LI has been tough on the New Orleans cops. However, this WP article gets past our authority suspicious radar. The description of the current state of the NOLA police force reads much like Cormac McCarthy’s description of Glanton’s scalphunters in Blood Meridian:
“They sleep on the concrete sidewalk or in their cars. They scavenge for food from abandoned stores and cook by fire. They wash the laundry by hand and leave it to dry on lines hung from lampposts.
This is what life has been like for New Orleans police officers since Hurricane Katrina tore apart their city nearly two weeks ago.”
LI has a feeling that we should be studying this reduction of the American way of life: who knows what city or situation will emerge as the next object lesson in massive, contemptuous mismanagement, blessed by a governing class that lives in the monied equivalent of light years away from the mother ship, the homeland, or whatever you want to call our native muck and grease. They are the fly over people, and we are the flown over.
Here’s a little reminder of what was happening as the President was, according to the NYT’s flattering account (see our Saturday post), being handed actual news copy that contradicted the smiley faced reports of his aids (news copy that the NYT’s DC reporter assures us, in hushed, awestruck tones, that the President actually read!):
“For David Holtzclaw, 42, a tough-talking, macho police officer who has been on the force for nearly 25 years and has seen many dead bodies, it's about a baby. He was helping at the convention center one night when a man came up to him carrying his baby in a filthy blanket.
"The baby's lips were blue," he remembered. He hadn't eaten in days, and the mother was unable to breast-feed because she was ill.
Holtzclaw didn't know what to do. There was no hospital, no paramedics to call. He rushed the father and baby into his car, and began speeding west, away from the water. He stopped in St. Charles Parish and called an emergency medical service crew, which picked up the child. He found out later that the baby did not survive.”
It is a safe bet that we can mark that child down as one of the uncounted. Not that the state is unkind – we hear they are moving heaven and earth to keep pictures of such dead children away from the tv cameras.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Sunday, September 11, 2005
quality versus quantity
LI is pleased to see that Liberty Library has been putting up a pretty extensive Herbert Spencer collection.
We’ve been reading The Man versus the State. We do not find Spencer a particularly pleasant author to read. Unlike James Fitzjames Stephen, who cast his ideas into the sort of Victorian hulking prose we can imagine Doctor Moriarity indulging in whilst planning to overthrow obscure monarchies, Spencer has a tendency to fall into that dulcet tone of dyspepetic conservative indignation Dickens satirized in Scrooge. His melancholy for the tragic loss of liberty in civilization is the kind of thing that later became a specialty of the National Review. It is one thing for Burke to wax tragical at the death of Queens; it is another to wax tragical at having to pay a shilling in property tax to keep up a public library. Here is Spenser in full cry, listing the terrible regulatory intrusions of the State:
“Then, under the Ministry of Lord John Russell, in 1866, have to be named an Act to regulate cattle-sheds, etc., in Scotland, giving local authorities powers to inspect sanitary conditions and fix the numbers of cattle; an Act forcing hop- growers to label their bags with the year and place of growth and the true weight, and giving police powers of search; an Act to facilitate the building of lodging- houses in Ireland, and providing for regulation of the inmates; a Public Health Act, under which there is registration of lodging-houses and limitation of occupants, with inspection and directions for lime-washing, etc., and a Public Libraries Act, giving local powers by which a majority can tax a minority for their books.”
Since Spencer harps on themes that have since become the boilerplate of American conservative politics (the baleful influence of the interfering state, the abridgment of freedom by said state, especially in regulatin’ and taxin,’ and so on), he is well worth reading, both for what passed into the conservative temperament and what did not. What did not was the ur-Liberal strain of anti-militarism. In this, he is more ancient than Fitzjames Stephens, who is both a convinced imperialist and an upholder of the theory that the state’s allowance of the greatest possible economic liberty should be coupled with the state’s role as the coercive guardian of society’s official morality.
…
Spencer starts out by positing a simple duality between Liberalism and Toryism.
“Dating back to an earlier period than their names, the two political parties at first stood respectively for two opposed types of social organization, broadly distinguishable as the militant and the industrial—types which are characterized, the one by the régime of status, almost universal in ancient days, and the other by the régime of contract, which has become general in modern days, chiefly among the Western nations, and especially among ourselves and the Americans. If, instead of using the word “cooperation” in a limited sense, we use it in its widest sense, as signifying the combined activities of citizens under whatever system of regulation; then these two are definable as the system of compulsory cooperation and the system of voluntary cooperation. The typical structure of the one we see in an army formed of conscripts, in which the units in their several grades have to fulfil commands under pain of death, and receive food and clothing and pay, arbitrarily apportioned; while the typical structure of the other we see in a body of producers or distributors, who severally agree to specified payments in return for specified services, and may at will, after due notice, leave the organization if they do not like it.”
