How to Keep the "Occupy" Movement Alive

     By all accounts, a substantial majority of Americans and Canadians have supported the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. A vast majority of us also have short attention spans. Andy Warhol over-estimated everyone's power of concentration, by five minutes at least, when he made his famous quip that in the post-modern world we could all expect fifteen minutes of celebrity. So, while some might have thought that a rolling series of protests might take place for years, as they did in opposition to the Vietnam War, none of us really thought this protest could be sustained as it was laid out. Winter alone has compromised the Occupy protestors in a way that cannot be mitigated. Will the Occupy protest be forgotten as quickly as our fifteen minutes of fame?
     What can be done? What visible presence can be brought in order to sustain and further the peaceful protests that have begun? I believe there is a visible method of protesting that could continue for years, and have real effect. Instead of trying to maintain one camp in every city and town, might it not be possible to have from two to a dozen people volunteer to represent the protest for a half a day or a full day in selected locations in any given urban area. These volunteers might be assigned to stand and picket in front of a bank or brokerage firm, for example. If enough volunteers can be mustered, as they could in our larger cities, Occupy protestors would be present at several venues every day. Some venues, such as a strategic location in view of Wall Street (or, rather, in the view of Wall Street operatives), could be womaned and manned every day of the year for many years.
     The virtue of this plan is that it only takes a few people with picket signs to perpetuate the idea of the 99% versus the 1% and .1%. It will not be "news" for the media, at least not after a few minutes, but it will be a steady reminder of reforms needed and policies not taken. Common people, for want of a better term for who we are, will not forget and might even be heartened by the knowledge that someone is keeping the cause alive. In the mass societies in which we live today, attempting to impress politicians, legislators, and the economic movers-and-shakers with numbers of protestors in one place at one time is only possible with a scale of protest numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Tahrir Square has been remarkable in regard to this old style protest, but it cannot be a model for this kind of protest, where the metropolitan center of Manhattan does not carry the central symbolism of Tahrir Square in Cairo, and where the issue is one that resonates with all of us locally across a very big continent.
     Permanent protestors, brought out daily on a rotating volunteer basis, has a secondary value. It allows us all to participate in a meaningful way. I joined the "Occupy" march in my home town but I was not the only one who left wondering if such a brief symbolic act was worth very much. Over my lifetime, I have also done volunteer work for political parties. Because political parties do not want you for your ideas or your views on policies (unless you are among the .1% elite in the party), they generally want you to lick stamps, deliver leaflets, or put up campaign signs. Standing in front of Bank of America with a few like-minded protestors is much more rewarding. Unlike "MoveOn," for example, an elite cadre would not simply ask you to sign a petition and to contribute money; you would have to inform yourself well about issues and possible policies because you might be asked important questions during your volunteer picketing, or worse, accosted by opponents.
     Finally, organizing for this kind of permanent protest can lead to a larger pool of reform-minded people than will remain if the current method of protest is allowed to fizzle. People like you and me, standing in front of Wells Fargo, might even find other important things that could bind us together in opposition to the world of alienation that has now displaced what used to be called the "democratic people out of doors."

Arab Spring -- American Fall

         Listening to American commentators “tsk, tsk” about what will become of Arab peoples after their successful removal of those dictators who kept them poor and repressed, is to learn again what the words hypocrisy and irony mean.

         All American pundits express their concern that a powerful religious segment of this or that society might seize power through democratic elections. (Meanwhile, in America, a powerful religious segment of society, led in recent decades by Christian evangelicals, has captured American politics in the most profound and extensive ways.)

         Most are apprehensive about the maintenance of secular government among the civic cultures of Arab states. (Meanwhile, in America, a large right-wing contingent wants all Americans to include a Christian God in their Pledge of Allegiance, and to bow their heads to that God in schools and all civic places and at all civic ceremonies and functions. Who is the last president of the U. S. to admit publicly that he did not believe in that God? Well, of course, the answer is:  none.)

         Many fear that institutions and special interest groups inside those Arab countries will manipulate democratically elected governments and the economies of these reformed states for their own particular and pecuniary interest and advantage. (Meanwhile, in America, it is estimated that there are at least 25,000 lobbyists plying their trade in Washington, D. C. Almost all national candidates for office take enormous sums of money from corporations to whom they are later beholden. When successfully elected, these self-same candidates make little effort to hide the fact that they will serve the interests of those who monetarily supported their candidacy. Some Americans even applaud the Citizens’ United case for allowing corporations to use their vast resources to influence elections in any way they wish [even if they are restrained in an inconsequential way from giving large sums directly to candidates]).

         Others worry that a new strong leader will emerge in some of these states. (Meanwhile, in America, those on the political left and right and even middle, plead for “leadership” from someone strong enough to cut through legislative logjams and judicial constraints, and cure the economic and cultural ills of the nation. Pleading for strong leadership in a democracy is admitting that that democracy is not functioning.)

         In fact, as the Occupy movement (if it can be called a movement) illustrates, Americans and others wish they could join in the Arab Spring party, at least a little. Occupiers and Tea Partiers alike feel, even when they do not understand, the malaise of their own nation. Why should they not? Including myself as an American citizen and culpable villain, I offer this long and discouraging list:

         We have made a civil religion out of the U. S. Constitution and out of our own brand of free market capitalism. The constraints of these two civil religious impulses, all subsumed under a ubiquitous and mystical thing called “American exceptionalism,” leaves little wiggle room for practical reform based on “thinking-outside-the-box.”

