Many people I know say that the best way to diffuse Glenn Beck is to simply ignore him and not give credit to any of the things he says, but like a car accident or any other public spectacle, I find it hard to look away. I find myself watching him with a drop jawed awe, the same way I would look at a clown or public drunk.
It wasn’t until tonight however that I realized what a great actor he really is. I sat in my kitchen and actually watched the entire forty-four minute interview he gave did Katie Couric. Throughout the interview I was waiting to throw up my hands and scream profanities at my screen, but what I saw was not the buffoon who normally stirs the pot on Fox, but a somewhat level headed man simply expressing his opinions, many opinions with which I strongly disagreed, but some that I actually agreed with him on. His stance on gay marriage was refreshing for a Mormon, and I have been ranting about the corporatization of American politics for as long as I have been political.
What has left me thinking long after the interview is not how unsettling it was that I found Glenn Beck sane, but what has really got me thinking is why is this not the man on his show? If he is truly concerned about being a voice for “tired little guys” than why does he choose to play the part of the crying bumbling idiot? Why is he making fun of Rachael Carson and trying to bring back DDT?
I feel the answer is more complicated that I want to delve into right now, but it has a lot to do with the manipulation of the “tired little guy” by the very forces Beck derides. This chameleon and his Oscar-worthy performance is simply a tool to sway the opinions of people who have no history or experience expressing their own. This is dangerous. If Beck was an independent spokesperson visiting small towns and talking to people about their lives and their ideas he would be far more effective, but instead he chooses to polarize and radicalize an anger he himself promulgates. In the interview he compares himself to John Stewart and admits he is no journalist, but what he fails to admit is that John Stewart is making fun of the very media machine Beck uses to spout his rhetoric.
I encourage you to watch this interview in its entirety, because Glen Beck is not a jester who can be ignored. He is a much more subversive, dangerous arm of the corporate propaganda machine. A machine that can steer hearts and minds regardless of which party it has placed in power.
Beck is slowly stealing the revolutionary zeal of the true left wing and wrapping it in his own version of reality. The anger he is tapping into is the same anger that could be used to instigate real change in America. The difference is that by denouncing big government and championing the idea of “the little guy” he is reinforcing power of the very corporate entities he says have taken over government. Beck is the tool corporate America is using to radicalize the “little guy” to dismantle the last vestige of the very concept of government.
The difference however between his revolutionary rhetoric and the real thing, is that true progressives are fighting to give the power of government back to the hands of the people. What progressives repeatedly fail to understand is that we should be speaking with the very people that Glenn Beck is speaking to. They are not a mob of ignorant savants. They are a very important American demographic. They are the very people who have been used by corporate America to create the very corporate state they find themselves so dissatisfied with. While Glen Beck tells them that they should dismantle government and place their bets on whatever comes next, we should be telling them to dismantle corporate government and rebuild it on the assumption that they can be the government. We the people can and should govern ourselves. There should be no such thing as big bad Washington, but rather Americans governing themselves based on their own best interests.
Glenn Beck is stealing our independent third party revolution and handing it over to the people who run Fox news, and as convoluted as it seems these are the same people who are in Washington. It takes a certain type of chameleon actor to pull something like this off, and Glenn Beck is just that man.
Glenn Beck demands much more of our attention not less of it. See for your self:
This post has been a while coming, but unfortunately no matter how long I wait, it refuses to take shape. It was meant to start as a review of the book Political Mind by George Lakoff, but then I wanted to comment on the recent rightwing hysteria over health care and Obama’s speech to school children, and finally I have been a bit obsessed with the charlatan quack playing a newsman on Fox, Glenn Beck.
The good part is that all these topics are related, but the difficult part is tying these three ides together without rambling and losing track of my points. In the spirit of getting started let’s begin with Lakoff:
The political divide in America is not just a material divide. Nor is it just a religious divide. Nor is it just a matter if who controls what power. The divide is located in our brains- in the ways Americans understand the world. There we find two competing modes of thought that lead to contradictory ways of governing our country, one fundamentally democratic and one fundamentally anti-democratic.
I find the simplicity of this paragraph comforting and a great place to start, because for years I have been struggling with what I perceived to be conservative ignorance and cruelty. I often found myself thinking that all human beings must have an intrinsic need for peace and community. I felt that deep down beyond politics we are all empathetic creatures who have the interests of others at heart, but what this paragraph and Lakoff’s thesis have clarified for me, is that this shared view of reality is not the case.
However simplistic it may be, Lakoff’s description of the two opposing modes of thought shed light on one simple fact:
The brain is not neutral; it is not a general-purpose device. It comes with a structure, and our understanding of the world is limited to what our brain can make sense of. Some of our thought is literal-framing experiences directly. But much of it is metaphoric and symbolic, structuring our experiences indirectly but no less powerfully. Some of our mechanisms of understanding are the same around the world. But many our not, not even in our own county and culture.
Our brains and minds work to impose specific understanding on reality, and coming to grips with that can be scary, that not everyone understands reality the same way.
I have always had a hard time understanding conservative thought because I was viewing their way of thinking strictly through my own lens of reality. Because conservative thought, is for the most part, the mirror opposite of my beliefs I have always found it difficult engaging conservatives. In short, I guess I never understood how anyone could think like that.
