The American Revolution did not end with the Treaty of Paris. The forces of counter-revolution sprung up immediately: and we continue to fight that counter-revolution today.
Sam Adams was the integral link between the jurists and philosophers behind the Revolution and the common man who knew instinctively he was getting screwed.
Among his top lieutenants in the Sons of Liberty in Boston was Paul Revere.
Was Paul Revere, in fact, Bob Hope? Look at these pictures and then you decide. That the answer is "yes".
I happen to think that it is the control of newspapers by fewer and fewer hands that has corrupted American journalism--in the "good old days" of the fourth estate, back when every city and town had a handful of competing newspapers, there were still plenty hack, pulp and sensationalist journalists printing lies and holding hands with power.
The difference was you could just ignore those papers and pick up the ones that seemed to offer something closer to balance; now that isn't so much an option.
The handwringing over the so-called "Mainstream Media" is just a modern iteration of a very old problem with the press--see also James Callender--the difference now being that it isn't chaos and competition causing the problem, but rigid control and monopoly.
From Perrin:
I wonder if the Newseum celebrates the alternative press? Shows how Gary Webb was sold out and destroyed by the San Jose Mercury News over his contra/cocaine series? Illustrates the corporate centralization and cheapening of what remains of the news media? Features tributes to press critics like I.F. Stone and George Seldes?
How about a Hall of Selective Editing, like when Pol Pot died, mention of U.S. diplomatic support for the exiled Khmer Rouge was airbrushed from the moralizing obits? Or the continual omission and downplaying of the U.S. role in the Timorese genocide?
Maybe a Freedom Through Unity exhibit, where in the build-up to the 1986 Congressional vote to aid the Nicaraguan contras, both the Times and the Washington Post published a combined 85 op-eds that were nearly 100% anti-Sandinista. Or one of my favorites, the Times headline after the Sandinistas were defeated at the polls in 1990: "Americans United In Joy." Yes, I remember the massive, spontaneous public celebrations that clogged American streets back then. The Times, as always, accurately captured the mood of the moment.
Huge hat tip to Chicago Tribune boy columnist Eric Zorn (he's not actually a boy columnist, but he looks so young), who reported on the story of state Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) and her abuse of atheist activist Rob Sherman, who was testifying against Governor Blagojevich's $1m appropriation for the Pilgrim Baptist Church.
The story has picked up a little steam because of Rep. Davis' unbelievable conduct, attacking Sherman for his beliefs in a public chamber:
Davis: I don't know what you have against God, but some of us don't have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it's really a tragedy -- it's tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don't see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I'm trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.... What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it's dangerous--
Sherman: What's dangerous, ma'am?
Davis: It's dangerous to the progression of this state. And it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you'll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I'm sure that if this matter does go to court---
Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
While I understand Rep. Davis' frustration that this issue has gotten attention, while CPS students are killed left and right, that doesn't make it acceptable for an elected representative of the people of a secular republic to essentially attack a citizen's right to testify before a government body because of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
This is outrageous. Faith, whether it is religious or political (and I think the political kind is more pernicious, actually), is something supremely personal. It has everything to do with the individual and their state of mind and feelings, and nothing to do with reality. Simply believing something doesn't make it true, and not knowing whether it is true, you cannot fault another for not believing. "True for you" just means "I choose, more or less arbitrarily, to believe it". It doesn't actually mean anything is true.
That is why it causes such strong reaction. People become frustrated and angry when other people question or deny an article of faith, because it is so personal that it can only be taken as a personal attack. Even the most serene and affable among the faithful can be nudged into rage by deniers who simply refuse to accept something is true simply because somebody else believes it.
When Christopher Hitchens says, "Religion Poisons Everything" it sounds like hyperbole, but his point is one worth considering, namely, that "religiosity", whether it has to do with a God or Gods, or whether it has to do with "socially constructed realities", pushes people to act irrationally and therefore dangerously; it encourages disagreement and "in-group versus out-group" behavior.
Rep. Davis should apologize for this, and failing that, should be censured.
The framework of the quote "The American People Aren't Stupid" has been replayed continuously throughout every election cycle, possibly since the inception of "American People." The only polemic to this claim would be 20/20's John Stosell, who has proven on many occasions that he may be right-considering he is a member of the "American People" group.
