BACK FROM THE BRINK

Well, one day under the weather is a reasonable price to pay for 97% protection against shingles.  Now, as to that clip from Noam Chomsky, which you can view here.  Noam starts by pooh-poohing the foofaraw about Russian interference in the 2016 election, indicating by his tone of voice as much as by what he says that he considers it pretty small beer.  [How’s that for two old fashioned slang expressions and one cliché in a single sentence?]  Then he moves on to a recent scholarly study that shows in granular detail the influence of money in American politics, which he suggests is much greater than any effect Russian efforts at interference might have had.  The second part of the short interview concerns the shape of post-war European power politics.  Let me say something about the first two points.

Were it not disrespectful to someone whom I like personally and for whom I have the very greatest esteem, I would be tempted to respond, “Duh!”  Big money plays a big role in American politics!  Who knew?  The ability of big money to shape politics is a fundamental structural fact not only about American politics but about the politics of all capitalist states.  The state exists in a capitalist economy for the purpose of facilitating the smooth and unchallenged exploitation of the working class, and one of the principal ways in which Capital accomplishes this in capitalist democracies is by shaping electoral outcomes.  Big money in American politics, to use again a catchphrase I have invoked before, is a feature, not a bug.

Does it therefore make no difference how that money is allowed legally to influence elections?  That depends on whether you think there is any point in trying to make American capitalism less harsh, less exploitative, less inhumane, even though those ameliorations are only at the margin.  I do think so.  Hence, for example, I decry the notorious Citizens United Supreme Court decision.  Did corporate and private wealth play a major role in American politics before that decision?  A silly question.  Would it continue to do so if the decision were reversed?  Equally silly.  Does the decision therefore matter?  That is a question worth debating.  My answer is yes.  Hence, I think it matters who sits on the Supreme Court.  Now, it goes without saying that every member of the Supreme Court now and for as long as matters has been nominated by a President, Democrat or Republican, who was committed to the capitalist exploitation of labor [though not of course under that description.]  I think we can also agree that all of the ice at the North and South Poles will have melted [and hell, correspondingly will have frozen over] before there is a workable majority on the Supreme Court ready to rule that capitalism is unconstitutional.

So I quite agree that the effect of the Russians on the 2016 election, whatever it may have been, pales into insignificance [another cliché] next to the influence of money.  Why, therefore, do I care about it?

The answer is simple.  I think Trump is a more serious threat to everything I care about than Clinton would have been, bad as she is and was, and I think his manifest conspiring with the Russians, which has taken place in plain view, may yet bring him down.  That’s it.  That is why I care.  Not because I believe it is besmirching the purity of the American political system, envy of the world; not because I think once he is gone America’s role as The Leader of the Free World, A City Upon a Hill, The Last Best Hope of Humanity, will be restored.  Just because I think the Russia thing may bring him down.

But if that is why I care about collusion, why don’t I care about Stormy Daniels and hush money?  Why don’t I care about the use of New York apartments to launder the dirty money of Russian oligarchs?  I do care!  And for exactly the same reason.  As the talking heads have now become fond of observing, it was tax evasion that sent Al Capone to jail.

I have had my say on the last part of Noam’s comments, concerning post-war Euro-American power politics, so I will pass on that.

BRIEF BREAK

On Thursday I had my second Shingles vaccine shot, and as anticipated, it had a bad effect on me.  I spent most of yesterday laid up, but will be back tomorrow blogging.  I would like to say something about the Noam Chomsky interview to which someone with the handle "Heraclitus" linked in a comment.  

And so, to steal a line from Pepys, to bed.

THE INEFFABLE MYSTERIOUSNESS OF CELL PHONES

It was a long walk, and after I had concluded all the thoughts outlined in the previous post, I got to thinking about cell phones.  Cell phones!  Why cell phones?  Well, yesterday was my granddaughter Athena’s tenth birthday, and my son Tobias, who has been staying at his house in Palm Springs, was due to fly up to San Francisco for the birthday party.  I was hoping I could reach him there on his cell phone and maybe talk to him, to his older brother Patrick, and to Athena, all together.

