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The Left Has Lost Its Nerve and Its Direction
The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues, from universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans, to the steadfast protection of workers' rights, to an immediate withdrawal from the failed occupation of Iraq to a fight against a militarized economy that is hollowing the country out from the inside.
Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation's political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves.
Political and social change, as the radical Christian right and the array of corporate-funded neocon think tanks have demonstrated, are created by the building of movements. This is a lesson American progressives have forgotten. The object of a movement is not to achieve political power at any price. It is to create pressure and mobilize citizens around core issues of justice. It is to force politicians and parties to respond to our demands. It is about rewarding, through support and votes, those who champion progressive ideals and punishing those who refuse. And the current Democratic Party, as any worker in a former manufacturing town in Pennsylvania can tell you, has betrayed us.
"The mistake of the former left-wingers, from Tom Hayden to Todd Gitlin, is that they want to be players in the Democratic Party and academia," said John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's magazine, speaking of two prominent 1960s activists. "This is not what the left is supposed to be. The left is supposed to be outside the system. The attempt by the left to take control of the Democratic Party failed with [Eugene] McCarthy and George McGovern. The left, at that point, should have gone back to organizing, street protests, building labor unions, and the mobilization of grassroots activists. Instead, it went for respectability."
The rise of a corporate state, and by that I mean a state that no longer works on behalf of its citizens but the corporations, is as much a part of the Democratic agenda as the Republican agenda. Sure, every four years Democratic candidates pay lip service to the old values of the party, but then they head off to Washington and do things such as ram NAFTA down our throats, throw 10 million people off welfare, and peddle health-care proposals acceptable to the HMOs, huge pharmaceutical giants, and for-profit health-care providers who are, after all, the very sources of our health-care crisis. What we as citizens need and work for in a corporate state is irrelevant.
The working class has every right to be, to steal a line from Obama, bitter with liberal elites. I am bitter. I have seen what the loss of manufacturing jobs and the death of the labor movement did to my relatives in the former mill towns in Maine. Their story is the story of tens of millions of Americans who can no longer find a job that supports a family and provides basic benefits. Human beings are not, despite what the well-heeled Democratic and Republican apologists for the free market tell you, commodities. They are not goods. They grieve, and suffer and feel despair. They raise children and struggle to maintain communities. The growing class divide is not understood, despite the glibness of many in the media, by complicated sets of statistics or the absurd, utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals. It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer making enough money to live with dignity and hope.
"The other side has religion, and we need some," said the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary. "We need a more robust understanding of the role of religious values, values that prevent us from compromising the sanctity and dignity of human life. The left, because it is largely secular, did not do enough as the working class was finished off. And now the same thing is happening with the middle class. It is the loss of the left's spiritual resources that has crippled the movement. The left forgot that nations, like individuals, have souls. Once you sell your soul, it is hard to get it back. History is not linear. History is about constant struggle. It is the struggle, if you come out of faith, which matters."
The failure of the left is the failure of well-meaning people who kept compromising and compromising in the name of effectiveness and a few scraps of influence until they had neither. The condemnations progressives utter -- about the abuse of working men and women, the rapacious cannibalization of the country by an unchecked arms industry, our disastrous foreign wars, and the collapse of basic services from education to welfare -- are not backed by action. The left has been transformed into anguished apologists for corporate greed. They have become hypocrites.
"The loss of nerve by the left comes down to this lack of faith," Thistlethwaite said. "Having a soul means there is coherence between our actions and our values. The left can no longer claim this coherence. It has no moral compass. It does not know right from wrong. It has, in its confusion, lost the capacity to make moral judgments."
Hope, St. Augustine wrote, has two beautiful daughters. They are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to see they do not remain the way they are. We stand at the verge of a massive economic dislocation, one forcing millions of families from their homes and into severe financial distress, one that threatens to rend the fabric of our society. If we do not become angry, if we do not muster within us the courage to challenge the corporate state that is destroying our nation, we will have squandered our credibility and integrity at the moment we need it most.
119 Comments so far
Show AllThat secular fundamentalism article from a few weeks ago was excellent.
Just worth repeating.
One cannot punish the Democrats into better behavior by costing them elections. Democratic Party hacks would rather elect a Republican hack than a Democratic Reformer. Losing costs the hacks nothing.
The Dems even seem to be throwing elections to frustrate any reform energy behind Democratic candidates.
The only strategy which will work at this time is to get into the local Democratic Party Central Committee meetings, fill up the Precinct Committee Officer slots with reformers and take over the Party.
Throw the tired corrupt Vichy Democrats out on their useless butts.
It can be done but it costs a lot of boring frustrating evenings at meetings. But it is the only thing which will work. I've seen it work.
As I read this article I had to stop and make sure I hadn't been somehow redirected to some right-wing website. It drips with that familiar right-wing mantra, "If only we could make everyone a Christian the world's problems would be solved." I would argue that the last eight years have shown us what the marriage of ultra-conservative Christianity and politics looks like.
The author encourages progressives to abandon the Democratic party in favor of third party candidates as the way to force change, citing his anger, frustration and bitterness at the ineffectual Democratic party as support. Many voters feel the same way, and I would be the first to admit that their feelings are completely justified.
But the author also, perhaps unwittingly, presents in his piece the essential flaw in this logic. He says, "Political and social change, as the radical Christian right and the array of corporate-funded neocon think tanks have demonstrated, are created by the building of movements." The Christian right as a political force is, indeed, the result of a well-organized, grassroots movement. But it did not take over the direction of the Republican party by abandoning it in favor of third party candidates. It took over by holding together as a voting block and supporting the Republican candidates that best represented their world view. In other words, from the inside out. Democratic voters have not managed to build that kind of cohesive, issue-oriented voting block in a very long time.
But I think that, maybe, the time is ripe.
I often enjoy Hedges. But this article sucks.
I am very sympathetic with Hedges' criticisms of the Democratic Party, as well as his claim that the left has lost its nerve.
That said, I think that the left's failures come down to more than just a loss of nerve. What the left lacks is a larger movement and influence in the society as a whole. The reasons we've lost this are no doubt quite complex, but lost it we have.
For that reason, I don't think that a change in the present situation will be brough about by leftists and progressives simply regaining their nerve, another way of saying that "what the left needs is to grow some balls!" In Hedges' parlance that translates into a refusal to compromise, a willingness "to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda."
I submit that to pursue this strategy--with the presidential election 7 months away--amounts to handing Republicans the white house in the fall.
Now, that might still be something that progressives and leftists should do, but let's not kid ourselves that we don't risk that outcome if we follow Hedges' advice.
But rather than just getting some backbone and showing some nerve, I think progressives and leftists need to think long and hard about what such a strategy is supposed to accomplish and whether it is likely to achieve those goals.
Frustration with the deplorable present state of things should not just translate into action of any kind whatsoever. A revival of the left is not going to be built simply through directionless agitation. That's just a kind of gestural politics, one borne of pessimism and desperation rather than sound strategy.
Don't get me wrong: action and activism are of course important parts of any left strategy. But critical reflection on the possibilities available in the present is also vital.
There is also a way in which Hedges' understandable frustration with the left--its history of defeats and compromises--could lead to an obsession with leftist purity. That too would be extremely bad for the future of the left; leading possibly to further ideological balkanization and lack of influence.
I'm afraid that the United States is very very far from being a place in which (at the present) radical action by the left, which is in terrible disarray, is going to revive its fortunes. Having witnessed an attempt at revolution first-hand (in El Salvador--it failed in case you didn't know) I sadly have to disagree with Hedges about the possibilities available to us in the present in this country.
Sure we need a revolution, but neither wishing and wanting nor acting as if this is a real possibility will bring us any closer to it.
@grumpyoldlady:
I didn't read this article the same way you did at all. It didn't say to me that the left needed to abandon the Democratic party. What it did say was that the left had to stop thinking that all it needed to do was elect Democrats. That is necessary, but on its own it will accomplish nothing. Progressive politics can't be something that comes around every two years when elections are on. It has to be constant. You need to elect Democrats to Washington but then you have to make sure their feet are held to the fire. That is what movements are for, and the movement has to have life independent of Washington DC.
I dont think the issue is "leftist purity" I think it is the controlled way in which some very infuencial "left" writers steer large numbers of their readers away from "points of entry" that have broad appeal and actually could draw large numbers of curious readers among the populace in general.
The history of the CIA funded Encounter Magazine-- a magazine designed to be read by the left -- is most relevant here.
Encounter Magazine is not speculation, it is history very-much worth persuing for those who are dissatisfied with the marketed explanations about our DO NOTHING LEFT.
PLEASE READ ABOUT ENCOUNTER MAGAZINE FOR YOURSELF. You might be disappointed to discover that the sourceing is not "all right wing conpiracy sites"
Far from it.
I've come to the conclusion that most progressives dont' want to do the work. They don't want to have to work with people they don't like, esp. poor people! The elitism issue comes up over and over; I notice it, but I notice that the very ones who engage in discrimination don't notice it at all! They usually have all kinds of college degrees!
