Part 38 of Prisoners of the Real
The main function of news media is the communication of information and ideas. Since their public nature is also widely accepted, it is reasonable to conclude that most individual speech via these media isn't inherently intrusive. Furthermore, both print and electronic news media describe their work as disseminating information and viewpoints that are necessary for self-government. Approaches may vary, from reprinting press statements to investigating corruption. Still, all news media enterprises capitalize on the image that they reflect the mood, sentiments, and activities of the public. And most of the time they depend on members of the public as their primary sources. In fact, without the public, what would there be to report?
In short, with the exception of C-Span and noncommercial radio, US news media are mainly private enterprises with an essentially public function. The issue is whether and how they can be made more available to a wide variety of speakers. As long as the presence of more participants doesn't prevent them from performing their basic functions it is certainly a valid question to ask.
Broadening access to quasi-public forums is clearly consistent with the spirit of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The real issue is whether it's possible. As every student is told, Congress is prohibited from abridging freedom of speech and of the press. It is not prevented, however, from taking affirmative steps to enhance the ability of individuals to gain access to public forums. This need not mean that the rights of "listeners" conflict with the rights of the press as "speakers." Instead, we can simply guarantee that individual speech isn’t snuffed out because powerful media owners arbitrarily decide that only they, their employees or their friends deserve access.
The idea that government can take action to insure relative equality in the ideas marketplace was explored in the 1972 Supreme Court case, Police Department of the City of Chicago v. Mosely. In that case, a man who had been picketing peacefully near a school to protest discrimination sought to overrule a city ordinance that prohibited picketing within 150 feet during classes – unless the pickets were involved in a labor dispute.
The case posed this question: What is the relationship between equality and the First Amendment? Noting that the ordinance was a form of censorship based on subject matter, Justice Marshall wrote, "Above all else the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." He went on to say that the principle involved was "equality of status in the field of ideas."
Chicago v. Mosely set out two complementary aspects of access to public forums. It prohibited government from judging the content of speech, and provided ground rules for channeling expression based on "time, place and manner restrictions." In other words, any decision to exclude speakers should be the minimum necessary. For example, if a community wanted to protect its children by restricting TV advertising on Saturday mornings, theoretically it could do so if the action was proven to be the "least means" of reducing the exposure of young people to socially destructive messages. Although the Court has found it difficult to set clear boundaries for access, the concepts of "least means" and "content neutrality" do provide a basis for setting limits on corporate and personal speech.
The issue is not whether the message makes a significant contribution to self-government. Rather, this approach assumes that all messages are valid expressions of individual autonomy, contributing to the speaker's sense of self-worth. Media managers can set time, place and manner restrictions – rules dealing with length, distribution throughout the day or the publication, and repetition. Communication can even be barred at certain times, as long as the decision doesn’t discriminate based on content.
Such access to dominant public forums could be called freedom of "amplified speech." In practical terms, it would mean expanded citizen access to newspapers, compensating for the virtually unlimited access afforded to corporations and other large institutions. The rights of reporters and editors – society's "informed speakers" – would be brought into balance with the rights of non-journalists, possibly even enhancing the role of the press in checking abuses of power.
Electronic media would have the right to impose restrictions, but these would have to apply equally to wealthy and poor speakers, to those with views that agree with the owners and those with ideas they oppose. For the cable industry, freedom of amplified speech obviously involves access to a channel and equipment for anyone who wanted it. The articulate and technically knowledgeable will have an advantage at first, but experience tends to reduce such disparities over time.
In each case, the right applies only to individuals, since freedom of expression is fundamentally a personal right and freedom of the press really means the right of citizens to use various means of communication without prior restraint. Under this approach, institutions wouldn't be prohibited from issuing messages and opinions, but their speech should receive no special protection or treatment.
This ultimately leads to the big question: who decides? Hopefully, the speakers themselves or their communities would make most of the choices. Every person has the basic right to choose when to speak, whether, and about what. Participation should never be compulsory. On the other hand, the gates of a public forum shouldn't be locked when someone wants to use it. Relying again on the "least means" test, most disputes can be resolved at the local level.
Such solutions will usually be less expensive and time consuming. When local action is impractical, however, the next level of government will have to intervene. The goal is to find the way to leave future options open, in the community, across the nation, and around the world.
If individuals and communities are to assert such rights, a new form of literacy must be cultivated. The right to self-expression will have little value unless the message can be effectively conveyed. This is a complex social issue, growing out of the technological revolution of the late 20th century, and must be addressed by all our institutions, particularly schools. Working as enablers (another word we may want to reclaim from its negative definition), along with local government and educational organizations, media institutions can be instrumental in developing a citizenry with the capacity for full self-expression.
If young people are to become effective and self-regulated speakers, if they are going to develop a sense of self-worth and make meaningful contributions to a self-governing society, media literacy must be an intrinsic part of their education. This area of study should go beyond how to use computers and handheld devices, including a critical awareness of the role mass communication plays in society, as well as effective techniques of speaking, writing, programming, and visual presentation, and an understanding of how media affect opinion formation and the democratic process. If access to the "ideas" marketplace is to be meaningful, skill development and critical understanding must start at an early age.
Interpreting political rights from the standpoint of autonomy also requires a balance of negative and affirmative aspects. Speech is usually considered a negative right; that is, a restriction on government's ability to restrain communication by the people or the press. Any fair analysis of contemporary problems, however, will reveal that the threat today is not mainly government but instead the manipulation of media and mass perceptions by giant institutions with enormous economic and information power at their disposal. Protecting free speech therefore requires affirmative action to re-open the marketplace of ideas. Failure to fulfill this responsibility leaves the power to inform and, ultimately, to censor and control in the hand of a few private interests.
Although news media claim special rights due to their important public function, they normally deny that they have a responsibility to keep their doors open. In the face of such hypocrisy, intervention is sorely needed if the right of self-expression is to have any real meaning in the years ahead.
The survival of a free society depends ultimately on the actions of self-governing people. But people can’t manage their society, or their own lives, if they lack the sense of dignity that comes from exercising the right of self-expression. No government can guarantee democracy. No business can manufacture it. And the media can’t sell it. The best any of them can do is to keep the door open. If they just do that, the vast potential of humanity will take care of the rest, and the promise of a self-governing society may yet be kept.
Cynics complain that no government can be trusted, or that humanity simply isn't capable of self-rule. Sectarian ideologues say that all reforms are futile and the only way to transform society is through a disruptive (and inevitably violent) break with the past. Both approaches carry the burden of despair, a loss of faith in the possibility of moving, day by day, toward a better world. What such extreme views lack is hope, that richness of spirit essential for any lasting change.
Next: The Dionysian Approach
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
AZ Immigration Fight Sparks Reactions
UPDATE: Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that the federal government may challenge Arizona’s new immigration law. Both the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department are reviewing it. Meanwhile in Flagstaff, Mayor Sara Presler announced that the city's council would open discussion on the law to the public on Tuesday during a special meeting. In Phoenix, Mayor Phil Gordon has asked members of his council to consider a lawsuit to prevent SB 1070 from going into effect. Presler says the law would strain the Flagstaff Police Department's resource.
In California, lawmakers in San Francisco are set to vote on a citywide boycott of the state. On May 25, about 70 drivers from California and Arizona agreed to stop moving loads into or out of Arizona in protest of the new law. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also weighed in on the issue. The law "could have a chilling effect on international business travel, investment, and tourism in that state, as many people from around the world may think twice before visiting Arizona and subjecting themselves to potential run-ins with the police," he said.
