I have no doubt that what Ochenski writes this week is correct:
The air has gone out of the Democrats' balloon, not in a burst, but in a series of tiny, endless leaks. Now, we are treated to the same choice we've had in the past-voting for the lesser of two evils this November. So take your pick; it's either the wicked corporate-puppet Republicans or the supposedly slightly less wicked, corporate-puppet Democrats. The White House, too late, sees the writing on the wall. Unfortunately, it's in their own hand.
Or, as Greg Sargent put it in a beautiful riposte to the usual insider complaining about blogger and activist "lamentations...unhinged from historical context or contemporary political realities," "the White House has remained captive to a Beltway culture that fetishizes bipartisanship and has failed to seize this historical moment's potential to dramatically expand the boundaries of what's politically possible...."
There are political realities - like the Senate filibuster, Ben Nelson, and deep-pocketed lobbyists - and, given the context, the Obama administration has achieved much, from a DC perspective. Passing a health-care reform bill was nearly politically impossible - but then we ended up with a deeply flawed bill that doesn't address what's wrong with health care. Finance reform was difficult in the face of high-finance lobbying, but the bill only creates new regulations and a new regulatory agency, which will no doubt be under-funded and under-staffed. That is, no real reform happened.
These "victories" preserve institutions that shouldn't be preserved.
Good bye base of the Democratic party. The probable story of the 2010 midterms won't be the "Republican resurgence," although that will be the media line, it'll be Democratic indifference. We already saw that in the Montana primary, in Missoula county's state-low and anemic voter turnout numbers.
But retreat into personal change isn't the answer. Derrick Jensen:
At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn't pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one-if we avidly participate in the industrial economy-we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of "success" in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the "alternative" option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn't even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses.
With corporate industry being preserved at all costs by the people we put in power to combat that power, and individual action meaningless as social change, Jensen mulls another option:
The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we'd lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we've grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world-none of which alters the fact that it's a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.
The question is, how to go about the third option? Peter Shelton in this week's Indy gravitates towards Earth First!: "When the news spread last year about Tim DeChristopher's impromptu act of civil disobedience in Utah, I thought: Somebody is finally reviving the lost art of environmental monkey-wrenching."
Only those tactics didn't work before, and the media and industry has long since learned how to deal with acts of prankish civil disobedience. It's as good as doing nothing. Worse. This stuff got us Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes. Plus this kind of action is devoid of a coherent means to a goal and devoid of empathy or understanding. "Hope stands in the way of action," said a modern monkey-wrencher; "I don't like the human race," says another, described as expressing a "hard-earned misanthropy." Both attitudes show a fundamental ignorance of how desperate working-class families in rural areas are for work, usually provided by the extraction industry. There's a problem here, but targeting the working stiffs trying to pay the mortgage on the double-wide isn't the answer. So, yeah, count me out.
Other solutions seem equally fruitless. A third party? In winner-take-all elections? Recipe for marginalization and conservative radicalism. "Revolution" is naïve and violent and often produces results worse than the original problems, and chances are the "people" won't be with you.
Personally, I like the idea of finding and electing better people. I think one of the reasons we're stuck with the current political situation, is that the leftward shift of the electorate happened too quickly. There are still too many old-guard politicos in office, with seniority and entrenched insider notions about institutions and governing.
Discuss. What should we do? What should be our methods and goals and expectations?
I know some of you will take this opportunity to rant and rail against this blog, against the state's Democratic delegation, against the president, and against the efforts of honest people. Still, I challenge you: speak positively. What's the best way to turn things around? |
