More Jefferson, Less Rove

We progressives sometimes
get accused of being a lot better at criticizing than at offering positive
solutions. At least I do, anyhow.

And I even think that's
a somewhat fair assessment. But I also think there are some good
reasons for such a negative cast to our rhetoric, at least if we're
talking about the last three decades or so, and especially the last
insufferable eight years.

One explanation for the
largely critical nature of progressive political commentary is the defensive
crouch we've been in during this period. Let's be honest,
folks, progressives and progressivism - let alone plain old honest
decency - have been under assault during this era, and it hasn't
been pretty. More to the point, though, when you're fighting
for your very existence, you have to fight for your very existence.
You don't have the luxury of debating which of the various proposals
for the model society are best. And if that's what you're
doing, people will ignore you anyhow. They'll think you've
got your head in the clouds, largely because you do.

Second, it was crucial
to be critical of the incredibly destructive policies of the regressive
right these last decades. Indeed, one of the major reasons they
were as successful at implementing their noxious plans as they were
is because of the almost complete absence of criticism from both the
so-called opposition party and the from the so-called free media.
There should have been a lot more criticism, not less. You can
only get away with telling incredible whopper lies if no one calls you
on them. George Bush is still doing it to this day, in his pathetic
attempts to recast his presidency as he walks out the door. After
a dozen or so interviews, I'm unaware of anyone who has yet asked
a hard question. Indeed, I'm unaware of any 'journalist'
who even called Bush when he trotted out one of his monster lies, like
how the Iraq WMD intelligence was 'wrong', or how Saddam 'kicked
out' the inspectors.

Having said that, though,
we are surely at the dawn of a new era in American politics. I
don't know yet whether progressivism is part of Barack Obama's DNA,
or whether - even if it isn't - events will force him in that
direction anyhow. What I do know is that, regardless, he will
be light-years ahead of what we've been suffering through for the
last eight years.

And that means we can
now start to think again about the society we want, rather than just
giving our everything to avoid the society we cannot abide.

I'm not sure exactly
how to express what's on my wish list this year - if it's not
too late, Santa - but perhaps the following compare-and-contrast formula
will at least start the process.

A positive progressive
agenda for America? Okay, you betcha. In no particular order,
I'd say:

MORE HONESTY, LESS DECEIT.
We have just come through what is undoubtedly one of the most deceitful
regimes in American history, epitomizing one of the most dishonest of
political agendas. They had to lie, because what peasant ever
wanted to be a victim of kleptocracy? So they did. Incessantly.
This has to end, and will end, but the lies in American politics run
so much deeper. There is so much - about foreign policy, about
military spending, about the polarization of wealth, about religion
- that can't even be talked about in this society. As we plunge
headlong into a series of simultaneous crises we made for ourselves,
the first order of business is to be able to discuss these things honestly.

MORE PEACE, LESS FIGHTING.
To say that the United States is a bellicose actor on the world stage
is to risk understatement of laughable proportions. Everyone,
it would seem, knows it, except us, and even we have begun to get the
hint. Yes, it's true, there are bad actors out there (unfortunately,
we're among the worst), and some of them are implacable. But
it is also true that if we ratcheted up our commitment to justice and
to just talk, and cranked down our tendency to pull out the six-shooter
every five minutes, there is a huge array of problems and threats that
could be ameliorated significantly. Peace through diplomacy.
What a concept, eh?

MORE RESPONSIBILITY,
LESS DESTRUCTIVENESS. There's a common and scathingly shameful
theme that underlies many of our problems-fast-becoming-crises, ranging
from Iraq to national debt to crumbling infrastructure to global warming.
And that is that we've been willing to be incredibly irresponsible
as a society, sucking away whatever we wanted from others, even our
own children if necessary, in order to live high on the hog now.
Sometimes we actually like the destructiveness, though sometimes it
is inadvertent, simply the inevitable byproduct of living irresponsibly.
Either way it is embarrassing on a good day, and wholly shameful otherwise.
We have to start living responsibly and sustainably.

MORE OPPORTUNITY, LESS
RESTRICTION. Americans believe - indeed, it is a key part of
our mythic ethos - that this is the land of opportunity. Historically,
there was some truth to that, but today we lag other comparable societies
in social mobility, and, of course, your race and sex and class and
region still determine far too much of your opportunity in life.
There is much to be done here, but if we had even the remotest inkling
of a real commitment to equality of opportunity, we would begin by equalizing
per-pupil revenues allocated to schools. Funding schools based
on property taxes - producing wildly disparate spending ranging from
the ghetto to the suburbs to the elite private campus - is as dead
a giveaway as imaginable that this society is not serious about equality
of opportunity, let alone equality of results. In this respect
and countless others, we need to give people the opportunity to realize
their full potential.

