The Failure of the Progressive Movement (the Libertarians, Politics, and the United States Sovereignty)
There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that the Occupy Movement has captured the world’s attention. From Zuccotti Park to UC Davis the Occupy Movement has made people across the world from university administrators to politicians to students turn their heads. With the Occupy Movement has come a series of labels from face-time progressives such as Michael Moore declaring the harbinger of Progressive politics following 20 years of Conservatism.
Yet this new arrival of the Progressive movement rings of nothing but a red herring towards the failure of political dialogue in this country. In a time of crisis when our government policymakers cannot even pass a fiscal budget for the current year let alone solve budget cuts for future years; when Europe is in a state of crisis premised on the financial failure of an entire country; when our economy is on the verge of double-dip following weak consumer spending growth; when Chinese political flex in the South China Sea speak of new trade dynamics in the Asia Pacific; when the CIA has compromised major operations in Iran and Lebanon; when US industries and consumers will begin a painful 5-8 years of de-leveraging in the midst of emerging markets’ growth—there has never been a greater need for our country to get together and solve the issues that are not only necessary but critical to our country and the world’s ability to adapt to an increasingly complex world environment: fiscal stability to international multilateralism to clean energy, etc.
Yet the Progressive Movement, the sane individuals who laughed and mocked as the Tea Party has whined in the past two years about tax structure and constitutionality, has adopted the mission of the Occupy Movement: protest the growing wealth inequality in America—a wealth inequality that has been growing since the Reagan administration and until the financial crisis remained a nonissue for all.
The Occupy Movement, like the Tea Party, in other words, has focused on ethos that has failed our political system in general: Your politics is not mine, and therefore your policies are wrong. Like the Tea Partiers, the Occupiers are upset with the Wall Street bankers, the lobbyists, the “corporate greed,” the big politicians—the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers are upset with a system where wealth has been created and yet they do not have as much as they like. They are upset with a system of distribution. They are upset at their own received distribution.
The institutional conservatives piggybacked the Tea Party’s agenda into their politics. Now instead of solving budget issues, they are congesting pathways to political compromise by creating budget issues. In other words, they are not focused on the solutions to the problems, they are focused on their own ideologies. They are not conversing about solutions, they are screaming their way to political strong-manning.
The Progressive movement’s adoption of the Occupy Movement then symbolizes a parallel failure on the Progressive movement’s part. Wealth inequality is an issue insofar as financial stability to international multilaterialism to clean energy is an issue. Every year since 1980 has been the “highest point” of wealth inequality in the United States since the 1980. And yet Americans in the mid-80s were fascinated by the great things that the Laffer curve and deregulated businesses could accomplish; in the mid-90s they were overjoyed at the job opportunities, the booming stock market, the wonderful technologies that Silicon Valley produced; in the 2000s they were overcome with relief that we as a country could unite following 9/11 and Katrina and exercise our economic and political dominance as to have enough hubris to declare “Mission Accomplished” and that we no longer need to worry about issues regarding Market stability.
We as a country, have been increasingly blind to the real issues at hand: we fail to reach consensus when our country needs the most consensus and we fail to address disagreement when our country needs disagreement. In other words, we do not engage in political dialogue, we scream and shout in joy and anguish as a country. In the mid-2000s when economists and financiers were describing the mis-pricing of real estate, we shouted them down as insane—we engaged in our own ideologies and not the own issues at hand. Now, we are shouting at each other—we engage in our own ideologies and not the own issues at hand.
Of course, describing our attachment to our ideologies is simple in hindsight; this however does not discount by any means the crisis that we are facing today. For example, the University of California’s Occupy Protests fail to pinpoint the state’s inability to raise property taxes. Of course education cuts will occur in a state of fiscal need. The state increasingly wishes to increase debt in order to fund their systems and the taxpayers refuse to lift Proposition 13. The frustrations being vent are not against a choice on the policymakers’ parts—they are protesting an inevitable result of fiscal accounting. If you do not raise revenues you will not be able to pay your costs. Here at the University of Chicago, threats of a student protest against a hosted conversation between Condoleeza Rice and Hank Paulson, led administrators to postpone the event. There is quite a fine line between protesting for the sake of voicing opinions, and strong-manning a dialogue to not occur.
