Era of the mirror

I was going to write this after the recent UK election a few months ago but didn't get a chance to. But after watching a lot of BBC political documentaries on You Tube, I've come to the conclusion what happened was the end of an era which lasted from 1979 until 2015, an era in which both major parties of British politics, Labour and Conservative mirrored each other in their experiences as parties both in and out of power. Both parties were in power for long stretches of time (Conservative 1979-1997) and Labour (1997-2010 although the Tories went 18 years like Labour without a majority) and both parties went through painful "wilderness" years which brought about gut-wrenching change to both of them. In fact, both parties were such mirror images of each other, you could even line-up some of the politicians involved and they would compared very nicely with each other. For example:

1). Tony Blair = David Cameron  (The PMs who were the party modernizers)
2). Tony Benn = Margaret Thatcher (Ideologues with adoring fans who tried to give their respective parties purpose and ideas but also were very divisive figures)
3). Michael Foot = Ian Duncan Smith (Good studies in what happens to organizations when people not suited for leadership lead them)
4). Denis Healey = Kenneth Clarke (The respective best leaders neither party ever had)
5). John Smith = Michael Howard (Transitory figures to the party modernizers)
6). Neil Kinnock = William Hague (Opposition leaders in difficult times for their respective parties)
7). Jim Callaghan = John Major (You can make the case for comparing Gordon Brown with Major but the deep splits in both parties during their wilderness years began with both men's PM tenures)
8). Gordon Brown = Michael Heseltine (Important party figures trying to plot their way to the top with Brown ultimately making it but soon crashing and burning. Only Heseltine's health kept him from being Conservative leader.
9). Robin Cook = Geoffery Howe (Men of conscious resigning in the wake of policy differences)
10). Roy Hattersley = Michael Portillo (Not a neat comparison but not exactly loyal deputy leaders)

There's also some corresponding events as well. Black Wednesday (1992) = The Panic of 2008. The Winter of Discontent = The Poll Tax. The ouster of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 via parliamentary coup and the near coup by Gordon Brown against Tony Blair in 2007 and subsequent leadership elections as well.

There are others I'm sure you could make on a cabinet level but you get the picture. The rise of the SNP has basically ended one era of British politics and now we're in a new era that will need its own story to be told 15-20 years down the road.

The coming conservative-America crack-up

On this Fourth of July weekend I saw a cartoon posted on Facebook where a young boy looks up to his grandfather during a fireworks show and asks "What are we celebrating?" and the grandfather responds "That we were once a free country". The grandfather is holding a newspaper announcing the recent Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. It shouldn't surprise you it was drawn for a conservative website.

The Supreme Court decisions on the ACA and same-sex marriage were triumphant capping for what I called the "Nationalist Left" in an article for the American Conservative. Although such triumphs should not have come as a surprise because the court itself and the commercial interests it has almost always represented have been the greatest centralizers and nationalizers in American life. When a patchwork quilt of laws adopted by the states interferes with commerce in any fashion the court more often than not will side with those commercial interests to standardized the whole country for sake the efficiency which leads to more profit. There was no way the court was going to allow either the ACA or SSM to exist in such a quilt-like fashion, It was either going to be the law of the whole land or wasn't. That's how its has operated since 1787.

What's different this time its the political Left reaping the patriotic benefit from nationalization and the political Right being alienated from it. This wasn't always true. Since the Cold War and especially during the Vietnam War, it was the political Right seizing patriotism as cause for itself. Dissent against American foreign policy, the notion of there being a "Blame America first crowd" the expounding for "American Exceptionalism" have found expression on the Right side of the political ledger. But the events of the previous few weeks may well have been a turning point and the relationship of the Right, both political and ideological, towards America may well have changed to the point where the hills one side or the other occupies may well be matched down and switched.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore reportedly broke down in anguish at the court's decision over SSM. One can imagine the anguish the former Vietnam Vet through the sum of his life experience is going through as he realizes that a country like Uganda for example, bans SSM and the U.S. does not. So what's so exceptional about America anymore? He has to ask himself. And if it's true as he says Christians will now be persecuted for opposing SSM, then the process of alienation from the nation upholding what they feel is a Godless law, will only increase. Those opposing the ACA because it is "socialist" will certainly feel the same way. Republican candidates will certainly talk about repeal and Constitutional amendments during the upcoming election, but with sizable majorities of the voting public supporting both SSM and much of the ACA (except for the part known as Obamacare) they will do so at their only at their own political peril. Indeed, such persons can't even retreat to the Confederacy, the alternative America they defended in the past now that its symbol has passed from a narrative of valor to one seen in the context of present of being a toxic symbol of hate and murder.  

