An Article by:

Russell Cole

Bad for Democracy is scheduled for publication in September of 2008

In order to ascertain the significance of the thesis propounded by Dana D. Nelson in her manuscript, Bad for Democracy, it is useful to first characterize the way in which American democracy is perceived according to the collective representations, instructing the political understandings possessed by the preponderance of Americans.

American mythology instructs us that the composition and ratification of the Constitution serve as historical markers for the solidification of American democracy. According to this narrative, prior to the Revolution, there was a growing democratic fervor. Ultimately, this ground swelling of radical democratic sentiment resulted in a rebellion against Monarchy and colonialism. Following the independence of the American Colonies, the devotion to democratic ideals continued; albeit, in a form that was reckless and unsustainable due to its unmanageability. As a consequence, the Founders of the Nation saw fit to innovate a political structure that both manifested democratic principles as well as a state with a workable governability. From there on, as this orthodox history suggests, the Nation was set along a course leading to the continual improvement of its democratic fixtures.

In contradiction to this grand mythology, Nelson provides us with a concise – although thorough – counter-narrative that expresses aspects to American historicity that run in opposition to the premises underlying the standard master-narrative. Central to her thesis is the recognition that the historical trends in American politics have not conformed to a trajectory headed toward an increasingly enhanced democratic embodiment. As Nelson quite correctly indicates, the practice of radical democracy and the cultural attributes with which it is associated – those behavioral habits that dispose the citizenry so that they take an active role in the ongoing affairs of government – had a more complete expression during the Colonial epoch than in subsequent periods of American history.

With the ratification of the Constitution and the establishment of a centralized office wielding executive powers, a trend was set in motion that is comparable to the political transformation undergone by the Roman Republic during the Roman Revolution. That is, similarly to the Roman Emperor, whose ascendancy to power was associated with popular land reform, the Presidency in American governance has been interpreted as a political mechanism offering representation to the populous. Presidentialism, as Nelson terms it – which is defined as the stature that has been infused into the semiology attached to the conception of the High Office – has been, from its inception, increasingly interpreted as a vehicle for the realization of the popular will in the body of public policy.

Even more, the concept of Presidency has acquired a semantic value, adding to the concept a latent notion of paternalism. We, as citizens, are all too willing to submit to this parental authority; not only during times of uncertainly, peril, and calamity, but during times unmarked by social drama, because we see him as the personification of the democracy that we collectively form as Americans. When the President appears powerful and impacting, we relish his strong paternal presence because we conflate it with our collective contributions, as citizens, to American polity.

However, it is precisely this quality that is assigned to the Presidency – an attribution that causes the Presidential incumbent to be perceived not simply as the outcome of democratic process, but as the carrier of the vitality belonging to the body politic – that contributes to the cultivation of behavioral dispositions, rendering the citizenry democratically disinclined. We confuse our ability to engage in a ritualized affair – where we cast a single vote that infinitesimally affects the outcome of a Presidential Election – with the operations of a functioning democracy. This illusion is propagated by the growing authoritarianism of the Presidency – which reinforces the prejudice that voting in Presidential Elections somehow epitomizes democratic civic engagement.

As Nelson adeptly points out, democracy is more than mere electoral politics. For a political order to be democratic, public policy must be determined through the direct deliberative participation of the citizenry. The Republican Romans, for instance, indeed had elected officials. Furthermore, the aristocrats in the Republic formed the Senate. Nevertheless, only through passage in the House of Plebes could legislation be enacted. Although the Republican Romans possessed intermediaries between the state and the public, such as the Senate who could advise and consent, the commoners, whose votes were organized according to tribes, remained politically empowered through their ability to directly legislate.

Democracy, in order for it to exist in America, must take on similar attributes to those instantiated by the Roman Republic. Americans must learn to acknowledge that the unilateralism of the Presidency is antithetical to democratic organization. Democracy is a messy affair; one that involves an ongoing public dialog conducted in an effort to arrive at new compromises among shifting factions. Democracy is not a political condition whereby a “Decider,” as Nelson mocks, is endowed with solitary authority over pertinent matters of state.

The Populist Party of America has already adopted a platform that calls for political decentralization, with the intention to effect a condition conducive to what we have coined, localized democracy. We realized that through the political empowerment of local communities – a state of affairs that can be hypothetically achieved through the decentralization of government – the political influence of individuals can be amplified; thus, accentuating the motivations of ordinary people to participate in the dealings of their municipal polities.

People will become more politically conscious and politically engaged because, within the context of municipal affairs, their participations can have demonstrable consequences upon the public policies that bare the closest immediacy to the Lifeworlds that they inhabit. In other words, the impact that can be had through participation of people in localized democracy will seem more concrete and more relevant and, therefore, more worthy of their sustained interests and their persisting efforts.

In the prescriptions she lays out for a democratic revival, Nelson appears to have unknowingly joined Populist America’s activist chorus. She recommends political decentralization. Even more, Nelson introduces the verbiage, leaderless democracy, in order to designate an organizational state that is comparable to the networked politics that I had summarized in earlier writings that examined a developing theory of democracy, which has been labeled by members of open source software communities as Extreme Democracy:

http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/theories-of-extreme-democracy/; http://www.extremedemocracy.com/.

Despite the lack of originality marking the recommendations included under the breadth of the normative section belonging to Nelson’s work, she does provide a valuable survey of the various trends in Computer Mediated Communications that are not only leading to a new paradigm of democratic organization, but to a larger intellectual phenomenon that should be considered a new episteme.

