Strong democracy and its base

In his most recent truthdig article, "Do Not Pity the Democrats," Chris Hedges speaks the truth about power in the United States today:

There are no longer any major institutions in American society, including the press, the educational system, the financial sector, labor unions, the arts, religious institutions and our dysfunctional political parties, which can be considered democratic. The intent, design and function of these institutions, controlled by corporate money, are to bolster the hierarchical and anti-democratic power of the corporate state. These institutions, often mouthing liberal values, abet and perpetuate mounting inequality. They operate increasingly in secrecy. They ignore suffering or sacrifice human lives for profit. They control and manipulate all levers of power and mass communication. They have muzzled the voices and concerns of citizens. They use entertainment, celebrity gossip and emotionally laden public-relations lies to seduce us into believing in a Disneyworld fantasy of democracy.

Who, according to Hedges, should we not fear and who actually threatens us?

The menace we face does not come from the insane wing of the Republican Party, which may make huge inroads in the coming elections, but the institutions tasked with protecting democratic participation. Do not fear Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. Do not fear the tea party movement, the birthers, the legions of conspiracy theorists or the militias. Fear the underlying corporate power structure, which no one, from Barack Obama to the right-wing nut cases who pollute the airwaves, can alter. If the hegemony of the corporate state is not soon broken we will descend into a technologically enhanced age of barbarism.

We should fear, Hedges claims, the American system itself, as it now exists and as it likely will exist tomorrow and the day after. Fear, that is, America's version of Democratic Capitalism. We should fear it because the American system includes as a necessary component a compromised democratic political system. By compromised democracy I mean to refer to the institutions and mechanisms which make the holders of political and socio-economic power unaccountable to the citizens who suffer elite decisions and which insulates the elite from democratic control from below. This is system with a diminished civil society and public sphere. It is a system with a phantom citizenry. And it is a system in which the elite need not perform to the satisfaction of its citizens or, perhaps, subjects. This makes it an unresponsive system, for "A government is 'responsive' if it adopts policies that are signaled as preferred by citizens" (Manin, Przeworski, Stokes, p. 9). It is natural to believe an unresponsive and irresponsible government would be voted out of office by those citizens whom it betrayed. But in America's compromised system, voting out one unresponsive and irresponsible party entails opting for another unresponsive and irresponsible party. This "damned if you do, damned if you don't" electoral mechanism makes immediate and long-term systemic reform an unfeasible goal.

Hedges's solution to America's democracy deficit: Viable political work can occur only when it rejects America's compromised democracy:

Hope is a word that is applicable only to those who grasp reality, however bleak, and do something meaningful to fight back—which does not include the farce of elections and involvement in mainstream political parties. Hope is about fighting against the real forces of destruction, not chanting "Yes We Can!" in rallies orchestrated by marketing experts, television crews, pollsters and propagandists or begging Obama to be Obama. Hope, in the hands of realists, spreads fear into the black heart of the corporate elite. But hope, real hope, remains thwarted by our collective self-delusion.

A few caveats to consider before November

An earlier version of this article appeared on Firedoglake.

Might Barack Obama and the Democratic Party he leads feel more comfortable working with the Republican politicians who regularly and savagely oppose his programs? Do powerful Democrats and Republicans have common interests which draw them together? Might they have a common enemy? If the work of Walter Karp has any value today, if it provides the framework within which we may productively assess the politics of the moment, then we may wish to answer yes to each of these questions. They work together, have common interests and have a common enemy.

The common enemy of the two major parties: It is the citizens of the United States.

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Years ago Walter Karp wrote:

Both the apologist and the Marxist agree in this, that the parties are political servants; of the people in the view of the former, of "economic power" in the view of the latter.

Such, in brief, is the prevailing doctrine about the political parties, minus the many qualifications called in to keep it plausible — the effects of "public apathy," of "straight-ticket voting" and the like. That doctrine whose essential principle is that parties are powerless rests entirely on the axiom that parties have but one principle of action: to win election victories at all costs. That has always been assumed in advance. What happens, however, if we do not assume it in advance, if we simply look at what political parties actually do? We will discover, quickly enough, that the realities of party politics and the prevailing doctrine about parties bear no resemblance whatever, that the reality and the doctrine are exactly opposite (p. 9).

