Jerry Brown committed - Interview

Two-term governor of California (1974-1982), three-time candidate for the US presidency ('76, '80, '92), heretical California Democratic Party chairman, Jerry Brown has gone local. As a radio talk show host on the nonprofit Berkeley, California station KPFA, he holds forth five days a week from his new home, a warehouse complex near the Oakland waterfront. Brown is also organizing self-reliant local enterprises, such as organic community gardens, a food co-op, and a populist legal service. The following interview draws on conversations that took place in Oakland and San Francisco last summer.

DAVID KUPFER: What changes have taken place in your view of yourself and your role in society since your governorship? And what has sparked these views?

JERRY BROWN: I would say my views were radically changed by the experience of being party chairman of the California State Democratic Party, raising a couple million dollars by fundraising and presiding over the flow of millions of dollars that the legislators pulled in. I came to see the Party as essentially a money laundry and discount bulk-mailing permit broker for incumbent politicians and Potemkin Village foil for the manipulation of democratic institutions.

Now, I should have undertaken my own revolt right there and led the party away from the incumbents. That was a path I wasn't prepared to go down before I ran for president; maybe it wasn't even possible. The party had contributions from labor interests as well as corporate interests, but there was no extensive grassroots participation and the labor contributions were from individuals at the top. in a real sense the party is an instrument of almost the same class interest as the Republican Party. I know there are distinctions -- welfare and endangered species and certain other laws -- but when you see what comes out of the congressional meatgrinder, and from Sacramento, the discrepancy between the parties is more apparent than real. In terms of inequality and environmental destruction, Democrats may slow the drift but they never reverse it.

In many respects, the Gingrich revolution, so-called, is already being reined in by status-quo interests that don't want to see welfare people and poor people driven to the wall, don't want to see middle-class citizens totally alienated. So Clinton is getting a media rebound by calling for higher wages, more compassion toward immigrants, and some kind of modified affirmative action. All those are rhetorical flourishes, but they're propelling Clinton forward and balancing the excesses of the cavepersons of Congress.

Clinton's legacy is Bush's legacy: NAFTA, GATT, the anti-terrorism bill, the federal crime bill, the refusal to even suggest raising the minimum wage in his first two years in office, he could have done something about it with his Democratic majority. More moderate Republicanism, in the guise of Clinton and Democratic Leadership Council-type politics, has been reinvigorated by system maintenance tendencies. In other words, this system has its own gyroscope, it won't let anything get too far to the right or left.

Clinton is performing (as a sixties radical would have said) a co-optation function the likes of which we've never seen before. Because the distinction between the name of the thing and the thing itself has completely broken down, Clinton, by giving a little gristle, gives many people the impression that they're getting red meat. They're getting nothing of the kind, and if in fact he beats the dreaded Gingrich, we will be back to Bush. We'll have the Bush third term, and we may get Bush IV.

That's why I am searching for an alternative conception of power, an alternative politics. My old political science teacher, Sheldon Wolin, is a very careful theorist of American politics. He says there now are only two concepts of power: one based on the market and the other on Marx.

The market is grinding people under. It knows no restraints. The welfare state, social democracy, the New Deal, the Great Society, were efforts to balance the power of the market with compassion, participation, egalitarianism. Since those ideas are dead right now, the imperative is to create neighborhood activism, linked with national activism, to challenge what is going to be, sooner rather than later, an obviously bankrupt political state.

DK. What's the "theater of illusion" that you refer to on the radio?

JB: Washington. They're doing some real things -- like taking away civil rights, cuts in welfare -- but most of what goes on is illusion. Presidential approval ratings go up after 168 people are killed in Oklahoma City. Is that real? The system is rewarding things that shouldn't be rewarded, There's no democratic reason why the President's "popularity" should go up. That is perverse. That it is even measured is perverse.

The fact that we have a system that can reward burning the Reichstag means we are in trouble. The Oklahoma City bombing happens: Clinton gets more power. The FBI and other federal police agencies get a thousand more agents and new powers of surveillance and infiltration. If someone were inclined to hire a few bombers, he could precipitate an authoritarian response that could kill democratic freedoms with more so-called anti-terrorist laws.