The Mexican government has issued a travel warning, urging Mexican citizens to be careful in Arizona. In an alert posted in Spanish and English, the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry said, “there is a negative political environment for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors.” Although enforcement details remain unclear, "it must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time," the ministry's statement said.
For more on Arizona's immigration showdown, go to Immigration Fight at the AZ Corral
In California, lawmakers in San Francisco are set to vote on a citywide boycott of the state. On May 25, about 70 drivers from California and Arizona agreed to stop moving loads into or out of Arizona in protest of the new law. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also weighed in on the issue. The law "could have a chilling effect on international business travel, investment, and tourism in that state, as many people from around the world may think twice before visiting Arizona and subjecting themselves to potential run-ins with the police," he said.
The Mexican government has issued a travel warning, urging Mexican citizens to be careful in Arizona. In an alert posted in Spanish and English, the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry said, “there is a negative political environment for migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors.” Although enforcement details remain unclear, "it must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time," the ministry's statement said.
For more on Arizona's immigration showdown, go to Immigration Fight at the AZ Corral
Friday, April 23, 2010
Immigration Fight at the AZ Corral
Arizona is in the grip of an anti-immigrant fever. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose popularity has been built on his tough enforcement tactics and willingness to defy the federal government, is on the edge of a run for governor. But even if he doesn’t, the state has a controversial new law that requires police to determine the status of anyone if there is a "reasonable suspicion” they are in the US illegally – and arrest them if documents can’t be produced. Hiring day laborers off the street has also become a crime.
Supporters see the law as an anti-crime measure and part of a larger campaign to secure the border. Opponents call it racial profiling and claim it is unconstitutional.
Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican who replaced Janet Napolitano when she became Obama’s Homeland Security chief, waited as long as possible before taking a position on SB 1070. Caught between a conservative primary challenge and the prospect of her state becoming the target of a Latino-led boycott, her first step was to issue a border security plan of her own. It includes increased surveillance, redirecting stimulus money to local law enforcement, and a request to President Obama for more National Guard border support.
Then, on April 23, as large crowds protested in Phoenix and Tuscon, Brewer signed the bill. Arguing that she is responding to a crisis, she linked her decision to the drug war.
Latino members of Congress had urged Gov. Jan Brewer to veto. "When you institutionalize a law like this one, you are targeting and discriminating at a wholesale level against a group of people," Rep. Raul Grijalva said. More than 50,000 people signed petitions opposing the law, about 2,500 students from high schools across Phoenix walked out of school and marched to the Capitol, and nine college students were arrested during protests for chaining themselves to the Capitol building doors to pressure the governor.
Interim County Attorney Rick Romley calls it an unfunded mandate that is “tearing the community apart” and pledges that, despite the law’s thrust, he will focus on organized crime syndicates engaged in human smuggling. Obama says it is “misguided.” But Arpaio accuses opponents of just not wanting to enforce immigration laws, and state polls reveal strong public support.
Tourism and business leaders worry that the law will discourage visitors and economic development, comparing it to what happened when another Arizona governor rescinded recognition of Martin Luther King Day as a holiday in 1987. At least $300 million in income was lost and the NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Phoenix. Eventually, voters approved the state holiday.
Despite the social and economic dangers, Arizona’s two US Senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, don’t just support the move. They’ve unveiled their own 10-point plan, including 3,000 National Guardsmen to be deployed to the state's border, 24/7 monitoring by unmanned aerial vehicles, permanent addition of 3,000 Custom and Border Protection agents, and completion of 700 miles of fencing.
The Arizona legislation "is exactly why the federal government must act on immigration reform," argues state Democratic leader Jorge Luis Garcia. "We cannot have states creating a jigsaw puzzle of immigration laws. This bill opens the doors to racial profiling with the provision that allows an officer to ask for citizenship papers from someone who only looks illegal."
When Napolitano was governor, she vetoed similar bills. She was relatively tough on immigration, especially on businesses who hired undocumented people, imposing what she called a "business death penalty" – basically taking away licenses – from those violating an employer sanctions law twice. However, she opposed punishing immigrants who were already here and didn’t think much of a border fence. "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she said.
Things have changed since she left. Whether or not the 77-year-old Arpaio runs for governor and wins the GOP primary (or the general election), immigration will remain front and center in state politics for the foreseeable future, potentially accelerating and certainly influencing the national debate over reform. The Arizona law also plays into the “state’s rights” thrust of the current anti-federal government surge.
Dangerous Tactics
Anti-immigrant sentiment is a persistent theme in US politics. In 1996, for example, when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson announced that undocumented pregnant women should be denied prenatal care, his underlying message was clear and brutal: If you’re “illegal,” get out of our country!
Wilson’s statement came at another dangerous time, one marked by resurgent racism, increased police brutality, vigilante violence, and rationalization of virtually any attack. In other words, we’ve been here before.
In the early 1980s, low intensity conflict (LIC) theorists constructed a Los Angeles insurrection scenario requiring a military response and sealing the nearby border. A decade later, the Border Patrol played a key role in the L.A. riots of 1992, deployed in Latino communities and arresting more than 1,000 people. Afterward, the INS began work with the Pentagon’s Center for Low-Intensity Conflict, and the line between civilian and military operations was largely erased.
Throughout the 1990s, Human Rights Watch accused the US Border Patrol of routinely abusing people, citing a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In response, INS detainees in a private jail rioted in June 1995 after being tortured by guards. After 9/11, the federal government considered placing US soldiers along the Mexican border.
But efforts to curtail immigration through tighter security have done little but redirect the flow into the most desolate areas of the border, increasing the mortality rate of those crossing. Between 1998 and 2004, at least 1,900 people died trying to cross the US-Mexico border. In recent years, Arizona has become the main entry point for undocumented immigrants into the US. An estimated 460,000 live in the state, but the total has dropped by at least 100,000, or 18 percent, since 2008.
In the last five years, around 200 people have died annually along the Arizona border in wilderness areas, according to medical examiner data compiled by Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. On the other hand, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu charges that “numerous” officers have been killed by illegal immigrants, and that the violence has reached “epidemic proportions.” Although that’s true, the main spikes in crime have been in home invasions and kidnapping, both of which are linked to the drug war and organized crime based in Mexico.
Anti-immigrant activists deny charges of racism. But the facts tell a different story. Almost unlimited numbers of immigrants from mostly white, European countries are allowed into the US, while Latin Americans and Africans rarely even get tourist visas. And although sweatshops that employ undocumented workers are condemned, they aren’t often shut down, but merely raided, resulting in deportations. The owners may be fined, but they still come out ahead. After all, deported workers can’t collect back wages.
The Arizona law makes police go after anyone whose look or dress is “suspicious,” yet does little to toughen the employer sanctions legislation passed in 2007. That gave authorities the power to suspend or revoke the business licenses of employers caught knowingly hiring illegal workers and required all businesses to use E-Verify to check the work eligibility of new employees. Since then, only two cases have been settled in which the employers admitted guilty. All the new law says is that they must maintain those E-Verify records.
Border Wars
More than 150 years ago, at the end of a two-year war between Mexico and the US, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Many Latinos still feel that the treaty, accepted under pressure by a corrupt dictator, was an act of theft violating international law. Mexico surrendered half its territory — now the Southwestern United States — and most of the Mexicans who stayed in the ceded region ultimately lost their land.
In a sense, that war never ended. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, US officials, working closely with white settlers and elites, used often-violent means to subdue Mexicans in the region.