What Lakoff has done, in essence, is shown that the differences between the modes of thought are not simply variations or different degrees of the basic understandings of concepts like freedom, democracy, morality, America, but that they differ in fundamental ways. Simply put Progressives and Conservatives experience reality in fundamentally different ways, and this divide is what we are dealing with in the US today. These rudimentary differences are why parents will panic and keep their kids home from school, when the democratically elected president of the country they claim to love wants to speak to their children to share what basically ended up being a conservative message.
Before I continue let’s take a look at some of the basic claims Lakoff makes about the two ideologies:
Behind every progressive policy lies the single moral value: empathy, together with the responsibility and strength to act on that empathy.
The ethics of care shapes government. Care requires that government have two intertwined roles: protection and empowerment. Protection is more than just army, police, and fire department. It mean social security, disease control, and public health, safe food, disaster relief, health care, consume and worker protection and environmental protection.
The role of progressive government is to maximize our freedom-and protection and empowerment does just that. Protection is there to guarantee freedom from harm, from want, and from fear. Empowerment is there to maximize freedom to achieve your goals.
The conservative thought, however, as we shall see, differs greatly:
…it has a very different moral basis than progressive thought. It begins with the notion that morality is obedience to authority-assumed to be a legitimate authority who is inherently good, know right from wrong functions to protect us from evil, and has both the right and duty to use force to command obedience and fight evil. He is the “decider” Obedience to legitimate authority requires both personal responsibility and discipline, which are prime conservatives virtues. Obedience is enforced through punishment. As long as you follow the rules laid down for you, you are free to act within that order.
As the president of the Mormon church says: Obedience leads to true freedom. The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated. Not to be outdone here is Rudy Giuliani: Freedom is about authority.
Lakoff:
In conservative thought, people are born bad-greedy and unscrupulous. To maximize their self-interest, they need to learn discipline, to follow rules and obey laws, and to seek wealth rationally. The market imposes discipline. It works rationally by rules and laws, and requires disciplined rational thinking. It rewards those who acquire such discipline and punishes those who do not. The market, from this perceptive, is fair and moral.
After reading these two descriptions I began to understand why I have had such a hard time relating to or even understanding conservative ideology. I do not see morality as tied to discipline or authority, but I believe the exact opposite to be true; I see morality as our ability to feel and act on our natural empathetic tendencies. I want my government to empower and protect all of its citizens. I do not want it to disappear and allow people to follow their self-interests at any costs.
This vastly differing view of morality is why the Bush years were so difficult for me to understand. The 9-11 era and subsequent conservative hijacking of American political thought was built on the foundations of, what may appear Orwellian double speak to progressives, conservative thoughts like this: Freedom is about authority.
But how have conservatives been so successful at shaping how Americans think? How are they able to force people to act in ways that are detrimental to their own good?
Lakoff claims that our brains are actually hard wired to think bi-conceptually, understand and use both progressive and conservative thinking modes, but that when we use one more than the other our synapses tighten and build stronger connections with one view overpowering the other.
Everyone thinks in both ways, but we tend to gravitate toward one or the other after our brains build bonds to one more than the other. He goes on to say that our bonds begin and grow from frames and metaphors, and one of the main metaphors that we project on our political though is the frame of family.
He outlines two models: The Strict Father Model and the Nurturing Parent. I will let him explain what he means here:
Lakoff reminds us:
The point is simple. Metaphorical though is natural. We have a Nation as Family metaphor. We have two very different idealized models of the family, which are mapped by the metaphor onto two very different views of the nation. Our modes of moral and political thought are taken from these models.
Our democracy is presently being threatened by the politics of obedience to authority the very things that democracy was invented to counteract.
I would recommend that you read this section of the book for a more comprehensive look at these ideas.
In short, the Strict Father model believes that:
Competition is crucial. It builds discipline. Without competition, without the desire to win, no one would have the incentive to be disciplined, and morality would suffer, as well as prosperity. Not everyone can win in a competition, only the most disciplined people, who are also the most morally worthy. Winning is thus a sign of being deserving, of being a good person.
And the Nurturant Parent Model believes that:
Nurturance is empathy, responsibility for oneself and others, and the strength to carry out those responsibilities….The job of parents is protection and empowerment of their children, and a dedication to community life, where people care bout and take care of each other.
I am finally starting to understand why I find conservatives thinking so cruel. The way they view reality is completely different from me. Perhaps, because I grew up in a Nurturing Parent model, or maybe because I never want my own family to follow the Strict Father model, I expect my government to empower and protect me. I want my government to allow its citizens the ability to cooperate not compete. I do not see morality as tied to authority and discipline, but rather tied to freedom and community!
Every time I try to engage conservatives in political discourse, I end up throwing my hands in the air in frustration. After reading this book I starting to understand why:
You can’t get away from contested concepts. There will always be disagreement about the meanings of our most important moral and political ideas.
So what do we do? Are we doomed to accept that half our country will always think in diametrically opposed ways as us?
We cannot negate frames. We cannot continue to argue with conservatives using their frames. We must restructure our arguments to fit our world view.
We can:
Use progressive language, ideas, images, and symbols repeatedly to activate the progressive worldview in people who have both worldviews so that the progressive mode of thought is strengthened and the conservative mode weakened.
If you think this is somehow sinister or back handed, just remember that this is what conservatives have done in every aspect of American life since the Reagan era. It is time we reframe the debate!
