A Sane Radical

If there were such a thing as The Daily Show generation, I would be a member of it. Jon Stewart took over the late night show on Comedy Central when I was in college, the time in my life when I started to form my political outlook. The show got me through graduate school (or, I should say, George W. Bush’s presidency, which almost perfectly coincided with the eight years I spent getting my PhD), the time in my life when I learned how to articulate and substantiate my political outlook. As 9/11 happened, as the nation’s unity shifted into vitriolic division, as the Bush administration launched two wars using justification that proved to be unfounded, and as American political discourse became increasingly absurd, The Daily Show became a source of catharsis. Watching the show, I didn’t have to feel weird or crazy for getting upset when “you’re either with us or against us” got branded as patriotism, for observing the irony in Sarah Palin's admiration for her daughter's "choice" to have her baby, for cringing anytime anyone who's not a murderous dictator gets compared to Hitler. In a time when the most insane politicians and pundits seem to get the most power and attention, The Daily Show has been one of very few voices that articulated what I often felt alone in feeling and thinking.

So it's no surprise that I was one of the estimated 215,000 people who attended Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear this past Saturday. I wasn't sure if was going to turn into the progressive response to Glenn Beck's rally, if it was going to be an irony-fest for smug hipsters, or if it was just going to be one giant party. From where I was standing, it wasn't really any of these things. True, I got the sense that people in attendance identified themselves as liberal, since the overtly political signs largely poked fun at Christine O'Donnell, FOX News and the Tea Party. But people weren't there to push any particular political agenda. I didn't see anyone promoting any political candidates, in spite of the fact that the rally took place just three days before election day. I didn't even overhear any political discussions amongst the other attendees around me. I was pleasantly surprised by the age range of the people I saw. While my early morning bus to D.C. was full of college kids, I ended up sitting near a lot middle-aged folks, some of whom admitted that they didn't even watch The Daily Show. The energy was positive. People just seemed happy to be there, making room for each other, making sure that their signs weren't obstructing someone else's view, sharing snacks. This really was a gathering of reasonable people who wanted to make themselves visible as the non-insane majority of America.

I applaud Stewart's closing speech, his "moment of sincerity" in which he condemns both our political process and the "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" for projecting images of ourselves as angry, fear-mongering monsters incapable of compromise. Stewart was very careful in condemning extremists from both sides, saying at one point, "Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?"

This is where I think Stewart missed an opportunity to talk about the substance behind the rhetoric. While extremism on any end of any political spectrum is never a good thing, we need to acknowledge that it is not the extreme left that is currently holding the microphone. It is not the extreme left that is calling President Obama is a fascist, claiming that that health care reform is tantamount to a Bolshevik takeover, that all Muslims are out to destroy America. I can't think of a single Marxist who is actively subverting our Constitution (never mind that Marxism in and of itself is not extremism), but people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have made careers spewing racist and homophobic beliefs every day. Let us not forget, too, that our Congress still has room for former unabashed Klu Klux Klan members, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who died earlier this year. Our political terrain is so tilted to the right, that even "moderate" people are voting for laws that undermine a woman's right to an abortion, allow law enforcement officers to racially profile people, keep gay and lesbian Americans from getting married and serving in the military. Pundits and politicians from the left dare not suggest that we reduce defense spending, insist on a public health care option, grant citizenship to immigrants who have labored their whole lives in this country. There's no political payoff to stand by liberal policies, but it's politically safe to concede to conservative ones. No radical leftist party has gotten the kind of clout that the Tea Party has.

Stewart is right in saying, "When we amplify everything, we hear nothing." I would add that, right now, it seems like only one side is being amplified, and that's the only side we're hearing. Perhaps if there were an insane leftist ideological machine that was equally as influential as FOX News, we would get a better sense of where to locate the actual middle. Maybe people will realize that the liberal counterpart to FOX isn't NPR or even MSNBC. Maybe people will realize that Obama really is more of a centrist than he is a liberal. Maybe people will see that some reasonable and moderate people do dig the theories of Karl Marx, and some reasonable and moderate people are a little bit racist and homophobic.

