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While reading Steven Weisman's “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary” (Public Affairs; 2010), I have been thinking about Ronald Reagan and Mario Cuomo's speeches, comparing America to a “shining city on a hill.” By no coincidence, their contrasting views of America still define the ways in which people see our country today. And so it came as no surprise when Moynihan, a registered democrat who was equally comfortable serving in republican administrations, makes mention of Lewis Mumford's 1961 book, “The City in History.”
The physical attributes of a “city” are easily recognized: streets, stores, businesses, factories, parks, apartment buildings, homes, etc. But more important is the relationships between individuals, groups, and institutions. These are the linkages that offer the highest quality of life. An individual may be linked first to their family, then to a school district, a church or other house of worship, a job, to civic groups, and also to a local political organization. It is the overlapping relationships between the individual and the other members of those groups and institutions that creates the social cohesion necessary for a city to function at peak.
In January of 1974, Ronald Reagan began using John Winthrop's 1630 quote about the settlement he inhabited in the “new world” being a “city on the hill.” In the full statement, Winthrop noted that if the people were not true to their God, the settlement would become a “byword throughout the world.” Reagan was representative of those who believed the United States was a divinely ordained nation, which was certainly distinct from the view of Winthrop, a century and one-half before the Revolutionary War. However, Reagan's world-view was definitely as restrictive as most of Winthrop's contemporaries.
For almost the first century of the USA's existence, the concept of “community” was limited, primarily to white male property owners. Women, children, and people of color may have had linkages to the institutions that defined the greater society, but not in the sense of being recognized as valuable participants. Indeed, from the 1780s until the early 1800s, the nation was a republic, or “public thing,” to be administered by what Sean Wilentz notes was considered “the most worthy, enlightened men.” In other words, by the elite.
In the early 1800s, the nation became a democracy, or “demos krateo” – meaning “rule of the people.” Wilentz explains in “The Rise of American Democracy” (W.W. Norton; 2005) that the elite viewed democracy as the “government of the worst.” Thus, those considered the worst of the worst – women and African Americans – would be marginalized and excluded from exercising political strength, including holding positions within those groups and institutions that define social life, for extended periods of time. It would only be a result of struggle – often bitter, sometimes violent in resistance to its goals – that those other than the elites would come to experience anything close to full citizenship.
Throughout the letters in the Moynihan book, and particularly during the period when he was working for President Nixon, he focuses on the stress placed upon the social fabric by those who were not either in that “elite,” or attempting to become part of it. These groups included the lower economic black Americans, including those he viewed as “radical,” and potentially violent; the younger generation, particularly those in college; and women. He was correct in his belief that society was being fractured at many levels; most famously, he wrote about how the break-up of the black family in lower-income urban neighborhoods had a negative impact on children's performance in school.
Moynihan would carry a large chip on his shoulder for the remainder of his life, as a result of being called a racist for his report on this topic. However, in a widely distributed letter to the President introducing the report, he did refer to black men as “Sambo.” It is rather difficult to not view this as racist. After feeling that democrats in Washington had not supported him when the report came out, Moynihan would secretly begin supporting republican candidate Richard Nixon in 1968. It is likewise rather difficult to not view this as evidence that the political elite do not consider themselves a distinct class, superior to the very linkages in the social structure they expect others to honor.
During the Nixon years, Moynihan frequently told the President that the break-downs in society were providing just cause for restricting the rules of democracy. It was, in his opinion, essential that the elite maintain a tight grasp on the reins of power. Certainly, few would argue that there is a need for law and order, and that violent crime poses a real danger to society. But Moynihan went well beyond these issues. He wrote several times about the potential problems that would result if black Americans began to exercise their right to vote in such a manner that black Americans began to win seats in the House and Senate. In particular, he was concerned that their historic experience in America could cause them to befriend the Arab world. This was the thinking that resulted in his closer relationships with the founders of the neoconservative movement. It also added fuel to President Nixon's belief that he had a right to break the law to “preserve” our democracy – in this case, meaning his group of elitists.
Certainly, one can make a case that the continuing alienation of segments of our society, including the breakdowns in those structures that are the fabric of American culture, has combined with the thinking of neoconservatism, rigid “law & order” policies, and economic elitism, to create the crises we face today. Those who believe they have a divine right, based on their self-concept of being the most worthy and enlightened, are in most of the top economic and political positions. They are following that “higher law” of greed. If that means tossing out a few thousand votes from black citizens in Florida in 2000, or in Ohio in 2004, they feel entitled to do so. If it means lying this country into an illegal and immoral war in Iraq, in which the sons and daughters of “common folk” must kill and die, it's no big deal. Moving factories to a foreign land may cause suffering for the thousands being laid-off, but it adds to the elites' profit margins. Corruption on Wall Street? Heck, quit your complaining. Have some community values.
Mountain-top removal coal-mining, and hydro-fracking for natural gas, are but two examples of the obscene environmental devastation that is destroying the very country that “christians” like Ronald Reagan say that God provided for us. The elite does not value the communities that live in these regions. If a group of people from the Middle East were pouring the same chemicals that the “energy industries” are poisoning our water with, the republicans would call it “terrorism.” But when they do it, they call it “free enterprise” and “capitalism.”
Now, I've said all of that, to say this: many of us feel betrayed by the democrats in Washington, DC. And I'm not about to attempt to tell you that you are wrong if you feel that way. The majority of them are pathetic excuses for “leaders.” They are puppets for that economic elite. No more, no less. Yet the only thing that distinguishes them from the republicans in DC is that not all of the democrats are terrible. The republicans are.
In that '74 speech, Reagan called Senator Ted Kennedy a socialist, and hinted that Kennedy was strongly influenced by Karl Marx. As if that would be bad. I'm a proud member of the Democratic Left. And I am convinced that if we are to make true democracy a reality in America, we need to begin to organize on that local level that defines the social structure of a community/city. We need to concentrate our efforts at the community-based level, and institute change at that level, before we can possible effect real change at the national level.
Easier said than done, of course. But it is easier than failing to begin this effort.
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