The Harper Agenda

Murray Dobbin points out that the Harper Agenda on the economic front is likely even more important than the prorogation:

It is gratifying to see such widespread opposition to Harper’s assault on Parliament and democracy — from almost every major political columnist, newspaper editorials, over a hundred political scientists, and constitutional experts — including a significant number of unusual suspects. It is a clear sign that Harper has overreached yet again — a character flaw that has saved the country from disaster more than once. Harper now sits at 33 percent in the latest Ekos poll, and if the movement continues to grow, Harper’s plan to force an election over his March budget will have to be put on hold. That might have the effect of postponing the worst cuts.

But the sudden support for democracy by parts of the Canadian elite will not extend to defending the legacy of public services, wealth redistribution and government intervention in the economy. Those are the things that are in Stephen Harper’s crosshairs, and progressives will have to fight the campaign to stop him on their own.  [more of this must read]

Amidst the excitement of the movement against Harper’s prorogation of Parliament, it’s not only important to keep this in mind, it’s important to strategize about effective responses.  Progressives will likely be back on their own at that point.

Beat the Clock Economics

From Susan Fein at TPM Café Book Club:

Participants in this discussion share the view that the toughest choices facing policy makers are imposed by the clock: how quickly can government spending flow into the economy thereby propping up demand, and slowing the rate of business collapse, while making the economy cleaner, greener, and fairer too.

And from Paul Krugman:

Right now the world economy is in a nosedive, and understanding what I call “depression economics” — the weird world you get into when even a zero interest rate isn’t low enough, and a messed-up financial system is dragging down the real economy — is essential if we’re going to avoid the worst.

The key thing, when you’re in a situation like this, is realizing that normal rules don’t apply. Ordinarily we’d welcome an increase in private saving; right now we’re living in a world subject to the “paradox of thrift,” in which private virtue is public vice. Normally we want to be careful that public funds are spent wisely; right now the crucial thing is that they be spent fast. (John Maynard Keynes once suggested burying bottles of cash in coal mines and letting the private sector dig them up — not as a real proposal, but as a way of emphasizing the priority of supporting demand.)

The big test for the next few months will be whether policymakers here and abroad can wrap their minds around this Alice-in-Wonderland world. If they can’t, nobody knows how deep the rabbit hole goes.

If the clock is what’s important, Stephen Harper’s and Jim Flaherty’s actions of the last month have certainly beat Canadians.

Obama as Political Commodity

From Joe Bageant, an analysis of Democratic primary campaign “politics” by an anonymous political consultant:

[…]

The underlying social change that led to the Obama victory is the unprecedented extent to which the narrative of popular consumer culture, and the media that drives it, has become the dominant influence on how Americans think, formulate their ideas and understand the world around them.

The most important result of this process has been the steady and consistent depoliticization of American society, to an extent that we can make the case that we are living at the dawn of the post political age.

The two primary features of the post political age are a politics completely drained of all its contents and ability or willingness to be used as an agent of change in social or economic policy, and its full integrations into the world of American popular, consumer and entertainment culture. To such an extent that there exists today a seamless web between our political, economic, media and consumer cultures wherein the modes and values of one are completely integrated and compatible with the others.

It should not come as a surprise that the dominant ideas and mores of popular culture have become the dominant ideas of our society. Popular culture is the breaker of customs, prejudice, tradition and relevant historical knowledge.

It is a result of this dynamic that the two consistent winners in American politics over the last 30 years have been the cultural left and the economic right. Despite the massive organizing drive of the religious right over the past three decades, they are further away from reversing the cultural liberalization of American society than when they started. On others side of the ledger, organized labor outside of a few urban pockets and industries is no longer a relevant force in American life. The ever greater electoral activism of both of these groups is generally misunderstood as a show of strength; in fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the desperate fight of the losing side of the American economic, cultural and political scene.

In essence the same forces that make it possible for the rapid acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same force which can create a society that will accept massive social inequalities.

In the post political world the candidates who can best thrive in it have tremendous appeal to the economic elites; these candidates thrive in a system that does not dwell on issues and will never ask the question, “who has power and why”, but simultaneously creates a social and media environment of stupefying distractions while destroying traditional social mores (under-credited as a source of much social solidarity). This can only benefit their continued rule of that society.

In such a setting our political choices like our consumer choices, regardless of the product, are primarily about what makes us more fulfilled and feel better about ourselves.

Senator Obama’s campaign understood much better the impact of these changes on our electoral system than any of his opponents’ campaigns. In the post political world, the campaign that is less political and less issue-based but is savvier in using new modes of communication technology will be the campaign to win the greatest market share of the electorate. The candidate in this case, Obama, was not a political entity but, in essence a product, an ornament that made his supporters feel better about themselves.

