John Coltrane

 

Let’s vote out the SOBs

We could do that, but such resistance today seems futile, according to Maureen Tkacik, of the New York Observer. She wrote:

"If you want to get some traffic on this one [the White House hiring Daley and Sperling]," a former senior House aide told The Observer, "make your angle 'Obama's Fixers to End the New Deal.' They are going to dismantle Social Security. I guarantee it. And he won't suffer any push-back. But Obama is the extremist here; he is the wing nut. There's been a total collapse of political power on the left. The left is not even at the table, and they don't even realize it. You can't blame the voters. In 2006 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts. In 2008 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts. And in 2010 they voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts."

Well, I am certain that some on the left are aware of their lack of political power. And for this situation the left in general cannot criticize the voters who voted for a national alternative that did not exist but for the 2008 Nader candidacy. Barack Obama may have fooled some Democrats or, perhaps, enabled them to fool themselves. But that was then. As of this moment, who but a political innocent, a yellow dog Democrat or a committed neoliberal would vote for him? No one would except for those savvy individuals who consider voting for the "lesser evil" Democrat to be an iron rule of political life.

Building large and well-organized social movements provides a path that can break the power of the legacy party duopoly, an outcome that would create political options for a left that effectively has none. This is the path principled leftist must take if they wish to become effective.

This article was cross-posted to FireDogLake and OpenSalon

Winning arguments vs. making sense, ducking for cover vs. taking the lead on an issue

David Frum addresses the faults to be found in Sarah Palin's response to the Tucson Massacre and to those who claim she bears responsibility for the event:

Obviously, Palin [with her infamous gun-sights graphic] never intended to summon people to harm Representative Giffords. There was no evidence that the shooter was a Palin follower, and in short order it became evident that he was actuated by a serious mental illness. Whatever you think about Palin's "don't retreat, reload" rhetoric, it could not be blamed for this crime.

So — argument won? No. Argument lost.

Palin failed to appreciate the question being posed to her. That question was not: "Are you culpable for the shooting?" The question was: "Having put this unfortunate image on the record, can you respond to the shooting in a way that demonstrates your larger humanity? And possibly also your potential to serve as leader of the entire nation?"

I wholly agree with Frum on this point save for his use of the Loughner was insane trope. My position on the "insane gunman argument" can be found here. Moreover, the internet is now full of similar arguments (of those that I have read, two of the better ones can be found here and here), with Frum offering one of them. I have drawn attention to Frum's argument only because Frum is a conservative, and his writing might influence the rightwing in this country to address their violent reactionaries problem. Frum concludes his article with his assessment of Palin the person and Palin the national politician:

Of course, Palin has yet to give the answer called for by events. Instead, her rapid response operation has focused on pounding home the message that Palin is innocent, that she has been unfairly maligned by hostile critics. Which in this case happened to be a perfectly credible message. And also perfectly inadequate. It was about Palin, not about Giffords. It was defensive, not inspiring. And it was petty at a moment when Palin had been handed perhaps her last clear chance to show herself presidentially magnanimous.

This essay was cross-posted at FireDogLake and OpenSalon

An argument for considering the Tucson Massacre a political event

1. Jared Loughner had a politics, one that included violence as an expressive political event.

2. Rep. Giffords was a national politician, who was engaged in local political work at a public place when Loughner attempted to kill her.

3. Rep. Giffords had local political opponents who contested her election and her policy choices, sometimes by using violent speech, symbols and actions. Some of her opponents were Republican partisans and some were likely movement activists associated with that Party.

4. America's political culture, along with the society of which it is a part, is composed of fragments, some of which consider themselves authorized to act violently in order to defend their interests and to defend what they consider to be an authentic American way of life. They believe they have this authority because they utilize the thoughts and symbols of the American Revolution and because they, in some cases, draw upon the Protestant political theology that many of America's colonists brought with them from Europe.

5. Those social fragments which consider themselves authorized to act violently in order to defend their interests and to defend what they consider to be an authentic American way of life are mostly if not exclusively located within the orbit of the national Republican Party.

