Five Before Chaos

Ok, time for a post I feel that is long overdue. As most of you know, I live, breathe, eat and shit politics. I’m a nerd about it. And, living in the People’s Republic of Vermont (which I proclaim proudly), I’m subjected to all varieties of left-wing politics, from the rational to the ridiculous. There’s the stereotypical banana-republic-lovin‘ types with their Che Guevara posters, the conspiracy theorists (I’m even now hearing how the Democratic victory was some sort of Republican conspiracy), left-leaning Democrats, moderate Democrats, activists of all stripes, pointless let’s protest-everything-that-moves-types, neo-Luddites, back-to-the-landers,you name it, it’s here. And many of these people are my closest friends. And I agree with many of them on many issues, namely that our American system is inherently rigged to benefit moneyed interests, and other than throwing an occasional bone to the masses, it’s always been that way, and that a major change and realignment are necessary for this country to move forward.

The idea that we need to have a better relationship with our planet is one I hold higher than just about anything else. Our government’s priorities have always been screwed up, whether it’s our interventions in the doings of foreign nations or our incessant worship of the stock market and consumerism. Much of middle America makes me want to puke.

I ultimately think that will end up prevailing in the end is some weird synthesis of socialist democracy and capitalism. In principle, I agree with many of the tenets of my anarchist and socialist friends, and wholly support a grass-roots movement to change things. A shift to everything becoming more local-based would benefit all regardless of what side of the political spectrum one resides. I’ve gotten arrested in political protests before, as well as participated in affinity groups that have been a bit on the subversive side. A glance around my blog attests to whose side I’m on. So I’ve got some semblance of credibility.

But here’s where things differ. I also realize that the current system, even with all of our well-intentioned goals and actions, is not about to come crashing down like the Soviet Union did (well, one could almost say the neo-con implosion was similar, I guess). And so, along with supporting the goals that we on the left strife for, I have made a conscious effort to participate in the system as well as outside of the system. And believe me, I catch hell for it.

A few months ago, Joel Hirschhorn at Smirking Chimp wrote an article called ‘Neo-Cons Meet Neo-Progressives’. It struck a nerve with me:

What is now apparent is that we have a whole lot of “neo-progressives,” people who have no hesitancy in supporting mainstream Democrats in the name of defeating Republicans. Neo-progressives cannot resist the temptation to support the lesser-evil as a pragmatic strategy, justified in the name of saving the country from yet more years of Republican dominance.

Ok, I agree with that to an extent. Now here’s where I think he misses the mark:

Neo-progressives seem blind to the fundamental deficiencies of the Democratic Party and its candidates. The concept of a two-party duopoly and the reality that Democrats as well as Republicans are beholding to many special economic interests, are also corrupt and dishonest, and when in power do not seriously pursue what were historic progressive and populist values – all seem now to be lost in the pseudo-ecstasy of anticipating a Democratic victory this year, enough to take over one or both houses of congress. Objective reality is lost in the heat of anti-Republican anger and frustration. Neo-progressives, it seems to me, have let their emotions out-gun their deeper intellectual knowledge and principles. They seem drunk from drinking Democratic Party Kool-aid.

You don’t now how many times I’ve been accused of ‘drinking the Kool-aid’ for the simple crime of pointing out how a Democrat has a good stance on a host of issues, or for dismissing the importance of a party-organizational decision.

Part of the problem with some of us on the left is that we are so disgusted with the political system that we refuse to partake in it in any way, shape, or form. I can’t think of a bigger disenfranchisement. I don’t know how many people I’ve known over the years with great ideas and passion, that haven’t accomplished one single goal. And I’m not saying that their efforts have been completely for naught; we’ve made great strides here in Vermont in the past few years on several fronts, such as gender equality, and restricting GMO’s and bovine-growth hormone. They’re great examples of what good, local politics can accomplish. Over the past few years, nothing has been more important to me than putting the brakes on the neo-con Republican juggernaut. Nothing. It is, without a doubt, the most immediate, dangerous thing I’ve seen in this country in my 35 years of existence. And the biggest short-term solution, as I see it, is the recapture of the U.S. Congress and Senate by the Dems, which is now a reality. I’m not looking forward to the ’08 presidential race. Nobody even comes close to representing my values, least of all, Hillary.

