The Audacity of Rallying: the role of the left during the presidential elections

It’s hard not to be awe-struck by this momentous occasion. A little over 50 years after segregation was dismantled, we have a black man who is 22 weeks from being President of the United States. It’s been 45 years since the Democratic Party had a presidential candidate this charismatic. It’s been 33 years since the United States had to pull out of a war. It’s been 5 years since the U.S. invaded Iraq.

Previously I had tried to articulate what the role of the left should be during the primaries. Here is a brief snippet:

Particularly during the presidential primaries when candidates are fashioning their platforms and more attentive to the electorate, we should be pushing issues, not pushing candidates…This is the time to push the candidates to the left. In my opinion, no candidate is on the left. It is just not possible. Between the two party system, the special interests, the electoral system, etc…., I just don’t see how it could happen. And so to back a candidate now is in some respects to make light of just how inept, corrupt, and dysfunctional our government has become, is becoming, and continues to become. This is the time, when the parties are still picking, when we on the left should be arguing over issues about what we need and what we want from our next president.

In other words, the democratic primary is the time to develop the party line. But if the primary is the time for a politics of idealism, then the presidential election is the time for a politics of pragmatism. The time to develop the party line is over; the time has now come to rally around the party line. Whereas the democratic primary is a time to try and push the center to the left; the presidential election is a time to push the left to the center. Yes, a two party system sucks, yes, the center in this country is fairly right-wing; yes, Obama’s stance on the economy, immigration and Afghanistan is unclear at best, dangerous at worst. That discussion has its time and place and its time and place ended when Obama got the 2,118 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.

Why the switch-in-time? There are three reasons:

1) The obvious one – McCain is scary. Even if Obama was simply the lesser of two evils, that could be the difference of one home being re-mortgaged, one detainee from Guantanamo being released, or one life being saved. Idealism has its place, but so should pragmatism.

2) It’s not enough to win – Winning by 50.7% is much different than winning by 50.1%. The former is considered a mandate; the latter is considered a lame duck. If Obama squeaks by, there is not much he can do, barring a terrorist attack. If Obama wins in a landslide, i.e. 50.7%, he has a much better chance of pushing forth his agenda. Without the mandate, Obama can blame the Republicans for his failures. With the mandate, Obama can be held accountable. It’s like 2004 when Bush got re-elected and the Republicans controlled both houses. If the war succeeded, he could take all the credit. If the war ends in a quagmire, he’d have to take all the blame. It’s make or break. That kind of clarity is what we need. It makes politics more transparent and more accountable. By winning so convincingly in 2004, Republicans had no one to blame but themselves for all the recent mess ups.

3) Accountability – If the Left continues criticizing Obama, the Democratic Party, and/or the electoral system, not only does that encourage the Democratic Party to ignore and forsake the Left, but it also gives the left no leverage. By no means am I advocating a complete capitulation. It’s more of a strategic alliance, like when Mao teamed up with Chiang Kai-Shek to defeat the Japanese. They didn’t like each other, but they both realized that they had bigger fish to fry.

So yes, my tirades against Obama will stop because I just don’t see how they could be productive now. This is not to say I do not maintain criticisms, but my strategic calculations suggest that it is no longer the time or the place. Pragmatism has its place as well. We should all thus rally around the Democratic Party, warts and all.

Pushing Obama to the Left by Pushing Race: my comments on Wilentz's article on Obama

So, I will be responding to an article written by Sean Wilentz on Obama. Sean wilentz is a preeminent American historian and a Hillary supporter. here is a link to the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-wilentz/barack-obama-and-the-unma_b_103353.html

Alright, so here are my two cents (or four):

1.One of the reasons why I find Wilentz’s article so interesting is because I think it forecasts what’s going to be the next big blip on the next media cycle. Namely, hillary supporters having given up the idea that she could win, are going to start flooding the airwaves to try and steer obama’s presidential campaign. Hillary might soon be out of the picture, but I don’t see the hillary supporters just packing up their stuff and calling it a day. I think they are going to make a huge move via the media to try and ‘hillarized’ Obama. And wilentz has just launched the first salvo. (In this regard, it doesn’t at all surprise me that Wilentz does not include numbers; his candidate lost; if his candidate had their numbers straight, it would have been david axelrod writing this piece.)

2.Another reason why I find Wilentz’s article so interesting is the inferences and implications that can be drawn from his historical analogies. His reference to McGovern is illuminating. The lesson Wilentz wants us to take from McGovern is that if you steer the party too much to the left and/or are too anti-war during the primaries, you are going to get your ass handed to you in the presidential elections. Clearly, if you want to win, like Andrew Jackson, you gotta grab the ‘shitholes’ and throw blacks under the bus. History has clearly demonstrated that democrats win presidential elections more often than not when they throw blacks under the bus instead of making them the primary constituency. On this note, he should have brought up the successful campaign by Rutherford B. Hayes, the successful tenure of FDR, and the failure of LBJ to get re-elected.

But why only bring up Jackson as your model for campaigning? His focus on Jackson is interesting because I think it sheds light on something he avoided mentioning at all. There is no mention in Wilentz’s article about unions and I think Wilentz harkens back to Jackson because that represents a time when there were no unions. One thing that seems clear to me at least is the absolute impotency of American unions during the primaries. I could be wrong, but I think in the beginning, the big unions either supported hillary, Edwards, or stayed out of it. I don’t think any large union supported obama in the beginning. Not only was a union endorsement meaningless, but the polls also suggest that the ‘white working class’ votes differently than union folks. Case in point was the primary in Nevada. Nevada is one of the biggest union states we got. The biggest unions in Nevada eventually endorses Obama, and gets their people to vote Obama. Well guess what, hilllary won. What the fuck does that say?

So the democrats’ traditional way of getting the working class vote is no longer available to them. That if they are going to be a workingmen’s party, they are going to have to go above and beyond being simply collaborating with union big wigs.

In this regard, wilentz’s point might even be more cynical than first appeared: we can’t rely on unions anymore; so if dems want to get that working class vote, then they are going to have to turn into Jacksonian populists. In other words, become rabidly racist.

3.Wilentz’ invective seems to clearly illustrate his misgivings about obama’s realignment of the democratic party. And I think Alex brings up a good point about how the dems have always pitted blacks against class. (Although I have to say that Clinton’s elimination of welfare screwed blacks and working class folks) But I am wondering if blacks and labor are ever going to get under the democratic umbrella, then it is going to have to be blacks extending their hands out to labor instead of the other way around. In my opinion, the general pattern with the democratic party is that when they have had to choose between the two, they tend to throw blacks under the bus. Because of the institutional racism that is endemic to the history of the democratic party and many working-class movements, I just think there is just so much distrust across the racial divide that it is impossible for any progressive labor candidate to cross it. In other words, if there is ever going to be a possibility for a progressive candidate who will be able to bridge these issues, it is going to have to be somebody who crosses over class divisions. As I have inferred from Wilentz, in this Jacksonian world of no unions, if a progressive candidate were to come out of the working class, that candidate would most likely be a rabidly racist fuck who will be pressured by Democratic leaders from all sides to throw blacks under the bus. If a progressive candidate were actually to emerge, it would have to be somebody like Obama. (on this note: I think there is merit to making an analogy to Jesse Jackson’s candidacy. Jesse was arguably the last time a candidate who had the possibility of being progressive had a realistic shot) Now don’t get me wrong, this is not an endorsement for Obama. I am just throwing out that he could be. I highly doubt it, but I wanted to throw it out there.