6. The national Republican Party seeks and has long sought to monopolize the naming and defining of what is truly American. The Republican Party attempts to achieve this monopoly, in part, by excluding every competitor they encounter in this matter. In this way the national Republican Party practices what can be identified as an absolutist politics.

7. As a practitioner of an absolutist politics, the national Republican Party seeks to effectively if not to actually eliminate its opponents as political opponents. It is motivated to achieve this end because of its commitment to an 'authentic American life' and because of the religiosity of some of its member groups.

8. Mr. Loughner's attempt to assassinate Rep. Giffords neatly encapsulates this dangerous and uniquely American political situation, a situation which provides the context in which we must evaluate the Tucson Massacre.

The attempted assassination of Rep. Giffords was a political event because her assailant had a politics that made her a target while, in turn, she had a politics that motivated some politically violent individuals to make her a target; she was a politician with a local following and a national reputation; the assassination attempt occurred at an open, public political venue, more specifically, at a place where Giffords practiced her politics; Loughner's violent act reflected key features of the local and national political culture; and the killings could be irrationally justified by the assailant and others by drawing upon the symbols, rhetoric and violent nature of America's founding. To the reactionary, assassinating Giffords could be defended as an act of a patriot. He sought to water liberty's tree with the blood of tyrants.

It can be and has been argued that Jared Loughner was incapable of reasonable thought and action because he suffered from a severe but as of yet unknown mental illness. Loughner, because of his illness, was incapable of acting politically because politics in general assumes a modicum of rational thinking capacity and because Loughner was incapable of rational thought. Consequently, Loughner's actions cannot be rightly considered political because, to put it simply, he was not sane or, at best, barely sane.

This argument fails, I believe, because it ignores the context in which the Loughner lived and thus learned to think, feel and act. In recent years this context was flush with violent rhetoric and behavior, most of which issued from the mouths, keyboards and bodies of the reactionary right. Much of the locally generated violent talk took Rep. Giffords as a key target. This discourse of violence crystallized during the 2010 midterm campaign. Moreover, Giffords was a member of Congress, and thus a plausible threat to the weak and marginal in America, at least she was thought to pose this kind of threat by those on the right who believe government to be an evil in every instance when that government exceeds its minimal size. Loughner, it seems, was such an individual. His internet videos reflect this kind of thinking. His deed and words reflect this local and national political context. And his action was premeditated. He acted purposefully in the weeks that preceded the massacre. Thus, Loughner's deed can be judged a political act because it was meant to be a political act and produced political effects.

That said, even if one believes that Loughner's mental distress meant that he was unable to form a politics, that is, even if Loughner was insane and unable to rationally formulate a politics and a practice, it remains the case that his deed also reflects the thinking and recommendations of the reactionary component of the national Republican Party and the movements related to it. The context confers political significance on the event no matter what Loughner intended or could intend.

It is for these reasons that I believe the Tucson Massacre to be a political event, and ought to be considered a political event even if Jared Loughner were to proven to be criminally insane. Any claim which refuses to consider Loughner's act a political act also refuses to consider the facts as they are known and refuses to treat politics as an activity that cannot be wholly reduced to the subjective intentions of this or that individual.

This essay was cross-posted at OpenSalon and All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go

One feature of America’s fearful political culture

Glenn Greenwald wrote the following this morning:

There has been much talk over the last several days, in the wake of the Arizona shooting, about attempts by some citizens to instill physical fear in elected officials. That's a worthwhile and necessary topic, but the fear that government officials are attempting to instill in law-abiding, dissenting citizens is far more substantial and sustained, and deserves much more attention than it has received.

He wrote this paragraph while concluding another one of his long, lucid and well-argued essays on the WikiLeaks saga. When I broadly consider his position, I believe he was right to take it. After all, there can be no doubt that America's political-legal assault on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange wants to intimidate whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, citizen journalist like those found at WikiLeaks along with those citizens who would protest and thereby reform the use of government power in the United States. Nor can anyone doubt that such intimidation has been achieved to some degree. Why would willingly desire to be tortured as Bradley Manning has been since his incarceration?