The emergence of social knowledge – facilitated through the device of web based communications – is generally characterized as decentralized modalities of content authoring and editing. Wiki platforms, such as the Wikipedia, are demonstrative of this understanding of knowledge and the processes through which knowledge is most effectively constructed. In the spaces generated by the Wikipedia, anybody can contribute to the creation of content by either authoring original materials or editing the materials already published on the platform.

Although there lacks a sufficient amount of studies to draw generalizations with certainty, preliminary studies, such as the one conducted by Nature, have compared the Wikipedia with traditional reference publications, such as Britannica, and have found the rates of errata between the two respective reference materials closer than one would probably suspect. Additionally, the Wikipedia, in comparison to Britannica, possesses a far greater amount of materials devoted to a broader range of topics. Further, due to its decentralized editing process, it takes less time for the Wikipedia to correct its errata than it does for publications, such as Britannica, that follow a traditional workflow process.

All of these developing social formations fall under the extension of the concept, Web 2.0: web platforms that are devoted to collaborative knowledge building conducted by a community of interlocutors. This new form of sociability suggests that radical democracy – a state that is, oftentimes, embodied by Web 2.0 communities – is not only a deontological ideal – a social condition that we should strive to foster, because it is inherently desirable – but a form of social organization that is pragmatically endowed.

In order to understand why social knowledge produces knowledge constructs on a scale that supersedes in volume and quality the knowledge built from traditional social institutions, such as the Academe, it is illuminative to first explore the precepts that support the epistemic prejudices associated with High Modernity and the Academe:

Political centralization, according to its interpretation under the lens of the new social knowledge understanding of knowledge, is a relic belonging to the social condition marked by industrial capitalism: a myriad of interdependent industrial productions that require homogeneity in order for there to be the predictability that is necessary for the various manufacturing outputs to be interoperable with one another. What is more, industrial capitalism calls for cultural uniformity, in order to effect a state wherein the activities of labor can be integrated into the system of interdependent industrial functions that collectively comprise the modes of production; a social organization that requires social agents, serving a labor, to react in predictable ways when operating as cogs in the machineries constituting the modes of production. Following this logic, organizations must possess an executive authority, under which all other offices and capacities are integrated, in order to ensure their synchrony. In short, they must all fall under a unified command structure.

The paradigm of centralized organization continues to reign dominant in contemporaneity. Nonetheless, this centralized model of social organization is not necessarily the most efficient or effective. Whether we are to compare a starfish to a spider; Native American Apaches to the Aztec or the Incas - decentralized structures are proving to be more resilient and adaptable.

Nelson refers to the popular work, The Starfish and the Spider, authored by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, who point out that leaderless organizations – similarly to the starfish and the Apaches – cannot be destroyed by annihilating a single component of their structures. Contrarily, in a case of spiders and in the case of the Native American empires, the organisms can be killed by simply targeting their central nervous systems – or, specifically in these cases, the head of the spider and the metropolises, belonging respectively to the Aztec and to the Inca.

The challenge for the reader is to understand how these properties, attributable to leaderless organizations, relate to potential democratic reforms enacted upon the American sociopolitical establishment. I would suggest that leaderless organizations – or, in the context of this essay’s ensuing sociopolitical considerations, what I shall call networked politics – possess a dual function:

Initially, networked politics can be used as an instrument of insurrection. The recent success of the popular uprising among the Filipino is evidentiary of the efficacy of networked forms of resistance. The insurgents relied upon a moblog – a server upon which contents derived from wireless gadgets can be published by a decentralized public – in order to coordinate their activities. Therefore, the Filipino revolution was not centralized, falling under a single command structure; rather, it was decentralized and voluntarily associational. Although networked politics have just now emerged as a topic of social scientific research, historical incidents, such as the historically recent Filipino revolution, suggest that they might be the optimal form of political resistance in a world where social actors are increasingly connected via the availability of Internet based forms of communication.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, networked politics are more resistant to the consolidation of sociopolitical power under any particular hegemony. If we look to traditional forms of popular insurrection – those that were guided and controlled, to a large measure, by van guards – we see a tendency for the elites, who orchestrated the successful revolution, to simply consolidate power themselves, forming another hegemonic faction in control of the society’s sociopolitical power.

As Orwell so brilliantly depicted in his Animal Farm, the revolutionary elites – which, in the case of Orwell’s short story, were comprised of the van guard pigs on the Farm – following the revolution, simply transform into the role that was assumed by the previous governing class. Consequently, the pigs, after staging the revolution, eventually morphed into an embodiment indistinguishable from the human farmer who had been expelled during the uprising.

However, in the case of network politics, there is no centralization, so there will not necessarily be any faction in a position to install an elitist governing structure, or hegemony, in the post-revolutionary social order. To translate the argument I am making into Nelson’s terms – the expressions she used when constructing an alternative American historicity – the emergent social condition will not possess a unified executive branch, and, therefore, it will be absent of Presidentialism: The cultural condition whereby Americans are disposed to conflate democratic processes with the presence of a strong, paternalistic Executive Authority.

Russell Cole

Tags: activism, constitution, decentralization, democracy, executive powers, government, populist party america, Russell Coles Blog, self governance, Social Change, sociology, sociology web 2.0
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, constitution, government, Russell Cole's Blog, Decentralization, self-governance, Social Change, Sociology, activism, executive powers
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Following the Larry Craig arrest for lurid conduct in a public restroom, I had posted a sympathetic letter, expressing pity for someone so tortured, self deluded, and sensually deprived.  I contended that this uncover operation executed by a police officer reflected more poorly upon those who conceive and implement such a law enforcement plan than those who fall victim to its ensnarement.