A New Enlightenment comes with a new consciousness, a basic stance toward each other and the world. It requires the realization that empathy and responsibility are at the heart of the moral vision on which our democracy is based, and understanding of real reason, and a comprehension of systematic causation: of our connection to the natural world and to each other. It also demands that we cultivate empathy, responsibility, self-reflection, and a sense of connection, together with a full life based on them. As a consequence, it is an ecological consciousness in the broadest sense: empathy and systematic causation focus in our connections to each other, to all living things to the communities and institutions in which we find fulfillment and to the natural world that permits and sustains life.
We must begin to project progressive values based on empathy and interdependence rather than defend them against conservatives values based on discipline and punishment. We have entered the age of community over individual. Now all we have to do is remind the members of our communities of this fact.
This will become more and more important since:
Our lives are being governed more and more by private corporations.
The primary mission of corporations is to maximize profits of their stockholders and executives not to carry out the moral mission of protecting and empowering citizens.
This is okay if you think conservatively and believe that citizens must be able to take care of themselves because they are afraid and disciplined, but as progressives we believe that our government should be there to protect us from institutions that:
Are accountable to their stockholders and not the public. It is inevitable that when conflicts between public good and corporate profits arise, the public good suffers. Privateering is a means of transferring wealth from ordinary taxpayers to wealthy investors, making the wealthy much wealthier, while robbing ordinary people of security and opportunity that government should provide.
Well I didn’t get to Obama or Glenn Beck, but if you have made it this far, I hope you will come back and read more soon. Before you do, however, please leave some thoughts in the comment section.
The article, It's Not Going To Be Okay, by Chris Hedges is not saying any thing new, but it is saying it well. I suggest you read the article in full, but for those of you who are attention span deficient, here is a recap:
... the corporate state has successfully blocked any real debate about alternative forms of power. Corporations determine who gets heard and who does not, he said. And those who critique corporate power are given no place in the national dialogue.
They have to begin structural changes that involve a very different approach from a market economy. I don't think this will happen."
The American left, he said, has crumbled. It sold out to a bankrupt Democratic Party, abandoned the working class and has no ability to organize. Unions are a spent force. The universities are mills for corporate employees. The press churns out info-entertainment or fatuous pundits. The left, he said, no longer has the capacity to be a counterweight to the corporate state. He said that if an extreme right gains momentum there will probably be very little organized resistance.
While you're at it, you might as well read Buying Brand Obama by Hedges as well:
President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how they can make you feel.
A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion
So what's next? Where do we go? How do we start to make meaningful change on a large scale. I know that we start with ourselves and all that, but it looks like we may need more. Ideas? Thoughts?
A Kenyan boy screams as he sees Kenyan policeman with a baton approach the door of his home in the Kibera slum of Nairobi 17 January 2008. Hundreds of police who had earlier clashed with supporters of Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga at the entrance of the slum moved into the shantytown and did a house to house search for protesters.
You first need to believe that the world around you is not “given” once and for all, that it can be changed, and that you yourself can be changed while applying yourself to the job of changing it. You must assume that the state of the world could be different than it is now, and that how different it may eventually become depends on what you do, that no less than the state of the world- past, present, and future- may depend on what you do or desist from doing. In other words: you believe that you are, simultaneously, an artist able to create and shape things, and the product of such creation and shaping.
In an effort to focus on the positive aspects of life and refrain from brooding on the demise and fall of mankind, I have chosen to showcase the beauty and power of the human spirit, rather than focus on our most base and ugly features.
I have chosen not to write a post about the disgusting scene at the Long Island Wal-Mart this past Friday. We have a long way to go to move people away from an angry mob possessed by their consumption, to creating and fostering imaginations capable of this:
Albtraum has been taking it to the hoop pretty strongly lately through his comments. I have been letting it go , because I know he is a very intelligent guy whom I respect greatly as a thinker and as a friend, but his last comment was a foul, and I need to call him on it.
“Since the day a caveman discovered fire and immediately started charging his friends mammoth meat and sexual favors if they wanted some, every human system has been based on certain people profiting far more than others, for various reasons and through various methods. There never has been and never will be a human society that is not based on profit.”
I will try to keep this brief and not get caught up in socialist jargon. There is no doubt that human beings desire profits and most of us are greedy and operate mostly through self-interest and self- preservation. The animal in us has needs. Our biological, evolutionary need to survive often trumps any weighty spiritual or political ideologies.
I am here to argue, however, there is a difference between a healthy system based on profits or compensation and exploitation. Every one deserves to be paid for services or products rendered, but what I think many people fail to see is that capitalism is based on exploitation. It is a system based on one class, the capitalists exploiting the laboring class. Wealth is generated by the severity of this exploitation. Because this class is in control of not only the means of production and capital but also the media, the state, and all of the fundamental economic governing bodies like the IMF and World Bank, they have forced us all to believe that this current economic system based on a globalized, unregulated, privatized, free market is, not only the best choice, but our only remaining option.
Oops. I wasn't going to get into jargon. Listen, although I agree with much of Marxist philosophy, I am not here to promote a communist alternative. So please spare me the Mao, Stalin, fall of the wall rhetoric. I am only saying that a system, which depends on perpetual growth, cannot survive with a finite resource pool. The system we are immersed in today is only possible because of cheap fossil fuels. It generates wealth for a very small percentage of people, because it steals resources through privatization schemes after forcing nations into unmanageable debt, and when that doesn't work there is always war.