4. This leads to an interesting crossroads which gets back to Wilentz’s basic premise. Wilentz’s basic premise is that the white working class voted for hillary and not for obama because hillary is better on economics and obama is too much of an elitist. Thus, obama has to become more like hillary. But what if it were the case that white working class were voting for hillary and not for obama because of race? (there actually is data that supports this) If that were the case, what should Obama do? I think if it is about race, Obama has to become more progressive. The only way to really win over these racist folks is to really become a workingman’s party in the way Alex has described. No more bullshit band-aids, no more fake promises. Put it all out there. A hard-core class-analysis that is not afraid to say capitalism.

In this regard, I think there is a battle of discourse going on that will have a HUGE impact on the ideological orientation of obama’s campaign and it hinges on this question of whether the white working class is more economically motivated or racially motivated. Irregardless of what actually is the facts, at this point, I think it is urgent that everybody on the left pushes the race card because that is how Obama can be pushed to the left. By pushing the class card, we are left with wilentz’s ‘hillaried’ version of Obama. By pushing the notion that the white working class is primarily economically motivated, we are left with the same ol’ democratic politics that gets us nowhere. Ironically, if we want a more class-orientated approach, we have to push the discourse that suggests the white working class is primarily racially motivated. It is counterintuitive but I think it makes sense.

Rethinking my opposition against the war on terror

On this 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, I can’t help but wonder if that fateful day could have been prevented if the federal government waged the kind of war on terror against the Ku Klux Klan as they are currently doing against Al-Qaeda. Was the Ku Klux Klan any less terroristic as Al-Qaeda? With respect to American lives murdered, the Ku Klux Klan definitely wins. As far as I know, Al-Qaeda never gutted a man’s testicles and then made him eat it.

Imagine Al-Qaeda freely prancing around American cities in full regalia, openly harassing, beating, torturing, and killing Americans. Imagine Al-Qaeda announcing in the newspapers that they are going to kill an American next week at 2p.m. at the park. Imagine cops directing traffic so that any American can watch Al-Qaeda hang an American, burn him, cut him up, and sell his body parts as souvenirs.

Can someone please tell me why we didn’t go after the Klan with as much vigilance and fervor as we are with Al-Qaeda?

The same people who labeled Ulysses Grant a military despot when he was fighting the Klan are the same people who think George Bush should have carte blanche when it comes to Al-Qaeda. I just don’t get it.

With the Klan, there was a very narrow interpretation of the law. Habeas corpus was upheld. Detention was minimal at best. The few convictions that were ascertained usually carried a fine of 1 dollar. Most Klansmen received amnesty.

With Al-Qaeda, there is a very broad interpretation of what the law. Torture is somehow legal. Habeas corpus has been waived. Indefinite detention is okay.

This then begs the question: would I have wanted the kind of war on terror that is waged against Al-Qaeda to have occurred against the Klan? Would I support a war on terror against the Klan?

It is tempting. Imagine what might have been had the federal government rounded up all suspected Klansmen (and other white people), threw them in Guantanamo bay, tortured some of the key leaders, denied them any legal rights, and napalmed their houses. The Klan would have been extinguished in less than a week. There very well might not have been any Jim Crow. We might not have needed a civil rights movement. The thousands of victims of lynching would still be alive, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who were traumatized by the beatings, harassing, whippings, rapings, etc…

I’d be torn, but I think in the end, I would have supported a war on terror against the Klan. Does this mean I forsake liberalism and/or the rule of law? Perhaps. This whole thought experiment does make me rethink some of my criticisms of the current war on terror.

Kafka and the HBO series 'The Wire'

Spoiler alert: I will be mentioning plot lines that occur in the last season of The Wire. So if you haven’t seen the last season, you might not want to read this.

In the final episode of the Wire, Bubbles quotes Kafka:

“You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps the holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided.”

I was so enthralled with this quote that I decided to do some research on Kafka. My research led me to an essay written by Milan Kundera about Kafka. Although this essay was written about Kafka, it could have easily been about the wire. Whereas many fans have likened the wire to Dickens and Dostoyevski, I think the most apropos analogy is Kafka. In order to do this, I am going to expound on Kundera’s comments on Kafka and relate it to the wire.

Kundera: “[Kafka] has transformed the profoundly antipoetic material of a highly bureaucratized society into the great poetry of the novel; he transformed a very ordinary story of a man who cannot obtain a promised job (which is actually the store of The Castle) into myth, into epic, into a kind of beauty never before seen.”

Sh-eee-it, if that doesn’t encapsulate much of the allure of the wire, I don’t know what does. What makes the wire so amazing is that it makes the complexity of American bureaucracies so intriguing and entertaining. It doesn’t fall prey to sterile Hollywood clichés such as over-the-top car chases and/or unrealistic superheroes who swoop in to save the day. They weave this web of all this interconnecting elements but instead of connecting them through typical plot devices like a handsome lead actor or the closure of killing the bad guy, they connect it through the city. Kundera points to this: “Novelists before Kafka often exposed institutions as arenas where conflicts between different personal and public interests were played out. In Kafka the institution is a mechanism that obeys its own laws; no one knows now who programmed those laws or when; they have nothing to do with human concerns and are thus unintelligible.” Instead of putting the bureaucracy in the background, the wire places bureaucracy iin the foreground, constantly dictating the plot’s progressions, digressions, and regressions. And it is in the constant frustrations with bureaucracy, the creative ways around bureaucracy, and the inevitable reconciliations with bureaucracy that makes the show so amazing. Even though I might use the word ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘city’, the show itself is able to point to the nameless without ever giving it a name. It visualizes the claustrophobic nature that societal/institutional logic has wrought upon us without ever being explicit. It is as if the bureaucracy is the steady back beat of the base drum, acting as metronome to the city. That even though each part of the city might be dancing to its own tune, if you can capture the light just right, you can see that everybody is dancing to the same beat. The Wire attunes itself to the city of Baltimore and arranges the bureaucratic complexities, the different constituencies, and contradictory impulses into a minuet to be danced.



Kundera: “There are tendencies in modern history that produce the Kafkan in the broad social dimension: the progressive concentration of power, tending to deify itself; the bureaucratization of social activity that turns all institutions into boundless labyrinths; and the resulting depersonalization of the individual.”

