PUBLIC UPROAR
a journal for eclectic policy

WHERE DOES THE AVERAGE AMERICAN BELONG?
what issues are we concerned about really?

As the presidential election moves along a track of blandness, one agreed upon by the Democrat Gore and Republican Bush, we see not only the blackout of third party candidates but also the issues they are talking about. Very early on, these issues were more in the spotlight because those challenging these men in their party’s respective primaries addressed them. Bill Bradley and John McCain were concerned about campaign finance reform and health care, and should have been the ones to debate each other as well as Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan. Unfortunately we are stuck with the default candidates, standbys to avoid any concrete discussion of what the people want their government to do about problems faced by Americans. Since the third party movement in America is more successful in introducing issues rather than winning in presidential elections, including Nader and Buchanan in the debates would not only have stimulated people into watching, but would have painted a portrait of an American in his role as citizen. Each candidate, no matter how obscure, holds a piece of that portrait because he has someone supporting him. There are people for: Ralph Nader fighting against corporations’ control over our daily lives and our elections, Pat Buchanan fearing of our foreign policy outstretching our means and our purposes, Harry Browne concluding that government interference in our civil rights and liberties is costing too much money and freedom, and John Hagelin proposing new criteria of effectiveness in social programs. In general, the average American citizen is concerned with civic libertarianism, a democratic economy, peacetime spending rather than military spending, and the end of bureaucracy by using new methods of technology. These, however, are not what is discussed at the debates or at the rally podiums for Bush and Gore. The average American is artificially boxed into demographic positions whereby the candidates of the two ideological parties can then present themselves. However, Americans are diverse not only by culture and class, but also by personal temperament and outlook. These divisions and boundary lines are vectors that cut through the American profile in chaotic ways, and at times intersect in unexpected ways. It is a rude assumption by everyone to assume that members of the National Rifle Association are also all pro-life, against affirmative action, and for the War On Drugs. There is nothing in the N. R. A. charter or membership guidelines to say that they can not have people who are against gun control but also pro-choice, for legalizing marijuana, and wants more affirmative action. This is an example of what I call the mosaic of single-issue alignments. In short, this means that an individual becomes part of a group based on a single issue, but becomes part of another group on a different parallel issue. He aligns himself politically with his peers, but this changes upon the issue discussed. One thing that can be said of Americans is that they are concerned with bread-and-butter issues when it involves their direct self interest. They are interested in ending general poverty and racial discrimination, but not at their own expense. Therefore it is important to create solutions where all are lifted up, and all can see that they are interconnected beings in social and cultural structures that become less mechanical and more naturalistic as we move from an industrial age. Any political organizing, whether in the formation of a party platform or grassroots election campaign, must recognize the jumbled manner of issue concerns across the face of this nation and basic concern for self-preservation. This is not a failing of the democratic system, but a mature treatment of the American voter by its elected and electable officials.

THE PHOTO FINISH OF NEWS

The increase in news coverage is the first sign that we all had of the simulated world. Starting with the birth of television and the rampant networking of the Internet, it is possible for the average person of average means to see events occur across the globe’s surface at a moment’s notice. With the advanced technological backbone there is overlaying currents of information that one must digest, and from multiple directions. There are cameras everywhere, not part of some Orwellian surveillance but rather the proliferation of affordable cameras and competitive news agencies. This leaves us with the strange phenomenon of news events occurring in physical reality much slower than the reality of the information network. The leftover space and time is filled by commentaries that in turn reshapes the reality that is under the lens. It destroys old perspectives and creates new ones that are just as fragile within minutes as the field reporters remain on standby. Both the increase of broadcast images of reality and the multiple commentary of these images create more of a seamless world of complete simulation where direct sensory experience is mediated and stories of what is happening is compounded by more stories. It is this stockpiling of narratives and points of view by camera that is the first taste anyone has of virtual reality, although by piecemeal construction. We have side-by-side four types of simulation, as documented by Jean Baudrillard, that is occurring at the same time and in tandem: simulation representing something, simulation hiding something, simulation hiding the absence of something, and simulation representing only itself with no object. They happen in no order, and therefore the complete intervention of the immediate image is always faster than light and sound. The conundrum occurs when most of our daily lives are the necessary pace of less than the speed of light or sound. Our manmade technology to process this information must always repeat itself in order for the analog owners, by this I mean humans, to receive it properly. Therefore we have more copies, and more commentaries on those copies. Our sense of time and space is naturally warped by this immediate attitude of information. Any sense of progression from point A to point B is destroyed and illusions can be accomplished right in front of our bombarded eyes and ears. This is the jump from advanced technology to mysticism, where new statements of man’s place in what can be defined as “real” is given the chance to be spoken out loud. Pronounced out in the blizzard of white noise that is the news of the day.

A NEW FACET OF MULTICULTURALISM    

The debate that occurs occasionally about whether to have English as our country’s official language usually brings up multiculturalism in negative or positive terms. The effort to promote multicultural views has usually been to combat racism, so therefore race is discussed when one talks about whether one language should be used in America and its schools. There is, however, another part to the debate about multiculturalism, and that is the dichotomy of provincialism against cosmopolitanism. Race is not as important in this part of the debate, but geography and the hold of tradition is at the center of it. Implementing more than one language in our public institutions as a matter of policy creates a sense of a global position rather than merely a national position, alongside making it possible for immigrant citizens to conduct themselves in these institutions. Besides the model of the “melting pot” fighting the model of the “tossed salad”, there is the model of rural landscape fighting the model of urban landscape. Whether or not conformity or cultural preservation is best for immigrant people, especially the schoolchildren, we must consider whether we want to have a citizenry that is provincial in general outlook or foster a citizenry that is cosmopolitan in general outlook. A provincial outlook is very confined and determined by function, but a cosmopolitan outlook is adaptable and determined by the reach for new experiences. Both of these outlooks are shaped by the landscape that individuals find themselves and must operate in, urban or rural. Rather than have “English only” policies in schools to make children conform, it would be more productive to have beginning language courses taught. That way we could have an American public that was bilingual or multilingual, and able to be a world citizen as well. For alongside language there are cultural signs and symbols, and awareness of these opens up the range of possible knowledge and perceptions by individuals. An American citizen that can have that potential for new knowledge and accepts it easily can survive and prosper in the interconnected globe. This does not mean that these citizens would abandon their backgrounds or their own culture, but rather be prepared to adapt their culture and have the skills to incorporate their “roots” as part of the overall interactive system that is a world culture or world existence. One must have an identity of creativity and personal will in order for not only their personal culture to survive, but also to be a contributor to any part of the world’s actions and concepts. Here tradition must be seen as useful in a global sense in order to be useful in a local sense. In many cases, a literal translation of traditional practices must be sacrificed so that the spirit may live and enrich any world identity. A cosmopolitan stance encourages a creative and viable type of individual, which is the purpose of any type of cultural structure, whether in a rural or urban landscape. A commonality of this purpose must be recognized as a first step to bringing out this more complex part of multiculturalism.