Tag: politics

A Political Dilemma

~ Clarissa ~ 52 Comments

In this country, there is no political force that believes both in individual freedom and individual responsibility.

One party wants to police the choices you make in your personal life, while the other one wants to police your bank account and the way you do your work.

One wants to control what you do in bed, while another one wants to control what you do outside of it.

One condescends to you by dictating to you how you should conduct your personal life, the other one condescends to you by telling you how you should do everything else.

One wants to “protect” you from your personal choices because you are supposed to be too stupid to live with their consequences. The other one wants to do the same for your actions in the public sphere.

Both sides see us as victims and try to convince us of our victimhood so that we would embrace them as our saviors.

Psychological health entails a capacity to act independently and successfully in the private and in the public sphere, at home and at work. (“Loving and working without fear and expectation of fear.”) To offer full support to either party we have in the US, you have to relinquish control over one of these spheres to the all-powerful entity that will dictate your options to you.

I listen to reasonable, intelligent Conservatives, and what they are saying makes a lot of sense to me in many ways. But then they start on their “right religion / wrong religion, good sexual orientation / bad sexual orientation, good family structure / bad family structure, I-know-best-what-you-should-do-with-your-body” thing, and I lose all interest immediately.

So I go back to Liberals, and what they are saying makes a lot of sense. But then they start on their “we are all conditioned to be victims so check your privilege you overentitled elitist snob who thinks that we have some degree of control over our lives”, and I just wilt.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot decide whether “If you are unemployed, it’s always 100% your fault” is more offensive than “If you are miserable it’s always 100% somebody else’s fault.” I don’t know whether “If he’s got no insurance, then let him die” is more wrong than “She only managed to become so successful because of her white, hetero, male, Anglo privilege. Oh, she is a lesbian Latina? Then, surely she must have some other privileges by the bucketful.”

One of these political philosophies vilifies failure and worships success. The other one vilifies success and “privileges” failure. But what if you experience both on a regular basis? That is, what if you are human? What if you want to own both of your failures and your successes without being ashamed of them? Then who do you vote for? (And if somebody says Ron Paul, I will have to ridicule them in a very harsh way. Just a fair warning.)

Margaret Thatcher: A Semi-Open Thread

~ Clarissa ~ 52 Comments

I have no opinion on Margaret Thatcher, folks. Isn’t that refreshing? For once, I have no opinion. Which is why I will now ask you, my readers, to help me form one.

When Thatcher was in power, I lived in the Soviet Union. We all worshiped Thatcher. At least, everybody I knew (including my parents and their friends) did. She was a powerful woman, beautiful, poised, and also extremely strong. Culturally, we respond very well to that. We knew that she was pro-free markets and pro-capitalism. In the Soviet Union, we didn’t know what capitalism really was. We just knew that being in favor of it made you a really good person, and being against it made you one of those bastards who kept us in perennial poverty in our own country.

I was visiting the UK at the moment when Thatcher had just been replaced by John Major. To my intense surprise, I discovered that the people who I was staying with in Birmingham and then in Kent were not as into Thatcher (I’m putting this very mildly) as I had imagined every British person to be.  In this sense, Thatcher seemed to have a lot in common with Mikhail Gorbachev. He was also adored abroad and disliked at home.

The nice Brits who opened their homes to me and who railed against Thatcher destroying the economy and plunging the country into dire poverty were a doctor and a nurse on the one hand and a CEO for Range Rover on the other. To a Soviet teenager like myself, their lifestyle seemed princely (and it still does, to be honest), so I found it hard to process the idea that British economy was in dire straits. (I was 14, OK? How smart were you at that age, eh?). As a result, I became very confused on the subject of Thatcher and I still am.

So what say you, people? Are we in favor or against Margaret Thatcher and why?

P.S. See how I can write a post on the subject where I don’t even have an opinion? This is the secret of my blogging success.

Lukewarm Elections That Await Us

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

The Liberals in this country, for the most part, entertain very tepid feelings towards President Obama. Most will vote for him because the alternative is even less appealing.

