Democracy - Hemmingway Version

I just ran my last post through the Hemmingway App:
http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
And here's the revision:

I listened to the State of the Union Address of 2014. Now I am rethinking consumer capitalism and American politics. I want to accept the myriad evidence that we live in a plutocracy. Ultimate Control of the political process lies in the minority hands of monied interests, right? Well, evidence exists to the contrary. This has occupied an expanding part of my conscious thoughts. I am plagued with the dreaded Cognitive Dissonance that a skeptic like myself must not ignore.

I fear that the aspects of our political and economic systems I dislike are in fact democratic, not plutocratic. I am terrified at the prospect that it is the collective will of The People that creates and perpetuates systems of oppression. Despite my strong desire for this not to be true, evidence seems to be piling up.  This creates cognitive dissonance that demands a resolution.

I can see that politicians focus on private, corporate interests, and pursue policies of war and terror abroad. What if politicians are doing this not because they are under the sway of the plutocrats and the nefarious 1%? What if politicians pursue these things with fervor because they are popular among their voters?

I have seen plenty of evidence to suggest that this hypothesis, though it contradicts a lot of what I believe about the world, is valid. People want jobs. In american culture, jobs are life. So why wouldn't the democratic 'consensus' reward politicians who are pro-corporate, pro-privatization? People want militarism. In America, the military is our source for national pride, security, and identity. So why wouldn't the democratic consensus reward politicians who are pro-military imperialists?

If you listen to the President's State of the Union address, it might as well be a dramatic rehash of the Horatio Alger myths. He dropped the words 'jobs', 'opportunity', and 'middle-class' a combined 7,000 times. These coincided almost always with phrases like 'hard-working', 'industrious', and the devious 'deserving'. It's enough to make a left-leaning anti-capitalist sick.

Why would the President choose this framing for so many of his policy statements and political priorities? The explanation that makes the most sense to me is, he wants votes. Barack Obama is not oblivious to his audience. He wouldn't give a speech like the SOTU without measuring the desired effect on the presumed audience. This is a midterm election year. Whatever the President chose to say, he said it to get more Democrats elected to Congress in November.

I loathe to admit it, but I think it was a good choice of strategic messaging. The rhetoric he chose is the rhetoric that seems to make Americans want to vote for the guy saying the words.  Admitting this feels dangerous. I feel forced to admit that maybe the monied elite don't exert quite as much influence as I might want to believe. This feels at odds with the standard radical left narrative framework for oppression in society.

I feel compelled further to consider that perhaps the media doesn't kowtow to the special interests, but to the people. Do the media machines feed the masses lies and misinformation trying to control our thoughts and actions? Or is it more likely perhaps that they tell the masses what they want to hear because it gets them better ratings and ad revenues? Does the constant messaging and propagation of ideas dictate what people want and believe? Or does it reflect what people already want and believe in an attempt to be as appealing as possible?

What does it mean for activists on the Left if Neoliberalism is a direct result of democracy? What if a majority of voters in Western democracies want their politicians to pursue a Neoliberal agenda? Is the rhetoric around the 1% and the corporate plutocracy just inaccurate propaganda?  Are we fighting against forces that are not responsible for the systems of oppression we seek to dismantle? Or are we focusing on symptoms while ignoring root causes?

I don't know what to believe, or how to reconcile competing sets of evidence. How can I know what causes and perpetuates violent political and economic systems of oppression? If it's the democratic reflection of the will of the people, then oppression is a symptoms of a social illness. If oppression is a manifestation of collective desires, then how might I try to make meaningful change?

The Possibility of an All-Too-Existent Democracy

After listening to the State of the Union Address of 2014, I am rethinking some of the ways I understand consumer capitalism, American politics, and the priorities of the politicians in the two major American political parties. I generally want to accept evidence that we live in a plutocracy, where Ultimate Control of the political process lies in the minority hands of monied interests, corporate and individual. Counter-evidence, however, has occupied an expanding portion of my consciousness, creating the dreaded Cognitive Dissonance that a skeptic like myself must not ignore.

