Politics, Power, and Sexuality: Lynn Parramore and Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Just when I thought problematic playboy Dominique Strauss-Kahn was out of the news, Lynn Parramore (of the Huffington Post, New Deal 2.0, Recessionwire.com, etc) posted a new story on Alternet supposedly investigating the difference between Libertines and Libertarians through the example of DSK. At least that’s what the title “Libertines v. Libertarians” seemed to suggest. However, that is clearly not what its about with libertarianism only being given this passing mention in the essay: 

“Much as our libertarians desire freedom from government intrusion, and look rather like silly adolescents to Europeans who understand social bonds, the desire for sexual abandon without consequences sounds a little bit like selfish teenage fantasy over here across the pond.”

An interesting point... but utterly undeveloped. What Parramore’s essay is full of however are perfect examples of how the American Left is still totally unprepared to deal with the question of personal sexual desire, not in terms of differences between us and the Brits but in relation to its interactions with public life and Power. Progressive sexual activists are staunch defenders of private forms of sexual expression. We vocally support the right of people to be attracted to anything from infantilism to burping to feet. Particularly if you don’t really let anyone else know beyond your liberal security blanket. And particularly if you don’t hold societal or governmental power. As Parramore puts it 

“But there’s something that remains a problem whether you are a statesman from France or a senator from Louisiana. If you are wont to do things in private that you don’t wish to be known, then you are vulnerable to blackmail. Set-ups. Distractions from the work of governing.”

This is a perfect example of the double standard that the Left puts onto its politicians. Any sexual “misdeeds” from, yes, the extremely serious charge of rape to the extremely silly charge of sending a picture of your dick across the tubes of the interwebs are thought of as not only a serious attack on the moral character of a politician but also an equally serious blow against the fitness of the person to govern. While that may hold some truth to it, we seem to care much less about lying about things which actually affect governance such as reasons for going to war, whether or not we’re torturing people, and what our tax plan is going to be. Furthermore, the essay seems to be suggesting that if stories about Strauss-Kahn engaging in kinky consensual sex had been leaked that they wouldn’t have affected his electoral chances at all. Just how do you think people would react if it came out that David Cameron liked to have his ass fisted or Barak Obama just loves it when Michelle talks to him like he’s a baby right before he orgasms? Neither politician would be impeached, but I doubt very strongly they would ever be re-elected.  Either Parramore does not realize this or she is supporting into the idea that citizens should hold their elected leaders that would appear as vanilla as possible. 

What Parramore seems to find most problematic about DSK, even more than the multiple accusations of rape, is his attitude and the attitude of his entourage about sex and power. She dismisses entirely the idea that any of Strauss-Kahn’s partners could be truly be consenting she paints him as “decidedly not classy: an aging, Viagra-pumped satyr with an ego large enough to assert that young women are there for the fun of watching him flop around in the altogether.” and later as “sexist, not sexy.” Now, no, the maturing Frenchman may not be the most physically attractive man in the land, but to dismiss his sex appeal is to dismiss possibly one of the most important aspects of attraction, Power. An aging but still fit and virile, extremely intelligent, extremely powerful man seemingly on the verge of the Presidency of a major world power is basically the definition of what has historically been both classy and sexy. Yes, its partially because of what Parramore decries as “a kind of ancient male privilege that has long been argued to be the just spoils of power” but its also because to many, I would go so far as to say most, power is attractive. Emotionally if not sexually. People in America thrown themselves at aging rock stars, abusive sports stars, and rich movie stars with abandon and relatively little rebuke. Maybe because they’re interested in getting something out of it for themselves beyond the sex, maybe because they want someone to brag about fucking to their friends, or maybe just because the idea of being with someone who holds more societal power and sway is attractive to them. Is it so absurd to believe that people can feel this way about politicians as well? It is as though, for many on the left, the idea of bringing Power into sexuality inherently removes the potential for consent. 

It would be an extreme understatement to say that DSK is not the poster child for a new Progressive way of dealing with the problematic relationship between sexuality and Power. Odds are some of the liaisons he has had in his life were not only dangerous but also illegal and damaging. I want to make it clear that I am in no way defending the supposed “ancient privilege” of the elites in general and Strauss-Kahn in particular to rape. But the New Deal 2.0 founder’s rejection of power dynamics in politics as “a playing field on which young women are presented as disposable sex toys” is short sited to the extreme. The question of how to manage private sexual desires and existence in the public sphere is one of the most important that has historically faced organized society. If we on the left seek to outlaw or shame it away from our politics we are no better than the right wing religious activists or the Victorian-style right wing moralists who have pushed what can best be described as a ‘Don’t ask / Don’t tell’ agenda in the way in which we discuss the impact of personal displays of sexuality (as opposed to the extremely public displays of voyeurism such as pop music or Fifty Shades of Grey) on the public sphere. We cannot wish away problematic situations simply by picking a few scapegoats and wishing for an easier course to navigate. We start by being honest about ourselves, embracing that even the most Progressive of us has potentially problematic impulses, and judging ourselves and our politicians not by the dusty morality of our forebears but by the actual realities of the world around us. Yes, Ms. Parramore, in an organized society we are all in it together... but that doesn’t mean we’re all the same. And it doesn’t mean we want to be. 

You can find Lynn Parramore's essay at http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/libertines-v-libertarians-dominique-strauss-kahns-rejection-sexual-restraints and follow her on twitter at https://twitter.com/LynnParramore

And we're back

After a break that lasted rather a bit longer than I had originally intended, I'm back on the Parrhesian bandwagon and hope to be posting on my previously planned Tuesday / Thursday schedule. And that begins today. More to follow.

The Republican Plan for Relevance: How 20% can be 50.1%

Its been an interesting few weeks for Mitt Romney. The conventional wisdom was that, after a bruising primary that saw him realign his policies with the extreme Right of his party, the Republican nominee would now, somewhat clumsily, try and bring himself back back into the 'Center.' This was even the stated plan released by the Romney Campaign (remember the etch-a-sketch comment). After all, now he has to prove he wants to be the President of all Americans, not just the hardline conservatives, right?  In order to win a majority of votes, he needs to appeal to a majority of citizens, right? That's what everyone seemed to expect, but this is not what he's done. His policy speech on education embraced higher class sizes and tuition and he has sought to align himself firmly with Donald Trump's Birtherism. When confronted about this yesterday, Romney reminded a reporter that he didn't need to win every American's vote, only 50.1% of American's votes. In actual fact, that percentage that Romney needs is much smaller and it is, according to Republican strategy, in his interests for that percentage to be low.  To try and explain why this might be, I want to look at two phenomena in the modern Republican Party.

First of all, while they may not have come out and put it directly in their platform, it has basically been stated Republican policy for the past few years to try to drive down the percentage of the population that votes. This has led both to legislating against specific groups who are statistically less likely to vote for them (through the use of the poll-tax inspired voter ID laws) and to more general efforts to lower the number of voters (closing polling stations, getting rid of same-day registration, etc). Part in parcel with this is the push to make government seem like a negative entity detracting good (or should that be goods) from society rather than a positive entity of enlightened democratic empowerment. Because Conservatives believe it is in their interests to show government as ineffectual, if they cannot get exactly what they want it is in their interests to do nothing. We all have friends and some of you reading this may even be people who say they won't vote because they think that it doesn't matter, that governments just are the way they are. No matter how much truth there may be in that statement in a specific instance (my vote in New York for Obama will mean relatively little) that view is inherently flawed. Besides, there are very few ballots where there is not one close election to vote for. They may not get the media coverage of national campaigns, but Republicans have shown how much damage they can do with state and local control. Voting always matters, even just to remind ourselves that we live in a Democracy where the government is supposed to serve us, not the other way around. Voting is not enough, but it is a vital part of Democratic society.