So what's left those on the Right if patriotism becomes the last refuge of the Leftist? We hear talk of Benedict Options for the religiously minded, about breaking away and tuning out, retreating exile from the America of 2015 and of the future. At least such talk is the acknowledgement politicians and parties aren't going to save them. But then what can? If it's true, Rush Limbaugh perceptively said recently, "We fine-tune socialism and call it conservatism" then perhaps the best course is acknowledging this and moving on.  We may well be a far cry from Reagan's envisioned "City on a Hill" rhetoric ideologically but politically to do so would be poisonous, as it was for liberals before the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the spectacle of those on the Right trying to pontificate what America means to them given the realities of America 2015 and beyond will be incredibly difficult. If they only pine for the past they will only be supported in such places which also do so. If they announced hatred for the present they will noted and accordingly be punished. They can try to think anew but cannot do so outside of the context of the current USA and what will be. If that's too big  a burden to bare they should run to the hills as some have suggested but don't expect separation will lead to renewal and don't expect it will lead to peaceful isolation. The America of today doesn't provide a lot of room despite plenty of elbow room when it comes to all the wide open spaces. Of that, the Supreme Court has made sure of.

Double Loser - Part II

I wrote about political violence being a losing a proposition for those who could not control the narrative (or "spin" to use a more contemporary phrase) of their violence. I had written this in the aftermath of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore where legitimate grievances over police brutality or local government using the poor as ATMs for their coffers would be obscured by burned-out stores and overturned police cars.

Well, if anyone had the phrase "Born to Lose" tattooed across his white face its Dylann Roof. He provided another example of political violence being a loser for those marked by history as losers with his terroristic massacre of nine black Christians in church in Charleston, S.C.

White Southerners, like the Irish and black Americans too, have suffered the bulk of defeats in U.S. history, often times because game is rigged against them but also sometimes through their own mistakes. The mistake Roof made was not to hide his tracks. Unlike another young, white mass killer Adam Lanza, Roof not only didn't destroy all his computer searches (and kill himself) to leave nothing behind but mystery for those wondering about his motives. Instead, he left behind a big fat manifesto and pictures of himself with a Confederate and other white-supremacist flags and burning a U.S flag to make sure his motives were quite clear. Had such things not existed, Roof could have copped a insanity plea given the evidence of his drug use. Instead he'll be remembered as a killer with cause and perhaps the one who drove old Dixie down.

For as we saw this past week, there was no way in the world Roof was going to be able to control his narrative and nor would those who still defend the Confederacy with something more than just remembrance. No, Roof smashed all that to itsy-bitsy pieces committing what he thought was an act of war. The church he targeted, how he planned the attack and the reasons he did so were all calculated for effect. The madness only lies in what he thought he could accomplish. But as Roof himself said, everyone else in white supremacy chat rooms and website just talk and fantasize. Roof actually did what they've always wanted to do but didn't have the guts to do it.

Still, he almost didn't either. He took almost an hour before he came to his moment of decision, It was probably an agonizing hour trying to decide who he really was. Was he a killer? Could he kill these "nice" people just attending a weekly Bible study that goes on at churches all over the country? What did they ever do to him as individual? Nothing. But it was at that point Roof lost his individuality, his own judgement, morality and conscience. Instead he became what he thought was a soldier in some mass army out there on Stormfront of the CCC. Maybe he thought he was one of those Confederates in uniform back in 1861 and this was his Ft. Sumter.  Whatever he thought he was at that moment it was better than what he was: an unemployed, drug-addicted, transient with a rap sheet living in his car or a friend's trailer. Maybe he wanted to impress his new online friends and not punk out when the moment came to make the charge into history, who knows? Yet, like the loser he is, instead of Ft. Sumter what he got was Pickett's Charge, the gallant but doomed attack of a people trying to reject modernity.