Then an odd thought occurred to me.  How would my cell phone know that Tobias was in San Francisco, and not in Palm Springs?  If we were still in landline days, I would call Palm Springs and get the answering machine if he had already left.  Then I would hang up and call Patrick’s landline to see whether everyone had gathered yet for the party.  But if I call Tobias’ cell phone, he will answer it whichever place he is at.  Indeed, I might get him in his car on the way to the airport, or in the cab going from SFO to Patrick’s home.  If at the last minute he had been called back to Philadelphia, I would reach him there.

Now I have a vague untechnical grasp of cell towers and all of that.  I understand that when I call Tobias, the signal is passed from cell tower to cell tower, from North Carolina to Palm Springs – or to San Francisco, or to wherever else Tobias happens to be.  But since, when I call him, even I may not know where he is, the signal must go to every single cell tower in the United States.  I mean, he might even have come to North Carolina to surprise me with a visit, and he might actually be standing outside my apartment door ready to knock when I call him.

And since there is nothing technically special about my cell phone or his, it must be the case that every single call made by anyone anywhere in America goes to every single cell tower in America, and hence is available to me [or to anyone else] no matter where in America I am.

It gives one pause.

AS I WAS WALKING

I walked very early this morning, starting at 4:30 a.m., so early that I did not see any of the dogs with whom I have made friends.  As a consequence, I had time to think, and the result is that I have a number of things I want to say.

First of all, let me acknowledge that as an old man, I really do not fully appreciate the threats and challenges faced by young people making their way these days in the world of work.  I say this by way of apologizing for the hard line I have taken here on anonymous [and pseudonymous] comments.  To be sure, during the years before I was awarded tenure at Columbia [which is to say before 1964], I made myself reasonably obnoxious, challenging the President and the Dean of Harvard and the President of the University of Chicago while I was teaching there, as well as alienating numerous senior professors here and there.  But I was fortunate, and these breaches of academic etiquette did not cost me very much.  [I did lose jobs I wanted at Hunter College, Boston University, and Brandeis because of my political statements, but in retrospect I was better off not getting those jobs anyway.]  However, it would seem that things are a great deal harder now, and I am sorry that I have failed to take that into account.  Let us just agree that commentators, named or unnamed, will try on this blog to remember that we are comrades, not enemies, and will write in that spirit.

Second, my invocation of a line from The Sting was not meant as a comment on the dispute concerning Russia.  Its purpose was to remind us all that in politics, one never gets all that one wants, even when one wins, so one must be willing to take what victory brings and recognize that it will never be enough.  Even if we managed by some miracle to elect enough Ocasio-Cortez’s to control the House, and enough Bernie Sanders to control the Senate, and Elizabeth Warren as President, that dream world would probably just take us back to the glory days of the New Deal, which was not, I can report, a socialist paradise.  In reality, even a brilliant electoral success would yield much less.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, as the Good Book says.

Third, I want to offer my own take on Trump’s incendiary tweet that Jeff Sessions should end the Mueller investigation right now.  [Those who sigh at these words and conclude that I am just an apologist for the Democratic National Committee are advised to turn off their computers and go read some Gramsci.]  Almost immediately after that tweet appeared, Trump’s lawyers called the mainstream media and went on television explaining that he was not giving an order, just expressing an opinion, as though he were himself merely a talking head on a cable news show.  The anti-Trumpers responded by proclaiming this an impeachable offense and opined that Trump had walked it back because he knew that firing Mueller would drive the Congressional Republicans into dangerous opposition.  I think all of that is way too complicated, and gives Trump more credit for rationally self-interested action than he deserves.

The explanation, I suggest, is much simpler.  Trump, like many narcissistic bullies, is a coward.  He became a media darling on The Apprentice by intoning each week the signature line “You’re fired!” but that was a scripted bit of theater, rehearsed and performed for the cameras.  The reality is that Trump has proven himself to be too weak and cowardly to fire anyone to his or her face.  He sends his underlings to do the job, and when they protest, as White House McGahn did when told to fire Mueller, Trump backs down.  Commentators have endlessly drawn parallels with the Saturday Night Massacre, but in that case, Nixon actually ordered Elliott Richardson to fire Archibald Cox.  When Richardson refused and resigned, Nixon ordered William Ruckelshaus, next in line, to fire him, and when Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned, Nixon gave the order to Robert Bork, who complied.  Say what you will about Nixon, he was not a spineless coward and blowhard.  Trump is.