Once the region was “pacified,” border enforcement became a tool to regulate the flow of labor into the US. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the Border Patrol emerged as gatekeeper of a “revolving door,” sometimes processing immigrant labor, sometimes cracking down. The Bracero Program, which brought in Mexican agricultural laborers, was followed (and overlapped by) Operation Wetback, an INS-run military offensive against immigrant workers.
The border is still a battlefield. During recent decades, government strategies for combating undocumented immigration and drug trafficking have re-militarized the region.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) meshed neatly with more obvious aspects of low-intensity conflict doctrine. The definition of immigration and drug trafficking as “national security” issues has brought state-of-the-art military approaches into domestic affairs. But just as the projection of a “communist menace” was a smokescreen for post-war expansionism, a “Brown wave,” the “Drug War,” and terrorism have been used as pretexts for military-industrial penetration.
LIC doctrine uses diverse tactics — from the subtle and psychological (“winning hearts and minds”) to the obvious and brutal. Such flexibility requires the most sophisticated tools available, and the integration of police, paramilitary, and military forces. It also requires a plausible “enemy” — in this case, immigrants who can be accused of almost anything and abused with impunity.
In this kind of war, borders are ultimately unimportant. Battles are waged everywhere, even in communities far from a frontier. This blurs the line between police and the military, and further threatens basic rights.
Future Shock
Latinos soon will be the largest minority group in the US, according to Census Bureau predictions: at least 44 million, or 15 percent of the nation’s population. Although the biggest expansion will occur in states that draw the most immigrants — California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey — the spill-over will reach from Atlanta to Minneapolis and Washington state. California is expected to undergo the most dramatic transformation — to at least 50 percent Latino and possibly only 32 percent white by 2040.
Overall, immigration is fueling US population growth, and the Census Bureau predicts a tripling of the Hispanic and Asian populations in less than 50 years. While the number of whites may increase by seven percent, the three largest minorities — Hispanic, Black, and Asian — are expected to rise by 188, 71, and 213 percent respectively. The bottom line is that these three groups are expected to constitute at least 47 percent of total US population by 2050. While such forecasts certainly have much to do with the current anti-immigrant climate, the trend won’t be reversed by race-motivated legislation.
Low-intensity war against non-white immigrants is especially evident along the US-Mexico border. It takes many forms: militarization, criminalizing the undocumented, repressive legislation, human rights violations, and cruel, discriminatory attacks on children and the poor. Arizona’s new law is the latest development – the toughest state law on illegal immigration yet.
According to Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the plan, the idea is to wipe out the "sanctuary policies of cities.” He says that politicians and others have handcuffed the police, keeping them from finding and arresting those in this country illegally. State action is necessary, he adds, because of political failure in Washington. Democratic Sen. Rebecca Rios agrees that the federal government hasn’t done enough to secure the border, but doesn’t think this is the answer. "This bill does nothing to address human smuggling, the drug cartels, the arms smuggling,” she says. “It creates a lot of negative effects that none of us here want, she adds. "And, yes, I believe it will create somewhat of a police state."
Despite the state’s libertarian streak, Arizona lawmakers apparently have other concerns. In addition to pushing through a roundup of “illegals” by any means necessary, they’re considering legislation that would require any future presidential candidate to produce a US birth certificate – a nod to the “birthers” who think Obama isn’t a citizen. The governor has already signed a law letting people carry concealed weapons without a permit, and another saying that federal laws don’t apply to weapons and ammunition manufactured wholly within Arizona.
The picture emerging is of a state that’s armed and paranoid, hostile to federal oversight, and suspicious of anyone who looks or talks like an outsider. The immigration law, along with other recent legislation, support for the “birther” movement, and the statement by J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging McCain, that same sex marriage laws would lead to men marrying horses is leading many people to ask: What’s wrong with Arizona?
In some respects, its situation is unique. Combined with its proximity to the border, there is the enormous growth of Phoenix, the arrival of so many transplants from Eastern cities and California, and a general disinterest in politics that has let things careen out of control. Turnout is low for primary elections, and the legislature is more conservative than the general public. This has created an opening for figures like Pearce, who has associated with Nazis, Hayworth and Arpaio, who have become influential political allies.
On the other hand, Arizona represents an extreme manifestation of the anger and reactionary sentiments roiling across the country. With the rise of a new state’s rights, anti-immigrant movement, the choice facing the state and the nation as a whole has become basic, between what Mexican author Jose Vasconcelos once called Universopolis – a place in which all the peoples of the world are melded into a “cosmic race” – and the Blade Runner scenario.
In Blade Runner, a prescient 1982 film, Los Angeles in the 21st century has become an ominous “world city” marked by cultural fusion and economic stratification, a sunless and polluted place, overcrowded with Asian and Latino drones who barely look up at the metal fortresses of the rich. USC professor Kevin Starr warned of this possibility, “a demotic polyglotism ominous with unresolved hostilities” in “L.A. 2000,” a city-sponsored report that touted it as “the” city of the future. In essence, that option is an advanced imperialist state, one that encompasses colonies within its own borders. Phoenix could go the same way.
Like Vasconcelos, author Salman Rushdie can envision a more optimistic, multicultural alternative. Immigrants may not so much assimilate as leak into one another, he suggests, “like flavors when you cook.”
Of course, this is precisely what frightens many angry, fearful people. For them the USA is hot dogs and apple pie, and they have no desire to change their diets. They want “their country” back, and with Sheriff Arpaio as an immigrant-hunting Wyatt Earp, plus a tough new law on the books, Arizona has become a flashpoint for that fight.
Related video: The Ballad of Sheriff Joe
Supporters see the law as an anti-crime measure and part of a larger campaign to secure the border. Opponents call it racial profiling and claim it is unconstitutional.
Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican who replaced Janet Napolitano when she became Obama’s Homeland Security chief, waited as long as possible before taking a position on SB 1070. Caught between a conservative primary challenge and the prospect of her state becoming the target of a Latino-led boycott, her first step was to issue a border security plan of her own. It includes increased surveillance, redirecting stimulus money to local law enforcement, and a request to President Obama for more National Guard border support.
Then, on April 23, as large crowds protested in Phoenix and Tuscon, Brewer signed the bill. Arguing that she is responding to a crisis, she linked her decision to the drug war.
Latino members of Congress had urged Gov. Jan Brewer to veto. "When you institutionalize a law like this one, you are targeting and discriminating at a wholesale level against a group of people," Rep. Raul Grijalva said. More than 50,000 people signed petitions opposing the law, about 2,500 students from high schools across Phoenix walked out of school and marched to the Capitol, and nine college students were arrested during protests for chaining themselves to the Capitol building doors to pressure the governor.
Interim County Attorney Rick Romley calls it an unfunded mandate that is “tearing the community apart” and pledges that, despite the law’s thrust, he will focus on organized crime syndicates engaged in human smuggling. Obama says it is “misguided.” But Arpaio accuses opponents of just not wanting to enforce immigration laws, and state polls reveal strong public support.
Tourism and business leaders worry that the law will discourage visitors and economic development, comparing it to what happened when another Arizona governor rescinded recognition of Martin Luther King Day as a holiday in 1987. At least $300 million in income was lost and the NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Phoenix. Eventually, voters approved the state holiday.
Despite the social and economic dangers, Arizona’s two US Senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, don’t just support the move. They’ve unveiled their own 10-point plan, including 3,000 National Guardsmen to be deployed to the state's border, 24/7 monitoring by unmanned aerial vehicles, permanent addition of 3,000 Custom and Border Protection agents, and completion of 700 miles of fencing.
The Arizona legislation "is exactly why the federal government must act on immigration reform," argues state Democratic leader Jorge Luis Garcia. "We cannot have states creating a jigsaw puzzle of immigration laws. This bill opens the doors to racial profiling with the provision that allows an officer to ask for citizenship papers from someone who only looks illegal."
