In a couple of recent diaries (here and here), David's written about a troubling phenomenon: a progressive media outlet warning against progressives seeking to mobilize political power. I hope to have more to say about this incident later, as there are a number of different sources of confusion layered together in the argument being made against progressive power. But here I want to focus on what I regard as the big one: the false equivalence between the left and the right, which often depends on elevating form and ignoring substance.
In the second diary, David highlighted this comment from Wendy Norris of the Colorado Independent:
"Calling for party purges and demanding litmus tests has gotten the conservatives into the out-of-power pickle they find themselves in these days. Do progressives really want to follow that losing strategy?"
But is this assumed equivalence really real? If one looks at the details involved, it surely is not. The point David was pressing, which apparently got Norris so vexed, concerned lack of support for the Employee Free Choice Act--a popular position across party lines, amongst ordinary people. And this is entirely typical, as can be seen by recalling an incident earlier this month, in which David Frum emerged as the "voice of reason" smacking down Rush Limbaugh by comparing him to Jesse Jackson. Arianna Huffington, much to her credit, came to Jackson's defense on Countdown, saying she had re-read his 1988 speech at the Democratic National Convention, and praising it for its empathy and foresight.
It's worth looking back at Jackson's speech, because it truly does represent the sort of progressive vision that timid "progressives" like Norris are so afraid of--including a defense of the working poor that's a powerful reminder of why supporting EFCA should be a no-brainer for Democrats of all stripes. What Frum said, what Huffington said, and what Jackson said all on the flip.
JUAN GONZALEZ: As the Obama administration continues to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the nation's banking system, a growing movement is calling on the government to do more to help students struggling to pay for college.
According to the College Board, the average cost of four years at a private college is now a staggering $136,000. Four years at a public university, on average, will set you back $57,000. In order to pay for the rapidly increasing tuitions, students were forced to borrow a total of $85 billion during the last school year, up from $41 billion ten years ago. The average student now leaves college with $20,000 in debt.
Long story short: The Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) was established as a government-sponsored enterprise in 1972, and was privatized as part the bipartisan neoliberalism of Clinton's second term, starting in 1997, and concluding with full privatization in 2004, and whopping bonuses all around. It's a perfect example of how a program conceived within the liberal welfare state model was repurposed to serve conservative welfare state ends.
Mass education as a means to social mobility and equality, as well as enhanced autonomy and informed self-government is one of the oldest liberal policy ideas. Thus the origins of student loans, and the eventual creation of Salie Mae in 1972, as part ofthe liberal welfare state project. By dramatically raising the cost of student loans--particularly with added penalties, fees, and intrest rate boosts--students often end up more like indetured servants than free citizens, while producing vst fortunes for the state-sponsed special interests that grow fat off them, the student loan industry has been effectively repurposed to serve conservative welfare state ends.
"I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States," Senator Ted Kennedy roared as he appeared before the Democratic National Convention.
People have noted for some time the curious phenomenae of conservatives attracted to Barack Obama. At Salon, Joe Conasan's article "Why conservatives love Barack Obama" carried the subhead, "Clinton haters who think the Illinois senator can beat Hillary support him now, but their affection will fade if he gets the nomination." The irrational exuberance of Hillary hatred seen before the New Hampshire primary certainly reminds us of how potent a force such hatred remains, not just within the official conservative establishment, but among its Versailles enablers as well. Still, that's only part of the story.
some conservatives, in particular, can't wait to bum rush the current crop of media-anointed black leaders out the door.
"The big losers, two big losers tonight are probably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton," George Will observed after the Illinois senator swept the Iowa Democratic caucuses last week.
The Revs. Sharpton and Jackson, Mr. Will said, were "representative of those who have a sort of investment in the traditional and, I believe, utterly exhausted narrative about race relations in the United States."
Conservative radio host Bill Bennett said Mr. Obama "has taught the black community you don't have to act like Jesse Jackson; you don't have to act like Al Sharpton. You can talk about the issues. And, this is a breakthrough."
Page's reference to "media-anointed black leaders" is bizarre, of course. Jackson ran for President twice. In the 1988 primaries, he got over 7 million votes, won ten states and went to the convention with over 1,200 delegates. Sharpton ran in 2004, and repeatedly confounded expectations with his cogent arguments in the debates. This comment by Page is indicative of how, even when he's questioning what white conservatives are saying about black political issues at one level, he's buying into their assumptions at another: Jackson and Sharpton don't really represent the black community, according to the subtext that Page has casually endorsed. They are "media-anounted black leaders." (Unlike Obama?)
