Gramsci’s Time of Monsters

I’m going to step outside the realm of American history and politics for a moment, because I think it might be useful to consider our American Crisis from a different point of view.  We’ve been asking ourselves “how can those people (Trump’s supporters) believe him?” and “Why can’t people wake up and see what the problem is?”  I think a long-dead Italian revolutionary can help us answer those questions.

The Italian I’m thinking of is Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist theorist and revolutionary, who died on April 27, 1937, after being sentenced to 11 years in prison by Mussolini, whose fascist government outlawed the Communist Party in Italy, of which Gramsci was a leader.

Gramsci’s great idea is cultural hegemony, which, in my opinion, is perilous to neglect.  I think it has great explanatory value if applied to the weirdness and strains of contemporary America life.  Gramsci developed the idea while in prison, where he filled 30 notebooks with ideas and theories before his death.  The collection of Gramsci’s essays is simply and poignantly titled The Prison Notebooks.

I first became interested in Gramsci when I read a short quotation from an essay in his Notebooks.

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Sounds interesting, if a little boring. The version I read had been translated as:

“The crisis consists precisely of this: the old is dying and the new cannot be born; this is a time of monsters.”

I don’t know which translation is more faithful to Gramsci’s Italian, but I greatly prefer the second.  I also think it’s a concise summary of where we find ourselves today.

Cultural hegemony explains how ruling classes (the bourgeoisie, the middle and upper classes; capitalists) maintain their power over the great mass of people by obtaining their consent to be ruled, even if the objective conditions – the ability to make a living, rent or buy a house, and put food on the table – of the working class are less than desirable.

Consent is created and maintained through education and the media, which develops and disseminates an approved ideology (an understanding of how things work; capitalism as opposed to socialism; democracy instead of aristocracy; American exceptionalism; neoliberalism) and culture (rugged individualism; “America, Love It or Leave It”; John Wayne movies; Father Knows Best; “As American as apple pie”).  This mixture of ideology and culture, through which rulers and their rules are legitimized, is cultural hegemony. People are acculturated into it from the moment of birth; by the time they’re adults, it’s just the way the world works, even if the world stinks and is full of inequality and suffering.  The wealthy are virtuous examples of personal initiative; the poor are tongue-clucking examples of personal moral failures.

A similar idea was developed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Media.  The media – newspapers, magazines, television news, the internet, movies – paint an attractive and benign image of America, especially of American actions overseas.  If all is well in America, then all is well in the world.  Or so it is assumed. America has the responsibility to maintain this world order, which everyone in America agrees is a Good Thing, perhaps ordained by God. The hypnotic power of the media ensures that Americans are indoctrinated with this vision of a benign America capitalism. It’s important to note, though, that manufactured consent isn’t the result of some vast conspiracy; rather, it exists because the media create, and are influenced by, the dominant cultural hegemony.  As it happens, this includes a favorable view of the American empire and the interests of capitalists.

Gramsci’s cultural hegemony builds on Marx, who wrote that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.”  The great value of cultural hegemony to the ruling class is that it allows them to rule with minimal violence (toward white people).  People accept, without much thought, the legitimacy of government rules and the precepts taught in schools and churches; if the ideology and culture are legitimate, so the reasoning goes, then a predatory economic system like capitalism (which is part of America’s ideology) is also considered legitimate, even if it drives people into debt peonage.

The cultural hegemony of capitalism includes the precept that individuals are responsible for their own behavior, their own success or failure – and economic failure is looked upon as an individual moral failure.  In Puritan terms, if you fail economically, then you’re not one of the Elect, one of the saved, and you are condemned to misery in this life and hell in the next. Nothing can be done about it; that’s just the way things are. The existence of systemic injustices is rejected as an insult to the superior personal initiative of the pious keepers of wealth and culture.

This is obviously absurd and unsustainable, yet it has persisted, even dominated, American life since the thirteen original colonies banded together to fight off the imperialism of their mother country.  Gramsci, recognizing the absurdity of a forever stable cultural hegemony, also developed the idea of the “organic crisis,” which is a crisis so great that it touches on every aspect of the cultural hegemony developed by the ruling class:  capitalism, politics, ideology, culture, and the environment.  This is a period “when things fall apart,” a time of suffering and authoritarianism.  A time, perhaps, of a pandemic.  Or climate change.

Whatever the proximate cause, the crisis is due to the natural or organic operation of the capitalist system:  the rapacious accumulation of capital, widening inequality, corruption or ineptitude which causes a loss of confidence in the government, and various system failures (stock market crashes, inflation, stagflation), all of which threaten the stability of bourgeoisie rule.  Violence increases, and people are out of work, homeless, and hungry.  The old is dying, but the new cannot be born … Suffering becomes common … Revolution is in the air … It’s a time of monsters …The monster of fascism rises … Or workers rebel and eliminate the ruling class.

Why do I think this is important?  Because it describes much of what is happening in the U.S. right now.  Our empire is collapsing.  We’re losing allies.  Our economic system generates massive inequality.  As Umair Haque recently noted, half of America is poor.  Angry, mistrustful voters elected a populist with authoritarian tendencies to the highest office in the land.

Crisis is upon us, spurred by the excess of capitalism.  The horse has thrown us to the ground, but it still gallops exotically around the globe in search of profits.

Yet, despite rising inequality, most Americans deny being poor, because in American culture to be poor is to be a moral failure.  And few people question the wisdom of an economic system that creates so much human misery and destroys the environment.  Despite Bernie Sanders’ campaign, most Americans have a negative view of socialism, even if they like individual socialist policies.  The power of cultural hegemony prevents us from acknowledging our misery.

Now we’re also dealing with a pandemic that has killed over 50,000 Americans and abruptly brought capitalism to its knees.  People don’t have money for food or rent.  Discontent is rising.  Strikes are contemplated.  But reformism, not revolution, is the preferred response.

In spite of his demonstrated incompetence, Trump’s cultish supporters haven’t wavered in their support of him, although he may be losing independent and women voters.  Even “ordinary” Republicans and Democrats, who are suffering alongside Trump’s supporters, refuse to abandon the “American Way.”  The cultural weight of a clichés like “America, Love It or Leave It” or “Make America Great Again” is so important to the American psyche that people can’t let them go, even though the weight of their beliefs is pulling them down into dark waters.

Hegemonic capitalism has created a crisis for ordinary Americans, while wealth continues to flow to those at the top.  The middle class, the bourgeoisie, is being destroyed.  Yet, the cynical manipulation of the cultural values of the working class by a populist president still protects the ruling class, and the blanket of cultural hegemony has become the funeral pall for the casket of the middle class.

What can we do?

First, we must become aware of our own ideology and cultural values and consciously reject those which dehumanize people or destroy the environment.  This “struggle against ourselves” is necessary to ensure we aren’t acting without thinking (which is what ideology is designed to encourage) in ways that strengthen the prevailing cultural hegemony.

Second, we should identify one or more stress points in the current environment that are ripe for change.  It might be the concentration camps scattered around the country, a particularly abusive company (a local meat packing company which fails to provide PPE to its employees; a large landlord threatening to evict the unemployed; a utility company turning off people’s water supply during a pandemic).  Whatever the injustice, combine with others not to reform it, but to change its mode of operation – and perhaps its ownership – so that abuses are eliminated. This will require time and patience, and failures may occur, but we must engage in the battles if we are to win the war.

Third, we must explain to others why we’re in a time of great crisis and what systemic changes must occur to resolve it.  We should aim to provide not just a critique, but a vision of a better world. This activity is movement building, which is slow, frustrating work, but absolutely necessary if we are to be prepared to act decisively when a crisis reaches a breaking point – such as a national election during a time of a pandemic and widespread economic distress.

Fourth, and most urgent, we must do whatever we can to ensure Trump and McConnell are not reelected.  They are like blood clots in our brains, threatening to do permanent, perhaps fatal, damage to our republic.  Donate money, volunteer to work (remotely) in a phone or direct messaging bank.

Gramsci’s cultural hegemony and organic crisis accurately describe contemporary America’s political, economic, and social crises.  Monsters are roaming through our streets and airwaves, and we do not yet know if a Beowulf will arise from among us to slay them.

***

Additional Reading

Adamson, Walter L. 2014 (paperback). Hegemony and Revolution:  A Study of Antonio Gramsci’s Political and Cultural Theory.  Brattleboro, Vermont: Echo Point Books and Media.  A good exploration of the evolution of Gramsci’s thought.