The "Wall Street bailout" is one example of where right-wing fear-mongering has dictated what positions we're even allowed to take on any issue. Those hell-bent on taking down Obama and the Democrats have used it as an example of how "big government" is turning our country Socialist. There hasn't been a radical counterpart to this position, no prominent ideologue jumping for joy over the extent to which the government has to step in to solve our problems, nor any famous anarchist opposing the bailout with the belief that our financial system should collapse. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was actually signed into law by George W. Bush, not only prevented a complete collapse of our financial system, but has also been paid back in full and with interest. TARP was not at all a leftist conspiracy for a government takeover of Wall Street, but somehow it has been framed as one by the insane right. As a result, Obama gets no credit for following through on it, but John Boehner gets a lot of airplay decrying it and calling for it to be shut down. (Never mind that in 2008, when Bush was president, Boehner cried on the floor of Congress, begging his colleagues to vote for the bailout.)

Or, another example is the debate over the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. When the leftist position is one that is merely advocating for equal rights to all American serving in the armed forces, there isn't room in the political spectrum for someone like me, who is disturbed by the policy, but is even more disturbed by the fact the Department of Defense is the nation's largest employer. There isn't room in our political spectrum to even suggest a downsizing of our military industrial complex.

I can appreciate that the purpose of the rally wasn't to promote any particular political agenda. The rally may not have been as successful if it did. I just wish that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had spoken more about the substance behind the rhetoric in addition to rhetoric itself. The problem in this country isn't that insane people from both sides of the political spectrum are yelling too much and making it impossible for anyone to compromise. It's that insane people from the right are the only ones yelling while everyone else is staying quiet. And their yelling is also setting parameters of what everyone else is allowed to support or reject. I don't believe that the solution is to encourage the insane left to do some yelling, but I do think we need to readjust the barometer before we all agree to "take it down a notch." We need to restore not only sanity, but an idea of what "moderate" really means. In today's political terrain, I get lumped in with the insane radicals, simply because the middle bar is so skewed to the right. And while I have no problems with identifying myself as a radical, I have to insist that my concerns are entirely reasonable and that my ideas for what would be better for this country are governed by careful thought. I may be a radical, but I'm also a sane one.

On Police Brutality

I've been fielding a lot of backlash rhetoric over the protests on March 4th. I had expected as much. I can understand why the students not participating in the protests would be pissed about facing blocked roads, late buses, and canceled classes. I fully expect that most people don't know enough about the history of social movements in America to accept that disruption is a necessary part of protest, especially when you're dealing with fighting a structural problem. I understand, too, that images of students facing police officers isn't one that will get most of the general public behind the cause. But the general public has never been behind any campaign for social justice, really-- Whether we're talking about women's rights, civil rights, or workers' rights, activists who ended up on the right side of history were in the minority during their day, and faced backlash from their peers as well. Still, even knowing that I can only convince so many people of the merits of direct action, I'm still going to try.

So the first line of rhetoric I want to combat is the notion that protestors are misdirecting their anger by confronting law enforcement officers, and that the police are just "doing their job" when they beat the crap out of unarmed students and shoot rubber bullets at them.

To be clear, I'm not one to condone strategies like blocking freeways. That's a risky and dangerous move, and one that's not going to make a whole lot of sense to too many people. As a citizen, I am also exceedingly law-abiding, and hesitate to even jay-walk most of the time. But I do see confrontations with law enforcement as a necessary part of insisting on structural change. A friend of mine, who's also a professor at my university and a leader in these demonstrations, wrote a really great note on Facebook that explains why. I'm reposting it here.

Spring and All (on 7:06 of the Aggie TV video, the question of police brutality, and conditions of possibility)

by: Nathan Brown

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=346915612345&ref=mf

A friend in the Aggie TV video linked above (one of the most lucid and committed actors at UCD this year) says that by blocking the freeway, the cops are just doing their jobs. She is exactly right. That is the structural situation.

But what does this mean?

A sequence: with March 4 approaching, structural antagonisms seem to contribute to the eruption of a series of hate crimes across the UC. The LGBTRC at UC Davis is vandalized. Anger at these crimes builds along with anger at the exclusionary logic of the UC budget cuts. On March 4 one of the most active staff members at the LGBTRC, Laura Mitchell, plays an important role in protest actions (as she has in past actions). The cops apparently target her for arrest. At 7:06-7:07 of this video, while she is already lying on the ground after having been clubbed, punched, and kicked, one of them deliberately reaches for her head and smashes it against the pavement, hard.