         For over a century, we have emptied our wallets and destroyed or wreaked permanent damage on tens of thousands of our fellow citizens through the prosecution of various wars -- some small, most not; some just, most not. From George Washington, who warned about “entangling alliances” (meaning being dragged into other people’s wars), through Dwight Eisenhower, who first publicized the nexus between corporate capitalism and a powerful military (the “military-industrial complex”), words of restraint have been ignored in favor of military adventures. These military adventures became worse in the past half century. Fictitious excuses (often known and understood by large numbers of Americans before hostilities even began) were paraded before us for fighting in Vietnam and expanding that war and for assaulting Iraq. Other military adventures were justified for the most pathetic and transparent reasons. And then, when attacked for the first time on their own soil since 1813, Americans allowed fear to overwhelm them, with the consequence of a “homeland security” culture that is nothing short of totalitarian.

         We have pushed a political culture of democracy, and the institutions of democracy, to near collapse. A few young children may innocently proclaim their desire to be “President” some day, but none, in this winner-take-all culture, want to be a city councilwoman or a state representative, or even a member of Congress. So-called “citizens,” who can name at least 100 singing groups or 500 professional sports stars, cannot name more than 10 members of Congress. “Civics” as a high school course has largely disappeared. Saying you are “not political” is proffered as a moral virtue. It is no wonder that libertarian opposition to all government is seen as a legitimate democratic position.

         We have allowed the “freedom” of the free market to supercede and cancel all other social considerations that may stand in the way of hyper-capitalism, and now especially investment capitalism. To quote the Populist Kansas politician, Mary Lease, “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.” (c. 1890).

         We have stood by as the two most important institutions in a democratic society have been bought off or allowed to fail:  education and a free press. Governmental lack of respect for education and teachers is no longer something that needs to be spoken in hushed tones. Private schools and home schooling are usually little more than religious proselytizing or narrow cultural propagandizing.

         Our free press is anything but. It takes no wisdom whatsoever to know what Rupert Murdoch represents and promotes, or what U. S. A. Today is willing to engage or say, or why “The PBS Newshour” offsets moderate centrists with right-wing commentators from the Heritage Foundation. If you do not get your analysis and opinion from various political blogs (and there are many good ones), you go uninformed.

         We have allowed ourselves to be “dumbed-down”; we have “amused ourselves to death” (as Neil Postman puts it). The “bread and circuses” of Rome has nothing on us (except for the fact that they at least kept the “bread” coming). We sit and passively watch cage-fighting, where someone is as sure to get mauled as a Christian in the ring with a lion. We applaud sports heroes who suffer brain injury after brain injury and never seem to live to the age of sixty. Life in America is “brutish and nasty” and many times, to fill out Thomas Hobbes’s famous quotation, “short” (usually short on reason and reflection). We watch “reality TV,” where self-proclaimed experts publicly belittle and abuse the many contestants they face while making clear that there can be only “one” winner. It is now a winner-take-all culture, which explains why 99% of the population might be concerned about the 1% who hold the wealth.

         As healthy human beings, we must all have hope. Hope in the case of America today is that things are near the bottom:  things can only get better. It is not impossible, as long as democratic political institutions are maintained, for all of the problems listed above to be improved or even righted. It is not likely to come from a populist movement like the one Mary Lease helped to lead, nor from a turn of the 20^th century progressive movement.

         We will likely have to look to leaders who will help us out of this, despite the fact that relying primarily on leaders is antithetical to real democracy. But if it is to be leaders, I have my own list of American leaders of the past. This list includes: Thomas Paine, Benjamin F. Bache, J. Q. Adams, Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  What did these people have in common? Several things. They all came to their larger world-view of things through education and long periods of reflection. They were all outraged at matters as they stood. (Mary Lease, for example, admonished poor farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.” All of my heroes above “raised hell”; will anyone do so today?) They were all tenacious in promoting revolutionary or reformist goals. They were all consistent in the things they supported and the things they opposed. Only one of those listed here – Frederick Douglass -- profited financially from his reformist prominence (OK, Jane Addams did accept posh speaking engagements as a kind of holiday to herself, so that she could briefly have some rest in a good hotel room and a couple of good meals). All of them grew intellectually and emotionally from their efforts.

         We can all learn a valuable lesson in civics and humanity from the people listed above. And, if we all imitated their actions, we might move from our current condition of despair to one of real hope.

Jack Layton’s Real Legacy

             Now that most friends, followers, and commentators have had their opportunity to consider Jack Layton from their particular perspectives, I would like to offer a brief salute to Mr. Layton that may be a little different in kind or in emphasis from the memorials of praise from others.

            Jack Layton was a professional politician. This does not mean that he could not have made considerably more money in some other profession if partisan politics had proved a dead end (just as many teachers and professors and general practitioners and pastors could “profess” some other calling, to their pecuniary advantage, if they so chose). Jack Layton knew he was a professional politician, and he respected those things that made professional politicians successful. He followed his plan of success, however, by abiding by a few simple rules:  be as honest as possible, treat those around you with respect and kindness, and try to approach your professional life with some sense of good humour, if not joy. In other words, Jack Layton did what all good professionals and good crafts persons and good business persons do. Most importantly, he approached his profession with forethought and good conscience:  intention is absolutely necessary for any virtue to be ascribed.

            But, you might say, have we not had many noble politicians in Canada’s recent past? One only needs to think of Stanley Knowles, Robert Stanfield, and even Ed Broadbent.  They were (and are) good persons. But they were good persons in a different political culture, one not so ideologically riven, one less negative, less slanderous, and less vicious. Furthermore, they did not bring a third party to major party and opposition party status. The moral high ground is easier if you lose (which is not to say that Mr. Layton fully won either).

