An Ordinary Person and Politics in America

Extreme Makeover: Blogging Edition

2007-10-20T16:59:00.000-04:00

Extreme Makeover: Blogging Edition

I have redesigned and revamped this blog. Please check out An Ordinary Person over at the new location.

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Welcome to the Machine

2007-10-16T20:02:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Machine

I started this blog to explore the question of the role of the ordinary person in politics in America. The main question in my mind being does the ordinary person matter at all anymore? In a country which touts itself as the beacon for democracy and democratic participation is the ordinary person's political voice truly relevant or even needed?

Of course my ruminations were primarily subjective and based on my own impressions and experiences. I am an ordinary person, after all, and am as much a subject of my explorations as I am the observer.

I am coming to the conclusion pretty quickly that the ordinary person is politically powerless and without influence in this society. Now I am not sure how exceptional that conclusion is—how earth shattering the news given that I am probably only stating what is probably obvious to most people. The idea that America is the best democracy money can buy where those with most money have the best (sometimes the only) access to politicians and policymakers is a cliche after all.

So I am at a crossroads right now on whether or not to continue this blog. After all, if the ordinary person is irrelevant, what on earth can one blogger do about it? What more can I say and observe about the powerlessness of the ordinary person without sounding like a scold or a broken record week in and week out?

I’ve also started to explore the reform movement community. Those who are involved in electoral reform and other activist activities of some sort to explore the issue of who is doing something to make the average person and ordinary voter relevant again. While the first few months were heady and inspiring in discovering new organizations and meeting new people and activists in person and online, I quickly discovered that the reform community is rife with its own divisions on which types of reform are favored by which group, and my endorsement of one group over the other briefly had me caught in a particularly nasty and partisan bickering going on in the Internet (which is instigated more by one side than the other).

I thought to myself: who needs this crap? I started this blog to have fun and to learn and educate myself about politics and activism. I didn’t start it to instigate fights or to choose sides and if I happened to choose a side, to make enemies because of it. I had the illusion that just because we were all outsiders to the system and powerless, that there would be solidarity and a feeling of common purpose. Turned out I was wrong.

In any case, this is not a goodbye letter. I am just feeling a little bummed out and will be doing some deep thinking on which direction to take this blog, given what I have found out for myself on the state of politics and activism for the ordinary person. You can still catch me making posts over at Mirror on America and perhaps will post something here once in a while. In the meantime, I have to take a little break to find a way to make this blog a fun and worthwhile activity again.

E is for Empowerment III

2007-10-14T19:37:00.000-04:00

E is for Empowerment III

A recent response to my blog post E is for Empowerment II by Angry Independent bummed me out. Not because he was attacking me or anything like that. But because of the implications of what he said if he is right.

In my blog post I talked about political empowerment for the average working and middle class person.

He said:

But you bring up political empowerment... as a way for the masses to see some kind of economic/social justice. But I don't see much hope there either. Especially in this era where we are living under the "best Democracy money can buy".... Where money gets you access to the political candidates and to the policymakers.

It's ironic that the U.S. Capitol was once thought of as the peoples house. But the average citizen has almost zero access to their Congressional reps. But a lobbyist from a multinational corporation has all the access in the world. See the PBS documentary Capitol Crimes.

Therefore, I don't know how much political power the average citizen can have, particularly with two largely corrupt political parties controlling the game. As long as we have a two party system, the average citizen will have little influence over either domestic or international policy. It's almost as if we are locked out of the system altogether. Yes... there are elections every couple of years...and every 4 for the Presidency... But voting in a broken election system equates to very little power for the average joe. Especially when you can't even be sure that your vote will be counted. Elections have become almost ceremonial in nature in this country.

Always astute, hard-hitting and honest, I appreciate Angry Independent’s comments. Of course he is right. The average citizen has very little to no influence on domestic and international policy and the ordinary person is locked out of the system altogether.

Rather than wallow in despair or become cynical, I would like to explore the question—what can be done about it? Who is currently engaged in the work of “doing something about it” – that is, making the ordinary citizen and voter relevant again in politics?

Here’s some links and posts that encourage me enough to give me hope:

FairVote
New America Foundation
Creating a Progressive Movement
Rock the Debates
National Popular Vote
Fusion Voting
Instant Runoff Voting
Ten Steps to Repair Democracy
Electoral Reform
Fixing a Broken System

E is for Empowerment

2007-10-10T20:26:00.000-04:00

E is for Empowerment

I’d like to share a couple of great articles I read today. First is a blog post by Registered Independent which rightly asserts the limitations of politics as a vehicle to make the world a better place. He finds a better vehicle through the notion of empowerment in its various forms

I came to this blog and to my love of politics with a desire to see the world become a better place for the people. I have now come to realize that politics alone cannot accomplish this goal. A view of the evening news on any night of the week proves this fact.

Instead, I think the answer is empowerment. The people need to become more empowered in order to make the world a better place and empowerment comes in many forms.

For example, the people can become empowered philosophically, technologically, spiritually, scientifically, holistically, athletically, mathematically, and artistically, as well as politically. The empowerment from each of those disciplines often does increase the effectiveness of all the rest. It’s like they all work together in some way.

