Originally published 2006
“In the imagination of man exist the seeds of all moral and scientific improvement; chemistry was first alchemy, and out of astrology sprang astronomy. In the childhood of those sciences the imagination opened a way, and furnished materials, on which the ratiocinative powers in a maturer state operated with success. The imagination is the distinguishing characteristic of man as a progressive being; and I repeat that it ought to be carefully guided and strengthened as the indispensable means and instrument of continued amelioration and refinement.” from The Education of Children by S.T. Coleridge
As bloggers begin to influence public opinion in politics– the blog format has also influenced the look and feel of newspapers online, such as the NYT– we witness the birth of a new form of pamphleteering, a method of communicating with the ‘people’ that has it’s roots, on this continent, in the small and influential pamphlets of Thomas Paine at the time of the American Revolution. Pamphlets were ways to bypass the editorial control of newspapers and communicate directly with the common man, a secularization of Jesus’ teaching that the people did not need the priests to pray to god– this could be done directly, without having to buy a little animal to sacrifice in order for God to listen. Today’s newspapers and media are as much a form of control as the Pharisees were in biblical times. In today’s SF Gate.com there is article about the Connecticut primary and the “netroots” movement (netroots is a term used to describe a ‘growing liberal political force’ of bloggers and online organizers) and how it may have affected the primary.
The word ‘progressive’ is used twice in the article. The first time it is used to describe the Moveon organization as an ‘online progressive hub;’ the second is a quote about netroots, ‘”Netroots is just a tiny subset of the broader progressive movement.” The Oxford English Dictionary has a slew of definitions for progressive, but it is only in the fourth entry that politics enters the picture:
Favouring, advocating, or directing one’s efforts towards progress or reform, esp. in political, municipal, or social matters.
To call Moveon progressive is like calling George Bush liberal. The Moveon organization is a manipulative p.r. machine interested in promoting itself and it’s own centrist politics. In the 2004 election, Moveon spent money, time, and bandwidth slandering Ralph Nader, a candidate that can be considered progressive. The concert tour Vote For Change, which raised money for Moveon, was booked and conceived by a bunch of ultra successful bands coming together way too late to the funeral of the Democratic Party, while thinking they were raising money for it’s new liver. All mediocre analogies aside, the point is: what is considered progressive by the media is really a bunch of ‘activists’ and politicians who like to play it safe. Where were these people when the senate was voting to support the war in Iraq? I know this is old news, but after watching West Virginia senator Robert Bird speak to a room full of people who treated him like a man in his dotage, I have not been able to get the bitter taste out of my mouth. And to have actively campaigned against the war, before it started, to have witnessed the total lack of interest in the truth which everyone totes around like ipods, as if they have always been against the war leaves me without words. If something is progressive in this country you can bet it will be at best belittled by the media, if not ignored.
If political bloggers believe that they are making changes, so be it. It has been the opinion of yamgruel.net since it’s inception that no politics will help us now. A system cannot work with humans who do not work. And as we are still reeling from the Enlightenment, from the mechanistic Cartesian model, swinging from the Newtonian noose, we are far from being all the Humans we can be, so to speak. Our view of ourselves as separate from one another and separate from the rest of the world and separate from the natural world is the issue. Until we address our image of ourselves there will be no change. We will continue to ride the carousel of our destructive self image.
In an article from Counterpunch.org written by John Walsh he mentions how Moveon did not want to talk about the war because it wanted to focus on a ‘positive agenda.’ He cites a series of conversations with a woman at Moveon:
I asked her why there was no mention of the war. I pointed out that a clear and ever growing majority of voters were for that. And I informed her that Karl Rove essentially conceded that the war was Bush’s Achilles heel. So if MoveOn wanted to defeat the Bushies, why not raise the war? Silence came over her. She then said, as if recalling something, that opposition to the war was “negative” and we had to have a “positive” agenda. I asked whether “Bring all the troops home now. Peace now.” would amount to a “positive agenda.” Silence. She did call the national office for me, but they had nothing to say in response.
I opened this post with a quote from S.T. Coleridge. He aligns the word progressive with the imagination, something lacking in this age of technology. Keats once wrote in a letter to Shelley, “My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.” May we all become monks and remember where all systems are born. Amen.
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