Wednesday, October 19, 2011
A Historical Narrative for OWS
One of the most nefariously effective strategies of the radical Right in this country has been identifying themselves with the heroism of the American past, and portraying any progressive policy as a kind of alien, anti-American imposition. (Notice the upsurge in references to "European socialized medicine" recently.) Today I happened to be in lower Manhattan, and within minutes I gazed on Alexander Hamilton's grave at the Trinity Church graveyard, and then walked a block north and saw the protesters at Zuccotti Park. This got me thinking about the long history in America of opposition to the capricious and undemocratic power of concentrated wealth. Occupy Wall Street and its allies need an antidote to the tricorn-hatted, Founder rim jobbing of the Tea Party set, and need to start reminding Americans of their traditional historical aversion to the financial industry's chicanery.
Hamilton's financial policies, which greatly benefited the rich creditors who held Revolutionary War debt, raised plenty of protest already in the 1790s, at the birth of the new republic. To pay off those creditors, the government instituted taxes on the whiskey stilled by farmers, many of whom protested during the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. The issue wasn't just taxes, but the fact that the government was sticking it to the lower orders in order to make sure that the wealthiest made themselves even richer. That state of affairs sounds awfully familiar today, doesn't it? Bankers wreck the economy, they get bailed out, and the rest of us are told there's no money left for Social Security, public education, or infrastructure.
Calls to break up big banks met with great popular approval in America's early days. Jefferson helped nix the First Bank of the United States, and Andrew Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States was met with popular adulation. Although I don't think it was a good decision, it nevertheless shows that resentment of concentrated wealth is not some kind of "Marxist" alien imposition, but as American as it gets. That popular disgust with banks, especially strong with farmers and rural folk who were turned out of their homes with little recourse, has been a mainstay of American culture. My grandfather despised banks, not because he was a socialist, but because as s farmer he was well aware of who was on his side and who wasn't. As Woody Guthrie sang back in the 1930s about bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd, "Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen."
For a time, the popular disapproval of reckless, unaccountable banks actually led to some real reform. From the Panic of 1819 to the Great Depression, unfettered banks kept ginning up the same boom and bust cycle of speculation whose many convulsions fell hardest on the ordinary people who lost their jobs, farms, and livelihoods whenever speculative bubbles burst. Finally, during the New Deal the Glass-Steagall Act put greater regulations on banks. This law was not perfect, but it kept financial institutions from staking their depositors' money on speculative chicanery that risked blowing up the economy. It also reflected the desire of leaders to listen to the people rather than the bankers. FDR won re-election by a landslide telling crowds that the banks were "unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred" and that "government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mobs."
In the era of financial regulation, from Glass-Steagall in 1933 to the Reagan years, we did not have one single financial crisis. Then came deregulation. First it was the Savings and Loans who were set free to enjoy the wonders of the market, which promptly allowed them to wipe out the entire system and force a bailout of hundreds of billions of dollars. In the 1990s Clinton and the GOP Congress repealed Glass-Steagall in the name of "innovation" in the same decade when hedge funds were basically left completely unleashed. Lo and behold, ten years later the "innovative" mortgage financed securities and credit default swaps inflated to a massive bubble whose bursting has still left the economy in shambles. We have been returned to the cruel roller coaster of the 19th century economy, with its wrenching disparities of wealth and chronic instability. It's high time that the 99% in this revive an old and venerable tradition of telling the banks that we, not them, are in charge in a democracy. After all, it's the American thing to do.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Musical Interlude: Countercultural Country Music
Today while I was at a record store in Brooklyn, of all places, I managed to buy some great vintage country LPs, including Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee. As I listened to and enjoyed it, I was struck at how much it reflected the counterculture of the early 1970s, from "Blame it on the Stones" skewering square attitudes about the new generation to "Sunday Morning Coming Down" getting inside the horror of a hangover better than any song has before or since. Music critics talk a lot about "alternative country," "country rock," and "outlaw country," but I think some of the stuff within these categorical silos, especially back in the seventies, can be grouped into something that I'll call "countercultural country."
Kristofferson acts the country hippie in the ironically titled "Law is For Protection of the People," knocking the capricious power of the police. The sentiment is less Nashville than Woodstock.