This is not a system based on honest profit, this is a system based on greed and injustice. It is this system that makes me uncomfortable and fills me with angst.
Another point worth examining is that we are viewing the world through the lens of capitalism. In order to maintain their hold on power and maximize their wealth, the capitalist class must maintain that theirs is the only viable system. Through media, through public schooling, through an attitude of a global culture based on profit and consumption, we are led to believe that our purpose here on earth to buy and sell commodities.
I hope that we are here for more than that. My last post was simply trying to find a way to move toward an alternative. I am not sure what that alternative will look like, but that is why I got into teaching. I hope that we can work with young people today and rethink everything we have been taught since the dawn of the industrial age. Hell maybe since the dawn of man.
A monopoly of ideology leads people to not even bother thinking that another system may be possible. John Molyeaux says it best:
… we have to remember that the human behavior we experience is behavior under capitalism and that capitalism massively conditions people towards selfishness. Of course the system preaches morality and altruism to children but look at how schools are actually organized: the children required to compete to come top of the class (or be punished for not trying), to pass exams, to gain entry to ‘good’ schools and top universities, to get the best jobs, and with any deviation from this self interested agenda subject to severe condemnation.
We need to be focusing on turning this entire thought system on its head.
I was asked in a comment to reflect on, my lack of participation in this election and my relationship with consumption before criticizing…
Here is my reflection: I live in a constant state of guilt and frustration, because I do not know how to live in this world. The world I envision and the one I live in are not the same. This disparity causes me much grief. Desires and consumption controls my life in such a way that I often feel powerless and lost. The things I say, the criticisms I make are not directed solely at some subservient public; they are most often directed at myself.
I am a consumer just as much as the people I chastise. I do not know how not to be a customer because I was bred to consume. Every aspect of my life, despite my parents’ strongest attempts to shield me, has been affected by a capitalist culture designed to make me a happy consumer. I assuming that the comment was made to make me think about my hypocrisy. I am not blind to this. I am a hypocrite and this fact causes me much suffering. I cannot stop being a hypocrite, because I do not know how.
Perhaps much of my angst and rage stem from the fact that I feel controlled and not in control of my own life. I do not feel free. Do not get me wrong; I do not take the physical freedom I have lightly. I know I am blessed to sleep every night in a beautiful home with everything I need to survive, an amazing little girl, and a great friend in my wife. Despite my blessings, I constantly feel like I am running in circles, and that I not only tolerate a rotten system that thrives on injustice, but that I am actively contributing to it.
I read my Zen books and understand the concept of starting with myself and taking it slow. But my awareness does not necessarily make it any easier.
The only way I see a way that I can become the person I want to be is to totally disconnect from the system and live off the grid. I am not brave enough to do this. Perhaps it is because I have a family and my choices are now not only mine. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I want to escape, or that my family is the only thing holding me back. I am not saying that at all. My family is the single most important thing in my life. My wife and my daughter sustain me. I am just saying that this sense of powerlessness may cause me to lash out.
It feels that the profit based-system has become so intrusive to our collective consciousness, that there is no escape. I feel like a prisoner to my own desires and needs. Perhaps this constraint and reduction of freedom is beyond politics and economics.
I am sure people will comments that say, we do what we can and try to work within the system, and I agree to an extent, but really then aren’t we are all hypocrites? I hate believing in and understanding revolutionary ideas, knowing my history, but still living the life of a reformer or worse a passive participant, or even worse, an active contributor to a system I can see is collapsing.
At the end of the day, I am just trying to learn how to find peace in a convoluted world. I may rant and rave, I may not participate in elections I don’t believe in, or I may have a dysfunctional relationship to consumerism; I am not denying any of that. I am just saying that I know no other way.
I did some serious soul-searching today as I sat and watched the election results pour into my computer . It all happened so fast and without fanfare. All the little red states suddenly turned blue, McCain gave a concession speech, Palin was returned to her rightful place of obscurity, and Barack Obama became the first African-American President of the Untied States of America and apparently our new messiah.
Even as I felt my enthusiasm grow, I couldn’t help but think back to Naomi Klein’s book No Logo, in which talks about how Wall Street hijacked youth culture in the nineties to sell their products, transforming the very concept of alterative into mainstream commerce. By branding counter-culture values like environmentalism, personal freedom, and youth culture, corporate American suddenly made consumerism cool. This was a major factor in the rise of globalization and the way multi-national corporations do business. One can’t help but see the parallels in this campaign.
Klein says of branding,
If they were going to turn lackluster products into transcendent meaning machines- as the dictates of branding demanded- they would need to remake themselves in the image of nineties cool: it’s music, styles, and politics.
This is what I feel the Democratic Party has done with Obama; they have created a brand based on our collective need for change. He is perfect in every way. The market research crew over at the DNC has done their job. They have created a brand that is hard to refuse.
Wikipedia says this about brands,
Some marketers distinguish the psychological aspect of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.
If we substitute Barack Obama with a product, I hope we can see that we are in the midst of a multi-million dollar brand experience. This symbolic construct has been created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with change.
I am not, however, writing this post to rehash my doubts. I am writing this post because despite my reservations, I want to admit that even I was swept up by the fact something in the air today feels different. Even if his promises of change and hope are a carefully crafted ruse, then at least this campaign and this president is moving our conversations to the left. This shift is no small feat, and deserves applause. The DNC is talking a gamble, by giving us what we clearly want, and it is up to us to make sure we collect.
