Moving beyond the mainstream dialog - reflections on March 19th in DC

I attended the March 19th anti-war protests in Washington DC. I tried to get arrested, but the police didn't oblige. They clearly had orders to keep traffic moving with as few arrests as possible, so I was dragged and pushed around some, but that was it. You can see my pictures of the event here.

But one of the more interesting aspect of the day was talking with the people who came to me as I walked between events. (I was carrying an "Out of Iraq" sign, so it was clear what I was doing.) They were a diverse bunch, for example: a twenty something Pakistani man, a thirty something black woman and a fifty something white man. But amazingly the first question out of almost everyone's mouth (including the three mentioned above) was, "Who do you support for president?"

This, and the subsequent discussion, made me feel that although these people basically shared my values and my outrage at the current state of the world, they were stuck in the mainstream political dialog. They had a hard time imagining politics as something more than voting in elections and discussing candidate positions in the manner of TV pundits.

Somehow we have to get beyond this limited range of analysis and action, but I feel rather stymied. I welcome anyone else's thoughts.

I know exactly what you mean. The main reason I hardly bother with the political-style groups on LT any more is that people are working within such narrow parameters. Plus, like yourself, I really only have limited time for LT generally.

I myself am in no way a creature of the political fringes and wouldn`t wish to be. However, the narrow confines of `politics as conceived by politicians` is just not adequate to today`s world.

To give just one example from the UK, neither of the main political parties is at all interested in what remains of our manufacturing and extractive industries, both preferring to rely on attracting investment from abroad to generate wealth and jobs.

There have been various consequenses of this, not least that governments are increasingly over-dependant on revenue from their friends in `the City`, a situation which has certainly added to the current PM`s troubles of late.

Interestingly, there has been massive growth in two areas of little interest to politicians - export of cereal crops and scrap metal - due to increased demand from India and China. It`ll be interesting to see the implications of that.

I`d like to do more justice to these things but my spare time is not limitless and in any case, I`m never sure whether people read lengthy postings - I know I don`t !

#1: May I ask what you mean by saying you "tried to get arrested"? If it was a matter of civil disobedience against an unjust law, I could understand. But unless you and the other protestors were gathering without a permit I don't see how you could have tried to get arrested without doing something stupidly unproductive.

#2: Exactly the same thing has happened in the US. Both major political parties have abandoned the working people, in favor of corporate interests. We export raw products & import finished goods. The number of jobs in the country is dropping, except for retail sales.

I don't have the attention span to read posts that can't make their point in a paragraph or two either.

I`m wondering if it would be useful to revisit this discussion, as it looked so promising, then obviously faded away.

Things over here have changed a little, but essentially the same themes still ring true with me.

One difference in the UK and USA, seemingly, is that people can generally find a place to lodge a protest vote. Although the London-based media talk almost exclusively in terms of Conservative and Labour, in the real world people do appear to take their votes to the Liberal Democrats or the Scottish National Party. I have no particular quarrel with that, but in some traditional Labour strongholds the situation can be rather different. I know of one town, traditionally solid Labour, a place where the Conservative candidates had more chance of walking on the moon than holding public office and the Lib Dems barely exist. Regrettably, Labour supporters stayed home, allowing the British National Party, a Party with origins in the Fascist movement, to take control of the Town Council.

I like to keep a check on the time I spend on LT, so I`ll leave it there and see if anyone`s actually interested before I post more.

Incidentally (#4), are you sure about the raw materials/finished products thing ? I would have expected a developed economy to import raw materials to make into finished products.

#4 -- "Both major political parties have abandoned the working people, in favor of corporate interests."
_____

That's the current cliche. Those who have no historical context adopt the current rationale from others who also have no historical context as singular and definitive. A prominent example of that is the frequent invocation of the Second Amendment and "revolution" -- each of which is, in fact and law, at odds with the other.