So, I’m stuck in a rock and a hard place. Part of me feels like, at the very least, like many in the netroots, I should do as much as possible to influence the Democratic party in a way that will help to accomplish our progressive goals. It’s not much, but it’s something, and it’s better than not engaging at all, isn’t it? The idealism I encounter outside of the system is at times refreshing and inspiring, and other times frustrating. I’ve said this before; I hear a lot of where we should be at at point ‘G’, and we’re currently at point ‘A’. What’s step ‘B’ or ‘C’? That, and I think that on the further reaches of our side, I often get the sense that many of us don’t have a clue as to how backwards many parts of this country still is. We carry on like we can’t understand why our beliefs are so marginalized when they just make sense. And that’s one of the things that keeps my idealism in check; last time I looked, there was still a Bible Belt. And Beverly Hills.

I’ll still take every opportunity to ride the ass of every Democrat who dares drift rightward (are you listening, Mr. Welch?). And I’ll still work with my comrades (had to say it) to organize and press hard for our ideas, no matter how out in left field they may seem to some. And I can do it without selling out or being some ‘party hack’ as some called me. But it takes a sense of nuance, knowing that yes, not everyone in the system is completely evil (or those who work with them), but to know ultimately that things need to change, and it’s not going to happen overnight.

I’m kinda surprised they printed this. In the Wall Street Journal, Senator-elect Jim Webb (you know, one of the ‘conservative’ ones we’re hearing about) lays down a compelling argument for a dramatic economic realignment in this country, with a smackdown on the status quo:

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn’t happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners’ pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all…

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation’s most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the “rough road of capitalism.” Others claim that it’s the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.

It’s a great op-ed piece, especially because it’s a laundry-list of things that run counter to the philosophy of what I imagine would be the majority of the Wall Street Journal’s readers. Is Webb blowing smoke up our asses or is there going to be a genuine attempt to return to the economic populism of the Democratic party of long ago? We’ll see in January, I guess.

As usual, Joe Bageant nails things on the head like so few others can, with his ‘Pissing in the Liberal Punchbowl’:

“The Democratic Party does America not one bit of good by sustaining the hubris that has brought us to the point where our high officials and former officials such as Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales (and others yet to be charged, we suspect) cannot travel in countries like Germany because of war crime indictments. Someone has to ask, “How did we come to this?” Ask “How can we not only change our course, but also make amends and prove to the world that we are worthy of trust?” It would be of great help if we were actually worthy of trust.

It ain’t gonna happen because, just like George Bush, we as a people never admit our mistakes. Not as long as we are packing more heat than all the rest of the world combined. We are the five percent of the planet consuming a quarter of its resources on the grounds of divine entitlement as Americans. And the heat we pack. Think the Dems are gonna address that? Address that belligerent two-ton rhino in the sandbox called the American Lifestyle? Nobody will, and that refusal will ensure our downfall. Rhinos can be taken down, and you don’t have to be Hemingway to do it. Ask any 12-year-old Syrian or Palestinian boy. It’s their dream. Any bookie will tell you that odds are good that at least one of those millions of boys will accomplish his dream. Providence is like that.”

It’s always been a rough sticking point with me as to how Americans don’t seem to do introspective navel-gazing very well. Like many of our country’s problems, I chalk it up to my ‘we’re a young country’ theory. Like a young child, in most cases we haven’t matured to the point where we can look back on our behavior and judge it with some sense of objectivity, especially when it leads us to realize we’ve been acting like dickheads. We are just always so convinced that we are so right, probably because we’ve been brought up with this crazy way of thinking disguised as ‘national pride’ that enables that very ‘we’re #1′ delusion.

For my ‘Culture and Personality’ anthropology class this semester, I’m writing a paper on ‘The Use Of Entheogenic Plants in Primitive Cultures’. It’s pretty fascinating running the whole gamut from the peyote rituals of the Native American Church to the Ayahuasca rituals of South America, as well as many others. Interestingly enough, there was a recent study at Johns Hopkins that shed some new light on so-called ‘magic mushrooms’:

“Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.

The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.”

Now, as usual, with any new scientific development, things must be taken with a grain of salt, but this does sound promising:

“The researchers’ message isn’t just that psilocybin can produce mystical experiences. “I had a healthy skepticism going into this,” says Griffiths, “and that finding alone was a surprise.” But, as important, he says, “is that, under very defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It’s an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people.”

