Bill LaCroix: Remembering Standing Rock Again

Friday, March 1, 2019

Remembering Standing Rock Again

Photo courtesy of Jason George, Colville, Washington

Y'know, I really like AOC and think she has all the qualities of being a true leader--including an aversion to inflated ego. With that in mind I'd like to remind that her line of questioning during the Michael Cohen hearing last Wed. that is getting such praise in the progressive press is nothing more than what we should have been expecting of any congressperson for decades and haven't gotten for those same decades. That's the real reason we're so shocked that a few of these folks elevated to a $200,000/year salary with tax-funded benefits (a really, really good job in other words) are actually doing the work they were hired to do. The first thing I saw when all this hoopla about her right-on questions hit the cyber-swirl was a tweet by her pointing out that it was her adequately-paid staff that is as much responsible for the questions as her. That's a flag up the pole for anyone who's not getting wrapped up in the noise (including unfortunately memes like the below) that things are truly turning, and that all it takes is honest, every-day folks to stand up and make it so. AOC identifies her visit to Standing Rock as a watershed event in her decision to run for congress. Nathan Phillips, the elder who was threatened by a bunch of Catholic school kids was there doing exactly what he was filmed doing at the Lincoln Monument, drumming and singing and digging deep. That man, whom the corporate press has pilloried in favor of the clean-cut unfortunate stupid white kid (whom I have sympathy for since I was one myself) represents the kind of inspiration we have all needed for so desperately-long. And remember: AOC just came close to being a target of a govt.-employed skinhead living in D.C. We can't just put her on a pedestal and feel like good things are being done for us. That would be absolutely unfair (and dangerous) for her. Things like the Cohen hearing Wed. are fragile victories. These folks who are willing to front for the rest of us need our full support, whatever it takes, which will be a lot. The cartoon is funny and I agree with the impulse, but we allow ourselves to become two-dimensional caricatures of ourselves at our peril. Especially in this screen-driven, two-dimensional age.

Think.

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AOC's Superhero Inside Us

After her laser-like questioning of Michael Cohen to prep for going after Trump's taxes and other financial misdeeds, what better day to reveal "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Freshman Force," a comic honoring the fierce AOC - a big comics nerd - as the standard-bearer for young lawmakers promisin...

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Why I Blog

Thoreau and Emerson had a discussion in May of 1846 about the Mexican War--our first war that set us on the course we still track today. Conquest of nation-states and the inevitable Imperialism that follows. Emerson counseled his friend that we can supersede the transgressions of a well-meaning State by the Muse. Thoreau wasn't so sure that the State was so well-meaning or that the Muse alone would be enough to supersede it. But he tried both the Muse and "other means" to our everlasting benefit. Civil Disobedience, in the American sense, has always been his child, in large part because he raised it to the level of Literature. "Other means" requires the Muse to be lasting and effective, and vice versa. How would anyone know what the hell you were talking about otherwise, let alone emulate what you're trying to do?

The problem with Progressives today, I think, is that we have been in the habit of letting other people--Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Sun Myung Moon--tell our stories for us, people who do not mean us well. We haven't plugged our muse into our political discourse very much, and that's a big mistake. Mark Twain didn't make that mistake, and he was among the first American writers to use the new-fangled typewriter. Why do we children of Twain, Emerson and Thoreau make that mistake now with our new-fangled computers?

For all its faults, Corporate America understands that people are story-based critters, like it or not, and I think we progressives should like it. By definition, people make many important social (read: political) decisions based largely on who's the best storyteller. It’s in our nature, and Corporate Media is a classic example of how Nature abhors a vacuum. We’ve collectively created a cultural ‘narrative’ vacuum by allowing ourselves to be so easily entertained by—Corporate Media! And Nature hates that. She’ll allow the same garbage responsible for that vacuum (Corporate Media!) to be sucked in and to rattle around until it ruins our cognative motors before she’ll let that sad state of affairs stand. I'd ask any "America Firsters" stumbling on this blog and reading this far to consider: Rupert Murdoch is from Australia. Sun Myung Moon, now-deceased but whose creatures, the Washington Times and UPI still walk the face of the earth, was from Korea. The Koch Brothers, of course, were from the sheikdom of Texas. All of them were, and the living ones still are, so obscenely rich they apparently believed they own America simply because they paid for it, and we collectively let them define who among us are “real Americans”?! C'mon!

Although it helps to strive toward the goal, progressives don't have to be great writers, and I'm not claiming to be one. We simply have to acknowledge that we have the better stories and we’re sitting on our best ones. Our truest ones. Multi-national billionaires have better versions of American Liberalism and Progressivism than the real ones told by real Americans? Us? We shouldn't put up with that. Why do we?

Like any historic attempt, we need to find our Voice. Significant action will come only after our contemporary, progressive political muse matures, which it hasn't yet. Not to paint with too wide a brush, but too much of our positions have been framed in intellectual, almost-didactic prose, which, if you don't identify as an intellectual, means boring. Not all of it, just a whole lot of it, but never mind. If history's still a guide--and I hope it still is--there's hope, because when any progressive movement's Muse matures, it generally becomes the baseline for much of Western Civilization’s meaningful and therefore lasting literature. For example, "Mein Kampf" is still in print but I'll bet you'd have to turn over a lot of rocks to find someone to call it 'literature'.

So, this blog. It's a call, I suppose, to elevate our critical modern discussions out of Fox-news-landia back to where intelligent, caring Americans can find their feet and fight back, either with the Muse, by other means, or both. It’s not up to some politician to change the narrative. That’s up to us. So by definition we still have as good a chance as we ever had. Don't lose hope. It’s always been this way. At least in literate societies.

In other words, like Emerson advised and Thoreau partially agreed with: stories matter, and may the best Muse win.