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Blog PostsTools of Tyranny; MoveOn Tea Party
By Michael McGehee at Mar 29, 2010 |
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MoveOn and the Tea Party are, at least in my view, two sides to the same coin: tools the ruling class uses to co-opt popular sentiment and to squash any sense of an authentic people’s movement. Folks often think voting matters. Sometimes, maybe, but a lot of the time it doesn’t, and is only useful in reasserting the problem – leaving it unsolved. What matters more is the building of popular movements beyond the control and influence of private and state power.
I saw a recent Quinnipiac University poll that recently came out that said something like 75% of self-described tea baggers vote GOP. That’s not at all surprising. The same is true for MoveOn and Democrats.
True, many of the tea baggers have many ignorant conceptions about economics and government – not to mention immigration, race, culture, abortion, etc. I don’t need you liberals and lefties pointing me to youtube videos and huffingtonpost slideshows of rallies showing off their signs.
But…
… the same is true for the MoveOn folks – and by folks I loosely include supporters, and I realize there are various shades of grey. I know many liberals who fall into the “dove” category of Chomsky’s dove-hawk analysis (here is a great example), or who are apologists for capitalism, or who are so blinded by partisan bullshit that it doesn’t matter what the Democrats do they reflexively support, excuse or play apologia for them. The point is that MoveOn works primarily to cement them to a political party that due to the structural realities of our political system (if each dollar of a private campaign donation is seen as a kind of vote then due to income inequality the rich get to vote more) does not and will not represent them. "We know you're fed up but come out and vote Demorat and send Washington a message!" This does nothing to challenge how private interests lubricate government.
I have gotten sucked into listening to Rush Limbaugh during my lunches, and on my way home: Mark Levin. That these two men are shills for capitalist, imperialist thugs is probably difficult to detect by their listening supporters. They say the right things that touch on our dissatisfaction with government even if much of it is nonsensical and partisan to boot. It’s their silence on the business community that I wish their followers would pick up on.
Anywho, back to the coin issue. On both sides there are real concerns. The working class people whether from the Right or the Left are in broad agreement that things are not going well. Wages are down, the economy is a wreck, government is out of touch with the average person and we can look all around us to see things just aren’t right.
We know that politicians are too close to private power and only concerned with getting elected and re-elected. Being the social species we are we naturally seek out others who share our concerns, though we may often be blind to how the groups we find ourselves in are misleading us or holding us back from real or deeper solutions.
And that’s largely the function of MoveOn and Tea Party. These are tools the two tyrannous ruling-class political parties use to exploit popular discontent while simultaneously leading them back to (part of) the source of the problem: them. The function is to encourage the malcontents to vote for the Democrats and GOP. That’s how MoveOn got the Dems back in control of government, and that is what Tea Party is currently trying to do for the GOP – notice Sarah Palin’s recent comment at a re-elect McCain event: “Everyone here supporting John McCain, we are all part of that Tea Party movement.”
If we want to look for differences we can find them but what’s the point? To further divide us, to weaken us, to keep us from building a movement and focused on pointless ideological warfare? I think we will be better served, assuming we want meaningful resolutions to our concerns, by looking for and exploiting commonalities. This doesn’t mean moving from our positions. I am still a participatory anarchist. I still favor abolishing markets and capitalism. I still favor building a non-sexist, non-racist, non-authoritarian society. I want a participatory economy, and I think pinpointing our commonalities on healthcare, housing, education, the environment, getting government on the working class people’s side (which includes the Right and Left) will help me with realizing that.
Take Robin Hahnel’s essays on climate change late last year. He advocates a particular cap and trade treaty to help resolve climate change. By improving on the Kyoto Protocols we could lay seeds for a participatory economy. How we structure a binding international treaty between the developed and developing world helps lay those seeds of equitable cooperation for later germination. This kind of a treaty is not distinctively a parecon treaty. It’s something that many people from all walks of life can and should organize around.
I don’t think it will prove fruitful to try and create an Iteration Facilitation Board or workers and consumers councils at this point in time. But political and economic reforms that reduce the gaps between the have’s and the have-not’s while not immediately changing the institutional structures may be helpful steps leading us there.
Let me think this through here.
By Wahhaj, Zahed at Mar 29, 2010 22:44 PM
Very interesting article !
I agree that if you attach yourself to hierarchical organizations, you take on their apologist natures. If they have a national profile or depend on mainstream media for exposure, they are forced to convert you into an apologist for media-condoned astrocities too.
However, if your consciousness has already been raised to a certain level, you will either leave the organization, or raise a ruckus.
I would argue, that unless completely corrupted by power or priviledge, if one is an apologist for atrocities, their consciousness has not been raised.
Their exposure to the truth, come through pinholes in the apologist plaster job of the media. Truth can be powerful, but it must gain ciritcal mass, before it crushes the spin. And this is true for every level of consciousness.
So the Tea Party and Move-On are at different levels of consciousness, but they are both deeply flawed, because they hierarchical, and necessarily trap individuals inside falacies. I think you said the same thing.
Now, I think that unless a network is fundamentally participatory and non-hierarchial, we will always be afraid of joining it, giving the group only temporary support when ideas allign.
Which bring us to us. It becomes obvious then, that we should structure ourselves in such a way that is immediately able to capture newcomers in a participatory network. A participatory network with all its promises, so we can put our energies behind it, without hesitation.
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Re: Let me think this through here.
By George, Justin at Mar 30, 2010 02:51 AM
Do you really think its an issue of consciousness?
I agree and think that its more an issue of organizational or movement outreach and visibility, especially when people are faced with seemingly limited options to express one's interests, the narrow option is better than no option.
This to me ties into Chomsky's interview on Anarchism that appeared on the top page yesterday, on the current state of anarchist and other leftist groups and efforts. If there is not coherent progressive, worker oriented movement for people to become a part of, then the issue is not really with understanding of their situation or the causes of such problems as much as its an absence of ways to channel that in socially constructive ways.
Obviously though, if you participate in a hierarchical organization for long enough it affects the scope of your world view and creates its own logic, but that's after the fact, again driven by necessity, rather than beforehand.
However I do think there is an effect that creates the disempowering notion that people can't create the desirable organizations/movements themselves. An institutionally created dependency on large, hierarchical organizations that appear much better placed at addressing their concerns than their own combined efforts. This is what our efforts need to be counteracting by facilitating- empowering, popular participation to create and sustain grassroots movements and groups.
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