There is a very interesting (and important in my opinion) discussion going on over at you know where today. It provides one of those rare opportunities to get a glimpse into the significant divide between two groups of people wrestling for control of the opposition to the right wing.

Apparently, a Code Pink member inserted herself into a prominent position in front of the cameras during the Plame hearings in Congress in an outlandish get-up that included a pink tiara. That provoked a half a dozen of those long bitterly argued threads over there. On the surface, the debate is over whether the tactic is constructive or not, but there is something more important underlying the debate.

Here is a thread started by a pro-Code Pink person -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 389x424536 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x424536)

Then we have a thread started by a critic -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 389x425802 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x425802)

Here is a little taste of the debate -


When you're in a public hearing, for something important. Take off the pink tiara...

What a fucking moron...

I'm starting to see where Obey is coming from...


Oh stop! It takes all kinds. We're lucky to have the activists

they save our a**es. There's nothing *gutless* about code pink, unlike some of our chicken shit legislators.

God Bless Her! Tiara and all! Long may she reign. :P

I'd much rather be an "idiot liberal" than a "pansy a** centrist." :rofl:

<THE ABOVE is coming from a person who wears bright orange "Yukon Trails" bomber hat to go out and run my snow blower after the blizzard. ... you'll never lose me - even though the family would sometimes like to. :blush: >


It is rare that we see the two factions in such clear and stark relief to one another. I think there is a more important issue at stake in this debate than fashion, or even a disagreement about tactics.

Two groups of people have been thrown together on the same "team" when they actually have little if anything in common with one another politically. This relates back to the dispute at the other PI.

they threw themselves together for the purposes they are now playing out. that's a rather big difference in my book.

what was more interesting to me was the fact that nobody on the "good cop" side brought up the panem-et-circenses nature of the hearing. Everyone talked as though it's something other than another opportunity for politicians to do a little choreographed panto, posturing, and viewing-with-alarm.

they threw themselves together for the purposes they are now playing out. that's a rather big difference in my book.

what was more interesting to me was the fact that nobody on the "good cop" side brought up the panem-et-circenses nature of the hearing. Everyone talked as though it's something other than another opportunity for politicians to do a little choreographed panto, posturing, and viewing-with-alarm.
Did you catch the important subtext, though?

I do think we are thrown together, though, having nowhere else to go. Traditional Leftists are going to oppose the Republican party. Social issue liberals are as well. So we wind up on the same "team" even though we have very little in common.

Why the activists who control modern liberalism will always be an obstacle to the rebuilding of the New Deal coalition:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 389x420493 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x420493)

Just as with the Code Pink debates, there is a presumption among many that one of the tow positions is the more radical and the other the more moderate. People defending Code Pink see them as strong, in-your-face, radical and uncompromising, and cast critics of Code Pink as weak, centrist, compromising and conservative. In the debate about the people being sheep, seeing the people as sheep is supposedly the strong radical position, while objecting to it is weak, compromising and unreliable. Anyone objecting to the rhetoric and tactics of the activists is smeared with insinuations that they are disloyal to the cause, or are helping the right wingers.

But in each case, the way that radical and moderate are defined represents the sentiments and outlook of a very narrow demographic - those who are liberal on cultural issues and who are fairly well off or who admire those who are well off.

The in-your-face self-expression and guerrilla theater of Code Pink is aggressively promoted and defended by people who are also disdainful of any pragmatic political considerations.

If it is pointed out that putting a person in a silly costume front and center at an important Congressional hearing can only distract and alienate people, that falls on deaf ears, as does any suggestion that it might be counter-productive to describe the people in the country as sheep.

Why is that? Why do so many liberal activists not care that they alienate people? They will even aggressively defend their "right" to offend and alienate people. It is almost as if disdain for the “sheeple” is the core and foundational position of modern liberal activism – the one thing that will not allow for compromise or even calm discussion.

The only reason that Code Pink and most of the upscale liberal activist community could be so disdainful and unconcerned about alienating the general public is because the everyday people do not figure into their political calculations at all, so who cares what they think?

That means that we have one small faction of the aristocracy – modern liberal activists (I say modern to distinguish them from FDR and JFK liberals of the past) are merely jockeying with another faction of the aristocracy over what are not even political issues at all, but have more to do with style, personal goals of self-improvement and self-actualization, and spiritual notions. The people don't figure into their thinking at all.

To me it looks as though you're falling for the panem et circenses, Mike. What evidence do you have that it's an "important hearing" rather than political theater? Do you truly think anything substantive will come of it, or is yours only another pious hope of the kind that springs eternal, especially at DU ("well it'll bring it to the attention of the people and maybe blah blah")? Why isn't wearing a tiara ...or a big red nose and baggy trousers, for that matter... an appropriate thing to do on such a fraudulent occasion?

My object in starting this discussion is in the hopes of bridging the gap, not to start an argument defending one side or the other.

I understand that on one side of these debates - all of the debates among us have this gap as a root cause, I think - anyone who criticizes tactics and rhetoric from a standpoint of pragmatic politics is therefore seen as "falling for the bread and circuses" or otherwise duped or brainwashed or insufficiently evolved or aware. Whether or not I am in fact guilty as charged is not so important. What is important, is the test you are using to discover which side I am on, as well as the need to discover which side people are on as a first priority. That is an approach that is foreign and alien to one group on the Left, and front and center for another.

There are two completely different programs at work here, with two groups of people with two completely different sets of goals and purposes. Unexamined and unresolved, this gap will continue to divide and weaken the Left. I believe that there is a possibility that we could be pulling together, once we understand what is happening. I am certain that we are not pulling together now. But whether this gap can be bridged or not, it will it go away, and it will continue to fester throughout the opposition to the extreme right wing and to divide and weaken us. It is an endless source of confusion and acrimony and misunderstanding.

My object in starting this discussion is in the hopes of bridging the gap, not to start an argument defending one side or the other.

I understand that on one side of these debates - all of the debates among us have this gap as a root cause, I think - anyone who criticizes tactics and rhetoric from a standpoint of pragmatic politics is therefore seen as "falling for the bread and circuses" or otherwise duped or brainwashed or insufficiently evolved or aware. Whether or not I am in fact guilty as charged is not so important. What is important, is the test you are using to discover which side I am on, as well as the need to discover which side people are on as a first priority. That is an approach that is foreign and alien to one group on the Left, and front and center for another.

There are two completely different programs at work here, with two groups of people with two completely different sets of goals and purposes. Left unexamined and unresolved, this gap will continue to divide and weaken the Left. I believe that there is a possibility that we could be pulling together, once we understand what is happening. I am certain that we are not pulling together now. But whether this gap can be bridged or not, it will it go away, and it will continue to fester throughout the opposition to the extreme right wing and to divide and weaken us. It is an endless source of confusion and acrimony and misunderstanding.

What on earth are you talking about, Mike?

There are two completely different programs at work here, with two groups of people with two completely different sets of goals and purposes. Unexamined and unresolved, this gap will continue to divide and weaken the Left. I believe that there is a possibility that we could be pulling together, once we understand what is happening. I am certain that we are not pulling together now. But whether this gap can be bridged or not, it will it go away, and it will continue to fester throughout the opposition to the extreme right wing and to divide and weaken us. It is an endless source of confusion and acrimony and misunderstanding.

I agree that there are two different perspectives here but are they the only two possible? Don't they both despise the people? One expects "sheeple" and the other doesn't want to "alienate" them from an electoral standpoint (and may also agree about "sheeple"). They both take popular "sentiment" as a given. Neither really believes in organizing among the people expect in very narrow terms: the one, electorally (and thus with a fear of "marginalization") and the other from a the standpoint of a "higher level" of "moral" appeal.

Neither one of them represents the people you are trying to write about.

Working people seem sidelined in this process.

.

Working people seem sidelined in this process..
That is right. But we certainly will never get there if we start with contempt toward the everyday people as the very foundation of any opposition movement.

What on earth are you talking about, Mike?
Don't know how to answer that.

What on earth are you talking about, Mike?
Don't know how to answer that.

You wrote "anyone who criticizes tactics and rhetoric from a standpoint of pragmatic politics is therefore seen as "falling for the bread and circuses" or otherwise duped or brainwashed or insufficiently evolved or aware." For one thing, you're just plain w-r-o-n-g. You're seen as falling for the bread and circuses only when you do, as now.