The other half of this is the dramatic push to the Right that Republicans have made in the past half decade alone. As Rachel Maddow points out in her new book, the country has 'Drift'ed to the Right quite steadily since the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, but since the rise of the 'grass routes' (see 1% backed) Tea Party movement and the Citizen's United decision, the Republican party has turned that steady drift into a tidal wave. Republicans are preaching, pushing, and legislating Pre-Civil Rights movement voting laws, pre-Rowe v. Wade women's rights laws, pre-Progressive era labor and tax laws, and a pre-Great Society social compact at rates never before seen.

Neither of these is a great revelation, but what I think is not discussed enough in our media, even in the leftist blogosphere, is how these two facts about how the Republican Party has been acting are two sides of the same coin. They are not just different despicable things about the Republican party, they are the Republican Party's strategic plan to stay relevant in the 21st Century.

The Tea Party movement wasn't some insurgency of radicalism as much as it was the true base of the Republican Party asserting themselves. This is who the Republican Party is. They are predominately white, predominately Evangelical Christian, predominantly NRA members or supporters, and predominantly male (Sarah Palin and her Mamma Grizzlies aside... even Fox lets women on sometimes).  And they believe they are 'losing' the country. And they have a point (that is, if we cede them the point that they ever had it in the first place... which is very very debatable). A plurality, perhaps a majority already, of Americans support gay marriage. A clear majority of Americans support ending subsidies to big businesses, raising taxes on the wealthy, and protecting a woman's right to choose what goes on with her body. Only twenty six percent of Americans define themselves as Evangelical. Although we have 90 registered guns for every 100 Americans, only 30 percent of Americans own a gun (yeah, think about that). Because of immigration, Texas with its 34 electoral votes (that's second highest in the nation) may swing to a Democrat in 2020. And a few weeks ago was the first day where more non-white babies were born in America than white. The average American does not align themselves with the values of the Extreme Right.

The Republicans should be running scared. If our political parties represented the changing beliefs of the American populous both parties would be sprinting to the left, particularly on social issues. And yet, rather than try and position themselves in the mold of David Cameron ('I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I'm a conservative') or even George W. Bush's failed attempt at 'Compassionate Conservatism' (too many syllables for W), the Republicans have been pushing policies far more in line with the Far Right Parties in Europe: Perussuomalaiset in Finland, The Alliance for the Future of Austria, The Northern League in Italy and, of course, Marie Le Pen's Front National in France. These are predominantly pro-business, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-white male parties. But while some of them have gained popularity recently in their respective countries, they are, for the most part, quite clearly second tier parties. What makes Republicans feel this is a good electoral strategy?

The way that the Left in this country has explained this is mostly by pointing out that the American Corporate Media is obsessed with the idea of giving two sides of the story, regardless of the merits of those sides. The rigidness of the two party system gives them an easy structure in which to craft their 'news.' The gospel of 'compromise' has totally overwhelmed any idea of given societal values. And... the corporate media is making a bucketload of money, which makes it much easier to just not want to rock the boat (particularly since that seems to be the standard they set for their journalism as well). This is clearly part of it. But its not the long term plan. It can't be. Demographic statistics would seem to prove that an extremist Republican Party will become increasingly marginalized over the next decade and our politics is run by statisticians.

But those statistics only work if those same demographic statistics are reflected in who votes. And Republicans are banking on that not being the case. Republicans are relying on their base to vote at a much higher percentage than the rest of the population. Do they just think that their constituents are smarter and will see past the 'don't vote, its useless' charade? No, of course not.

They are relying on two other things. The first is that they will be able to outspend their opponents in any election be it for President or Town Dogcatcher. The Citizen's United decision made it possible for any campaign in the country to spend millions of dollars simply because of the whim of a particular millionaire, most of whom are, of course, conservative. And of course it also helps if you disband or weaken Unions, some of the largest donors to Progressive candidates. The adds run by the candidates and Super PACS are not centrist adds to appeal to a broader audience, they're reminders to that core voting block that, if they don't vote Republican, America will soon be part of the Kenyan Socialist Empire. That, regardless of the actual policies of the opposition candidate, he or she will work night and day to take away your guns, make your sons gay, and outlaw Christmas. And, early signs would show that its working. The advantage in polling that Scott Walker has in Wisconsin right now can be attributed to the fact that over 90% of registered Republicans are planning on voting in the recall election. Can you think of any election in America where 90% of the population voted?

The second reason Republicans believe their base will continue to vote in droves is because they have the strongest get-out-the-vote organization in the country. No, not Fox News. The Church. All across the heartland of America, radical Evangelical and Catholic preachers curse Obama with the same hellfire as Satan. They remind their constituents that they are America's (and thus, Jesus') last defense against the hordes of atheists, sodomites, and feminists that have declared war on their way of life. Supposedly mainstream Republicans court the endorsement of preachers calling for anything from putting all homosexuals in a gigantic pen so that they all die off to murdering abortion providers to burning non-Christian scriptures. I am not suggesting that most churches are like this. A plurality of American religious institutions preach tolerance and love, but they try to present themselves, on the whole, as apolitical. But the Churches that the vast majority of the Republican base attends are like this. They are there, as with the Super-PAC ads, not to convert but to remind. And, of course, it also helps if you disband or weaken Unions, arguably some of the most important collective Progressive get-out-the-vote organizations.

This is the Republican electoral plan for the future: to pander both legislatively (on the local, state, and national level) and rhetorically to the extreme right while working to lower the percentage of Americans who vote through coercion or direct disenfranchisement. To make the Extreme Right, who maybe make up 17%-20% of the over all population, a majority voting block at least on the state and local level. This is why Mitt Romney is willing to remain so firmly entrenched in the hardline Right that it may cost him the election. This is their long-game, their plan on how to remain the Dominant party in American politics while pushing fringe policies. We can't let that happen.

The Republican Plan for Education and Society

As a follow-up to the post yesterday, I wanted to pass along this clip from the Rachel Maddow Show about what Romney's big bold plans are for America's schools. Its part of a larger segment on what a terrible candidate Mitt Romney is, but, like many of her more bold assumption, the real point is in the details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwiRE8vgRrc

The basic ideas are:


1. Bigger Class Sizes in Grade School: Mysterious unnamed studies report that in countries where class sizes are bigger, test scores are similar to countries where classes are smaller. Also because then you can have fewer teachers :).

2. Just Shop Around: Romney admits that it would make him 'really popular' if he were to just 'give' government grants to Americans who want to go to college. (I don't think it would work quite like that anyway). But no, he will forgo the pump in popularity so that money can go towards tax breaks for corporations and subsidies to the oil and gas industry. For you people who want to go to college 'shop around' he says. If you aren't wealthy, some schools just aren't for you. But don't worry, in Romney's America there is one simple way to go to college with at least partial government backing. Join the Army.



These are not new ideas. These are old ideas. He doesn't want his children or grandchildren to be in schools with larger classes sizes. And he doesn't have to... because he can afford not to. For you 'poor' people out there (who can't afford the average $19,906 cost of private high school... or bump that up to $40,875 for the average private boarding school) you should just be thankful for having school at all... and if you're really industrious and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, well bucko, you'll make it. At least until you have to do your compulso...voluntary military service. That is if you do want to go to college.

