If You Choose Not To Decide

We are in one of those moments in the United States of America which will ultimately wind up in a history book, should there be anyone left willing to write the book. The last five years saw the bitter fruit of our neglect for the maintenance of our Federal government come to full fruition. We now stand in a place where there is no longer certainty that there will be a United States left in as little as a decade.

It sounds hyperbolic, but when the Founding Fathers fought a war, then wrote a Constitution, it was with the express intent that we preserve, protect, and expand their legacy. The flowery words and flowing script were a down payment on a future that would see The People take the nation to its logical extension. Now, over 240 years later, we have done what we always do: left the maintenance until the structure is on the verge of collapse, hoping to get one more year out of it before we have to do something.

It's not as if the political quandary we face is difficult to figure out. Over the intervening two hundred or so years, we have become a nation of parties, and most often only two, whose names and alignments change but are in essence flips sides of the coin. There is always a Conservative party, struggling to halt the inexorable march forward and the change inherent in, and spawned by, that march, and a Progressive party, coaxing, urging, cajoling, and pleading with people to ride the wave forward toward the future.

Currently, those parties are represented by Republicans and Democrats, respectively. The divide between the two parties, always there but usually bridgeable, is now an ideological chasm, the political version of Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch. Any moderation between the two eroded away through six decades of Republican intransigence and catering to the more sycophantic in the Conservative sphere. What few rope bridges remained between the parties were savagely hacked away in 2016 by the election of a self-important, blustering con artist to the greatest position of power in the land, and his subsequent ravaging of Federal government, akin to Godzilla strolling through downtown Tokyo.

The election of Joe Biden, far from de-escalating the situation, has cemented it. Frankly, one wonders if that wasn't the plan all along: let the bumbling, incompetent President adored by his ignorant legions fall, only to spin it as a "conspiracy," to provide provender for the raging horde of Conservative sheep. It certainly led to a moment -- the January 6th Insurrection -- which for all intents and purposes was an attempt to prevent the President-elect from taking office and therefore worthy of the appellation. The seething rage of what is an increasing minority of Americans was brought to a full boil by their "Dear Leader," who acted as if it could be any other thing but an attempt to reinstall him to office. And his loyalists are, in the true fashion of King George III's two-and-a-half centuries ago, willing to make any excuse for it, short of calling it what it was.

All this said, it is becoming clear -- and you'll forgive glossing over the past few months of revelations and investigations -- that whatever "intent" may have been behind January 6th, whatever planning may have taken place, we are living with the end result being as clear as day. The Republican Party, one of only two viable parties, has thrown its weight behind a complete and total march toward establishing White Christian Fascist hegemony in the country. In States all over the country, Republican Governors and Republican-controlled Legislatures have done their level best to ignore, downplay, or sabotage the response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, have taken steps to retract the necessary and warranted alterations to voting rights to allow everyone equal access to the vote, have begin the systematic dismantling of settled law by attacking the legality of abortion, and have removed meaningful and necessary restraints to the purchase and wielding of firearms. This is a clear and present danger to the majority of Americans who do not not share to any great degree the arcane, backward, and ignorant views driving these changes.

Which leads me, unhappily, to my point.

Because this is all very obvious. To pretend, for an instant, that events as we see them hold any other meaning is denial on a scale not seen since the Romans thought they still had an empire, even as the Visigoths were knocking down the gates of Rome. I'll avoid the quotation of Santayana, but you get the idea.

And still... the mainstream media is filled with the reports of Democratic infighting. Much of it is an amplification of such minor fluff as to be ludicrous, but there are definitely fault lines in the party, which slide and creak ominously when elections are approaching. Now is no different. Next year, 2022, is the bellwether year for our nation, because to hand Republicans control of any branch of government at any level, no matter how tenuously, is a prescription for catastrophic failure.

To that end, it would seem clear enough: vote for Democrats. But therein lies the rub. Because the Progressive side of America is a rainbow of thoughts and ideas, and unlike the lockstep machinations of Conservatives, Progressives spend a lot of time arguing instead of doing. This, invariably, leads to the weakening of Democratic power and a further erosion of actual progress in the nation. Some factions within the Progressive movement simply take their toys and go home, rather than support Democrats, when it's Democrats that are the only ones who have a realistic chance of advancing Progressive causes. This maddening passion play that invariably unfolds every election cycle is frankly the final pin to be pulled in the grenade that will trash American democracy once and for all.

Now, I preface the following thoughts by saying: I'm no longer a fan of parties. I believe, in the age of global communication, that the organizing principle of the political party -- never a necessity -- is now an abject waste of resources. It is possible, as we've seen repeatedly in the last decade, for people to organize on large scales through the auspices of the Internet, and to create a force for action on many levels.

That said, in the arena of politics, we are not there yet. We're still dependent on an archaic system that is driven by two parties, and we won't be able to change that at all until we change our outlook and accept current realities. Those current realities are pretty simple. Republicans have now made it clear that they will not advance Progressive policies. Period. They will not work toward the betterment of all, as the Constitution enjoins them to, but will seek to establish their vision of what America is, also know as White Christian Fascism. To make any other read, at this point, is ludicrous and unconscionable. The writing is on the wall.

The only group of sufficient size, power, and organization that can oppose the Republican drive toward an authoritarian regime is the Democratic Party. Love them or despise them, they are it. If we do not support them, if we do not vote for them, if we do not work toward ensuring that they have a fair shot in elections, then we lose more that just those elections; we lose what America is supposed to be. The Republicans will have no problem enacting policies that will basically strip power away from anyone who does not swear fealty to their views. If you think it can't happen here, then I have news for you: it already is. Republicans in several States have been ensuring that the power of Democratic election officials can be circumvented to allow them to install their own candidates instead of rightfully elected Democrats. They are aligning the electoral network to ensure that they can simply seize power, upon the pretense of "rigged" elections, which are rigged, but in their favor.