Ta-Neshi Coates said of the Southern plantation class in recent article that they justified slavery as a means of creating white equality. That's what they wanted the outside world to believe. In reality such planters held the "hillbilles" and the "crackers" in as much contempt and perhaps more so than the slaves, which were after all their "investment". In reality the existence of such hard-scrabble farmers and backwoodsmen were an embarrassment to them and a lie to the notion of widespread regional prosperity and equality because of cotton and slavery. Their idea of the South were having themselves in charge and only themselves ruling over everyone, slave or free, and who would have to accept their rule because they were left uneducated and could not vote due to poll taxes or literacy tests or because they were slaves. Their's was a feudalistic society where classically educated men, like European nobles and knights, were at the top and everyone else was below them the farthest below being the serfs themselves. Southern society wasn't entirely this way but it came close enough to where those making the decisions favored secession when the time came to largely protect their status. Viewed from this perspective, the split between John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson becomes clear. Calhoun represented the planter class because that's where his career grew out of and Jackson the farmer because he was like them, a backwoodsman. It's also why there was little support and enthusiasm for the Confederate cause in places like Eastern Kentucky or Eastern Tennessee, West Virginia, the mountain and hill areas of South and in places outside of the cotton economy like southern Florida south and central Texas. It why many Confederate soldiers had to be conscripted to the and why many of them deserted near the end of the war.

The Roman and Greek societies to which such planters look towards as models had slavery too but it was not a slavery based completely on race (although many Irish, Scots-Irish came to the New World as indentured servants they could at least work for their freedom). Thus for poor whites the fact they weren't black as thus not a slave was the only thing they had going for them. "If you isn't better than a nigger what is you better than?" was the line from the movie Mississippi Burning that Gene Hackman gave which tried to explain the vicious racism of his father. Instead of blaming his poverty on the powers that be, he blamed it on the Negro. This is not just a Southern problem. Northern whites from Chicago Poles to Boston Irishmen to New York Italians to Milwaukee Germans have acted in the same manner towards blacks as poor white Southerner for same the reason: that life at the bottom is a zero-sum game and if you're losing, it's not because those above you are keeping you down, it's the fellow next to you keeping you from rising up. That must be it! And its from such misplaced enmity comes fear and then hate then ultimately exploitation from those seeking your consent to maintain their power over you to make sure you don't look in their direction.

Thus the context of the life of one Dylann Roof. It can be asked, as Jon Stewart recently did, what Roof has to complain about since the Republicans i.e. the White Party runs almost everything in South Carolina. But that means nothing to him anymore than President Obama or the black police chief or the black mayor meant to the rioters of Baltimore. So what? Roof has no inherited wealth of generations of planters. He's not retired military living in a low tax state off his government benefits. He's not a businessman.  It doesn't seem at all that he's religious or that "culture wars" matter to him. The only connection Roof has to the GOP is his race, just as black are tied to the Democrats. And in that way and others Roof was no different than many of the rioters at Mondawin mall: unemployed or unemployable due to a lengthy rap sheet, struggles with substance abuse inadequately educated and quite angry. But Roof's anger was not directed at a power structure which has acted abusively in many cases to cause such grievance. Instead it's directed to a whole group of people he's been told again and again by the ignorant and the hateful they are the cause of his misery. Was it the loss of girl to a black man which finally brought his rage from inside the out? Does it matter? The fact that it was there and misdirected at the wrong people and for the wrong reasons is what matters.

