… which is far more alienating than feeling like Pauline Kael (allegedly) felt upon Nixon’s reelection. I’m sorry that this is so long.
I thought that the struggles of what the media cluelessly called the “anti-globalization movement” (actually global justice, or alter-globalization), namely trade justice, workers’ rights, the environment, and so on, would define my adulthood. It made sense. In the 1980s, the First World had begun doing to itself what it had been doing to the Third World, i.e. neoliberalism: under a lot of talk about “free markets”, what we actually had was welfare for corporations and the rich, and free-market austerity for everyone else. Everything that people had fought for in the 19th and 20th centuries was under attack, middle classes were shrinking, and people were fighting back. It seemed like a winnable fight; even Eisenhower and Nixon had dismissed neoliberal ideas during their presidencies, and George HW Bush very briefly did the same with his “voodoo economics” quip in 1980. Hell, orthodox free-marketeers don’t like it either!
Now I look around and wonder where everybody went. The issues haven’t gone away, if anything they’ve gotten worse, and yet it seems that my country, the US, is sliding into reaction. The struggles now are simply about combating reactionary developments, not creating progressive ones. See the rage at Obama, a president who (from a party which) would be considered conservative or moderate in most other industrialized countries today, and in this country’s own political landscape not long ago.
I personally had very low expectations for Obama, but as for his disappointed supporters, what made them think things would not just get worse by not voting? The Democrats are bad enough, but the GOP is worse! Do people want this, as summed up by a commenter on Ross Douthat’s latest column: "Evisceration of environmental regulations, rollbacks of consumer protection legislation, rollbacks of financial industry regulations, less access for poor women to reproductive services, defunding of education and science research … "?
I thought we’d be talking about Third World debt, and instead we’re arguing about whether Obama is a Communist Kenyan Muslim. I thought I’d be organizing to eliminate the mass-murderous sanctions on Iraq, not screaming myself hoarse protesting a criminal invasion of that country that killed hundreds of thousands more. I never thought so many people would seriously entertain the idea of deliberately engineering fiscal train wrecks in order to privatize education, health care, and the like; and bring about the eviscerations mentioned above. I hoped we still wouldn’t be arguing about evolution, contraception, church/state separation, the causes of the Civil War (historians don’t), and even the teaching of the topic of climate change.
If the US absolutely had to go through the worst of neoliberalism for people to wake up and combat it, a la Greece, Spain, and much of Latin America, that would be one thing. The problem is, we don’t have that kind of time any more. I can’t understand why environmental issues aren’t of paramount importance for more voters. Do I have to spell it out here? Isn’t it obvious? It’s frustrating enough when voters are only willing to protect their own privileges without displaying a shred of empathy. It’s worse when their own short-term concerns, legitimate or otherwise, override medium-term issues of their own (and their children’s) survival!
I’m really angry, exasperated, and upset right now. I’m afraid for what the future holds. I’m finding it hard to even think about anything else, and thus I can’t comprehend the vapidity and selfishness all around me. My family is going through considerable turmoil at the moment, and I’m much more upset (and baffled) about the state of the world. I don’t want to be Cassandra. I don’t want to say “I told you so.” Do I have a choice?