DK: You seem to be more radical since you ran for President.

JB: I see more of what is going on. Clinton orders Tomahawk missiles to kill people in Baghdad and the political and media chorus applauds. By what law were the lives of those Iraqi human beings snuffed out? Nor was any moral or legal test applied to Bush's arrest of Noriega at the cost of hundreds of lives -- innocent civilians were murdered by executive fiat. Then there is the turning of children into fodder for our voracious prison system. Clinton even puts ads on television advertising his desire for human execution.

DK: What's your assessment of where America is at this point in history?

JB: The economy's chugging along, there's all sorts of potential out there; yet we face a profound human-relations problem: how do we get along with people that are different, and how do we make sure that the pie is cut up in a democratically tolerable way?

Nobody says, "How is every kid in the third grade doing?" And "In the next twelve months we will make sure that the potential of these children will be realized consistent with a six-trillion-dollar economy in a society dedicated to real equality." That's not happening. Not under Bush, not under Clinton -- it wouldn't happen under anybody, because of the media's celebration of what C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism." It's almost like a mass hysteria: people think, "Oh, we're working on something. We're gonna stop the Contract on America." But it's all theater: camouflage for this market engine that grinds up everything in its way.

DK: You've said that cities no longer count in America. Why?

JB: Three years ago, during the New York primary, Bill Clinton and I had a debate in the presence of the entire national media, Mayor Dinkins, and several other mayors. Clinton and I both committed ourselves to the seven-point urban agenda put forth by the National Conference of Mayors. It would have required about a thirty-five-billion-dollar investment in cities. As soon as Bill Clinton was elected -- well, not even as soon as he was elected, during the fall campaign -- it was never mentioned. After he was elected it was never mentioned. I don't think I've ever seen any mention of it in the national press. What that means to me is that a serious commitment, made before at least fifteen television cameras and the newspapers of record -- the New York Times, the Washington Post -- and the Associated Press, counts for nothing. It's meaningless. And it can only be meaningless because cities don't count, except as feeder systems for the lucrative crime control industry. They are not like the capital-gains tax reduction, they're not like immigrants or welfare or the other hot-button issues that have become the red meat of degenerative politics.

DK: What are the specific goals of the community development efforts you're initiating?

JB: We start from the premise that cities are being abandoned, by the President, the governor, the mayors, in direct contradiction to their rhetoric of concern. This follows from the rules of global competition and technological inefficiency and market hegemony. Those fixations are in the driver's seat, and any notion of conventional politicians mobilizing powerless people, particularly people of color, is, forget it, it's not gonna happen. We have a moral and human crisis of the greatest dimension and it just doesn't register in the theater of politics.

That being the case, I decided to move to an urban area. I decided on Oakland because it was close to where I was born, and I had recently been living in San Francisco. And I didn't want to become another lobbying group, to fruitlessly beg congresspersons, local city councilpersons, and whoever else to do something, but to start some small projects: a We the People law firm, an organic food co-op, a market garden to employ young people, a computer training center to help people to get the skills they need. To be an active presence in the neighborhood first, then expanding to the city and the surrounding area. And through the radio show, to give voice to what people are experiencing -- both the horrors and the heroic efforts that individuals are making that can serve as example and inspiration to the rest of us.

DK: What is a good leader?

JB: Someone who understands other people, who has a sense of their strengths, their weaknesses, what they care about, what they need, what they can do, and who can put that understanding to work in getting a group of people to do things together. It could be a small group, it could be hundreds of people. The basic ingredient is being able to provide example and direction to different people with differing skills and getting them all to work in support of what they have come together to accomplish.

DK: Do you consider yourself a transformational politician?

JB: In the sense that I don't want to just manage or prop up the status quo, yes. It needs to be profoundly shaken up -- transformed. In the sense of reform and change, transformation is certainly an objective of my work.

DK: Who do you respect in politics today?

JB: No one comes to mind, and the reason is that the incentives, the money, the soundbites, the need to look good and to find scapegoats in one form or another are all conducive to a degenerate kind of leadership. That's why the natural selection process is not bringing out leaders of the sort this country's founders anticipated -- people of virtue, of knowledge, of deliberation.

DK: Do you consider yourself a leader?

JB: I'm working with other people to change the conditions that presently determine the way society and politics work. That's my commitment, that's the context in which I work; that's a form of leadership. But I'm not satisfied.

DK: What's the connection between the radio show and your political ambitions?

JB: There's no connection other than that I'm a person who's been in politics, I like politics, it's part of my being. So you could say there's a connection to everything I do. But the radio show is primarily a forum, a voice, and a way to broadcast what is done concretely in the local community.

DK: What's been your experience doing talk radio?

JB: For the last year and a half, I was broadcasting via satellite to commercial stations in about twenty-five states. In August, We The People began originating from KPFA in Berkeley each weekday at four p.m. Soon it will be on WBAI in New York City. I hope it will be picked up by public radio stations throughout the country. Unlike my national commercial program, it's fifty-seven minutes that are virtually uninterrupted. That in itself is revolutionary.

Daniel Ellsberg spoke with me on the show. He talked for over forty minutes -- about the A-bomb: why it was dropped, the fact that debate whether or not to drop it never took place at the higher levels of government, how that gave rise to the runaway arms race. He gave a provocative, thoughtful uncovering, from a very important point of view, of our history in the last fifty years.

That is not permitted on AM radio. It's not permitted on television. It's not permitted on McNeill-Lehrer. At most, McNeill-Lehrer will allot six minutes -- maybe eight or nine minutes like they did for the release of that software program, Windows 95.

This means, of course, that you can't challenge the assumptions that are running the country because you can't discuss those assumptions in sound bites. This is something Noam Chomsky has pointed out very well: that it takes more than a brief response to reframe the context that is controlling. And if you don't reframe that context you just continue it.

So this radio show is an opportunity to discuss such diverse topics as Waco, the nuclear arms race, the state of labor, whatever the subject may be, and to get into it in a fresh way. That kind of conversation is crucial to a revived democratic system.

The show allows me to study things I normally wouldn't get into, and to put people on the air who have something to say. I've done shows, for example, with Jennifer Harbury, Bill Kunstler (now deceased), and the Michigan Militia, and shows on the lasting damage air pollution does to human health, on toxic-waste incinerators, on the "natural" rate of unemployment, on the medical propaganda behind mammograms and prostate screening. I include a wide spectrum of people and topics that go against the grain, and I like that.

DK: You frequently sound angry on the radio.

JB: Not really. Usually people say I sound angry when I am attacking their sacred cows. Radio is a nonvisual medium; you have to communicate feeling. When injustices are the topic, indignation is called for.

I had former HEW secretary Joseph Califano on the show. He said that illegal drugs caused 10 percent of the damage of alcohol and tobacco. When you find out that the cigarette companies are hooking kids and turning them into lifelong addicts and causing unspeakable suffering to hundreds of thousands, you know something is evil in the system. And then I think of the government subsidies and the campaign donations from the tobacco lobby, and I see a world that I have to change.

DK: Your new warehouse complex is the focal point of your work.

JB: Yes.

DK: And We The People is the organization that grew out of your presidential campaign.

JB: Yes.

DK: And its principal function now is ...

JB: ... to speak truth to power, to become engaged in the life of Oakland. And out of that context, to speak to people, and engage others in the conversation of self-governance. So we are focused in the neighborhood, and the issues are justice s and sustainability.

DK: What sort of role or purpose do you see for the livework center you've created in Oakland?

JB: Its purpose is to be a community of people who are committed to building community -- to working together, helping each other transform their own lives, to collaborate in service to the neighborhood and its people. And to be part of the larger community.

The building is almost like a village, with private rooms upstairs, common space downstairs, a common kitchen, offices, and a large auditorium for community meetings. What I'm trying to do is restore village life in a postmodern age. In one sense it's trying to go back two hundred years, but in another sense it's trying to advance to where we'll be in a hundred years, with ten billion people on the planet -- frugal, elegant, and creative.

DK: The aim of the public-interest law firm you spoke of?

