From: nlns@igc.apc.org (New Liberation News Service)
Subject: NLNS ELECTION COVERAGE (4)
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:36:37 GMT

/* Written  6:24 pm  Oct 13, 1992 by nlns in cdp:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.3 *** 10/12/92" ---------- */
Perot's Post-Modern Pastoralism
David Jarman and Jason W.  Moore, NLNS Election Editors

(NLNS)--H. Ross Perot's presidential campaign is not, and never 
was, about capturing the U.S. Presidency.  In line with the tenor 
of the times--from the epochal developments in the 
international political economy to the progressive 
disintegration of U.S.  society, with all the intendant political 
chaos--the Perot campaign, for all its weaknesses, at the very 
least implicitly recognized that political power in the New 
World Order is primarily about social, and not state, power.  
That this particular attempt to change society has met with 
little success is far less important than the character of the 
attempt itself.
	At base, Perot's presidential bid is about tensions both 
within the ruling class over the future of capitalist 
development, and of the increasing alienation of the rulers 
from the ruled--of their ever deepening need to expand and 
improve upon hegemonic, legitimating processes.  These basic 
trends will remain at work long after Perot sees his last day.
	The "plot" of the Perot phenomenon--the ins and outs of 
his business dealings, his authoritarian tendencies, even his 
recent political pronouncements--tells us very little about the 
real significance of the campaign.  To draw the critical lessons 
the campaign has to offer, we would do well to look at the 
"stage,"  if you will, upon which the campaign took place.
	Before we dive into such matters, however, a note on the 
behavior of the media. Virtually all observers, even most of 
those in progressive media, failed to grasp the character of 
basic social, political, and economic trends which have 
underpinned the Perot phenomenon, and transcend the 
transitory significance of any one political figure.  They knew 
that something was going on -the "plot," if we can extend our 
analogy, was at least superficially fairly obvious, but few 
seemed willing to point out and examine the stage and the 
scenery.
	Vague rumblings from the pundits, both left and right, 
about Perot's authoritarian, even "fascist" streak, missed the 
boat.  Perot is no fascist; he does, however, personify a 
worldwide trend towards a technocratic capitalism wedded to 
an authoritarian approach to "global competitiveness."  Few 
analysts grappled with the long-standing social and economic 
crises that laid the foundations for his presidential bid.  The 
Perot movement capitalized on more than mainstream notions 
of voter discontent and anti-incumbent sentiment; the 
campaign took advantage of a decades-long rightward shift in 
U.S. political economy coupled with a systemic inability of 
power-holders to legitimate the status quo.
	The Perot campaign, in its infancy, thrived on the illusion 
of choice; that torch was swiftly picked up by Bill Clinton, who 
began to "speak Perot" shortly after the Texan's withdrawal 
from the race.  Perot, then and now (sort of), and post-
Convention Clinton, both told the "fear of falling" middle class 
that, at long last, middle class voters could choose a candidate 
who promised to bring back the American Dream and 
reestablish a sense of security--short on the specifics but long 
on hazy notions of a return to the Golden Age of American 
Capitalism.
	(One further note--since Perot's withdrawal and re-
entry, we believe the character of the campaign to have 
changed in some basic ways.  For the sake of simplicity and 
clarity, however, we continue to use the present tense for some 
observations which may presently no longer hold true in the 
campaign's second phase)

CHOICE -- APPEARANCE OR REALITY?
	In his heyday, Perot outflanked the Republican-
Democratic axis by seizing upon suburban discontent and 
providing, however superficial in character, an outlet for a new 
middle class activism that no longer can fit within the two-
party paradigm.
	Cole Kleitsch, a New Jersey small businessman, in many 
ways personifies this new activism.  Perot's message resonates 
with a growing, though as yet vague, middle class 
dissatisfaction: "There are people, myself included, who feel 
their needs are not being met by the political parties.  We're 
being offered Coke and Pepsi again.  What we want is Seven-
Up."  Like many, he claims to have never been a political 
"agitator" until the Perot candidacy.
	Kleitsch, and millions of other Americans perceive Perot 
as an opportunity for real change in a country where more and 
more people, as conservative analyst Kevin Phillips notes, "are 
looking atI the unraveling of the American dream."
	But does Perot represent an opportunity for fundamental 
change?  Or is he, as Kleitsch hints, simply Seven-Up in a nation 
that needs champagne or water or milk or tequila or something 
else not yet realized?  Perot might have appeared unsullied 
and crisp at first glance, but when it comes down to it, he 
provides the same vaguely carbonated, sickly sweet promises 
which offer nothing new.
	Lacking viable solutions, Perot nonetheless succeeded by 
transcending the two-party discourse. Perot, for all his failures, 
differs from the rhetoric of the ruling parties by delivering a 
political message that addresses changing expectations on 
government role in society. He argued persuasively for the 
need to retool an anachronistic government (although his only 
suggested tool is an electronic town hall) which, having 
narrowed its base of support down to Suburbia, has lost the 
ability to speak for (or even to) those dissatisfied Suburbanites.
 	Perot has directly addressed Americans' growing 
dissatisfaction with ineffective government, societal 
dysfunction, and economic decline. Before the Democratic 
Convention, Clinton only touched on these issues, but Perot was 
the only one who articulated this discontent in a way that 
actually appealed to that 83 percent who feel that the country 
is "on the wrong track"; he spoke not only to the country's 
growing pessimism but also its hopes for change.  Perot is now 
little more than a nuisance, and Clinton has successfully shifted 
into populist high gear.
	Perot recognizes that more and more people in this age 
of impending crisis are searching for ways to make the system 
work.  Perot's message challenged the message repeated by the 
media, the President, and the Congress: "It's too complex; you 
wouldn't understand; we're gridlocked; our hands our tied by 
special interestsI"
	Rather than reinforce the idea that government is 
inaccessible, even alien, Perot cultivates the sense that 
government is a simple affair, not unlike running a business; 
after all, as he repeatedly declaims, "We own this country."  
Because he speaks about government in a way that the restive 
middle class readily grasp, he sets himself apart from the 
complicated-sounding, technocratic babble over issues and 
policy which continues to characterize the Bush and Clinton 
campaigns, despite the latter's quasi-populist posturing.
	Perot's enthusiasm for the line-item veto demonstrated 
his "to the point, straight-talkin'" approach to political 
language--"Give the president the line-item veto to get rid of 
pork barrel and waste.  I say that for three reasons: No. 1, we 
ought to do it.  No. 2, I'd like to see what he does with it.  And 
No. 3, I'd like him to stop whining about it."  Why bother with 
political trivialities like Congress or the law when all we need is 
an action man, a "leader" (like Perot?), who can get things 
done?
	While this seemingly straightforward approach to 
political talk might actually leave more voters feeling 
empowered and able to affect the system, Perot's political 
message obscures far more than it clarifies.   His action-
ideology reduces problem-solving to executive action, with 
nary a thought to the debate and negotiation crucial to any 
even tokenly democratic process.  His way of dealing with the 
problem of, for instance, Congress and taxation, was to "take 
away [their] right to raise taxes." (ibid) What happens when 
Congress, understandably, balks at this idea?  The answer to 
that, and sundry other questions, has never materialized.
	Nor has he told us much about how he would wage the 
War on (Some) Drugs -- other than a few disturbing ideas 
about cordoning off black and Latino neighborhoods for house-
by-house searches and, in 1989 on the Today show, declaring 
"civil war [where] the drug dealer is the enemyI [Drug dealers] 
go to POW camp.  You can deal with this problem in straight, 
military terms."  Again, this was Perot at his take-charge best, 
tilting with symptomatic windmills rather than pushing 
onward to address the roots of the urban drug problem -- the 
lack of jobs programs, subsidized day care, community centers 
and other empowering programs.	
