Some interesting articles on national politics

1. Work continues to disappear, with devastating impact on people and communities.  Earlier in the week, charlie shared this New Republic article, "Educated Fools: Democrats Misunderstand Politics and Social Class," Thomas Geoghegan, who has been writing about the impact of culture based appeals to "traditional voters" for more than 20 years in very provocative ways.

I don't fully buy the thesis. He says that Democrats argue that everyone needs advanced degrees, that this is demeaning to the working class. But the jobs, especially "mass production," that people could do without advanced education are increasingly being replaced by capital and the jobs that remain, even if "industrial" are increasingly knowledge intensive.

Last week, we watched a documentary on the "America Reframed" series on the PBS World Channel called "Detroit 48202," about the changes in a particular area of Detroit, seen through the eyes of the mailman on the route. It featured interviews with a radical union organizer, and he made the point that when they were organizing in the late 1960s, the Dodge Main plant had 10,000 workers. Over time, with automation, the number of workers dropped by 75%.

2. Hope... I mentioned about two weeks ago, the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDan, on how "work is disappearing everywhere" and belief that we can change the trajectory of failure.

-- "New York Times article on community decline associated with loss of work"

3. ... and aspiration.  This is on British politics, a Guardian article, "Yes, ‘aspiration’ can be a socialist idea – if the left can rid it of its baggage," which discusses "aspirational socialism." I include it, because even though there is no consensus within Labour politics about grassroots influence on policy, politics, and governance, it gets at why I believe there is an opportunity to build bridges, as incendiary as today's politics are. From the article:

It is a striving – in the face of ferocious opposition, and despite countless defeats and disappointments – to give working people greater control over their lives and surroundings, instead of casting them adrift to fend for themselves, and to create the conditions that allow them to reach their full personal, intellectual and creative potential. ...

Long-Bailey hopes that in aspirational socialism she’s found a way to communicate radical ideas in a media environment largely unreceptive to them, and of signalling to Labour’s lost voters that she heeds their concerns. But building a genuinely empowering and aspirational socialism would necessitate a distinct break from the party’s established traditions of administering palliatives from above. What remains to be seen is whether the ideological baggage attached to “aspiration” as a term will allow it to be redefined convincingly by the left, and whether this socialist reappropriation of distinctly Blair-era language can be made to cut through. Long-Bailey’s underlying message is nonetheless correct. Socialism is about transforming society in order to put people in charge of their own lives – and what could be more aspirational than that?

The fact is that many more of us are in the "precariat" and the solutions are in community and support, not Social Darwinism.

4. Community organizing is key.  Eitan Hersh has authored a book, Politics Is for Power, excerpted in The Atlantic, "College-Educated Voters Are Ruining American Politics: Political hobbyism is to public affairs what watching SportsCenter is to playing football." He distinguishes between talking and thinking about politics versus community organizing. (I guess I am part of the problem. I am less personally involved in issues these days, and more about analysis and prognostication. But there's a need for that too.)

5. A December article ("How to Turn Anger and Fear Into Political Power: Latinos in Arizona can show how it’s done") in the New York Times about Latino organizing in Arizona, aptly illustrates Hersh's point.

6. Lessons from Vietnam era politics.  John Judis has a piece in the Washington Post Magazine, "I was a '60s socialist. Today's progressives are in danger of repeating my generation's mistakes," arguing the flip side of Geohagen in terms of mistakes the left is making now in terms of building a coalition and narrative and approach that can win national elections.

7. Opportunities at the scale of the city.  The Guardian has an article ("The case for ... truly taking back control – by reversing the privatisation of our cities") on "remunicipalization," as a response to privatization of government services.

8.  The middle class isn't always liberal.  An op-ed in the New York Times, "The Myth of Middle-Class Liberalism," makes the point that historical interpretation arguing that the middle class always sparks progressivism and "enlightenment" isn't accurate, that when times are tough, liberals can "do the wrong thing.  I agree somewhat.

When society and the economy was growing, it was forward looking and the middle class, involved in doing, was open to change.  Now that things are more of a zero sum game--it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but it is when certain groups aim to game the system to maintain their position and privileges, the middle class is worried about the future, and no longer confident it can withstand change or has enough resources so that it is inclined to share.