A majority of people in America have at least awoken to the fact there is a political system in place, and it would behoove us to pay attention to what it is doing. I hope that now that these conversations have begun, we do not shelve the momentum until the next election.
I like to think of myself as an open-minded person, who is willing to concede when the need arises. My wife and people who know me well would argue that I am an obstinate stubborn, bully, but I am here to say that I have been listening to what people have been saying.
I read the comments from my last post:
whatever you think about obama- americans are changing. i hope that his words are backed with action- but at the very least, i know in my heart that a large number of americans believe in change. the change at the top matters less than the change at the bottom and for whatever reason- obama personifies that change for many, many people. i have hope- not that obama will save america- but that americans will save America
He's promising something that he *can't* provide. I know that sounds like splitting hairs, but the distinction is important to me because it subtly shifts responsibility. If Obama is choosing not to make change, then I could spend all my time standing around pointing fingers. But if he *can't*, then I'm forced to ask who can. And it turns out that the answer is "I can" and I don't have time for standing around pointing fingers, I've got some gardens to tend and some neighbors to bullshit with.
Obama HAS ALREADY BROUGHT MASSIVE, EARTH-SHAKING CHANGE just by being the first black president.
Actually, take a minute to picture President Nader, and what he'd accomplish. NOTHING. That guy'd get nothing done. Everyone would hate him. No one would follow him. He'd be the worst president in history. POLITICS IS ABOUT COMPROMISE.
It is that last line that really put me over the edge. I can appreciate that America is nowhere near ready for the truly progressive society I envision. The values that I cherish are still years away from entering mainstream conversations in American politics. I know that the battles I want to fight must be fought on a daily basis through: conversations, grassroots work, volunteering, work in our classrooms, and in every aspect of our lives. No candidate for any office will ever bring about true change. We as a nation must search our souls and slowly work together to move closer true change. We must not only examine our political leaders. We must re-evaluate our very culture and our economic systems.
This collective national transformation has nothing to do the whims and power of our two-party system. It has to do with the intensity with which we move forward at this time in our nation’s history. If anything Barack Obama, whether intentionally or not, has initiated this shift.
It is important to state the fact that, even if it is only surface-level, this change in the collective American consciousness is historic. The least I can say is that we are no longer focused on the ignorant ramblings of neo-conservatives and the religious right. At least for the moment they have been made irrelevant.
Rob Kall does a great job of putting things in perceptive when he says,
The religious right was put in its place yesterday. If the Republican party learned anything, it is that America is sick and tired of right wing extremism. I expect to see a strong rise in progressive and centrist religious leaders.
While they may roam the halls of power for years to come, on the surface, out in the open, we are finally allowed steer the conversations and demand more from our leaders. Whether they deliver or not is still up for debate, but at least on this day as the world is swept up by brand-Obama I want to let down my guard and say I am hopeful.
The journey to a truly just world will not come through the Democratic Party and Barack Obama, but without his opening of the door, the journey would have taken much longer to begin.
If the opening of this door is the only significant event of this election, then we have already made huge gains. If Bush claimed his 2004 was a mandate for the Republican Party, then this landslide is a mandate for progressive politics. Whether or not the Democratic Party will live up to these expectations will be determined in the next four years. I for one must be cynical, it is in my nature, and think they will wait for the momentum to dissipate and continue with business a usual, but that will be a huge mistake. For now, I too will wait and see.
If all of these people in the streets of America are truly ready for change, the maybe we are closer to a revolution than the DNC thinks. If the Democrats let us down, again, hopefully they will have something substantial to reckon with.
I am not sure if I have come out and said it, it is hard for me to make concrete statements but I am sure I have friends that will be overjoyed to hear me say:
Thank you Barack Obama for opening the door to a new era in American politics. I hope you can work your way out from under the weight of a system that has grown out of control and lead us to a more just and peaceful future. The hopes of a generation are on your back. Don’t let us down.
My last post has had me thinking, did I really advocate talking to Republicans and trying to understand where they are coming from? I think I did. In addition to my own deliberation, two people have left some comments that I would like to address here in a new post, rather than in the comment section. Before I do, let me try to condense my point into a more manageable thesis:
The battle lines that have been drawn in America should not be between red state vs. blue state, or liberal vs. conservative, religious vs. atheists, insert any volatile dichotomous pairing here. The battle should be based on class interests. The fight that we should be fighting is between us, the 99% of Americans who generate the wealth in this country- the people who fight the wars, bailout the CEOs, collect the trash, and teach the children. We are rural and urban, black and white, gay and straight, educated and illiterate, we attend churches, mosques, and Zen centers. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves.
So who should we be fighting? To whom should we direct our wrath? That 1% of people who make up the ruling class. The people who just stole $700 billion dollars form our pockets, the people who orchestrated the Iraqi war to line their pockets with oil money and established control of the Middle East, the people who manipulate our media to make it seem like Joe-Six is angry with liberal boogey man, or vice versa. But the reality is that the single mom hooked on crack in Baltimore has more in common with the single mom working at Wal-Mart in any town USA. The same force that is keeping them apart is keeping them down.
