David S. asked two key questions, related to an article from City Pages:
The following is an article from the City Pages
following the election of Don Samuels to the city
council and the defeat of an antiwar resolution by the
city council. The article is dated February of 2003.
How many feel this analysis is spot on and how many
feel it is off base?
What can we do to empower those attempting to enact
progressive policies at city hall in the upcoming
elections and after?
http://citypages.com/databank/24/1158/article11051.asp
<<<<<
The key concluding statement from the article is this:
But it's clear that the days of risk taking and
progressive politics are gone. The more experienced
council reps are holding their cards close. Don
Samuels should take note before he antes up."
<<<<
GH here: David, I think the observation is spot-on. After reflecting on a
wide range of reading, I think that there is a reason for the death of
progressive politics and risk taking.
American voters have been abused to the point that they are withdrawing into
a shell. American voters demand politicians who will carry out rape,
torture, and murder on a worldwide scale (the earth is flat, indeed!) and
yet will maintain an illusion that all is well.
Minneapolis voters express this devotion to unreality on a local scale.
Minneapolis politicians know that people no longer believe in progress or
democracy, but vote for political leaders who will at least maintain the
status quo and keep up the appearance of continuing personal peace and
affluence.
In the poorer, more minority-populated parts of town this means that the
same old tried-and-true political footballs get kicked around. Crime and
punishment, gang violence, the drug war, lamentations over public safety,
poor education, and lack of opportunity are all displayed in a macabre
political burlesque. No politician will be able to bring these poor people
into "The Promised Land" but hopes and fears will be manipulated once again.
In the shrinking middle-class, whiter parts of town local politicians strut
like anal retentive "fiscal conservatives" while promising to keep "those
people" and "criminal elements" and such out of the way of the "normal life"
of the professional managerial class. Throw-away lines and projects related
to "special interest" politics abound. These are like masks put on and off
to appease various factions. Incremental change -- a code phrase for no
change at all -- is the key to special interest politics.
The real political base lives in tiny pockets here and there, and
(significantly) out of town all together. These are the people who own
political influence by virtue of great wealth. Myopia is often
proportionate to wealth. "The blind lead the blind." Very wealthy people
have exaggerated and excruciatingly egocentric fears and hopes.
The wealthy fear that their wealth will stop growing all by itself. The
wealthy hope for increasing control of their environment and world. The
depths of these fears and hopes are the same for us all, but my experience
working in the homes of wealthy people is that they are scared to the point
of peeing in their pants. The wealthy spend their lives struggling to get
through the eye of a needle with all that baggage intact.
The key role of politics -- like that of religion and education -- is to
flatter the wealthy into thinking that they are making it through that
needle's eye just fine, thank you very much.
No risk taking allowed. Progress implies risk and change. that cannot be
allowed. Talk of change is allowed as long as it fits neatly into the
"carrot and stick" rhetoric intended to glean votes. Real change is taboo.
I've read an excellent article in the London times today that relates to
this. For now, I think it is important to realize that local politics is
designed to keep everyone hunkered down and withdrawn. Compliance with the
powers that be is the only absolute in local politics. the rest is froth.
-- still pedaling for a new day, which will come one way or another -- from
Lynnhurst -- Gary Hoover
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