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Thank you, Ian. Why didn't I say that, that well? I confess to using ideology, propaganda, and fraud interchangibly. For one reason, over the years here, I have gone into the more intricate details noted above, but I've gotten tired of it. I used to call the whole complex of these knowledge structures a mythological envelop, the very lens through which we understand and interpret our world. But, I prefer blunt everyday talk a lot more these days, so I just shorthand it as fraud.
Yes, the above very neatly neutralizes the righteous indignation and potential revolt most people have when they realize that the vast majority of their struggles in life and the ways they conceive themselves (too little educaton, unlucky, not smart enough, etc) were the consequence of an interlocking system of knowledge structures that creat a social fiction that they belong in a whole set of asymmetrical power relations. Most people believe their frustrations at attempting to get ahead are at root the result of their own individual inadequacies. In other words, they've been lied to with double talk, and conned so somebody else could make a buck off their work and struggles---and they would keep quiet about it, because they didn't even see it.
Now, if you are standing in a church street alcove, having a cigarette break with your work buddies, how are you going to talk? Are you going to call this mess a fraud, a con-job, or are you going to explain what a knowledge structure is and how it has been created to foreclose resistance and revolt, and that it is also called a dominant ideological superstructure that normalizes capitalist social relations?
``...moral judgments fuck up political organizing.'' This is really where we disagree.
People are most highly motivated when their psychomotive registers are at full on. The point isn't about moral judgement, but understanding how moral engagement works. There are many examples. They all share a basic principle, which is that emotional engagement is the primary means through which the entire spectrum of social and cultural worlds are unlocked and engaged for subsequent, a posteriori rational understanding. The most well understood of these are in the arts. In fact the theory of drama (Aristotle?), is based on this same idea. That is why I used to called it a mythological envelop.
Plato was wrong when he put philosophy and rational understanding, the idea above poetry (a manifestation or representation), and the visual arts (physical representation) below both. If I were going to arrange a hierarchy of forms on the basis of how to engage people, I would put the human voice first---that's why rhetoric or song especially beautiful, emotional, cadances in great speeches work.
This engagement process is how the Right works its magic, how the whole vast panarama of corporate advertizing, talk shows, news media, all those great all american success stories in movies work. And in reciprocity, this level of belief and engagement can not be annulled by mere facts, figures, and reasoned argument. This is why it appears people are in complete denial of the fundamental realities of their lives---well, because they are in denial. And lastly, the kind of creeping horror show that is played out nightly 24/7 on the impending doom of the economy has got people's attention---because fear works even better than love. So now for a few more moments of historical time, we may just have a chance to get some attention---the core of an organizing potential. If not that, then at least get the right stuff on the record.
This sort of creepy fear or anxiety, has caused a momentary dis-engagement from the previous full throated celebration of the all american way---a lot of that is looking a little shaky.
I don't want to make too much of this fear and its potential, but it is definitely out there. The good answer to this fear, is unity, solidarity, the basis of solidarity, the form, the means to aswage that kind of fear. The consequence of atomization, or what you call individualism feeds this fear, because there is no one out there to help. That's where organization does come in---there are people and places to go, if we can figure out how to provide that.
Rational plans, organized unity follows from out of this complex psycho-social moment. Nobody who voted for Obama and did so with great hopes, wants to leave the fold now. They want to continue to believe. So do I from a much more cynical position. So, yes the Democrats are a barrier to understanding, to organizing. People want to believe they can continue their lives as uneffected as possible. They are not ready yet, because they still believe they have plenty to lose if they step out of the illusion.
>From my previous experiences, what I would advocate is intense
lobbying in Congress to get the necessary legislative details written
into healthcare, education, and household finance reform, for store
front assistance, something on the model of OEO, because these local
scenes become the places to go for help---and therefore the places to
organize.
Obama claims to have been a community organizer. Fair enough. Now put our money where your mouth is. These are the kinds of places to organize whole communities into a different mode of understanding and action. That's were we can supply the rational means that help people re-shape their lives, their struggles, and their outcomes---and their world views.
Just start thinking about all the sorts of on the ground assistance we can provide---the fucking list is endless and every item is a means to organize.
The absolute key here is to get a job and get paid to do this work---which is the whole point to getting federal funding. And, that's why I wanted the CFDA, a calculator and 700 billion to solve the so-called crisis. When was that? About six months ago.
It is the combination of government and community that alters society, or social relations if you will. This is how the Cubans consolidated their revolution, how Chavez works, how just about every change occurs.
CG