The Wire captures the Kafka-esque qualities that Baltimore has come to take on. In the case of the public officials, it is the deification of the election cycle. For the public officials, everything comes down to the need to get elected. It is the need to get elected that transforms an idealist into an instrumentalist (Carcetti); forces a reformist to become a defeatist (Daniels); turns a good cop into a corrupt cop (McNulty). For the people on the street, it is the deification of the drug game. It is what motivated Cheese to kill Prop. Joe; it is what brings Marlo back onto the corners; it is what makes Snoop Snoop. This gravitational pull of this power is captured yet again by Kundera: “wherever power deifies itself, it automatically produces its own theology; wherever it behaves like God, it awakens religious feelings toward itself; such a world can be described in theological terms.” This is what brings Marlo back; it is what brings Omar back; it is why people can never leave Baltimore.



Kundera: “In the world of the Kafkan, the comic is not a counterpoint to the tragic (the tragic-comic) as in Shakespeare; it’s not there to make the tragic more bearable by lightening the tone; it doesn’t accompany the tragic, not at all, it destroys it in the egg and thus deprives the victims of the only consolation they could for…Indeed, a joke is a joke only if you’re outside the bowl; by contrast, the Kafkan takes us inside, into the guts of a joke, into the horror of the comic.”

McNulty’s alcoholism and adultery is meant to be comical, along with Bubbles’ drug addiction and Senator Davis’ corrupt dealings. And within the very core of this comicality lies the horror; the horror that any and every good cop is bound to be licentious; the horror that drugs are so inevitably engrained within the fabric of this society; the horror that political corruption is so normalized and accepted. Every laugh is subsequently followed by a cringe, if only because it takes me a second to unpack what exactly is it that is so comical. The more the depravity, the bigger the laugh.



Kundera: “In the Kafkan world, man’s physical existence is only a shadow cast on the screen of illusion…shadows without even the right to exist as shadows.”

This seems spot on to describe how the Wire is trying to describe the plight of young black men growing up in Baltimore. What perhaps best personifies this is what happens to Omar at the end. Not even the Robin Hood of Baltimore can get a byline in the paper, let alone the correct name on his body bag. Also, when Dukie is reminiscing with Michael and Michael won’t even allow himself to remember, that just says it all. Not even allowed to be remembered; not even allowed to have memories. It is perhaps best summed up by Marlo when he found out Omar was after him: “my name is my name.” I take that to mean that his name is all he got. Without that he is nothing. This is somewhat ironic since being the drug kingpin, publicity is the last thing you’d think he want. And yet, even that was taken away from him. The one thing that made him a shadow was taken from him from his most loyal subordinates. Sh-eee-it.


Thus, to call the wire Dickensian or even Dostoyevskian is to do an injustice to the primacy institutions and social structures play and the subsequent comedic depravity and the concomitant depersonalization of a whole race of people that that comes with. The Wire captures the beauty of America’s depravity in much the same way a eulogy can capture a loved one’s life. It is an artistry steeped in bitterness and sorrow that can be too personal for some and too distant for others. But for the rare few that it does strike a chord with, it resonates long after the final credits roll.

The audacity of progress without struggle: analyzing the speech we've all been waiting Obama to make

In light of the ‘incendiary’ remarks by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama seemed to have no other choice but to finally come out with his ‘race’ speech. After the speech, commentators seemed to all share a similar prognosis/analysis: This is way too hot for me to handle, let’s see how it plays out electorally with white Americans. The sound bites taken from his 35 minute speech is not doing justice at all to his speech and I think in the end, it is going to be the sound bites that do him in. Before I get into my analysis of his speech, I do have give him props for putting it out there the way he did. He could have easily pulled a Romney. (i.e. When Romney gave his speech about being Mormon, he averted the controversy and basically just equated Mormonism with the rest of Christianity) But Obama didn’t. He took this opportunity to integrate his analysis of race/racism into his broader project of unity and what I have termed the politics of transcendence. Also, I need to commend how his comments about transcending the politics of fear that has pervaded the current state of politics as well as resituating the zero-sum game that has been a incessant feature of working-class politics and put it back on the corporations. Kudos. But even with these glimmers of inspiration, I am nevertheless left with wide swaths of unsatisfaction and a bunch of questions.

After reading and listening to his speech twice, I am reminded of something Frederick Douglass once said:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.”

I am hesitant to label him as the 21st century Booker T. Washington, because this lends itself to a crude caricature that doesn’t do justice to the complexity and contextuality of both Washington and Obama, but it is a concern that runs throughout my analysis.

Let me take a step back though and get into what he actually said.

So he starts off by talking about slavery. For a presidential candidate to talk about slavery, that was shocking. He didn’t mince words, he didn’t beat around the bush; he went straight to the heart of the matter. I give him much kudos for that.

Slavery represents one of the bleakest chapters of American history. And it is also one of the most divisive chapters of American history. White people acknowledge the evil of slavery, but many are tired of hearing about it, particularly as it relates, if at all, to the present. Blacks acknowledge the evil of slavery and many are all too ready and willing to bring it up and tired of other people being tired of it. For many white Americans, their relation to American history is akin to Forrest Gump. They regard the evils of slavery as belonging to a distant past that has no substantive connection to the present. There is a degree of cognitive dissonance between their love/patriotism for this country and their engagement with the sordid details that make up much of American history. And this is all to say that Obama has set the stakes high. His introductory remarks about slavery make it clear that this speech will make or break his campaign.

His account of slavery is pretty good. He ends his discussion on slavery with this: “What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow the gap between the promise of our ieals and the reality of the future.”

What I find so puzzling about his account of slavery is his segue. After talking about slavery, he then goes to talk about his run for the presidency and how “we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together” and “how we hold common hopes.” What???? How exactly does that connect with slavery? Didn’t you just mention the fact that this country went to war to get rid of slavery? Isn’t the fact that a war had to be waged proof that we don’t have common hopes and that some problems are so urgent that we can’t wait for everybody to get on board. Most white Southerners did not want to get rid of slavery. There was no common hope between white southerners and their slaves. White southerners were forced to do the right thing. So to talk about common hopes and coming together makes absolutely no sense in regards to American slavery.

It would seem to be the case that Obama wants to acknowledge the deep-seated historical basis of racism without necessarily giving proper due to how that racism was overcome. Yes, he mentions protests and struggle, but I would argue he gives it short shrift. He not only downplays the many people who had to sacrifice their lives in order for the rest of America to finally see the light, but he also denigrates the righteous indignation that many people carry knowing that great people had to become martyrs for others to see the light.

Obama depicts Rev. Wright as understandable but distorted. Obama sympathetically situates Wright’s indignation as a product of a particular generation, a generation that grew up with Jim Crow, but nonetheless regards this kind of indignation as unproductive and distracting.

If I had the opportunity to ask Obama a question, I would ask, “is what Rev. Wright said any more indignant than what William Lloyd Garrison said?” In 1845, William Lloyd Garrison said in a speech that “the American states are united by a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell.” Garrison refers to the Constitution as “an instrument of oppression unsurpassed in the criminal history of the world” and goes on to say that “to call government thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the understanding of mankind.” It was these indignant speeches that helped pushed the U.S. into abolishing slavery. It was these indignant words that helped expose the hypocrisy and establish freedom for millions of slaves.

