It's All Over Now, Party Blue

 

“The rulers are interested in keeping their subjects in darkness because otherwise the injustice, the arbitrariness, the immorality, the irrationality of their own rule will be altogether too easily exposed. So from the early beginnings of man [woman] an age old conspiracy by the few against the many has been organized and kept going , because unless they do this the few cannot keep the many in subjection.”

—Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal

I stayed up late enough on election night to know what the outcome would be Wednesday morning. So I wasn’t shocked but deeply concerned for the people who are likely to suffer the most—and the soonest—if indeed Trump becomes the president in January (maybe he’ll be in jail by then): undocumented immigrants; the young people protected under the Dream Act; Black Lives Matter activists; the water protectors at Standing Rock; the people on Medicaid. This sadness was tempered only by relief at my almost empty e-mail inbox: no more DNCC pleas of “last chance,” “we’re screwed,” “don’t delete this e-mail” from Barack, Michele, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, James Carville, Brad Schneider and on and on (the relentless release of these e-mails discouraged participation instead of eliciting it, but that’s another story).

Today’s story is that the Democratic Party establishment is first and foremost to blame for Trump's election and for the Republican takeover of Congress and state governments. Ever since the New Deal the Democratic party has been leaning right towards this, our second guilded age, embracing neoliberalism as the path towards 1% rule. That’s why they fought so hard to discredit Bernie in his run for the nomination: he hammered relentlessly on economic inequality that resonated with folks across the country. He was criticized by some on the left for not addressing more directly the issues of race as well as class, but I think he felt his only path towards the nomination was to discredit HRC where she was most vulnerable as a member of the neoliberal elite who has been instrumental in disenfranchising the working class.

Maybe if Bernie had been able to pit his populist message against Trump’s so-called populist message more folks would have seen the latter not as their savior, their “blow-it-up-guy” but as the corporatist financier that he is. Maybe if Bernie, or some other progressive candidate, had been able to direct white people’s anger towards the Republican elite as well as the Democratic elite there would be less of it directed at minorities and others just as disenfranchised as they think they are.

The flip side of these “maybes” is the fact that many of the people who voted for Trump are people who would have voted for him regardless of a more powerful progressive candidate. Statistics show that this country is split right down the middle in terms of party affiliation, and even with a candidate like Trump the rank and file Republicans are going to vote Republican come hell or high water. We know why the rich Republicans vote that way: it’s in their best interests. Why so many whose interests are not represented by the Republican party is the question that many, most famously Thomas Frank, have been asking for years.

As much as I hate to acknowledge it, for fear of being labeled elitist myself (actually, I’m definitely white and privileged but not elitist), a vast group of people in this country, schooled by the Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages and Bill O’Reillys, are ignorant, misinformed, and fear-driven by identity politics and cultural transformation. They are also the products of a country that prides itself on white Protestant individualism that encourages authoritarianism and discourages empathy (many of these folks are also fundamentalists, which makes it even worse). This is where the white nationalism comes into play upon which Trump fed and flourished. These folks' interests will not be served by Republican or Democratic elites: globalization, financialization, and automation have taken their jobs away and they won’t be coming back. Their lives don’t matter, either. When you’re afraid, when you’re hurting, when you’re confused, find some other population even more vulnerable to blame: immigrants, blacks, Muslims, gays, etc. Then find someone endowed with the authority to build the wall, send them back to where they came from or strip them of their individual liberty: Donald Trump fits the bill.

I’m a Democrat only by registration so I can vote in primaries for local candidates. I voted for Bernie; I didn’t vote for Hilary. That so much of our energy and attention has been invested in this campaign for the last year and a half is obscene. The fight for justice through the ballot box is rigged from the beginning: two parties that severely limit a choice of candidates; big money super PACS that bankroll those candidates; gerrymandering of election districts to wipe out the opposition; the electoral college (HRC won the popular vote); voter suppression, ad infinitum. 

Neither will justice prevail by posting on Facebook. Many social media users were sucked into daily harangues with so-called “Friends” over who we were going to vote for, if we were going to vote, and what we should be doing if we didn’t vote. How many times did you see someone announce that he or she was purging so and so from his or her friend’s list because he or she didn’t like his or her position on HRC? Or how many times did you seen someone announce “I’m not going to post anymore political comments” because all the anger and vitriol in which everyone is engaging is not only not going to change anyone’s mind but that the sources upon which the anger and vitriol are based are unverified and often untrue. Then the next day they were back there with a post claiming that not only Wikileaks but the director of the FBI were throwing the election to Trump.