Obviously this is totally unacceptable. Obviously the officer in question should be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But the paradox of state power is that the fullest extent of the law also includes his action. In all seriousness: this is also the police just doing their jobs. And that recognition should be our starting point in tackling the question of 'police brutality.'

The rhetoric of police brutality is important, because it brings to the fore the university's reliance upon the repressive apparatus of the state to impede collective resistance and to beat individual political actors into submission (though this hasn't worked, in most cases, this year - students and workers HAVE NOT submitted in the face of police intimidation and violence).

But police brutality needs to be recognized as the rule, not the exception. Any determined and principled resistance to violence, intimidation, exclusion, and oppression (whether those operate through the exclusionary logic of the university, or elsewhere) will be met with more of the same - intensified to an unbearable degree, as at 7:06 of this video. Smashing someone's head into the pavement the moment they resist is STANDARD PROCEDURE.

This doesn't mean the students should do anything they can to avoid confronting the police, as the liberal faculty of SAVE, for example, seem to think. It means that - insofar as one wants to force genuine structural change - there is no avoiding the constitutive entanglement of university policy with the brutality of the state. And that entanglement has emerged clearly, over the course of the year, as the necessary site of resistance. The capacity of the police to repress the struggle to transform the university - and to repress the passage of that struggle beyond the university - cannot be accepted as an unalterable fact. It has become increasingly obvious that the capacity of the movement, in its various manifestations, to press through police repression, is the condition of possibility for any real transformation of the university and the structures in which it is embedded (and reproduces).

That's why I think the moment in this video when students press through the police line and continue forward is the most moving and important thing - the most NECESSARY thing - that has happened all year. And that's why, for me, the incredible courage of everyone in this video, and of their counterparts in Oakland, and of everyone else who fought back on March 4, has become the very substance of Spring.

March 4th Day of Action

This Asian Girl Prof moonlights as a Militant Asian Woman.

Today was a nation-wide Day of Action to protest the defunding of public education. For details on all the various factors behind California's public education crisis, go HERE. For a blog that updates on student activism across the nation, go HERE.

I am, in just about every way, a product of the University of California system. My dad graduated from a UC as a foreign student in the 1970s. I got my BA from a UC, and am currently finishing my PhD at a UC, where I also teach. Many people in my family also claim UCs as their alma maters. So this day was important for me, politically, professionally, and personally.

There were a series of protests going on in the fall, when the UC Regents decided to institute a 32% fee increase for undergraduates. I participated in a lot of them-- I gave speeches at rallies, posed questions to administrators at their town hall meetings (aka bullshit PR stunts), served in an "advisory committee" of sorts that was supposed to dialogue with the Regents (who never showed up because they don't give a shit) and occupied buildings. So when the March 4 Day of Action was called, which would include students and educators from all school systems: UCs, CSUs, community college and K-12 systems, I knew I was going to be there.

At my campus, a group of students headed toward a freeway onramp leading to campus. A barricade of police and CHP officers met us there. The police very quickly resorted to violent tactics: batons, tear gas, rubber bullets. That was my first exposure to tear gas. That's some nasty stuff.

Later we also blocked off a major intersection near campus, which was a gathering that also eventually dispersed. All in all, the protests were fairly peaceful on our campus. (That is, aside from the popo beating the shit out of students.) No one, aside from one woman who was detained at the freeway standoff and later released, was arrested. I'm kind of relieved. I've always been tempted to throw myself to the cause at these things, but I've never felt ready to get myself arrested. Frankly, the idea of spending a night in jail terrifies me. Especially as a small woman of color.

It was awesome seeing some of my students at the protest. For most of them, this was their first protest. I told them that they were bound to learn more from being there than in any class they could attend, including mine. Most of them dispersed once they saw the popo break out the tear gas. But some of them stayed on, even after I told them repeatedly that they should feel free to leave whenever they want. One of them said, "No, I want to stay. This is important." That was pretty awesome. Especially because that kid is kind of a tweaker and I never would have expected he would turn into an activist. But he also told me that he never expected that his college experience would turn out like this.

There are plans for more actions tomorrow. I hope the momentum continues. I've been googling for coverage about what happened nationwide, and have been amazed at how many campuses got themselves organized today. Here's hoping for the start of a revolution. March FORTH!