Newt Gingrich recently gave a speech where his basic point was that government healthcare would not just hurt the rich because they might have to wait in line like the rest of us... it would also hurt the poor. His idea was that having differentiated services for different groups of people would speed up the process for everybody. That logic works... as long as you don't think too much, because what's obviously implicit in that point is that it would be easier if the standards of medical care for the poor didn't have to be as high. Wouldn't it just be easier if we could have really fantastic clean hospitals only for people who could afford them (and thus the government would never need to give money to them), and for all the people who can't afford them... there could just be drop in clinics. Some people might even be willing to seek the consultation of someone with a little less training... for a lower price. I hear witchdoctors are really making a comeback. Or they can go where the poor and sick really belong... to the arms of the Church.


I am fairly confident this is not even what the average Republican voter wants... but it is the direction their party is moving in. The Barak Obama Presidency has been full of disappointments, but the damage that a Romney Presidency would cause to our Democracy is unimaginable. I don't think Obama is going to lose, but we cannot think of it as a forgone conclusion. And its not enough to just send Obama back, we must send him back with as much of a Progressive mandate as possible. Find a State or Local election. Find a candidate you like... and donate your time, money, anything you can to get that candidate elected in the fall. Elections aren't going to solve all of our problems... but we cannot forget just how much they mean.

American Higher Education: A Symptom of the Disease

I'm breaking my self imposed silence for a quick post. I was going to just post this on facebook (inc) but wanted to write a little bit more and thought I would share it here.



http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/extra-charles-ferguson-on-how-harvard-and-other-universities-collude-with-the-financial-industry/


On Eliot Spitzer's Current TV show, Charles Ferguson lays out a terrifically important point, saying how American Universities, which (Santorum's right) should be a bedrock of Progressivism, have been hijacked by the radical pro-1% 'center.' Professors have been cut off at the knees by the internal attack of cultural relativism and the external control of Administrators who can't see beyond the University's bottom line. It is morally reprehensible, not to mention unpatriotic, to view the education of the next generation as a business venture. It is just as morally reprehensible to view the army, the postal service, public transit, public scientific spending, or medical care as a business venture. By that I do not mean that they should operate without fiscal constraint. Most people would not consider their family a business venture, but that doesn't mean that they go and buy a house every week. The bottom line for a business (and this is the point that, if he's going to veer to the left, Obama will,and has started to, campaign on) is: did you make a profit. Yes, for some businesses the welfare of their workers is very important but that's an added bonus, its not what being a 'successful' business is about. Businesses that
use union busting policies in America and child or slave labour abroad aren't doing bad things because they're all run by evil people... they're doing bad things because it improves their bottom line. We have, as a society, decided that its best for businesses like these to exist. We can have the discussion about the merits of that later, but even given that its good for these semi-amoral businesses to exist... that's a far cry from saying they're the model for every form of collective organization.  The co-opting of the Presidency of Harvard is, in the end, a relatively minor problem when looking back at the past 30 years, but that does not mean it is meaningless. It is vitally important that we realize decisions like Citizen's United or the policies that Romney exercised at Bain (and countless other executives do every day) are symptoms of an endemic disease of radical pro-1% policies and must be treated like that rather than as the disease itself.


And the charge of 'its always been this way' simply isn't true. This is how it was under the rule of Kings and Despots, when you only had to learn as much as your pre-allotted job would require, where some murder with impunity while others are murdered for stealing a slice of bread, where you worked without the promise of adequate (or any) compensation. That is not the way Democracies are supposed to work. The path of Democracy has not been how to change that system into something slightly more agreeable but to how to move away from that kind of system all together. It has been a bumpy, slow, and still unfinished journey to get there, but that has been the direction this country and the majority if not all Democracies have taken. Not to say that the other opinion has not been voiced. The cry to return to something 'easier' and more 'orderly' where people take their lot in life rather than aspiring for something more has remained part of the conversation. But, apart from a few outliers, a few proto-nationalists, the 1880s in America, its been an option which has, been fought against by the people who we now recognize on being on the 'right' side of history. (For all you cultural relativists out there, FDR and De Gaul = Right Hitler and Franco = Wrong) That is until the past 30 years. From Thatcher and Reagan to W. to Merkel to Norquist this has been the unabashed policy of the Right in Democracies worldwide. And, under the guise centrism and the bribes of big business, its been a policy that has, on the whole, spread as easily through many supposedly leftist parties as it has permeated the rest of society. The Occupy / 99% movement is a beginning to one of the most important tasks that facing the world: pointing out that the current state of affairs is not just abominable. It is an aberration. The first step to purging it from our polity is to point it out. Everywhere we see it. So, great thanks to Charles Ferguson for pointing this out. I haven't had a chance to watch Inside Job yet, but I certainly mean to, especially now.

Beyond that. I think you should all check out Spitzer's show (and not just because I have a thing for forgiving sex scandals). You can get clips on Itunes for free if you can't watch on Current TV. The style of the show is a bit Law and Order for me, but Spitzer's a smart guy, he can get fantastic guests, and I'm fairly certain he thinks that this might just be the best way to kickstart his re-entry into Public Service. And, with an increasingly internet-driven electorate and (especially in New York) a core of Progressive news/podcast nuts (myself among them), he might just be right.

To Make the Obvious Official

Obviously I've been taking a momentary break from blogging here. Developments in my non-blog life and moving apartments has taken up much of my time recently, but I hope to get a few posts out over the next month or so and then restart full time, either here or on a re-lauched website, some time in mid July.

Anders Behring Breivik and Insanity

On Tuesday, we heard slightly surprising news out of Norway. Anders Behring Breivik, the conservative Eurocentric terrorist who killed 77 people this past summer, was found sane enough to stand criminal trial. This is a dramatic reversal of the original decision declaring him psychotic, absolving him and his society from some of the blame of this heinous act. After all, it's much easier to declare that these kind of actions can only result from a deranged mind. Yes, we are a violent species, but we have moved beyond that kind of barbarism-especially in the West. This is the lie that those who want to maintain the status quo feed us. They have created a linguistic system by which we label everything which appears to be outside of the Dominant culture/counterculture duality as socially, if not scientifically, insane.

Breivik is a perfect example of how part of this works. Rather than trying to explain how or why our people like Timothy McVeigh, Adolf Hitler, or Anders Behring Breivik, exist in our-or any other-culture, we dismiss them as being insane, evil, and/or heretical. We have seen the results of closing our eyes jamming our fingers in our ears and attending our society has "evolved" beyond that. It is certainly true that human society has, in many ways drastically progressed in the past 200 years. However without knowledge of the past and an understanding of what it means for us today, we will find ourselves as part of a regressive society. The idea of declaring someone or something insane has far more insidious repercussions than the blunt example of Anders Behring Breivik. As acceptable behavior becomes more severely codified (not only in terms of one set of acceptable behaviors, but also a different more restrictive subsets), more becomes deemed as unacceptable.

I do not mean to suggest that this is a unique phenomenon, rather it is a basic definition of how collectivized societal power works. Some measure of this is necessary for basic human interaction. For example we could not communicate effectively if we had personal definitions for every word. However, the branding of nonconformist or dominant thought as insane must be thought of as regressive. It is simply a scientifically-charged way of calling someone a witch or a heretic. That is when they don't just call you a witch or a heretic. We can see this in the way that people in the LGBTQ community are treated, the way that Feminists are treated, the way the Wicca are treated, and certainly the way that Progressives are treated (these are three of many groups I could name). Look at the way that Progressive ideas like having a more equitable tax system, ending oil subsidies, ending or at least changing the tactics used in the 'War on Drugs,' or free public college are treated. No matter how popular these policies may be, as shown through polling, their ideas that do not fit in with how we are told that our society is run. So they are dismissed as impossible, as insane.