The only people making reference to the claim that "Americans are Stupid" are the candidates attempting to "refute" the claim. Instead of weighing the virtues of one set of policy positions over others, the claim is made that "what I'm saying is common sense, what they are saying is actually insulting to you." This claim itself implies that the American people are stupid, because they could not come to their own conclusions after being presented with the issues. The "Boisterous Sea of Liberty" quote Ramsin quoted explains one reason why voters do not take actual policy positions into account when making their voting preferences. It's not a matter of stupidity; it's a matter of timidity.
I thought about the timid men to which Jefferson was referring. Why were they timid, when in times when so much was at stake? This brought me to the following quote from Immanuel Kant:
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance, nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians.
My concept of cowardice may not be completely in-line with that of Kant's. I interpret this kind of cowardice as being fear of accountability. When a voter invests time and energy into deciding for whom to vote, he takes some ownership in the candidate. It takes courage to say, "I came to the conclusion that Candidate X would do the best job." There is the chance that Candidate X will win and send our country into a spiraling abyss of debt and chaos. This makes the voter accountable. His intelligence and judgment can be scrutinized. That is why many voters pool their risk, much like an insurance company pools medical risks. They will vote according to the way the media purports the group they belong to will vote. This makes the choice a much less risky endeavor. This can be a dangerous way to vote when a narrative is written by strategists at consultants, with the media as their proxy.
Voters are often painted a picture by the media that a certain group (e.g. race) is supporting a certain candidate. They come to these conclusions with polls and reports that tend to tell one story. The raw data is rarely shared with the public, allowing the media to be the guardians to whom Kant referred. Early-Bird exit polling exacerbates the problem. Early in the Election Day, when only a small sample size can be extracted, it is often concluded by a news source that a certain candidate is getting the Black, Woman or gay vote, etc. This allows the timid voter time to figure out where his risk pool is located and readies himself to dive in.
When Voter X is explained that members of his group are voting for candidate Y, it becomes a less risky endeavor to vote for candidate Y. If candidate Y were to lose, Voter X can make the claim that it was because his group is disenfranchised. If Candidate Y wins and forces the country in a recession, the Voter does not have to blame his or her own lack of foresight, intelligence, or judgment. He "wasn't the only one to vote for Candidate Y." If Candidate Y wins and is heralded as the greatest president of all time, it empowers the group, makes Voter X proud to be a part of such a great system and everyone wins!
Cowardice and laziness are safe. The dark ages were a time when cowardice and laziness ran rampant. These qualities took a backburner during any time of positive change (seriously look it up-no revolution began from "deciding with your gut.")
Let's welcome in a new age of thought, questioning, and courage. The waters will be rough, and without guardians we will be accepting great risk, but in the end the tumultuous waters will lead us to a new era.
David Sirota makes the case that the resurgence in nationalism embodied in Lou Dobbs' creepy nativism and anti-free trade rhetoric is, in fact, a good thing, because it opens the door to the economic populism that the Left has been unable to push into the mainstream for at least a generation.
I don't know if I quite buy the argument--the problem with free trade is not that the fact that it exports our manufacturing jobs, but that it does so because of an international "race to the bottom" for wages. Free and open trade between nations is good for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it moves ideas and resources into closed societies, and also decreases the likelihood of war.
Talking about free trade as bad because it takes away manufacturing jobs is the wrong way to understand it, although Sirota is right that it might be our best bet right now. We need an international labor standards regime, just as we need an international environmental standards regime.
In other words, the World Trade Organization is a good think only if it exists along side a World Labor Organization and a World Environment Organization.
The nativism that Dobbs uses to make his case is also baldly harmful. We cannot hope to be a nation that supports Enlightenment ideals of equality by birthright, democracy as a principle, meritocracy,and reason over superstition if we are, at the same time, treating people of other nations as "unworthy" of good ol' American jobs.
One of my favorite Thomas Jefferson (I call him "TJ") quotes:
"Timid men...prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty."
The problem is not the continued primary process. People voting is never a bad thing--the voting is the thing. Democracy is the thing. Civic participation is the thing--that's the "boisterous sea of liberty". It is often unpleasant and nerve-wracking, but that means its working.
The problem is the tenor--the way the corporate media and campaigns that model themselves after marketing efforts--has gut the process of debate and left behind it hollering.
If the candidates start debating instead of arguing, let this go on and on and on. That's the boisterous sea of liberty.
According to former Speaker of the House and thorn in Uncle Ronnie's side, Tip O'Neil "All Politics Is Local."
This is an adage to which I've always adhered. I research state and local candidates, vote in every election, no matter how small. I've canvassed for people I like and I even throw few pennies here and there when necessary.
In Chicago, one opportunity for civic engagement open to all city residents is the eligibility to run for Local School Council.
After the Chicago School Reform Act was passed in 1988, the CPS relegatesd local control of schools to the "Local School Councils." These were deliberative bodies that were elected at each public school. The power of these councils was whittled down in 1995 after the school board was replaced with five trustees and a CEO, appointed by the Mayor.
According to the Chicago Public Schools website, the duties of the Local School Councils are:
to select the school´s principal, renew the principal's contract, develop the School Improvement Plan for Advancing Academic Achievement (SIPAAA) and developing the school´s budget for the school year.
Each council is composed of the Principal (do you see a conflict of interest?),six parent representatives, two community representatives, two teacher representatives, and one student representative. The student is not allowed to vote on important matters such as principal selection. I suppose that would be too much democracy in the classroom.
Four years ago, I ran for the Local School Council teacher representative at the school where I was teaching on Chicago's south side. I lost by a narrow margin, but the process made me feel like I was part of something so much bigger than I was as a second-year high school teacher. Had I won, I would have had a certain level of voice in the school's budget. I would have had a voice in the policies of an institution that was responsible for the education of 1000 students, around one-hundred teachers, and a cohort of dedicated staff members. Forty of my peers felt that I was worthy of that duty. For a young man not far removed from the ramen-and-kegs lifestyle, I felt like I had arrived.
This one site was a part of a district that employed 30,000 teachers, and educated the majority of school-age children in the third largest school district in the nation. I would still be a small drop in an immense ocean of bureaucracy, but I would be a drop that yielded a few more ripples than the rest. Although I lost, this was democracy in action and it made me proud to be a part of the system.
I continued to teach and learn and do everything in my power to give voice to the students and teachers who were often crushed under the feet of tyrannical administrators. Granted, the volume of my voice increased AFTER I had received tenure, but we all have a mortgage to pay.
This year's elections are just around the corner. They are on April 16th. I made sure to put my application for nomination is as soon as I could.
My school scheduled an open forum for all candidates to stump for themselves. A flyer was given to every student to take home to their parents telling them in no uncertain terms that this would be an opportunity for them to see the candidates in action. I made a point of telling all of my students to tell their parents to attend.
At today's forum, the principal spoke, community representatives spoke, parent representatives spoke, and the student representatives had an opportunity to introduce themselves as well. There was one category missing.
At my school, the two teacher seats have been held down by incumbents who are firmly in the principals pocket. One of whom is, according to one source, a poker buddy.
I was the challenger. I was the one person who, if successful, would unseat the power structure that has been ingrained in the school long before me. No one likes to see their precious power structure dismantled. Ergo, I was not allowed to speak.
I brought this to the attention of the council and I was hushed and shooed away; they needed to take care of matters in the closed part of the meeting. I was told that there would be another opportunity for me to present myself at another time, to be determined. When and where, they didn't know, no one knew. It was "tabled."
The elections are in two weeks.
This is what we are teaching are students. Things are the way they are and if you challenge the status quo, you are a joke. It killed me that our student representative had to see this.
She was a former debater of mine when I was the coach of the team. I taught her how substance of argument should always trump style and sleek maneuvering. I taught her to believe in the democratic ideals of the American experiment.
She's a senior now and will be leaving for college in a few months. I was hoping to send her out into the real world with the idea that following the rules, and engaging yourself in civic matters could actually enact the change she saw possible in the world. She mentioned studying law and fighting the good fight.
Today, it sickens me to think that she sees the world for what it truly is. I hope she ventures on and continues to fight the good fight, even if her old coach had been cheated.
If you are a teacher or parent, please vote in the elections. Find out as much as you can about these candidates and vote with your mind, and never with your gut.
The Obama Presidency approaches. Senator Clinton's admirably pugnacious effort to win the nomination has milked the opposition of the succor that would have nourished their autumn offensive. Republicans and conservatives may be adopting an aloof posture, as though the heated competition for the nomination is helping them, but it is not. Senator Obama's few "issues" have been discussed, dissected, and deliberated ad infinitum.
