The NYRB has published what looks to be another story of another liberal minded, internationalist minded guy living in Trumpland, this time Lockport, NY, the far northwest corner of NY State. It is, but there are a few differences, such as his interactions and agitating on behalf of the 8% of African-Americans in the town who are mostly invisible, when they not being beaten or killed by the local largely white police force. And the lefty white guy writer writes about finding commonality with the often Trump supporting locals, when writing a local bi-weekly column, when it came to a boondoggle face recognition technology for the local school district and when a coal firing plant was closing with nothing to replace it even proposed--and how he came up with an idea to repurpose the plant.
However, the article suffers from two major defects. First, the writer never mentions corporate media, and its role in hiding people like him and how it would rather build up racial and ethnic conflict rather than confront the wealthy and donor class who have destroyed much of the nation. Second, the article is accepting the misleading generalization about the Democratic Party and its supposed "liberal" failures, while erasing populist Democrats, from now retired Iowa Senator Tom Harkin or North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, and most horrible, erasing the memory of Paul Wellstone, the legendary Senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash in 2002. Third, and worst of all, there is no mention at all about Bernie Sanders and his working class across races and ethnicity coalition.
For decades, I and relatively too few others inside the Democratic Party screamed into the ether about our nation's business and political leaders hollowing out communities like this. When living in CA in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard exactly the sentiments the writer heard (and quotes) from his west coast friends that put down people in rural communities and smaller towns reliant on the local manufacturing or mining industry. I heard such statements at cocktail parties and back room campaign strategy meetings. I was often a skunk in the room in Orange County politics, loudly supporting Senator from Iowa Tom Harkin for president in 1988 and 1992, and opposing Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council, and screaming against the trade deals that would codify the trends that had begun essentially in the 1970s. To no avail. I left the Democratic Party in 1994 when Ross Perot announced the Reform Party, hoping to find common allies in a left-right coalition against the trade deals, against the way in which the prominent Clinton Democrats were more interested in corporate human resources department liberalism. I left in 1996 for the Greens, and mostly for Ralph Nader, after failing to personally convince Ralph Nader (I did convince Ross Perot and people around Nader) about running on both the Reform and Green Parties' ticket. And with that failure, Pat Buchanan took over the Reform Party with his racist appeals and explanations. I wrote an essay on the then new Internet in 1997 about uniting Third Parties (which seems to have disappeared as it is 23 years ago) to find what we had in common, knowing there was, as a radical organizer friend of mine said, a "headshot" with libertarians when it came to economics, though not with respect to opposition to the Empire and war machine, and not with respect to civil liberties in general. And that essay reverberated around the web about five or more years, with me putting people in touch with each other from different movements and parties--all while I was barely making it economically myself and trying to stay alive due to health issues that were costing us big money we often didn't have. It all came to nothing as too many of my Boomer generation, and Generation X, love our binary politics. I am hoping that may eventually change, or change more quickly if the corporate Democrats deny realities that continue to hit them in the face.
For decades, I and relatively too few others inside the Democratic Party screamed into the ether about our nation's business and political leaders hollowing out communities like this. When living in CA in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard exactly the sentiments the writer heard (and quotes) from his west coast friends that put down people in rural communities and smaller towns reliant on the local manufacturing or mining industry. I heard such statements at cocktail parties and back room campaign strategy meetings. I was often a skunk in the room in Orange County politics, loudly supporting Senator from Iowa Tom Harkin for president in 1988 and 1992, and opposing Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council, and screaming against the trade deals that would codify the trends that had begun essentially in the 1970s. To no avail. I left the Democratic Party in 1994 when Ross Perot announced the Reform Party, hoping to find common allies in a left-right coalition against the trade deals, against the way in which the prominent Clinton Democrats were more interested in corporate human resources department liberalism. I left in 1996 for the Greens, and mostly for Ralph Nader, after failing to personally convince Ralph Nader (I did convince Ross Perot and people around Nader) about running on both the Reform and Green Parties' ticket. And with that failure, Pat Buchanan took over the Reform Party with his racist appeals and explanations. I wrote an essay on the then new Internet in 1997 about uniting Third Parties (which seems to have disappeared as it is 23 years ago) to find what we had in common, knowing there was, as a radical organizer friend of mine said, a "headshot" with libertarians when it came to economics, though not with respect to opposition to the Empire and war machine, and not with respect to civil liberties in general. And that essay reverberated around the web about five or more years, with me putting people in touch with each other from different movements and parties--all while I was barely making it economically myself and trying to stay alive due to health issues that were costing us big money we often didn't have. It all came to nothing as too many of my Boomer generation, and Generation X, love our binary politics. I am hoping that may eventually change, or change more quickly if the corporate Democrats deny realities that continue to hit them in the face.