JB: The public-interest law firm will provide low-income people with legal assistance, and pursue public-impact cases where malfeasance or violations of the public's rights are at stake.

DK: You're talking on the radio lately about the revolution of self. Revolutionary change; we need to have revolutionary change. What do you mean by that?

JB: Revolution means to turn. It means conversion, transformation, extending yourself, expanding your awareness, becoming as skilled as you possibly can, becoming wise. The market has invaded the deeper parts of our consciousness and has become the "closet dictator." That is the tyranny to be overthrown.

DK: How has your Jesuit training helped you?

JB: It gave me a sense of history. St. Ignatius taught to "abhore wholly and not in part whatsoever the world loved and embraced." That's a powerful methodology.

The ascetic discipline I practiced, following the regime of a Jesuit seminary -- silence, meditation, prayer, cleaning toilets, studying Latin and Greek, church history, Jesuit history, ancient history -- gave me a classical perspective and an abiding skepticism of worldly values.

The precondition to finding God or your inmost self is to free yourself from "addictions," your attachments. Inordinate attachment means you crave, you are dependent on some material thing or idea or ideology that distorts your capacity for wisdom. Seeing clearly is profoundly difficult because the mental lens through which we see edits what we perceive. That's what Gregory Bateson talked about. We are not conscious of the editing. Spiritual practices, if properly understood, are ways of clearing the lens. Action follows, because action and consciousness are linked.

DK: How can we influence or control the transnational corporations that have gained so much power? JB: By creating conditions of sustainability, work and craft not dependent on a multinational system. By that I mean cooperative work, making things locally. If we're going to have a democracy, we must return power to where people can exercise control. Politicians today operate on a short leash held by the multinational corporate structure. There has to be a countervailing source of power based on local production, local organization, networked across the whole country, if not around the world. I believe we have to look into our collective condition and correctly label the governmental and corporate behaviors that we see. We have to ask ourselves: "Does this square with what we know to be right?" We can look to the Bible, we can look to our experience. How do we treat friends? How do we treat our family members? Is this the standard that we're seeing applied by corporate management, by the United States government, by state government? If a different standard is being applied, is it justified? That's the analysis that's missing. And if we don't do that in some collective way, we're going to see the country continue to move in a fascistic direction.

DK: What are you optimistic about these days?

JB: [long pause] I'm optimistic about the fact that there's room for change. People can do things now because they know the emperor has no clothes. It won't be long before a whole new set of eruptions and movements happen. People are just about fed up with the nonsense.

DK: What's your purpose in life?

JB: Certainly, the attainment of greater awareness and understanding, to grasp more clearly and deeply what it is to be a human being, and therefore the connectedness of beings.

DK: And in terms of asking Jerry Brown what the future is for him?

JB: One has to be solid in the place where one is working.

During Jerry Brown's very unusual tenure as California governor, some very unusual conversations took place in his Sacramento office. His visitors included Gregory Bateson, Ken Kesey, Dr. Thomas Szasz, Amory Lovins, Herman Kahn, Orville Schell, Stewart Brand -- not the sort of company I can easily imagine talking turkey in, say, Bill Clinton's old office in Little Rock. CoEvolution Quarterly (Whole Earth Review's venerable parent) published transcriptions of some of these talks. They are no less fascinating (maybe more) for being nearly old enough to vote. And the issues in which they appeared can still be had. -- James Donnelly

CQ #7 (Fall 1975): Gregory Bateson, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Jacques Barzaghi, Stewart Brand. Out of print but availabe as a bound photocopy: $35.

CQ #9 (Spring 1976): Bateson and Brown. Bound photocopy, $35.

CQ #13 (Spring 1977): Brown, Brand, Herman Kahn, Amory Lovins. A whopper of a conversation (32 pages). It's an Endangered issue (fewer than thirty copies remain): $50.

CQ #17 (Spring 1978): Governor Brown at the Mental Hospitals," by Orville Schell; "Cops Without Guns," an address by Ken Kesey in the California Governor's Council Room. $10.

CQ #18 (Summer 1978): Thomas Szasz, Brown, Brand Dr. Lou Simpson. $10.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Point Foundation
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