One notices at once the class peculiarity in the last sentence, with its vision of healthy men, grit and determination in their eyes, giving due notice and leaving their jobs to strike out on their own, instead of doing something distasteful, like banding together in a union, sitting down in the factory, and forcing the owners, in violation of God’s law and contract, to negotiate with them. And it goes without saying that the producers and distributors can fire at will. All of which lends to the term ‘voluntary cooperation” more than a touch of the tendentious. Further, one notices that the system of “compulsory cooperation” involved fixed protections for the users of public lands, for instance – a system that was overturned by the system of enclosures coordinate with the advance of “voluntary cooperation.” In fact, “liberty”, a term that Spencer narrows to his purpose, was used, in the time of status, to denote obligations that the liberal era abolished, in favor of those property arrangements that enriched the bourgeoisie.
Spencer has two theories that provide the background for much of what he wants to say in MvG. One theory is evolutionary. It has recently been revived in certain circles, most notably by Robert Wright in Non Zero. Spencer’s idea was that progress is synonymous with the emergence of complexity. Evolution is the advance from the simple to the more complex in the living world. The same process is at work in that subset of the living world, human civilization. The other idea is about liberty and property. The political meaning of liberty is of crucial important to Spencer, and he identifies it with one’s willing control over one’s goods. Consequently, the state’s taxation of those goods is an encroachment on liberty:
“Nothing more than cursory allusion has yet been made to that accompanying compulsion which takes the form of increased taxation, general and local. Partly for defraying the costs of carrying out these ever-multiplying sets of regulations, each of which requires an additional staff of officers, and partly to meet the outlay for new public institutions, such as board-schools, free libraries, public museums, baths and washhouses, recreation grounds, etc., local rates are year after year increased; as the general taxation is increased by grants for education and to the departments of science and art, etc. Every one of these involves further coercion—restricts still more the freedom of the citizen. For the implied address accompanying every additional exaction is—“Hitherto you have been free to spend this portion of your earnings in any way which pleased you; hereafter you shall not be free so to spend it, but we will spend it for the general benefit.”
This is a passage that has gone directly into the bloodstream of American conservatism. But there is something odd about it from the liberal perspective, since underneath the claim about taxation is a classic Hegelian conflict between quantity and quality. On the one hand, if money is the index of the freedom of purchase, then Spencer must be right: the state’s taking is an encroachment on liberty. On the other hand, if the state’s taking leads to economic growth, than the index of liberty – money, or the amount of productivity within the economy – will also grow. This quantitative growth will lead to a greater ability for a greater number to spend. This is the liberal assertion that leads us from Mill to Keynes. Spencer’s categories are such that he has put himself in a conceptual bind: he simply can’t confront the liberal assertion. His defense of liberty on the dimension of the political economy ignores the macro nature of the political economy. That blindness has a sociological result: in a society in which, in reality, a greater number of people are free in the practical sense (free to travel, free to advance socially, free to express themselves) due to acts of the liberal state (with its taxes, its compulsory education, its sanctioning of unions, etc.), the classical liberal of the Spencerian type can only see a loss of freedom. This is exactly how Hayek ended up.
That sociological blindness to practical freedom has other consequences for Spencer. Which we will enumerate in another post.
We’ve been reading The Man versus the State. We do not find Spencer a particularly pleasant author to read. Unlike James Fitzjames Stephen, who cast his ideas into the sort of Victorian hulking prose we can imagine Doctor Moriarity indulging in whilst planning to overthrow obscure monarchies, Spencer has a tendency to fall into that dulcet tone of dyspepetic conservative indignation Dickens satirized in Scrooge. His melancholy for the tragic loss of liberty in civilization is the kind of thing that later became a specialty of the National Review. It is one thing for Burke to wax tragical at the death of Queens; it is another to wax tragical at having to pay a shilling in property tax to keep up a public library. Here is Spenser in full cry, listing the terrible regulatory intrusions of the State:
“Then, under the Ministry of Lord John Russell, in 1866, have to be named an Act to regulate cattle-sheds, etc., in Scotland, giving local authorities powers to inspect sanitary conditions and fix the numbers of cattle; an Act forcing hop- growers to label their bags with the year and place of growth and the true weight, and giving police powers of search; an Act to facilitate the building of lodging- houses in Ireland, and providing for regulation of the inmates; a Public Health Act, under which there is registration of lodging-houses and limitation of occupants, with inspection and directions for lime-washing, etc., and a Public Libraries Act, giving local powers by which a majority can tax a minority for their books.”
