This is a convert talking.
I was once a big booster of that disputed decade. I even wrote a whole book in its mildly qualified praise. Sure, it spiraled out of control, its embarrassing excesses were to be repudiated, but its heart, I thought, was all good. It was visionary. It was transforming. It was ecstatic. It was spiritual. It was -- Youth.
It was our #*@*&! youth, all right? That’s all it was. Now get over it.
What brought the Sixties to mind was thinking about the extreme polarization that’s rent our country, who started it and who’s going to start stopping it, if anyone can. Look now, and you see a kind of symmetry -- both sides behaving badly, locked in an escalating verbal shoving match from which there may be no return. “Ann Coulter?” “Ward Churchill!” “Well, Rush Limbaugh you!” “Michael Moore your mother!” Deep beneath that, like a tectonic fault causing surface tremors, is said to be an unbridgeable philosophical divide: two starkly opposed views of human nature, pitting Rousseauian Enlightenment against High Church, Luciferian freedom against chastened obedience. Whichever side you’re on, the other looks like the Devil.
Trace the conflict back before one America almost tore into two, though—back to the early Sixties and the Civil Rights movement’s dignified appeal to the conscience of the whole nation -- and I think you can identify who started it.
We did.
I’m talking about my “we” of origin – the Left, though I’ve left it for the center. And if I’m right (and I’m bracing for attack from legions who think I’m wrong), the Left has more of an obligation, but even less of an inclination, to be the first to reach across the divide for the country’s sake.
Granted, the Left was traumatized by the string of assassinations that broke the back of the Sixties. With Medgar Evers, the Kennedys, King, and an evolving Malcolm X – who’d just given up racism for Ramadan – the Left lost the last leaders capable of potently bridging the generations, the races, the classes, clean-cut idealism and just-corrupt-enough pragmatism. Just in case you think I’m a right-wing apologist, if I were a conspiracy theorist and I asked,”Cui bono? Who benefited?” from the assassinations, I’d have to say, “The Republican Right.” Because after 1965, a large portion of the Left dropped out of civilization and has never come back. And that has served the Right very well indeed.
Aren’t you sick of street demonstrations – be they antiwar, pro-choice, or gay-pride -- with their by-now-formulaic mix of freakery, scruffiness, sexual and sartorial acting-out, and menacing anarchism? This is still a significant and symptomatic form of left-wing political expression. It’s a politics of infantile rage, demand, and provocation -- politics by tantrum: “Whaddaya want?” “X!” “Whennayawannit?” “NOW!” Its only potency is negative – all it accomplishes is to disgust and alarm ordinary citizens -- and the elected Democrats who try to play politics by civilized rules are dragged down and rendered impotent by their indulgence of and tacit alliance with it. Look at the pictures of this pro-choice counterdemonstration, not coincidentally in Nancy Pelosi’s district. I only wish the signs saying “Abort More Christians” and “Stop Breeding” had been painted by pro-life propagandist-provocateurs. (The organizers of April’s pro-immigration rallies at least were smart enough to have the marchers wave American flags and chant nothing more inflammatory than “USA all the way!” However alarming nativists may have found the huge numbers of Latinos in the streets, their demeanor was disarming, and it impressed the undecided.)
You’ll say I’m only talking about style, but style is as tightly bound to substance as means are to ends. The substance conveyed by street-demo style is, “We have no respect for you, now we demand you respect us,” and that ‘tude predated and provoked right-wing talk radio. There’s a place and even a need for Dionysian excess (therefore the wise old safety-valve traditions of Carnival and comedy clubs), but that place is not in the forum where vital public business is debated and transacted. To flaunt it there isn’t “freedom of expression,” it’s secession from the social compact, and either to act that way or to dismiss it with an indulgent chuckle is an inexcusable frivolity from those who claim to really care about their causes. (Do I think the guys in g-strings in gay pride parades hurt the cause of gay marriage? Yeah. At Mardi Gras, on the other hand, everyone can get away with it.) If you want people to listen to you and give your concerns serious consideration, you have to speak a courteous common language – and you have to listen to them.
Here’s what post-traditional AmbivaBlog and conservative Catholic Ales Rarus learned from our experiment in civilly debating gay marriage. What happens when sincere opponents fight with respect is that after the first bristling salvos to establish nonnegotiable boundaries, they let down their guard and concede a few points to each other – points that seem peripheral to the issue in dispute, but in the long view may actually be more essential. We had religious conservatives allowing that civil unions might be tolerable, and progressives pondering the notion that sex might actually be sacred – both far better contributions to a country where sharp differences must share common ground than the sweeping constitutional bans and “Abort More Christians” signs we’re getting now.
