The Hip Hop Return of the Fundis

I thought Hillary's defeat by Obama was a hopeful sign of the changing of the guard for the Daschle-ing weak Dems who have been caveing to the Bush agenda, and been furthering the corporate takeover of our country since 1980. I'm tempted to declare pre-emptive victory: Rumsfeld's resigned, Hummer is going out of business, and peak oil is kicking, raising the price of oil to accomplish the reluctant energy efficiency, reduction in vehicles miles traveled, and investments in more sustainable technologies that we've waited until the 11th hour to start on. But what if Obama is more about rhetoric and less about action? What if we feel good, but he only makes superficial changes, and 4 years from now, sure the Iraq War's over, and we're back to a Clinton-era baseline, maybe some more funding for health care and education, and an EPA a little less like the one in the Simpson's Movie than the one we have now. "The Repubs are worse" argument doesn't mean anything to me. Is "back to the 90's" enough? How much change can we believe in? (I like the idea of believing. I'd like to agree with R. Kelly about the flying too. But I'm waiting before I decide.)

The German Green Party in the 1980's was a tug-of-war between two factions: the realos and the fundis. The realos wanted the Greens to engage in electoral politics and take seats in Parliament in order to enact policies such as banning nuclear power in Germany. The fundis thought that was a waste of time, and that the electoral presence's main purpose was to raise awareness of the movement happening outside the electoral domain. Petra Kelly was a well-known realo, and Rudolf Bahro was a well-known fundi. Bahro's writing is very provocative, especially "Building the Green Movement." In one of his essays he compares the current situation of western civilization with the Roman Empire around 200 AD. Everyone knew the empire would crumble and that all aspects of their life would soon change, but it took a few hundred years and several generations for it to actually become final. In the meantime, people formed local groups to find a more communal, spiritual, less materialistic way to live during the constant warfare. Those became the first Christian monastaries, where people focused on growing food, prayer, and small scale art like illuminated manuscripts. It's a bit of a romantic vision of the Dark Ages, but if we're headed for another one, maybe it's better to look at the bright side than the dark side.

And in 2008, voters have a choice to vote realo or fundi. The Realo vote would be for Obama, thinking that Al Gore will become a special adviser to the Pres, and hope that we get more now than we got in the 1990's now that the Dems will control all 3 branches.

There are actually two potential fundi votes: Cynthia McKinney for the Green Party, or the perennial indepedent Ralph Nader. Typical, since no two fundis can ever agree on anything.

Immanuel Wallerstein writes in the "The Decline of American Power" that the Old Left in the 19th century followed a two-step program: 1) obtain state power, 2) transform the world. He says this strategy has been shown to fail, but we keep falling back to it. He says the WTO protests and resulting World Social Forum shows that post-state organizing for a global movement is more effective, and we should only use defensive electoral strategies as a back-stop to prevent the state crackdown on the movement. In this case, if we feel Obama would not arrest us for organizing and protesting, then he's a backstop. But we shouldn't rely on him for the change we seek. And interestingly, that's what Obama says too. Which is either very clever, or perhaps sincere.

I just read about the Green Party's Vice Presidential nominee, Rosa Clemente.
She is a 35-year old Puerto Rican-American hip hop activist from NYC.
So I thought, hip hop activist? So I went to her website, and sure enough, on the front page, is an endorsement from M1 of dead prez. Seeing that, I thought OK, that's the only endorsement you need if you want cred as a hip hop activist.
M1 would be a pretty good secretary of defense, considering his name is also the name of a tank, and half his songs are about using guns for freedom. I guess his call for revolution could be seen as threatening to the J Edgar Hoover/Ashcroft US Gov. But maybe it's just "change we can believe in" with a little more zing.

It's funny that this year both the Dems and the Greens are definintely reaching out from their usual whitey-Whole Foods-y-constituency. I remember seeing The Coup at a KPFA event in Berkeley a few years ago, and the old hippies were trying (but failing) to get down with the boogie. It's looking like the political conventions are going to have better beats this year. Well, except for McCain, who is looking like the Vanilla Ice of 2008. Maybe he should pick Eminem as his running mate. Eminem would do well in a debate, showing his butt like in 8-mile, but it sounds like Rosa would hold her own, and M1 would make a great Press Secretary.

Boots Riley for Senate?