Politics

Were the 1990s Really Devoid of Politics? – Jacobin magazine

Published

3 years ago

March 30, 2022

Harry Miller

Were the 1990s Really Devoid of Politics?

By: Ryan Zickgraf

Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties imagines the decade as dominated by pop culture, not politics. In reality, Gen X was passionately political during the 1990s — and centrists were busy laying the groundwork for the politics of the next century.

Chuck Klosterman’s observations on ’90s politics and economics are mostly concerned with how they appeared on television. (Isi Parente / Unsplash)

Convincing a book publisher that you’re the right one to synthesize an entire decade of American history takes a certain brand of institutional authority. The scribes who divvied up the second half of the twentieth century were academic historians (Bruce Schulman’s The Seventies), mainstream political journalists (David Halberstam’s The Fifties), or some combination of both (Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland and Reaganland). All of them were serious professionals with serious credentials doing serious work.

So what does it say about the 1990s that the decade’s most notable retrospective so far — The Nineties — has been written by Chuck Klosterman, the pop-culture critic who once described his experience of binge-watching Saved by the Bell reruns as being in a “parasitic relationship.”

To borrow a stylistic tic from Klosterman, it’s not that big of a deal. But it’s probably bigger than you think.

Hey, Wait, I Got a New Complaint

Just as Seinfeld, the defining TV program of the ’90s, was a show about nothing, maybe the entire decade was about nothing. So goes the prevailing rearview-mirror perspective, the idea being that Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of “the end of history” might be literally true and not just a prophesy about the hegemony of liberal democracy.

If the ’90s were a wasteland of world events, it makes perfect sense that the decade’s best-selling popular history would be written by a chilled-out Gen Xer known to inject navel-gazing memoir into meta-commentaries on cultural detritus — rather than a public intellectual like, say, Jill Lepore.

In The Nineties, Klosterman doesn’t seek to dispel the myth that little happened between the fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11. He describes the period as being “heavily mediated and assertively self-conscious,” yet so easy and problem-free that you could pretend the larger society was “barely there.” “It was a period of ambivalence,” he writes, “defined by an overwhelming assumption that life, and particularly American life, was underwhelming.”

Politics in The Nineties is portrayed as downstream from the riches of televised pop culture. Kurt Cobain gets about as many words as Bill Clinton, and annoying former MTV personality Pauly Shore earns only slightly less attention than George H. W. Bush. Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich, pivotal figures on both sides of the aisle, barely make an appearance.

Klosterman’s rationale for the book’s emphasis on pop culture is that technology had “accelerated culture” and changed the human relationship to reality in the ’90s. In his 2005 book, Mediated, media theorist Thomas de Zengotita had a name for the “psychic sauna” of media representations that we glide over the surface of, like “a little god, dipping in here and there” — he called it “the Blob.”

The Nineties settles on a ’90s pop culture reference to describe it: The Matrix. The 1999 Keanu Reeves film seemed like it was about the future of computers, Klosterman argues, but it was actually about TV (which is essentially what the recent sequel, Resurrections, is about). “The Matrix resonated with so many viewers not because it was fantastical fiction, but because it was not.”

I’m sympathetic to the idea that the ’90s was a purgatory of mediated hyperreality. Last month, the Illinois State Museum emailed me a survey to help inform an upcoming exhibit about Generation X and what it was like to grow up in the ’80s and ’90s:

Tell us about watching TV as a kid. Did you have cable? What was your favorite music as a teenager and what did it express about you? What role did books and magazines have on your life?

That nearly every inquiry was about media consumption preferences and habits reflected the fact that my generation, Gen X, was inundated by mass media from the day we were born.

It’s true that the Reagan and Bush years signaled the twilight of American community, institutional faith, and public life. What began to fill the vacuum of identity and meaning was the cult of self-expression and the conspicuous consumption of pop culture. Star Trek was wrong: the final frontier wasn’t space — we got increasingly lost exploring the cultural products endlessly exported from Hollywood, Disney, and Silicon Valley. Because of this retreat into solitude and a lack of hot or cold war, maybe the ’90s was like one long episode of Seinfeld, one in which Bill Clinton yada yadas through two terms and Ralph Nader pops in briefly like Kramer.

Or maybe not.

The Myth of the Slacker

The Nineties is worth reading for its trenchant observations on books, movies, and music, but Klosterman’s observations on politics and economics are largely concerned with how they appeared on television: H. W. Bush’s nasally voice, Ross Perot’s petite stature, the spectacle of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Klosterman’s worst observation of the decade is this one: “It was perhaps the last period in American history when personal and political engagement was still viewed as optional.”

Perhaps this was true of the depoliticized mass media of the era. The stereotype of the flannel-wearing apathetic slacker loomed large while the pop class consciousness that inflected the entertainment of the ’70s and ’80s — from the snobs-versus-slobs comedy films like Caddyshack to sitcoms like Cheers — slowly disappeared. By the “Must-See TV” era of the mid-’90s, almost everyone on the screen belonged to the professional-managerial class, broadly and vaguely defined.

But it doesn’t mean that everyone was a passive observer.

As leftist writer Freddie deBoer recently argued, Gen X was actually a passionately political generation in the ’90s. Many students and activists fought hard for racial, gender, and environmental justice. That wave of radicalism got labeled the “politically correct” movement, spurring a backlash led by right-wing culture warriors — reminiscent of the “woke” wars of the last half decade.

“Back then people felt that they had never seen anything like this new generation of students, who seemed uniquely politically engaged and given to ‘no compromises’ rhetoric,” deBoer writes.

It wasn’t just the kids making noise on campus. In 1991, more than seventy-five thousand people (organizers estimated that it was double that) marched in Washington, DC, to protest Bush’s Persian Gulf War while smaller demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country, including a thirty-thousand-strong rally in San Francisco.

The Left also came out in force against the World Trade Organization in 1999. In what was nicknamed the “Battle in Seattle,” more than thirty-five thousand people filled the streets to angrily protest profit-driven capitalists pushing global free-trade deals that offered few protections for unions and the environment and more incentives for corporations to build sweatshops overseas.

The WTO protests, the Gen-X left, and political figures like Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders got left out of VH1’s I Love the ’90s retrospectives, and it’s no surprise that they are a marginal force in Klosterman’s account. Likewise, The Nineties has little to say about the free-market-worshipping bipartisan neoliberal consensus of the era, which led to the outsourcing of the manufacturing sector, the deregulation of America’s financial systems, the strangulation of the labor force, and Clinton’s war on the welfare state that coincided with mass incarceration.

That missing history would surely be told in a ’90s retrospective by Perlstein or, say, Thomas Frank. But for now we have Klosterman, who has clearly been caught in the Matrix too long to separate the lived experience of the ’90s from its own media distortion.

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Politics

‘Disgraceful:’ N.S. Tory leader slams school’s request that military remove uniform

Published

1 day ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.

Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.

A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”

Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.

“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.

In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”

“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”

Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.

Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.

Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.

“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.

“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.

“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.

“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”

“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Politics

Saskatchewan NDP’s Beck holds first caucus meeting after election, outlines plans

Published

1 day ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.

Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.

She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.

Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.

Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.

The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Politics

Nova Scotia election: Liberals say province’s immigration levels are too high

Published

2 days ago

November 7, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.

Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.

“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.

“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”

The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.

In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.

“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”

In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.

“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”

Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.

Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”

In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.

In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.

“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”

Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.

“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”

The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.

“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.

“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax

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