Johnny Cash, who in the mid-60s befriended Bob Dylan, the godfather of the counterculture, took Kristofferson's epic "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and made it his own. Not only does Cash sing about "wishing Lord that I was stoned," he breaks with the obligatory piety of country music by describing Sunday morning not as a time of worship, but as a soul-sapping moment of excruciating boredom. "There's nothing short of dying/ That's half as lonely as the sound/ Of a sleeping city sidewalk/ And Sunday morning coming down."
Gram Parsons was the ultimate country hippie, a man who could combine the country soul of Merle Haggard with the drug regimen of Timothy Leary. This song of wandering in search of home holds a very special place in my heart; I listened to it a lot in my car on my move from Texas to here in New Jersey. Call me an old softie, but when Gram and Emmylou sing "Twenty thousand roads I went down, and they all led me straight back home to you," I get a little misty-eyed.
Tompall Glaser hails from my home state of Nebraska, and was one of the more prominent figures in "outlaw country" back in the seventies. In this tune he makes a rather sly feminist statement about the piggishness of a certain breed of "traditional" men, but in a way that always brings a smile to my face.
Most folks remember Mike Nesmith for being the knit-hatted guitarist in the The Monkees, but he also cut some great country music in the seventies that borrowed from the spirit of sixties rock music. His 1972 album, rakishly titled And the Hits Just Keep on Coming is one of the true hidden gems of its time. Using a stripped down sound of just Nesmith's voice, his acoustic guitar, and some fantastic steel guitar playing from Red Rhodes, Papa Nes turns out the kind wistful, California folk and rock inflected country songs the Eagles were known for in this era, with an important difference: his stuff doesn't suck.
Alright, I'm cheating more than a bit with this last song, since Buck Owens is not somebody anyone would think of as countercultural. The man hosted Hee-Haw, fer chrissakes. That being said, he was willing to incorporate ideas from sixties rock and folk music into his sound, and in the process managed to craft what I believe to be one the greatest covers ever of a Bob Dylan song, which is high praise indeed.
Kristofferson acts the country hippie in the ironically titled "Law is For Protection of the People," knocking the capricious power of the police. The sentiment is less Nashville than Woodstock.
Johnny Cash, who in the mid-60s befriended Bob Dylan, the godfather of the counterculture, took Kristofferson's epic "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and made it his own. Not only does Cash sing about "wishing Lord that I was stoned," he breaks with the obligatory piety of country music by describing Sunday morning not as a time of worship, but as a soul-sapping moment of excruciating boredom. "There's nothing short of dying/ That's half as lonely as the sound/ Of a sleeping city sidewalk/ And Sunday morning coming down."
Gram Parsons was the ultimate country hippie, a man who could combine the country soul of Merle Haggard with the drug regimen of Timothy Leary. This song of wandering in search of home holds a very special place in my heart; I listened to it a lot in my car on my move from Texas to here in New Jersey. Call me an old softie, but when Gram and Emmylou sing "Twenty thousand roads I went down, and they all led me straight back home to you," I get a little misty-eyed.
Tompall Glaser hails from my home state of Nebraska, and was one of the more prominent figures in "outlaw country" back in the seventies. In this tune he makes a rather sly feminist statement about the piggishness of a certain breed of "traditional" men, but in a way that always brings a smile to my face.
Most folks remember Mike Nesmith for being the knit-hatted guitarist in the The Monkees, but he also cut some great country music in the seventies that borrowed from the spirit of sixties rock music. His 1972 album, rakishly titled And the Hits Just Keep on Coming is one of the true hidden gems of its time. Using a stripped down sound of just Nesmith's voice, his acoustic guitar, and some fantastic steel guitar playing from Red Rhodes, Papa Nes turns out the kind wistful, California folk and rock inflected country songs the Eagles were known for in this era, with an important difference: his stuff doesn't suck.
Alright, I'm cheating more than a bit with this last song, since Buck Owens is not somebody anyone would think of as countercultural. The man hosted Hee-Haw, fer chrissakes. That being said, he was willing to incorporate ideas from sixties rock and folk music into his sound, and in the process managed to craft what I believe to be one the greatest covers ever of a Bob Dylan song, which is high praise indeed.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Why Occupy Wall Street Matters
A while back I commented rather archly about the new wave of global protests that lack organization and coherence, and worried that Occupy Wall Street would of little consequence. For once, I am rather glad to be proven wrong. Since the city is starting to push the protesters a bit on their use of the park, it looks like the occupation might not last much longer. With the end perhaps nigh, I thought I'd take the opportunity to look at what has happened.
