Thursday, May 08, 2003

My good friend Brent recommended an article in The Nation this week.  It's titled "Inverted Totalitarianism", and it makes the provocative argument that the federal government, backed by corporations in a mutually beneficial relationship, has been getting more and more powerful.  The author, Sheldon Wolin, argues that the Republican party has "emerged as a unique phenomenon in American history of a fervently doctrinal party, zealous, ruthless, antidemocratic and boasting a near majority." He says the Democrats are no longer a viable opposition party, as they've moved too far away from the left and too close to complications. It's a complicated argument, but ultimately Wolin's claim is that we're moving towards totalitarian government in an opposite manner from other totalitarian regimes--Nazi Germany being his primary example.  This is the crucial section: Thus the elements are in place: a weak legislative body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party, whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy recovers. That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens and domestic dissidents. What is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century. In that context, the national elections of 2004 represent a crisis in its original meaning, a turning point. The question for citizens is: Which way? Of course, one can read this sort of thing in left (and right!) wing magazines and websites all the time.  It's not entirely incredible, because he doesn't make a conspiracy argument per se, but it does, at first blush, seem pretty far fetched. But the individual elements of his argument are awfully compelling.  Can anyone deny that the GOP is doing more for the rich than the poor?  I've talked previously in this space about the terrorism hammer being utilized to silent dissent.  The broader media is indeed a product of corporate power, increasingly.  And the more traditional conservative/libertarian elements of the right cannot be happy with the way that the privacy is being weakened and, in fact, obviated by new laws and regulations driven by Puritan attitudes and paranoia (see Santorum, Rick). Still, I can't agree with the conclusion.  There are a lot of checks on totalitarian impulses--most notably, information technology.  Maybe Fox News isn't going to stop the Man from taking power, but the blog universe should do it.  Additionally, I am hopeful that what we're seeing now is a phase, driven by a fear of terrorism and a particularly egregious administration willing to push its agenda at all cost.  I don't think we're going to see any totalitarianism any time soon.  But Wolin's warning should be heeded, nevertheless.  I wonder if he'll vote for Nader? 5:03:10 PM    Let's hear it. []

Doug over at the Pipeline and Scott at Base Camp have written about softball in the past few days, and because they are my closest cohorts in blogging, I have no choice but to do the same, lest I feel like a third wheel. A bunch of American expats get together for pickup softball games on Sundays, so last week was my first time playing in Tunisia.  It was a tale of glory and embarrassment. When we started playing I asked to play shortstop, my favorite position (and the only one I've played for some time).  First play of the game, fairly standard grounder to me.  I field it cleanly, fire it over, easy out.  No big deal.  But I hear these things: --someone whistling --someone else saying "Holy Shit!" --someone else saying "Don't hit it to shortstop." It's the throw that did it.  Now I have a pretty good arm, but nothing to really go wild for, believe me.  But in the rubber-armed Tunisian expat community, I'm practically Jesse Barfield. So I feel like a stud.  But then I step up to bat--first time swinging since last summer.  Swinging the bat, I mean. Feeling like I must impress these folks even more, I swing too hard at a bad pitch, and hit a weak grounder to first.  But the guy is loafing, so I'm running full steam down the first base line, and it's going to be close.  He beats me there by lunging at the last second, and we have a literal head-to-head collision.  I'm running full out, remember.  He's seemingly unaffected, as he apparently has a steel plate in his head.  I, however, hit the ground hard, see stars, and already have a ringing headache.  I roll around whining for a few minutes, and eventually get up and limp back to the dugout.  I played the rest of the afternoon, but I hit like a turd and made some stupid errors.  So much for my professional Tunisian softball career.  At least I wrenched my shoulder badly enough in the fall to the ground that it still hurts.  So that's something. 8:36:03 AM    Let's hear it. []

Project update:  The CD is great, but I made some changes after making one copy and listening a couple of times--I replaced Award Tour with Authority Song.  Also, I had to drop one song entirely because I could only fit 19 on the CD, annoyingly.  Bye bye, Simple Minds. 8:23:51 AM    Let's hear it. []