Seeking Progressive Social Change

I am no conservative (though I once played one in college). But I can usually get along OK with traditional conservatives because their goals are well-matched to mine: Fairness, freedom, equality. The differences, in some ways, are how we get there.

Right-wingers are a different animal, and since their party gave up its  conservative roots a long time ago, I have little concern – and not a little glee – watching the right-wing Republican Party self destruct. When you consider the mess that right-wingers have made of the economy, the environment, our foreign policy, (pick a topic), their current implosion seems a just and fitting reward.

So the web is full of articles from Republicans looking for the way out of their abyss, and with every post they remind us just how deep their problems are.

Consider this article from the The Becker-Posner Blog, a website out of the classical conservative school, called “The Serious Conflict in the Modern Conservative Movement.” They argue that the ideological disparities between classical “economic” conservatives and “social” (or “family values”) conservatives are the culprit:

Well said. But I’d go further:  Social conservatives and traditional conservatives can no longer hold their party together because their inherent contradictions can no longer be sustained.

That’s what you get when you abandon the traditional ideas of small government and the like for the more electorally enticing – though inherently hypocritical – “social issues.” Like “Clear Skies Initiatives” that make it easier to pollute; frantic appeals to gun-toting outdoor-types while undermining the national park system; “small government” that starves public works on one hand but dictates personal behavior on the other and spies on its own citizens; “Christian Coalitions” that appeal to bible-thumpers while ignoring The Beatitudes, the poor, and 90% of Jesus’ teachings.

These were the kinds of hypocrisies that would make a progressive pull their hair out for the last twenty years or so. But ultimately such contradictions cannot continue, because people can be duped for only so long. And in the age of blogs and electronic media such duplicity gets even harder to pull off.

So going after gays/liberals/latte-sipping intellectuals, science and “elites” now makes them look nasty, backwards and foolish. For one, even Republican families have kids coming out of the closet. The culture is moving on and becoming much more accepting in this area. And do they really think Joe SixPack is the kind of guy to navigate the economy? To keep the banks together? Scapegoating and appeals to mediocrity fall flat when the times call for our best and brightest.

And then there’s a bigger problem, one which transcends these internal contradictions.  In an era when Baby Boomers – approaching retirement and living longer – can’t afford their anticipated quality of life; where most people struggle with debt, health costs, college tuition; where Americans have been rejecting consumerism for a more natural, local-based lifestyle, and when yet another financial crisis feeds a growing suspicion of big business’ role in creating these problems, small-government, hands-off ideas no longer appeal in a mass way.

If the Party can’t hide beneath a less-impactful cover of “family values,” and the culture rejects even those old-time conservative economic ideas, then there ain’t much there, there. However the conservative movement comes to define itself, it’s going to be on the outside looking in for a long time to come.

Letters, letters, I get letters.

Sometimes I get thoughtful comments, sometimes off-color pings that make me laugh out loud. Once in a while I get a disturbing email, like the guy who blasted my BlackBerry three times while I sat in my car at the ShopRite demanding in four-letter terms that I should ship myself “back to the other socialists in Canada”.

Yesterday I got one from the disturbing category.This came from someone named “b*fox” (I’ll betcha ”fox” is a reference to that fabbie news channel ). Since this is a public forum and a free country, I’ll reproduce this one in full:

On one hand, I’ve gotten much meaner notes than this one. I found myself wondering why this one struck such a nerve.

For one, I have read “Atlas Shrugged” – well, most of it. I also read “Anthem” and “The Fountainhead” (two times through, back to back.) I’ve written about my break with Ayn Rand and the Objectivists before; I rejected that philosophy because, like all fanatics, Objectivists assume that their way is the only way without exception to solve all social ills.

That’s called zealotry, which makes Objectivism no different – practically speaking – from communism, fascism, or libertarianism.  Demanding that a single philosophy should be followed without exception gets you ideological tyranny. It’s a social change dead-end.

I was a fanatic myself, two different times: Once of the Right (God Bless Ronald Reagan) and once of the further left, let’s say.  But as I’ve gotten older and – dare I say it wiser – I’ve come to believe that no framework for understanding the world fits every situation, every time.

I think that’s why this note from b*fox got under my skin so. I don’t know what political bucket I fit into anymore, except that I no longer define myself by any single one. When people assume that I’m a “liberal” I blanch, and not just because of the way the Right has come to define the term ( “bleeding heart, limp-wristed, welfare-spending, enemy-loving wimp” -thank you Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and FOX News.) I could live with the WWll-era definition, where “liberals” were open minded, anti-racist, and open to social change within the confines of capitalist democracy.  But this definition no longer lives in our social consciousness.

So then here’s b*fox, a fellow citizen who rejects anyone’s thinking that falls outside of his rigid conservatism, and takes the time to submit a blog’s form to make it clear. Here’s a guy who boasts – proudly – that he “earned” a college degree without challenging, arguing, engaging or defending an opinion. I’d say this guy ought to remove all references to his degree from his resume. This is no kind of education.

Cornell West once said, When  your prejudices and preconditions no longer sustain you, you’ve been educated. I’d suggest b*fox give some thought to this. But then he’d ignore these wise words because they came from that “liberal” Cornell West. A sad thing for him.

And for us. I assume that democracies are still the most effective way we’ve found to organize a peaceful society, and I think history defends that position rather well. So running into narrow-minded folks like this guy is disappointing indeed.

I aim for optimism. It’s really never too late to change, and given that we’re in the early days of our Information Age there’s reason for being hopeful. Even for someone like b*fox. Not that he should agree with my viewpoint; rather, I’m simply suggesting that he consider other ideas even when they don’t jive with his own.

One can’t deny that people are rejecting the old right-wing fear tactics in a way that transcends modern memory. Obama’s popularity remains surprisingly high even in the face of a Right-wing propaganda machine, which keeps falling flat. And I’m not saying that everyone should be a fan of Obama. What I am saying is that disagreements should be reasonable or honest, and not because he’s a “socialist”, a “non-American”, or “dictator”, terms which the republican party employs and right-wing fanatics actually seem to believe.

I don’t know what my personal political bucket should be defined by.  When you tie yourself down to a unbending viewpoint, you spend your energy rejecting any idea that doesn’t neatly fit with your preconception. And you’ll miss an awful lot of good ideas as a result. Political ideaologues devote their efforts to defining a perfect society. Imagine one that’s filled with open-minded, contemplative citizens? That’s a world I could be happy living in.

Man oh man, I take a break from blogging for a few months, naively assuming that, in these halcyon 100 Days of Obama, all’s now right with the world, that the last eight years were just a bad dream, that my country was never actually run by fanatical, fear-inducing, hate-mongering, BS-spewing, media-manipulating, “with us or against us,” anti-intellectual right wingers, when lo and behold the RNC comes out of the ashes to remind us all just how damned lucky we are that they remain hopelessly, clue-lessly, sputteringly out of control.

And thank goodness for that. Whew.

Still, if the RNC is forgotten they are not yet gone. So if you haven’t seen the latest bit of nastiness out of the Republican Party, and you feel like you could stand 1:24 of hateful creepiness, or if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the economic uncertainty, the flu pandemic, global warming, or any of the other dozen or so serious, historical calamities we face today -- or maybe you’re nostalgic for the bad old days of Bush 43 -- then have a seat, perhaps poor yourself a drink (because after watching this junk I sure needed one) and take a gander at this load o’ crap.

See what I mean? Now it turns out things aren’t so bad after all. These people who made this video could have been our leaders just now.

Like a lot of people watching the 2004 Democratic nomination, when the “skinny kid with a funny name” stood up to speak, I took notice. Clearly, here was somebody with a sincerity and eloquence far beyond standard political rhetoric. I liked what I saw.

But when this eloquent man said “parents have to teach…children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets…It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work ” I became transfixed. These were the kinds of words more common for a community organizer, not a national politician. Certainly not a US Senator. They could only come from someone who possessed – and understood – social conscience. This has been absent from our political leadership for long time.

The American left has been splintered and largely ineffective – on a national political level – for a long time, too. Since the end of the Vietnam era. This is what happens when large social movements lack a cohesive ideology. You’ll be hard pressed to find many Marxists or Communists among the progressive community, perhaps rightly so. But a national movement cannot be sustained when it can only define itself by what it is NOT: “Not right-wing,” “not pro-business,” “not racist,” “not pro-war,” “not Bush.”

And we’ve seen the result. The progressive movement – responsible for some of the greatest social achievements in American history – watched as the democratic party continued to shift rightward, appeasing conservatives to the point where Republican dogma – small government; free trade, laissaiz faire – became our conventional wisdom. And look at the mess it’s made.

But things are changing, and of all the eloquence in President Obama’s inaugural, the most thoughtful and perhaps overlooked were these words:

People were concerned that Obama “lacked experience” to be president. When it comes to diplomacy, or acting as Commander in Chief, or running a national government, that’s probably true. But our first 21st century president brings an altogether different kind of experience that surpasses any other president before him: He brings experience born of community organizing. For a country that strives for democracy, this is special indeed.

I think our community organizer president has quietly and with little notice just proclaimed the new American progressive movement, and he did this simply by recognizing a trend already well underway.

He calls it the Era of Responsibility. And what makes this proclamation all the more authentic – and so much sweeter – is that this is nothing new. Progressives have been living this way for a long time. We just didn’t know what it was called.

Many progressives have been living responsibly – even at greater cost and greater effort – for some time.  We make responsible purchase choices to buy fair trade and not free trade; we reject factory farming; we support local growers and buy produce that doesn’t poison the earth, or ourselves. We strive towards globalization that creates a just and sustainable world. Progressive moms are embracing natural childbirth options, nursing their children again, while parents turn off the TV, reject commercial media, and let our kids get back to the business of childhood, otherwise known as “free, unstructured play“. We’re disdaining pharmacology as the only option for wellness. We’re building new communities through the co-housing movement. Those who can are investing in socially responsible businesses that consider stakeholders, not stockholders. We’re buying cleaner cars; we’re recycling and “going green”. Progressives have been doing all of these things and much more in their own lives, among their own families, for a long time.

Who knew we were starting a movement? The Responsibility Movement.

President Obama will never be all things to all people. The pundits have been claiming that progressives will be disappointed and conservatives pleasantly surprised by what they believe will be a centrist leader.  There’s some truth to this – on a political level. But we’re already passed those worn out paradigms of “liberal” or “conservative”. Progressives can move on. We’ve got more important work to do. The Era of Responsibility is upon us.