This conversation also leads us to the discussion that many of us secular humanists have that spirituality and its experiences may be nothing more than biochemical in origin, something that, for obvious reasons, many would find very threatening to their core belief system. David Koepsell, in an op-ed piece at Free Inquiry magazine, is skeptical that this kind of research will continue and expand due to the many taboos it breaks: “

What seems likely at this stage, because of the potential of such studies to undermine traditional mystical theology and our nation’s aversion to legitimizing therapeutic uses of drugs that are commonly abused, nothing further will come of this study, despite its interesting promise. In the meantime, we should feel comfortable with some preliminary confirmation of a thesis many of us hold: that mystical experiences do in fact occur, that they are completely naturalistically based, and that there is no basis to view those occurring in convents or seminaries as any more legitimate than those that occurred on the corner of Haight and Ashbury back in its heyday.”

Personally, I feel this research could yield us great understanding in the study of human behavior, if we can move past some of the sacred cows in this country and see where this takes us, regardless of what beliefs it challenges.

What? I still have to write these things? Jeez. Didn’t we just have an election or something?

First up in our exhibition of pious idiocy, Joshua Holland over at Smirking Chimp tells us a ‘Public School Teacher Who Gives Lesson in Right-wing Tolerance.’ You’re gonna love this nutjob:

…Self-described conservative Baptist David Paszkiewicz used his history class to proselytize biblical fundamentalism over the course of several days at the beginning of this school year…
Among his remarks in open class were statements that a being must have created the universe, that the Christian Bible is the word of God, and that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark. If you do not accept Jesus, he flatly proclaimed to his class, “you belong in hell.” Referring to a Muslim student who had been mentioned by name, he lamented what he saw as her inevitable fate should she not convert. In an attempt to promote biblical creationism, he also dismissed evolution and the Big Bang as non-scientific, arguing by contrast that the Bible is supported by what he calls confirmed biblical prophecies…

Now, you’ve heard me say before… the Sky Fairy has a sense of humor…

At the end of the meeting, LaClair revealed that he had recorded the remarks, and presented the principal with two compact discs.

It’s under investigation by the school board now. Hopefully, he’s toast. I’m sure there’s a Christian school that will hire him, ASAP. What a poor, persecuted victim he must feel like.

Next up, from the Nation, a horrible plan to breed more Christianists, in Coxsackie, NY. It’s pronounced ‘cock-sack-ey’, not to be confused with Pussylips, VA.

…But Wolfson, Moore and thousands of mothers like them call themselves and their belief system “Quiverfull.” They borrow their name from Psalm 127: “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” Quiverfull mothers think of their children as no mere movement but as an army they’re building for God.

Quiverfull parents try to have upwards of six children. They home-school their families, attend fundamentalist churches and follow biblical guidelines of male headship–”Father knows best”–and female submissiveness. They refuse any attempt to regulate pregnancy…
Pride argues that feminism is a religion in its own right, one that is inherently incompatible with Christianity. “Christians have accepted feminists’ ‘moderate’ demands for family planning and careers while rejecting the ‘radical’ side of feminism–meaning lesbianism and abortion,” writes Pride. “What most do not see is that one demand leads to the other. Feminism is a totally self-consistent system aimed at rejecting God’s role for women. …

Who are these people? Get this…

Janet Wolfson is a 44-year-old mother of eight in Canton, Georgia. Tracie Moore, a 39-year-old midwife who lives in southern Kentucky, is mother to fourteen. Wendy Dufkin in Coxsackie has her thirteen. And while Jamie Stoltzfus, a 27-year-old Illinois mom, has only four children so far, she plans on bearing enough to populate “two teams.” All four mothers are devoted to a way of life New York Times columnist David Brooks has praised as a new spiritual movement taking hold among exurban and Sunbelt families. Brooks called these parents “natalists” and described their progeny as a new wave of “Red-Diaper Babies”–as in “red state.”

Scary stuff.. sounds like it’s time to dump something in the water supply, no? I don’t buy the whole ‘conservative nutjobs will outbreed liberals and take over the world’ crap. It makes an assumption that all of those born will stay nutjobs. And it doesn’t work out that way. We can all think of someone we know who grew up in that environment and did everything they could to escape it as soon as they were able. And we’re always going to be smarter than them just because of the fact that we live in reality, and as Stephen Colbert said….’reality has a well-known liberal bias.’

So, Peter Welch is going to be our next congressman. Have you ever asked yourself where his contributions come from? Well, you can find out at Open Secrets, by the Center for Responsive Politics. There’s a wealth of information here, including breakdowns of business, labor, PAC’s, etc. You can look up any U.S. Senator or Congressperson.

