POLITICS AND THE POLITICAL: The Catch-22 of Political Exploitation of "the Political"

Any reasonable discussion of "politics" needs to take into account “the political.” “Politics” is that use of power that takes place either among established or wanna-be professional politicians, or within the hallowed halls of established institutions or within the den of wolves of the political party machines. “The political,” on the other hand, as opposed to “politics” is a domain that includes or at least overlaps with politics. However ‘the political’ is a domain of activity of self-determination that happens essentially outside the three domains delineated above. It is a realm of protest, discontent, disillusionment, alternative social movements, one-issue groups and other “friend-enemy” groupings struggling to protect their rights, achieve their self-interest and promote conditions of the general good. Often when populists and the like refer to “the people” they are referring to this paradoxically de-politicized domain of “the political.” It remains “the political” insofar as it has not yet been irrevocably suppressed or exploited by the politicians, government bureaucracies or parties to further their own ends.

It is tempting to claim, but difficult to establish, that the realm of “politics,” strictly speaking according to the above definition, is the purview of a new social class, call it the New Class. The preponderance of socio-historical forces that have led to the crystallization of this class is multi-faceted and complex. To find an essence responsible for the emergence of such class forms of domination in the positive sense is at the very least extraordinarily difficult. In the negative sense it is easy enough to claim that humanity fails to trust the possibility of universalizing the highest human potentials for freedom, love, justice, trust, equality and creativity. Thus one “class” of people embody the end of human purpose and others embody the means. Claims to actually be striving for the realization of the Western Ideal of economic and political justice, with the unbridled abundant unfolding of the fullness of individual personality as the measure, ring as hollow, passionless ideological rationalizations for refusal to move beyond the modernist cul-de-sac of instituted privilege, power and instituted fear and violence as the essential control mechanism of societies.

The inability of Liberal democracy in its bureaucratic centralist form to credibly address serious human issues even in the most prosperous of political states, namely America, and its equal inability to avoid engaging in actions of state that qualify as anything better than irrational and at worst beyond the humanly ludicrous such that the worst qualifiers such as “abomination” remain infinitely inadequate to describe the virtual evil involved, leads us to conclude that the Liberal State is in permanent crisis. Its normalization of “crisis” by elevating it to the status of a sign for economic opportunity is pathologically symptomatic of this fact. Crisis also allows the political class to use such opportunities to further dilute if not dissolve social aggregations within the realm of “the political.” Then such “political” ferment within the domain of the above-defined “political sphere” can be used as a feedback mechanism informing the New Class as to what needs must be minimally met in order to stop further political developments, that is, further embodying of established, anti-systemic power. If the needs of the groupings of “the political realm” are sufficiently strong they can be bureaucratized as intra-institutional feedback mechanisms for corrections of the inherent irrationality of the system. This de-socializes and de-politicizes any such social movement, that is, any anti-systemic political force.

Since the power and privileged enclave of the New Class has been historically secured and the hegemony of politics is established within the purview of the structuration of the professionals, the politicans and the parties, the residue or remainder of the politically disillusioned, demoralized and disseminated social strata also forms a class. Let’s call it the Client Class. It is not as such self-determining because it fails to see and understand itself as a positive force and self-identified action group. It is a class as excrescence, politically illegitimate, and subject to police action as opposed to political redress. It is a class by default and as a consequence of the actions and purposes of the New Class.

We can see the consequences of this socio-historical reconfiguration of political forces in the machinations and manipulations of local ‘politicos.’ The Niagara Falls Reporter recently speculated that recent maneuverings of the new Mayor Mr. Paul Dyster might best be explained by his positioning himself for an eventual run for the House seat of Louise Slaughter should she retire. Whether these political musical chairs, if in fact they are being played, is in the long term best interests of Niagara Falls is at least highly questionable. The general point, however, is how often have we seen the interests of local communities being exploited by the personal interests of professional politicians vying for power or struggling to keep power or possibly merely a job. Hillary Clinton is a case in point. Moving to New York, making impossible promises to the desperate citizens of Western New York, all to position herself for a run for the Presidency. Senator Maziarz’s recent handling of the planned dumping of 3ooo truckloads of toxic waste, 75,000 tons of PCB’s and such in Western NY, culminated in a mailing sent to his constituents which we mail back and he sends in bulk to the NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation. End of story. Will it work? We have to wait and see. But my question is how it could work if this kind of represention has already led to and relegated Niagara County to being the dumping ground for WWII atomic waste and presently the proposed dumping ground for the Eastern seaboard.

