The 2008 election ended in what was considered a landslide victory for the Democratic Party. With the widespread popularity of Barack Obama and them being just shy of 60 senate seats, most Republicans had finally come to terms with the fact that the party was in dire need of a makeover (I’m looking at you Chambliss!). While the GOP is in the midst of a political panic, analysts and other voices in the media continue to speculate on who’ll save the party from spiraling into political irrelevance. Perhaps former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee? There were even whispers about former Speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich running in 2012. Seeing that there’s been endless discussion surrounding the future of the party, quite a few names have been taken into consideration. Among the suggestions, the most bewildering was the mentioning of Rush Limbaugh. In spite of some republicans agreeing to work together with Obama, Limbaugh protested the GOP’s fresh approach and declared in an interview that he “hopes Obama will fail”. Given the amount of attention he’s received from the media and even a remark made by Barack Obama, it seems as if people are actually buying into the idea of Rush being the face of the Republican Party.
Let it be duly noted that Rush is strictly an entertainer. He generates controversy based on brazen statements that consist mostly of his demonization of everything liberal. I was disappointed that Obama even acknowledged this guy. However, with all that being said, I have the sneaking suspicion that this conservative windbag is reaching the end of his rope. With a catastrophic economic climate, a majority of Americans have grown weary of partisan bickering and are demanding a course of action. Rush Limbaugh is the polar opposite of progress. An ardent proponent of the Reaganomics philosophy, Limbaugh has no interest in actually reforming the political system for the good of the people but rather putting across his own narrow minded ideology as law regardless of whether or not it makes sense.
The biggest mistake that critics made about Obama’s call for change was that the change was not a matter of veering towards the right or left. It was a cry for the return to civilized discourse and developing solutions through bi-partisan support. I’m not so naïve to think that this particular breed of passionate “thinkers” will be totally cast aside, but in a country hungry for change, Limbaugh’s antics just seem like an exercise in self-marginalization.
The State of the State was two days ago, but thanks to The Uptake, I can still blog about as if it were happenning right now. What follows are jumbled notes and incomplete thoughts about the unnecessary speech.
DFL Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Minneapolis), introduces T Paw as “the Honorable Tim Pawlenty” and joins with the rest of the room — its left and right — in giving him a standing ovation. Gov. T Paw comes in, shining and sweet. He makes a joke about another governor dropping dead. “You might not be so lucky, my health is pretty good,” he says. T Paw continues the showboating and attempts to ride Obama rhetoric coattails about unity. He now goes into distinctly Minnesotan phrases – “lake as still as glass” “call of the loon” “purple rain” (?) – and gets nostalgic about Minnesota and gets another lame full-room applause because of it. Common sense – “a trait we’ll need now more than ever before.”
He tells the story of the typical family at the “Minnesotan kitchen table” where bills are a tough burden. “Please, don’t add to their burden by increasing their bill from government. Please! Don’t take more of their hard earned money. Please! Don’t waste their taxes!” But please! Don’t do anything about it. For this T Paw gets another standing ovation from both sides, even though he’s exploiting the definition of liberal government. The ovation’s long enough for him to take a sip of water and thank the audience.
The Budget: How to tackle a state that’s $5 billion in the hole
First Priority: Kickin’ ass
“The highest priority of government is to keep our citizens safe and make sure we have the capability to protect and defend.” United States military kicks ass. We can’t stop kicking ass in Minnesota. Gathering from these thoughts, I guess more military spending will be on top of the budget. T Paw then takes the focus off politics and tells a hell of a story about a Sergeant from Minnesota in Iraq being ambushed, going from vehicle to vehicle to check on his soldiers and fight with them. This gets a giant standing ovation that lasts twice as long as the last few. The whole thing is a way to kill ten minutes of time without addressing any major issues other than spending more on the military.