            I supported Bill Blaikie in the leadership contest that Mr. Layton first won, and I was skeptical of Mr. Layton’s character and goals and tactics at that time.  I was wrong, not that Bill Blaikie is not a wonderful, moral person. But that too is the rub:  I favored Blaikie because I saw him as the most visibly moral candidate; I did not see him as a political winner, as a professional politician. This is a matter of “shame on me,” since I have spent much of my life trying to convince people that they MUST be political, in a partisan way. I have generally failed, despite my constant chiding of people who say they are “not political” with the retort, “then you are, in a democracy, immoral.”

            Jack Layton made practical politics respectable, something others should pursue with purpose and enthusiasm. Jack Layton saved, at least in a small way, in a small country, the ideal of politics in a democracy.

An Alternative History of the United States

        When Howard Zinn died in 2010, he had done what few American historians have been capable or willing to do:  he had written and published an influential, alternative history of the U. S., namely, A People’s History of the United States (1980). This may seem unremarkable. Are not all histories of the U. S., a “people’s” history? Well, no. Until very recently, most American history was heroic and elitist. Examples include, but are hardly limited to:  the exceptionalism of the American Revolution (unsullied by the bloodshed of the French Revolution, or so it is not quite accurately alleged); the energy of the westward movement (of which there were many “movements,” and most not very glamorous or praiseworthy, e. g., the removal of the Cherokees, the seizing of Mexican lands in the southwest, and the attempts by Brigham Young and the Mormons to isolate themselves in some alternate universe in Utah); and, the genius of the founding fathers (the many biographies that fawn praise on the “founders” are enough to form a new land bridge across the Bering Straits). In more recent times, some American historians have turned their attention to the maelstrom of popular culture. But here too, America is presented as the author, and often the ultimate arbiter, of all pop culture subjects.

            You might think that I am going to return to my “old saw” about American ethocentricism and exceptionalism. Well, it must be admitted that these elements are central to my proposal for a new American history – something radically beyond Zinn’s “people’s” history -- but recent events remind me that both of these prominent American characteristics might be subsumed in a new American history, under a different subject title. Maybe we need a “History of American Stupidity and Cupidity.” (Well, that will not work; most people do not own a dictionary to look up the word “cupidity.”) Maybe we need to call it: “Self-Isolation and Self-Congratulation: A History of America.” Or, maybe we need something called:  “Cultural Lag:  America as a Country Always One Step Behind Modern, Progressive Nation States.”

            Recent events suggest just how laughable the actions and “ideas” of Americans have become (if only these action and “ideas” did not have such important consequences for the rest of us). They also should encourage some brave soul to write a history of how laggardly Americans have proven to be in their history.

            Let me offer some historical reasons for this needed new history:

1. In 1696, a New England Puritan elite succumbed to a popular hysteria over “witches.” Although this “witch-hunt” was begun in the parochial confines of Salem township and Salem village, Massachusetts, many important Puritan “Divines” were implicated. Even the eminent theologian and scholar, Cotton Mather, was convinced (for a time) of the legitimacy of “spectral” evidence in court proceedings against accused person.

            All of this might be understandable historically if England and western Europe were of a like mind about the existence of witches. But they were not. They had moved on almost a half-century earlier, passively agreeing that the “witchcraft” threat was unreal, “spectral evidence” ridiculous, and real witches a thing of the “dead” past. But the Puritans knew better, and this would establish a long pattern of old world “wrongness” and new world “rightness” that never seems to have ended.

2. In the 1790s, right-wing Americans (yes, they have almost always been with us; maybe we should construct a statue to American right-wing lunatics on the National Mall, and then be done with them) believed there was a conspiracy of the “Illuminati” (a mysterious and almost entirely fictional European brotherhood) and of French revolutionaries to take over the new United States. Among the conspirators were new immigrants (from Ireland, in particular), anyone who was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, almost all journalists, Thomas Jefferson, and, oh yes, anyone who was not a Hamiltonian Federalist (John Adams’s Federalists, well, they probably were not enemies within, but they certainly were not any help either).

Two hysterias down, many to go. I will not trouble you with most of them.

3. In 1861, the United States and the Southern Confederacy engaged in a “GREAT CIVIL WAR.” The South, you see had gotten a truly idiotic 3/5ths clause into the U. S. Constitution in 1789 (which allowed the South to count the total slave population in any given state as 3/5ths of its total population for establishing the number of representatives that state could send to Congress, or for the apportionment of federal direct taxes in that state -- the latter of which never happened). In addition, the South had constructed a truly Willy Wonka version of its own culture, in which southern culture and manners were superior to culture and manners in the North. To top it off, they had convinced southern poor whites, whom they exploited openly and viciously, that the real problem was the threat of Black slaves. Former Congressman James Louis Petigru of South Carolina had it right when he said on the eve of the “GREAT CIVIL WAR”:  “South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.” At least the latter half of his conclusion might be applicable to the current condition in the United States.

            “But,” you might protest, “wasn’t the Civil War a noble advance for African-Americans and for American national unity?” Only in the most parochial sense, and American history is nothing if not parochial. Without denigrating Abraham Lincoln and many other noble souls of that period, the fact is that any idea about the validity of chattel slavery had been abandoned by other modern western countries long before the American Civil War. Britain abolished slavery in 1772; Upper Canada abolished slavery in 1793; Lower Canada did so in 1803; and, slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833 (granted, it was grandfathered in by making free only those slaves who were six years of age or younger as of January 1, 1834). The new French Republic of France abolished slavery in 1794, and ten years later, taking the ideological lead of the “mother country,” Toussaint L’Ouverture led a slave uprising that declared Haitian independence and ended slavery in Saint Dominque.

