Is Cultural Liberalism getting in the way of Economic Equality movement?

[Joseph8th]

Eric Alterman (Nation) writing for the NYT makes the case that the liberal coalition has fractured along cultural lines... I can't say I entirely disagree, having watched the Occupy movement in Albuquerque disintegrate almost overnight into competing factions divided neatly along the usual liberal ideological lines -- race, religion, sexual orientation, even the cause of the Zapatistas takes priority over the cause of economic equality for all Americans regardless of all of the above...

Alterman concludes by criticizing the President for failing to take up the cause, too. But my question is: why would we expect him to do what we refuse to do? Isn't the way this works is we elect a POTUS, and then we hold his/her feet to the fire? Do we really expect Prez Obama to take a more strident position than we do? Or to even understand what we want from him? It seems to me that he's understood what we really want -- the end of DADT, the ACA, these are GREAT accomplishments that nobody (liberal) would deny or begrudge! -- and what we only SAID we wanted. OWS may have turned the national conversation to economic inequality, but ever since, the OWSers have largely lost interest and returned to focusing on the usual Identity Politics. To hell with all Americans. What can we get for Our Own?

What's your thoughts on this?

.... Caught in the crosswinds of so many simultaneous crises — I have not even mentioned Vietnam — many liberals chose to focus, rather perversely, on a “rights” agenda and the internecine fights it engendered within their increasingly fractured coalition. They lost sight of the essential element that had made the coalition possible in the first place: the sense that liberalism stood with the common man and woman in their struggle against economic forces too large and powerful to be faced by individuals on their own.

Liberals must find a way to combine their cultural successes with new approaches to achieving economic equality. But they must do so unambiguously and unequivocally. That brings us back to President Obama. The president often sounds as if he believes in a vigorous economic populism. .... But so far the president has been unwilling to put his budgetary moneys where his mouth is.

.... Liberals have spent decades trying to adjudicate the claims of their conflicting constituencies without focusing sharply enough on the economic well-being of a broad section of Americans. A fight for fairness and equity could unite the working poor and middle class in a winning coalition for the future, but the problem today for liberals is less the message itself than the credibility of the messenger.

While signaling his support for much if not all of liberalism’s cultural agenda, President Obama has occasionally tossed economic liberals a rhetorical bone — but he has also worried too much about deficit reduction. In this regard, Obama embodies the unsolved liberal conundrum. Were the president to embrace a genuinely populist economic agenda and mean it this time — just as Franklin D. Roosevelt did in his second term — he might go a long way toward solving the problem that has dogged liberalism now for nearly half a century.

[link:http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/cultural-liberalism-is-not-enough/?ref=opinion|

[banned from Kos]

1. Cultural (or Social) Liberalism is the core of liberalism

We are $16 trillion in debt. We need to raise taxes a lot just to pay current obligations. Democrats are right on all the issues of today (including health care for all) but until we fix what we have there won't be new issues on the table.

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Any sort of "unity" won't happen until............

ALL of these differences are recognized as have ONE underlying cause, i.e., a TINY minority owning MOST of the means of production or livelihood. WHEN this (economic dictatorship or the dictatorship of capital) is recognized as the primary enemy of EVERY ONE OF THE LIBERAL CAUSES, then we might get to the point of some unity. AND we might even start to find a solution.

The problem is that most "liberals" would rather see the current system in place AS IT IS, rather than try something new like economic democracy. They'll would stand WITH the fascists to defend the system rather than stand with the ones who would overthrow the system and replace it with economic democracy.

[dogknob]

4. NIMBerals n/t

[xchrom]

5. Equality for me & my LGBTIQ brothers is a wonderful thing

But it will ashes if we can't make a decent living, have leisure to take care of our families, access to health care, etc.

Ghandi & King recognized there was nothing more important in their struggles - it all falls apart w/out economic justice.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. EXACTLY X and I'm SO glad you see this..........

Predjudice against ANY group is merely an INDIVIDUAL bias. As regrettable as that may be, IT DON'T MEAN SHIT IF THE PREDJUDICE CAN'T AFFECT YOUR LIVELIHOOD. You would be free to ignore them as they ignore you.

Bias becomes a systemic problem when the bias affects the way we have to live in the world. And that's when the bias of the capitalist rulers makes rules that keep you from being able to live your life as you see fit.