	Perot's candidacy comes at a time when the two-party 
system has lost much of its luster.  Unlike previous "major" 
independent candidates--George Wallace in 1968 or John 
Anderson in 1980 -Perot emerged at a point where he could 
take advantage of the erosion of traditional politics due to 
decades of widespread social and economic dislocation (his 
present failure does not lessen the significance of his early 
success). Many people, on losing their jobs or homes, have 
turned to whichever party they previously relied on for 
answersI  And found none.
	While both the Republicans and Democrats are mired in 
a form of political mobilization with roots in the late 19th 
century, Perot has always been free of such baggage.  Perot's 
top-down postmodern "movement" -- and we use the term 
loosely -- breaks with the historical political party system, 
designed for neighborhood based political education and 
organizing. Today, political education has been replaced by one 
national political culture created by our mass media, and 
traditional organizing tactics, by-and-large, have been 
rendered obsolete by suburbanization and urban decay.  If 
Perot's massive, multi-screen, multi-state (and Orwellian?) 
rallies in May and June were any indication, he is the first 
candidate to instead try canvassing the nation as one 
electronically-linked virtual village.
	This high-tech presidential bid-cum-political movement 
capitalized on the ideological crisis of both liberalism and 
conservatism. The domestic polarization between Suburbia and 
the urban and rural poor increasingly mirrors the 
transnationalized, and ever-more polarized, global economy.  
Both wings of the Cold War polity, cut loose from the their 
post-War moorings, seem baffled as to how return a sense of 
feel-good nationalism, even jouissance to the political discourse.  
The ruling parties have lost their ability to formulate an 
agenda which grapples with the realities of the 1990s, or 
frankly is all that distinguishable from the other party's 
agenda. Perot, at some level, knows that.  With varying degrees 
of success, he has tapped into the public's frustration resulting 
from the ruling parties' uniformity and utter lack of 
imagination.
	Rather than risk stepping outside the status quo he 
claims to despise, Perot manages to appear both (or neither?) 
"liberal" and "conservative."  This was probably the real key to 
his success; how else could a man who is essentially a paleo-
conservative win the support--last May--of 38 percent of self-
described liberals.  Declining to speak in grey-hued tones of 
"issues" and "policies," he speaks simply of an "unbiased" 
common sense and a can-do attitude.
	But no matter how much he might have made the 
contest appear to be one of the "apolitical outsider" vs. "the 
stale establishment,"  he made his billions off shadily-procured 
government contracts and has known every President since 
Richard Nixon.  By turning solution into folk wisdom, the 
benevolent, apolitical persona running for office managed to 
distance himself from the real Perot.
	Perhaps the man Perot most resembles in this respect is 
Ronald Reagan.  Just as Reagan spoke of his "city on a hill," 
Perot glosses over toilsome solutions in favor of the quick fix; 
he set our sights not on the struggle but on turning the clock 
back to "alabaster cities that gleam undimmed by human 
tears."  He reinscribes the myth of a pastoral, Frank Capra-
fantasy America of doors left unlocked and citizens eager to 
assist elderly neighbors. In his presentation of himself as the 
classic rags-toriches storybook hero, Perot, like Reagan, ran not 
on a platform but on the American Dream itself.

PEROT'S PUSH-BUTTON DEMOCRACY
	With his Town Hall proposal, Ross Perot hit upon the 
ultimate in typically American bad taste--combining the two 
most mindnumbing things in the world, politics and television.
	Perot has made it clear that he wants to revitalize 
America's sense of community, mainly by instituting nation-
wide interactive "Town Hall" broadcasts.  Hailed by supporters 
as a way to break out of our country's political malaise, Perot's 
Town Hall is deceptively fashioned to put a new happy face on 
the ongoing disintegration of the democratic process.  The 
problem with the Town Hall is that Perot assumes the crisis of 
American politics is simply a case of the government having 
lost the people's trust.  His analysis is, at best, short-sighted.  