Once again this is not a new phenomenon. Other 'insane' ideas from our history are that women are not just property. That, really, when it comes down to it, no person should be any other person's property. Or the insane idea that everybody should be taught to read or write. The key point in understanding this is not that the Dominant forces in society are using a new tactic, it's that they're using the same one. No matter how many times we are told that we do, we do not live in post-racial, post-sexist, politically correct 'end of history' world. The Dominant forces in our society, the corporatists, the one-percenters are counting on the rest of us to be satisfied enough with the status quo and scared enough of being branded as 'insane' that we will accept the wool which is being pulled haphazardly over our eyes. We have to prove to them and to ourselves that we aren't. That this is still a world which needs new ideas and transformative policies.

Which brings us back to Anders Behring Breivik. Norwegian society, and European society on the whole, was rocked by his violent actions. The original decision to declare him insane seemed designed to be sedative, calming a terrified populace than anything else. "Don't worry," that decision said to Europeans, "he was just an outlier, a random force in our standardized society." Just one look at European society shows this not be the case. While Breivik certainly went a step further than some of his compatriots, his bigoted beliefs are far from uncommon across the entire European Union. All of those people are not criminally insane, regardless of how distasteful their particular beliefs might be on, say, race relations. Before we can have a conversation about the direction our societies and our species is going in, we must recognize the existence of multiplicities of thought. We must insist that there is not a black-and-white choice here, that insisted upon this does not lead to the trap of cultural relativism. I have no problem condemning Breivik’ s way of thinking, but that doesn't mean that I can simply dismiss the conclusions he draws or factors that caused him to believe those things. The only way for society to progress as a whole is for us to look honestly at the component parts which our species contains. The court's decision to declare Breivik sane, and thus fit to stand criminal trial for his actions, is a small step in the right direction.

Another Reason to Love Patrick Stewart

I'm out apartment searching all day, so instead of a essay-lette posting I leave you this, even further proof that Patrick Stewart is a Boss. Not only are his words extremely moving, he's also absolutely right about what he's saying. Read it. Pay attention. And, when we're talking about government programs, or increased government curtailing people's freedoms think about this: do we want our government to be dedicated to protecting the rights of opportunity for the Gladys and Patrick Stewarts of the world or, rather, dedicated to protecting the power that the Alfred Stewarts of the world use to control others. We can't do both. And we can't do the former without a powerful government.



"Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn. Curiously, I never felt fear for myself and he never struck me, an odd moral imposition that would not allow him to strike a child. The situation was barely tolerable: I witnessed terrible things, which I knew were wrong, but there was nowhere to go for help. Worse, there were those who condoned the abuse. I heard police or ambulance men, standing in our house, say, “She must have provoked him,” or, “Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”

Thoughts on the Upcoming Election(s)

Though I have not given up my hope that we will someday have a true multiparty Democracy in America it's also important to have a plan on how to go about pursuing electoral politics in the next few years that fits within some designated framework that already exists. It it may be easier to hijack the Democrat Party back into the hands of the true left than to start from scratch. But... here's my take on what Progressives should do if we stay within the Democrat Party.

In 2012, though its fine to criticize him, but don't mess around with not voting for Obama. No I do not think that Obama is a shining light for Progressives. But he's the best option we have. I fear how his 2nd term would go with a Republican controlled House and Senate, but with at least a truly left-leaning House and Senate along with a vocal populace, I believe he could do great work. So this is my bit of advice for Progressives for the upcoming election. First, vote for Obama. Second, unless you're in a swing state or the Republican candidate turns out to be Superman, don't do more for Obama than that. Our time and money must go into promoting progressive candidates, like Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren. If we manage to accomplish these things: re-electing Obama with at least a Progressive-slanted mandate then I believe that there is a great possibility that Obama will govern as more of a Progressive in his second term.

One idea I have been thinking abut a lot lately is how Progressives can try to influence Obama's appointees in his second term. Clearly he will be carrying many of the first-termers into the second term (Even Joe Biden… who had better not run for President). However, think of what it might mean to the Progressive movement to have a real Leftist as Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor. Any of the Cabinet level positions. It is hard to find a single Progressive among Obama's closest advisors. We must find a way to change that in his second term. Perhaps this is the way to find Dennis Kucinich a way back into government. Or, if their elections go badly, Warren, Norman Solomon, Donna Edwards, or any of the few progressive candidates that are running now (check some of them out here). Or maybe this is the way to try and welcome sexual deviants Eliot Spitzer or John Edwards back into the fold. Or any of the Progressive leaning leaders in business, energy, law, education, the arts. Any of these would be an improvement on the 1990s-style 'centrists' that currently fill up Obama's cabinet.

Lastly, we have three years before the 2016 elections. There is no excuse to not have Progressives running in, and in many places winning, Democratic primaries. Just because the Tea Party is an organization of regressive cretins doesn't mean that their tactics aren't useful. The general idea for Progressives must be to have a progressive leaning Congress by 2014 and the more Progressive President, or at least a President who will pay more deference to us elected in 2016, regardless of how this election goes.

Romney Etch-a-Sketch

Another week without an original posting, sorry everyone. But my 10 day stretch of madness is nearly over and I should have two new postings next week.

I did want to pass along one link from last night's Rachel Maddow Show. I usually find the first segment of her show the hardest to get through. For the past months it seems she's always leading with 'here's what's dumb about the Republican Presidential Nomination' today. Though there's certainly plenty of stupid to go around, its hardly necessary that someone with such fantastic ideas on social spending, infrastructure, civil rights... basically everything (let's face is, she's a genius) spend so much time paying attention to the Republican clown car. I'll more into this in a post at some point.


However, last night's Rachel Maddow show ran a story on the newest 'gaffe' (which, in this nominating cycle, really do seem more like Freudian slips) from the Romney campaign. She is absolutely right to point out that this one is different. The idea that the Romney campaign would be so brazen as to admit that their entire plan is to try and forget about everything R-Money has said in the past 6 months to 6 years shows the candidate's base immorality and utter disdain for the American people. And I believe it is this particular character trait that the Obama campaign must attack in the general election. If George W. Bush could paint a decorated war veteran and public servant as a coward, surely Obama can paint the (true to life) picture of the Recreant Romney.

Check it out: Etch-a-Sketch

A few recommendations

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to post for the past week or so. My theatrical-life has switched into high gear, but I should ideally have enough time to get out at least one posting next week. I've got a few things swimming up in my head.

But, I wanted to share two interviews I've heard on two of my favorite blogs / programs over the course of the past week.

The first is an interview on the Majority Report with Richard Kahlenberg on why he believes that the right to Unionize should be a civil right. If you're like me and have always wanted someone to really the philosophical rational behind Unions... this is perfect. If you're more informed than me, as some of you no doubt are, I'm sure it will provide new context for some of your believes. And if you know nothing about Unions... really listen to it. Kahlenberg also presents a fantastic example of how to push progressive causes working within the confines of the structures of the American government. Its a fantastic interview and one of the best I've heard on the Majority Report for a while (which is high praise, not a backhanded complement). You can find it here

The second is from The David Pakman Show (which has just gone from 2 shows a week to 4, including an international thursday show, which I'm very excited about). On Tuesday, David aired an interview that he did with Neil deGrasse Tyson on the future of space exploration. Not only does Tyson provide a more plausible, palatable, and Progressive path into space than Newt Gingrich's Moon Base / 51st State, but he also provides a compelling argument as to why science (and by extension of that, space exploration) has been under attack and what we can do about it. You can find it here

So really, watch / listen to these clips. They're both from great shows (which everyone should try and catch every so often... and donate to if you can).