That "interesting discussion" has exactly the same immediacy, meaning, and worth as an argument about whether girl unicorns prefer boy virgins. The only "interesting" part, if there is an interesting part, is that none of the people arguing appear to be aware that the "important Congressional hearing" is nothing but self-serving theater. My question to you is: why are YOU taking it seriously?

You wrote "anyone who criticizes tactics and rhetoric from a standpoint of pragmatic politics is therefore seen as "falling for the bread and circuses" or otherwise duped or brainwashed or insufficiently evolved or aware." For one thing, you're just plain w-r-o-n-g. You're seen as falling for the bread and circuses only when you do, as now.

That "interesting discussion" has exactly the same immediacy, meaning, and worth as an argument about whether girl unicorns prefer boy virgins. The only "interesting" part, if there is an interesting part, is that none of the people arguing appear to be aware that the "important Congressional hearing" is nothing but self-serving theater. My question to you is: why are YOU taking it seriously?
I am not talking about the hearings but rather the discussion about the hearings.

You wrote "anyone who criticizes tactics and rhetoric from a standpoint of pragmatic politics is therefore seen as "falling for the bread and circuses" or otherwise duped or brainwashed or insufficiently evolved or aware." For one thing, you're just plain w-r-o-n-g. You're seen as falling for the bread and circuses only when you do, as now.

That "interesting discussion" has exactly the same immediacy, meaning, and worth as an argument about whether girl unicorns prefer boy virgins. The only "interesting" part, if there is an interesting part, is that none of the people arguing appear to be aware that the "important Congressional hearing" is nothing but self-serving theater. My question to you is: why are YOU taking it seriously?
I am not talking about the hearings but rather the discussion about the hearings.
Yes, I know -- whence my point about unicorns. Surely you can't believe that alleged conflict about a political panto is more interesting or important than the fact that the participants apparently don't realise, or don't care, that it IS a panto? And worse, a panto perpetrated by people who expect us to take it seriously.

Someone innocently taking a theatrical performance at face value is the stuff of low comedy, Mike. But people who perform theater with the intention of it being taken as real are ipso-facto frauds and crooks. Why isn't that the figural bit for you? Why are you taking the performance at face value? If the performance is staged, what makes you think the "conflict" is real? Why isn't it on the same level as two circus clowns pouring whitewash into one another's trousers? And if it's not real, why should anyone pay any more attention to it than to any other bit of ruling-class theater?

Yes, I know -- whence my point about unicorns. Surely you can't believe that alleged conflict about a political panto is more interesting or important than the fact that the participants apparently don't realise, or don't care, that it IS a panto? And worse, a panto perpetrated by people who expect us to take it seriously.
I don't know that the discussion is more imprtant than wheteher or not people realize that "it is a panto" and didn't say that it is. I also don't know that all involved in the discussion don't realize or donlt care that "it is a panto." It is not literally a pantomime by the way, since words are being used. In the discussion online, only words are being used. I assume by "panto" you perhaps mean "fraud?"

I am not sure which people are expecting us to take it seriously. What is it exaclty that you think we should not take seriously?


Someone innocently taking a theatrical performance at face value is the stuff of low comedy, Mike.
Well, yes I guess so. Yet that doesn't apply. The entire thing could be a work of fiction, from the hearings to the reactions to the hearings to the debate about Code Pink, and we could still be having the same discussion I am trying to initiate. If you prefer that we see the events we are discussing as all a fiction, we can do that.



But people who perform theater with the intention of it being taken as real are ipso-facto frauds and crooks.

I guess. So they are frauds and crooks.


Why isn't that the figural bit for you?

Figural is a jewelry term. You may be using it is some figurative sense that I am not familiar with. Maybe you mean why don't I see through the fraud or something? Why am I talking about anything but the fact that it is all a circus?


Why are you taking the performance at face value?

I don't know that I am. What do you mean by that?


If the performance is staged, what makes you think the "conflict" is real?

Well sure. As far as that goes, how do we know that the discussion we are having here about the confilct is real? What makes something "real?" What do you mean by "real?"


Why isn't it on the same level as two circus clowns pouring whitewash into one another's trousers?

Same level of interest or importance, you mean?


And if it's not real, why should anyone pay any more attention to it than to any other bit of ruling-class theater?

So we should pay no attention to what the ruling class is doing? Or we should see through it? What makes you think that I do not see through it?

I give up, Mike. Have fun.

I give up, Mike. Have fun.
I am really struggling to understand you and to know how to respond in a way that doesn't just end the discussion. I am not trying to be argumentative ir otherwise be a pain in the ass. If you can be patient with me and explain more fully where you are going with your posts, that would be valuable and appreciated.

I give up, Mike. Have fun.
I am really struggling to understand you and to know how to respond in a way that doesn't just end the discussion. I am not trying to be argumentative ir otherwise be a pain in the ass. If you can be patient with me and explain more fully where you are going with your posts, that would be valuable and appreciated.

I don't get Maidread's point either - I think she's saying that because the whole thing is a sham, what people think about it doesn't matter unless they are amongst the "enlightened ones" who are quick to tell people what a sham it is.

The problem I have with that is that it gets us nowhere..

I was so sure that by now we (activists online and off) would have an organization, that strongly worded "resolved that..." resolutions would be long since hammered out, that doubts and hesitations would be behind us, that we would be spending all of our time facing the crisis and building resistance, that all of the discussion would be about pragmatic politics at this point, that a system of mutual defense and support would be in place, that we would all have made the decision to die with our boots on and that no more time would be spent in bitter arguments, expressions of depression and disillusionment, disagreements as to "how bad things really are" lamentations about "how asleep the sheeple are"....

Yet we seem farther away from that than ever. We are left with organizations like Code Pink and ANSWER on the one hand, and Democrats in the House of Representatives and their sycophants on the other taking the lead, with the two groups feuding with each other. We are so paralyzed and confused and disorganized that you can't even get agreement about that.

I talked with a farmer this afternoon. His young son is a champion skier, and the nationals were just held in Aspen and the guy had just returned from there.

"I saw those mansions, saw the private 727s lined up at the Aspen airport and it makes me physically ill. Then you loom at the army of dirt poor immigrants waiting on them hand and foot. Something is seriously wrong. It is far worse than we ever imagined. The wealthy people are hijacking the country and all of us are going to be peasants soon, if we aren't already. They own the government, they control the media, and the country is being looted and driven into the ground very quickly for the sake of the wealth and power of a very few. The Democrats in Congress and the liberals don't have a clue about this, and do not have an answer to the crisis. The country is in a crisis. It is going to take something like the French Revolution now, and I am being serious. I have never been so serious in my life."

I have been in so many conversations like this over the last few years, and it always gets to this point and then dies. Dead end. As though it were merely the expression of an interesting opinion. "Hmm mmm. Yes. I agree. Yep. Uh huh." Even as I say "it always comes to a dead stop" I know that will lead to "yep, that's the way it is. What are ya going to do? Yep. Um hmm."

The opposition is a headless monster. The every day people are ready to go. I have said that a thousand times, I know. What is wrong with the smart people? I don't get it.

I told the guy "well the activists are bitterly arguing about whether or not a Code Pink activist dressed up in a costume on camera at the Plame hearings helped or hurt "the cause" of "ending the war."

"Screw ending the war. This isn't about ending the GD war. The war is just one of hundreds of way that we are being screwed. We need to end the rule by the people who are behind the war."

How come non-political, maybe Republican voting, ill-informed every day people can have that sort of clarity, and the activists cannot? That is the raw material for a New Deal movement right there, and there are millions like this guy. How can the activists continue to say that the sheeple are asleep and that this is the problem?

I told him that I tried to suggest to people that those arguments were themselves a symptom of the division and paralysis among those who fancy themselves to be part of the opposition to the right wing, and that there were clues there that would help us end the paralysis, but couldn't make any headway. People heard it as an interesting theory (rather than an attempt at communicating an observation) at best, and some sort of treason to the cause at worst.

I was so sure that by now we (activists online and off) would have an organization, that strongly worded "resolved that..." resolutions would be long since hammered out, that doubts and hesitations would be behind us, that we would be spending all of our time facing the crisis and building resistance, that all of the discussion would be about pragmatic politics at this point, that a system of mutual defense and support would be in place, that we would all have made the decision to die with our boots on and that no more time would be spent in bitter arguments, expressions of depression and disillusionment, disagreements as to "how bad things really are" lamentations about "how asleep the sheeple are"....

