Naked Capitalism Blogger asks: "Why is there No Political Outlet for Anger on the Left These Days?

[KoKo]

Sunday, September 26, 2010
Why is There No Political Outlet for Anger on the Left These Days?
Yves Smith---Naked Capitalism

Poll ratings show approval levels for the major political perps, meaning the President, Congress, each of the two major parties, at levels so low as to be tantamount to loathing. But while the Tea Party has become a force to be reckoned with by tapping into this wellspring of discontent, those on the left who are unhappy with the lump of coal the Administration and the Democratic party have put in their stocking have no outlet.

I wonder why this has come to pass. In the stone ages of my youth, the left was feared (some of that was due to the violence of the 1960s: riots, demonstrations, the SDS, the Weather Underground, to name a few), in fact so feared it led to the concerted right wing push that started in the 1970s. But then again, the left was also much further to the left.

One can point to some causes. The young used to be a reliable source of idealism and willingness to break china. As French Prime Minister Aristide Briand said, “The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head.” But young people in America are worried about survival (aka getting a job) and up to their eyeballs in school debt, which they can’t discharge even in bankruptcy. School loans in particular seem an almost Machiavellian device for forcing students into bourgeois conformity. And we have Obama’s veal pen strategy which neutered key groups on the progressive flank.

It might even be plausible to attribute the complacency (or maybe sullen resignation) of what passes for the left to Prozac use or learned wussiness. For instance, some of my colleagues were having fun by e-mail coming up with the name for a leftie movement to oppose the Tea Partiers. This was all in good fun, but they came up with Cammomile, which per Bill Black could stand for “Creative Anti-imperialist Majoritarian Movement Of Morally Illuminated Liberal Enterpreneurs.”

How about something more to the point, like the Pitchfork Party?

In all seriousness, why has no movement emerged on the left to channel the considerable disappointment and anger of progressives?

*The 269 Comments in reply to this article at the site are an incredible read...No "food fights" or "Partisan Bickering"....just informed questions and commentary and discussion. Worth a look for those seriously looking for opinion outside the box/bubble that we here are in these days.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/09/why-is-there-no-political-outlet-for-anger-on-the-left-these-days.html

[inna]

1. k&r and an excellent question

[unblock]

2. hey, maybe they should check out a cool website: www.democraticunderground.com

we channel all that liberal bile into cute emoticons like :mad: and and :banghead: and :grr: and :argh:

isn't this how all great political movements start?

[nashville_brook]

9. i love the comment about KOS...at the site...

"Dailykos is a notorious Astroturf for Bush policy laundered through the Democrats."

never heard the term "astroturf" aimed at the left...but hey, if the foo shits.

[Lost4words]

3. Great Post! K & R!

its very dangerous posting counter democrat logic even if you are in the majority!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. K&R!! The antiwar demonstrations, which totaled in the millions were ignored

by the M$M. IGNORED!! Only C-Span covered the protests.

And yet, the teabaggers, who comprise a very small minority of the American population, are given 24-7 coverage!!

[Capitalocracy]

38. I'm not sure "ignored" is the word I would use

Maybe boycotted? I would use some term that better accentuates the deliberate omission.

[old mark]

5. I was pretty radical in the '60's and '70's, long after it was fashionable. There is NOTHING

that I have seen anywhere that would appeal to hard leftists of that period, even if there were many of us remaining...It could be that the serious hardcore leftists are avoiding the internet for security reasons, but I have seen NO indication of any significant hard left sentiment much less real activity anywhere, and there would at least be some chatter floating around...

The real shame is that those "progressives" who are condemned by the administration today would have been seen as relative moderates back in the old days, and the Administration would have been seen as sellouts to the right.

mark

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. yep. The administration saying 'stop whining' to all those fervent supporters of

Hubert Humphrey.

[old mark]

24. Ah, yes - the "Happy Warrior"!....nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. In today's culture he'd be a far leftie.

Kind of like I am.

[flyarm]

41. yep..x 1 million! eom

[The Uncola]

6. Nice, Thanks.

Off to read the link.