Certainly, the authoritarian mentality responsible for these contraventions into such consensual activities is more alarming – due to its reflection of authoritarian tendencies by those who wield power – than the prospect of people having sex in a restroom. Disregard for civil liberties can be a slippery slope.

The more commonplace these authoritarian incursions into our private affairs become, the more precedents are established for these government-sponsored regulatory interdictions.  The accumulation of previous instances will inevitably change the backdrop against which we interpret the boundaries between government and the private conduct of citizens.  Future affronts to our liberties will appear passé and a matter of course.  Consequently, they will fail to register in our civil libertarian sensibilities; therefore, the governmental intrusions will not incite our condemnation, and we will neglect to call for their repeal.

Additionally, on a more practical level, sting operations in which undercover officers are stationed in bathroom stalls, posing as willing bath house participants, seems excessive for even the pettiest of people to insist upon, and such expenditures of resources can certainly be better directed in support of law enforcement designed to curtail crimes that are perpetrated against victims, who are injured in the process.To allocate resources, while we are supposedly conducting a ‘war on terror,’ toward the enforcement of these ridiculous crimes against morality is a disciplinarian excess that we simply cannot afford.

From the summation above, I hope it is fairly evident that I made a point not to direct criticism or judgment upon Larry Craig.  I sought to demonstrate that the pressing concerns related to this matter centered around the disciplinarian mentalities possessed by those who feel justified in legislating both morality and aesthetics.

However – and tragically – the Senator failed to learn from his experiences as the victim of authoritarian pettiness. I am not referring to any lesson to be learned regarding the precariousness of having sex in public restrooms.  Rather, I am referencing the need for social tolerance and understanding, which one would have hoped Larry Craig to have realized through his embarrassing experiences.  Nonetheless, Craig has decided to sponsor the latest ‘defense of marriage,’ bill that has been presented by the demagogic Religious Right panderers in the Senate. It appears that Craig continues to delude himself into believing that he is ‘heterosexual,’ and that other people are even willing to entertain the prospect that he has not engaged in ‘extra-heterosexual,’ relationships with anonymous partners.

For my part, I have realized that hypocrites of the most profound order probably do not  deserve sympathy and tolerance.

Russell Cole

Tags: liberty, Russell Coles Blog, self governance, Social Change, social policies, social responsibility
Categories: Commentary, liberty, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Social Change, social responsibility
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

 Change… holy change!  If only we could be blessed with a light rain from the heavens that would wash away our prejudices, greed and dissipating wastefulness.  Cleansed, Americans could then become one whole people instead of the many fractions that now make up this nation of diversity; diversity not just in people but also in rights, hopes and expectations.
 

Let there be no mistake, ours is a nation where indignation and ill will run much deeper than we would like to believe, or dare broadcast for everyone to hear; and it is these real life-size grievances never addressed fully or with candor – not just imagined ones – that prevent us from attaining national cohesiveness.  Instead, all we have done from time immemorial is to lie to ourselves and to others… just by adding patches.  Ours has never been a Fourth of July America, the one that our state department sells to the world, but a nation which has provided both: opportunity for some to realize a so-called American dream and, for others, the condemnation to relive an American nightmare.
 

Patches that cover up the problems of race, economic inequality and wantonly obscene self-indulgence are constantly being affixed to the American psyche as if telling us all that everything is fine with no reason to worry or complain.  So truth is patched with lies time and again, as we are all asked to join in that proud chorus of “God Bless America,”  an America that really belongs to a few, although most of us are deceived into adopting it as our very own.  And the bullshit builds up, as do the patches, until the boiling cauldron overflows… then, the patches temporarily disappear and we come to blows.
 

Last week the media did its thing, and presented us with a reverend Wright made to look more like an irreverent Wrong exalting his black congregation with a blasphemous  “God Damn America.”  No American flag pin adorning his clerical garb, just words of anger and rancor coming from his mouth.  An embittered Christian pastor who tells it like he sees it… and that for tens of millions is really the America they live in and not the mythical America that we seem to be patriotically proud of.  By so doing, Rev. Wright created political problems for a member of his flock, Senator Barack Obama, and his quest for the Democratic nomination… and the chance to occupy the White House.
 

Obama’s denunciation of Rev. Wright was one of form as well as substance, but it did appear as a conditional denunciation to the existing racial problems that still afflict this nation.  And that is something that most conservative Americans just don’t tolerate… it has to be an unconditional denunciation, and total adherence to the philosophy that “America does no wrong,” or it’s no denunciation at all.
 

Even if one questions Obama’s path and ability to bring real change to America, he does appear as a person of reason and honor… unlike most other politicians; and that, of course, will hurt his chances of being nominated by his party; and, if nominated, of being elected.  After all, he’ll be portrayed as just a letter away from the founding father of Al Qaeda.  The lies and denigration against aspiring-president Obama will be in full force and the fascist bloodhounds will be combing the woods and the marshes looking for that half-Negro terrorist who dares tell us that we have racial problems to solve.  It has already started.  In this morning local paper, The Oregonian, an uncalled for salvo was dishonorably discharged by a reader: “Barack Obama stands by Rev. Wright with glee.  President he should not be.”  Jubilant delight not from Obama but from the Rovesque nincompoop who wrote such trash!  But that’s what the senator will get, non-stop, if and when he receives the Democratic nomination to run against John McCain.
 

Black rage in America is real, very real, even if it remains patched.  The American judicial-prison system is a disgrace, one which affects blacks uniquely and disproportionately, as do other institutions.  When Mainstream White America, the America that controls power, fails to address these problems, should people act surprised if criminal trials really become political trials, such as O.J. Simpson’s or Mumia Abu-Jamal’s?
 