A warning to those think persons like Roof have some sort "white privileges". You'll never convince unemployed people living rusting trailers of this. In fact, more than likely, you'll convince them they're being denied such "privileges" by blacks. As I've stated, the Dylann Roofs of the world have more in common with those dispossessed of West Baltimore and Ferguson than those who make up the power structure. Only their race separates them, which unfortunately has been used to keep them separate figuring out what truly ails them for hundreds of years. People who have nothing and never had anything to begin with have no "privileges" to share nor would know how to take advantage of them even if they did exist. Just giving people the opportunity just to dream of something better, if nothing else and the very least, will do more to "spread the wealth" than hectoring a powerless people. The First and Second Reconstructions failed or were of limited success because poor and lower middle class whites were never convinced or shown how they would or could benefit from a more equitable society and free for all people.  If what we're going through right now is a Third Reconstruction, then it better include all races and classes and regions otherwise those left behind will simply produce more Dylann Roofs to continue their struggle as they see it, not as reality has it.

    

Texting and the Constitution

Russ Feingold got a lot a of grief on the Left when he supported John Roberts' nomination as Chief Justice but I think he understood Roberts's better than most so-called conservative did.

Roberts may be a conservative but he's not an ideological one. Ergo his decisions are going to be made with best interest of the status quo and of the national government (which, coincidentally is the best interests of the business community). And as confirmed Republican, he's going to keep an eye as to what's best for the party (which why his court will never overturn Roe vs. Wade).

"Textualism"  or "strict constructionalism" is an ideology and one I'm sure Roberts probably laughs at. If by textualism one means most what is permitted by law in the country is un-Constitutional because it wasn't put down on paper back in 1787, then I would say then most of what the Federal Government permits by law is certainly unconstitutional. But since the law is made and interpreted in the reality of 2015, embracing such a narrow vision of the law is not something Roberts' is going to share. One could make the argument the Court has gone beyond its "textual" mandate since Chief Justice John Marshall ruled on Marbury v. Madison. Indeed, Roger Taney's "textualism" on slavery basically help to cause the War Between the States.

Instead, Roberts did exactly what the business community wanted in keeping Obamacare instead of creating chaos in the healthcare markets by overturning it. The ideologue may have wanted Obamacare gone, but Roberts the actual conservatives knew this would be folly, especially over a stupid wording mistake and voted once again (!) to uphold it.

Socialist in name only

A friend of mine, Jack Ross, was traveling the country recently on a tour for his new book: The History of the Socialist Party of America and I attended his stop in St. Paul about a month ago. There, members of the Democratic Socialists of American (DSA) were signing up people who attended to work on Sen. Bernie Sanders campaign for President.

I applauded their efforts because it reminded me of the way non-major party activists were helping Ron Paul in the Republican Party presidential nominating process back in 2007. But the larger question is whether such efforts will make an impact upon the larger Democratic Party in the same fashion as Paul's campaigns did upon the GOP. The answer will only be found out whether Sanders has a great appreciation for the legacy of the old Socialist Party than he has displayed so far in his career.

Forget the arguments about Sanders being a socialist, whatever that means. We are all socialists, just to varying degrees, some less and some some more. This is true even of libertarians. The only ones who could be called true non-Socialists are Randians and they're devotion to utter selfishness and narcissism makes them so beyond the pale they're not worthy of much mention. No, what's important about Sanders' "socialism" as far as it goes is where he started from and where he is now and what can he say, if anything, which would challenge Hilary Clinton.

As Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com points out, Sanders started out on the hippie, localist antiwar left when he first came to Vermont from Brooklyn, then became more radical by supporting the Socialist Worker's Party in 1980 before steering himself back to the localist Left he abandoned in 1977 when he was first elected mayor of Burlington in 1981. But Sanders considered "socialism" differed greatly with local activists. As one of them pointed out: "At the very least, Sanders’ commitment to an industrially-based socialism was colliding with the community-based peace movement's commitment to ending foreign intervention and violence. The casualties were some mutual trust – and the workers who later lost their jobs as demand for GE’s Gatling guns waned."