Neither Left nor Right is doing much of this, but I see the Right doing just a touch more – listening to the other side and saying, “Point taken.” There is now a thriving evangelical environmental movement and a renewed (though never absent) focus on the poor and the AIDS-stricken – beams in the Christian Right’s eye originally pointed out by progressives. They listened. By contrast, Dems who question the harmlessness of sitcom sex, abortion, or single parenthood are few and far between, and they are slammed as panderers or Republican wannabes. Two examples of progressives who appear to have heard the other side and thoughtfully incorporated some contrapuntal wisdom into their worldview are Senator Barack Obama’s “Call to Renewal” keynote address and William Saletan’s writings on abortion. We need more. It’s time for those who pioneered the politics of provocation 30 years ago to finally let the Sixties be over.
There's a quote buried in the many article that would be more clear if this were an age given to aphorisms:
"Style is as tightly bound to substance as means are to ends. When a style says 'We have no respect for you, now we demand you respect us,' in the forum where vital public business is debated and transacted it is a secession from the social compact"
-Jennifer (Another person with progressive policy sympathies who is very turned off by much of the "Progressive Movement".)
So Jennifer what specifically turns you off about the "Progressive Movement"?
vry,
RET
Thanks for alerting me to the new post, Amba. This was a good piece.
I think basic national security 101 and a few critical social functions nationalized and we're home free... todays Airforce and modern security technology is being implemented in Israel as we speak in a never before effort to lock down the area of conflict with hitech security systems never before implemented! And soon our troops will be coming home thanks to the Modern Progressives idiology for hitech security systems! The 60's crowd is wise for this "bridge" you speak of and dream of - for this is your critical role for the days you have grown. But it is my generations role to stop the destruction of the United States by terrorism acts in the name of Islam being sponsored by counterfitted cash printed by communists who are moving forward with these hitech systems in China to save trillions while be borrow trillions from this enemy - while my leadership refuses to save these same trillions! While China moves forward to implement the mark of the beast worldwide in a non profit society you speak of the 1960's and gay marriage? Times are change fast are they not? www.appyp.com/fix_main.html
I agree wholeheartedly with your criticism of exhibitionism as progressivism, but I can't endorse your statement that the right is better at taking points of correction. Placing the emphasis on what the left is doing wrong seems to miss the point that neither side is helping.
While I agree that an emerging evangelical environmental movement and faith-based aid to Africa are good things, these are hardly pillars of the modern conservative movement. The NAE's support for "creation care" has not been universally supported by conservatives in Congress, and does not appear to hold much weight with the White House. And while any AIDS money in Africa is good, it's frustrating when portions of that money are earmarked for less effective abstinence-only education.
And I don't agree that the left has refused to do anything to correct its excesses. As you mention, up-and-coming democratic leaders like Obama have made efforts to support a middle ground. He's joined in the middle by a number of the names bandied about as potential democratic presidential hopefuls like Warner and Clark. Even KErry and HRC have made efforts in the party to emphasize the "rare" part of "Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare."
I agree that the Democratic Party as embodied by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and supported by DailyKos is not good for America. But to peg the Republican Party as somehow more responsive to criticism strikes me as blind to the facts.
Hello!
As a Green Party candidate, I am glad to see this debate over vision, style, and message going on. Here is my input. I ran for US Senate here in Iowa in 2024 as the Green Party candidate. I wore a suit and tie, looked clean-cut and close-shaved, addressed the public and my political opponents with courtesy, intellect and wit, and was received very well everywhere I went. It really does make a difference when you are trying to reach out to "joe sixpack" or "the center" or "the 50% of america that never votes" or whatever demographic you are trying to court.
My point is, if people want to get together and reheat chants from the 60's, that's fine. But I cringe down to my last nerve ending everytime I hear "hey hey, ho ho, Bush and Cheney have got to go." Come on fellow progressives (or whatever you call yourself)- we can make the message a little more sophisticated, and a lot less hackneyed than that.
In solidarity,
Daryl Northrop dnorthrop@polkcogreens.org
Co-Chair, Iowa Green Party
Co-Chair, Polk County Green Party
US Senate candidate, 2024.
Anonymous -- I very nearly agree with you. As I said, I don't see much civil disagreement or search for a sliver of common ground on either side. However, I think civility was once a value of the right and the center (remember, they were the "squares" despised for "[wearing] a suit and tie, look[ing] clean-cut and close-shaved"), and that the incivility of the left drove the right to extremes. I.e., "we started it," and therefore the onus is on us to start stopping it.
re: To Anonymous & Daryl
12 min ago
I agree. Our ideal candidate would have the looks and carisma of the movie actor that would play him/her. Tall, jutting chin, aviator glasses, and cool bling.
It doesn't matter what Unity08 does, just as long as we look good doing it. As we all know, elections are just a american idol, high school prom event anyways.
I wonder how Daryl Northrop of the green party feels about commercial nuclear power.
http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/ecology.html#754042
Jim- thanks for your interest. The above link is the official position of the party.