Second Priority: Jobs (AKA business tax cuts)
“It pays the bills on the kitchen table.” Government can’t make jobs. Only people can make jobs. He’s again corrupting the definition of liberal government and again getting applauded by both his Republican and DFL audience. He proposes the Minnesota Jobs Recovery Act, which will cut business taxes. To back it up, T Paw cites some statistics from anti-tax organizations. “In 2009, it costs too much for employers to keep jobs in this state.” Funny, we’re only halfway through its first month so far. Gov. proposes to cut the business tax rate in half – from 9.8 percent to 4.8 percent. That’s a little more than half. DFLers take a cue this is something partisan and decide not to applaud and instead give the Gov. a gloomy look from their seats, hands under their chins attempting to give the evil eye.
Third Priority: Education (AKA No Child Left Behind)
“Our K-12 system is not ready for the future.” For the Gov. that means more funding for education, “even in times like these.” My guess is this is an easy way for T Paw to appeal to the centrists. But his proposal really means higher standards for training teachers and teacher certification. “Modernize the way we pay teachers. Pay teachers more when they have better results.” Unfortunately, this is T Paw’s way of saying, “Pay more to the schools in the white suburbs that have always showed better results.” In essence, T Paw is localizing No Child Left Behind by refusing to define schools “geographically,” as he puts it, which will no doubt ignore the urban schools. Another classic example of the Gov. ignoring the city he lives in, St. Paul, and the city he’s neighboring by, Minneapolis. He says his plan will “permanently increase per-pupil spending by the equivalent of 5 percent.” Now the DFLers are pissed, and they sit on the left and continue to glare while their right counterparts applaud.
The Gov. wraps this up with more attempted Obama-style unity rhetoric and gets a few standing ovations from both sides again – the DFLers aren’t shy this time. After abiding by the nostalgic and polite parliamentary procedure – it takes a few members of Congress to call for adjourning before anyone can actually leave (except for T Paw, who’s lucky ass was already long gone) – the DFLers leave and later make a critical response to the Gov., who will be nowhere near them to hear their thoughts.
DFL Response: Outrage
Speaker Kelliher, who introduced T Paw as “honorable,” alleges that the Gov.’s proposals will make the $5 billion deficit surge. “The Gov.’s answer was to actually make it worse for Minnesotans.” “There was a lot of talk about people sitting around the kitchen table, but no talk about how to help those sitting around the kitchen table,” says a DFLer. Speaker characterized the Gov.’s proposals on cutting the budget as “small nibbles” that won’t change a damn thing. Senate Majority Leader Larry
Pogemiller, a former MPIRGer, says he “genuinely expected an uplifting speech on shared sacrifice” but instead got “more tax cuts on businesses.” Kelliher is mad that T Paw is proposing lots of spending.
Pogemiller flexes his muscles: “Perhaps you’re aware that out of the four of us I’m viewed as not being the closest to the Gov.” But besides the rhetoric the response drags on the same way a legislative session will drag on, with the DFLers failing to give any real budget ideas of their own. “But we can still criticize the Gov.!”
This morning I read perhaps the worst Christmas news anyone could ask for: AM 1500 KSTP fired TD Mischke, the radio renegade who’s served up a cutting-edge local radio show since the mid-’90s. It doesn’t help that this comes only a few days after former City Pages editor Steve Perry resigned from the Minnesota Independent.
Mischke blogged a final goodbye on AM 1500′s Web site this morning, which was followed by comments ranging from outrage to heartfelt goodbye (post your own thoughts there). Here’s David Brauer’s breaking story on the matter, with more to follow when he can explain why.
There’s too much to cover in a blog post for those unfamiliar with the man who popularized the phrase “Good Old St. Paul, Big Time Minneapolis.” City Pages ran a few profiles over the years, most recently last month. The alt weekly also constantly named him “Best AM Radio Personality.” The Rake ran a profile three years ago, as did the Atlantic Monthly.
You can also check out a comprehensive archive of complete shows here and his career highlights here.
R.I.P. The Mischke Broadcast, 1994-2008.
R.F. Moeller Jeweler and Summit Beer will never be the same.
Obama’s cabinet appointments are going to be very important. After running on a platform of change of leadership, integrity, and political reconciliation between warring factions, Obama needs to be very careful that his cabinet picks represent these values. This is why Obama’s first round of probable picks worries me: two of three are firm, long-time Obama backers, all three are democrats, all three are long term Washington insiders, and is not quite a lobbyist, but not quite free of the appearance of being one. Not exactly a recipe for change.
