liberal third party, would only serve to deliver the country to Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, or any of the other extremists vying for the most important job in the world. The only way somebody other than Obama could be supported would be if there was a process for Obama to name a successor and resign. Since that does not seem to be in the cards, it should go without saying that Progressive groups will work hard to get him re-elected. That does not mean that that support must be without conditions. Progressives cannot allow Obama to run on a campaign that is simply a mixture of ‘give me some more time’ and ‘Republicans suck!’ He has a year and half not just to give pretty speeches, but to actively pursue an agenda that reflects the desires not only of his base, but of the American people. Fixing up roads, bridges and schools, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, closing tax loopholes for massive corporations, expanding public transportation, ending oil and gas subsidies: these are all policies that, for the most part, enjoy massive popularity amongst the citizens of the United States. Yes, with the current state of Congress, President Obama may not be able to make gigantic progress on these issues before the election. But bills can be drafted and vetted, and ideas can be debated with a clear sense of what everybody is talking about. If Obama comes out firmly in support of these overwhelmingly popular principals, whoever is eventually nominated by the Republican party will be forced to either take a stance against these popular, populist, policies or to agree with the President. The American jobs act is a good start, but its just that. A start. Even presuming it gets passed, gigantic amounts of work must be done to put it into affect as quickly and efectively as possible. We cannot allow this to be the only piece of major legislation to be introduced that pushes these ideals. We are looking for a path, not just a first step. Let Obama’s campaign message be ‘re-elect me, return the Congress to the hands of the sane, and we can pass these bills within the first six months of the new administration’. In the next twelve months it is our job, the people’s job, to show Obama that not only is this the way for him to rebuild his connection with the people he is supposed to be representing, but the way to win the election. This is not about trying to blackmail the President into endorsing massive progressive reforms. This is about reminding him what the average American actually wants. That means that a massive effort must be put into popular civic action over the next twelve months and that we must be willing, once more, to have the audacity of hope in Barak Hussein Obama. 

An Introduction

The modern American world, for all of its infinite possibilities, has few actual forums to debate its merits. During the latter half of the twentieth century for the first time our country saw an increase in the civil rights paired with a decrease in civil society. This kind of match obviously completely turns the traditional view of culture on its head. So far, the young twenty first century has seen an even worse though predictable trend, with civil rights as well as civil society under attack. Political dialog has not simply been suppressed, it has become seen, for the most part, as a subject non grata for the average American. For every Tea Party or Amnesty International activist there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Americans who shy away from political and civil discourse of any kind. They fear ‘unnecessary’ arguments, or feel a lack of knowledge or simply a lack of interest. These attitudes, particularly that last one, are not simply dangerous for Democracy, they are antithetical to its very purpose. The maintenance, upkeep, and stewardship of a Democracy lies not within the hands of powerful families or vast corporations but within the hands of its citizens. Active civic participation is the bedrock of the modern Democratic system, yet we have allowed a political and cultural establishment to develop that actively seeks to limit such activity. If we are still committed to the values this country was based on and those which have defined it as a leader of the Democratic world this is an unwise and, frankly, unpatriotic path to tread. 

Though many factors have contributed to the development of our current culture and though many of them are out of our control, the first step is accepting some degree of personal responsibility for the current state of affairs. No, you did not create the conditions under which the world operates, and no, you do not have the sway of Rupert Murdock or William Gallacher. But you do have some control over your little sliver of our world. All too often is the statement ‘but what can I do, I’m just one person’ used as an excuse for inaction. This is not a call for gigantic structural change to your life. It is a call to do what you can, however minutely, to influence and involve yourself in the sociopolitical world we live in. Perhaps this means listening to the old ‘in a capitalist system you vote with your dollar’ idea: If your politics agrees with mine, the changes you make might include carpooling to work, eating more local food, or trying to not support the organizations that rely on child labor. However, in our capitalist system, there is more than enough on the shelves to help reflect any political bent. Perhaps it means the more ‘old school’ methods of being heard: running for local election, writing petitions, joining marches. These methods too are not only for lefties. The opposition to this kind of call to action is not Democratic Conservatism. It is Authoritarianism, Despotism, Anarchism, or Stalinism––basically all of the types of governmental structure we have supposedly rejected in favor of Democracy. Yet the activism that we objectively view as necessary to Democracy has been actively restricted by our government and discouraged by our media and popular culture. 

Individual lifestyle change alone is not enough. It must be joined with an eagerness to continually educate oneself, a commitment to community,  and a belief in the power of collective organization. Congratulations! Simply by skimming over this blog you are taking part in that first step and may be contemplating ways to accomplish the other two. It does not require reading thousands of pages a week. Maybe it means clicking around on news sites rather than clicking ‘stumble’ every so often or listening to a podcast on your way to work rather than to the same top 40 hits that will be playing at your office. While it is true that the mainstream media has, like our politicians, been bought out by corporate interests, the internet provides an opportunity to level the playing field. Much has been made of the internet’s ability to help unite people from all around the world. However, it can be used just as well for helping kickstart local campaigns in your own particular neighborhoods, towns, and cities. The internet has the ability to be a publicly controlled medium that we can use to circumvent the increasingly corporate controlled television and radio airwaves. What I hope to do with this blog is to be a small part of continuing that movement and to try to encourage more active citizenship. Now is not the time to forget the lessons of history. 

Sometimes in the blog I will discuss a specific news story, sometimes I will respond directly to a comment on a previous post, and other times the topic will be somewhat more philosophical. I hope to encourage as much active dialog here as possible, so if you have a strong opinion, or any kind of opinion, about anything you read here please share it either in a public comment or in an email. If you are driven to write a detailed response and would like it posted on its own, I will, most likely, be more than happy to do so.