revitalizing the left | Peter Levine

I agreed today to serve on the dissertation committee of a graduate student

who wants to study the political strategy of the "progressive"

public-interest groups that lobby for changes in federal communications

policy. These groups (the so-called "geektivists")

are concerned about the way the Internet is regulated, legal treatment

of software monopolies, excessive intellectual property rights, and erosion

of privacy. I know them well; I have often been the sole academic at Washington

strategy meetings involving their issues. I encouraged the student’s dissertation,

because I am dissastisfied with the general approach of the progressive

national groups—an approach that derives from Ralph Nader and the

other consumer advocates of the early 1970s. They analyze complex issues

to determine what is in the "public interest"; identify enemies;

"expose" their crimes and misdemeanors; develop a simple, marketable

"message" through public opinion research, and then "mobilize"

popular support by making people angry. I find this approach ethically

dubious, because it isn’t sufficiently democratic (respectful of ordinary

people’s opinions and capacities) or deliberative (willing to recognize

alternative points of view). By making people angry, it often discourages

them or turns them away from politics. Above all, approach tends to fail

when pitted against professional corporate lobbying campaigns. Thus I

think that the proposed dissertation could be useful for activists well

beyond the telecommunications field.

I’m less reflexively anti-Bush than many of my friends and family members,

and I didn’t hate the State of the Union. But the "compassionate"

parts are disturbing—as a reflection of our political culture, if

not of George W. personally. The two new domestic programs (addiction

treatment and mentoring) combined will cost about one third of $1 billion

a year. That’s one six hundredth of the average annual cost of the proposed

tax cuts (if one assumes that the alternative minimum tax will be reduced,

as everyone expects). Since we are running huge deficits, this $1 billion

of new compassion is not actually spending; it’s borrowing against future

generations. I don’t necessarily think that these particular programs

should be larger than Bush has suggested; it’s just that a president should

not be able to distract attention from major issues by proposing such

tiny initiatives. (Clinton, of course, mastered this art under the tutelage

of Dick Morris). As for the AIDS funding for Africa—it’s welcome.

But we have a clear and unavoidable moral obligation to spend modest amounts

of money to lengthen millions of human lives, so the self-congratulation

that accompanied this announcement is annoying. Apparently, there was

no prior consultation with African governments, so this was effectively

manna from heaven. And there was no hint that maybe the high cost of drug

cocktails results from patent laws in rich countries.

Peter Levine