The following is a response to a post by Thomasgeist on restless geist (under the heading "Reductionist sloganeering"):
Thomasgeist, I disagreed with you on this when we discussed it at Chip's last week, and I still disagree. I challenge you in the following respects:
1) Today's "left" doesn't just address personifications of problems rather than problems themselves. For instance, MoveOn doesn't have a critique of capitalism, but they do have a critique of crony capitalism, and I personally think they're right to draw a distinction between DLC free-trade capitalists running the country and Halliburton running the country, and I also personally think the former is preferable to the latter. I actually think there is growing popular awareness of the concept of crony capitalism, and at some point it will reach some critical moment - it may not be Enron, it may not be the airline pension bailout, it may not be Iraq reconstruction contracts, but I do think there is a growing articulation of corporate control as problematic, and not only among this mythical coastal liberal college-educated professional Jewish homosexual elite.
2) The "left"'s slogans about Bush are not all empty nor do they all concern the fact that he got C's at Yale. Have you seen MoveOn's 17 new ads, directed by Errol Morris, profiling current and former Republicans who have decided to vote for Kerry? They articulate not one unitary message that Bush is a poor manager, but a wide variety of messages emphasizing his failed domestic and foreign policies. I would go so far as to say that they articulate a moral economy and position Bush as violating it. I think that constitutes effective politics. The one with the Louisiana woman, who concludes her message by saying, "I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican."
(Michael Moore, I grant, IS as bad as you think. Still, clearly articulating to such a large number of people that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 ALONE makes the movie worthwhile.)
3) It's not fair to say that this supposedly bankrupt monolithic left wants smart Yalies instead of dumb Yalies running the country. We can argue whether or not it is bona-fide "leftism" to point out that GWB is unqualified and surrounds himself with similarly unqualified people, but even if it's not, it's still true, and it's still worth pointing out. Having good manners and good grades are not the only things that differentiate JFK1 or JFK2 from GWB. Endorsing capitalism, liberalism, or imperialism do not put all these leaders in a single category.
4) You say that "the left's reduction to bland and increasingly unoriginal sloganeering simply reifies the problems associated with this administration's...policies and the above mentioned global systems and ideologies." Okay. Let's consider some of these horrible slogans the left has come up with lately. In my view, they are all quite a bit more substantive and original than you give them credit for.
* "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in America" - this has isolationist overtones and it oversimplifies the problem, but it nonetheless articulates a belief in the importance of government's provision of basic public welfare. to be sure, this could be said to "reify" the new-deal capitalist welfare state, but i (and this may be the core difference between you and me) proudly claim that new deal welfare state as an improvement on many of its predecessors and alternatives, in spite of its deep entanglement with ruling-class values and persons and while acknowledging its gross inadequacies and limitations. you might say that in the first half of the 20th century america's ruling elite came to regard itself as having a different type obligation of public service, and you can see that as culminating in vietnam and that's not wrong, but these days i truly think it's not silly or pointless to feel and articulate a certain nostalgia for some of its accomplishments - among which i would actually put not only social security and medicare (which i think are properly the objects of nostalgia in these times, not just more-radical-than-thou contempt), but also the rise of meritocracy as a central tenet of american political culture, and (relatedly) a limited but still very real improvement in the race/caste system (as my friend payton put it, fifty years after the brown decision america can justly pat itself on the back that "lynching is down"). honestly, if you're going to hold their massachusetts elitism against JFK1 and JFK2, you gotta also give them credit where credit is due, and recognize that they formed alliances with, advocated for, and got enthusiastic political backing from able, intelligent people not from their own background (starting with john edwards and lyndon johnson), which I think testifies to the fact that they cannot be viewed as the political embodiment of the desires of some this fantastical coastal elite but rather were positioned by their elite status to obtain political power while also themselves being idealistic individuals committed to nationalist and liberal ideas that are in important respects worthy of being disaggregated from bush-cheney cronyism. and frankly that bush attracts religious-right folks is all the more despicable because the religious right isn't just disenfranchised and poor, but is also incredibly pernicious - and to say that the liberal elite rejects religion because they articulate this perniciousness is, i think, to deny the incredible variety of actually existing religious belief and of ways of conceptualizing the relationship between faith, churches, and politics - of which john kerry's vision is in my personal opinion quite an admirable one.