            So, what is the point? The point is that the “idea” of slavery was dead long before American’s grandiosely defeated southern slavery. Oh, and by the way, Jim Crow laws and Southern repression kept African-Americans in a state of near bondage until, well, just yesterday.

American history is replete with new, modern ideas being implemented first elsewhere, and then later in the U. S., only to be superceded with great fanfare about American originality and leadership.

4. Take for instance, the matter of Workmen’s Compensation, a small but important part of the modern labor movement. Great Britain, Germany, and, yes, even the United States, had all developed the ideal of workmen’s compensation in the 1880s. But in the United States at that time -- a nation riven by partisan politics, with both parties to the right of many European political parties – the implementation was slow (partly because of highly politicized and often hostile courts). So, Great Britain introduced a real piece of legislation regarding this matter in 1880, and Otto von Bismarck implemented compulsory workmen’s compensation in Germany in 1884.  The province of Ontario followed soon after, in 1886, with its own version of workmen’s compensation. It took the U. S. a bit longer, with a few states near the worldwide vanguard, but most far behind.

            But to read American textbooks, one would think that the modern labor movement arose in the U. S., and that the U. S. then tutored the rest of the world on how to organize labor.

5. It hardly needs repeating that the U. S. has been most laggardly in regard to health care. To read American newspapers and magazines, one would think that the Obama administration -- in Star Trek fashion -- had ventured into territory that no one had dared enter before. But, of course, we all know this to be embarrassingly false. The Obama health plan guaranteed the profits of pharmaceutical companies and guaranteed a new pool of customers for health care insurers. In fact, if heath care insurers were less political and more practical, they would know that if they added in almost all Americans to private plans, the health of Americans would go up, and, and with fewer claims for chronic or emergency care, their profits would also go up.

            Alas, almost every modern country has national, universal health care of one type or another. But, one can be assured that when the U. S. finally implements such a program, they will have long forgotten the efforts of Harry Truman and Hillary Clinton, to introduce such a program, to say nothing of the long “socialistic” health care experience of almost every other country. They will OWN the invention of modern health care, and historians had better get that right.

            If anyone thinks I exaggerate in my observation of the American political and cultural landscape, I recommend that they read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. This is not a history of the United States, and it must be admitted that it contains the sometimes haughty, highly “constructed” observations of a twenty-something-year-old European aristocrat. But even discounting that, the rampant parochialism and stupidity of American politics as it was just emerging in the 1830s, is made undisputedly clear. (Doubters should read The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi, published around the same time as Democracy in America; and Flush Times  was written by an American!)

            In reality, it would be useful to have an American history positioned within the context of a larger world. American historians have been moving timidly toward “Atlantic civilization” history, but that is a movement begun long ago by a few Americans, some Canadians, and some British scholars. As it is now, we should have a candid history of American insularity, stupidity and laggardness. But, hey, try to find a publisher.

A Modest Proposal on U. S. Proof of Citizenship

     After the national humiliation that was (and perhaps still is) the Obama vs. "birthers" circus, it seems only just that the national government and the collective states do the right thing by establishing an appropriate test for national office-holders. This test would make obsolete the need to find ancient birth certificates yet still meet the standards of those who wish that only true Americans be eligible for national office. After all, what the "birthers" apparently want is a way to deny office to persons who do not understand the constitutional, revolutionary, and christian principles upon which the nation was founded.

     In the spirit of the "birthers" movement, therefore, I offer the following, simple multiple choice exam that must be passed by any candidate before they can assume the national office to which they are elected.  Failure to answer all of the questions correctly will result in their ineligibility to occupy national office.

1. In what part of the U. S. Constitution does the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" appear?

          a. The Preamble

          b. Article I

          c. Article III

          d. The First Amendment

          e. The Fourteenth Amendment

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

2. Who penned the final draft of the U. S. Constitution?

          a. George Washington

          b. James Madison

          c. Thomas Jefferson

          d. Gouverneur Morris

          e. Thomas Paine

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

3. The opening paragraph of the U. S. Constitution contains which of the following phrases?

          a. ". . . to provide for the general welfare . . ."

          b. ". . . when in the course of human events . . ."

          c. ". . . the equal protection of the laws . . ."

          d. "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the freedom of religion"

          e. "These are the times that try men's souls . . . ."

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

4. The Declaration of Independence:

          a. has no status as a constitutional or legal document

          b. was written by a man who was unwilling to admit that he was, in fact, an atheist

          c. was a propaganda document intended to influence European powers

          d. was signed in large handwriting by a Massachusetts politician trying to impress his constituents

          e. was criticized and even ridiculed by some American politicians after the revolution was over

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

5. The "Founding Fathers"

          a. were more intelligent than subsequent American politicians

          b. were driven to their success through their broad adherance to The Bible and Christian principles

          c. set aside social, cultural, or economic differences in writing the U. S. Constitution

          d. avidly sought to establish the democratic principle of legal equality for those born in the U.S.

