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barking_iguanaLike most voters in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, and like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I'm an American Liberal. That is, I believe the rules by which our society's natural abundance is distributed must be crafted so that everyone can attain some minimum reasonable standard of living and so that power disparities, if not disparities in creature comforts, are minimized. I believe that worth is not measured simply in wealth, and also that the incentive of wealth should be made to better comport with other thing we value, such as our physical and ethical environments. I believe that while government rightly gets involved where we infringe on others, government must not infringe on our rights to shape our own lives when that does not directly infringe on others, even if most others think we are unwise or set bad examples. And I believe America's foreign policy should reflect all of Americans' values, not merely our desire for plundered bounty and ego gratification.
In the middle third of the 20th Century, those beliefs were the dominant strain of thought among our nation's public intellectuals and the folks we'd now call wonks. It helped that acting on those beliefs served the perceived self-interests of the very rich much better than it does now. And even so, there were sharp conflicts regarding labor organizing. But on the whole, from 1933 through 1968, the government was mostly run by and guided from the outside by people who subscribed to at least a wishy-washy version of the 'liberal consensus'.
It was in that environment that the Supreme Court came to be composed of men who not only grew to be liberally inclined, but saw (usually correctly, but occasionally too creatively) many ways in which implementing liberal values was a necessary part of abiding by our Constitution. Coordinated, though not ideologically or intellectually led, by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court mandated many changes for the better. In doing so, it preempted and at times went well beyond public opinion, as the Court must at times do if it is to live its role as arbiter of rights.
In the late 1960s, as the rich came to fear revolution much less than they had a generation earlier, and as racial politics and backlash against all forms of rapid change led to increasingly strong assaults on liberal values, the Court and its previously established rulings stood as a bulwark against the forces of reaction. The Court's unanimously standing up to Nixon, even though by then it had four Nixon appointees on it, further enhanced its esteem in liberals' eyes.
So as the political winds seemed to grow more and more conservative into the 1980s, the liberal establishment decided that its best approach was to not make waves. To keep the temperature of political debate cool enough so that the Court could do its thing without a runaway electorate and political process passing amendments and otherwise preventing the Court from saving the day. What was left of the increasingly decimated liberal establishment grew ever less trustful of the voters. They became attached to low-turnout strategies of identifying and getting to the polls like-minded individuals, while trying not to inflame the passions of those who would be opposed.
To that end, they, like well-behaved Supreme Court Justices, came to state their case on the narrowest ground that they thought would be persuasive at any given moment. Engaging the reactionaries on broader, more ideological ground would, they dreaded, bring on the very tsunami they feared would wipe away all the gains of previous decades. And so, for more than a generation, liberal leaders have often spoken of what is needed, but rarely (except in simplistic heartstring-pulling ways), why. Decades of Americans have grown up seeing that there is something inadequate in the trickle-down/trample-on economy, but have not been presented with any alternative, save for some government-organized charity and a few simple programs like Social Security that are sold only by self-interest rather than by fairness.
If we were truly as conservative a society as the reactionary ideologues would like us to believe, the timid posture of the those who have represented liberals in Washington would be justified. But when Americans are polled on basic issues, we are consistently more liberal than the political candidates we vote for. We don't (or enough of us don't) respond to liberal candidates, because those candidates themselves seem to lack any convictions to be courageous about.
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Hillary Clinton is a skilled politician. She may be the best of her generation at working behind the scenes to put together a coalition of already interested people. And I believe her commitment to social justice is genuine. But she is steeped in the culture of failure that is Washington liberalism. Furthermore, in mastering the intricacies of Washington networks, she now finds herself inseparably aligned with the forces in the Democratic Party that are most committed to the status quo and virulently opposed to risk.
If a broad liberal consensus still existed, Clinton could manage it successfully. Or if the short-term situation was hopeless, she would be better than most at containing the damage. But as a mover of the nation, I believe she is grievously unsuited.
On the other hand, changing the terms of the debate and moving the nation is part of Barack Obama's central skill. There are other reasons to support Obama, and reasons to be reticent, as well. But if you believe, as I do, that there is both a great opportunity and great need to build a liberal movement that will last a generation or more, then Obama is the right candidate for what ails the country and the party.
In the middle third of the 20th Century, those beliefs were the dominant strain of thought among our nation's public intellectuals and the folks we'd now call wonks. It helped that acting on those beliefs served the perceived self-interests of the very rich much better than it does now. And even so, there were sharp conflicts regarding labor organizing. But on the whole, from 1933 through 1968, the government was mostly run by and guided from the outside by people who subscribed to at least a wishy-washy version of the 'liberal consensus'.
It was in that environment that the Supreme Court came to be composed of men who not only grew to be liberally inclined, but saw (usually correctly, but occasionally too creatively) many ways in which implementing liberal values was a necessary part of abiding by our Constitution. Coordinated, though not ideologically or intellectually led, by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court mandated many changes for the better. In doing so, it preempted and at times went well beyond public opinion, as the Court must at times do if it is to live its role as arbiter of rights.