Since Spencer harps on themes that have since become the boilerplate of American conservative politics (the baleful influence of the interfering state, the abridgment of freedom by said state, especially in regulatin’ and taxin,’ and so on), he is well worth reading, both for what passed into the conservative temperament and what did not. What did not was the ur-Liberal strain of anti-militarism. In this, he is more ancient than Fitzjames Stephens, who is both a convinced imperialist and an upholder of the theory that the state’s allowance of the greatest possible economic liberty should be coupled with the state’s role as the coercive guardian of society’s official morality.
…
Spencer starts out by positing a simple duality between Liberalism and Toryism.
“Dating back to an earlier period than their names, the two political parties at first stood respectively for two opposed types of social organization, broadly distinguishable as the militant and the industrial—types which are characterized, the one by the régime of status, almost universal in ancient days, and the other by the régime of contract, which has become general in modern days, chiefly among the Western nations, and especially among ourselves and the Americans. If, instead of using the word “cooperation” in a limited sense, we use it in its widest sense, as signifying the combined activities of citizens under whatever system of regulation; then these two are definable as the system of compulsory cooperation and the system of voluntary cooperation. The typical structure of the one we see in an army formed of conscripts, in which the units in their several grades have to fulfil commands under pain of death, and receive food and clothing and pay, arbitrarily apportioned; while the typical structure of the other we see in a body of producers or distributors, who severally agree to specified payments in return for specified services, and may at will, after due notice, leave the organization if they do not like it.”
One notices at once the class peculiarity in the last sentence, with its vision of healthy men, grit and determination in their eyes, giving due notice and leaving their jobs to strike out on their own, instead of doing something distasteful, like banding together in a union, sitting down in the factory, and forcing the owners, in violation of God’s law and contract, to negotiate with them. And it goes without saying that the producers and distributors can fire at will. All of which lends to the term ‘voluntary cooperation” more than a touch of the tendentious. Further, one notices that the system of “compulsory cooperation” involved fixed protections for the users of public lands, for instance – a system that was overturned by the system of enclosures coordinate with the advance of “voluntary cooperation.” In fact, “liberty”, a term that Spencer narrows to his purpose, was used, in the time of status, to denote obligations that the liberal era abolished, in favor of those property arrangements that enriched the bourgeoisie.
Spencer has two theories that provide the background for much of what he wants to say in MvG. One theory is evolutionary. It has recently been revived in certain circles, most notably by Robert Wright in Non Zero. Spencer’s idea was that progress is synonymous with the emergence of complexity. Evolution is the advance from the simple to the more complex in the living world. The same process is at work in that subset of the living world, human civilization. The other idea is about liberty and property. The political meaning of liberty is of crucial important to Spencer, and he identifies it with one’s willing control over one’s goods. Consequently, the state’s taxation of those goods is an encroachment on liberty:
“Nothing more than cursory allusion has yet been made to that accompanying compulsion which takes the form of increased taxation, general and local. Partly for defraying the costs of carrying out these ever-multiplying sets of regulations, each of which requires an additional staff of officers, and partly to meet the outlay for new public institutions, such as board-schools, free libraries, public museums, baths and washhouses, recreation grounds, etc., local rates are year after year increased; as the general taxation is increased by grants for education and to the departments of science and art, etc. Every one of these involves further coercion—restricts still more the freedom of the citizen. For the implied address accompanying every additional exaction is—“Hitherto you have been free to spend this portion of your earnings in any way which pleased you; hereafter you shall not be free so to spend it, but we will spend it for the general benefit.”
This is a passage that has gone directly into the bloodstream of American conservatism. But there is something odd about it from the liberal perspective, since underneath the claim about taxation is a classic Hegelian conflict between quantity and quality. On the one hand, if money is the index of the freedom of purchase, then Spencer must be right: the state’s taking is an encroachment on liberty. On the other hand, if the state’s taking leads to economic growth, than the index of liberty – money, or the amount of productivity within the economy – will also grow. This quantitative growth will lead to a greater ability for a greater number to spend. This is the liberal assertion that leads us from Mill to Keynes. Spencer’s categories are such that he has put himself in a conceptual bind: he simply can’t confront the liberal assertion. His defense of liberty on the dimension of the political economy ignores the macro nature of the political economy. That blindness has a sociological result: in a society in which, in reality, a greater number of people are free in the practical sense (free to travel, free to advance socially, free to express themselves) due to acts of the liberal state (with its taxes, its compulsory education, its sanctioning of unions, etc.), the classical liberal of the Spencerian type can only see a loss of freedom. This is exactly how Hayek ended up.
That sociological blindness to practical freedom has other consequences for Spencer. Which we will enumerate in another post.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
spitting up what they feed us
"Seattle, Wash.: Why do the Bush advisors shield him from the reality all the rest of of see and manipulate his public encounters?
"Robert G. Kaiser: Well, do we know for sure that they do this? I share your suspicion that they do, but we also know that Bush DOES read the newspapers, despite saying he doesn't, and I bet he watches some TV too." Washington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser , September 8, "live" discussion
“The president, long reluctant to fire subordinates, came to a belated recognition that his administration was in trouble for the way it had dealt with the disaster, many of his supporters say. One moment of realization occurred on Thursday of last week when an aide carried a news agency report from New Orleans into the Oval Office for him to see.
The report was about the evacuees at the convention center, some dying and some already dead. Mr. Bush had been briefed that morning by his homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who was getting much of his information from Mr. Brown and was not aware of what was occurring there. The news account was the first that the president and his top advisers had heard not only of the conditions at the convention center but even that there were people there at all.
"He's not a screamer," a senior aide said of the president. But Mr. Bush, angry, directed the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to find out what was going on.
"The frustration throughout the week was getting good, reliable information," said the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House. "Getting truth on the ground in New Orleans was very difficult." -Elizabeth Bumiller, September 9 Italics added
...
…
The bullhorns of the national greatness movement, who will no doubt surround Hillary in her triumphant second place finish in 2008, have been experiencing uncharacteristic depression about the whole greatness thing. Luckily, the White House has been throwing greatness at us in clumps and cities lately. Not content to preside over the flight of a million people from the NOLA area, the White House modestly tossed another 200,000 on the pile from Tal Afar
“In a bid to soften resistance, the U.S. military carried out repeated air and artillery strikes on targets in the city, where most of the population of 200,000 was reported to have fled to the surrounding countryside.”
As Tom Friedman might put it, those 200 thousand are the freest people in the Middle East right now, and so soft and squeezable, like Charmain's toilet tissue, after we tickled them with our high explosives. We are very enthusiastic here. Many have been freed from a burden that all Buddhists deplore – life and limb. Others are freed of their houses, their vehicles, and all potable property left behind. Freedom is what the Iraq war is all about, and… and greatness. Oh, some say the Huns were great, others plump for Tamerlane. But such are the prejudices of liberal historians. Surely an objective view of King George the Feeble would elevate him to his proper place.
One is especially pleased to see that the bombing of a civilian town wasn’t accompanied by any of that less than great preparation for refugees, which mars freedom by burdening down the population with objects and possessions.
That’s why we love this country of ours. So thoughtful!
Be sure to compare the AP story on the Tal Afer war crime with the latter softcore NYT account -- NYT is on the battlements again, guarding against the facts whereever they are inconvenient to our way of life. Bully for them!
"Robert G. Kaiser: Well, do we know for sure that they do this? I share your suspicion that they do, but we also know that Bush DOES read the newspapers, despite saying he doesn't, and I bet he watches some TV too." Washington Post associate editor Robert G. Kaiser , September 8, "live" discussion
“The president, long reluctant to fire subordinates, came to a belated recognition that his administration was in trouble for the way it had dealt with the disaster, many of his supporters say. One moment of realization occurred on Thursday of last week when an aide carried a news agency report from New Orleans into the Oval Office for him to see.
The report was about the evacuees at the convention center, some dying and some already dead. Mr. Bush had been briefed that morning by his homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who was getting much of his information from Mr. Brown and was not aware of what was occurring there. The news account was the first that the president and his top advisers had heard not only of the conditions at the convention center but even that there were people there at all.
"He's not a screamer," a senior aide said of the president. But Mr. Bush, angry, directed the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to find out what was going on.
"The frustration throughout the week was getting good, reliable information," said the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House. "Getting truth on the ground in New Orleans was very difficult." -Elizabeth Bumiller, September 9 Italics added
...
…
The bullhorns of the national greatness movement, who will no doubt surround Hillary in her triumphant second place finish in 2008, have been experiencing uncharacteristic depression about the whole greatness thing. Luckily, the White House has been throwing greatness at us in clumps and cities lately. Not content to preside over the flight of a million people from the NOLA area, the White House modestly tossed another 200,000 on the pile from Tal Afar
“In a bid to soften resistance, the U.S. military carried out repeated air and artillery strikes on targets in the city, where most of the population of 200,000 was reported to have fled to the surrounding countryside.”
As Tom Friedman might put it, those 200 thousand are the freest people in the Middle East right now, and so soft and squeezable, like Charmain's toilet tissue, after we tickled them with our high explosives. We are very enthusiastic here. Many have been freed from a burden that all Buddhists deplore – life and limb. Others are freed of their houses, their vehicles, and all potable property left behind. Freedom is what the Iraq war is all about, and… and greatness. Oh, some say the Huns were great, others plump for Tamerlane. But such are the prejudices of liberal historians. Surely an objective view of King George the Feeble would elevate him to his proper place.