When Napolitano was governor, she vetoed similar bills. She was relatively tough on immigration, especially on businesses who hired undocumented people, imposing what she called a "business death penalty" – basically taking away licenses – from those violating an employer sanctions law twice. However, she opposed punishing immigrants who were already here and didn’t think much of a border fence. "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she said.
Things have changed since she left. Whether or not the 77-year-old Arpaio runs for governor and wins the GOP primary (or the general election), immigration will remain front and center in state politics for the foreseeable future, potentially accelerating and certainly influencing the national debate over reform. The Arizona law also plays into the “state’s rights” thrust of the current anti-federal government surge.
Dangerous Tactics
Anti-immigrant sentiment is a persistent theme in US politics. In 1996, for example, when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson announced that undocumented pregnant women should be denied prenatal care, his underlying message was clear and brutal: If you’re “illegal,” get out of our country!
Wilson’s statement came at another dangerous time, one marked by resurgent racism, increased police brutality, vigilante violence, and rationalization of virtually any attack. In other words, we’ve been here before.
In the early 1980s, low intensity conflict (LIC) theorists constructed a Los Angeles insurrection scenario requiring a military response and sealing the nearby border. A decade later, the Border Patrol played a key role in the L.A. riots of 1992, deployed in Latino communities and arresting more than 1,000 people. Afterward, the INS began work with the Pentagon’s Center for Low-Intensity Conflict, and the line between civilian and military operations was largely erased.
Throughout the 1990s, Human Rights Watch accused the US Border Patrol of routinely abusing people, citing a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In response, INS detainees in a private jail rioted in June 1995 after being tortured by guards. After 9/11, the federal government considered placing US soldiers along the Mexican border.
But efforts to curtail immigration through tighter security have done little but redirect the flow into the most desolate areas of the border, increasing the mortality rate of those crossing. Between 1998 and 2004, at least 1,900 people died trying to cross the US-Mexico border. In recent years, Arizona has become the main entry point for undocumented immigrants into the US. An estimated 460,000 live in the state, but the total has dropped by at least 100,000, or 18 percent, since 2008.
In the last five years, around 200 people have died annually along the Arizona border in wilderness areas, according to medical examiner data compiled by Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. On the other hand, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu charges that “numerous” officers have been killed by illegal immigrants, and that the violence has reached “epidemic proportions.” Although that’s true, the main spikes in crime have been in home invasions and kidnapping, both of which are linked to the drug war and organized crime based in Mexico.
Anti-immigrant activists deny charges of racism. But the facts tell a different story. Almost unlimited numbers of immigrants from mostly white, European countries are allowed into the US, while Latin Americans and Africans rarely even get tourist visas. And although sweatshops that employ undocumented workers are condemned, they aren’t often shut down, but merely raided, resulting in deportations. The owners may be fined, but they still come out ahead. After all, deported workers can’t collect back wages.
The Arizona law makes police go after anyone whose look or dress is “suspicious,” yet does little to toughen the employer sanctions legislation passed in 2007. That gave authorities the power to suspend or revoke the business licenses of employers caught knowingly hiring illegal workers and required all businesses to use E-Verify to check the work eligibility of new employees. Since then, only two cases have been settled in which the employers admitted guilty. All the new law says is that they must maintain those E-Verify records.
Border Wars
More than 150 years ago, at the end of a two-year war between Mexico and the US, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Many Latinos still feel that the treaty, accepted under pressure by a corrupt dictator, was an act of theft violating international law. Mexico surrendered half its territory — now the Southwestern United States — and most of the Mexicans who stayed in the ceded region ultimately lost their land.
In a sense, that war never ended. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, US officials, working closely with white settlers and elites, used often-violent means to subdue Mexicans in the region.
Once the region was “pacified,” border enforcement became a tool to regulate the flow of labor into the US. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the Border Patrol emerged as gatekeeper of a “revolving door,” sometimes processing immigrant labor, sometimes cracking down. The Bracero Program, which brought in Mexican agricultural laborers, was followed (and overlapped by) Operation Wetback, an INS-run military offensive against immigrant workers.
The border is still a battlefield. During recent decades, government strategies for combating undocumented immigration and drug trafficking have re-militarized the region.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) meshed neatly with more obvious aspects of low-intensity conflict doctrine. The definition of immigration and drug trafficking as “national security” issues has brought state-of-the-art military approaches into domestic affairs. But just as the projection of a “communist menace” was a smokescreen for post-war expansionism, a “Brown wave,” the “Drug War,” and terrorism have been used as pretexts for military-industrial penetration.
LIC doctrine uses diverse tactics — from the subtle and psychological (“winning hearts and minds”) to the obvious and brutal. Such flexibility requires the most sophisticated tools available, and the integration of police, paramilitary, and military forces. It also requires a plausible “enemy” — in this case, immigrants who can be accused of almost anything and abused with impunity.
In this kind of war, borders are ultimately unimportant. Battles are waged everywhere, even in communities far from a frontier. This blurs the line between police and the military, and further threatens basic rights.
Future Shock
Latinos soon will be the largest minority group in the US, according to Census Bureau predictions: at least 44 million, or 15 percent of the nation’s population. Although the biggest expansion will occur in states that draw the most immigrants — California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey — the spill-over will reach from Atlanta to Minneapolis and Washington state. California is expected to undergo the most dramatic transformation — to at least 50 percent Latino and possibly only 32 percent white by 2040.
Overall, immigration is fueling US population growth, and the Census Bureau predicts a tripling of the Hispanic and Asian populations in less than 50 years. While the number of whites may increase by seven percent, the three largest minorities — Hispanic, Black, and Asian — are expected to rise by 188, 71, and 213 percent respectively. The bottom line is that these three groups are expected to constitute at least 47 percent of total US population by 2050. While such forecasts certainly have much to do with the current anti-immigrant climate, the trend won’t be reversed by race-motivated legislation.
Low-intensity war against non-white immigrants is especially evident along the US-Mexico border. It takes many forms: militarization, criminalizing the undocumented, repressive legislation, human rights violations, and cruel, discriminatory attacks on children and the poor. Arizona’s new law is the latest development – the toughest state law on illegal immigration yet.
According to Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the plan, the idea is to wipe out the "sanctuary policies of cities.” He says that politicians and others have handcuffed the police, keeping them from finding and arresting those in this country illegally. State action is necessary, he adds, because of political failure in Washington. Democratic Sen. Rebecca Rios agrees that the federal government hasn’t done enough to secure the border, but doesn’t think this is the answer. "This bill does nothing to address human smuggling, the drug cartels, the arms smuggling,” she says. “It creates a lot of negative effects that none of us here want, she adds. "And, yes, I believe it will create somewhat of a police state."
Despite the state’s libertarian streak, Arizona lawmakers apparently have other concerns. In addition to pushing through a roundup of “illegals” by any means necessary, they’re considering legislation that would require any future presidential candidate to produce a US birth certificate – a nod to the “birthers” who think Obama isn’t a citizen. The governor has already signed a law letting people carry concealed weapons without a permit, and another saying that federal laws don’t apply to weapons and ammunition manufactured wholly within Arizona.
The picture emerging is of a state that’s armed and paranoid, hostile to federal oversight, and suspicious of anyone who looks or talks like an outsider. The immigration law, along with other recent legislation, support for the “birther” movement, and the statement by J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging McCain, that same sex marriage laws would lead to men marrying horses is leading many people to ask: What’s wrong with Arizona?