We have only touched on racial resentment – which affects more than just blacks – but it applies with an ever increasing force to the broadening economic inequality and the accelerating disappearance of the middle class.  Racial and economic rage affecting the “Other America” is likely to grow in the next few years attaining super-majority status to demand drastic social, economic and political change in this land of ours.   
 

It is not double vision that makes us see two Americas… it is only political blindness that makes us see only one.  Distance between the two Americas needs to be dramatically narrowed or we shall continue to remain the United States of Resentment, and not the United States of America we should strive to be.

     

Tags: american dream, Ben Tanosborn, corporations, economics, Global, government, National, politics, Social Change
Categories: Commentary, National, Global, Economics, government, Politics, Corporations, Social Change, Ben Tanosborn
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Hello,

Just reading the religious proclamation [cited below], and I had some additional specifications to add to your institution of marriage, which we seem to suggest is a defining aspect of this timeless culture to which you refer. Since Solomon had 700 wives, I suppose there is Biblical justification for polygamy according to dimensions that I would have thought to have constituted gluttony on the part of the indulgent Hebrew Monarch. Therefore, your proposition that marriage is between a man and a woman needs correction: Marriage consists of a man and as many women as he can acquire. Why God only gave Adam one wife is probably related to physiological concerns that God had for Adam who was already missing a rib. Also, Abraham engaged in a rather peculiar practice in order to bare a descendant. The patriarch committed what I think qualifies as an act of rape, since it was after all a slave that he owned whom he imposed himself upon, in order to get past the inconvenience of having a wife who was barren.

The type of marriage that Christian Fundamentalists often mistake as a transcendental institution was more the byproduct of more recent events occurring during the industrial revolution when the emergent Bourgeoisie invented the modern ideology of sexuality and its correlates, such as the advent of heterosexuality, which they imposed upon the depraved masses in order to maintain the health and vigor of a population that was needed to serve effectively as cogs in the machinery constituting the modes industrial production.

Foucault’s revisionism is hard to accept when one is first exposed to it. However, his research is so thorough and compelling that eventually the student find himself convinced of its veracity.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize his or her divine destiny as an heir of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.

The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan.

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalms 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

This proclamation was read by President Gordon B. Hinckley as part of his message at the General Relief Society Meeting held September 23, 1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Tags: marriage, Modernity, religion, Social Change, society
Categories: Commentary, Society, Social Change, Religion
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 Introduction to American Radicalized Sociopolitical Movements in Informationalism and the Network Society

a working paper by

Russell Cole

After becoming versed in this typically neglected aspect to the American story [Populism and the People’s Party], I became fixated on the truly unique poignancy it deserved in any narration of American sociopolitical history; one characterized, in most every other instance, as a historical rendering that has obfuscated class; economic inequality; as well as stratifications extant within sociopolitical institutions; all of which can be conceptualized – although they rarely happen to be – along patrician and plebeian dimensions. This stratification has persisted for so long and it has had such a profound influence upon the cultural codes circulating through American social formations that it has gone unmarked in the preponderance of American discourse.

It should not be understated the impact that implicit sociocultural traditions have upon the surface reality, the veneer of American politics. As Tocqueville pointed to, Americans rarely voiced radicalized sentiments toward their sociopolitical institutions and their operations. In fact, as he considered, American democracy – in the form it assumed – might not be possible without such willing obedience among the population of America.

The deferential posture that Americans have been conditioned to assume in relation to civil and political institutions reinforces this lack of discursive treatment of a society divided along elitist and commoner lines. American history, by and large, has been accounted for under the pre-determinacy of Whiggishness, discounting enduring quasi-caste distinctions as if they are temporal aberrations, epiphenomena to an underlying narrative that ultimately tells of America’s advancement toward an increasingly democratic condition. There are, of course, notable exceptions to American Whig renditions of history, such as The People’s History of the United States. However, another treatment of these issues is by no means a contribution to an already saturated field of political sociological inquiry.

Coming to Terms with Populism

As both a result of my new interest in an organization that called itself the Populist Party of America as well as a family history - although fairly distant at this point in time - that included political participation in populism - I began researching the history of this movement, which presented itself in its fullest embodiment in the form of the People’s Party. After becoming versed in populism, I was awe struck at what appeared to be an under treated anomaly when in taken in the purview of the overall course of American sociopolitical history: a narrative that persistently omits accounts of sociopolitical and economic inequality; a lack of criticality that contributes to a facade of civic egalitarianism originally manifested in what has become the persisting mythology of Jeffersonian republicanism. This false ideology configures a conceptualization of American political relations, which neglects to recognize the influences had upon political opportunity by the material conditions belonging to the economy.

The Jefferson’s early articulation of Libertarianism exclaimed the virtues of the citizen agriculturalist; a body collectively composed of citizens who stood side by side one another in lateral sociopolitical uniformity. Thus economic class was left unconceived in the Jeffersonian account of American sociopolitical relations, and, needless to say, such an account failed to address the impact that economic inequalities, or class, had upon the feasibility of each citizen coequally affecting the public policies of the American state[4].

Populism – as it was incepted in economic affairs of the Midwestern and Southern farmer in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century – was an emergent pattern of economically directed intellectualism, which – through processes of its development – came to identify itself as a political movement with a more prodigious agenda than mere economic reform. Furthermore, it was a consequence of organic intellectual social processes. By that, populism culminated largely out of social mechanisms that existed independently from the institutional guard belonging to the Academe and other vested interests. Of course, populism was affected by Marxism, and, on occasion, in some of its expressions, it appeared proto-Marxist. However, the populist critiques of the economy and, in particular, the finance and monetary systems proved to be not only original and penetrating, but, additionally, they ultimately served as the precipitants of economic reforms that had lasting legacies.

