When Ralph Nader pointed out that there are no significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans it was met with responses that ranged from insult to false outrage which persists to this day among idle commentors in the blogosphere who challenge Nader’s motives, personality and commitment! One presumes they consider their own hard commenting e-politicking in favour of the Democratic party the better alternative to Nader’s decades of activism. The 2006 Democratic victory, eked out based on a sad mixture of Bush’s unpopularity and a field of ex-Republican and “Blue Dog” candidates, was the crowning achievement of this hyper-cautious citizen politician “liberal”s. The expectation then would be that we would, in quick order, gather evidence of how wrong Nader was about the difference between the two parties. Well, here is Matt Taibbi:

Tension Mounts as Antiwar Movement Challenges Dems’ Commitment to Stop the War

[…]

Neither of these Democratic leaders, after all, are Huey Newton, or even Benjamin Spock. They are not going to get up on a table, shake a shoe in the direction of the White House, shout “Fuck you, pig!” and just turn off the money, consequences be damned. No, these are career bureaucrats, political herd animals who survive year after year by clinging for dear life to the concept of safety in numbers. They will watch the bushes with great big eyes to see what is rustling back there, and when exactly two-thirds of the herd decides to bolt, they all will — not just the Democrats, but the Boehners and McConnells too, leaping over logs, tearing off big chunks of fur against the bark of trees, etc.

[…]

So maybe Reid and Pelosi really are working the phones on this one, who knows. What I do know is this; there are elements of the Democratic-crafted Iraq supplemental that are not only severely regressive but would actually tend to encourage the continuation of the insurgency. Anyone who wants an example of why the areas in which the Democrats and Republicans are in agreement are more significant than the ones in which they differ need only look at the two parties nearly unanimous endorsement of the “Benchmarks” the Iraqi government must meet, according to the supplemental. The key passage reads as follows:

(2) whether the Government of Iraq is making substantial progress in meeting its commitment to pursue reconciliation initiatives, including a hydro-carbon law…

It is notable that the hydrocarbon law comes in first place in this clause, ahead of “legislation necessary for the conduct of provincial and local elections,” reform of de-Baathification laws, amendments to the constitution and allocation of revenues for reconstruction projects. For whether or not it really was “all about oil” at the beginning of the war, the fate of the occupation really does hinge almost entirely upon oil initiatives now, as the continued presence of U.S. troops in the region may depend on whether or not the Iraqi government bites the bullet and decides to eat the proposed hydrocarbon law in question.

The law, endorsed here by the Democrats, is an unusually vicious piece of legislation, an open blueprint for colonial robbery of the Iraqi nation. It is worth pointing out that if you go back far enough in the history of this business, the law actually makes the U.S. an accomplice in the repression of Saddam Hussein, the very thing we claim to be rescuing the country from.

[…]

The proposed Hydrocarbon Law is a result of pressure from the American government on the Iraqis to draft an oil policy that would adhere to the IMF guidelines. It allows foreign companies to take advantage of Iraqi oil fields by allowing regions to pair up with foreigners using what are known as “production-sharing agreements” or PSAs, which guarantee investing companies large shares of the profits for decades into the future. The law also makes it impossible for the Iraqi state to regulate levels of oil production (seriously undermining OPEC), allows oil companies to repatriate profits, and would also allow companies to hire foreign workers to man facilities. Add all the measures up and the Hydrocarbon law not only takes control of the oil industry away from the Iraqi state, but virtually guarantees that the state will profit very little from future oil exploitation.

[…]

Moreover, let’s just say this about the Democratic Party. They can wash their hands of this war as much as they want publicly, but their endorsement of this crude neocolonial exploitation plan makes them accomplices in the occupation, and further legitimizes the insurgency. It is hard to argue with the logic of armed resistance to U.S. forces in Iraq when both American parties, representing the vast majority of the American voting public, endorse the same draconian plan to rob the country’s riches.