* "support stem cell research to help find cures for alzheimers, parkinson's, etc" - this oversimplifies the nature of scientific research, but it manages not only a critique of bush's "antimodern religiosity" as you put it and not just his overriding belief in the Bible - it also manages to articulate the significance of the lengthening lifespan and the aging baby boomers who face new health problems that require not only insurance but also basic research. you can complain that it's elitist of kerry to go around saying he "supports science," but in fact I think the alzheimers issue resonates for a LOT of people of all races and backgrounds who are facing the issue of aging, dependent parents who are living longer, and many of whom are honestly likely to be weighing these matters against moral and religious qualms about embryos. this does a nice job of deflecting the charge of immorality that bush continually lobs at the democrats and especially socially progressive ones, and i think we are seeing that the deflection is working (witness laura bush coming out this week to defend her hubby's hard-line stance).
* "we need to make more friends and fewer terrorists" - i have heard that this concept polls exceedingly well with a wide variety of groups, and that it is the best angle the democrats have yet come up with to argue that they are better on counterterrorism than the republicans are. because after all there is a difference between unilaterialist imperialism and multilateralist imperialism, and the difference helps explain why america, but not germany france britain russia japan, is now the object of such intense hatred around the world. and the fact that america is so hated really SHOULD be an election issue; insofar as it relates to this question, the terrorism issue is a real one, not a silly one, even if americans unreasonably expect more security than do people in many other industrialized societies. this slogan helps articulate why bush is a failure at protecting americans from terrorism, and that's very, very critical and it's the one issue that kerry still consistently polls behind bush on. i think the democrats are right to think that while people want jobs, ultimately when they pull the lever this time around there are going to be a lot of people thinking about 9/11 and all the worrying they did that day and in the aftermath.
None of these slogans has anything to do with Bush's dumbness. All of them correspond to genuine social problems and criticize carefully delineated, varied aspects of Bush POLICY. Sure, the Internet forwards and animations and whatnot that some of us circulate about Bush's dumbness aren't politically important, and in some cases show the prejudices of the liberal elite (the hoax about the IQs of red- and blue-state populations being the most obvious example). And there are too many books being published, PERIOD - not just ones about how Bush is dumb, but also substantive ones about how he is evil and a crony capitalist and a bad manager. Even these books, though, are not the end-all and be-all of the contemporary left. The paper-ballot and voter registration projects, for instance, are innovative, new, intelligent, and there are a lot of people working hard for them.
5) Since when does Norman Mailer know fuck-all about anything?
“one homosexual can pollute a government office” —U.S. Senate subcommittee report, 1950
3 comments:
Security Risk: A one by one answer to your questions.
1) Certainly even DLC styled free-market capitalism is preferable to our current state. I was not arguing for this whatsoever, but rather simply pointing out, that the underlying problems with the world economic system as its practiced today remained from Clinton to Bush II and presumably would under a Kerry presidency as well. These problems, monopolization and control of credit, an essential anti-worker stance (though again, no delusions, life under the second JFK will be immeasurably better than under Bush), U.S. energy and transportation policy, and while cronyism is also likely to be immeasurably worse under Bush II then anything put in place under Kerry, it is equally delusional to argue that Kerry himself and his administration will be a party to such a brand of "clean" capitalism (kinda like "clean coal," only smells a little worse). Also, my post was in fact not a criticism of MoveOn at all, I LOVE MoveOn, it was an attempt at acknowledging where at least some of their monetary support may be coming from, people who don't even necessarily support their critique (of which MoveOn really has no offical ones) of crony capitalism, but rather its guise under this president. As for the David Brooksian ending (of which I only make reference to east coast educated, not gay or jewish) I will leave that alone, but only to say that it is a complete twisting of my words and my critique was meant to be a criticism of anti-bushism as often a posture, both cultural and analytical, a posture which seeks to establish the appearance of a political critique without the politics....Actually, I will speak to the gay slander above. Despite how my post may have sounded, I am not disadvocating Kerry in any way, in fact, if every thing else were equal between Bush and Kerry (which it is OF COURSE not) and their only diffrence was position on the marriage ammendment, I would still be advocating for Kerry.