Nevertheless, unlike Greenwald, if I have accurately interpreted his essay, I do not believe that a state induced fear and a socially induced fear are wholly distinct. Nor do I believe that popular reactionary violence and the threat of such have taken aim only at America's elected officials, especially those officials who are members of the Democratic Party. It is not even clear to me that one practice is more important than the other. Fear, like radiation, has a scope that is far greater than its direct target. It is both immediately devastating for those targeted and broadly instructive for those who witness a fear-inducing attack. It often attaches a stigma to its targets and it enforces the sense that keeping one's head low means that someone cannot take it off at the neck.

The Tucson bloodbath this past weekend has had the noticeable effect of drawing attention to the use of fear in politics in the United States today. This fear, as stated above, is meant to eliminate political opponents while cowling others into silence. It is a political act and has political consequences.

The Tucson attack also has achieved more than pointing to the use of fear as a political tool in the United States. It has also focused attention on the work of one American political movement, with its famous and not-so-famous leaders, a reactionary political movement that wants to intimidate different political movements, organizations, parties and institutions. The violence-laden rhetoric, the symbols and tools of violence used by this movement, the attacks it mounts on human diversity — these practices achieve an end similar to the ends pursued by the government when it seeks to intimidate those who threaten it, namely, the suppression of what remains of liberalism in the United States, of a political commitment to a full set of rights and of a strong democracy emboldened to contest a strong government. I also believe it is clear that this reactionary movement provides the squadristi and Sturmabteilung for that faction of the Republican Party that has absolutist pretentions and that actually believes it expresses the essence of an authentically American life. Like the surveillance and security practices of the federal government, the violence prone reactionaries function as an agent that constrains political speech and action in the United States.

Since the reactionaries have more than a foot in American government, including the military, it is not too farfetched to identify the reactionaries as the sometimes extra-legal agent of a terror that, all things being equal, affirms governmental power! It surely affirms the security and surveillance apparatus, which must now protect good apolitical Americans from the extremists. It also affirms bipartisan government, a kind of American political compromise that actively suppresses political conflict, especially conflict that originates within civil society. When thought of in this way, governmental surveillance and security work complements actual and potential political terror produced by America's reactionaries, and vice versa. Both produce depoliticizing effects.

The proof of this is ready at hand. The United States currently lacks an opposition party and has not recently produced an effective opposition movement that can contest the policies and practices of the American political system. This absence is not due to luck, to America's well-designed institutions or to the well-being enjoyed by most Americans. It is an effect of long-term political work by America's government system, including its legacy parties and the duopoly they compose, and by the reactionary popular forces originating within civil society.

Although the Tucson shootings have caused some of America's political elite to take a step back with respect to their use of inflammatory talk, I could not help but to agree with Alexander Cockburn's assessment of America's near-term political future: "I doubt [America's] rhetoric will stay subdued for long." It appears that there can be only one American politics, and it is vain, militaristic, violent and narrow.

This essay was cross-posted at OpenSalon and FireDogLake

Assassination attempt in Arizona

Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a three-term Democrat, was shot this morning by a gunman who also injured some of her staff. Giffords is a liberal on many issues, married to an astronaut and defeated last November a Tea Party conservative that criticized Sarah Palin from the right.

Although the motives of the gunman for shooting Giffords are currently unknown, the shooting must be counted as a political assassination attempt because of the grass roots political conflict present in the United States today.

This is a breaking news story; live updates can be found at the Huffington Post.

Update

Rep. Giffords, along with six others, died as a result of this shooting, according to NPR.

A poll asks a grave question about the deficit and unbalanced budgets

Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes conducted the poll. The most interesting question of the lot is, "What would you do first to balance the budget?" While writing this post the tally of the response is:

75% — Increase taxes on the wealthy

16% — Cut defense spending

4% — Cut Medicare

4% — Cut Social Security

Obama and a lame duck Congress controlled by the Democratic Party just extended the Bush Tax Cuts. Significantly cutting defense spending is not on the agenda while Obama, his party and the incoming Republicans do intend to cut Medicare and Social Security.