          e. believed that God had guided their hand in writing the Constitution

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

6. A majority of the "Founding Fathers" were

          a. religious zealots

          b. Baptists

          c. Anglicans

          d. Catholics

          e. evangelical Christians

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

7. Who among the "Founding Fathers" was most religious?

          a. George Washington

          b. Thomas Jefferson

          c. John Adams

          d. Thomas Paine

          e. James Madison

          f. Alexander Hamilton

          g. William Pitt

8. What is the source of the claim that:  "God helps those who help themselves"?

          a. The Declaration of Independence

          b. Benjamin Franklin

          c. Thomas Paine

          d. George Washington

          e. The Bible

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

9. When were the words "under God" placed in the U. S. Pledge of Allegiance

          a. 1776

          b. 1789

          c. 1865

          d. 1914

          e. the 1930s

          f. the 1950s

          g. the 1990s

10. When the U. S. government began in 1789, to whom did the phrase "We the People" refer:

          a. everyone

          b. white men, women, and children

          c. less than 25% of the entire population of the collective states

          d. more than 25% of the entire population but less than 50% of the population

          e. those born in the U. S., and immigrants who met congressional residency requirements

          f. None of the above

          g. All of the above

[The answers are: 1f; 2d; 3a; 4g; 5f; 6f; 7c; 8b; 9f; 10c] How did you do? By their own admission, John Boehner and Michelle Bachmann failed!!

Obama and the "birthers"

     The perceived need for the President of the United States to make public the official long copy of his birth certificate to prove that he is, indeed, a citizen of the U. S. is a shameful moment in the American past.  It is likely to prove as embarrassing as John Adams's refusal to stay in Washington, D. C. to see his former friend, Thomas Jefferson, inaugurated. It reminds one of all of the loyalty tests devised during the Cold War, and Joe McCarthy's disgusting brow-beating and berating of those testifying before his committee, and the House on Un-American Activities Committee hauling all sorts of terrified persons before their committee to humiliate the testifier and his/her families and friends.
     The fact that President Obama felt compelled to offer this evidence is disgusting in several ways. First, on the political level, it is apparent that the Republican Party leadership had many opportunities and plenty of time to quell the "birther" movement from the start. It did not do so out of fear of its most vocal social (not financial) benefactors on the far, far right. Yet, the Republicans had every interest in doing the right thing. In the 1960s, when former governor of Michigan, George Romney, was considering a run at the presidency, a small number of persons raised the point that Romney had been born in Mexico, not in the U. S., and since the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states clearly that:  "Persons born in the United States are citizens of the Uniteds States and the state wherein they reside," they thought they might have a point.  Yet, it had long been understood that children born of American parents while they were abroad were also considered to be American citizens. No political opponents made much of this issue, and Romney remained a legitimate candidate in everyone's eyes until he decided not to run. One would think that one of the current Republican candidates, Mitch Romney, who knows the story of his father's political career full well, would have been loud in his condemnation of those who would keep the "birther" issue alive.
     Second, the sub-text of race is hardly hidden by those who oppose President Obama's claim to be a citizen. It has only been about fifty years since African Americans could indeed claim the practical rights of U. S. citizens, and many who deny the legitimacy of his citizenship now would willingly return to the era of the 1950s, when Blacks in most of America knew their place, which was not in public office or even voting for that matter. There is more than a little truth to the fact that right-wing Republicans (and let's face it, they are almost all right wing) sentimentalize the 1950s and would like to return to the Eisenhower era, when true family values prevailed. There was more ugly about the 1950s than good, however. The decade did witness the rise of a broad American middle class, caused by the fact that the U. S. was not devastated by the World War II as was most of Europe and much of Asia, but it was also the era of racism, the suppression of women, and a period of anti-intellectualism.
     Finally, the even more disturbing element in the origin's of Obama's birth issue is what it reflects about American notions of the "other." In fact, only American intellectuals would use the term the "other" because most non-intellectual Americans either bask in the misperception that everyone is included in America, or they complain that America is not pure enough, i. e., pure white, conservative, native born, and christian. As I have argued in other places, Americans are not familiar with the outer world, especially that exotic world of Africa and Indonesia (and we might as well say Hawaii, in regard to those who hate the "other") which helped to inform and educate Barack Obama. A majority are ethnocentric. In fact, a majority are xenophobic in a way that only the world's most backward, remote, and traditional nations can be identified as xenophobic. For a country that often lauds its heritage as a land of immigrants, this narrow view of human acceptance is especially troubling.

Post-Democratic America

            In a recent opinion column in the NYTimes, Thomas Friedman made the smart connection between Barack Obama’s election to the U. S. presidency and the democratic uprisings in north Africa and the Middle East. Might it not be possible, Friedman ruminated, that the election of a black man to the presidency inspired young, dispossessed members of nations currently ruled by used-up dictators to rebel? It will be an enduring irony of this period of history that a nation and a society – the United States of America – which is in many ways moving rapidly away from the demands of living democracy, has inspired others to take up the “struggle for democracy.”

            The phrase, “Struggle for Democracy,” which has been used in book titles and television series and in common parlance, is an apt one in regard to what democracy is. Democracy is not a place of arrival, it is a process of living together in a nation and a society. Many Americans ascribe to that understanding. Even more Americans struggle in some way for inclusion in their own society, or to extend liberties essential in a democratic state. The political culture of the United States as a whole has eroded into something entirely different, however. The U. S. has arrived at the doorstep of post-democracy.

