Swan Song

I made a big mistake. It was an error in judgment and timing. I was asked to run for the U.S. Senate by progressives who want peace and social justice. I agreed to take up the charge and try to challenge the incumbent. I did this because I believed (incorrectly) that there was a historic moment at hand when people of good will would turn their backs on the two party system and flock to an alternative, even one they did not really know about. I also believed that progressive organizations would flock even more to a progressive alternative. After all we were promised change and instead we got a third Bush term with a new face. It is disgusting and I thought all of us were so disgusted we would act. It turns out that is not true. People are disgusted but they did not act – they are tired (see below).

Progressive organizations are an entirely different matter. Some are simply not what they appear – that is they appear to be about an issue but are really fronts from the Democratic Party. Such organizations will not challenge the status quo because they live in and through the status quo. Other progressive organizations seemed to not care about the opportunity, much to my surprise. Labor, I thought, might be a wildcard. There is an obvious and undeniable connection between a strong Labor movement and average standards of living. The stronger Labor is the better we all live. But Labor is like a battered wife, not ready to leave the relationship. The Democrats constantly do things to undermine Labor and its interests, but Labor has no courage or power to its political convictions. At the state level Labor talks about being independent but it is just a pipe dream. And that is very sad for all of us, since that is the source of social power that could help ordinary working people to do better. Instead Labor works for Democrats who just take advantage of them and occasionally apologize for not being a better partner. Democrats abuse Labor and Labor tolerates it – there really is no hope until that dynamic changes.

I thought people would, en masse, care enough to support an independent challenge to the two-party system and its wars. I was wrong. It is time to admit that error and get on with life. I cannot do what I had hoped to do with this campaign and so I am pulling the plug on the effort now.

I have learned a great deal along the way. I understand some things better now. I think I understand our current descent into the fascism of Europe. I don’t think it is complicated. And I know that some think I sound melodramatic. Perhaps. It is true we cannot know the future when we ponder it as future. I understand much deeper the degree to which American politics is now just theater rather than democracy. For example, the Seattle Times reported today that the Republican front-runner in this race is actually a flaming hypocrite. It turns out he denounces government aid, but has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in such aid as a small farmer. It appears he does not know anything about how the world works, anything about history, anything about politics, but he can spout colorful nonsense. Now he has been caught in his own hypocrisy, but I think it will not matter much in the end. The incumbent has been voted the least intelligent member of Congress in the past (polls of interns done by one DC paper). This front runner is clearly not fit for the job but it is not clear the incumbent is either. So I predict a great deal of theater in which people who don’t know much of anything about anything have “debates” in which they give hyperbolic speeches devoid of real content. If I had stayed in the race I would have had the privilege of being excluded from those debates.

This theater of the absurd masquerading as democracy is disturbing, but even more disturbing is the fact that this dynamic cannot change as long as elections are primarily about money instead of ideas. The for-profit media have too much of a profit motive in the theater to encourage a contest of ideas and the dominant political parties have no interest in it either. Neither of them could do well if they were judged by the quality of their thinking and analysis. And this works for them, although not for democracy. It is all quite sad, really.

There are grave problems facing the nation. The economy is teetering on the edge of collapse and the steps that might make a real difference aren’t being done. I hear this from Left and mainstream economists. The necessary steps are not being taken. Instead we have debates about important issues to be sure, but the debates don’t happen in an orderly form. They are hysterical. Healthcare became hysterical for social conservatives and economic liberals, at least among those prone to hysteria. There seemed to be a lot of them.

These days people I think of as decent and well meaning are hysterical over racist legislation in Arizona. In this case I think the concern is quite legitimate. What is interesting is that these issues get dropped on the public sequentially. Now I don’t mean to imply a plot of some sort, just a pattern to the politics of the day. We are in crisis mode and I suspect that part is not accidental. Some just happen due to ill considered risks and bad luck, like oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico right now. Which things are crises at any given time is probably not under anyone’s control, but general social instability can be tolerated, encouraged or resisted. Our government seems to tolerate it at the very least, and at times much more. I think this is basic to what is called Straussian Politics, and I have said before I think both major parties are at the heart of it Straussian. One of them does a variant and so does not identify it by name.

Leo Strauss was a political philosopher who came up with a variation on European Fascism in which the state uses psychological manipulation rather than state terror as the primary mechanism of control. Strauss believed that the population was not fit to govern itself and so the people with power had to use “gentlemen” who believe the lies the government tells, the myths of society and can repeat them with enthusiasm (clearly the incumbent and the Republican front-runner are ideal from the Straussian point of view). He believed that war was the best way to keep society ordered. If we are at war then we are busy with that and not other concerns for social justice, equality or fairness. The Neo-Conservatives of the Republican Party have enthusiastically embraced this philosophy. The Neo-Liberals of the Democratic Party have embraced this way of governing but they don’t talk about Strauss. They both put on a play every couple of years in which they pretend to have democratic elections, but really they just have theater in which people are allowed to vote but only for a limited range of inadequate options.

These crises have tired people out. The Obama campaign tired people out. We thought if we did all that work that he (they, the Democrats) would use the power we gave them to do good in the world. Instead they just continued the same old imperialist policies and in same cases extended them. It is not simply that Obama and the Democrats have not done what they promised, it is that they are not who they claim to be. People are recognizing this but are too worn out to do much about it. Probably the turn out in this primary will be historically low as a result.

I am impressed now with the mechanisms they have for social control, mechanisms I understand much better now. We are a big country and it is amazing that they can do the most absurd things, put forth moronic policies, start wars with no reason, turn us into a torture state, bomb countries we are not at war with, and more all while convincing the American people to accept this as necessary or inevitable. It is neither necessary nor inevitable that we are an imperial power, a torture state, or that we sit and watch the global economy collapse while simultaneously watching the rise of a domestic “Blackshirts” movement.

People are tired, and this is why. It matters to an Independent political campaign that people are so profoundly tired. Sure, if I was a pro-corporate hack it would be easy to attract money and so tired populations are not such a big issue, and in fact can be quite helpful. A campaign like mine needs people, energetic volunteers. A political campaign is akin to starting a new business, that measures success in near instant terms (relative to ordinary business), and certain sorts of specialized knowledge are key to that. For a very large campaign much of the things that are a big deal for me, for my volunteers, are huge. A campaign needs momentum and I failed to generate that.

I have considered that it might be important, in fact very important to go on for precisely the reasons I mentioned above. These are scary times and we need to challenge that. Is that not precisely what I was intending to do? Well yes. So why I am dropping out? I made a mistake in coming to certain conclusions about what I could do and expect. I overreached myself and my evidence. Poetically it feels like flying too close to the sun. More straightforwardly it is a painful lesson in trying but not being able to try hard enough due to a mistaken analysis. Many people have expressed sympathy. I tried and that is more than most. There are some people who helped me, and they made it easy to get started, and had confidence in me. I did too. I feel that I have let them down; as well as all my supporters, and myself. But I tried and learned a great deal. To a scholar (especially but not exclusively) that makes this sort of experience valuable, if costly in other ways.

Thank you all! I am sorry I could not do more. I wish us all well, as I am deeply concerned.

Yours,

Richard

Rev. Dr. Richard Curtis, former Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate