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Vidal sounded Grimesian. Now that's a compliment I can't resist.
I've been re-thinking what was behind my posts on this thread. It isn't defeatism or acquiescence. It is impotent rage turned to self-loathing, turned into a political attack on itself.
I have to admit that it is wrong headed, needed to get beaten back and reflected on. So here's the reflection.
My real anger is directed at the broad socio-economic and cultural milieu that I theoretically belong to---those ever popular brain-dead white guys of middle america 25-50yrs that the Democrats and Republicans fight over constantly---to the exclusion of just about everybody else.
The anger is a form of self-loathing from a psychological perspective, but seen from a sociological or class perspective it takes on a different character. Naturally, I project my personal history and experiences onto this profile. It is a profile that political pollsters, ad agencies, government officials and representative, and the mass media try to attract, satisfy and manipulate in one bogus suck-job after another. I think the reason is this profile constitutes the center of mass for a broadly defined mean of the income, jobs, political decisions, and general sensibility that is presumed to typify America.
The concrete possibility that such a profile doesn't actually constitute such a center of mass and doesn't typify the US, isn't as important, as the perception that it does.
The key political point is, George Bush is a perfect archetype for this profile and that alone accounts for his election, his policies, and his popularity. I suspect it also accounts for the apparently uncritical acceptance of most of what he and his administration have done.
What I know is, it explains to me why I hate the motherfucker beyond reason. In my mind, he is an amalgam of every white-guy jerk I ever knew starting in public school grounds, through college, all the way out to the last job I quit, and to the suburban based contractors who just remodeled our tolites at work. (Outsourcing the heaviest and dirtiest work to Mexican labor, while collecting giant charges on technical trades and finish work, all non-union of course. They were hired by the industrial slum lord outside the area, for lower cost.)
I want to get to these guys in the worst way and throttle the living shit out of them---along the lines of an R. Lee Ermey DI in some leftwing Get Real Re-education Camp:
``Wake up ladies. You just signed up for Imperialism 101. Now, which one of you bright girls knows what that means? You, shiver lip, front and center. Now!
Okay, son, you tell me what Imperialism means. What? I can't hear you. Louder. For America? Where did your pea brain get that idea, maggot?
Oh, I see. Well isn't that touching. One of your girlfriends over there sniffing her shorts, told you. Wrong! Back in line, dummy...''
The problem is that doesn't work. And neither does what I was pushing.
``And, really, are we so sure that pursuing this strategy - of making things worse before they get better - actually works? Does such a thing force people to revolt?'' Simon Huxtable
No. Since an endless pursuit of:
``...variants of neoliberal economics under both Clinton and Bush--lavishing favors on multinationals and capitalists while allowing living standards for ordinary people to fall...'' (Robert Pollin, fwd: Niels Hooper)
hasn't worked either. I would add, however, that living standards are not `allowed' to fall in some passive way. They are driven down through public policies whose purpose is to privilege capital needs over every other value. But never mind for now.
So, if none of that works to turn around this cluessly selfish center, what does? I don't know, hence the depths of anger, turning inward.
On a tactical political level, I know what the answer is. It is just that it seems so weak, slow and ineffectual.
Look at governor Arnold. Six months of initiative work, a few million, and a lightening catapult into power. Result, an even more brain-dead white-guy, 25-50yr icon sits stupidly on top of state machinery. It was actually Mike Davis' observation that the regions of the wild fires in Southern California, more or less traced out much of the core of Arnold's support. Vote Arnold and burn. It was that thought that lead to my morose musing on punishment.
The tactical political answer is you simply go around this intransigent and dead center of mass, by putting together peripherally weighted coalitions that in some social physics out weighs the brain-dead center and then help develop that new collection of mass toward their own more progressive self-interest, blah, blah, blah...
The problem with this is it is endlessly bogged down in its own tedious and self-consuming struggles over grassroots minutiae. The slightly hopeful view, sees within this minutiae, the very core of learning democracy and social justice, since that is where and how such ideas are turned into concrete understanding.
As for the Dean campaign...along with a tepid anti-war war stand and a pretty pathetic healthcare plan, the other and perhaps more important thing about the Dean campaign is I don't see the kinds of peripherally weighted coalitions that have to be brought together in order to overwhelm what the Arnolds and Bushies represent.
In this regard, the current brew-ha over gay marriage court decisions will be used to divide Democratic candidates away from at least part of that peripheral coalition they need.
I could be wrong, but I doubt Dean will have the courage to stand up and say the right thing. It is an interesting test of how he is going to run.
The gay marriage bullshit has taken the place of the old anti-abortion litmus test on `traditional values' and perfectly encapsulates the homophobic core of the usual suspect, my people, the brain-dead white-guys 25-50yr middle america. Even worrying about nuancing a view that might reassure the homophobic depths, is just wasted energy and a fabricated distraction from the outrages committed by the Bush administration. Nevertheless, a strong stand in favor has to be put together and gotten over with. Fiddling around with some `don't ask, don't tell' routine will get turned into a permanent defensive position.
I also doubt Dean can turn this gay marriage crap around into an offensive routine: government needs to get out of the bedroom where it has no business and start getting back into the boardrooms of corporate america where actual crime is being committed.
Chuck Grimes