Thus, it should come as no surprise (which was always to the ire of Vermont Independence supporters) that Sanders has no problem voting against certain wars like Iraq and yet supports the purchase of F-35 jets for Vermont Air National Guard. His views are fairly conventional mix as one would find on the far Left of Democratic Party but hardly more than that.  That he considers himself an “independent” is a merely a fig leaf for himself which say more about the politics of upper New England than what socialism means.

Which is too bad, because if there’s one issue Hilary Clinton would be vulnerable on in the context of a Democratic primary or caucus (especially in states of Iowa and New Hampshire) it’s her foreign policy views. They are views which could be exploited to give Sanders more traction and support among Democrats and which Clinton would have a hard time co-opping for herself, which she seems to be doing with every other issue Sanders brings up. He could attack her over Libya and Syria and denounce the Military-Industrial –Complex as being bad for democracy, self-government and person freedom.   

Indeed, this what the original and real Socialists back in the 19^th and 20^th centuries stood for. This is what Ross makes clear in his book. Unlike other socialist parties which split over World War I, the Socialist Party in America stayed true to anti-interventionism. Socialist Presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs even went to jail over it.  Sanders could adopt this legacy, and I believe his campaign would prosper or at least do better than give Clinton an excuse to celebrate every Tuesday early next year. We’ll see if he does but his past track record suggest a lot of doubt.  

Realistic Rand returns to his roots

Sen. Rand Paul is starting to find his way back to the original Ron Paul Revolution, even if the journey is more about realism than a revelation.

It seems as though Rand is having a very hard time raising money for this Presidential campaign from the usual crowd of billionaires. Very few of them seem to be willing to give compared to the other candidates. It was my opinion the group running Rand's campaign saw the grassroots supporters which built the Paul movement from scratch as a nuisance and wanted to fund pretty much an "auto-campaign" with corporate money paying for robo-calls and TV ads. Thus I was shocked reading this article that not even the coal people wanted to give to see Rand run for President. If that's happening, where else is Rand going to turn to for money and support but the grassroots? Hopefully this shatters the illusions people have about big business and corporations if all they've learned comes from Ayn Rand novel. For all the supposed "anti-government" types in the business community, why all are these billionaires so down on Rand? Because he wears blue jeans? No! Because what the Revolution is about will change things, to the point where it upsets their cozy little words. They are the establishment and they are so for a reason. They are intimately connected with government through various means (M-I-C for example) even though they'll deny it to the hilt. They all want something from the Feds and Rand isn't campaigning to give them anything, ergo they don't support him. Not even the coal company fellow. They're all whores and that's why they waste their money on politicians and campaigns instead of doing some good with it.

In fact the waste is sickening. If they really don’t want government in people’s lives, they should donate money to building hospitals, libraries or schools or other institutions which would save the taxpayer money. They say it’s just the cost of doing business. In reality it is the cost of doing business according to political consultants and their companies and the media, especially local TV and radio stations, which make a killing every election season off these billionaires.

Rand’s money problems can be spun into something which helps him but you need skilled political people to do so. We'll see if that happens. But bottom line is this, Rand now needs the grassroots, the grassroots movement his father created. To me, that's what is important. And if that means we see him killing the Patriot Act and starting to fight back against the neocon vermin and their fellow travelers, hey I'm all up for the battle. That’s why I’m confident there will be no “deviations “ like signing the Iranian letter like he did with other Republicans. To keep the grassroots happy and giving money, Rand has hold forth to the ideals of the Revolution, or he’ll get nothing.

Now maybe it's not a "Come to Jesus" moment but it doesn't matter. What matters is that we still matter, those of us eight years ago who basically created the Revolution from scratch and that we will still embrace Rand so long as he embraces and doesn't run away from those concerns which helped us start the movement in the first place, things like the Patriot Act for example. If the campaign can't get the big bucks from the suits, then they either have to close-up shop or go to the people who created it and created Rand Paul, U.S. Senator. And if they do so, I'll welcome them back with open arms like a long, lost friend. If I'm going to be critical for Rand for the things I feel he's doing wrong, then I should praise him for what I believe he's doing right too. And others should too as well. Now I'm interested in 2016 again.