MORE EQUALITY, LESS PREJUDICE.
Sometimes we get it right, and it should be acknowledged. Just
over the course of my lifetime alone, we have witnessed remarkable changes
in the ethos of equality in America, and in the pragmatic effects of
changes in both policy and attitudes. The lives of women, blacks,
gays and other out-groups are considerably improved over the last half-century's
time, and it's hardly a news flash that the election of Barack Obama
as president is a very big deal in this respect. But, of course,
it has taken far too long, and there is far too much yet to be done
before this job is complete. The good news is that Obama phenomenon
is indicative of a spreading new attitude of indifference toward such
primordial categorizations among younger Americans, for many of whom
your race or sexual orientation is becoming about as consequential as
the color of your hair. Legislation is important and necessary,
but in the end this is the ultimate antidote to prejudice.

MORE RATIONALITY, LESS
DOGMA. This country's Founders, the epitomization of Enlightenment
thinking on this side of the Atlantic, would be aghast at today's
America. In the last several decades, the regressive movement
has indeed regressed this society badly - away from rationality, empiricism
and analysis. None of these are perfect tools, and they have been
known to create disasters of epic proportions when taken to extremes.
However, they are always better than dogmas, which are of course human-made
anyhow. In this world, there are no verities. We either
make it up out of whole cloth, or we uncover it through painstaking
observation, theorizing, and the testing of our notions, which can then
be revised as demonstrated necessary. The latter is infinitely
better. And America will be infinitely better once it gives up
on false catechisms and remembers how to take cold looks at hard problems.

MORE COMPASSION, LESS
SELFISHNESS. Noting the existence of astonishing disparities of
wealth in our time, both domestically and internationally, and their
exacerbation in recent decades, history is unlikely to judge us as a
particularly generous people. Folks can rail against taxation
and government programs all they want, but what those ultimately represent
is a full societal commitment to taking care of each other, rather than
leaving individuals to the mercy of hit-and-miss family relations or
charities. We not only need to translate greater compassion into
more generous government programs, we need to knock down the hyper-individualist
ethos that has long been a key thread in the fabric of our political
culture, and has long prevented us from taking care of each other properly.

MORE DEMOCRACY, LESS
PLUTOCRACY. The dirty little secret of American politics is how
much elites run the society, and the degree to which they do so for
their own benefit, not for pursuit of any national aspirations.
What was once a snobbish, Eastern Establishment, refined upper class,
discretely listing toward benefitting the already benefitted, has now
morphed into a full-blown kleptocracy. Government today, in the
hands of regressives, has become little short of a cash cow to be gored
at every opportunity. This country needs a political housecleaning,
and a rebirth of its democracy. The anger on the street and the
rising levels of voter turnout are a good and encouraging start.

MORE FREEDOM, LESS REPRESSION.
America remains among the freest of societies when it comes to the public
discourse, and yet the actual discussions in the mainstream media often
sound as though they were describing another planet. The corporate
self-censorship of information in this country is astonishing, as most
recently displayed in the kid-glove treatment given to Sarah Palin (and
the uproar on the right caused when she was asked the most innocuous
of questions) and George W. Bush as he desperately tries to rewrite
history on his way out the door. Fortunately, the advent of truly
free mass media on the Web and the comic irrelevance of the mainstream
are today combining to save the First Amendment from de facto destruction.
All we need now, is to take the mainstream out of the mainstream media.

MORE INTELLIGENCE, LESS
STUPIDITY. It's astonishing to watch, sometimes, the degree
to which we as a society prize 'regular guy' lack of intelligence
in our leadership. George W. Bush was famously (s)elected, in
part, because he was more of the kind of guy you'd like to have a
beer with than that smarty-pants elitist, Al Gore. How massively
insecure do you have to be in order to make a choice so detrimental,
just so you can feel more comfortable about your own inadequacies over
the coming four years? For all the talk in this country about
excellence, it's astonishing the degree to which we don't actually
practice it, especially in our politics. Isn't the idea of the
best and the brightest refreshing? It takes judgement, too, but
intelligence in leadership should be, er, a no-brainer!

MORE EDUCATION, LESS
IGNORANCE. Likewise, trying to run a democracy on the foundation
of an ill-informed or misinformed voting public is a doomed idea from
the start. Unless, of course, democracy is just an inconvenience
on the way toward kleptocracy - or better yet, a clever mask.
It's amazing how little people know about politics and government
in this country, and even more amazing the lies they believe that are
fed to them by the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh. Regressives
know they lose whenever ignorance is defeated. We need to help
them in that process by valuing political participation more, and by
producing more thoughtful and informed participants, literally as a
goal of national policy.