Gramsci, Antonio. 2011.  Prison Notebooks, Volumes I-III. New York: Columbia University Press.  These are the source documents for Gramsci ideas.  Unfortunately, the boxed set is very expensive ($80-plus), but perhaps you can find them at a library (interlibrary loan).

____. 2018 (eBook). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Amazon Services LLC.  Yes, I know, Amazon.  But this is an affordable ($4.99) version of 637 pages of the Prison Notebooks.

____.  2015 (paperback). An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci: His Life, Thought and Legacy.  Bloomsbury Academic. A good biography of Gramsci, plus the development of his ideas.

Le Blanc, Paul. 2016 (paperback).  From Marx to Gramsci.  Chicago:  Haymarket Books.  A collection of essays that provide an historical overview of Marxist thought.

Among these Rights are…

I’ve read a few comments on posts saying, in effect, that those protesting against Safer at Home restrictions should give up their right to health care should they become infected. After all, by ignoring physical distancing, they are endangering others.

I agree the protesters are thoughtless and dangerous, yet we can’t allow our response to them to fall to their level — that is, to devalue their lives as much as they appear to devalue to the lives of others.

If we allow that to happen, if we indulge our own anger, then far more than our economy or even our republic will be in jeopardy. The foundation of Western civilization and the Judaeo-Christian tradition (however imperfectly and hypocritically both are lived) is based on valuing the lives of individuals.

Capitalism, the economic system the “open up” protesters support, is a more recent component of Western civilization (only about 500 years old). It claims to value individuals, but it does not. Capitalism values “impersonal” market signals (hint: they’re rarely impersonal, but that’s another story), economic power, and the commodification of everything, including human beings and the ecological requirements for life on earth. Everything must have a price tag.

Yes, a few people act as “free individuals” within capitalism (the wealthy), but the individualism and freedom of the vast majority of people is constrained by the need to sell their labor to survive. They are not truly free, because the majority of their waking hours are spent in undemocratic workplaces in which they have little or no control over their activities, and the “rewards” of their labor may not, in fact, be adequate to ensure their survival (the result of the exploitation of labor).

The “capitalism equals freedom” equation is the result of a brilliant marketing effort by libertarian and conservative economists and philosophers since the 1930s. See Frederick Hayek, Milton Friedman, and many others.

The equation is a lie.

The protesters are acting under the illusion that the elimination of government constraint on individual economic activity is the only definition of freedom. Clearly, they are mistaken, as an examination of their own lives would attest. Freedom from government is, at best, a partial definition of freedom.

1. The elimination of corporate constraints — non-worker-controlled constraints — on their productive activities as workers (and even as small business owners) is a component of freedom.

2. Freedom from economic want (food, housing, medical care) is a component.

3. Possessing critical thinking and associated skills, along with internalized “content” to use as a foundation for critical thinking, is a component of freedom.

Sadly, the “open up” protesters seem to lack an understanding of three of the four basic components of freedom, so they’re reacting against the one constraint they can see and understand. Ironically, since the precipitous elimination of the temporary government constraint on their economic activities may result in their deaths, they are demanding the freedom to die.

Since many of the protesters recognize the risk (or, at least, claim with bravado to understand the risk), perhaps they believe that the “freedom to die” is the only true freedom available to them in the world of corporate capitalism.

Capitalism and right-wing libertarianism are a death cult.

The “open up” protesters may believe they are advocating for economic freedom, but that’s not why governors in states like Georgia are easing restrictions on Safer at Home requirements.  The governors (and Republican legislators in Wisconsin) are ending restrictions because they don’t value workers as individuals enough to help them survive a crisis that’s not of their making; in other words, the governors simply don’t want to pay unemployment benefits to struggling workers and their families.

The governors are using semi-pious language like “helping small businesses to survive,” but they don’t really mean it.  A ten second analysis of what’s likely to happen shows this to be a falsehood.  The governors are forcing small businesses to open and recall their workers.  Small businesses will no longer be able to claim loss of business through their insurance companies.  But, since most people support Safer at Home restrictions, the door of small businesses will be open and staff will be waiting to serve, but few, if any customers will appear.  In a month or two, the businesses will be forced to lay off their workers and close their doors.

We’ll be back at square one, with only an increase in misery to show for our efforts.

What can we do for them?

• Recognize their very real economic fears.
• Demand that legislatures (state and federal) provide a guaranteed minimum income for the duration of the pandemic plus six months.
• Demand an end to evictions and foreclosures for the duration of the pandemic plus six months. Financially support small landlords.
• Demand economic support for small businesses for the duration of the pandemic plus six months.
• Demand free health care.
• Demand adequate daily PPE for all workers who cannot remain at home.

These are solutions to the “real” proximate reasons for the “open up” protests. Ideological differences won’t vanish, of course, and those who benefit from the existing system of artificial scarcity (finance capitalists) will object, but we will have fulfilled our responsibilities toward our republic, our civilization and, most importantly, to our fellow human beings, however obnoxious we may find some of them.

Then we can move onto the real work of dismantling that destructive upstart, capitalism.

 

Standing Up

This is a photograph, taken by Michael Chow of The Arizona Republic newspaper, of an ICU nurse named Lauren Leander. Ms. Leander held a silent counter-protest at an Arizona rally where Trump supporters demanded their governor “open the state for business.”

There are other reported instances in which nurses stared down the armed men Trump encouraged to “liberate” their states from pandemic-related restrictions. In one case, nurses stood in the streets, silent sentinels of the American conscience, to block a caravan of protesters who intended to snarl traffic in front of a hospital, delaying ambulance crews racing to emergency rooms with patients requiring urgent care.

In 1776, Thomas Paine published a series of essays with the overall title of The American Crisis. Paine urged the colonists to rise against the British army, which was then occupying towns and cities throughout the colonies. Times were grim, and Paine sought to buck up morale.

George Washington and his army were wintering that year at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River near Trenton, New Jersey. Washington’s army had experienced several defeats, morale was low, and thousands of soldiers deserted the army for the relative safety of their homes. The rebellion of the colonists was in danger of collapse.

One of Paine’s essays so inspired Washington that he had it read aloud to his soldiers.

“These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

The nurses inspire all of us. They are daily exposed to a myriad of circumstances in which they might be infected by the coronavirus, yet they make the time (and assume the risk of additional exposure to the virus) to protest the insanity fomented by our president.

Inspiring, yes. But here’s the problem: they are standing alone.

“[T]he summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country …”

The rest of us are obeying “safer at home” orders, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But we’re relying on — indeed, implicitly begging — a small group of nurses, who are already battling to save lives in ICUs across the nation, to save our republic.

“[B]ut he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

The fact that nurses are standing alone indicates there is a deep and shameful disfunction in our body politic. The rest of us are failing to fulfill our responsibilities as citizens. As we retreated into our homes, we abandoned the defense of the nation.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered …”

I didn’t venture out when “Open Up” protesters gathered on the lawn of the Wisconsin state capitol. I have a lung disease, and I’m on oxygen full time, so even before the pandemic I wasn’t very mobile. Wandering through a group of people now, for me, would almost certainly prove fatal

But … But … I didn’t think about how I might have staged a counter-protest without exposing myself to the virus — I just assumed that I could do nothing. I gave up before I began, which isn’t a good attitude for a foot soldier in the long war to possess.

What could I have done? Well, numerous “car protests” have been organized to demand everything from an increase in unemployment benefits to the protection of out-of-work renters from landlords. So, I could have taped signs on my car and driven slowly around Capitol Square, giving witness against a death cult while avoiding exposure to the virus.

That I assumed I could do nothing, that I settled into my easy chair with a comfortable alibi and a cup of tea, represents a failure of imagination on my part. However, I do know, now, what kind of neighbor I’m in danger of becoming: one of the people known to history as a “Good German.” I saw and did nothing.

“Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

There may or may not be other things that I can do, but I know that in the future I can’t give up without seriously and creatively considering what might be done, however small. But there is one thing I must never do again: I must never allow a nurse named Lauren Leander stand alone.

Who is Suppressed by Whom?

