Invasion of the Holy Fools

As Pittsburgh braces itself for the September G-20 meetings, another form of cold, lurking fear has set in – the fear of the heart of city being taken over by clowns, jugglers, mime troupes, street artists, guerrilla-theatre types, anti-vivisectionists, folk singers (of the “acoustic” sort)... in short, the entire range of hard-core anti-globalism, anti-global warming, anti-business, anti-war... well gee, is there anything they aren't “anti”? Oh yeah – abortion. But in any case, we can expect, come September, to see platoons of “strangers in a strange land” -- people who wouldn't normally dream of coming within a day's drive of Pittsburgh. They will come bedecked in serapes, Inca hats, wooden shoes, old high school band uniforms, “ironic” prom dresses and bridal gowns, and all the rest of the panoply that singles them out as people who normal people will cross to the other side of the street to avoid confronting. They will be, without exception, “natural”-type people – no makeup, no deodorant, no hairdos, and only a casual acquaintance with the laundry. They will be various ages, of course... all the way from the crazy liberal granny lady with the witch hair to the high schooler embracing the cause du jour. They will be armed with signs, of course... but also with drums, tambourines, whistles, wooden flutes, didgeridoos... a veritable marching band of the disaffected, disenfranchised, and painfully sensitive. They will swarm the convention center, and when not confronting the police will wander about the downtown area, staring up at the tall buildings and becoming thoroughly depressed by all the steel, stone, and concrete – not a blade of grass in sight! Not a single goat! Imagine anyone living like this!

And it would be tempting to dismiss all of these as someone's “useful idiots” -- but the question would then arise, whose? Nearly all of the old communist states that they might, at one time, have put their faith (and political fate) in have become capitalist with a vengeance. No one of any significance opposes our twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – our own politicians have all sold out, and our enemies like it because it spells, ultimately, economic ruination for us. And there is no one left to oppose collectivism, especially when it's in the interests of “universal health care” and “fighting global warming”. So what is these people's deal, anyway? Are they really rebels without a cause – a holdover from the 60s when there really were causes worth demonstrating for?

I pause for a moment to point out one particular bit of irony. The liberals – those of the grass-roots variety – of the 1960s were all for what we now call globalism, because they saw it as the last, best hope for “world peace” (you know, that thing that all the Miss America contestants want). They actually, at that time, thought that the U.N., for example, was a significant force for world peace and justice, and humanitarianism. Yeah, I know – pretty pathetic, huh? But that's what they thought. And we're not even talking about the original “useful idiots” who thought the Soviet Union was the best hope for world peace – the bloom had come off that rose by that time. And the ones who were all for Mao, the Red Guard, and the Cultural Revolution were about as interested in “peace” as a Sam Peckinpah character. No, these were the mushiest of the mush-brained liberals of their day... the most naïve, the most trusting (in “ideas”... and each other, to some extent, but not really anyone else)... the most vulnerable to sound bites like “all you need is love”, “give peace a chance”, and so on. They were – despite the fact that many of them were psychology majors – totally unaware of the existence of some of the primary motives of the human race – i.e., combat, conflict, war, power, and dominance. Those things were completely alien to their thinking; they thought they were the normal ones.

The point is that internationalism, first of the communist type and then of the U.N. type, has morphed, when no one was looking, into “globalism”, which, rather than being a boon to the underprivileged of the world, as it was intended to be, has become a means by which the underprivileged are made to stay that way – and, in fact, to become even more underprivileged over time. The "New Soviet Man" has turned into the Neo-Fascist Man. The economic collectivism that was supposed to discourage war and conflict now turns out to be highly _dependent_ on war and conflict... and the “collectivism” part is mostly about the rich “collecting” from the poor on a regular basis – or using them as cannon fodder with which to concentrate even more wealth. Well, of course, there is a “rising middle class” in places like China and India, and this is supposed to be a sign of “global democratization”. But these folks won't be fooled. For one thing, the interests of the middle class have never been very high on their list of priorities. It was always a matter of making the rich less rich and the poor less poor... but somehow never allowing the poor to become “bourgeois”. The fact that India and China have allowed this to happen must stand as a great scandal in the circles of the true believers. (Of course, nearly all of the G-20 protesters, if you checked their FBI files, would turn out to be solidly middle class – as would most revolutionaries down through the ages. But this is not the time to expand on that phenomenon.)