I believe that movement building includes CULTURE. Which means supporting our own culture. Why hasn't everyone gone to see "Body Of War", just as one example?? Why aren't we demanding our own progressive talk shows, and radio shows?? Why are we still consuming mainstream media?? (I did watch the debate on ABC the other night, but I don't watch any of the mainstream media garbage). Why don't we demand that a progressive candidate be run in any election, even "unwinnable" ones, whether it be municipal, state/commonwealth, or federal?? Why don't we run ourselves, even if we can't possibly win? (i've done that myself). Why do we continue to support a party that took impeachment off the table, and candidates who continue to give hundreds of millions of dollars for illegal criminal war??
The "left" has not lost it's nerve. The socialist left is forever blocked from corporate mass media as well as so-called "progressive" media.
In every country except the United States, the "left" has always meant to include the anti-capitalist socialist perspective.
This perspective is forbidden, censored, and suppressed in this country. But a socialist perspective is essential to understanding the multiple economic and political crises that
we now face.
Corporate control of mass media keeps the mass of Americans in ignorance about why the war in Iraq, why schools are deteriorating, why privatization is destroying the social infrastructure, or why capitalism is not reformable.
The "Nation" forever denigrates any politics outside the Democratic Party. The conservative labor movement, a "business partner" to corporate capitalism, refuses to fundamentally oppose capitalism even as corporate capitalism has abandoned U.S. working people and moved overseas.
I believe the Democrats are afraid, and rightly so, of what will happen if they gather their courage and righteously destroy the Republican party. Out of those ashes will rise a corporately-funded political machine that will gather the resources of the mightily rich, and that will devour everything in its path to complete domination.
Thanks again Chis Hedges for a good, thought provoking article. What so many on the left who still support the Democratic party do not yet understand is expressed best in your conclusion that. . ."The rise of a corporate state, and by that I mean a state that no longer works on behalf of its citizens but the corporations, is as much a part of the Democratic agenda as the Republican agenda." Read Peter Dale Scott's book (and others) The Road to 911, and it is hard to hid from this conclusion.
This will not change. I am in total agreement that support for and hard work on behalf of a third party soundly rooted it progressive ideas is the best hope for this country.
Thanks again Chris.
Chris Hedges is one of the tiny handful of commentators within the US who understand exactly how bad the situation is in the country. One has only to spend a little time outside of the country to realize how deeply confused most Americans are. Anyone still expecting solutions to come from the two party system is wasting his or her time. No solutions will come from either the Democrats or Republicans because both parties are thoroughly corrupted by campaign contributions from corporations and rich individuals. The solutions for our deep systemic problems which have been ignored for decades are not even in the discourse of most Americans. Lazy, demoralized, distracted, depressed the country lurches ever closer to the edge of the abyss which will come in the form of financial meltdown, cancelled elections, a declared state of emergency, and worse.
This article sounds like another call to give up and start some "revolution" with Ralph, Dennis, Cindy and Cynthia.
Only problem is, it ain't gonna happen. Obama is plenty good enough and the "left" is far from visionless or dead.
One would think the "dreamers" at Common Dreams would "get" this and pick articles accordingly. This one's a dud.
For peace, social and economic justice, and human rights.
www.carolmillercongress.com
The vast majority of the American people are like an animal with its leg caught in a trap. They will gnaw the leg off, no matter how painful, then limp off to bleed to death rather than avoid the trap to begin with by recognizing their own economic and political self-interest.
I'll try to be more succinct this time.
Hedges does admit that "political and social change...are created by the building of movements," but the article repeatedly returns to the issue of the left's failure of nerve and history of compromises. That sounds an awful lot like, "what we (the left) need is more courageous and uncompromising action."
The question arises: what action ought the left to be taking?
The prime example of "action" in this article appears in the second paragraph.
But how (in the immediate circumstances of an election season) does this square with the need to build a movement for social and political change?
Answer: it doesn't. It is a separate issue altogether, but Hedges' article doesn't make that clear.
Supporting a third-party candidate in November will not build such a movement. Movements aren't built by voting in certain ways and anyone who doesn't know that has never actually participated in one.
So the issue of whether or not to vote for a third-party candidate this fall needs to be separated out completely from the issue of building a movement. It needs to be evaluated on different terms.
Hedges (in my view) appears confused about this. On the one hand he appears to recognize that the left has to engage in movement building (a long process but one which I wholeheartedly support), and on the other hand he says we need uncompromising action now (walking away from the DP) and to keep it up until they "adopt our agenda."
What agenda? Where did this agenda get hammered out? The movement doesn't yet exist that gave it birth, so how is the DP supposed to adopt it?
Hedges is clearly frustrated and "wants change now!", but show me someone who really "wants change later!" (alright, I could probably find you a fair number of people who do, but you get the idea).
Action of any kind is not what is needed. All action needs to be evaluated for what it is attempting to do, what it is likely to accomplish, and then undertaken or not on the basis of some larger strategy and borne of some larger vision and accompanying values.