So who donated to Peter and, based on that, what can we expect? In political action committee (PAC) contribution breakdowns, Peter got 11.8% from business, 43.4% from labor, and 44.8% from ideological/single issue PAC’s. So it is a safe bet that Peter will be a friend to labor interests. Hopefully, he will support trade policies that will benefit the American worker, and will not support more NAFTA-like agreements. His top contributors were unions of different stripes; teachers, firemen, you name it.

Of the companies that were in the top, Burton snowboards and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters were ones I noticed. Better than Exxon-Mobil, no doubt. Nothing surprising about large Vermont businesses giving donations to political candidates.

I looked up a few of the PAC’s… ‘Forward Together PAC’ seems to be a PAC set up for the purpose of electing Democrats. I couldn’t find much info on it, but ‘Our Common Values PAC’ seems to be of the same kind. Committee for A Livable Future is another Dem PAC, but its purpose is ‘to help elect Democratic Members of Congress who support the policies and principles that will make the U.S. government a partner in building and maintaining livable communities that embody smart growth principles.’ That one sounds pretty good to me. Welch also recived $10,000 from the abortion rights group, NARAL.

To be honest, I didn’t see anything to disturbing or shocking. I was expecting something questionable to show up. His top industry contributor were lawyers and law firms ($107,650), no surprise, especially considering that Welch himself is a lawyer. He did receive $2000 from defense industry PACs. Not surprising either.. it’s small, and there are a few defense industries in the state (it would be nice if he didn’t take it, though).

You can even see expenditures there. He spent $34 at Dunkin’ Donuts… if that doesn’t send up a red flag, what will?

So, what does this all mean? Well, as I said before, Peter’s going to be a friend to labor. He’s solidly pro-choice. I think he’ll work to get contracts for the small defense industry (something Pat Leahy has done quite well), good or bad depending on where you stand on that. And he probably won’t support much in the way of tort reform or lawsuits that limit corporate liability (good). All in all, I think it’s a mixed bag, but definitely one that is more in support of our values than against. We’ll see what happens. Whatever the case, as I’ve said before, we need to be vigilant with the Democrats and if they don’t do the right thing, we’ll let them (and others) know about it. There is another whole issue underlying this as well… the very idea of how much money gets tossed around in campaigns and wondering what is expected in return. That’s also a big part of the problem.

I’m taking a class at Johnson State this semester called ‘Anthropology of Death’, a study of death in culture, as well as the history of how humans have dealt with it. My assignment this month was to visit a funeral home and interview the director. Can you guess what this is?

Ok, most of my film reviews up here have been spaghetti westerns as of late, mostly because I’ve seen most of the blaxploitation flicks worth watching, and have to watch them again before a review. Unlike some of the spag westerns, most of the blaxploitation genre is lacking any artistic merit whatsoever. It’s pure camp, even the better ones, such as Foxy Brown, Shaft, etc. Some are so campy they make you laugh out loud, like Blacula or Bucktown. And then there’s pure crap, like one called Black Shampoo. I’m not gonna waste too much time on this.

John Daniels stars as a studly hairdresser named ‘Mr. Jonathan’, who, in his office gives some of his female clients a bit more than a new hairstyle (and that’s where the similarities with Warren Beatty’s Shampoo end). Turns out his new receptionist is in trouble with the mob or something like that. They trash his shop and later sodomize his male hairdresser with a curling iron (yup!), so he goes after them with a chainsaw. Do I need to say anything else?

Everything is over the top (or scraping the bottom, rather) in this; the soundtrack is generic blaxploitation movie music, and the dialogue is at times almost porno movie quality (not meaning it’s sexually explicit, just that bad). I can’t even recommend this one for the camp value, unless you like ‘em really bad. You’ve been warned.

AS some of you may know, I worked on a VT State Senate campaign for Democrat Donny Osman, a superb candidate, and great on the issues. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but as you know, the incumbents stayed in, Kim Cheney was 4th, Donny Osman was 5th. Republican businessman archetype Jim Parker was 6th (which became my joke du jour, as I was constantly labasted for playing it safe in that one prediction I was sure of).

The Osman campaign was the first campaign I worked on. My job was basically to brainstorm, come up with various tactics to get the word out, and to craft and hone the message accordingly. I also designed the bumper stickers and those blue signs some of you saw everywhere. And I learned quite a bit about campaigns and campaigning.