Obama’s man for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Former Senator Tom Daschle, served as Senator for South Dakota for 26 years, was the Democratic senate leader for 10, and, as far as I can tell, has very little in his resume that is specifically relevant to the position of Health Secretary. Additionally, he has worked since leaving the senate as a “consultant” for the law firm Alston and Bird, providing strategic consulting on issues of health care, energy, and taxes. While this doesn’t immediately make him a lobbyist, the appearance of close ties between a cabinet member and a law firm that has represented mortgage companies and commercial airlines is not something Obama can ill afford in light of his public criticism of lobbyists and the economic situation that involves both mortage giants and airlines. Obama is just rewarding a supporter here, which I can understand, but he shouldn’t be doing this with his first appointment
My choice for Secretary of Health would have been Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton herself. This way, Obama could have extended an olive branch to Hillary and allowed her to oversee health care reform, something she is highly knowledgeable and highly concerned with. Picking Clinton would also have allowed him to shore up his position with certain sectors of the Democratic party that backed Clinton.
Unfortunately it looks that Clinton is bound instead for the position of Secretary of State. I give it 7 to 3 for. This is a major mistake. With the Secretary of State position, one of the most important in the cabinet, Obama needs to send a clear message to the Republican party that he wants them in the tent. To this end, I believe there is a clear choice for Sec of State who already has experience in the job: Colin Powell. Powell is a universally respected Republican statesman who knows international diplomacy and knows world leaders. Powell is also a man who strikes me as very noble and patriotic; he puts the country before his own ambition, which is something I can’t be sure of from Hillary Clinton. The trick would be to convince him to take the position after getting thrown in the path of a torpedo by the Bush Administration over WMDs in Iraq.
This brings us to Obama’s probable Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr. Holder is the one of the three appointments that I like the best; he served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration under Janet Reno, and has a wealth of pertinent legal experience, including 12 years in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity section prosecuting misconduct by state officials. He also served on the District of Columbia Superior Court, and was appointed to this position by the conservative demigod Ronald Reagan, which is a good indication that he might gain approval from Republicans. Still, Holder is Democrat who has been on the Hill longer than i’ve been alive, which could generate backlash in light of Obama’s promise to shake things up.
That’s it for this round of picks. Keep an eye out here for my comments on future appointments. In closing, here’s a list of my suggestions for a few other cabinet positions.
Secretary of Energy – Vice President Al Fucking Gore.
He is undoubtedly one of the country’s primary authorities on green technology and understanding and controlling climate change, both of which Obama has made centerpieces of his energy policy. Our nation needs to dramatically rethink the way we power our shit, and who better to have at the helm than the eco-crusader and elder statesman behind “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Secretary of Defense -General Wesley Clark
Remember him? He ran in the 2004 presidential primary. He’s a smart, tough career soldier who graduated at the top of his class from West Point and served with distinction in Vietnam and was a top commander during the Kosovo conflict. Like Obama, he supported the U.S. response to 9/11 in Afghanistan but was against the war in Iraq, and he opposes using force in Iran. He endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary, which would make his appointment another olive branch to the Clinton camp.
Secretary of Transportation – Jim Oberstar
As chair man of House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Minnesota’s Oberstar has experience and knowledge in the area. And as a Minnesotan, he knows firsthand the consequences that our neglect of our transportation infrastructure can have.
Barack Obama’s victory last week spread lots of optimism throughout the world, including the socialist countries of South and Latin America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader widely hated by the U.S. government, released a statement after the victory:
“We are convinced that the time has come to establish new relations between our two countries and in our region, based on the principles of respect for sovereignty, equality and true co-operation. The historic election of an African descendant to the head of the most powerful nation in the world is a symptom of a change in the epoch, which has emanated from South America, and could now be touching the gates of the U.S. itself.”
Chavez expressed hope for future the U.S.’s future relationship with Venezuela:
“From the homeland of Simón Bolívar, we are convinced the time has come to establish new relations between our countries and in our region, based on the principles of respect for sovereignty, equality and true cooperation.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales, one of Chavez’s biggest allies, praised the historic nature of the election.