I think the perception by Donald Trump’s supporters that liberals view them with contempt is accurate, although I will point out the feeling is mutual. I’ve read more social media posts than I can count in which Trump supporters (and conservatives generally) gloat about “owning the libtards.” I also think that claims there are Intelligent People for Trump (should I trademark that phrase?) are superficial at best. Yes, there are Red-Hatted people who have college degrees, who’ve graduated from law schools and other professional programs, but I deny that it’s possible to exercise intelligence, to reflect on what’s best for the people of America, and also support Donald Trump. There are enough “Never Trump” conservatives around to support that claim.

Having said that, I can sympathize with claims of repression, even if they’re baseless, because I’m a member of a group that has been routinely suppressed by conservatives and liberals. A bit of history is in order.

The sentiments expressed by both of the dominant political sides in contemporary America are extreme not solely because they want to win the next election, but because people recognize (even if they can’t express it) the stakes are higher than the outcome of the next election. There are, in fact, at least two competing visions of what America should be, and that’s what all the shouting is about.

One vision is that of a white, conservative, and Protestant America in which “Father Knows Best” values are the putative ideals. These ideals are, as Hamlet says, “More honor’d in the breach than the observance,” but that’s true of all human ideals. One of the anthems of conservatives when I was growing up was Okie from Muskogee by Merle Haggard.

“We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free …

“I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.”

The Vietnam War was dragging on interminably, shattering American and Vietnamese lives in shocking numbers, even as the 1968 Tet Offensive demonstrated that hopes for an American victory were futile. Nixon, although he ran as anti-war candidate in 1968, sabotaged peace talks for political gain, and then aggressively expanded the war once elected. War weariness was growing, especially among the young, who questioned the judgment of their elders. But “Good Americans,” according to both Nixon (who appealed to the “silent majority,” which Trump has imitated) and Merle Haggard, were fed up with protests in the streets and the demands of “minorities.” It was as if anti-war protesters and civil rights activists couldn’t be good Americans. Apparently, Nixon didn’t subscribe to historian Howard Zinn’s belief that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

Haggard’s anthem to the self-appointed “true Americans” struck a note of pride in Middle America, much like Lee Greenwood’s I’m Proud to be an American did the first time Americans invaded Iraq in 1984. (Greenwood’s song also appealed to many liberals, who willingly succumbed to the dangerously contagious patriotic fever associated with war.) What’s seldom noted is that Merle Haggard was battling a drug addiction problem that was at least as bad as any confronting the long-haired hippies he excoriated.

To their credit, however, conservatives back in the day were capable of bemused self-reflection. I offer the popularity of Jennie C. Riley’s 1968 hit, Harper Valley P.T.A as evidence for this assertion.

The conservative view of America is one that people imagine existed before free love, drugs, hippies, militant blacks, and bra-burning liberated women ruined everything. (If only they had stayed in their kitchens, grumped many a hungry man.) Even before Trump, this was not a democratic vision. White Americans (males in particular, but also many women) have always assumed their rights didn’t extend to everyone. Like the ancient Greek polis of Athens, in which citizenship was limited and the wealth of the city depended upon slavery, white freedom is built on top of a subservient class. Black Americans have fewer opportunities for education, jobs, and safe places to live. I will go further and say that white freedom in capitalist societies requires that many other people must be unfree, because whites don’t want to be governed by, or share resources with, nonwhites. Even more, one of the ways the prosperity of the wealthy is safeguarded is by ensuring less-than-wealthy white people believe they are superior to people of color; it prevents poor whites and poor blacks (among others) from uniting and destroying the wealthy. This is the racial bribe, and it was offered to whites quite early in American history. Poor whites were/are extended some privileges not available to blacks; in return, whites do not ally with blacks, even though it’s in their best interest to do so. Today, it’s known as white privilege. The existence of the white nationalist or supremacy movement — which is endemic not only among Trump’s supporters, but within the Republican Party and the conservative movement more generally — is testimony enough the racial bribe persists.

The conservative view of freedom requires freedom from government. Government exists to patrol the borders and enforce contracts; its overriding responsibility is to protect property (capital), not to ensure the flourishing of people. Conservatives view responsibility as personal and, because they are the beneficiaries of centuries of white privilege, they are hostile to notions that the failure of individuals to thrive might have systemic causes. Individual rights are more important than social responsibilities.

Conservatives don’t like even the Postal Service anymore, even though mail carriers, with their “rain, sleet, snow” motto, are paragons of personal responsibility. Of course, the employer is the problem, not the mail carriers. Conservatives can’t allow the government to successfully provide a needed service (other than defense and a judiciary to enforce contracts), because citizens might stumble upon the idea that a government can offer worthwhile benefits to ordinary people. I wonder what good old Benjamin Franklin, the first postmaster-general, who smiles at us from the $100 bills that we light our cigars with, would think of that?

Liberals have a different vision of what America should be, which is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and not especially religious (or, at least, not conventionally religious). The liberal vision is based on the idea that the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are created equal” means exactly what it says (belatedly updated to include women, of course). The liberal vision values responsibility toward each other as much or more than individual rights, although liberal have failed to consistently advance the idea theoretically or politically, as evidenced by the relentless march toward human destruction through climate change.

There are other tensions. Liberals have developed a tendency to dismiss as ignorant those who fail to uphold liberal values, especially those who fail to honor each item on the endlessly expanding list of personal identities (touché Red Hats!). White males remain dominant, even as they insist they support women in positions of power. The most recent example of male political dominance, of course, is the fate of Elizabeth Warren’s bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. How could someone like Warren be forced to drop out of the race while someone like Biden, muddled as he so obviously is, remained in? Liberals are also unable to resolve competing claims for primacy and justice within its own ranks, much less in society as a whole. What’s more important, black demands for reparations, aboriginal demands for the restoration of their lands, the public punishment of men who are accused of assaulting women, or ensuring the Democratic Party has a broad enough coalition to win the presidency? It’s tempting to say, “all of the above,” but that’s disingenuous, because I doubt there is equally broad support for each of those demands.

If Trump’s supporters seem all too gullible, liberals have their own species of expert deniers. Anti-vaxxers are found among liberals and, in my opinion, New Age spiritualists who use crystals and astrological signs for “healings” are every bit as flakey as conservative Christian evangelicals who believe in the “prosperity gospel.” A significant difference between the two, of course, is that modern day liberal druids aren’t interested in purging America of non-believers, unlike their evangelical brethren.

Two competing visions, one steak tartare and one vegan. Why, though, all the vitriol on the airwaves and social media? Why are people so impolite to each other? Well, I suspect it’s because each group is afraid of the other side. Consider this: Conservatives look at Black Lives Matter demonstrations and see saggy-panted rioters in the streets; liberals look at red-hatted people attending a Trump rally and see dangerous cultists ready to assault anyone who disagrees with their leader. In fact, they are encouraged to do so by their leader.

Since one group tends to carry guns far more often than the other group, I’m with the liberals on this one.

It is fair to say that both Obama’s and Trump’s presidencies raised the temperature of debates around these and other issues. It seems there’s been an Obama poke in the eye and a Trump kick in the groin and everybody’s fighting mad, swinging wildly at each other through the ether of the internet.

White conservatives were horrified, even if some of them didn’t say so out loud, that a black man was president. Membership in white supremacy hate groups soared while Obama was in office. Whites stockpiled guns and ammunition, increasing sales by 158 percent for gun stores, and “open carry” became a conscious public expression of opposition to “black rule.” Conservative evangelicals, dismayed by the sight of a black Christian drinking beer with another black man and a white man in the White House Rose Garden, searched for a political candidate who could decrease their discomfort. They found the man they were looking for in Donald Trump.

When Trump was elected, liberals were horrified — and they said so out loud — that a man who routinely bragged about assaulting women, who denigrated migrants, who encouraged violence against the press and others, and who dehumanized non-whites, was President of the United States. If his stated desire to end foreign wars was cautiously welcomed, his transactional view of foreign affairs and his narrow vision of “America First” quickly disabused liberals of the notion that Trump’s vision of America in the larger world was in any way compatible with their own. “Make America Great Again” is viewed by liberals, at best, as a throwback to an entirely imaginary Golden Age; at its worse, it’s considered a prescription for a white supremacist dictatorship. (I’m with Ralph Nader on this one.) Membership in liberal/left-leaning organizations grew (although not as fast as hate groups) and anti-war activism, which had become quiescent during Obama’s administration (shameful, but true), sputtered into life.

Two competing visions of America, and never the twain shall meet?