I’ve been a grassroots organizer and activist engaged in social and environmental justice my entire adult life. I know how difficult it is to fight the machine: so do groups like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, as did La Raza Unida, the Black Panthers, and SDS. In his article in Current Affairs, editor Nathan Robinson ends his take down of the Democratic Party with the immortal words of Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn, organize!” While I fantasize that once Trump gets bored having to be in the Oval Office every day and sit through cabinet meetings he’ll abdicate (he’d have to take Pence with him), Joe Hill’s exhortation is mandatory. There is no other way out.

It's Obscene

I turned on the 2016 World Series tonight anticipating, in theory, the excitement of two teams that haven’t made it this far in many, many years, and particularly, the anticipation of Chicago Cubs fans, who I saw in action this spring when I visited the Wrigley Field hood. Then the reality of the Cleveland Indians logo hit me, right there on their caps. It’s obscene. The TV is off.

I grew up in the 1950s when the Yankees dominated baseball and I learned to love the underdog by betting against my father’s assured smirk when the Pirates or White Sox lost. During the tumultuous 60s I was too busy trying to save the world to follow sports—and didn’t own a TV—but in the mid 70s, when I settled in one place—and bought a TV—I was delighted to discover the Oakland A’s and their rebellious players—Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue—flaunt baseball decorum with their long hair and mustaches. We watched Monday night baseball in the 80s, swinging babies in cradles hanging from the beams of our handmade house. I knew most of the players on the teams we followed into the nineties, and as life got more complicated, at least always watched the playoffs and the series. I loved Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum with his flowing locks and witnessed the deplorable end of Barry Bond's career at the Giants Stadium overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Now here we are in 2016, watching and supporting however we can the largest ever gathering of Native Americans at the North Dakota Access Pipeline encampment. Many previous protests have targeted the sports world, particularly the Washington Redskins football team, which refuses to change its racist name. But tonight, the Cleveland Indians continue to display this equally racist symbol and millions of baseball fans are watching and millions of dollars are generated through this symbol. We need to do more than just turn off the TV. This really is Unf*#!ing Believable.

Addendum:

I'm checking in every now and again and commiserating with the Cubs fans (it's game 5). If the Indians win, which looks likely, I hope the pressure builds up that our national championship team has got to consign Chief Wahoo to the dustbin of history. Here's a mainstream website that says as much: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/cleveland-indians-logo-chief-wahoo-history-controversy-demotion-removal/jgmzjuy2j5g41uozaz6alcihy.

Postscript: The Cubs won!

You know, like, I just can’t take it anymore!

They’re dropping like flies. First it appeared as Valley Girl speech. Then it burst into the language of everyone I know under the age of 40. Then I read famous people, over the age 40 saying it in New York Time’s interviews. Now I hear it from Ira Glass on “This American Life.” And Terri Gross on “Fresh Air.” And finally, it’s there in a 65 year old acquaintance who I thought was a generation removed and inured to such linguistic drivel. But, “you know, like” this is how we talk now and if you think it’s weird and perverse and grating and a bastardization of the English language then go get a life.

I went online to see what other folks are saying about this phenomenon. There’s a ridiculous article in the Huffington Post that tries to defend the usage as a “discourse marker” used by thoughtful people. Countering that are the researchers at Michigan StateUniversity who claim people who use the word “Like” to start a sentence are not only perceived as less intelligent but as less friendly to boot! The website wikiHow provides ten steps to stop saying it. 

I listened to a show on Fresh Air where a linguist from Stanford defended both the use of “vocal fry”—saying words in a creaky, low-pitched way—and “up-speak”, where you end a declarative sentence by raising your voice like you are asking a question (the use of “like” in this sentence is legit, by the way, meaning “as if”) as part of the evolution of language. When I first noticed “up-speak” quite a few years ago I thought it had something to do with living in California because the only people I know who speak that way live there. I suppose this California linguist would also defend “You know, like,” as another step in this evolutionary pattern. A lot of folks in California also think there is no evolutionary progress, only relativity, so I guess you could say, relatively speaking, like, what does it matter?

