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In her new book, local activist Suzanne Pharr outlines
strategies fo r countering the politics of domination
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t the 1992 Republican National Con
vention an abrasive television com
mentator, who also happened to be a
former speech writer for Richard
Nixon, took the podium during prime
time and proceeded to declare war on just about
everyone in the United States who was not white,
male, rich, heterosexual and rabidly Christian. As
Patrick Buchanan’s vitriolic words spewed from
televisions across the country, many people—
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stunned by the viciousness of Buchanan’s
speech— wondered what had possessed George
Bush to give this man a premier slot at the
convention.
Almost as stunning as Buchanan’s words were
the cheers of the convention delegates when he
declared a “cultural war” was afoot in the land.
Where had Patrick Buchanan come from, and
who were these people
who were cheering him?
Many of the cheering
delegates were the men and
women who form the core
of the so-called “religious
right.” Buchanan was a
conservative colum nist
and com m entator who
spotted the rising power of
the religious right in the
R epublican Party and
jumped on the bandwagon.
What at first appeared to
be a small, fringe element
of conservatism had now
taken control of the GOP.
Members of the mod
erate wing of the GOP were
not the only ones taken by Suzanne Pharr
surprise. As Suzanne Pharr points out in her new
book, In the Time o f the Right: Reflections on
Liberation, “Though now entrenched in the po
litical mainstream, the right has not always been
taken seriously. However, over the past three
decades they were developing strategies and build
ing a base. There were many signs of their in
creasing presence and strength, but many of them
were unrecognized or discounted by progressive
people.”
Pharr is a long-time activist for social justice
and progressive politics who now lives in Port
land. It was not until she traveled to Oregon from
her home in Arkansas to help with the fight to
defeat the Oregon Citizens Alliance’s Ballot
Measure 9, however, that Pharr began to put the
pieces together and to “recognize that this is a
well-organized army on the march.” She decided
to focus her work on the rise of the right. The
result is this book: a primer on extreme right-
wing politics in the latter part of the 20th century.
In just 122 pages Pharr explains her theory of
domination politics, defines the right-wing
agenda, discusses homophobia and racism and
how the right wing uses both to divide and con
quer, and finally, shares her thoughts on how the
progressive movement might begin to build com
munity and fight the right.
Pharr believes there are two kinds of politics:
liberation politics and domination politics. Domi
nation politics she defines as a politics where “the
few seek to have power over the lives of the many,
gaining it through systems of oppression and
exploitation.” She cites numbers illustrating the
growing economic disparity between the rich and
the poor, which according to Pharr, experienced
a tremendous surge during the Reagan/Bush years.
This she attributes to the Reagan tax breaks,
which benefited the rich; corporate downsizing,
which put thousands out of work; cutbacks in
salaries and benefits; government tax write-offs
and bail-outs; and companies moving jobs to
foreign countries to take advantage of cheaper
labor.
“Unjust economic systems,” Pharr says, “fos
ter social chaos and require the imposition of
strong methods of control to keep order. Eco
nomic injustice requires oppression to maintain
social stability.”
Those in power maintain their power by pit
ting the powerless against one another. Although
Pharr’s book deals with current political and
economic times, “divide and conquer” is a tried-
and-true strategy. One centuries-old example of
the success of this tactic is the “trouble” in North
ern Ireland. The English, determined to hold on to
their industrial base in Ulster, moved Protestant
working-class Scots to Northern Ireland and put
them in direct competition with Catholic work
ing-class Irish. What is generally portrayed as a
religious war began as a bitter struggle among
natural allies for a limited piece of the economic
pie.
Pharr sees the religious
right—which she calls the
“theocratic rig h t”— as
agents of big business. As
corporate leaders wreak
economic havoc, the theo
cratic right follows behind,
providing a stabilizing
force by “proposing to
bring order to this chaos by
providing an authoritarian
vision and by diverting our
attention away from cor
porate greed to instead fo
cus scorn and indignation
on groups struggling for
inclusion as equal partici
pants in society.”
The right plays to
people’s fears that there is not enough to go
around, that if someone gets something, then
someone else loses something. And so affirma
tive action becomes a program that robs white
men of jobs; civil rights for lesbians and gay men
become a threat to the rights and superiority of
heterosexuals; and feminism becomes an instru
ment of emasculation.
Pharr concludes her book with a section on
liberation politics, which she defines as “seeking
social and economic justice for all people; sup
porting inclusion, autonomy, choice, wholeness;
building and honoring relationships; developing
individual and institutional integrity, responsibil
ity and accountability; redefining and sharing
power.”
She outlines strategies useful for those who
embrace liberation politics to counter, and hope
fully, overcome the right, and calls upon progres
sive people from across the country to “create a
multi-issue, multi-racial and multi-cultural libera
tion movement.”
In the Time o f the Right is a simple, easy-to-
understand explanation of the political and cul
tural differences between progressives and the
right. Things are presented in an either/or, black/
white, good/bad construct. The book does not
break any new theoretical ground, but it is an
honest and heartfelt contribution to the current
political discussion.
In the Time of the Right: Reflections on
Liberation by Suzanne Pharr. Chardon Press,
1996; $10.95paper.
Pharr will speak at a celebratory event marking
publication o f her book on Tuesday, June 25,
from 7 to 9 pm at The Old Church, Southwest
11th Avenue and Clay Street in Portland.
Thomas Lauderdale will perform.