The Next Hurrah

Exiting the kingdom of reason

by emptypockets

The right-wing mot du jour seems to be "socialist." Sometimes, confusingly, it is combined with "communist" or with the communistic honorific "comrade," especially to make use of the appealing internal rhyme in "comrade Obama." All this has left me, as a notoriously poor student of politics and history, wondering, "What is socialism, why is the word popping up now, and how should I react to it?" This post is something of an experiment, a sort of thinking aloud, where I try to work through (hopefully with readers' assistance) some confusing and ambiguous political labels.

First, let me get it out of the way: I know Obama isn't a socialist. If you're here as an Obama rallyist, you can spare me. I got the message. You like Obama. Awesome. I'm with you. Now let's move on, and consider what socialism is, what it isn't, and whether we as progressive Democrats should embrace the label, scorn it, or ignore it. Everything I write here is going to be a summary of things I just googled up. Treat this post as an open thread for thoughts or references on the topic.

My approach was to read, in order, a Democracy Now! interview with Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described Socialist holding the highest office in US politics today; a brief AFL-CIO biography of Eugene Debs, a Socialist giant back when such a thing could exist, in the early 20th century; and an essay titled "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" written by Frederick Engels in the late 19th century. Again, I knew close to zilch on this topic when I began, and I now feel like I know zilch + 1.

The title of this post comes from a line in Engels's essay, describing earlier Enlightment conceptions of socialism in the late 18th century, particularly around the French Revolution and development of industry. Of these earlier Socialist attempts, Engels wrote:

One thing is common to all three ["Utopians" (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen)]. Not one of them appears as a representative of the interests of that proletariat which historical development had, in the meantime, produced. Like the French philosophers, they do not claim to emancipate a particular class to begin with, but all humanity at once. Like them, they wish to bring in the kingdom of reason and eternal justice, but this kingdom, as they see it, is as far as Heaven from Earth, from that of the French philosophers.

Engels's underlying beef here, as I read it, is that previous Socialists had attempted to reform society from first principles, using Enlightment ideals of reason conquering all, and basing their plans on their own assumptions about equality, justice, and righteousness. Since few people ever agree on such things, these attempts descended into unresolvable conflicts or else what we would today call watered-down compromises.

Yes, Another Sara Book Review, about Neocon's

by Sara,

Firedoglake had Jacob Heilbrunn as a guest about two weeks ago, and I wish I had been up with the list -- I was present during most of the discussion, but the book was still in my pile, and I don't like asking questions about unread books.  Heilbraunn's book is "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neo-Cons"  -- for some reason I though the discussion would be a week later. 

Let me be clear here, I was born into this terribly odd corner of politics in the 30's.  My Parents were members of Max Shachtmann's "Worker's Party" in the late 30's, which split from a faction of the Socialist Party, and then eventually became part of the Michael Harrington faction, well maybe yes and maybe no Democratic Socialist group.  But quite unlike how Heilbrunn depicts the neo-con's during and before World War II as not at all concerned with the situation of Jews in Germany and Austria, in fact he is probably wrong, it was not as if they did not know the score.  There was a profound bleed over from political ideology to practical action, and while Heilbrunn tracks quiet rightly the arguments of the CCNY boys in Alcove One right up to today's Neo-con think-tanks and journals, -- all he really does is describe, and leave it at that. 

Heilbrunn leaves his book with an imagined 2016, with the Jeb Bush Restoration.  How did the neo-con's manage to destroy American Foreign Policy, accept no blame, await time, and then later emerge with the prize?  How did the little trot, minority marxist  outfit in alcove one get control of US Foreign Policy?

My own sense is that the neo-cons took advantage of a vacume in serious American Foreign Policy debate.  We need to comprehend what an absence of knowledge of the world and US policy created.   

 

More Sara's Book Reviews.

by Sara

One reason Sara disappears for days at a time is simple, she reads real books, and when at full speed can do about four a week.  She puts new books in piles, sometimes with previously read books on the same topic, and asserts the right not to do instant analysis, but to re-read and think and all that, and sometimes it is not productive of posts. 

So recent reading -- Matt Bai's book that was rather quickly dismissed in Blogger circles, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake the Democratic Party" -- which I found of interest on two levels, both because it does contain useful recent history, but also because from what Bai has to Say, Rob Stein is very proud of being an Antiochian, Class of 66, (Stein being the organizer of the Billionaire part of the title), and is totally open about how a true progressive education matters.  I had fun with just that bit out of Bai's book -- posting Stein's accomplishments raising funds for Democratic Infrastructure on the Alumni site -- and oh dear, someone said it was not a good idea to post what was already in a book, and probably in the Times.  In fact the negotiations appear to be totally stonewalled between the Alumni who have incorporated with some millions behind them, and the University Board which wants, apparently to hold on to the real estate value of a mid 19th century college campus for the sake of a profitable conference center sans college.  We've just told the current students to look elsewhere, and June 30th, the place gets boarded up. 