My own *personal* position is somewhat different. Again, this is me speaking- not on behalf of any party organization. While I am cognizant of the challenges and dangers of nuclear energy, especially disposal of waste from power plants and other radioactive materials, I am not willing to totally write-off nuclear energy. If waste storage, and environmental issues can be properly addressed, I am willing to consider some current and future use of nuclear power, as part of a national energy policy that effectively combats fossil-fuel dependency and global warming/CO2 emmissions.
If you would like to talk more about this, feel free to email me directly at dnorthrop@polkcogreens.org
In solidarity,
Daryl
Re: To JimD; Greens on nuclear power
Daryl Northrop on July 27, 2024 - 6:18am
The green party is not the solution, the green party is the problem. Clean, efficient nuclear power is the answer.
What is the green party's answer to generate power for the needs of this nation.
1. Dam up our rivers - distroy the natural aqua ecology.
2. Burn coal - drain toxic metals over the landscape.. fill the skies with acid gases.
3. Burn Petro - fund the terrorists, cause huge ocean spills, and drain the US economy of our wealth, not to mention the cost of transporting, storing, and disposing.
4. Exchange fertile american soil for energy. Not even close to being efficient.
5. Solar - perhaps someday, but we're not even close to the scale needed.
6. Wind - in progress, but ted kennedy and kerry are holding up the largest wind power project today.
I'm not sure why your even posting here.. the green party is one of the radical extremist groups that Unity08 wants to eliminate politically
LOL: JimD seems to be a kind of a fanatic for Unity08! Is that an oxymoron?
Daryl doesn't talk like a "radical extremist" and I didn't think Unity08 was out to "eliminate" anybody!
LOL: JimD seems to be a
amba on July 27, 2024 - 8:34am
Yes, I am a fanatic, (extreme even) when it comes to the environment. We need sane policies and funding that promote clean air and water, restore healthy forests, reduce urban sprawl, and protect natural wilderness. A powerful amount of work remains to be done.
However, the green party and many other environmental organization have been hijacked by loonies and are counter productive to these ends.
1. Can one be a fanatic for Unity08? Sure, one can hold very strong feelings that (A) The current political situation, partisanship, failure to effectively address key issues is unacceptable (B) That a bi-partisan ticket is needed to jolt the parties to be responsive to the center.
2. I would agree the Green Party is not much of an issues for Unity08 HOWEVER, we are not natural allies, and in fact want to move mainstream policy discussion AWAY FROM the fringes.
3. Daryl sounds like he has the ability to form opinions separate from the GP and not be an 'absolutist'
4. I would read Daryl's post that he assumes we are "progressives" and if he is using it as a code word for leftists that certainly is not true for a large segement of who Unity has attracted and will attract.
5. On the specific point Daryl makes about civility and not being 'in your face' he is correct most voters, particuarly the demographic Unity will need would not respond well to that and in fact we are a reaction to that coming from the left or right.
6. Regarding JimD's observation that positions taking by the GP have hampered our energy independence he is CORRECT.
7. DARYL, don't take my comments as implying we are not in soldiarity as citizens of one of the greatest nations ever to exist. You sound like a person who belongs in the dialogue and too the extent you can work with the center lets look for common ground. Where we don't have common ground let us argue our positions civily.
vry,
RET
Hello all-
Thanks for all your comments on the environment, and the green party in general. One of the my fellow posters said I do not sound like an absolutist, and they are correct - I abhor extremism as it can breed not only bad policy, but intolerance. Further, I believe that no political party, not even the Green Party, has all the answers. It is key for all Americans to work together where we have common ground to move forward. It was my experience on the campaign trail that we have A LOT more common ground than we normally think we do.
As far as the Green Party being a fringe or radical party, I will let each reader decide for themselves what to believe. For an overview of the values that shape Green Party policy, go to http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml and review our Ten Key Values.
I have enjoyed posting here, and hope Unity08 is successful. I would be happy to support a moderate political prez/vp ticket that is free of corporate money, and formulated policy based on the needs of people, first and foremost. **again, this is me talking. I am not speaking on behalf of any party organization**.
If any of you would like to continue the discussion via email, I can be reached at dnorthrop@PolkCoGreens.org
In solidary,
Daryl Northrop
Daryl,
Thanks for the link.
The thing about "Values Statements" is the devil is in the details. Interpretations of words and the specifics of interpretation.
By any rationale definition the Green Party is leftist and more extreme in what it seeks to accomplish along any of these ideas.
I'll grant you ideas like best government is that closest to the people, local versus the federal overlaps with a basic tenent of one strand of classic conservatism.
But the majority of the 10 values which start off sounding so nice move far along as you ask what does x,y, or z mean in terms of practical application.
Your platform section shows how much you differ from those positions where the R's and D's are quite close to agreement on.
The effect of Unity will be to move policy away from 90+% of the positions your party touts.
RET
A lot of words but the conclusion is the same. The green party today doesn't reflect the values the green party started out with in the 70's.
The green party was HIJACK'ed by a group of leftist loonies. Environment protection is not the objective of todays green party.. its just serves as a conduit to acquire moneys and recruit members for their dark extreme left agenda.