Why the Enlightened Liberal Class Is Complicit in the Country's Downward Spiral

[Ardent15]

"We are approaching a decade of war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq is in its eighth year. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands more Afghans and Pakistani civilians have been killed. Millions have been driven into squalid displacement and refugee camps. Thousands of our own soldiers and Marines have died or been crippled physically and psychologically. We sustain these wars, which have no real popular support, by borrowing trillions of dollars that can never be repaid, even as we close schools, states go into bankruptcy, social services are cut, our infrastructure crumbles, tens of millions of Americans are reduced to poverty, and real unemployment approaches 17 percent. Collective, suicidal inertia rolls us forward toward national insolvency and the collapse of empire. And we do not protest. The peace movement, despite the heroic efforts of a handful of groups such as Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Green Party and Code Pink, is dead. No one cares.

The roots of mass apathy are found in the profound divide between liberals, who are mostly white and well educated, and our disenfranchised working class, whose sons and daughters, because they cannot get decent jobs with benefits, have few options besides the military. Liberals, whose children are more often to be found in elite colleges than the Marine Corps, did not fight the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and the dismantling of our manufacturing base. They did nothing when the Democrats gutted welfare two years later and stood by as our banks were turned over to Wall Street speculators. They signed on, by supporting the Clinton and Obama Democrats, for the corporate rape carried out in the name of globalization and endless war, and they ignored the plight of the poor. And for this reason the poor have little interest in the moral protestations of liberals. We have lost all credibility. We are justly hated for our tacit complicity in the corporate assault on workers and their families.

Our passivity has resulted, however, in much more than imperial adventurism and a permanent underclass. A slow-motion coup by a corporate state has cemented into place a neofeudalism in which there are only masters and serfs. And the process is one that cannot be reversed through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics."

more http://www.alternet.org/vision/146711/why_the_enlightened_liberal_class_is_complicit_in_the_country%27s_downward_spiral

[Duer 157099]

1. I can't say I disagree n/t

[AuntPatsy]

2. Hmmm guilty by being silent? Apathy.....I think I could agree with that defination

even if I don't want to.

[glitch]

26. Not so much apathy as appeasers, collaborators, colluders, triangulators, consensus-builders,

bi-partisans, post-partisans, third-wayers, "new" democrats, "new" americans, neo-whatevers.

[blindpig]

3. It ain't passivity, it is collusion. n/t

[rudy23]

5. Yep. A LOT of people who could've made a difference got bought off. Look at the current regime.

Defending the privacy of the Fed
Busting the teachers' union
Actively expanding Bush era presidential powers
Failing to defend Net Neutrality
Backing down on the public option

It's not apathy. It's the conscious hitching of the wagon to the elite Republican interests, over working class interests. Idealism died with the DLC. It's over, folks.

[branders seine]

12. +1

[Echo In Light]

13. Oh, come on ... it just *looks* that way. Don't worry, "Experts" will explain it 'away' w/FACTS

( isn't that always what the claim is? ;) )

[glitch]

27. Exactly. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Oh look.

It's this thread again.

[suzie]

7. +100,000

[girl gone mad]

17. Oh look.

It's this poster, complaining about the content of a post he chose to read, again.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. My goodness.

People complaining about things they don't like. Whatever happened to people complaining about things they do like?

[girl gone mad]

22. No one is forcing you to click on the threads that you find so repetitive.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. No one forced you to read my replies...

if you don't like them.

[1955doubledie]

33. No one forced you to read this one, either.

Gotcha! :evilgrin:

[sabrina 1]

43. It's not so much that someone might not like your replies

it's that they are so repetitive and without substance. Eg, was there something in the OP you agreed with, disagreed with? Or was your reply meant to imply that you'd prefer it if people didn't draw any attention the obvious problems this country is having? And if so, why? Or maybe you don't think we have any problems?

It's not outrageouse for people on a discussion board to expect discussion. Your 'replies' are not relevant to the OP unless we're missing something.

'A slow, corporate coup' eg. Do you agree or disagree? Clearly a majority in this thread agree. So, what is your position? Do you think that's a good thing, do you think it is a bad thing?

Repetitive, baseless, irrelevant comments. What happened to relevant, substantive comments?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

44. That's exactly what I'm saying about the OP.

It's the same doom and gloom, attack dems and libs, crap that he always posts.

[sabrina 1]

45. Sometimes things are gloomy and sometimes,

as in the all those dead soldiers and dead Iraqis, costing the country in every possible way, people ARE doomed by decisions made by this government.

Do you want people to put blinders on and just the government to whatever it wants to do because it's too 'gloomy' to think about it?

Again, I don't know what you think. Are you saying that there are NO problems and this OP is just making stuff up so that they can be gloomy?