In fact, the point here is more simple, gay people more than many American voters, especially the college educated of the (white) East Coast whose skills compete well in this economy and whose earning power makes it unlikely their children or brothers and sisters will see military enlistment as an excellent option, have a vested personal interest in the defeat of George W. Bush. In the end, this is perhaps the large point of what I was trying to get at. Not to dismiss the importance of conscientious action, nor to advocate for any outmoded understanding of false-consciousness, but there seems to be some kind of connection between many of the people outfront culturally (which one could also argue, very well in fact, is simply a function of their realtive cultural position) against this administration, the degree of their vested interest in its defeat, and the level to which their critique goes. Perhaps, a cursory historical thought, like the distinction between Aboltionists and LocoFocos?
2) I'll give you points here, Michael Moore's value in F-9/11 for instance. I will also give you the general brilliance of MoveOn produced ads (though see above for why this does not fit into my critique). What I won't give you is this: The rhetoric of the convention (Obama aside), the APPLAUSE of the convention, the behavior of voters in the primaries, and finally, though I have no social scientific numbers to back me up, a general feeling I've gotten when away from academia and in certain locales that vocalization against this administration operates more as a style of fashion than you, or I would like.
3) Again, I feel here that my critque was misunderstood (I also admit that its my fault for writiing it at 11 pm after a couple beers and no dinner). I made no mention of a bankrupt or monolithic left-in fact, I said the opposite, that the left should not be considered monolithic and that it also is not bankrupt, but rather does not exist, or exist in any way that makes it siimilar to the right. This was my point when I said "broadly defined." I am not here, trying to be in the old CPUSA, SDS, Cultural/Radical Feminist mold of dictating what is truly left and what is not. I think, you should know, that in fact I hate nothing more than that. Rather, I was merely tryting to echo, albeit poorly, various understandings of the anti-Bush phenomenon as being rarely analytical and rarely addressing anything more than Bush himself.
4) I'm taking these out of order.
Stem cells-I made no mention of their different policies on stem-cell research (just as I made no mention of differences in gay rights, immigration policy, the Patriot Act, abortion, strengthening of OSHA, etc.), policy differences that can't help but be substantive and incredibly important. That said, once again I'm going to echo a right critique here, but one I think the left poorly understands. The stem cell issue has become one of the major ways that Bush's intelligence gets brought into the debate, and here, it's mixed with his religiosity. No direct quotes here, but tell me this, have you ever gotten the feeling that people say Bush is against stem-cell research because he is stupid? I fell that I have. Instead, we should be saying, Bush is stupid because he's against stem-cell research.
-Firehouses-Here the answer is simple. Have you seen any policy put forward by Kerry that would make this happen? If not, it becomes the definition of an empty slogan. And no, simply saying we'll spend more on first responders doesn't count, because all Bush has to do is come back and say the same thing, yes he's coopted another Democratic issue, but that's because it was made cooptable.
-More friends and fewer terrorists-Again, while I do think Kerry will do this, and I do think there is a general policy proposal in here somewhere, I have one question. What is producing Islamist terrorists (cuz it seems those are the only kind anyone want to talk about) in the world right now? Three things more than any (in no particular order)-Iraq, U.S. Israeli policy and global economic division. What has Kerry proposed to do differently on any of these things?
Yes, you are right, all corrsepond to general social problems, but I have two replies. One, they seem overly empty, and two, the reason often given for these problems is again, the stupidity or denseness of Bush.
5) You've got me there.
Now, for a general response. Firstly, 2 of the questions I asked have yet to be answered
1) What if Bush had specifically said from the begining "we're invading Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people." What would the response have been? A hint lies in the horrible liberal equivocation that occurred after the doctored photo of Iraqi's "celebrating" their liberation.
