We asked him to please talk with us about the upcoming election. [Our questions are in italics.]
What difference does it make who wins the election?
Emma Goldman said, "It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.” Or, as Gore Vidal put it, “We have a property party with two right wings.” Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Doesn't that mean, the more things change, the more they remain the same? So, you're saying that it really doesn't make any difference? Please elaborate.
The past is prologue: even what we consider political watersheds—Lincoln, FDR, Reagan—only changed the functioning of government at the margins. The circumstance of the ordinary citizen was little affected. This is taught as a proof of the stability of the system, but I have my doubts it works for anyone except the elites.
What do you think are the key issues (or problems) facing Americans in the next four years?
Whether the U.S. military will finally stumble into pissing somebody off who is nasty enough to follow them home and kick ass. They’ve been lucky in their opponents over the past six decades, whether your reference is Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan; the home-front has gotten off scott-free, compared to the other side. I can’t believe it can last.
How much more "key" is that one issue than, say, jobs or education?
Consider that even now the share of the federal budget, with everything included (the Department of Defense, the “Black Budget,” NSA, CIA, foreign aid, Veterans Administration), is still 60%, and that's unlikely to change. The military accounts for 4.7% of GDP, 41% of the world's military spending—everybody else averages 2.5% [Wikipedia]. Since the 1940s, “Military Keynesianism” has been one of the engines of the U.S. economy. If the war budget were reduced to the same percent as the rest of the world, you could give everyone—for free—as much education as they could handle, health care, culture, and a better environment—which would mean jobs, jobs, jobs through the multiplier effects.
Where would you like to see the government take the country?
Iceland, Canada, Denmark, Sweden—places which are saner, safer, healthier, and better educated. After all, offshoring works, doesn’t it?
Do we rightly detect a deep cynicism in that response? Please elaborate.
Whenever I get called cynical, I think of Oscar Wilde: “A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything; and the value of nothing.” By that measure, mainstream society is much more cynical than I. I'm rather like the kid in the joke that ends “with this much horseshit, there has to be a pony!” However, we do seem to keep getting the back end of the horse.
Have you worked in either campaign? Doing what?
See question one, I do vote—mainly on local issues.
What problems do you think are caused by the huge "special interest" donations to campaigns?
Same “problems” that came with the Founding Fathers' assumption that their class (Anglo Saxon male property owners) had the right to rule without “consent of the governed.”
So, you're saying that the ability of rich interests to "buy" the government effectively overrules the consent of the rest of us? What might some solutions be?
Absent muddling to a paradigm shift, which has been building since the Sixties in language, media, and the arts, I don't think you can get there from here. People don't like thinking about change, and often succeed in denying it's happening—look at the language of both parties in the current campaigns.
What do you think are the chances that Romney will be elected?
I’ve contended for the last year that the winner would be whoever doesn’t screw up closest to election day. So far the Mittster has had the worse case of hoof-in-mouth disease.
Which candidate are you hoping will screw up? And why?
I expect both will. So far the Romney campaign has had the worst of it. But, Bill Clinton is just warming up....
If Romney is elected, how good or bad will that be?
I thought that W. would be a joke, based on Molly Ivins’s assessment ("Shrub—a lesser Bush"), and I disregarded Dick Cheney. Look how that turned out.
Sounds as though you think it could be really bad. How much worse than with W.?
My imagination isn't morbid enough.
If Obama wins a second term, how do you think he'll change his approach from the previous four years?
Nightmare prospect: Repugs keep House, Senate 50/50 tie—which means that ass Joe Biden is the deciding vote, Obama wins in the electoral college, but popular vote is as close as 1960 or 2000. Another deadlock for Obama’s second term, while economy sinks slowly in the west.
How likely do you think something like your nightmare prospect will actually turn out to be the case?
If I'd been asked in October 2000 to believe the outcome of that year's election, I'd have scoffed. This time, I'm operating on the premise that the election isn't over until Uncle Thomas and the Supremes sing. All bets are off.
Is the lack of bipartisan political solutions a problem for whoever is the next president?
Inside D.C. Village and among the chattering classes, “bipartisanship” seems to mean giving in to the Repugs' agenda no matter how stupidly destructive it is. I’d hesitate to even guess how Obama and Co. will manage a “Grand Bargain”—I don’t have that creative an imagination.
Why are you so pessimistic about Obama's ability to work more effectively if he wins?
The past four years have demonstrated that he's a very conservative guy. It is only in comparison to the reactionary crazies who oppose him that he seems liberal. Now he has his legacy, his future, and the future of his daughters to think about.
What question (or questions) would you like to answer that we didn't ask.
"Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?" [–“America,” Allen Ginsberg, Howl 1956]
"Great are the myths…I too delight in them,…Great are the plunges and throes and triumphs and falls of democracy, Great the reformers with their lapses and screams." [–"Great Are the Myths," Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 1855]
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Copyright © 2012 by Tom Lowe
I'd like to hear more about the 1860 and 1932 elections not being watersheds. The emancipation of the slaves wasn't a watershed? Nor the devastation of the South? Nor the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? The creation of government work projects, applied Keynesian economics, and the institution of Social Security weren't a watershed?