For instance, the contemporary conceptualization of the free-market is heavily indebted to the populist movement in America. It was through populism that legislative fixtures intended to promote free-market competition, such as anti-trust and anti-monopolistic statutes, came to regulate the practices of capitalist interests. Indeed, we can go so far as to say that it was through populism that the modern conception of the free-market came about. Even more, it was due to its emphasis upon a competitive market[5] that the Democratic Party was amenable to the infusion of the populist ideology into its platform, which would come to mark its public disposition throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century. I realize that many students of American political history would delineate among the Populist era: the period when Bryan was the leading figure; and the Progressive era – associated with Wilson, as well as, the New Deal, which, of course, was the domestic policy of FDR. No matter, as John Gerring has demonstrated through a careful content analysis of American Party rhetoric, the consistencies among the three proposed eras out-weighed the significance of the differences demonstrable in the three proposed historical periods of Democratic Party ideology.

Many discount the ethical accomplishments of the People’s Party, which was the first to embrace multiple racial identities; the first to include women in its organizations, prior even to Women’s suffrage; and the first to demand in a recognizable voice the democratization of various political institutions that had been, till then, the decision-making province of political elites. Recourse to the denial of populism as an event that demonstrated advanced ethical and moral sensibilities on the part of its conceivers, promoters, and adherents is typically sought through citing aspects of the multi-faceted social critique leveled by populism, with the intended result of identifying internal inconsistencies in the populist ideology.

For instance, one of the more prevalent criticisms of populism is that it reflected a racial tolerance while, concurrently, possessing a nativist agenda. However, this criticism speaks more of the lack of analytical faculties by those who make such a claim as it points to the lack of sophistication in the populist social critique formed in reflection of the American gilded age. I am always dumbfounded each and every time I find myself explaining to detractors of populism that there is no a priori analytical relationship between nativism and racism. Although there might be empirical relationships between the two conditions, where nativists tend also to be racists, this has nothing to do with the People’s Party, per se. America was already a multi-racial society prior to populism’s emergence, and the nativist policies taken up in the advocacies of the People’s Party were not latent with racial discrimination. Objecting to undesirable immigration is not necessarily predicated upon race. Instead, as in the case of the People’s Party, it was based upon the impact that particular elements of any society might bring about if permitted to migrate to the United States.

Additionally, and this should be apparent to anyone who has expended any efforts, at all, when attempting to come to terms with American immigration – despite the conventional wisdom, belonging to American economics – which we are persistently instructed to embrace and believe – immigration does not proportionally benefit all sectors of the economy. One such group that certainly does not experience positive outcomes resulting from immigration consists of those who dwell in the middle and lower tiers of the labor market. Immigration both diminishes the value of labor in every sector of the economy to which its skills happen to apply, as well as, posing obstructions to the successful formation of cooperative institutions, either constituting organized labor, or qualifying as the financial cooperatives, such as credit unions, that leverage the monetary resources of those who are excluded from the many implicit trusts that dominate the financial industries controlled by organized-capitalism.

Indeed, the recent revelations concerning the use of Visas for the import of labor to be employed in the technology sectors of the economy reinforces the conclusion that immigration is not advantageous for labor. Despite the conventional wisdom, as it turns out, the overwhelming preponderance of Information Technology workers who are allowed entry into the United States are in the lower strata of the technocratic hierarchy comprised of Information Technology laborers. Therefore, America is not taking in the best and the brightest; rather, corporate America is merely increasing productivity by importing cheap labor that is only qualified to work in the most entry level of positions in an organization’s IT infrastructure. This – topped with the fact that wage stagnation, in recent history, has been an enduring feature of the employment market for the middle and working classes – indicates that immigration is only beneficial for those who dwell in the higher socio-economic tiers of American social relations; the ownership classes belonging to corporate America.

Another ill conceived critique of populism consists of instances where commentators remark upon the internal inconsistency of populism’s anti-statism along with many of its ‘socialist’ sentiments. It is true that populism called for the nationalization of the railroading industry as well as the banking industry. However, unlike what nearly amounts to ideological absolutism on the part of contemporary Libertarians, the populists were not constrained when devising possible solutions for social problems by a conviction that all instances of government should be curtailed, even in scenarios where the absence of government intervention appears to create a more undesirable social condition. Additionally, populism and its instances of economic cooperatives is more an expression of anarchistic sensibilities than anything approaching socialism. Certainly, no one can credibly contend that organic cooperatives intended to extricate the American farmer from his social positioning that amounted to serfdom was motivated out of an affinity of statist institutions. Indeed, it was only until such endeavors proved to be ineffective against the trusts that had been established by organized-capitalism that the populist movement became politicized.

This is not to say that populism – especially when taken up by the Democratic Party – did not come to reflect a pro-statist position on the majority of matters qualifying as issues of public concern. Nevertheless, this ideological posture on the part of Democratic populists was perceived as a necessity in order to guard against the publicly harmful excesses of what came to be called “predator elites” in the economy. To paraphrase The Great Commoner; also known as William Jennings Bryan:

Men are the creation of God. Corporations are the creation of man, and what man creates man can destroy.

In respect to this – which can be identified with less ambiguity as the regulatory measures needed to quell the popularly harmful greed of the corporation – that the adoption of a pro-statist approach toward public policy reveals its real character: Government was a device of necessity, and the pro-statism of the Democratic populists should not be conflated – in its interpretation - with the authoritarianism embodied by the Whig-Republicans and their mercantilist conception of political and economic social relationships.

