<snip>
All these people are either old fashioned liberals or slightly progressive, including the guy from Fresno (he's hispanic and we've laughed before on other matters---like employers spying on customer service calls---His name is Julio. So Julio is this a clean line? Momento. Yes, we're clear... Ha, ha....)
>From all these things, I must live in another universe. I live in an
onclave where I am not sure I have seen a Republican or even a Kos
Democrat in I don't know how long... Even the crazy boss is at least
an OHB supporter and she is my worst enemy!
[...]
........
At first, I wasn't sure how your post related to mine. But after a careful re-reading I understood.
There you are in, as you say, an 'enclave where there might not even be a Kos Democrat, let alone a Republican' -- a place where the politics appear to be on the side of the angels -- and yet, like the ruins of the Parthenon, the situation is slowly crumbling into the sea.
This decay proceeds, despite abundant activist resources and (probably) fairly routine marches for improvements in health care, action on climate change, etc.
So the question to ask is why and that brings me back to Reed and the acknowledgement of weakness. Reed criticized the standard program of well meaning, left-facing people across the country: find a 'good' person to vote for, work to get that person in office and then, lobby this representative and/or executive to 'keep their promises'. Unsurprisingly, Reed calls this 'lesser evilism'.
I don't want to try anyone's patience but to build on this a little more let's return to the Zizek quote I used before; I think it's still useful:
[Regarding the failure of European protests to prevent the invasion of Iraq]...when people complain, "But this was a weak resistance, now it's vanishing, now already Chirac is practically withdrawing," and so on, how Europe really showed its weakness. Oh, but I would say, are people aware how precisely by experiencing this as Europe's defeat, you at least set certain standards? You become aware in a negative way of what should have been done. My parallel here is with feminism. The first step of feminism is not, "Women should win." It's that you become aware of how defeated women are. You know, the first step towards liberation is, in a way, the awareness of defeat.
[...]
Earlier, I made a mistake. As you can see above, in the brackets I wrote "Regarding the failure of European protests to prevent the invasion of Iraq" which inspired Max to write this:
Expecting Euro demos to stop a U.S. invasion is a pretty high bar for judgment on the viability of the (Euro) left.
[...]
But really, the point isn't that Europeans expected to halt Washington but rather, Washington's accomplices in London, Rome and so on. When the march of a multitude in London against No. 10 Downing Street's War Plan Iraq participation failed to prevent British involvement it was time to ask questions about how effective cherished protest methods (and democratic forms, as currently configured) are. It was time to ask questions about how powerless The People, who believe that electing The Right Candidate is the key to success (or at least, lesser evilism), actually might be.
Everyone, everywhere who opposed the Iraq bloodbath failed. Everyone.
This suggests (or rather, confirms) that governments act with near impunity, despite adhering to some democratic forms.
But what does that have to do with MediCal (and health 'care' systems across the US) essentially putting a gun barrel to your chest? A gun you bought and inadvertently loaded.
If reasonably (or perhaps very) well organized activist groups can't robustly protect past gains and prevent ongoing erosion what's the cause? I think the comfortable liberal response would be that a Republican controlled legislature, or conservative counties or gated communities filled with Scrooges, are holding us back. If only we could sweep those legislatures clean, politically evangelize (or marginalize) reactionaries, Get Money Influence Out of Politics and keep our elected officials' 'feet to the fire', things will begin moving our way.
So we mobilize and work in campaign offices and, if we're clever and cleverly trained, write complex essays about the finer points of why this Democrat or that is more likely, despite the usual caveats, to respond to progressive lobbying.
Trouble is, most of these candidates can safely afford to ignore demands that conflict with their class interests and the class interests of their primary constituents. Which means they can afford to ignore your crumbling MediCal system and mine.
But what's the way out?
.d.