In defense of cultural religion

I wrote this in one of the comboxes at the American Conservative website. Also, take this link to an oustanding article on religion and working class America: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/02/alone-in-the-new-america

Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD) is huge because it’s what most people want and it is easier from the Evangelical churches to give it to them than more tradition and rule-bound Catholic Church can (or even the Orthodox). Are you not the least-bit curious to the fact that the religions which best hold its membership in modern times in the U.S. (Evangelicals and Mormons) are the exact same ones that are uniquely American creations compared to the traditional Protestant and Catholic religions?

People throw out the world “Evangelical” all the time and I agree the term is useless when some wish to describe it to certain political views. It’s more a style of religion that is less concerned about tradition and rules and more about the emotive and the personal and yes, the simple. And it’s very flexible and can fit into whatever you wish it to be for yourself, the most individualist of nations. For nation founded in the rejection of aristocracy and high churchism, it is not surprising a religion that is the least hierarchal and the least institutionalized would be the most popular among American Christians? Many may not like this but once again they seem to keep forgetting they live in the “Good Old US of A” and keep forgetting or don’t realize the affect it has on religious development. Ask yourself why you don’t see the same kind of loose style of Christianity in Western Europe with the same kind of institutional problems? Over there, the “nones” are the ones that dominate.

If the current trends remain unaltered as stated in the article, then what you are going to have is an even more polarized society than now largely between the secular and the Evangelical and the rest trampled on in the middle between the two. But I would think that many would agree it is the Evangelical church which would have the easiest time accommodating itself to the secular society given its less structured form. Again, it may well be MTD but if one’s tax exemption is at stake for the big, expensive megachurch, then it will carry on unassumingly and for those who no desire to fight “culture wars” it will simply drop the subject. This may disappoint those who, like Leftist radical saw the workers, on the Right who see churchgoers as the new proletariat put their intellectual theories into practice. But a generation of such leaders and followers is passing and what is coming up is not interested in cutting itself off from the broader society into Benedictine ghettos because it lives and breathes off the society as it exists today. As people have noted, you break down ethnic neighborhoods and local economies, you’re going to have wrecked churches left in its wake and people seeking spiritual comfort wherever they can find it (Tim Pawlenty and I would imagine John Kasich are the best example of this). Ergo, Catholic to Evangelical.

For all those criticizing “Cultural Catholics” just remember that Mormonism is a culture too, is much as it is a religion, and culture is what makes religion as much as what one believes in the Bible. It’s much easier for a cultural Catholic to go back to church if they have fallen away but haven’t found a new religion because they know what to expect. What may be routine to you and what seem “sacrament factory” to others is just simply a way of life, a structure to anarchic world. Is that so bad? When your charismatic pastor to your mega-church in the exurbs dies and his successor if that isn’t quite as “colorful” or has different ideas, then what? There’s something solid about knowing what has been is always still there even if you’re not around as much as you once were. Those attacking “ethnic churches” (especially on the Orthodox side where those churches are the bulwarks of those communities) ask yourself how the process of creating a uniquely American Orthodox church without any kind of foreign influence is going?

I understand the frustrations of those Catholics tired of all the liturgical tinkering. The Novus Ordos mass works well and beautiful in its simple form too but such simplicity unfortunately worked against it when certain pastors wanted to be “with it” to evangelicalize. You can’t have bongo drums and guitars in a Latin Mass, it’s impossible. But the problems with the Catholic Church go a lot deeper than just Mass style, wouldn’t you all agree? An establishment church torn by scandal, divided between the pious and the those seeking to accommodate for themselves, between the political and the apolitical, between the rule-bound and those hoping for a breakthrough spiritually, is a church which isn’t in a very strong position in the United States right now and will probably take generations to recover itself even if there are fewer members (although I believe immigration levels, especially from Africa and Asia will keep itself numbers up more than perhaps people believe).

All I know is this: if Joe Biden says his rosary a lot more than I do, then I’m not going to view one’s faith based on their political positions. If that makes me “cultural” so be it. I’m a Catholic first before I am a “conservative.”