“Mr. Obama’s triumph is really historic. We congratulate him on that triumph and we await the improvement in our (bilateral) relations in the future.”
Morales also called on Obama to withdraw U.S. troops in foreign countries and stop the embargo on Cuba, the latter of which Obama said he’d continue.
Closer to home, the more socialist Cuba had generous but bittersweet comments on Obama. In
May, former President Fidel Castro called Obama “doubtless, from the social and human points of view, the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency.” Castro characterized one of Obama’s speeches that’s critical of U.S. globalization as “magnificent” and said “we ought to thank him for it.”
But after analyzing Obama’s comments portraying Cuba as a country that “hasn’t seen independence in a long time,” Castro wrote, “I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity,” but went on to criticize Obama’s decision to uphold the embargo.
Socialist parties also expressed general cheerfulness.
Socialist Internationalwarmly welcomed the Obama victory and wrote that it “sees in it the hope for a world community based more on cooperation, mutual understanding and respect rather than antagonism and discord.”
It continued:
“Today the entire worldwide social democratic movement looks forward to working with all those in the United States who represent this renewed spirit of multilateral cooperation, progressive thinking and concerted action, the only way the challenges we face can be overcome.”
“Illusions in Obama are high at the moment, but it’s no accident that he raised far more corporate money than John McCain or that world stock markets have risen on news of his victory. He is Big Businesses’ choice to get them through the tough times ahead. Nonetheless, within the confines of the current U.S. electoral setup, his decisive victory represents a significant and healthy shift to the left.”
After the election, my good Democrat demographic-mates, who were out “Barackin’ it for Obama” and drank “Jag-Obamas” upon his victory, are flush with happiness, hope, and idealism. For a week, I myself almost felt that our troubles were behind us and the best was yet to come.
Cut to Dateline – Washington. When I heard today Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson say on the radio today that there is still a very real danger of “systemic failures in the economy,” the peak-oil survivalist mentality that occasionally grips me like a fever took hold. My god, I thought. It’s going to happen here. This man was just handed a bag of money and carte blanche by Congress. He has all the resources of the United States Government at his disposal, and he is still saying we might end up like Argentina, toppled overnight from affluence by an economic time bomb. It’s time to buy food and water reserves and a solar clock-radio and moving to a farm–.”
Eventually my rational mind regained control, and I applied myself to calmy examining the situation at hand: we are still uncomfortably close to entering a period of marked decline in America, economically, politically, and socially. It happened with Rome: they became too powerful, too corrupt, too big, too bloated, and they fell for their arrogance. While things on Pennsylvania Avenue are looking up, things on Wall Street continue to rapidly disappear down the shitter. The Secretary of the Treasury with his big bag of money was basically saying that we’re still on the brink, despite efforts. Paulson constantly stresses that we are in for the long haul.
But the “long haul” is not something business in America has been considering for the past 25 years. Since Reagan flew in on a magic carpet of trickle-down economics and deregulation, America has, except for a few slumps, prospered. Everyone was encouraged to maximize on short-term gain and spend themselves into debt, because this drove the economy. Businesses got more profitable, people got more shit to buy and eventually more “entertainment” to give them quick pleasure, and for a time, it was good. Eventually we began to stop using business to build actual “things” altogether. It seemed as if the wizards on Wall Street could make money appear out of thin air, and everybody benefited: there was an SUV in every driveway and a PS2 in every family room. The rising tide really did raise all boats. It just raised some boats more than others, and those at the top of the trickledown pyramid had more money than they knew what to do with.
The age of prosperity was here to stay, of course. We were in the “information age” now; the times of actually having to build things were over, left to countries with cheaper, less educated work forces.
This brings us to today. Surprise! There really is no free lunch. All those complicated formulas and “market tools” that assholes at the top of the trickledown pyramid have been using to make themselves
and their buddies rich have failed, and we are all fucked because of their irresponsibility. So I think it is time for us to declare pretty overwhelmingly that trickledown economics doesn’t work, and an unregulated economy based entirely on short-term profit doesn’t work, and the “information age” economy fallacy that we don’t actually need to MAKE anything doesn’t work, and we need to figure something else out.
