crogerswrites

[crogerswrites]

The Dark Door

    I do not think there is going to be a more pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Era than the rejection of Bernie Sanders. The american people, but maybe more accurately the Democratic Party, rejected the view of the world that Bernie Sanders campaigned on. At the center of the campaign was the push for Medicare for All, meaning a single-payer healthcare system that covered everyone (not the bastardized version of part public, part private that every other candidate was running on). We heard stories from people who had lost loved ones due to rationing of their insulin supply, because of the insanely high price Americans pay for the medicine. We heard tales of people losing loved ones only to be saddled with the insurmountable medical debt. There were so many tales of suffering, and the idea of people profiting off it was always at the center. It was the cornerstone policy of the Bernie campaign that if he was elected they would create a single-payer system that stopped the profiteering off the sick, and covered everyone despite their financial situation. Along with Medicare for All was the proposal to eliminate student debt and provide free tuition to public colleges, better wages for our most vulnerable people in the workforce, a serious step back from foreign intervention, and rolling back the influence of corporate money in politics just to name a few. I believe in all of those things, and I believe that a Bernie Sanders administration would have fought for that full heartedly. If you look at Bernie’s voting record, it is hard not to see anything but a political outsider who has fought his whole career for what he believes in, and has been on the right side of every disastrous American policy. Something none of his opponents can claim for themselves. The Bernie camp knew that enacting these policies would be an uphill battle, but the strategy of the campaign was to create a mass movement of people who believed in these policies that could continue to apply political pressure to achieve them. The idea was to finally create a base of people that could fight the class war on behalf of the working class. Bernie's slogan "not me, us" was a perfect example of the strategy.

    That view of the world was rejected though. Single payer was never possible, education is a privilege not a right, labor is not an issue the Democratic party cares about, the American Empire must always play world police, and billionaires work hard to buy our politicians. We had won so many people over to the Bernie movement since it began in 2016, but in the end the Democratic Party decided to go with business as usual. Just as they were putting the finishing touches on derailing that movement, the United States of America fell into the corona virus pit. The market was already stuttering before the virus hit mainland USA. Capital very quickly abandoned their leading role of the ‘perfect’ system. They massively laid off and fired workers, pulled mass amounts of money out of the market, and liquified as many assets as possible to have hard cash in case this was really the end. Capital abandoned us and left the state to step in (while also asking the governemnt for a bailout, which they so generously received). The state has been hollowed out by capital over the past 40 years, and is nowhere close to being able to handle this type of crisis. Now hospitals are understaffed, overfull, under prepared, and hardly holding on. Hospital staff are begging for more help and proper resources. Imagine living and working through that horrific reality, and the only thing we are willing to do for our healthcare system is to clap during the shift change. When capital dumped their workers without a second thought, there were only fragments of a social security net to catch people. Now state governments and the federal government are trying to scrounge together something that will try and patch up a workforce that currently sits around 20% unemployment. All the critiques of the current state apparatus and capital that came from the Bernie campaign are now ringing true in the most horrific and terrifying way. 

    That is not something to gloat over to make a political point. Although, you would be ignorant to not look at the rejection of the Sanders campaign as a massive turning point for the United States. Finally there was an offer on the table for the Democratic Party to offer real change, a politics that unites us over common goals to provide a better quality of life for all our fellow citizens, to offer something finally good from the party who doesn’t have much to hang their hat on other than not being the Republicans. They did not want to offer it though. A single payer system in the United States would never work. How would we pay for it? The eternally ringing question. Always asked in relation to a social program that helps people. One that will not be uttered once about the federal bailout money going to corporations who pay their CEOs millions and their workers minimum wage. A massive bailout that will make sure the CEOs can keep those extravagant salaries and shareholders can still receive massive payouts. I find it hard to swallow that any movement making an attempt for a better world meets so much scrutiny, and the most obvious, craven corruption is met with a smile and a thumbs up. 

    We treated this fight as do or die, as it was our only good chance at making a positive change in the world. It was not about winning for the sake of being triumphant, it was about fighting the material realities the vast majority of people face. We knew that a lot of people’s lives depended on a single payer healthcare system. We fought hard, and we failed. This seemed like our last chance, because of all the failures of leftist politics we have had in the last 4 years. Since 2016 leftist politics has been resurgent, and we were riding a wave of new found popularity for a bit afterwards. Yet, Corbyn was rejected in the United Kingdom. The NDP had an absolutely abysmal result in Canada’s 2019 election. Both offered a radically different politics from the status quo, both could have given their governments the much needed shot in the arm, but both were heavily rejected by voters despite having their policies be widely approved. Bernie was our last chance, and we failed. We have no choice but to wear that failure, and as much as I am sickened by people’s adverse reaction to these campaigns, I know the failure is also our own. I do not know what needed to be done differently in any of these cases, but I accept that we failed in our mission. 