Current blogosphere darling (though even that tide is turning) Obama has been on the forefront of the call for the Iraqis to show responsibility. No doubt his righteous scolding will accomplish this bogus goal, more so than the death and disorder that the Iraqis are enduring as a result of our assault. Taibbi addresses such callous nonsense:

But I’ll tell you what I can do without. I can do without having to listen to American journalists, as well as politicians on both sides of the aisle, bitch and moan about how the Iraqi government better start “shaping up” and “taking responsibility” and “showing progress” if they want the continued blessing of American military power. Virtually every major newspaper in the country and every hack in Washington has lumped all the “benchmarks” together, painting them as concrete signs that, if met, would mean the Iraqi government is showing “progress” or “good faith.”

The term offered by the blog-comment-osphere for their hyper-cautious centrism is “gradualism”. Taibbi comments:

Moreover, this endorsement of these neoliberal “benchmarks” by the Democrats makes me believe a lot less in their “gradualist” approach to ending the war. If they viewed the war as much of the world did, as a murderous and profoundly immoral criminal enterprise, they would understand that morally, they really have no choice now but to refuse to send Bush even a dime more for this war.

Howard Zinn wrote recently a timely piece pointing out that we are not politicians but citizens. But for the “progressive” blogosphere, the small bits of power derived from colluding with the Democrats (which they perceive as king-making, or at best productive engagement) perhaps offer greater satisfaction than the uncertainties of citizen activism of the type practised by Nader.

Sometimes it feels OK to be just a regular liberal rather than a revolutionary leftist! Yes, this is still the same old crappy system of inequity, but at least in currently possible world terms, its good news:

Buffett gives $30 billion to Gates | Reuters.co.uk
By Robert MacMillan and Mark McSherry

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest person, is donating about $37 billion (20.3 billion pounds) — more than 80 percent of his fortune — to foundations run by his friend Bill Gates and by the Buffett family.

The move is the biggest-ever single act of charitable giving in the United States.

[…]

The Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations.

It has committed millions of dollars to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States.

[…]

However, Wall St no likey charity:

MSNBC: Berkshire stock falls after Buffett charity move

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares fell Monday after Chairman Warren Buffett said he would give most of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other charities.

In an NYT Op-Ed piece, Matthew Pearl talks about the recent Larry Summers eviction at Harvard and ties it to larger historical developments. He starts out normally enough:

How the Liberal Arts Got That Way - New York Times
By MATTHEW PEARL

BEFORE Lawrence Summers announced his resignation as president of Harvard on Tuesday, the last upheaval of equal magnitude at the university was 140 years ago. That older drama was perhaps the most consequential episode in the history of American higher education; one that not only created the institution where a Larry Summers could flourish as a graduate student and professor, but oddly also laid the seeds of his presidential breakdown.

Except there is already a hint of the paradox that is about to be manufactured. And that hint is in the insertion of the word ‘oddly’. Which permits Pearl to (after outlining the emancipating liberalism of Harvard’s history) go on to:

In a long-gestating paradox, however, the very changes that freed Eliot to renovate Harvard with a more independent and egalitarian framework also did in Larry Summers by leaving Harvard presidents without an identifiable constituency or a body to which, in the end, he may be said to answer. The president could no longer concentrate on pleasing the finite body of individuals who approved and could censure him. From Eliot’s term onward, each president had to be acutely aware of negotiating between competing and in many cases incompatible demands from the various factions — the administrative governing boards, the faculty, the students, the alumni, the donors and those holding the federal purse strings.

What are the changes Pearl is alluding to (that freed Eliot)? He lists a whole lot in the passages leading up to this one. Student resistance is one. Advances in the sciences is another. Yet another is a law shaking up the Board of Overseers. Let us assume it is all of the above changes that “freed” Eliot, as president, to “usher in large-scale reforms”. Now these same changes, Pearl seems to claim, led to Summers being answerable to all and hence not in possession of the freedom for large-scale reform that Eliot enjoyed. This, I guess, is the paradox.