And I cannot emphasize enough how different these people were, even back in the 60s, from the “coat and tie radicals” who eventually morphed into people like the Clintons... or, for that matter, almost any Democratic politician of the postwar generation. For the latter, it was always mainly about power, and dominance, and climbing up the political ladder, starting with “student council” or the campus rag, and culminating in a fruitful career in Washington. No... the folks I'm talking about were philosophically inclined, aesthetically intense, addicted to books and their own bad writing, but politically hopeless. (Not a whole lot has changed, has it?) And on the other hand, they were also not the kind to man the barricades when the campuses erupted in the late 60s – they were more likely to be back behind the lines, tending the wounded, or playing guitars, or passing out fliers. Real physical danger – actual confrontation with authorities – was something they tended to avoid, although these did, on occasion, become necessary, and when it did they would practice “passive resistance” -- you know, rolling up in a ball, that sort of thing. But in general, it was much better to stage a “demonstration” in the central square of the college town where everyone within ten miles agreed with them. (With any luck, some media reps from the nearest large city would show up with cameras – and then they might wind up on the 11 PM news and get the Irish factory workers all upset.)

So the picture I'm trying to paint is one of, basically, intelligent but simple-minded, starry-eyed, naïve types who are in severe denial regarding human nature and political reality... who do a lot of reading and some thinking, but mostly specialize in feeling. And they felt very intensely – especially for “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (unless those huddled masses happened to live under communism, in which case they were “counter-revolutionaries” and not worth a second thought). Of course, they felt most of all for themselves – for their thin-skinned, raw-egg-without-a-shell hypersensitivity. “How can the world be so cruel and inconsiderate? Why is it so full of such horrible people? Why, they should all be... um... oops.” And, by and large, they did the right thing -- for themselves. They lived safe and secure in protective bubbles – AKA small college campuses – perfectly insulated from the world and all its hazards and alarums. So in that sense, the more recent trend – where they will follow world leaders from place to place, and mount the same protests year after year wherever and whenever the need arises – is something kind of new. New also is the fact that – as I said above – this time they have no support from any overseas masters... none from Russia, none from China, none from North Vietnam. They are, truly, fighting a cause that no one else on earth still believes in. So in that sense, I have to give them credit for courage and willingness to stand alone (even if “alone in a group”).

And I suppose I should mention that there has been considerable attrition even among the hard-core naïve liberals of the 60s. They have not all turned into anti-G-20 protesters. Many of them drifted into conventional occupations (albeit almost invariably at the taxpayers' expense, or at the very least “non-profit”)... some retired from the scene altogether and can be found homesteading in the mountain fastness of Northern California... and some took the low road, and found themselves the burned-out, or dead, victims of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll... or even alcohol (scandal of scandals!). So what we will see on the streets at the G-20 meetings is the core of the core... the elite of the elite... the trockenbeerenauslese, if you will, of liberalism. They are the last of the unapologetic, not-sold-out types. Many do not even, as yet, own a car or a TV! Nothing but natural fibers will ever touch their bodies, and nothing but locally-grown organic food will ever enter their mouths. And who knows, they might even have never run the gamut of STDs that was ignited in the 60s. These are, truly, the untouched... the virginal... the holy fools.

But to return to the perennial question, what do they want? It's not always easy to tell, frankly. What they seem to want, in the most generic sense, is for world leaders to adopt some “bottom line” to their policies and actions other than money, i.e. economic “progress” and “prosperity” for the few, as opposed to the many. The economic question seems more important, by far, than the political question – they don't seem particularly concerned about forms of government... and who can blame them, since anyone with the least bit of sense can see where the zeal for “democracy” has led us of late. But they think locally as well – they are the force, for example, behind “fair-trade” coffee and other movements that serve to reinforce local enterprise and attempt to keep profits in the hands of the people who actually did the work. (In this, they differ markedly from their communist “fathers in faith”, who preached against profits on any level, but allowed that the commissars were worthy of their hire.) So I guess when you shop at Ten Thousand Villages, or loan money through Kiva, you're on their side, which is all well and good. Certainly “trickle-down economics” on the international scale is 99% myth, despite, once again, the side effect of a rising middle class here and there. And the effects of American “diplomacy” and “foreign aid” in places like sub-Saharan Africa has been to turn the merely poor into the desperately poor, by empowering all the wrong people in those countries.