I think empowerment of the people in any way is the answer. And, it shouldn’t matter whether you are independent, conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian, centrist, black, white, yellow, red, or whatever, empowerment is for everybody, with the only exception being those in government entities and corporate conglomerates who would prefer the people to be less empowered (not all of them do) so that they can exercise more control.

Registered Independent hits the nail right on the head when he talks about empowerment as the main goal why people get involved in politics and get active in political activity. Empowerment can mean any number of things: economic, social, political, personal, etc.

The main reason why I chose to start a blog in the first place comes from the belief that politics or being active in it can be one avenue to empowerment. That can mean empowerment for me as an individual, for my ethnic or cultural group as an Asian-American, for all citizens as Americans, and the group I persist to identify with the most, social class—empowerment for the working and middle classes—my definition of who an “ordinary person” is in America.

Why I consider myself an Independent is, itself, a result of my observations on empowerment. I have come to a personal conclusion that voting for either Democrats or Republicans does not result in the empowerment for the average, ordinary person. This blog is a running chronicle of my quest of trying to understand the world better so as to answer the question: what should be done—and more specifically, what should I do—about it?

This brings to mind a recent exchange of blog comments I had with another blogger called Constructive Feedback. I consider myself a liberal and a self-professed Progressive. He comes from a point of view that is critical of much of what I believe and policies which I support. Whether he is truly opposite of me I truly didn't know and asked him what he believes given that he is so critical of Left or Progressive perspectives. His answer surprised me. In a recent blog post he responded:

I must also note that my criticism against Liberals/Progressives/Democrats should not be taken as a desire for Black people to vote Republican. It is simply an attempt to hold those who have a monopoly majority hold upon my community accountable rather than having the masses gear up for another election cycle in which the Democrats gain further control over more Black districts but the districts and the people living within receive little benefit (except the knowledge that yet another Democrat has been victorious).

I am calling for Black people to STOP living VICARIOUSLY THROUGH DEMOCRATIC VICTORY. We need to take back our own yolk and place it back inside of our communities. Most of our problems are APOLITICAL in nature and only require a clearer goal and then management to achieve a more directed end.

He surprised me in the sense that despite our divergence in opinion on political stands and policies we support, that we actually do stand in common ground in regards to the deeper, fundamental issues that we ask and are after in why we choose to blog about politics. For him as for me, the fundamental issue is one of empowerment.

For him, he focuses on the African-American community and is asking critical questions on whether or not being for the Democratic Party and being elected as liberals and Democrats is truly empowering for the African American community. He demands that those who believe in this route to empowerment to show him the goods. What have the African-American community gained for their dependable loyalty to the Democrats and liberalism as constituents? A truly provocative stance but I believe a very valid question to ask.

So the word for today is Empowerment. A truly radical notion when you think about it. Once you get over its status as a cliché and apply it to how you view yourself and the world and interact with people you can really appreciate its meaning and implications as being, well, empowering.

Political empowerment is only one form of empowerment. There are many others. This blog is primarily about politics but I’d like to think that it can also be about empowerment for the individual and ordinary people in other ways.

Here is part 2.

Conservative Philosophy

2007-10-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

The Republican Collapse

I don't consider myself a conservative but I found this op-ed by David Brooks at the New York TImes to be illuminating and thoughtful. What struck me the most about it is that he makes the point that the traditional notion of conservatism that he adheres to is most definitely not the creed that free-market capitalists, religious conservatives, and political neoconservatives espouse. And most interesting of all is his assertion that the Bush administration's policies run counter to the conservatism that he favors. All in all a good read.

Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.

When conservatism came to America, it became creedal. Free market conservatives built a creed around freedom and capitalism. Religious conservatives built a creed around their conception of a transcendent order. Neoconservatives and others built a creed around the words of Lincoln and the founders.

Over the years, the voice of Burke has been submerged beneath the clamoring creeds. In fact, over the past few decades the conservative ideologies have been magnified, while the temperamental conservatism of Burke has been abandoned.

Full article here from the New York Times

Letters to the Editor in response to Brooks' column

Why Democracy?

2007-10-08T18:12:00.000-04:00

Why Democracy?
by Stanley Fish

Democracy is a form of government that is not attached to any pre-given political or ideological ends, but allows ends to be chosen by the majority vote of free citizens.

What this means is that democracy is the only form of government that, at least theoretically, contemplates its own demise with equanimity. Democratic elections do not guarantee that the victors will be democratically inclined, and it is always possible that those who gain control of the legislative process will pass laws that erode or even repeal the rights – of property, free expression and free movement – that distinguish democracies from theocracies and monarchies. (Some would say that this is exactly what has been happening in the past six years.) Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes captured the fragility of a form of government that can alter itself beyond the point of recognition when he said that if his fellow citizens want to go to hell in a handbasket, it was his job to help them, even if he deplored the consequences. Democracy, then, can be said to be its own biggest threat.

Full article here from the New York Times blogs

Enter the conversation directly at www.whydemocracy.net and www.myspace.com/whydemocracy.

Thoughts of an Outsider

2007-10-07T20:47:00.000-04:00

Thoughts of an Outsider

I am an independent: an outsider to the two-party system. I could very easily join one of the two major parties—either the Democrats or the Republicans—but I won’t feel right with myself if I do. Today, nearly 40 percent of the electorate self-identify as independent, rejecting party labels.