In the late 1960s, as the rich came to fear revolution much less than they had a generation earlier, and as racial politics and backlash against all forms of rapid change led to increasingly strong assaults on liberal values, the Court and its previously established rulings stood as a bulwark against the forces of reaction. The Court's unanimously standing up to Nixon, even though by then it had four Nixon appointees on it, further enhanced its esteem in liberals' eyes.
So as the political winds seemed to grow more and more conservative into the 1980s, the liberal establishment decided that its best approach was to not make waves. To keep the temperature of political debate cool enough so that the Court could do its thing without a runaway electorate and political process passing amendments and otherwise preventing the Court from saving the day. What was left of the increasingly decimated liberal establishment grew ever less trustful of the voters. They became attached to low-turnout strategies of identifying and getting to the polls like-minded individuals, while trying not to inflame the passions of those who would be opposed.
To that end, they, like well-behaved Supreme Court Justices, came to state their case on the narrowest ground that they thought would be persuasive at any given moment. Engaging the reactionaries on broader, more ideological ground would, they dreaded, bring on the very tsunami they feared would wipe away all the gains of previous decades. And so, for more than a generation, liberal leaders have often spoken of what is needed, but rarely (except in simplistic heartstring-pulling ways), why. Decades of Americans have grown up seeing that there is something inadequate in the trickle-down/trample-on economy, but have not been presented with any alternative, save for some government-organized charity and a few simple programs like Social Security that are sold only by self-interest rather than by fairness.
If we were truly as conservative a society as the reactionary ideologues would like us to believe, the timid posture of the those who have represented liberals in Washington would be justified. But when Americans are polled on basic issues, we are consistently more liberal than the political candidates we vote for. We don't (or enough of us don't) respond to liberal candidates, because those candidates themselves seem to lack any convictions to be courageous about.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hillary Clinton is a skilled politician. She may be the best of her generation at working behind the scenes to put together a coalition of already interested people. And I believe her commitment to social justice is genuine. But she is steeped in the culture of failure that is Washington liberalism. Furthermore, in mastering the intricacies of Washington networks, she now finds herself inseparably aligned with the forces in the Democratic Party that are most committed to the status quo and virulently opposed to risk.
If a broad liberal consensus still existed, Clinton could manage it successfully. Or if the short-term situation was hopeless, she would be better than most at containing the damage. But as a mover of the nation, I believe she is grievously unsuited.
On the other hand, changing the terms of the debate and moving the nation is part of Barack Obama's central skill. There are other reasons to support Obama, and reasons to be reticent, as well. But if you believe, as I do, that there is both a great opportunity and great need to build a liberal movement that will last a generation or more, then Obama is the right candidate for what ails the country and the party.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:26 am (UTC)The nation does not need moving; the liberal/progressive/technocrat/bureaucrat methodology is not failed (look to Europe); all that needs to be done is what we almost, achingly, achieved in the later nineties: the population needs to be reminded of the connection between what they want and the liberal project, and the policymakers need to be reminded why the liberal project is RIGHT and JUST.
Platitudes won't do it. Policy will.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-06 02:52 am (UTC)liberal != technocrat
Date: 2008-02-09 07:54 pm (UTC)The points Dvd put out in his first paragraph I broadly believe in. I find it hard to believe that there are educated, thoughful people who don't. (Perhaps a tautalogical statement.) The devil is in the details. How best to structure society so that people do have chances as equal as nature, luck and their own hard work have left them.
The comment above though is part of why I tend to vote Republican. Equating liberal = progressive = technocrat = bureaucrat strikes me as equating some fine ideals with doomed ways of trying to make things better. To me 'technocracy' and 'bureaucracy' strike me as the view that if we just legislate everything; if we just make rules and laws for every case and possability; if we just tell people exactly what they can and cannot do then somehow we will have a perfect society.
Not only does that view strike me as extreme hubris, but it just strikes me as self-evidently wrong. Trying to write rules to cover all cases and make everything equal just leads to more points of arbitrage.
Educate people to treat each other as people, as friends, as family. Educate people on how to think and how to ask questions. Educate people that there are differences out there, but there are a lot more similarities. Beyond that, why try to interfer in or direct their lives unless they are directly harming others? To me that sounds liberal, but it does not sound technocratic or bureaucratic.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 11:37 am (UTC)I like to point out how even the exalted Paul Wellstone was by and large an ordinary Democrat who lacked conviction. Thus he voted for the TRAITOR Act and waited till the last minute to ‘decide’ to vote against the war resolution. He had the spine of a wet noodle, on these things which demanded serious political courage (e.g., as shown by his neighbor Feingold wrt the TRAITOR Act).
I wonder to Kristy whether Obama’s Senate record so far is a ploy in which he mimics Clinton’s moves, and so suggest his state legislative record may be more important. Obama, I say, may get himself elected and then go do something different (and if he did good in the past then what he does in the future more than likely also will be good). OTOH, I argue, I don’t picture Hillary Clinton changing a lot; it’s cluster bombing as far as the eye can see.