Global economics, as practiced on behalf of corporate power, has emptied out towns across large swaths of America, from western NY State to nearly the Nevada border. Most Republican politicians support trade deals, with surprisingly far less support among Democratic Party politicians--though corporate media loves to tout the bi-partisan nature of the treaty support, and worse, Democratic Party presidents tend to work effectively with Republicans to pass various trade deals (ahem, Clinton and Obama). The disconnect of the Electoral College and the popular vote are one of the many results of that corporate conservative-neo-liberal consensus, where we see a majority of Americans supporting policies that resemble what Bernie Sanders is talking about and who is elected to run our governments. This goes beyond the presidency. California, a state with 40 million people, has two senators. We have to add up at least 20 states to get to 40 million people, and that means those states have a combined 40 senators to CA's two. And white people in Lockport and elsewhere, who once had blue collar jobs that seemed as if they would go on forever, saw their cities decimated, and, instead of blaming that corporatist consensus, they are taught through hate talk radio and corporate owned broadcasting to fear the rest of their lives are under attack, and so cradle their guns and blame immigrants. The African-American communities, living right next to them, suffer under the same despair, but add, "Same-old, same-old," and are frustrated, and cynically resigned, when white people bitch and still treat them as dirt or worse.
What is really frustrating is there are actually a lot of Democratic Party base members in urban areas and even many suburbs who have my level of sympathy for rural America, and towns like Lockport, NY. It's just we don't have money and find so much time spent in activism ends up with nothing, as we see rich supported or outright rich candidates dominate media with advertising and get the cable news pundits' support. I've seen it happen when we have lived through day to day, week to week activism, supporting left-oriented propositions in CA that fail when the Democratic Party pooh-bahs convince just enough activists to not support and outright oppose them.
What is really frustrating is there are actually a lot of Democratic Party base members in urban areas and even many suburbs who have my level of sympathy for rural America, and towns like Lockport, NY. It's just we don't have money and find so much time spent in activism ends up with nothing, as we see rich supported or outright rich candidates dominate media with advertising and get the cable news pundits' support. I've seen it happen when we have lived through day to day, week to week activism, supporting left-oriented propositions in CA that fail when the Democratic Party pooh-bahs convince just enough activists to not support and outright oppose them.
Over the years, I have come to the conclusion the hardest thing to get people to think about and act upon is empathy. It is what keeps us apart to the benefit of the top 0.1% to 10% of the monied class. It is what makes us see people of different ethnicities and races, and not systems, as the problem. It is what makes some union people afraid of losing a decent to good private health insurance policy to take a leap into a public plan that won't screw them just because they lost their job, or if the bosses decide cutting their insurance is worth a fight with the union to lock out the workers before they go on strike, and remind the workers they can close the plant and move elsewhere--because they can.
Am I angry that people fall for a con man like Trump, who is really not going to help them with anything other than Twitter rhetoric and calling people names? Am I frustrated about that? Yes and yes. But, goddamn it. Bernie Sanders is the guy sent for these times to unite and heal and this NYRB writer couldn't even find a line to say about that? I get it. Is Bernie perfect? No. Is he old? Yes. But again, goddamn it. This country has had opportunities since 1968 to fix its racism problem and still help all workers against the greed of their bosses. However, a majority of people who bother to vote keep making the wrong choices, or defend the Democrats they elect who also betray them, because those Democrats can't stop watching the corporate propaganda emanating from corporate media cable news, or get their asses out of rich people's cocktail parties and the money which flows to them.