As for repetition, that is essential when you are delivering facts to people about their government's activities, especially ones that are harming this country. Just saying something once about the Iraq War eg, way back eight years ago, and not repeating it again, how is that helpful? Other than not offending your sensibilities? I think the opposite, I think clearly we haven't repeated things like this OP often enough, because if we had, they wouldn't still be happening.

We need, imo, to be out causing havoc, like the French do, the Greeks when the government cheats the people the way this government has. I, contrary to the way you feel, wish OPs like this were on the MSM every single night. Maybe then we would have so much to be gloomy about.

If watching out for your country, keeping an eye on the government is too gloomy for you, because right now it is, and you don't want to fix it so we can all be happy, what are you doing on a political board? Why not go to some fun boards where people prefer to put blinders on, like American Idol eg, and pretend everything is just fine? The rest of us will keep trying to change things, gloomy as it is to try especially with so little success, which means as I already said, we have to INCREASE those efforts.

Were you happy when Bush was waging wars, ignoring torture, bailing out Wall St. criminals, trashing teachers, pushing for Offshore drilling, trying to make the Internet less free, ignoring the crimes of Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Pharma>

Maybe because there's a democratic majority you think we should ignore all those same problems because the president has a 'D' after his name? And Dems in Congress are in the majority? If so, forget that. It is the duty of citizens to speak out when their government is doing wrong, and that means no matter which party is doing so.

[Echo In Light]

6. .

K/R





;)

[EFerrari]

8. Too many categories are conflated in this article for it to even make sense.

[Warpy]

9. The enlightened liberal class has been shoved aside

and pointedly ignored since 1969.

[riderinthestorm]

24. I know right? Everyone who might be like FDR, Kucinich, Kennedy, etc. etc. are shat upon.

Honestly, the "enlightened" liberal base is NOT embraced in this day and age. Smart liberals are not welcome by the DLC.

Think Timothy Geitner vs. Elizabeth Warren.

Or Dennis Kucinich vs. Rahm Emmanual.

I could go on and on but it's clear to me that "enlightened liberal class" means squat in the DLC era...

Perhaps it's a semantics game: who is defined as an enlightened liberal? To blame anyone who may want to co-opt this "label", for the military, Democratic philosophical, and economic death spiral seems to be a crock.

[glitch]

29. Ignored is better than assassinated.

And even being ignored isn't sufficient. But not having any power won't be enough, no matter what liberals will still get the blame, because as adults they are the only ones who can see and admit to their own mistakes. Easy scapegoats for the sociopaths who actually have held the power since 1963.

[ipaint]

10. Spot on.

And if the last two decades of stagnant wages, busted unions and increasing numbers of crappy no benefits service jobs isn't proof enough for those who protest this post, nothing will be. And we will continue to get half assed, solve nothing solutions as the ruling members of both parties take turns kicking the can down the street, a process that only guarantees ongoing big money campaign donations.

[WilliamPitt]

11. Unenlightened liberals are better?

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. Unenlightened? You mean those who haven't yet realized that illegal aliens do yard work cheaper?

There are plenty of liberals who have been complicit in the destruction of our working class.

[Prism]

42. Parlor liberals is a nearer term. Especially on things like equality.

There is a certain breed of Democrat who will express support for liberal policies in mixed company because there are social benefits to being perceived as evolved and progressive. It also allows them to feel morally superior to those unwashed, uneducated masses.

I encounter them all the time with LGBT equality. They let everyone know just how accepting and supportive they are.

Then actual policy comes to the fore. Maybe President Obama looks bad. Maybe Democrats deserve a heap of criticism.

That support for equality is almost instantly jettisoned, the LGBT community attacked, and the President defended no matter what is happening.

Why? Because the issue doesn't speak to them. It's not their life. Politics are a hobby, the President a kind of fandom figure. Equality is just something they say, a bumper sticker, a way to flash to other parlor liberals "Hey! I say I support that stuff, too!"

And then bad policy after bad policy sails on through with nary a peep out of them. They're just here for the team, the finger food, and the political fashion of the day.

Meanwhile, in the real world, people suffer.

But, I suppose it's one of those things we'll have to live with. Someday, we'll have a party that, as one self-described enlightened liberal put it, makes policy based on where we stick our man bits. The horror! But perhaps the day will come.

Right, Will?

[OHdem10]

15. Oh How True. --

[divideandconquer]

Toyota liberals who support slave labor with their Prius purchases

"The report alleges that Toyota exploits guest workers, mostly shipped in from China and Vietnam. According to the NLC, these workers are “stripped of their passports and often forced to work — including at subcontract plants supplying Toyota — 16 hours a day, seven days a week, while being paid less than half the legal minimum wage.” Workers are forced to live in company dormitories and deported for complaining about poor treatment, the report finds.