[kentuck]

7. It's a question that is not going to go away...

It will have to be addressed. If not in this election, then definitely in the next. They want to "light a fire" under these people and they tell them to stop whining but for some reason, that is not enough??

[RainDog]

8. recommended and bookmarked

thanks!

[kctim]

10. There is

it is called the "left" of the Democratic party. It has already gone through the 'growing pains' the Tea Party is going through now and is an accepted minority group of the Democratic Party.

Many of the groups from "the left" are also having a little rally this weekend, I think. Should be a good outlet for them to display their 'anger.'

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Because the left is a conglomeration of different single issue voters.

On the right, you have "the gubmint, poor people, and minorities are bad" section and the "praise Jebus!" section. Rather easy to keep them both pleased.

On the left, you've got pro-choice voters, civil liberties voters, GLBT voters, racial equality voters, labor voters, environmental voters, health care voters... you get the picture.

Too few of us value the entire agenda, and when the realities of slow political timetables occur (which are there by the design of our founding fathers), the groups splinter off and fight each other over the most valuable of resources - time. This is the source of a lot of angst by the left against Democratic leadership and it also means that these groups are usually unable to unite under a single banner very often - usually only when someone like Bush comes along to piss us all off at once.

[KoKo]

19. NW...Here's a comment from the site you might find interesting:

has much to do with what you say but takes it further:

-----

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/09/why-is-there-no-political-outlet-for-anger-on-the-left-these-days.html 269 Comments
————

Jessica Says:
September 26, 2010 at 7:03 pm

Deep structural changes that our understanding has not fully kept up with.

1) Since the right wing basically is offering a return to what America was before the breaking-apart of the 1960s, they don’t need to understand. A left wing pointing to the way forward does.

2) The right wing is actually aligned with core groups within the current power structure and always has that wind at its back (money and media). The left wing has that wind in its face.
Some of the structural changes:
- Job insecurity and increased competition for real jobs. “Dropping out” was based on the ease of dropping back in later.

- Rise of student debt peonage (as many have pointed out) But if this were as big a factor as my gut tells me it is, then why isn’t there a strong youth left in European countries where university tuition is free? More freedom yes, but it is not exactly the 60s in Scandanavia either.

- Fractioning of experience with shift from Big 3 networks to micro-media. Even the “mainstream” has become more like a river delta with many parallel streams than a single big wide river.

- General intensification of competitiveness in ordinary life as dissolving of life-long employment and clear career tracks opens up more possibilities both for advance and for being stepped on and left behind.

- Split between working class political interests and middle class political interests from the 1960s.

- Outsourcing and renewed immigration in the US (was unusually low from early 1920s until late 1960s) and rise of immigration to Europe instead of from Europe.

- More full incorporation of formerly semi-independent power structures. The big 3 networks in the US used to be a semi-independent part of the power structure. Now they are direct corporate puppets. Universities were partial refuges and incubators of alternatives but are now corporate vocational and research centers.

- Commodification of youth culture and incorporation into corporate structure. Rebellion against social structure converted into rebellion against uncoolness. Partially due to dissolving of much of former sexual restrictions on the middle class. Testosteronal “smash the state” becomes “fight for the right to party”.

– The left in the 1960s was aided by the rise of youth culture, which was fairly new. (I think youth have separate music from the rest of society starts roughly with the young Frank Sinatra in the 40s.) Now “youth culture” too has split into smaller fragments.

- Maslowian alienation: Middle-class left tends to frame issues in terms of social justice but have hard time making straight out economic demands. A “chicken in every pot” has become “health insurance for the uninsured” rather than “free post-secondary education/training”.

Generally, diversity has broken up solidarity based on uniformities. Developing a higher level solidarity based on uniqueness rather than uniformities is a difficult task. (Which the right-wing does not face because it is by instinct pro-uniformity)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/09/why-is-there-no-political-outlet-for-anger-on-the-left-these-days.html 269 Comments

[Hannah Bell]

27. very good analysis. fractioning of the culture into smaller & smaller islands --

all of which define themselves against the others = less solidarity.

and that reflects the economic base & the logic of capital

[Wednesdays]

28. In short, "divide and conquer"

[Hannah Bell]

30. yes, but the modern way is even more perverse than the earlier methods.

for example, the proliferation of "lifestyles," media = new things for one group to look down on another for - not buying organic, for example, or liking/not liking hip-hop. almost completely meaningless consumer markers.

[Lorien]

22. Most of us DO value the entire agenda

it's just that very few of our representatives value ANY left wing principles-nor do any DLCers. They're mostly pro-war. anti-choice, anti-environment, anti-public education, pro-corporate profiteering, anti-union, anti-worker, anti-healthcare for all, anti-civil rights, etc. etc. They're just Reagan Republicans, but we're expected to back them because they aren't as boldly insane as the opposition.

[tomp]

35. there is no way through the government for what the left wants.

history shows this very clearly. the purpose of the government is to squash the left to whatever extent they can.
but the lesser-of-two-evils propaganda is very strong, as is the anti-left media.

no matter how big the movement we are marginalized by the media and ignored by our "representatives".
as i have said several times here over the year, the dems would rather lose than be progressive. progressive is not in their dna.
bones and crumbs to appease and fool the people. that is all that is in their dna. the sooner we learn that, the sooner change can come....if we're not too late.

it seems more and more that the "pitchfork party" is the only solution. are you ready for that?

[Spyderama]

12. Question of the Century

This truly is the Question of the Century. I run a blog with continual commentary on this subject, and nothing ever seems to change. I have two suggestions as to why we are in this predicament. The first is that six corporations have taken over our entire media system, and these six are all right-wing, Wall Street, millionaire Republicans by design. The second issue puzzles me much more. The two leading so-called left-wing news websites are run by Republicans! Arianna Huffington and Markos Moulitsas are millionaire Republicans: they both converted to the Democratic side simply as a way to become even bigger millionaires. Neither was born a Democrat. Neither are lifelong left-wingers. How crazy is it that so many of us have accepted these two traitors as progressive leaders?

The problem is that Democratic Underground is a true, left-wing progressive site, but its articles are totally overwhelmed by the power of those at Huffington Post and Daily Kos. Yes, it is wonderful that DU is such an open, progressive forum, but it desperately needs to overwhelm those two imposters or we shall never gain any significant ground. Maybe a technical overhaul of this site would do the trick? Maybe DU can find a way to draw more established, but true, left-wing commentators to its front page. I do not have an answer. I am just flailing around in the dark, as are many others. Thank you for tolerating my rant.

<http://palinbabygate.blogspot.com/>

[glitch]

29. The DU website is technically more sophisticated than either Huffington Post or Dkos.

What it hasn't had is free publicity on the corporate media.

[Catherina]

13. Because we keep playing by their rules, on their playing field. n.t

[kentuck]

14. We keep waiting for the change we never see...

but maybe, next time?

[KoKo]

33. The way it's looking........

"Maybe Next Time" or the "Time After" might be where we are going. Down that long dark road ...not knowing where the trails are...but if you can find a flashlight...you might get a glimpse of the trail.

BUT...you don't know if it's the trail you should follow...or one that leads to the cliff.

Lot's of thought needs to go into your decision...and you might just decide to "camp" where you are and wait for the "Daylight" where things aren't so confusing.

BUT...if your life depends on finding the "path" out of that "Long Dark Night" you might go out there with just that flashlight...and hope that you are guided. You might not have the "time to wait" that someone else in your circumstance would have.

That's the problem...imho.......

[AldebTX]

15. I Think We Need to Let some of Our Anger Show

Otherwise it might be confused with whining.

[burnsei sensei]

16. Because "Left" is now thoroughly defined

away from a tendency to an orthodoxy.
Time is what did this-- and the human tendency to harden beliefs.
It's ugly.

[starroute]

17. How about "fear" and "repression" as explanations?

The left basically got its head handed to it in the late 60's and early 70's. Once the Vietnam War ended and the Weather Underground fizzled out, you didn't have that kind of active police-state repression any more -- but there have been periodic reminders to keep us from forgetting. "Eco-terrorists." "The Black Bloc." Stuff like that.

The FBI is still going after peaceful anti-war activists while ignoring right-wing crazies. New "material support of terrorism" laws are being proposed or enacted to criminalize activities that would have been perfectly legal in the 60's. The tools for surveillance and disruption are being ramped up.

And then there's the economics of it. It's not just that the young people today are hobbled by student loans. Back in the 60's, you could live on part-time and minimum-wave jobs that left plenty of time for organizing. Now you can't.

But there's also something else. In the late 70's and 80's, you'd sometimes see lefties complaining that their radical activities a decade or two earlier had put a permanent crimp in their careers and earning potential, while their right-wing counterparts were forging ahead. That wasn't just a bunch of boomers whining about their personal situation. It's had a far more global effect. The people who should currently be the well-established mentors, backers, and elder statesmen of a new generation of leftists are still poor and scuffling themselves.

Being a serious radical takes courage -- but having courage takes having a solid support system under you. And over the last 40 years, the left has been systematically deprived of the moral, institutional, and financial resources it would take to to launch a true movement for social justice.

The chipping-away process continues even now. The right's "defund the left" campaign is targeting poverty groups like ACORN, unions, public school teachers, universities -- anything that could possibly provide those kind of resources. And we squawk about it a lot here on DU on general principles, but without ever realizing to what extent the ground is being cut away from under our own feet.

[xchrom]

18. great read -- and the comments are above par for sure.

very surprised at the turn it took discussing russian economic history and the clinton's admin involvement in
devolvement that happened in the 90s.

i remember well the angst talbot created when shoving policy down the russian throat -- so to speak.
and of course the ever present IMF whenever a 'disaster-capitalism' event happens.

i strongly agree that the MSM must be changed to MSCM by the left.
mainstream corporate media -- it's much more precise.

[myrna minx]

20. K&R n/t

[Lorien]

23. Because the corporate media owns the outlets. nt

[Blue_Tires]

25. kick for later....

[TheWraith]

26. This article starts with outright lies.

"Poll ratings show approval levels for the major political perps, meaning the President, Congress, each of the two major parties, at levels so low as to be tantamount to loathing."

Actually, President Obama's approval rating is quite high compared to, say, Reagan and Clinton, both of whom were in the 30s at this point in their presidencies.

"those on the left who are unhappy with the lump of coal the Administration and the Democratic party have put in their stocking"

Except that we have many reasons to be happy, making this one more effort to stir up discontent and tell people they should stay home so that the Republicans win. Yet more propaganda.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

31. Because the left is remarkably loyal

QED.

[KoKo]

34. "K&H"...what you say is so true. In the end..."The Left is Remarkably Loyal"

and they have compromised time after time. And, so should be counted in the Mid-Terms and in future elections.

Because...There's really no viable alternative that can get the Mainstream/Corporate Owned Media to listen to them.

Until that changes we really don't have an alternative...do we?

[datasuspect]

36. because the left has been discredited through the repetition of lies and historical revisionism

on the part of the people who own us.

the greatest populist movements in the 20th century were LEFTIST movements. there were right wingers and rich people even during the reagan area who despised the new dealers/FDR. shit, they exist now on fox news.

so if you know where a movement might come from, what do you do? you kill it at its source: in grade school. through television. through ubiquitous advertising. you create an atmosphere of total consumerism and want, destabilize the economy and let the well-connected feed off the taxpayers.

unbounded apathy, extreme distraction, and poverty.

[KoKo]

40. Internets have given us a VOICE...but forces at work to SILENCE

If we cut off the "Blog to Blog Interaction" then we are forced into the Corporate Media Box.

How do we move forward?

[flyarm]

42. we do not capitulate to a small minority that attempts daily to silence us.

and we call our reps and we have them shaking in their boots..call them and tell them they best get the message to the White House..keep attacking us at your political peril!

And mean it!

Tell them get their little bots off these boards who attack us daily..they are a minority..treat them as such.

Fight back..our concerns are real.They are legit.

If we do not fight back..we will truely be in full blown Fascism.

Demand our constitution be retored ..in every way! Anything less is fascism.

The move is on in secret deals to cut net neutrality, to data base all of us ..in every way..to cut us off in every way.

We must fight back. This shit is effecting each and every one of us in every portion of our lives!

And each and every person in our government needs to be held accountalbe for laws that have been broken.