It took awhile, but the protests found a strong voice and garnered significant attention. In fact, the New York police may have inadvertently made the protests newsworthy through their mass arrest of protesters on Brooklyn Bridge. In general, the protests have put the issues of wealth inequality and corporate greed front and center, and it's about time. To my mind, along with unemployment, these are our nation's most pressing domestic issues. We have spent the last thirty years hurtling towards a new Gilded Age where the wealthiest have a stranglehold on politics and amass ever-larger fortunes at the expense of everyone else.
This was an issue that the Democratic party has been loathe to address, even despite president Obama's apparent concern about systemic inequality voiced in his 2008 campaign. During the budget negotiation in last year's lame duck session, Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which have starved the government of revenue, and helped bring on the debt ceiling hostage crisis, which did a great deal of damage to the economy.
The Democrats' consistent cowardice and reticence to do anything about inequality points to their constant fear of being labeled "class warriors." Never mind that the opposing party fights the class war with relish. They retain tax breaks for corporate jets while slashing Pell grants and wages for teachers, cops, and firefighters. Back in the Bush years, Thomas Frank's pathbreaking What's the Matter with Kansas? took Democrats to task for failing to fight for the economic interests of the working and middle classes. If both parties are owned by the corporations, wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage override economic concerns. The mainstream Democratic party is entirely incapable of rousing its base, which is why it had to be done by Occupy Wall Street. Instead of lambasting the protesters, Democrats and the mainstream Left have been falling over themselves to claim their cause. These protests might have been the kick in the ass the party has been needed for years.
Occupy Wall Street's response also shows that the grass roots Left still lives. Since the rise of the Tea Party, it had seemed to almost disappear. Much of this had to do with the Obama administration's triangulation tactics, which rewarded his fervent supports with derision in a political game to claim that ever-retreating middle. I have a feeling that these protests are only the beginning of a new national conversation that will focus on social injustice, and one that will make the GOP look horribly retrograde. Now that the spell of apathy for those on the Left has been lifted, it's now time to organize organize organize. If this spark ignites a fire of political zeal for greater social justice and equality, the Occupy Wall Street protests may very well be remembered for decades to come.
It took awhile, but the protests found a strong voice and garnered significant attention. In fact, the New York police may have inadvertently made the protests newsworthy through their mass arrest of protesters on Brooklyn Bridge. In general, the protests have put the issues of wealth inequality and corporate greed front and center, and it's about time. To my mind, along with unemployment, these are our nation's most pressing domestic issues. We have spent the last thirty years hurtling towards a new Gilded Age where the wealthiest have a stranglehold on politics and amass ever-larger fortunes at the expense of everyone else.
This was an issue that the Democratic party has been loathe to address, even despite president Obama's apparent concern about systemic inequality voiced in his 2008 campaign. During the budget negotiation in last year's lame duck session, Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which have starved the government of revenue, and helped bring on the debt ceiling hostage crisis, which did a great deal of damage to the economy.
The Democrats' consistent cowardice and reticence to do anything about inequality points to their constant fear of being labeled "class warriors." Never mind that the opposing party fights the class war with relish. They retain tax breaks for corporate jets while slashing Pell grants and wages for teachers, cops, and firefighters. Back in the Bush years, Thomas Frank's pathbreaking What's the Matter with Kansas? took Democrats to task for failing to fight for the economic interests of the working and middle classes. If both parties are owned by the corporations, wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage override economic concerns. The mainstream Democratic party is entirely incapable of rousing its base, which is why it had to be done by Occupy Wall Street. Instead of lambasting the protesters, Democrats and the mainstream Left have been falling over themselves to claim their cause. These protests might have been the kick in the ass the party has been needed for years.
Occupy Wall Street's response also shows that the grass roots Left still lives. Since the rise of the Tea Party, it had seemed to almost disappear. Much of this had to do with the Obama administration's triangulation tactics, which rewarded his fervent supports with derision in a political game to claim that ever-retreating middle. I have a feeling that these protests are only the beginning of a new national conversation that will focus on social injustice, and one that will make the GOP look horribly retrograde. Now that the spell of apathy for those on the Left has been lifted, it's now time to organize organize organize. If this spark ignites a fire of political zeal for greater social justice and equality, the Occupy Wall Street protests may very well be remembered for decades to come.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Major Advantages Barack Obama Will Have Against Any of the Republicans
Since I fell off the wagon yesterday to write about politics, I thought I'd go whole hog and give y'all a double barrel blast of election musings. President Obama will face some major challenges next year, from the sluggish economy to an irate base to GOP obstructionism to a tendency to back down from a fight to his inevitable inability to live up to the ridiculously high standards placed upon him in 2008. (I will admit some guilt in this regard, it wasn't just the ballyhoo of his campaign that put him in this bind.)