[Zalatix]

3. I don't call it "Cultural Liberalism". I call it cultural divisiveness

spurred on by the Plutocracy and willingly engaged in by the 99%.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. Single issue politics, on the centrist right OR left........

is (and always has been) one of the primary ways that the Plutocracy keeps the proletariat divided.

[RobertEarl]

8. Wrong premise

Economic inequality will always be with us. IOW, there will never be economic - meaning $$ - equality.

What we can get done is political equality. One man one vote type of equality. At present, the richest control an unequal share of votes. Money now has more political power than masses of people.

The first and most obvious step to remedy that is a Move to Amend the Constitution, limiting the Supreme Court from ever again handing political power to the richest.

Link:
http://movetoamend.org/amendment

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Disagree.........

at least with part of this.

Economic inequality will always be with us to an extent, simply because people have different wants and goals in life. And different ways to contribute to society. But it DEFINITELY doesn't have to be as wide as it is under the dictatorship of capital.

As to the "political equality", THAT won't happen until there's economic democracy because the economic, the social and the political are ALL CONNECTED UNDER CAPITALISM.

[RobertEarl]

10. I am poor

But because I am politically active i have been involved in some serious political changes.

Economic inequality is not as much of a challenge as the fact that the media can be bought and wielded with hundred$ of times more power than hundreds of persons like me.

And you make my point for me: We need to disconnect the $$ from the political, which Move to Amend is a first giant step.

[socialist_n_TN]

12. I don't have a problem with anyone working..........

to get money out of politics. I just don't think that it can ever be effectively achieved until capital is overthrown and economic democracy is instituted. Money has ALWAYS affected politics, even if only in subtle ways. Think back to the Jay Gould quote from the Gilded Age. "I can always hire one half the working class to kill the other half." THAT'S money affecting politics and no amount of Constitutional amendments can change that. Only a system change can.

[RobertEarl]

13. That's where education comes in

If the whole population is educated enough to understand that being hired to kill is wrong, then the $$ power can't accomplish that goal.

Problem today is the richest 1% control +50% of the media and government. I agree with a more level economic field and the first step toward that is to bring decision making back to control by the 99% working together. The system is set up to be controlled by the 99% we just don't participate like we should. The system works, it's just that it is being worked mainly by big money. The first step is remove the big money via Move to Amend.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. Absolutely agree.

The democratic coalition is a passenger train. Progress toward the goal is hampered by the occupants of passenger car #11 applying the brakes because their car isn't in position #7.

Economic equality is the overriding issue of this country. 99% of the issues we each find important from an identity standpoint are easily defended on these grounds. Marriage equality is in part an economic fairness issue. Racial discrimination is also largely an economic fairness issue. Environmental degradation is an economic fairness issue.

Squabbling for our preferred position "on the ladder of disadvantage", is self-destructive.

[Trillo]

14. Discrimination based upon Education?

Is that "Cultural Liberalism"?

Discrimination based upon education is very well established in our country.

[meow2u3]

15. I've always been an economic liberal and a cultural moderate

I'm a Democrat because my economic progressivism aligns me with the party. I have to put my views on cultural issues aside and keep my mouth shut for fear of being shouted down as a reactionary when in fact I take a middle ground.

[LeftishBrit]

16. I don't think that one CAN have either real social, or real economic, justice without the other

E.g. our current government in the UK could be described as economically right-wing but relatively socially liberal. And it fully demonstrates my criticism of those who claim to be 'social liberals but fiscal conservatives': they are ultimately only socially liberal for those who can afford it, as the threat of poverty and the loss of safety nets is ultimately just as coercive as the threat of legal punishment or social ostracism. Indeed, this government seems to follow this as a deliberate policy: libertarianism for the better-off; paternalism and authoritarianism for the poor.

On the other hand, economic justice for all can never truly co-exist with social authoritarianism, as the latter enables the exploitation of those outside the dominant groups: racial and social minorities - and women - are deprived of the opportunities granted to majority males. The old Soviet Union was a prime example of what happens when economic leftism is attempted without social leftism.

Economic and social justice are ultimately inseparable, if we are really to achieve either, and to avoid being 'divided and conquered'.