Except it rests on the question of what the changes were and whether they provided freedom for Eliot to perform arbitrary large-scale reform, or more reasonably, gave him the backing to carry out meaningful reforms? In other words, the “tide of liberalism” empowered Eliot to carry out the very changes that the liberalism rightfully demanded. The case of Summers is quite the opposite, for he was not attempting to create a “renaissance of the liberal arts” but to shout them down into a submissive role (to himself and to his pet notions). His actions were to push back against the “tide of liberalism” and towards more traditional notions, and it is no paradox that he was done in by his regressive actions, which were repulsed by the progressive changes that empowered Eliot.

The laments of the various reductionists in Biology (EP, Sociobiology, Cognitivei science, etc) by appeal to the injustice of suppression of radical new ideas by the establishment is a parody of real anti-establishment ideas that faced persecution. Not only are these ideas anything but radical (one does not need to look as high as Harvard presidents to find negative speculation on the abilities of women), they are no different (in their reasoning) from the twisted usage of the Bush crowd of notions such as whistle-blowing (which they use to defend their man Libby’s leaking of a CIA operative) or supporting the troops.

Pearl reveals his own axe shortly thereafter, in the article:

The Harvard experience had long ago been liberated from politics in its most concrete attachment — that tie to the Massachusetts Legislature — but it has been politicized in a different way, subjected to the realm of public politics and opinion.

Aha! Public politics and opinion we learn is what did old Larry in. Not surprisingly, Pearl seems to employ the same twist of logic I outlined above, for the truth is that Larry’s politics and opinion is what did him in.

Recently, I posted about Max being dropped by dKos and a bit earlier about Kos opinion on peace marches. At that time, I had no problem with Kos in general but found some aspects of his approach (and his rhetoric) disturbing. More on his attitude has emerged (follow the Bitch|Lab blog link quoted below to read direct Kos comments on the dearth of minorities/women in the blogosphere, and from there on about affirmative action, etc) that casts further doubt on Kos’ credibility as a true progressive.

The quoted text below is of particular interest to me because it is rare to hear this (what I consider) older form of leftist/progressive ideal, here in the West. In fact new leftists (like Kos himself, though he probably does not consider himself a leftist) probably dismiss this as some sort of romanticizing, on various pragmatic grounds.

I have always thought that the job of the left is much harder: (I am not good at metaphors, so bear with me) We have the task of dragging the conservatives away from the last good idea we brought about to the next good one. Our techniques are part of who we are, just as theirs betray their outlook (Don’t worry, no Nietzsche quote shall follow).

Without more verbiage then, a comment from Bitch|Lab that says it most beautifully:

Bitch | Lab » Blog Archive » Flicked off

For him (dKos), it’s about winning elections. And the content of his blog is zeroed in on yakking about the races, promoting candidates, promoting campaign issues, battling the enemy.

And he wants to imagine that the only legitimate way to build this “Progressive” community is via this narrowly defined political practice. Thus those blogs that focus primarily on doing the same are considered legimitately part of the ‘political community’.

But, can a social movement for real progressive change rest only on this narrow conception of politics? How does such a narrow concpetion of politics foster community and solidarity? I don’t think it does — not for the long haul at any rate.

A progressive politics needs story tellers. It needs shared symbols which express, in crystallized for, those stories. Those story tellers speak from the voices of those who feel the burning edge of the need for social change.

Those story tellers seem to me to almost always emanate from the impassioned heart of those who feel most oppressed or who can, somehow, identify with them and give voice to that pain — and that desire.

Those stories are what the whole “values” debate is really all about. Those stories are what Mr. Framing (I’ve forgotten his name) is really talking about. But things he talks about don’t inspire the people who struggle. He only wants to get people to pull levers in voting booths. He only wants to bring USers to a point where more people thinkt he Democrats are more appealing than the Republicans.