One of my sons lets me call him on it. The other one tells me, “Get over it.” But when someone starts in with the “you know, like” or “like, you know” I get so distracted by the so-called “discourse markers” that I can’t pay attention to what they’re actually trying to say. But maybe this is just another step in the evolutionary process of replacing direct communication with virtual, so it’s like, all good. Except that it isn't.

Sojourn to the Urban Landscape

There I was, the country girl (old woman), from El Valle, New Mexico (echoes of Danny Lyon’s cholo declaring “I’m from Bernalillo, New Mexico”) riding a rented bike among a whirlwind of riders, Lake Michigan to the east, the Trump Tower and Chicago skyline to the west. They came in all shapes and sizes: shorts and T-shirts; hot pants and tank tops; flip flops and helmets; babies in bike seats; dogs in baskets; man buns and beards; fat tired mountain bikes; and blessedly little full bike gear regalia. I could hardly watch the scenery as I dodged and passed, slowed and zoomed around other bikers, joggers (the older man shirtless and in flip flops particularly impressive), inline skaters, walkers, and dogs on a crisp, Sunday afternoon with Kimiko, Alan, and Naomi, former New Mexicans, now part of the urban community that scares, intimidates, and fascinates this country girl (old woman).

There’d been a lot of talk among us about the infamous Mayor Rahm, who was supposed to attend the 150^th anniversary celebration of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where Alan works) but pulled a no show, as has been his wont since the release of the Laquan McDonald video. So when we met up with a Chicago police officer at the Navy Pier and needed to know where to renew the time on our rented bikes (a totally screwed up system that’s too complicated to explain here), Naomi kiddingly (brazenly) asked him, “How much do you want to tell us where the nearest bike rack is—five dollars, 10, 20?” With a straight face he answered, “Are you implying that the entire Chicago police force takes bribes? Let me tell you, we get paid way too well to threaten our salary by taking a $20 bribe for a speeding ticket. On the other hand, vice, corruption, fraud . . . .”  Then he smiled and asked us where we were from. I said, “New Mexico” and he said, “So am I” and I said, “Wow” and he said, “Just kidding” and turned, pointed out the bike racks and said, “Have a nice day.”

To get to Lake Michigan we had to ride our bikes through residential streets from Kimiko and Alan’s house on a route that took us past Wrigley Stadium, where the Cubs were playing a game that went 13 innings (they won). Street hawkers and vendors were everywhere, the bars were full of fans drinking and watching the game on big screen TVs, and the streets were lined with cars that search for parking for miles around this stadium smack dab in the middle of a huge urban environment. Regular neighborhood residents have to plan their car trips around the Cubs’ playing schedule or the traffic will whittle away your patience until your blood pressure boils.

Getting stuck in various traffic jams on this nine day trip to Minneapolis and Chicago reminded me that the only time my son Jakob ever used to call me from grad school in Berkeley was when he was stuck in traffic. It eventually contributed to his departure from the Bay Area back to New Mexico, where often I can drive the entire eight miles from Chimayo to Truchas and see maybe five other cars. In Minneapolis, my friend Catherine and I got stuck in traffic on some freeway coming back to the city from Paisley Park, where we paid our respects to Prince. Why he chose to live in a bunker-like complex off a busy street in a tacky Minneapolis suburb remains a mystery, much like everything else about his life, but it didn’t stop thousands of fans from trekking out to stuff flowers, purple balloons, photos, messages, stuffed animals, records, guitars, and Doritos (he must have been a Dorito man) onto the chain link fence that surrounds the compound. While the autopsy report is still not out, the best guess is that he got hooked on pain meds after his two hip surgeries and died of an overdose of Percocet.

So it was an interesting sojourn to the urban/suburban landscape and reminded me that I’m way too old to ever live anyplace larger than Santa Fe (and even the thought of that gives me pause), and that I never want to own a smart phone (not a single soul who I spent more than five minutes with didn’t use a phone at some point in the encounter). As I look out my window today, the grosbeaks are feeding in my yard, the apple trees are in full bloom, and the green, green grass in the fields is already a foot tall. I’ll be hitting the weed whacker first thing tomorrow morning. 

