Things have been fairly quite over the holidays and will remain so until 2008. This is the last post (if you can call it that) from the Editor until Jan 5th. I thought I’d leave you with an historical parallel (in the form of Hollywood Greek mythology) to the current state of American foreign policy. Enjoy, and Happy New Year.
The Legend Of HercuBush
Photo by Flickr user Slobug used under a Creative Commons license.
The caption on the blimp (which is the first ever appropriation of a blimp in a political campaign) reads, “Who is Ron Paul? Google Ron Paul”
How do you read this image? Add comments bellow.
by Stuart Noble
Back in September I predicted John Edwards as my dark horse pick to win the Democratic nomination. I wanted to point you to this month’s cover story on Newsweek titled, The Sleeper. The article provides some details about Edwards’ working class roots and his early activism for social justice. After reading the article I got to thinking more about where and how the Edwards’ candidacy fits within US political traditions.
Cartoon by Mark Hurwitt
I’ve been incredibly excited about this presidential election cycle not only as an opportunity for renewal after the Bush years but as a moment in which several political movements are coalescing around the different candidates. To clarify, the American “two-party system” is really made up of several political factions within the “big tent” political parties. I’ve been paying particular attention to the movements on the left side of the spectrum. The country is “moving” left as a whole. This is partially a repudiation of Bush but also a general rejection of the entire modern conservative ideology. See for example David Nye ’s recent article, The Bush Economy. For more background see Joseph E. Stiglitz’s article, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush. We see this widespread dissatisfaction as well within the Republican camp with major defections from the party like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the strong challenges from the Libertarian Ron Paul and conservative populist Mike Huckabee.
If the Republican coalition is collapsing then what will the new ruling coalition look like?
It’s becoming increasingly probable that the next president will be a Democrat, with a Democratic House and Senate. The current ruling Democratic power structure is made up of a coalition of new Southern “Dixiecrats,” traditional New England liberals, and corporate democrats (think Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council). Progressives, populists and social democrats have been on the margins since the 70’s. The current Democratic leadership is a far cry from the Leftist policies of the 60’s or the New Dealers which created one of the most prosperous middle class economies ever. However, the overwhelming amount of grassroots activism over the last decade has been driven by these more Leftist ideologies which are returning to mainstream conversations about the future of American government.
Much of this activity has been aided by creative appropriations of internet technologies. The explosion of blogging and other social media has reinvigorated the democratic public sphere. Enter John Edwards. His candidacy represents a legitimate populist challenge to the status quo. He’s essentially tried to create a coalition of progressives and populists. The fact that Iowa remains essentially a three way tie is evidence of Edwards’ strong populist support. But the “new new Left” overall is divided about Edwards. Edwards is clearly the populist candidate but he has thus far been unable to bring in significant numbers of progressives. While he polls the highest amongst progressives online, he remains a second choice among the creative class’s leading voices.
Enter Barack Obama. He is clearly the candidate of choice among the “creative classes.” He represents the values of cosmopolitan middle class technocrats. In keeping with a progressive ideology, they are often skeptical, and at times downright uncomfortable with “the masses.” Lawrence Lessig, who recently endorsed Obama typifies this demographic. See Obama’s policy paper, Connecting and Empowering all Americans Through Technology and Innovation. Edwards also has some strong progressive proposals on communications and environmental technological and economic development but Obama is the principal benefactor of technocratic support.
While the end goals of progressivism and populism are often the same, they do not stem from the same ideology. A very good description of the tensions between populist and progressive attitudes can be found in Jack Balkin’s article, “Populism and Progressivism as Constitutional Categories.”
By “populism” and “progressivism,” I mean to invoke the spirit of two successive reform movements in American history, the first primarily agrarian and the second urban.(26) Despite their differences, progressivism and populism had many similarities, so much so in fact that the two are easily confused. Many of the reforms advocated by populists in the late nineteenth century — for example, direct election of senators, the eight-hour day, graduated income taxation, and currency reform — were put in place by progressives in the early twentieth century, albeit for somewhat different reasons.(27) Thus, although I am particularly interested in the ways in which populism and progressivism diverge, the two should not be seen as diametrically opposed. They were and are often uneasy allies, but allies they have been nevertheless. Moreover, when I speak of “populism” and “progressivism” today, I am necessarily extrapolating from events in American history to offer principles that might help us understand trends in contemporary political debates. This is an exercise in the description of ideal types; few people can be said to match the portraits I offer in all respects.(28)
Had Obama not been in the race, Edwards most likely would have successfully created a united Progressive-Populist coalition. There is some movement in that direction as some Progressives are taking a second look at Obama and Edwards. Even the Lessig endorsement of Obama praises Edwards basically as a strong second choice.
So what about Hillary Clinton? Nationally she still polls as the leading front runner. However, her support tends to be wide and shallow as opposed to the deep grassroots support of Edwards and Obama. She’s the DC insider representing the corporate democrats. Much like her husband, she pushes for both social liberal policies domestically and pro-corporate trade policies internationally. She’s the most hawkish of any of the Democratic candidates. She would govern in the tradition of her husband’s neo-liberal framework which attaches heavily to Leftist identity politics like gender and gay/lesbian issues while promoting decidedly pro-corporatist agendas. After all, it was the Clinton administration which promoted and successfully led the charge for NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (which essentially deregulated the media leading to further monopolization and consolidation). These two issues remain the most contentious policy challenges for Populists and Progressives respectively.
Much of both the new progressive and populist movement activism is focused on pulling the party away from identity politics and back towards a more classic class struggle based on economic justice. This is not to say that identity politics won’t play a role however. Clinton is banking on female support, Obama on the African-American community as a swing block and Edwards directly courts white Southern and rural males.