I have been reading a lot about people like me—political independents—in the media and primarily via web sites like the Hankster and the CUIP. I’m learning a lot and it is a comforting thought to know that I am not alone in treading this path outside of the two-party system in the U.S.

There is a great diversity among political independents in political opinion and ideologies. The CUIP expressed it best when it cites that what independents have in common, despite its diversity, is a sense that the political system in the U.S. has gone awry. That there is something deeply wrong and askew with democracy as it is currently practiced in America.

Moreover, independents are in agreement that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans hold the answer to fixing our broken System. The key to positive change is not to be found operating within the confines of the two-party system. In fact, for independents, much of the problems of American democracy can be laid to the very fact that we have a two-party monopoly in political participation in this country.

What makes the future so uncertain and a bit exciting for me is that the diagnosis of what ails American politics thus made, the prescription of what to do about it is still wide open and up for grabs.

The CUIP advocates the formation of a social movement among political independents to act as a third force to fill the political void that is not filled by either of the major parties. Other independents are advocates and members of various third-party organizations.

Myself personally—I am a supporter of electoral reform efforts such as Instant Runoff Voting and the National Popular Vote—efforts designed to encourage wider and greater participation among the electorate in politics and which seeks to expand democratic participation beyond the two major parties.

So as the political horse-race of the national Presidential elections come to a head in the coming year and most people start considering once again for whom to cast their vote, I feel an odd sort of excitement about politics.

An odd sort excitement because although I know that the horse race is still going to be between Democrats and Republicans, I have a perception that major change in American politics will be coming in the next decade. This change is going to be driven by political independents—people like me—for whom the two party system does not adequately reflect their beliefs, concerns and democratic aspirations. Sooner or later, something has got to give. A solid third of the electorate self-identifying to reject the two-party label has the potential to change the way the game is played in politics. This population is becoming organized and is starting to realize the potential for change that it wields.

So if you care about democracy, democratic participation for the ordinary citizen, and the relevance of politics to our lives in America, the blossoming of the independent movement is worth observing. Reports from the mainstream media like this one indicate that the presence of independents are being felt by the insiders. The fact that the report primarily viewed independents according to how they relate to either of the major parties, I feel, is a big mistake and misses the true picture of what it means to be an independent. I have a feeling that a report much truer to political independents and where they stand—on their own terms and not primarily vis-à-vis the two party model of American democracy—is coming sooner or later. To read it would mean only one thing: the political independent movement has come of age in the mainstream.

Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution

2007-10-03T20:22:00.000-04:00

Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution

A man from Vermont once said: "You have the power!" Indeed. And now is the time to use it in a more expansive way -- to challenge not just those running for president -- or those running Congress, or major news outlets -- but also to challenge us, the people, to stiffen our civic spine.

Help us connect the dots -- between rights and responsibilities -- between the individual and the collective -- between civic apathy and political corruption, and all that flows from that.

Help us make all the critical connections you can think of to demonstrate that the personal is political. Never more so than today.

Blog about it. Make an endless stream of YouTube videos about it. Start a "Take The Pledge" campaign ("I pledge allegiance to the idea that I will take my job as a citizen seriously").

In short, become a tidal wave of Tom Paines -- encouraging your audience to not only adopt a new citizenship manifesto, but to fire up their friends and family as well.

Reverse the curse of civic apathy and ignorance. That's a revolution worthy of the word.

A revolution of the American mind.

Full article here from Open Left diaries

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

Another excellent post from Jeffrey Abelson!

Like him, the idea of how to counter civic apathy among the general population and disengagement from active participation in politics fascinates me. LIke him I see so much potential for the ordinary citizen to be able to have an influence on society at all levels--only if they will take the reins and actually take their roles as citizens seriously.

A recent blog post at Ivory Towerz laments the same things that Jeffrey cites and gives the conclusion that for the political elite who really run things, that voters and voter opinion don't really matter anymore. That the elites see ordinary people primarily as Orwellian proles to be manipulated this way and that.

I fall somewhere in between Abelson's optimism and the pessimism in Ivory Towerz. While I don't have any ready answers I do appreciate that there are others who think about politics this way and that the Internet has given me a medium to commiserate with like-minded folks.

Preaching Revolution

2007-10-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

Preaching Revolution: A new evangelical movement offers lessons for the left

Bell and Claiborne are two of the better-known young voices of a broad, explicitly nonviolent, anti-imperialist and anticapitalist theology that is surging at the heart of white, suburban Evangelical Christianity. I first saw this movement at a local, conservative, nondenominational church in North Carolina where the pastor preached a sermon called “Two Fists in the Face of Empire.” Looking further, I found a movement whose book sales tower over their secular progressive counterparts in Amazon rankings; whose sermon podcasts reach thousands of listeners each week; and whose messages, in one form or another, reach millions of churchgoers. Bell alone preaches to more than 10,000 people every Sunday, with more than 50,000 listening in online.

