After about four years of running Frameshop, I am starting to see a crossroads up ahead. I have no plans to 'end' Frameshop in a formal sense. Nonetheless, when I started Frameshop four years ago, what I had in mind explicitly was the restoration of a Democratic Party majority in all three branches of government. The big problem that drew me into the analysis of political narratives is no longer a big problem, per se, but has become a challenge of closing out the deal. An end game. I am still going to work hard to make sure Barack Obama wins the White House--as are all of you (ehem...)--but now is the time to think out loud about new directions, new goals, new objectives.
Green Rhetoric, Green Frames
A large focus of my attention over the past few months has been the so-called 'Green Movement.' I am skeptical of all the attention that has been garnered by this jargon in the past year because what I see is largely a consumer movement--marketing of consumer products. How does it help the planet if we buy our children 'green fashion' T-shirts? It does not. In the 1980s, a 'lo fat' revolution swept across the country. The result was millions of consumer products claiming to be healthy and good for you. 20 years later, obesity reached epidemic levels in this country. The problem with consumer-led social movements is that they tend to be based on frivolous if not outright wrong claims. If we, as a nation, allow all this green marketing to blanket over our real dedication to transforming the fundamental structure of our world, then in 20 years our landfills will be fat with green products. Meanwhile, our world will still be in a deep crisis.
As a writer, and an analyst, I am drawn to two issues in particular with regards to environmentalism: (1) Water and (2) Food.
The carbon focus of the current environmental movement is important--no question there. But I believe it is already resolved, by and large. Electricity in the future will be supplied by hydrogen and wind instead of carbon, with considerable help from solar, geothermal, and continued use of hydro. The question is not if that scenario will come true, but what form it will take, how long it will take us to get there, and who will bear the brunt of the cost and profit.
But water and food are different questions--these are questions of conservation. Hidden deep within the environmental movement is a difficult and vexing reality: conservation vexes everyone. Nobody wants to seriously think about the problem of conserving resources that are finite. Furthermore, conservation often requires a choice between lifestyle and the greater good. That is a difficult choice for a huge percentage of the world's population, and is often a choice made easier only by sudden crisis or the spread of spiritualism--neither of which are predictable.
So how does one, as a political activist, create conditions whereby the arguments put forth by conservationists are more persuadable in the real sense, and not just silenced by consumerism? How does one do that, exactly?
It is a very difficult question and there are few good answers. That problem interests me.
Health and Well-Being
One thing is apparent to me and uncomfortably so. We are at a point where the nation now realizes the need for a new approach to the health and care of our citizens. But--and this is the bad part--the challenge of solving that problem will be held hostage by our dysfunctional political system for decades to come, and well into the point where we will hit a healthcare crisis in this country.
Our healthcare crisis is coming as sure as a slow moving rainstorm. We can see it. We know exactly what will cause it: the aging of the baby-boomer generation will begin to break the current system in the next 5-10 years. Those of us who see it happening already are scared, angry, and frustrated. Those who do not see it yet--either by economic or biological luck--are just a few short years away from a catastrophic experience that will open their eyes.
But herein' lies the next problem: Americans concerned for their health think in terms of 'self-reliance.' Whenever possible, we think on a cultural level about taking care of ourselves as individuals, not taking care of the collective. This is not a character flaw, per se, but it is an obstacle in the movement to build the kind of health care theory, model, and functioning system that can sustain this nation for the next 100 years.
The challenge of creating a new healthcare system, in other words, is a social, political and cultural problem. That problem interests me.
Civic Education, Making Better Citizens
The past 7 years of Bush authoritarian radicalism has made many Americans realize that there is a crisis of citizenship in this country. At first, Americans saw that the dynamic of our politics was irrational. Slowly, however, more and more people are realizing that the problem in our system is the result of multiple generations of Americans who have not been equipped with the minimum tools of citizenship by a universal system of education.
As a result, we are living in a civic era tossed about on a sea of uncertainty as a result of multiple, competing sources of 'civic' education--many of which are inconsistent with, if not outright hostile to, the American idea of democracy.
Our Democratic cannot endure forever unless we rebuild the system of education that replenishes our country regularly with minimally equipped citizens--individuals conversant in the basic skills and concepts necessary to maintain a deliberative democratic system.
And herein lies the problem: our ability to revive our educational system is blocked by a widespread cynicism from all sides of the political spectrum. While there the modest effort to revive education comes from the Left, the forces that block that effort come from both the radical conservatism of the Right and the decadence of the Left.
Overcoming that inertia is the most monumental problem of movement building this country has ever faced. That is a problem that interests me.
Environment, Health, Education
Each of these three areas has something common in terms of the direction Frameshop will take: they are steps towards deeper connection to movement, and steps away from elections.
That is a difficult challenge because the netroots, by and large, is centered on elections not movement building. The choice to move towards a topic that is less election-centered and more issue oriented carries social, political, professional and--yes--personal risk.
To be blunt, if I start writing about the environment on DailyKos--precious few people will care in contrast to the number of readers who care if I write about how the media unfairly maligns Barack Obama. I understand that passions peak in elections, more than in issue-oriented movement politics. But the frustration is still there.
The netroots as it currently exists, therefore, does not have the structure, leadership, or membership to sustain any of the projects I am considering. And so the move to one of these projects requires that I either become an organizer (not my strength) or that I find a new community that does have those structures in place (e.g., the environmental movement, the healthcare movement, the education movement).
The later seems logical, but it is not an easy choice to make and I have been hedging--circling around the obvious for some time.
I have no decision in hand. When I write that I am considering these three directions, I mean it sincerely. And these three directions are completely separate from the work I will continue to pursue until November (e.g., pushing back against violent rhetoric, analyzing campaign framing, and persuasion with key swing voter blocks).