One is especially pleased to see that the bombing of a civilian town wasn’t accompanied by any of that less than great preparation for refugees, which mars freedom by burdening down the population with objects and possessions.
That’s why we love this country of ours. So thoughtful!
Be sure to compare the AP story on the Tal Afer war crime with the latter softcore NYT account -- NYT is on the battlements again, guarding against the facts whereever they are inconvenient to our way of life. Bully for them!
Friday, September 09, 2005
marx and pavlov
The Bush culture has made it pretty clear that Marxist class analysis must be supplemented with Pavlovian psychology. The governing class in this country salivates to the bell that opens the NYSE every morning – and that is their only physiological/moral response to any public event, the cue that creates their entire world. The world of the dog in the cage is intentionally narrowed by the scientist. The world of the rich has also been narrowed, by self-choice, during the last twenty five or so years. Reagan’s tax cuts for the wealthy, in retrospect, signaled not just a change in a particular phase of American history (the return of a particular set of oligarchs), but looks, now, like a monument to the end of the civic sense among the oligarchs tout court. Among the governing class, the civic sense, with its complications of ritual, its sacrifices, its seriousness, its orientation to an imagined social collective, has been pretty much taken down, like an old and drafty building. In its place is a new, sleeker building – one composed of a degree of inhumanity and cultural blindness that is very difficult to reckon with if one is operating with the old tools of analysis, the old sense of some shared value system, the old responsive angers that once powered the Left, dependent as they were on a dialectical relationship with the builders of the post-war order. Dependent, that is, on a system of recognitions, however skewed.
This decade has given us the full flavor of the new order. The manysplendored disasters of Iraq and now New Orleans produce a schizoid split in assessment – for where, on the level of the cornered class, one sees failure and misery, on the level of the contracting class, one sees endless opportunity. The Bell rings, and out come the Pavlovian rich, salivating to beat the band, lining their pockets with the sweetest little contracts to come down the pike since God signed that no-bidder with Adam and said let her rip. And Adam didn’t get cost overruns. Halliburton, of course, does.
So it is no surprise that the money now pouring out of Washington (and there goes that little decline in the deficit the Bushies were so proud of – who knew that unexpected things could impact a budget?) is going to be spent largely to enrich the circle of the Bush culture’s favored companies.
This WP article about Bush’s campaign manager and ex head of FEMA, Joe Allbaugh, has been much circulated in the blogosphere. Still, there are touches of marvelous obscenity in the article. Our favorite of all is distilled in these two grafs:
Among those clients [which Allbaugh’s consulting company represents] are: the KBR division of Haliburton; TruePosition, a manufacturer of wireless location products, services and devices; the Shaw Group, a provider of engineering, design, construction, and maintenance services to government and the private sector; and UltraStrip, which is marketing the first water filtration system approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I carry pictures of close friends who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks as a constant reminder of what we lost that day. It's my personal commitment to always honor their memory by working to protect this nation. I'm dedicated to helping private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
A man who will pimp his dead friends is certainly a man to trust in trying times. I would bet that the upper management of the companies on the client list are going to have great Christmas parties this year. At LI, we wish them the best of luck and hope that all the delicacies they devour at those end of the year parties taste of human blood, mixed with a little toxic Mississippi river water.
This decade has given us the full flavor of the new order. The manysplendored disasters of Iraq and now New Orleans produce a schizoid split in assessment – for where, on the level of the cornered class, one sees failure and misery, on the level of the contracting class, one sees endless opportunity. The Bell rings, and out come the Pavlovian rich, salivating to beat the band, lining their pockets with the sweetest little contracts to come down the pike since God signed that no-bidder with Adam and said let her rip. And Adam didn’t get cost overruns. Halliburton, of course, does.
So it is no surprise that the money now pouring out of Washington (and there goes that little decline in the deficit the Bushies were so proud of – who knew that unexpected things could impact a budget?) is going to be spent largely to enrich the circle of the Bush culture’s favored companies.
This WP article about Bush’s campaign manager and ex head of FEMA, Joe Allbaugh, has been much circulated in the blogosphere. Still, there are touches of marvelous obscenity in the article. Our favorite of all is distilled in these two grafs:
Among those clients [which Allbaugh’s consulting company represents] are: the KBR division of Haliburton; TruePosition, a manufacturer of wireless location products, services and devices; the Shaw Group, a provider of engineering, design, construction, and maintenance services to government and the private sector; and UltraStrip, which is marketing the first water filtration system approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I carry pictures of close friends who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks as a constant reminder of what we lost that day. It's my personal commitment to always honor their memory by working to protect this nation. I'm dedicated to helping private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
A man who will pimp his dead friends is certainly a man to trust in trying times. I would bet that the upper management of the companies on the client list are going to have great Christmas parties this year. At LI, we wish them the best of luck and hope that all the delicacies they devour at those end of the year parties taste of human blood, mixed with a little toxic Mississippi river water.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
That debbil GOP
Scratchings linked to our post about Lieberman the other day. I was interested to read one of his commentators accuse me of being a Republican.
