Liberal Street Fighter – outside the lazy narrative
Pundits and election consultants repeat the same tired cliche’ over and over again: that our current poltical landscape is terribly polarized. Rightwingers especially LOVE to repeat this truism over and over again, yet it bears no real meaning. Just what, exactly, is “polarized” about the political debate in this country? If we really break down what does and doesn’t get discussed in our media, in our schools and in the halls of government, the actual debate about where we stand and what we should do going into the future happens within very, very narrow boundaries. We are a society calcified in a dying status quo. The myth of “progress” through technology is championed by the Democrats and “progress” through tradition and authority is championed by the Republicans. A “liberal” or Democrat will state that “we” fight for IDEALS, for a BETTER world, for a system of ethics derived from rational debate. A “conservative” or Republican will state that “we” fight for FACTS, or TRUTH, for a system based upon natural laws and a rational debate which serves to determine them.
The political argument is fought between these two adversaries based on a long list of givens, a pile of unassailable presumptive beliefs.
Free Market Fundamentalism
It is a given in this country that all human endeavor is driven by the profit motive. Since the outset of the Cold War we seem to have become more and more obsessed with proving it. As time has passed, especially beginning in the Reagan Administration and the ascendancy of the rabid right that he helped enable, more and more has been stripped away to enable pure, ravenous, unrestrained greed to win the day. Make no mistake; BOTH political parties believe and enable this point-of-view. They’ve worked together to destroy organized labor, to strip away the ability of local communities to regulate polution, to undermine controls over the ability of employers to whip more and more out of our increasingly insecure workforces. ANY attempt to ameliorate the effects of rabid corporatist expansion is shut down as “un-American”. Universal healthcare is attacked as “socialist”. Unions are portrayed as “lazy” and “corrupt”. Public service is derided as something only those unable or unwilling to compete would ever choose. Public works are damned as “inefficient”.
While occasional articles will present rational and compelling cases for things like universal healthcare, neither political party will pick up the baton and carry it forward, no matter how much it makes sense, no matter how many people it will help. Healthcare is just ONE issue where this is so. We’re not even allowed an open and rational debate in the political sphere, because it would defy this fundamental tenet worshipped by our political class: greed is good, and unrestrained greed is better. Getting back to the Gilded Age would, of course, be BEST. We’re almost there, and both parties are cashing the robber barons’ checks.
American Exceptionalism
We are the Shining City Upon the Hill, that most blessed of lands. We’re “good people” who come from the “heartland”, and our intentions are pure. This all being true, as we have drummed into our heads from a very young age, then we can commit no crimes. Perhaps we’ve made mistakes, but as we did so with the best outcome in mind, then whatever happened was “good”. American style democracy is, of course, the most admirable form of government, and if a people elects someone with beliefs contrary to ours, then perhaps those people aren’t “ready” for the demands of Democracy, and perhaps we should help them. Both parties eagerly choose war and aggression to advance our goals, goals which are by definition good.
Much of what we’ve accomplished, for both great and ill, has used this belief as its battery. In some ways, it has served us well, but woe be bestowed upon ANYBODY who shines too bright a light on those it has harmed, whether to try to reclaim part of what was stolen or to get reparations for ancestors bought and sold, or to try to improve the situations in our brutal prison systems or anybody who tries to learn from or expose any of the crimes committed by the agents of this nation. Neither political party will welcome those who dare to ask these questions. They fall outside the accepted narative, and thus must be false, or unwelcome, or some kind of slander, as though a nation can be slandered.
That There is Something called “Normal”
There is such a thing as “normal”. Normalcy is something we should all aim for, even if we have to ingest piles of pharmaceuticals and abuse our bodies and our minds to get closer to it, to the happy mean. Despite all of the variety throughout human time and space, Americans seem to think there is one “right” way to be, even though very few of us remotely resemble it. We believe it about the appearance of our bodies, about sexuality. We believe it about morality and religion. We believe it about altering our state of consciousness. We can’t or won’t talk honestly about how we order our families, about whether or not drug prohibition makes sense. In fact, there are a couple of areas where we don’t trust the holy market, and that is when it comes to mind altering substances and to sex. There can be NO discussion about the prohibitions that fill up our overcrowded prisons, that destroy our families and steal parents from their children, children from their parents. After all, ANY choice made by someone which isn’t “normal” must be either punished or treated, and treatment is only for those too wealthy or powerful to be punished. Try starting a political discussion about what people should be free to choose, ESPECIALLY if it isn’t “normal”, and watch politicians from both parties scurry away like rats from a mama cat with kittens to feed.
Barriers to Change
In a sense, the current debate is polarized, but only in the sense of a contest. Opposing colors, opposing jerseys, opposing call-and-responses stirred up by each side’s cheerleaders. As the game is being played now, even that contest is only an illusion, the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Senators, and we all know which side is which. There are given boundaries, rules to each game, and it is all to the service of the status quo. Many of those rules are driven by the shared beliefs outlined above, as well as numerous others. What is MOST important is that things turn out the way they are supposed to, that the current order be maintained. Any opposition that is allowed serves only to asuage lingering guilt and doubts, that perhaps things don’t have to be this way. One can be comforted by standing with the Democrats if unrestrained Social Darwinism feels wrong. You can fight for a better way, for maybe a chance that the Generals might win a game.
It’s fake, fixed, bread and circuses for us, the crowd. Many Americans hope to fix the problem from inside the system. They vote, become active in their political parties. Sometimes they have an impact. The biggest majority of Americans see the game as fixed, and they opt out. The biggest group of voters are the non-voters, and their opting out is interpreted as disinterest by many. For some, that is probably true, but many just see their votes as meaningless, that a political system has become entrenched to serve certain preconceptions. So many people suffer under those preconceptions. How many families must the drug war destroy? How many freedoms have to be shredded to serve some promise of security? How many sick people have to deny themselves needed treatment for want of access to healthcare without the threat of financial ruin? How many human beings must we torture in our own prisons, let alone in gulags overseas?
The shadow of the walls cast by this small narrow ravine, by our current politics, spreads over more and more people. Can you feel the chill? Why is there so little debate about real problems and real solutions? Because our “polarized” parties are mere shadow puppets, cast upon flickering television screens, while those with the most grab more. It’s a Punch and Judy show, Noh theater, sound and fury signifying nothing …
There is no debate, will be no debate, until we have a politics that allows a broader debate. We are separated by a narrow divide, walled in by shared misconceptions, and as anybody who lives in canyon country can tell you, narrow spaces with high walls can be deadly when the rains come. If you look out toward the horizon, you can see the skies darkening, feel the ozone in the air. We need to get out of this ravine, before all we’ve worked for gets washed away.
There is no debate, and more and more of us know it.