Read this essay by a Gen. M friend
This is not just a memo to the friends who posted the video of Abigael Evans on Facebook, with comment to the effect that they agree with the kid's low opinion of Mitt Romney and, as Abbie cutely put it, "Bronco Bamma." It seems like I've heard a lot of annoyance from my peers regarding the election, a lot of expressions of apathy, and a lot of claims of being "tired of this."
And that bothers me. I think there are some things that we twenty-something progressive Americans need to get clear on— and some things we just need to quit saying.
First, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are not "the same." They are not even "practically the same" or "not really that different from one another." My politics fall pretty far left, so believe me, I get your point. But I still think you've got to stop making it in those particular words— or really, in any words, at least until Wednesday. Because while it is true that neither Obama nor Romney is likely to aggressively attack many of the real structural problems with this country in the next four years, the two candidates are starkly different in some very important ways, with real implications for our lives in both the short- and the long-terms.
Obama doesn't believe in Reaganomics— the seductive but widely-discredited notion that making the rich richer will eventually help everybody, because "the rich create jobs" or some other bone-headed crap which has also been widely discredited. In an era where job creation is going to be a big part of the justification for (or argument against) public policy, and the tax code is a focus of much protest and debate, having a candidate in office who believes (or, at least, claims) that making the rich comfortable will automatically make us all better off will be a very big problem. Obama doesn't believe that crap, nor does he say it, nor does he advocate policy based on it.
Obama also doesn't think that LGBT Americans have something wrong with them and that they don't deserve the right to marry and receive the spousal benefits that straight couples enjoy (or to receive appropriate health care and be protected from discrimination at work and at school). Equal rights may not be quite as sexy as the Revolution, but do you really want to look your gay friends in the eye and tell them that their experience of oppression and discrimination just isn't important enough to motivate you to support a center-left Democrat whose economic policies you disagree with? (Excuse me, I think your privilege is showing.)
Speaking of that: Obama was not a leader in the Mormon church prior to 1978, at which point the Mormon church took the official position that black people were cursed by God and barred them from entering the priesthood. (I don't think Mitt Romney should necessarily be held accountable for everything the upper echelons of the church he was raised in supports or supported, but Romney did choose to take a leadership role in that church as an adult— apparently without challenging its doctrinal racism. I think he does owe the public an explanation and/or an expression of contrition for that.)
And here's one that should be dear to our recently-graduated hearts: Obama does think there is something terribly wrong with the fact college students nowadays (i.e., the kids I teach) are graduating tens of thousand dollars in debt, and wants to make education affordable. He sees this as a policy problem; Romney doesn't.
Obama didn't say that he didn't understand why we have federal public lands, or that the 47% of Americans who have the least are lost causes that he doesn't care about being President of. Obama is the reason that I will be able to buy health insurance if I don't get a job with benefits as soon as I finish my degree— my "preexisting condition" no longer disqualifies me, as it did when I was between universities and uninsured back in 2009.
While we're on the subject of healthcare: Obama is the reason that my female friends and I have seen substantial decreases in the cost of our annual exams, birth control, and other basic health care services over the last four years. Obama doesn't want to take away my right to decide whether or not I want to be pregnant and have a baby. For all the talk about the "war on women," I am actually stunned that this issue isn't getting more attention among my uterus-possessing peers. Female friends: Imagine finding out today that you are pregnant. Seriously. Just pretend you are actually pregnant right now— in your current relationship or lack thereof, with your present career aspirations, and with your current financial resources. Do you want the option of having a safe abortion that is covered by your health insurance? If so, you should be terrified of President Willard Mitt Romney— and be well aware of the profound difference between that and another four years in which your access to abortion, and the affordable birth control that might prevent you from ever having to get one, are protected.
And P.S., Obama is the only candidate who has a chance of getting elected who might do something about the looming environmental catastrophe that just nearly wiped out New York City and most of New Jersey, and which is progressing much more rapidly than scientists predicted, triggering positive feedback loops that may make it impossible to turn around.
Is he buying attack ads, just like Mitt Romney? Yes. Is he an avowed socialist who wants to dismantle the laissez-faire, corporate-welfare
state, tax fossil fuels, and fundamentally challenge industrial capitalism? No. Is he a magic mix of Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Che, Chomsky, Nader, the second coming of the progressive Christ, and a liberal's version of Santa Claus? No. Is he going to have a hard time doing anything that matters as long as Congressional Republicans keep stonewalling him? Yes. Is he making a giant mistake in this campaign by pandering to the American center rather than telling the truth? In my humble opinion, hells yes. But the two candidates are NOT the same. If you imply that they are, I'm sorry, but you're being a dumb shit. Stop being a dumb shit now, please.
