Activism
Via Atrios (I know, I know, but it really isn't all I read), the excellent post of one Christopher Hayes. Read it.
Hayes's comparison of activists' work to that of missionaries is truely interesting. one of my favorite bits of the article is his assesment of the role activists play in policy creation:
If a political party’s job is to win elections by doing what is politically expedient, the activist’s job is to make doing the right thing politically expedient.
I think that's a point missed by many in the various circles I travel. If the parties aren't doing as we want, we have no cause to be disappointed in them. A cynical view of politicians will always predict poor behavior, which is just a function of the corrupting pressures of the job. Rather than dwell in this cynicism, however, we'd be much better off accepting what pressures will do to any politico, and adjusting our tactics such that we become one of those coercive influences.
It worked for AIDS activists during the 2000 election, whose terrific embarrassment of candidate Gore forced the Clinton Administration into the political move of fixing their South African policy. What's critical to understand is that the shame did not result in any moral recalculation, but just a shift on the balance sheet of political arithmetic.
These people work mathematically. They work with statistics and numbers. There is an equation, and we can divine it, change the inputs, and win.
Hayes's comparison of activists' work to that of missionaries is truely interesting. one of my favorite bits of the article is his assesment of the role activists play in policy creation:
If a political party’s job is to win elections by doing what is politically expedient, the activist’s job is to make doing the right thing politically expedient.
I think that's a point missed by many in the various circles I travel. If the parties aren't doing as we want, we have no cause to be disappointed in them. A cynical view of politicians will always predict poor behavior, which is just a function of the corrupting pressures of the job. Rather than dwell in this cynicism, however, we'd be much better off accepting what pressures will do to any politico, and adjusting our tactics such that we become one of those coercive influences.
It worked for AIDS activists during the 2000 election, whose terrific embarrassment of candidate Gore forced the Clinton Administration into the political move of fixing their South African policy. What's critical to understand is that the shame did not result in any moral recalculation, but just a shift on the balance sheet of political arithmetic.
These people work mathematically. They work with statistics and numbers. There is an equation, and we can divine it, change the inputs, and win.
posted by onlooker at 10:03 PM
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