Yet we seem farther away from that than ever. We are left with organizations like Code Pink and ANSWER on the one hand, and Democrats in the House of Representatives and their sycophants on the other taking the lead, with the two groups feuding with each other. We are so paralyzed and confused and disorganized that you can't even get agreement about that.

Yep, that is what I thought the purpose of this place was. We are certainly adrift, misunderstanding, personality disputes, digressions, you name it. Mea culpa. Perhaps that
material that PPLE was posting might have helped, I don't know. I suppose the proverbial fractous nature of the Left has something to do with it, but why is that anyway?

We need to restart. Perhaps there is a historical document or organization that might be taken as a model, that we might restructure to current need. Specifying that need is the first thing, tough enough it seems. Getting past what we as individuals, each with their own history, knows is needed to what is practically doable is hard but a start. I'm willing.

[/quote]
I talked with a farmer this afternoon. His young son is a champion skier, and the nationals were just held in Aspen and the guy had just returned from there.

"I saw those mansions, saw the private 727s lined up at the Aspen airport and it makes me physically ill. Then you loom at the army of dirt poor immigrants waiting on them hand and foot. Something is seriously wrong. It is far worse than we ever imagined. The wealthy people are hijacking the country and all of us are going to be peasants soon, if we aren't already. They own the government, they control the media, and the country is being looted and driven into the ground very quickly for the sake of the wealth and power of a very few. The Democrats in Congress and the liberals don't have a clue about this, and do not have an answer to the crisis. The country is in a crisis. It is going to take something like the French Revolution now, and I am being serious. I have never been so serious in my life."

I have been in so many conversations like this over the last few years, and it always gets to this point and then dies. Dead end. As though it were merely the expression of an interesting opinion. "Hmm mmm. Yes. I agree. Yep. Uh huh." Even as I say "it always comes to a dead stop" I know that will lead to "yep, that's the way it is. What are ya going to do? Yep. Um hmm."

The opposition is a headless monster. The every day people are ready to go. I have said that a thousand times, I know. What is wrong with the smart people? I don't get it.

I told the guy "well the activists are bitterly arguing about whether or not a Code Pink activist dressed up in a costume on camera at the Plame hearings helped or hurt "the cause" of "ending the war."

"Screw ending the war. This isn't about ending the GD war. The war is just one of hundreds of way that we are being screwed. We need to end the rule by the people who are behind the war."

How come non-political, maybe Republican voting, ill-informed every day people can have that sort of clarity, and the activists cannot? That is the raw material for a New Deal movement right there, and there are millions like this guy. How can the activists continue to say that the sheeple are asleep and that this is the problem?

I told him that I tried to suggest to people that those arguments were themselves a symptom of the division and paralysis among those who fancy themselves to be part of the opposition to the right wing, and that there were clues there that would help us end the paralysis, but couldn't make any headway. People heard it as an interesting theory (rather than an attempt at communicating an observation) at best, and some sort of treason to the cause at worst.[/quote]

Treason or hypocricy? I refuse to go to the grave knowing myself either. Let's try again, shall we?

Thanks, Mike, for posting the Democratic Underground links.

It seems to me the absurd antics by which a certain ostensibly "anti-war" cult disrupted the Valerie Plame Congressional hearing provide an especially instructive example of how the self-proclaimed “Left” in the United States is not only hopelessly paralyzed by faddism but -- precisely because of the savage anti-intellectuality that is faddism’s essential core -- is unable to achieve even the slightest degree of responsiveness to anyone outside the cult’s exclusive and infinitely conformist ranks. Thus the cult itself (and a cult is precisely what it is, whether exemplified by the prom-queen histrionics of Code Pink or the Mater Dolorosa persona of Cindy Sheehan) fails to address any of the broader socioeconomic grievances afflicting the American public -- much less the underlying socioeconomic causes of the war. Worse, like some spoiled child screaming "look at me," it substitutes a hopelessly petulant media spectacle for reasoned opposition, and thus conveys the impression all such protest is of no more substance than a pampered two-year-old's tantrum.

Moreover -- precisely because its patently self-indulgent conduct alienates far more people than it radicalizes or mobilizes -- the cult provides a seemingly natural barrier against the evolution of any broader (and therefore genuine) resistance movement: no doubt the very reason its existence is tolerated by a regime that in every other possible way grows ever more brazenly tyrannical by the minute. The utter shallowness of the tactical debate carried on via DU -- ultimately nothing more than a sorority-house conflict over fashion (with therefore even less substance than the medieval schoolmen’s arguments over how many angels might dance on the head of a pin) -- is merely another example of the behavior that defines the cult itself.

Which is -- or so I intend -- nothing more than a more detailed (and much more deliberately caustic) statement of the point originally made, in much more genteel terms, by Mike himself.

Webster (10th Collegiate) describes cult initially in religious or medicine-show terms but then defines cult as “a great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as in a film or book), especially such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad; a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion.”

That this definition applies to the Code Pink/Mater Dolorosa faction of the opposition to the Iraq War is obvious in the fact Code Pink reflexively protested not only against the Iraq War, but against the entire so-called War on Terror even before the relevant issues were accorded any significant public debate. The protestors utterly disdained the vast distinctions between Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby demonstrating their sneering contempt for the nation’s post-9/11 anguish, and thus from the very beginning they alienated huge segments of the public. Many people recognized in Code Pink the same aggressive pacifism that characterizes the forcible-disarmament, anti-gunowner, anti-self-defense zealots, and more than a few of us -- myself among them -- were thus driven to prematurely support the Iraq War (that is, to accept the Bush Regime’s lies) merely because we had already encountered the infinite hatefulness of these pre-9/11 expressions of Code Pinkish ideology.

When Cindy Sheehan added the Mater Dolorosa element following the death of her son, it seemed to me not an expression of ethics or ideology but instead nothing more than an act of vengeance -- another aspect of the same moral imbecility that had been the faction’s unifying characteristic from the beginning: objection to war not as (yet another) expression of capitalism’s Inner Tyrannosaur, but rather because it offended Code Pink’s sense of stylistic correctness (“guns are ugly and frightening”) and also took away Cindy Sheehan’s only son.

Indeed, I maintain that the snide theatrics of Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan and all their apolitical, anti-intellectual ilk bear substantial responsibility for the public’s initial acceptance of the Iraq War. As I already noted, theirs is protest built on the most narrow (and therefore most exclusive) foundation possible: that the Code Pink/Mater Dolorosa cult is the only faction of the war’s opponents given significant publicity by the corporate media is surely no accident. By contrast, observe how corporate media totally ignores organized labor’s massive opposition to the Iraq War -- an opposition far more powerful (and more potentially revolutionary) than anything Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan could ever muster: http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/

In this context it is significant to note that the sophomoronic prom-queen tantrum by which Code Pink disrupted the Congressional hearing and mocked the entire legislative process is -- at least in the eyes of the vast U.S. majority -- tantamount to burning the national flag or spitting in the faces of military veterans: a huge and alienating gesture of disrespect. It surely recruited no allies to the ranks of Iraq War opponents -- or any other cause even remotely associated with socioeconomic transformation. In fact, precisely because corporate media so emphatically endorses its claim to represent “the Left,” the calculated offensiveness of the Code Pink/Mater Dolorosa cult discredits the entire cause of economic democracy. Therefore is it no exaggeration at all to say that the cult’s bottomless disrespectfulness serves the cause of class warfare -- and therefore the purposes of the ruling class itself -- every bit as effectively as any propaganda machine or secret police apparatus.

While I am not entirely certain it was Mairead’s intent to name herself an accomplice to this disrespect, that is surely how I understood her remarks. As the Kid said, “I think she's saying that because the whole thing is a sham, what people think about it doesn't matter unless they are amongst the ‘enlightened ones’ who are quick to tell people what a sham it is.” Which is no different from calling people suckers and idiots.

By the way, my avoidance of the term “anti-war movement” is not an accident. While there is undoubtedly huge opposition to the Iraq War -- 70 percent of the electorate by the most recent polls -- it is hardly united enough to be called a “movement.” The potentially irresolvable class division already evident in the schism between the avowedly pro-capitalist bourgeoisie represented by the Code Pink/Mater Dolorosa cult and anti-war labor (which is increasingly anti-capitalist) suggests that no genuine “movement” -- at least no sustainable movement -- will ever emerge from the present anti-war ferment. The very fact the anti-war cause includes no unifying economic mandate is probably the precise reason the ruling class continues to tolerate it.