In some respects, its situation is unique. Combined with its proximity to the border, there is the enormous growth of Phoenix, the arrival of so many transplants from Eastern cities and California, and a general disinterest in politics that has let things careen out of control. Turnout is low for primary elections, and the legislature is more conservative than the general public. This has created an opening for figures like Pearce, who has associated with Nazis, Hayworth and Arpaio, who have become influential political allies.
On the other hand, Arizona represents an extreme manifestation of the anger and reactionary sentiments roiling across the country. With the rise of a new state’s rights, anti-immigrant movement, the choice facing the state and the nation as a whole has become basic, between what Mexican author Jose Vasconcelos once called Universopolis – a place in which all the peoples of the world are melded into a “cosmic race” – and the Blade Runner scenario.
In Blade Runner, a prescient 1982 film, Los Angeles in the 21st century has become an ominous “world city” marked by cultural fusion and economic stratification, a sunless and polluted place, overcrowded with Asian and Latino drones who barely look up at the metal fortresses of the rich. USC professor Kevin Starr warned of this possibility, “a demotic polyglotism ominous with unresolved hostilities” in “L.A. 2000,” a city-sponsored report that touted it as “the” city of the future. In essence, that option is an advanced imperialist state, one that encompasses colonies within its own borders. Phoenix could go the same way.
Like Vasconcelos, author Salman Rushdie can envision a more optimistic, multicultural alternative. Immigrants may not so much assimilate as leak into one another, he suggests, “like flavors when you cook.”
Of course, this is precisely what frightens many angry, fearful people. For them the USA is hot dogs and apple pie, and they have no desire to change their diets. They want “their country” back, and with Sheriff Arpaio as an immigrant-hunting Wyatt Earp, plus a tough new law on the books, Arizona has become a flashpoint for that fight.
Related video: The Ballad of Sheriff Joe
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Autonomy & Self-Rule
Part 37 of Prisoners of the Real
In the quest to reclaim equality and freedom in the marketplace of ideas, and along with them, the personal right of self-expression, we inevitably must grapple with the concept of autonomy. Liberty of expression, widely valued for its contribution to the search for truth and the functioning of a self-governing society, also involves a conscious choice by each person exercising this freedom. Without this basic form of self-management, democracy can't exist.
In truth, there is actually no such thing as total autonomy. Whether we acknowledge it or not, our existence is influenced by our bodily needs and impulses, cultural norms and values. Without air we perish, and without love we become the brutes that Hobbes claimed we were. Yet autonomy is a real and powerful aspiration, pulling us toward self-sufficiency, moral courage and the full development of our unique inner selves. It is the quest for identity, the search for self-actualization that has been studied and debated by psychologists, theologians and social theorists.
Kant saw autonomy as the spontaneous action of a mind molding experience and choosing goals. In political terms, it is self-government, the sovereignty of the group, community, or people. Autonomy doesn't ignore or defy the needs of an organized society; rather, it is tied to the belief that social stability depends on diversity. But diversity must be channeled when necessary to prevent destructive fragmentation. In essence, autonomy incorporates the concepts of self-regulation and equilibrium. Any society that values equality and freedom must encourage the autonomous participation of its citizens.
The original Greek idea of autonomy was self-rule. In more recent times, it has been stripped of its ethical content and defined simply as a form of independence, usually economic in nature, or as an institutional attribute. This is especially deceptive, since selfhood is very much linked both with individual competence and with a person's claim to power within society. Libertarian Philosopher Murray Bookchin relates this idea to the civic concept of self-management. "Self-rule applies to society as a whole," he writes. "Self-management is the management of villages, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. The technical sphere of life is conspicuously secondary to the social. In the two revolutions that open the modern era of secular politics – the American and French – self-management emerges in the libertarian town meetings that swept from Boston to Charleston and the popular sections that assembled in Parisian quatiers."
When people lack a sense of self-worth and dignity, however, pious talk about the value of self-government takes on a hollow ring. Citizens who don't, or believe they don't, have the right to self-expression and meaningful choice will not indefinitely remain active in democratic processes. In this context, we must ask whether it is mere coincidence that the era of growing media influence in the political process has also been a time of declining political participation. It is chic to conclude that people are simply "fed up" with politics. In Why Americans Hate Politics, E.J. Dionne, a journalist himself, defined the situation as a revolt against public debate that avoids real solutions to problems. From his privileged vantage point, Dionne apparently couldn’t see the possibility that what really turns off voters is being excluded from the debate.
Courted by politicians, advertisers and pollsters solely as objects of persuasion, most people are left with the distinct impression that nothing they say could have much value or impact. The problem is that a sense of self-worth grows from successful social interactions. When self-expression fades as a personal right, so too does the belief in democratic self-government as a functioning reality. Thus, the failure to respect and support the autonomy value that underpins freedom of speech has become a major source of eroding faith in democratic government.
In place of personal autonomy, a new value has been promoted over the last several decades – institutional autonomy. The progressive mechanization and centralization of social and political affairs has combined with the notion that institutions, whether corporations, unions, or special interest groups, can claim rights once reserved for individuals. Economic entities demand protection of their speech rights either as representatives of the public or because laws grant them the status of "persons." In the case of the institutional media, the argument rests on their role as private guardians of the public interest.
Most of these institutions claim a dedication to the preservation of diversity. And yet, without a wide variety of self-expressive speakers who bring a stream of new ideas into the marketplace, diversity becomes an illusion. Institutional autonomy instead creates a closed market in which ideas, like prices, are fixed.
Almost without noticing it, we have permitted the foundations of self-government to be undermined.
Next: Reclaiming Free Speech
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
In the quest to reclaim equality and freedom in the marketplace of ideas, and along with them, the personal right of self-expression, we inevitably must grapple with the concept of autonomy. Liberty of expression, widely valued for its contribution to the search for truth and the functioning of a self-governing society, also involves a conscious choice by each person exercising this freedom. Without this basic form of self-management, democracy can't exist.
In truth, there is actually no such thing as total autonomy. Whether we acknowledge it or not, our existence is influenced by our bodily needs and impulses, cultural norms and values. Without air we perish, and without love we become the brutes that Hobbes claimed we were. Yet autonomy is a real and powerful aspiration, pulling us toward self-sufficiency, moral courage and the full development of our unique inner selves. It is the quest for identity, the search for self-actualization that has been studied and debated by psychologists, theologians and social theorists.
Kant saw autonomy as the spontaneous action of a mind molding experience and choosing goals. In political terms, it is self-government, the sovereignty of the group, community, or people. Autonomy doesn't ignore or defy the needs of an organized society; rather, it is tied to the belief that social stability depends on diversity. But diversity must be channeled when necessary to prevent destructive fragmentation. In essence, autonomy incorporates the concepts of self-regulation and equilibrium. Any society that values equality and freedom must encourage the autonomous participation of its citizens.
The original Greek idea of autonomy was self-rule. In more recent times, it has been stripped of its ethical content and defined simply as a form of independence, usually economic in nature, or as an institutional attribute. This is especially deceptive, since selfhood is very much linked both with individual competence and with a person's claim to power within society. Libertarian Philosopher Murray Bookchin relates this idea to the civic concept of self-management. "Self-rule applies to society as a whole," he writes. "Self-management is the management of villages, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. The technical sphere of life is conspicuously secondary to the social. In the two revolutions that open the modern era of secular politics – the American and French – self-management emerges in the libertarian town meetings that swept from Boston to Charleston and the popular sections that assembled in Parisian quatiers."