While paying  lip service to two decades of economic decline, 
he fails to build upon that crisis to create any serious program 
to deal with the ensuing socio-economic deterioration.
        Despite Perot's re-creation of status quo politics with a 
human face, liberal and even conservative pundits have 
attacked the Town Hall as either technologically impossible, 
superficial, or in a few cases, Orwellian.  There is some truth to 
their criticisms--technological problems may hamper the Town 
Hall's "interactive" nature; the Town Hall would be just as 
prone to distortion, manipulation, and outright disinformation 
as, for instance, the TV news; and certainly the technology 
exists for government to remember how each household votes 
in Town Hall polls.  These moribund pundits, however, miss the 
point.
        The real failing of Perot's Town Hall is that it will do 
nothing to fundamentally democratize American political 
debate.  In fact, it threatens to legitimate further the ability of 
the power-holders to frame discussion.  At the same time as it 
centralizes the power to originate and control debate, 
teledemocracy manufactures the illusion of empowerment in 
an age where political power is stripped from the populace, to 
be increasingly monopolized by the Fortune 500 and high-level 
capitalist apparatchiks.
        In the fabled New England town hall meeting, the citizens 
formulated the agenda.  Perot's Town Hall could not be further 
from this--quite simply, its massive scope cannot allow any 
citizen, or even any group of citizens, to actively participate in 
framing the issues.  They can only serve in a reactive, not 
active, position. When Perot wants a "popular referendum" on, 
for example, taxes, the various proposals--with accompanying 
videos--won't come from the "audience," but from competing 
groups within the power elite.
        We will hear only those ideas from only those "interest 
groups" deemed acceptable by the powerfulI Certainly we will 
hear from liberal groups and conservative groups, but will we 
hear from anti-systemic representatives of consumers, 
organized labor, people of color, women, youth and senior 
citizens, lesbians and gays, and all those other pesky "special 
interest groups" (read: not, straight, white, upper middle-class 
and male)?  If present media policies are any indicator, at best 
we will receive a token smattering of ostensibly "alternative" 
viewpoints.
	Even if token "alternative" viewpoints were to get fair 
play on Perot's Town Hall, they would still be limited to 
explaining their visions within the straitjacket of status quo 
debate, unable to escape the necessity of boiling issues down to 
"yes/no," or at the best, "A,B,C or D" choices.  Even with one 
hour to discuss an issue instead of the two minutes on the 
evening news, could an issue be explained in such detail that 
viewers would be made aware of linkages with other issues--
for instance, the relationship between capital flight and 
unemployment, or unemployment and urban decayI and 
above all, the relationship between any of these ills and our 
very economic structure?
	So even when we paint the best possible face on Town 
Hall, its democratizing effects are limited.  At best, we would be 
left with a technocratic approach to problem-solving, with 
resolutions issue-by-issue instead of attempting to reconcile 
the big picture.  At worst, the voters would be given more toys 
but still stuck in the same playroom, convincing them of their 
own efficacy by allowing them more busywork, all the while 
keeping real solutions out of reach.
        Just what prevents us from finding genuine solutions?  
The liberal critique blames "sound bite politics," "negative 
campaigning," and "forced choice"--a polling practice which 
demands a "yes or no" response to a given question--as the 
downfall of American politics in general and especially Perot's 
Town Hall.  The analysis blaming the problems of a defective 
system on bad politicians or apathetic citizens, however, 
ignores the roots of the problem.
	The conspiracy-theory analysis fearing Perot's ability to 
keep track of the numbers of incoming phone calls (which he 
currently does at his 800-number) is equally misguided.  Does 
it seem as if Perot would care how voters respond to different 
propositions which amount to varying opinions among Beltway 
policy groups?  It is unlikely that Perot would dispatch private 
investigators to round up that 20 percent of the nation who 
might favor increased taxes or some other "choice."
