The absolute breakdown of conventional politics in this country scares the shit out of me. The GOP are basically auditioning to be the most racist, fundamentalist, money-fellating nut in the nutjar. They are actively slagging the middle class and the government. Meanwhile, the Democrats' base just went camping out on Wall St. because they are fed up with the party leadership for selling out the middle class.
In our system of politics, we have two parties; and both of them have gone AWOL. Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers, ALEC, and Wall St. (and the slavering mob of suckers and losers who follow them) continue to money bomb the crap out of the political system, the regulatory system, and the media.
More and more, America "rhymes with" Weimar Germany - a society where the central government is crippled in a time of great crisis. America is not "repeating" Weimar, because there is no organized, militant left here. There is no equality of violence and of law-breaking between left and right. In America today, only the right has the political, judicial, and media power to flout the law and get away with it.
I am scared because I do not see how OWS's tactics are going to stop the institutional strangle-hold the rich have on the law-making, judicial, and financial machinery before said machinery completes turning America into a banana republic - just like they are doing to Greece as I write this.
Don't get me wrong. I support OWS. I do not support the bought and paid for "leaders" of the Democratic Party. As for the GOP, their contempt for government reminds me of the rise of totalitarianism in the 1920s:
when the totalitarian movements invaded Parliament with their contempt for parliamentary government, they merely appeared inconsistent: actually, they succeeded in convincing the people at large that parliamentary majorities were spurious and did not conform to the realities of the country, thereby undermining the self-respect and the confidence of governments which also believed in majority rule rather than in their constitutions.
- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Once again, this is another one-sided "rhyme". It is only the lunatic right who thinks that the honest majority won by the Democrats in 2008 was "spurious". It is only the lunatic right who believes in voter-suppressed "majority rule" above the Constitution. Still, it is a rhyme.
While OWS grew organically from an idea floated by democacy-loving "culture-jammer", Kalle Lasn, today's GOP/Fox/Theocrat alliance is an artificial monster manufactured by elitist money; and its in the business of "democracy jamming". The neocons and neolibs have been building alternative, totalitarian organizations for three decades. The evil Koch Brothers have their hands in so many plots I can't list them all: ALEC, Atlantic Bridge, Americans for Prosperity,... Their media has created a hideous, cynical, trivial spectacle that directly undermines both democracy and honest business. This is another history rhyme:
Brecht's "Three Penny Opera"...presented gangsters as respectable businessmen and respectable businessmen as gangsters. This irony was somewhat lost when respectable businessmen in the audience considered this a deep insight into the ways of the world and when the mob welcomed it as artistic sanction of gangsterism. The themesong in the play, "Erst Kommt das Fresen, dann kommt die Moral"(Hungry men can't afford morality.), was greeted with frantic applause by exactly everybody, though for different reasons. The mob applauded because it took the statement literally; the middle class (bourgeoisie) applauded because it had been fooled by its own hypocrisy for so long that it had grown tired of the tension and found deep wisdom in the expression of the banality by which it lived; the elite applauded because the unveiling of hypocrisy was such superior and wonderful entertainment. The effect of the work was exactly the opposite of what Brecht had sought by it. The bourgeoisie could no longer be shocked...
-HA, OOT
Another one-sided rhyme. It only applies to right-wingers. The best thing about OWS is its non-cynicism. Its idealism. That, coupled with its non-violence, is sending a message about who the GOP are. And, that is something that has been missing from the neoliberal, triangulating leadership of the Democratic party of the last two decades.
But those same qualities scare me, because I do not see how the OWS "horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system" will get around the looming 2012 election by doing anything other than endorsing Obama. And, at that point, they will lay themselves open to charges of cynical political calculation.
To my mind, they cannot be organized in time to run their own candidates; and, as a democracy, any GOP victory is a death warrant. So they must endorse Obama and work to keep Democratic majorities at national and (even more important) state levels.
I understand they must do something along these lines, because sudden, violent political change (like the idiotic 999 tax plan) can only drive the country into violent reaction. There is no way we are going to reconstruct our government in one year.
So, I want to close with an anecdote about our predicament:
The bizarre tone of the (1991 Lousiana governor's) election was captured in two bumper stickers:
........ Vote for the crook - its important. ........
........ Vote for the Lizard, not the wizard. ........
The bumper stickers made the case for (corrupt governor Edwin) Edwards better than anything James Carville could do. There was nothing in favor to say in favor of Edwards and no point in pretending there was. But (KKK wizard David) Duke was worse...The most eye-opening tale was of Duke's apparently tangential involvement in a 1981 American Nazi plot to take over the Caribbean island nation of Dominica and establish a cocaine factory there.
Edwards won his fourth term. Despite this, 55 percent of whites voted for Duke. (Former governor Buddy) Roemer offered this postmortem: "Edwards, who "for twenty years created a hunger for integrity, was saved in the end by having a man run against him who had less integrity."
- William Poundstone, Gaming the Vote - Why Elections Aren't Fair.
As the anecdote above reminds us, our existing democracy isn't perfect. And whatever OWS comes to consensus on is not going to replace our political process in a year. The GOP are so horrendous, their rising barbarian yell so scary, that I want OWS to begin to consider how to achieve their goals without turning the 2012 elections into a replay of 1968 or 1980.
So, even though I think the man is a fraud and a phony, I say:
"Vote for the phony. Its important."