The Conservatives aren’t wildly enthusiastic about Mitt Romney, either. (I think we can all agree that Romney will be the Republican nominee, can’t we?) Every Conservative analysis I have recently read has concentrated on the idea that the Right needs to support Romney to prevent Obama from getting re-elected. (Here is an example.) As the we have seen, the Conservatives have been searching hard for an alternative to Romney and failing to encounter one. The Conservative attitude towards Romney can be summarized as, “Well, I guess I’ll support him if there is nothing better. . .”

The reason why Obama is not making Progressives flock passionately to his support is that – let’s just be honest about it, OK? – he did not live up to his promise that we all saw in him on the night when the election results were announced in 2008. I haven’t been able to get over him appointing Summers and Geithner to repair our broken economy, and I don’t think I ever will get over it.

The reason why Conservatives aren’t passionate about supporting Romney – even though he is the only real chance they have to beat Obama – is, in my opinion, his grievous lack of charisma. Every time I see him, he reminds me of John Kerry. Kerry said all the right things but could one really get excited over him?

This is going to be an election where people will come to the polls unenthusiastically and support a candidate for the simple reason that the alternative is even worse. In such a big country as this one, don’t you think we could do better? And by “we” I mean all of us.

Contempt for Human Beings as a Political Stance

~ Clarissa ~ 42 Comments

Have you noticed how much certain Liberals despise people? Here is a very vivid example provided by somebody who was incensed at my review of Frank’s Pity the Billionaire:

The argument that we should blame people for taking a loan that’s shoved in their face I find to be disigenuous. We all have a dream of home ownership. These loans were hawked by those who simply wanted to pass them off. I don’t believe the Tea Party argument deserves any credibility whatsoever. OF COURSE people will snap them up. Who can resist the “Free” Market. The Tea party notion that it’s ACORN’s fault that we had the housing collapse is utterly absurd, yet that is what this argument implies and it is completely and utterly false on every ground. Stop blaming the victims. If someone wants to sell something for free….they’ll find buyers.

See how this commenter despises his fellow human beings? If a loan is “shoved into your face”, there is absolutely no way you will be able to exercise your good judgment and make a rational decision not to take it. People are like dogs who “snap up” any old bone that you throw to them. They are as incapable as dogs of seeing that there is a piece of string tied to the bone, a piece of string that will drag them right to the slaughter-house.

This commenter sees people as “victims.” They fall into the category of a victim simply because they exist. You are born human? You are victim! From now on, pseudo-Liberals of this ilk will keep harping on the idea that you are not responsible for anything that happens to you. Buy a lot of useless garbage, take on loans it is mathematically impossible for you even to begin paying off, screw up your life in every possible way? Don’t worry, there is always some pseudo-Liberal out there to tell you how the helpless, pathetic little you is not responsible for anything.

Of course, Conservatives despise people, too. Just like many Liberals don’t believe that human beings are capable of being in charge of their own finances, the Conservatives can’t deal with the suggestion that humans can manage their own bodies without the guidance of politicians and religious leaders.

As I shared recently on this blog, I got into debt when I was a student. This created all kinds of problems for me (the debt is in Canada, I’m here, paying Canadian debts from an American bank account is extremely complicated, etc.). This entire issue tortured me for years. But if somebody told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I was a victim, that I couldn’t have been expected to resist the credit line that was “shoved into my face”, that I didn’t have a choice but to “snap it up”, I’d be as insulted as I am when I see politicians who try to police my uterus.

I am an adult. I am completely and totally responsible for my finances and my body. I manage them the way I see fit. And anybody who wants to dispute that responsibility is a person who despises me and infantilizes me. And I don’t respond well to that.

So here we are stuck between two political groups, both of which cannot bear the idea that human beings should have the right to make their own decisions and bear responsibility for them. Both Conservatives and Liberals often proceed from nothing but contempt for others.

We keep hearing about how this country is torn politically between two opposing camps. I used to think that, too. However, the more I observe this country’s Liberals and Conservatives (or, at least, the most vocal representatives of these groups), the more I am convinced that any differences between them are merely superficial.

P.S. Another pseudo-Liberal in the same thread just had the gall to compare the irresponsible borrowers to slaves or rape victims:

That mentality where the victim is made to believe that he/she is at fault for the predicament they are in is evidence of mental subjugation comparable to that of the slave or the rape victim.

What did I say about contempt?