2) What if Bush did not practice so blatant a brand of crony-capitalism (as in, take away Enron, Halliburton and the Energy Council, but leave in place tax cuts, trade policy and labor policy)? What would the response have been here?
Both these scenarios are easily imaginable, if the White House was just a little more politically savvy.
Now, on to the more general east coast criticism. First, a historical corrective, nothing about JFK's picking LBJ demonstrates a decision at all on his part-what were the other options given the primary, party and electoral context of 1960? More generally though, I did not criticize Kerry's background in this piece, but rather attempted to criticize a very limited political tactic that I've identified, rightly or wrongly, with a certain general cultural group. My sense is that it is rightly, but this is only my sense of it. I guess my biggest complaint works as follows-
Many of the slogans which seem to have either no policy backing or a critique of the processes this administration exemplifies are the only ones being floated around. There are many real and important differences between these two candidates, to reitterate: abortion, immigration, stem cell, gay rights, environmental issues, support for international org.'s and treaties, affirmative action, (hopefully, though I haven't seen it yet) heatlh care and taxation. Their policies on Iraq and general economic handling are also different, but not so vastly. It seems counterproductive to me for us to delude ourselves and say differentyl, the first list gives us more than enough reasons to support Kerry and kick this administration out of office. The second list should make us understand that we are no where near where we need to be in terms of cultural and poltiical power of framing the democratic debate on these issues. In the end, I feel that the best way to work towards this goal is to start working, not to use Bush's intelligence of lack thereof as an excuse to get rid of him. We need to cntest the policies, not their personification, and I think that amongst many their is an irrational hatred of Bush, rather than a perfectly rational hatred of everything he's done, and everything he represents.
Replies to portions of Thomasgeist's reply:
*****"Firehouses-Here the answer is simple. Have you seen any policy put forward by Kerry that would make this happen? If not, it becomes the definition of an empty slogan. And no, simply saying we'll spend more on first responders doesn't count, because all Bush has to do is come back and say the same thing, yes he's coopted another Democratic issue, but that's because it was made cooptable."
Saying we'll spend more on first responders is not cooptable, because Bush has been in office for three years and has cut this funding - and, in particular, he hasn't lived up to his specific promises to New York City (which, relatedly or not, is stupid, enrages me personally, and reflects the hostility to urban America that has characterized Republican policy at least since "Ford to City: Drop Dead"). It's arguably very smart that Kerry hasn't tried to pin himself down too specifically to specific numbers or proposals - the conventional wisdom is that challengers shouldn't, and Bush would likely respond by changing the subject to taxes and saying Kerry will raise them.
From Kerry's website: "Our first defenders will respond to any attack with courage and heroism--but they also need the equipment and manpower to do the job. The Kerry-Edwards plan will provide direct assistance to our police officers and firefighters to ensure that they have the communications systems, protective gear, and manpower they need to protect our communities. It will also modernize our emergency warning system to provide localized warnings, treat the fighters on the frontlines as partners, and provide all Americans with the information they need." I think this level of specificity is about right for 76 days before the election.
*****"More friends and fewer terrorists--Again, while I do think Kerry will do this, and I do think there is a general policy proposal in here somewhere, I have one question. What is producing Islamist terrorists (cuz it seems those are the only kind anyone want to talk about) in the world right now? Three things more than any (in no particular order)-Iraq, U.S. Israeli policy and global economic division. What has Kerry proposed to do differently on any of these things?"
For starters, Kerry has said he'll start taking troops out of Iraq within six months, a proposal that Bush has refused to go along with and called irresponsible. You can say this is trivial, but, honestly, Bush has gotten us into a such a completely unpredictable mess that it's hard to know how Kerry can maneuver without making promises that, by November 2, might come back to haunt him. I think he should continue making vague criticism about Iraq until about October 20, and then he should begin honing in with small, specific proposals that will be understood by the public as ideas that might save American lives and help us imagine "exiting" Iraq safely.