That being said, he has some major advantages on his side against any of the Republicans who might get the nomination, regardless of who that person will be.
He's a likable guy
President Obama has a winning personality, and comes across with a great deal of dignity while still remaining plenty of the common touch. (Those who argue that he is some kind of distant intellectual are bullshitting, imho.) Romney is slightly robotic in a Sears catalog menswear model kind of way, the Republican answer to John Kerry. Gingrich, Bachmann, and Cain are buffoons, and Perry is a blustering fool who makes George W. Bush look dignified. In a debate, all of these people will seem pretty silly by comparison to Obama, although Romney will at least look presidential.
Incumbency
I don't really need to say much here.
Foreign policy
In case you haven't noticed, the Republican debates have featured next to nothing related to foreign affairs. That's no accident, since the GOP wants to distant itself as much as possible from memories of the horrible failures and unpopularity of the Bush administration's neo-conservatism. If they try to claim, as Romney has, that the president has somehow been "soft," Obama will only have to remind America that he has bombed Libya, ordered the shooting of pirates and jihadists, and gave the order to take down bin Laden. I do not think all of these decisions were good ideas, but there's no way he can be attacked from the Right on foreign policy, as Democrats often are. He has proven himself to be a respected world leader, no matter his domestic failings or the smear tactics used against him.
The "are you really going to vote for them?" factor
The current Republican party and the Tea Party have a symbiotic relationship, which has pushed the GOP candidates harder to attack immigrants, bash gays, beat the Bible, engage in Islamophobia, and play racial politics of the most noxious kind (Exhibit A: the enthusiastic reception on the Right of Herman Cain's remarks about black Democrats being "on the plantation.") The president could have done a lot more to help the groups being demonized by the Right, the alternative is becoming increasingly unpalatable to anyone who is not white, straight, or fervently Christian. Our nation's demographics do not favor the Republican strategy of pandering to white resentment.
That being said, he has some major advantages on his side against any of the Republicans who might get the nomination, regardless of who that person will be.
He's a likable guy
President Obama has a winning personality, and comes across with a great deal of dignity while still remaining plenty of the common touch. (Those who argue that he is some kind of distant intellectual are bullshitting, imho.) Romney is slightly robotic in a Sears catalog menswear model kind of way, the Republican answer to John Kerry. Gingrich, Bachmann, and Cain are buffoons, and Perry is a blustering fool who makes George W. Bush look dignified. In a debate, all of these people will seem pretty silly by comparison to Obama, although Romney will at least look presidential.
Incumbency
I don't really need to say much here.
Foreign policy
In case you haven't noticed, the Republican debates have featured next to nothing related to foreign affairs. That's no accident, since the GOP wants to distant itself as much as possible from memories of the horrible failures and unpopularity of the Bush administration's neo-conservatism. If they try to claim, as Romney has, that the president has somehow been "soft," Obama will only have to remind America that he has bombed Libya, ordered the shooting of pirates and jihadists, and gave the order to take down bin Laden. I do not think all of these decisions were good ideas, but there's no way he can be attacked from the Right on foreign policy, as Democrats often are. He has proven himself to be a respected world leader, no matter his domestic failings or the smear tactics used against him.
The "are you really going to vote for them?" factor
The current Republican party and the Tea Party have a symbiotic relationship, which has pushed the GOP candidates harder to attack immigrants, bash gays, beat the Bible, engage in Islamophobia, and play racial politics of the most noxious kind (Exhibit A: the enthusiastic reception on the Right of Herman Cain's remarks about black Democrats being "on the plantation.") The president could have done a lot more to help the groups being demonized by the Right, the alternative is becoming increasingly unpalatable to anyone who is not white, straight, or fervently Christian. Our nation's demographics do not favor the Republican strategy of pandering to white resentment.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thoughts on the Race to the White House, Now That It's Really Begun
Oh politics, I wish I could quit you, but I can't. The sideshow quality of the Republican nomination race just makes it too hard for me to look away. After lots of dithering and speculation about who would run, the field has finally solidified. More importantly, the candidates have started to go after each other with hammer and tongs, rather than just lambasting the president.
