A Brief Point
Much more on this later, somewhere or other, but: just saw Naomi Wolf's interview on Colbert, where she was hawking a book called The End of America or something and being very conspiracy theorist about how current events mirror those that lead to dictatorships in previous historical instances. It's ridiculous, of course, and super-unhelpful, but not abnormal. All over you've got people comparing W's America to either end-of-the-empire Rome or pre-dictatorship Germany/Russia. And sure, those parallels are there, but they're missing the point. These appeals are made on behalf of democracy (Wolf said "democracy" at least 4 times), but right now, democracy is arguably the problem; we certainly have far more democracy than the founders ever intended. If you're looking for a historical analogy, it might be better to look back to the fears of the 19th century, when the popular press was constantly warning of the republic's coming annihilation, and were very aware of the fragility of the American system. If you want to talk about what's happening now, don't think about it as a path already trod, but as a regression feared from America's founding. Democracy ain't institutions, and it's the breakdown of institutions that's causing us trouble right now.Labels: democracy, naomi wolf, political theory
posted by Mike B. @ 12:27 PM
11 Comments:
I spent, like, ten minutes wondering how Disaster Capitalism fit into what you were saying before I realized you were talking about an entirely different Naomi.
Alarmism itself is part of the problem, then?
Well, not part of the problem exactly (I think we would be in our current situation with or without chicken littles claiming the reich is coming) but it's certainly not helping. Maybe I'm not reading widely enough and I'm missing the people making moderate, reasonable assessments of the state of the nation, but I mainly see either straight reportage (and outrage at same) or crap like this. These ideas are fundamentally wrong, I think, and wrongness doesn't help.
The other Naomi is fine enough as it goes--she sticks to actual reporting, and she's very careful not to make explicit normative statements, just to hint at them very broadly. Which is arguably more pernicious, but never mind. (Especially as I've only read the article rather than the book.)
Too much democracy? Spend some serious time with political polling data, then spend more watching how Congress and the President behave, and I think you'll observe that the public - despite its/our frequent formal ignorance - has made it very clear that our opinions are
(1) far more sensible than those on the Beltway and
(2) without power. Which did not used to be true.
Specifics? Polls consistently show that the U.S. public wants out of Iraq, wants to avoid war with Iran, elected a Democratic congress in the face of massive Republican media advantages in order to carry these desires out, and by-the-way correctly assumes General Petraeus is acting as a political hack; yet the war will not end anytime soon, and the President keeps getting more Congressional cover for new wars.
Polls show that the majority of Americans are ready for single-payer universal health insurance, which in country after country is better, yet far cheaper, than the U.S.'s system; unless Edwards wins the presidency, no one is going to set us on that road anytime soon. For almost 20 years the American public has claimed a willingness to pay higher taxes for a broad array of services; both parties treat higher taxes as anathema, and better services the same way. The American people doubt the wisdom of a "free trade" that treats countries (including ours) as merely an aggregate of consumers, rather than a community of people who might like some unified purpose and communal self-reliance; yet "free trade" agreements are rammed down our throats by both parties.
The central government is also fonder and fonder of ruling out of existence popular state programs, especially re: the environment. People electing representatives who then betray the public's known wishes is _not_ "too much democracy".
As far as Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany: I wouldn't use those parallels myself, as I think we're really turning more into one of those African or South American countries where the World Bank and IMF dictate the destruction of the road and schools and anti-poverty programs no matter who wins the elections with what promises. But Bush and a compliant Congress have created - especially since the Dems took the majority, alas - a system wherein the President can order any illegal thing he likes (torture, random spying, assassinations of accused terrorists), and private actors are given legal immunity for doing his bidding. Also, if you read ARMED MADHOUSE, by BBC/Guardian reporter Greg Palast, you may come out accepting his impressively thorough evidence that two straight presidential elections have been stolen, in Kerry's case with the disappearance of seven million votes. I think the American people are better trained by history than were the Germans and Russians; I don't think we _will_ get a totalitarian government. But how can you call it hysteria to argue that the preparations are being made?
OK, but the vast majority of the public were for the war 4 years ago, and that policy got enacted. The majority of the public was against unviersal health care back in '93, so it died. Policy can't just change once polling data slips past 50%; that's not a stable system. And Congress' inability to end the Iraq war isn't because of stupidity, it's because gerrymandering has drawn the districts so tight that they can't get a supermajority. Just because the public is swinging toward the left right now (and, again, it very much was not for most of the last 15 years) doesn't mean it's always going to pick the right policies.
Anyway, you're arguing with a sentence here, without the backup. It's just something to consider. Less democracy doesn't mean more elite control.
Also, 1) saying the US is being prepared to become Stalinist Russia is pretty much the definition of hysteria, 2) if you want to have a discussion with me, telling me to read and pay attention to stuff I've already read and paid attention to is not very helpful, and 3) don't you think all the IMF stuff sounds just a little John Birchy?
John Birchy ... I gather you've never lived in a country whose supposedly left-wing elected leader turned around, once in office, and started cutting back or dismantling programs he'd promised to expand. Nor have I; fair enough. Still, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I have friends who have and do. Indeed, some have been through the cycle twice in a row. The official story they hear is that the elected leader was told to do this by the IMF; the story the IMF itself tells is that it insists on (yep) slashed welfare states and demolished trade protections.