    The Bernie movement was an attempt by the left wing of the party to take control of the Democratic Party. We came extremely close, we won the first three primaries, and looked to be the strongest among the split field. The Party got smart though; after Biden’s South Carolina win they cleared the deck    so Joe was the only centrist candidate running. Candidates who had been viable and popular up until Super Tuesday dropped out suddenly. Oddly enough Elizabeth Warren, who apparently held a base that somewhat overlapped with Bernie’s, stayed in the race despite not being a viable candidate at all. From there, the movement lost its momentum, corona virus basically made campaigning impossible, and eventually we had to concede that we lost. 

    So the Democrats successfully fought off our insurgency, and the establishment is still very much in charge of the party’s direction. They rejected our vision of politics, so what will they be offering come November’s election? Well, that is why I think this is a pivotal moment in the collapse of the American Golden Age; because they really are not offering a change at all. 

   Obama was elected on the platform of change, his slogan was hope. The only change that came from the Obama years was Obamacare, a doomed policy that was always more of a capitulation to the medical insurance companies and the Republican party than a truly radical policy. Trump has somewhat dismantled it, but the horrible failures I listed above about the American medical system are just as much failures of Obamacare. Obama’s legacy is simply the continuation of the status quo. That is what Hillary ran on in 2016, she was the establishment candidate. She offered no real change at all but a steady hand on the wheel that could keep the country in the same direction. The idea being that she would pick up all the disgusted Republican voters Trump turned away. Wrong. Part of the reason she lost so badly was because people did not like that she embodied the establishment (she also embodied the worst part of the establishment, and could be tied to way too many shady events). Trump successfully pitched himself as a political outsider, someone who was going to bring change to the White House. You can argue about the reality of his pitch, but you can not argue that it helped him cobble together a base that won 2016 and is going to be hard to beat in 2020. 

    Currently the Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives. It was considered a big moment, as now the party had a position to negotiate from with the Trump administration. They have not been able to do much negotiating though, the list of capitulations they have made with no pushback far outweighs anything they have done with their control of the House. Nothing shows the impotence of the Democratic party like their handling of the Trump Corona virus Bailout. Democratic party leaders did nothing to stop the worst parts of the bailout. They did not push back against the massive tax cut that is buried in the bailout. They did not push back against corporations being able to layoff their employees, receive a corporate bailout, and still pay dividends to their shareholders (meaning those who actually do the labor and provide the profit are dumped, while shareholders continue to get paid and receive a bailout). Nancy Pelosi did push back on something though, remote voting for the House of Representatives, which allowed the Republican controlled Senate to be really the only effective body in Congress. Let us be honest though, the Democratic establishment did not want to push back on these things, they were also pushing these measures themselves. 

    After Bernie suspended his campaign, the narrative immediately shifted to whether the Bernie movement would rally behind Biden. Bernie endorsed Biden quickly, and he will do what he can to campaign for him and convince his base to jump over. Whether it will work, or whether we should, is a very long and arduous argument in itself that I am not taking up here. I think the important choice has already been made; there is no real option for change on the table. There may be a difference between Trump and Biden, and a Biden administration would have tangible differences over the next four years undoubtedly. In the long run though I do not think either party is able to execute the radical change that is needed to heed off what seems like the now inevitable downfall of the American state. The legacy of the Democratic party over the last 30 years has been nothing but failure, broken promises, and complete subservience to capital. At every opportunity the Democratic party has had to institute change for the positive, they have not just balked, but continued to protect the interest of global capital at the expense of the most vulnerable. I do not think we have time to give them another chance, there has never been a more crucial time for left-wing radical change than right now. The corona virus has shown the frailty of our current system and its inability to properly handle the crisis, but let us remember we seem to be balancing on the edge of a few crises. Our environment continues to become more and more hostile to human habitation, and natural disasters are not just more common now but fully expected. People have been predicting an economic downturn for some time now, and the markets were limping into the pandemic already. People continue to lose more faith in their public institutions, and that only leads down a dark hole. These are not just boogeymen, they are real existential threats. I know the Democratic party is not offering anything substantial to combat these issues, look at the party establishment’s complete disdain for the Green New Deal.  So when it comes time, how am I supposed to believe that the Democratic establishment won’t throw people to the wolves to save those who they are truly beholden to? 