This force is not some ambiguous, conspiracy theory. So what is this force? We all know it is naive to lump all of America’s problems on the lap of “The Man.” This force, this ruling class to whom I refer are the people, they only make up about 1% of the population who have access to the capital. Take a look at your news they are currently running away with your money. They own the banks, huge media corporations, defense industries, agri-business giants, and pharmaceutical companies. Take a look at the fortune 500 top companies and you will find the culprits.
The men and women who profit from these companies are the same ones who are destroying our nation and the world at large. Joe Six pack is just another cog in their machine as are we. Until we join forces, we will be at each other’s throats for another century.
The point of my post is that the political machine is manipulating the left just as much as the right- worldwide! We need to look past brazen attempts to make heartland Americans the enemy, and realize who is truly attacking our rights.
I can't really claim to celebrate diversity if I'm only celebrating people who are just like me.
It is hard to understand our adversaries especially when a third party is constantly pitting us against each other. It is to the ruling classes’ advantage that the myth of Red state Blue state goes on forever. They are hoping that neither side will muster up enough energy to fight our true enemy. If I am a republican conservative losing my farm in Iowa, it is much easier to blame some liberal conspiracy and big government. If I am a liberal teacher, it is much easer to blame the crumbling school system on the loss of my candidate because of the ignorance of country yokes, who admire Sarah Palin, but the reality is that the same agri-business interest that are sweeping up farms in the heartland, have their hands in the educational system, and the justice system. The entire system. As corporate interests take over our government it is up to the American people to join together and reclaim what is ours.
This bailout is a test of sorts. I am sure the House will pass this bill and spin it as a heaven sent prize for the average American, when in reality it will be one of the biggest heists in American history. How the American people, both red and blue state citizens react, will be litmus tests for the future.
He and I are both operating from a place of deep deep sadness and fear about the state of our world. And we even have common ground in our beliefs about what it would take to fix it. We both believe that a connection to spirituality, a belief in ethics and morals, and a strong sense of family and community are what's missing.
This disconnect is not an accident. This sense of alienation is the ruling classes’ way of keeping us divided and at each other’s throats so we cannot organize based on our shared class interests. Instead we bicker on hot topic issues that have nothing to do with our day-to-day lives.
We've become disconnected from our support systems and that makes us vulnerable to manipulation from governments and entities that do not have our best interests at heart.
Exactly what I have been trying to say!
It was eye-opening, and heart-opening, to realize that even this ultra-conservative old middle-class white guy and I have much more common ground than difference. That seems important somehow.
My question is how can we have more of these interactions? How can we invite opposing groups to come to town hall meetings and simply try to communicate- not about gay marriage or religion, or even war, but about everyday problems that we share like the loss of the wealth we generate to 1% of our population, or the affects of globalization and privatization on our communities, the rise of agri-business and the affects on our rural infrastructure. We need to be discussing class-based issues!
So to give my answer to betmo's question, why would you want to understand someone who is bent on destroying the american way of life? Because in understanding is your only chance of averting it.
As for Betmo’s comments, I really appreciate your anger and frustration, but it is important to remember that change, healthy meaningful change will never stem from anger. When you say things like,
a large chunk of them want to take away civil liberties from everyone in order to maintain their fragile facade of a fearful life.
Or
they have no right in a free society.
You are simply playing in to the hands of the ruling class. We need to be able to collectively pull ourselves out from the orbits that the ruling class has put us on and join forces to see how we are being controlled.
I am not sure how we do this, so I am all ears if you have any ideas. I hope some conservatives are reading this and can join the conversation.
As much as I would like to turn my brain off to the farce that passes for American politics these days, I simply cannot look away. Tis the season, and so I writ. I am fully aware that each post trickling from my mind is stating very little that can pass for original thought, but my voice creeps from my throat nonetheless.
let’s face it, it is easy and fun to make fun of Sarah Palin, but an article came across my doorstep tonight has got me thinking.
It is a blog post by my new hero Joe Bageant. I suggest you read his posts in its entirety here, but below are a few points that I would like to examine.
…you must not only take these people seriously (referring to conservative white, heterosexual Christians) and by that I do not mean demonize them, but rather understand why they believe what they believe -- and figure out how to understand and even, yes, find common ground. No matter what your kind Democratic congressman tells you in order to capitalize on you alienation, we need to think for ourselves and try to understand America as it is, not the way we wish it was.
I wish that we could slice an independent nation from the bosom of conservative America, and live happily ever after, but last time people tried to carve up the union there was a long dirty war. I don’t see a United States of Progressive America having a seat at the UN anytime soon, besides if we did have our own country, we would probably immediately be invaded by the real USA and forced to “share” our natural resources.
While I have a hard enough time relating to progressive Americans, as any reader of this blog knows I spend much of my time trying to waken people to the deceitful nature of the Democratic Party, to me connecting and understanding the Red state voters is like trying to connect and understand people from another planet. To think that I need to try and empathize with the conservative minions in our crumbling empire seems like a task beyond my capabilities. I simply do not understand people who shoot moose from helicopters, speak in tongues, and pray to deities they call the “Lord.” But what Bagaent is trying to help the me and the Left understand, is that the voters that Palin and her Republican puppet masters are trying to appeal to, are the exact people that we need on the Left need to be connecting with as well. Before you click away, please hear what I have to say.
I know it seems like a monumental feat to connect with people who believe in creationism, the big JC, and think that having a passport makes you a terrorist, but let’s face it, America has always been two nations dancing under the guise of a United States. Or is it? What the right wing politicians fear most is that their constituents will see that a left wing progressive agenda is more aligned to the needs of the very people they are brainwashing, and so they spend all of the energy trying to tear the right wing voters away from their very own interests, but telling them that the left will never take them seriously.
An anti-corporatist, socialists, (Under any other name) Eugene Debbs style campaign running through the fly-over states designed not to alienate and ridicule the American heartland is what is in order.
I would like to think I am the type of person who can see things from my opponents point of view, and realistically, if I was a lower-middle class Nascar dad, why would I vote for a candidate who not only does not understand my day-to-day life, but who also does nothing but call me a moron every chance he gets.
Bageant goes on to say:
Sarah Palin's real coup is that she brings out the snobbery of the left in their dismissal of her as an ignorant hick typical of small town red state America. They vastly underestimate her. Just like they have underestimated George Bush for the past eight years.
...each time Democrats and liberals take a shot at her religious beliefs and moral choices, which just happen to be those of tens of millions of heartland voting Americans, she gains political ground, or at a minimum, holds some for herself and McCain.
This point is a very important one. I am just as guilty as any reader of this blog, when it comes to looking down on rightwing conservative beliefs. As liberals, we cannot continue to play into the corporatist agenda and belittle a very large and powerful voting block of the American electorate.
This sounds impossible, but if we truly feel that we are open minded and “progressive,” then we must progress beyond entrenching ourselves behind our beliefs. If we believe in the power of truth and justice, peace and science, law and order, evolution, then we must have faith that our ideals will prevail. How can we accuse the other side of being close-minded and unmoving, when we never even acknowledge them as political equals? Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating you try and turn all your gay friends straight, but we do need to start finding a way to at least understand what factors have divided the two sides to such extremes.
The corporate ambush of our media, the influence of religious organizations, the deteriorations of our public schools, and the specter of the great American Dream and manifest destiny telling us we are perfect, come to mind, but the left has also been brainwashed to believe that we alone can save America. Until we realize that we need the help of every member of the American underclass, no matter what his or her beliefs, we cannot move forward.
We must learn to relate to the red states and not divide ourselves on the issues like the political machine has been forcing us to do. We must unite our needs based on class. This bailout should be a unifying force; the war in Iraq and the men and women who are forced to fight it should be a unifying force.
Luckily for me Bagaent agrees with me and can articulate my point much better than me:
But one thing I know for sure. Liberals and leftists, theoretically at least, have more common national interests with red state heartland white working class Americans than any other current political group.
We need to make these connections more real. Like I said in a previous post, we need progressive intervention in the heartland. I am not talking about face value campaign stops making empty promises, or “liberal” media berating the very people we want to influence, but actual grassroots work. We need progressive activists talking to farmers, factory workers, Red state voters, not talking about them or down to them. We need a Paolo Freire style campaign in the American Heartland. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is dedicated "to the oppressed, and to those who suffer with them and fight at their side," in which Freire includes a detailed Marxist class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. It is rooted in his own experience helping Brazilian adults to read and write, the book remains popular among educators in developing countries.
Heartland America is colonized territory. We need to be engaging average Americans and educating them on their own oppression by corporate forces.
Bagaent goes on to say:
And the way to communicate that is NOT sneering at the only candidate who resembles ordinary Americans, their beliefs and lifestyle. When we do that, the Republicans grin like Cheshire cats, our global financial oppressors turn the screws down a bit harder, and the Devil takes a nap, because his work is done for him by fools using the most efficient tools available -- arrogance and hubris.
Rather than humiliate and degrade people like Palin for what they represent, we should be looking to debunk the lies she is telling her base. Hatred and ignorance are easy. Pointing fingers and degrading what we don’t understand is easy. If we truly are progressive and liberal than we must be able to sit down and understand and appreciate not Sarah Palin, but the people who understand her. Would love to hear your thoughts. Reach out...
My friend sent my Obama piece to a friend of his who I do not know, and for reasons I don’t understand this friend sent a response via email to my friend rather than leave it on the blog. I don’t understand why people don’t leave comments on the blog itself; the point of the blog, really, is to stimulate conversations. Perhaps this person didn’t want to engage in an argument, and honestly I don’t blame him. I am as tired of political arguments as the next guy. I have been involved with differing levels of political discourse for the last eight years or so with little success of ever compromising or getting through to anybody. I am sure I am as guilty as anybody else, when it comes to shifting my political ideology.
However, this person did raise some great points, so I would like to address them here in hopes that he may come back and continue the conversation. I have a horrible habit of taking arguments apart point-by-point thus making me sound overly smug or didactic. Let me state that I only break down each point to help clarify it for myself; I hope that this system of deconstruction doesn’t offend readers, or the person who made the point initially.
I agree with a lot of his points....but sometimes lose him on his conclusions...
For one, he never really suggests an alternative to Capitalisms....while I would suggest a change in our kind of Capitalisms is in NEED....this guy has no alternative other than to say he is not a Marxist....WELL, what are you then? What is your suggestion?
Great questions! The honest answer to all the questions raised is- I have no idea. I have done my share of working with Socialist organizations, and I have read my share of Marx. Like I said in my post, I think a more socialist answer may be the answer, but experience has taught me that people get caught up in ideological discourse when ever the big “C” words are presented. I don’t see our next move as a continuation of economic/political dichotomies. The words socialism and communism are simply too divisive to be effective in America. We must move beyond the titles, but not the ideas.