The fundamental error is to treat politics and law as the same thing, or as inseparable -- or to ignore the rule of law, beginning with the Constitution, altogether (the Constitution stipulates three purposes for the militia -- the topic of the Second Amendment -- one of which is "suppression of Insurrections"). And that is exactly as the alleged "corporate interests" WANT it: a population that is un- and mal-educated and thus rendered ineffective and frustrated.

All of which reminds of the many who "prefer" Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson, to such as the "boring" John Adams -- all that blood-stirring hot rhetoric about "revolution". Those many who don't realize how much the so-called "revolution" was conducted and resolved in courts of law (see, as example, "Boston Massacre"; the trial over Hancock's sloop "Liberty"), and law-making legislatures (see Continental and Provincial Congresses, and the state legislatures and judiciaries of all thirteen/fourteen original states). How much of it was based upon law and legal claims and processes.

By contrast, having insufficient, and insufficiently narrow, historical context, a view of singular and narrow misemphasis, the predictable conclusion is that guns and violence -- "revolution" -- is the panacea.

Or, short of that, throwing away one's energies, supports, and votes on fringe third parties which haven't a chance of accomplishing anything but that waste.

Over on the Democracy Now website, Manning Marable says that the challenge for progressives now is how to relate to an incoming administration that they don`t want to treat as an enemy, but bearing in mind that the Democrats have not shown themselves especially receptive to the disadvantaged in the past (I`m paraphrasing, but I hope that`s a fair representation of his views).

What do people think ?

#7 --

". . . . Democrats have not shown themselves especially receptive to the disadvantaged in the past . . . ."

BS. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were for the disadvantaged. They were proposed and enacted and signed by Democrats -- against long, long, long opposition by Republicans.

The various anti-discrimination statutes based upon the first of those Acts were also proposed and enacted -- against staunch Republican opposition -- by Democrats. Are statutes which prohibit discrimination against the disabled, as example, a result of being "unreceptive" to the disadvantaged?

Some on the left are "too-far left" in that they make a concerted career of shooting themselves in their feet with their mouths -- because they don't actually know what they're talking about. It's like the thread-title which separates "progressive" and "mainstream" when in fact the center-left -- liberal -- is the mainstream and the majority.

Recommended viewing: the film "1776," about the making of the "Declaration of Independence". Independence was OPPOSED by the self-defined Conservatives in favor of their financially lucrative status quo. The "Declaration" was a triumph of progressive values -- by majority vote -- over opposed/pro-British Conservative values.

What do people think ?

By and large, people think that politics is a waste of time, money, and energy. Society is too diverse and complex to be managed from the top down.

Personally, I'm still waiting for the original poster to answer my question about what was meant by saying they "tried to get arrested." It sounds too much like their notion of civil disobedience is of trying to pick a fight.

"Personally..."

I`m sure if eromsted really wanted to be arrested, s/he could have achieved that. It can`t be that hard !

"By and large"

True enough, people do think that, I`m sure. Against that, when it comes to local issues, people often react very differently.

A good example would be an open-cast mine that has started work near me. When the proposal first came up, there were important arguments for and against. The area is a much-loved local beauty spot (or was ), but against that this is an area with a mining history and in bad need of a cash injection. The two major parties do little for this type of area.

Arising from that, there were then tensions between local and central government over which way to go, and fierce local resentment towards central govt.

Then there were divisions within the environmental lobby between those who just wanted to save a local beauty spot and those who wanted to campaign for sustainable enegy against fossil fuel. Following on as night follows day, there were then splits between those who favoured fairly conventional protests, lobbying etc and an anarchist group who occupied a derelict house on the site.

The whole situation caused widespread interest locally, and as you can readily see, provided people with a sort of ready-made political education course !

At the end of the day, democracy is important certainly, but it is (or should be) more than just a means of changing administrations every few years. Ultimately, it`s a means of ensuring accountability and representation, and that should be ongoing, not something people experience at intervals and then forget. Politics is what happens between elections ultimately.

Anyway, that`s enough of that. I`m off for a beer now !