With such political action the people are apparently placated, the issue emerging from the realm of the “political” is now safely translated into the institutionalize “politics” of the state agencies and everything returns to normal. If I were a betting man I would put my money on seeing hundreds of truckloads of toxic waste continuing to pour into Niagara keeping much of its land the Elliotonian “wasteland” it already is. This is the result of a de-politicized populace whose political concerns have no force because of no authentic and ethically mandated representation. It is only a state of normalization, in the sense of “politics” as usual, to keep the conversation going with bureaucratic exchanges within the formularized language of the institutions, with token mailings which some novice intern may peruse momentarily and summarily trash and with news stories that keep the journalists happy and the pundits and bloggers with pulp for further pontificating.

The Catch-22 is that to become “political” within the horizon of the Client Class is to experience the energy of the issues, the motivation for real problem solving and the proper self-understanding necessary for socially concerted action, exploited and instrumentalized for the purposes of keeping the New Class in power and the politicians legitimized with token action and enticing but empty promises and useless discussions whether in the community or in the Legislatures. To become political is to experience the frustration of real issues, problems and concerns becoming the talking points to power hungry politicans and power-lacking wanna-be’s who want to be appear legitimate, that is, not a threat to the hegemony of politics in the State. To become a politician within the domain of structured politics is to lose interest in the problems of the Client Class. To remain authentically interested is to lose the required power to play the game of New Class politics.

If Senator Maziarz should actually act on my suggestion which is to lead his admiring constituency in a real street protest, even possibly physically blocking trucks from coming into Niagara County, possibly the only thing that will stop them, he would become a laughing stock of the “political class,” the so-called “New Class.” And besides he might get his suit dirty, both literally and metaphorically speaking. Furthermore why should he or anyother New Class politician take such chances as long as rationing 'political welfare' from his "member items" stash can keep the constituency in the pasture, even though that's nothing more than letting them graze on some hay that was originally their own grass harvested from their own pasture. Ain't it great to be so thoroughly domesticated, really being a lion but believing you're a lamb?

That part of “the political” sphere which cannot be bought off, sublimated in bureaucratic processing and deliberating or disenfranchised through the expropriation of resources such as the power of the power plant in the Falls, income from the state parks and tax assessments through the nationalization of lands in the case of Indians in Niagara Falls or leasing of public lands to private corporations, THAT PART can be repressed by denigrating and vilifying the efforts of legitimate political action groups and individuals as marginal malcontents of one sort or another, “tree-huggers,” “bleeding heart liberals,” “radicals,” “unpatriotic subversives,” “cults,” etc. Illegitimate actions such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building though terroristic in nature was a political action. But rather than describe it truthfully the national media sensationalized the event and reduced it to the acts of a madman, a young man disgruntled and deranged but certainly not someone with a legitimate political grievance.

The right to empowerment of the “the political” sphere of the Client Class can be further exploited by denaturing public education, especially stripping it of any meaningful civic education which has any chance of democratizing the people and fulfilling upon the American political ideal.

So the astute New Class politician can play upon this catch-22. He can go to the people and promise action in their interest. But he can then use the excuse of an obstructive government to explain away his failure to help his community. But this “government” no longer exists to further their interests. The truth of the matter is that the “government” is no longer positioned or aligned to help the communities as such. They are not inexplicably obstructive with every real and good intention to help. They are structurally incapable of helping and therefore objectively intentionally obstructive. To address the issues of “the political” sphere is to dismantle the structures and mechanisms of state and class power. It is to indict “politics” as usual and bring the game of systematic political hegemony, political exploitation of “the political” and domination of democracy officially into question.