What then should be the role of a site such as this one?

From my long ago work in organizing (labor, civil rights, community), I understand that the way we raise consciousness is not by mockery or satire (which is effective only after the consciousness-raising has taken hold), but by precisely the sort of empathetic listening Mike evidences as he describes the clarity achieved by “non-political, maybe Republican voting, ill-informed every day people” who are -- just as he recognizes -- “the raw material for a New Deal movement.” This is the first step to establishing the credibility vital to an organizing effort, and -- not coincidentally -- it is also the first step (that is, facilitating the open expression of grievances) in enabling the emergence of genuinely indigenous grass-roots leadership.

If we approach the question from the perspective of “how do we mobilize the public” (in exactly the same more-than-electoral-politics sense that a union might organize a workplace) rather than debate the more abstract (and thus implicitly elitist) question of correct positioning, we give ourselves an entirely different mandate: that of determining how we might be of the greatest use to the forces for socioeconomic change already in play, whether via community advocacy (in which I am already involved), the labor movement (in which I am involved to a much smaller degree), in the burgeoning economic dissidence now becoming apparent in certain quarters of the Democratic Party, or in the hitherto-unexplored potential of organizing a definitively socialist alternative around Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Each of these venues, it seems to me, offers precisely the opportunities for the very consciousness-raising the Code Pink/Mater Dolorosa cult so spitefully rejects. It does not surprise me that most of us who are serious about the quest for change are already so committed, even if informally.

Like the acquaintance Mike quoted, I believe “the war is just one of hundreds of ways that we are being screwed,” and that “we need to end the rule by the people who are behind the war.” For example I regard stopping the genocidal denial of life-saving drugs -- denial that was deliberately imposed on the nation’s elderly and disabled peoples by the Part D Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit -- as far more important than withdrawal from Iraq. Which of course makes me anathema to the self-proclaimed, media-anointed Left, whose sole focus is the war -- to the emphatic and often antagonistic denial of any and all issues of broader relevance.

I also believe my response suggests an answer to Anaxarchos’ objection to the previous focus of this debate: the self-defeating extent to which “working people seem sidelined.” As to broadening the public’s understanding of the vital relevance of socialism and socialist principles, collective experience of the power inherent in solidarity is often the initial eye-opener: hence the importance of organizing. As to ideology itself, I am (at least in the context of this site) more than willing to acknowledge the leadership of those who are demonstrably more learned than I. But I think even that is peripheral to determining whether we are merely compulsive debaters, or persons whose debate has the ultimate goal of helping those who are marginalized achieve real self-empowerment.

_________
Edit: first paragraph revised for clarity.

Duplicate post made in error after initial post took several minutes to register, then self-deleted.

A much more carefully edited general-readership version of my remarks is available here:

PROTEST BY DISRUPTIVE INSULT: THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF BRITNEY SPEARS (http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/)

I've done it here before, but nothing I do today seems to work. (Sorry.)

I took the liberrty of editing your post to create an active hyperlink, since I still have moderator privileges.

For future reference, here is what I typed to create the link:

PROTEST BY DISRUPTIVE INSULT: THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF BRITNEY SPEARS (http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/)

This method of creating links may not be intuitive, but it is very similar to html, which I have worked with for years so I find it easy.

Here is what the code would look like in html:


PROTEST BY DISRUPTIVE INSULT: THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF BRITNEY SPEARS (http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/)

We have an opening and closing tag operating on the text between the two tags. In this case the "a" mean that it is an "anchor" tag with the text between the tag being "anchored" to another document, the address, or URL for which is http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/. The "href" mean "hypertext reference" and the destination of the link is considered an "attribute" of the tag, hence it is contained within the opening tag and placed in quotation marks.

So "a" - start an anchor after this opening tag; "href" - this is a hypertext reference; followed by the location of the document referenced - http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/; then a bracket to close the tag, followed by the text which will be rendered visibly and as a link; and then the closing tag, indicating the end of the text to be used as the "anchor" referencing the other document.

One edit - You may notice that merely pasting an URL into a post without any tags - http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/ - causes it to be rendered as an active link.

On another board, where Leftists and socialists are outnumbered about 50-1 by progressives, there is a conversation about this subject.

http://www.peopleforchange.net/index.ph ... opic=32360 (http://www.peopleforchange.net/index.php?showtopic=32360)

Why the activists who control modern liberalism will always be an obstacle to the rebuilding of the New Deal coalition:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 389x420493 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...ress=389x420493)

Just as with the Code Pink debates, there is a presumption among many that one of the two positions is the more radical and the other the more moderate. People defending Code Pink see them as strong, in-your-face, radical and uncompromising, and cast critics of Code Pink as weak, centrist, compromising and conservative. In the debate about the people being sheep, seeing the people as sheep is supposedly the strong radical position, while objecting to it is weak, compromising and unreliable. Anyone objecting to the rhetoric and tactics of the activists is smeared with insinuations that they are disloyal to the cause, or are helping the right wingers.

But in each case, the way that radical and moderate are defined represents the sentiments and outlook of a very narrow demographic - those who are liberal on cultural issues and who are fairly well off or who admire those who are well off.

The in-your-face self-expression and guerrilla theater of Code Pink is aggressively promoted and defended by people who are also disdainful of any pragmatic political considerations.

If it is pointed out that putting a person in a silly costume front and center at an important Congressional hearing can only distract and alienate people, that falls on deaf ears, as does any suggestion that it might be counter-productive to describe the people in the country as sheep.

Why is that? Why do so many liberal activists not care that they alienate people? They will even aggressively defend their "right" to offend and alienate people. It is almost as if disdain for the “sheeple” is the core and foundational position of modern liberal activism – the one thing that will not allow for compromise or even calm discussion.

The only reason that Code Pink and most of the upscale liberal activist community could be so disdainful and unconcerned about alienating the general public is because the everyday people do not figure into their political calculations at all, so who cares what they think?

That means that we have one small faction of the aristocracy – modern liberal activists (I say modern to distinguish them from FDR and JFK liberals of the past) are merely jockeying with another faction of the aristocracy. The people don't figure into their thinking at all.

In regards to the anti-war activists -

Is the war really the main issue? Or is it a symptom of something much more important?

There is a deep divide in the party, and it falls along the same fault lines that divide the country. The war is a prime concern, as are other social issues, for those who are doing fairly well. There is a much greater number of people, mostly ignored and shut out of the Democratic party for whom taxes and economic issues are much more important. They see the economic issues as the root cause, and the social issues as effects of that and are suspicious of the upscale liberal causes. Not because they disagree with them so much, but rather because they don't trust people who cannot see the bigger picture of class warfare and for whom corruption and ruthless economic predation are not concerns.

The occupation of Iraq, and the attempted commandeering of the Iraqi economy, are much more important than "the war" in my opinion. More important yet are the conditions here that made the invasion and occupation (it isn't a war, it is an invasion and occupation of a weak nation that was not threatening us) possible.

Being "against war" is more of a personal stance than it is a political program. There is a great danger is placing all emphasis on "the war" because that is not a foundation for a sustainable popular movement for very long. The war is but one - highly visible but not central - facet to an immense criminal conspiracy.

Rather than opposing the war, let's take down the criminals who made the war. That would take a class analysis approach, and a willingness to embrace and promote FDR New Deal politics, that many upscale modern liberals and their admirers are avoiding at all costs. Focusing on the war is a way to do that. It is a reactionary position and harms efforts at building a coalition against the right wingers and their wealthy and powerful sponsors.

I suspect that the discussion among Democrats and liberals is being controlled by those who are doing pretty well and who are resistant to the sort of profound change needed for the salvation of the everyday people - the working people. Much of the rhetoric and the programs being promoted by modern liberals are deeply hostile to and contemptuous of the working people. That drives many of them in desperation over to the Republicans.

N/T

I agree that the Code Pink/guerilla theatre stuff is a turn off to the working class, as was Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies back in the day. Good for attracting youth(as I was attracted back then) but more than counter-balanced to the negative over all. I think that the problem that people are having with this particular example is that they don't see those opposed to such antics as pragmatic but rather defenders of middle/upper class propriety and as DLC-centrists types. They are not seen as pragmatic because they(Congresscritters and other suits) are rightly believed to not really being for ending the war now. That most on either side of this dispute can not or will not consider the root cause of the war, Bush and all is undoubtably due to class alliegence, unconcious or not. They refuse to accept their equality with poor people, rednecks,the guy that cuts their absurd lawns. As you've pointed out often there is no working class politics any more on the national scene so it's hard for them to know what pragmatic looks like.

