The Power of No

First let me say that the young are not stupid. Certainly not in the way that some of our supposed grown-ups sound when the discussion turns to matters like global warming, gay marriage or the policies of Barack Obama. On the whole, they are far more broad-minded and savvy, but they are absolutists. However, by sitting out this year's midterms America's young have done something that when they look back from the wisdom-producing distance of ten or twenty years they will probably admit was pretty stupid. How stupid will depend on how we survive the next several years.

The Phantom Left

Chris Hedges, in excoriating Jon Stewart's "Rally for Sanity" pins the blame for our current political apathy and civic dysfunction on the vanquished Left:

"The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy."

I admire Chris Hedges but despite his persuasive points I mildly disagree. Jon Stewart's audience may be liberal but despite being cast as such by our corporate media, it is not the Left, it is the 'hip' bourgeoisie. The comics were there to plead, not for Malcolm X or Emma Goldman, but for the status quo, a status quo that the young who do fret about their future rightly suspect is less democratic than authoritarian and fascist. When the campaign that promised you "Change" sees your standard-bearers like Van Jones and Dawn Johnsen tossed from the bus, voting begins to feel like a farce.

And yet, if there is any political space where the system still allows movement it is on issues the liberal class as a whole holds dear: namely civil liberties and the environment. The issue that once inspired the evanescent American Left was not the quality of the air but the workers' standard of living. Tangible, material things that Leftists like Eugene Debs died fighting for:

“I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man."

Twenty years after the collapse of Soviet Communism Debs' altruism would likely earn snickers from the Stewart crowd. Poverty is no longer a scar on a country's civilization in a world surrendered to Monopoly Capitalism. Social Darwinism is the de facto order of the day. The consequence for our privileged young is a dispiriting paralysis: why sacrifice when everyone expects to have to cope on their own?

But in allowing the political void to be filled by the abandoned proletariat's unreasoned passions, when our hopelessly dysfunctional state confronts the crisis of its own neglect it will be the Becks and Limbaughs leading the way right off the cliff and into nihilism. As Chris Hedges knows very well, it has happened before-- "the masses realize very well that they cannot direct themselves."-- Moeller van den Bruck, author of Das Dritte Reich

The young can only hope that the clowns are right: that history can only repeat itself as farce.

The Burden of Color

"[Mississippi's] position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. . . . [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization." --The State of Mississippi declaration, January 9, 1861, in support of Secession.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) recently declared April 2010 Confederate History Month, saying it was important for Virginians to “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present.” When asked why his proclamation made no mention of slavery McDonnell replied he only wished to highlight things that were significant to Virginians. I guess the whole raison-d'etre was lost on the Old Dominion:

Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in declaring Secession:

“Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [assumption of equality of the races]. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. Slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great and moral truth.”

One would think a state governor in a nation with a history as brief and dramatic as the United States would feel ashamed to proclaim such dissembling. But as we see from the meteoric rise of the likes of Sarah Palin and Glen Beck, ignorance sells very well in America...

In an essay entitled "The Negro in the Class Struggle" socialist leader Eugene Debs reflected on his experience in Yoakum, Texas when he came upon a group of white men at a railroad station spouting racist comments about African-Americans. "Here was a savory bouquet of white superiority. One glance was sufficient to satisfy me that they represented all there is of justification of the implacable hatred of the Negro race. They were ignorant, lazy, unclean, totally devoid of ambition, themselves the foul product of the capitalist system and held in the lowest contempt by the master class, yet esteeming themselves immeasurably above the cleanest, most intelligent and self-respecting Negro, having by reflex the "nigger" hatred of their masters.."

and as the gap between America's rich and poor more and more mimic a banana republic those masters could not be happier. That's not to say they've had an easy time, to quote George Bush, "catapulting the propaganda". But as the defamation of Shirley Sherrod so clumsily exposed the diversion of class warfare by the bugaboo of race is still the favorite weapon in their arsenal.

Tri-Color Army

The great myth that most revisionists seek to perpetuate is the notion that blacks and native-born Americans were, if not wholly indifferent to, merely tangentially involved in the Civil War. A UC historian has just shot a hole in that cherished script. Even before the heralded 54th regiment celebrated in the movie "Glory" a troop of Blacks, whites and Indians had all fought together, winning the key battle of the Civil War in Indian Territory by routing a Confederate force twice their size.

As Professor Lause significantly argues in his new book, “Race & Radicalism in the Union Army”: "the very existence of such an army points to an understanding of the Civil War as a truly revolutionary period, one in which the prevailing regimes of white supremacy, colonial expansion, and class oppression came under direct challenge. It wasn't just the Confederate military claim to the region that was under threat; -[but]- the entire set of social relations involving race, property, and nationhood."

Such an alliance between white, black and red would have been a powerful check to the land grabbing robbers barons who made huge fortunes thanks to the betrayal of the freedmen and the dissolution of native treaties made possible by Lincoln's assassination.

(It is interesting to note that before his death a delegation from the Creek nation had traveled to Washington to discuss their treaties with Lincoln personally. Instead, they were met by officials from his administration who "strove heroically to keep them from meeting the president. Indeed, OIA [Office of Indian Affairs] officials cynically introduced one of their number to the Indians as 'Lincoln,' apparently leaving the president ignorant that the delegation was even in Washington).

And so the great American Dream marches on.