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The Trap of Politics
Comments on my recent post about the immigration rally are really flaring up. I’m glad to see that people are putting so much mental and emotional energy into a very important topic. I do feel inclined to point out that my article was really more of a chronicle of my own experiences and resulting thoughts, rather than some kind of overwhelming attempt to tell you what to think. Everyone clearly has their own thoughts and feelings on this and I’m glad people want to share them. In the spirit of that sharing (rather than outright persuasion), I thought I’d elaborate a little on how I see some of these issues from a larger perspective.
Understanding world politics is fine - noble even. Theorizing about what the best course of action on a societal level is also worthwhile in some sense. But when it comes down to it, are you the one who will decide the policy and solve the problem on a national and international level? Undoubtedly not.
The best you can do then is ally yourself with somebody else - a group of somebody elses (politicians, political parties, etc) - who promise a solution. If you agree that this is the number one problem and their solution somehow matches your own thoughts on it (or the thoughts that you’ve been carefully orchestrated to have on it!), then chances are good you will be willing to compromise on issues that are less important, and which you may not agree with that politician or party on. Thus you’ve been duped into supporting something you don’t really support, via the hook of something you yourself can’t really even change on a societal level. It’s the trap of politics.
Where does that leave you? Are these problems really ever going to be solved by politicians or social planners? Or are these situations going to be exploited to their fullest to further existing agendas? I don’t believe we’ll find solutions through politics or through legislation for ANY human situations.
And while we’re on the topic, one of the things I hear people saying really consistently against people immigrating from other countries is that they are doing it ILLEGALLY. Usually that word is in all caps like that as well. As if the recognition that people are in violation of the law proves unequivocally that they are doing something horrendously and heinously bad. Why is that on the one hand that people will be whole-heartedly in support of somebody like Ran Prieur, whose whole schtick is learning to live “off the grid” and “outside of the system,” but these same people will turn around and denounce brown-skinned people for doing much the same thing? Maybe illegal immigrants aren’t living off the grid or “going green” or “raising planetary consciousness” or whatever, but aren’t they likewise circumventing and opposing a social system which is unfair, unjust, immoral and insane? What’s the difference between an immigrant who gets paid in cash and doesn’t pay taxes (and sends the lion’s share of that money home to their family in another country), and somebody who philosophically opposes the policies of the US government, engages in tax resistance or other non-violent forms of protest?
Something at the heart of these disagreements just doesn’t add up for me. And the only sane and humane ground I can see to stand on is the simple recognition of our common humanity, and the shared experience of being alive. Damn straight that doesn’t equal a political solution on a system-wide scale. Cause really, should we even be working towards that anyway? The system consists of lifeless corpsorations feeding on real human life, operating according to dead laws written on dead leaves to protect invisible borders. Sue me for not being excited about solutions which only prop up the archonic Frankenstein monster as he prepares to subsume a million more corpses. If anything, all of us who feel this way, who have any conscience, ought to be following the example of these immigrants and refusing to lend our support to a system that we know is utterly broken. Vive la resistance!
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May 5th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
On another note, how come people aren’t comparing this immigration struggle to the Black Civil Rights movement of a previous generation? Aren’t both groups simply asking to be treated as human beings?
May 5th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
And furthermore, we’re all so worried about living in a Phildickian police state where we don’t have any rights, but we’re overlooking the fact that for these people, that already exists! They are us in five to ten years, if you listen to the pessimistic currents out there. If anything, we should be learning from them, rather than opposing them.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Has anyone ever read the book or seen the movie Black Robe? An amazing film! In which a Christian missionary comes to convert the Native Americans in the 17th century.
A compelling feature of the story was the arrogance of the white man “to come into a wild country presuming the superiority of their way of life over that of the indigenous peoples.” The pure, open, wild, spirit of the land was tamed has been tamed, but its heart still beats. Time is circular. And the “wily, shapeshifting, contradictory, heroic trickster..the key motif of Native American culture, will surprise us again.”
The land here is North America is sacred, and there is no eternal law etched in stone saying this land is owned by the white man. I think the idea of private property is sort of immoral.
White people stole the land from the Native Americans and stole land from Mexico. It is only poetic justice that America goes through another change in which the Anglo-saxon dominance is broken and something new arises.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Good question about the Black Civil Rights movement. I heard a story on NPR about the very issue, addressing “where are all the voices from the old civil right’s movement?” and “does it mean fewer jobs and lower wages for African Americans?”
In my thoughts, the big risk in all of this is what you do once you finally pass through the “door of opportunity.” For most of us, our grandparents made it through the door a few generations back. And now we have many folks wanting to close that very door on the folks who haven’t gotten in yet. It isn’t the fact that they’re turning around closing the door that bothers me most, but the fact that they’re pretending to stand for the same values that got their fathers through in the first place.
What is the term, rainy-day fan? Where you only root for something when the forecast is warm and sunny? This hypocracy bothers me more than anything else. Yet, I acknowledge too that my social class and standing has me removed enough (financially) from these effects to not have it directly effect my daily life.
May 5th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Ran also posted recently a link to a Daily Kos article about dropping out of the economy:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/26/74628/5826
May 5th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
that demonstration had a much more sinister undertone though. it has become plainly obvious to more people that what we thought was ours isn`t technically ours at all and that if we read the fine print we will see that we have to share.