Against Centrism

The idea of centrism has been under attack for the better part of the Obama presidency. From the Right this has manifested through electoral politics. The attacks on women, unions, minorities, elderly, students, the poor, etc. have predominantly come from newly elected more hard-core conservatives. These are not your father's Republicans, they're your great-grandfather's. On the left we are not seeing the same type of electoral shift. Instead, the changes have come on a more sociological level with the ongoing Occupy protests as well as the growth of groups like Anonymous and Wikileaks. The country is becoming more polarized. People who believed they had no interest in politics are starting to pay attention and realize that not only do they have opinions, they usually tend to have strong opinions. The idea that a knowledgeable electorate living in such turbulent period would favor centrist policies is absurd.

After all what are centrist policies? There is a different centrism and bipartisanship. Issues like having a police force, a national highway system, schools: these are not centrist issues, they are bipartisan issues. There may be a multiplicity of opinions on how such edifices of society should be run, but, by and large, their existence is supported across the board. Even if the centrist becomes a champion of, say, public works, and does not prove that politician to be a centrist, simply a pragmatist.

What defines a centrist is having an opinion on hot button issues that is moderately palatable to everybody. Centrists, by and large, do not believe in gay marriage, but they're willing to give some rights to homosexuals. They tend to support the idea of having access to healthcare, but see far too many problems to truly implementing a universal system in our country. They tend to speak against the horrors of war, but usually vote to pass every new military funding bill. Mistakenly labeled as flip floppers, all they really are are pen pushers. They're in the business of maintaining the status quo. Period. 

Last week famed centrist Olympia Snowe threw up her hands and declared that there was too much partisanship in Washington for her to run for reelection. And certainly the partisanship particular from the Republican side certainly has attributed the deadlock in our nations capital. But I would argue that it is simply weak leadership, from both sides of the aisle, that is causing this debacle. After all, perhaps the 2 most successful and celebrated presence of the last century, FDR on the Left and Ronald Reagan on the Right had a vision not of managing our country but re-imagining it. In our electoral politics there is now a clear right-wing. There is quite a clear center (center right). We must elect Progressives who present not simply a buffer to the onslaught from the right but true alternatives.

Vaginal Probes are not the Enemy

Since my post last Thursday a number of seemingly positive steps towards changing some of the bills restricting women's rights throughout this country. Virginia's transvaginal ultrasound bill has been scuppered and a near-identicle one in Alabama is becoming derailed as well. This reads as a clear example of over-reach. The Right clearly believed that the time was ripe for this regressive legislation and they pushed and pushed and pushed until they pushed just a little bit too far. The forced vaginal probing, which commentators in the media have been trying to get around saying for the better part of two weeks now, was just a step too far for the American populous and media to take. And we may have defeated them. It is highly likely that the next drafts of all of these bills will mandate the much less physically intrusive abdominal ultrasound rather than its vaginal cousin. And all across America, people are hailing this as a great victory.

It is not. The true problem with the original bills is not the type of probe, it is the idea of a government mandate for any kind of medically unnecessary procedure. Lets be very clear about this. All of these laws require, as part of any pre-op for an abortion, that the doctor is forced to perform an entirely separate procedure. This procedure is not medical but political. It is a government mandated shaming device. It is the probing and not the probe that is the problem. Whether the Right likes it or not, access to abortions is fully legal in our country. It is nothing short of revolting that these 'small government conservatives' are so willing to put aside their problems with government whenever it comes to cutting back the rights of women (or minorities, or the elderly, or the poor...really everybody apart from the rich).

And let's also not forget about the rights of the doctor here. After all, these bills all require the complete obedience not only of the pregnant women but of their doctors. After all, carrying out a procedure that is only designed to shame a patient seems to go against the oath to do no harm. Furthermore, the people who choose to become abortion providers, often risking their lives to do so, are being forced to act on the behalf not of their patients but on the behalf of the crazed protestors who throw things at their windows and threaten their lives. On the behalf regressive religious leaders who would condemn a twelve year old girl to bear her father's child. And on behalf of the handful of old white men writing these laws who view the people they are supposed to be representing as willful children, not Democratic citizens. They are the enemy. And we must not shy away from that declaration.

The problem with making birth control a 'women's' issue

So far, rhetoric from the Right in 2012 has been hearkening back to 1912 (or far earlier), particularly on the issues surrounding contraception, abortion, and women's rights. From forced vaginal ultrasounds to personhood amendments to attacks on contraception from the pill to condoms it seems as though Republicans are trying to shrink government to be smaller simply so that it can fit in the vaginas of America's women. This is not a question of religious rights. Its a question of human rights. It is unfathomable that the right to legal medical procedures and legal contraceptive devices should be taken away simply because of the outdated moral beliefs of your employer.

Much of the public outcry (which, by the way, has come from the Right, Left, and shadowy Center) has been very productive. Without any kind of election, public outcry has led to some positive changes in State and Federal Governments as well as in the private sector. The fight is certainly not won, but there have been many positive developments.

However, one particular piece of that outcry has worried me. All over the social media platforms I subscribe to are calls from women that men should stop talking about this issue, that men have no right to weigh in on this discussion, that unless you are shaped exactly like them, your voice is not welcome in the discussion. In one way, I understand these feelings. The fat old white men who rule our country have gone out of their way to make sure that women are not included in the conversation. The fact that Congress' most recent panel on birth control and contraception included no women is a travesty. Women should be playing as promenent a role in this discussion at the governmental level as they are on facebook or the twitterverse. Pregnancy, abortion, access to contraception... these are all incredibly important issues for women.

But that does not mean that men have no right to weigh in on these issues. On a personal level, these are male issues as well. I may not have to carry a baby inside of me but I certainly would prefer tools to help me decide when I want to be a father.

However, on a more general level, this is not simple an issue of women's rights. It is an issue of human rights. The idea of baring someone from the conversation simply because they supposedly cannot understand the issue because of their particular life experiences is a dangerous one. Turn it around and it is this kind of moral relativism that allows us to wash our hands of helping those who look or behave differently from us, those who live in different parts of the world, those who have led lives we can hardly imagine. I certainly hope I will never be able to truly relate to the life of say, a child soldier, but I feel perfectly justified in saying that what was done to him was wrong and that steps must be taken to try to ensure that nobody need suffer as he did.

The point of Democratic argument is to present differences of opinion and decide on the correct course of action. Many issues Progressives hold dear may not be able to garner the support of the majority of Americans quite yet... but I do not believe this is one of them. Trying to bar male voices from the argument will simply alienate friends and silence some fantastic advocates. This is a basic issue of human rights, and it is one that the bigots will find themselves on the wrong end of.

Syria

While its easy to get caught up in America's political circus, its important not to let this newest surge of Santorum to distract us from vitally important events going on world wide. The Syrian people are, right now, being ruthlessly murdered by their 'leader.' Just as Gaddafi decided that the best way to put down the Libyan Revolution would be to destroy the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Assad has, over the past year, laid siege to over ten of his own cities to try to eliminate those opposed to his rule. Since this weekend he has turned his attention to Homs, a rebel-held city which has now been under attack from tanks, mortars, and snipers for six days. The BBC has been doing a phenomenal job covering events inside of Syria and I urge everybody to click around on their website. If you need a basic overview of what's going on in Syria, start here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13855203

There is no easy solution to this problem. Multinational organizations like the Arab League and the United Nations are both unable, because of their extremely limited mandates, and unwilling, because of the regressive views of many of their members to force the violence to stop. Individual members of the international community seems to lack the stomach for even Libyan-style military involvement. In Syria the only question that there really seems to be is whether the country is on the verge of civil war or genocide.

