I've been reading Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley by John Gaventa. It's an in-depth investigation into the oppression of coal-mining folk, a real hard look at how people get screwed over. I'm digesting it along with The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. Both were gifts from Luke, and I'm working on some new writing partly inspired by these works, and by Dewey's "The Public and it's Problems". And by Kierkegaard's diaries. And my own experience this past year or so. Woof.

But all that BS aside, here's something that's so goddamn useful you can't even fucking believe it -- Gaventa's breakdown of the three dimensions of power and how they act in an oppressive or oppositional context between two actors:

(Larger Readable Image or PDF version)

This diagram was set up to explain how a dominant power maintains its power, but you can relatively easily reverse-engineer the situation to figure out what to do if you're the one being fucked with. For instance, let's take a walk through this looking at the two-party system of American self-governance at the national level.

As it stands, Democrats are completely out of power in all three dimensions. These dimensions are explained in the 1, 2 and 3 boxes across the top row:

1. Prevalence of Republicans through superior bargaining resources: Pretty obvious. They control the White House and Congress. They have secretaries of state who will mess with the number and quality of voting machines in minority districts for partisan gain. They're working on the Supreme Court. Nuff said.
2. Construction of barriers against participation of Democrats (through non-decisions, invoking of mobilization of bias): this has some more wonky language here. Basically it means creating impediments to participation by convincing people it's not worth it, or by mobilizing their biases to misdirect or disenfranchise them. Runs from "soft" voter suppression (misinformation, cynicism, "let them decide" attitude) to the phenomena of people voting against their own interests for "moral" reasons.
3. Influencing or shaping the consciousness of Democrats about inequalities (through myths, information control, ideologies, etc): they're kicking ass at message, they have a better media machine, they have dominated the conventional wisdom and framed the debate.

So the Democrats are taking a pounding. Their task is to proceed along the bottom row from right to left: formulating issues and strategies, mobilizing on those issues to act upon the barriers, and then moving into open political conflict with competing resources over clearly defined issues. The challenges they must overcome are on the 4, 5, 6 line.

This is where it gets interesting. In this past election, the Dems defeat was not due to a lack of resources (4). Historically, they are are outspent and out-organized by Republicans to a significant degree, but not so in this election. A case can, and should, be made that their defeat was partially based on the failure to succeed at point 7 just below point 4. The conflict (the election) was not fought over clearly defined issues, and not entirely with competing resources. Specifically, Kerry voted for the war before he voted against it, and there are a number of corporate interests who finance both parties.

However, I see the real meat of the Democrats defeat in the 5 and 6 zone. "Non-participation of Democrats due to barriers and due to anticipated defeat." While voter turnout was up, it wasn't as high as some hoped. It's widely understood that Kerry failed to generate widespread and/or sustained enthusiasm with the base, and many Democrats began privately anticipating defeat several years in advance. Also, while it's unclear whether vote suppression was the decisive factor in the election, it was clearly a contributing factor in at least two key states.

Which brings us finally to box 6, which is where the Democrats take a pants-down spanking. "Susceptibility to myths, ideologies, legitimations, sense of powerlessness, uncritical or multiple consciousness about issues and actions..." Oh man. We all know that one. It is from this abject loss of control over the third dimension of power that all the other failures spring.

So, Democrats, liberals, progressives; whatever you call yourselves, you're down there in the corner with a lot of work to do.

In case you were wondering, I'm right there with you. I'll have more on this in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's helpful just to realize where we are.

P.S. It's also worth noting that the three dimensions of power have many other applications, and this diagram of challenge and response can be applied to any A vs. B conflict. People vs. Corporations. US vs. Terrorist Networks. Any zero-sum conflict (e.g. one in which a negotiated compromise is off the table) between two parties (where a balance of power cannot be created) will play out along these lines. For instance, if you look at US vs. Terrorist Networks, it seems clear that while the US retains the upper hand in the first order of power, it has clearly lost the advantage in the second and third orders, and given that the chances that the Terrorist Networks will be defeated through a lack of resources seems slim. Ooof.

I could go on like this, but it's Saturday. Have a good one.

Comedy Social (as opposed to Central comes to mind) is a good show. It fits in with the whole "participatory culture" thing I've been buzzing on for a while.

Good Raw Source for the next big thing. It's missing any global vision or paltable thrust on security/foreign policy, but that's going to take a bit longer.

Still needs to be done though.

Juan Cole (juancole.com) is a professor of History at the University of Michigan. He reads and translates Arabic and has provided invaluable insights into the historical context and also what's been going on in the middle east and especially Iraq over the past few years.

Now he's being intimidated by a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) because he had some unkind things to say about an organization called MEMRI, which is a right-wing think tank which also does some dubious translating and interperetation of Arabic. He charged that their translations are selective and designed to push a particular point of view about the Middle East.

If the idea of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation is as bad to you as it is to me, maybe you should send an email. Be polite, but firm -- memri@memri.org.

There are heavy overtones of Israel here, which I usually try and stay away from, but which I kind of want to get into for a second. I realize I'm not an expert or direct party to that whole situation. I have plenty of Jewish friends, several of whom have spent time in Israel and I'm uncomfortable at the thought of disrespecting any of them of their heritage. I also have met many people from Israel, and I find I tend to like their national character, though I have also met some pretty bad Israeli tourists.

However, it's hard to look at how that country is going and really think it's all that good or even justified. It seems obvious that history entitles the Jewish people a significant degree of acommodataion, but from an objective standpoint I don't see how Israel really has anything to fear from its neighboring states that justifies a miniature replication of the Great Wall. They're not going to face an invasion any time soon. On the terrorism tip, the reality of the situation is you can have security or sanity. Pick one. The wall is madness.