But this movement is still barely aware of its own existence, and has not chosen a label for itself. George Barna, who studies trends among Christians for clients such as the Billy Graham Evangelical Association and Focus on the Family, calls it simply “The Revolution” and its adherents “Revolutionaries.”

Full article here from In These Times

Upgrade Democracy

2007-09-30T21:25:00.000-04:00

Upgrade Democracy
A couple of entries to FairVote's Upgrade Democracy Video Contest from YouTube

This first one is hilarious and I think has a great chance of being the winner. A democracy sing-a-long

The second one is my and my wife's joint entry

Creating a Progressive Movement

2007-09-30T11:33:00.000-04:00

Creating a Progressive Movement

Three excellent articles worth reading for Independent Progressives

Creating Progressive Infrastructure
The American conservative movement has succeeded in moving public attitudes steadily rightward over the last 30 years, with far-reaching consequences for the country’s governance. This success has been achieved through a well-funded and well-coordinated political infrastructure that follows a long-term, disciplined communications strategy. With increasing knowledge about the conservative infrastructure and its impact on politics and policy has come a realization that moderates and progressives need to develop an effective infrastructure of their own.

Full article here from the Commonweal Institute

Speech by the Commonweal Institute's executive director, Barry Kendall
The point is that it takes a movement, not just a party, to make social change happen. The job of a political party is to get its candidates elected, and keep them in office – and that’s an important job. But the job of a social movement, like conservatism or like the new progressive movement that is emerging today, our job is to advocate for a vision for society, a philosophy of governance, and the public policy solutions to get us there. As an organized movement, we have to exert our social will in order to make political change happen. We have to gather supporters and adherents, unite our voices and speak up for the things we care about. That’s what creates the political will that enables our elected officials to act. That’s the problem with how Congress has responded to the Iraq war—we the people have failed to create sufficient social will to force the politicians to do our political will. That’s why what MoveOn.org is doing—thank you to our advisor, Joan Blades—is so important, bringing all the anti-war groups together and leading a strategic grassroots publicity campaign to bring mounting political pressure to bear on Congress and the President to end this occupation. MoveOn is a model of what can be achieved when progressives cooperate with each other. Now, I may be naïve to say this, but I do believe that someday the occupation of Iraq will end. But the need for a progressive movement will never end.

Full article here from the Commonweal Institute

Creating Real Change
The election that put the Congress and the Senate into Democratic hands is not enough when they do not have their constituents pressuring them more steadily and more effectively than the keepers of the status quo in Washington and the rabid right. And we cannot forget that it is up to us foul-mouthed lefty bloggers to make it easy for the politicians to do the right thing by working for and promoting a progressive future and the kind of world we want to see for our kids and the rest of the world.

Full article here from the Left Coaster

Co-Blogging at Mirror on America

2007-09-26T18:33:00.000-04:00

Co-Blogging at Mirror on America

Greetings all! I have major news to share. I am now one of the co-bloggers at Mirror on America, one of the hardest-hitting, Independent blogs in the blogosphere which deal with race, politics, culture, and current events. It is a great honor for me to have been invited to participate in Mirror on America as a contributor and I look forward to honing my writing skills and political views as I interact not only with my co-bloggers but the readers of the blog as well.

I'll keep writing in this blog and will use this primarily as a vehicle for writings that do not fit over at Mirror on America. Please visit Mirror on America and sample some the most thought-provoking and hard-hitting commentary you will find in the Internet--from an Independent perspective!

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Rants and Raves

2007-09-23T21:51:00.000-04:00

Rants and Raves

Sometimes I run across a blog post on politics that is well-written, thoughtful, intelligent, and reflects wisdom and a concern for humanity and peoples’ intelligence. Posts such as this from Paul Krugman on political coverage in the media; and this one in Open Left about using referendums as a strategy to challenge the powers that be in government on the war. Or critiques like this one from Mirror on America about the silence in the white Progressive blogosphere on the Jena 6 issue.

When I read posts such as these I start thinking to myself that there is hope in this world for serious, intelligent dialogue to happen among people and the Internet holds a tremendous promise to facilitate and spread such conversations and insights to a wide audience.

That is, until I start reading the Rants and Raves section of Craigs List. For those of you who don’t know, the Rants and Raves section of the Craigs List bulletin board (one exists for each city that Craigs List has a board) is there for discussions on various topics between posters. Sometimes you will find amusing anecdotes on everyday life. Sometimes people letting off steam on this or that issue. And sometimes—a lot of times—people venting their anger towards one another over various issues related to politics.

Most of the time, these exchanges can get quite nasty with name-calling, racial insults, and using pornographic photos to boot to drive home their points. A constant pattern that I observe is race. Always there is some sort of racially-driven nasty argument and name-calling going on between individuals. This is true with Rants and Raves in almost every city that I visit.

What is the point you may ask? Why call out the Craigs List Rants and Raves? If you don’t like it why keep reading it? Why waste your time on it if it offends you so much?

I keep reading Rants and Raves despite my objections to much of the content to remind myself of the reality of the world and people in it, especially the relations between different racial groups. Rants and Raves is a perfect vehicle to learn how people really think uncensored and without any filters of politeness or normal courtesy that you would employ in everyday life. And much of the time, the nasty racial insults and political arguments predominate because, I would think, that is really the way people think. That is really the way certain groups regard other human beings and the past several decades of advances in race relations since the 1960s haven’t changed that.