So, you have a simple choice in upcoming elections: vote for Democrats or don't. If you can't vote for Republicans but won't vote for Democrats, and decide to sit it out, you've voted in the most inimical fashion. You've also shown that you do not care even an iota as much as you claim to about people, because you are condemning the rest of us to tyranny to salve your wounded pride. "Principles" are a wonderful thing... until you're staring down the barrel of a gun and realize they don't stop bullets. This may be your last opportunity as an American citizen, to participate in the thing which is your most solemn dusty as a citizen. Do your duty.

Battle of the Sex

A couple of months ago, I wrote a tract on opinion and judgement, stating that it is a slippery slope we tackle when we write opinions and commentary on our blogs, or in public forums, stating that we believe our point of view to be the "correct" one. While it is possible to find a great number of people who may agree on any one salient point about a particular topic, statistics tell us there will always be groups outside the mean with differing opinions. The idea of debate is founded on this; for any subject, there is more than one side, more than one opinion, and in a proper setting, the give-and-take of ideas allows us to see all sides clearly, form value judgements, and come to a consensus.

Hopefully.

The twin phenomena of the blog and the commenter, brought about by the rise of the Information Age, has altered the normal structure of debate and dialog to a great extent. Whereas great debate has always taken place in person, between parties capable of reacting to each other, making their vision and passion known through their actions at the podium, as well as their words, the Internet has provided us with the idea of "telepresent" debate, whereby hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people may weigh in on a topic, in a kind of whirling frenzy, punctuated by colorful metaphors and diatribes and remotely-launched character assassination. All this, from behind the cloak of anonymity, or in some cases, pseudo-anonymity. Most combatants in this game of computerized expostulation take part behind shields of their own creations, pseudonyms being the rule more than the exception. Even I find it easier to comment while shielded by a name which is part trademark, and part jest.

Most of it is harmless enough. Trading banter has always been part of the human condition. However, the relative anonymity and ease of attainment leads many to unleash inner demons, allow the darker parts of themselves to roam free. Intellect and cogent discourse are subverted by emotion and rampant gainsaying. A holier-than-thou attitude, normally checked by proximity to people, is launched onto the Internet, to wreak havoc and sow discord through narrow-mindedness and effrontery.

This was no more evident than when Linda Hirshman, of Slate's female-oriented site doubleX, went on a rambling, baseless, and self-indicting screed against a site on which I comment regularly, Jezebel. The gist of the attack was that feminism was being ruined by the editorial staff of Jezebel. Rather than reproduce any portion of the diatribe here (feel free to look it up on doubleX, under the title 'The Trouble With Jezebel'), given that I do not wish to drive any more readers to that site, it must be said you could find more coherence of thought in a Chinese restaurant menu.

I won't launch any kind of personal attack here; I will say that if Linda Hirshman is holding herself out to be a scion of feminism, then feminism is, indeed, in serious trouble. You cannot, on one hand, claim that feminism is about the liberation of women from the oppression of men that has lasted for centuries, while, on the other hand, decrying women using that hard-won freedom to do as they wish. It is especially galling that she should heap her particular brand of ill-considered scorn on the editors and staff of Jezebel, who represent what is probably one of the best staffs of any web site you care to name. Day after day, they fill Jezebel with timely and important information of interest to women (and men like myself, who care about women's issues), as well as entertainment news, providing an eclectic mix that makes for a pleasant read.

Ms. Hirshman based her opinions on a handful of posts and one video from an ill-fated discussion attended by two editors. From that scant base, she concocted a theory of how the freedom of these women and their personal choices spelled the doom of classic feminism. Apparently, being a feminist and having been freed of the patriarchy, you are free to go about your business, as long as it doesn't reflect badly on feminism. That is to say, you're not allowed to make mistakes in judgement, not allowed to determine how you will handle your own rape, not allowed to imbibe freely, not allowed to be a free-wheeling, devil-may-car, sex-enjoying woman. Once you have been labeled a feminist, you receive your ID card and handbook, and are expected to be circumspect, to follow the tenets of the movement religiously, and are allowed no variation from them.

To say that all this is laughable and ludicrous, is to put it mildly. Like so many of the "old guard" that any movement spawns, Ms. Hirshman is frightened by these women, who have taken their freedom and run with it, while she remains fettered to the movement. As any movement (feminism, civil rights, gay rights, etc.) progresses, it grows and evolves, incorporates more people, people with different viewpoints and perspectives, who take it in new directions and break new ground. Such is the way of things. This leaves the old-timers waxing nostalgic, pining for the ground-breaking days, when they could control the thing they breathed life into. But the only constant in the universe is change; those who deny it are left behind, embittered.

Eventually a thing grows beyond those who brought it into being. That is true of our country, which the Founding Fathers would know but not recognize. Or a California redwood, which has far outlived all the plants and animals that were alive when it sprouted as a seedling. It is very true of children, who last far beyond their parents, and see the world become far different than the one they first emerged into. So it is that feminism has moved beyond suffrage and "women's lib," to become a standard, something that generations of women from now to the distant future will accept as their normal birthright. True, women are still caught in an imperfect human society, portions of which have yet to see this new birth of female freedom, but no longer is it just a crazy idea, a pie-in-the-sky dream still awaiting its day. No, feminism is now a living, breathing entity, an implacable force that will shape our world in myriad ways, as it sweeps across our planet and lifts the faces of all women up to the sun.