I think that the problem that people are having with this particular example is that they don't see those opposed to such antics as pragmatic but rather defenders of middle/upper class propriety and as DLC-centrists types.
Or even worse than that. Maybe I can't recognise the players without a scorecard, but aren't the guys on one or both sides of this teapot-tempest -including Mike and Wolf- among those who believe the Dems are worthless because of the way they continue to sell out even when they have the majority they've demanded? Aren't they among those who are aware that the Dems are intentionally "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"? If so, then what's preventing them from also understanding that arguing about what spectators do at a political "hearing" performance is as futile and ridiculous as arguing about what spectators do at a Punch-and-Judy performance?

of a different sort:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01558.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901558.html)

(lifted from IP at PI)

of a different sort:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01558.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901558.html)

(lifted from IP at PI)

Yep. And here's an example of "medicine to the dead"


"I don't know what they're doing, but they're in everybody's way," said Janet Ruck, a career counselor in Washington. Upon hearing an explanation, she said, "So they were intentionally getting in people's way. I don't think that people have lost touch or forgotten [about the war]. I don't think this is the way to get people to connect."

What earthly good can it do to complain about such a person, or try to engage them, or reason with them or do anything at all except ignore them as though they were as dead in body as they are in mind?

"America's politicians attack one another by day and slap one another on the back by evening. They can play this game because they know their fighting words have no real meaning. And the media play right along, reporting on the game as though it were a story of substance. Indeed the game becomes the story, and discussions of substance are relegated to the newspapers' inside pages if indeed they are covered at all."

Guess who (without cheating).

Or even worse than that. Maybe I can't recognise the players without a scorecard, but aren't the guys on one or both sides of this teapot-tempest -including Mike and Wolf- among those who believe the Dems are worthless because of the way they continue to sell out even when they have the majority they've demanded? Aren't they among those who are aware that the Dems are intentionally "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"? If so, then what's preventing them from also understanding that arguing about what spectators do at a political "hearing" performance is as futile and ridiculous as arguing about what spectators do at a Punch-and-Judy performance?
I don't look for a "team" to personally identify with.

I will illustrate with an example.

I was very glad to hear the president break with the right wingers on immigration. Does that mean I have joined Bush's team? No. Does that mean I am giving him credit for anything? No. Does it mean I have gone over to the dark side? No. Does it mean that my opinion of the president has changed? No. It has nothing to with ideology, personalities, whom or what I do or don't identify with as being on "my team" or "matches my personal values" or is "my personal stance" or "choice" nor is it driven by any political theory. Does it even mean that I "agree" with Bush's "position" on the "issue?" No.

I was glad for a couple of reasons. First, it divides and possibly weakens the right wing momentum and breaks the lockstep they are in. Secondly, it takes some of the horrendous pressure off of my friends, co-workers, neighbors and colleagues, who happen to have been born brown and who have been terrorized since the anti-immigration hysteria got rolling. This may all seem to you to be bread and circuses and a Punch and Judy show, but real people suffer real consequences, and that doesn't follow neat little ideological guidelines.

Of course, many liberals though that they now need to be against immigration, since Bush is on the other team and we must oppose everything he says or does. Since they can't very well call for the mistreatment of minority people, they decided to call for the arrest of the thousands of small family farmers who have immigrants working with them, and farmers were viciously trashed out for a while by liberals for "exploiting" immigrants and being greedy, breaking the law, and God knows what, all without any evidence. That is where thinking in terms of teams gets you.

While this discussion may be about a "tempest in a teapot" to you, it is the most important subject we could be discussing in my opinion. I don't ask you to agree, but why dismiss it out of hand and so contemptuously? If the subject is not of interest to you, and if you think it is unworthy of discussion, why weigh in with an opinion at all?

"America's politicians attack one another by day and slap one another on the back by evening. They can play this game because they know their fighting words have no real meaning. And the media play right along, reporting on the game as though it were a story of substance. Indeed the game becomes the story, and discussions of substance are relegated to the newspapers' inside pages if indeed they are covered at all."

Guess who (without cheating).
Any intelligent observer - regardless of whether or not he happens to wear a white or black hat according to someone's quasi-religious concept of who is "right" about things and who isn't, and who is on the "right team" and who isn't, with the "right positions" on the "issues" - might make that observation about the current state of American politics. That would be an interesting contribution to the discussion, even if a certain national figure who ran for president recently had made it.

If we are motivated by the search for and enforcement of the ultimate existential or spiritual "truth" about all things to align ourselves with, and are looking for that in politics, and if our personal identity and stance in the world depends upon knowing which team we are on, and if we are constantly assessing each and every little detail to determine who is and who isn't pure, and so to decide who is an enemy and to be completely ignored, then perhaps we could latch onto this statement of proof that "it" is all a sham and "not real" and therefore unworthy of our attention.

I don't look for a "team" to personally identify with.

I will illustrate with an example.

I was very glad to hear the president break with the right wingers on immigration. Does that mean I have joined Bush's team? No. Does that mean I am giving him credit for anything? No. Does it mean I have gone over to the dark side? No. Does it mean that my opinion of the president has changed? No. It has nothing to with ideology, personalities, whom or what I do or don't identify with as being on "my team" or "matches my personal values" or is "my personal stance" or "choice" nor is it driven by any political theory. Does it even mean that I "agree" with Bush's "position" on the "issue?" No.

I was glad for a couple of reasons. First, it divides and possibly weakens the right wing momentum and breaks the lockstep they are in. Secondly, it takes some of the horrendous pressure off of my friends, co-workers, neighbors and colleagues, who happen to have been born brown and who have been terrorized since the anti-immigration hysteria got rolling. This may all seem to you to be bread and circuses and a Punch and Judy show, but real people suffer real consequences, and that doesn't follow neat little ideological guidelines.

Of course, many liberals though that they now need to be against immigration, since Bush is on the other team and we must oppose everything he says or does. Since they can't very well call for the mistreatment of minority people, they decided to call for the arrest of the thousands of small family farmers who have immigrants working with them, and farmers were viciously trashed out for a while by liberals for "exploiting" immigrants and being greedy, breaking the law, and God knows what, all without any evidence. That is where thinking in terms of teams gets you.

Is anyone suggesting that you should join a "team", Mike? No, but that's your hobby-horse, and you gallop around on it all the time, flinging accusations.


While this discussion may be about a "tempest in a teapot" to you, it is the most important subject we could be discussing in my opinion. I don't ask you to agree, but why dismiss it out of hand and so contemptuously? If the subject is not of interest to you, and if you think it is unworthy of discussion, why weigh in with an opinion at all?
Love it or leave it, huh? Where have I heard that before?

Either you've changed over the past few years, Mike, or my perceptions have. I used to admire the hell out of you, even when we were going at it hammer and tongs as we almost always were. Today I increasingly often get a half-a-worm feeling, and I wonder whether the change is in you or in me.

I have to admit that I inwardly whince viewing the antics at some of the Demonstrations. Maybe it is me, maybe I am too uptight-but I admit it makes me uncomfortable because I realize there is a juvenile self-indulgence to it and politically it alienates others who have social conventions. But why the hell does the world have to be a grey place? Why should the conventional types be coddled? Shouldn't they also be tolerant? I mean no disrespect because I haven't totally thought this through--but how much compromise is necessary for unity.

I have to admit that I inwardly whince viewing the antics at some of the Demonstrations. Maybe it is me, maybe I am too uptight-but I admit it makes me uncomfortable because I realize there is a juvenile self-indulgence to it and politically it alienates others who have social conventions. But why the hell does the world have to be a grey place? Why should the conventional types be coddled? Shouldn't they also be tolerant? I mean no disrespect because I haven't totally thought this through--but how much compromise is necessary for unity.

People are free to do whatever they like, of course. But I think that it is a legitimate thing for us to say that the tactics of certain groups are destructive.

But why? Why is it destructive?
Does it seem too trivial--too disrespectful, too silly, too inappropriate?
What is it exactly?
Articulate please--because I have some real conflict about this.