If Obama’s depiction of history is correct, then we shouldn’t have needed Garrison. All we would have needed to do is come together, dismiss any sort of indignation because it necessarily leads to ‘despair or cynicism’, and find a common stake. But my understanding of history leaves me to believe that if you want to get rid of something like slavery, you can’t wait on everybody. Fact is, most didn’t want to get rid of slavery. Most either were at worse supportive of slavery, at best, indifferent to it. The elimination of slavery required indignation. It required a degree of impatience. People kept telling the abolitionists to wait. The electoral process will eventually phase slavery out. The elimination of slavery required the acknowledgement that not only are there bad people in this country but there is a lot of apathy in this country. And sometimes that apathy needs to be rocked. That to line up ideals with reality, people have to die. Martin Luther King understood this. He knowingly encouraged women and kids to march in Selma, even though he knew they would most likely get harassed, beaten, and killed. Progress comes with a price. It shouldn’t have to, but it does. And when Obama gets indignant over Wright’s indignation, then Obama can’t help but give short shrift to the struggle that progress entails. You got to rage against the machine if you want to change the machine.

It is this retelling of American history that makes me draw on the Booker T. Washington analogy. Both didn’t shy away from the dark corridors of American history, but their prescription was to nevertheless dehistoricize the present. Basic premise is this: We got this far through struggle, but what we need now is to stop struggling and start focusing on the “conservative notion of self-help.” Struggle is what got us through the past, but self-help is what will get us to the future. We need to stop being angry and start being productive. So what Obama is saying isn’t anything new. He wants us to forsake struggle, forsake indignation, forsake the politics of opposition and embrace democracy, embrace consensus decision-making, embrace our commonalities, and embrace the politics of transcendence. By doing so, we will get change.

But what he fails to mention is that democracy is what brought on slavery. Consensus decision-making is exactly the excuse the framers of the constitution gave when they made allowances for slavery. It was their embracing of the commonality that they were all white men, that encouraged a toleration for slavery. It was the politics of transcendence that overshadowed the politics of brutal dehumanization.

Now one can say, Obama is different. And of course he is. But when he vilifies the kind of righteous indignation professed by Rev.Wright, then I can’t help but see Obama as more of an apologist of how things are, as Booker T. Washington was in his day, then an agent of progress. To harken back to the words of Douglass, to want the rain without the thunder and lightning is audacity at its finest.

Guns: the good, the bad and the ugly

3/6/08 - University of North Carolina - Student body president is shot and killed.
3/4/08 – University of Auburn – Student shot and killed.
2/14/08 – Northern Illinois University – Student shot and killed 5 people and himself.
4/16/08 – Virginia Tech University – Student shot and killed 32 people.
4/02/07 - University of Washington – Student shot and killed one person and himself.

Let me preface this by saying that these acts are horrible, wrong and sad. Also let it be said that the news coverage on these university killings dwarfs the news coverage on killings in South Central Los Angeles, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore. With that said however, it does not mean we should ignore the recent spat of killings on American campuses simply because the media bias for it. A part of me wants to explore and investigate, in hopes of figuring out why these killings are occurring. Perhaps there is no tie that binds all these incidents together. But rather than explore the possible causes of these actions, I would like to take this time to explore the reactions to these actions, if only because i have yet to hear a good analysis of the positions.

Which brings me to the state of Arizona. In light of all these campus shootings, the state legislature is currently mulling over a bill that would allow people to carry guns on campus. Arizona’s answer to increasing gun crime is to increase the number of guns. This kind of mentality is similar to the logic that there should be more nuclear bombs in the world. If everybody had a nuclear bomb, there is an increased likelihood that there would be no wars since no one would be stupid enough to initiate global Armageddon. Also, since it is impossible to eliminate nuclear bombs, we should then all get one. It’s a non-ideal solution to the free-rider problem.

What I find interesting about Arizona’s response to gun crime is how completely opposite it is from inner city’s response to gun crime. You would be hard pressed to find anybody in the ghetto pushing for increasing the number of guns in response to an increase in gun-related violence. Go to any ghetto and ask them if there are too many or too little guns out there.

I bring this up because this corresponding correlation between where one lives and where one stands on gun control reflects how certain communities are mired in a culture of fear while other communities are simply tired of living in fear. Where one sees short-term, non-ideal reactions as the only viable alternative, the other sees long-range ideals as the only viable alternative.

At a time when inner cities are trying to rid themselves of the proliferation of guns, Arizonans are trying to replenish their supply of guns. Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New Orleans should just sell their guns on e-bay to Arizona. Better yet, I say they should just give them away. If Arizonans feel that the best way to deter gun-related violence is to increase gun-ownership, then shouldn’t they simply socialize gun-ownership? Doesn’t their logic dictate that every Arizonan own a gun? If eliminating gun-related violence is the problem, and gun ownership is the answer, then the government should intervene and ensure that everyone not only has access to a gun but everyone gets a gun. The state can offset costs in buying guns by cutting the budget for law enforcement. If everybody has a gun, then we wouldn’t need so many cops. Not only that, if everybody has a gun, cops are probably not as likely to want to get involved.

This is a classic libertarian premise with a classic socialist remedy.

The other option is not to arm more citizens, but to beef up law enforcement. This is what New York did in the 1980s and 1990s. Twenty years ago, New York was crazy. And starting with Mayor Dinkins followed up Giuliani, the city responded by substantially beefing up the numbers of police officers, dramatically increasing the police budget, and enforcing draconian laws that put thousands in prison. New York now has more cops per capita than in any other city in America. And because there was such a dramatic decline in gun-related violence, the mayor was exculpated from an increasing string of civil liberty violations, instances of police brutality and rumors of corruption/nepotism. There was a new political calculus: the more the rate of violent crime goes down, the more political capital I have accumulated, and hence the freer I can transcend the bounds of legality, democracy and moral decency. In other words, the more law there is, the more our political leaders can act lawlessly.

This is a classic welfarist position that turns dictatorial.

The other option is to get rid of guns entirely. This is what countries like Japan and England did. There, they have a significantly lower rate of violent crime than the U.S. But the problem with this approach is the free-rider problem. Even if we all agreed to get rid of guns entirely, how can we be sure that everybody would get rid of their guns? Might there be a few who would lie and hide their guns? And wouldn’t it be in their self-interest to be hypocrites and encourage everybody to turn their guns while hiding their own guns?

Yes, this is most likely going to happen. There is no way to ensure that everybody turns in their guns. At best, you can get a majority of guns, but never can you get all the guns.

In addition, there is also a racial tint to this. In the 1970s, Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, spearheaded efforts for stringent gun-control laws. Why? Because the Black Panther Party was openly flouting guns and boasting that they were going to make sure cops do their jobs to protect and serve the community. In other words, they were going to police the police. There had been a spat of police shootings of blacks under questionable circumstances.