            The phrase – post-democratic – is oxymoronic, of course, but it does describe the process of cultural drift and the evolution of political mental states that has occurred in the U. S. since at least the 1950s. The neo-conservative, consensus history that emerged in the 1950s with historians like Daniel Boorstein, proclaimed a history of fulfillment and accomplishment for American democracy – as if the struggle were over. The election of John F. Kennedy gilded the lily of accomplishment, offering us less an effective presidency than a cult of personality and a royal family Americans could call their own. Then everything went wrong. Political assassinations were followed by the impeachment of Richard Nixon, which was followed by the election of an anti-government president, Ronald Reagan. “Camelot” became a wistful remembrance. Politics became something dirty, something a decent person avoided. And, ordinary citizens and elites alike began to avoid political engagement.

            This decline in a vital political culture in the U. S. was accompanied by the rise of baby boomers who claimed they had a right to prosper, and they did prosper. Indeed, the raison d’etre of that generation, despite the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, was not social service and the collective improvement of society (except for a few counter-culture individuals) but one’s own ability to become rich and to hold onto those riches. Baby boomers passed on to their offspring the ideals of material wealth and entitlement. The term democracy elided into something akin to the sanctity of the individual and claims for individual privacy. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the importance of politics and government in democratic America was eclipsed by the quest for individual prosperity, greed, and the anti-political, anti-democratic culture of “looking out for number one.”

            The rise of popular culture from the 1950s onward was both symptomatic of these fundamental changes, and a driving force away from democratic political engagement in its own right. Over time, young and old alike could name prominent bands and singers, or members of sports teams, but could not name their congressman/woman or identify the principle political issues of their time. As my students would say with pride, “I am not political.” By our own time, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and prominent Tea Party spokespersons could not even distinguish the different phrases and contents of the Declaration of Independence (which has no legal standing) and the Constitution of the United State. Over the past sixty years, we have not only become “dumbed-down,” we have become proud of our stupidity. It matters not that one knows nothing of complex issues: “this is what I believe, and my opinion is as good as yours.” In contemporary America more than any place on the face of the earth today, one’s mere opinion successfully claims equal status with scientific theory, rational arguments, or even truth itself. In the realities of democratic government, politics as the “art of the possible” has been replaced by ideological certainties born of one’s mere opinions, much to President Obama’s dismay.

            In my own field of America History, the evolution of historiography has been from the prominence of political history in the 1950s to social history in the 1970s and 1980s to the prominence of cultural history today. I respect this shift in emphasis and have participated in it myself but I find that many of today’s American historians have limited understanding of political history and therefore little interest in the issue of democracy, insofar as democracy is a political or governmental matter.

            It has been suggested to me that in the American context perhaps democracy follows a natural pattern not unlike that of a climax forest.  We should all hope that this analogy is appropriate, and that we can anticipate the peaceful decline of the old stands of timber for new growth from the bottom up.

Humility Before Civility

     It is difficult to discover appropriate “first principles” of social conduct, and we often do a very poor job of sorting out “first principles” from imagined or perceived needs of a secondary order. Over the past half century, for example, we have witnessed a headlong rush to give “the economy” priority over “society.” Protecting and improving “the economy” is the current mythical “first principle” in North America. Although the idea of “the economy” is somewhat abstract, “the economy” never seems to encompass the real local economic needs of ordinary people, and it as often does not even mean the needs of a national economy, but rather some fictive, imagined capitalist dream world and/or the remote and heartless idea of a world economy. No day passes without someone making the absurd declaration that we humans need to serve the gods of economic growth first (usually meaning undisturbed, unalloyed market-capitalism), and the health and other social needs of human beings and societies need to be served second, if at all. Rather than have recognized this no-holds-barred, capitalist ideology for what it is -- a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” and a survivalist, social Darwinism “red in tooth and claw” mentality -- we have allowed “the economy” to assume the vestments of an unimpeachable “first principle” not unlike the “first principles” established by Thomas Aquinas in relationship to Christian theology in the High Middle Ages.

     So, now, when everyone in the U. S. has come to call for a new “civility” in American politics and life, we are confronted again with the question: should “civility” be recognized as a first principle for human conduct  and social organization, or, is the “first principle” concept of civility first analogous to the idea of “the economy” outlined above. Is “civility” really a second order condition that flows from some first order idea, just as a good economy should be a second order consequence of a first order emphasis on good societies? Of course, I believe “civility” as the consequence of the success of a more important “first principle” – namely, “humility.” “Civility” is the happy result of widespread “humility.” (And, one could argue, as I have in other blogs, that humility itself is a second order quality derived from empathy, but I will leave that discussion for another time).

     To be humble is often defined as to be “without pride,” and for this reason humility has failed as it runs up against has the boastful, self-confident, cocksure, mythology of laissez-faire or free market thinking and behavior. This is not to say that people can be perfectly free of personal “pride.” And, if we believe the New Testament to be at least fundamentally accurate as an historical account (as I think we can), then even Jesus sometimes acted in a prideful manner. The implicit assumption in achieving practical humility is that we try to restrain an excess of pride in ourselves.

     A more fundamental, rational, and useful way to understand humility as a first principle -- from which civility is a derived consequence -- is to consider humility as the conscious ability to understand that we are not, individually, the measure of all things. Whatever our talents and abilities, other persons have correspondent talents and abilities, and no matter how intellectually or socially accomplished we may be, someone else, indeed, many other people, are more intellectually or socially accomplished than we are. No matter how kind and generous we may be, there are others who are more kind and generous; no matter how smart we may be, there are others smarter. And so on and on.