There is no dispute between the two stories: the IMF is accused of dictating the policies it claims to prefer to dictate. If Nikita Khrushchev had said "Yep, I'm funding half the U.S. Senate and the Defense Department", and presented clear evidence, I don't think the John Birchers would look like fools today.
Polling data _is_ tricky, but the public wasn't rejecting single-payer health care in 1994, because it wasn't being offered. I don't remember when I started seeing it as a poll option, but it's done well from what I perceive (rightly or wrongly) as its beginning. As for Hillary's plan, the public polled in its favor until a massive spending disparity swung the issue. Massive spending disparities are, when it comes to democracy, a bug and hindrance, not a feature. Similarly, the public didn't want a war in Iraq until a deliberate campaign of lies convinced them, and started defecting as the lies were exposed; this puts them well ahead of the Beltway curve.
So you've read ARMED MADHOUSE? Cool. What did you think? I'm open to arguments that engage and reject its evidence, but I've looked around and not yet seen any.
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No one taking their anti-schizophrenia medication is suggesting the U.S. is turning communist, or that we're about to dump 6 million Muslims into death camps. That's why I openly rejected the Stalin/Hitler comparisons. I imagine (I don't know) that Naomi Wolf is merely suggesting that the _legal_ structures preventing extreme measures -- not the _social_ structures, which are also important -- are being dismantled.
I doubt she's arguing that this is what the Republican Party intends; if that is her point, she's probably a crackpot. But if she just thinks it's a dangerous game to destroy checks on executive power, and taboos against spying and torture ... do you really want to be on the side that's saying "Don't worry"?
The above comment is argumentative, and serious about it; this comment is separate and _not_ an argument, just a question. "Less democracy doesn't mean more elite control" ... how so? I know we're not only arguing about definitions, but we might be partly arguing about definitions, since I don't know what you mean by that sentence, and might have sympathy if I did.
I do not, incidentally, believe that the American public is in majority "liberal": if it was, I might occasionally vote for candidates who win. I do think the majority is usually nationalist, in roughly a Hamilton/Clay "American System" way: willing to pay for a strong central government if it solves problems, and happy to be talked into short, exciting wars but preferring in the main to be left alone.
Interesting that you should mention Hamilton. I think he in particular recognized that public opinion can be easily swayed, and there's nothing you can do to really change that fact without being, well, a dictatorship. In the healthcare example, who would've regulated the spending that supposedly swayed public opinion? The government? Because then you just have elite control again, with the party in power dictating what information gets passed on. You're admitting here that public opinion is variable and often makes the wrong decision. So why should it be the be-all and end-all of public policy? Spending disparities are never going to go away, after all. It's not a damn computer program--you can't just write the bug out of the code when the code is American culture.
As for the IMF/World Bank thing, look, I disagree with what they do, but not because it's morally wrong--because it's bad policy! The aims are good, but their strategy has been pretty much proven not to work. I'm just not worried about the World Bank dictating American policy because, well, we're the majority shareholder in the World Bank. If anyone is shielded from their influence, I think it's the US.
Hamilton, like most of the founders, was worried about the effects of too much democracy, because majority rule fucks over minorities. His ideas were intended to convince the voters to ratify the Constitution, so obviously he wasn't going to advocate elite control. Instead, he argued that the Constitution created institutions that would keep all the different pernicious influences--both by individuals and by the majority--at bay. The problem is, those institutions are breaking down because they're not being exercised properly. If we turn to democracy to fix them, the problem then is that America is a gigundo country, and so public opinion has to be channelled through individuals, and the focus on individuals, rather than institutions, is where a lot of our problems come from, I think.
Sure, I can go along with most of that. One exception is that "we" are the majority stockholder in the World Bank. By "we", you mean "American financiers", who happily rocket their currency in and out of other countries on a daily basis, so I don't feel represented.
A second exception is your claim that to restrict massive spending for a political agenda -- or to fully finance candidates with any agenda, provided they reached a certain modest level of support -- would be "elite control". To me that's like saying it's "elite control" to mandate that three strikes is an out and four balls is a walk in a baseball game: ground rules are ground rules. Harder in this case to enact and enforce, sure, but not therefore sinister.
My major puzzlement, though, is how your arguments fit together. You say
(1) The institutions protecting us from "pernicious influences" are breaking down.
(2) The people are very easily swayed. Therefore
(3) We can't possibly turn into a country with a truly horrifying government, and anyone who says we can is ridiculous.
I don't see how (1) and (2) imply (3).
Oh, 3's not an argument, it's just something that seems obvious on the face of it. Feel free to disagree! I just think it's the kind of thing liberals tell themselves to make them feel like they're living in more exciting times than they actually are, and it's annoying that some people think the only way to scare up opposition is by shouting Stalin.
"it's annoying that some people think the only way to scare up opposition is by shouting Stalin"
Let's end here, on a note of agreement. Although it is, if nothing else, a break from shouting Hitler; perhaps we should subsidize writers who give Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Seko, and Pol Pot equal time. "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the next Ante Pavelić" would be a moronic claim with which to support war with Iran, but not abnormally so, and I'd welcome the variety.
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