One of the most telling facts about the Obama’s constituency outside of African Americans (whose support needs no explanation) is that it is a coalition of people who need or demand the least amount of social benefit from our government. They are the under politicized younger voters and upper middle class whites. The two groups, coincidently, are the ones most influenced by trends in consumer popular culture and have the greatest of ease using the latest technologies.

In commercial advertising it is the poor commercial that lists the seventeen functions of the product being marketed. The best commercials are based on image associations entirely unrelated to the functions of the actual product. In the post political world, when the same principle is applied to the political realm, it makes complete sense how Barack Obama no longer is a black man with a strange name but the iPod to Hillary Clinton’s cell phone. In the world of toys it is the one that stands out the most is the most marketable.

The reality of the post political period is best highlighted in the failed themes and ideas of Barack Obama’s two primary opponents. The Clinton campaign was based on pushing two concurrent ideas: the inevitability factor of her candidacy and the other was her supposed experience. The only thing inevitable in the post political period is ceaseless change, which she could hardly offer while running against the candidate of “Change”. How valuable of an asset can experience be in a culture where knowledge, wisdom and history are frowned upon?

Thanks for this one Joe.  Read the rest here

The beginnings of some thoughts in response:  “identity politics” has been brilliantly co-opted by capitalism in the interests of continuing socio-economic inequality.  Certain civil rights can be granted without much inconvenience to capital and, in fact, the extension of certain rights provides an expanded consumer base.

While rights-seeking groups such as women and visible minorities apparenty “proved” to “the left” that progressive politics could not succeed without accounting for their interests, it would now appear clear that the specific, historical, material inequalities experienced by such groups cannot be ameliorated without a mass, grassroots movement of people making common cause against systemic, institutional inequalities. flowing from corporate, global capitalism.

Obama & Politics As Usual

Barack Obama’s rhetoric in his battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination stressed that she was part of the old Washington Beltway political cabal while he represents a new way of doing things, the politics of hope and a complete change from past administrations.  I would argue that Clinton’s connection to Bill Clinton and the “old politics” had a good deal to do with her losing the nomination.  And so it is without any surprise at all, but a good deal of chagrin, that I read things like this:

Acting quickly after securing his party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama picked a well-known representative of Bill Clinton‘s economic policies as his economic policy director and signaled this week that the major players from the Clinton economics team were now in his camp – starting with Robert E. Rubin.

Senator Obama, Democrat of Illinois, hired Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist closely associated with Mr. Rubin, a Wall Street insider who served as President Clinton’s Treasury secretary.

Barack Obama didn’t enter the race for the Presidency because he is a hopeful idealist.  He didn’t enter the race to transform politics in America or in Washington.  He didn’t enter the race because he is significantly to the right or left of Hillary Clinton or because he has something new to offer to Americans.  Barack Obama entered the race because he is ambitious.  He wants to be President of the United States.  He wants it badly.  When Hillary Clinton wanted it badly, she was accused of displaying a sense of entitlement.  I think that’s a useless criticism.  I can’t imagine that anyone who has played the political game for as long as Sen Clinton has would ever fall prey to a sense of entitlement at this point in the game.  Sen Clinton was ambitious.  She wanted to be the President of the United States.  She wanted it badly.  Like Barack Obama.  In that way, and in terms of their policy platforms, they are so similar that one must work very hard to find ways to distinguish them from each other.

The bitterness of the campaign boiled down to the politics of a black American running against a female American.  Because it just couldn’t have been about anything else.  I believe that this was an instance in which the politics of identity overwhelmed the importance of the issues that ought to have been before the American people: America’s militarism and role in world diplomacy with respect to Israel and Palestine, Darfur, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, other Latin American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela, and climate change, to name just a few; the stupefying impact of global capitalism on economic inequality in developing countries and in America itself; the American economy and its impact on the economies of every other country in the world; the erosion of democracy in America and in the places where America has control or significant influence (where isn’t that?); and so forth, ad infinitum. 

At this perilous moment in the history of America and the world, there was a tragic distraction.

Now that the issue has been resolved in Obama’s favour, will Americans press him in a more progressive direction or will they be too frightened to critisize him, lest McCain make hay?  Is America a fearless democracy?

Last week, Ian Welsh had this to say about the historic battle of Clinton v. Obama:

Despite the fact that neither of them, on their actual records, is a progressive and the fact that their actual policy proposals are pretty similar to each other, the “progressive” blogosphere has been acting as if this is a battle which matters a great deal. It has acted as if the difference between Obama and Clinton is night and day, and that one of them (usually Obama, but sometimes Clinton) is so much better than the other one that it isn’t even close.

Not only is it close, but the differences are minor. Folks like Dodd and Kucinich, and to a lesser extent Edwards, who actually made a somewhat radical critique of what is wrong with America, aren’t in this fight anymore.

As the line runs about academia, the fight has been so vicious because so little is at stake.

I agreed with Welsh last week, last month and last year.  Not much at stake as between Clinton and Obama.  Somewhat more at stake as between McCain and Obama.  But not nearly enough.