And that’s something that we, as the people of a democratic nation whose government is, at least in principle, supposed to answer to us, need to think about, as well as our leaders. We are at a crossroads. It is time, as a group of people, as a country, and as a nation, to make plans for the way one of the most important aspects of our country, the economy, is going to function into the future. We need to look ahead.
That’s how we draw a silver lining out of all of this. We have a chance here to rebuild our economy, from the ground up, on more sound and sustainable business practices. First, we need to recognize that we can’t fix the economy from the top down. President-Elect Obama has made a deal to push for aid for the suffocating American auto industry in exchange for the Big 4′s promise that they will ramp up production and research on fuel efficient and green cars. Revitalizing the auto industry to produce high-tech but affordable green cars would create thousands of jobs in a sector that has been hard by the recssion. But, even under pressure from Senate Democrats and Mister Obama, President Bush and Secretary Paulson are refusing to use any of the 700 billion dollar bailout to help auto makers, preferring instead to hand the money to banks run by the people who put us in this mess, who are just stuffing it away instead of spending it constructively anyway.
Second. we need to find a way to encourage financial institutions, businesses, and banks to make stable, sustainable, mid to long term investments instead of obsessing over maximizing risky profits in the short term. We need to do this through careful, well-designed, and robust regulation, and by giving making sure institutions such as the SEC have the power and will to enforce such regulations.
Even if Obama can take us in that direction, he’s not in office yet. There are still people in power that believe that the market will correct itself and everything will be hunky-dory again if we just rescue firms headed by stupid rich executives from their bad decisions. But top-down economic policy put us IN this spot, so it’s certainly not going to get us out. To borrow from a popular buzz-phrase, it’s time for a change.
P.S. As a side note, I actually respect Henry Paulson quite a bit. While I disagree with some of his decisions, I think he is doing his best in a very tough situation. Plus he looks like the main character from Hitman.
Independence Party candidate Roger Smithrud, who ran for Minnesota State House in district 58B, is best at summarizing his political party’s current trouble.
“I’m sad — I only got seven percent of the vote. I thought I’d get at least 20.”
His short frame, long grey hair and lit American Spirit give off a look of a working class American conspiracy theorist. He was standing outside the IP’s election night party at the Minnetonka West Sheraton, which mostly centered on the IP’s biggest hope of 2008, U.S. Senate candidate Dean Barkley.
The hotel’s dining room party — not unlike a small-scale wedding reception — was filled with a modest crowd of around 100 people; some dressed-up, some still wearing their Tires Plus work uniform. Former Governor Jesse Ventura, whose successful 1998 campaign remains the party’s heart and soul, sat at a table with his family and kept his profile low-key. Early in the night, prominent IP members were making their bets.
“Dean will make a strong showing,” said Independence Party Chair Craig Swaggert. “Whether he gets 20 percent or whether he wins, it shows that the other parties aren’t speaking to the average Minnesotan voter.”
But after a few quick minutes passed and votes started tallying, it was clear Barkley wouldn’t gain much more than his final showing, 15 percent — under the goal of at least 20.
Still, Barkley and his supporters showed no regret.
“I’d rather the numbers were switched and it was 51 percent,” said Dan Justensen, another IP chair, “but I’m damn happy he’s back here.”
“This isn’t the end, this is only the beginning,” Barkley said in his concession speech. “I can only hope the two parties start to get the message.”
But what message? It’s still altogether unclear.
The party grew out of Ross Perot’s Reform Party and eventually came to its own with Ventura’s surprise 1998 victory. He ran and governed as a moderate: libertarian in civil liberties — he vetoed a bill requiring public schools to cite the Pledge of Allegiance every day in class; liberal on social issues — he supported abortion rights and gay rights; and fiscally conservative — his first priority was to tak advantage of the state’s budget surplus and pass a tax cut.
Since Ventura’s tenure ended, the IP has kept decent support, but nothing comparable to 1998. They have kept in the tradition of a populist, individualist politics that remains attractive enough to garner a small but dedicated core of support. Barkley’s only TV ad, which came from the brain behind both Ventura’s and Paul Wellstone’s brilliant ads, shows that there are a few things likeable in these candidates.
