How I Left The Left

With the 2000 election shaping up as a contest between Al Gore and George Bush, The Nation magazine urged Ralph Nader to run for president on the Green Party ticket and eventually co-endorsed him. His presence at the head of the ticket, The Nation argued, gave the Green Party a fighting chance at attracting 5% of the vote and a seat at the 2004 presidential debates.

In a moment of rare political prescience, I wrote to the magazine, objecting. What was to be gained by a Nader candidacy?, I asked. To get the votes of over 3,000,000 people, you had to be more than a consumerist celebrity: You had to present yourself as a credible president, which Nader could not do. A Nader candidacy, I argued, risked great harm for a remote chance of good. If he made a show of getting 5% of the vote and came up significantly short, his candidacy would marginalize progressives. Worse, he could swing the election to the Republicans. The only justification for a Nader vote was if you really believed that there was not a dime's worth of difference between Bush and Gore, and that was a ridiculous proposition.

We all know what happened: The Nader candidacy played a key role in swinging Florida and New Hampshire to Bush. In vain, I waited for a modicum of self-examination from the left, but it never came. Instead, I read that Nader played no role in Bush's victory because Bush cheated and Gore ran a poor campaign. True enough, but all that means is that the Nader candidacy put the outcome in play. (Conveniently glossed over was Nader's paltry overall vote total and its marginalizing effect.)

As the catastrophe of the Bush presidency mounted, though, the left provided a reliable, articulate voice of opposition. Combining fact, compassion, and investigative intrepidness, the left exposed the Bush presidency for what it was: A shabby cabal of grasping autocrats driven by stunted psyches and motivated by greed. It was perhaps the left's finest hour since the Vietnam war.

Then came the last two years, in which the left parlayed a naive disdain for politics and process, a greatly inflated sense of itself, an unexpected ignorance of history, and an obstintately blindered view of the teabaggers into a morally precarious stance from which it could inflict harm but do little good.

To begin with, the teabaggers are not misguided economic populists, as many on the left desperately want to believe. The 'baggers are anti-intellectual racists. Period. They actively agitate in favor of states' rights. Their favorite politician questions the legitimacy of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Their favorite media darling calls the Affordable Care Act the first step toward reparations. They blame the economic collapse and the mortgage crisis on the minorities who took out loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Never mind that the latter is impossible: Government mortgages are secure and the poor hardly have the financial muscle to crater the global economy. But since it's psychologically impossible for the 'baggers to even think that fellow white conservatives could have led us to this pass, they do what they always do: Take out their anger on minorities. Nonetheless, leftist writers, unwilling to awaken from the wet dream that the 'baggers are economically sympatico, continue to insist that common cause can be made with thugs who would just as soon lynch the average contributor to The Nation or Huffington Post as have turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

It's an article of faith among the left that its harsh -- and often brainless and naive -- criticism of President Obama puts it squarely in line with the left wing "insurgencies" (as Katrina Vanden Heuvel wrote) that pushed Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson to the great reforms of the New Deal and the Great Society. This might be a fair point if it bore any actual relationship to reality.

One might be forgiven, for example, for wondering exactly what modern-day insurgency Vanden Heuvel refers to. The soldiers of labor and civil rights put thousands of boots on the ground and had commitment in their souls: Men, women, and children were willing to accept injury and death as the price of justice. But today? A few people milling aimlessly around a MoveOn "rally" isn't exactly the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Moreover, where's the leadership? I see no John L. Lewis, no Martin Luther King. The most prominent figure of today's left is Michael Moore, who presents himself as a clown. The "insurgency" is nothing more than a hodgepodge of policy statements and snarky op-ed pieces. Big deal.

Then...

Now...

Moreover, the Labor and Civil Rights movements helped Roosevelt and Johnson go where they wanted to go anyway. As vice-president, Johnson urged John Kennedy to be more aggressive on civil rights, and he and King liked and respected each other: They were hardly in opposition. Plus, these movements represented votes, the political coin of the realm. Both presidents knew that Lewis and King could turn out numbers that would support them at the polls. Today's left would have trouble convincing a lush to drink a martini.

With the eagerness of a child at Christmas, the left has compared Obama to Bush practically since the day after Obama's election. It constantly berates him for compromising on what they call "Roosevelt moments," as if FDR would have shipped his mother to Auschwitz rather than cut a deal. This ignores the troubling reality that FDR dealt with the devil regularly: Most New Deal programs were either segregated or white-only; Roosevelt had to agree to this in order to retain the necessary support of the segregationists in his own party. One reason for his not pursuing health care reform was an unwillingness to battle the segregationists, who feared integrated hospitals. Following the left's logic, this makes FDR the moral equivalent of Strom Thurmond or Bull Connor.

But real-life politicians don't deal in moral equivalents: They do what they have to do to get as much as they can get under the circumstances. It has always been that way, it will always be that way, and it's childish to pretend otherwise. You cannot expect a president to push for systemic change in the absence of an impetus external to the system. Lewis knew that, King knew that, and so did the leaders of the anti-war movement. On the left, that impetus doesn't exist, unless you call cheap talk an impetus. The pressure comes from the right; the left has failed -- dismally -- to respond.

