Britain is in the midst of its four-week election and one of the big themes of the campaign there is the renewal of civic society. There, in launching the campaign, one of the major parties announced:
A neighbourhood army of 5,000 full-time, professional community organisers will be trained with the skills they need to identify local community leaders, bring communities together, help people start their own neighbourhood groups, and give communities the help they need to take control and tackle their problems. This plan is directly based on the successful community organising movement established by Saul Alinsky in the United States and has successfully trained generations of community organisers, including President Obama.
Now guess which political party is proposing government funding for community organizers? Not Labour or the Liberal Democrats, but the Conservative Party. Yes, the party of Thatcher, who famously declared, “there was no such thing as society”, is now pushing the idea of “The Big Society” as a substitute for both big government and “you’re on your own” libertarianism.
Obama is praised as an example, organizers seen as part of devolving power directly to the people. The Conservative Party even billed its party manifesto, which are important documents in British politics, as an “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. Its amazing stuff, when you compare it to the puerile condescension American conservatives hold for community activism (unless its fundamentalist or tea party style).
There was a time when the political parties of the right in America and Britain found common cause and aped each other’s ideological fixations. Reagan and Thatcher were personal intimates: both rabid anti-Soviets and foes of big government and the unions. Now though, when looking for inspiration, current Conservative leaders look not to American Republicans but to its Democrats for inspiration.
A big part of the shift in Britain’s center-right is the three electoral drubbings the Conservatives took at the hands of Tony Blair’s New Labour, itself in part modelled on Clinton’s New Democrats. Conservative Party leader David Cameron has spent almost four years cleansing his regime’s “nasty and old” party image to make it more socially liberal, environmentally conscious and civic minded.
Its not clear though it going to work (the British election is tightening with the third-party Liberal Democrats scoring a win in Britain’s first presidential-style party debate) but I must say it would be nice if Republicans here looked at what their cousins in Britain were talking about. There was a time years ago when this type of communitarian politics would have appealed to Republicans. No longer. My hope is a a few more electoral drubbings at the hands of Obama and his heirs will bring Republicans to their senses.
…generally wouldn’t be any further right than “New Democrats” in the United States, and many have made their peace with programs that would be lambasted here as “socialist”.
I bet you there’s a similar percentage of Europeans who think Government should get out of the business of social welfare completely; we just don’t have what Europe has because we don’t have a parliamentary system — ie a real, full-blown representative democracy. It’s too easy for the minority to block things in this country, which is why we don’t have truly universal health care and may never get it. It’s why we don’t have a fair tax system and why we’ll probably have it. That US Senate you’ve stuck up for so many times is a chief reason in why there’s so many aspects to this country that suck, because truth be told Americans aren’t really as different as, say, the English or Canadians as you and many others would like to believe. We have our crazies and they have their’s, and both of them are a large part of the population.
It’s why we don’t have a fair tax system and why we’ll probably never have it.
Yes I standby by generalization about conservatives in Europe as I’ve done a fair amount of study of European politics. If anything you would see more in a PR system because as long as a small threshhold is met any party can get in. I was careful to say mainstream conservatives because you do have a few loonies like the National Front in France, but the Tories, Gaullites, and various Christian Democrat parties are what I was refering to. The UK has single-member districts so procedurally they are closer to us. I still blame the Senate rules and the abuse thereof for our problems rather than the constitutional nature of that body.
But I disagree that they have as many people who want the Govt out of the social welfare business as we do. Just ain’t true. Many of the center-right parties of Europe are for big government. One of the main planks of the British Conservatives is to protect the National Health Service and its funding, even as they reduce funding to grapple with their deficit. That’s right…they are proudly defending socialized medicine.
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p>Until I see the link that proves this, I don’t find your argument very credible. There is nothing inherently different about Americans than there is, say, the French. We just have a political system that gives our nuts a much stronger ability to impact government. Not only do those nuts not need a majority to control legislation, but we effectively give a few whackos in Alaska the very same representation as the 30+ million people who live in California.
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p>There may not be as many crazy people screaming about universal health care in other countries, but I’d be nearly shocked if there weren’t just about as many people screaming about getting government out of their bizness. Please remember, all of those crazy Teabaggers were screaming about the Government “socializing” health care at the very same moments they said it was trying to attack their medicare, a social institution.
