I don’t wanna live here anymore, in the western world
By Thoreau
Don’t worry, I won’t use this post to bash Obama, because as much as I have reason to be upset with him (and I’ve already laid out that argument in multiple posts) the rot runs much deeper than any elected official from any party. This goes to the heart of the system, the culture. I expect that when crimes are revealed on the front page of the paper, somebody will go to jail. Or, at the very least, somebody will go on trial, and maybe find a loophole to squeeze through. That outcome wouldn’t surprise me. But when the revealed criminals are very openly excused and given immunity, by the ostensible leaders of the ostensible opposition party, that says something big. I would say that it’s a sign of the con being perpetrated, except it’s so open that it’s not a con. The con man has to lie to you about some non-existent bank account in Nigeria. Here, nobody lied to the public, at least about the major points. It was all very open. Reid and Pelosi didn’t really con us, they just did it, plain and simple. And they will get away with it, which says something about the culture.
Yes, an argument can be made that however much Reid and Pelosi and their cohort deserve punishment, the other side deserves even more punishment. That’s assuming that you continue to accept the premises of the system, and dutifully choose between the party that commits the crimes and the party with a leadership that will not actually stop the crimes. However, stepping back and looking at it, the whole system is broken if that’s our choice. The only option, then, is to opt out, and vote for, well, anybody else. (Some would say that revolution is an option, but I say that if you have enough energized people to go and burn down enough stuff, you have enough energized people to vote out the bums and vote in a real opposition.) The fact that most Americans don’t care something about the culture.
“Not me! I’m not just blindly excusing crimes! I’m trying to make a difference!” you say, and you’re probably right. If nobody else is voting third party, it’s irrational for you to vote third party. However small the difference between the parties might be, if there’s any difference at all, and if those are the only viable options, then you are being completely rational by voting for the guys who promised to at least pick the undigested corn kernels out of the sh!t sandwich.
But here we are: Crimes were openly revealed on the front page of the nation’s most important newspaper two and a half years ago, and less than a week ago the ostensible political enemies of the criminals gave them full immunity. And there is no uproar outside a few corners of the blogosphere and a few activist groups. The fundamental significance of this is lost on or irrelevant to most people, and so the crimes will go on.
This is the end of evolution’s rise
The feeding frenzy of the uncivilized.
The one time that the anchorman wasn’t lying to us, we ignored him. The anchorman told us about real crimes, and we yawned and some of us voted for the criminals and some of us voted for the people who promised to drive a getaway vehicle. And so it goes on. And I guess now I understand why the anchorman can’t stop lying: Because we ignore him when he tells us the truth.
Comment by Katherine —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
I think working through this by agonizing publicly over a potential presidential vote shows a lack of imagination. Acting as if lining up behind one party or another or none, and burning shit down, are the only options also shows a lack of imagination. The other option is try to directly change public opinion yourself, instead of trying to send messages to leaders who don’t give much of a crap–get enough of the public on your side & the leaders will start to give a crap (and not because they notice you not voting).
I voted for Nader in 2000 in Mass. I don’t feel real guilty about it–it had no effect on the outcome, I knew it would have no effect on the outcome & wouldn’t have considered doing so in a swing state, I even made a halfhearted attempt at vote swapping so I might have been a net plus for Gore. But I do regret it. But more to the point: that vote, like working your heart out for Obama, like most of what goes on in Daily Kos, was directed at trying to change the country by sending a message to the leaders of the Democratic party & hoping that THEY would lead the country in a better direction. That’s what most of the liberal blogs are directed at, too. I think it’s useful–organizing successful primary challenges against people like Al Wynn is certainly far more effective than trying to send a message by voting for Nader which manifestly DID NOT WORK as far as forcing the Democrats not to betray the left on issues important to Nader voters. But personally, it’s not for me, and it makes even less sense for someone like you who identifies much less with the Democrats & their economic policies than I do.
The other approach is to disengage from party politics a bit–not to the point of not voting (at least I feel that way for the usual civics class reasons)–and focus on organizations that work directly on the issues that are most important to you. Not all politically relevant organizations are political parties. You can stay home or vote Barr if you like, and I can vote Obama, but we can both give time & money to the ACLU, or write blog posts on national surveillance state issues.
I can understand feeling that the coalition you’re looking for is not really going to be formed within, or have much influence over, the Democratic party & therefore you won’t register as a Democrat. But a very large share–I would say an overwhelming majority but I assume that’d be contested–of the members of the public who agree with you are Democrats, for a variety of reasons. And they’re just not going to listen if you try to convince them that the most effective course of action is to bolt the Dems for the Libertarian Party or the Greens or in favor of not voting. Party politics in any form is not the only game in town, not even for someone as square & averse to burning shit down as me.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
I do give money to the ACLU, FWIW. And most of our readers here don’t need to be reminded that there is an unchecked security state.
Maybe I need to start getting involved in the ACLU, rather than just sending money.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
July 12, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
However, stepping back and looking at it, the whole system is broken if that’s our choice.
It seems to me in the case where things go massively wrong, there is often nearly blanket amnesty. So, for example, if enough people commit treason, such treason won’t keep you out of the Union, or even keep you from voting. And, I think, that was probably the right decision for the US, however light the lash for such crimes.
Comment by srv —
July 12, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
It’s Thoreau’s birthday today.
I wonder what he would think of this.
Oh, and why can’t all those folks who give RP $7M in one day make a real PAC with 50M or so? At least it would raise the expense for the bad folk.
Hoyer, Pelosi and Reid sold us out for pennies.
Comment by Mona —
July 12, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Many of them have, and the Ron Paul “money bomb” guys are organizing it — with support from the ACLU to the extent the ACLU can, per its non-profit status, support the PAC aspect of this coalition.
So y’all quit your (righteous) bitching and join Strangebedfellows and the related AccountabilityNow PAC.
Comment by TGGP —
July 12, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
It’s irrational to vote for anybody in an election for anything higher than the munincipal level, as the probability that your vote will have any effect is less than playing the lotto.
Comment by Mr Duncan —
July 13, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Katherine,
I think it was wrong to vote for Nader to send a message to the major parties. Nader wanted Green issues highlighted during the 2000 campaign and he wanted to get federal funding status for the GPUS. He didn’t expect the Democrats to “get the message”, but he did expect them to lose and try to get their base back. Everything about the last 8 years shows that the Dems got the wrong message, that they need to bamboozle their base, as shown by the Obama thing. Literally as soon as the primary ended, they lined up behind the Republicans again.
If you voted for Nader, you did the right thing. But perhaps you did not have the right reason.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
July 13, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
It would be nice if Rachael Ray actually were head of a sleeper-cell, intent on bombing the Oregon State-house — from discussion of the Ray-Ray/Dunkin’/kaffiyeh ad, I gleaned that it was shot in Salem — so then we could imprison her for necessitating the rise of FISA: the Mustant Years. Alas, she will not be Martha Stewart to domestic surveillance’s accounting scandal.
Damnit.
Comment by stuck in 200 —
July 14, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Back about 20 years ago I took a course on Canadian politics. The professor contrasted the reaction in Canada to the news the the RMCP had illegally wiretapped Qebecois separatists in the ’70’s with the reaction in the U.S. to Watergate and the Church Committee findings: “The difference between Canada and the U.S. is that when Canadians found out the Mounties had broken the law, they changed the law to spare them future inconvenience.”
Not so funny anymore.