Not quite. Beneath those seemingly incompatible visions there are commonalities. Both conservatives and liberals believe America is a “shining city on a hill,” a sentiment expressed by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Both believe in American exceptionalism, even if liberals are reluctant to admit it. Neither conservatives nor liberals (Elizabeth Warren) want to abolish capitalism, the root cause of much of the mayhem in the world, although attitudes may be changing. Nancy Pelosi told a left-leaning student, “We’re capitalists, deal with it.” Liberals are striving for a mythical “progressive capitalism,” based apparently on their belief that the revolutionary rabbi in sandals was only joking about that camel thing. As evidenced by few or no questions asked about gargantuan military budgets, and the routine approval of authorizations for the use force, both conservatives and liberals support American imperialism — a deadly mixture of military dominance, corporate capitalism, and American exceptionalism — even if, again, liberals want to smooth its rough edges with foreign aid and a “responsibility to protect.”

As long as there is agreement on these fundamental aspects of America, other disagreements, while real and with real consequences, are like fireflies at a Fourth of July fireworks show.

And then there is the left, full of argumentative socialists (like me) who want to transition away from capitalism, enlarge democracy, and destroy American imperialism. While the left has many female and black leaders/activists, it’s still dominated by white males who aren’t above “mansplaining” or using leftism as a cover for misogyny. We attempt to rely on consensus to reach decisions, which means decisions are either deferred or made in favor of the most vociferous advocates. We want to unite into a large and effective social movement, but we dilly-dally to settle theoretical arguments more than a century old before we can participate in a city council meeting.

So, we have our problems, but it’s a family thing.

For many on the left, American ideals as expressed in the Constitution are so tainted by centuries of abuse they must be replaced by “socialist” ideals. But if you read about socialist ideals, you’ll discover they are very similar to American ideals, but are cast in a more universalist (solidarity) language. Many socialists are suspicious of religion, yet their visions of a just society are compatible with the Sermon on the Mount, but without the capitalists that plague modern Christianity.

What socialists believe that American conservatives and liberals don’t believe is that capitalism is evil. The American way of life — it’s economic, political, and social systems — was built on the backs of African slaves and facilitated by the extermination of aboriginal peoples. Even today, capitalism is responsible for the continued repression of people of color in America and throughout the world.

Capitalism commodifies people into abused units of production (workers) and manipulated units of consumption (consumers — that’s what advertising is all about); there is no room for citizens. Workplaces — where most Americans spend most of their lives — are deliberately designed to be undemocratic. As Richard Wolff argues, how can we have a democratic society if our economic system is grossly undemocratic?

And the root of the impending climate catastrophe was cultivated in the dark heart of the garden of capitalism. When our Fall comes, like Adam we will cry that “the woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Only the woman this time isn’t a flesh and blood woman, it’s the most seductive harlot of all, the profit motive.

Why am I reviewing all of this? Because there are at least three competing visions for what America should be, and the third — the socialist — is the least popular and the one most likely to be suppressed. Even if many Americans now want some form of nationalized health care or a guaranteed basic income, most remain hostile to the idea that the American way of life is the result of slave labor and the ongoing global repression of people of color, because to acknowledge that means we have to give up some comforts to close the gaping wound in our consciences. Most Americans, even if they support an increase in the minimum wage, don’t recognize that the exploitation of workers is required by capitalism, and that any gains won by workers will be reversed for capitalists by friendly legislators who will undo what workers won in the face of violent repression.

Socialists believe all of this must be, if not immediately swept away, actively dismantled in favor of worker-controlled workplaces. Socialists want an end to, or the close regulation of, multinational corporations. Socialists favor ranked-choice voting and an end to the Electoral College. The socialist vision of a Green New Deal goes beyond that offered by the Democratic Party to achieve ecological sustainability, which requires the complete dismemberment of the deadly ogre that is the fossil fuel industry. Socialists favor public banks, whose goal is not the enrichment of a few financiers but the well-being of a community. This is not a vision of incremental change (even if some things may take time), but of a radical re-ordering of the American economic, political and, ultimately, social systems.

Oh, you can still own private property and choose your own doctor.

The socialist vision frightens many Americans, especially those who possess significant economic or political power. That’s because it’s less about getting than it is about giving: “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,” as Karl Marx once put it, but early Christians, still under the influence of Jesus, had the same idea. Capitalists don’t like to give, which is why there are offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts.

Now, finally, I’ll return to the topic that began this essay. How can I entertain sympathy for Trump supporters, who claim they are being attacked and repressed, especially if the claim, like the equivalent made by many Christians, amounts to nothing more than “We’re being rudely criticized and we don’t like it?”

Well, I can at least “entertain the idea” because socialists have well-documented experiences of being oppressed in America. Socialists participating in a labor strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (owned by Rockefeller), were massacred at Ludlow when the Colorado National Guard attacked a labor tent encampment on the evening of August 20, 1914, killing over 20 men, women, and children before dark, and many more over the next several days. Eugene Debs, the best-known socialist (and anti-war activist) of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was repeatedly jailed for his beliefs; he ran his last presidential campaign from a prison cell, winning nearly a million votes. Socialists were rounded up and deported — an early example of a Red Scare — during Palmer Raids of the 1920s, simply because they were socialists with funny-sounding names. Socialist labor organizers were repeatedly attacked, brutalized, and sometimes killed by Pinkertons and other thugs well into the 1930s. Joseph McCarthy’s redbaiting led to the blacklisting of socialists, costing men and women their livelihoods in the 1950s. Even many of the attacks by the Democratic Party on Bernie Sanders — who is, after all, only a very mild socialist — amounted to little more than McCarthy-style redbaiting.

So, socialists understand repression, and we’re alert for any attempts to silence people for their political views. I reject as nonsensical the idea that Trump supporters are being repressed or even seriously attacked — how much damage can a social media post do? — but I am wary of their boss, who has said he’ll “never allow socialism to destroy America.” Trump isn’t some clown (or not just a clown) with a Twitter account, he’s the President of the United States, who has a long history of demonizing people and encouraging attacks on his political opponents — of, in fact, attacking anyone who happens to raise his ire. If he wins reelection, especially if Republicans retain control of the Senate, socialists may again be in actual, as opposed to imagined, danger.

So, Trumpers, don’t come crying to us with your crocodile tears about Facebook posts, because you are Trump’s army; you are the people who will repress me. You drank Trump’s Kool-Aid long ago (and, apparently, some of you drank his Clorox last week). You have Red Hats instead of Brown Shirts, but you will nevertheless function as agents of his repression.

It’s the job of the rest of us to make sure that Trump’s call to action is disconnected at its source.

Spirituality in a Time of Pandemic and Other Horrors

This was written in response to a Facebook post that asked the question, “What are you doing to survive spiritually in a time of pandemic and other horrors? It feels like we’re in a physical and a spiritual war.”

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This may be more than you wanted, but your question about the spiritual struggle of living with the pandemic (and other events) has been on my mind every day for quite some time. I alternate between despair and determination, sometimes hourly, so here’s how I try to cope.

(I derive the general structure of my day from Wayne Teasdale’s book, A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life.)

I begin with the daily scripture readings for the Catholic Mass, and I recite my own petitions, which include my hopes for my family as well as a great many petitions related to what I read in the news. The COVID-19 pandemic features prominently in my petitions, but climate change, war, and preparations for war are always present. I offer the petitions not in the hope for miracles, but as an act of witness and defiance. Suffering must have a witness, even if it lacks an end; our humanity, I believe, requires that we defiantly acknowledge human cruelty and failure, even if we are powerless to stop it.

For me, though, ordinary prayer isn’t helpful. “Our Fathers” and “Hail, Marys” feel wooden, especially since our society is throwing a proverbial “Hail, Mary” pass just to survive. There is so much suffering and evil stalking the people of the world that I uneasily identify with the 8th century monk who forlornly prayed, “From the fury of the Northmen [Vikings], O Lord deliver us.”

I rely on meditation — sometimes guided, sometimes on my own — to calm my mind. I do this three times a day, for 15 to 20 minutes each time. I listen to segments of Buddhist Dharma talks as well (another 15 or 20 minutes), which contain much wisdom about our place in the universe. Viewing “me” from the perspective of the universe helps, because my oversized ego is the root cause of my dissatisfaction. The universe ignores my ego.

I then try contemplation — reading and imaginatively entering into a text — at least twice a day, for about half an hour each time. This practice is derived from Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.