Why I Like the Russian Protests More Than the #OWS

~ Clarissa ~ 12 Comments

I don’t think that the protests in Russia are going to achieve anything major in the nearest future. Putin is still going to win the next Presidential “elections” in Russia. Even if the elections are not falsified (which, as we all realize, is not likely), he will still win. Most people still like him (these are the folks who don’t read newspapers or blogs and only watch official pro-Putin channels on television). Besides, there is no opposition to speak of at the moment.

If we are to see any tangible results of the Russian protests, we will have to wait for a few years. It will take a while for viable opposition forces to emerge and produce their own leaders.

Still, I am a lot more enthusiastic about the Russian protests than I am about the #OWS. These are both middle-class movements. However, the peaceful Russian revolution of 2011 never pretended to be what it wasn’t. Its participants calmly explain in interviews, on their blogs and social networks that they are comfortably off, well-to-do, middle-class folks who are fed up with how their country is run. They don’t beg anybody for compassion. And they don’t regale us with stories of how they have wonderful, comfortable, debt-free lives but still “live in bated breath” because of some imaginary disasters. Most importantly, there is no swapping of tales of personal woe and misery that the #OWS protesters enjoy so much and that, more often than not, are inflated dramatically. For obvious reasons, the religious vocabulary that bothers me so much at the #OWS is also absent among Russian political agitators of the moment.

The Russian protesters say that they want to be in charge of their country’s politics. They talk about democracy, the voting system, the ways in which the currently existing parties are flawed, the way the budget is structured, the reasons why they are disappointed with Putin, the ways they evaluate the history of their country over the past 20 years. I have not read a single account, blog post, newspaper article, interview, etc. where a protester would plunge into a tale of his or her debts, employment history, educational achievements, sickness, marriages, etc. as part of his or her analysis of the political situation.

As we all know, personal is political. The way we live our lives is intimately connected to our politics. However, it would be a mistake to turn this statement around and say that political is personal. When politics becomes nothing but a bunch of personal narratives, we end up with a political reality where people elect presidents on the basis of their attractions as beer-drinking buddies, politicians’ personal lives matter a lot more than their policies, and a candidate’s success is defined by whether she can cry on cue or whether he bowls well. Only too often, the #OWS protesters approach the political arena as if it were a stage for a reality TV show, a place where personal dramas are to be aired for no other purpose than to allow an Oprahesque unburdening of emotions to occur.

Another reason why I prefer Russian protests to the #OSW is that the Russian protesters do not attempt to pretend they are proletarians when, in reality, they are middle-class folks. The vogue of brandishing fake working-class credentials is associated in Russia with the decades of the Communist regime. This is why nowadays people see nothing shameful in being financially comfortable.

The #OWS protesters, however, are tortured with middle-class guilt. This is why their “we are all in the same boat” slogans sound so hollow. I remember how my union organizer tried to convince me that he and I did not differ in any way from a truck-driver. At that time, he and I were students at one of the most prestigious grad schools in the world. We had great medical insurance, only had to teach for 50 minutes a day, and rarely woke up before noon. Unlike my union organizer, I hadn’t been born rich, so I didn’t feel any need to mask the silver spoon in my mouth by claiming I knew anything about the reality of truck-drivers.

This is, however, precisely what the #OWS does. Its middle-class participants mask their middle-class concerns behind the rhetoric of fake solidarity with the dispossessed. They self-righteously compete in producing stories of misery because they seem to believe that only misery entitles you to an opinion and to activism.

When the Russian protesters talk about their participation in the revolutionary movement, they always begin by explaining how they are entitled to be in charge of their country because of their success in running their lives, careers, companies, blogs, bank accounts, etc. The #OWS protesters, on the other hand, proudly claim failure as their chief qualification for the role of political activists.

Thomas Frank’s Pity the Billionaire: A Review, Part I

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

I’m a huge fan of Thomas Frank. His What’s the Matter With Kansas was absolutely brilliant. Since I discovered that great book, I’ve been following his articles and interviews and eagerly awaiting his new book.  You can just imagine how happy I was when I got the chance to read the proofs of his Pity the Billionaire, a book that analyzes the reasons behind the rise of the Tea Party movement. The book strives to answer the crucial question: how is it possible that the Americans’ response to the global economic crisis that happened as a result of unbridled free market practices led them to form a movement that would defend the free market rather than to a movement that would ask for regulations?