    The Bernie movement offered something more than just material improvement to people’s lives, it offered social cohesion. Another slogan of the Bernie campaign was “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know?”. Bernie’s platform was one of serious material change, but it was also a serious pitch to those outside of the Democratic party as well. Capital and the neoliberal policies it puts forward have been hollowing out social cohesion for the last 40 years, and anyone looking at the state of the world’s politics would see an extremely divided political landscape. Neoliberalism has not only put the emphasis on the individual, but it has turned every interaction into a transaction. Friendships, careers, even family are all looked at as something to get the most out of for your investment. There are a million books detailing how to optimize your life, and get the most production out of your day. Capital has successfully convinced us that turning yourself into a robot soley possessed by maximum production is a noble pursuit. Bernie’s movement offered something counter to that; the idea that you would fight to improve someone’s life you didn’t know, not because you would get something in return, but that it was the ethical way to treat people. The foundation of socialism is building a tight knit social cohesion that looks to provide for all. The right is offering the exact opposite of that. The Democratic Party says they are offering that, but if you look at the policies on the table, their voting record over the past 40 years, and who they really have gone to bat for over and over again, it is apparent they do not have the ability to create a movement that offers a greater idea of social connectivity. 

    I am not saying the failure of the Bernie campaign now means that a movement like his couldn’t be on the table again in the future. What I am saying is that it very well may be a serious turning point in American history. The crises that continue to plague the world only seem to grow worse, social cohesion only seems to diminish, and the liberal left continues to fail to stop our political rightward drift. How much time is left to offer a viable alternative and solution before it is too late? Ask a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley if they think the American Golden Era will ever end, and they will probably laugh at you for thinking such a thing. Ask someone in Flint, Michigan the same question and they will tell you it already has.

[crogerswrites]

Review: Revenge, by Jim Harrison

I discovered Jim Harrison through a photograph. It was of his bedroom, a simple room with a rustic bed and small wood stove in the corner, a beautiful portrait of a dwelling by Alec Soth. The room charmed me, and when I looked more into who the room belonged to, Harrison charmed me too. In one of the first few interviews I listened to of his, he spoke about witnessing a raven funeral. I am such an admirer of nature, especially birds, and particularly ravens, so right then and there I was a fan for life. I dove into his interviews, because I am at the stage of a writer’s life where they look for the answer to writing wherever they can. The more interviews I took in, the more I admired him. He was a student of the natural world; he was a hunter, and at the same time someone who understood the natural world not as a place to conquer, but marvel at and learn from. That is an unbelievably difficult combination to find, as most people who say they love nature only view it as something to conquer and test themselves against. He also had none of the uptightness and moral superiority that usually accompanies an in depth appreciation of nature. He was well balanced, quoting equally from classic literature as well as the beauty of indigenous spirituality and medicine. He had as many highbrow interests as he did lowbrow, and it seemed he did not distinguish between the two. He was a well read country bumpkin, and it shone a light on a path I had been looking for. 

I stuck with the interviews until I ran out of what I could find online, then I ordered a book of his interviews and dove into that. Eventually I made the leap to his writing, getting Legends of the Fall for Christmas. Revenge, the first novella of the book was also the first piece of his work I had read. Now there can be the awkward moment between infatuation and living up to the dream. His interviews were great, but would the fiction provide the same satisfaction? I can proudly say that he did not disappoint. 

You are quickly sucked into this story. The opening sequence is great, because it hooks you with the mystery of this almost dead body in the desert. What really hooks you though is not some generic mystery plot line, but the way Harrison fleshes out the world and his characters. He sets the scene and location up properly, and you have a full sense of the stage this story is about to take place on. It begins on the southern side of the US-Mexico border, and Harrison’s writing gives it the grandeur, mystery, and magic the place deserves. The story is constantly jumping perspectives, and while our almost dead body is still unconscious, we are treated to the perspective of a vulture, an old coyote, and the man who finds the slowly perishing body. There are constant diversions to other perspectives in this story, but they are always welcome. Harrison’s flexibility when it comes to writing characters (both human and animal) shines through, and the story is enriched by the diversions instead of derailed by them. The story transfers perspectives until it mostly finds a home with our protagonist, and once it does you are almost sad to leave the others behind. The story also cuts up time and rearranges it as it likes, making this even less of a singular flowing narrative and instead more of something seen from multiple sides all at the same time. The narration, of multiple stories flowing in and out of each other, time skipping back and forth, of varying perspectives, always keeps you reading on. I was happy to find that reading Harrison’s prose was just as good as listening/reading his interviews.

The main narrative though is addictive, it starts out as a mystery and keeps you enthralled as it gets revealed to you. The main character, called Cochran, is a bit cookie cutter; former marine, divorced, good looking, does not have a post-military career, but spends his time hustling people in tennis. He is also very well read, an Indiana farm boy that blossomed into both a marine and an intellectual. The character starts on unstable ground, but despite the almost cliche and dream like qualities, that is as predictable or canned as the story ever gets. Our protagonist lives in Tucson, and spends some spare time hustling the overly zealous wealthy in tennis games. He sometimes did this with his partner Tibey, the typical wealthy and shady Mexican, who kept a second home state side. Of course Tibey’s wife Miryea is young, beautiful, and also well read. At first she is cold to Cochran, but during a moment in her personal library they fall instantly in love. From there we are taken into a quick boiling love affair between two people who are most likely soul mates, but are separated by the circumstances of life. Of course Tibey finds out, and the books first part ends in a brutal scene at Cochran’s cabin where the lovers are attacked, mutilated, and Cochran left for dead. 