As for the naivete, I've ranted about that before, so I'll keep it brief here. On health care, of course I'd like a public option. My experience, though, is that any time major legislation passes by the skin of its teeth, any movement to the right or left would sink it. Not one single member of the left has proposed exactly how the hacks and poltroons named Baucus, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, and Nelson could have been persuaded or forced to support a public option. On finance reform, no one on the left explains how major reform would have been possible when a mediocrity like Scott Brown can hold up modest reform over an insignificant matter.

If the left ever quits wallowing in certitude, it should ask itself some questions:

1. If we're so right about so many things, why does no one listen?
2. Aside from helping George Bush get elected president, why have we been politically irrelevant since the Vietnam War?
3. We once organized mass movements, but -- except for immigration reform -- we're all talk. Why can't we can't we get organized?

Recognizing that the system is rotten and then attacking the president for not getting more out of it while sitting on the sidelines carping...well, I don't care to be identified with that. However I see myself, I've shed ideology, said goodbye to all that, and lit out for the territory ahead of the rest. I'm looking for what works, and I don't much care where it comes from.

I Need You Girl, By My Side

I feel depressed, I feel so bad
'Cause you're the best girl that I've ever had
I can't get your love, I can't get a fraction
Oh, little girl, psychotic reaction
And it feels like this!

I feel so lonely night and day
I can't get your love, I must stay away
Well, I need you, girl, by my side
Oh, little girl, would you like to take a ride now?
I can't get your love, I can't get satisfaction
Oh, little girl, psychotic reaction

We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the Civil Rights movement. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!

So speaks Glenn Beck, and Leonard Pitts isn't having any of it. Beck and his ilk did something all right, but one doubts that any of their predecessors were standing on the right side of the Pettus Bridge at Selma. Even so, his diatribe was just too much for some:

King was not the man of peace Beck claims he was, and I'm not sure why he panders to him so much. King was a troublemaker...where King went -- racial riots followed.

Some of the riots that followed Martin Luther King:

"Let us strive on to finish the work we are in..."

Tomorrow, Barack Obama will take the oath of office as part of the 56th presidential inauguration. After he concludes the oath, Obama will deliver the most widely anticipated inaugural address at least since Franklin Roosevelt's in 1932. George Washington, although not constitutionally required to do so, began the tradition of inaugural addresses by speaking after taking the first oath of office. Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address -- delivered near the end of the Civil War -- is generally considered the best:

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is inscribed in its entirety on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C....

This interactive map to tomorrow's activities, includes the parade route and the locations of events, celebrations, and points of interest. The diversity represented by the events reflects the coalition that catapulted Obama to victory and that represents the best hope for change...

Historian Eric Foner explains how Lincoln's greatness as a politician led to his greatness as president, as well as how the dynamics the anti-slavery movement are relevant today:

The destruction of slavery during the [Civil War] offers an example, as relevant today as in Lincoln's time, of how the combination of an engaged social movement and an enlightened leader can produce progressive social change...

Click a trip over to Mouse Medicine for a great video of musicians from around the world singing a traveling version of "Stand By Me." Unsurprisingly, two of the singers are New Orleansians...

Today's must read is "The Audacity of Hoops," Alexander Wolff's fine Sports Illustrated article about the importance and meaning of basketball to Barack Obama:

Basketball's appeal, Obama told HBO's Bryant Gumbel last year, lies in an "improvisation within a discipline that I find very powerful." With its serial returns to equilibrium -- cut backdoor against an overplay; shoot when the defense sags -- the game represents Obama's intellectual nature come alive...

Barak o-Balla!!...

Speaking of hoops, NBA analyst Charley Rosen gives out his midseason grades. Western Conference snobs (including me) take notice: The teams in your conference are at or below expectations while the East is coming on strong...

Today would have been Martin Luther King's 80th birthday. Here is the peroration of his final speech, given the day before his assassination at age 39:

To see and hear the complete "I have a dream" speech, click here.

Doolough

Doolough is a haunted place.

In March 1849, several hundred starving Irish peasants in desperate straits after five years of the potato famine -- The Great Hunger, it is called -- collected in the town of Louisburgh in County Mayo. When they petitioned the local relief officer for assistance, he informed them that only the Board of Guardians "was authorized to hand out food or tickets for admission to the workhouse." The Board, he told them, was meeting at Delphi, a lodge owned by the Marquess of Sligo some 12 miles south of Louisburgh on the other side of the Doolough Pass. If they wanted assistance, they must go to Delphi and ask the Board for it.