Anyhow, Bai's book about how to invent or re-invent a progressive infrastructure, with Stein as the star of the show essentially, and Stein telling Bai during coffees in DC how much of what he invisions for the Democratic Party is really a product of his Antioch Education, but then he isn't really a precence in the current conflab -- well what in the hell is going on. 

Of course anyone who looks at reality knows that Progressives need to build institutions, and what bothers me is why they can't see their way to building and preserving one that is now over 150 years old. 

Beyond this connection with the personalities in Bai's book, no one who is vaguely progressive should not read.  The whole culture of not exactly knowing what they are "for" and what they might want to oppose among the Billionaires in the Democratic circle, it needs understanding.  Many were bought up short supporting Kerry without adequate analysis, others are more locally oriented.  Many are specific issue oriented.  Unlike the Republicans who were rallied by a memo from Justice Powell to focus and concentrate their efforts, we need to comprehend why this hasn't happened on our side. 

Many Bloggers have dismissed Bai's book -- I think it worth a good read. 

Lower the voting age to 17

by emptypockets

I've tossed around this notion twice in passing recently, but let me take a minute to lay it out with a little (very little) more substance.

Why is the voting age 18?

The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 during the Vietnam War, when individuals too young to vote were being drafted. Although several states had already lowered the voting age, the highest minimum voting age was set nationally by the 26th Amendment, reading "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."

Note that it doesn't say no one younger than 18 shouldn't be allowed to vote -- just that no one older than 18 can be denied the right to vote.

Why lower the voting age now?

Ideologically, simply because I think 17 is old enough. The child-adult boundary is increasingly drawn at 16: the federal chld labor laws apply to those 16 and under, the age of sexual consent in most states is 16 or 17, and the military's minimum enlistment age is 17 (though that does require parental consent, and the minimum combat age is 18). In recent years the army has been aggresively recruiting in high schools -- in some cases, VERY aggressively. In fact, No Child Left Behind said that high schools were unable to keep military recruiters away from students without forfeiting federal funds. I think that if you can drive, work, have sex, and join the army, you are grown-up enough to vote.

Politically, because it is a win for Democrats across the board. What's more, we are approaching perfect storm conditions for this kind of movement. There are about 4 million 17-year-olds in the US, who are overwhelmingly Democratic. Young people are being drawn into politics like never before through the Obama campaign. We are heading into an election where a major defining contrast is between youth and age. We have a Republican party wrapping itself in "support the troops," who will find themselves taking a stand against the rights of the youngest military personnel. At the state level, Democratic governors are in the majority for the first time since 1992, and half of our Democratic governors control states that Bush won in 2004. Even if we can't reasonably lower the voting age before November -- and, frankly, I don't think we can -- a campaign to do so at the national and at the state level would further energize the youth movement, would underscore the differences between the parties, would put Republicans in an uncomfortable position, and would lay the groundwork for real change in coming years.

How would we do it?

I can imagine two ways. First, Congress could either pass a Constitutional amendment or a law lowering the voting age to 17. The Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government can't set the voting age for state elections (that's why the current voting age is set by a Constitutional amendment), so if Congress passes a law it would need to be written so that 17-year-olds could vote in federal elections but not on state ballots, a recipe for confusion at the polls. One way around this might be to treat 17-year-olds nationally similar to the way Americans abroad are treated, who can vote in presidential elections but not on state matters. I have no idea how this would work.

The second approach is a series of state-level laws or ballot initiatives. This approach has the advantage of keeping the movement local, building local activism, getting young people learning the political system from the bottom-up. And, as noted above, Democrats control the governorships of 14 red states, and swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Lowering the voting age in a few swing states alone could have as much impact on the election as a national measure might.

Summary

Lowering the voting age to 17 would add a few million Democrats to the rolls, capitalize on the youth-powered movement that Obama has begun, and put Republicans in the uncomfortable position of arguing that the youngest enlisted military personnel should not be allowed to vote.

Obama does best where Kerry did worst

or, "Who has won 'the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party'?"

by emptypockets

This post begins with a hypothesis: that Obama's wins have been bigger in red states than in blue states. It was based on the recollection that Clinton had fared best in the northeast and California, including the Big Blue threesome (CA, MA, NY) while Obama had been sweeping the south and west. If true, it seemed to challenge the conventional wisdom that one must run left in a Democratic primary to win, and the perception that Clinton is the more centrist candidate. If true, it might also bring interest to how the coin will fall in the remaining Big Blue states, Vermont and Rhode Island, whose March 4 primaries are otherwise overshadowed by the more delegate-rich contests in Texas and Ohio.