At the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge: There's More Than a Little Irony Here

The takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by the armed ranchers, led by Ammon Bundy, has elicited comment and analysis from just about everyone, be they metropolitan reporters for the New York Times, members of the Wildlife Federation, writers for the radical journal CounterPunch, PETA activists, and the congressional representative from that corner of Oregon. Even with that much commentary it’s hard to say that anyone has “nailed” it, but the few who have focused on the historical context of the conflict seem to have come the closest to explicating a complicated situation.

The metropolitan New York Times reporter Alan Feuer published his article in the January 10 issue of the paper titled “The Ideological Roots of the Oregon Standoff.” He traced these roots to what is called the Wise Use movement (see also the lengthy CouterPunch, article “Rancher Rebels: The Rise of the Wise Use Movement”), that surfaced in the 1980s and which I described in La Jicarita News as a politically reactionary movement that advocates a balance between environmental protection and economic need but has essentially been a smokescreen for corporate attacks on environmental laws. Ranchers like the Bundys figure into the movement in their push for the privatization of lands currently owned by the federal government, precluding environmental regulation and opening the door to extractive resource development. 

The Wise Use movement was very successful in infiltrating small, western communities that were already frustrated with federal government bureaucracies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, agencies they saw as a threat to their livelihoods. In reality, during those same years, both agencies were essentially in the pocket of the extractive industries; timber dollars funded most of the Forest Service’s “multiple use” management. But the Wise Use movement was able to capitalize on the economic frustrations of local communities to create a very strong anti-government sentiment that opened the door to the more radical militia movement that the Bundys represent.

The ideology of the Wise Use movement has been resurrected by the American Lands Council, a Utah-based organization that promotes the agenda of transferring federally owned lands to the states. Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative from Utah and president of the American Lands Council, travels around the county “educating” states about their “jurisdictional rights to manage, protect, and care for the lands within our borders,” as described on the Council’s website. He’s backed by a board of directors of other white Republican men from Utah, as well as Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group backed by Koch brother money. 

Unfortunately, several counties in New Mexico, Otero and Sierra, have been persuaded by the Council’s offer of a “seat at the table” with a $1,000 contribution. The Wise Use movement has long been extant in rural areas like Otero and Sierra counties, but was also a player—albeit with a weird twist— in the 1990s conflicts in northern New Mexico between the land grant communities, the U.S. Forest Service, and urban environmentalists. These forest communities, like other rural western communities, had long fought over Forest Service management of public lands that burdened them with bureaucracy and impacted their economic viability. Unlike other rural communities, however, these communities are inhabited by the heirs and extended families of Native and Hispano land grants deeded by the Spanish and Mexican governments, whose common lands had been stolen by colonial and corporate interests and eventually placed in the hands of the federal government. It was quite a shock, then, when the environmentalists showed up with agendas to shut down access to these public lands and labeled the community and environmental justice activists who fought back Wise Use. La Jicarita News was called such innumerable times. The founders of the Quivira Coalition, which sought to establish dialogue between the environmental and ranching community, were also called Wise Use. As were members of the Santa Fe Group of the Sierra Club who refused to endorse the “Zero Cut” (no logging on public lands) initiative.

While the ranchers and farmers in the Malhuer area have some legitimate grievances, they are mostly the descendants of white settlers who benefitted from the removal of the Indigenous people (Paiutes) who originally inhabited the area as well as from governmental largesse in the form of homesteads and settler protection. Some of them continue to benefit from federal largesse in the form of low grazing fees and farm subsidies. I don’t know how many folks readily acknowledge this, but many of them do not support the militia tactics that the Bundy cohort is perpetrating.

It remains to be seen if the community wants to disengage—and can figure out how to do so— from a seemingly forced alliance with the militia. The militia, on the other hand, seems to want to claim an alliance with everyone. In one of the most bizarre statements yet to come out of the occupation, one of the group’s leaders had this to say when asked about Paiute claims that they are destroying Native sites: “We’re here for the natives,” he said. “The federal government has been their biggest oppressor.”

What an illustrious group we so-called Wise Users make: Natives, Hispano land grant heirs, environmental justice advocates, rural communities, and right wing white militia nuts. Who would have thunk?