On the first point, it was hardly surprising that Chris Christie and Sarah Palin opted out. As Palin's decision to leave the governorship of Alaska mid-term manifestly showed us already, she is not interested in holding political office. She doesn't want to be president, she wants to be queen. I must admit that it is heartening to see the most grotesquely brazen fame whore of our times fade into utter irrelevance, including among her formerly fervent supporters. Christie wised up once he saw what happened to Rick Perry. Very quickly after he entered the race, the rest of the nation soon realized what most Texans already know: Rick Perry has more hair follicles than brain cells. The news media, entranced as usual by the Next Big Thing, touted Perry as a far-sighted, pragmatic leader, skipping over the fact that he is a goddamned moron. Christie probably figured out that when the nation outside of New Jersey got exposed to him, they'd soon realize that when the media calls him "brutally honest" they really mean "overbearing, insensitive, bullying asshole."
With the field set, and Perry falling out of the clear front-runner spot after making his complete inaptitude to be a world leader manifest in recent debates, the candidates have taken off the gloves and bared their teeth. The attacks by other candidates on Romney have gone beyond the political (his record as a moderate governor in Massachusetts) to now making his Mormon religion a campaign issue. At the so-called "Values Voters" summit this weekend, the preacher who introduced Rick Perry used it as an opportunity to spew bigotry against Mormons and effectively claim that Mitt Romney is a cult member. Other candidates, like Cain and Bachmann, have refused, when given the opportunity, to say that Romney is a Christian. It's hardly surprising that this low blow has come so soon in the campaign, considering the GOP has invested a great deal of time in making Barack Obama into an "other" embodying anti-Americanism.
Romney is not the only candidate whose personal life has become an issue. For a very short period of time this week, Herman Cain went after Rick Perry on the issue of his family's connection to the "Niggerhead" hunting ground, before backing down amidst heavy flak from the hard Right. Republicans have pretty much written off the black vote, but they also know that if a guy considered "one of the good ones" accuses Perry of racism, the charge might actually stick and turn off white moderates in the general election.
Ironically enough, Perry has also been getting more rigorously raked over the coals over immigration policy, the favorite issue of those "real Americans" who want to keep America white, er, I mean, "take their country back." The attacks on a states' rights secessionist like Perry from the Right, rather than the center, tell us just how insane the activist wing of the Republican party has become. Their members' continual dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer reflects a fundamental problem for the GOP: they are bound to their ideology so completely that no one candidate will be able to conform to it. This is a huge boost to Hermann Cain, because he does not have a legislative record to compare to his ideological pronouncements.
In the end, the result looks just as predictable as ever: Mitt Romney getting the nomination. He has the vote of moderate Republicans (as small as that is), and now that the knives are out, the candidates trying to claim the conservative mantle will cut each other to pieces. In fact, this will make it all that much easier in the general election, since he can point to how he is less doctrinaire than other Republicans. Then again, this election had already exceeded the weirdness quotient, so who knows what will happen next.
On the first point, it was hardly surprising that Chris Christie and Sarah Palin opted out. As Palin's decision to leave the governorship of Alaska mid-term manifestly showed us already, she is not interested in holding political office. She doesn't want to be president, she wants to be queen. I must admit that it is heartening to see the most grotesquely brazen fame whore of our times fade into utter irrelevance, including among her formerly fervent supporters. Christie wised up once he saw what happened to Rick Perry. Very quickly after he entered the race, the rest of the nation soon realized what most Texans already know: Rick Perry has more hair follicles than brain cells. The news media, entranced as usual by the Next Big Thing, touted Perry as a far-sighted, pragmatic leader, skipping over the fact that he is a goddamned moron. Christie probably figured out that when the nation outside of New Jersey got exposed to him, they'd soon realize that when the media calls him "brutally honest" they really mean "overbearing, insensitive, bullying asshole."
With the field set, and Perry falling out of the clear front-runner spot after making his complete inaptitude to be a world leader manifest in recent debates, the candidates have taken off the gloves and bared their teeth. The attacks by other candidates on Romney have gone beyond the political (his record as a moderate governor in Massachusetts) to now making his Mormon religion a campaign issue. At the so-called "Values Voters" summit this weekend, the preacher who introduced Rick Perry used it as an opportunity to spew bigotry against Mormons and effectively claim that Mitt Romney is a cult member. Other candidates, like Cain and Bachmann, have refused, when given the opportunity, to say that Romney is a Christian. It's hardly surprising that this low blow has come so soon in the campaign, considering the GOP has invested a great deal of time in making Barack Obama into an "other" embodying anti-Americanism.
