Saturday, October 19, 2013

The Wrong Lessons From the Shutdown

Published on Wednesday, October 16, 2013 by Common Dreams
As the national news media works overtime to vilify the Republicans who refuse to abandon their objectives in the interests of reopening the government and allowing business as usual, the lesson seems unmistakable: anyone who stands by his or her principles is obstructionist, extremist and hopelessly out of touch with the majority of Americans and in sharp contrast to the reasonable, patriotic members of Congress ready to put partisan principles aside for the common good.
As the shutdown drama drags on, major news organizations are trumpeting an NBC News/Esquire poll indicating that most Americans are “centrist.” Of course, a survey by Newsweek from 2011 likewise shows that 64 percent didn’t understand why the Cold War occurred, and 44 percent apparently couldn’t explain what the Bill of Rights is. Even so, the message is clear: virtue lives in the center. But political change does not.
"The mainstream narrative reinforces a presumption that “business as usual” is a sane and rational course."Historically, movements of social change have begun among the disaffected, and among the relatively small numbers of people angry enough to act on their concerns. The moment an individual becomes impassioned enough about an issue to take to the picket line, or engage in civil disobedience, that individual has left the moderate, sensible, safe world of centrist politics. If they succeed, social change movements may win adherents among the “centrist” majority, who come to understand the importance of an issue that once didn’t matter to them at all, but the centrists do not typically lead the charge.
Today, judging by their actions, most Americans, who we now know are “centrist,” and the people they send to Washington apparently have no significant concerns about the Obama’s administration assault on civil liberties, or its cruel and callous policy on deportations, or its support for pillaging America’s public lands and coastal areas to fuel the addiction to fossil fuels. There seems to be little concern about the young lives sacrificed to urban violence and poverty, or the relentless poverty and dysfunction that marks so many American Indian reservations.
But imagine if progressives took a page from the Tea Party playbook, working to infiltrate both parties, pushing both parties to address these and other issues. Imagine if progressive concerns were front and center of a shutdown showdown over budget priorities and debt levels. Imagine if progressives demanded defunding of programs to sell-off America’s natural resources, or round-up “illegal immigrants,” or demanded an end to drone strikes.
Please continue this article here:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/16-6.

No comments: