Letter from the Editor

For some time now, progressive leaders have ignored what should be the central goal of the Left: Having a central goal.

Andrew Garib, Turn Left | In the current North American political environment, victories for the Left are few and far between. November’s disastrous election results are only part of the story; the defeat of Kyoto, tax cuts, military spending, social service cuts, and our government’s jingoistic attitudes towards Iraq and the UN are examples of where the advancement of progressive aims and beliefs has flat out failed. As Alexandra Berke writes in our What’s Left column, we on the progressive side of the political spectrum no doubt feel the pain.

Since the November elections, our theme has been what Berke calls The Liberal Curse – why Democrats and the political Left in general have become so ineffectual since Gore’s questionable defeat in 2000. I would argue, however, that the problem goes much farther back – to the very core of left-wing ideology and the nature of the political game.

In her February 6 speech at the Statler Auditorium, former Attorney General Janet Reno formed a meaningful and viable argument for a new nation-wide respect for objectivity and the search for truth – a political and social nose for validity which spans all political stripes and social divisors. Her ideal, a method for truth-seeking to be targeted in both litigious and legislative realms, is to be taught to young Americans as the backbone of a culture of realism and objectivity.

Reno’s idealism is not without basis; politics is the forum of half-truths and rhetoric, subjectivity and selfishness, vagueness and deceit. In a political atmosphere where to all on the Left almost everything about our current government is wrong or backwards, it is not only the right but the responsibility for intelligent and involved Americans to stand up for the Truth – an ideal which, depending on our goals, has everything to do with the greater good of a nation. Leaving aside politics and religion, our wielding of truth can only be in our best interests; and as the world’s leading nation, America can affect positive change globally, politically motivated regime-changes notwithstanding.

Yet it’s just this politics and religion – here I talk about the religion of a dogmatic and unintelligent left – that hold progressives from the very progress they seek. Left-wing ideology often does not lend itself to the very politics of a modern campaign, or that of Congress, or gubernatorial caucus, or even discussion at City Hall. The Left as a whole – well past the days of ardent socialism, New Deal liberalism, or the fight for civil rights – has found no real basis upon which a party and an ideal can be built. At a time when neo- conservative economics dominates a continent, the idealism which once was the trademark of the Left now belongs to the Right. The simplicity, profundity and relevance of a conservative ideal can be summed in 3-second sound-bites: “axis of evil,” “with us or against,” “tax cuts for a healthier economy.” The conservative ideal of small, non- interventionist government remains the guiding light of the Right. The Left, however, is reduced to fighting for scraps of the prevailing sentiment. Anti-war, anti-tax cut, libertarian and social-spending dogmatism is washed away in meaningless rhetoric and soulless politicking which seemingly serves to confuse rather than inform the masses.

In a way, I agree with Berke in her interpretation of the Liberal Curse – we think and care about much, but accomplish very little. Yet I tend to believe that underlying the cause of the Left is a guiding principle, a firm belief in social and economic equality for all: Civil Rights made us all equal under the law; government intervention into our lives makes us closer to equal under the force of a market which we keep at arm’s length. Like the seemingly unintelligent sound-bites that form the Bush Doctrine, Left ideology can effectively form an understandable platform to which a party and a people can adhere, and for which the majority of like-minded and intelligent Americans can vote. While we should all be involved in discussing the minutia of theory, it is the guiding principles which should be foregrounded by our leading Left institutions as the only meaningful and constructive paradigm under which American society can progress.

And what have our leading Left institutions given us since November 2000? Ben Gruenbaum’s article this issue (see *********) addresses just that – what seem to be the fundamental problems of the Democratic Party of America. Lack of central vision is the phrase of the day, where the Democrats’ inability to differentiate themselves from a body of conservative and moderate-right politics caused an implosion in November 2002. Gruenbaum writes, “In 2002, instead of reaching out to [core groups] that reflect the heart and blood of the liberal ideology, Democratic leaders fell into the trap of me-tooism; their policies little more than watered down republican initiatives.”

Rhetoric, lack of central vision, politics, and “me-tooism” all lead to Berke and much of the Left’s resignation from the political game and the progressive cause. Without a defining ideal, a feasible strategy, and a mechanism for self-criticality, no longer can a long-lasting idealism guide the workings of a fair, meaningful and efficient government. Dogmatism and meaningless rhetoric serve their purposes in Orwell and Huxley, but in twenty-first century America the Left must stand alone as a symbol of progress, social stability, and national well-being, tempered by Reno’s Truth with a capitol ‘T’.

Without forming and criticizing a meaningful differentiable ideology on the Left, political distinctions mean nothing and progress is nil. Both popular media and the progressive masses have their obligations to both form and criticize Left ideology in order to create an intellectual and practical body of critical, logical and capable selves. Media’s role is only part of the solution. Nevertheless, for Turn Left and its staff, we are happy to do our part. End.