Meanwhile, the Occupy Movement in general raises a stench akin to the utter intellectual flaccidity of the Tea Party movement. There is a fine line between the hubris of ideology and having the sincerity of truth and our failure as a country and a people to not realize this has led to the rise of “organic” movements that do not solve issues but create issues. We are not at upset structures, or at institutions, we are upset at ourselves.
Local institutions in handling the Occupy Movement have reacted just as poorly. University police officers pepper-spraying student protesters? University administrators postponing talks because of a fear of losing face (to the democratic exercise of protest)?
That is, no one has abused the legality of autonomous actions available to us. And that has been a problem. Everyone has been justified. Somehow it has been justified for university police offers to pepper spray students. Somehow it has been justified for police offers to drag and hit park squatters. Somehow it has become justified to surround police, regular human individuals with families and jobs, and not allow them to leave an area, let alone do their job. It has been justified somehow to shout our ways and politically scream our way to prove our right to do so. It has been justified somehow to explain away our insincerity as “frustration” with the issues at hand.
It is utterly despicable and shameful to see our country torn asunder by our attachment to our self-religion: our own ideas, our own beliefs and our own ideologies. The Progressive Movement’s inability to fight against such an attachment and progress towards the issues at face us—issues that must be solved through compromise and policymaking or else risk the very livelihood of this country—and rather the movement’s adoption of the Occupy Movement posit a failure on Progressives’ parts to create the dialogue that the Conservatives equally failed to create following the ‘rise’ of the Tea Party. The Progressive movement has failed because they have adopted to the modern trends that everybody has adopted to. The trends that we can fit our character into without being explicitly insincere, and the trends that allow us to blend in just enough so that we raise our own political clout.
“I don’t watch good television because I like it, I watch television because everybody else watches what I watch. I don’t protest because I actually have sincerely held these beliefs, but because I want to be a part of history; and I damn don’t exercise my ability as a citizen of a Democracy to engage in intellectual, free dialogue, I shout and yell and scream and cry because everybody else does it.”
We need true dialogue, we need issues to be solved, we need compromise to be reached and yet we cannot cut through the din of disagreement or the hubris of ideology.
We are making a farce of our political system. We are ridiculing every freedom that Democracy has to offer, not by legally abusing, but by abusing in principle, the workings of such freedoms. We protest not for the sake of solving problems, we protest for the sake of protesting. We filibuster not for the sake allowing more dialogue but for the sake of disallowing dialogue. Now, because it’s trendy to protest, we go protest. Because some hashtags about ideological pretention regarding wealth inequality is written on social media sites, we begin adopting the mottos as significant paradigm shifts in history. Forget principle, it is trendy to do these things. Forget sincerity, it is trendy to join the crowd—to support the ideology, support the cause, support the anonymous, collective “people.” We are in a modern state where the American democracy seems antiquated by the very politics that the democracy is so dependent upon—we are in a modern state where our country is not based on the people but on the “people,” the anonymous entity that everyone represents but no one is a part of.
Victory for Michael Moore, the Progressive Movement and the like? Yes. Victory to them. Boo to Bankers, boo to the Tea Party, boo to the RNC and the DNC, boo to the Obamas, and the Romneys and the like. And apparently? It’s now catchy to say “Boo to America.”
And apparently also, it’s trend to say, “Boo to Democracy.” Oh I almost forgot, #wearethe99%.
Shame. Shame to our egoism and shame to our ideological pretention. The only history that we are making ourselves a part of, is the utter insult to democratic peoples and democratic systems everywhere, the utter insult to free people and free systems everywhere, and the utter insult to the very natural freedoms that we as members of human society are entitled to.
Go protest, and go love yourself over the great political differences you are making: those tax cuts, that wealth inequality—and you’ll find yourself with a healthy, live crowd of people supportive of you and supportive of your self-deception. Refuse to be a part of these insincere, ideological, pretentious masquerades of true political democracy—and you’ll find yourself alone.
Nothing but your principle, your God(s) and your truth.