	Rather than looking for nasty people at the top, one must 
instead address Hegemony--the shaping and control of the 
"marketplace of ideas" by the ruling class, through various 
mechanisms ranging from the news' reliance on "the bottom 
line" to the depoliticizing influences of our standardized mass 
culture.  The simplest understanding of hegemony is that the 
public will not know any more than they have been told--and 
when the only people who are doing the telling are those who 
can afford to own a press or a TV station, the whole story is not 
going to be told.
	The mass-mediated political culture that the powerful 
control has one-dimensionalized our politics--in the minds of 
99 percent of the people there simply is no alternative to the 
status quo.  Faced with a system that neither justifies itself nor 
allows alternatives to be heard, people simply turn off, rather 
than turning away.
        So many people find Perot's Town Hall, and in fact his 
campaign, so appealing because he promises both to return 
government to a position where it does justify itself to the 
people--in the people's language, the language of "common-
sense democracy"--and where it again becomes an integral part 
of the American sense of "community." Both notions are, 
however, basically flawed.
	The problem is that "Town Hall" teledemocracy cannot 
create community, only the illusion of it.  The "Town Hall" may 
bring voters closer to the Leader, but it certainly will not bring 
them together as neighbors.  We can only achieve some sense 
of community and citizen empowerment through grass-roots 
political action which attacks the concentrated economic power 
of the corporate and bureaucratic elite. The vague and 
coercively reached consensus that would flow from Perot's 
Town Hall is no substitute for the diversity of political, social, 
and cultural views required in any genuine community.
	And while Perot's vision is long on justification, it is 
short on democracy; considering the level of dissatisfaction in 
our society, it is a politically unstable mix.  Town Hall might 
have all the right appearances of a referendum, but when it 
comes down to it, it is simply the inversion of a poll.  The 
questions are already framed by dominant values and 
processed into "either/or" propositions; the only change is that 
the initiative to respond (sort of) now lies with the interviewee.
	The flaws of polling will only be magnified through the 
lens of teledemocracy.  The over-represented--educated, high-
income white males with mainstream politics--will gain even 
more influence.  They are the ones most likely to follow politics 
with some degree of regularity and to participate in the 
political system.  Worse, however, will be the substitution of 
polls for what little remains in our nation's capital of debate 
and decision-making that considers linkages and issues. All in 
the name of a return to Common Sense Democracy.
	For over a century, polling has been used as a means of 
controlling, rather than representing, public opinion. A question 
reducing the options to "yes/no," or phrased in biased language, 
can shape dominant values, even ones contrary to the interests 
of the majority of citizens, into the guise of "conventional 
wisdom."  First used in this manner during the late 19th 
century in the battle against organized labor and Populism, 
such polling has been put to good use recently by the European 
ultra-right.  Perot's Town Hall would continue this tradition.
	As Christopher Hitchens observes in his perceptive essay 
"Voting in the Passive Voice," (Harper's, April 1992), polling 
enables power-holders to, "in effect, wield the gavel at the 
town meeting--to frame a question in such a way as to limit, 
warp, or actually guarantee the answer.  Wouldn't a practice of 
getting the right responses by asking the right questions (and 
only those) pose a grave threat to the ongoing and 
freewheeling conversation that is at the heart of democracy?"
	Perot's vision of a truly interactive Town Hall is integral 
to his promises of leading us to a sort of post-modern 
pastoralism.  The danger of Perot's ability to capitalize on the 
crisis of our one-dimensional political culture, combined with 
the Town Hall's ability to make the appearance of choice seem 
like the real thing, however, promises to lead us down a much 
more dangerous road.  Perot's knack for inspiring grass-roots 
activism offers promise, but only if we can demand a detour 
not deeper into nationalistic technocracy but into a politics 
which is decentralized, pluralistic, and which above all seeks a 
radical transformation to a society based on economic justice.