I find that many of the Psalms are too violent for contemplation, although I know they can be read metaphorically. But the language, at the moment, feels like an assault on my senses. I’ve had greater success with the synoptic Gospels, and I also read snippets from liberation theology books or articles, which encourage us to accompany the poor and oppressed. Both the Gospels and liberation theology, however, create in me a mostly unsatisfiable urge to act, which is frustrating.

Since April contains Earth Day, I’ve also used Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ for contemplation, but I encounter the same contemplation vs. action problem. I can’t resolve this, so I try to follow Buddhist advice to simply acknowledge the tension, to treat the tension and myself gently, without allowing it to consume me with worry. I use the word “try” deliberately.

During one of my contemplation periods I devote time to the “Book of Nature” and the “Book of Gratefulness.” The “Book of Nature” is simply me observing that bit of the natural world that I can see from my porch. I don’t actively think about anything, I just observe. The forces of nature proceed at their own pace, sometimes majestically, as in a thunderstorm, but always with unhurried purposefulness that doesn’t rely on, or even require, me. The perfect symmetry of the red maple tree has nothing to do with me or my kind, nor does the flight of the bright yellow New World Warbler as it flashes by my window. They are singing their own songs, freely offered gifts of beauty and grace I can’t create or control. I find being a part of that movement comforting, and it reminds me (again) that I’m not the main event of the universe.

The “Book of Gratefulness” is my personal list of things for which I’m grateful. Most of these are quite simple things, like the thoughtfulness my wife extends to me, or the happiness of my children. I’m also grateful to live in a safe, warm, and dry house, surrounded by my books. I have more than enough good, healthy food to eat, and I can relax with a cup of hot tea anytime I desire. Others are more complex, such as the doctors, nurses, medication, and oxygen that keep me (and now many others) alive because my lungs don’t properly function. There are also the structures created by our founding documents, and the laws and norms derived from them, that allow me the freedom to think and write as seems best to me. I find that reminding myself of these and other acts of love, form, and function creates a temporary diversion of the stream of bad news that flows from the media. The “bad news stream” never runs dry, but at least I don’t feel as if I’m without a life jacket in a flood.

In the interstices between meditation and contemplation, I read, think, write, and engage in activism. All monks, according to the rule of St. Benedict, are required to work, and reading, thinking, and writing are the foundations of my activism, and all four activities, taken together, are my work.

I eat simple meals in the manner of the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh; that is, in silence and with deliberate awareness. When you sit, he says, you sit. When you walk, you walk. When you eat, you eat. No distractions, no TV or radio, just an awareness of the present moment. By doing so, all of our activities become a form of meditation.

I end my meditation and contemplation sessions with the Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love…Where there is despair, hope…”), which I find comforting and encouraging. Finally, I recite a statement, attributed to Rabbi Tarfon, from the Jewish work, Pirkei Avot: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it …” I take more than a little solace in the rabbi’s words.

Because much of my discontent is related to a frustrated urge to act, I also engage in online activism of various kinds, which is the only form of activism that’s readily available to me. Coordinating events (all virtual now), sharing information, writing emails, and attempting to clarify confusion or to counter misinformation are my ways, however small, of standing up against evil. There is one concrete action I’ve taken: I’ve donated money to a local food pantry. Since I’m in a COVID-19 high risk category, I can’t do much else, like offer to run errands for someone who is housebound, since I’m housebound myself. But, happily, I have been the grateful recipient of offers of help from a neighbor, and that has found a prominent place in my “Book of Gratefulness.”

The Rise of Republicans and Trump’s “Success”

This was originally a comment on a Facebook post, in which someone asked why the Democrats appeared to be helpless against the Republicans. My comment grew larger and larger, until it was its own post. I also answered a few questions related to the post, and about how I intended to vote in November, given that I’m a member of a third party. I’ve collected all of that information here.

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There are a mix of reasons, only some of which have to do with putative violations of the Constitution or laws, that account for Trump’s “success.” Trump is taking advantage of a foundation that has been long in the making.

Here’s my greatly simplified take on the Republican Party’s rise to power. Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a Democrat; I’m a member of both the Democratic Socialists of America and the Green Party, so I’m not another Democrat bashing Republicans. I don’t like either party.

Let’s begin with what unites both parties. First, both are reliant on corporations for funding, and both will refrain from unduly angering their funding sources, since it’s money that allows them to gain and retain power. Second, both Republicans and Democrats are wedded to the idea of American exceptionalism, which translates into a military-dominated foreign policy and the maintenance of a global imperial power. This also serves the interests of their corporate paymasters. In my opinion, a lot of what’s wrong with America (and has been wrong since at least the late 19th century) is derived from the control of political parties by the wealthy, and by the ongoing, bipartisan project of imperialism.

Now, the Republican Party’s rise to power.

The precursors to the Republican Party’s rise to power lie in the 1950s, with McCarthy’s red-baiting and William F. Buckley Jr.’s book God and Man at Yale and the National Review magazine. John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, also benefited from red-baiting when it subsided into respectable anti-communism: His “missile gap” campaign slogan (which was false), plus his forays into Cuba and Vietnam, were implicitly based on red-baiting. For many years, there were as many “strong on defense” anti-communist Democrats as there were Republicans, but Nixon, followed by Reagan, managed to paint Democrats as “soft on defense,” aided by the failed presidential candidacies of McCarthy and McGovern, and Carter’s failed presidency. This made the Democrats, well, defensive about defense, and partly explains Hillary Clinton’s desire to be seen as “tough” on foreign policy while she was Obama’s Secretary of State and as a presidential candidate in 2016.

Many Americans rejected the “free love” and anti-war sentiments of the 1960s and 1970s. Nixon capitalized on that sentiment, beginning the process of attracting otherwise apolitical or only nominally political people to the Republican Party. The use of “wedge issues” and the culture wars begins: Rising crime rates, typically considered as “black on white” crimes (exploited by Nixon, Reagan, Bill Clinton, and then-Senator Biden); black people on drugs, especially marijuana (exploited by Nixon); black “welfare queens” (exploited by Reagan and Clinton); and jails filling up with young black men (exploited by Nixon, Reagan, Bill Clinton, and then-Senator Biden). Goldwater’s and Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which was a carefully crafted racist message that didn’t appear to be racist (dog whistle), attracted conservative Democrats away from the Democratic Party. “Reagan Democrats” were part of this same trend. Nixon also gave us the imperial presidency, the contemporary manifestation of which is the unitary theory of the presidency Dr. Richardson recently discussed.

The Republicans decided (intelligently) to play the long game, beginning with the Powell Memo in 1971, which allied corporate power with the Republican Party. Then Reagan coopted “patriotism” and made it an almost exclusive possession of Republicans. His successful courtship of the religious right in 1980 (the Moral Majority, which formed in the 1970s) added a veneer of moral “correctness.”

Gringrich’s behavior as House Speaker in the mid-90s was the beginning of the end of “logrolling” — “you help me with my legislation, and I’ll help you with yours” that had long prevailed in legislative relationships. The Tea Party effectively ended any attempt at bipartisanship, as Republicans developed a fear of being “primaried.”

During roughly the same time period, well-funded conservative foundations developed political positions, model legislation, and recruited and trained new activists. Conservative talk radio and later Fox News became lucrative and important propaganda outlets.

What all of these efforts/acts had in common was that they were part of a conscious effort to pull together a coalition of mostly white interest groups to advance conservative causes (business, religious, deficit and foreign policy hawks, believers in small government and low taxes, and libertarians). At some point, “advancing conservative causes” became “developing a permanent ruling majority,” even if Republican ideas were electorally unpopular and demographics worked against them (hence, their dislike of immigrants from Latin and South America, which dovetailed nicely with the free-floating prejudices of the party’s base). This led to greater efforts at gerrymandering and voter suppression, but also to genuine efforts to elect Republicans at the local and state levels.

The Tea Party caused Republicans in legislatures to adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude that they used to great effect against Democrats, advancing or blocking legislation and court justices almost at will. (This backfired on Gingrich, when he repeatedly shutdown the government while Clinton was in office, but it’s standard operating procedure now). Gradually, the unwritten norms of government — respect for the other side, compromise, and other unwritten rules of behavior — vanished from Republican practices. This behavior makes Biden’s quaint belief that he can “work with Republicans” nonsensical — where was he during the last six years of Obama’s presidency?

