Danny Katch - Americas Got Democracy:

Americas Got Democracy: — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Americas Got Democracy:" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...27

America's Got Democracy

2012 Danny Katch

Published in 2012 by

Haymarket Books

PO Box 180165

Chicago, IL 60618

www.haymarketbooks.org

773-583-7884

ISBN: 978-1-60846-298-8

Trade distribution:

In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com

In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca

In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com

In Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, www.palgravemacmillan.com.au

All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com

Published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation

and the Wallace Global Fund.

Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Introduction

The Notorious Salma Hayek Sleeper Cell of 2004

On a mid-October evening in 2004, I sat in the crowded lobby of Hunter College in Manhattan, watching a debate between President George W. Bush and his challenger, Democrat John Kerry. Most of the crowd despised Bush for his wars and his lies and his proud ignorance, and we had a fine time mocking and hissing every other word out of his mouth.

What I remember most clearly about that night, however, took place midway through the event, when the moderator raised immigration policy and Kerry saw an opportunity to land a few jabs on Bushs reputation as a national security hawk. Number one, he began, the borders are more leaking today than they were before 9/11. The fact is, we havent done what we need to do to toughen up our borders, and I will.

The imagery of leaking borders has been thrown around so often that I wonder how many of us remember that its just a metaphor and that the jurisdictional line between the United States and Mexico is not made of Tupperware. Borders are in fact abstract concepts drawn across hundreds of miles of ecosystems and civilizations that unpatriotically flow back and forth, as they have done since before politicians roamed the earth.

But that was just typical candidate rhetoric. After Bush replied with a defense of his record in keeping America:

The fact is that we now have people from the Middle East, allegedly, coming across the border. And were not doing what we ought to do in terms of the technology. We have iris-identification technology. We have thumbprint, fingerprint technology today. We can know who the people are, that theyre really the people they say they are when the cross the border. We could speed it up. There are huge delays.

Kerry seemed to be calling for everyone crossing the border to be iris-scanned and fingerprintedas a way to make things move faster. And that was the more intelligent part of the comment.

The real doozy was the implication of a shadowy threat to the homeland, a group ominously named people from the Middle East. Im surprised Kerry showed restraint and didnt try to freak folks out by revealing that there are actually over a million Mexicans of Arab descent, including actress Salma Hayek and gobzillionaire Carlos Slim.

Perhaps Hayek is part of a century-old sleeper cell plotting to reconquer the American Southwest for Mexico, which would then be turned into an Islamo-Aztec caliphate where everyone has to be politically correct and say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas or else theyll be stoned to death.

You might think I overreacted. After all, these days its a job requirement for Republicans to say strange and cruel falsehoods about Muslims and immigrants. But in 2004, even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney hadnt invoked terrorism paranoia to justify making life more miserable for Mexican immigrants. It was the Democratic presidential nominee that night who took us all one step closer to Crazy Town.

Of course, at the time I couldnt foresee this. But I was struck by the reaction to Kerrys comment by the boisterous, jeering crowd at Hunter College: silence.

Afterward, some students defended Kerrys attack as a necessary evil for him to get elected while others were outright enthusiastic that he might have found a weakness in Bushs homeland protection resume. Many of them were immigrants, children of immigrants, or friends with immigrants. Had a warning about Middle Easterners crossing the border been raised in one of their classes, many of them would have shot up their hands to respond to such garbage. But coming from the man running against the enemy George W. Bush, it became legitimate, even clever.

I felt that night that I had caught a glimpse of a normally elusive dynamic in our political life. Although it is commonly assumed that elections are the means by which the people influence their rulers, its usually the opposite. Elections are the time for our rulers to reveal the limited menu from which we get to place our order. As our rulers grow more myopic, miserly, and mean-spirited with the passing of every four years, so too does the menu.

This process doesnt depend on voters being passive sheep, mindlessly grazing on the propaganda. I knew a bunch of those Hunter students; they were smart and they followed politics. In fact, it was their enthusiasm to finally be able to vote and take part in defeating Bushs policies that made them willing to accept and integrate Kerrys bullshit. Independent critical thinking was a small price to pay in what was widely seen as the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME .

Thats what they called it in 2004. And in 2008 when the economy collapsed and Barack Obama became the first African American president. And of course were saying it again in 2012 with mass unemployment and a frightening Republican backlash against women, immigrants, and basic human kindness. Whoever first came up with that phrase must think that we have the lifespan of fruit flies.

Maybe we should just officially name our presidential contests THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME and give them roman numerals like Super Bowls. Its inevitable that each election is terrifyingly crucial in the moment even if, looking back, we can see that the sun probably would have similarly risen and set even had Adlai Stevenson defeated Dwight Eisenhower.

I also feel that urgency and excitement in the autumn of every fourth year, even though I dont support Democrats or Republicans. When Obama won in 2008 I partied in celebration that my country had voted for racial and economic justice even though I thought he couldnt and wouldnt deliver it. In 2004, I mourned Bushs victory because it would legitimize his first stolen election, and every other rotten thing he did, and further demoralize the once promising antiwar movement that had already hollowed itself out by supporting the pro-war Kerry.

Its hard not to be sucked into a battle that seemingly puts your very values and tastes up for a vote. The year 2004 was when we all started talking about red states and blue states, phrases that were said to describe not just how people voted in certain regions but encompassed the entirety of their opinions about politics, religion, sports (NASCAR versus soccer), food (steak versus sushi), and anything else (uh... stud poker versus Uno?). All this while the actual platforms of the two parties presented all the contrast of red versus rose. Possibly salmon.

This year there are more substantial differences between the two parties, mostly because the Republicans have gone feral. The essential point of this book is these differences are still not enough to merit the term democracy.

As a Marxist, I admittedly have high standards. I start from the premise that it should be possible to live in a society in which residents decide how to be policed, workers organize where they work, and soldiers vote for war and peace. Im not going to rail at Barack Obama for not creating large-scale communes in abandoned Rust Belt factories (although...) but we can only appreciate how piss-poor our democracy is by considering what it could be. Even if you dont agree with this books socialist premise (some of which has appeared in my columns for Socialistworker.org), you will hopefully find this perspective useful.

Next page

1234567...27

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Americas Got Democracy:»

Look at similar books to Americas Got Democracy:. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Kate Hoffmann

Danny

Julia Talbot

Mystic U: Midterms

Mike Thayer

The Double Life of Danny Day

Danny White

Will.i.am

Danny Clinch

Danny Clinch: Still Moving

Smith

Americas mission: the United States and the worldwide struggle for democracy

Danny Dorling

Finntopia

Danny Seo

Naturally, Delicious: 100 Recipes for Healthy Eats That Make You Happy

Danny Katch [Katch

America’s Got Democracy

Katch

Socialism...seriously : a brief guide to human liberation

Danny Katch

Socialism . . . Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation

Danny Seo

Upcycling Celebrations: A Use-What-You-Have Guide to Decorating, Gift-Giving & Entertaining

Discussion, reviews of the book Americas Got Democracy: and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.