But, as you'll see, the hypothesis does not hold up well to the data. (Q: "What's the difference between a blogger and a pundit?" A: "One tests their ideas against the data, the other tests the data against their ideas.") That is, it is not entirely true -- Obama's performance in a state is probably explained better by geography, by timing, and by whether it is a caucus or primary state, than it is by how red or blue the state is -- but, as you'll see, it's not entirely false either.

Let's start with the data.

100 things Congress could do that would matter more to me than steroids in baseball

by emptypockets

The House spent some quality time this week with Roger Clemens at hearings that occupied both the attention of Representative Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as well as a big chunk of my morning paper's front page. These hearings were, to all extents and purposes, completely useless.

Leaving aside the fact that Congress has not seen fit to include baseball under the activities it regulates as interstate commerce (at least to my shaky understanding, as of 1972's Flood v. Kuhn) and therefore has given itself no jurisdiction over the sport, leaving aside that other star entertainers like 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean and Timbaland have also been accused of steroid use but have not been pulled before Congress (and that's not to mention pro wrestling), leaving aside that both Waxman and Clemens now say the hearings were unnecessary -- leaving aside all of that -- whether pro athletes or other entertainers use steroids is simply not something that's at the top of my priority list, and certainly not what I want my Congress to work on.

If Congress has run out of ideas for what to do, or finds itself unsure where my priorities lie, here are 100 things Congress could work on that would matter more to me than investigating steroids in baseball.

A few words for students researching Black History Month

by emptypockets

I noticed over the past week that we've had an unusual amount of traffic from people searching for information about Rosa Parks (and, to their good fortune, they were finding this excellent piece by DHinMI, from TNH's glory years months). For those still googling, the answer is, no, Rosa Parks didn't have children.

But, I began to wonder why the sudden interest in Rosa Parks. Then I realized it's February and, naturally, the shortest month is also Black History Month. Although only fleetingly observed by the general public, there seem to be enough (students?) interested in the topic that it has a measurable impact on search engine traffic. In fact, if civilization came to an end and all that survived were google's search records, you could still figure out when Black History Month had been:

Search results for "black history" from Google Trends

Participatory budgeting

by emptypockets

It's hard to believe that Bush's proposed budget is what anyone wants. For example, he suggests cutting half the federal funds for public broadcasting, while he spends the same amount ($200 million) in Iraq every 12 hours.

Unfortunately, as ordinary taxpayers, we don't have that much influence over the final budget. If we want to see more money put into biomedical research or the arts we can vote every couple years, we can try to lobby Congress, or we can give to charitable groups and bypass the government entirely. Maybe there ought to be a more direct method.

Suppose we try something new. Take the budget -- Bush's proposal is over $3 trillion -- and make a 0.1% across-the-board cut, reducing every agency's funding by one penny out of every 10 dollars. Take the resulting $3 billion and put it into a Taxpayer-Directed Spending fund. And let the people decide where that money should go.

Obama won caucuses, Clinton won primaries

by emptypockets

Among the most astute next-day analyses of Super Tuesday that I've seen is this one from the Votemaster at electoral-vote.com. He provides the following tables, which speak volumes:

The asterisks are caucus states; the non-asterisks are primary states.

Let's Host a Debate

by emptypockets

I groaned when I heard Clinton had accepted an invitation to a Fox News Channel debate, because it is a huge distraction from what had threatened to become a substantive, engaging primary. I'm not personally among those who really care one way or the other whether a debate is held on Fox -- the discussion, to me, feels like a battle between media interests (and, yes, if you have a blog you're a media interest) and I can't reconcile it with the boasts of how Democrats are poised to put the reddest of red counties into play -- but I do see an opportunity here.

The very simple idea arose when I heard a soundbite from Clinton while flipping among election reports last night. I haven't been able to find it online, but here's my best paraphrase [this is not a quote]: We want to have a debate every week for the next four weeks, and at this point we're accepting all invitations.

Well, that sounds open! That sounds lovely! And that sounds like a great idea.

Instead of whetting our knives, why not invite Clinton and Obama to debate on the terms of the progressive blogosphere? The owners of the most-trafficked 3 or 4 sites can moderate. An outstanding list of questions was drafted last week by mcjoan over at dailykos in her What I want to know post. I'm sure we can think of other ways to bring a debate live on-line in a manner that hasn't been seen before. And, if Clinton is indeed accepting invitations from all comers, surely she will not embrace Fox and refuse us?

I've got an auditorium packed full of scientists I could volunteer, and I can make some lemonade or something. Anyone else willing to chip in?