Now, I understand that some people who know that Romney and Obama are not the same are "tired of" hearing about the election, especially given that they don't feel like their politics are being represented by the candidates or that they have an opportunity to influence the outcome. As a Californian who used to vote in Montana when Montana used to be a swing state, I understand the sentiment. But please, be honest about the source of it. The problem isn't that the election is dumb or that it doesn't matter; the problem is that the process is structurally flawed in a way that disempowers you while it empowers voters in about three states, as well as corporate donors.
And you know what? You can help fix that. If you don't like the way politics are going in this country, it's a sign that you need to get involved. Here are some suggestions as to how: Vote, vote, vote, help other people vote, organize some like-minded friends and neighbors, give money to a campaign or an organization that supports election reform, make calls or canvass for a candidate, write letters to the editor, vote, vote, organize, vote, organize, protest in the streets, protest in the streets, organize, protest, vote with your wallet and quit buying crap you don't need that enriches the people who control politics in this country, and encourage your friends to do the same.
Again, these are just some ideas. They are not directed at people who are living too close to the edge of financial solvency to give money or spend time organizing, because those aren't the people I hear whining about how tired they are of the election. The people I hear whining about how tired they are of the election are twenty-somethings with tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of education who may feel broke but somehow still have enough money for lattes. And you know what, that's fine: Buy your damn latte. You don't have to give the money to Obama instead. You don't have to knock on any doors. (You do have to vote, but that doesn't take long.) I'm not judging you for that. But I do kind of expect that, if you're not going to give anything up to get the kind of politics and the kind of country you want, you don't disparage the process in a way that discourages other people from getting involved. Don't indulge
rhetoric that normalizes apathy and discourages voter turnout, even implicitly and indirectly. (I've made similar arguments regarding the Occupy movement: You don't have to take over a building or sleep in a park, but you really do need to stop whining about how your commute was disrupted that one time.)
I am not doing as much for this election as I did in the last one; I've been giving Obama my money instead of my time, and not much
money, at that. I feel badly about it. In fact I feel guilty about it. But you don't see me acting like the whole process is a sham and a waste because the debates don't reflect my priorities, politics, and values.
Make no mistake: I don't think it is right, or natural, that this is the case. Our democracy has been and is being broken by capitalism run amok. This is unfolding in the short term, as corporate money flows into conservative SuperPACs without limit or transparency, and via slower, more systemic processes, as roll-back neoliberalism dismantles state-funded education, leading to an increasingly uncritical and ideological electorate. None of this is okay and all of it is very, very hard to fight or control as an individual citizen. The fact that it is being inflicted upon us is deeply wrong and unfair. I don't mean to minimize that reality. But it is also true that democracy isn't maintained, protected, and fixed just by voting. It takes critical, thoughtful engagement, and effort beyond filling in bubbles on a ballot.
Part of the problem now is that a lot of white Americans stopped doing that work when they got the sense that the country they were working for was no longer just and primarily theirs; Republicans were able to subtly tap the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement, feminism, gay rights, and environmentalism with rhetoric about the free market, the middle class, freedom as free use of property, and "welfare queens". This rhetoric and the policies it enables have been strongly in effect, doing damage, for longer than I've been alive and a lot longer than I and most of my friends have been voting. It sucks that, for us, political participation means trying to clean up a huge mess we didn't make.
But, you know, it could be a lot worse. At least we still have the vote, and the right to organize and demonstrate. And pretty soon a lot of the people who were voting when we were born will be gone— "aged out" of the electorate as the demographers euphemistically put it. Soon the country's voters will not be mostly white, and this too will change our politics. (Earlier this year, the U.S. Census Bureau declared that the country's babies are not mostly white, so this really isn't that far off). And I believe that by 2016, climate change will have forced its way into the Presidential race. Conditions are going to shift to favor change. At the very least, we've got to practice engaged citizenship and model it for the generations after us so that we won't be paralyzed by cynicism when opportunities for progress arise.
Really, though, we should be fighting back now. And if you can't or won't fight back now, fine, but at least quit acting like a four-year-old who needs a nap. It's cute on Abigael Evans, who actually is four, but on you, it's just not appropriate— think of it as the political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum, or peeing on the floor because you're still learning to use the toilet. The times may not be changing fast enough for your taste, but that's not a reason to slow the change down.
To borrow from Bob Dylan again, if you can't lend a hand, at least try to get out of the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment