A Resurrected Liberal Class or Teabagger Nation?

[polichick]

Some of you know that I've been burning through a lot of books about government lately. As a lifelong principled liberal, it's time to figure out what comes next - I know many of you are in the same boat.

I'm currently reading DEATH OF THE LIBERAL CLASS by Chris Hedges. It covers the dismantling of the liberal class, permanent war, politics as spectable and a bunch of other things liberals have been discussing here at DU. I'll share a bit...


"The media, the church, the university, the Democratic Party, the arts, and labor unions - the pillars of the liberal class - have been bought off with corporate money and promises of scraps tossed to them by the narrow circles of power. Journalists, who prize access to the powerful more than they prize truth, reported lies and propaganda to propel us into a war in Iraq. Many of these same journalists assured us it was prudent to entrust our life savings to a financial system run by speculators and thieves. Those life savings were gutted. The media, catering to corporate advertisers and sponsors, at the same time renders invisible whole sections of the population whose misery, poverty, and grievances should be the principle focus of journalism.

<snip>

"But perhaps the worst offender within the liberal class is the Democratic Party. The partty consciously sold out the working class for corporate money. Bill Clinton, who argued that labor had nowhere else to go, in 1994 passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which betrayed the working class. He went on to destroy welfare and in 1999 ripped down the firewalls between commercial and investment banks to turn the banking system over to speculators. Barack Obama, who raised more than $600 million to run for president, most of it from corporations, has served corporate interests as assiduously as his party. He has continued the looting of the U.S. Treasury by corporations, refused to help the millions of Americans who have lost their homes because of bank repossessions or foreclosures, and has failed to address the misery of our permanent class of unemployed.

<snip>

"Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the corporate state has put the liberal class on a death march. Liberals did not protest the stripping away of the country's manufacturing base, the dismantling of regulatory agencies, and the destruction of social service programs. Liberals did not decry speculators, who in the seventeenth century would have been hanged, as they hijacked the economy. Liberals retreated into atrophied institutions. They busied themselves with the boutique activism of political correctness. The liberal class was eventually forced in this death march to turn itself inside out, championing positions it previously condemned. That is did so with almost no protest exposed its moral bankrupcy.

<snip>

"Capitalism was once viewed by workers as a system to be fought. But capitalism is no longer challenged. Capitalist bosses, men such as Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Donald Trump, are treated as sages, celebrities and populists. The liberal class functions as their cheerleaders. Such misguided loyalty, illustrated by environmental groups that refuse to excoriate the Obama White House over the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, ignores the fact that the divide in America is not between Republican and Democrat. It is a divide between the corporate state and the citizen."

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Liberal-Class-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568586442



Okay, that's pretty bleak, but where do the teabaggers fit in?? Well, here's how Hedges puts it...


"The loss of the liberal class creates a power vacuum filled by speculators, war profiteers, gangsters, and killers, often led by charismatic demagogues. It opens the door to totalitarian movements that rise to prominence by ridiculing and taunting the liberal class and the values it claims to champion. The promises of these totalitarian movements are fantastic and unrealistic, but their critiques of the liberal class are grounded in truth."



So, as frustrated right-wingers demonize liberals and call for "second amendment solutions" while mindlessly falling for demagogues like Psycho Sarah and Beckkk and voting against their own economic interests, the Democratic Party moves further and further to the right in the service of corporate power. There's growing energy on both the right and the left - I truly hope that a liberal grassroots movement can grow as fast as this country needs it to.

[deutsey]

1. I just heard a good interview with him

Go to KPFA.org and go to yesterday's archived edition of the show "Letters to Washington." I'd put the link, but I can't access Internet radio sites on my work computer.

[polichick]

2. Thanks - I'll check it out. nt

[seafan]

3. Two very good reviews of Hedges' book, 'Death of the Liberal Class' :

Thanks for those snippets from Hedges' book, polichick.


Two very good reviews of this book are here:


From reviewer Thomas King:

In THE DEATH OF THE LIBERAL CLASS, Chris Hedges makes the case that the liberal class -- which historically has spoken for the interests of the poor and middle classes -- has largely been devastated, or at least co-opted, by a corporate elite that is relentlessly driving the country toward oligarchy. The liberal class has abandoned its traditional role in democracy and has instead endorsed unfettered capitalism and globalization as well as profit driven wars, and as a result, any realistic check on the power of corporate interests has been obliterated. Hedges effectively uses his own experiences, and those of others, to show how journalism -- even at elite "liberal" publications like the New York Times -- is being increasingly distorted and controlled by those with money and power.

As Hedges points out, the real division in America today is not between Democrats and Republicans, but between average citizens and the corporate and financial elite. Addressing -- or even discussing -- the problem is nearly impossible because doing so involves transgressing the taboo of class warfare and invoking the "vocabulary of Marx." Without a robust liberal voice to engage in this debate, there is a very real danger that things will degrade into violence as the middle and working classes become increasingly disenfranchised, angry and confused.

.....

As Hedges points out, the liberal class has been swept aside and the social safety nets for the middle and working classes are being relentlessly destroyed -- and it is happening just as we will have the most need for those safety nets. To understand the full extent of the danger we will soon face, read both "The Death of the Liberal Class" (for political perspective) and "The Lights in the Tunnel" (to understand the coming impact of technology).

And another review from David Shank:

..... this is a book that will advance the debate we are having as a country about who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going.

.....

His fundamental premise is compelling and enlightening. He argues that the "real division in America today is not between Democrats and Republicans, but between average citizens and the corporate and financial elite...." If you are like me, you have been dismayed at the breakdown in our political rhetoric over the last 20 years; you have been depressed by the hostility and vitriol that marks the "debate" about politics; you despair at the prospect that the logical conclusion is that there is no "solution" at the end of the road. For my team to win this game - your side must lose. The old saying that "politics is the art of compromise" seems to have gone right out the window.

Although I have not finished the book I have read enough to understand what Hedges is doing and (I think) where he is going. His argument resonates with me because although I voted for Obama I am one of those who have been very disappointed with the gulf between what he promised and what he is doing. His campaign rhetoric energized me (and perhaps millions of others) with the promise that "change" was coming but he lied - giving proof to the sad truth that there is not really a "dimes worth of difference" between the political parties.

Hedges gives us an answer to why this is happening. Our leaders our serving their masters - the problem is that those masters are not the people of this country - they are the corporate interests who now are the ones who get what they need and want from the government. When Hedges writes about the economic collapse and the ensuing "relief" bestowed on wall st. and various corporations while people get slammed I am outraged - again. His "promise" that wall st. bail-outs and reform would unlock lending to kick start the economic engine that is the American people - he flat out lied. The bail-out happened. The lending did not. Obama does not seem to care about it. The Dems don't care about it. The R's don't care about it. And Americans are increasingly and justifiably outraged at the abuse.

You can imagine that the rage behind the tea-party is really only the beginning of what is to come as a result of our discovery that "the emperor has no clothes." The R's are naive to believe that the tea-party is a good thing for them. As Hedges eloquently observes - this is not about D's and R's. It is about something much more fundamental.

.....

I believe we are seeing the rebirth of liberalism. It is certainly painful.

[polichick]

4. Better to have a painful rebirth, than no rebirth at all. I'm so curious about...

...what form the movement will take.

Thanks for the reviews!