McSweeney's: The Future Dictionary
of America

Last summer abouth this time, Eggers and Co. seemed to be determined to simply and somewhat quitely blaze their own path in the culture wars. They didn't seem to be consciously remaining nuetral; just attempting to change the entire terms of the debate.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/13/CM280047.DTL

They certainly have effected some changes at the cultural level and now it seems that these changes are being made at a more overtly political level as well. With the release of the "Future Soundtrack for America" and the "Future Soundtrack for America" they are consciously using their cultural capital to move change in a positive direction.

This is, I think, a very exciting development and if I had world enough and time (and more importantly enough money) I would certainly be buying and reading everything they produced. It is reassuring to see this happening. It is energizing to know that we are not alone. Things must change. And I am firmly convinced that if there isn't positive change in this country, whoever ends up sitting in that office on Penn, there will have to be some sort of popular revolt. The ISAs are getting flimsy, new ones are being constituted and unless the state figures out how to match the material reality to the cultural consciousness then it will only be able to retain its control via the fascist RSAs it has waiting in the wings. Or perhaps nothing at all will happen; we will all simply bow again to the powerful, let them go to war as they please.

It is absurd in a way that the problems of the country are so focused on the person in the oval office. Obviously the executive branch has power and that power is most obviously extended since it sprouts from one source. But there was no resistance in congress worth talking about, all the senators and reps approved this ridiculous excuse for a security/?/humanitarian mission. Why no outrage over those elections? Why no discussion of their responsibility and our own culpability in the fantastic re-election of a republican congress at Bush's mid-term? It's laughable and stupid how quickly we forget.

But I digress...the essential thing to stress is that the election, as important it is, is far from the only thing that we have to think about. We need a broad cultural change. And it isn't enough to restate the old diatribes of the past thirty years, to warm over the culture wars that the Republicans think they are fighting.

They want abortion illegal. I understand the principle of fighting this. Its fascist, patriarchal, and an infringement on women's civil liberties in the most fundamental and intimate of ways. But why not introduce and support a bill that makes abortion illegal--that plays to their moral base--but which expands welfare and employment programs, makes sex education programs based on science not ideology, offers day care subsidies and gives universal healthcare coverage to every American? If you're going to be patriarchal, after all, might as well go all the way. If they want to take care of women and tell them what to do with their bodies, they have to go all the way. How will they look when they reject this bill, the bill they have claimed to be fighting for all along, when they say, well, we care about women and we care about their children, but we aren't all that interested in helping them out once we've made them do what we tell them to about their children. Suddenly the wolf is no longer a sheep. HE (because he is a he in this case) is exposed. When they have to turn down the bill based on the complex part of their ideology that says everything else except women's bodies should be governed by the free market, their bleeding heart base will have no choice but to see they've been played.

They want to keep gay marriage from happening. Fine. Just introduce a bill that says the US government will no longer mingle in affairs of the heart or of the church: there will no longer be a category of citizens called "married." It will simply be some sort of cultural activity, sort of like joining a book club: membership migh have its benefits, but none of them will be sanctioned by the state. This certainly will make any benefits accruing to gay couples because there will simply be no way in which married people get any special benefits (this will be helped along by the whole universal health care bill passed above.) This bill will have the same effect as the GOP's pitiful attempt at amending the constitution: it is simply there to affect their base. Only this time, it isn't there to play to the base of the party presenting the bill, but to play to the opposing party's base, to show them that, not only are their representatives far from representing their interests, but that the opposite party isn't beyond compromise: they just aren't going to give something for nothing.

If they want the free market to be the only regulator of prices and the health of corporate entities, that, in the case of national parks, etc., communities should be able to decide what is done with their land and resources, then let them de-regulate every industry in the country, but increase mandatory sentances for any form of corporate fraud to ten year, make any form of tax subsidies or government bailouts illegal (free market, right) and pass anti-lobbying measures whereby anytime a lobbyist is in contact with a politician, an elected representative of a popularly recognized citizen oversight group must be present. They say we should give people in Alaska the right to decide what is done with the wildlife refuge there: fine, lets let them decide. And if the people of Alaska decide to make a withdrawal from their supply of the public wealth of the nation, well lets just make sure that the rest of us are given some sort of reimbursement: any citizen from Alaska that wants to visit any other national park in the country will have to pay a higher price to make up for their deduction. Fair enough, right.

All of that could backfire if it is done wrong, but if you could get enough people behind it and you made, for instance, the restrictions on abortion contingent on the receipt of benefits, i.e. women who might have had an abortion would only be prevented from doing so if they got their health care coverage, then it might be a good tactic for a large strategy of creating revolutionary change and a widespread re-consideration of what the role of the state is. In short, there needs to be a discussion about fundamentals not just culture wars. I feel like, on some level, McSweeney's and Eggers are working towards this goal, even if it is unstated. I also think that all of us would do well to be less polarized about these debates. The truth of the matter is that even if Kerry wins in the fall, we will all have to work very hard--together with the people who didn't vote for him--to carve out a viable future for America. I hope we are all up to the task.