This is unacceptable. It seems like almost every year something like this happens, and basically every time the international response is too late, if it comes at all. And everybody wrings their hands, refusing to see one of the most inherent problems of the system: so long as the privacy of the nationstate trumps the protection of the people, genocide will continue to be viewed as one of the possible solutions to autocrat's problems. As long as the word of that autocrat is treated as law and the cries of citizens are treated as dirt people will continue to die.

Something has to change.

We need a Progressive Definition of Freedom.

As you probably gathered from the end of the previous post, I'm on a bit of an atheist-kick. That's partially because I'm reading what is shaping up to be a fantastic book, Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape, in which he argues that we can find a basic sense of human ethics through a clear understanding of science. So far, its great. I'll try and get through it quickly and write a little review that I can post here, but, so far, I highly recommend it to everybody. But here's my take on something that's been bothering me for quite some time now, the definition of freedom.

Freedom is a word heard from the cornfields of Ohio to the streets of Cairo. People all over the world talk of freedom, most everybody wants it, and hardly anybody thinks that have it.  But what is it?

There must be a progressive solution to this problem. Cultural conservatives have proclaimed a monopoly over defining freedom with very little trouble. Any theories of big government have successfully been propagandized into being the anathema of freedom. We are assailed both from the cultural conservatives and from the mealymouthed moral relativist Thoreauvian liberals on this point.  They state that a society with centralized and standardized state education or healthcare system will stifle difference and, in the end, create one single type of person, hardly better than a cyborg. For them, the only way big government ends up is with us all becoming the Borg. What they fail to grasp is that will only happen if the state behaves in a way that traditional conservative organizations would if given that kind of power. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places, but I don’t see a great deal of openness to individual exploration in traditional culture. It is conservative organizations do most of the  constraining. And that is because they are, at their root, philosophies not of consent and empowerment but of force  and submission-submission to authority, and even more than that, to a pursuit of an ideal created long before you even existed. Putting aside submission to God, even the most decentralized religions, particularly the monotheistic ones,  require a great deal of submission. Submission to your parents, of course, pledging to do nothing without their permission. Submission to the ‘elders’  of whatever brand of religion you ascribe to. And, of course, submission to  the heavily controlled information you create your worldview from. This is not simple respect. I have great respect for my parents, my teachers, my elders, and many the places I get my information from. But that is born of experience not instruction. It is conservative culture that attempts to force us to live our lives in a certain prescribed way.  When they speak of wanting freedom they are not talking about  freedom of personal choice. They are talking about freedom of collective control. They want the freedom to indoctrinate, abuse, and repress the next generation in the same way that they were.

Good public education, universal health care,  an interstate highway system, these do not stifle individuality. A higher standard of living allows all of us the ability to explore the realms of our consciousness. We are not average animals, living off of basic instinct. We are not machines, program to have one unaltered set of beliefs. We are not slaves, compelled to live our lives a particular way. We are humans, and we want the freedom to make up our own minds about what we believe.  This does not negate the value of learning or from the teachings of our elders. It empowers them! Unless of course, you don’t think your particular philosophy will last under scrutiny.

We declare this to be our definition of freedom not because it has been handed down from God, but from an understanding of the true realities facing people in the world today. This is not mean that accepting this definition of freedom is easy. We, as Progressives, must not shrink from the fact that our definition flies in the face of most traditional ideologies. But, given all that they stand for, shouldn’t it?

An Update

First of all, thanks for all of the support during January. It was by far the best month for the blog in terms of viewers and we had our first guest-written essay. I didn't quite hold up my half of the bargain in terms of number of essays, but I'm going to try to be better about that in the coming months. 




This has been an exciting month and the start of what promises to be an exciting year. There will be elections in Egypt, Russia, France, Palestine, Timor-Leste, Mexico, Venezuela, South Korea, and of course the United States among many others before the year is out.  As usual, the most dire situations will be in Dictatorships like Sudan, North Korea, and, most worryingly, Syria. But, with the Arab Spring still flowing and the 99% protests worldwide regaining speed as the weather warms, there should be plenty of hopeful news as well. There is only so much I can do and write here, so if there is something that anybody reading this wants to write about, please, please, please do so. I would love to post it here. 


In the mean time, keep informed, keep reading, and stay Progressive. 




And support this girl: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/rhode-island-city-enraged-over-school-prayer-lawsuit.html?_r=1

Morality, Monogamy, and Newt Gingrich

The latest news from Republicanland is that Newt Gingrich has stormed to the front of the dog race. He brings with him the bombast, fury, and total disregard for the facts of the Republican electorate seems to be searching for this election cycle. If you listen to the mainstream media, it seems like the biggest problem in his past is not his disgraced fall from his position as Speaker of the House nor his subsequent career as a lobbyist/overpaid historian/con-man, but his personal life.

It is a well-documented, scandal-filled personal life, crowned by having an affair with a member of his staff at the same time as he was crusading to have then-President Clinton impeached for having an affair with a member of staff. What most members of the news media, with the exception of Rachel Maddow, fail to point out is that what  makes Gingrich’s story despicable and, more importantly, a valid point for electoral politics is the hypocrisy of his policies, not the specific details of his personal life. It would be one thing if this was simply a problem in the theocratic realms of right wing TV and radio, but, across the board, this distinction simply has not been made enough. Should we distrust Gingrich because he is a divorcee or because, even with that past, he campaigns with a platform that includes fidelity pledges. For having an affair with a woman he said now seems to be in a very loving relationship with, or for arguing the existence of a much less serious affair was grounds to dismiss the democratically elected president? Or the newest attack, for asking his second wife for an open marriage or because his economic policies could actually be categorized as class warfare? Unfortunately, all these factors seem to be lumped together with even progressives  participating in shaming any type of suggested sexual deviance.

Let’s start with the divorce. Sure, nobody likes divorces. They’re sad. It means that some of the big things you hoped for didn’t work out... But it is hardly proof of some kind of grievous moral failing. Around half of all American marriages end in divorce. And that’s okay. In fact, I’m sure almost everybody knows somebody would be better off if they got a divorce. And is the alternative really better? Would it be better if our politicians and public figures stayed in miserable, unhealthy, unfulfilling relationships? Surely it’s better to learn from your past mistakes and act accordingly rather than refusing to make a change. Isn’t that the quality we want in a leader rather than just stubbornness? Indeed, the argument can be made that the only proof that Gingrich has changed since a disgraced exit from the house is his seemingly very healthy marriage to Calista Gingrich. Perhaps, like my father, Newt just got it right the 3rd time around (other similarities include being white, being male... and that’s about it). Besides, it is important to recognize that divorce is a basic human right to liberalize society. Would it be better if we had laws impeding us from ending consensual relationships? It should be the circumstances around a divorce that can potential it may come political problems, not the divorce itself. 

What about Newt? He was cheating on both of his former wives before their divorces. Isn’t that more than enough grounds to question his character and make the divorces political fodder for Gingrich’s enemies? The short answer is, of course, yes. Nobody likes a cheater. While it certainly does not reflect well upon your character I think it ranks pretty low on the list of skeletons in our politicians closets. We have sitting representatives who are, arguably guilty of crimes ranging from embezzlement to insider-trading to crimes against humanity. Cheating on your significant other does not make you a criminal. Even if it does make you an asshole, so do things like disenfranchising voters, trying to undermine our rights to bargain collectively, being more concerned with the rights of zygotes than the rights of women, or being a libertarian. And yet while cheating (even over Twitter) can be a career-ending disgrace, the rest of these blemishes seems to be par for the course.