Real social change — which is what I thought a progressive supports — is something that needs to be sustained by larger mythic stories of what’s wrong with contemporary life and what we can do to change. Those mythic stories we tell ourselves tell us why we struggle. They tell us why we’re doing this. They tell us why we keep fighting, even when we lose, even when we think nothing’s ever going to change. Those stories nourish us and reinvigorate us. They keep us fighting when the going gets tough. They connect us to a past through a present and onward toward an imagined future.

Ahem.

Sorry. There’s this weird thing that takes over me sometimes and I sound like a durn fool.

No you don’t. You sound just about right, and just about exactly what I learnt was worthwhile about being a progressive (and acting as one) from my father (the most gentle human being I ever knew).

By the way, B|L, the Mr.Framing guy you are looking for is, I think, George Lakoff (PDF).

As always, Fish (now at Florida International University) doesn’t fail to give an interestingly different analysis. But perhaps I find it interesting only because of my liberalism (my feeble attempt at a joke — read Fish to see why its possibly funny). This is Fish on the cartoon controversy, in an Op-Ed piece in the NYT. I urge you to follow the link and read the entire piece.

NYT: Our Faith in Letting It All Hang Out
By STANLEY FISH
Published: February 12, 2006

IF you want to understand what is and isn’t at stake in the Danish cartoon furor, just listen to the man who started it all, Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Rose told Time magazine that he asked 40 Danish cartoonists to “depict Muhammad as they see him,” after he noticed that journalists, historians and even museum directors were wary of presenting the Muslim religion in an unfavorable light, or in any light at all.

“To me,” he said, this “spoke to the problem of self-censorship and freedom of speech.” The publication of the cartoons, he insisted, “was not directed at Muslims” at all. Rather, the intention was “to put the issue of self-censorship on the agenda and have a debate about it.”

I believe him. And not only do I believe that he has nothing against Muhammad or the doctrines of Islam, I believe that he has no interest (positive or negative) in them at all, except as the possible occasions of controversy.

This is what it means today to put self-censorship “on the agenda”: the particular object of that censorship — be it opinions about a religion, a movie, the furniture in a friend’s house, your wife’s new dress, whatever — is a matter of indifference. What is important is not the content of what is expressed but that it be expressed. What is important is that you let it all hang out.

Mr. Rose may think of himself, as most journalists do, as being neutral with respect to religion — he is not speaking as a Jew or a Christian or an atheist — but in fact he is an adherent of the religion of letting it all hang out, the religion we call liberalism.

The first tenet of the liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to be taken seriously.

[…]

This is, increasingly, what happens to strongly held faiths in the liberal state. Such beliefs are equally and indifferently authorized as ideas people are perfectly free to believe, but they are equally and indifferently disallowed as ideas that might serve as a basis for action or public policy.

Strongly held faiths are exhibits in liberalism’s museum; we appreciate them, and we congratulate ourselves for affording them a space, but should one of them ask of us more than we are prepared to give — ask for deference rather than mere respect — it will be met with the barrage of platitudinous arguments that for the last week have filled the pages of every newspaper in the country.

One of those arguments goes this way: It is hypocritical for Muslims to protest cartoons caricaturing Muhammad when cartoons vilifying the symbols of Christianity and Judaism are found everywhere in the media of many Arab countries. After all, what’s the difference? The difference is that those who draw and publish such cartoons in Arab countries believe in their content; they believe that Jews and Christians follow false religions and are proper objects of hatred and obloquy.

But I would bet that the editors who have run the cartoons do not believe that Muslims are evil infidels who must either be converted or vanquished. They do not publish the offending cartoons in an effort to further some religious or political vision; they do it gratuitously, almost accidentally. Concerned only to stand up for an abstract principle — free speech — they seize on whatever content happens to come their way and use it as an example of what the principle should be protecting. The fact that for others the content may be life itself is beside their point.

This is itself a morality — the morality of a withdrawal from morality in any strong, insistent form. It is certainly different from the morality of those for whom the Danish cartoons are blasphemy and monstrously evil. And the difference, I think, is to the credit of the Muslim protesters and to the discredit of the liberal editors.