He will win the nomination, after a heated primary (as FDR did in 1932); he will win the Presidency in a surprising blowout (as FDR did in 1932); but FDR instituted the New Deal not because he had planned for it, but to capitalize on electoral success and address growing class rage.
If President Obama feels no pressure to push the country leftward, he will have no incentive to do so, because moving to the Left is by definition the riskiest thing a modern American politician can do: it activates the forces of organized money and unifies the geographically and ideologically disparate forces of conservatism.
This is a call to those progressive and left on-line ("netroots") community members who understand that the cause of "electing Democrats" is meaningless without universal principles by which we judge candidates. By universal principles, we cannot mean issue positions--this should be obvious, given the candidates' own admissions that they are quite similar on "the issues." By universal principles, we have to mean the elemental beliefs that define the American Left. I propose the following:
1. Absolute equality, as a birthright.
2. Democracy as a principle.
3. Publicly-controlled institutions that protect meritocracy.
4. Reason over superstition.
5. Devolution of power to the greatest number of citizens feasible.
If these principles seem familiar, its because they are the principles of the American Revolution. At the time of the Revolution, there was a political spectrum, just as there is today. And on that spectrum, at the far right were monarchists and theocrats. Those who believed in reality of social estates, who feared democracy as a form of tyranny, who saw meritocracy as fundamentally dysfunctional due to the assumption of "better" and "lesser" people, the necessity of faith for morality, and the need for power to rest with those "betters". As you moved left along the spectrum, from that right-most point, you found thinkers such as Edmund Burke, John Dickinson, eventually John Adams, and then Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and the French revolutionaries. It is not insignificant that the entire concept of the political Left comes from the French Revolution.
Jefferson, Paine, and Madison were the Leftists of their day; as the realities of political society have shifted, so have positions on issues; but the principles of the Left have not. As public servants, Jefferson and Madison did not achieve some kind of democratic paradise, but this is more due to the realities of the world they lived than to some abandonment of principles. The point is that there is a sort of "natural Left" set of principles to draw on, as opposed to focusing on contemporary issues and political exegeses.
I have my doubts about an Obama Presidency (though certainly not as deep as my doubts about a Clinton presidency), but I also have some hope that, through a combination of work and luck, we could end up with a presidency that could potentially set the stage for a real leftward shift (which is in fact a return to core American principles). Senator Obama has shown a tendency to conflate centrism with pragmatism, when in fact these are not synonymous.
Adopting the centrist position (for example on employment law) assumes that a "synthesis" or compromise between the conservative and left position will be either (a) more palatable to specific, powerful special interests or (b) more popular with more people. While this is probably the case a lot of times (Democrats want same-sex language in EEO laws; Republican Minority leader wants no additions to EEO laws; you go with putting same-sex language in government hiring practices) it is not the only option, just the easier option. There is always the chance that an entirely new solution to the problem in question (go after at-will employment laws!) will be more broadly appealing publicly.
The job, therefore, of activists on the left, is not to become attack dogs for the Obama Presidency, rationalizing away moves to the center. Our job is to leverage organizational relationships with legislators to push uniquely left positions, and condition support of the Presidential agenda on adoption of left (as opposed to centrist or traditionally "liberal") positions.
The Democratic Party will be put under operational control of the White House. This is the tradition--the President appoints a new DNC Chairman, and the mechanics of the party, for the most part, flow through the White House.
But, if the Democratic sweep is as deep and convulsive as many here and elsewhere seem to think it could be (particularly given the potential for long Obama coattails) then there is absolutely room for factions within our legislative bloc. This by necessity means both empowering the White House to carry out an agenda, and offering stiff resistance to impulses to protect the Presidency by compromising principles.
If we truly believe that our principles are deeply American and that, given a real contrast and powerful arguments, our principles will be broadly popular, we cannot fall back on the easier (and safer) impulse to compromise down.
Given the relative weakness of Republicans--much less actual conservatives--in Congress if Senator Obama wins by the huge margins I suspect he will, by simply being a vocal opposition we change the conversation to be between progressive and left, as opposed to moderate liberal and conservative.
We should not forget the profound ability of the Presidency to set the national agenda and the national conversation. President Obama would have the ability to, essentially, completely change the political principles and policies we pursue as a nation. If the President is constructively sparring with a more left opposition, the national conversation will move to the left.
I'm reminded of the line from the Manchurian Candidate--
Who are they writing about all over this country and what are they saying? "Are there any Communists in the Defense Department?" Of course not. They're saying "How many Communists are there?" So stop talking like an expert all of a sudden and get out there and say what you're supposed to say!