Any IP diehard can point their finger at corrupt two party systems, money-owned politicians and cynical journalists as the root of their problems, but one thing’s still certain: If the IP believes its “spoiler party” label is unfair, Tuesday’s election results did nothing to change that.
David Dillon, who ran for U.S. House in District 3 and got 10 percent of the vote, is starting to be viewed as the state’s DFL spoiler of ’08. Some believe he crushed the hopes for Ashwin Madia, who ran as a moderate-conservative and lost to conservative Republican Erick Paulsen by eight percent.
Like Barkley, Dillon ran largely as a moderate but embraced some libertarian stances like reducing the military budget, ending the War in Iraq and balancing the budget. His policies are conservative but still acknowledge certain progressive stances. From his Web site (which is an impressive one for any candidate), he writes: “Speaking as a conservative I ask that we acknowledge the great liberal goal of universal coverage. This hardly means the acceptance of proposals for a socialist government health care system.”
Both Dillon and Barkley came off as more conservative than Peter Hutchinson, the IP’s 2006 gubernatorial candidate. Hutchinson’s campaign promised to greatly increase the state’s standards in health care, transportation and education. He gained six percent of the vote — most of it coming from the usually DFL-dominated metro area (apparently 90 percent of the MPR crowd, according to Justensen) — which was enough to spoil the chances for the unlikable former DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch, who’s been recently made notorious for starting a trend in his former office that denies staffers their own unions. Hatch lost the election to Governor Tim Pawlenty by one percent.
While the IP candidates sometimes differ in policies, Justensen laid out the party platform as mostly Federalist — limited federal government intervention and great respect for state rights. This way, Hutchinson’s promise on expanding the state’s social programs and Barkley’s promise on cutting the nation’s debt go hand in hand with the overall “state independence” message.
But the party certainly has work to do. Voter support is still high enough to give the IP major party status in the state, but not close to making a winner. From the mood of election night at the Sheraton, it seems like IP party members are committed to running a strong gubernatorial bid in 2010, when they’ll get much more public financing and (potential) prominence than Barkley got this year.
But for now the IP might be best off doing what Barkley did right after his concession speech — thinking things over a few drinks.
After finishing his concession speech, Barkley walked away from the podium in the now nearly-empty room and grabbed some of his friends.
“This thing’s pretty much over. I just got to figure out who I need to call and concede to. Let’s go to the bar. I’ll buy a round.”
Crowds were battling for the latest papers…. On every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing soldiers and students…The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to take part in the debate, Trotsky, Kamenev, Volodarsky speaking six, eight, twelve hours a day…”
— Jack Reed
Róger Calero, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. President, probably envisions a future of America not unlike this. The one-time Dakota country meat-packer, with his working class credentials, is knocking out his second presidential campaign for the Socialist Workers Party, one of the three socialist candidates vying for the U.S. presidential seat, (there are also two more well-known pseudo-socialist candidates running for President — the Green Party’s Cynthia McKinney and, of course, independent Ralph Nader. All five will be vastly ignored). Earlier this week, while visiting the University of Minnesota, Calero attempted to update the socialist message but still reiterated the basic message carried by Guevara, Castro, Trotsky, Lenin, Marx and Engels and all the rest of them.
August Nimtz, a Marxist historian and political science professor at the University of Minnesota, invited Calero to visit his Wednesday night lecture, which is a course comparing race and class relations in Cuba, South Africa, and the U.S.(in all terms of fairness, I am a student enrolled in this class). Calero, a native Nicaraguan and resident alien (he holds a green card) stepped to Nimtz’s podium wearing a dark suit and a cheap, working class tie and spoke to a crowd of about 60 students and socialist activists.
He started with the current Wall Street bailout crisis, arguing that the nature of the capitalist system caused the banks to make risky investing.
