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Dear Rebecca Solnit: Wish I’d said that re hope and the political left

Every four years we are asked if we want to have our foot trod upon or sawed off at the ankle without anesthetic. The usual reply on the left is that there’s no difference between the two experiences and they prefer that Che Guevara give them a spa pedicure…

There is an author named Rebecca Solnit (pictured) who has been writing for something called the TomDispatch since May 2003, right after the Iraq war began, and the opposition to that arbitrary conflict felt dispirited. Her clear-headed writing helped many to figure out their next moves.

She has written a great piece called The Rain on Our Parade: Letter to My Dismal Allies, which I will quote at great length, but you should read the whole thing. After that, you should read her classic from 2008, Men Explain Things to Me: Facts Didn’t Get in Their Way, which is both seriously true and occasionally quite funny.
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Dear Allies,

Forgive me if I briefly take my eyes off the prize to brush away some flies, but the buzzing has gone on for some time. I have a grand goal, and that is to counter the Republican right with its deep desire to annihilate everything I love and to move toward far more radical goals than the Democrats ever truly support. In the course of pursuing that, however, I’ve come up against the habits of my presumed allies again and again.

O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby… Because what we’re talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.

Leftists Explain Things to Me

The poison often emerges around electoral politics. Look, Obama does bad things and I deplore them, though not with a lot of fuss, since they’re hardly a surprise. He sometimes also does not-bad things, and I sometimes mention them in passing, and mentioning them does not negate the reality of the bad things.

The same has been true of other politicians… it was impossible for me to say so to a radical without receiving an earful about all the other ways in which [a politician] was terrible, as if the speaker had a news scoop, as if he or she thought I had been living under a rock, as if the presence of bad things made the existence of good ones irrelevant…

So here I want to lay out an insanely obvious principle that apparently needs clarification. There are bad things and they are bad. There are good things and they are good, even though the bad things are bad. The mentioning of something good does not require the automatic assertion of a bad thing. The good thing might be an interesting avenue to pursue in itself if you want to get anywhere. In that context, the bad thing has all the safety of a dead end. And yes, much in the realm of electoral politics is hideous, but since it also shapes quite a bit of the world, if you want to be political or even informed you have to pay attention to it and maybe even work with it.

Instead, I constantly encounter a response that presumes the job at hand is to figure out what’s wrong, even when dealing with an actual victory, or a constructive development…

Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate… My respondent was attempting to crush my ebullience and wither the discussion, and what purpose exactly does that serve?

This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises will be that much more cautious about opening their mouths. Except to bitch, the acceptable currency of the realm…

The Emperor Is Naked and Uninteresting

Maybe it’s part of our country’s Puritan heritage, of demonstrating one’s own purity and superiority rather than focusing on fixing problems or being compassionate…

When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, but that’s not a good reason to continue to pound down anything in the vicinity. Consider what needs to be raised up as well. Consider our powers, our victories, our possibilities; ask yourself just what you’re contributing, what kind of story you’re telling, and what kind you want to be telling…

Can you imagine how far the Civil Rights Movement would have gotten, had it been run entirely by complainers for whom nothing was ever good enough? To hell with integrating the Montgomery public transit system when the problem was so much larger!…

There is idealism somewhere under this pile of bile, the pernicious idealism that wants the world to be perfect and is disgruntled that it isn’t — and that it never will be. That’s why the perfect is the enemy of the good. Because, really, people, part of how we are going to thrive in this imperfect moment is through élan, esprit de corps, fierce hope, and generous hearts…

Left-Wing Vote Suppression

One manifestation of this indiscriminate biliousness is the statement that gets aired every four years: that in presidential elections we are asked to choose the lesser of two evils. Now, this is not an analysis or an insight; it is a cliché, and a very tired one, and it often comes in the same package as the insistence that there is no difference between the candidates. You can reframe it, however, by saying: we get a choice, and not choosing at all can be tantamount in its consequences to choosing the greater of two evils.