When people lack a sense of self-worth and dignity, however, pious talk about the value of self-government takes on a hollow ring. Citizens who don't, or believe they don't, have the right to self-expression and meaningful choice will not indefinitely remain active in democratic processes. In this context, we must ask whether it is mere coincidence that the era of growing media influence in the political process has also been a time of declining political participation. It is chic to conclude that people are simply "fed up" with politics. In Why Americans Hate Politics, E.J. Dionne, a journalist himself, defined the situation as a revolt against public debate that avoids real solutions to problems. From his privileged vantage point, Dionne apparently couldn’t see the possibility that what really turns off voters is being excluded from the debate.
Courted by politicians, advertisers and pollsters solely as objects of persuasion, most people are left with the distinct impression that nothing they say could have much value or impact. The problem is that a sense of self-worth grows from successful social interactions. When self-expression fades as a personal right, so too does the belief in democratic self-government as a functioning reality. Thus, the failure to respect and support the autonomy value that underpins freedom of speech has become a major source of eroding faith in democratic government.
In place of personal autonomy, a new value has been promoted over the last several decades – institutional autonomy. The progressive mechanization and centralization of social and political affairs has combined with the notion that institutions, whether corporations, unions, or special interest groups, can claim rights once reserved for individuals. Economic entities demand protection of their speech rights either as representatives of the public or because laws grant them the status of "persons." In the case of the institutional media, the argument rests on their role as private guardians of the public interest.
Most of these institutions claim a dedication to the preservation of diversity. And yet, without a wide variety of self-expressive speakers who bring a stream of new ideas into the marketplace, diversity becomes an illusion. Institutional autonomy instead creates a closed market in which ideas, like prices, are fixed.
Almost without noticing it, we have permitted the foundations of self-government to be undermined.
Next: Reclaiming Free Speech
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Eclipse of Free Expression
Part 36 of Prisoners of the Real
A precise blueprint for change would be inconsistent with the need for spontaneity, diversity, and intuitive leadership in sparking a Dionysian revival. A recitation of social goals and transitional objectives would be just one more laundry list, as well as an invitation to later disillusionment. Cultural regeneration can only occur as a result of actions by millions of autonomous individuals and purposeful groups. Nevertheless, Dionysian insights can be applied to the understanding and solution of many problems. Consider, for example, the crisis of freedom as it relates to mass communication and self-expression.
All too often, when confronted with a crisis, citizens in many nations favor expansion of government power over protection of individual liberty. In the realm of free expression, this implies at least a tacit agreement that speech is a privilege conferred by authority. In the United States, self-proclaimed conservatives have long waved the banners of liberty and individualism, defining them primarily as entrepreneurial spirit and free enterprise. Yet their version is a dangerous stew, including large portions of provincialism, hypocritical moralizing, and an obsession with national exceptionalism and power. The result has been aggression, combined with restrictions on free speech and infringements on basic rights when either speech or behavior runs at odds with fundamentalist beliefs or the "national interest." Congressional studies reveal that the response has been as expansive as the systematic impulse of government bureaucracies to expand their jurisdictions and perpetuate their functions. If current trends continue, the combined effect of successive national administrations preoccupied with security and corporate “free enterprise” and a bureaucratic establishment ever ready to assume new powers may well be disastrous for the robust discussion of ideas, the search for truth, and the personal fulfillment of individual human beings.
The nature of communication changed dramatically during the 20th century. Technological innovations made electronic media the dominant conveyers of basic information. Seeing and hearing truly became believing. Yet despite the dangers posed by these powerful tools, ranging from the potential for manipulation of mass opinion and actions to the drowning out of individual voices, the main response of governments has been the imposition of rules that are either discriminatory or ineffective. What government action has absolutely failed to do is slow the consolidation of economic control.
Since the emergence of radio the media environment of the US and, following its example, much of the world has been transformed. Television has turned political debate into a war of packaged sound bites. Blatant commercialism and violent cartoons have altered the perceptions and values of millions of children. Multinational companies and ad agencies mold consciousness, hammering in certain messages and suppressing others. Global management of information now poses as great a threat to self-government as pollution does to the environment.
Even the prospect of a participatory renaissance ushered in by the Internet may be overrated. As media historian Robert McChesney sees it, the ultimate beneficiaries of the so-called Internet Age may be the investors, advertisers, and a handful of media, computer, and telecommunications corporations. Despite the use of computers to mobilize political action and help laudable campaigns, the "information age" is shaping up like a new era of information imperialism.
Looking specifically at freedom of speech and the press in the US, many of the problems can be traced to an obsolete notion about the source of the danger. Although government intrusions are far from irrelevant, they no longer constitute the primary threat; that honor must go to corporate entities, including the institutional media themselves, which have exploited basic rights and snuffed out the personal right to speak in the process. In their effort to guard against government abridgments of speech, Congress and the courts have left most citizens at the mercy of impersonal economic forces whose institutional autonomy and ability to widely disseminate their views have undermined diversity in the marketplace of ideas.
Any voice that isn't "amplified" through broadcast or print is unlikely to be audible. Or, to paraphrase a proverb, if you can't be heard, have you actually spoken?
The evolution of varying standards of speech protection for different modes of communication has given the government some leverage in negotiations with each. Overall, however, the promise of First Amendment protection has led to an assumption that economic entities are entitled to the same rights as human beings. It has even been argued that they are involved in speech that is more vital to democracy than the speech of any individual. The rationale has cut both ways, occasionally justifying refusal of access to the media and, less often, requiring media to air a message.
As a result of this fragmentation of speech rights, most people have had their freedom redefined and largely curtailed on the basis of the medium they wish to use. Those who operate outside the institutional media, though some may consider themselves “netizans” as a result of their access to blogs and social networks, are mainly consigned to the status of "listeners," "consumers," "audience," or occasionally "sources." The progressive mechanization of mass media, combined with economic centralization, has led to a system of mass communication that is impersonal and normally unresponsive. Freedom of speech has become an institutional right, and individual speakers have been turned into interchangeable objects.
Next: Autonomy & Self-Rule
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
A precise blueprint for change would be inconsistent with the need for spontaneity, diversity, and intuitive leadership in sparking a Dionysian revival. A recitation of social goals and transitional objectives would be just one more laundry list, as well as an invitation to later disillusionment. Cultural regeneration can only occur as a result of actions by millions of autonomous individuals and purposeful groups. Nevertheless, Dionysian insights can be applied to the understanding and solution of many problems. Consider, for example, the crisis of freedom as it relates to mass communication and self-expression.
All too often, when confronted with a crisis, citizens in many nations favor expansion of government power over protection of individual liberty. In the realm of free expression, this implies at least a tacit agreement that speech is a privilege conferred by authority. In the United States, self-proclaimed conservatives have long waved the banners of liberty and individualism, defining them primarily as entrepreneurial spirit and free enterprise. Yet their version is a dangerous stew, including large portions of provincialism, hypocritical moralizing, and an obsession with national exceptionalism and power. The result has been aggression, combined with restrictions on free speech and infringements on basic rights when either speech or behavior runs at odds with fundamentalist beliefs or the "national interest." Congressional studies reveal that the response has been as expansive as the systematic impulse of government bureaucracies to expand their jurisdictions and perpetuate their functions. If current trends continue, the combined effect of successive national administrations preoccupied with security and corporate “free enterprise” and a bureaucratic establishment ever ready to assume new powers may well be disastrous for the robust discussion of ideas, the search for truth, and the personal fulfillment of individual human beings.