Now, in the Senate, McConnell rules with little pretext of collegiality, behavior he began while Obama was president. The Democratic House has passed a great pile of legislation which McConnell has ignored. Meanwhile, he has been busy packing the courts as an insurance policy against the day when Democrats regain the Senate majority. And they will, because Republicans can’t gerrymander Senate races (although they can suppress the vote).

The Democratic Party, with a diverse group of coalition members who don’t always agree with each other, is struggling. The party was slow to court corporate donors, and some members of the Democratic coalition are less welcoming of corporations than are the members of the Republican coalition. The party missed the boat, I think, when it failed to successfully implement a policy similar to Republicans of building a deep, more or less consistent, ideological base, backed up by efforts to recruit and groom up and coming activists. It’s not as if the party didn’t attempt those things, they just didn’t do them as well as the Republicans did. Democrats also put less emphasis on local and state governments, which are touch points for maintaining party loyalty.

If Republicans in general have eroded norms of behavior, Trump has completely shredded them. He simply doesn’t know what they might be, nor does he care. Since McConnell is willing to back him up, and evangelical conservatives and former Tea Partiers form his loyal base, Trump behaves as he pleases.

Yes, he was impeached, so he has, and continues, to run afoul of the Constitution, but he’s protected by the Republican majority in the Senate. The courts, while occasionally ruling against him, are conservative enough to generally rule in his favor. The Supreme Court is packed with ideologues, even if Roberts or one of the other conservative judges occasionally throws a curve ball. Our tripartite form of government has effectively merged into a unitary form of government.

Short of holding continuous impeachment hearings, the Democrats can do little more than complain, because it’s not illegal to violate unwritten norms of behavior. And they won’t complain about everything Trump does — such as signing statements or the aggressive use of sanctions — because Democratic presidents also use them. The Democrats can only hope their “I’m not Trump” candidate will win in November 2020. That’s certainly not a foregone conclusion, especially since the DNC’s treatment of Sanders (for the second time) left a bad taste in the mouths of many leftists.

Trump has ignored the “rules” of the administrative state, removing civil servants and replacing them with loyalists. He doesn’t understand or care about the traditional relationship between the military and civilians. He has a devoted electoral base, a loyal (frightened?) Senate, and “captured” courts. He has, finally, gathered a tremendous amount — I would say a frightening amount — of power into his hands.

And now we have a pandemic, which would challenge even a competent president, and Trump is not competent. The economy, on which he was basing his reelection bid, is in shambles, and it’s not likely to recover before the election. What’s next? A “wag the dog” war? Some machination involving the elections? I don’t know. He has a lot of unaccountable power, and we’ll have to wait and see how he decides to use it.

***

First, my rationale for how I’ll vote in November. Second, questions and answers. I’ve paraphrased the questions.

To piggyback on Dr. Richardson’s observation about third parties, here’s how I’ll vote in November. It’s derived from John Halle’s and Noam Chomsky’s essay, An Eight Point Brief for LEV (Lesser Evil Voting).

1. The Democratic Socialists of America is a non-electoral party; that is, it doesn’t field candidates in elections, although it does endorse candidates (as it did Bernie Sanders).

2. The Green Party is an electoral party, but it can’t yet field a viable national candidate.

3. With Trump, I think we’ve gone far along the road toward a fascist government. He de-humanizes people (people of color, aboriginal people, immigrants, women) and attacks the press. He has his own Brown Shirts (Red Hats) marching in the streets. He disregards the Constitution, laws, and norms of behavior. He has concentrated power into his own hands, which he wields meretriciously.

4. I live in a swing state.

5. Therefore, I will vote tactically, meaning for Biden. I have no expectations that he will accomplish anything that I believe needs to be accomplished, but I do not believe he’s a fascist. I consider “Never Biden” leftists short-sighted, because a second Trump term might well result in a sharp repression of the left. I’d rather live to fight another day.

***

1st Question: Do you think the Democrats, if they win the presidency, will create barriers to another Trump?

My answer: I don’t think the Democrats will do very much. It’s less, I think, because of their desire to do “business as usual” when they’re the party in power than it is the significant tinkering with the Constitution that would be required to add safeguards. And it’s really difficult to legislate norms of behavior, as they change over time. We have a perfectly imperfect document that will function only so long as we the people want it to function. If we lose interest, or become “good Germans” who don’t speak up when the unspeakable happens, then no piece of paper will protect our republic.

2nd Question: Do you think our democracy will be safe if Trump is reelected?

My answer: We once thought that a man like Trump could never be president, but he is, so yes, we can lose everything very quickly if Trump wins reelection. Is he worried? To some degree, he probably is, but he’s also supremely confident in his ability to get his voters to the polls (and he’s right to be confident about that). Can he be defeated? Yes. The economy will be weak, with high unemployment, and there will still be a rising COVID-19 death toll, so independent voters and women may abandon him. He may launch a war (Iran or Venezuela, take your pick), because voters tend to rally around the president when there is a war. The only things I can say are to (1) vote; (2) help get out the vote for Democrats in November — not only Biden, but all the way down the ticket; and (3) help grow leftist-oriented movements that can counteract a fascist power grab. But there are no guarantees.

The Hermit Reports

Hi, there! I’m the Hermit, back to report on Week 12 of my withdrawal from society.

Yes, Week 12. Time flies when you’re growing hair.

Back in the first week of February (a time long, long ago, in a galaxy that now seems far, far away – and perhaps unreachable due to highway construction), when COVID-19 was nothing but an ominous twinkle in Dr. Fauci’s  nightmares, my pulmonologist advised me not to wait for a pronouncement from President Trump and to begin self-isolation ASAP. He didn’t spell it out, A-S-A-P, he said “A-sap!” emphasizing the capital A to the detriment of the stuff that oozes from trees.  Also, he emphatically implied an exclamation point. All that impressed me, so I commenced isolating.

I now have a lot of experience with doing nothing, in case any employer in my reading audience needs an employee who does nothing.  I was going to write down notes daily so I wouldn’t forget what I’m doing, but I forgot to take notes, so I don’t know what I’m doing.  It’s an art form, really, although it makes it hard to compose a report.

I’ll make a note about that first thing tomorrow.

Overall, I can’t complain. I’ve developed reasonable skills at ordering groceries online for home delivery, so that’s a plus. It was tricky the first time I tried. For example, you can’t click on a picture of a bunch of bananas and expect to get a bunch of bananas. Well, you can expect to, but what you’ll get is one banana. You must diligently click ten times if you want ten bananas. One banana, two bananas, three bananas, four…The same is true of that picture of three sweet potatoes. (I’m not sure what I’m going to do with 15 large green sticks of deodorant, other than smell like an exotic bazaar until 2045.) I can, however, access eBooks, magazines, and journals through public libraries and the internet, and even more books through a subscription service called Scribd. I have subscriptions to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and the Nation. All in all, I stay reasonably informed and entertained, so that’s another plus.

I only miss bookstores a little bit.

That’s a lie. I miss bookstores a lot. Amazon fails miserably as an authentic bookstore experience, and it’s also a gargantuan multinational corporation that treats its employees badly. If I didn’t already have 800 books on my Kindle, I’d bid Amazon adieu with extreme prejudice. I am thinking of buying a candle that’s advertised to smell like the library at Oxford University (sandalwood and men’s cologne!), so maybe that will help me psychologically and the small business that makes the candles materially.  I’m also hoping it will mask the occasionally overwhelming odor of deodorant.

Let’s see, what else? I completed a 5-day virtual meditation retreat (Buddhist) and a three-day Ignatian retreat (Catholic) and I meditate for one or two hours a day. I listen to Buddhist dharma talks and read Christian liberation theology, a lot of which is in the New Testament. I like being eclectic and syncretic. It’s good for my brain and, because I breathe deeply, it’s good for my lungs. It might even be good for my soul.

I eat a lot of cookies and potato chips and drink gallons of black tea with sugar. Don’t look at me that way – I’m not that kind of angel, er, hermit. In other words, I’m not an ascetic and I especially like my potato chips; since I do need to gain weight, I also have my doctor’s permission to indulge in a little gluttony. I count calories and write down how much I eat every day; I know the calorie count of most foods by heart, so I can make you feel guilty for eating whatever you’re eating anytime you want to feel guilty.

One must be useful, you know.

Trump and the virus are still around, and they are big negatives. I spend a lot of time writing letters or making phone calls to people in Congress and the White House, and I work with a number of groups to coordinate various actions, so I keep busy, which is a plus.