I agree that the Code Pink/guerilla theatre stuff is a turn off to the working class, as was Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies back in the day. Good for attracting youth(as I was attracted back then) but more than counter-balanced to the negative over all. I think that the problem that people are having with this particular example is that they don't see those opposed to such antics as pragmatic but rather defenders of middle/upper class propriety and as DLC-centrists types. They are not seen as pragmatic because they(Congresscritters and other suits) are rightly believed to not really being for ending the war now. That most on either side of this dispute can not or will not consider the root cause of the war, Bush and all is undoubtably due to class allegiance, unconcious or not. They refuse to accept their equality with poor people, rednecks,the guy that cuts their absurd lawns. As you've pointed out often there is no working class politics any more on the national scene so it's hard for them to know what pragmatic looks like.

I am thinking back to a certain day in 1968 that was a big turning point for me. Up until that day, there would hardly be a day that I wasn't at a meeting, or working on the alternative newspaper or putting out newsletters, or at a demonstration. The civil rights groups, the anti-war groups, socialist groups and Labor were all coordinating and working together and there was a lot of optimism and intensity.

Guys started showing up at meetings from Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills - I remember thinking at the time that this was a little odd. They were a different breed - aggressive, dominant, outspoken, and they knew political theory inside out and were great arguers. It seemed that they came in waves and the character of all of the meetings and organizations started to change. These guys constantly interrupted meetings and worked their way into positions of leadership. People thought that somehow these guys were taking us to the next level, or something. They were pushing for more radical approaches, more confrontational tactics - push, push, push. No one questioned their authenticity, because they seemed to be the most true to the cause of any of us. TOO true to the cause in my view. But then I am suspicious by nature I suppose.

I walked out of that one particular meeting because all sorts of guerrilla theater tactics were being aggressively advocated, as well as tactics to intentionally provoke the police into violent reactions at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Anyone who questioned any of this were just steamrolled into silence - accused of being faint-hearted or not truly devoted to the cause, etc. I remember thinking, who are these guys? Why are they pushing so hard? How did they become the de facto power in the movement? It didn't add up for me.

Those guys used what then sounded like very novel arguments, but that are now commonplace. We needed to "wake people up" with flamboyant and bizarre tactics and we needed to "get attention to make people aware of the issues." Looking back, this caused a shift. Up until then the fat cats were seen as the enemy. After that, the stupid "red necks" were seen as the enemy, and mocking and ridiculing and antagonizing working class people was seen as part of "consciousness raising."

Counter-cultural lifestyle causes - which up until then had been an insignificant little movement of some weird (but nice) guys and gals in a commune over on Forrest Avenue (John Sinclair and the MC5, later to become somewhat famous) - now became important components of the "revolution." The presumption was that all of the bad things - the war, destruction of the environment, racism, poverty - were caused by middle class people being "uptight" and we needed to jar them out of this with Rock and Roll and stuff - or something.

On the spur of the moment, I packed my car and drove to New York and skipped the Chicago convention.

The movement was never the same. Politics became passe, and everyone was on a search to discover "what was true for them." Being mellow was the goal, and "finding" one's self. Talking about politics was "uptight" and the point of organizations became to support individual self-expression. Interest in alternative stuff - music, clothes, Eastern religion, different food, mysticism, "natural" things, psychology - became the movement. Self- indulgence was raised to the level of high art and intellectualism was derided as an artifact of a dying system. One was supposed to "feel" the right things, and you weren't supposed to be "too much in your head" - thinking or analyzing were bad.

That "counter-culture" soon became the establishment, and everything changed. Today you can't question the "progress" that has been made over the last 35 years, all measured by the yardstick of opportunities for self-actualization. The desires of the individual - their "truth," their reality, cannot be questioned. Unless of course, you question this cult of self-actualization, in which case you are presumed to be tainted with bad vibes - among those who are trying to stop an individual from fully expressing themselves by limiting their "choices" or merely harshing their buzz. You harsh their buzz when you question their own selfish desires or self-absorbed "philosophies" or "beliefs" and self-serving actions in any way. Their desires are "what is true for them" and "how dare you" criticize what they want and how they are going about getting it.

and I sense rather than know.
Maybe there is a superficiality or an inappropriate light-hearted playfulness to something that maybe for the underclasses, is dead serious. It is disproportionally their children being sacrificed, and it seems these pink ladies in tieras have time on their hands--they are almost giggly.
But still, I think of Act Up--totally outrageous and in your face, and they made strides, baby. Or, the street theatre of bread and puppet. I think, what is emerging in these times is greater awareness of a new class consciousness. I see it in my own small town--this gross bullying, this entitlement, this insensitivity.

So, what I am sensing is the leisure class activism takes on a carnival atmosphere of excess that is wholly inappropriate when it comes to the deprivation of others and the clash of cultures seems more pronounced

Those guys used what then sounded like very novel arguments, but that are now commonplace. We needed to "wake people up" with flamboyant and bizarre tactics and we needed to "get attention to make people aware of the issues." Looking back, this caused a shift. Up until then the fat cats were seen as the enemy. After that, the stupid "red necks" were seen as the enemy, and mocking and ridiculing and antagonizing working class people was seen as part of "consciousness raising."

Counter-cultural lifestyle causes - which up until then had been an insignificant little movement of some weird (but nice) guys and gals in a commune over on Forrest Avenue (John Sinclair and the MC5, later to become somewhat famous) - now became important components of the "revolution." The presumption was that all of the bad things - the war, destruction of the environment, racism, poverty - were caused by middle class people being "uptight" and we needed to jar them out of this with Rock and Roll and stuff - or something.

On the spur of the moment, I packed my car and drove to New York and skipped the Chicago convention.

The movement was never the same. Politics became passe, and everyone was on a search to discover "what was true for them." Being mellow was the goal, and "finding" one's self. Talking about politics was "uptight" and the point of organizations became to support individual self-expression. Interest in alternative stuff - music, clothes, Eastern religion, different food, mysticism, "natural" things, psychology - became the movement. Self- indulgence was raised to the level of high art and intellectualism was derided as an artifact of a dying system. One was supposed to "feel" the right things, and you weren't supposed to be "too much in your head" - thinking or analyzing were bad.


A revolution without ideology. That's what some of them said they wanted. And it is, alas, what they got.

This could very well be standard brand agent provocateur:


Guys started showing up at meetings from Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills - I remember thinking at the time that this was a little odd. They were a different breed - aggressive, dominant, outspoken, and they knew political theory inside out and were great arguers. It seemed that they came in waves and the character of all of the meetings and organizations started to change. These guys constantly interrupted meetings and worked their way into positions of leadership. People thought that somehow these guys were taking us to the next level, or something. They were pushing for more radical approaches, more confrontational tactics - push, push, push. No one questioned their authenticity, because they seemed to be the most true to the cause of any of us. TOO true to the cause in my view. But then I am suspicious by nature I suppose.

This implies a much deeper game:


Counter-cultural lifestyle causes - which up until then had been an insignificant little movement of some weird (but nice) guys and gals in a commune over on Forrest Avenue (John Sinclair and the MC5, later to become somewhat famous) - now became important components of the "revolution." The presumption was that all of the bad things - the war, destruction of the environment, racism, poverty - were caused by middle class people being "uptight" and we needed to jar them out of this with Rock and Roll and stuff - or something.

The first example seems cut and dry infiltration but the second gives me hesitation. To be sure, with hindsight it is all of a piece. what I question is whether the Man was that sophisticated back then. Political manipulation is par for the course but it seems to me that cultural manipulation is more ambitious and imaginitive, don't know that they were up to it back then. Nowadays nothing is inconcievable. Not doubting the results, only the capacityof the enemy at that time.

When I think about it a lot of that "uptight middleclass" stuff was sop for Frank Zappa. Agent or dupe? (damn libertarian!)

Those guys used what then sounded like very novel arguments, but that are now commonplace. We needed to "wake people up" with flamboyant and bizarre tactics and we needed to "get attention to make people aware of the issues." Looking back, this caused a shift. Up until then the fat cats were seen as the enemy. After that, the stupid "red necks" were seen as the enemy, and mocking and ridiculing and antagonizing working class people was seen as part of "consciousness raising."

Counter-cultural lifestyle causes - which up until then had been an insignificant little movement of some weird (but nice) guys and gals in a commune over on Forrest Avenue (John Sinclair and the MC5, later to become somewhat famous) - now became important components of the "revolution." The presumption was that all of the bad things - the war, destruction of the environment, racism, poverty - were caused by middle class people being "uptight" and we needed to jar them out of this with Rock and Roll and stuff - or something.

On the spur of the moment, I packed my car and drove to New York and skipped the Chicago convention.