There are thus two main issues when it comes to getting rid of guns entirely: Is it such a good idea that the state has all the guns? Also, how exactly should the process of de-gunning the population occur?

This is a classic idealist position that can incur possible racial disparities in addition to the inevitable free-rider problem.

The three options I have outlined all have costs and benefits. But I think the third option is the most viable. Here is why. The first option assumes people are always rational and I just don’t think that is the case. Also, if violence were to break out, then the floodgates open and it will just be chaos. The second option assumes power won’t corrupt and I just don’t think that is the case. The kind of political calculus the second option fosters is not worth it. The third option also entails the government getting too big for its britches but less so, because it entails de-gunning the state as well. If the people have to disarm, so should the state. Also, as much as the free-rider problem is inevitable, it can be contained via harsh penalties, huge economic incentives and efficient record-keeping. Not only that but if advocates of each option were to take their position to their extreme as I tried to do, I think the only ones who would still support their position is the ones supporting the third option. I just don’t see gun advocates turning into socialists anytime soon. I just don’t see anybody supporting dictatorships anytime soon. But I can see idealists be willing to accept some free-riders and some racial disparities. The key to these positions is to see them through to the end, evaluate the cost-benefit analyses of each, and see what you’d be willing to stomach.

Bitch might not be the new black…but it sure is grey: Why everyone seems to hate Hillary Clinton

How do I hate thee, let me count the ways:

1) Universal Health care
During Bill Clinton’s first year in the White House, Hillary spearheaded efforts to try and get universal health care. Republicans were in control of Congress back then and they went all-out against Hillary. HMOs weren’t paying these Congressmen for nothing. She was labeled a socialist, supposedly wanted to tax the hell out of Americans, and was using her status as first lady to do what should be left to elected officials. They even burned a puppet of her in effigy. This is YEAR ONE. After the Republican onslaught, her health care initiative died and she went into hiding.

2) Bill’s blowjob
Most people remember the story, but for those that don’t, here is a quick recap: Bill gets a blowjob from an intern named Monica Lewinsky. Subsequently lies about it on national TV, almost gets impeached for lying about it, and then confesses that he lied about it. Not only does this tarnish Bill’s legacy and reputation, but it also tarnishes Hillary’s as well. Everybody was wondering how Hillary is dealing with this whole event (which by the way lasted several months) and what, if anything, was she going to do once she found out that her husband cheated on her. We never heard from her and so we were left to speculate. What we do know is that she stayed married to him. So, was she simply being a careerist, thereby pissing off those who prize integrity and dignity? Was she playing the humble housewife that forgives her husband’s transgressions, thereby pissing off feminists? Is this basically comeuppance for trying to be a working woman, thereby validating social conservatives disdain for her?

3) Foreign Policy
She voted for the war in Iraq and has refused to acknowledge the mistake. She has said she is open to attacking Iran. Also, she hasn’t ruled out torture. She doesn’t want to make any firm commitments about closing Guantanamo Bay. She criticizes Barack Obama for wanting to talk to foreign leaders who we disagree with. She even says that she would make the better democratic nominee for president because she is more of a hawk than Obama and that is what is needed to beat John McCain. She is a hawk. And in foreign policy parlance, that just draws the bitter ire of any and all doves, diplomats, and deliberative democrats.

4) Presidential Campaign
Firstly, no one likes a frontrunner, particularly one who says she is the ‘inevitable’ candidate. Anybody who is a frontrunner for as long as she was, was inevitably going to get some flack. Her campaign is not inspirational. She was the first to go negative. She actually seemed vindictive and bitter at times. (Her comment about Saturday night live during the ohio debates was just so junior high school). Other than her cry in New Hampshire, her campaign is like the bitter version of Kerry’s campaign in 2004. Both Senators from the Northeast, (the last senator to become president was kennedy, and I can’t remember the last northeastern president) and it is more about being anti-bush than pro-them. Senators are not well-liked. Northeasterners are not well-liked. And being anti-bush is really likable either.

5) She is a she
Many people don’t like uppity women. Uppity women tend to inspire more uppity women. It’s contagious. Even more people don’t want no woman as president. First the WNBA,now this. There are fears of what she might do when she is PMS-ing. There are fears that if she were to win, she would unleash some sort of femi-nazism and just start hating on men. There are fears that she wouldn’t make a good commander-in-chief because women are too maternal to be good fighters, let alone military leaders.

I can’t think of anything else, although I am sure there is more. But to sum up, here are the people who hate her: Republican Congressmen, HMOs, feminists, social conservatives, sexists, doves, diplomats, deliberative democrats, underdogs, people who hate careerists, people who like clean campaigns, people who didn’t like Kerry, people who don’t like Senators, people who don’t like Northeasterners, people who don’t vindictiveness and bitterness. That is a lot of people. A lot of diverse people, scanning the ideological spectrum, the political spectrum, and whatever other spectrum you can think of. Some of it seems justified; some of it seems ludicrous; and some of it seems fucked up. Some of it is her fault; some of it is not her fault; and some of it is anybody’s guess. She is both good and bad; victim and oppressor; vanguard and rearguard. But because it is so complex, I take caution when people try and regard her candidacy as some sort of bellwhether for the status of women. It is not that simple. As much as we want to hold on to identity politics; we also don't want to fall into the trap of completely falling into and defining people solely via identity politics.

But it is fascinating to see how hate can make for some strange bedfellows. One thing beneficial from all of this is that it has forced those that lean to the left to distinguish their criticisms of Hilary from those that lean to the right. The wide range of bedfellows has forced people like me to focus and justify their criticisms. When I criticize Hillary, it is solely around a certain policy stance or something she has said during the campaign. In other words, it has forced me to make my criticisms substantive. Because she carries so much baggage, it forces people to make the kind of criticisms that are political and not petty. That is healthy. This is how politics should work. When it comes to politics, I shouldn’t care how you look, what gender you are, what your personal life entails. When it comes to politics, it should be about your policy stances, your voting patterns, and your stump speeches. So in that sense, the hatred of Hillary has in some ways reinvigorated the public sphere, honing criticisms to be more political than personal.

Democrats and demographics

The Pew Research Center came out with a study predicting what America will look like in 2050. The changes in the demographics could have repercussions for the future of the Democratic Party.

In 2050, whites will decrease from 67% to 47%

In 2050, Latinos will increase from 14% to 29%

In 2050, blacks will remain the same at 13%

In 2050, Asians will increase from 5% to 12%

In 2050, elderly will increase from 12% to 19%

The biggest impact is that whites are no longer the majority. If recent trends continue, then it is possible that the Democrats and the Republicans will be neatly divided racially. The Democratic party could become the party of color while the Republican party becomes the white party. In the current presidential election, this racial divide has been pretty stark, although it would be interesting to see what blacks do if Hillary got the nomination and what latinos would do if Barack got the nomination.

For the sake of argument, let’s say these recent trends continue. How might this affect each party’s platform? The key constituency for Democrats would be latinos. That being the case, they would need to have a comprehensive, liberal, immigration reform package. Democrats need to be on the left when it comes to immigration. They need to make a stark difference between them and the Republicans. And on the opposite side, I can totally see the Republicans becoming more xenophobic in order to cater to whites.

But if Democrats cater to Latinos, then they might have to drop the social/cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage. Latinos are disproportionately religious and the number of latino evangelicals is rising exponentially. Republicans will always be able to garner Latino votes by pushing a socially conservative agenda and juxtaposing it against the socially liberal agenda of the democrats. If Democrats want Latinos as a solid pro-Democratic voting bloc, they might not only have to drop the socially liberal agenda, but adopt a socially conservative agenda.

Doing so might of course alienate all those groups that identify as socially liberal. Will they be alienated enough to want to switch over to the Republicans? Or are their numbers not significant enough to warrant attention? We kinda already see this happening. Whereas the current democratic presidential candidates seem to side on the socially liberal side, by no means are they strong advocates for such social issues like abortion or gay marriage. This subtle shift might soon take a more drastic turn. I fear that the political calculus is such that democrats would be willing to alienate social liberals in order to woo more latino voters.

Another traditionally Democratic issue to get hit might be social security. Social security is the third rail of politics partly because it has been such a mainstay of the democratic party. But this might all change with the anticipated racial majority along with the rise of the elderly. In 2050, the number of elderly will rise 7%. Most of these people will be white. Most of the workforce will be people of color. If the Democratic party becomes the party of color, then protecting social security might lose its importance for dems and become more important for republicans. If the republican party becomes the white party, then it will also become the elderly party. What we might see in the future then is a complete shift of economic conservatism. The Republican party might very well become the party of big government while the democratic party becomes known as the cut-and-slash party. This issue becomes particularly acute in the next couple of years when social security for the first time spends more money than it takes in.

If the dems become the party of color, then it will be interesting to see who becomes the swing vote. Blacks have always voted democrat. Latinos generally vote democratic, but not overwhelmingly so like blacks. The one racial group yet to really be drawn in by the dems are Asians. Asians might become the future swing group. In 2050, if blacks and latinos all voted democrat, that would add up to 42%. With Asians, they would get 54%. But if Asians go with whites and vote Republican, then Republicans could get 59%. In other words, neither democrats nor republicans can get above the 50% threshold without Asians.

I am not at sure how this bodes for the future. If party politics end up dividing along racial lines, party platforms will change dramatically. Yes we might finally have a rainbow coalition, but at what expense?

The (home-grown) war on terror

There has been an on-going war on terror that started way before 9-11 and it has been waged against fellow Americans. I am of course talking about the war on gangs.

2008 marks the twentieth anniversary of the movie ‘Colors’ which introduced the country to what Los Angelenos had already been dealing with for years, gangs. Gangs are probably still the 2nd biggest export from LA, second only to Hollywood movies.

Here are some disturbing numbers. According to the Department of Justice, today America has at least 30,000 gangs, with 800,000 members, in 2,500 communities across the United States. At last count, Los Angeles County had more than 714 gangs and 80,000 gang members. That makes one of every hundred county residents either a hardcore soldier in a gang or an “associate.” In New Jersey alone, 13 gangs have direct affiliation with LA gangs. LA gangs are expanding faster than Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

Different answers are given as to the origins of LA gangs: Watts riots of 1965, the preemptive dismantling by the government of the Black Panther Party which left hundreds of black youths a sense of organization and discipline without having gotten the political education, the massive influx of cocaine into urban cities in the 1980s, not to mention all the more general sociological, economic, racist, and cultural explanations.

Now in LA, there is a vicious triangulation going on, which is eerily reminiscent of what is going on Iraq right now. Two black gangs, Grape Street Crips and Bounty Hunter Bloods are going at it. The rivalry goes back so long, no one can quite remember how the beef started, why they are fighting, and how it got so bad so quick for so long. What makes it even more complex is the growing dominance of Hispanic gangs, particular MS-13. The Hispanic gangs are particularly important, because not only are they growing in numbers but they also have the connections to the drugs, which makes sense since Mexico is the primary drug supplier. In other words, you have two sects fighting it out with a third group hovering in the background, watching the two sects fight it out. What all three have in common is that they all are trying to get their hands on the same resource, in this case, drugs.

In the 80s and early 90s, the occupying authorities/police department had compromised the rule of law and fought fire with fire, all for the sake of law and order. They had curfews; they banned cavorting in groups of more than 2; they indiscriminately arrested and detained people; they had show trials; they killed people. All in the name of law and order. The LAPD created a CRASH unit, which basically operated as a lynch mob in that they were not beholden to the rule of law and were free to harass, imprison, torture, and murder whomever they deemed dangerous.

But gangs are still here. Shit, they are becoming multinational conglomerates.

Now in LA, after they realized that their war on gangs wasn’t working, they then simply tried to contain the problem, making sure it doesn’t spill out into the nicer areas. In some areas, like the Jordan Downs housing project, if you have a problem, you don’t go to the cops, you go to the Grape Street Gang. (It reminds me of Sadr City in Iraq, where if you have a problem, you don’t go to the occupying authorities, you go to the Sadr army.)
This strategy is highly problematic, if only because containing the problem in certain areas is analogous to putting a cover on a pot of boiling water. Not only will it get hotter faster, but once it gets hot enough, it will inevitably get out. And once it gets out, it won’t just spill over. It will burst. We are beginning to see that. Just hear me out.

1985-1992 was one of the most violent periods of gang violence in LA. It tapered off in 1992, mainly as a result of a peace treaty between four of the biggest gangs in LA. This peace treaty was legit. 1998 reported the lowest rate of gang-related homicides as compared to the previous ten years. This also happens to be the period when the drug supply chain shifts from Columbia to Mexico, thereby significantly reducing the supply of crack cocaine and substituting it for other drugs like meth. This shift is important because crack is regarded as a major reason for violence. Anyways, this peace treaty, combined with the shift in the drug supply chain had national repercussions and allowed urban areas, like New York, New Jersey, and LA somewhat a respite and an opportunity to really deal with the problem. But the treaty is now over and we are beginning to see in the last couple of years that violence is going back to its pre-1992 levels. Perhaps I am placing too much importance on the 1992 peace treaty. But when it comes to the future of gangs, you look at LA. Gangs are to LA what fashion is to Soho. If you want to know what it is going to be hip and happening in fashion tomorrow, you go to Soho today. Same thing with gangs and LA.

To sum up, what we see in LA is the initial ‘war on gangs’ which was blatantly short-sighted and draconian and was subsequently followed up by a resigned, apartheid-like strategy of containment that was equally short-sighted. I fear not only could there be a teeter-totter effect in which we revert back to the initial ‘war on gang’ strategy, but that this teeter-totter effect would have to be even more short-sighted and draconian because the stakes are much higher now. In essence, I fear that a war that fails to resolve the issues that underlie it is doomed to not only be repeated, but also escalated.