The book, however, turned out to be a massive disappointment. Frank’s trademark wit is gone. Aside from a few forced jokes, the book is written in a plodding, unimaginative style that I had no idea this author was even capable of.

His analysis of the “right renaissance” is also unimpressive. People who have been reading my blog for a while know that I’m no fan of the Tea Party. Still, I have to recognize that Frank is being intellectually dishonest in his characterization of the Tea Partiers. For instance, he blames them for the apocalyptic tone they often adopt and the doomsday scenarios they enjoy generating. This, however, is not a distinctive trait of just the Tea Partiers. It is just as present among the Progressives. The Liberal blogs I read are filled to the brim with endless apocalyptic scenarios. By the way, Slavoj Zizek’s 2009 book is titled Living in the End Times. You don’t get either more apocalyptic or more progressive than that.

Another fault that Frank ascribes to the Tea Partiers is that they erase the class distinctions and see no difference between a share-cropper and a small-business owner. Does this remind you of anything, by any chance? Yes, right you are, the #Occupy movement that lumps everybody who is not a billionaire into the imaginary downtrodden 99%.

Frank then proceeds to blame the Tea Party for its rhetoric of self-pity:

[They] advance their war on the world by means of a tearful weepy-woo. Self-pity has become central in the consciousness of the resurgent Right. Depicting themselves as victimized in any and every sitiation . . . is essential to their self-understanding.

Again, #OWS, anyone? Remember this statement from a prof with no debt, a house of his own and a wonderful life, who wallows in self-pity because his life is so complicated and anxiety devours him? So why do the Tea Partiers get blamed for their weepy-woo while Liberals don’t?

[To be continued. . .]

Answering Questions About the Protests in Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

People are sending in questions and finding the blog through online searches about the protests in Russia. I decided to answer these questions in a separate post since there seems to be so much interest.

1. Are the Russian protests inspired by the #OSW?

– The answer is no. Absolutely not. And the tendency to explain things happening in other countries through what goes on in one’s own is never a productive strategy. The protests in Russia have nothing to do with the economy. I have not seen or heard of a single economic demand coming from the protesters in any of the sources in Russia I have been following during the recent events. The people who protest in Russia are members of the middle and the upper-middle class. One of their leaders is a billionaire who became famous for proposing 12-hour work days for his employees. The other leaders are very rich people, too. These are folks who have made enough money not to be seduced by the small amounts Putin pays to his fake supporters. Most of the protesters are comfortable enough financially to afford to have a civic consciousness.

If anything, the Russian protests follow in the footsteps of the Orange tradition started by Ukraine several years ago. Of course, the fiercely anti-Ukrainian Russians will never recognize this but we’ve seen similar protests take place in Ukraine in 2004-5 when the results of the elections were falsified and people took to the streets to reclaim their right to vote for whomever they want.

The protesters in Ukraine won. Their brothers and sisters in Russia are not likely to win.

2. Have the falsifications during the recent elections been greater than during the previous elections?

– Again, absolutely not. The elections were always falsified in really egregious ways and everybody knew about that. Nothing changed about the elections except the voters. They are not interested in sitting by patiently while their votes are being stolen any more. It took a while but finally people are slowly waking up to the idea that corruption is not OK. At least, when it is indulged in by people other than themselves.

3. What is the future of the protest movement in Russia?

– It pains me to say so, but the future of the protests looks grim right now. The people of Russia need a strong leader (or a group of leaders.) Historically, they have always needed a leader to worship and detest at the same time. There are no strong, effective leaders in the country today. The so-called opposition consists of sad, pathetic, out-of-touch remnants of the Soviet-time dissident movement and a couple of politicians who have squandered their political capital through decades of impotence and uselessness. None of them is a match for Putin in terms of effectiveness and strength.

I have a feeling that the protests are fizzling out already. Of course, this is one area where I’d really like to be mistaken. I will keep updating my readers on the developments in Russia.

I welcome any other questions on this subject. Most of the information on the Russian protests that I’m seeing in North American media is complete and utter junk.

Who Is a Bigger Threat: Iran or Russia?

~ Clarissa ~ 28 Comments

Now that I have my Kindle Fire, I use it to listen to radio stations from all over the world. Once, I decided to listen to the Echo of Moscow, the radio station that is considered to be the most progressive and anti-government station in Russia.