But having marriage rights or discrimination protection or access to health care is not the lesser of two evils. If I vote for a Democrat, I do so in the hopes that fewer people will suffer, not in the belief that that option will eliminate suffering or bring us to anywhere near my goals or represent my values perfectly. Yet people are willing to use this “evils” slogan to wrap up all the infinite complexity of the fate of the Earth and everything living on it and throw it away.

I don’t love electoral politics, particularly the national variety… Still, every four years we are asked if we want to have our foot trod upon or sawed off at the ankle without anesthetic. The usual reply on the left is that there’s no difference between the two experiences and they prefer that Che Guevara give them a spa pedicure…

Before that transpires, there’s something to be said for actually examining the differences. In some cases not choosing the trod foot may bring us all closer to that unbearable amputation. Or maybe it’s that the people in question won’t be the ones to suffer, because their finances, health care, educational access, and so forth are not at stake…

Presidential electoral politics is as riddled with corporate money and lobbyists as a long-dead dog with maggots, and deeply mired in the manure of the status quo — and everyone knows it. (So stop those news bulletins, please.) People who told me back in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore never got back to me afterward.

I didn’t like Gore, the ex-NAFTA-advocate and pro-WTO shill, but I knew that the differences did matter, especially to the most vulnerable among us…

I’m with those who are horrified by Obama’s presidential drone wars, his dismal inaction on global climate treaties, and his administration’s soaring numbers of deportations of undocumented immigrants. That some of you find his actions so repugnant you may not vote for him, or that you find the whole electoral political system poisonous, I also understand.

At a demonstration…, I was handed a postcard of a dead child with the caption “Tell this child the Democrats are the lesser of two evils.” …that child did die thanks to an Obama Administration [war] policy. Others live because of the way that same administration has provided health insurance for millions of poor children or, for example, reinstated environmental regulations that save thousands of lives.

You could argue that to vote for Obama is to vote for the killing of children, or that to vote for him is to vote for the protection for other children or even killing fewer children. Virtually all U.S. presidents have called down death upon their fellow human beings. It is an immoral system.

You don’t have to participate in this system, but you do have to describe it and its complexities and contradictions accurately, and you do have to understand that when you choose not to participate, it better be for reasons more interesting than the cultivation of your own moral superiority, which is so often also the cultivation of recreational bitterness.

Bitterness poisons you and it poisons the people you feed it to, and with it you drive away a lot of people… You don’t have to punish those who do choose to participate. Actually, you don’t have to punish anyone, period.

We Could Be Heroes

We are facing a radical right that has abandoned all interest in truth and fact. We face not only their specific policies, but a kind of cultural decay that comes from not valuing truth, not trying to understand the complexities and nuances of our situation, and not making empathy a force with which to act. To oppose them requires us to be different from them, and that begins with both empathy and intelligence, which are not as separate as we have often been told.

Being different means celebrating what you have in common with potential allies, not punishing them for often-minor differences. It means developing a more complex understanding of the matters under consideration than the cartoonish black and white that both left and the right tend to fall back on.

Dismissiveness is a way of disengaging from both the facts on the ground and the obligations those facts bring to bear on your life. As Michael Eric Dyson recently put it, “What is not good are ideals and rhetorics that don’t have the possibility of changing the condition that you analyze. Otherwise, you’re engaging in a form of rhetorical narcissism and ideological self-preoccupation that has no consequence on the material conditions of actually existing poor people.”

Nine years ago I began writing about hope, and I eventually began to refer to my project as “snatching the teddy bear of despair from the loving arms of the left.” All that complaining is a form of defeatism, a premature surrender, or an excuse for not really doing much. Despair is also a form of dismissiveness, a way of saying that you already know what will happen and nothing can be done, or that the differences don’t matter, or that nothing but the impossibly perfect is acceptable. If you’re privileged you can then go home and watch bad TV or reinforce your grumpiness with equally grumpy friends.

The desperate are often much more hopeful than that… They’re hopeful and they’re powerful, and they went up against [companies], and they won.

The great human-rights activist Harvey Milk was hopeful, even though when he was assassinated gays and lesbians had almost no rights (but had just won two major victories in which he played a role). He famously said, “You have to give people hope.”