The fact of the matter is, the netroots, and in particular the left netroots, while increasingly influential, is still a very, very small part of the national party apparatuses, and these apparatuses for very good reasons will come under the control of the political arm of the White House. The White House will not need us, in other words. While this doesn't mean we shouldn't defend a Democratic President against scurrilous attacks or when we feel that President is acting for the good, it does mean we should not simply offer ourselves up as acolytes purely on the basis of a shared party identification.
Those five principles listed above are served by policies. Publicly-controlled institutions that protect meritocracy means a progressive as opposed to a regressive tax system, which prevents resources from accruing; it means a universally funded public education system, as opposed to a bogus "free market" approach that essentially expects some schools to fail; it means protecting collective bargaining to allow workers to negotiate their compensation, rather than have it dictated. Democracy as a principle means always erring on the side of more voters and higher voter frequency; it means encouraging employee input into employment; it means limiting cash in politics, because speech allocated by income is a definition of plutocracy, not democracy.
One area we will face a huge challenge is the power of the executive in our republic. Every President since Kennedy has accrued power to the executive at the expense of the legislative while turning the judiciary into a sort of "client state". No President, once in office, has deigned to devolve power back to the legislature. While I regard Senator Obama's integrity very highly, we'd be saying something extraordinary about him to say he will willingly devolve power from his office.
But, that needs to happen. If we think the Senate's cloture rule is a block to fundamental change--I mean, the Presidency is one person. It is already by its nature a profoundly powerful position, without usurping the roles of the other two branches. If we want fundamental change, we need to re-empower the people's assembly--and in particular, the "people's chamber," the House.
Just because we'll have "our guy" in the Presidency, doesn't mean we want to defend any actions that accrue more power to that branch; in fact, we should be urging that branch to devolve power back to the Senate and House. If we don't stand up to executive power accrual when our guy is in there, our position becomes untenable when their guy gets in.
This was essentially what happened with Bush II: his administration took the Clinton power grabs and shot them up with some 'roids. The failure of Democrats to resist Clinton effectively (or loudly) made it difficult to oppose Bush (particularly after 9/11) on principle.
I do not mean to assume that a President Obama would seek to seize inappropriate power, only that we also shouldn't expect his administration to start "disarming" themselves. And if there are emergencies or hostilities, we can't simply make excuses for power grabs. We have to resist on principle.
There will be a strong impulse to simply defend a Democratic president, but I cannot emphasize enough the long- and even-medium term damage to the Party (not to mention the Left movement). Bush II provides another analogy: it was movement conservatives that squashed McCain and thugged him into the Presidency, and it was movement conservatives who, almost off the bat, got purged by the neoconservatives who had masterminded the thing. Republicans activists chose to defend Bush anyway, despite his massive deficit spending, adding to the education bureaucracy, pork-heavy cronyism, and foreign adventurism. They accepted degrading privacy rights--stuff that had formed the core of the activist, NRA, UN black helicopters right. They found themselves doing all this because they rationalized that having power took precedence over principle, because without power you can do nothing.
It may have worked (kind of) in the immediate short term, but here it is less than a decade later and their entire party is under threat of utter collapse, pushed out of almost every region, isolated in low-population strongholds in the Rocky west and the old Confederacy.
And what long-term conservatives goals did they accomplish?
None. The federal bureaucracy is no smaller; it's just broke. Taxes are modestly lower, but people are clamoring for them to go up on the rich. The government has more power to confiscate your land, listen to your phone calls, arrest you without charges. We are engaged in intense "nation building" in not one hostile nation, but two.
They wreaked plenty of havoc and did plenty of damage, but they affected no fundamental change at all, much less some conservative revolution.
No; it has been the decades--now, generations!--of work done by principled conservative activists (backed, of course, by organized money) to take every opportunity to nudge the nation to the right. That movement has gotten America where it is today, not the unprincipled partisans. There will always be the unprincipled partisans--but this is a call to consider a more principled path or, at least, to start a conversation, at least.
Never forget there was a time when Wall Street was universally loathed, and John L. Lewis called the captains of industry and the President of the United States, and dictated how the coal industry would operate.
The hardcore conservatives must have looked up at that kind of power and trembled.
Power has power. That's enough for them. If you're a movement, your job is to challenge power. Always.