In a more general sense, Kerry has promised that he won't be obsessed with a single country or problem, which does constitute doing something "differently." "I think they've been strangely and uniquely ideologically obsessed, Iraq-centric, to the exclusion of other critical priorities on the face of this planet and our security needs as a nation."
As for Israel, for Kerry to voice anything other than complete support during the campaign would be political suicide, unfortunately. It would hurt him both with moderate and left-leaning Jews, and Christians of (almost) all kinds. It would also be highly contradictory for someone who take who has made his respect for America's alliances a campaign issue! I think Kerry has made clear, though, that he would at the very least abandon the crusader stance that has made not just extremists but moderates Muslims and Palestinians come to feel America has declared war on them. Beyond this, it's reasonable to predict that he'd pay more attention to the so-called "peace process" than Bush (which of course doesn't require setting the bar very high), and to at least attempt to gain the trust of moderates on the occupation issue. This is partly because Kerry, unlike Bush, is likely to consult advisors who both understand the views of and give a shit about the fate of both Palestinians and Israelis. One way of saying this is that Kerry would not be a CEO president, but that's more than simply to say that Kerry isn't Bush; it's to say that he is genuinely skilled at navigating difficult foreign policy matters, which the record does show. I think he should subtly or through proxies tout his negotiations with McCain to normalize relations with Vietnam as testimony to his skill at handling the aftermath of other people's total fuckups.
At the same time, I do think it's genuinely important on the campaign trail that Kerry not offend moderate to rightist American Jews, of whom there are plenty in Florida and Arizona, who both (1) are pretty likely Kerry voters but not totally in the bag, and (2) for reasons that are not as outrageous or "racist" as the anti-Israel left tends to imagine, strongly support Israel's right to exist even if they don't support its current regime.
I think we can expect even more from President Kerry in the matter of making more friends and fewer terrorists than just paying attention and not being an asshole, though. In fact, if Philip Gourevitch's long profile in the July 26 New Yorker is right, I think there are actually few American politicians better positioned than Kerry to help soften the anti-American sentiment that has built up virtually everywhere. This is because, according to Gourevitch, Kerry's foreign policy attitudes are guided not even so much by a commitment to multilateralism, but rather by a deeper and passionately felt distaste for the concept of American exceptionalism. Reading about this really made me respect Kerry as someone who genuinely has some ideas, and not totally despicable ones, about what role the US should play in the world.
His father's critique of Cold War-era approaches to NATO, together with his Vietnam experience, mean that Kerry "came of age believing that a misguided foreign policy is one of the greatest threats to America's well-being." More tellingly, Kerry flat-out "recoiled in dismay" when Madeleine Albright asserted that the we are "the indispensable nation." He preferred to say that "It has fallen to us to be that country." I'm actually pretty persuaded that Kerry is capable of making more friends and fewer terrorists, and I don't think he necessarily has to advance concrete policy proposals at this stage in order to convince folks of that idea.
The broad problem of global economic division is obviously real and critically important, and it's true that Kerry hasn't said very much about it. But I believe that the outsourcing debate and the unemployment and underemployment problem have structured American public opinion in a way that makes it difficult for someone to intervene and speak on the campaign trail about the fate of the global South. However, I don't think it's going too far to point out that Kerry has adopted and endorsed the Edwards "two Americas" theme and is not hostile to anyone even saying that inequality exists.
"Saying we'll spend more on first responders is not cooptable"
-This is only true IF a budget proposal has been made that actually spends more money on first responders. To my knowledge (which I will admit, is not complete) one hassn't been made. If the numbers aren't nailed down, then Bush can keep on saying the same thing, like he has been, and while its a lie, we've seen how effective merely calling Bush a liar or dishonest is (Richards tried it, McCain tried, Gore tried it).