In terms of the rights since won by gays and lesbians, where we are now would undoubtedly amaze Milk, and we got there step by step, one pragmatic and imperfect victory at a time — with so many more yet to be won. To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

There are really only two questions for activists: What do you want to achieve? And who do you want to be? And those two questions are deeply entwined. Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.

That is the small ongoing victory on which great victories can be built, and you do want victories, don’t you? Make sure you’re clear on the answer to that, and think about what they would look like.

Love,

Rebecca
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All I can add is that she well describes my complaint about the Obama Administration. I do not believe, at all, that a Romney administration would be better on those particular issues, and would very likely be worse.

I do understand voting with ideological purity. I’ve voted for President, four times out of ten, for a third-party candidate, including, in 1980, for environmental pioneer Barry Commoner, who died this week. I’m not saying one ought not to vote for a third-party candidate; if you live in Utah (which surely will go to Romney) or the District of Columbia (Obama’s a lock), go vote for your ideal candidate, who, BTW, will not win. But if you’re in an even possible swing state, vote for the candidate who has a chance to win who best represents your viewpoint.

The October 4, 1987 snowstorm

Diabatic cooling occurs when melting snowflakes absorb heat from the surrounding air, causing the air temperature to subsequently drop. When precipitation comes down fast and furious with temperatures initially just above the freezing mark, the air can diabatically cool to the point where a cold rain can quickly change into a heavy wet accumulating snow.

If you were in Albany, NY, or nearby, you know this story:
From NOAA – Surprise October Snowstorm (October 4, 1987)

The earliest measurable snowfall at Albany, where 6.5″ inches fell, with as much as 20″ reported in parts of the Catskills. The storm wreaked havoc on the area because it was a heavy, extremely wet snow, which fell on fully leaved trees. Numerous branches and trees were felled…taking down power lines with them, blocking roads and damaging houses. Albany was described as “looking like a war zone.” Hundreds of thousands of people were without power…some for up to two weeks. It was the most snow that ever fell during the month of October in Albany. Many of those folks without power for a fortnight were in Dutchess, Ulster, and Columbia Counties, south of Albany.

It was just half a foot of snow; I’ve experienced much worse, including over two feet in March of 1993. But this was…weirder.

Beyond what I wrote here five years ago, I should note these:

*The storm took virtually everyone by surprise. Unlike the 1993 event, which you KNEW was coming, “the National Weather Service had forecast unseasonably cool weather and snow showers over parts of New York and New England, but there had been no talk of a walloping big storm.”

*The best description I’ve read about the surprise nature of the storm: “A process known as ‘diabatic cooling’ allowed temperatures at the surface to unexpectedly drop to the freezing mark during periods of heavy precipitation, and the end result was a very difficult situation especially given the lack of warning and consequent preparation. Diabatic cooling occurs when melting snowflakes absorb heat from the surrounding air, causing the air temperature to subsequently drop. When precipitation comes down fast and furious with temperatures initially just above the freezing mark, the air can diabatically cool to the point where a cold rain can quickly change into heavy wet accumulating snow. It’s a process that can surprise both forecasters and the public alike.”

*The friend I stayed with the first and fourth night (actually an ex-girlfriend) lost power for about two minutes, even though her place was less than a mile away from my apartment. FantaCo, where I worked, was less than 1.1 miles away; it never lost power for more than a moment, either

*Albany, Columbia, Rensselaer, Dutchess, Greene, and Montgomery counties were declared disaster areas, and the storm hit parts of New England as well
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Much more recent weird Albany weather

In a vain attempt to wake myself up

Hugs are good

Here’s the deal: it is, as of this writing, September 26 at 4:30 p.m. I had a root canal this morning – wasn’t bad! But I was desperately tired afterward. Thought I’d watch JEOPARDY!, fell asleep before the TV at 11 a.m.. So I ate lunch, took a nap and feel even groggier. Need to blog something, because I haven’t in four days, and tomorrow night is choir night, so it won’t happen then either. But the things I WANT to blog about require a focus I simply don’t have.

