Harry Targ
On
Contradictions
Political philosophers influenced by the writings of
Marx and Engels emphasize the connections among all social processes, the
opposing characteristics embedded in them, and how social dynamics are
intrinsically conflictive leading to new and different futures. For most
activists this means that politics and history are complicated. Before drawing
premature conclusions about what is going on and what to do about it, thoughtful
reflection on the multiple dimensions of causes and effects and effects and
causes are needed. No more is this so than in coming to grips with the
political “time of day” in which we live.
The
Advance of Reaction
Recent events underscore the rise
of what can reasonably be called “neo-fascism,” advances in the construction of
a police state, a desperate and renewed commitment to U.S. imperialism,
escalated assaults--economic, political, police--on African Americans, Latinos,
women, workers, and immigrants, and gluttonous increases in corporate and
banking profits while gaps in wealth, income, and political power widen.
The November, 2014 election brought Republican
control of the U.S. Senate (53-44 so far) and the House of Representatives
(243-178), and both houses of 29 state legislatures compared to 11 Democratic-dominated
state legislatures. In total Republicans hold majorities in 68 of 98 state legislative
bodies.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
will be holding a planning meeting in Washington the first week of December to
map out an agenda for the newly victorious Republicans at all levels of
government. High on their agenda will be legislation blocking increases in minimum
wages, expanding so-called right-to-work laws, limiting access to Medicaid,
restricting global taxes on tobacco, creating more free trade agreements, and increasing
the privatization of schools. Of course the Republican wave brings with it more
climate change deniers, war hawks, and anti-choice activists, tinged with
biblical visions of public policy.
The crisis over the police murder of young Mike
Brown has highlighted the racial and class character of the criminal justice
system in the United States. Various data sources have uncovered the egregious
racism in the criminal justice system from arrests, access to legal counsel, trials,
convictions, sentencing, and incarceration. For example, white policemen were
21 times more likely to shoot a Black man than a white man between 2007 and
2012. At least two Black men were killed by white policemen each week during
these years, killing at least 500. (This was double the number of lynchings
occurring during a five year period before anti-lynching laws were introduced
in Congress in the 1920s). Michelle Alexander estimates that there are more
African Americans in jail in 2010 than were enslaved in 1850). Furthermore,
while African Americans constitute 13 percent of drug users they constitute 46
percent of drug convictions (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Organizing Fergusons,” Jacobin, November 26, 2014,
jacobinmag.com).
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was fired on
November 24 in the midst of United States foreign policy “crises” from the
struggle against ISIS to the Syrian civil war, negotiations with Iran over
nuclear development, escalation of U.S. troop activity in Afghanistan, and
continuing public campaigns from the neo-conservative wing of the foreign
policy establishment to send troops and in other ways expand military
operations around the globe.
Pundits offered competing interpretations of the
meaning of the firing from incompetence to policy disputes with Obama or his
national security staff. Probably Hagel had some disputes with National
Security Advisor Susan Rice who usually sides with the interventionist wing of
the foreign policy elite. Irrespective of the reasons for the firing, the
long-term impacts of securing a new Secretary of Defense nomination and Senate
approval, and in the context of the Republican Congressional victories, will be
a renewed debate about escalating U.S. military interventionism in the Middle
East, South Asia, and even the Western Hemisphere. Obama’s sometimes “realist”
foreign policy will be further challenged.
President Obama in a prime time address on November
20, 2014 announced that he was using his executive authority to grant temporary
amnesty to approximately five million undocumented immigrants, mostly parents
of children who are United States citizens by birth. Despite the fact that the
Obama administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other
president, his announced executive order brought outcries from Republican
leaders, threatening lawsuits, impeachment, and various legislative actions
when the new Congress assumes power in January. Ironically, although the
president’s action does not constitute comprehensive immigration reform the
groundswell of support, particularly from the Latino community, was enormous
suggesting that if the announcement was made before the fall election several losing
Democratic Senatorial candidates might have been victorious.
Finally, and as always below the radar screen, the
economy has been doing well for the one percent. For example, Thomas L.
Hungerford (“Is Corporate America Going to the Poorhouse?” The Economic Policy Institute Blog, October 8, 2014, epi.org)
pointed out that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $30 million supporting
mostly Republicans. Even so, Hungerford presents data indicating that while
corporate profits have fluctuated between 1946 and 2013, they reached a peak in
2013. “In 2013, the before-tax profit share was 21 percent, which is the
highest level since the mid-1960s. Interestingly, the 2013 after-tax profit
share is at a post-World War II high of 15 percent! It would appear that corporate
America has been doing rather well under President Obama and the current
corporate tax system.”
Growing
Resistance
Even though the data is not in and resistance and
revolt may or may not have lasting effects, the contradictions generated by
capitalism, the police state, and imperialism are stark. In the electoral arena
voters who went to the polls elected rightwing extremists and voted on various
referenda to raise wages and to legalize marijuana. Most sitting
Congresspersons were reelected, including members of the Progressive and Black
Caucuses. A few candidates, such as Senator Al Franken campaigned as populists.
And in selected communities, get out the vote campaigns led to turnouts
exceeding the 2010 figures. Rev. Barber made it clear that the Moral Mondays:
Moving Forward Together movement is not primarily about an election or
elections in general, but used the elections to articulate a moral agenda that
is as relevant in the streets as the ballot box.
John Nichols pointed out (“An Inconvenient Political
Truth: That St. Louis Prosecutor is a Democrat,” The Nation, November 26, 2014,
thenation.org) that the St. Louis County Prosecutor, Robert McCulloch,
who rigged the Grand Jury to absolve policeman Darren Wilson of his killing of
unarmed Michael Brown is a Democrat. “Across America, counties elect top
law-enforcement officials as state’s attorneys, district attorneys and
prosecuting attorneys. Hundreds of them are Democrats.” Nichols says that many
of these are progressive, others are not. Less visible elected office holders
need to be properly vetted, not taking party label as sufficient indicator of
candidate commitments to justice.
Robin D. G. Kelley appropriately describes the
longstanding tradition of police brutality as akin to a “low-intensity war
between the state and Black people.” He describes in painful detail the long
history of police violence and white vigilantism against African Americans and
the ideological justifications for their actions. Kelley reports that revolt
against this war has begun first in Ferguson where young organizers have
created “Hands Up United, Lost Voices, Organization for Black Struggle, Don’t
Shoot Coalition, Millennial Activists United” and other groups. Mobilizations have
spread to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Indianapolis, and other cities and
towns across America. Paralleled by traditional and older civil rights
organizations, this potential mass movement is stimulated by energetic, angry
young people, Black and white.
In the midst of the election season, police
violence, calls for expanded U.S military adventures overseas, mobilizations of
historic magnitudes have occurred. The People’s Climate March in New York City
drew 400,000 participants among them activists concentrating on the
environment, peace, anti-racism, and worker rights. Increasingly movement
activists see the inextricable connection between their issues and saving the
natural environment.
Also fast food workers have been protesting low
wages and long hours. Others have been organizing economic boycotts such as
against Black Friday, demanding better working conditions. Health care workers
are mobilizing about wages and the right to organize and teachers are actively
opposing charter schools, school vouchers, and the selling off of higher
education to corporate interests.
The Moral Mondays movement has begun the
reconceptualization of the politics of resistance by appropriating the idea of
fusion politics which first appeared during Reconstruction after the civil war.
Then, former slaves and poor whites built coalitions to gain power in state
legislatures and to write truly democratic state constitutions. Rev. William
Barber and the movement that was initiated in North Carolina in 2006 emphasizes
the interconnectedness of all the problems that impede social and economic
justice much as was done by Blacks and whites in the 1860s. Today, he says the
only antidote to huge corporate power, whether the extremist wing reflected in
the Koch Brothers and ALEC or the Clinton Wall Streeters, is the coming
together of masses of people--Black, white, workers, straight, gay, faith-based
or no faith-- and their organizations to fight the right and propose a moral
agenda based upon constitutional and ethical principles. Moral Mondays is
expanding throughout the South, the Midwest, and the Southwest.
Finally, pockets of youth militancy drawn to visions
of 21st century socialism have sprouted up in New York,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Jackson, Mississippi, and elsewhere. Young people
are making long-term commitments to study, organization building, and the
construction of political power as reflected in modest electoral victories at
local, state, and national levels.
All these mobilizations are grounded in local
circumstances, U.S. history, and global mobilizations rising up against
neoliberal globalization. Cross-national networks of activists are increasingly
sharing their insights and sense of solidarity that just might lead to a global
resistance consciousness in the future.
It remains
unclear what the outcome of the contradiction between reaction and resistance
will bring in the months and years ahead. But Frederick Douglass was correct
when he said:
“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those
who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want
crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This
struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both
moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will (“If there is No Struggle, there is No
Progress,” August 3, 1857, at blackpast.org).