MORE THOUGHTFULNESS,
LESS FEAR. Part of the reason this society can be so ignorant
and so stupid is because fear works so well at liberating us from our
reasoning capacities. You might have noticed that the right has
noticed this. Just a bit, eh? But, as on playgrounds everywhere,
the most bellicose are typically the most fearful, just below the surface.
Raising our self-esteem, raising our confidence, diminishing our fears
and false arrogance - all of these would markedly improve the quality
of our society and literally save millions of lives abroad.

MORE COURAGE, LESS RELIGION.
And if we could really find some courage within ourselves, we might
have a chance to diminish the role of religion in the society.
Religion in politics is always a disaster and needs to be eliminated
entirely. But its effects are far more pervasive than that, and
extend throughout the psycho-societal landscape. A society that
assuages its existential fears through the rigid and tenacious adherence
to ludicrous fairytales will also be one that is fundamentally ripe
for other such nonsense stories in the political sphere, and one that
lacks the mental infrastructure, developed and sustained by habitual
use, necessary for employing the right algorithms in decision-making.
In plain English, meeting our deepest fears with soothing fictions encourages
doing the same in politics.

MORE LAW, LESS POWER.
The Founders were surely onto something when they argued for the concept
of the rule of law, not of men. Too bad we've done such a lousy
job of living up to their standards. In our legislative process,
monied interests have now stopped yelling to get heard, or even speaking
quietly, because they don't have to anymore. They just write
the bills themselves. In our judicial process the role of money
and power is so pervasive we hardly notice it anymore. While everyone
was getting all agitated about race in the OJ Simpson trial a decade
ago, the real story was that of class. Imagine if Simpson had
been a poor man, with a public defender representing him. It's
no accident that there are no wealthy people on death row. Entirely
removing privilege, power, money and influence from our political and
legal systems is not possible, of course. But we can do a lot
better. And we would, if we were remotely serious about it.

MORE HUMILITY, LESS SUPERIORITY.
Like all empires, America has a nasty habit of thinking it is superior
to the rest of the world in every respect. And, unlike some others,
this empire is even more driven in that direction by notions of religious
authority and authorization. We pillage and plunder in the name
of god. The unfortunate truth is that too often we Americans are like
teenage science prodigies. We have the capacity to build devices
capable of wholesale destruction, but those technical skills are unhappily
combined with the lack of wisdom to know better than to actually do
it. Everyone would be better off - this country and the nearly
200 other ones in the world - if we stopped thinking of ourselves
as quite so exceptional.

MORE PROGRESSIVISM, LESS
REGRESSIVISM. Things were NOT better in the thirteenth century,
or the nineteenth, or even the 1950s. Although it is true that
they were better, in many ways, in the 1960s, before the right started
turning the clock backwards. In any case, some traditional notions
are valuable. Others - like militarism, colonialism, racism,
sexism, homophobia, monarchism, dogmatism or elitism - are not.
We'd be far better served if we can stamp out this compulsion of ours
to move backwards, instead focusing on how to move forward, carrying
with us the best inventions of prior generations, and discarding the
worst.

MORE JEFFERSON, LESS
ROVE. Finally, there's this. Yes, I know that ol' Thomas
was pretty imperfect, and that he knew how to play a rough game of politics
that would actually often shock our sensibilities today. But he
also had a noble side, and he could and did inspire an aspiration for
that quality within succeeding generations. Karl Rove, on the
other hand, never met a noble tendency he wasn't determined to drag
into the gutter. He is the progeny of Joseph McCarthy and (his
literal mentor) Lee Atwater. He is the personification of our
politics for three decades now. He embodies, embraces and encourages
our meanest (in both senses of the word) tendencies. No society
is ever likely to be rid of the Karl Roves within its midst. But
it is a sign of the most malignant sickness when they inhabit the White
House, and worse yet, when they do so through presidency after presidency.
It's time to start listening to our better angels again.

And, speaking of which,
Abraham Lincoln once called this country "the last best hope of Earth".
Whether it ever was that or not, clearly in the decades from which we
now emerge, America has been, in too many ways, the best scourge of
Earth, and quite possibly its last. We spend more on our military
than all the other countries of the planet, combined. We use that
military with a sickening frequency that no one matches, and few wish
to. We are not content to simply ignore catastrophic environmental
disaster, but smugly go so far as to exacerbate it, and to block others
in their efforts to save our common and only home. We support
and sometimes create the ugliest of repressive regimes on every continent
of the planet.

It hasn't been pretty,
and progressives have been right these last decades to scream bloody
murder about what has been, quite literally, bloody murder.

Now it feels as though
a new chapter is being written - not just the turn of a page to another
new presidency - and an opportunity exists to recraft our polity,
and to some extent the world.

However vague and platitudinous
and Pollyannaish many of these suggestions may be, an America that moved
in the directions outlined above would be a far better place than the
sad and morally vacated one we are now leaving behind, hopefully forever.