Finally, what more that can be said about populism arises from an inference that is generated from mechanisms that are alien to the processes of scholarly research, but deserves mentioning, nonetheless. The populist movement seemed to stimulate the activation of ethical dispositions belonging to the social characters of those who would come to be participate in this movement. Individuals, whose ideologies had been immured in white supremacist backdrops, eventually identified with African-Americans, as social agents with whom they suffered the exploitations engendered by common same social conditions. In fact, there are accounts of former slave owners coming to advance the causes of African-Americans by serving as chairs to African-American farmer alliances.

Therefore, rather than specifically addressing fabricated shortcomings of the People’s Party, it is more worthwhile for a student of political sociology to treat the aspects belonging to this movement that set it apart from nearly all other facets of the American experience. Specifically, what strikes the attention of the epistemic agent – who is not predisposed to dismiss the accomplishments of the various farmer alliances and the People’s Party, which they came to establish – is the fact that these dissolute, degraded, and politically inexperienced agrarians could come to mount the most redoubtable third-party insurgence to the duopoly embedded in partisan politics in the whole of American history.

Families in the Midwest and South – who dwelled in a social condition where observances of women and children afoot in bare feet was commonplace – arose from a state of sociopolitical ignorance to one of penetrating insight and criticism upon American social relations. Even more, the political ideology developed by populists was emergent, composed from intellectual processes that were organic. Additionally, the populists were faced – when developing this intellectual formation – with constructing their own social institutions through which their knowledge could be manufactured as well as disseminated. Journals needed to be published and circulated. Travelling lecturers had to be trained and financially supported. Financial schemes had to be creatively fostered a deployed in an attempt to coerce other economic agencies into bargaining directly with the farmer alliances, so that the trust under which the crop-lean system[6] was actualized and enacted could be overcome. Finally, populism transcended sectionalisms – which were the by-products of superficial material conflicts in American society, such as white supremacy and its opposition to African-American interests – in order for African-Americans as well as Southern Whites to attend the same gatherings and applaud enthusiastically as the political orator explained racism as an instrument used by Southern elites to deflect the attention of the farmers from their real adversaries, whom Blacks and Whites commonly faced.

The Contemporary Significance of Populism

Recently, I had listened to a service given by a Unitarian Church in New York, which commemorated the outing of the Pentagon Papers. At this service, I became audience to descriptions of the subversive inner-workings of activists responsible for the publication of these documents, which were entered into the Congressional Record by Gravel, and, finally, published in book form by a Unitarian publishing syndicate. I was struck by words that were spoken in reference to Gravel that remarked upon an aspect to American culture where Americans are taught – from the time they assume comfort upon a parent’s lap – to, “avoid looking silly,” or foolish; to avoid orating that which strays beyond the comfortable parameters of orthodoxy. According to the wisdom embedded in this shared stock of social knowledge, not adhering to such standards would render the speaker as suspect to aspersions labeling him or her as a crackpot or a voice from the margins of society to be dismissed, because he or she conveys sentiments that are outside of the recognizable: the familiar domestic environment qualifying as the mainstream.[i]

In contrast to the insightful words spoken of Gravel and his current candidacy for the Democratic Nomination, in recent weeks, I have also heard a speech given by Bill Clinton during the memorial for Arthur Schlesinger. Clinton’s - in remarks that can only be interpreted as self-congratulatory - lauded Lincoln, who had also given oratory at the theater where the service was being held, for attempting to reach out to the, “Great American center,” prior to the collapse of the Nation into civil war. According to Clinton, Lincoln’s initial attempt to avoid confrontation, by remaining amenable to slavery as long as it did not extend into new territories and states, demonstrated an understanding of the great American center and how it allows for progress to be made during intervals belonging to a larger cyclical pattern; where the mushy middle of American politics would slightly tip its balance toward the Left or toward the Right. During instances where the Left was favored, small, incremental steps of progress could be made. However, it required a savvy leader who could continue to appeal to the middle, in order to coax the Country in the right direction without inciting a backlash by introducing proposals that were too radical, which would entail too abrupt a departure from the trails that had already been worn into easily transverse paths.

What are we to make out of these two contrasting stylizations of political existentiality? It is in respect to this question - more than anything else - that has led me to firmly believe that populism has a role to play in the development of the sociology of democracy. My understandings of populism are primarily derived from the historian, Goodwyn, who possessed the uncommon tenacity for summarizing the necessary antecedents for an authentically democratic insurgency to unfold: First, a group must obtain the institutional autonomy needed to formulate a conceptualization of sociopolitical mechanisms operative in a political structure, which foments in contradistinction, and in to varying extent, opposition to the preemptive orders of knowledge and the sociopolitical institutions that are arranged under the cloak of legitimacy derived from these hegemonic discourses. However, as Goodwyn wisely points out, such a development - an alternative episteme - is not, in and of itself, sufficient for democratic insurgency. In America in particular, there is a long untreated - yet, all too pervasive - posture of deference habitually assumed by commoners in relations to the established institutional guards of sociopolitical power. Without a shaking off of the deference toward institutions of the old guard encumbering the shoulders of those - who have long been conditioned to internalize the identity of plebiscite - the provision of an alternative interpretation of the Human Condition - currently embodied in the way things stand - would fail to incite the mobilizing of masses.