May 5th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Well, honestly, I’m to the point where I can find a sinister undertone in any and everything if I look at closely enough. It seems there comes a point where you can not necessarily just let that go, but use it to decide to act in such a way that is not sinister, on however small a scale.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
I posted this on the the other thread, but that one is long and stale so I’ll post it again here:
A simple question, why are borders allowed to be porous for capital (via “globalization”) but not for labor?
I’m part Mexican. My grandmother immigrated here in the 20s for various personal circumstances that were beyond her control. My impression was that she was always trying to get back to Mexico (I don’t think she really liked it here much, or at least as much as her “home”) but after marrying a European, then having children, and then having her children marry Euro-Americans, she was pretty much locked into staying here.
My point: many of these issues are driven by economic forces, not by a strong desire on the part of “immigrants” to darken the gene pool of the great white north. Fix the abuses of globalization and you will fix the immigration “problem”.
May 5th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
labour is part of capital. humans are what i think you mean. sorry if you feel that i`m nitpicking. that`s not my intention. a human is a person. labour is a behaviour. labour is part of the capital investment of any enterprise. when i dawns on us that we are inseperable from what we do in the eyes of the state and how much we can contribute to the capital wealth of a country you start to see how the state see us. slaves.
we don`t feel that way but the state does.
otherwise we are useless eaters.
capitalism and communism are no different in who owns the means of production. the state does.
if you are too expensive as a part of the means of production then you can be replaced.
it`s frightening to think that we are all expendable but the labour unions are about to make that real clear.
george calrin is a funny guy, but in an interview on art bell he said that we are just circling the drain and that he has a seat up on the high ground so he can sit back and watch the show.
that was before 9/11.
i wonder if his view has changed since?
May 5th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I’m using economic terms on purpose, and by “capital” I do not mean human capital, but rather (simplistically) monetary transactions, which of course is a gross oversimplification.
The point is this: the “good stuff” upon which multibillionaires float, their sweet nectar that satisfies every hunger, is allowed to flow freely across borders. But not the people upon whose backs it is produced: they have to stay put. That is on purpose, in order to make sure there are always cheap labor pools and so that the nectar will ever flow freely upwards.
I’m not so naive to believe that communism, or heavy-handed socialism, can solve the problem, even though some of my observations are informed and influenced by Marxism. However, it is clear to me that globalization and the extremes of laissez-faire capitalism are directly linked to the slavery which burdens us all. Again, I don’t believe that placing reasonable constraints upon capitalism (i.e. regulation) will cure all ills and turn our world into a lovely blue and green paradise. But it’s a start.
Anyway, I’m falling into the trap of politics…
May 5th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
This is tangentially related: Doug Rushkoff’s most recent Arthur column as a PDF Here [.pdf, be warned]
May 5th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
it was a blue and green paradise before we started.
money is a symbol of effort. each bill is a representation of ditches dug and the potential for the attainment of a crust of bread. all of the efforts symbolised by those bills are performed by us or by machines. these devices (us and the machines.) are owned by capitalists of all political stripes. we cannot have a discussion about any issues of groups without the insidious trap of politics. any action in numbers greater than one become political to one degree or another.
this is where it`s all led to.
we are now staring into the abyss.
May 6th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Dude, the police state exists for all American citizens already. Forget about the “illegal” (so-called) undocumented non-resident aliens. google: raptor, “internet 2″, “real id” you know the score.
It is a contradiction in terms to say that the orwellian police state applies to someone who doesn’t exist.
If the fed is to implement real id by 2008 this issue will come to a head.
And yeah we’re not doing the federal crimes to “take the power back” but these people are here by the grace of the “ugly American” who has no problem looking the other way because they lacked the same fortitude to make the change in their homeland.
Also, and more importantly, I would like to issue a wake up call, yo.
BIG PICTURE:
Oh yeah, we will retire — if not shot dead for heresy and malcontent — and let’s say (like me) since 1985 we’ve been paying into social security, medicare, all that shit.
Oyez oyez oyez, 11,000,000 to 20,000,000 people of generally middle age and their kids are hereby dumped into the ’system’ without “paying in”
*fast forward* 30 years - where will the money for these peoples’ (no less mine and yours) healthcare come from? the fairy of good intentions, brotherly love, and other stalwart liberal? Forget about $400 a month SS benefits who the fuck cares? But medicare, no body is going to pay your medical bills when you are 65 dude, you really need to look into the cold harsh winds of reality.
We keep hearing medicare etc is broke. What about this scenario.
Livin off the grid is great until you need some fuckin antibiotics, yo.
“have a nice day!”
-anonymous apparachtnik
May 7th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Thomas Conlon, not sure of your point?
I think it’s legitimate to debate who gets what benefit/entitlement after paying into the system for how long. These are reasonable issues to discuss and there is a variety of legitmate opinion on the subject. But it’s disingenuous to ignore the contributon currently made by “illegal” immigrants, who are doing jobs that are not (currently) desirable to American citizens, and the power dynamic caused by global economic forces that depress wages here and abroad, both for under-the-radar jobs done by “illegals” and middle-class jobs that are being sent overseas.
MY point: this is a global economic problem, caused by the abuses of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism. [And no, I’m not a foaming-at-the-mouth Marxist, I am simply acknowledging the power asymmetry that exists between corporation and individual, and advocate a system where there are true checks-and-balances on the power of the corporation, especially in light of the externalization of costs to individual, family, community, and environment.]