To restructure or not to restructure?

Joseph Stiglitz looks to the past and the future:

For Europe and the United States, 2010 was a year of disappointment. It's been three years since the bubble broke, and more than two since Lehman Brothers' collapse. In 2009, we were pulled back from the brink of depression, and 2010 was supposed to be the year of transition: as the economy got back on its feet, stimulus spending could smoothly be brought down.

Growth, it was thought, might slow slightly in 2011, but it would be a minor bump on the way to robust recovery. We could then look back at the Great Recession as a bad dream; the market economy — supported by prudent government action — would have shown its resilience.

Resilience? Recovery? Prudent government action? I think not. Stiglitz continues:

In fact, 2010 was a nightmare. The crises in Ireland and Greece called into question the euro's viability and raised the prospect of a debt default. On both sides of the Atlantic, unemployment remained stubbornly high, at around 10%. Even though 10% of US households with mortgages had already lost their homes, the pace of foreclosures appeared to be increasing — or would have, were it not for legal snafus that raised doubts about America's vaunted "rule of law."

But profits were made secure. Sure, the EU may have just averted a systemic crisis, but it didn't fall. Still, there can be no doubt that the "little people" feel put out by their insecurity. The elite response to their most recent failures and the insecurity they engendered:

Unfortunately, the New Year's resolutions made in Europe and America were the wrong ones. The response to the private-sector failures and profligacy that had caused the crisis was to demand public-sector austerity! The consequence will almost surely be a slower recovery and an even longer delay before unemployment falls to acceptable levels.

Why should anyone find it surprising that a political elite committed to neoliberal policies would propose remedies to a recession that won't work and will intensify the misery of the politically powerless? Only the daft and the vicious would find this surprising.

Stiglitz offers this solution to our common problem:

Debt restructuring — writing down the debts of homeowners and, in some cases, governments — will be key. It will eventually happen. But delay is very costly — and largely unnecessary.

Color Stiglitz an optimist!

This essay was also published on FDL.com

A Zero Option politics for the American left

Chris Hedges recently talked with Ralph Nader. One part of their conversation has Nader pointing to a very odd mechanism found in American politics:

"The more outrageous the Republicans become, the weaker the left becomes," Nader said when I reached him at his home in Connecticut on Sunday. "The more outrageous they become, the more the left has to accept the slightly less outrageous corporate Democrats."

Why would Republican outrageousness work like this? Why does it produce this counterintuitive result? It's not that the left has to commit to supporting the moderately less destructive Democratic Party. In fact, the Obama administration has already demonstrated that the Democratic Party does not find it difficult to move rightward with the Republicans. In this respect Obama has continued the grand push rightward that took hold with the emergence of the Democratic Leadership Council and the political defeat of the Rainbow Coalition. Putting the matter in blunt terms, one can say that the Democratic Party has long been the tail end of the Reagan Revolution.

Hedges continues:

Nader fears a repeat of the left's cowardice [voting for the Democrat] in the next [2012] election, a cowardice that has further empowered the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, maintained the role of the Democratic Party as a lackey for corporations, and accelerated the reconfiguration of the country into a neo-feudalist state. Either we begin to practice a fierce moral autonomy and rise up in multiple acts of physical defiance that have no discernable short-term benefit, or we accept the inevitability of corporate slavery. The choice is that grim. The age of the practical is over. It is the impractical, those who stand fast around core moral imperatives, figures like Nader or groups such as Veterans for Peace, which organized the recent anti-war rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, which give us hope. [emphasis added]

The left, need it be said, has no place within the Democratic Party save as useful idiots who dutifully vote for a Democrat when given the opportunity. It may appear that the left has nowhere to go, as Nader contends. This is the left's zero option politics. If, on the other hand, the broad left wants to give itself a multidimensional politics, if it wants to have options to play, it will need to refuse to support the Democratic Party.

Is it me or is it ironic that America is counting on the left to make the right decision in this matter?

This essay also appeared on Salon.com and FDL.com

Too true to be real