Democrats need to change the game if they hope to win the game: Rethinking the war on terror

In a recent speech, Hilary Clinton was arguing that she would be the better democratic nominee to defeat John McCain because of her years of experience of being tough on terrorists, no slouch about going to war, and willing to do whatever was necessary to keep our country safe. In other words, we should vote for her because she is more of a hawk than Obama. I find this highly problematic not only because it is completely buying into the Republican notion of foreign policy that centers around the politics of fear, imperial presidency, and utter disregard for the rule of law, but also because it reflects the absolute woeful lack of any kind of alternative. Other than Iraq, there is not much difference between the Democrats and Republicans in regards to foreign policy. I have yet to hear any substantive difference in regards to Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, torture, military tribunals, wiretapping, and FISA. As a matter of fact, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee just signed off on excusing waterboarding. By the way, he is a Democrat.

Foreign policy needs to be put front and center when it comes to the presidential elections and it is important that an alternative formulation be put out there now. If we don’t, then we are left with figuring out who can maintain the politics of fear the longest, who can be the most hawkish, and who is willing to sacrifice the most for the sake of ‘security’. If we don’t formulate a plan, there is no way to keep Hilary and/or Barack accountable, elect-able, and credible. We can’t beat the Republicans at their own game, and we shouldn’t want to beat them at their own game. And the time is ripe for a change. Between Bush’s historically low approval ratings and widespread dissatisfaction with the war, now is the time.

It is time to change up the political calculus that has emerged from this war on terror. The following is a starting off point. It is not ideal necessarily. I went for something that I think is an elect-able strategy.

1) Security can no longer be the trump card for torture. Yes, protecting our borders and keeping Americans safe are important, but it does not justify torture. We must eliminate the grey here. There are pragmatic reasons to eliminate torture, but I think it is important to center on the fact that torture is morally reprehensible and no ticking time bomb scenario can justify torturing a suspect. At some point, we must take a stand; we must insist that there is a line that we just will not cross. This should be an easy sell. We can evoke the nostalgic, patriotic image of America, as the beacon of hope, freedom and democracy. If we truly are the greatest nation of the world and we truly think every other country should emulate us, then let’s start acting like it. It is not enough to say we stand up for America. America needs to stand for something if we are to stand up for it.

2) Close Guantanamo Bay. It’s been 6 years and folks still haven’t gotten a trial. I say we give everybody left a trial. We can reassure the hawks by telling them that those they deem dangerous that were nevertheless found not-guilty will be placed under surveillance. (Let me reiterate: I am going for an elect-able foreign policy, not my ideal foreign policy) This is also an easy sell. One of the reasons why people hate us is because of Guantanamo Bay. At this point, Guantanamo Bay is hurting more than helping the war on terror. The international disgust that Guantanamo Bay has hit a tipping point and it is probably breeding more terrorists abroad than preventing terrorist attacks.

3) Beef up Congressional oversight. As the Bush administration is so keen on repeating, the war on terror involves a lot of intelligence gathering, confidentiality and planning. All of this is not conducive to transparency, publicity and democracy. But the war on terror is (supposedly) of paramount importance that demands our attention. Respecting for the moment the paramount importance of it, I think it is still possible to involve more people in the decision-making process. By people, I mean elected officials that serve in key Congressional committees. So far, the war on terror has been a one-man show. It needs to be opened up. Issues as important as these needs to be more inclusive, more deliberative, and more coordinated. If the war on terror calls for sacrificing civil liberties, spending trillions of dollars, and overhauling the judiciary branch, I don’t think it is too much to ask for some more people around the table. This is a harder sell, if only because it is not so clear cut. But I think the key here is coordination. Coordination is the key to waging a smart, effective war on terror. Coordination across branches, coordination across intelligence agencies, coordination across democracy. The more coordination, the more effective. The notion that threats alone justify a complete dismantling of government is ludicrous. We have to increase the bar of what constitutes a credible threat. The more credible the threat, the more legitimacy the government garners. And I think the only way credibility can be garnered is by getting buy-in from all the different branches, agencies, and departments. The more in-sync the government is, the more the public is assured that the actions taken are the necessary one. The first step in making the government more in-sync is beefing up congressional oversight. This is a baby step that respects the confidentiality that is (supposedly) needed to fight the war on terror, but an important step nonetheless.

Now some might argue that I make way too many accommodations to the basic premises of the war on terror. I don’t think so. The accommodations I have made are for pragmatic reasons. I think these three things are viable platforms by which the Democratic nominee can stand on and still win. But the key with all three points is that they are starting off points for more radical alternatives. All three points try and subvert the basic premises of the war on terror by succumbing the war on terror to its own logic. The first point is a subtle critique of the supremacy of security. What is there to secure if we don’t stand for anything? The second point is questioning the strategy of the war on terror. Locking people up indefinitely might actually be making the problem worse than better. The third point is questioning the long-term feasibility of the war on terror. The short-term strategy of the bush administration might actually be hindering longer term strategy for the war on terror. Not only are these elect-able goals, but I see them as possibly leading to even more radical possibilities. So it is a win-win. And again, if the Democratic candidate wants to beat John McCain, then they can’t try and beat him at his own game. They need to change the game, if they hope to win the game.

Who is more likely to beat McCain?

So, I just crunched some numbers from the results of super duper tuesday and here is what I have found. There are 8 states in particular I want to focus on. These are Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Carolina. I have found these 8 states interesting because not only did they all vote bush in 2004 but in 2008, more democrats voted in the primaries than republicans. In other words, these are possible SWING states. If everybody who voted in the primaries in these states go on and vote in the general elections, these states would change color from 2004 red to 2008 blue.


ARKANSAS - 261,266 voted in the Dem. primary and 183,133 voted in the Rep. primary for a difference of 78,133

COLORADO - 119,184 Dems. and 55,845 Rep. for a difference of 63,399

GEORGIA - 1,017,002 Dems. and 947,357 Rep. for a difference of 69,645

MISSOURI - 820,453 Dems and 584,618 Rep. for a difference of 235,835

NORTH DAKOTA - 18,856 Dems and 9,743 Rep. for a difference of 8,913

OKLAHOMA - 401, 656 Dems and 331,796 Rep. for a difference of 69,860

TENNESSEE - 612,782 dems and 548,612 rep. for a difference of 64,170

SOUTH CAROLINA- 530,322 dems. and 442,918 rep. for a difference of 87,404

These numbers seem significant, particularly Missouri and North Dakota. So this then begs the question: which Democratic candidate won these states? The answer is Obama won 5 of the 8 (Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Carolina) and Hillary won 3 of the 8 (Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee). In terms of electoral math, Obama would net 46 more electoral college votes while Hillary would net 24 more electoral college votes, assuming the states that voted blue in 2004 would continue to vote blue in 2008. The next question then is whether or not you think Obama can better hold the states that voted blue in 2004 than Hillary. There is reason to doubt that he could considering Hillary carried more of these states. But again, would states that voted blue in 2004 really change their mind in 2008 if the candidate was Obama instead of HIllary? If so, which ones? I really can't think of one. In addition, we still have yet to hear from Ohio which is a possible swing state. So here is statistical evidence to suggest that Obama would be more likely to beat McCain if he were the democratic candidate over hillary.