People love talking about Bernie raising so much money without corporate donors. Yes, that is important and defines what makes his candidacy so scary to corporate media punditry and rich people in general. But we don't talk nearly enough about what makes Bernie's Green New Deal proposal different is its equal focus on workers in fossil fuel industries. We already know Bernie, unlike every other politician running for president, means what he says about helping workers first and foremost, even when dealing with climate change issues. As the Vox article shows, Bernie's plan is focused on significant things that have little to do with automation (a favorite trope among now departed candidate Andrew Yang, and too many corporate media people who also fall into Malthusian beliefs about getting rid of people to solve climate change). These are:
* Manufacturing, to build energy-efficient cars and boats
* Energy efficiency retrofitting of homes
* Renewable power plants to expand wind and solar power
* Sustainable agriculture
* Engineering, research, and development
And he recognizes there is no reason not to replicate the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with respect to renewable energy initiatives. Why have a profit margin that only goes to those at the top of the economic pyramid? It is wasteful, and there are more than enough competent people to get the job done for a multitude of reasons, including empathy, as long as they are paid just well, and not lavishly rewarded.
In this regard, it has become tiresome to hear YangGangers, influenced by libertarians who have no interest in anything that smacks of an actual New Deal, ridiculing a massive federal jobs guarantee and promotion program. They fall into a trap about people being "coerced" (a favorite libertarian term; watch out, they mean anything nice the government is doing, not gulags and jackboots) into taking a job they don't want--as if a good paying job in a union is less money than $1,000 a month. I have said, let's try UBI and these things. However, I find, after Yang dropped out, more and more Yangers are acting like radical SDSers in 1968 and are UBI or bust, and don't care about Trump or McConnell staying in power at this precipitous time of four related existential issues. And what are those existential issues? They are: (1) climate chaos; (2) a system that reinforces economic inequality; (3) a health insurance system that benefits the 01.% and causes us to lose our money and our minds, and (4) a system for going to college that beggars young people who are servicing debt, not accumulating capital in their 20s and 30s. We will see if Yang has the integrity to announce for Bernie if Bernie is doing well after Super Tuesday, and try to corral some of these YangGangers into line. Sadly, they are a small, but still influential on the Internet bunch. Still, I adore the youthful enthusiasm of these young folks, and believe they will come to see it is not a bad thing to have $15 minimum wages and definitely fine to have massive government jobs program in renewable energy, retrofitting homes with renewable energy and energy efficiencies, sustainable agriculture, and engineering research and development.
But, again, it is empathy I find we lack more than any other single thing, with too many still credulous about the propaganda from corporate media punditry--and political consultant hacks, who love a money campaign system as they are part of the money made from the ad revenue which flows to corporate media coffers and social media giants like Facebook. The writer at NYRB is so spot on in saying we have to deal directly and honestly with these working class folks the Democratic Party lost. But he never mentioned there are already Democrats out there, starting with Bernie Sanders and Democrats who support him in Congress and in the base, but who are constantly ridiculed when not ignored--and when they speak back respectfully, get nothing, and when they shout back, are told we are rude. It is a challenge beyond any other challenge, when workers are more alienated through our television sets that promise endless entertainment and an excuse to stay in our homes, and where churches get out the vote more effectively than union halls. We need empathy for each other, which is why Sanders' twin slogans, "Not me. Us" and "Vote to help someone you don't know" are really all about empathy. And the worst thing Democrats are doing, in certain liberal enclaves, is speaking in language that is racist against older white males who actually are on their side. I know Mayor Pete is a phony, as this brilliant essay from Elie Mystal at The Nation explains in a way I could never have written about with his personally based perspective and insight. But let's not say, we must have a Latina candidate for Congress if the Latina candidates promoted are more likely to side with Blue Dog Democrats or at least Clinton and Obama types in the DNC. I'll take the white guy from a wealthy suburb who is knowledgable about public policy and is a true Berniecrat. But that is a tough sell when we are all falling into tribes.
So, what I am trying to write here is not just another white liberal old guy talking about living with the natives who are restless and racist, but hurting all the same. It is a demand that we listen up and see what possibilities are there for success based upon empathy and intelligent policy making that FDR understood best of all. I don't care about someone's resume built on what their status is. I care about someone's resume for policy proposals and action. I care about that person's sense of genuine empathy grounded less in their ambition than their anger and frustration at the world as it is. And I know corporate media is the existential enemy of all that can be good as we are way too credulous about the horrible people who spew their crap at us every day. But, somehow, someway we have to develop a better sense of human empathy because the lack of empathy may be the single factor which ultimately kills us as a species as much as climate chaos.
