A glimpse at the future

[BobcatJH]

One of the right wing's most successful strategies has been supporting its up-and-coming "minds". Plucked from the hive at an early age, these budding fascists find themselves landing all the right internships, Capitol Hill staff positions and think tank slots. Perhaps their fledgling, Orwellian-named organization gets play in the right-wing press. Perhaps their poorly-researched rant of a book gets rushed to press. Perhaps they join the punditocracy. All the while, their liberal counterparts must scratch and claw for every unpaid internship and thankless job as they watch their talentless peers climb a rigged ladder.

That said, there is hope. Whether they knew it or not, two young women - one progressive, one conservative - provided America a glimpse at the future on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" this past Saturday. Taking part in the call-in show were Elana Berkowitz, editor of CampusProgress, and Karin Agness from the Young America's Foundation. Listening to Agness's tired, right-wing rhetoric, it was easy to lose hope. Listening to Berkowitz, however, I found my optimism for what's to come restored.

The differences between Berkowitz and Agness were apparent from the start. When the host asked each panelist how they came to embrace their values, the answers were quite telling. Berkowitz, a Brown University honors alumna with a degree in political science and modern culture and media, was the communications director for "an urban environmental non-profit", Earth Pledge. She also chairs the coordinating council for Downtown for Democracy, which sought to engage New York City's creatives in the political process. At the Center for American Progress, Berkowitz edits CampusProgress, an amazing site geared toward young progressives. She has also worked as a freelance journalist, her stories appearing in, among others, the New York Times, Salon and The Nation. She told the "Washington Journal" host that her values came, in part, from her personal story, as well as the story of her mother, an immigrant to America.

Agness, on the other hand, is a University of Virginia alumna whose proudest accomplishment was the founding of a campus group known as the Network of enlightened Women (NeW), an organization that began as a book club and whose mission is "to foster the education and leadership skills of conservative university women. NeW is devoted to expanding the intellectual diversity on college campuses." When asked how she came to embrace her conservatism, Agness's answer was simple: She read. She began, she said, reading Time magazine at an early age. There, apparently, she found her beliefs.

Before I get to the most glaring difference between Berkowitz and Agness, it's important to take a closer look at their backgrounds. Berkowitz, as her profile indicates, is interested in engaging people in the political process. So, too, is Agness. But look closer. Agness's enlightened group's most talked-about initiative has been its efforts to combat perhaps the most pressing issue on college campuses. Exploding tuition costs? Nope. Debt and loan issues? Guess again. Attracting talented minority students? Wrong. No, the curiously named Network of Enlightened Women sought to counteract the campus dilemma posed by ... "The Vagina Monologues".

Yes, Agness's group has hosted speakers and debates to fight the play at the center of the V-Day movement, which "is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery." Very enlightened, don't you think, that a group of conservative women would band together to fight something that helps raise money to prevent violence against women? Very enlightened, indeed.

But the most obvious difference between Berkowitz and Agness came when the host asked the panelists what, in their minds, were the most pressing issues young Americans face. Berkowitz sensibly touched on high gas prices and student loan debt, among other issues. Agness, meanwhile, felt the most pressing issue young Americans face wasn't either of those. What was it? Privatizing Social Security. As I was busy reaching for the phone to ask Agness about her mystifying statement, the first caller took her to task for drinking the right-wing Kool-Aid and lamenting the fact that she may be too far gone to come to her senses and be anything other than a mindless conservative drone.

Throughout the show, Agness had done little to rebut the first caller's point. In fact, she took viewers on a trip outside of the reality-based community, stopping at drilling for oil in Alaska, taking pride in the state of the economy and the fourth largest deficit in American history and, predictably, denouncing an increase in the minimum wage. Her basic anti-minimum wage increase argument - Where will it stop? - represented the senseless return of a right-wing talking point typically used during the gay rights debate. People won't soon be marrying dogs, nor will those with fewer skills price themselves out of a job. When Agness maintained that employers faced with raising wages would seek applicants with increased qualifications, Berkowitz countered that she didn't know how many janitors would need a Ph.D. in the future.

While right-wing callers to the show revealed themelves to be little more than talking-points spouting automatons, the rare progressive caller managed to trip Agness up and reveal her for the empty vessel she is. The final caller, in fact, revealed her hypocrisy in short order. Here was Agness, whose NeW had helped her campus mark World Freedom Day, which commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, the caller said, her present home, the Young America's Foundation, had denied credentials to both CampusProgress and The Nation for its upcoming National Conservative Student Conference. Berkowitz, representing one of the outlets denied access, detailed the hypocrisy, especially the fact that CampusProgress had twice granted YAF spokesman Jason Mattera access to its conferences. Mattera, it should be said, was the one denying progressive outlets access this year. And Agness, when pressed on the issue, simply smiled and said she wasn't aware of the story.

And with that, the show was over. Berkowitz, for clearly and impressively stating her progressive beliefs, had her patriotism questioned and was subject to call after call made by ill-informed right wingers. Agness, for simply reciting Republican talking points, largely escaped scrutiny. And while Agness will likely have her entire career subsidized by the right-wing money machine, the lesson to be learned from Saturday's telecast is that, as progressives, we must be as willing, if not more, to spend our money not only on issues of pressing importance, but also on building the infrastructure of the progressive movement. Far too often, we get caught in the moment, fighting this fight or supporting this cause. All the while, we tend to miss the bigger picture. The longer we wait to help subsidize our future best and brightest, the longer the Agnesses of the world will hold sway. And that's not a world I'd like to live in.

[Jade Fox]

1. The non-thinking aspect of these Assembly-line Conservatives...

is indeed scary.

This weekend I read a book called "Confessions of a Former Dittohead". While it's encouraging that there is at least one former Dittohead, and it's a well written book, the author's description of himself as a Limbaugh devotee is chilling. His description of himself and other dittoheads indicates true brainwashing is going on, with Limbaugh and Fox News providing each other an echo chamber where no contradictory reality can gain purchase, and any criticism meets a well-oiled deflection machine.

The author of this book, Jim Derych, is clearly an intelligent man and a confessed life-long reader. Yet he claims he spent 13 years getting all his information from Rush Limbaugh. It was only when reality began to intrude on his sealed world view that crack of light began to appear (his adventures with the local Young Republicans is a funny read), but it still took years for him to break the last of his brainwashing.

[YOY]

6. Between the ages of 16 and 18 I was one

When I was 18 I became a foreign exchange student and opened my eyes on all the shit that man shovels on the disenfranchised midwesterners and southerners...his mainstay target audience.

I'd love to read this one myself.

[lostnfound]

2. Wanted to call and ask how fundraising goes for Ms. Berkowitz

given that her groups don't feed at the same deep troughs of wealthy donors that are probably available to Agness and her groups.

[Demeter]

3. It Is Frightening--I Think Ridicule Is the ONLY Weapon

The young are so afraid of that--the pretentious even more so.

[ForeverWinter]

4. Conservative women?

What the hell is Karin Agness doing going to college and starting organizations for "enlightened" women?
She, of all people, should know that her "highest calling" and duty is to have dinner on the table when her husband gets home from a hard day at the office, to make as many many babies as possible, and support the economy by driving them to soccer practice in a big SUV, cause Jesus says so!
Sheesh.

[Ringo84]

5. I disagree

This is a good thing. Let the "budding" (more like withering) RWers have their easy book deals. In the short term, that may seem like a good idea. But conservative beliefs won't be represented well by any yokel off the street that gets a book deal for being RW. It'll make us look good, and them like the pseudointellectuals that they are.

This sounds great for us!
Ringo

[The Anti-Neo Con]

7. This is the sickest part IMO...

"Throughout the show, Agness had done little to rebut the first caller's point. In fact, she took viewers on a trip outside of the reality-based community, stopping at drilling for oil in Alaska, taking pride in the state of the economy and the fourth largest deficit in American history and, predictably, denouncing an increase in the minimum wage. Her basic anti-minimum wage increase argument - Where will it stop? - represented the senseless return of a right-wing talking point typically used during the gay rights debate."

Yeah those people making $5.15 an hour are living high on the hog. They just make WAY too much money!:sarcasm:

[kevinbgoode]

8. One thing that irritates me is how these programs are always

lopsided with right wingnut callers - and someone needs to keep track of this and let C-SPAN have it. . there is just no excuse for playing one side constantly, especially when their representative is doing nothing but repeating the same tired talking points.

If there is one good thing I'm starting to notice, it is that people are getting sick and tired of hearing the same crap coming out of the mouths of the Right. They can't vary their arguments because they are completely dependent on someone else to instruct them on what to say - so when faced with anything, they have a memorized list of positions that never seems to vary. While I understand that much of this is their desire to change reality by merely repeating the same truthiness over and over again, people do start to tune out when it just becomes nothing but a chant.

I've already surprised a few fundies by accusing them of demanding "religious correctness" to counter their stale cliches of "political correctness". . .and I have yet to meet a wingnut who can respond when I accuse them of being a heterosupremacist. They have a specific program and can't deviate from the agenda - if we watch and observe, we can lead them to their own cliff.

[mkb]

9. Deceit About Liberal Bias

     Patience is a virtue.  That seems like a trite and
overused phrase, but I think it's largely true.  The media is
biased toward people who espouse right-wing rhetoric.  The
wealth and concentration of ownership has made for a situation
where mostly right-wing opinion is heard, and more virulent as
well.  They keep telling us the media is liberal, but it is
not the truth.
     When those of us who struggle and work for a better world
see the bias against people without money and others, we
cannot let the emotional negativity cause us to go backwards. 
We need to see ourselves as importatant participants in the
progress of society, which will hopefully give us our
happiness as well.  The privileged of society are good at the
art of making us stew.
     Those who are not well of should remember this and
realize that there are forces that play upon your emotions,
and that can cause you to lose focus on that which you know is
right.  Believing in a better world for others and ourselves
can be challenged by the difficulties that are there in our
daily lives.  I hope that you will not lose your ability to
imagine and work for that world.
     The privileged and their allies are deceitful and do not
care about the well being of others except to benefit
themselves.  I know that sentient people have endured many
sufferings throughout time, as they also do now.  Try to
remember that there are friends out there who you may not know
who are working to make things better, and that hopefully we
will know happiness as we work.