The Audacity of Pushing: The Role of the Left during American Presidential Primaries

If I had a nickel for everytime someone asked me, “Daniel, you are a leftie, why aren’t you voting for Barack Obama?”

…Perhaps I am getting old and waxing nostalgic about days long past, but I can remember a time when we staged protests at the Democratic National Convention. I can remember a time when people were more concerned with the what of candidates than the who of candidates. I remember a time when we wouldn’t allow ourselves to get mesmerized by the allure of whatever media construction the parties threw out there and stuck to what I am going to term the politics of pushing.

Before I elaborate on this idea of the politics of pushing, let me briefly do a run-down on presidential history. 1) There has never been a left American President. The few times Presidents have done anything remotely leftist, they were pressured: Lincoln and the abolitionists, FDR and the labor movement, Johnson and the civil rights movement. 2) American Presidents have always tried to co-opt the left. Lincoln co-opted the abolitionists with this original plan to ‘reconstruct’ Louisiana. FDR co-opted the labor movement into not striking and accepting business unionism. Johnson co-opted the civil rights movement into not doing the poor people’s march and accepting affirmative action.
This brief excursus was meant to illustrate the at best tenuous relationship the American left has had with its presidents. If we want something of the president, we must be willing to push them and we must be forever vigilant.

So, with that said, we find ourselves in the thick of the presidential primaries that occurs every four years. And instead of hearing about what issues we want our next president to deal with, all I hear is who are you voting for. Fortunately, there are three issues that the left has put on the table: universal health care, global warming and the war in Iraq. Although some might quarrel that these are not left issues; rather, these are mainstream issues that everybody cares about is indicative of how successful the left has been. Four years ago, during Kerry’s campaign, it was taboo to talk about Iraq. It was too divisive and the election was too important. But now, the issue has become less divisive and more galvanizing. What, abu-ghraib wasn’t enough? Somehow 2,000 dead soldiers are okay but 3,000 is intolerable?

Even if those who thought the war was divisive back then were right, that only makes the present time ripe for a left resurgence. Particularly during the presidential primaries when candidates are fashioning their platforms and more attentive to the electorate, we should be pushing issues, not pushing candidates. So, you are for a withdrawal of troops in Iraq…great…now we want a commitment to close Guantanamo. So, you are for universal health care…great, now we want an increase in funding for food stamps. So, you think Bush was a bad president…great, now we want a commitment that you prohibit signing statements. This is the politics of pushing. This is the time to push the candidates to the left. In my opinion, no candidate is on the left. It is just not possible. Between the two party system, the special interests, the electoral system, etc…., I just don’t see how it could happen. And so to back a candidate now is in some respects to make light of just how inept, corrupt, and dysfunctional our government has become, is becoming, and continues to become. This is the time, when the parties are still picking, when we on the left should be arguing over issues about what we need and what we want from our next president. I am not looking for hope; I am looking for demands.

Lynchings: Back in Black

Golfweek Magazine. Jena, Louisiana. Columbia University. Suddenly, the strange fruit is back.

Although the three instances could not be more different, they are bound by a common theme: the explosive and complex claim that blacks are acting too uppity. Whether it is a golfer dominating a sport he shouldn’t, high schoolers hanging out where they are not supposed to, or a professor writing a book that upsets propriety; each seemingly forgot their place and needed a simple reminder. A stark and symbolic reminder.

What is it about lynching that has suddenly made it such a potent and relevant political metaphor today? After all, uppity blacks have existed throughout our history: W.E.B. Du Bois, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Arthur Ashe. Despite the audacity of one black man in particular, who is running for president, one can hardly say there is a sudden uptick in black self-assertion.

Lynching references have come back for two other reasons, having less to do with race per se than with the with post 9-11 political atmosphere. The first reason has to do with the solidarity that resulted in this new climate of fear. In a talk entitled “The Gifts of Black Folk in the Age of Terrorism,” Cornel West spoke about the ‘niggerization of America,’ which refers to the process in which all Americans after 9-11 have been “taught to be fearful, taught to be afraid, and subject to manipulation.” After 9-11, all Americans began to understand what it meant to be terrorized simply for being who we are. This widespread identity-based fear is ‘niggerization’ because Americans began to get an inkling of what it must have been like to be a black man in the South with the all-pervasive noose hanging under every tree. The terror of 9-11 is similar to the terror of lynching because it does not have to be personally experienced. The effects of lynching extend beyond its immediate victims, conjuring up nightmares by its sheer possibility.

In the immediate aftermath, this terror brought us together. It resurrected civic pride, inspired individuals to put aside their differences, and engage in patriotic self-sacrifice. When the towers collapsed, so did years of racial division, animosity and violence, because something more important, which threatened all equally, bound us together. At least, so it was said.

But now that the embers have cooled and the enemy combatants detained, we can go back to business as usual. Solidarity brought equality, an equality that was hard for some to swallow. Because terror is blind, we became momentarily blinded to each other. But we can close our eyes for only so long. The resurgence of lynching references is a reminder that even if this ‘niggerization of America’ is true, black is still black and white is still white. No matter how new this post 9-11 world might be, it is not enough to dismantle the deep-seated racism in this country. The recent lynching controversies are a reminder that unity in fear could only temporarily displace, rather than truly resolve the problems of a divided society. They signal that things are going back to normal, normally racist that is.

The second reason that lynching has re-emerged in the shadow of 9-11 has to do with how the Bush administration has handled the ‘war on terror.’ Indefinite detention. Unsubstantiated claims of impropriety. Extralegal procedures. Peace and order at the expense of law and justice. The methods the Bush administration is using to fight terrorism are eerily similar to the methods white Southerners used to oppose racial equality. In effect, Bush’s handling of the war on terror has harkened back to and given license to an old tradition of popular justice that is as American as apple pie. Is it of any wonder then why lynchings are back in vogue when the same kind of rationale used to justify lynchings are identical to those the Bush administration has used? We saw this with Andrew Jackson. As President, Andrew Jackson waged a similar ‘war on terror’ against Native-Americans. He was so ‘successful,’ that he is said to have encouraged and inspired many nativists, racists, and industrialists to wage their own ‘war on terror.’ Terror, then, is nothing new. Americans have been practicing it for years. And when our leaders do it, it spreads like wildfire, setting ablaze all sorts of local problems. Just because nobody gave any direct orders does not mean these are a few random acts by bad apples; our government has been giving extralegal justice official sanction for years. Like they say, mockery is the sincerest from of flattery.