Since the days of the French Revolution, one half of Europe has always been referred to as the left, the other half as the right. Yet to define one or the other by means of the theoretical principles it professes is all but impossible. And no wonder: political movements rest not so much on rational attitudes as on the fantasies, images, words, and archetypes that come together to make up this or that political kitsch.
The fantasy of the Grand March that Franz was so intoxicated by is the political kitsch joining leftists of all times and tendencies. The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles notwithstanding, for obstacles there must be if the march is to be the Grand March.
The dictatorship of the proletariat or democracy? Rejection of the consumer society or demands for increased productivity? The guillotine or an end to the death penalty? It is all beside the point. What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Discuss...
In case anyone wants to hear it, here's me talking on Radio New Zealand National's The Panel about Batman RIP, which I freely admit I haven't read (and probably never will). Don't get me wrong - Grant Morrison is great, and I wish him and everyone else involved all the best. But truth be told, I have no patience for these silly media events any more...
Courtesy of the Yes Men - a 12-page special edition of the New York Times was handed out to commuters throughout New York this morning. And check out those headlines!!!
It's backed up by a website: www.nytimes-se.com (make sure you read the ad's too - they're amazing!). So take the time to read it all - and dream a little...
Let's face it: we're in a mess.
Everyone's saying the world economy is sliding into a depression (at least) as bad as the 1930s. The whole damn system just about collapsed last month, and the shock waves are only just beginning.
Add to that a couple of simple facts - the rapidly worsening effects of climate change and the looming scarcity of oil - and some days I reckon we're totally screwed. End of story.
But thankfully, some people don't give up so easily:
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month called for a "Green New Deal" that would rebuild and reshape the economy of planet Earth in ways reminiscent of the programs that President Franklin Roosevelt used to revitalize the economy of the United States during the Great Depression. Indeed, even as the slowing economy and falling oil prices make it harder to justify huge new investments in a green economy, there's a strong counterargument that now is precisely the time to make them.
From the UN to the International Energy Agency, from economic think tanks to cabinet rooms, the recognition is growing that shifting to sustainability is not an unaffordable luxury - it's actually the best way to climb out of this economic hole.
Government-led job creation and infrastructure investment is what saved us from the last depression. Sadly, of course, much of that investment went towards fighting a vast and terrible war. This time, thankfully, there's a much better use for our ingenuity and manpower: saving the planet.
A number of governments around the world are starting to take up the challenge. Sadly, here in New Zealand, both National and Labour seem to believe that the financial crisis means we need to put environmental efforts on the back burner - as if it were possible to ask the planet to just hold off on climate change and peak oil until property prices go up again...
That's why we need as many Green Party MPs in parliament as possible - whoever forms the next government. We need a loud and effective push for a Green New Deal in New Zealand.
Deregulated markets and endless-growth economics is what got us into this mess, both environmentally and financially. Carrying on the same way is only going to dig a deeper hole, as oil becomes scarcer and the world becomes less hospitable. We're staring catastrophe in the face; let's not fiddle while Rome burns.
So please: this Saturday, don't vote out of cynicism or greed. Don't vote because you're sick of Helen or you can't trust John. Don't vote for tax cuts or a nice smile, or meaningless platitudes about "steady hands" and "strong leadership."
Vote for hope. Vote for reality. Vote for what you know in your heart is right.
For me, that means voting Green.
Just when I thought the Green Party campaign (here in New Zealand) couldn't be any more clever - they come up with this!
All you do is choose a photo and upload it - and hey presto! You've made your own Green Party poster:
It's great fun looking at the many posters people have already made. Some are beautiful, others hilarious, and together they serve as a powerful expression of what the Green Party's all about. What a brilliant idea!
This election is an extremely important one, despite the rather dismal uninspiring tone of much of the campaigning (I'm looking at you, Labour). While most of the parties (and media) wearily rehash all the usual petty nonsense, the world - including New Zealand - is facing a perfect storm of serious crises: economic collapse, peak oil, climate change, pollution... The one issue that links all of these is sustainability. It's time to put sustainability at the heart of our economy and infrastructure; not as an optional luxury, but as an absolute necessity, if we want New Zealand to flourish in the 21st century. The alternative is a long and painful catastrophe.
So, please, this Saturday, don't be distracted by all the small-minded crap about tax cuts and yellow jackets and cheap election stunts.
Think about the big picture. Think about what really matters. And ask yourself: how will I justify this vote to my kids?
I drew this picture for the Comics Industry for Obama auction on ebay. You can bid on it here (there's already stuff there from Mike Mignola, Rebecca Roka, Tim Seeley, Jeff Mariotte and Gary Phillips). All proceeds will go to Obama's campaign fund.
If you live in America, please vote. And then - whoever wins the election - please continue to push for genuine reform, withdrawal from Iraq, and meaningful action on poverty and civil rights. Putting Obama in the White House would be great - I mean really great! But it won't change much without a continuation of the grass-roots activism that's emerged in the past few years.
Things are a mess - and it'll take more than one election to sort 'em out.