Low-wage temporary workers make up one-third of Toyota’s Prius assembly-line workers, mostly in the auto-parts supply chain. They are signed to contracts for periods as short as four months, and are paid only 60 percent of a full-time employee’s wage.

Parts plants run by subcontractors advertise standard, nine-hour, five-day-a-week jobs. But according to the NLC, “the typical shift was 15 to 16.5 hours a day, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. or 1:00 a.m.”

In 2002, Kenichi Uchino, 30, died while working at the “green” Tsutsumi plant that assembles the Prius. During the 13th hour of a routine 14-hour day, Uchino collapsed on the shop floor of the internationally lauded “sustainable” factory, which uses sulfur-oxide-eating paint and boasts 5 percent emissions reductions. A Japanese court ruled that Uchino’s death was caused by exhaustion from overwork.

His wife, Hiroko Uchino, described a grueling lifestyle that included an 85-hour workweek prior to his death. The NLC published his time cards, which reveal that he was “putting in 106.5 to 155 hours of overtime … in the 30 days leading up to his death.”

Much of this overtime went unpaid. (Toyota explained Kenichi’s extra hours as “voluntary quality control activities,” says the report.) But in court, his survivors were able to win pension payments."

http://www.bloggerradio.com/2008/07/toyota-prius-ju.html

[divideandconquer]

16. self delete

[Edweird]

19. Not to mention the lie du jour about how illegal immigration doesn't hurt working Americans.

[tallahasseedem]

20. Oh my...

an alternet.org article bashing "Liberal Elites"...shocker.

They're worse than the teabaggers sometimes.

[amborin]

21. anyone who works for a paycheck is working class.....

[depakid]

23. "...did not fight the North American Free Trade Agreement?"

The author should speak for himself.

PLENTY of us fought NAFTA and the various other neoliberal policies and right wing pandering during the Clinton administration. And lo and behold- were proven correct, time and time again.

[Wilms]

25. k&r n/t

[bvar22]

28. Remember THIS Democratic Party?

"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world."---FDR

THATS the Democratic Party I joined 45 years ago.
Unfortunately, with the exception of a few fringe "Fucking Retards",
THAT Democratic Party is dead, DEAD, DEAD.

"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[G_j]

30. good post

sad isn't it?

[glitch]

31. Without power (and/or dead) won't keep them from being blamed. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. Liberals

"The Fascists will shoot you.
The conservatives will applaud the Fascists.
The moderates will watch the executions on TV.
The Liberals will cry over your grave and feel guilty for turning you in to the Fascists."

SDS saying.

[blindpig]

35. Ain't that the truth.

n/t

[leftstreet]

39. +1

[TheKentuckian]

36. Complicit in cowardice under the veil of inclusion and respect for all ideas

Complicit in selling out.

Complicit in ego driven exceptionalism that Americans don't need "boring" "repetitive" jobs that don't require years of training.

Complicit in exporting our pollution rather than keeping up the fight to cure it

Complicit by being passive.

Complicit by failing to stand up for our values to hoodwink a few votes.

Complicit in seeking consensus even at the sacrifice of our values.

Complicit in being agents of a toxic status quo.

Complicit by our general passivity.

[ipaint]

37. Same as it ever was.

In the Republican and Democratic parties you of the common herd are not expected to think. That is not only unnecessary but might lead you astray. That is what the "intellectual" leaders are for. They do the thinking and you do the voting. They ride in carriages at the front where the band plays and you tramp in the mud, bringing up the rear with great enthusiasm.
E.V. Debs, June 16, 1918

[upi402]

41. Eugene deserves one of these

:patriot:

[ipaint]

38. dupe. nt

[upi402]

40. TV Media propaganda mutes liberals

Job #1 or no progress - reform media.
When climate change is viewed as a lie and Obama is successfully tagged a 'liberal' - we're in deep doo-doo.

[mistertrickster]

46. That doesn't explain why so many of the poor are actively CONservative.

This sounds a lot like more liberal guilt.

Progressives are working hard to change this country, and, screw it, I'm not going to be blamed for the very thing I'm trying to change.

[gulliver]

47. Did someone leave a monkey alone at their computer?

I'd hate to blame this drivel on a high school freshman.

[MellowDem]

48. Blame the white, well educated liberal "elites"...

and divide and conquer. What a bunch of fucking bullshit. As far as I can tell, a lot of the working class votes Republican, against their own interests, and a lot of the other half votes DLC. I think the media are the most to blame, as most Americans are so damn ignorant of anything political and apathetic to boot. But to blame it on well educated white liberals, damn, that just smacks of some sort of Republican scheme.

The disenfranchised working class Democrats supported both Obama and Clinton pretty tremondously by the way. It was the liberal "elitists" supporting such long shots as Kucinich.