According to this parsimonious and elegant rendering of the necessary conditions for a democratic insurgency to take root, Goodwyn goes on in his minor masterpiece, A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt, to catalog the events that culminated in the establishment of the People’s Party. The process that resulted in the type of psychic characteristics necessary for democratic insurgency was a slow incremental process, involving quite a few setbacks and failures on the part of the various farming alliances as they initially endeavored to extricate their members from the crop lien system, which basically amounted to a trust comprised of financial interests along with manufacturing - both of which maintained credit as well as distributional relationships with local town agents, who dealt directly with the farmers. These relationships that were established and protected by the these interests precluded the farmers from entering into the necessary financing arrangements for them to bypass the insufferable arrangements imposed upon them by the local town agents, who extorted as much as possible from the farmers each time the farmer was forced to obtain credit for the oncoming year.

It is in these considerations that Web 2.0 assumes significance. The democratization of representational spaces in civil society fosters both the intellectual autonomy necessary to form alternative sociopolitical interpretations as well as the political self-respect necessary to abandon to the deferential posture assumed in relation to the institutions of the old guard.

[1] The Green Party has associations with other Green Parties that exist in other states around the globe. However, these relationships are loosely defined and often more symbolic than anything else.

[2] The Populist Party of America is a micro-party that was incepted 2002, and is based in Las Angeles. At this point in time – with some exceptions – it is a virtual community that is radicalized. The exceptions consist of activism – involving activities such as the distribution of literature – that has taken place in the Las Angeles area.

[3] Grounded Theory is the approach that is typically assumed by sociologists who perform ethnography

[4] As Charles Goodwyn has pointed out, the Jeffersonian ideology was a major obstacle to the political radicalization of the populist movement.

[5] Free-trade was a staple of the Democratic ideology during the period when it opposed the mercantilist protectionism of the Whig-Republicans.

[6] The crop-lean system was enacted by the trust of economic relationships assumed by financial firms, manufacturers, and local town agents, who extorted farmers for as great as a share of the yearly productions of agricultural commodities by withholding credit that was necessary for the farmer to procure the manufactured supplies that were a requisite for planting and harvesting in the oncoming season.

[i] The Pentagon Papers Then and Now: Unitarian Universalists Confronting Government Secrecy

http://www.uua.org/events/generalassembly/2007/presentations/30971.shtml; UUA

Tags: constitution, corporations, democracy, direct democracy, economics, education, Farmers, government, history, labor, legislation, politics, populist party, self governance, Social Change, society, sociology, third parties
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Society, Populist Party, Democracy, constitution, government, Education, self-governance, Politics, Third Parties, Legislation, Labor, Farmers, Corporations, Direct Democracy, Social Change, Sociology, History
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As the Populist Party of America grows in size, we are faced with some challenging obstacles and difficult decisions to make regarding the future of the Party: i.e., What type of structure should be given to the Populist Party of America? Should we strive for a strong national organization? Or, contrarily, should we stress decentralization, choosing to focus on the development of state and local parties without any overbearing emphasis placed upon the integration of the various pockets of Populist America into a monolithic formation? Thus far, I have been exposed to two contrasting visions for the future organization of the Party, as it continues to grow in size.

There is an argument that maintains the necessity of an organization to possess some kind of integrated structure, which would include members who would participate in planning and problem solving. This managerial core would contribute to the development of different actionable plans that could later be introduced to the membership at large, providing some options that have already been delineated, from which the membership might select to adopt and implement as a Party platform. This proposal calling for the Party to possess a kernel, consisting of more active members, who would be inclined to offer centralized planning for the Party as a whole, stands in stark opposition to the other conception for the appropriate structuring of the Party, as it continues to expand.

This proposed design for the Party - which stands in opposition to proposals for centralization - would not provide for an organization with a centralized nervous system. Alternatively, the Party would be allowed to proliferated along lateral dimensions while failing to create an integrated hierarchy of offices.

To relate this ideology of decentralized politic to contemporary sociological literature, the jargon that has come into fashion, as a result of the studies upon the Informational Economy, which were initiated by Manuel Castells, uses the reference, Networked Politics, to designate instances of decentralized patterns of political praxis.

This new form of political mobilization often transcends the geographical boundaries imposed by states and governments. Furthermore, Networked Politics are understood as a by-product of what has been termed by Castells as Informationalism, which simply designates the technological paradigm underlying the expansion of Internet communicative infrastructures. However, the type of sociopolitical opposition that is formed through the networking of diverse agents and groups via the communication channels provided for by the Web - despite the transnational character of these network configurations - fails to negate the embodiment of geographical locality and the coalescence of interests among advocates who reside in physical proximity to one another; thus, allowing for embodied interaction.

This condition, where localized concerns are situated and understood in the context of larger geo-economic and geopolitical social forces, has been referenced under the neologism, glocalization. This concept fits in well with the social theoretical framework that has been introduced by Castells, who discards with the global democracy thesis propounded by Habermas and Rorty - which was founded upon the notion of a cosmopolitan culture - in favor of an understanding of the globalizing trends, facilitated by Informationalism, where multiculturalism will be preserved; only such cultural differences will become circumspect within a global forum of manifold cultural identities, who will participate in a world representational space in order to express their uniqueness as well as discover the peculiar attributes of others.

It is here, in the conception of glocalization, that I propose as a guiding post serving as an indication for the appropriate trajectory in which Populist America should transverse, as the Party enters into its future stages of development, as it continues to grow larger.

[Future installment: the concretization of glocalization in the praxes of Populist America]

Russell Cole

Tags: centralization, communications, community, decentralization, Global, government, National, politics, populist party, populist party america, Populist Party organizational structure, Social Change, society, third parties
Categories: Commentary, National, Global, Society, Populist Party, government, Decentralization, Politics, Third Parties, Social Change
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I have been a member of an organization for several months now, which operates on a national basis and performs the task of assessing the accuracy of journalistic content delivered over sources of mass media, such as newspapers, television, and radio, called Media Matters, which can be found at the following URI:

http://mediamatters.org/

I suppose this organization does a valuable service by rendering those who distort information accountable for their dissimulations. However, more fundamentally, I wonder: Does traditionally mass media matter, in the sense that it is something that should be the target of activist resources implemented for the purpose of making these corporate institutions who monopolize, currently, sources of mass communications and the discourse they distribute more accurate and non-partisan?