I fear that the aspects of our political and economic systems I dislike are ultimately supported and reproduced through democratic, not plutocratic, processes and mechanisms. I am terrified at the prospect that it is the collective will of The People - society, the unwashed masses, whatever language symbol you hold in your mind when referring to people collectively - that creates and perpetuates systems of oppression. And yet despite my strong desire for this not to be true, evidence seems to be piling up, while the cognitive dissonance increasingly demanding a resolution.

This nagging hypothesis, that people can and constantly do democratically control the priorities of politicians, comes into conflict with a lot of my existing beliefs. I admit, because I can clearly see, that politicians consistently prioritize private, corporate interests, and pursue policies of war and terror abroad. But what if politicians are doing this not because they are under the sway of the plutocrats and the nefarious 1%, but rather, what if politicians pursue and prioritize these things because they are popular among their voters?

I think I've seen plenty of evidence to suggest that this hypothesis, though it contradicts a lot of what I believe about the world, is valid. People want jobs. In american culture, jobs = life. So why wouldn't the democratic 'consensus' reward politicians who are pro-corporate, pro-privatization? People want militarism. In America, military = national pride, security, identity. So why wouldn't the democratic consensus reward politicians who are pro-military imperialists?

If you listen to the President's State of the Union address, it might as well be a dramatic rehash of the Horatio Alger myths. The words 'jobs', 'opportunity', and 'middle-class' were probably used a combined 7,000 times (give or take), paired almost constantly with phrases like 'hard-working', 'industrious', and the devious 'deserving'. It's enough to make a left-leaning anti-capitalist sick.

But why would the President choose this framing for basically all of his policy statements and political priorities? The explanation that makes the most sense to me is, he wants votes. Barack Obama is not oblivious to his audience, and he would never in a million years give a speech like the SOTU without being very deliberate about the desired effect on the presumed audience. This is a midterm election year. Whatever the President chose to say, the only reasonable assumption is that he said it with the intention of getting more Democrats elected to Congress in November.

I loathe to admit it, but I honestly think it was a good choice of strategic messaging. I have every reason to believe, given what little I know about my culture and the tendencies of voters en masse, that the rhetoric he chose is the rhetoric that makes Americans want to vote for the guy saying the words.  But admitting this is a gateway to admitting that maybe the corporations and the monied elite and the 1% don't exert quite as much influence on the politicians as I might want to believe, or at least not as much as the typical radical left framework might suggest.

The almost-too-terrifying to mention corollary to this, which I am adding as an edit, is that perhaps the media, corporate controlled though it might be, doesn't kowtow to the special interests, but to the people. What makes more sense - that the advertising industry, the news industry, the political propaganda machines, all of them feed the masses lies and misinformation because the monied interest are trying to control their thoughts and actions? Or is it more likely perhaps that all of them tell the masses what they want to hear because it gets them better ratings and ad revenues? Does the constant messaging and propagation of ideas dictate what people want and believe, or does it simply reflect what people already want and believe in order to be as appealing as possible?

What does it mean for activists on the Left if Neoliberalism is a direct result of democracy? What if a plurality of people that form a majority of voters in so-called Western democracies want their politicians to pursue a Neoliberal agenda? Doesn't that shift in perspective turn some of the rhetoric around the 1% and the corporate plutocracy into dangerously inaccurate propaganda for a fight that demonizes groups and forces that are not actually ultimately responsible for the problems we seek to remedy and the systems of oppression we seek to dismantle?

I'm honestly not sure I know what to believe, or how to reconcile competing sets of evidence to decide what, ultimately, creates and perpetuates violent political and economic systems of oppression. If these are constructed democratically around the will of the people - if corporatism, imperial militarism, the state police-prison industrial complex, and the media institutions that seem to support these, are all symptoms of what I would consider a social illness, if they are a direct manifestation of our collective preferences and desires - then that makes a big difference in terms of how I might try to make meaningful change, doesn't it?

Respect for the Pro-Life Movement

I do want to create opportunities in my life for genuine dialogue with people who consider themselves much further to the right, politically, than I do. To begin with, most mainstream Americans who consider themselves 'left-leaning' are still so far to the right of me, I'm already reaching out across what seems like a huge ideological gulf. So to me it makes sense to reach just a little farther and try to open my mind to ideas from those who consider themselves 'right-leaning', i.e. the Republicans, Tea-Partiers, and the like.