ONE MORE WORD, COURTESY OF SCOTT JOPLIN

Let me add a cautionary warning to my efforts to promote on the ground political action.  Most of you probably recall The Sting, starring Redford and Newman.  Near the beginning of the movie, Redford goes looking for Newman to learn how to pull off the Big Con against Robert Shaw, who has had one of Redford’s buddies murdered.  He finds Newman sobering up in a whore house, and asks about the Big Con.  Newman agrees to help, but warns Redford:

“You're going to go for him.  I don't want a hothead looking to get even, coming back saying......"It ain't enough." 'Cause it's all we're gonna get.”

This has for years been my mantra in political work.  I could give it a deep psychodynamic ideological interpretation out of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, but you get the idea.  Nothing in politics, not even a revolution, turns out to be everything you wanted, and if you cannot live with that reality, then best you don’t even try.

A BRIEF RESPONSE TO ONE SMALL PORTION OF A COMMENT

Jerry Fresia writes, “I just don't see electoral office holding as the only way our life chances are authored.”  You are quite correct, Jerry, but if I may respond in the same metaphor, although they are not the only way our life chances are authored, they are a principal way in which those chances are published.  That is, in our country at this time, one way, indeed the most important way, in which life chances are transformed from demands or proposals into facts for large numbers of people is through their enactment into laws which then shape the actions of both people and bureaucratic structures.  Health insurance, union rights, auto emissions standards, workplace safety regulations, anti-war movements, voting rights protections, LGBT rights, and so forth.  All spring from demands of citizens [and others] and then are enacted into law by representatives responsive to those demands.  For those actually getting themselves elected, the office may be a career move, whatever their convictions, but they are vehicles for the translation of upswellings of demand into laws.  Not the only way, to be sure, but in our country at this time, a very important way.

A LITTLE DECORUM, PLEASE

Let us try to establish some ground rules.  

First, this blog is intended as a a conversation, not as an exercise in polemic or verbal mud-wrestling.  If you are so wrought up that you cannot speak civilly, then take it elsewhere until you calm down.  

Second, especially if you are going to be abusive or insulting, simple courage requires that you not hide behind "anonymous."  If you are going to address another commentator by name, then identify yourself by name.  If Google for some reason does not permit you to sign a comment with your name, you can identify yourself in the body of the comment.  The only reason for remaining anonymous is a genuine fear of retaliation.  If you have such a fear, and it is legitimate, explain it in your comment.

Third,  the besetting sin of left wing politics is the sort of factional feuding characteristic of religious sects.  Try to remember that in a country of three hundred and thirty million people, any successful political movement will necessarily involve the cooperation or collaboration of groups with many serious differences of belief and commitment.  Members of a religious sect seeking eternal salvation may believe that doctrinal purity takes precedence over all else, but political actors who think that their greatest threat comes from those close to them on the political spectrum rather than from those at the opposite end doom themselves to marginalization.

Does that mean that progressives must yield to centrists, that rebels must fall in line with party hacks?  No, it doesn't.  How do those in the left wing of the Democratic Party gain greater power?  Well, first of all, they get themselves elected to something.  Then they join with other leftists who have gotten themselves elected.  If enough of them get elected, they begin to be able to wield power in a state legislature or in the House of Representatives or even in the  Senate.  Why is American politics so awful?  One reason is that large swathes of the American public are awful.  I am sitting here in North Carolina represented in the House of Representatives by a poisonous ex-pastor.  Why?  Because large numbers of my fellow Tar Heels cannot be bothered to go to the polls and vote on election day.

Finally, I am eighty-four years old.  I have been fighting these battles for more than sixty years.  I have spoken publicly, in print and in person, more times than young people can imagine.  I have earned the right to expect those reading this blog to acknowledge that lifetime of action and to understand that it is not necessary to say everything one believes every time one speaks.  If that is too difficult for you to acknowledge, then go somewhere else.