Romney is not the only candidate whose personal life has become an issue. For a very short period of time this week, Herman Cain went after Rick Perry on the issue of his family's connection to the "Niggerhead" hunting ground, before backing down amidst heavy flak from the hard Right. Republicans have pretty much written off the black vote, but they also know that if a guy considered "one of the good ones" accuses Perry of racism, the charge might actually stick and turn off white moderates in the general election.
Ironically enough, Perry has also been getting more rigorously raked over the coals over immigration policy, the favorite issue of those "real Americans" who want to keep America white, er, I mean, "take their country back." The attacks on a states' rights secessionist like Perry from the Right, rather than the center, tell us just how insane the activist wing of the Republican party has become. Their members' continual dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer reflects a fundamental problem for the GOP: they are bound to their ideology so completely that no one candidate will be able to conform to it. This is a huge boost to Hermann Cain, because he does not have a legislative record to compare to his ideological pronouncements.
In the end, the result looks just as predictable as ever: Mitt Romney getting the nomination. He has the vote of moderate Republicans (as small as that is), and now that the knives are out, the candidates trying to claim the conservative mantle will cut each other to pieces. In fact, this will make it all that much easier in the general election, since he can point to how he is less doctrinaire than other Republicans. Then again, this election had already exceeded the weirdness quotient, so who knows what will happen next.
My Conservative Side
As our politics have become more polarized and tribal in nature (I listen to NPR not Hannity, watch MSNBC not Fox News, eat local instead of Applebee's, etc) the shades of grey and ambivalences that we all have in our hearts have become blasphemous to utter. Since I am all for honest blasphemy rather than dishonest doctrinal purity, I thought I would volunteer my own conservative sympathies on certain subjects.
Much of this, of course, is small "c" conservatism, conservatism in the literal sense meaning wanting to conserve traditional, older things threatened by modern life. Those who call themselves "conservatives" today are in reality the most destructive of radicals. In their crusade to make all society submit to the will of the capitalist market, they attack the public spirit in the name of a soulless individualism that reduces all social relations to the almighty dollar.
Most of my opposition to free market orthodoxy has to do with more Leftist values of social justice. At the same time, however, I shudder to think at how unrestrained capitalism wrecks social bonds, undermines the family, and turns education and religion into consumerist businesses. This reflects a general distaste on my part for ideology, whether it be of the Left or the Right. In some respects, I have taken to heart some of the observations of that ur-conservative, Edmund Burke. He was ultimately right to decry the Enlightenment gospel of human perfectability as the gateway to failed experiments and misery on a vast scale. (Exhibit A: the Jacobin stage of the French Revolution, Exhibit B: Communism, Exhibit C: Neo-liberal capitalism). I obviously find his defense of inherited political power and the aristocracy to be bullshit, but I must recognize the validity of some of his other insights.
While I am still in the political confessional (which makes you all in cyberland my priestly confessors), I must admit that I find many liberals to be insufferably smug and naive. When I was in Texas there were so few liberals, and we were so surrounded by people that hated us, which meant that we tended to be a little more aware of what other people thought of us, and maybe restrained us. Now that I work every day in New York City, I am surrounded by ultra-PC liberals who seem completely unaware of their abnormality. They are quick to talk about social consciousness and globalization, but seem wholly ignorant of how the bus drivers and bodega owners in their own neighborhood see the world, much less those rural people clinging to their guns and religion whose paranoia may very well decide the next election. (I agree with the president's controversial remarks about rural America, because in my experience, they are true. Unfortunately, most liberals seem to have failed to understand the implications of that truth, and why it means they will be on the losing end.) It pains me to say this, but the average conservative, in my experience, is much better connected to the public pulse than the average liberal.
Wow, that is going to net me a hefty penance of novenas and rosaries.