     It is always a surprise to me (although it should not be) when I read obituaries, and discover the uniqueness and richness of almost every human life described in those remembrances. It is even more surprising when we are told about the rich and meaningful lives of persons who are the victims of mass killings (as in the recent Tucson case in which six people died in the aftermath of an assassin’s attempt to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords). One of these was a young girl whom one might first guess was just another mall pedestrian but who, as it turned out, was a inquiring young person eager to learn more about democratic politics work. Who would have considered this? Or, who would have guessed that some people, in the midst of the this melee, including a federal judge who was killed, would have heroically intervened to try to stop the killer. The point is not entirely the heroism that people display but the breadth and depth of their lives that emerges from their biographies. To know another person at all, is to recognize the integrity of that person.

     We need not feel abject inferiority in the face of the humbling truth that almost every other person we encounter contributes something important to society, and has some quality from which we can learn important individual lessons. In fact, rather than retreat into some kind of Calvinist despair about our unworthiness in the face of this truism, we should consciously and rationally begin to approach every other human being with the understanding that they have some quality or virtue which we undoubtedly wish we possessed, or possessed in a larger measure. Every person we encounter need not prove to us beyond a reasonable doubt that they are virtuous in some specific way. It is simply sensible for us to assume that they are.

     If we move from accepting the necessity of humility to its operational consequences, we arrive at “civility.” How could we treat any other person with something less than dignity, if we accept the rational argument for humility. Because we are currently living in Mexico, we have come to understand the importance of saying “Buenos Dias” when meeting someone on the street. Mexicans, more than many people on this earth, know the necessity of humility. Acknowledging others on the street, or in passing, used to be a standard element of “civility” but it is interesting that that acknowledgement has now – after the rise of an “every-man-for-himself” market-place ideology – become optional. (Yes, people have baldly told me that whether you greet someone with a “hello” or “how are you” is entirely optional, even with people you already know).

     Small courtesies like taking one’s turn in line or giving someone space to pass you on the sidewalk have fallen into similar disuse, as we fail to acknowledge that others even exist, let alone possess those personal qualities that are similar, equal, or superior to our own. So, if other persons do not matter, if we are not humble in the presence of others, why should we listen to the ideas or opinions of others? Why should we hope for anything other than the elimination of our political opponents? No one used to use the term “bully pulpit,” but it is now used routinely in regard to the advantage that the President of the U. S. possesses in being heard. But the “bully pulpit,” so to speak, is not held in monopoly by the President; legions of others – especially radio hate mongers like Rush Limbaugh – conduct grandiose, uninterrupted monologues in which the worth of other opinions is completely ignored or disdained. Only humility, which is something individuals can come to understand rationally and apply willingly, will provide an antidote to the uncivil behaviors that surround us today.

     On the other hand, it is not easy to assume that some transformation in American manners and “civility” will soon take place. I have read some journalists who argue that when Joe Welch, the attorney for the U. S. Army in the Army-McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s, finally got thoroughly disgusted with Senator Joe McCarthy’s behavior and resignedly asked, “Senator McCarthy, have you no decency?,” that American “civility” suddenly returned to American life. It did not. The incivility of American life continued, and although it was sometimes pushed underground for a time, incivility has largely remained a chief feature of American political life.

     In fact, incivilities are more prominent in American history than almost any other element. To name only a few  “uncivil” cases in historic American political culture – cases having to do with the much vaunted “founding fathers” and their generation -- look at the Matthew Lyon – Roger Griswold assault in Congress in the 1790s, or the vituperative attacks on both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in the 1790s and early 1800s, or the famous Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Burr duel, in which Hamilton was killed by one of the most “promising” political figures of the early 19^th century. An early American historian, Joanne Freeman, who has written brilliantly on “honor” in early American political life in an earlier book, recently published a revealing article on political violence and the bearing of weapons in Congress from the 1820s through the 1860s. “Incivility” in the form of violence, in Congress, was more pronounced in some periods of American History than it was on the nation’s streets. Freeman is apparently writing a new book on American political violence which will reveal how central “violence” and “incivility” have been in American political life.

     In regard to more contemporary times, Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent book, Bright-Sided:  How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, presents another angle on America’s no-humility, no-civility culture.  While Ehrenreich attacks the false notion that being positive and cheery in one’s outlook and emotions results in greater happiness, health, and prosperity, and while she lambastes the many self-help speakers, organizations, and gurus, and their methods of operation, the most important message to be derived from her well-researched book is that American history from its beginnings has focused on how individual Americans are solely responsible for their own well-being (whether that well-being is spiritual or economic or physical or mental). In my work as an American historian, I have always come to the conclusion that the American perception is that every individual should pursue and possess three things:  autonomy (freedom to construct one’s own life), authority (freedom from others governing one’s life), and agency (the innate capacity to make whatever you want of yourself). Ehrenreich convincingly details the course of what she calls “bright-sided” positivism from Calvinist beginnings to R. W. Emerson and Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale to almost every management or business school to the American Psychology Association to modern therapists, and so on. The unifying message throughout is that everyone should be positive (in fact, must be positive and cheery), that we are in control of making ourselves better through work, and that failure only happens when we do not consistently act in a positive manner (even if such an attitude is entirely inappropriate in certain circumstances). No wonder the American rich (and even not so rich) today argue that they should keep whatever wealth they have “earned” (when, in fact, they have truly earned very little of the wealth they possess. Fortuitous circumstances of birth and place of residence and education, inheritance, infrastructure, subsidies, a nation not leveled by war in the 1940s, and even chance, are far more important than the usually puny “valued added” work of the individual claiming that “they” earned their wealth).