ReplyDeletePhil, you seem well-informed, and we're glad to have you among our readers. Please tell us more about your background and areas of particular interest.
DeleteIn the meantime, perhaps Tom should have put a "for example" before his mention of Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan?
I teach anthropology at OSU and history is a particular interest of mine. As the saying goes, one cannot look forward accurately without looking backward accurately. Mr. Lowe seems to look backward inaccurately. His seems to be a "steady-state" view of American history. When I look back, I see a centuries-long trend of growing enfranchisement and growing civil liberties in general (e.g., gay marriage). I see social progress that has improved the quality of life—the rise of unions, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and lately, Affordable Healthcare. The "ruling elites," who have of course preferred the status quo, have done their best to retard or reverse social progress. In modern times, the Republican Party has been their vehicle, and in the coming election we see a major attempt at reversal. That's why the election makes a great difference, quite the opposite of Mr. Lowe's view.
DeleteThanks, Phil, there does seem to have been real progress (including a decreasing level of violence—according to Steven Pinker, for example, in The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined), and we right-thinking individuals continually hope for more, with some reason to be confident in the expectation.
DeleteBut with the Republican barbarians battering at our doors in recent years, it's easy to forget that.
OSU is in Ohio? OSU in Oklahoma doesn't have an anthropology department, apparently.
There's also an OSU in Oregon.
DeleteYes, I thought of Oregon during the night. Don't see any Phils on the faculty there either , but at least that OSU does have a department of anthropology.
DeletePhil raises a good point, I was too casual in my expression, so as Morris suggests (good editor that he is), I'll try for a more precise expression.
ReplyDeletePhil's examples are accurate, but need nuance. Lincoln waited two and a half years into his term to make the Emancipation Proclamation, because he saw his first priority as the maintenance of the Union, and limited it to the states in rebellion. His choice would have been reconciliation after the war, and the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments- the work of the "Radical Republicans" in Congress- might not have been proposed had Lincoln lived. FDR pursued a policy of "bold persistent experimentation" in the face of the Great Depression, but Keynesian ideas were not much considered in the White House. As evidenced by the decision, after the resounding victory in 1936, to cut the New Deal programs back to have a balanced budget- resulting in the Recession of 1937-39. In each instance the "persistence of the old regime", to use Arno Mayer's phrase, in thought lead to unintended consequences. Over all their governance was mainly beneficial in retrospect.
As to the current contest between Obameny and Robama, it is far from a watershed. If anything, 2000 was much more one: two failed wars of choice, further politicization of the Supreme Court, institutionalization of the national security state, the doctrine of killing U.S. citizens without due process. Obama has extended this disgrace, Romney has it's architects as policy advisers. "Not a nickel of difference" as the old saying goes.
My view of history, not limited to American History, is a fluid mix of Fernand Braudel's longue durée, Howard Zinn's Peoples History, Toynbee's cyclical theory, and the Greek tragedies. At the same time, I continue to hope that Martin Luther King's "The arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it curves toward justice" is correct. Both Morris and Phil share that hope I think, but hold more faith in the permanence of change than Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin or I.
As an Anthropologist Phil must be aware that culture is more influential than the transience of kings in social and political change. I am first of all a creator and "cultural worker" in pursuing change, only after that a political observer. My sense is that Phil is an optimistic inspirational teacher, the sort I most valued; and I would hope that his students follow his example. Morris and I share one, Mo Knudsen, who we have tried to emulate over our lives.
Mr. Lowe, you're being evasive. You've changed the subject, fired off scatter shot, thrown in some gravitas—Braudel/Zinn/Toynbee—and called it "nuance." I think I asked how the elections of 1860 and 1932 were not watershed elections. I didn't see a reply.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited to the states in rebellion—so what? That makes it trivial? And I agree that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments might not have been proposed had Lincoln lived. There is that 1-in-10 chance. And they might not have been proposed if a comet had struck Washington, D.C. in 1861. "What if," as an argument, is an ad absurdum refuge.
The fact that FDR got cold feet in 1937 and curtailed deficit spending is not evidence that "Keynesian ideas were not much considered." Precisely the opposite. You can't stop doing something unless you've been doing it. In any case, this particular nuance is irrelevant. Many government programs continued, Social Security was underway, and an entirely new set of tools for dealing with economic disasters had been minted.
Last, I never wrote that this year's presidential election was a watershed. Rather, I wrote that the Republicans want to reverse social progress. They may be thwarted even if Romney wins, but why roll the dice?
We're always hopeful here at Moristotle for a civil roundtable of minds trying to cooperate for the advancement of understanding.
ReplyDeleteI had thought that I was trying to be "nuanced" rather than "evasive". I don't think in either/or terms most of the time. Yes, in comparison to the elections of 1856 or 1928, the elections of 1860 and 1932 were "watersheds" and considered such at the time. From the perspective of time, how much of a change they made in the average persons life is less simple. That was my poorly stated point.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to be disagreeing on points of language, rather than issues of substance. I don't intend to put words in your mouth. I was, again, making my own comparison in implying that there was less a difference in degree between the possible outcome in 2012 than the effects of 2000. I hope that your optimism about a second term for Obama is correct, but I lean toward a more pessimistic view of the prospects for social progress.