Last, but most importantly, I think values do matter, and that while my values are mostly very different than those of the conservative movement, I think that the Left has failed heartily to talk about values, while conservatives have emphasized the importance of values. There is a fundamental contradiction in the modern conservative philosophy that extols the virtues of rapacious capitalism, and then laments the loss of "traditional values," when it is our nation's ideal of consumerism ueber alles that's to blame. Well I do think that things like having a work ethic, treating people fairly, being honest, and not compromising one's integrity are really important and need to be stressed. It's just that I think these values of fairness mean letting gay people marry and combating racism and sexism. Because I think hard work ought to be valued, I think it's criminal to let the people who make money from money amass fortunes that would make King Midas blush, all the while busting unions and taking away health insurance. I am optimistic about the Occupy Wall Street protests because they are actually forcing the Democratic politicians, who seem to only value staying in office, to actually think about what they stand for. Once we get away from ideologies, party lines, and parroting the talking points of our news media of choice, there might be some positive change.
Much of this, of course, is small "c" conservatism, conservatism in the literal sense meaning wanting to conserve traditional, older things threatened by modern life. Those who call themselves "conservatives" today are in reality the most destructive of radicals. In their crusade to make all society submit to the will of the capitalist market, they attack the public spirit in the name of a soulless individualism that reduces all social relations to the almighty dollar.
Most of my opposition to free market orthodoxy has to do with more Leftist values of social justice. At the same time, however, I shudder to think at how unrestrained capitalism wrecks social bonds, undermines the family, and turns education and religion into consumerist businesses. This reflects a general distaste on my part for ideology, whether it be of the Left or the Right. In some respects, I have taken to heart some of the observations of that ur-conservative, Edmund Burke. He was ultimately right to decry the Enlightenment gospel of human perfectability as the gateway to failed experiments and misery on a vast scale. (Exhibit A: the Jacobin stage of the French Revolution, Exhibit B: Communism, Exhibit C: Neo-liberal capitalism). I obviously find his defense of inherited political power and the aristocracy to be bullshit, but I must recognize the validity of some of his other insights.
While I am still in the political confessional (which makes you all in cyberland my priestly confessors), I must admit that I find many liberals to be insufferably smug and naive. When I was in Texas there were so few liberals, and we were so surrounded by people that hated us, which meant that we tended to be a little more aware of what other people thought of us, and maybe restrained us. Now that I work every day in New York City, I am surrounded by ultra-PC liberals who seem completely unaware of their abnormality. They are quick to talk about social consciousness and globalization, but seem wholly ignorant of how the bus drivers and bodega owners in their own neighborhood see the world, much less those rural people clinging to their guns and religion whose paranoia may very well decide the next election. (I agree with the president's controversial remarks about rural America, because in my experience, they are true. Unfortunately, most liberals seem to have failed to understand the implications of that truth, and why it means they will be on the losing end.) It pains me to say this, but the average conservative, in my experience, is much better connected to the public pulse than the average liberal.
Wow, that is going to net me a hefty penance of novenas and rosaries.
Last, but most importantly, I think values do matter, and that while my values are mostly very different than those of the conservative movement, I think that the Left has failed heartily to talk about values, while conservatives have emphasized the importance of values. There is a fundamental contradiction in the modern conservative philosophy that extols the virtues of rapacious capitalism, and then laments the loss of "traditional values," when it is our nation's ideal of consumerism ueber alles that's to blame. Well I do think that things like having a work ethic, treating people fairly, being honest, and not compromising one's integrity are really important and need to be stressed. It's just that I think these values of fairness mean letting gay people marry and combating racism and sexism. Because I think hard work ought to be valued, I think it's criminal to let the people who make money from money amass fortunes that would make King Midas blush, all the while busting unions and taking away health insurance. I am optimistic about the Occupy Wall Street protests because they are actually forcing the Democratic politicians, who seem to only value staying in office, to actually think about what they stand for. Once we get away from ideologies, party lines, and parroting the talking points of our news media of choice, there might be some positive change.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Thoughts on a Trip to Wal-Mart
I wrote this during my time in Texas, and I am rather proud of it. Reading it again, I am also glad not to be living there anymore.
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Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California" has long been one of my favorite poems. In it he imagines meeting Walt Whitman in a supermarket, that most modern of locales in postwar America, with the old poet puzzled by the passing of the land that he once knew and loved so well. As sterile as supermarkets may be, they can at least inspire such reveries. A Wal-Mart, however, cannot.
I typically avoid going to Wal-Mart at all costs, which is difficult in the town where I live. As in my hometown (which is about the same size) there are few retail options available, and there are more people at the Wal-Mart than at any other place in town at any given time. It is the marketplace, the Agora, the Forum, of small-town America, and what a bitter patrimony it is.