Karp augmented his critique by asserting that:

The desire to win elections is not the basic purpose of the political parties, it is not their overriding motive and interest. For the leaders of political parties, trying to win and trying to lose elections are equally useful means to a quite different political end (p. 18).

He elaborates this point thusly:

Mutual noninterference in their respective party bastions is the reason both parties retain bastions at all. It is not electoral competition which characterizes the relation between two state party organizations, but strict and pervasive collusion. That collusion does not necessarily require conspiratorial plotting in smoke-filled back rooms. It springs up automatically between two state party organizations by virtue of powerful bonds of common interest. Neither party organization could retain control of its party unless the two party organizations were in collusion. As Senator Robert La Follette rightly remarked in 1912: "Machine politics is always bipartisan." It is because it has to be (p. 31).

Finally, most importantly and obviously, Karp pointed out that: "…the two party organizations actually form a single ruling oligarchy" (p. 33). If he is right about this, overt competition masks covert oligarchic cooperation, what, then, would the political end pursued by this oligarchical contraption be? One plausible answer: Together the Democrat and Republican Parties seek to remain the coherent and nearly unique source of electable political power in the United States today and, of course, tomorrow as well. Thus considered, they are the evil to which reformers want to provide an alternative.

What conclusions might we draw from this analysis given the oligarchical, collusive and exclusive nature of America's party system, the system's deep roots in the federal and state governments along with the counter-majoritarian features of America's political institutions? On the one hand, for instance, it follows that some electoral victories will be not at all wanted by the supposed winners of these elections (p. 41). On the other hand, it is clear that some electoral results will never be taken at face value by those who hold political power. Some elections are unwanted and denied by the powerful because they threaten entrenched political power, the two-party oligarchy. To my mind, Obama's 2008 triumph, an outcome that has already generated so much noise on the right, appears to be a victory of the latter kind.

We may consider it to be such because, as we know, Barack Obama appeared to the electorate as an agent of hope and change during his run for office. He not only ran as such, but he was elected by a comfortable margin to provide what amounts to a Thermidorian Reaction to the radical excesses of the Bush administration. He would govern the country as a mature adult and rational political agent of the people who elected him, not as a longtime bumbler and a political anomaly with a messianic complex and a taste for fame and money. Barack Obama — the humane technocrat who would provide Americans with the good government they crave. Yet, have the hopes Candidate Obama elicited in the electorate been met by his Presidency? No. Has he sought to realize goals that would affirm these hopes? Once again, no. As a matter of fact, President Obama has governed so far as an agent of the political system which nurtured him and which made him what he is today. Far from providing an antidote to Bush's extremist policies, Obama has worked hard to secure some of the Bush Era 'reforms' to America's institutions, to prosecute the irrational wars the Bush administration started and to implement the gist of Bush's reactionary economic agenda. And he gained his Bush-lite 'achievements' while his party controlled both Houses of Congress! He seemingly has led an administration that controlled its destiny. Nevertheless, by taking path he did, President Obama effectively threw away Candidate Obama's electoral victory. He has not used the power he acquired then to pursue a progressive reform agenda; he instead used this power to impose on the country a center-right political solution to its problems, a solution which will master no threat but those which entrenched economic and political power will confront in the near future.

Assuming my Karp-inspired analysis abstractly accurately depicts the electoral and political situation today, we may ask whether there was any reason to think long and hard about Obama's support for Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter in the recent primary elections?, the soft touch he has used when dealing with Joe Liebermann and Alan Simpson?, the concern he showed for the interests of the drug and insurance companies? and his fealty to the surveillance-security apparatus? I do not think so. Continuing to pose questions of this kind: Why, in general, has the Obama administration seemed unconcerned with the fate of the Democratic Party in November's elections? Walter Karp would have no trouble at all when evaluating the actions of Obama and the other leaders of his party with respect to these elections, especially their indifference to the composition of the Congress. He knew that each party considers the electorate at large to be the mortal enemy of the enduring Washington system. It will be this system which will be the true winner this November. And the two parties would not have it any other way.

The unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from this analysis: Barack Obama was and remains hope's enemy insofar as this hope is felt by the common man and woman in the United States today.

Hecuba roared

Getting Fox News right

The Parent Company Trap

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The Obama recovery and the crisis of crisis management

The permanent crisis?

