HERBERT MARCUSE -- WORDS OF SOLACE IN DIFFICULT TIMES

I have been getting more and more depressed by the unwillingness of Democrats to pass meaningful health care reform. I assumed the Republicans would be obstructive, and that there would be some heavy negotiating with so-called Blue Dog Democrats, but the level of resistance has surprised me, even though I come to the political world fully outfitted with Marxist presuppositions and a lifetime of disappointments. For solace and wisdom I turned, as I often do, to the words of my old friend and one-time co-author, Herbert Marcuse, now long departed. In the Preface to his most powerful book, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN, Herbert apologizes for the abstract character of the analysis, with these words:

“In the absence of demonstrable agents and agencies of social change, the critique is thus thrown back to a high level of abstraction. There is no ground on which theory and practice, thought and action meet. Even the most empirical analysis of historical alternatives appears to be unrealistic speculation, and commitment to them a matter of personal (or group) preference.”

He then continues, a paragraph later: “The fact that the vast majority of the population accepts, and is made to accept, this society does not render it less irrational and less reprehensible. The distinction between true and false consciousness, real and immediate interest still is meaningful.”

The fault, in short, lies not in our President, but in ourselves. Were there sufficient support in the electorate for the necessary and salutary changes he seeks, there would, I have no doubt, be a sufficiency of Representatives and Senators willing to vote for them.

What to do? Well, I spent a few hours yesterday at the Chapel Hill Public Library, collecting signatures on a petition being circulated nationally in support of the principles underlying Obama's health care proposals. As might be expected, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. In ninety minutes, two of us collected seventy signatures. The principal resistance came from a few folks who were holding out for a single payer system. But Chapel Hill is to North Carolina as Berkeley is to Northern California, Madison is to Wisconsin, Hyde Park is to Chicago, and Harvard Square is to Cambridge. Still, the welling up of protest here in the newly Democratic South does seem to have turned Kay Hagen around, and perhaps a comparable outpouring in other swing constituencies will do the trick.

Is it any wonder that I have retreated further into the clouds even than theory, to spend my time spelling out a fantasy of the ideal college?

A TINY BIT OF GOOD NEWS

Well, I, and apparently lots of others, called, emailed, or wrote Senator Kay Hagen [D. North Carolina] and told her that we expected her to reverse her stand and SUPPORT a public option in the health care reform effort. Now she says she never was opposed to it, and will in fact support the current Senate version. OK. I am a firm believer in allowing a politician to cover her ass when she has been pressured by her constituents into changing her position. Let's keep the pressure on all the waverers. This is crunch time, and clearly outside pressure is the key to getting a decent bill.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL

As soon as Susie and I moved down to North Carolina I signed up for the Obama campaign, and worked my tail off entering data, registering voters outside supermarkets, and walking door to door. My primary focus was on the presidential race, of course, but I also gave money to the effort by Kay Hagen to unseat the egregious Elizabeth Dole and enlarge to Democrats' margin in the Senate. Well, we were successful. We elected a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator, and we even carried North Carolina for Obama by 11,000 votes.
Now I discover that our new Democratic senator is OPPOSED to the public option in the proposed bill, which is as much as to say that she is opposed to serious reform. This is not what we worked so hard for here in North Carolina. There is nothing for it but to get out the phone lists, crank up the machine, and start putting pressure on her to reverse course.
I called her Senate office, of course, and made my views known, but all I got from the young man who answered the phone was doubletalk.
Sigh. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Senator Hagen's Senate Office Phone Number: 202-224-6342