Ah, I’ll do that Curious as a Cat blog. But I had to go from July 2007 to June 2009 to find questions I was willing to answer, AND I hadn’t answered recently.

1) When was the best time, or what was the best experience, you’ve had with a sibling?

With Leslie, it would have to be singing, either with our father or by ourselves. With Marcia, it may have been playing Man from U.N.C.L.E. I was Napoleon, she was Ilya.

2) When do you feel the loneliest?

Often it’s at parties when somehow I’m left out of the conversations.

3) If a one-year period of your diary were to be published with your name attached, what year would you prefer?

Well, it’d have to be recent. I don’t think 2011 had any scandalous behavior. And NOT, let’s say, 1978.

4) What was the most powerful moment of silence you’ve ever experienced?

Every year, when the lights go down on Christmas Eve before the lights come up and we sing Joy to the World.

5) What one school subject has turned out to be the most and least useful or worthwhile? Is that a surprise?

Least: shop. No surprise. I was lousy mechanically then, and it hasn’t much changed.
Most: It’s math, and it’s no surprise either. Ratios are particularly great when cooking and the recipe calls for 10 32-ounce cans, but they only make 28-ounce cans now, then 28:32=10:x, which turns out to be 11.43 cans. Useful.

6) When (at what age, or during what event) did you have the least self-confidence?

1976-1977, after the divorce.

7) Do you remember the first time you were on the internet? What did you do first?

My library boss at the time – she who shall not be named – got Internet connectivity, but only herself and her chosen one. She treated it as though it were a paid database. She had done this presentation at a conference about the Kobe, Japan earthquake of 1995 and how she was able to find, with her fine librarian skills, info about that then-recent event online. When the rest of the librarians FINALLY were allowed on the Internet some months later, I had to look up that same event. Even pre-Google, I was able to do so reasonably quickly.

8) With whom do you like to talk on the phone the most?

Sister Leslie, mostly to catch her when she’s not at work, and I’m not falling asleep. Three-hour time difference.

9) What is the hardest secret you’ve ever had to keep?

The spouse of a friend of mine had committed suicide and the young children were told a story about an accident. It wasn’t that hard keeping the truth from the kids but from mutual friends. When she finally told her kids, I was released from the fabrication.

10) Why do we give people hugs?

Because hugs are good. At my previous church, I was dubbed by one woman, now deceased, as the Trinity hugger. “Which,” she noted, “is better than being known as the Trinity mugger.” I do not get enough hugs per day.

11) What is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard?

Waterfalls. Love them.

12) Who do you feel is the most underappreciated actor (male or female) in the history of Hollywood?

Una Merkel (pictured). My late friend Vito was obsessed with her, namechecked her all the time. I just love the name.

13) If one thing you own were to become a religious relic, what would you pick?

Obviously, my red Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers.

14) If you could change one thing about the building in which you work, what would you change?

The cubicles were put in without regard to the existing overhead lighting. So periodically, the light about six feet in front of my desk will go out, because no one has walked by that area in the last 15 minutes.

15) If you had to choose between them, would you rather vacation in the mountains or near a lake?

Always pick the water. Maybe it’s the Pisces thing. And I find the mountains isolating, whereas I look over the expanse of the lake and I find it liberating.

16) What is one thing that repeatedly makes you angriest?

Politicians who lie about what they believe.

L is for the Longest, elevated pedestrian bridge in the world

The new trail…provides public access to the Hudson River’s scenic landscape for pedestrians, hikers, joggers, bicyclists, and people with disabilities. The bridge also provides important connections to an extensive network of rail-trails, parks and communities on both sides of the river.

The Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge, located approximately halfway between Albany, NY and New York, was built in the 1880s, crossing the Hudson River. The bridge opened in December 1888 “and was considered a technological wonder.” When trains started crossing it the next year, “it was the longest bridge in the world.” It linked “New York and New England to an extensive, nationwide railway network. For decades, it was a major rail corridor for both freight and passengers. At its height, 3,500 train cars crossed the bridge on a daily basis.” During World War II, “the bridge carried troops to be shipped overseas.”