I have been accused of many things, but this is a new one for me. Yet, in one way, it is a very just accusation. Lately, from my point of view (that of an extinct beast, much like the mastodon), I have been trying to sort out the relationship between the sense that this decade has seen the great American failure and the sense that the two party system here is broken. That sorting out begins with the premise that the parties are secondary to the real political life of the Republic. This premise is a hypothesis – I’m not going to defend it as the ultimate truth of the matter, but I think there’s a strong case to be made for constructing an analysis from it.
That analysis would trespass on the current verities of political analysis on my side, the liberal side. Given my premise, the question I want to put is: why did liberalism become so attached to one of the parties? I think there are good reasons for thinking that that attachment was devoutly wished by academic political scientists in the fifties and sixties, who felt that American political parties weren’t following the more rational European pattern – a pattern that sorted out the conservatives into a Conservative party, the Socialists into a Socialist party, etc. Rather, the American pattern was rather a jigsaw puzzle, in which populists would pop up as Republicans and segregationists would pop up as Democrats, etc. The rationalization of politics, according to the school prevailing in the fifties and sixties, would create parties as monopolists of ideologies.
This idea so sank into the framework of official political discourse that it is now presupposed. So when, for instance, a “radical” analysis of politics appears – for instance, Thomas Franks “what’s the matter with Kansas” – the problem goes something like: why don’t Kansans vote for their economic self interest, i.e. Democrats?
Myself, I think the process of this rationalization has been a disaster. The real question, to me, is: why have Kansas Republicans deviated from the old Progressive Republican norm? I think the answer is: the monopolization of ideologies by the parties has destroyed the machinery that made progressive politics possible in this country.
Take, for instance, Texas, where I live at the moment. The next Senatorial election here is going to be utterly predictable. The Republican candidate will be a rightwinger from hell. The liberal element in the state will concentrate exclusively on finding a Democrat of acceptable views to lose to him or her. The liberal element will devote an incredible amount of creativity and passion in a project that, intellectually, they know is doomed to failure. The Democrat they pick will, in the campaign, veer farther to the right than any New York State Republican. And that will be that.
Lefties will proceed to bitch and moan about the rightwing Dem, and propose that we all rush into the Green party. The right, which will have no competition whatsoever within the Republican party, will use its leverage to make its reactionary candidate even more reactionary – while at the same time guaranteeing that the freerider politics of borrowing and siphoning money disproportionately from the Federal government to Red states continues. This money will, in truth, be less than the money siphoned from the primary products extracted in the Red states which profit the investors living in New York City and the surrounding wealthy states.
Now, a fair question for a liberal to ask is: what is the weak link in this chain? To me, the obvious answer is: continuing to support the Democratic party unilaterally. By refusing to contact the Republican party, liberalism loses any of the leverage it used to have. Period. Instead of searching for Republican Yarboroughs, the liberal element will continue to stick with promoting losers at the statewide level. Instead of seeing that the Republican base is avid to exploit the government, as rational economic agents, the liberals will continue to affirm that the Republicans stand for small government – under the cover of which delusion Republicans will continue to maintain an expanded government. The reality is that this is a non-issue – in the Keynesian world system, the GDP taken up by a modern industrial state will probably range about the same percentage, regardless of the party in power. The last thirty years should have taught us that much, at least.
I have been accused of many things, but this is a new one for me. Yet, in one way, it is a very just accusation. Lately, from my point of view (that of an extinct beast, much like the mastodon), I have been trying to sort out the relationship between the sense that this decade has seen the great American failure and the sense that the two party system here is broken. That sorting out begins with the premise that the parties are secondary to the real political life of the Republic. This premise is a hypothesis – I’m not going to defend it as the ultimate truth of the matter, but I think there’s a strong case to be made for constructing an analysis from it.
That analysis would trespass on the current verities of political analysis on my side, the liberal side. Given my premise, the question I want to put is: why did liberalism become so attached to one of the parties? I think there are good reasons for thinking that that attachment was devoutly wished by academic political scientists in the fifties and sixties, who felt that American political parties weren’t following the more rational European pattern – a pattern that sorted out the conservatives into a Conservative party, the Socialists into a Socialist party, etc. Rather, the American pattern was rather a jigsaw puzzle, in which populists would pop up as Republicans and segregationists would pop up as Democrats, etc. The rationalization of politics, according to the school prevailing in the fifties and sixties, would create parties as monopolists of ideologies.