So what is their stated agenda? Again, it depends on who you talk to. But the “five major themes” cited in today's paper provide a clue: “An American and global economy they say is unfair to the poor and working classes worldwide; environmentalism; racism; the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a less clearly defined “anti-authoritarian” camp that espouses anarchy.” To this should be added “public education... (and) the military-industrial and prison-industrial complexes.” And on the local level, the United Steelworkers of America (about as “establishment” as it gets, in my opinion) is going to talk about the financial sector “getting way too big both here (in the U.S.) and internationally”, and the demise of the industrial and manufacturing sectors (by which I assume they mean moving them elsewhere, owing to the efforts of outfits like the Steelworkers – but let that go for now).

I've already discussed some of these issues extensively in this blog – economics, race, public education, and the wars. When it comes to environmentalism, I'm all for the environment – I mean, I really dig air and water, you know? But when it comes to “global warming”, well, I have my religion and they can have theirs, OK? I've also commented on what they call the “prison-industrial complex”, and I'm glad that it's on the agenda, since that is one of the most blatant non-discussed issues of our time. As I said, ultimately it's all about economics and not about politics per se... although, again, its ironic that the 60s “one-worldism” has been supplanted by increasing tribalism, localism, with ethnic and religious politics on the rise as well (as opposed to “identity politics”, which is basically a political scam aided and abetted by the media). We were supposed to have a one-world government by now... and instead we have Abkhazia and Ingushetia and... oyoyoy! But again, I say that this is good. No one other than some eunuch billionaire behind a blue-tinted window in a high-rise in Brussels identifies with an international corporation, or with the “world economy”. Most of the world – still, to this day! -- consists of flesh-and-blood people with all the fight, flight, or fright hormones coursing through their veins that our primate ancestors enjoyed... and stock tickers just don't turn them on anywhere near as much as feuds with the next village, or with the people next door. And going halfway around the world to force “democracy” down someone's throat just doesn't have the savor of walking down to nearest church on Sunday morning.

But it's the anarchists who I find intriguing – and it's highly amusing that, according to the story, “all (the dozens of anarchists asked to provide interviews) declined to speak on the record.” I would say that's pretty typical. Why trust the press, since that is just another face of “the man”? And they, arguably, see politics as the root of all evil, and economics as just the most prominent manifestation thereof – which I also agree with, up to a point. In fact, it's perfectly debatable whether economics is a sub-category of politics or vice-versa; there are good arguments on both sides. Certainly they are inextricably intertwined... and the basis for nearly all other political complaints and misfortunes is likely to be economic, in the final analysis. It's all about resources, really – and to the extent that “belief systems” come into play, this is based primarily on what they have to say, or imply, about economics. And what are what we call the basic “human rights”, after all, but spin-offs of economics? Freedom of speech is the freedom, more often than not, to talk about economics. Freedom of the press, the same. Freedom of assembly is the freedom to get together in a group and... talk about economics. These freedoms would never have come up on radar if the only thing people were interested in discussing was antiques. And really, there have been precious few wars just about philosophy – unless, again, that philosophy had obvious economic implications. I suppose one of the few cases of conflicts genuinely and purely based on “ideas” would be the current conflicts between Islam and other creeds, or those within Islam itself. (Christendom has long since solved the heresy problem – heresies are assigned to the Protestants and they agree to leave the Catholics pretty much alone. Problem solved!)(But you'll notice that the Catholic Church comes in for the most criticism these days when it has something to say about economics – i.e., Catholic social teaching.)

So the bottom line is that the G-20 protesters will be demonstrating against everything the rich and powerful of this world are for... which is another way of saying their cause, i.e. the aggregate of all their various causes, is hopeless. In that sense the anarchists may have the right, or the best, idea – they realize that the system cannot be changed from within, or without... it must be destroyed in its entirety, and the more philosophically-inclined among the anarchists may be content to just stay home and allow the system to destroy itself. Because, ultimately, the powers that be are operating on the premise of unlimited resources. It has yet to dawn on them that we all live on the same planet, and that it only has so much land, so much water, so many minerals; there has to be a limit to even their wealth, even assuming they can keep the vast bulk of humanity in a state of serfdom. So the holy fools were, perhaps, put in the world to act as a still, small voice... so that the powerful can never say, when day is done and their empire lies in ruins, “but nobody told us...”