The movement was never the same. Politics became passe, and everyone was on a search to discover "what was true for them." Being mellow was the goal, and "finding" one's self. Talking about politics was "uptight" and the point of organizations became to support individual self-expression. Interest in alternative stuff - music, clothes, Eastern religion, different food, mysticism, "natural" things, psychology - became the movement. Self- indulgence was raised to the level of high art and intellectualism was derided as an artifact of a dying system. One was supposed to "feel" the right things, and you weren't supposed to be "too much in your head" - thinking or analyzing were bad.


A revolution without ideology. That's what some of them said they wanted. And it is, alas, what they got.

I dunno...

Most such perspectives were pretty articulate.

There was a cultural criticism of the society, or more properly, many cultural criticisms of the society, at play... all at the same time.

Those who wanted to "wake people up" or "raise consciousness" or "gain attention" for certain issues or to make the society less "uptight" or "Victorian" and allow for the development of "alternative lifestyles"... you could argue that they very clearly articulated their goals and, in part, achieved them. Certainly the worst "excesses" of McCarthyism were left behind (after the working class movements had first been destroyed) and the new urban and suburban "middle-class" found its voice for the first time (it really hadn't existed in that form before WW2). One question you could ask would be how did the new pettys come to totally displace the old New Deal coalition and "takeover" the Democratic Party, compromised as it was by that point.

The other question I ask myself is how they came to substitute for "the left". As weird as the "New Left" sometimes was, it appeared, by fits and starts, to be moving towards a symbiosis with the "Old Left". When exactly did it move to the 'burbs and get a job in the computer industry or drop out and move onto a commune in Taos?

As far as a "revolution without ideology" goes, they got a cultural revolution and the same old ideology.

...Not sure whether that was an "alas" or precisely what was intended.

.

As far as a "revolution without ideology" goes, they got a cultural revolution and the same old ideology.

...Not sure whether that was an "alas" or precisely what was intended.

.

Mmm Hmm.

what I question is whether the Man was that sophisticated back then.

We know that this was the case.

The other question I ask myself is how they came to substitute for "the left". As weird as the "New Left" sometimes was, it appeared, by fits and starts, to be moving towards a symbiosis with the "Old Left". When exactly did it move to the 'burbs and get a job in the computer industry or drop out and move onto a commune in Taos?

Yeah. I don't know. My observations are only a small part of the picture, I think. But for whatever reason, and whatever the exact nature of the change, there is no doubt in my mind that there was some sort of enormous social transformation between 1966 and 1972. Politically, socially, culturally 2007 resembles 1972 more than 1972 resembles 1966. 1930 resembles 1966 more than 1966 resembles 1972.

The other question I ask myself is how they came to substitute for "the left". As weird as the "New Left" sometimes was, it appeared, by fits and starts, to be moving towards a symbiosis with the "Old Left". When exactly did it move to the 'burbs and get a job in the computer industry or drop out and move onto a commune in Taos?

Yeah. I don't know. My observations are only a small part of the picture, I think. But fior whatever reason, and whatever the exact nature of the change, there is no doubt in my mind that there was some sort of enormous social transformation between 1966 and 1972. Politically, socially, culturally 2007 resembles 1972 more than 1972 resembles 1966. 1930 resembles 1966 more than 1966 resembles 1972.

I mostly agree...

.

what I question is whether the Man was that sophisticated back then.

We know that this was the case.

OK, try this one on. Back in the early 70's we had a pretty large and vibrant youth community. There was fairly strong solidarity(if I may trivialize that word for a moment),we hung together, the cops were idiots if occasionally violent, snitches were not tolerated. Round about '71 word was about that the Feds had taken interests in us,and indeed for several weeks 2-3 black lincolns with tinted glass would cruise around and around our park, then they were gone. Six-nine months later our hood was absolutely buried in barbituites,so cheap that kids came to school with shoe boxes full. Mucho OD's, off hand I know four who died. By late summer of '72 our little community was fragmented and wrecked. Could this have been a prototype of the destruction of the black community of LA by crack?(This correlation occured to me during these conversations)

OK, try this one on. Back in the early 70's we had a pretty large and vibrant youth community. There was fairly strong solidarity(if I may trivialize that word for a moment),we hung together, the cops were idiots if occasionally violent, snitches were not tolerated. Round about '71 word was about that the Feds had taken interests in us,and indeed for several weeks 2-3 black lincolns with tinted glass would cruise around and around our park, then they were gone. Six-nine months later our hood was absolutely buried in barbituites,so cheap that kids came to school with shoe boxes full. Mucho OD's, off hand I know four who died. By late summer of '72 our little community was fragmented and wrecked. Could this have been a prototype of the destruction of the black community of LA by crack?(This correlation occured to me during these conversations)

We saw the exact same thing in Detroit at the same time - maybe a little earlier.

OK, try this one on. Back in the early 70's we had a pretty large and vibrant youth community. There was fairly strong solidarity(if I may trivialize that word for a moment),we hung together, the cops were idiots if occasionally violent, snitches were not tolerated. Round about '71 word was about that the Feds had taken interests in us,and indeed for several weeks 2-3 black lincolns with tinted glass would cruise around and around our park, then they were gone. Six-nine months later our hood was absolutely buried in barbituites,so cheap that kids came to school with shoe boxes full. Mucho OD's, off hand I know four who died. By late summer of '72 our little community was fragmented and wrecked. Could this have been a prototype of the destruction of the black community of LA by crack?(This correlation occured to me during these conversations)

We saw the exact same thing in Detroit at the same time - maybe a little earlier.

Well, that's an eye openner. Must be a coincidence. Must go poke around....

I don't know...I asked someone about this yesterday and they thought the attention grabbing was legit.
And, as far as the counter-culture goes, sorry Mike, in my estimation the 60's were a renaissance. I loved it. I wish we had stayed on course instead of descending into the dark ages. I was young enough to believ life was good and was going to be better.

You romanticize the working class. I do not, however I advocate for them constantly in my sphere of existence. The idiot next door has "these colors don't bleed" on his license plate, and the white trash" on the other side has trash piled in the yard (and a Bush-Cheney bumpersticker). Here is a letter I wrote that was in yeterday's local paper:

It must come as no surprise to anyone following the course of the Morrisville school construction nightmare that a plan emerges to sell off public property—or rather give it away—without an open bid process or public consent. To add insult to injury, after the land is presented to developers on a platter, the proposal is to charge the community rent on the properties, until the construction - which is already burdening taxpayers with an astronomical tax for academically substandard schools, is completed. It has been a controversial, hostile, and questionably necessary project deeply dividing the community and causing conflict. It is mindboggling in its scope and sheer audacity, but considering the general trajectory up to now, it could’ve been easily predicted a year ago that some scheme to build condos to turn a hefty profit would appear, with the ludicrous suggestion that the paltry offer would ease the burden, while the community foots the bill. The greatest tragedy of all is so many in the more affluent surrounding areas don't care that, although Morrisville sits in the center of a district with a superior reputation, providing educational opportunities a small struggling district couldn't possibly compete with, Morrisville’s children suffer from inequity in education--and are excluded from otherwise regionalized district advantages. It is fundamentally unfair, based either on racism or class prejudice, that while Morrisville families carry the highest tax rates, and are at the mercy of rapacious developers, they don't get to share in advantages their neighboring communities take for granted and are victimized by their economic disadvantage from the very start. Why can't the children of Morrisville also participate on a level playing field and have the same chances at the American dream?

I don't know...I asked someone about this yesterday and they thought the attention grabbing was legit.

Well that settles that then. :lol:

My question is, is it effective? Beyond that, is anyone deemed to be "on our side" therefore given a pass on whatever they choose to do? And what is the criteria for deciding that someone is on our side and therefore given this immunity? For example, I don't think Code Pink is on our side, and even if I did I think their tactics make a mockery of the cause - whatever their cause is exactly.


And, as far as the counter-culture goes, sorry Mike, in my estimation the 60's were a renaissance. I loved it. I wish we had stayed on course instead of descending into the dark ages. I was young enough to believ life was good and was going to be better.

I am talking about the 70's really. I agree with you about the 60's.


You romanticize the working class. I do not, however I advocate for them constantly in my sphere of existence.

I don't think of the working class as "them" but rather as "us." I do try to counter-balance the tidal wave of ridicule of blue collar people from many in the activist community. I don't know how that constitutes "romanticizng them."