I see change being planted within our schools, our families, and local communities. We are in need of cultural changes. It is like Bob Doppalt says in his article here:
Attempts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will fail unless people first alter their thinking and behavior.
Earth is warming because humans, primarily in industrialized nations, suffer from systems blindness. We have failed to recognize the effects of our insatiable use of fossil fuels, massive resource consumption, and huge emission of waste, including greenhouse gasses, on the ecological and social systems we depend on for life. That blindness threatens all life forms today and in the future.
Altering the way an entire society behaves and thinks about themselves and their roles as a society is no easy task. Add to the equation the fact that our nation has been in the grip of a hyper-capitalism since its conception, and the task becomes more difficult. We are now reaching a cross-roads were people are being forced to see the ill effects of the system they were taught to worship. As natural resources dwindle further, people will be forced to reassess their relationship to a system built on cheap resources and labor.
So what are my suggestions for a world without capitalism? I guess I have to say that first we need to admit there is a problem. We must be able to look around and see the true state of the world. The state of the world beyond what the corporate media shows us. Travel, volunteer, read, interact with people online and face-to-face. We must be able to realize that war, poverty, and social injustice are not flaws in the system, but rather factors that make the system function. I see no alternative until larger groups of people are able to understand what the key factors (e.g. Privatization of resources, IMF &World Bank policies) are that are causing so much destruction in the world today.
I feel I am rambling and losing my train of thought. The short answer is I do not know what the solution is. I think and meditate on it daily, but answers are rarely forthcoming. What has been working in varying degrees of success for me, has been to start with myself and the choices I make. I am the first to admit that I make many poor choices in regards to my interaction with the global economy, but being able to see the choices I make and the effects they have on the world has been an eye-opening experience for me. I hope that by sharing my lessons, others will help me find solutions.
He is largely on point about the fact that many people are given this false hope of an American dream....but he disregards the fact that in many cases even the poor or middle class of this country are living a dream in compared to where they came from.
I suppose one can argue that a mother of four from El Salvador cleaning hotels in Los Angels is living a far better life than one she would lead in her native country, but I refuse to make that assumption. One should follow the reasons why some classes in the US seem to stagnate on the American Dream ladder. It would also behoove us to understand that many of the immigrant laborers living the dream picking our fruit, cleaning our houses, and driving our taxi cabs are in the US most likely for some imperialist action perpetuated to their homeland by Uncle Sam. Policies of the IMF and World Bank have forced millions of people to leave their homelands in search of better lives in the US and increasingly in Europe.
My question is are poor and middle class people really living the dream? Sure they may be yearning to have the goods that will make them visible to the Capitalists radar of success, but would they not be better served working for their own communities? Spending their money within their own communities to improve their lives instead of on foreign wars that only make the ruling class richer?
I agree that there is too much corporate welfare....but the idea that most people are being hoodwinked misses the point that some people (in fact quite a lot of people) want to be able to earn an honest buck through capitalism (even those who are not rich).
There is a difference between earning an honest buck and exploitation. And even a perfunctory examination of the principles of Capitalism will show that it is the exploitation of labor that creates profit. I feel we must alter this need to earn a buck that should to be examined. Most Americans want to be rich. Being rich means having what rich people have: cars, gadgets, homes, boats, and ultimately freedom and power. They want these things because that is what they have been taught since birth from their schools systems, their media, and their government. What if we were taught not to want to be rich but to be sustainable, compassionate, and loving? What if we were taught that peace at all costs is better than war all the time, that sharing is better than hoarding? That it is more prestigious to be a caring middle class member of a society than to be rich? I am rambling again, please do let us move on.
He dismisses people that disagree with him as "already part of the ellite" but then says people who are not the ellite cannot see that they are being fooled....it is as though he is the only one with the answer....BUT HE OFFERS NO ANSWER.
I apologize for my self-righteous tone. It is one that I am becoming more and more familiar with and trying to ameliorate. I am here to admit that I am not a know-it-all, on the contrary I know very little. I write these posts in order to find like minded people so we can work together to bring about change.
I think the writer is spot on about the two part system....the fact that people can get duped into believing in an American dream they are not a part of....and that we are too much of a consumer culture......there are ways, I think, to fight that. And I think grass roots is great....
But how about some fucking tangible IDEAS......he has none.
I hope you will become a regular reader and commenter so I can hear your ideas on how to fight consumer culture. My ideas right now are as follows:
Educate myself further.
Teach my daughter the values I want to see in the world
Work in education to advance more just, peaceful, and sustainable social values.
Try to change my own habits, before I cast stones
Write, communicate, share and stay open to new ideas
If you are reading this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with as many other peopel as you can. The point of these posts is to connect us and help us move forward.
It wasn’t until tonight however that I realized what a great actor he really is. I sat in my kitchen and actually watched the entire forty-four minute interview he gave did Katie Couric. Throughout the interview I was waiting to throw up my hands and scream profanities at my screen, but what I saw was not the buffoon who normally stirs the pot on Fox, but a somewhat level headed man simply expressing his opinions, many opinions with which I strongly disagreed, but some that I actually agreed with him on. His stance on gay marriage was refreshing for a Mormon, and I have been ranting about the corporatization of American politics for as long as I have been political.
