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Now, perhaps *more* effective than Krugman's criticism is Arianna Huffington's memo. She helped Obama defeat Clinton. She's been very effective with her web site, TV appearances, and other proselytizing. In that sense, Obama owes her big time. Huffington is giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and providing him with specific ways for him to save face and stick to the left. I think it's a very effective argument that Obama will have to ponder some.
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Although we've thrown about a million words into the air -- like flak shells, desperately hurled against B-24s over the summer, 1945 skies of Berlin -- the debate's heart is easily summarized: is it better to work inside The System (represented here by electoral politics) or outside?
Interesting and important but I can't help thinking that all this has happened before and will happen again. 1960s veterans: didn't you get into jagged bottle bar fights 40+ years ago over this same issue? Weren't you arguing about degrees of lesser evilism and which Dem candidate was more or less responsive to progressive pressure and why Robert Kennedy, or whomever the Democrats put up front, deserved -- with the usual 'I'm not a sucker, but...' caveats inserted as a preamble -- 'our' support?
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So now Julio, you've pointed us towards the Obama-policy-criticizing statements of Huffington, Krugman and the "Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity" group as examples of "effective infighting", of pressure exerted from within to move a presumably receptive candidate in a better, more working class friendly direction.
The key idea is that these criticisms are effective precisely *because* they're circulating inside. That sounds sensible enough. Surely, people who're inside a system have more influence than those who're on the outside, alternately yelling requests and insults through the chain link.
But along with other, sweeter things, life is made of harsh necessities and long defeats. The weaknesses of the outsider position are well known and often cited: marginalization, 'ineffective infighting' (or perhaps it's outfighting), folk music festivals and week long arguments about the Crimes of Postmodernism. But what are the weaknesses of the *insider* position?
To me, this is a much more interesting question.
I wonder; is it possible for an insider to publically oppose, not only the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (both of which are now broadly unpopular and easily criticized by everyone from pie baking grandmas to MDMA altered LA club goers), but fundamentally, the core, Monroe-Doctrine-licious idea that the US has a right to intervene where and when it pleases? Since the insider must accept -- if, in some cases only for appearances' sake -- a set of premises about American exceptionalism and indispensability, it might be very difficult for even the most principled to go too far in her out-loud criticisms of US foreign policy.
If she did, she might find herself Chomsky-ized, tossed out of respectable circles for saying nutty and unpatriotic things (such as: bombing civilians in Sadr City is a form of 'state sponsored terrorism' and, a 'war crime'). And if, as an insider, there are some things you can't say for fear of losing your insider status, can you really hope to successfully agitate for the prevention of the worst actions?
If you can't true-name the problem, how can you propose a true solution?
Is it possible for an insider to publically acknowledge the global state of emergency brought on by climate change? And I don't mean by merely talking about 'greening' our lives, using CFLs, buying your strawberries locally and in-season, starting a garden and other feel-good, individualist actions, but the real -- your civilization's balls are about to be sliced off by a carbon knife muthafuckas unless you get serious -- deal.
Over the course of 20 years, NASA's Dr. James Hansen has said increasingly tough things about our inertia and slackjawedness when it comes to reducing our carbon output. During a speech delivered at the National Press Club this June, Hansen said:
"CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."
Hansen is a government employee, a scientist and well respected. But is he, politically speaking, an insider? Could an insider say such things? A year ago, Chuck Grimes advised us to "Radicalize the Carbon Cycle" -- <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-April/007069.html>.
The point was that acting as an insider -- patiently working within the normal channels of elections, committee meetings and pleasant sit downs with 'business leaders', was moving us nowhere fast. At the rate these actions are pushing us towards a post carbon producing infrastructure, we'll reach consensus and start retrofitting just in time for scuba diving downtown London.
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In other words, aren't we, at long last, facing a genuine, planetary State of Exception which demands we abandon this same debate many of you have been having in one form or another since not long after Eisenhower left office?
.d.
-- "I can't believe that I'm sharing a kebab with the most beautiful girl I have ever seen with a kebab."
Conchords
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/