However, after a devastating fire in 1974, possibly caused by a spark from a train’s brakes, allowed the bridge to be abandoned, sitting “for decades as an orphaned relic.”

Then, in 1992, a nonprofit organization called Walkway Over the Hudson started its campaign “to provide public access to the bridge and link rail trails on both sides of the Hudson.” It “assumed ownership of the bridge” in 1998, then partnered with a foundation “to access public and private funding in order to transform the bridge into the world’s largest pedestrian park.” Construction work began in May 2008, and on October 3, 2009, Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park opened to the public.

The new trail…provides public access to the Hudson River’s scenic landscape for pedestrians, hikers, joggers, bicyclists, and people with disabilities. The bridge also provides important connections to an extensive network of rail trails, parks, and communities on both sides of the river.

When the family was down in the Mid-Hudson area on vacation in early August, we crossed the bridge round trip, It was lovely, though the Daughter expressed “seasickness” when we were over the water, about half the sojourn each way. Recommended.

Blue Memory Meme

“La-dee-dah, la-dee-dah.”

The great thing about doing these memes is that when my access to the computer is limited, which has been the case a LOT of late, they are much easier to start and stop than an essay. As always, I may answer a question, or I may not. From a two-part Sunday Stealing: Part 1 and Part 2.

1) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

That greed is NOT good, that it comes back and bites you in places you don’t want to be bitten.

2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Nelson Mandela

3) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Tahiti, because it’d be expensive.

4) What do you think about most?

Injustice. Stuff such as this: THIS is what extreme usury looks like.

6) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Sure it would involve affairs of the heart.

7) What’s your strangest talent?

To stay friends with most of the people I’ve dated.

8) What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

I’m sure there is one, but it’s not coming to me. Maybe I’m suppressing it.

9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?

I believe so.

10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Yesterday.

12) What’s your religion?

Christian. That denomination thing – I was a Methodist, am now a Presbyterian – is rather weird, if you think on it. Oh, and speaking of religion, check out John Cleese commenting on comments that folks have posted about Monty Python videos on YouTube. Note especially, at the 52-second mark, what he has to say about religion. Or this on Jesus, Republicans And The Bible, from back in the days of the Republican primaries, but the overarching theme is still relevant.

14) When you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Staying out of the sun.

17) What was the last lie you told?

Probably something in this quiz.

18) Do you believe in karma?

Yes.

19) What is a saying you say a lot?

“La-dee-dah, la-dee-dah.” Actually, I don’t, but I did at one time. You’d really need to ask someone else.

20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

Irritability; sense of fairness.

21) Who is your celebrity crush?

This week? Emmylou Harris. I blame Eddie.

22) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.

Ann Wilson.

23) How do you vent your anger?

Blogging.

24) Do you have a collection of anything?

Hess trucks, Marvel Masterworks books, CDs, LPs.

25) What is your favorite word?

Rendezvous. (It’ll be something else next time I’m asked.)

26) Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

More or less.

27) What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

Jackhammer; electric fan

28) What’s your biggest “what if”?

Gave them up for Lent, or something.

29) Do you believe in ghosts?

Not particularly, but I could be persuaded.

30) How about aliens?

Ditto.

31) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Going to library school.

32) What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

Define “worst”. The saddest was in rural Tennessee; extreme poverty.

33) Can insanity bring on more creativity?

You’re asking me because…

35) To you, what is the meaning of life?

Helping each other, in big ways and small.

36) Define “Art”.

Paul’s partner in the 1960s.

37) Do you believe in luck?

Or something like that.

38) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Honesty.

39) What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

A SONG. There are so many. I’ll pick one: R.E.M. – It’s The End Of The World

41) What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

Broken rib.

43) What’s up?

Popular PIXAR movie starring Ed Asner.

44) Ever had a rumor spread about you?

Almost certainly. It might even have been true.

46) Do you ever hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Not a real grudge, but more a loss of trust.

47) What’s your favorite (non-pet) animal?

Tiger.

48) What is your secret weapon to get people to like you?

It’s no secret. Monthly bribes.

50) What do you think is Satan’s last name?

Smith. Gotta blend in somehow.