The Counterpublic Papers vol. 2 no. 21

January 31, 2017

Wow. 

Ten days in. 

Wonder how that “trump=hilary” equation is working out for folks. Not so well I imagine….

…

Where is Clinton by the way? Thinking about what happened in November as the equivalent of a coup—Bush vs. Gore 2.0—I imagine Clinton as the equivalent of the president in absentia, stuck somewhere in a hiding place giving radio pronouncements in a secret radio hanger. Which is…mad, right?

Right?

I’m all one for big d democracy. I’m all about organizing people to lead. But with what we’re facing we need a multi-pronged approach. We need people protesting in airports like BWI (technically Thurgood Marshall International Airport, and if we ever needed to start claiming that name we probably need to do it now), and we need people organizing in between direct actions, but we also need people with bigger microphones to galvanize everyday folk to political action. Obama broke tradition by taking only ten days to speak out against Trump’s policies but Obama’s statement (which he didn’t technically deliver) was pretty weak in outside-the-beltway terms. Inside the beltway is probably another story, as I am sure his statement was the equivalent of a two ton microphone dropping. But most of us don’t engage in inside the beltway politics (thank INSERT PREFERRED DEITY HERE BECAUSE I’M A HEATHEN). We need someone with the capacity to speak to mainstream folk, someone with the capacity to have as close to a presidential mic as we can get. Sad to say but I think Clinton is that person. She’s the only one with the potential to come even a bit close to the power Trump has. 

But she’s nowhere to be found. 

Rather than use this to suggest that she’s the person I thought she was, I’ll simply say that there are a number of political officials who have to somehow come to grips with living in the new normal, and she is likely one of them. I’d like to hope in coming to grips with the new normal she’ll understand what her role should be in this new moment. But I’d also like to win the lotto.

….

People have begun talking about the idea of a general strike. It’s worth noting that the recent women’s march on washington started out as a Facebook post that morphed into an event thousands of people agreed to attend within hours. A general strike though is kind of a different thing—it would entail organizing the likes of which we simply haven’t seen in decades, and then on top of that some more organizing. 

But this idea got me to thinking. If we couldn’t pull off a general strike what could we pull off? Years ago Siba Grovogui, who is now at Cornel, told me about a protest that happened in Uganda. People were protesting the incredibly high rate of inflation, which translated into a 50% increase in fuel costs, and Activists for Change (a political organization that included the party of one of the chief opposition leaders) basically organized a walkout. It spread to at least three cities. I don’t think we have the capacity to do this throughout the US. We could probably do something like this in a city or three. 

….

So I was at Reproductive Health Happy Hour (yes it’s a thing, yes if you’re in Baltimore you should come, yes if you don’t live in Baltimore you should see where your Reproductive Health Happy Hour is, yes you should create your own if you don’t have one), drinking a concoction of vodka, watermelon, and grapefruit….and got into a “what we should do” discussion with the Founder of the happy hour. A few dozen folk (at least) at the Thurgood Marshall protest had never been involved in politics before and came because they’d just gotten fed up with the first week or so of Trump’s presidency. The sisters who came up with the idea of a Woman’s March on Washington wasn’t all that active in politics previously. Assuming these people are looking for alternatives where do we point them? What should we urge people who don’t have much time to do?

We were sober enough to come up with a list. But probably not quite sober enough to come up with a good one. We weren’t sober enough to come up with a list that breathes life into the formation we’re trying to bring to life. 

(In 196X the late Amiri Baraka argued that we needed “poems that kill”; 

 we want "poems that kill."

Assassin poems, Poems that shoot

guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys

and take their weapons leaving them dead

with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.  (From “Black Art”)

Reading this poem by the way it’s strikingly masculine. In fact I’d go as far as to say horribly so. No we don’t need assassin poems. But we do need poems that build. We need poems that breathe life. We need poems that turn guns into trumpet solos, poems that bleed royal purple and old gold, we need poems that expand hearts, poems that blow minds. poems that don’t abdicate.)

Anyway. 

I started poking around, and I found two places to start.

Both are a lot better than any list I could come up with at the bar. 

….

I’m not like some of the folk I follow who are slowly reducing their social media output and input. 

(Well. that’s not really true. I am. Just more slowly than my folk.)

I do though, believe that there’s a social media economy that we’re pretty much ignoring. Facebook and the like make money off of your clicks. And are creating algorithms to make sure you stay clicking. In a moment like this, this likely means that Facebook and the like are consistently feeding you the political news that you want to hear rather than the news you may need to hear. You probably need to turn it down a tad. Don’t use it before you go to bed. Don’t use it while you’re out with your folk. It might hurt a bit, but we need to transition gradually back to face to face communication. I’ve met more than a few lifelong friends I’ve only encountered online. But building the type of community we need is going to require more face to face and less virtual. 

….

I’m going to end with two videos by Bannon, who made a boatload of money off of Seinfeld residuals and created one of the most powerful right-wing media entities in the united states…and is now on Trump’s national security council. One is a bit over 24 minutes long, created before Trump was even a candidate, and the other about ten minutes long created while the campaign was in full swing. 

Watch them both. Note a few things.

The first thing is that he isn’t a Lex Luthor style criminal genius. Real life folk rarely are. He has kind of a down home vibe to him. And he’s earnest and heartfelt.

The second thing is that he has a very clear understanding of where we are and how we got here…and can communicate that effectively. I don’t agree with this understanding at all….but he has one. And it isn’t crazy—again I don’t agree with it. But it’s something that you don’t have to be a flaming racist or homophobe to believe in. 

The third thing is that he has a clear understanding of the dual role ideas and institutions play in moments of crisis. Until I realized that Facebook wasn’t a good use of my energy (ok, ok, I have to consistently realize this….) I was this close to getting into an argument with a colleague about the role “moral authority” should have played during the Obama era and cannot play now. 

Bannon is making a moral argument. He’s suggesting that Americans have a moral duty to defend the principles of Judeo-Christian civilization in order to maintain a humane world order. But he’s not just making a moral argument right? He’s attaching that moral argument to a set of ideas about how capitalism functions a set of ideas about how institutions should be arranged.  

How do we respond? As of right now, a shade less than half of American citizens actually agree with the Muslim ban and half don’t. We know our half can’t be convinced otherwise. Because of this it’s unlikely they can be convinced otherwise. So what do we do? 

Bannon’s thinking we’re looking at a twenty year war. Some argue we’re looking at something much longer and much more dangerous. 

Whatever the case we have to put aside claims of moral authority and think long and hard about creating the institutional framework to create a new culture of political engagement going forward. The keyword isn’t resistance. It’s solidarity. 

My name is Lester Spence. This is the (lightly edited) Counterpublic Papers. Tell your friends. 

We’re in for a ride.