No Utopias
Which brings us to the e-mailer who is considering voting for Tea Party candidates to "sharpen the contradictions." Though the frustration on the Left is understandable, the idea of wanting the United States to move even further right as a way to create more desperation and thus a political shift to the left is dangerous, and always has been.
Not only was that the fatal mistake of the German Communists in the 1930s who embraced the slogan, "after Hitler, us," but there is no particular reason to believe that making life more miserable for Americans would automatically convince them to opt for leftist solutions now.
If history has taught us anything, it is that rightist propaganda can be extremely effective in finding scapegoats for social ills, whether it was the Jews in Nazi Germany or Muslims and Mexicans in today's America. Economic fear has often been the fuel for right-wing reaction.
Still, some on the Left still seem influenced by the flawed thinking of Karl Marx who prophesized the inevitable collapse of capitalism and its replacement by egalitarian communism. The fatal mistake in this thinking (even assuming that his larger point is correct) is that Marx did not take into account that the human species doesn't have unlimited time for such a transformation to play out.
Any long-range vision of revolutionary change runs headlong into the approaching deadline for reversing global warming which is making the earth uninhabitable for future generations. Even in the near term, climate change floods, droughts, severe weather is sure to produce dangerous political and economic dislocations.
These political and economic challenges mixed with the incendiary ingredients of nationalism, religious animosities and nuclear bombs are a recipe for existential catastrophes even before the brunt of global warming is felt by a desperate mankind.
So, what to do?
It seems to me that the only realistic choice is to blend a practical approach toward short-term electoral politics with a more ambitious longer-term strategy for building media outlets and other institutions that can revitalize American democracy by generating real information and sensible solutions.
In other words, it may be time for everyone to lower their sights from the ideal to the necessary and to act accordingly. There is real value in having people in high office who are sane and knowledgeable, rather than reckless and ignorant, especially in a country possessing a vast nuclear arsenal.
I'm sure this answer won't satisfy many readers. I may well receive a new flood of angry comments and e-mails.
But it has become my belief that there are no good solutions left (and surely none that are utopian). All we can do is get serious about salvaging the planet for our posterity and making life a bit less brutish for those already here.
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