Rants and Raves forces me to be realistic and more cautious about the state of human nature than I otherwise would if I were to only fill my head with the best writings. Sometimes you need to wallow in the gutter to be able to really appreciate the reality of how people can really be despite the civilized front that they might use to present themselves to the world in everyday life.

Random Stuff Worth Reading

2007-09-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

Random Stuff Worth Reading

A Lost Cause

(Dated article by Adolph Reed from the last presidential elections but still very much relevant to this upcoming one)

I think the problem is that the national Democratic Party is torn between two constituencies whose interests are fundamentally incompatible. And, no, this doesn’t concern race.

Mobilizing the kind of popular electoral base necessary take back political initiative would require that the Democrats, as Perlstein argues, propound a compelling alternate vision of what public policy should look like and how the country would be governed if it were governed to reflect the interests and concerns of the vast majority of people who live here. That would require sharply differentiating themselves from the Republicans on class grounds. It would require mobilizing around issues such as real national health insurance (eliminating the travesty of corporate health care), restoring and strengthening workers’ rights, providing access to high-quality education through college for all, or renegotiating NAFTA and the WTO trade and investment agreements to assert some controls over disinvestment.

The Democrats can’t make that kind of appeal because they’re no less beholden to corporate and Wall Street interests than the Republicans are. Perstein’s proposals are fine, but they’ll fall on deaf ears. The Democrats will by and large continue to cater to those interests and palliate the rest of us with rhetoric.

Is P.C. Persecution Overblown?

(Asks the question: is PC Persecution an overblown phenomenon in college campuses?)

I just got an invitation to see Indoctrinate U, a documentary on the tyranny of political correctness in higher education. The trailer left me with a furrowed brow. Why? Because in all honesty, I've never been the target of p.c. persecution.

You might say: "Well, you're at GMU!" But before that, I was a student at UC Berkeley and Princeton. During those years, I was bored about 1000 times as frequently as I was mistreated for my contrarian political views.

You might say: "You were in economics!" Now, you're on stronger ground. But even in my non-econ classes, the serious problem was instructors' lack of enthusiasm, not instructors' enthusiastic brainwashing.

China's Hot Stock: Orwell Inc.

(Thought-provoking and hard-hitting editorial that excoriates Wall Street and American business for investing in China. Posits the situation that if it comes to a choice between promoting and defending democracy and making a buck by propping up totalitarian and antidemocratic regimes, the choice of making a buck trumps democracy every time in American business)

Capitalism is global now; democracy is not. We are moving toward one unified world market that is home to democratic and authoritarian systems alike. The Chinese model of Leninist capitalism poses a systemic challenge to the democratic capitalism that the West espouses. It promises continuing power and greatly increased wealth to the ruling elites of developing nations. Which means that America must disenthrall itself from one of its most cherished myths: that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand, that the spread of markets inevitably means the coming of democracy. That was a key argument that proponents of extending permanent favored trade status to China made during the 1990s. In fact, the creation of the Chinese-American economic entity that followed -- in effect, moving our manufacturing belt from the Midwest to Shenzhen -- has demonstrated the opposite. Leading American companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have acquiesced in Chinese Internet censorship. China's nonexistent standards of product safety -- the direct consequence of its absence of democracy -- became our standards, too.

And now, some of Wall Street's smoothest operators are investing directly in China's suppression of speech, worship and the right to assemble.

The Conscience of a Liberal
(Paul Krugman introduces his new blog at the New York Times)

The great divergence: Since the late 1970s the America I knew has unraveled. We’re no longer a middle-class society, in which the benefits of economic growth are widely shared: between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent.

Most people assume that this rise in inequality was the result of impersonal forces, like technological change and globalization. But the great reduction of inequality that created middle-class America between 1935 and 1945 was driven by political change; I believe that politics has also played an important role in rising inequality since the 1970s. It’s important to know that no other advanced economy has seen a comparable surge in inequality – even the rising inequality of Thatcherite Britain was a faint echo of trends here.

On the political side, you might have expected rising inequality to produce a populist backlash. Instead, however, the era of rising inequality has also been the era of “movement conservatism,” the term both supporters and opponents use for the highly cohesive set of interlocking institutions that brought Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich to power, and reached its culmination, taking control of all three branches of the federal government, under George W. Bush. (Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy.)

Chomsky vs. Llosa

2007-09-17T22:13:00.000-04:00

An exercise in comparing and contrasting

Alvaro Vargas Llosa writes “The Return of the Idiot” in Foreign Policy Magazine (2007)

Throughout the 20th century, Latin America’s populist leaders waved Marxist banners, railed against foreign imperialists, and promised to deliver their people from poverty. One after another, their ideologically driven policies proved to be sluggish and shortsighted. Their failures led to a temporary retreat of the strongman. But now, a new generation of self-styled revolutionaries is trying to revive the misguided methods of their predecessors.

Noam Chomsky writes in “The Empire and Ourselves” in A Solidarity Pamphlet (1986)

If you want to learn something about the nature of the Soviet Union, what kind of a government it is and what kind of a society they run, one of the best things to do is look at Eastern Europe. That tells you what they do whey they have a chance, when something is under their control.

