Talking About Revolutions
It started in their younger years, Sanders, chose to move to Vermont and ponder the revolution, Clinton, entered Law School and started a life of social justice via reform and our democratic system. I remember that divide in the seventies, I faced the same choices. I chose the Clinton path. How to bring social and economic justice within the democratic system we have. To accept the victories and defeats. To commit our entire lives.
Did I and Clinton think that it would happen overnight? Did we imagine that it would be easy and we would win everything we wanted? No, that is not how democracy works. It’s a struggle that is life long. It’s a struggle that will bring despair, frustration and some joys. But, that is what people like Hillary and I chose. But early on, we knew the price of a revolution and I never had the stomach to demand my world vision at any cost. Was I willing to demand continuous victory over the others? No, because I was never willing to compromise the democratic process.
The path to revolution assumes that you can impose on a nation radical change. This radical change assumes that you have a majority of the people with you and that somehow the other side will not resist. The other side will succumb to your will because your will is the right one for your nation. Sure, revolutions have passion, fervor and zeal. But, they are short lived and divisive. When the other side resists, and it will, how will you deal with them and sustain the vision of the revolution? Revolutions are not sustainable, democracies are.
To choose revolution you have to commit that your path is so right, so noble that you will defeat the others with all the means necessary — yes, I love Malcolm X. You have to assume that the legislative and judicial system will submit to your vision in unison. Revolution does not submit to small victories. Revolution needs true believers. People who will with a stern hand impose their agenda. Because, the minute you compromise, the minute you accept small victories, you will have a counter revolution from the new “truer believers” of the revolution.
In the 2016 American Presidential election I hear talk of two revolutions, one from the left, Bernie Sanders and from the right, Donald Trump. Each of these sides has no appetite for the drudgery of democracy. They have no stomach for the compromisers. They have no patience with the small incremental changes within our existing system. They want to topple all the injustice in one election and they promise that the day after their election, the vision will transform all the injustices, all the pain and bring their vision into fruition. ( If it offends you that I put Trump and Sanders in one comparison, then I am sorry, but they both offer revolutions without compromise).
Of course, they all imagine that the table will be clean of the opposition. That the opposition will fall in their knees and abide by their vision. If I point that out, I am called a compromising defeatist. It’s a lie. It’s a lie that the revolution will fix everything. It’s a lie that I am a defeatist and anti ideals. If people like me and Hillary Clinton had no ideals, how would we survive life long commitmtent to social and economic justice?
The truth is that only drudgery of wins and losses, only the mess of the democratic process can we protect our nation from becoming a failed ungovernable state of factions and sectarians who demand absolute victory and defeat of the “other.”
The Sanders faction, which I encounter on a daily basis, has that revolutionary passion. They imagine, like the priest in the Greek Orthodox and Catholic church, the host will via the power of the priest transform into the body of christ: Transubstantiation. Revolutionaries like people of faith, must believe that their “cause” will convert the others into their side, because after all, they are doing it for their “salvation”.
Trump and Sanders are the sole visionaries of their respective revolutions. It’s not even as if both these men produced a manifesto, or a political party with cadre of co-leaders, it is just them. They are lone wolves who have convinced large numbers of people that their vision, their revolution will unite the nation and cure all the ills their faction finds in the current state of America.
So, the respective followers of Trump and Sanders have painted us who don’t find that certain bliss in the men they chose into demonic caricatures worthy of scorn and ridicule. Consequently, the heavy handed bullying in social media. I will not bother with the epithets that have been hurled at me from both factions, but it’s worth mentioning that they take the same form: misogyny, triumphalism, demonization, ridicule, jingoism.
In order to elevate the leaders of their revolution, they have to destroy the opponents and the supporters of the opponents. They coddle their titular leaders and dismiss any and all criticism of the person and the methods they prescribe for the revolution.
If you point out the pittfalls of revolutions, you will be accused of infantilizing them and diminishing their passion.
I am not infantilizing you, your chosen revolutionaries are infantilizing you into a promise that is not possible if you want to sustain the democracy in it’s tattered state. Because, even this tattered democracy, is better than any revolution with not very convincing leaders and a cadre of true believers.
Hillary Clinton’s original and current path, of working within the system to change the system is the path I choose if you do not want to submit to sectarianism and the pitffalls of revolutions. It’s a compromise, yes, but if you can make the lives of people and families of all types and hues better through incremental changes then that is what we can say we are proud in our struggle. Of course there should be robust opposition to make demands and to keep everyone honest. Democratic slow change, needs robust opposition, but it cannot survive revolutions, velvet or violent.
The political struggle should not be to sustain the revolution or it’s leader, the struggle should be to fix the society we live in; to correct the injustices; to have a life long diligence that does not end with one vote, one leader, one revolution.
You cannot eviscerate the others in your society and impose your world view. The fight is against passivity and avoidance of the daily struggle that is democracy. I never chose revolution because I do not believe you can eviscerate the other side through democracy, only violence, repression and suppresion. And I would never choose that path.
So, if we are talking about revolutions, count me out. Oligarchy, patriarchy, authoritarianism, plutocracy, suck. But revolutions suck as well, because they are not sustainable. Democracy, with all it’s failings, is a lifelong commitment that you cannot pass on to elected officials, inspirational figures, or political parties. You have to choose to be political, or an “idiot”, the ancient Greek word for apolitical person who is just for themselves.
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Examples of the two styles:
Here is a case of the two styles with the lead poisoning in Flint.
Clinton knew what was needed, how to do it and how to bring help to the people affected. Part of her comments during the Rachel Maddow interview on January 2014
CLINTON: Well, I`m very pleased that FEMA is trying to do what it
can there. In speaking with the congressional delegation, Senator
Stabenow, Congressman Kildee and others, they`re trying figure out how
they`re going to get enough funding so that kids can be tested, adults too,
but let`s focus on the kids because that`s where the real damage is. This
is infuriating to me. I did a lot of work on trying to get rid of lead in
residential housing in Upstate New York. I care deeply about this issue.
We know it has an affects on behavior and educational attainment.So, we need to test kids. We need to provide quickly whatever health
care they can get, whatever antidote is possible, and we need a fund for
education, because some of these kids, if they`ve been too exposed, the
damage may be irreversible. And we`re going to have to do more to help
them actually learn.MADDOW: And you think there`s a federal role on that? You say we —
CLINTON: I think there is a federal role. I would make it a federal
role.Right now, as best I can understand, the governor, the Republican
governor, Governor Snyder, is refusing to ask for the triggering of the
federal help that he needs in order to take care of the people who are his
constituents.I am just outraged by this. I find it, you know — lead is one of
the most pernicious, horrible, toxins that kids are exposed to, and that
has such serious long lasting effects on their behavior and their learning.I would be doing everything I could, and I would be expecting
everybody in a position of authority to do the same. Let`s find out how
much it`s going to cost to fix the infrastructure problem. I think finally
the governor called on the National Guard, deliver water, do what you can
to at least avoid further harm.
She sees the current needs, the future needs, the commitment necessary to help the people of Flint.
“And I think the governor has got to take the responsibility and say, ‘You know what, my administration was absolutely negligent and a result of that negligence, many children may suffer for the rest of their lives and the right thing to do is to resign,’” Sanders said in a telephone interview from Vermont.
The demand was for the political capitulation of the opponent. To what end, we know that will not happen. It offers no relief to the people of Flint. Precisely because of this perspective, Clinton takes an action towards serving the people, Sanders makes a political posture that in the end does not serve anyone other than him, the Governor and their respective factions. That was his gut reaction coming from a life long choice of political aggression.
