Correction–No One Was Even Symbolically Arrested

From today’s Washington Post:

No one was arrested during Tuesday’s demonstration, Elliot said. But there was a minor skirmish between police and protesters when some tried to gain access to a parking tunnel next to the hotel. After a small group was allowed to deliver “citizen’s arrest warrants” to America’s Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying group hosting the conference, the crowd began to disperse.

Thanks guys, I feel that much closer to change.

Symbolic America

I just came back from a health care protest at the DC Ritz Carlton, and I have to say I was extremely disappointed. The turnout was fine, the speeches standard but more or less well delivered, and in terms of agreeing with health care for all, I do, so I was not really bothered by the plentiful propaganda.

Here is what does bother me. Today at 12:30 pm EST, give or take, about 50 people walked towards the Ritz Carlton to issue a citizen’s arrest for the CEOs of some of the largest health care providers in the United States at a meeting of AHIP, the heath provider lobby. They were duly arrested for symbolic civil disobedience by the fine men and women of the DC Metropolitan Police Department.

This act of disobedience, in which the heads of several labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO, as well as “survivors” of the health care industry, including a man who went blind because he could not afford his health insurance, walked up with a piece of paper and some signs to waiting police to be put into waiting cars, accomplished nothing. Some news organizations were present, but none of the big networks. No congressmen were in attendance. There is little if any evidence that the AHIP meeting was even disrupted. What I saw was a symbolic act of defiance made by people who wanted to show, symbolically, that they were in solidarity with the 46 million un- and underinsured Americans in this country.

News flash: the time for symbolism has passed. Not so breaking news: these rallies are a waste of time.

Now, to qualify my position, I am not against health care reform, health care for all, single payer reform, the government’s socialist violation of your right to be less healthy, or whatever you want to call it. I want to be clear: I agree with the ostensible goals of this demonstration. But it was completely useless for two reasons.

The first is our skewed understanding of civil disobedience, which seems to have died in this country around the time they killed Martin. Thoreau notes:

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally… think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.”

The logical conclusion to be drawn, here, is that men must not follow unjust laws in the hope that they are changed, but defy them until they are defeated. This logic has been extended to hold that a conscientious group of protesters might disrupt the organs of government and other interests who act immorally. Buy that or not, I believe that “extension” was the what this rally aimed to achieve. But here’s the rub: if you aim to disrupt government and interest to make your points loud, clear, and public, WHY ARE YOU GETTING A PERMIT TO PROTEST AND PUBLISHING THE ROUTE OF YOUR DEMONSTRATION? That would be CIVIL OBEDIENCE and the direct result of it is: the police are waiting for you to arrest the appointed (and advertised!) demonstrators and that people in traffic know to avoid your rally so that you don’t disrupt their day.

Excuse me if I am getting pedantic here (I don’t think I am), but to my mind, the idea of civil disobedience is to intrude and disrupt, to force the otherwise blissfully ignorant mass to take note that some massive injustice is taking place in their country, and that they need to face it. Further, civil disobedience, if successful, should aim to obstruct the specific organs of policy (lobbyists, bureaucracies, and representatives) to which the act is opposed.

As far as I can tell, the organizers of today’s protest acted in the exact opposite to these goals, thus constituting an act of civil obedience, which is a waste of time. Why bother carrying your soapbox to a spot where no one can hear you talk?

Secondly, and more disturbingly, is that this farce ended in people being arrested. At first glance, this is actually the point of civil disobedience and I salute those (braver than myself) who would submit themselves to the punishment of an unjust system for righteous beliefs. However, these were not the arrests of those Quixotically opposed to the great corporate powers of health, but a ritual submission of actors in mediocre political theater.

Their arrests are symbolic–they had cops, lawyers, and probably even judges ready to have everyone processed and ready to be home by evening. This symbolism is meant to convey that unions, as a political group, are, to paraphrase a speaker, in solidarity with the “working” men and women of this country to create a more powerful “middle class.” Whatever confusion their language breeds over what group they support, the idea is that they should be clapped on the back for getting pinched.

Ok, I think that does take a certain caliber of bravery, I don’t want to slight it. But let’s not get confused–symbolism is a stand in for the real thing, and only that. We live in a culture that confuses symbols for the genuine. Let’s call it a post-modern dementia. Symbols are important. As Geertz notes, “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun” and symbols, whether religious, cultural, or political, are the codes by which we recognize and understand the common heritage in which we are born into. But at the end of the day, a symbol remains a stand in, not the action. We wear donkeys and elephants not because we literally identify with them but because they identify the ideology which we promote through voting. But wearing the jackass is not the same as voting Democrat. Symbolic risks and symbolic acts and symbolic struggles are not the same as risk and action and struggle towards winning the fight.

When Rich Trumka got arrested today, he wanted everyone to know he is on the same side as those who don’t have health insurance in the United States. I salute him for his political position–but what the hell is he doing to alleviate the situation? The time has passed to take sides, the time has come to move beyond symbols and to move towards acts. Raise money. Donate to candidates that support government sponsored insurance. Vote for these candidates. Sue “big insurance” on behalf of dispossessed and recisioned so that they can get the benefits they were contractually promised. This is action. The rest is at best ineffectual and at worst the grossest kind deception–the kind where the weak are made to feel comfortable because someone has experienced modest discomfort in a show of solidarity with their great pain. That is poor comfort indeed.

So to close out this already too long post, I leave you with a quote from Dostoyevski, who had already diagnosed our problems today when he wrote Notes from Underground in 1864:

“We are oppressed at being men–men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea.”

A Multi-State Solution That Works?

Jay Bahadur had a recent op-ed at the New York Times that advocated for the international recognition of Puntland, a self governing region in the former country of Somalia.  Considering the region formerly known as Somalia is interesting only in regards to terrorists or pirates, his “sell” on the issue of recognition is centered on Puntland being a partner in fighting the latter.  This is an interesting thought but not one I want to explore.  Rather, are there cases when splitting up a sovereign entity, or the remains thereof, makes not only good practical sense but is also a good precedent for international law?

Before I jump in here, a few points that need to be laid out.  One, I don’t consider Somalia to be a country any more, hence my previous snark.  The “government” we support is a bunch of men who exerted little control when they were backed by Ethiopian tanks and now have even less.  Their relevancy to the actual population consistently hovers at 0.  So while it’s helpful to refer to Somalia for the geographic connotations, for me the idea of Somalia has eroded from 1991 to the ineffectual dreams of Western and African policy makers to end the chaos with as little change to the status quo as possible.  I’m not sure in this case that the status quo is anything bad, but it certainly doesn’t seem to spend much time in reality.

Secondly, I tend to err on the side that two state solutions and other kinds of partitions are rarely successful.  India and Pakistan and Israel and Palestine are two cases that spring immediately to mind.  Peaceful partitions that did little more than generate a bunch of wars.  I tend to blame the United Kingdom for this.  If you look at some land conflicts in Latin America, Venezuela-Guyana, Nicaragua-Colombia, Guatemala-Belize, and Argentina-UK (Falklands)–you can see that when the British split up territory, they never quite ended the conflict before leaving.  The counter argument, of course, is that colonial borders that brought together diverse and even enemy populations cannot succeed as sovereign entities, much of Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan all appear to strengthen that case.  Even a relatively successful democracy like Kenya can’t seem to get over ethnic tensions, so maybe splitting them up does work.

Which brings us to Somalia.  Somalia doesn’t really exist, but Puntland has a representative democracy, functioning (but poor) government, and at least some capacity to defend and police its country.  In many respects, it fits not only the definition of a nation state, but that of a democracy, which is quite astounding in a region that isn’t necessarily known by its democratic credentials.  Moreover, I think there is a strong case here that if we support something viable, which Puntland seems to be, we have a better chance of influencing the destiny of the Horn of Africa than we would if we, say, supported an ineffectual sham government who has only held on to Mogadishu for two years, and tenuously at that.

So practical wisdom says back the horse in Puntland, it’s a sure winner, right?

Unfortunately, one of the nagging parts of international law is that it’s all precedent based.  The short hand is that if a majority of the countries consider something to be normal practice, then it is international law.  The only “written” law is contained in UN conventions and bi- and multi-lateral treaties.  There is, of course, a bunch of ways to avoid being accountable to international law, such as refusing to sign conventions, refusing to join international groups, and to make vociferously clear in both written statement and and spoken pronouncement your reservations, understandings, and declarations about how you intend to (not) follow international law.  But in general, your best bet is that if you don’t like the implications for your sovereignty, you don’t support something.

This is what makes the Puntland case a little frustrating.  In northeastern Somalia there is a region that has everything we want and maybe more from an African ally, but if we support it, the implications are not something we’ll like.  Consider that we fought a civil war based on the principle that the South had no legal right to secede from the Union.  In more contemporary terms, an internationally recognized Puntland has some troubling implications for Morocco, India, Turkey, the Sudan, and a host of other nations.  After all, the compelling arguments for Puntland’s recognition could easily be extended to a place like Kurdistan, which would be most inconvenient for Turkey, the US, and any ambitions for a federal Iraq.

Which leaves us, the international community, in quite a bind.  On the one hand, there are many practical but situational specific solutions that would make stabilizing developing countries much easier than it is today.  Giving Puntland money to fight Somali piracy makes our warships in the Gulf of Aden much more likely to be successful. On the other hand, sometimes process is more than just a ritual to make us feel like we’ve had a say.  Process breeds order, and to upset order threatens more than formality.  The very underpinnings of how the world functions today, how countries interact, how trade happens, and why there are relatively few wars of aggression between nations, are all related to a respect of process and thus, order.

So Puntland cannot be it’s own nation, though in the de facto sense, we really have nothing to counter that reality.  In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this is small potatoes.  However, it does beg a question of the current world order–how useful is international decorum and process when it is opposed to practical realities?  Is a genocide in Sudan something we’re willing to allow because we can’t get consensus in the Security Council?  And conversely, are we as a nation really able to act morally and sensibly outside of international consensus?

2009–An Early Review

I suppose the list of top things in 2009 has got me to thinking that I should have an evaluation of the year and a prediction for the next–well I won’t!  Not until next month at least, when I’ve had a chance to come up with a theme that can describe the year.  In the meantime, here are a few unordered thoughts:

In the US, we’ve seen:

-A failure to commit to democracy, either in Latin America or South Asia.  The Coming Anarchy (a normally fantastic collection of international political analysis, most recently of the Dubai default threats) posits that this is good politicking, “thinking pagan while acting Victorian” to paraphrase.  I am inclined to disagree–what we have here is a supreme failure of our international morals and just as the tales of Salvador Allende and Hugo Chavez’s 2002 coup were getting old, we handing our neighbors the tragedy of Mel Zelaya.  So far the acrimony with the rest of the planet caused by our support of two undemocractically elected leaders (neither election was free or fair, feel free to dispute Honduras, but when the US ambassador laments the drastic deterioration of human rights and opposition media is mercilessly shut down, you don’t have much to stand on) has remained low, but we are steadily chipping away at the foundation of our image.  Perhaps we could never live up to it.  But so far what is only a public diplomacy nightmare will spread into real diplomacy.

–We will deal at any cost.  This is the mantra of the Obama administration and while so far he’ll get some plaudits for it from the moderates in the media–we have a healthcare bill, we will have a global warming deal, we have a strategy for Afghanistan, etc.–the reality is that the White House is every day looking like a pawn shop that is getting outplayed by its sellers.  They have quickly accepted the lowest common denominator on pretty much every dispute that has crossed their path.  I think the actual value of this has yet to be seen.  They might be making all the right deals and generations from now we might be studying the brilliancy of the Obama administration.  So I don’t want to be too gloom and doom on this point.  But sometimes there’s a value to playing hardball.  Cheney and Bush proved that.

–The NFL is entering a period of shaming and disgrace.  Didn’t expect that one, did you?  But personally, I think this concussion thing will hit them hard, not as hard as doping in MLB, but perhaps the implications are worse.  Major League Baseball players put their bodies at risk illegally for gain.  The league turned a blind eye to such behavior, but while it may have been tacitly encouraged, I don’t think any one thought for a moment it was above board, honest behavior.  The NFL has basically left some of its most talented players out to dry and refused to face a health risk that people have known about for a long time.  What’s worse is that this negligence has trickled down to every level of the sport.  I don’t think it will chip away at the dominance of the sport (thankfully) but I consider 2009 the year that Goodell got an asterisk next to his tenure.

–2010 will probably be a year of backlash.  I am expecting a ton of inappropriate blame to be placed on reality TV for all sorts of moral ills.  No more Kardashians will be able to get shows, VH1 will probably not deal with millionaires any more, and the White House and airports will reach the top levels of competition for security theater.  The result will be overall positive, but when it comes to larger issues about the American culture, this cure will probably have the same effect as self-flagellation did against the bubonic plague.  More finger pointing will abound in the media, and our sense of self-respect, common decency, and high culture will continue to suffer.

–Simplicity will become the new zeitgeist.  Ostentatious shows of wealth will be considered in poor taste, and anti-wealth populism will replace the new age Gospel of Wealth.  This will be a slow trend but it has already begun.  Barring anything short of a miraculous economic recovery, the Great Recession (stupid name) will dictate our new cultural modes.

There’s probably more I could say, but I’m getting ahead of myself, especially with these predictions.  In any event, more to come and Happy New Year.

Wes Pruden–Asshole

Sometimes, for a dose of the other side, it is helpful to read The Washington Times.  This is not a source I would recommend for well reasoned, thoughtful commentary from the political right.  There are far better places to go that have few if any typos on their web copy.  That being said The Washington Times, noted for being a mouthpiece of the George W. Bush administration, gives quite an insight into the minds of the “angry right,” that is the folks that tend to mobilize for town halls and tea parties.

Sometimes, like the readers they represent, the Times gets itself in trouble.  Recently, editor emeritus Wes Pruden led the foot march to the mouth when he stated that Obama had no blood knowledge about the traditions of the United States.  Ok, like a lot of other people, I don’t think presidents, standing or not, should bow to any foreign leader regardless of their pedigree.  US presidents represent the republic, whose people do not bow before any foreign leader.  That may be arrogant on our part, but it is an integral part of our national mythology that ought to be preserved.  That doesn’t mean we have to be rude, but there needs to be a compromise between what is polite and kowtowing.

So on this one point, Pruden and I meet in agreement, and I don’t think the president was above recrimination for the protocol error.  Yes, it was blown out of proportion, but then again, when have we seen a measured reaction in the media?  It’s either nothing at all or a 24 hour (insert issue here)gate.  But beyond that original sentiment, Pruden takes a right exit onto crazy highway.

Let’s start with the obvious here–his op-ed is laced with half truths, ignorance, and off topic ad hominem because I guess he’s still mad that Bill Clinton was president.  My favorite line is that the US was founded on the ideal of not bowing to foreign potentates–really, Wes?  Can you really call King George foreign when most of our founding father’s were men of English extraction?  It of course was not a revolution of a creole elite looking to secure their political and economic interests against a higher social class.  But we’re splitting hairs here, and as I said: mythology is important.

You might have heard that a lot of people were mad about the article, specifically where Pruden states that Obama can’t be faulted for not knowing how to be American, because he’s the son of a Kenyan and a woman attracted to the Third World and raised in Hawaii, all of which mean that he doesn’t know spit about being American.

Wow.  Well, a lot of people have taken issue with this, so I see no need to revisit it.  But I would like to take a look at his response.

You see, Wes Pruden heard that people were angry too–and he doesn’t get why.  All he said was that Obama’s dad was Kenyan (and now Marxist!) and that his mom liked people from the Third World (rather than Americans?).  And if you think that comment is racist, well don’t worry, he’s hiding behind the oft-used shield of “if you think it’s racist that means that you’re probably racist yourself.”  Kind of turns the idea of the editorial opinion on its head–he’s not responsible for the implications of the opinions expressed in his piece, you are for reading them in there.

Nor does he seem to pick up on the fact that one “likely” in the previous sentence doesn’t mean that he’s surmising when he says “It’s no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of “the 57 states” is about.”  Nope.  In fact, that’s not a guess at all, that’s an unequivocal statement suggesting the president is not at fault for not instinctively knowing what American is all about, like Wes Pruden does.  Because in no way in the past three years has the kind of conservatism championed by Pruden or his paper been repudiated at the polls.  It was never voted on because when conservative politicians lose, it’s because they were not conservative enough.  Or it’s because Americans, like so many rats and little children, have been lured away by the pied piper.

Of all the delicious ironies and purposeful blindness here, the best is Pruden’s charge at the “laptop cops” who are holding him responsible for his words.  These “nuts with laptops” (I am guessing they’re also Americans who lack the blood instinct to understand what real America is about) might just be anywhere to take issue with anything a person says or writes or does.  And that is completely unlike what the former editor of a second rate newspaper does in his column.

I suppose that last part is a bit juvenile, as is the title.  But coming from a guy who insists that Barack Obama is not a citizen and who takes to calling Bill Clinton “Bubba,” I don’t really see where he gets off by being mad about it.  But I’m glad he does, because if he some how lands here by Googling himself, I’d like share with him my thoughts as I would on the school yard.

Hey, Pruden: Fuck you.