While progressives and populists represent different world views and attract different demographics, they are moving in the same direction guided by both a repudiation of the neo-conservative economic model and a rejection of Leftist identity politics as the general framework for Democratic coalition building. The question for 2008 is whether they will manage to form a national coalition around one candidate or will they cancel each other out, allowing the less popular “centrist” her window to victory? See Paul Loeb’s article, Why progressives don’t want Hillary.
In the grand scheme of things, a Hillary president (assuming she can win the general election) may not be of critical importance to the Progressive/Populist movements. There are other factors at play and although Bush/Cheney have been re-building the imperial presidency, the other branches may re-assert their power and influence with an infusion of Leftist momentum. Furthermore, progressives are winning local and statewide elections all across the country and this momentum looks to continue. Several states previously considered “red” have seen demographic changes pushing them into a “bluer” electorate. Most compelling of all perhaps is the thesis of John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority. The basic premise is that a permanent demographic shift is occurring which favors Democratic ideals. Link.
This new postindustrial politics is not defined by states but by metropolitan regions within states. These postindustrial metropolises, which we call “ideopolises,” are the breeding ground for the new Democratic majority. Insofar as these areas are not confined to the Northeast, far West, and upper Midwest but are found also in the South and Southwest, the Democrats have a chance to build a large majority and to rewrite today’s political map. By 2008, Democrats could enjoy an electoral base of 332 electoral votes, many more than they need for a majority, while holding a competitive position in a number of additional states that might swell that majority.
See also this earlier post, Democrats Look West, which explores the ideology of the cosmopolitan progressive class. However, Judis and Teixeira only tell half the demographic story. There’s the enormous populist shift as well, which while partially nativist, also includes the growing hispanic population. SEIU, the largest union in the country, is a key player in bringing this demographic into the Democratic fold.
So there are basically three factions competing for the leadership position in a new Democratic majority; Populist, Progressive, and Neo-Liberal. While we can’t be certain about the outcome of the 2008 election, a Progressive-Populist revival will most likely continue to shape the political climate of the next generation.
from The Atlantic
Although that point can be debated, the 1950s—more precisely, the period from 1953 to the mid-1960s—was clearly the era of Sinatra’s supreme artistic achievement and deepest cultural sway. It amounted to the most spectacular second act in American cultural history. In the early 1940s, following his break with the Tommy Dorsey band, Sinatra had emerged, thanks largely to swooning bobby-soxers, as pop music’s biggest star and a hugely popular Hollywood actor. By the end of the decade, he was all but washed up, having lost his audience owing to shifting musical tastes and to disenchantment over his reported ties to the Mob, and over his divorce, which followed a widely publicized affair with Ava Gardner, whom he married in 1951. He soon lost his voice (he would never fully recover his consistently accurate intonation and precise pitch), his movie contract with MGM, his record contract with Columbia, and Gardner—their passionate, mutually corrosive entanglement plainly and permanently warped him. But in 1953, his harrowing, Oscar-winning performance as the feisty, doomed Maggio in From Here to Eternity made him a star again.
This new project by Rayvon Fouche looks fascinating.
David Nye introduced Rayvon Fouche’s work to me via a great article, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” His concept of “Black Vernacular Technological Creativity” and his analysis of “Black Technological Agency” as; “redeployment, reconception, and re-creation” provides an interesting framework for any analysis of social constructions of technology. Granted, Fouche explores the unique cultural productions within African American communities. Fouche suggested, for example, that had Blacks invented the typewriter it would have been far more percussionist in design, reflecting African drum culture. I look forward to Fouche’s analysis of turntablism as “Black Vernacular Technological Creativity” which he only briefly develops in the above mentioned article. I see further possibilities for exploring turntablism as postmodern cultural production. Technological agency aside, “mixing, scratching and re-mixing” are distinctly postmodern modes of mentally filtering data. Early Hip-Hop culture was well ahead of what would later become mainstream modes of comprehending music and information with the advent of personal computing and the internet.
AbstractThe phonograph was never intended to be a musical instrument. Yet this technology is now at the center of a thriving, global performance art known as turntablism. This proposal requests funding to support research examining the cultural and technological transformation of the phonograph into a vehicle for musical expression within hip hop culture. This transformation, which began in New York City’s African American community in the late 1970s, is unique since a marginalized community reappropriated and redefined an existing and popular technology according to its own distinctive cultural aesthetics. This project will document how turntables as technological artifacts of hip hop have produced musical genres with loyal devotees, mediated multiple cultural relationships, and contributed to the global dissemination of black cultural aesthetics. Given the transformation of the turntable, this project will examine: how national, cultural, ethnic, and racial politics of identity influence technological design, choice, and use. The PIs will seek to understand how ideas of race, ethnicity, and culture have influenced the technological design of turntables and associated turntablist equipment, and to understand the influence of developing turntablist technology on musical originality. It will entail comparative work examining how turntablist communities in the United States and Japan contribute to the production of a hybrid global technological movement by defining, appropriating, and reconstituting the racial, cultural, and technological aesthetics of turntablism. It will produce a study that will move beyond turntables and provide insights into technological transitions from analog to digital affect a variety of cultural communities. Intellectual Merit: This project will contribute to work on music in STS and on technology within musicology, and produce new ways to think about the race in relation to technology. This comparative study will augment the understanding of race and technology. The study will also consider the effects that the larger transition from analog to digital technologies will have on our society. Broader Impacts: This research will show the connections between music, race, and technology. It will show that music can be an important avenue for marginalized peoples to engage technology in a proactive way. This project will facilitate the coalescing of faculty members and students interested in investigating how music, race, and technology interact.