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p>Just because they may support their national health care system in those countries, does not mean they would say they’d support social welfare. Cognitive dissonance exists in the same rate in France and England as it does in Alabama. Humanity’s flaws are just as pervasive all over, but some political systems are created in ways that help offset that. America’s political system was actually specifically designed with protection from certain elements in mind, but the fact of the matter is those ‘protections’ built into our system are the very things that give power to the crazy elements in this country and prevent us from moving forward as a country.
…didn’t dismantle the National Health Service. Similar things could be said about conservative governments on the Continent. Nobody’s saying there are NO people who wish to gut government over there, but you also sound like you’re making assumptions. It’s not just about a system which is less likely to allow the blocking of progressive legislation. There isn’t enough popular opinion on that side to count or to build the political coaltions necessary to accomplish that. Again, studying as I have, and no I don’t have links at my fingertips, I would definitely say that the center of political gravity in Europe is decidedly to the left of where it is here.
didn’t dismantle Medicare. You are, in fact, making my point for me. Thanks.
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p>I’m not so much looking at where the “center of political gravity” is, I’m saying that they have their crazies and probably just as many of them as we do — and that our political system gives those crazies inherently more political power than their systems do. Is our political center really to the right of an England? We’ll honestly never know, so long as we have a political system where a minority can so easily block the will of the majority.
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p>Needless to say, though, if we had a parliamentary system of government, there isn’t a single doubt in my mind that we’d have universal health care and far more examples of social welfare in this country. That isn’t really in doubt. Unfortunately, the 500,000 people in Wyoming count far more than the 8,000,000 people in New York City — while the 550,000 people in Washington, D.C. don’t even count. And you’re surprised we don’t have a strong social welfare system?
There is nothing inherently different about Americans than there is, say, the French.
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p>That’s a very American thing to say, to discount culture completely and insist that people are nothing but their genes and their own free will. There are enormous differences in culture, and culture has an enormous effect on people’s wills and politics.
And a very true thing to say. Human beings, the world over, are inherently the same. Culture changes us over time, of course, but we’re born out of the womb with all the same parts, needs and desires. And while the environments we live in change us over time, we’ll always still have mostly the same parts, needs and desires. The things that make us different pale in comparison to the things that make us the same. I’m not “discount[ing] culture completely,” I’m being honest and factual.
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p>There is no difference so enormous between America and France that would make one country want to create a system where its people can thrive and the other a system of winners and losers, where only the rich prevail. Some of our policy differences certainly come out of culture, but many more of them come out of France’s superior political system. If we had a parliamentary political system that set domestic policy, we’d have a system of government that actually reflected the will of its rank-and-file people, too, including universal health care and a decent amount of time off guaranteed for its populace.
They don’t get communitarianism or the value of culture and community either. They think everyone is an equal human being out in a wilderness fending for themselves and therefore earning everything they can get, an uniquely American vision formed in the wilderness of this continent, and which we learned from childhood cowboys and indians games and stories about famous individuals who got rich through their own hard work. In other countries like France they don’t have that survival in the wilderness background, they have a much stronger respect for their cultural heritage. We wear the revolutionary war against our cultural heritage as a badge of honor.
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p>Who says I don’t get “communitarianism” or “the value of culture?” That’s complete BS. I fight for that every day, it’s the very central tenet I hold in my political activism. Just look at the casino issue — communities is exactly why I’ve fought so strongly on that issue. Communities is what I value in the political process.
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p>I think each and every human life is absolutely precious. I am a humanist. That is what guides me as a person. However, while we’re all unique and while we’re all important, we’re also all made up of the same things. At the risk of going a little too far out there, we’re all our own, little snowflakes — the same, and yet, different.
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p>The fact that you’d try to implant a “survival of the fittest” spin on what I’m saying is an affront to me as a human being — and isn’t at all like what I’m saying. If you think I sound like a Tea Partier, I think you sound like a deranged lunatic.
Hmm, I guess you have some quirky contradictions, sometimes you value community on things like fighting casinos, other times you celebrate individualism and libertarianism. This time, in this conversation with Christopher about culture not being a factor in our um, culture, because we are all just biological meat machines basically made the same, you sounded like a Tea Partier. Just pointing out, not trying to question your community spirit. (sheesh)
I think you sound like, making that sort of an absurd argument (because for one to think that the bulk of the world thinks human beings should have a decent quality of life and offer a system where there’s truly equal opportunity for all is “libertarian” or “tea partier” or ‘anti-community’ is deranged and a great example of lunacy).
which was there is a unique American culture which celebrates merit and dog-eat-dog competition in a wilderness, and throwing away old commitments to culture, at the expense of a communitarian idea that other people should have a decent quality of life. That communitarian idea is instilled by older cultures which celebrate their common heritage and sense of family, exemplified by monarchs and being whatever culture they are.
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p>I do however completely agree with your point that our system of representation allows extremists to have far too much power. Our culture celebrates being anti-government, whether it is Tea Partiers celebrating Sam Adams, Gays celebrating Stonewall, Potheads celebrating 4:20, Wall Street execs celebrating lack of regulation, fertility doctors and lawyers, it seems everyone has some sympathy for anti-government libertarianism, and the communitarians here are surrounded on all fronts, but I think are recognizing their common enemy is libertarianism and starting to coalesce together by rejecting the extremists.
I have to correct for your deranged version of what I was saying, because what you say in the “for one to think that…” parenthesis indeed is deranged, and I can’t understand how you construed that from my comments. My sense is that you purposefully portrayed my comments in a ridiculous and illogical parody.
about their new-found fake commitments to that “society.”
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or that they don’t still stack their policies toward the privileged classes from which most of them are drawn, but that their conservatism is more of the Rockefeller variety than Sarah Palin’s – and they actively seeking the bring it toward the center as opposed to our own Republicans headed in the other direction.
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I think that varies greatly on the conservative.
This idea sounds mighty similar to what I proposed 15 months ago in David’s BMG diary titled “Patrick to Obama: don’t repeat our mistakes vis-a-vis the grassroots”. Only we don’t need an “army of 5,000.” I’ll do with an army of 5, with me leading it. Are you listening, Governor?
I think the Tea Partiers care most about their freedom to drive around and buy stuff and do whatever they want. They think liberals are going to raise the price of gas and curtail their freedom to drive powerboats and jet skis on Lake Champlain, because liberals are just jealous of their grilled steaks and big trucks.
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p>They are the people James Kunstler calls “knuckleheads.” They actually urge each other to burn lots of carbon on the Fourth of July. They are fiercely libertarian, and don’t care about social conservative concerns for community and culture at all.
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Tea Partiers are tinfoil-hat wearers who think the government’s out to get them. They aren’t “knuckleheads,” they’re a largely-racist, dangerous element in society that seeks to totally subvert the will of the majority.
How is some unemployed person who is running out of money going to Jet Ski on Lake Champlain?
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p>And how are these destitute people going to buy anything?
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p>That’s what’s not being talked about enough.
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p>I am left wing on economics. In this depression, that means LARGE KEYNESIAN STIMULUS. It means a strong, bold legislature making government jobs for the unemployed.
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p>For example, perhaps a government job could put someone to work on research for making electric cars and trucks that are affordable and powerful. Two to three times more powerful than current gas or diesel models. Federal law could standardize the batteries used, and gas stations would morph into battery stations.
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p>Now, down the road, we have the man working on research that builds the future, getting paid and buying things to stimulate the economy.
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p>Big Truck? Bigger and more powerful than ever. Paid for from his paycheck at work.
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p>Jet Skiing on Lake Champlain? Absolutely, but with a battery charged power boat from research he did at work, more or less.
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p>Grilled Steaks? Absolutely, and anything else he wants to eat. He is doing well with this new job.
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p>This is the type of economic vision that leftists should be presenting to the public. Strong leadership that gives a paycheck to the destitute and pays for research that creates the technology of the future.
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p>What does NOT need to be presented are 2 things, one a policy and one just an observation.
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p>In this depression, there must be no attempt to balance the federal budget. Balancing the budget is one of those things that sounds nice but doesn’t work out well. When FDR tried it in 1937, unemployment went up again.
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p>Running a campaign on “We’re sane people, and they’re kooky nut bars from far out” is not going to win elections either. Of course, they have nutty people, but they will run candidates that seem “normal” in terms of presentation.
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p>As for being Libertarian, why not? On social issues, I am a total Libertarian. The United States has 25% of the world’s prisoners. Is that liberty and justice for all? In private life, I am totally in favor of leaving people alone, and legalizing drugs and prostitution. We do not need busybodies dictating their ideas of “clean living” on us by force.
Because of your views on social issues? Because of your views on large Keynesian stimulus? You also seem very right wing to me based on your vision of industry and meritocracy and maintaining the American way of life consumption.