It would also be different if the American public was leading stable, happy, completely monogamous lives. but with over fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce and an estimated forty to sixty percent of married Americans cheating at some point in their lives that is clearly not the case. For the most part, progressives and leftists have done little to combat the idea Americans have lost their ‘moral compass.’ However, while conservatives have a solution (the teachings of Jesus Christ), liberals have basically just thrown up their hands, condescendingly hoping that people just start to behave ‘better’.

That is almost the worst reaction we could have. Rather than sticking with the old, failing  system of morality, we must begin to seriously endorse the idea of alternatives to the Judeo-Christian bonds of monogamy. The Abrahamic religions, aided by even supposedly secular governments, have created a system of morality surrounding marriage is fixed, standardized, and singular, where monogamy is presented as the only possible choice. However, among a great many types of people there is a basic understanding of that, based on the facts of human history what we view as moral is not fixed permanently but is rather a semi-fluid creation of society. 

There are two different ways people reacted to this information. The first oversimplifies this vital historiographical lesson into the specter of Moral Relativism. According to this ideology, because it is impossible to find one specific definition of moral behavior identically codified throughout human history, it is impossible to codify what is moral for anyone besides yourself. This is clearly a standard of Ayn Randian libertarianism, but it has seeped its way into the much more mainstream gospel of tolerance. While shrouded in the guise of individualism and personal  responsibility, Moral Relativism has caused more damage than rap music, short skirts, contraception, or any other of the factors traditionally ‘blamed’ for the state of our society. Moral Relativism’s general acceptance on the right and left has castrated every group beyond the most extreme religious conservatives on the issue of morality. The maximum of live and let live has been taken to an extreme where few people are willing to stand behind any kind of moral structure, let alone one that goes against the traditional norms of society.

Progressives must not allow ourselves to do this. We need to make it clear that is possible to be moral and not share the same precise definitions of morality as our forefathers. Norms change when society changes, and, historically, only then can what is considered to be moral change. We are clearly a culture stock before that final step. Even if we publicly pay homage to the norms of our past, our societal norms are clearly changed. Central to the ideals of Progressivism is that our society’s norms must not simply be based on antiquated traditions or created to serve the interest of a specific subset of the population. They must serve everyone, a general rather than a specific good. That simply cannot be done if we continue to base what we consider moral off of words written thousands of years ago. Progressives hesitancy to support alternatives to strict monogamous relationships is hindered, not helped the American public.  It is clear from our actions that many Americans, no matter what they say, simply do not feel like a traditional marriage, with all of its bells, whistles, and restrictions, is right for them.

I want to make it very clear that I’m not arguing that everyone would be happier if we had a different little cookie-cutter to shape what we think of as moral. Suggesting that everyone should try the same nontraditional relationship structure, even if the effort was wholeheartedly endorsed by Americans across the legal and social spectrum, would simply result in the same problem that we have today. Instead what needs to be preached is the importance of choice and personal consent. As long as there is consent I see no problem if you choose to pursue relationships that are  heterosexual, homosexual, monogamous, monoamorous, polygamist, polyamorous, or anything that works for you and your consenting partner(s). And, to reinforce the most important aspect being consent and desire, there should be no shame in declaring that you made the wrong choice and ending the relationship, regardless of how sad it might be. 


One of the central tenets of a modernized, economically and socially liberalized (the old-school definition) society is choice. If we decide we want a different job, or that we want to enter into a different field entirely, we may. If we decide we would prefer to live somewhere else in the country, or even, with the proper documentation, somewhere else in the world, we may. If we want to change our diet, our wardrobe, our source of news, or our favorite sports team, we may. Though some might question some of those decisions, they’re hardly viewed as grounds to dismiss  someone’s moral character. Why should we not have the right to choose how we wish to carry on personal relationships with in the same manner?  I seriously doubt that this, as some fear-mongers on the right have suggested, would create a system with a critical mass of the (particularly female) population choosing to engage in purely homosexual relationships or where children grow up without proper role models because their parents are too busy having gigantic hedonistic orgies. Odds are the majority of Americans would still end up choosing to be in a heterosexual monogamous, or least monoamorous, relationships. Helping to support alternatives to strict monogamy will not rip down today society. Rather, it will help provide anybody who wants something else with more than just shame and derision.

And that brings back Newt Gingrich’s supposed request for an open marriage. When I first heard the “story”  I have to say it made perfect sense. Gingrich’s claim to fame is politician is being a big, bold ideas guy. When traditional wisdom dictates and arguments between choices A and B, Gingrich usually seems to get behind choice J. Sometimes his ideas are just plain stupid, like his plan to put mirrors on the moon. Some are offensive and pig-headed, like his plan to hire poor children to take the place of unionized janitors in their schools. But some, like his insistence on protecting America from a cyber attack (certainly more plausible than an electromagnetic pulse) have plenty of merit. 

And, to me, asking his second wife for open marriage seems like one of those. At least in his prime, strict monogamy did not seem to agree with Newt. His first marriage ended partially because of his affair with his second wife. Barely a few years into his second marriage, Newt and Ginther took a multi-year break when they lived separately. Then, his second marriage ended because of an affair with the woman that would become his third wife. Perhaps this is going a bit far, but it seems quite clear that Gingrich, has, or least had, a particularly voracious sexual appetite. And, with his wife hospitalized, Gingrich either had to deal with it, or look elsewhere. This is a perfect example of situation where most Americans would say they would do one thing while probably doing another. But few would do what Newt is reported to have done. Facing two choices: remaining in a sexually, and, reportedly, emotionally unfulfilling relationship, or cheating, Gingrich pursued choice J, an open marriage.  The funniest thing to me about his ex-wife’s recent interview is that the big secret she revealed was not that he was cheating on her, but that he was honest about it. The problem was not asking for an open marriage,  It was, after that request had been denied, carrying on as though it had accepted. 

There are so many reasons to vote against Gingrich. There are few powerful figures in modern American politics with policies that have the power to reshape American society into some sort of Dickensian Oligarchy as Newt. Lambast his punitive (on the poor) tax code, criticize his plans to totally destroy the social safety net, castigate him for his fiery rhetoric about arresting liberal justices, even chastise him for being a serial cheater, but please, leave the open marriage business well alone. And, liberals, the next time you participate in shaming some kind of sexual or moral ‘deviant,’ really ask yourselves why you’re doing it. If you can come up with a reason beyond those found in Abrahamic writ, please tell me, I’d love to know. 

Privacy, Transparency, and Technology.

For seemingly time immemorial, one of the chief rights prized amongst the ‘people’ whether they be subjects of a dictatorship or citizens of a democracy has been privacy. It is a “right” that is valued so highly because it  it is one that has, historically, been very rare. Especially in dictatorships, governments begin with the idea that all aspects of your life are under their purview. That, as a dutiful subject, you should do nothing against the wishes of that dictator and, if commanded, it is your duty-by tradition and law-to do as you’re told. Dictators often try to curry favor by granting aspects of privacy to their citizens, but each one is viewed as a gift rather than right. This can be seen as one of the differences between the British Democratic tradition, which usually sets its beginning with the rights granted in the Magna Carta and the American Democratic tradition with the idea that “all men are created equal.”