I went tonight because I needed to load up on supplies for my road trip to New Jersey, including items like a blanket for my cat carrier, summer sausage for the road, and a small aluminum tray to serve as a compact, traveling litter box. I made my trip during the dinner hour to avoid the crowds, but my timing seemed off. The place was swamped, loud, crowded, and deeply unpleasant.
In moments such as these, a trip to Wal-Mart seems to encapsulate all that it is wrong with this country. It is a cathedral to empty commerce, completely utilitarian and lacking in any value other than selling cheaply-priced crap. All is bedecked in a faux, shallow, and emptyheaded redwhitenblue patriotism manufactured with cheap Chinese labor. The lack of civility is striking, I always feel as if I have stepped onto the set of the movie Idiocracy. This time I was at least spared something I've seen in the past: spousal yelling matches cut with many a loudly spoken profanity. (The website People of Walmart seeks to document the vortex of taste that is Walmart, although in fashion that I find more than a bit classist.) Still, I got to witness screaming children ignored by their parents, relatively benign children upbraided sharply by their elders, and an endless parade of fat kids. For some reason my brain can assimilate the many swollen people who move themselves forward by shifting their weight side to side, but the sheer numbers portly children disturbs me. (This situtation has already eroded our military readiness.)
I spend so much time by myself or in the relatively removed environment of the university that I sometimes forget that Walmart is where you find out what the score really is. We have given up the downtowns and the civic bonds of old for inexpensive DVDs, cheap towels, and low-price ham under one roof. We are a nation anaesthetized by consumerism, sated with massive quantities of shit and uninterested in quality. Wages have been stagnant for so long that few can hope for much better. I often hear conservative intellectuals crow about the wonders of the unfettered free market. If they actually had to shop at a rural Wal-mart, the ultimate outcome of their economic ideas, they might not be so praiseful, and I'm sure Walt Whitman would be struck speechless with horror.
****************
Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California" has long been one of my favorite poems. In it he imagines meeting Walt Whitman in a supermarket, that most modern of locales in postwar America, with the old poet puzzled by the passing of the land that he once knew and loved so well. As sterile as supermarkets may be, they can at least inspire such reveries. A Wal-Mart, however, cannot.
I typically avoid going to Wal-Mart at all costs, which is difficult in the town where I live. As in my hometown (which is about the same size) there are few retail options available, and there are more people at the Wal-Mart than at any other place in town at any given time. It is the marketplace, the Agora, the Forum, of small-town America, and what a bitter patrimony it is.
I went tonight because I needed to load up on supplies for my road trip to New Jersey, including items like a blanket for my cat carrier, summer sausage for the road, and a small aluminum tray to serve as a compact, traveling litter box. I made my trip during the dinner hour to avoid the crowds, but my timing seemed off. The place was swamped, loud, crowded, and deeply unpleasant.
In moments such as these, a trip to Wal-Mart seems to encapsulate all that it is wrong with this country. It is a cathedral to empty commerce, completely utilitarian and lacking in any value other than selling cheaply-priced crap. All is bedecked in a faux, shallow, and emptyheaded redwhitenblue patriotism manufactured with cheap Chinese labor. The lack of civility is striking, I always feel as if I have stepped onto the set of the movie Idiocracy. This time I was at least spared something I've seen in the past: spousal yelling matches cut with many a loudly spoken profanity. (The website People of Walmart seeks to document the vortex of taste that is Walmart, although in fashion that I find more than a bit classist.) Still, I got to witness screaming children ignored by their parents, relatively benign children upbraided sharply by their elders, and an endless parade of fat kids. For some reason my brain can assimilate the many swollen people who move themselves forward by shifting their weight side to side, but the sheer numbers portly children disturbs me. (This situtation has already eroded our military readiness.)
I spend so much time by myself or in the relatively removed environment of the university that I sometimes forget that Walmart is where you find out what the score really is. We have given up the downtowns and the civic bonds of old for inexpensive DVDs, cheap towels, and low-price ham under one roof. We are a nation anaesthetized by consumerism, sated with massive quantities of shit and uninterested in quality. Wages have been stagnant for so long that few can hope for much better. I often hear conservative intellectuals crow about the wonders of the unfettered free market. If they actually had to shop at a rural Wal-mart, the ultimate outcome of their economic ideas, they might not be so praiseful, and I'm sure Walt Whitman would be struck speechless with horror.
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