This idea so sank into the framework of official political discourse that it is now presupposed. So when, for instance, a “radical” analysis of politics appears – for instance, Thomas Franks “what’s the matter with Kansas” – the problem goes something like: why don’t Kansans vote for their economic self interest, i.e. Democrats?
Myself, I think the process of this rationalization has been a disaster. The real question, to me, is: why have Kansas Republicans deviated from the old Progressive Republican norm? I think the answer is: the monopolization of ideologies by the parties has destroyed the machinery that made progressive politics possible in this country.
Take, for instance, Texas, where I live at the moment. The next Senatorial election here is going to be utterly predictable. The Republican candidate will be a rightwinger from hell. The liberal element in the state will concentrate exclusively on finding a Democrat of acceptable views to lose to him or her. The liberal element will devote an incredible amount of creativity and passion in a project that, intellectually, they know is doomed to failure. The Democrat they pick will, in the campaign, veer farther to the right than any New York State Republican. And that will be that.
Lefties will proceed to bitch and moan about the rightwing Dem, and propose that we all rush into the Green party. The right, which will have no competition whatsoever within the Republican party, will use its leverage to make its reactionary candidate even more reactionary – while at the same time guaranteeing that the freerider politics of borrowing and siphoning money disproportionately from the Federal government to Red states continues. This money will, in truth, be less than the money siphoned from the primary products extracted in the Red states which profit the investors living in New York City and the surrounding wealthy states.
Now, a fair question for a liberal to ask is: what is the weak link in this chain? To me, the obvious answer is: continuing to support the Democratic party unilaterally. By refusing to contact the Republican party, liberalism loses any of the leverage it used to have. Period. Instead of searching for Republican Yarboroughs, the liberal element will continue to stick with promoting losers at the statewide level. Instead of seeing that the Republican base is avid to exploit the government, as rational economic agents, the liberals will continue to affirm that the Republicans stand for small government – under the cover of which delusion Republicans will continue to maintain an expanded government. The reality is that this is a non-issue – in the Keynesian world system, the GDP taken up by a modern industrial state will probably range about the same percentage, regardless of the party in power. The last thirty years should have taught us that much, at least.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
I had an Edward till a Michael Brown killed him
Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
I had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;
-- Richard III
In a previous post, the Counted and the Uncounted, LI wrote:
"One expects that the clearance of the Convention Center, since it is administered by thieves and murderers, will probably encompass hiding a number of corpses. This is evidence, after all, and you want to burn or bury evidence. So LI hopes that all those who knew the victims – the parents, or children, or friends – will not give up when the victims turn up in the “missing” list – will point the finger and make as much noise as possible."
This morning, in the LA Times, we read this:
"FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead
From Reuters
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. agency leading Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts said Tuesday that it does not want the news media to photograph the dead as they are recovered.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected journalists' requests to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims."
We saw them crushed in life, jeered at as they struggled to survive, and burned furtively by the criminals that rule in D.C. We can only offer a voodoo hope that the murdered of New Orleans will be revenged in one way or another.
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
I had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;
-- Richard III
In a previous post, the Counted and the Uncounted, LI wrote:
"One expects that the clearance of the Convention Center, since it is administered by thieves and murderers, will probably encompass hiding a number of corpses. This is evidence, after all, and you want to burn or bury evidence. So LI hopes that all those who knew the victims – the parents, or children, or friends – will not give up when the victims turn up in the “missing” list – will point the finger and make as much noise as possible."
This morning, in the LA Times, we read this:
"FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead
From Reuters
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. agency leading Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts said Tuesday that it does not want the news media to photograph the dead as they are recovered.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected journalists' requests to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims."
We saw them crushed in life, jeered at as they struggled to survive, and burned furtively by the criminals that rule in D.C. We can only offer a voodoo hope that the murdered of New Orleans will be revenged in one way or another.
tales from FEMA
I don’t know if I’ve told this story in some post. But here goes…
I once worked, temporarily, for FEMA. I was in Santa Fe, trying to write a novel. I needed a job, so I went to a temp agency and was sent out on various jobs.
The instructions I’d get from the temp agency sometimes merely consisted of an address. One morning I set out for one of those addresses. The previous night I’d been at a party, and indulged in a little doobie. I still felt a bit of the pleasant bloodborne vertiginousness of the joint in my system as I found myself driving into the parking lot of what looked like a police station. Vertigo turned immediately into paranoia. I went into a building that seemed occupied by cops, and went down several flights of stairs until I found the office I was to report to.
It was FEMA.