“Instead of returning their investments, [the bankers] have been investing in the stock market to get a quicker return,” he said. Nimtz asserts that Calero’s political party, the SWP, was first to predict the current Wall Street financial mess. In 2004, when Calero ran as the SWP candidate for president for the first time, he said he spoke of the coming financial disaster. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, and here we are. It’s only at the beginning right now. We’re only dealing with the mortgage side. Just wait until we get to student loans, Medicare, social security … “
Then, he trumped it all and said something radical: “The historical needs of society cannot be solved under capitalism. Sexism cannot be solved under capitalism in crisis. It took a massive war to get us out of the Great Depression, and that’s where [the capitalist’s] are taking us now, if we let them.”
And while many criticize Marxists for embracing an idea they believe was maybe relevant in the industrial age, tested out in the twentieth century, and ultimately realized as a miserable failure, Calero did his best to argue that the principals of revolutionary socialism still apply to today.
Calero at a demonstration talkin’ up the issues (He, like John Edwards, speaks of “two Americas”)
A socialist stance on free trade? “There is nothing free about it.” Hurricane Ike? “What you’re seeing there is not a natural disaster, it’s a social disaster.” Hurricanes in New Orleans (Professor Nimtz’s home town)? “Three years after Katrina, adequate levees have not been built because it infringes on capitalist profit.” Social security? “They want to do away with it. They say baby-boomers are the ones to blame because they are living too long.” Calero also cited the danger of the coal mining industry, which got a lot attention during the Nevada coal mining disaster last year when six workers who were trapped in a collapsed mine tunnel suffered to death (Remember? It happened a week after the 35W Bridge collapse). “Sixty-three miners died last year [in total], and they make it seem like it’s an act of God,” he said. “It’s really an act of the working conditions that bosses create to maximize their profits.”
Of course many students in the crowd were skeptical. Despite whatever the right-wing criticism of academia may be, hard-line socialism is not used as a theory in the mainstream college political science class. When one student said that capitalism motivates people to work, Calero quickly rejected her claim and argued that capitalism “detracts from development.” “I don’t buy the idea that you have to be special to become a doctor,” he said. “Imagine a society where everyone could get that chance.” Another student made the point that because everyone doesn’t work equally, communism can’t work. Calero agreed with the first point of it: “Some of us work really hard — I work like a devil! — and I get less in return than my boss!”
Calero made the case that a socialist bias skews toward working class interests and then attempted to redefine the layers of society. According to Calero, the working class is compromised of workers like teachers, mechanics and miners while the middle class contains a smaller amount of professionals like lawyers and small business owners. The third and smallest class (“So small that you can identify them by their last name!”) is the capitalist class, or the richest five percent, who control society. These are the Buffets, the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons.
He also made a cold prediction for the college students: “The school encourages you to break the barrier and rise up in class. The truth is most of you will have to work in the working class.” And most of us will face exploitation.
But there is hope after all. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can have a working class alternative. Or so the party line says.
But with the $700 billion bailout to Wall Street in the process, is it possible we’re already in a socialism of a different kind? Earlier this week, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, perhaps the leading socialist voice of the early 21st century, had this to say about the bailouts: “I nationalize strategic companies and get criticized, but when Bush does it, it’s OK. Bush is turning socialist. How are you, comrade Bush?”
“Obama, McCain are dead even [in Minnesota],” reads today’s top Star Tribune story. Perhaps this is because the Republicans have a natural poll advantage by setting their convention one week after the Democrats, as many pollsters have argued. They attribute the recent McCain/Palin surge to something akin to the natural guide of the poll’s invisible hand. Judging from my personal account of events of last week at the RNC, an explanation of John McCain’s poll surge makes more sense in terms of artificial mechanisms rather than sheer, tested logic.
Flash back to Thursday, Sept. 5. I’m inside the Xcel Energy Center trying to catch John McCain’s acceptance speech, walking in the hallway upstairs from the arena. The cool breeze of outside air from open doors makes the setting feel like I’m at a Wild hockey game. Code Pink dissenters who creeped into the building and shouted disputes during McCain’s speech are being escorted out (“Please don’t be diverted by the ground noise and the static, heh heh heh heh!”).
As journalists and bloggers skewer after the Code Pinkers, I make my way down the stairs and get about two feet away from the floor. Delegates and partisans aliek are chanting “USA! USA!” as an eldery woman to my right leans over to her husband with a disgusted look on her face. “How did they get past security?” she asks in a disgruntled voice.