Central America and the Caribbean have been in the iron grip of the United States for a century and therefore they tell us a lot about ourselves. What you find if you look is one of the world's worst horror chambers. There's starvation, slave labor, torture, massacre by U.S. clients. Virtually every effort to bring about some constructive change has led to a new dose of U.S. violence.

Noam Chomsky talks about the role of the United States in the history of the Carribean and Latin America. Of propping up and openly supporting brutal dictators in Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. Of undermining leaders of legitimate popular movements for democracy, and of sponsoring death squads.

He surprisingly mentions the names of John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, iconic among American liberals, as culpable in crafting policies that led to these atrocities, along with Reagan. What Chomsky argues is that the American political and economic elite has historically maintained a façade of being supportive of the ideals of liberal democracy and a free society but have no scruples in undermining and destroying popular political movements and popularly elected governments in other countries if these movements endanger American business and political interests.

Llosa talks about Latin American leftist leaders and what he asserts are their misguided economic policies and authoritarian tendencies. He talks about Western intellectuals enamored of leftist leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Ecuador’s Evo Morales who favor policies such as nationalization of a their country’s industries, who champion the poor and indigenous people, and who are virulently anti-American in their stance towards the United States. He favors a world that is rid of these types of leaders and the ideas they subscribe to so that Latin America can follow socioeconomic policies along the lines of free and open markets, privatization, and friendly relations with the United States.

What does this have to do with American politics for ordinary folks?

I would argue that for this ordinary folk, the issue and idea of the foreign policies being enacted by my government says a lot to the world about the United States. If the United States has a history of covert and overt abuses in Latin America Llosa conveniently forgets to include these examples in his tirade against leftist leaders. The anti-Americanism of these popular and populist leftist leaders and hostility to free-market style economic reforms such as those favored by the US is a natural outgrowth and reaction to the history of US intervention in the region.

I favor a populist brand of politics such as those abhorred by Llosa within the United States. A true, grassroots, bottom-up expression of popular democracy which will support movements for liberal democracies world wide and whose popularly elected government will follow a foreign policy that supports those ideals. A foreign policy that will not follow policies such as those reported by Chomsky in his article. Does this politics have to be leftist? Not necessarily. I support true, grassroots democracy and I know that such expressions don’t necessarily equate to leftist politics.

Here is a quote from Chomsky’s article that I think is very prescient:

Now, there is no reason at all for us to allow this horror story to continue. In a country as free as this one, there is a great deal that can be done to reverse this course. It basically requires two things. The first thing is that it requires a certain amount of honesty. Enough honesty to learn who we are and what we do in the world and what we've been doing for a long, long time. Secondly, it requires a certain degree of courage and commitment, namely to devote ourselves to changing a world of terror and suffering that we have helped to create and now maintain.

Also check out "On Class-Based Politics"

Rock the Debates!

2007-09-17T20:09:00.000-04:00

From the Rock the Debates web site:

Never before in American history has it been more vital to have an open, honest, and innovative examination of America’s problems and solutions.

The best way to sparking the minds of Americans is to open up the presidential debates beyond the Democrat and Republican parties. Rock-the-Debates seeks to include third parties who will energize the presidential debates placing their ideas into the mix, without endorsing or opposing any particular candidate. We just want the ideas out and let the American people decide.

You can play a key role in this unprecedented, historical endeavor.

The idea is to get the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates to commit to debate third party candidates.

How? We’ll ask them to debate, get the clip on video, and place it on You-Tube. Folks in places like New Hampshire can play a key, historic, pivotal role in making this happen.

Here's a synopsis/review of the various responses received so far from the candidates.

Click here for the Rock the Debates web site.

Earth to Bush

2007-09-16T23:21:00.000-04:00

Earth to Bush
By Sen. Bernie Sanders

A commentary by Senator Bernie Sanders from In These Times
Ground control to Mr. Bush: What planet are you living on? Today, tens of millions of Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living and yet you continue to insist that our economy is “strong” and “robust.” Rather than acknowledge the economic anxieties of American workers, you insist that they don’t know how good they have it.

Since you have been president, 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty; hunger and homelessness have increased. Because you refused to raise the minimum wage for six years, millions of workers are continuing to work full time and live in desperation. Low-wage workers are often unable to find quality childcare and their kids enter school at a special disadvantage—many of them never to catch up. It is no coincidence, Mr. President, that we have both the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world as well as the highest rate of incarceration.

Click here for the full article

An Independent Movement?

2007-09-14T22:06:00.000-04:00

An Independent Movement?

Independents are a diverse group. It would be hard to pigeonhole how to predict the political behavior of this population because of the astounding diversity of their viewpoints. There are left wing Independents, right wing independents, and various shades of political opinion in between. Independents can be progressives, they can be quite conservative. They can even be extremists in ideology or some other viewpoint.

Given this I see the task of organizing political independents into some sort of political movement to be a monumental one fraught with severe difficulties. How on earth can you get a group of people so disparate in their beliefs to ever agree on anything, much less mobilize them to act in unison?

The established political parties have an advantage in that they already self-identify according to some ideology, belief system or agenda. They know who they are and what types of policies they support. They can, therefore, build a constituency and try to get that constituency to act in unison – voting, fundraising, protesting, marching, etc.

The way I see it, a political organizing effort aimed at Independents is best channeled towards reforming the political process so that Independents and those unaffiliated with either major party can have a voice. You won’t be able to get a left-wing independent to agree with a right-wing independent on the fine points of a major issue, let’s say the Iraq war or illegal immigration. What you might get them to agree with is that their viewpoints as Independents and non-mainstream parties should be given as much weight and exposure in the public discourse as the voice of Democrats and Republicans.

Opening up the political system and process – that’s something concrete that I see left and right wing and other independents of various ideological hues can stand together and actually stand as a united front for something. That can mean being for reforms of our method of voting (Instant Runoff, Range, etc.); inclusion of non-mainstream candidates in presidential debates, reform of ballot access laws to accommodate third parties, Proportional Representation, etc. There are a surprising number of reform ideas floating out there that, if implemented, can really make a big difference in US politics.

As a progressive Independent, if there is to be a political movement for Independents, these are the types of reform measures that I would be happy to ally myself with right-wing, conservative, and other folks who might disagree with me on a host of issues. When it comes to the issue of leveling the playing field, I would be happy to set aside these differences to work together with people who I might not totally agree with on many fronts. On certain fronts that deal with inclusiveness of the political process I believe there is room for Independents to be able to agree with each other on something and to be mobilized towards a concrete goal.

Random Stuff

2007-09-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

Random Stuff

A couple of good things to read:

Two more great Open Left diary entries by Jeffrey Abelson on America's civic apathy. Well worth a read. And with comments by the Liberal Arts Dude!

We the Who?

The Armor of Apathy

And from this weekend's Washington Post magazine, a surprisingly candid and engaging look at longshot presidential candidate Mike Gravel

Citizen Slackers?

2007-09-06T19:45:00.000-04:00

Citizen Slackers?

From the Open Left blog diaries by Jeffrey Abelson:

What does it really mean to be a responsible citizen in modern times? How informed and engaged do we really need to be? What does it mean for democracy when 42% of us can't name the three branches of government -- let alone fathom the critical issues that not only affect the direction and character of the nation, but that directly affect our own lives, and those of future generations. The dirty little secret in American politics is that civic apathy, and the dangerous civic ignorance that flows from it, is rampant in America. And in a very real sense, it's the true root cause of our dysfunctional democracy.

Abelson cites a couple of sources to support his exploration of these questions:

Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions--What Americans Know: 1989-2007 by the Pew Research Center

Dunce-Cap Nation from Newsweek, June 23, 2007

Abelson’s conclusion:

The only way out of the hole America's dug itself into is to find a way to inspire ourselves to take our jobs as citizens much more seriously. To radically upgrade the operating system of democracy.

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

Well done! I look forward to reading (and responding to) the rest of Abelson’s writings on this subject in the coming weeks in Open Left. He is asking all the important and relevant questions that should be asked and exploring them in a fresh and challenging way.

In a lot of ways the subject he is tackling is not a new topic at all. I remember variations of “the uninformed public” as a recurrent theme in political and social commentary when I was growing up. It is only when I grew up that I realized how important it is to ask these questions and explore their logical conclusions and their implications.

One thing that I would caution the reader though is not to have knowledge of facts and current events of Civics 101 be the be all and end all of the worth of a citizen’s civic IQ. We have a lot of citizens for whom not knowing these information may be true. Those who are illiterate, those who are not well-educated or formally schooled—but who do recognize their interests as voters and citizens in a democracy and are eager to participate.

I will stand corrected if I am wrong but in the heyday of the labor movement in the 1920s and 30s, and in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, many of the citizens who supported these movements and stood to benefit were the poor, uneducated, and disenfranchised. If they were to be disqualified from participation back then there would have been no movements at all.

Now the willfully ignorant citizen—those with access to education, information, technology but choose to remain ignorant anyway—well, they are another story.

Post-Mortem America

2007-09-03T21:41:00.000-04:00

Every American citizen concerned about the state of democracy should read this eloquent essay by Chris Floyd (see below)

Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead
From Empire Burlesque

Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

Click here to read the full article

END OF POST

Independents and War with Iran

2007-09-03T12:13:00.000-04:00

Independents and War with Iran

A great discussion has been going hot and heavy the past couple of days in the Open Left blog on Barack Obama’s strong rhetoric against Iran. Follow the links below to read the full article and the comments that follow.

Obama, Iran, and the Confidence of Your Convictions

I tend to offer criticism of a politicians based on policy disagreements or issues of integrity. Over the past few days, the object of my criticism has been Barack Obama and his pugilistic language towards Iran. Obama is pushing a bill that would make it easier for American entities to divest from companies doing business with Iran, a bill with wide support in Congress as well as being a top AIPAC priority. An Obama supporter in the comments, horizonr, angrily pointed out that I was unfair to Obama because I hadn't linked to this Op-Ed he had written titled ' Hit Iran where it hurts', and that this piece gave his comments more context.

To see full article and discussion click here.

A blogger posed a question to me: how do you get political independents engaged in stopping the drumbeat for war with Iran?