Can Democrats get the votes they need simply because they're not Republicans? You might think so in this presidential campaign. African-American and urban votes are critical to any Democratic victory. Bill Clinton won two terms without winning the most white votes. His margin was the overwhelming support of black voters. George Bush learned that lesson; that's why his campaigns spent so much effort suppressing the black vote in key states like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. His victory margin was the tally of votes suppressed or uncounted.
Yet the Democratic candidates -- with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign -- have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American community goes without mention. No urban agenda is given priority. When thousands of African Americans marched in protest in Jena, La., not one candidate showed up.
Democratic candidates are talking about health care and raising the minimum wage, but they aren't talking about the separate and stark realities facing African Americans.
:
Now, I think it is pretty fair to say that if Obama did talk explicitly talk about race in a public way, even once, he would immediately face the same wrath Hillary Clinton faced for supposedly playing "the gender card." Obama would be instantly accused of playing the "race card." All of these attacks would also sound similar, if reversed, for when John Edwards is attacked as a rich guy talking about poverty. Women can't talk about gender without playing the "race card," blacks can't talk about race without playing the "race card," and anyone who talks about the plight of a demographic group to which they do not belong, such as rich people talking about poor people, then that person is a hypocrite. It really is a nearly perfect, conservative, media system to prevent anyone from talking about race, gender or poverty in America.
Joining the Reserve Officer Training Corps was once an attractive choice for people with few options growing up in impoverished, predominantly black East Baltimore. That has all changed, largely because of the war in Iraq.
"Now, it is like, no way," said Cornelius McMurray, who does outreach with a local church and says the young black people he works with view life in Baltimore as enough of a war. "It is a continuous fight waking up and walking the streets every day."
In the Bronx, Adeyefa Finch says he simply walks past the recruiters who, seeking out minority members along Fordham Road, make the case that the military can help with college financing and job placement after they serve. "I'm not really into going overseas with guns and fighting other people's wars," said Mr. Finch, 18, headed to college this fall to study accounting.
That kind of rejection of military service as an option of young blacks throughout the country has resulted in a sharp drop in black recruitment figures since the war began. Defense Department reports show that the share of blacks among active-duty recruits declined to 13 percent in 2006 from 20 percent in 2001, the last year before the invasion of Iraq began to seem inevitable...
In a recent CBS News telephone poll, 83 percent of the blacks surveyed said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq; only 14 percent said it had done the right thing in taking military action. Whites, by contrast, were closely divided: 48 percent said military action had been right, and 46 percent said the United States should have stayed out. The poll was conducted Aug. 8-12 with 1,214 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The poll numbers show up in the daily hardships of recruiters trained by Sgt. First Class Abdul-Malik Muhammad, based in Birmingham, Ala. "With blacks, there is not really a great support for the war," Sergeant Muhammad said, recalling one prospective recruit who was told by his parents that they would sever all ties with him if he enlisted.
My read on this is that there's a deep sense of betrayal within the African-American community that parallels what's going on in the activist base of the party in general. I took a glance at the drops in polling support for a variety of Democrats over the past month or two, and the drop is concentrated among liberals and African-Americans. At the same time, there's a deep sense of frustration with current black leadership centered in two areas. One, many opinion leaders in the hip hop community are deeply embittered by the civil rights generation of leaders and media stars like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Oprah that chide Hip Hop culture without speaking to the real concern in their music, communities, and expression. And two, the middle class emerging black activist class is furious with failures of the political leadership, represented both by the political leaders themselves and institutions like the NAACP and the Urban League that aren't capturing the newer generation. There's obviously overlap here, and I'm probably simplifying these trends dramatically.
It's still interesting, though, how this parallels what's going on with the new progressive movement on the blogs. We're part of a newer irony-infused culture, and we're constantly told by our progressive elders that we're too angry, controversial, or informal. We don't relate to traditional liberal institutions like unions or mass membership organizations like the ACLU, and our leaders tend to disappoint us on a regular basis. Permeating all of this is Iraq and the breakdown of trust in Republican governance. Anyway, I don't have tremendous insight here, but there are a lot of opportunities and I figured I'd point out that there's ferment all over the place.
STATE BLOGS