The narrative at the end of the first act is set up to follow the cliche revenge story. It could have easily been the inspiration for the movie Taken, or an addition to the bad series. You have the pissed Marine with nothing to lose anymore, the Mexican cartel boss who responded with severe violence when he was cucked, and the beautiful, smart leading lady stashed away but still alive. Cochran, once nursed back to health at the mission, vows to retrieve her. The narrative from there betrays the name of the story though, and goes into something much deeper. 

A simple minded person would look at the narrative and think this is machismo garbage. That is only the set up of the story though, and just serves as a springboard to get to the real story. What happens next is not an exploration of male fantasy acted out through violence, but an exploration of human fantasy. The long trail of blood and revenge never arrives, instead we are given a romantic tragedy. Cochran’s focus is never to kill Tibey, it is to get Miryea back. He can not stop thinking about her, about the times they had together and how she was the only good thing that happened in his life. Fuck revenge, he just wants his girl back. He even thinks to himself that once he confronts Tibey, he will give the girl up, showing his motivation is more set on reuniting than revenge. He is not possessed with bloodlust, he is obsessed only with Miryea. Tibey, for his role as the Mexican gangster, is also obsessed with Miryea, and almost regrets the bloody night at the cabin. Instead of the cold hearted gangster, we get a man struggling with himself. Miryea was also the only good thing that happened to Tibey as well, and yes he lost her to another man, but he would do anything just to erase these events and return to existing with her as his wife. He had to respond in that brutal way because of who he is. He does so to play his role, keep up his facade. But we get to see behind the facade though, that he is crumbling not because his masculinity has been damaged by the betrayal, but that Miryea’s love was such an integral part to his true sense of self and happiness. 

Miryea could maybe be seen as a flat character. She never really receives the fleshing out that the others do. She receives the worst fate of the whole story, and her only crime is infidelity with someone she truly loved. Yet she is also the most important character, the central figure the whole thing rotates around. She is not simply infatuated with Cochran, the passion goes both ways. To reduce her down to simply a damsel in distress would do her character a bigger disservice than Harrison.  She is not just well read and beautiful, she manages to pull something deeper out of both men. In a story that is set up to be a bloody revenge tale, it becomes an examination of true love and what it does to the human soul. That whole narrative is centered around Miryea. The story is not about men getting equal, but about the power love brings to human’s lives. It weighs the emotions of bloodlust and revenge against love, and it is love that comes out as the more powerful feeling to hold again.

The story is romantic, but it is a tragedy. Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was the fact that I needed to see how it turned out, but as you are rushing towards the end, all of the things you thought would happen never come. There is never the trail of blood during a covert mission to whisk Miryea away. As far as revenge narratives go, the ending is downright anti-climactic. That is where the story shines though, it never hands you the simple narrative. It actually takes the warm fuzzy scene you hope for the whole time, rips it from your hands, and replaces it with the cold hard piece of life. The whole book you wait for the good thing to happen, but it never comes. The timeline in the book dangles hope in front of you. It starts with an almost dead man. While he recovers, we see what happened to him, and we see one of the only really happy times in the book. From there we are thrown back into miserable times, and you expect a climb out of the dismal situation, only to find every turn of the story leads you down a darker more tragic narrative. Tragedy is a powerful art form though, and an important one. While the narrative does not provide us the coddling hope humanity sometimes needs, the despair in these stories provides a more realistic look at life, and contrasts much more true and beautifully with the small shining light that life sometimes surprises us with. 

I think the brilliance of Harrison in this story is his flipping of the cliche revenge story into a tale that examines the impact of romance on our lives and also the tragedy that so often accompanies our greatest achievements. The whole machismo writer label gets washed away in the final scenes of this story, I think it is really hard to make that argument with the whole story in place. The title Revenge, seems to be tongue in cheek, as the story seems to explore most human emotions except revenge. The one character who does enact his revenge, Tibey, struggles mightily with the fact that he got it, and realizes it is not actually what he wanted or needed. This is not a Deathwish style tale, it just takes that emotion and dissects it alongside all of the others. It is a study of masculinity, how its performance can be counter to the true needs of a human soul. Those needs are all too often not addressed in such a masculine context either. Harrison provides the formulaic only to dissect it with deeper meaning.