Where I find the most difficulty is in situations where the beliefs or 'opinions' of the person with whom I am trying to empathize are downright bigoted, hate-filled, and violent. If there is any language or rhetoric that will shut down my ability to open my mind to someone, it is talk of 'family values', 'traditional values', 'American values', 'Christian values', 'biblical teaching', or some combination of these. I have spent enough time listening and thinking about these to know that all of these phrases refer to outdated, bigoted, and frequently violent modes of thinking. For me, hearing someone defend themselves by saying 'I'm not a bigot, I just believe in traditional family values' is like saying, 'I'm not a bigot, I just subscribe to a bigoted set of beliefs.'

Some pro-Lifers though, I get. You see a fetus and you want to treat it like a human being, a baby. I can understand that. I don't agree with you - I don't think a fetus should be recognized as having the same rights as human beings legally, because I don't think a fetus *is* a human being. That is what I consider a genuine 'difference of opinion'. Even the most adamant pro-lifers recognize at some point that a pregnant woman is also a human being, with at minimum the same rights as the fetus. Abortion, the way I see it, is a situation where there is debate not only on what rights should exist on both sides, but whose rights deserve primary consideration when it is simply not possible for everyone's rights to be preserved.

I feel the same way about animal rights advocates and those who choose to 'proselytize' about veganism or vegetarianism. I get it. You see a cat or a dog or a cow, and you want it to be treated as having certain fundamental rights. I don't agree with you, at least in terms of a 'right to life' or a 'right to not be food', although I will admit that the human element of animal cruelty makes me want to support at least some level of legal protection for animals not to be tortured and abused. I see animal rights as being very similar to a debate about abortion - not only are the specific legal rights that should exist disputed, but the question of whose rights deserve primary consideration in specific circumstances of conflicting interests is also open.

So, I have a lot of respect, both for pro-life activists and animal rights activists. You see something happening in the world that you find morally reprehensible, unjust, cruel, violent, and you do something about it. For an activist of any kind, it's not enough to 'live and let live', i.e. to simply refrain from the behaviors that you find morally reprehensible without calling on everyone around you to stop as well. I don't personally find the idea of slaughtering an animal for food, or aborting a fetus, morally problematic. Then again, I do find wars of aggression, state-sponsored extrajudicial violence, the American system of elected representative government, most legal forms of private and corporate property, most existing law enforcement, criminal court and prison systems, and probably a lot of other things to be morally reprehensible, while it seems like the majority of people around me either disagree (and have no moral qualms) or haven't given these matters any consideration.

I really do believe in activism! If you see people suffering in the world, it isn't enough as a human being to not be the individual author of the suffering - get out there and eliminate the causes of other people's suffering! Identify the things in the world you find to be violent and unjust and eliminate those violent injustices! Just be prepared to find yourself, more likely than not, in a minority opinion about whether or not your targets of choice constitute actual injustice, oppression, or violence, and in an even smaller minority opinion about whether or not it is worth an ounce of time and effort to resist.

When I say I believe in activism, I also mean that I believe in fighting the losing battle. If you can clearly see suffering and injustice, and you believe that there is an identifiable cause, and a need for a cure, then who cares whether or not there is popular opposition to the causes of oppression, or popular support for actions that would stop it? Majority opinion is *not* a yardstick for whether or not specific policies and practices are good or bad. Human empathy requires that we fight, regardless of whether or not we think we can win. We fight to create the world we want to live in, the world we want our children to live in.

To those whose beliefs and 'opinions' lead them to fight for a world with more hate, more violence, more suffering and injustice, well, I have no 'tolerance' for you. You should not expect, nor are you entitled to, any level of respect or consideration from me. Sure enough, some anti-abortion advocates fall into this category of people who just have no regard for the health and human rights of women. But I find that not all pro-lifers are like that. Hearing the passionate, personal pleas of those pro-lifers who really just believe that a fetus is a person, and want fetuses to be treated accordingly, I have nothing but respect for them. I have nothing but respect for anyone who is doing their best to speak out against violence, as they see it, and end oppression, as they believe it exists.