One of the most profound things I learned was that the poison that infects national politics, and to a lesser extent, our statewide races, was nonexistent in this campaign. Peter Young, the campaign manager, and Donny often tempered my instincts to go for the jugular. I’m not talking about dirty tricks or anything, just a bit more aggression in challenging the others on the issues. The idea of running a clean and more importantly, congenial campaign was going to be the way things were done.

We had some pretty good advice getting out the gate. Early on, we had dinner with former VT Lt. Governor Doug Racine, who offered us some tips on campaign strategy. We also met with the Democracy For America people and a rather popular Barre politician.

Donny worked his ass off, knocking on over 6,000 doors in Washington County. He seemed to have a lot of support in Montpelier. My concerns were the other three big towns, none of which nearly as liberal as Montpelier. Northfield is a tough town for a liberal. Donny even noticed a difference in the demeanor of people in the different towns, depending on the political leanings of the town.

We had a great GOTV effort, with lots of enthusiastic supporters helping to write postcards, stuff envelopes and such. In dealing with the party apparatus (one that I am incredibly skeptical of, and none too enamored of), we listened to some advice and ignored some.

Donny went into the studio and cut a folksy radio ad with local well-known musician, Colin McCaffrey. We went and then put together a short low-quality video on YouTube. When it was well received, we had a professional film another one, 10 minutes long, about the issues, which was available on Donny’s website as well as YouTube. Donny’s son Daniel also set up a MySpace page for Donny as well. We were trying to think a bit outside of the box (at least for a local campaign).

The frustrating thing about working on a local campaign is that there are no polls, nothing to indicate how you’re actually doing. It really feels like a crapshoot. I did a fairly good job keeping my optimism in check. Throughout the race, right till the end, I had no idea if we’d win. I didn’t want to be like, let’s say, Orrin Hatch’s presidential campaign team where you have to suspend reality just to show up to work on the campaign.

On election night, it was decided pretty early. Donny came in 3rd in Montpelier, a big deal considering that all of the incumbents live in Montpelier. He came in first in his old rep district, Calais/Marshfield/Plainfield. We had put a lot of legwork into Barre, I was kind of surprised that our numbers weren’t higher there. Northfield was no surprise, nor was Waterbury. Even though it was somewhat somber at our election headquarters that night, I still felt really good inside (and what was happening nationally helped keep my spirits up,as well). We ran a great campaign, and we worked our asses off. They say James Brown is the hardest working man in show business; Donny was definitely the hardest working man on the campaign trail. And we did get a lot of progressive-minded people very excited.

What went wrong? Well, I think we really underestimated the power of incumbency. We were running against three popular incumbents, in a somewhat benign environment (compared to the civil union days). Kim Cheney was also well known, for it was his 3rd run. Donny is well known in Montpelier and some of the outlying towns; many more people don’t know him (well, after this campaign, hopefully they do). My own personal miscalculation was the heightened optimism I felt when watching the debates. No disrespect intended to any of the other candidates, but I think Donny kicked some major ass, very engaged, impassioned, and personable. Where I screwed up was forgetting that 95% of the electorate didn’t see or hear those debates. If they did, we might have won.

I have my own personal feelings abut the other candidates. In the interest of having a future in political doings around here, I’m not going to let ‘er rip. Let’s just say that all of them are personable, decent people. Some of them have some pretty bad politics in various areas, and some of them have just been around too damn long.

Running for senate and winning the first time is an uphill battle. It’s important to keep that in mind when doing it, but not to let it demoralize yourself. What does the future hold for Donny Osman? We’ll see… it could be a very different race two or four years from now. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of him. At least I hope not.

FBC had it’s 3000th visitor today, somebody from Middlebury, Vt. Maybe it was Governor Douglas. FBC’s first aniversary is a little more than a month away, I know it’s a stretch, but I’d love to have another 500 by then. Share the love.

In other new, my election hangover is still keeping me from writing anything of substance, so let me send you somewhere funny… Shelley the Republican.

Also, in the interest of the great, congenial and flourishing Vermont blog community that has been so nice to me in the past few months, I’ve added She’s Right, a right-wing blog by a nice Vermonter named Charity, to the blog roll. As you know, being a righty in VT can be quite lonely sometimes (not saying she is, of course). Stop in and say hi.