The place was crawling with ex military. My boss was recently retired from a fat gig with NORAD, about which he liked to reminisce at lunch time with the other ex Norad boys – the times they would commandeer planes and go to Labrador on fishing expeditions, or parties to which they would fly in girls, etc. It sounded like the defense of our nuclear capability was a lot of fun if you were in the right circles. That first day, however, when I was briefed as to what they wanted me to do, I had this feeling that I must have smoked more than pot the night before. This was their plan: they wanted me to transcribe into a computer a typed up list of places in New Mexico that had, check one, toilet facilities, check two, kitchen facilities, three sleeping facilities. This list was supposed to be pulled out in case of nuclear attack. My boss even, helpfully, pulled out a diagram illustrating nuclear attack on a city, with circles of the various degrees of salvation radiating out from the dead center.
I should point out that this was 1993. I should point out that my boss wanted this work done because they had the funding to do the work, even though, as he acknowledged, it might not be the most useful work. I should point out that the list I was using was last updated in 1970.
So for the next two weeks I became an expert on where New Mexicans could take a dump in 1970.
…
In my last post, I was trying to analyze the culture of busyness that, I believe, intersects with the macro ineffectuality which plagues all plans floated in the Bush culture. The emphasis here is that busyness can operate even better as the content of busyness – the acts of busyness – tend towards zero. At zero, there can be complete speed and control. The ur-Bushites – Bremer and Brown – were peculiarly talented in pushing busyness towards the zero. My little FEMA job (under Good King Clinton, it should be added) was no more nor less busy than other jobs I have had, but it is distinguished by its outstanding uselessness. It had one justification – it was funded.
Those who would say, hey, that is the government. Private enterprise can’t afford such luxuries should study the exemplary career of the CFO of Enron. Profit is not a sign of content, as any hedge fund trader could tell you.
...
Eventually, I was displaced from my office at FEMA by the Governor of New Mexico, as a real moral panic arose in the state. There was an outbreak of a hantavirus carried by field mice that seemed especially potent, and the Governor commandeered an office in FEMA to make it seem like he was in charge.
I once worked, temporarily, for FEMA. I was in Santa Fe, trying to write a novel. I needed a job, so I went to a temp agency and was sent out on various jobs.
The instructions I’d get from the temp agency sometimes merely consisted of an address. One morning I set out for one of those addresses. The previous night I’d been at a party, and indulged in a little doobie. I still felt a bit of the pleasant bloodborne vertiginousness of the joint in my system as I found myself driving into the parking lot of what looked like a police station. Vertigo turned immediately into paranoia. I went into a building that seemed occupied by cops, and went down several flights of stairs until I found the office I was to report to.
It was FEMA.
The place was crawling with ex military. My boss was recently retired from a fat gig with NORAD, about which he liked to reminisce at lunch time with the other ex Norad boys – the times they would commandeer planes and go to Labrador on fishing expeditions, or parties to which they would fly in girls, etc. It sounded like the defense of our nuclear capability was a lot of fun if you were in the right circles. That first day, however, when I was briefed as to what they wanted me to do, I had this feeling that I must have smoked more than pot the night before. This was their plan: they wanted me to transcribe into a computer a typed up list of places in New Mexico that had, check one, toilet facilities, check two, kitchen facilities, three sleeping facilities. This list was supposed to be pulled out in case of nuclear attack. My boss even, helpfully, pulled out a diagram illustrating nuclear attack on a city, with circles of the various degrees of salvation radiating out from the dead center.
I should point out that this was 1993. I should point out that my boss wanted this work done because they had the funding to do the work, even though, as he acknowledged, it might not be the most useful work. I should point out that the list I was using was last updated in 1970.
So for the next two weeks I became an expert on where New Mexicans could take a dump in 1970.
…
In my last post, I was trying to analyze the culture of busyness that, I believe, intersects with the macro ineffectuality which plagues all plans floated in the Bush culture. The emphasis here is that busyness can operate even better as the content of busyness – the acts of busyness – tend towards zero. At zero, there can be complete speed and control. The ur-Bushites – Bremer and Brown – were peculiarly talented in pushing busyness towards the zero. My little FEMA job (under Good King Clinton, it should be added) was no more nor less busy than other jobs I have had, but it is distinguished by its outstanding uselessness. It had one justification – it was funded.
Those who would say, hey, that is the government. Private enterprise can’t afford such luxuries should study the exemplary career of the CFO of Enron. Profit is not a sign of content, as any hedge fund trader could tell you.
...
Eventually, I was displaced from my office at FEMA by the Governor of New Mexico, as a real moral panic arose in the state. There was an outbreak of a hantavirus carried by field mice that seemed especially potent, and the Governor commandeered an office in FEMA to make it seem like he was in charge.
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