As empirical research repeatedly demonstrates, the content distributed through mass media that pertains to sectors of American society is - more often than not - supportive of conservative views. This, of course, is at odds with the political ideologies possessed with the majority of journalists who - according to the survey research that is conducted - possess leftist political leanings. Nevertheless, the actual products of their work, that make it through the corporate establishments responsible for rendering the news, are often endorsements of conservative policies; especially with respect to the economy and the proffered descriptions concerning the health of the economy; reports of which often only integrate into the analyses indexes that reflect the state of the economy for investors while neglecting to include aspects of the economy relevant to laborers, such as wage growth; or, contrarily, wage stagnation, which happened to be an aspect of the economy stretching back to the 1990’s that was, more times than not, omitted from reports and analyses introduced by sources of journalism.

Conservative elements in society have for quite some time complained that journalism in this country was liberally biased. In their self proclaimed effort to counteract this ideological slant, they have created institutions serving as media outlets, which are decidedly conservative, despite their professed devotion to the dissemination of journalism that is, ‘fair and balanced.’ In fact, for many of us, who suffered through the prelude to the war with Iraq, the conservative slant to journalism prevalent in mass media has become a matter that is increasingly noticeable and, even, vexing to the point of agitation.

Consequently, advocates for more responsible journalism - which fails to bow down to those in power; or ceases to understand itself, and operate accordingly, in a modality that reflects a particular sociopolitical ideology’s interests by reverberating talking points and other forms of communications that qualify as propaganda; certainly not journalism. Subsequently, major national affiliations, such as Media Matters, have been created by the Left in opposition to the present state of journalism, which seems to be increasingly the conduits for press releases by conservative institutions in society.

However, returning to the question originally posed in this brief essay - does media matter? - I have to question whether these types of strategies oriented toward affecting the corporate institutions responsible for the dissimulation of conservatively slanted journalism - in some instances, blatant propaganda - is the best use of resources. We, here, at the Populist Party of America have taken a different route toward publicizing our cause - differing from other groups that attempt to reform and penetrate through corporate mass media - that effectively bypasses the traditional institutions that serve as clearing houses for descriptions of sociopolitical reality permitted to be distributed through devices of mass communications. In fact, we have been doing it to some degree of success, as our Internet based forms of content distribution are growing rapidly and now bordering upon the quantity of audience members and contributors - a role that we attempt to encourage among all of our audience members in a strategy that has embraced Web 2.0 and social media - that rivals more mainstream sources of information and editorial.

Therefore, reflecting upon the success that has been garnered by Populist America’s refusal to submit to the authority of the traditional brokers of media space - spaces which would never have offered any coverage for our political sentiments with which to begin - we have cultivated an audience, whom we hope to make contributors, through opportunities to publish and distribute their thoughts concerning social and political events and issues; (after all, in a democracy we should all see our selves as participants, not merely consumers).

So, I suppose, in response to the question; does media matter? the following answer is best suited: It only assumes significance if you make it matter by continuing to treat it as though it has legitimacy and supremacy over all other forms of communications. However, if you attempt to make your own media matter, then - in this age of limitless potential for publicity, ushered in by the expansion of the Internet - you can acquire an audience despite your refusal to submit to the old guard of communicative forms that are quickly becoming obsolescent, anyway.

Russell Cole [send him email]

Tags: communications, Internet, journalism, mainstream media, media, media matters, Net Neutrality, politics, populist party, power, Russell Coles Blog, Social Change, society, web 2.0
Categories: Commentary, Society, Populist Party, Russell Cole's Blog, Web 2.0, Power, Politics, Net Neutrality, Social Change, Media, journalism
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Episteme 2.0

A study in the sociology of mass media and the sociology of social movements; both directed upon the emerging venue of mass communications, referenced as the World Wide Web, explor­ing the transformation of sociopolitical possibilities engendered by the proliferation of a represen­tational space that is largely free from institutional gate-keeping devices and a means of publicity that is easily accessible and obtainable by a vastly greater proportion of the population

Forward to Episteme 2.0

Abstract

The forward of the document will outline the scope of the study - including the relationships of the research to preexisting literature, also devoted to the subjects referenced in the content matter herein. In short, the executive summary will serve as a type of abstract. However, since the doc­ument object, abstract, is typically not included in the contents of manuscripts that purport to be more than articles, the deployment of the artifice, forward, is more appropriate in this context; a document object that entails many of the same significations; however, it allows for greater flexi­bility when it comes to the duration and specificity of the content.

Scope and Objectives

This document expresses an assessment of the prospects for the Human Condition in the emerging epoch termed by Castells as the Network Society. The study is not a foray into futurism; nor, does the document constitute a relapse into the absolutism¹ of historicism, and the ideological dogma that it inspires. The document and its flow of contents explores a field of diverse possibilities that are hypothesized to exist and reside in the current social configuration - which, of course, is a material and ideological formation that has connections to the past; a pro­cess that currently instantiates a field of potential trajectories that, presumably, can be actualize through the way we orient and posture ourselves in the present in order to react and contend with the contingencies arising from our historical situated-ness; thus shaping the unfolding of the future in the most informed and equipped manner, according to the aesthetics² most desirable.