The idiot next door has "these colors don't bleed" on his license plate, and the white trash" on the other side has trash piled in the yard (and a Bush-Cheney bumpersticker).

Well that is the stereotype I suppose. Is he from the South? That would round out the picture. Sorry that you have an idiot as a neighbor.

I am in a Republican district, farmers and blue collar people. Not very many people have trash piled up, a very small number of people are nutcases - no more and no less than anywhere else. Before here I lived for years in an AA community in Detroit. I spent years touring in small towns in the South and playing in churches from Eastern Kentucky to poor parishes in Cleveland, Chicago and other big cities. I just haven't seen the stereotype of knuckle-dragging fundy inbred Bush voters as a very useful concept, nor is it very representative of blue collar people many of whom are people of color and immigrants, and even in the reddest of red areas 40-49% of the "rednecks" are strong Democratic voters - much more Leftist than suburban Dem voters often. I think in the suburbs, where people are gathered into demographic clumps, there are pockets of people who seem to fit some stereotype.



It must come as no surprise to anyone following the course of the Morrisville school construction nightmare that a plan emerges to sell off public property—or rather give it away—without an open bid process or public consent. To add insult to injury, after the land is presented to developers on a platter, the proposal is to charge the community rent on the properties, until the construction - which is already burdening taxpayers with an astronomical tax for academically substandard schools, is completed. It has been a controversial, hostile, and questionably necessary project deeply dividing the community and causing conflict. It is mindboggling in its scope and sheer audacity, but considering the general trajectory up to now, it could’ve been easily predicted a year ago that some scheme to build condos to turn a hefty profit would appear, with the ludicrous suggestion that the paltry offer would ease the burden, while the community foots the bill. The greatest tragedy of all is so many in the more affluent surrounding areas don't care that, although Morrisville sits in the center of a district with a superior reputation, providing educational opportunities a small struggling district couldn't possibly compete with, Morrisville’s children suffer from inequity in education--and are excluded from otherwise regionalized district advantages. It is fundamentally unfair, based either on racism or class prejudice, that while Morrisville families carry the highest tax rates, and are at the mercy of rapacious developers, they don't get to share in advantages their neighboring communities take for granted and are victimized by their economic disadvantage from the very start. Why can't the children of Morrisville also participate on a level playing field and have the same chances at the American dream?

Great letter.

but those old stereotypes still persist unconsciously, don't they?
Maybe class issues will be the new frontier? Because as long as upper class activism--pink ladies or Greens are dominating they won't address the pressing reality of the growing disparity.
The 70's did suck.
And Willie Nelson has that long hippie hair, but he gets a pass, doesn't he? He doesn't alienate.
So maybe the alienation has less to do with being outrageous and more about who you include?

And thanks. It is one of many.

but those old stereotypes still persist unconsciously, don't they?
Maybe class issues will be the new frontier? Because as long as upper class activism--pink ladies or Greens are dominating they won't address the pressing reality of the growing disparity.
The 70's did suck.
And Willie Nelson has that long hippie hair, but he gets a pass, doesn't he? He doesn't alienate.
So maybe the alienation has less to do with being outrageous and more about who you include?

And thanks. It is one of many.

Most of what the right wingers criticize about the 60's is really about the 70's. But it is the 60's - the serious political threat to the establishment - that they are worried about, not the 70's - drugs and rock and roll and sex.

I don't object to outrageous so much as I object to self-indulgent "look at me" antics that don't communicate anything of substance to anyone. I am not against pink tiaras or disrupting Congress necessarily - it is just that I am not automatically for those things either, and I did not get the point at all of many of the recent stunts by Code Pink.

Funny, I just got off the phone with a customer in Northern Ireland, and we were talking about the Scots-Irish immigration to the US. Those are the people from Scotland who the English resettled in Ireland, and many of whom came here in colonial days and settled in Virginia and the Carolinas and Peensylvania, and later in Kentucky, Tennesee, Georgia, and Alabama and then have spread out from there. That tribe has always been clannish, but here has expanded to include and integrate many people of other ethnicities. There are maybe 30 million Scots-Irish here now, but the tribe has incorporated and co-opted at least that many from other backgrounds.

Scots-Irish have had an enormous influence here, doiminating government and the military since the beginning. Scots-Irish surnames are the most common among politicians and military leaders. Hancock, Boone, Wallace, Campbell, Houston, Crocket, Calhoun, Marshall, Arthur, Harrison, Polk, Buchanan, Grant, Wilson, Jackson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and yes, Bush, are all Scots-Irish surnames.

Other Scots-Irish Americans - Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum, Judy Garland, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe.

You have to wonder how people from the margins of Europe came to be so dominant here. They came not only from beyond the influence and reach of the Roman Empire, but before that they successfully resisted the Celts and the Gaels.

They came in clans and mostly became small farmers, so attitudes and traditions have survived remarkably intact. People here from more aristocratic backgrounds, especially in New England, look down on them - "rednecks, hill billies, white trash." Fierce loyalty to those perceived as members of the clan, warlike xenophobia that is thousands of years old - fear of and hostility toward the Celts, the Gaels, the Romans, the English, then the New Englanders and "Eastern Elite," Catholic immigrants, and now the Arabs.

"The Scotch-Irish soon became the dominant culture of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Author (and U.S. Senator) Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scots-Irish such as loyalty to kin, mistrust of governmental authority, and a propensity to bear arms, helped shape the American identity." - wikipedia

From American connections, Presidents and Pioneers:

"More than one-third of all United States Presidents have had ancestral links to today’s Northern Ireland - proportionately far more than from any other immigrant group. At least 15, from Andrew Jackson (7th) to George W.Bush (43rd), are descended from the many thousands of Ulster Scots, often known as Scots-Irish in the US, settlers who left the northern counties of Ireland for the New World in the 18th and 19th centuries."

"These so-called Scots-Irish were in the vanguard of the pioneers who opened up the frontier and became, in the words of a prominent historian, 'the first true Americans' who helped make the United States what it is today. Yet it often comes as a surprise for people to learn that so many Presidents, generals, bankers, inventors and movie stars had their roots in the same little corner of the world, sharing ‘this stern and virile’ heritage, as Theodore Roosevelt described his maternal Scots-Irish ancestry.

"Northern Irish ancestry was also the common link between American heroes like frontiersman Davy Crockett, novelist Mark Twain, General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, inventors Thomas Alva Edison, Cyrus McCormick and Robert Morse, songwriter Stephen Foster, as well as movie stars John Wayne and James Stewart. Among today’s celebrities with similar ancestral roots are singers Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire, actor Robert Redford, space pioneers James Irwin, Neil Armstrong and John Glenn plus the wealthy Mellon and Getty industrial/philanthropic dynasties."

American connections (http://www.nitakeacloserlook.gov.uk/index/american-connections.htm)

From a review of Senator James Webb's book (Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, by James Webb, New York: Broadway Books) in Reason magazine:

The Fighting Scots-Irish

They shaped America, but did they make it more free?

Long dismissed as rednecks, crackers, and hillbillies, the Scots-Irish--also known as Scotch-Irish, Ulster Scots, or Borderers, because they hailed from Northern Ireland and the border counties of Scotland and England--have provided a disproportionate share of America's political leaders, military brass, writers, and musicians. As an ethnic group, James Webb argues in Born Fighting, they "did not merely come to America, they became America, particularly in the south and the Ohio Valley, where their culture overwhelmed the English and German ethnic groups and defined the mores of those regions."

For Webb, a descendant of Scots-Irish immigrants who has written novels, fought with highly decorated distinction in Vietnam, and served as secretary of the navy and assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, the political culture of the Scots-Irish is defined by hyperpatriotism, a devotion to strong leaders, and individualist self-reliance. "It has shaped the emotional fabric of the nation, defined America's unique form of populist democracy, created a distinctly American musical style, and through the power of its insistence on personal honor and adamant individualism has become the definition of 'American' that others gravitate toward when they wish to drop their hyphens and join the cultural mainstream," he writes.

But the Scots-Irish impact on American politics is more problematic than Webb would have us believe. The populist politics they pioneered doesn't necessarily produce the sort of values that sustain liberty. Indeed, the democratic impulse toward comfort and safety often undercuts self-reliance and individualism. Webb's book, though well-written and often insightful, is more an exercise in ethnic self-mythologizing than an evenhanded attempt to judge the impact of the Scots-Irish and their culture on America.

The Fighting Scots-Irish (http://www.reason.com/news/show/32284.html)