I also have a new tool in my breathing arsenal. I have a BiPaP machine, which ensures that I’m breathing properly when I sleep. I was having trouble with that – I’d wake up at night feeling as if I wasn’t getting enough oxygen (even though I’m always on supplemental oxygen). When I checked my oxygen saturation level, it was routinely at 77 percent, and that’s way too low.

(I have deep empathy for COVID-19 victims, whose oxygen saturation levels can fall to the 50 percent range. I’ve been there, and there’s nothing worse than breathing as fast and deeply as you can and … nothing. Nothing happens. Your brain is screaming but you can’t get oxygen to it because the alveoli in your lungs are full of pneumonia-tainted fluid.)

My difficulty at night arises from the way that I breathe. During the daytime, I can remember to breathe through my nose (I use a nasal cannula), but at night I revert to breathing through my mouth, so I wasn’t getting enough supplemental oxygen. The BiPaP machine adds enough pressure to each breath to make sure I get the supplemental oxygen I need.

My BiPaP machine has a mask that is similar to the death mask that I wore the last time I was in the hospital. Then, I was on a CPAP machine, which is much more aggressive and forceful – BiPaP is to CPAP like a House Wren is to an eagle. CPAP machines can be used as ventilators – those machines hospitals are desperate to obtain for their COVID-19 patients – but they have to be modified a bit, so they don’t spew the virus into the air every time a patient exhales.

The BiPaP machine is a gentler, kinder death mask.

I went out this evening to the Walgreen’s drive through to pick up a prescription. It’s my once-every-two-weeks outing.  The fun lasts for about 10 minutes, give or take, because the pharmacy is only one block from my house. My neighborhood looks the same as it did two weeks ago.

There was a bit of excitement, though.

Waiting at the stoplight, I noticed the price for gas at the local BP station was 99 cents a gallon.

Wow! 99 cents! It’s been years and years since gas was that cheap. Great for anyone on a tight budget but … bad for the environment.

So do I celebrate or curse? I’m all for helping those who don’t make enough money to even live paycheck to paycheck – or who don’t have a paycheck at all, thanks to COVID-19. But 99 cents a gallon might encourage people to drive more, which is bad for the environment in general and my lungs in particular. It also violates the spirit, if not the letter, of Safer at Home rules.

It’s an occupational hazard of living that decisions we need to make are seldom straightforward; what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander. Your need for affordable transportation is important, but when you drive your car you pollute the air, which makes it harder for me to breathe.

So, two rights clash, but also two responsibilities. You should be aware of my need for less pollution, but I need to be aware of your need for affordable transportation so you can put food on the table. And since we’re in a pandemic, I can’t tell you, in good conscience, to ride the bus.

How do I resolve this? Well, at the moment I’m in favor of cheap gas so you can drive to work and put food on the table. Alternate transportation (the bus) isn’t safe. Yes, you’re making air pollution a bit worse, but enough people are staying home that the air quality is pretty good at the moment.

We can talk about air pollution once the pandemic is over, but for now I’ll exercise my responsibility as a member of a community living through an emergency and forego my right to cleaner air so that you can afford the right to buy gas, drive to work, pay rent (hopefully), and feed your kids. Besides, since I can’t walk any great distance, I need to drive my car once every couple of weeks, so it would be hypocritical of me to insist that you avoid driving.

As for the cheap gas I saw tonight, well, I’m currently getting at least 4 weeks to the gallon and my tank is all but full. I went home without buying.

But it was tempting, so I’m feeling virtuous for resisting temptation. 🙂 That’s probably a sin related to pride (hubris), but, as I said, I’m not that kind of angel.

 

 

Civics

The Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank and propaganda mill) decries the politicization of civics education in an article full of conservative political judgments about what’s appropriate for civics education.

Why am I not surprised?

The 1619 Project, by the way, is a well-researched and documented effort backed by leading historians; it isn’t some leftist/activist fantasy. It just happens to discuss matters – the centrality of slavery to American political and economic systems – that the Heritage Foundation would prefer to keep hidden.

(Link to 1619 Project: https://www.nytimes.com/…/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html)

And the 1619 Project isn’t meant to be civics education: it’s a supplement to American history courses. The Heritage Foundation knows this, but they’re seeking to arouse their conservative base to oppose an historical narrative with which the foundation disagrees.

While the Heritage Foundation dismisses the 1619 Project as too activist or too political, they are attempting to present their own politicized version of history and civics as the only legitimate version. Of course, this adds to the atmosphere of politicization the foundation decries.

But that’s okay, actually, because civics education, to be meaningful, is inherently political; the Heritage Foundation just needs to be honest that they are pushing a political point of view.

However, simply reciting the three branches of government and memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution isn’t a civics education. There are important questions – political questions – that students must consider.

For example, has the promise of the Declaration of Independence been fulfilled? For everyone? What does freedom mean? What are positive and negative freedoms? How many colonists opposed the Declaration? Why? What happened to them? What about slaves and aboriginal peoples? Were women included? What are the sources of the ideas in the Declaration? Would the U.S. honor a declaration of independence from Puerto Rico or Guam? Why or why not?

Questions about who was – and who was not – included in the body politic at the time the Constitution was adopted arise naturally. Who was advantaged – and who was disadvantaged – by the Constitution? Why do rural states have so much political power? What does it mean that some people counted as “three-fifths” human? Are people more important than property? Are people and property interchangeable? Can we trust a document written by men who accepted slavery? Have we treated aboriginal peoples the way the Constitution describes? What is the Electoral College? Why is it anti-democratic? Why were women denied the right to vote? Why do we have a republic and not a democracy?

All those questions (and more!) are political, and the answers to them have varied over time. Add the Bill of Rights and more questions arise. What does freedom of speech mean? If a newspaper refuses to publish political ads, is that a violation of freedom of speech? Can schools silence student political views? Why is the separation of church and state important? Why can students pray in schools, but can’t be led in prayer by a teacher? Is that in the Constitution? Is freedom from religion protected? What does the right to bear arms really mean? What about habeaus corpus? Why did Lincoln suspend it? How is that related to the pandemic we’re currently experiencing?

There are many other amendments, Supreme Court opinions, and laws to be questioned and dissected. The point of civics education is the same as for any education: to create an educated citizenry capable of engaging with, and questioning, the political and economic ideas and actions that will arise during their lives. Most of the questions (much less the answers) can’t be known in advance, so habits of mind and discipline are important. How do we research political history? What’s the standard for acceptable evidence? How do we hold politicians accountable? How do we form ad hoc coalitions? How is legislation written, introduced, and accepted or rejected? How can citizens influence that process? How should citizens react when laws violate their consciences?

The purpose of civics education is manifestly not to enshrine behind plexiglass a set of 18th century parchment pages with funny writing on them, holy writ approachable only by approved high priests. The Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc., are launchpads for action, not adulation.

Of course, these aren’t the civics lessons the Heritage Foundation wants taught. They prefer a civics course in which God-fearing white people labor without complaint for a capitalist tyranny of wealth; where immigrants are ignored, discriminated against, assimilated, or corralled in concentration camps; where the suffering of people of color and aboriginal peoples is white-washed; where wars are fought by Boy Scouts opposing tyranny and are never imperialist wars of aggression. In short, the Heritage Foundation desires to maintain the myth of American Exceptionalism by hiding behind the noble language of our founding documents.

If those documents become lifeless static displays of quaint unchangeable ideas, the end of the republic is nigh. We are perilously close to that condition right now. Unfortunately, that’s the dangerous Father Knows Best prescription for a civics course that the Heritage Foundation desires.

 

 

Ayn Rand’s Never Never Land

Itay Meirson’s conclusion to “I Visited the Secret Lair of the Ayn Rand Cult,” is correct: if you seriously consider Rand’s ideas, your own will stand in sharp relief.

For most people, that means rejecting Rand.

I went through a stage (like many people do) during my freshman year of college in which I briefly subscribed to Ayn Rand’s misanthropy, although I was never enough of a fan to become a true cultist. She seemed “American” in the rugged individualism sense of the word, and, well, I am an American. More precisely, I am a citizen of the United States, which means something different than being an American in the simple, but larger and more collegial sense of residing on one of the American continents: a citizen of the U.S. can do whatever the hell he (or she) damn well pleases. Plus, I considered myself to be a budding and unappreciated poet, so raging at the philistines, à la Galt, was de rigueur. It only took a couple of economics and philosophy classes, plus the serious study of real poets (alas, I fell short), to convince me otherwise.