Mike Whitney observes:

Policymakers at the Fed, the Treasury, the White House and the Congress now look on as the foundations of the so-called recovery crack before their very eyes. Many of their careers will undoubtedly follow the economy down the drain. As the stimulus runs out, unemployment will rise, deleveraging and debt liquidation will gain momentum, and the economy will succumb to a second vicious contraction. Digging out will not be easy.

Obama and his people cannot say they had not been warned about the likely effects of their stimulus. Forewarned or not, will the return of the Great Recession trigger the end of DLC-style foolishness? Let us hope so.

Sharon Angle: It’s the Pinochet way

Quote of the day

This one issued from the keyboard of David Frum:

More proof of my longtime thesis, Repub pols fear the GOP base; Dem pols hate the Dem base.

Frum's judgment was a response to Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent hissy fit. A few quotes that represent Gibb's perfervid mind:

"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."

And:

"They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."

…

"They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."

It is so sad that Obama's magnanimity and courage have yet to be recognized by the Democratic Party left. How crude of these unrealistic leftists to demand effective action from a President they helped put into power. The partisan left, according to crackpot realist Gibbs, is ungrateful and unappreciative. It dreams impossible dreams; it refuse to accept the world for what it is. Look at what these wretches have done to poor Blanche Lincoln, who is so devoted to progressive ends that she chose to fall on her sword for her Party, the party devoted to progress and justice. So sad to be compelled to manage these ungrateful leftist bastards…

Glenn Greenwald's take on Gibb's fit:

The Democrats have been concerned about a lack of enthusiasm on the part of their base headed into the midterm elections. These sorts of rabid, caricatured, Fox-News-copying attacks on the Left will undoubtedly help generate more enthusiasm — more loud clapping — for the Democrats. I know I'm eager to go canvass and clap for Democrats after reading Gibbs' noble, inspiring vision. If it were Gibbs' goal to be as petulant and self-pitying as possible, what could he have done differently?

Crackpot Realist Gibbs works to control the damage he caused here. Why would he humble himself like this? As it turns out, his President needs the work and enthusiasm of the Democratic Party base and, alas, that base sits a bit to the left of Obama's failed administration.

On this day

In 1794, President George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion sprung from local resistance to the Hamiltonian Whiskey Tax.

In 1941, the Bengali writer, activist and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore died in Kolkata or Calcutta, West Bengal, India.

In 1960, the Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast achieved independence from France.

In 1964, the United States Congress passed the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution (P.L. 88-408).

In 1988, members of the New York City Police Department rioted in Manhattan's Tompkins Square Park. The Riot pitted the local NYPD against the "street people" who gathered or lived in the Park.

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On this day

In 1693, the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon was said to have invented champagne.

In 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelly, one of the world's great poets, was born in Field Place, Horsham, England.

In 1789, members of revolutionary France's Constituent Assembly took an oath pledging them to abolish Feudalism.

In 1901, jazz trumpeter and singer Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, which provoked Great Britain into declaring war on Germany and the United States into declaring its neutrality in the conflict.

In 1916, Liberia, once the destination of freed American slaves, declared war on Germany.

In 1920, the American journalist Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Kentucky. A strong-willed questioner, Thomas made a path for other women to follow in her chosen profession.

In 1961, American President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 1964, three civil rights workers and voter registration activists were found dead in Mississippi. They had disappeared on June 21, 1964, abducted by a local police officer and subsequently murdered by a Ku Klux Klan death squad. Outrage over these murders contributed into the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964).

In 1964, North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fired on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another incident in the Tonkin Gulf was supposed to have occurred on August 2, 1964. Together, these 'attacks" motivated the United States Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Southeast Asia Resolution, P.L. 88-408). The Resolution was an enabling act which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to use American troops to contest Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. This troop usage did not require Congress to pass a Declaration of War. The American government's abuse of this delegated authority under Presidents Johnson and Nixon led to the passage of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548).

In 1969, Henry Kissinger of the United States and Xuân Thuỷ of North Vietnam began their secret negotiations over the Vietnam War in Paris, France.

In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded the Fairness Doctrine that required radio and television stations to present controversial issues to the public and to make the presentation in a judicious manner. The doctrine was introduced in 1949.

In 2007, Raul Hilberg, the Austrian-born American political scientist and historian of the Holocaust, died in Williston, Vermont.