This morning, fittingly, I need to vote. I welcome the opportunity to vote on certain issues (parental notification of abortion?) on the ballot this year and I abhor the notion of voting for individual candidates whose affiliation begins with a "D." It reminds me of trying to wash a dirty dish with a dirty sponge -- sure, it may look a little cleaner, but would you really want to eat off of it? You may just have removed some of the obvious crusty bits and left behind some nice flesh-eating bacteria. (Yes, I also need to wash the dishes this morning -- we had a late night yesterday. Just embrace the metaphor.) This is a vestige from my days in the party, this loathing of voting for reformists and thereby taking responsibility for their almost inevitably horrible actions once in office. Democrats are the party of war in this country -- Republicans might start them more, but Democrats are the ones who drag them out. I dwell in skepticism.
On the other hand, skepticism that is not also skeptical of itself risks becoming its opposite. I don't want to be like the abolitionists who refused to donate some of their money to buy Frederick Douglass and other runaways out of slavery because doing so would "taint" them with participation in the slave trade -- that smacks of a self-indulgent, bourgeois (you knew it was coming!) need for purity, something most people in dire situations cannot afford. So I never entirely know what I'm going to do on the individual elections until it's actually time to mark the damn ballot. Unless it's the presidential election -- then I just write in Jon Stewart.
So that brings me, on the day of the dead, to the question of who, alive or dead, I would actually vote for with all my beliefs at least mostly intact? Nelson Mandela and bell hooks are about the only ones I can come up with who are alive. As for the dead: Trotsky, Lenin, Che, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin (nonviolent, sure, but at least he'd end the war), Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxembourg, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Toussaint L'Ouverture...all activists, I left the theorists off because much as I love them, they can be unpredictable and, let's face it, academics are soft. I am bizzarely tempted to add Jane Austen -- what can I say? -- I have an inexplicable love for her. Anyone with that much ability to see through the BS would be nice to have around.
Who would be on your dream team ballot?
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5 comments:
Anybody but Sartre.
At this point, I am in disbelief that you're up there and not down here (at UCSC). There are SO MANY SMART MARXISTS at this school. As a dopey social democrat, I'm pretty much in the minority. And you'd have so many people with whom to conspire! It's a cryin' shame!
well... I guess anyone who didn't CHOOSE to become a politician. The ones who choose to are almost always smarmy slimeballs, regardless of party affiliation. Have you seen the Daily Show clip (on comedy central's website) about midterm elections? It's great. :) I actually can't vote in this one because I forgot to have my ballot sent to Austria, and Oregon doesn't allow mail forwarding for ballots (to prevent fraud, I guess). So, no voting for Rachel.
Agree on all counts. And UCSC does have an awesomely activist grad student body (compared to here), from what I remember in the visit, but...communist globally/communalist personally -- my community is very important to me and they were willing to come here but not there. Plus, you know, my advisor here rocks and stuff. :)
An awesome advisor is the key! Speaking of whihc how is the advisor feeling? As for the politicians, I'm putting in a plug for Paulo Freire (sans Christianity) because he really cared about truly understanding people's problems from their own perspective rather than imposing totalistic solutions from the top down.
I love Paolo Freire! Good call. Augusto Boal should go on there as well. And the advisor's doing a lot better, I think, though I haven't met with her much in the last few weeks. She's working hard on her book, which I can't wait to read.
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