Category: Politics

Politics by BryanNov 23, 201512:05 pm

It Can Happen Here, Unless…

“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.’”

Halford E. Luccock, Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938)

The emergence of Donald Trump, Republican frontrunner, is not a joke.

His rise isn’t, say, indicted former Governor of Texas Rick Perry developing sudden amnesia during a GOP debate in 2012. It isn’t former awful pizza company CEO Herman Cain’s creepy grin. As much as Trump is a blustering buffoon like Perry or a caricature of the greedy businessman stereotype like Cain, there’s nothing funny about his emergence at the head of the Republican pack.

It’s not funny because the folks coalescing around Trump as supporters and allies are already hurting people. A Trump supporter in Mobile, AL proposed permits to murder undocumented immigrants at the southern border. Trump supporters in Boston beat and urinated upon a homeless Hispanic man, and the most recent incident of ad hoc political violence against a protester at one of Trump’s rallies is the third by my count. The implications of this all are not good, and the main worry I have is that the gap between disorganized political violence and organized political violence is minuscule, and is already being jumped over.

Just like discussions of killing baby Hitler as a hypothetical way to head off atrocities like the Holocaust ignores the fact that the NSDAP was a political movement with a base of support that was actively able to contest state power, focusing too much on Donald Trump the person conceals the conditions that are allowing a malignant political movement to form around him. When you get right down to it, the only way to stop ‘Trumpism’ (if you can call it that) is by understanding the groups of people who are feeding his rise.

Politics by DouglasSep 12, 20153:40 pm

Which One Are You?

The practice of politics is something that I was born into.

My grandmother, Dorothy Marie Boone-Anderson, was a community organizer during the Civil Rights Movement. Being someone who left school in the eighth grade to work in the fields and help support her family, she understood that the only way oppression could stand was in the face of a hopelessly divided working class. She was someone who understood that building coalitions and activating the common spirit were indispensable qualities for a successful movement.

When my father first arrived on the job at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1982, he came home and told Grandma that someone had talked to him about joining the union. When she asked him if he had signed up for the union that first day, he said that he had not.

My grandmother was a woman of many qualities; introversion was not one of them. After getting a talking to about the importance of collective bargaining and working-class political power, he quickly joined the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. When he was moved to a different shop, he became a member of the Machinists. It is through that union that he continues his service to America’s working class.

Given this, it seems obvious that the discussion of current events around the dining room table were as much a part of my childhood as my grandmother’s delicious cornbread or the smell of roasted peanuts. The topics ranged from the local (usually around Suffolk politics or the Civic League that she belonged to) to the national (my father’s discussions about fighting the North American Free Trade Agreement’s passage in 1993). Even after my father moved away to pursue new job opportunities (he had been laid off from the shipyard in 1993; thanks a lot, President Clinton), the routine remained the same: Grandma would ask me what I wanted for breakfast; I would reply that I wanted the usual; and about twenty minutes later, I would come out to pancakes, bacon, black coffee with sugar, and the day’s Virginian-Pilot.

—

Through these conversations and my experience in American politics, I have learned one important lesson.

Politics by DouglasAug 18, 20155:00 pm

A Short Follow-Up To The Previous Post on Black Lives Matter.

I wish that I could find the words to describe how I feel right now. Maybe I will figure them out by the time you finish reading the following passage from Stephen Crockett’s story at The Root describing the meeting between Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter activists from Boston:

“Things took a turn when Clinton asked the activists to explain policy changes they wanted to see enacted.

‘I stand here in your space and I say this as respectfully as I can, “If you don’t tell black people what we need to do, then we won’t tell you all what to do.”‘ Jones said. ‘What I mean to say is, this is and has always been a white problem of violence. There’s not much that we can do to stop the violence against us.’

‘Respectfully,’ Clinton answered, ‘if that is your position, then I will only talk to white people about how we are going to deal with these very real problems.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ Jones said. He added, ‘But what you just said was a form of victim-blaming. You were saying what the Black Lives Matter movement needs to do to change white hearts is to …’

Clinton told them that she isn’t interested in changing hearts, but rather policy.

‘You can keep the movement going, which you have started, and through that you might change some hearts,’ she said.

‘But if that’s all that happens,’ she continued, ‘we’ll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation because we will not have all of the changes that you deserve to see happen in your lifetime because of your willingness to get out there and talk about this.'”

I want you, the reader, to step back and think about the scenario that has unfolded in the preceding passage. These activists get a private hearing with a candidate who is, at the moment, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Not only that, but this potential Democratic candidate leads polling aggregates against every potential Republican candidate for the general election as well, meaning that it is plausible that you are having a meeting with the next President of the United States. They get a very simple question, yet it is a question that most people working for social change would kill to get from such a high-profile political candidate:

“Well, the next question is, ‘So what do you want me to do about it?'”

The answer is so stupefying, yet so telling, that it bears repeating.

“‘I stand here in your space and I say this as respectfully as I can, ‘If you don’t tell black people what we need to do, then we won’t tell you all what to do.’ Jones said. ‘What I mean to say is, this is and has always been a white problem of violence. There’s not much that we can do to stop the violence against us.'”

The answer is impressive only in its ability to say absolutely nothing at all. No policy. Not even a nudge in a general direction towards something where a policy might be crafted. Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house faster than that statement could see any type of policy.

