Like alot of news junkies, my laptop is about to explode because of all the open windows streaming live. From Wisconsin to Libya, Egypt and Japan, the world has truly crashed through our front door this month. What are we supposed to do with ourselves in all of this mayhem?
First, we need to get more comfortable with uncertainty because this is what the future looks like. Second, we need to believe that the United States has a unique and important role to play as we move forward. Our leadership will be key.
That's why am I picking on potential Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and propaganda blogger Andrew Breitbart. To me, they represent the tri-fecta of backwardness that we must actively avoid among our political and cultural leadership if we want to stay focused on the future. These individuals thrive on the uncertainty of today's political environment--presenting simple but false governing solutions along with tabloid fodder distractions--- while undermining the society that they claim to seek. These actions actually place them outside of the American political spectrum. They are not so much conservatives as they are Soviets--the ideologically driven, corrupt regime that dominated eastern Europe for most of the last century.
Libya's ghoulish leader Moamar Gaddafi is why I know something about the Soviet Union. I knew people on Pan Am 103--the plane that exploded in the sky over Scotland after Gaddafi's operatives sabotaged it. I was living in London at the time--near Hyde Park--with a big gang of American students. It was 1988, and I was far more indignant about the Reagan years than most of my peers. They happily sparred with me after a day spent protesting nuclear deployments at Greenham Common--but always during games of tag football or at the pub. These were the same kids that were blown up. They would never get to realize that we were living out the twilight years of the Cold War, an ideological struggle between the open "bottom up" society of the USA and the closed "top down" society of the Soviet Union. The nuclear arms race and proxy warfighting is how these two nations poked each other in the eye. The story then was communism vs. freedom. To that point, here's a video of Reagan endorsing collective bargaining.
I was so horrified by what happened that I got on a train going East and ended up on the edge of the western world. In 1989, I lived right along the Berlin Wall, my sparse, gray apartment staring at the watch towers. I read the wall constantly, its graffiti supplied the Twitter tweets of the day. And like the Khaled Said Facebook page in Egypt, it wrote the obituary of the regime before its demise. I spent most of my time finding books at yard sales and then sneaking them into the underground libraries of East Berlin.
What They Have in Common
Every day in West Berlin, I'd wake up and turn on a rabbit-eared television. It got a couple of channels, including one from East Germany. The broadcast invariably communicated something about their great society, envy of the world, then gave a rambling weather report, and ended with frocked maidens dancing a polka.
Apparently, top-down strategies haven't changed. This is our own Soviets' strategy in a nutshell:
- Loudly congratulate yourself with a vision of disproved theories (Gingrich)
- Insist on talking about normal weather, despite the impending political storm (Governor Walker)
- Swing your ruffles to and fro, dance and bow (propagandist Brietbart)
"Everyone shall have the right to profess any religious faith or to be without religious conviction, and to practice his religious beliefs in so far as this does not contravene the law"
This statement was not true. So how does a regime sustain this kind of mega-lie? Well, The Soviets just made it painful, scary or burdensome to be free. So do their contemporary counterparts.
Commissar Gingrich
The Soviets used institutions of government opportunistically to the detriment of the people. When he was Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich changed the rules to make it impossible to have subject matter experts as shared staff. Willing and interested Democrats and Republicans were no longer able to pool their funds. Despite his soaring rhetoric about globalization, Gingrich wiped out the Office of Technology Assessment, 120 scientists forecasting the implications of scientific knowledge for our nation. Specialized knowledge became increasingly captured by private, commercial lobbies with either an ideological or financial stake in the outcome. Purchased information relationships became the norm. Public interest advocates were (and still are) severely out numbered and outspent. Gingrich made our first branch of government dumb on purpose and unable to defend itself. The revolving door from government into predatory lobbying became an escalator. The more you sold out the public sector, the better your power prospects.
Commissar Walker
The Governor of Wisconsin has dispensed with all niceties. More goon squad than governor, he's simply announced that working people in unions have no right to a collective voice. This behavior is un-American (see Ronald Reagan, above). Though he talks the anti-government line about burdensome bureaucracy, he really only wants to eliminate the paperwork for his side (people with $ like David Koch) . His legislative priorities impose significant procedural burdens on democratic participation. Two examples: unions will be required to prove a 51% certification vote every year, and not even state-issued student ID cards are allowable voter identification. Everyone has been watching Madison, but perhaps this is why little Washburn, Wisconsin (population 1200) turned out 2200 people to protest. The governor was also reportedly asked to leave a family restaurant up North. Anybody who has enjoyed the love of midwesterners knows this is serious. Memo to Walker with a map of the Middle East attached: People won't stand for humiliation on their own own turf. You cannot prevail.
Commissar Breitbart and Comrade O'Keefe
And the cultural finale. Perhaps the most cynical part of the former Soviet bloc is how they manipulated public expression for narrow propaganda purposes. Kind of like the tabloid politics of Andrew Breitbart and his mini-me videographer, James O'Keefe. Like comic book anti-heroes, these two plunder the public trust. Their entrapment tactics (of ACORN, NPR) deliberately misleading editing and righteous indignation seek to obscure what most of us just call lying. More than anything, they remind me of a shiny, homely asbestos laden building sitting right in the middle of the old East Berlin--the culture palace. It's where the sock puppet regime distracted the masses while the economy, the political life and society rotted. The big difference here is that under the totalitarian state, the propaganda entertainers had no choice.
What we have to Lose
Epiphany, late summer, 1989. I knew it was over when the secret police harrassed me in front of the Palast Hotel in East Berlin. I was searching my pockets for dollars to exchange for Deutsch Marks (it was a stupid and illegal thing to do for an ice cream sundae). Just then, I noticed I was standing right next to a glass door with an American Express/Visa sign on it. That same lie was on my mind later in the day. I was hiding out with an East German dissident after dropping off some books. "You Americans are so lucky" he said, "I can't wait for the chance to be ignored". Two months later they were dancing through the streets of West Berlin.
For years, the world has cared about the United States far more than the United States has cared about the world. This is changing, and that is a good thing. Our story of freedom continues and is reinventing itself. Americans are masters of self-determination. The world needs our innovation and creativity more than ever and we need the inspiration that the Arab spring provides. This will require a deliberate strategy of sidelining our home-grown Soviets. We can't let them drag us down. Actively point to their falsehoods and marginalize them--especially to your Beck-Limbaugh loving relatives. And hey, rest of world, look to the states. Power is redistributing here. DC is done for now.
Go, Wisconsin workers! Come on, Benghazi! Kick it, Syrians, Bahrainis and Yemenis! Steady, Egypt. We're with you!
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Follow Lorelei Kelly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/loreleikelly
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