[…]

Perhaps Fish is already aware of the possibility that he, more than anyone else, might personify the flippant nonchalance/posturing of the liberal he describes so well! ;-)

From MaxSpeak:

SOLIDARITY WHENEVER
Your humble correspondent has been delinked by Daily Kos. An inquiry was met with a note insulting our honor. This after our support for a few of his more dubious blog adventures.

Yet another example of what I was pointing to in my post on the Kos take on peace marches. There are genuine reasons to split with Democrats, liberals, etc — Leiberman is a good example. But this sort of stuff seems to be muscle-flexing more than reasonable differences.

In this instance, the loss is Kos’ (despite his higher draw of eyeballs). Max’s content is way more interesting anyway! But as Max says, you can put that down as sour grapes too, since I was at the Sept.24 march that Kos writes so condescendingly about.

On Sept 28, blogger extraordinaire Kos, wrote the following about the fairly large anti-war rally in DC (Sept 24, 2005):

Peace protests and the new media environment

by kos

Wed Sep 28, 2005 at 10:47:17 AM PDT

I’ve been critical of peace protests in the past […]. This time, however, I wasn’t feeling animosity for last week’s protests. I was feeling something akin to apathy.

[…]

The lack of focus is maddening, obviously. But my biggest problem with anti-war protests is that they’re obsolete. What do they accomplish?

[…]
And we don’t need marches to let the country know that people are turning on the war.

[…]

People marching on the street? Boring. Unless you 1) have violence, or 2) crazy people making crazy speeches. It’s a lose-lose situation, and at best a single news cycle story.

[…]

The Right, except for the crazy anti-abortion protesting crowd, focuses its efforts solely on influencing media coverage. And it’s paid incredible dividends in the past few decades. We need to follow suit, rather than continue the same activism tactics of a century ago.

[…]

Ultimately I was agnostic over the march this past weekend because I can appreciate that people want to gather to fight for the cause, I appreciate that they want to feel like they’re doing something.

My question, then, becomes whether the money and effort people expended getting to DC to march might’ve been better spent in other forms of activism — letters to the editor, contributions to anti-war candidates, politicians, and organizations, calls and letters to their elected officials […]

Today (Jan 30, 2006) he writes:

So now what?

by kos

Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 03:53:52 PM PDT

We lost the cloture vote, but that was — despite some of your best wishes — a pre-ordained conclusion. But that doesn’t mean we lost on the bigger picture.

What you guys accomplished the last week was amazing — the outpouring of emails, letters, faxes, and phone calls was unprecedented for the netroots and particularly surprising given how weak our issue groups organized against Alito. We should’ve played a supporting role to strong efforts by NARAL, People for the American Way, and others. Instead, we ended up being pretty much the entire effort.

But say what you will about blogs and the netroots, we are not effective organizers for this type of large-scale effort, with an opposition wielding tens of millions of dollars. That we got this much accomplished in the fact of that is simply incredible.

So we are now on the map. The Alito vote may have fizzled, but you better believe the Dem establishment knows we exist.

Hmm… is it necessary to add a comment here, or perhaps just highlight the inadequacy of such thinking with a quote from the very same Kos post, misappropriated for my purpose:

In addition (this isn’t an “either/or” situation),

On another note: elsewhere on his site Kos confesses to his Republican campaigning past while other parts of the site ridicules “hippies” (while dispensing advice on what to do and not to do at the boring irrelevant DC march). The irony highlighted by these two excerpts can serve as a good starting point on why the left doesn’t hang together in the USA.

In left circles in the USA I have heard the (at times grudging, or at other times even proud) acceptance/declaration of the notion that Western Liberalism (or Western Democracy) is the better of available systems, past and present. While one part of this notion, that liberalism or democracy are positive systems, is unambiguous (and even agreeable) to me, I have been confounded by what clarification or addition is provided by the prefix “Western”.