" " reflects the hostility to urban America that has characterized Republican policy at least since "Ford to City: Drop Dead" "
-First, a problem. You know as well as I that the above New York Post column was an exaggeration and that Ford was not singling out NYC in any way. Would this be the defining moment in anti-urban hostility if instead of New York, it was a Detroit Free Press headline saying "Ford to Detroit: Drop Dead?" I think no (though plenty of cities, like Detroit, though NYC was one of the worst, had horrible budgetary issues in the 70s that crippled local governance). This is not to say that these policies were right by any means, but simply that the "Ford to City" headline is old, recylcled and ahistorical. Now for general Republican hostility to urban America. 1) I agree completely, but hostility needs to be elaborated on. Republican hostiliy to urban America has often, if not usually been a coded racist and homophobic (and less often, antisemitic) appeal. The other form it has taken is a neocoservative approach to poverty that, I might add, was originally championed by the quintessential New York City Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. This second (though I think it is certainly arguable whether it is truly a second, or merely just a strain of the first) approach has largely become hegemonic in both parties, though certainly more in the Republican side as there are still more than a few dem holdouts. Kerry throughout his Senate career has been more associate with the second strain than the holdouts and while Bush, fo his part, is a card carrying member of part I, neither two ideologies/approaches make me feel any better. I completely agree with you that Bush has fucked over NYC, though I think this argument is often made very poorly (witness criticism of Don Nickles valid question, though not valid point, about why NYC was getting 4000 times as much money than OK City for only 14 times as many deaths-as I said, not a valid point, but a question that deserves a better answer than, the terrorists don't want to attack Oklahoma or -HELLO, THEY DID, or, look at those whining Red Staters who want to fuck New York over). Now I agree also wiht your thread that this is a good issue to attack Bush on. Nothing is as effective for Kerry than having a bunch of firefighters join him on stage saying how with him president, they will get the equipment and resources they need. To reitterate, my main point here is as long as Kerry merely says it, instead of backs it up, the good guys will be in a he said-he said fight, and this is such a fight that we know Bush tends to win (witness his races against Richards, McCain and Gore.
"Kerry has said he'll start taking troops out of Iraq within six months"
-Fine, he's said it, but he's given me nothing to show me that it is a reasonable suggestion and even more so, has always followed it with "we will never cut and run." What if in 6 months taking troops out means cutting and running?
"I think they've been strangely and uniquely ideologically obsessed, Iraq-centric, to the exclusion of other critical priorities on the face of this planet and our security needs as a nation."
Great, keep this up, not only keep it up, but don't shy away from saying it, instead make it a VOCAL centerpiece of the campaign, not just a crumb thrown to you and me.
I agree, it is reasonable to think he would pay more attention to the peace process. I also agree it's not smart politically to criticize Israel too much. I do think, its possible to criticize Bush ON Israel and have it come off as not anti-Israeli.
-I don't think you were implying this, but for the record, I am not part of the anti-Israeli left and I wholly support Israel's right to exist (at this moment in time, not in 1947)
-Please send me the New Yorker piece-while your at it, if you haven't read it already, read the more recent New Yorker piece about New York secession, one of the specific articles I was originally responding to.
-As for economic -trade issues. You are right, the outsourcing debate has created a problem. Furthermore I respect Edwards for at least trying to reintroduce class into the debate and I respect Kerry, to a lesser extent, as he certainly hasn't taken the slogan and ran with it, for accepting on the part of his VP. Beyond that though, there are ways to frame these issues that they don't anger swing voters-you can talk about support of the bailout of third world debt, improved access to American technologies and patents (this can be framed quite well by reference to prescription drug), encouragement of fair labor standards through policy, not rhetoric (Dean finessed this quite well in fact amongst union voters who were inclined to not support him for his stance on NAFTA but who he was able to swing by cogently arguing that free trade plus fair wages, working conditions, right to organize makes outsourcing a decidedly smalle possibility and less profitable). You can also at least float out some support for Brazil and Lula in their fight against labor exploitation and European/American/Japanese monopolies on credit. The only people who care about this are those on the left who might be voting for Nader, so you can help bring them back, and those on the right who wouldn't touch Kery with a ten foot poll, and, I might add, more than a few swing voters from Central American countries coming into alignment with Brazil.
Are we friends again now?
Post a Comment