I tuned into a show that had already been going on for a while and was immediately transported back into 1982.

“The US wants to destroy us,” the host and the interviewees were agreeing. “They will not rest until they exterminate every Russian in existence. The very raison d’être of the Americans is to destroy Russia. They care about nothing else. And, of course, now that the US is so poor, they envy us our wealth and our empire. They have no future, while we are becoming the new world power.”

I thought, at first, that this was a broadcast of an old program from the times of the Cold War. Then, however, I heard a reference to President Obama (who also seems to hate Russians with a vengeance, according to this radio show) and realized that the program was contemporary.

A little later, a guest of the show suggested that Americans import their stupid Hollywood movies to prevent the Russians from procreating as much as they could. At that point, I had to go to class, so I missed what I’m sure was a fascinating explanation of how Hollywood movies mess with the procreation of Russians. Remember, that the hysteria of “we are not procreating enough and will be overtaken by more rapidly procreating races” is going on at full strength in Russia.

The anti-American rhetoric is promoted at every level of Russia’s hierarchy of power. On Sunday, the elections to the Russian parliament (the Duma) took place. The results of the elections were egregiously falsified. Responsible citizens who acted as observers at the voting polls were intimidated, threatened with being fired from their jobs, assaulted, and beaten. The falsifications were so shameless that even the people of Russia (who are mostly disinterested in political activism) took to the streets in protest.

Protests took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Police dispersed the protests brutally.

Yesterday, Putin gave his first public speech about the protests. And you know who is to blame for the protests, according to Putin? The officials of his party who organized the massive falsifications of the votes? The citizens of Russia who don’t know their place and dare to believe that democracy in Russia is possible? No, of course not. The real evildoer here is. . . Hillary Clinton who, according to Putin, organized the protests:

Putin said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had encouraged “mercenary” Kremlin foes by criticizing the vote.

“She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work,” Putin told supporters.

And you know what is really sad? The protesters are a very small minority. Most people in Russia will be very happy to believe that everything is great and that the bad, evil Americans engineered the protests against the honest and truly democratic elections in Russia. They will believe that Hillary Clinton gave signals to the protesters because they are all paid lackeys of American imperialism, rather than responsible, engaged citizens.

There are many discussions going on about Iran right now. Will Iran become a nuclear power? What will happen when it does?

Nobody wants to talk about Russia, though. Russia is already a huge nuclear power. It is also a country that owns a lot of oil and natural gas, has a huge population, cannot be defeated militarily, and is consumed by a huge bout of anti-Western hysteria.

Western politicians have been bamboozled by the empty talk about democracy and the end of the Cold War that Russia has been offering for two decades. This is all a sham, though. The Cold War continues. And I have no doubt that the side to lose this war will be the one that refuses to recognize that the war goes on.

Students on #OWS Protests

~ Clarissa ~ 29 Comments

We were discussing Spain’s Indignados movement today and, of course, I simply couldn’t resist asking my students what they thought about the #Occupy protests.

Here are their responses:

“What’s #Occupy Wall Street?”

“Never heard of it.”

“I’m opposed because they are all corrupt.”

“I’m in favor because they want to stop the corruption in the government.”

“I’m in favor because they want to stick it to the big corporations.”

“I’m opposed because they keep whining how they are in debt. And if they took out all those credit cards to buy stuff, that’s their own fault.”

“They are OK, I guess.”

“Oh, that’s all just silly. I have no patience for those people.”

“I don’t care. I have more important things to think about.”

“Boooorrrrring!!”

The other 55 students valiantly resisted my efforts to elicit their opinions on the subject. Many smiled enigmatically. I believe they didn’t want to share what they think because I made it impossible for them to guess what I thought of the #OWS.

And that’s a shame because I don’t grade on political opinions.

How Many People Voted in the Russian Elections Yesterday?

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

Can anybody guess which percentage of the population participated in the elections to the Russian Parliament (the Duma) in Rostov area?

A little over 146%! (The link is in Russian, but you can still see the numbers and add them up for yourself.) This is true civic consciousness for you. Here we barely get 60% of the population to vote while in Russia more voters come to the polls than actually live in the area.

This is either a case ofDead Souls immortalized by the great Russian writer Gogol, or the ruling party of Russia has become even more shameless than it used to be.