The nature of communication changed dramatically during the 20th century. Technological innovations made electronic media the dominant conveyers of basic information. Seeing and hearing truly became believing. Yet despite the dangers posed by these powerful tools, ranging from the potential for manipulation of mass opinion and actions to the drowning out of individual voices, the main response of governments has been the imposition of rules that are either discriminatory or ineffective. What government action has absolutely failed to do is slow the consolidation of economic control.
Since the emergence of radio the media environment of the US and, following its example, much of the world has been transformed. Television has turned political debate into a war of packaged sound bites. Blatant commercialism and violent cartoons have altered the perceptions and values of millions of children. Multinational companies and ad agencies mold consciousness, hammering in certain messages and suppressing others. Global management of information now poses as great a threat to self-government as pollution does to the environment.
Even the prospect of a participatory renaissance ushered in by the Internet may be overrated. As media historian Robert McChesney sees it, the ultimate beneficiaries of the so-called Internet Age may be the investors, advertisers, and a handful of media, computer, and telecommunications corporations. Despite the use of computers to mobilize political action and help laudable campaigns, the "information age" is shaping up like a new era of information imperialism.
Looking specifically at freedom of speech and the press in the US, many of the problems can be traced to an obsolete notion about the source of the danger. Although government intrusions are far from irrelevant, they no longer constitute the primary threat; that honor must go to corporate entities, including the institutional media themselves, which have exploited basic rights and snuffed out the personal right to speak in the process. In their effort to guard against government abridgments of speech, Congress and the courts have left most citizens at the mercy of impersonal economic forces whose institutional autonomy and ability to widely disseminate their views have undermined diversity in the marketplace of ideas.
Any voice that isn't "amplified" through broadcast or print is unlikely to be audible. Or, to paraphrase a proverb, if you can't be heard, have you actually spoken?
The evolution of varying standards of speech protection for different modes of communication has given the government some leverage in negotiations with each. Overall, however, the promise of First Amendment protection has led to an assumption that economic entities are entitled to the same rights as human beings. It has even been argued that they are involved in speech that is more vital to democracy than the speech of any individual. The rationale has cut both ways, occasionally justifying refusal of access to the media and, less often, requiring media to air a message.
As a result of this fragmentation of speech rights, most people have had their freedom redefined and largely curtailed on the basis of the medium they wish to use. Those who operate outside the institutional media, though some may consider themselves “netizans” as a result of their access to blogs and social networks, are mainly consigned to the status of "listeners," "consumers," "audience," or occasionally "sources." The progressive mechanization of mass media, combined with economic centralization, has led to a system of mass communication that is impersonal and normally unresponsive. Freedom of speech has become an institutional right, and individual speakers have been turned into interchangeable objects.
Next: Autonomy & Self-Rule
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Community & Consciousness
Part 35 of Prisoners of the Real
We can't go back. The only route is through the current crisis and on to the next stage of human evolution. But we can only get there if we know where we want to go.
First and foremost, the impulses toward centralization, rationalization, absolutism, and hierarchy must be rejected as means toward personal liberation and global harmony. This is especially difficult at a time when the need for global control is so strongly asserted and threatens to erase the vision of free communities. Complicating matters further is the confusion between the concept of true community and the State. The more a group of people allows itself to be represented from outside, the less community life is left in it.
Community is the joint and active management of what we hold in common, a primary aspiration of all human beings. Survival itself depends on the use of community structures and institutions to promote genuine freedom and spontaneous social action.
Second, we must recognize that community isn't a rigid idea but instead a living form, shaped by daily experience. It must satisfy the demands of real situations rather than abstractions. Like any realization, community is not reached once and for all time. Every moment presents new challenges and calls for original answers. For the individual, community building requires the inner disposition to pursue a life in common, despite the prospect of adverse circumstances and anxiety, tribulations, and toil. What sustains it is spirit, trust and love.
Community begins when its members see their common purpose and relation to the whole, a living togetherness that is the essence of sister and brotherhood. In that sense, few true communities currently exist in our "post-modern" world. Most of our cities have no real centers, and we devote little time to defining what holds us together. That work has mostly been turned over to elected representatives and appointed bureaucrats. Their "rational collectives" leave little space for warmth or friendship in the press of political and economic reality. Visions of togetherness are usually viewed as romantic fantasy, conceivable at all only in terms of their concrete effects.
Dionysian collectives, in contrast, are the seeds of an organic commonwealth that place true solidarity at the center of social experience. Every act of true friendship, every moment of selfless aid in our rationalized "post-industrial" world, brings social transformation a step nearer. This is true community building, and it occurs whenever autonomous actions create dynamic unity.
The Dionysian path is known by many names – metaphysical reconstruction, holistic epistemology, deep ecology, and new age claptrap, among others. Critics rightly note that attacks on rationalism and "instrumental reason" often extend too far, ending in rejection of all forms of purposeful activity and a retreat into the mystical haze of nature worship and “magical thinking.” Wary of the cult of technique, cultural revolutionaries sometimes confuse technology with practice and reject all human inventiveness as wanton dominance. In truth, however, it is possible to make peace with nature even while acknowledging the separation created by our consciousness. As Christopher Lasch explained, "Nature sets limits to human freedom, but it does not define freedom."
Ecological and systems thinking provide a theoretical foundation for the Dionysian approach. The former encompasses the realization that structures that may appear rigid in nature are actually manifestations of processes in continual flux; the latter has moved beyond analysis of complex machines to an understanding of relationships and integration in living systems. After 2000 years of reducing the world to smaller and smaller building blocks, science has finally turned its attention to principles of organization. Every organism is an integrated whole, a living system. Families and communities exhibit the same characteristics of wholeness as cells and ecosystems.
Yet the metaphysical reconstruction implied by a turn to the Dionysian principle also involves reconciliation of two realms of experience that have long been viewed as separate and irreconcilable – the political and spiritual. Marx's claim that religion is the "opiate of the people" has been as debilitating as the notion that enlightenment is a purely personal pursuit, fundamentally incompatible with the "dirty" world of social action.
The keys to a synthesis have been found in ecological consciousness and the post-modern politics of Gaia. Together they form a new cultural paradigm – planetary consciousness. With roots in myth, Gaia re-emerged as hypothesis, out of research on the auto-regulation of the Earth as a living system. According to James Lovelock, originator of the hypothesis, "the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, can be regarded as a single entity." Studying the nature of Earth's atmosphere, he and other researchers discovered that it is not merely a biological product but instead an active system designed to maintain a chosen environment within the biosphere.
Since this initial research Gaia has developed as a theoretical and artistic context, embraced by social critics, articulated in music, and developed as an eco-social organizing principle. There is talk also of a Gaian mode of consciousness, one acknowledging that science has a myth-making quality. Closely linked to ecological concepts, Gaian consciousness recognizes that opposites can – in fact, must – coexist.
This emerging form of spirituality is politically consistent with certain strains of Green thinking, in particular deep ecology, holistic feminism, community-based populism, and bio-regionalism. All of these incorporate a subtle awareness of the oneness of life, the interdependence of its limitless manifestations, and its cyclical processes of change and transformation. The sense that we are connected to the cosmos as a whole is a spiritual revelation that ties together the disparate expressions of this new consciousness.
In The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics, Charlene Spretnak argued persuasively that Green concepts of inter-relatedness and sustainability open the way toward what she called post-modern spirituality. Human beings, she wrote, are social and interconnected, and the boundaries between us are more illusory than we normally think. Taking account of the nature reverence buried within most religious traditions, she concluded that a spiritual grounding can not only answer a deep hunger in modern experience, but also mesh comfortably with the Green tendrils that have sprouted around the world. Like others who are attempting to describe the next stage of humanity's journey, she found herself in a region where cosmic consciousness and political analysis meet.