Code Pink attempts to crash the convention one last time
At this point, I’m close to the floor in the stairway trying to watch the speech in peace. “Get out of the way! You have to keep moving!” an ABC photographer says to me. At first I’m intimidated and start to move, but then realize that the photographer has no real power over where I choose to stand. I make a quick note in my notepad; “The photographers are bitches.” McCain, talking about Sarah Palin, just got done saying, “I’m very proud to have introduced our next vice president to the country, but I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington.” Then, taking queue from his major opponent, McCain says something to the effect of, “Change is coming!” Alaska delegates start chanting the inspirational lines, “Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!” All are aware that the U.S. is too great a country to change its satisfying consumer habits.
From there McCain’s speech barks a lot of familiar yawns and splices an evocative retelling of his POW years in Hanoi somewhere in the middle. A woman affiliated with the Republicans sees my notes on the ABC photographers and chuckles. “They are, aren’t they?” I say to her.
With that nod in my mind, I sneak to the floor without proper credentials and see half a dozen students chanting, “Students for McCain! Students for McCain!” Then three Jews respond by shouting, “Jews for McCain! Jews for McCain!” MTV’s Sway is in the middle of the floor trying to mack on some younger female Republicans. CNN, BBC and PBS all have booths, but course most people crowd around Fox News, where insider-turned-pundit Karl Rove is being interviewed.
In retrospect, nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least inside the convention. So it’s hard to figure out why the RNC helped McCain/Palin become as popular as Obama/Biden. Maybe I shouldn’t underestimate “the Sarah Palin phenomenon,” but the Strib poll says that more than 66 percent of the state believes Joe Biden is prepared to take on the role of vice president, compared to the 43 percent that said the same of Palin.
We’ll just have to wait and see if the poll corrects itself.
“I joined the army after 9/11 – to kill people,” said Hart Viges of Austin, Texas. Hart’s a 32-year old member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He served in Kuwait in February of 2003, only to be deployed to Iraq 13 months later. It actually wasn’t until April 2004 — three months after returning home — that Viges started to morally reject the U.S.-led occupation. He was at a peace rally in Fayteville, North Carolina, when he found his “new unit.”
“I must tell the people of Iraq that I’m sorry for participating in the war,” Viges said to a mostly high school-aged crowd in front of the Capitol Thursday afternoon. Viges’ appearance — clad with brown sweatshirt, partially frayed jeans and an American Spirit dangling from his mouth — could easily make any local gutter-punk mistake him for a West Bank burnout rather than the veteran-turned-Christian that he is.
Viges isn’t shy to point to his faith as a chief motivator for getting himself out of the army. “In 2004 I saw ‘The Passion of the Christ’,” he said, “and realized I could not be a Christian and in the military at the same time.”
Viges also readily admits that he, under orders from his superiors, fired mortar rounds into crowds of civilian Iraqis during his stay in Iraq. He contends that the atmosphere in the military featured U.S. soldiers proudly counting their casualties as if they were trophies. Here’s his testimony:
Hart’s Testimony
Viges is one of the hundreds of Iraq War veterans that came to St. Paul last week to protest the war as the Republican National Convention was underway in the Xcel Energy Center. I also caught up with Mary Horgan, a Minneapolis resident and 20 year veteran of the Minnesota National Guard during
Monday’s March on the RNC, which gathered at least 10,000 activists. Horgan served in Tallil, Iraq for five months in 2006.
“McCain has a terrible record on veterans,” she said, perhaps alluding to a 2006 Senate vote against an amendment that would have provided $20 million in health care aid to the troops.
“I’m concerned about the veterans,” Horgan said. “[The government] needs to make sure we have jobs when we get back.” When Horgan got back, she couldn’t find work, she said, but now has a job in a Minneapolis art gallery.
When I talked to her, she echoed words similar to what’s been constantly said for the past five years: “We were lied to go into war. We’ll probably attack Iran.” It reminded me of a sign I saw two teenagers carrying during Thursday’s protest that read: “I can’t believe we’re still protesting this shit.”