	As Perot founders, George Bush veers off into self-
parody, and Clinton fails to ignite little enthusiasm outside the 
middle class, we would do well to ask if the American public 
could have such a profound dissatisfaction with the breakdown 
of the status quo that it doesn't wash even when a self-styled 
maverick (Perot or Clinton) promises to roll up his sleeves and 
tinker with the engine of democracy?  Regardless of what 
needs the mass media might imagine for us, perhaps the 
American public isn't looking for a swashbuckling snake-oil 
salesman but for leaders willing to build vibrant social 
movements capable of bringing fundamental change from 
outside of the powers that be.

AFTER PEROT, BUSH, AND CLINTON -- WHERE DO WE GO FROM 
HERE?
	What are the basic lessons we can draw from the Perot 
campaign?  First, there is a profound crisis of articulation 
among ruling elites which prevents them from effectively 
legitimating capitalist rule in this country; hence the no-
confidence "vote" of that half of the electorate which declines to 
visit the voting booth come November, to cite the most obvious 
example.  The ruling class is rapidly moving to expand the 
discursive arena in order to increase their ideological control 
over mass political consciousness.  At the same time, however, 
there is a withdrawal of active support for the status quo on 
the part of the poor and working class--and even many 
Suburbanites--faced with profound social dislocation and 
personal crises.  For capitalism to sustain both social peace and 
a profitable structure of accumulation, the ruling class must 
sharpen its Hegemonic weapons faster than the rate of mass 
alienation.  Considering capitalism's ineluctable tendency 
toward the economic immiseration and social alienation of the 
vast majority, the odds, over the long-haul, are not in our 
rulers' favor.
	Second, there exist real, and perhaps disruptive, tensions 
within the U.S. ruling class--the most ideologically developed in 
world history--that bodes ill for their ability to keep a lid on 
popular discontent and to sustain capitalism more generally.  
This tension is manifest in Pat Buchanan's candidacy as well as 
Perot's bid.  To a lesser degree, it is apparent in the two major 
candidates' different approaches to international integration--
Bush's imperialist neoliberalism (a redundant phrase if there 
ever was one) versus Clinton's imperialist neoliberalism with a 
human face.
	 If the key to the successful maintenance of rule at home 
rests upon how well U.S. elites makes the jump from national to 
international ruling class, and all trends point in this direction, 
we have only seen the beginning of elite quarrels over the 
character of this national/global transition.  The window of 
opportunity for the Left lies in our ability to destabilize this 
process.
	With this in mind, it should come as little surprise that 
underlying conflicts, at both mass and elite levels, over matters 
of economic nationalism and integration will be one of the 
defining features of the current epoch.  Perot clearly represents 
the nationalist section of the U.S. ruling class, a strata which 
seeks a return to the Golden Age of U.S. Capitalism, circa 1948.  
The mere fact that economic globalization is even on the 
agenda--Clinton's endorsement of North American Free Trade 
merited a front-page article in the New York Times (Oct. 5)--
underscores this issue's importance to elite concerns.  If the 
Left can move beyond what is at times a trite discourse on 
regulating, and in some way humanizing, trade, we may be able 
to exploit capital's potential weaknesses, and move forward 
along global lines to forge a genuinely internationalist working 
class movement.
	And finally, the progressive disintegration of U.S. 
society--the "family values" pseudo-debate is at least an 
implicit recognition by the ruling class of this disintegration -
must lead to development of new political processes which will 
integrate, and reconnect emotionally, the middle class into a 
new socio-cultural, political, and economic order; that is, the 
new middle class, smaller than before but still critical for the 
maintenance of ruling class rule, must feel they have a voice in 
capitalist democracy.  For the fortunate few, there must be the 
appearance, though not the reality, of choice, freedom, and the 
American Way.

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