This is a great question to ask in my mind because it is a direct challenge to the community of active Independent bloggers and activists to take a stand on a specific issue. And then harness that united stand towards concrete opposition towards an impending policy decision by the administration.

I can’t claim to speak for anyone out there but me. For this Independent, you have my attention. You personal outreach blogger to blogger succeeded in getting my attention to an important, looming issue and I am listening and observing what happens next.

For the Independent community at large, engaging bloggers and activists on an individual basis is a good strategy. A formal, organized outreach effort that says “we are Progressive Democrats and we oppose any war with Iran. This is what we are planning to do about it. Will you in the Independent community join us?”

But I think the larger question the blogger is actually asking is how do you harness the potential of the 35-40% of unaffiliated voters towards a political movement to stop the impending war with Iran?

That is the $1 million dollar question that I am afraid I don’t have the answer to. Based on my readings of Independent blogs and articles in the Internet, there is a wide diversity of views among Independents. The Independent community spans the spectrum of political opinion in various shades between Left and Right. Not all Independents will be against war with Iran. There will inevitably be some who would be for a war with Iran.

Then there is the fact that these 35-40% of the electorate is unorganized. I know that an effort is underway to change that by groups like the CUIP. But so far at this time, there is not an entity among political Independents similar to MoveOn.org.

Coming Soon: PR Push to Promote War with Iran?

2007-09-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

Coming Soon: PR Push to Promote War with Iran?

I followed an alert in the comments section of the Hankster’s blog on the possibility of impending war with Iran being reported via this blog. Breaking news on this issue here.

Sheer madness is the only thing I can think of about such reports. Madness not on the part of the reporter, but in the part of the US government and those of our leaders if it is true they are seriously contemplating an attack on Iran. The last time I heard the US military was operating at full capacity with ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—does it think that it can carry on military operations against Iran, conquer and occupy yet another Middle Eastern country? Or is occupation not even in the works and the US only intends to bomb the bejesus out of Iran, causing the inevitable civilian casualties and further destabilizing the region into chaos? And I ask—what for? Iran hasn’t attacked the U.S. except perhaps verbally.

From the same blog above, here are some questions posed by George Packer of the New Yorker:

Does the Administration expect the Iranian regime to fall in the event of an attack? If yes, what will replace it? If no (and it will not), why would the Administration deliberately set about to strengthen the regime’s hold on power? What will the Administration do to protect highly vulnerable American lives and interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world against the Iranian reprisals that will follow? What if Iran strikes against Israel? What will be the strategy when the Iranian nuclear program, damaged but not destroyed, resumes? How will the Administration handle the international alarm and opprobrium that would be an attack’s inevitable fallout?

Wise questions that our leaders should heed.

I never thought I’d see the day when preemptive military strikes would be a normal, everyday part of US foreign policy and diplomacy. Reports say that the public relations push to sell a war with Iran to the American people will start a week after Labor Day.
Let’s see what happens the next week or so.

Here’s an anonymous comment from the same blog which contains the best bit of wisdom I have seen so far in this brewing debate:

Anonymous said...
Want to know THE best way to totally deflate Ahmadinejad's sails? Apologize for overthrowing their democratically elected and very popular Premier Mossadeq and inflicting the dictator Shah upon them. THEN push hard for rapprochement with no strings. No trying to force an oil law upon them, no trying to force them to accept a Disney franchise, nothing. Tell them we want peace and economic ties, no strings.

Doing THAT would turn the Great Satan into the Great Puppy. Instead of feeding the fires in the bellies of the Ahmadinejads of Iran, keep throwing water on it and turn their fiery rhetoric hollow.

In short, quit acting as if we are entitled to ANYTHING they have. Quit acting as if we own the world or that it is "out way or the highway".

Political Engagement 101

2007-08-30T22:47:00.000-04:00

Political Engagement 101

Survey after survey reports that American students — while concerned about the world around them — are apathetic about politics. Events like Katrina or Darfur spark activism and voluntarism. And to be sure, college Democrats and Republicans are good at organizing competing speakers. But voter registration (and voting), turnouts at town hall meetings and knowledge of the political process remain embarrassingly low.

Research that will be presented this week at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting, which starts today in Chicago, suggests that political engagement can be taught. In a project led by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, researchers identified a series of courses that mixed more traditional political science education with participatory politics — not in the sense of organizing rallies for presidential candidates but with activities that go beyond formal classroom instruction.

To read the rest of the article click here.

Liberal Arts Dude sez: check out the comments section at the end of the article!

A Guide to the Democratic Party and Democrats

2007-08-26T23:16:00.000-04:00

A Guide to the Democratic Party and Democrats

An excellent guide to the various factions within the Democratic Party from the Monthly Review zine by Chris Townshend

That said, nowhere here did I say that work within the Democratic Party world is futile, impossible, or taboo. It's the only game in town, like it or not. But perhaps a more detailed understanding of the Democratic Party will provide all of us with a better sense of what we as a Left need to do in order to somehow, someday, build our own political action vehicle capable of defending working people and finally solving some of the acute problems we face. Possession of this knowledge may lower your blood pressure as well. To view the full article click here.