Progressives love to rationalize their political naïveté by claiming "principle" as their rationale for always losing. They don't seem to realize how many of us are actually shaking our heads and cringing at their silliness. It's really important to the progressive movement that more of us understand that almost nothing in the political arena is all black or all white. Every issue one can think of falls somewhere on the grayscale. I’m reminded of this as I look back at my weekend in New York City and some of the things I’ve heard progressives say since.
Last Saturday morning, my son and I were walking up Broadway in Manhattan, not far from Times Square, when several NYPD officers cleared a path for some demonstrators, who were marching against “intervention” in Iran. (Note that the protesters were not being harrassed and/or beaten by the police. In fact, the officers were protecting them
There were many signs, and I agreed with most of them, although the Commander-in-Chief has said repeatedly that he’s working toward a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. How many times must Obama imply that he has no intention of attacking Iran before these people get it? He can’t take the possibility “off the table” because, well, he’s dealing with Iran, and taking such a thing “off the table” would act as a disincentive for them to act. But he’s said and shown that he has no intention of doing a “Bush” and attacking them for no reason.
Anyway, back to the demonstration. There were probably 500 demonstrators, with pretty much no one even engaging the people they were marching past. If was as if they were marching for themselves, which would be a little odd. They were chanting something I didn’t recognize, although I strained to hear and understand what they were chanting. Many of them seemed to be more intent on chanting properly than actually engaging with the people they were passing, even though that’s pretty much the point of a demonstration, isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to teach people something with a demonstration? There was someone handing out fliers, but he seemed to only hand them to people he liked.
There were signs against war, which the President and I agree with wholeheartedly. There were also a lot of signs against Israel, which I found curious. Not just against the possibility that Israel might attack Iran's nukes, but Israel itself. There were also signs that read “no sanctions.” Strangely, there were no signs regarding what should we do about Iran. If sanctions even go too far, how should we deal with Iran? Do nothing? Should we just let them make nuclear weapons at will? What was the point of all those nuclear non-proliferation treaties with other nuclear countries? Why would we sign treaties with nuclear countries to get them to stop making them, or to destroy much of their arsenal, and then allow other countries to build them at will?
Life just isn’t a series of simple “either/or” choices. Iran can’t be allowed to have weapons grade nuclear material, because then the entire Middle East will have them, both stable and unstable regimes alike. It’s a dangerous enough world with India, Pakistan, North Korea and China all having nuclear capability; do we really need to add another unstable regime to the mix? Obama has said he would try to get them to put them away through diplomatic negotiations, but in order for diplomacy to even work, there must be real consequences for not following through; they won’t respond to, “You better stop your nuclear weapons program, or we’ll hold our breath.”
“No sanctions”? Really? Not even as a “last resort”? Gosh, I wish I could live in a world, in which everyone did the right thing, just because it was the right thing to do. But I live in the real world. And in the real world, a nuclear Iran, which has a pretend democracy, and is led by theocrats who think dying for the cause means an eternal life at the right hand of God, makes the world a lot more dangerous. If they can agree to halt their nuclear program through diplomatic means, that’s wonderful. But if it takes (as a last resort) a few well-placed bombs targeted at nuclear facilities, well, it will save tens of thousands, if not millions, of lives in the long run, and that’s worth it.
Yes, I am a pacifist, but being a pacifist in the real world means I work for peace in whatever way works. Sometimes, it’s necessary to do something violent in order to bring peace. Even as a pacifist, I WISH someone had been able to assassinate Hitler before 1936. Don’t you? I mean, even if you are a pacifist, if an anarchist starts punching your kid, don't you pull him off and defend your kid, using whatever means you think is sufficient? Sometimes, being a pacifist means beating up a bully before he beats up on you.
Like I said, the world operates under different shades of grey.
As I was driving home from upstate New York yesterday, I listened to the radio, and the top story had to do with President Obama supposedly “abandoning” his objection to big money PACS for this election. Just for the hell of it, I turned off my music and listened to some progressive talk radio, and was amused to hear how many listeners were incensed at the President for not sticking to his “principles” and accepting “SuperPAC” (to use Stephen Colbert’s moniker) money.
The responses actually ran the gamut. Many reasonable progressives got it. The Republicans made the rules, and the Republicans appointed the Supreme Court Justices who ruled against the American citizen in the Citizens United case in the first place. But then there was that small but loud cadre of “progressives,” whose opinions were remarkably similar to those expressed in an editorial in this morning’s New York Times:
Two years ago, while delivering his State of the Union address, President Obama looked the Supreme Court justices in the face and told them they were wrong to have allowed special interests to spend without limits on campaigns. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests,” he said. “They should be decided by the American people.”
On Monday, the president abandoned that fundamental principle and gave in to the culture of the Citizens United decision that he once denounced as a “threat to our democracy.”
His aides announced that the Obama campaign would begin to assist the “super PAC” that can raise and spend unlimited sums to support the president’s re-election effort. Even White House and cabinet officials are expected to appear at fund-raising events for Priorities USA Action.
The announcement fully implicates the president, his campaign and his administration in the pollution of the political system unleashed by Citizens United and related court decisions. Corporations, unions and wealthy individuals are already writing huge checks — with no restrictions — to political action committees supporting individual candidates, which have become bag men for campaigns that still nominally operate under federal limits.
Again, life would be so much easier in a world in which everything was either wrong or right, or black and white. I wish I didn’t have to wade through the sea of gray that I navigate every day.
The President did NOT “abandon() that fundamental principle” at all. But the law is what it is, and how is he supposed to change the law if he’s no longer president? If the right wing machine is able to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into their propaganda machine to oppose him, and they end up putting President Romney/Gingrich/Santorum into the White House, you can count on Citizens United becoming the permanent law of the land. How “principled” are people who stick by their self-described “principle” so much that they end up effectively turning society into something that what their so-called “principle” tells them it should be?
This has been the problem with the progressive movement for a generation. Most progressives get that the world isn’t a simple place, and that truly having “principles” means working for them over the long haul. If you want a world in which money doesn’t rule politics, you have to play by the rules that exist at the time, win a bunch of elections and change the law to something that reflects your self-proclaimed “principle.” Stubbornness and petulance are not “priniciple.” Voting for a candidate who says everything you want to hear, but who has no chance of winning is not “principled.” In fact, it demonstrates a profound LACK of principle, truth be told, because a truly principled person would fight for the principle over the person. If only one of two people can win an election, then a truly principled person would vote for the candidate with a chance of winning who is closest to sharing his or her principles.
The only way to deal with Iran and get them to give up their nuclear ambitions, is by leaving open the possibility of severe consequences if they don’t do so. Obama is president, not Bush; we aren’t going to start a war with them. And our only chance to reverse the effects of Citizens United is to overwhelm the system and keep supporting Obama and the Democrats, and keep making sure money can’t win.
This is not an either/or, black/white world, folks. You have “principle” when you do whatever you have to in order to get those things you think would make for a better society. You are not “principled” just because you have a point of view and will support anyone who says what you want to hear.
Truly principled people are rarely gullible.