And not only that, but do you know what led into that garbled mess that you see above?

“The piece that’s most important….”

….is, apparently, telling Hillary Clinton that there is nothing that they, Black Lives Matter, can do about any of this. No advocacy. No policy agenda. No concrete plan. Nothing. Asking them to have a plan or a policy agenda? That is….victim-blaming. I am not kidding; that is what happens on the video.

—

I have alternated this entire day between befuddlement, bewilderment, and other nouns used to describe an unyielding state of confusion.

Just off the top of my head, there are at least three things that they could have asked for: a guaranteed right to protest without fear of ending your demonstration with a criminal background, legislation that bars police officers from earning pay while an investigation into a police shooting is ongoing, and a national limit to the amount of money that cities can make off moving violations and parking violations. Would those be my top three issues for the Black working class were I to receive the same audience? Absolutely not. But my goodness, it would be something more concrete than a response full of Intro to Sociology-style ephemera.

And for a series of protests that handwaves about “accountability”, it would have been beneficial to make concrete demands with which you could actually hold this person, you know, accountable. But what they allowed Hillary Clinton to do was completely evade any discussion of things that might actually get done if she becomes president in favor of allowing her to school them about the most fundamental premise behind policymaking institutions, which is to make policy.

Because if policy change is not the goal of this group of activists, then I am honestly wondering what the hell we are all doing here.

Politics by DouglasJul 2, 20156:44 am

The Black Greeks.

If you are like me, a socialist in the United States witnessing the deadly effects of a neoliberal austerity that no politician has ever dared to challenge, you are watching the situation unfolding in Greece with great interest. After much back-and-forth between the Greek government, led by the leftist Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), and the so-called “institutions” that are lending the country’s Treasury money to remain solvent — the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB) — Prime Minister Alexis Tsipiras decided to call a referendum on the final deal given to the Greek government by the institutions.

This referendum, scheduled for Sunday, has been described by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a choice between remaining in the single currency known as the Euro, or leaving it. If you have followed politics long enough to remember when Eastern European nations like Romania and Bulgaria clamored for Euro membership (and when Turkey claimed that only Islamophobia was keeping it out of the EU), it will not surprise you that such an exit has never occurred in the single currency’s history, and may be a prelude to leaving the EU altogether (also unprecedented).

There will be much wrangling and discussion about whether Greeks should vote yes or no, and many others will much more informed opinions on the specific economic downsides and upsides of doing so (obviously, I hope the No side emerges victorious). But it is the rhetoric used towards the Greek people that has caught my attention. It sounds very familiar, as it is the same language that has been used against people of color in the United States for decades.

Politics by DouglasMay 8, 20152:31 pm

Declaring Independence: Why Bernie Sanders must lead America in rejecting our political “common sense”.

The buildup for this presidential election has been like a Tale of Two Cities. On one side, you have numerous Republicans lining up to court the money and votes of America’s right-wing. Will the nominee be union-busting governor Scott Walker? Or will the Republicans go with the establishment candidature of one John Ellis Bush? Perhaps the youngish libertarian wing will get their crack at selecting the nominee in choosing Rand Paul? Or will the Republicans choose their own dark-horse candidate of color in Dr. Ben Carson? There is no shortage of candidates to get conservatives and neoliberals fired up about taking back a country that, to be honest, they have never really lost.

But for Democrats? It was Hillary. The most decidedly neoliberal Democratic candidate for the presidency since, well, her husband ran to “end welfare as we know it” ‘in 1992. The candidate of lost emails and lecturing on the corporate circuit (but do not worry; her husband will continue speeches in her stead because, you know, they got to eat). The candidate of unabashed free trade and empty frequent flier miles as secretary of state. But the nomination was hers for the taking because she has waited her turn and, besides, do you not wish to have a woman president? Will someone please think of the children? And with Elizabeth Warren ruling out a run, it seemed that left-wing voters would be forced into their usual decision of third-party or staying home.

But last Wednesday, the political system got a bit of a shock when U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced his candidacy for the presidency. A former mayor of Burlington and a candidate for governor under the socialist Liberty Union Party in the 1970s, Sanders is the longest serving socialist in the history of the United States Congress. He has long identified with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the organization has a #WeNeedBernie page where members of the organization (of which I am one) can go and show support. It was once unthinkable that the United States would ever see a major left-wing challenge to the two-party system in the mold of Debs and LaFollette, but with Sanders in the running, that time might just be now.

There is only one problem: Bernie Sanders is running to be the nominee of the party that he caucuses with in the U.S. Senate, the Democratic Party. That is a mistake.

Politics by DouglasApr 13, 201510:56 am

There Are Other Options.

The title is a little frustrating for me because this feels like one of those things that you should not have to explain to adults in the 21st century. And yet, here we are. From the linked piece:

So, while I understand that Hillary Clinton isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I can promise you this much – she’s a hell of a lot better than any Republican alternative. So to all of you liberals who loathe her and feel that voting for her would be “selling out,” do you really want a Republican president potentially replacing four Supreme Court Justices?

It will be an argument that neoliberal Democrats use early and often: vote for Hillary, otherwise the brownshirts will be choosing our next Supreme Court. They will use it because it is fairly persuasive; Democratic nominees to the Supreme Court are typically more liberal than Republican nominees to the Supreme Court, and it seems as if every Supreme Court ruling is being decided with a knife’s edge.