RULE OF LAW Under our Constitution must be restored and all who have broken those laws held accountable.

[Capitalocracy]

37. A few reasons off the top of my head

Third parties have been successfully stigmatized, which I think none of us had the foresight to see would lead to the stigmatization of any internal criticism as we're seeing now from the Obama administration. Anything but waving the circle D flag these days brings intense criticism and personal attacks.

People are simple creatures. Call to action, action, reward. Intermittent reinforcement is extremely effective, but negative reinforcement not so much. In other words, if you tell a dog to roll over and you occasionally give him a treat, he'll be listening for that call. If you tell him to roll over and do nothing if he does but kick him if he doesn't, you'll end up with a dog who hates you, won't do you any favors, and is used to being kicked.

Apparently buses, coffee, and donuts go a long way in political organizing. Putting a huge amount of money behind the tea party has helped it take off.

A complicit media is even better. Who's not going to show up to a protest that's guaranteed to be on TV, with no risk of cops coming to kick the crap out of you? And the left DOES protest, but nobody hears about it. Unless the cops come and kick the crap out of them, in which case they might end up on the news for 10 seconds.

After successfully removing the possibility to vote for a third party, and after showing strong advances in eliminating the possibility of making realistic primary challenges and throwing vast amounts of financing to the establishment candidates to defeat progressives (re: Blanche Lincoln) you leave people with very few options, either vote out of straight fear of the even worse opposition, or to drop out of the system. Either reaction, dropping out and pulling their voice out of the system or voting for conservadems, leads to a further erosion of the system, pushing it further and further to the right. Some people understand this and do not wish to vote for the lesser of two evils, but the pressure put upon them these days to do so is incredible.

What people do in other places in these situations, where there are no options, or if there is a significant problem with the electoral process like a military dictatorship, repression of some candidates, etc., is to organize a voter boycott. This way they can call attention to the problems in the system, knowing that in the longrun, their only option for changing the system is to demonstrate that there is a block of votes available to whoever is willing to appeal to this organized movement and pick them up. But in the U.S., we've never heard of voter boycotts, we don't know how they work, so when we get fed up, we just stay home and nobody even tries to appeal to us.

Today, Obama and his administration think they can scold us into getting out the vote and treat us like we're the problem. I don't think it's going to work. But what they have been successful in doing is sowing internal conflict in the party, demanding ideological purity not from the perspective of the ideals that join us, but from the perspective of a pragmatic, meaningless party victory at the cost of all of our ideals and the greater good of the nation.

[KoKo]

39. The "Scolding" and what went before.........what can you do..when nowhere to go?

from you:

---


"Third parties have been successfully stigmatized, which I think none of us had the foresight to see would lead to the stigmatization of any internal criticism as we're seeing now from the Obama administration. Anything but waving the circle D flag these days brings intense criticism and personal attacks.

People are simple creatures. Call to action, action, reward. Intermittent reinforcement is extremely effective, but negative reinforcement not so much. In other words, if you tell a dog to roll over and you occasionally give him a treat, he'll be listening for that call. If you tell him to roll over and do nothing if he does but kick him if he doesn't, you'll end up with a dog who hates you, won't do you any favors, and is used to being kicked.

Apparently buses, coffee, and donuts go a long way in political organizing. Putting a huge amount of money behind the tea party has helped it take off.

A complicit media is even better. Who's not going to show up to a protest that's guaranteed to be on TV, with no risk of cops coming to kick the crap out of you? And the left DOES protest, but nobody hears about it. Unless the cops come and kick the crap out of them, in which case they might end up on the news for 10 seconds.

After successfully removing the possibility to vote for a third party, and after showing strong advances in eliminating the possibility of making realistic primary challenges and throwing vast amounts of financing to the establishment candidates to defeat progressives (re: Blanche Lincoln) you leave people with very few options, either vote out of straight fear of the even worse opposition, or to drop out of the system. Either reaction, dropping out and pulling their voice out of the system or voting for conservadems, leads to a further erosion of the system, pushing it further and further to the right. Some people understand this and do not wish to vote for the lesser of two evils, but the pressure put upon them these days to do so is incredible."