There can be no absolute physical security on the street level: you'll never stop people who are willing to blow themselves up to kill you. That's a lesson we also need to learn here in the US, but it's a lesson we'll learn eventually. The question is how to make fewer and fewer people willing to do that, and/or how to keep more of the people who remain willing to do such things away from your shopping centers, busses and so forth.

A cold calculus would also suggest another question which is how can you kill all those people before they get close enough to hurt you when they blow themselves up. Now, the degree of brutality needed to follow through on the latter solution breaches the boundary of genocide, but as long as we're thinking outside the box -- not recommending any courses of action -- that's an option on the table.

Things have been simmering for quite a long time in the middle east and elsewhere, and it looks like a boil is on the horizon. The long-term picture is far from hopeless, but the current trends are not good.

Welcome to the terrordome, the terrordome. It's off. The die is cast. The wheel is in spin. I wish it were friday on a non-holidy instead of a tuesday... I'd like to go out and prowl for a change.

Check this track from the Kleptones.

I didn't think Queen + KRS1 + Grandmaster Flash + misc sound effects sounded like a great idea either at first, but holy shit. Holy fucking shit. This is the future. These people are taking the crude technique of mash-ups to the next level. This is like what P. Diddy (nee Puff Daddy) started out with in terms of ripping off well known pop and rock backings for his tracks back in the late 90s, except it's pure art.

The fact that this is technically illegal (even posting it for free without making a damn penny) says a lot about our society.

Get the whole thing here.

Strong Bad email 117 is the best in quite a long time. It's called "montage" and it features a wagon full of pancakes. Plus four (4) songs!

Guts, guts and might
Liftin' weights and feelin' all right
It's a showdown
Goin' downtown
You're gonna mess around, showdown
Put your nose down, showdown!

Awesome. Those guys are genius as far as I'm concerned. In their own more limited way they are the heirs apparent to the Simpsonic throne.

For those of you who don't know what Homestarrunner is, I recomment the wiki.

I've been thinking quite a lot about the nature of leadership, the human desire for social structure, and what in the end is Right and True about how we aught to treat one another. This is all very very interesting. That's how I look at almost everything that goes on in life, I know, but my thinking over the past three or four months has been very uptight.

Anyway, all this raises those eternal questions about the nature of humanity and what is the just sort of thing to do going forward. Personal vectors abound; will be revealed at a later date.

Getting back to the 50,000 ft level, it occurs to me in an unguarded moment that we are a world at war, and that the rapidly tightening circle of individuals in control of this nation are going to get an enormous number of people killed because they have no vision for a better tomorrow. The hard flip side of this reality is that our loyal opposition has no alternative course of action, and, in light of the gravity of the situation, is far too loyal.

Franz and Frank have both brought up the question, "have you thought about going over there?" The answer is yes. I never seriously considered enlisting, but the thought of getting closer to the struggle comes to mind often.

It's a tough thing, what to do next. I'm in this for the future, it would seem. With second helpings of truth, family, justice and a dash of personal glory. I believe we will either turn the tide in the next few years, We must be scientific, disciplined, engineers of progress. We must also be inspired, spiritual, embodiments of the future we wish to see.

We must be hungry chessmasters, entrepreneurial strategists of the highest order. That means having fun and living the life too.

It's a hell of a thing to put your whole heart and mind and body -- I sacraficed my body: I'm fat now! -- into something like a presidential election and then have it come up tasting like ashes. Gut punch; long long looks in the mirror; the incredible sense of freedom and possibility that comes from no longer having that overrarching purpose; the incredible sense of being lost.

Bit by bit I'm settling into it. Bit by bit, I reclaim the dignity of my own experience.

There's plenty of political drama going around right now -- on the national scene and within people's hearts, even within people's organizations -- but the way forward is coming clear. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be hard. Harder, in fact, than it was before. But now we know a few things about what works and what doesn't, and the people who have soulful ideas to fall back on are at an innate advantage for now. That's more than right, it's righteous.

Personally I have an enormous headache after spending four days wrestling with my future, with four more days to go it seems. There's a lot to believe in in this world, and you have to pick your battles and sift through the landscape. I wonder these days what the range is between childish, romantic, idealistic and true, but in the end I've got a philosophy to fall back on, and I believe it's as soulful as they come.

I've been busier and more beat up this week than ever I imagined, but it's all for the good.

Never forget, my friends, that a common street synonym for professional (pro) is whore. Having just run through this little spate of political streetfighting and come out the other side more or less whole as a human being -- still even believing in the cause on a good day -- it's tough to see the democrats come out like whipped dogs afraid of Tom Delay's spritz bottle, and it's a kick it the teeth to realize that movement conservatives havn't a shred of intellectual honesty about them. Bunch of fuckers, really. I like to think at the end of the day that most of us could kick back and have a beer. Harder to hold onto that idea with the crap you see these days.

Instances: lavish and unqualified praise for the Swift Boat Liars; this "The American People Spoke Loud And Clear" business; the purging of people who think the truth and the president occasionally disagree; the tightening of the cabenet.

Oh, it's the ugly season, when dark meetings behind closed doors decide fates and futures. The circle will constrict, and it's only a matter of time before perverse eminations -- the smells that typically accompany the decomposition of a corrupted and hermetic power stucture -- begin wafting forth. The creepy crawlies have come out to play. Four more years. Four more years. Who will rise to lead the counterrevolution?