(After John Galt, I wanted to go through a salacious Lord Byron phase, but I lacked the requisite impudence. I bought a pair of sandals woven from straw for my revolutionary Mao incarnation, but hastily recanted after the first Colorado snowstorm. I eventually settled into a scholarly John Milton-esque persona which, because few people actually read Milton, allowed me to seem both intellectual and acceptable in polite company.

As Meirson notes, Rand’s philosophy of objectivism is crystal clear, whether you read her novels (which are bad, at least in part, because they are extended philosophical harangues) or her philosophy tracts (For the New Intellectual,  by Rand, or Objectivism:  The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff, are good places to start). Whatever else there is to Rand’s philosophy, there is no obfuscation.

But contrary to what Meirson believes, I think Rand’s philosophy is bad philosophy, because she misunderstands human beings. We are not, nor have we ever been, purely creatures of reason – Spocks we’re not. We can’t consistently exert our will to be something we are not, which is what Rand urges us to do. She is not alone in her idealism, of course, because every Christian churchman for the last two thousand years has urged us, on pain of eternal damnation, to set aside our sinful ways, but we consistently fail to do that as well.

Rand also misunderstands human evolution: we are successful as a species precisely because we learned to cooperate and protect each other.  Early in our evolution, we observed that rugged individualists wandering alone through African forests and savannahs, which were also home to the predatory Panthera gombaszogensis, a large prehistoric ancestor of the jaguar, left few descendants. It was an eminently reasonable adaptation to learn work together to find something to eat – and to avoid being eaten.

Bad psychology and a faulty understanding of human evolution/behavior results in bad philosophy. Ironically, I consider this a reasonable and objective rejection: I don’t need to appeal to morality or to religion.

There are also real-world examples of the failure of a major adjunct of Rand’s philosophy: free market capitalism. To be clear, Rand did assert that “I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism but egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.”  Perhaps that is true, but free market capitalism, even under conditions of the less than consistent application of reason, is nonetheless an important practical application of egoism and reason.

While capitalism has provided a level of comfort for some people, particularly in the Global North (including me), when it fails, it fails spectacularly – the Great Depression of the 1930s and the 2008 Great Recession immediately come to mind – and the remedies for failure have not proven to be more doses of unrestricted capitalism. Reason points to something else.

Alan Greenspan, formerly the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and a long-time Rand acolyte, was forced to admit that he (and therefore Rand) was wrong about self-interest. In testimony before Congress, he said that free market ideology was “flawed.” Here is part of an NPR report on Greenspan’s testimony related to the 2008 economic crash.

“Under questioning from Democrats on the panel, Greenspan conceded he might have been, as he put it, partially wrong in not moving to regulate trading of some derivatives that are among the root causes of the credit crisis. He also admitted his free market ideology may be flawed. This exchange with committee chairman, Democrat Henry Waxman of California, verged on the metaphysical.

Waxman: You found a flaw in the reality…

Greenspan: A flaw in the model that I perceived as a critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.

Waxman: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right. It was not working.

Greenspan: How it – precisely. That’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I’ve been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

 

It must be noted that Greenspan resides in the rarefied atmosphere of economic think tanks and political insiders, completely abstracted from the “real world” of commerce and, especially, the world featuring the low paying, undemocratic 9-to-5 shackles which constrain many of us as we scramble to feed heart and soul in the nether regions of capitalism. None of us 99-Percenters could observe the last 40 years of American capitalism without realizing, long, long ago, that it had serious flaws. Productivity soared, but worker incomes faltered. People of color and aboriginal peoples suffered; when they objected, they were brutalized by the police, thrown into prison, and used as slave labor. Climate change leapt from an urgent concern to unavoidable catastrophe. Success, Mr. Greenspan learned in 2008, isn’t unconditionally defined by a steadily rising graph of the S&P 500 or the balance sheet of Citibank; there are, in fact, an awful lot of caveats and addenda, some of which deal with toddler-level matters of right and wrong, that determine the true success or otherwise of an economy.

The New York Times reported additional details of Greenspan’s discovery on the road to Damascus.

“’I have found a flaw’ in free market theory, Greenspan said under intense questioning by Representative Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the Government Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives. ‘I don’t know how significant or permanent it is,’ Greenspan added. ‘But I have been very distressed by that fact.’

“’I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,’ Greenspan said.”

Ahem, yes. Self-interest does not mean to “behave as a gentleman” and protect your shareholders; it means to take what you can grab as fast as you can and then get out. CEOs still do it, as evidenced by stock buybacks and golden parachutes. Alan Greenspan must have been the only person in the world disillusioned by the behavior of capitalists in 2007-2008; the rest of us caught on ages ago. Still, I guess he deserves a little sympathy:  it must be hard for an aging and hithertofore lionized man to suddenly realize that his entire life was based on a lie.

Of course, Randians have an “out”: Ayn Rand said her philosophy of reason had to be followed consistently, and since government intervention in the economy wasn’t (in Rand’s eyes) a justifiable application of reason, failures were to be expected.

I think, however, market failures point to the opposite conclusion. In the 1930s, for example, the crash of the economy due to the greed (individualism, egoism) of the unregulated 1920s forced a choice: government intervention or starvation, and starvation wasn’t/isn’t a reasonable option. Even the elites, the inhabitants of Galt’s Gulch – Rand’s only real concern, although she was never a member of the club – felt the pinch: without adequate consumer demand, businessmen, no matter how well-grounded in reason, found themselves failing. But, somehow, it still wasn’t “reasonable” to pay a living wage to workers so they could fulfill their “obligations” as consumers – or even to put food on the table.

Marginal cost was the king, and he turned out to be a tyrant.

Keynesian economics (not understood in the 1930s, but FDR’s actions were consistent with it) was the answer, at least if you wanted to preserve capitalism and some form of democracy. It was reasonable to curb greed, and it turns out that we do care for each other (not enough, but at some level), contra Rand but consistent with human evolution. Hence, deficit spending, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits (and later Medicaid and SNAP). These social remedies are, not so ironically, forms of self-interest, for both the 99 percent and the one percent. The 99 percent avoid starving to death or dying of a treatable illness; the one percent don’t have to deal with the bad optics of old people dying on the sidewalks or, more alarmingly, with militant workers marching with pitchforks.  FDR – reluctantly, especially in his first term – offered a meager ration of the fruits of capitalism to the people who actually made the system work, so far from being a traitor to his class, he saved the Lilly-white necks of capitalists from the righteous anger of hungry workers.

Today, the one percent conveniently ignores FDR’s save; the men and women who run multinational corporations are once again worshiping at the altar of marginal cost. As an insurance policy, they’ve convinced a significant portion (perhaps 40 percent) of workers that FDR was a monster whose programs are designed to take money from hardworking white people and give it to lazy people of color or, worse, to foreigners.  No one tells workers to check the actual composition of the beneficiary population:  far more white people receive government benefits than people of color, and undocumented “foreigners” don’t receive any money at all, although they contribute to the available funds by paying taxes.

Properly understood, then, it is reasonable to act in accordance with “human nature,” from both ethical and business perspectives. The long post-WWII boom (for white men, assuredly; black men, less so; women, not at all) pointed to the falsehood (selfishness is a virtue) at the core of free market/corporate economics. Sharing some of the wealth meant that wealth kept growing for capitalists (who also kept their heads). It was only during the Reagan years, when supply-side economics and market fundamentalism reared their ugly heads, that we “rationally” chose to hop back onto the boom and bust treadmill. The return to laissez faire economics was partly ideological (in the Republican Party initially, but eventually embraced by Democrats) and partly due to stagflation. Stagflation, of course, isn’t a market failure, although it is perceived as such; rather, it’s the logical result of the unrestrained greed of oil producers and our own greedy consumption of oil.  It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.

The economic crash of 2008 was merely another example of the failure of selfishness; contra Gordon Gekko, greed is not good. The collective action required to recover (however partial that is for many of us) from that debacle orientates our reason toward something other than egoism. Now, the catastrophic market failure exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic should sound the death knell for market fundamentalism, corporate capitalism, and Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Of course, humans being humans, some of us will irrationally continue to support one or more of those failed ideologies. But as for me and my house, bad psychology, an incorrect understanding of human evolution, and multiple, ongoing real-world economic failures mean three strikes and you’re out for Ayn Rand.