     And, where does “humility” fit into my “autonomy, authority, agency” triad, or Ehrenreich’s review of a “self-help culture” that has always pervaded American history and, more importantly, bamboozled gullible Americans? It does not. It cannot. Yet, Americans may yet have “humility” thrust upon them, and have “civility” follow as a consequence. The poor have always discovered the reality and necessity for humility. Many of the poor have also come to realize the promise that humility possesses for some kind of self justification and hope. The way the U. S. is going, there will be many more poor citizens in their future, and they will learn, through experience, all too well the limits of “rugged individualism” or “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” or “naming and claiming wealth” or “owning one’s responsibility for one’s self.” Humility should be embraced as a reasonable necessary condition to civility but future circumstances may well decide the fate of humility and civility for America.

"Eliminationist" America

     The assassination attempt on the life of Representative Gabrielle Giffords this past weekend has already aroused the old – and sadly too old – American debate (and it is a thoroughly American debate) as to whether this would-be assassin and accomplished killer of six others was a lone deranged person or someone whose acts were stimulated, perhaps even initiated by political rhetoric and an unyielding political right-wing ideology. There is no need to repeat or analyze again the singularities of this case. There is the need for Americans to ask themselves some hard questions about their peculiar “culture,” however.

     The isolated, deranged gunman argument, which I have seen repeated again and again throughout my life, and is repeated today by Ross Douhat in the NY Times is getting harder and harder to support as a simple explanation. American political assassinations are simply too frequent, in comparison to acts of political murder in other “advanced” democratic and modern states, to allow the crazy -loner theory to inure us to such a sorry lament of inevitability. Paul Krugman’s observation in today’s NY Times, that an “eliminationist” political culture is at least partly a factor in this assassination (and I would argue it plays a part in other American political assassinations as well) is closer to the mark in explaining how mentally troubled persons (who can be found in all societies) are tempted to act out their politically bizarre and awful dreams in America.

     Many on the so-called American left (N.B.:  people living in the sane rest of the world should be reminded that the American “left” is the equivalent to your centre to moderate centre left) blame gun control, which is only a secondary issue in assassinations. Most on the right, as I have said, blame individuals whose mental health has simply failed. As this argument implies, these damaged individuals have become damaged by means of bad hard wiring in their brains or drugs or chemicals or anything that has to do with the discrete individual and nothing to do with the society and culture in which they live.

     The American public – unfortunately including too many American historians -- are keen to proclaim the doctrine of American Exceptionalism as a means to define themselves, and to detach themselves from the evils and inferiorities of a European past. But when it comes to accepting the negative qualities of their “exceptionalism,” such as an historic pattern of political assassinations and attempted assassinations, which are at least as prevalent as any observable positive “exceptionalisms” they may trumpet, they are silent. This hypocrisy is no problem, however, because American exceptionalism allows – no, it insists -- that Americans remain the sole judges of their own behavior and their own past. In a wonderful exercise of tautological thinking, to do otherwise would be to deny their  own exceptionalism. Americans need answer to no one but themselves (morally or for purposes of public image) and they are thus free to construct whatever historical narratives and structural arguments that will satisfy their sense of comfort.

     We need to remind ourselves of two necessary truths:

1. American political violence “is as American as cherry pie,” even if H. Rap Brown was wrong on so many other political levels. But, hey, if you are God’s chosen people or at least a culture more favored than any other in the world, you need not seriously address this “manifest tendency” of “manifest destiny.” Even those on the so-called left like to suggest that the latest round of political violence is new, and a product of America “now,” rather than acknowledge that it has been there all along. The “eliminationist” politics that Paul Krugman laments comes, in fact, from a long American heritage beginning with Puritan authoritarianism and the ruthless winner-take-all politics of colonial Virginia through the uncompromising politics of High Federalism and the Essex Junto through Jacksonian extremism and the emergence of the “No Nothing” Party through abolitionists versus slave owners through American industrial capitalists like John D. Rockefeller versus progressivism through the same laissez-faire capitalist ethic of 1920s and 1930s Republicans versus the New Deal and FDR, and on and on (as you all know) to today. If Americans were more familiar with other political traditions:  the common law of England; parliamentary democracy and the idea of a “loyal opposition”; minority government and the compromises it imposes; and, just the sheer political humility that some nations – e.g., Germany, by necessity – have come to terms with, Americans might be able to moderate, and perhaps even subdue, the “eliminationist” cancer of their political heritage.

2. American ignorance of an outer world persists throughout American history. Until recent decades, for example, most American presidents had never traveled nor lived abroad. Most Americans (other than the very rich), historically did not travel abroad at all, and when they did they often incubated themselves from the “locals” and their culture.  The flagship of American travel today is the “Luxury Cruise,” which isolates travelers just about as completely as anything can from encounters with another culture. Many Americans love to be tourists but most do not want to be travelers or to live, even for a moment, the life of the expatriate. Until Americans grow more curious of the outer world (not the outer world of empire, or the world they felt they had to subdue), their hope for their own inner political peace is not likely to be fulfilled.

[N.B.  It is necessary to always state the following caveat regarding my political blogs:  what I write above does not apply to twenty to thirty per cent of American citizenry at any given time in recent American history. Diane Athill in her book Stet talks of hoping and trying to be in the thirty per cent or so of all persons in the world who are thoughtful, reflective, generous, and broad-minded. I believe that that many Americans have also always been in that category, including many Republicans I know. Unfortunately, twenty to thirty per cent does not equal the fifty to sixty per cent that would improve American culture and democracy.]

Jan. 10, 2011                                                                Tlaquepaque, Mexico