Perhaps the simple fact that many non-Western nations have a relatively short history at democracy excludes them from contributing to the idea of it? That this short history is a consequence of the colonialism of these same Western nations is surely not unworthy of consideration in such a conclusion? Or is it? It could be argued that while the latter is a sad and deplorable truth about the double-faced advance of democracy in the West, it does not change the factual record of democratic and liberal thought and movements.

In his new book, The Argumentative Indian Sen speaks to this very issue as he tracks the history of the development of the argumentative tradition in India (one non-Western nation that gained independence from colonialism in 1947 and has, apart from a brief period of emergency, retained a democratic form of government):

From Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” (hardcover, 2005):

Pages 12-14:

The historical roots of democracy in India are well worth
considering, if only because the connection with public
argument is often missed, through the temptation to
attribute the Indian commitment to democracy simply to
the impact of British influence […]. [I]n general, the
tradition of public reasoning is closely related to the
roots of democracy across the globe. But since India has
been especially fortunate in having a long tradition of
public arguments, with toleration of intellectual
heterodoxy, this general connection has been particularly
effective in India. When, more than half a century ago,
independent India became the first country in the
non-Western world to choose a resolutely democratic
constitution, it notonly used what it had learned
from the institutional experiences in Europe and America
(particularly Great Britain), it also drew on its own
tradition of public reasoning and argumentative
heterodoxy.

[…]

It is very important to avoid the twin pitfalls of (1)
taking democracy to be just a gift of the Western world
that India simply accepted when it became independent,
and (2) assuming that there is something unique in
Indian history that makes the country singularly suited
to democracy. The point, rather, is that democracy is
intimately connected with public discussion and
interactive reasoning. Traditions of public discussion
exist across the world, not just in the West.

[…]

Even though it is very often repeated that democracy is
a quintessentially Western idea and practice, that view is
extremely limited because of its neglect of the intimate
connections between public reasoning and the
development of democracy - a connection that has been
profoundly explored by contemporary philosophers […].

[…]

Pages 75-80:

In that large tradition, there is indeed much to be proud
of [he is talking about Indian achievements that the
expat community could take pride in –ravi], including
some ideas for which India gets far less credit than it
could plausibly expect. Consider, for example, the
tradition of public reasoning. Even though the
importance of dialogue and discussion has been
emphasized in the history of many countries in the
world, the fact that the Indian subcontinent has a
particularly strong tradition in recognizing and pursuing
a dialogic commitment is certainly worth noting,
especially in the darkening world — with violence and
terrorism — in which we live. It is indeed good to
remember that some of the earliest open public
deliberations in the world were hosted in India to
discuss different points of views, with a particularly
large meeting arranged by Ashoka in the third century
BCE. It is good to remember also that Akbar
championed — even that was four hundred years ago
– the necessity of public dialogues and backed up his
conviction by arranging actual dialogues between
members of different faiths. […]

It is at this time rather common in Western political
discussions to assume that tolerance and the use of
reason are quintessential — possibly unique –
features of “Occidental values”: for example, Samuel
Huntington has insisted that the “West was West long
before it was modern” and that the “sense of
individualism and a tradition of individual rights and
liberties” to be found in the West are “unique among
civilized societies”. Given the fair degree of ubiquity
that such perceptions have in the modern West, it is
perhaps worth noting that issues of individual rights
and liberties have figured in discussions elsewhere as
well, not least in the context of emphasizing the
importance of the individual’s right of
decision-making, for example about one’s religion.

There has been support as well as denial of such rights
in the history of both Europe and India, and it is hard
to see that the Western experience in support of these
rights is peculiarly “unique among civilized societies”.
For example, when Akbar was issuing his legal order
that “no man should be interfered with on account of
religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to a
religion that pleases him”, and was busy arranging
dialogues between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains,
Parsees, Jews and even atheists, Giordano Bruno was
being burnt at the stake in Rome for heresy, in the
public space of Campo dei Fiori.

The quoted sections above offer only a small glimpse into Sen’s thought on the matter, but even this short bit of text makes a compelling argument against intentional or unintentional regional chauvinism (if that’s the right phrase).