However, for all the highfalutin talk, Democratic governments historically follow basically the same pattern.  Though our privacies are valued very strongly, we are expected to give up the right to them as soon as it becomes a measure of national interest, like in a wartime. The battle of democracy versus autocracy that dominated the 20th century can be seen as being being played out in the way governments approach the issue of privacy: Democracies; giving their citizens much more privacy in their home life work life etc.; and big brother style autocracies curtailing those privacies. Now-where is the supposed right to privacy more enthroned than in America, at least rhetorically. This is partially because our founders created this country as a buffer against intrusion into their lives. Their sometimes-paranoiac fear was directed almost totally towards government, and with good reason. Really until the first half of the twentieth century the only organization big enough and powerful enough to invade individual privacy on a large scale were governments.

That is no longer the world we live in. The technologies of the 20th century, particularly the computer chip, make it ludicrously easy to  “invade” each other’s privacy. By and large we trust the massive private corporations that have created service industries around this technology more than we trust our government. Apple knows where many of us are all times, Facebook knows about all those drunken parties we threw before we were 21, Google boasts that soon it will be able to know us well enough to generate our shopping lists, Visa knows what you bought yourself for your birthday, EZ pass knows how late you were out last night, etc. This makes people nervous but enough to stop using these very useful services. But can you imagine how people will react if all these private enterprises were controlled by some ‘evil overreaching’ government? They would be heralded as the end of democracy, that our society was descending into the realm of repressive dictatorship.

But why is this? Perhaps it is because when we naïvely hold onto the belief that the Internet is a beautiful free open source Wonderland, to the old maxim that corporations would never do anything that could risk losing or hurting us, their clients, and to trust in rainbow world of the ‘Free Market’. Of course, all of these dreams are lies

And lie begins very basically.  Ask yourself, Facebook, Google, EZ Pass, Visa: are we really their clients? Partially, but, as far as I know, I’ve never paid anything directly to a corporation like Google or Facebook. We, the users, are not their clients. We are the product. It is much the same for the companies that we do pay, after all, our dues are  minuscule compared to the amount they receive from the ultra rich and corporations. This is not corporations behaving badly... its under-regulated corporations behaving as they are designed to. In the end, a corporation exists not to promote the greater good of society but to make its shareholders as much money as possible. The closest a Corporatists gets supporting some sort of “greater good” is through their sacrosanct ‘cost benefit analysis’. This is, of course, not used to find out the costs and benefits to the general public but only the cost and benefit of its shareholders. This means using all of their resources to make as much money as possible, including selling the information we freely give to these corporations to the highest bidder. That is what capitalism is. Corporations are not founded to support some sort of moral good, they’re designed to be entirely amoral entities, concerned with morality only so much as it affects their bottom line. 

On the other hand, democratic governments exist to serve the will and interests of the people. The “shareholders” are not a subset of the population but the entire population at large. The cost-benefit analysis performed by a democratic government is meant to be directly proportional to the costs and benefits to all of the citizens of that nation. Of course, all too often political decisions are based purely by a cost-benefit analysis for a particular politician’s next election. But the existence of craven self interest and corruption does not mean that the idea behind the democratic governance is wrong. If our representatives passed legislation only for personal or political gain it is in the authority of the citizens to elect new and better representatives. Just look at what citizens of the state of Wisconsin are doing to their governor, trying to recall him barely a year into office. Yes, that is proof that they have a very poor governor, but also proof that the will of the people cannot be ignored in a Democracy. The same is simply not the case with corporations. Unless you hold a gigantic steak the company, it is nearly impossible to force change upon it, -particularly a specific (policy) rather than general (personality) change. Besides, even if all the old fears come true and we are taken over by some kind of repressive dictatorship, don’t you think they would seize all of this  “private” information that we have shuttled into the arms of corporations? And what makes you think those corporations are not already selling the information, without proper democratic oversight, to factions within or currently involved in directly influencing our government? Whatever is making you think that... stop thinking it, because its already happening. 

The supposed trump card played by those who fear government is that while participation in private enterprises is purely voluntary, government programs would in some way be mandatory. If they did include some kind of  opt out clause, it would work in a way that made taking that option incredibly difficult.  Well, how many people think that choosing not to engage in privately controlled enterprises like being part of a social  networking site,  have your cell phone, using GPS, having an e-mail account, having a credit card, or using a search engine would not negatively affect our lives? It may be possible to get away with not engaging in all of those behaviors, but, for many of us, it would be impossible to succeed in society without using some of them. 

So, we, as a society, have three choices. The first and, unfortunately, most probable is stasis. The products and services provided by these corporations are now integral to our lives. If Facebook loses clients, it will probably signaled the rise of Google+, not a broad rejection of social networking sites in general. We all may have our problems with society today but that does not mean we are eager or even willing to just broadly reject it. Perhaps attitudes will change, but people seem to like the services provided by these corporations. I certainly do, and as long as they remain the only option, I will probably go on using them. 

The second option is to truly put our money where our mouth is in terms of wanting privacy. If we wouldn’t want a government to see or learn something piece of information, make it illegal for any organization to do so. Ban Facebook! Shut down all the search engines! Only use tender for financial transactions! Really, try rolling back technology to a point where privacy in the absolute was still even possible. Of course this is a horrific idea for two major reasons.  The first is that such a policy would destroy the world as we know it. All across the globe we, as a species, rely heavily on our technologies. It might be theoretically possible to create a totally private Internet or cell phone service etc. but it would be fundamentally different and almost infinitely less useful than what exists today. The second reason is that rolling back or limiting the usefulness of our technological advances is a practice almost exclusively used by the most  repressive authoritarian states. North Korea, China, Iran etc. They have done this not as a means of increasing privacy but as a means of increasing control. Even of our intentions were good such an action would carry untold consequences. Chief among them the dissolution of the positive social changes brought about by democratic society. The point isn’t these corporations are, by nature, evil.  In fact, the services they provide, particularly those based on the internet, are phenomenal Progressive tools. The challenges confronting an authoritarian government grow exponentially when the populous has access to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. However, we cannot ignore that all of these corporations operate without the public’s control and, when protected by government privacy laws, often without oversight. 

And the point would not be the rid ourselves of these corporations. Clearly private enterprises stalwart against autocracy. Without the internet all of dictators under attack in the Arab Spring and worldwide would be sitting much more easily. Without Google it would have been much harder for me to set up this blog. I am not arguing for some Soviet/Chinese pseudo-communist state that controls everything. What I am arguing for is to look seriously at the world around us and say... Has our almost unbounded fear of the possibility of an autocratic big brother state led us to embrace something worse. 

The third option is that we realize that we are living in a world where privacy as our ancestors knew or dreamed of it is a thing of the past, and confront that knowledge  head on. Simply because of the technological advances our society now relies upon what was private is  now public. Do we want that information bought and sold in the semi-regulated ‘free market,’ controlled by private organizations listening to the  edicts of a tiny percentage of the population. Or would be preferred under the control of the government, of the people, by the people, for the people? Rather than going all the way, starting to check Govbook, search Govoole, and swipe our Mastergov, what progressives can do about this issue is to promote greater governmental oversight and transparency. Corporations should not be allowed to sell our information without our knowledge. They should not be able to gather our information without our knowledge (and sorry, those 100+ page contracts that people always just skip through isn’t enough). People and corporations should not be able to buy that information without us knowing who they are, how much they paid for it, and what they’re going to do with it. However, it seems like our government has had more interest in protecting the privacy of those transactions than in the privacy of its citizens. Transparency is not just for governments. In a Progressive society, we should be able to see exactly what the corporations we rely upon are really doing. After all, its just bringing those transactions into the twenty first century. The back-room deals of corporatists, the tax returns of the millionaires running for president, just what all of the CEOS who have received bonuses since their companies were bailed out, these should not be the final privacies protected by our government. Transparency, not privacy, is the means to a Progressive future.