William Irwin Thompson defined the current transition as a shift from the cultural ecology of the Atlantic, with its capitalist, industrial approach, to a new Pacific ecology that is more communal and balanced. On the spiritual level, this translates as a move from obedience to symbiosis. Working with a series of paradoxes, he noted that "Good at one level of order becomes evil at another.... In the age of mental understanding of doctrine (the current Atlantic era), obedience to law is evil, for it aborts the development of the mind. In an age of universal compassion (the new Pacific era), understanding of doctrine becomes evil, for it simply sanctifies murder in religious warfare."
The key to a new age, says Thompson, is the acceptance of difference, "the consciousness of the unique that contributes to the understanding of the universal." The main danger, on the other hand, is what he has labeled "collectivization through terror," the stamping out of differences. Just as mono-crop agriculture does violence to nature, a mono-crop society – essentially the extreme of an industrial mentality – would be deadly to human nature. Even Green politics, which may yet develop an ecology of consciousness, could instead become a fundamentalist ideology, rejecting flexibility and promoting a Luddite contempt for innovation.
"The real secret of freedom," Thompson once wrote, "seems to lie in the ability to deal with ambiguity, the capacity to tolerate noise and yet hear within its wild, randomizing abandon the possibilities of innovation and transformation."
Next: The Eclipse of Free Expression
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
We can't go back. The only route is through the current crisis and on to the next stage of human evolution. But we can only get there if we know where we want to go.
First and foremost, the impulses toward centralization, rationalization, absolutism, and hierarchy must be rejected as means toward personal liberation and global harmony. This is especially difficult at a time when the need for global control is so strongly asserted and threatens to erase the vision of free communities. Complicating matters further is the confusion between the concept of true community and the State. The more a group of people allows itself to be represented from outside, the less community life is left in it.
Community is the joint and active management of what we hold in common, a primary aspiration of all human beings. Survival itself depends on the use of community structures and institutions to promote genuine freedom and spontaneous social action.
Second, we must recognize that community isn't a rigid idea but instead a living form, shaped by daily experience. It must satisfy the demands of real situations rather than abstractions. Like any realization, community is not reached once and for all time. Every moment presents new challenges and calls for original answers. For the individual, community building requires the inner disposition to pursue a life in common, despite the prospect of adverse circumstances and anxiety, tribulations, and toil. What sustains it is spirit, trust and love.
Community begins when its members see their common purpose and relation to the whole, a living togetherness that is the essence of sister and brotherhood. In that sense, few true communities currently exist in our "post-modern" world. Most of our cities have no real centers, and we devote little time to defining what holds us together. That work has mostly been turned over to elected representatives and appointed bureaucrats. Their "rational collectives" leave little space for warmth or friendship in the press of political and economic reality. Visions of togetherness are usually viewed as romantic fantasy, conceivable at all only in terms of their concrete effects.
Dionysian collectives, in contrast, are the seeds of an organic commonwealth that place true solidarity at the center of social experience. Every act of true friendship, every moment of selfless aid in our rationalized "post-industrial" world, brings social transformation a step nearer. This is true community building, and it occurs whenever autonomous actions create dynamic unity.
The Dionysian path is known by many names – metaphysical reconstruction, holistic epistemology, deep ecology, and new age claptrap, among others. Critics rightly note that attacks on rationalism and "instrumental reason" often extend too far, ending in rejection of all forms of purposeful activity and a retreat into the mystical haze of nature worship and “magical thinking.” Wary of the cult of technique, cultural revolutionaries sometimes confuse technology with practice and reject all human inventiveness as wanton dominance. In truth, however, it is possible to make peace with nature even while acknowledging the separation created by our consciousness. As Christopher Lasch explained, "Nature sets limits to human freedom, but it does not define freedom."
Ecological and systems thinking provide a theoretical foundation for the Dionysian approach. The former encompasses the realization that structures that may appear rigid in nature are actually manifestations of processes in continual flux; the latter has moved beyond analysis of complex machines to an understanding of relationships and integration in living systems. After 2000 years of reducing the world to smaller and smaller building blocks, science has finally turned its attention to principles of organization. Every organism is an integrated whole, a living system. Families and communities exhibit the same characteristics of wholeness as cells and ecosystems.
Yet the metaphysical reconstruction implied by a turn to the Dionysian principle also involves reconciliation of two realms of experience that have long been viewed as separate and irreconcilable – the political and spiritual. Marx's claim that religion is the "opiate of the people" has been as debilitating as the notion that enlightenment is a purely personal pursuit, fundamentally incompatible with the "dirty" world of social action.
The keys to a synthesis have been found in ecological consciousness and the post-modern politics of Gaia. Together they form a new cultural paradigm – planetary consciousness. With roots in myth, Gaia re-emerged as hypothesis, out of research on the auto-regulation of the Earth as a living system. According to James Lovelock, originator of the hypothesis, "the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, can be regarded as a single entity." Studying the nature of Earth's atmosphere, he and other researchers discovered that it is not merely a biological product but instead an active system designed to maintain a chosen environment within the biosphere.
Since this initial research Gaia has developed as a theoretical and artistic context, embraced by social critics, articulated in music, and developed as an eco-social organizing principle. There is talk also of a Gaian mode of consciousness, one acknowledging that science has a myth-making quality. Closely linked to ecological concepts, Gaian consciousness recognizes that opposites can – in fact, must – coexist.
This emerging form of spirituality is politically consistent with certain strains of Green thinking, in particular deep ecology, holistic feminism, community-based populism, and bio-regionalism. All of these incorporate a subtle awareness of the oneness of life, the interdependence of its limitless manifestations, and its cyclical processes of change and transformation. The sense that we are connected to the cosmos as a whole is a spiritual revelation that ties together the disparate expressions of this new consciousness.
In The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics, Charlene Spretnak argued persuasively that Green concepts of inter-relatedness and sustainability open the way toward what she called post-modern spirituality. Human beings, she wrote, are social and interconnected, and the boundaries between us are more illusory than we normally think. Taking account of the nature reverence buried within most religious traditions, she concluded that a spiritual grounding can not only answer a deep hunger in modern experience, but also mesh comfortably with the Green tendrils that have sprouted around the world. Like others who are attempting to describe the next stage of humanity's journey, she found herself in a region where cosmic consciousness and political analysis meet.
William Irwin Thompson defined the current transition as a shift from the cultural ecology of the Atlantic, with its capitalist, industrial approach, to a new Pacific ecology that is more communal and balanced. On the spiritual level, this translates as a move from obedience to symbiosis. Working with a series of paradoxes, he noted that "Good at one level of order becomes evil at another.... In the age of mental understanding of doctrine (the current Atlantic era), obedience to law is evil, for it aborts the development of the mind. In an age of universal compassion (the new Pacific era), understanding of doctrine becomes evil, for it simply sanctifies murder in religious warfare."
The key to a new age, says Thompson, is the acceptance of difference, "the consciousness of the unique that contributes to the understanding of the universal." The main danger, on the other hand, is what he has labeled "collectivization through terror," the stamping out of differences. Just as mono-crop agriculture does violence to nature, a mono-crop society – essentially the extreme of an industrial mentality – would be deadly to human nature. Even Green politics, which may yet develop an ecology of consciousness, could instead become a fundamentalist ideology, rejecting flexibility and promoting a Luddite contempt for innovation.
"The real secret of freedom," Thompson once wrote, "seems to lie in the ability to deal with ambiguity, the capacity to tolerate noise and yet hear within its wild, randomizing abandon the possibilities of innovation and transformation."
Next: The Eclipse of Free Expression
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
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