Next morning, the mass of starving people undertook the trek across a broad, rolling bog to the pass alongside Doolough (Black Lake), a long finger of water situated between the Mweelrea Mountains and the Sheefry Hills. Rain fell relentlessly and winds gathered in the pass, exacerbating the already biting cold. An 1849 letter to the Mayo Constitution bitterly recounted that "...in obedience of this humane order, hundreds of these unfortunate living skeletons, men, women and children, might have been seen struggling through the mountain passes and roads for the appointed place...it being the most remote part of the union."*

The exhausted multitude reached Delphi early in the afternoon only to be told that they must wait until members the Board finished their lunch. Salmon abound in Doolough and in the rivers and streams around Delphi, so there's a good chance that the Board dined on salmon -- a luxury denied the peasantry (which fed exclusively on the potato and buttermilk) in the best of times. After taking another hour to enjoy their meal, the Board heard and denied the pleas for assistance and ordered the people to return Louisburgh. Mentally and physically broken, unwanted refugees in their own land, they began the return journey, which quickly became a death march. Because of the poor record-keeping of the day, it's unknown exactly how many perished on the two walks, but the generally accepted figure is between 400-600.

Today, the keening winds of Doolough mourn the dead. Two small monuments observe their passing, and every year people gather in Louisburgh to make the walk to Delphi to honor the victims and to keep their memory alive. I've been to Doolough on fair days and foul, and the place never ceases to move me. On sunny days, I've climbed the hills to read and contemplate in solitude, for it is unquestionably on a road less traveled. It is a place I return to time and again -- for me, the most beautiful and tragic place of a beautiful land with a tragic past.

Yesterday, T. and I parked the Nissan on the side of the road and hiked around the north end of the lake. A paved road led us to the foothills of the Mweelreas. The mountains themselves, looming straight up as they do, were more than a bit daunting, so we struck out across the small hills to a waterfall in the distance. Upon reaching the waterfall, we followed the banks of the resulting stream to what looked to be a sheep-shearing station. From there, we connected with the road, pausing occasionally to study flora, admire fences and stone walls, duck into the ruins of an old cottage, and examine the sudden oddity of the skeleton of lone sheep, apparently the victim of a fox. The eroded, pockmarked side of a hillock revealed a complex of swifts' nests; we stood quietly and watched the agile birds emerge to dart and swoop on their eternal hunt for flying insects. Aside from the birds and the bugs and the ghosts, we were alone. As in: The. Only. People. There. Just us. Ourselves alone. Sinn Fein. For an American, this is one of the great charms of Mayo. Think of the most beautiful place you've ever been in the United States and of how many people were there. (For me, that's the central coast of California.) Then consider it without people. That's what Mayo is like.

Like Hurricane Katrina, the Great Hunger was an avoidable catastrophe that ultimately resulted in the death and displacement of 2.5 million people. The peasants who lived off of the potato farmed and fished a rich land: Throughout the famine, Ireland exported a variety of foodstuffs to the profit of its British overlords. Fearing the creation of a culture of dependence (a phrase too often thrown around today to blame the people of New Orleans for their own suffering), the English government repeatedly declined to offer meaningful assistance. Landlords took advantage of the famine to organize their estates more efficiently, which included evictions for failure to pay rent and buying ships' passage for reluctant but depairing native Irish to migrate to England, America, and Australia. Thus were the Irish emigrants to America distinguished from all other ethnic groups: Far from perceiving America as a land of opportunity, they saw it as a place of exile. As their fortunes improved across generations, the Irish in America provided significant funding to the Irish Republican Army, whose guerilla war against the British from 1919-21 resulted in the establishment of the Irish Free State, which subsequently became the Republic of Ireland. As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

*Source: The Famine in Mayo: A portrait from contemporary sources - 1845-1850, A Mayo County Library Publication (1998).

MLK

The media took yesterday to observe Martin Luther King Day. J. A. Andande follows the Portland Trailblazers around Atlanta and marvels at the size of the young Martin's allowance, in a nice piece here. Two years ago, I read America in the King Years, Taylor Branch's monumental history of the Civil Rights movement and its impact on the country at large. I came away convinced that Martin Luther King was the Man of the Century. His vision for America, his commitment to action, his steadfast belief in the powers of love and nonviolence remain a great shining beacon for the world, showing us the path to freedom if only we'd follow it.

My family moved to South Texas in August 1967 from Columbus, Ohio. We had never lived west of Columbus or south of Washington, D.C. I spent the tumultuous, critical year of 1968 (tumultuous and critical for me, too, because I turned 13) adjusting to a climate and culture that might as well have been Martian for all the relevance my previous life had to present circumstances. I knew who the Reverend King was, knew that my parents' supported him, and had the sheltered northerner's certainty that everyone felt that way.

So I was unprepared to discover the shocked, pained expressions on the faces of the black kids unreflected on those of the whites. Mutterings that the Reverend King "had it coming" and that he should have kept his mouth shut stunned me. I had never heard anyone -- much less 13-15 year old kids -- take such satisfaction in the death of any human being, much less one like Martin Luther King. Then I overheard a teacher agreeing with a group of white kids while telling them to keep quiet about it. That's when it really hit: Adults felt that way. Not characters from To Kill A Mockingbird, but flesh-and-blood intelligent adults who knew better. Or who ought to have. I don't suppose that I ever felt the same about the adult world after that.

Subsequent revelations about Martin Luther King's personal life failed to diminish his achievements and hopes. They simply showed that he was a person with failings and weaknesses, just like the rest of us. He had his moments of doubt, but when the cup came he drank from it. He drank deep. That's the most anyone can ask of themselves. It was America's great fortune that Martin Luther King had that kind of courage.