Here's the picture I drew for the SAFE charity art auction. The original drawing will be auctioned off on 1st November:
On offer will be work by a wide range of artists, including Karl Maughan, Fiona
Pardington, Mike Petre, Jim Speers, Angela Singer, Peter
Gibson-Smith, Andrew McLeod, Ted Dutch, Marie Shannon and Peter Madden. The creator of Footrot Flats, Murray Ball, has given an original
artwork, as have the BroTown team. The works will be viewable online from October 15th.
All proceeds will go towards SAFE's work defending animals from cruelty.
Andrew Gumbel is a reporter for UK newspaper the Independent, and this is his carefully researched, scrupulously nonpartisan account of the history of American democracy. And it's a revelation! Stolen elections, routine fraud, murder, bribery and widespread disenfranchisement - all from the get go!
Most fascinating - and troubling - is Gumbel's account of the openly anti-democratic thread running through American political discourse, from the founding fathers all the way to Karl Rove: the belief that universal suffrage is inherently dangerous, because it allows the "ignorant" mob to destabilise the nation. Much of the structure of American institutions has been shaped by efforts to minimise that danger, by limiting the people's access to the political process.
Gumbel also does something few Americans seem willing to do: he compares American democracy to other countries - from Europe to Latin America, and even Albania. Surprise, surprise: America comes out of it looking like a poor yokel cousin from the sticks...In this excellent column in the International Herald Tribune, Roger Cohen says what I think every time I visit America: the place is falling apart.
Compared to much of the developed world, America is increasingly looking like a broken down, impoverished, corrupt banana republic, with a collapsing infrastructure and flimsy, outdated and undemocratic politics. For a few generations now, America has squandered much of its wealth on Imperial swaggering, ever-expanding militarism and an insatiable, crooked corporate plutocracy. The Soviet Union weren't the only ones bankrupted by the Cold War; America's economy was slowly crippled, while its democracy was hollowed out by the National Security state.
Sure, America is home to many of the richest and most powerful corporations. But much of the population is poor; poorer by far than in many European countries. And while America certainly has the largest and most expensive military in the world, that doesn't mean its soldiers have the equipment they need, or the leadership they require, or the professionalism we'd hope. Hollywood (in close collaboration with the Pentagon) has spent decades building a myth about American military power (and also, of course, the CIA, FBI and every other branch of U.S. state power) - a mythical picture of highly-trained, high-tech invincibility and omniscience. But it's a myth. The reality is far shabbier and corrupt and inept. We all learned that from the Vietnam War. Now we're learning it again in Iraq.
All this was made painfully, tragically obvious in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina three years ago. The disaster in New Orleans exposed the reality of modern America more clearly than anything else in the eight terrible years of the Bush regime. The decayed infrastructure, the lack of a genuine civil government, the corruption and racism and deep inequality; the whole rotting edifice of American society was ripped wide open - and it stank.
But this is not just about Bush. I remember being struck by this 16 years ago, when I visited San Francisco. I got home to New Zealand just as Los Angeles was burning in the wake of the Rodney King verdicts. Hell - cities were burning in the sixties, too; soldiers marched through American streets with bayonets fixed, dissidents were spied on, and black activists were shot in cold blood by police or strung up by God-fearing christians and "f---ing rednecks."
What's wrong with America has been wrong for a long time; but for many people, it's been obscured by the great delusional Myth of America - Land of the Free, Defender of Liberty, the Greatest Nation on Earth...
Of course, now that the myth is falling apart and the empire collapsing, things could get really ugly...
As more details emerge about Sarah Palin - and the rushed, incompetent way she was selected as John McCain's VP candidate - I'm starting to wonder whether it's an indication of what's going on behind the scenes in the Republican Party.
To be precise, is it a sign that the Cheney-Rove wing of the Republican leadership are in such a mess, they've decided to just sit back and let the McCain clique have their way with this election - knowing they're doomed to lose?
It's hard to imagine the Palin choice could have happened under someone like Rove; instead, I suspect, it's the result of McCain flailing around trying to be clever, while also buckling under pressure from the loony religious right, in a desperate attempt to resolve deep splits within an exhausted, spent party.
It shows all the signs of a motley assortment of left-overs and wannabes filling a power vacuum left by the Bush gang's retreat, and doing their best to run an inept campaign within a hollowed out organisation.
Of course, whoever wins the presidency will inherit the biggest mess since post-Watergate (or maybe even the Great Depression), so maybe the Cheney circle have decided it doesn't matter if Obama wins. After all, there's always 2012...
Not that this means Obama will win. Between the awfulness of American politics, and the untrustworthiness of their vote-counting, anything could happen.
But whatever else is going on, it sure looks to me like the Bush gang are sitting this game out on the bench...
Update: this video adds to the impression of disarray and confusion over Palin's appointment, as does Rove's comment that the Palin pick was a "campaign decision" rather than a "governing" one.
Update 2: the hysteria over her performance at the RNC adds a new note to this whole mess: classic "backlash" politics, of the nastiest kind. God knows where all this is going - but the McCain-Palin ticket now looks even more disturbing. This is going to be a very nasty election indeed...