Hedges admits that he views the left as lacking such a vision and set of values (it's right there in his citation of Thistlethwaite). If that's the case then is Hedges seriously suggesting that the left should take action even though it lacks a strong sense of the vision and values on behalf of which it is acting?
Eric J-D:
Excellent post!
MVC:
You make a very good point. Whoever the next president is, it is up to us to hold him or her accountable and remind all of our elected officials who it is they work for. I'm encouraged by the enthusiasm being generated by this election cycle, and by the number of voters, from whatever party, who are taking an interest in politics. After years of voter apathy it's a breath of fresh air!
Daniel David: You're one of the sadly mislead if you think any real solutions will come from the Money parties. They are thoroughly corrupted and not worth saving. We need a new politics, but it won't happen because Americans are so deeply confused. You are a good example of the confusion.
Americans are self-deluded. Get out the country for a while even if only to Canada or Mexico, and you'll start to see clearly unless you're hopelessly brainwashed by the system.
A longtime activist in the Brattleboro, VT once said that I take to heart. It's also relevant to this article/discussion.
"One difference between the way the right and left organizes is that they organize for electoral power-- even between elections. We organize for self-expression. They focus on the goal of power. We encourage everyone to do whatever each individual wants. Is this the way to gain power? Do we want to wield power? This is a discussion the peace and justice movement needs to have."
- Marty Jezer
Daniel David - Here's the plan. If we toss enough of our principles in the trash, maybe we'll look enough like Republicans to win elections.
Read this: http://www.voxclamantis.com/pages/therope.html
I love Hedges, but I can't stand the esoteric religio-bable. The Left has no "soul" which comes from a "lack of faith" (in what might I ask), ergo we have no moral compass. This is an egregiously stupid argument put forward by Hedges' quotes. If we, the left, need some solidarity towards a moral compass, we needn't look farther than the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Belief in fairies might give someone moral direction, but it is up to our BRAINS to determine what moral direction is actually good.
Finally; Common Dreams opts to publish a piece that is not pure Obamarama flackery! And even dares to recognize that hacks like Gittlin and Alterman etc, are indeed cowards who want to be respectable and they want a seat on those TV political talk shows, and no one from the left is permitted on those.
bakunin wrote:
Chris Hedges is one of the tiny handful of commentators within the US who understand exactly how bad the situation is in the country...Anyone still expecting solutions to come from the two party system is wasting his or her time
Actually, I hate to break it to you but Chris Hedges appears to hold out exactly that hope. It's right there in the article: "If the left wants to regain influence in the nation's political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda."
If Hedges is (as you suggest) one of a handful of journalists who see the futility of looking to the Democrats for change, why does he recommend a course of action for progressives and leftists that appears to be directed at the DP itself? Why is he concerned with sending them a message until they "adopt our agenda" if he has written them off?
Both the Christian Right and the Nazis (same thing really) realized and acted upon the fact that to change a huge system, you have to change it from within. Both were successful, unfortunately. But just because they accomplished evil as a result, doesn't mean the technique itself is flawed. Imagine if the good guys took that approach?
Chris Hedges right that the "Left" has lost a great deal of motivation by ignoring truly spiritual people of all religions and none and their determination to make a better world. Most of the lefties I know are aggressively atheist and personally hostile to religious people, however much those people may agree with them on issues.
He is mistaken about Hayden and Gitlin, in that they were never truly Left. They were reacting to the Vietnam War and the cultural issues of the 1950s in which they were raised. Once the war was over, they moved on with their lives within the American model of left liberals. We have no tradition of militant activists like Europeans, who invented social anarchism. We need to inspire new Emma Goldmans, who danced at the revolution and sought to eliminate the corporate murderers, such as Frick, who had striking workers murdered by the Pinkerton's thugs. We need to develop new followers of Gandhi's methods who understand what he was doing for decades to fight the total economic and political control of the British Empire. How many Americans know that the British destroyed India's irrigations systems, so the Indians had to buy from England. The march to the sea for salt was because of the Brits' law that forced them to buy from England. So where are our general strikes? Where are the people who know Saul Alinsky's techniques of disruption to force those in power to pay attention?
Any new version of left politics has a long struggle to educate Americans about where their true interests are, but there is little time to do it before the new Great Depression hits. Neither Clinton nor Obama can stop the collapse, and it will certainly make the middle-of-the-road Americans wake up and smell the coffee. The serious question is where are the leaders responsive to the needs of the nonrich who can lead us out of the crisis and make long-term changes in our corporatocracy?
That secular fundamentalism article from a few weeks ago was excellent.
That secular fundamentalism article from a few weeks ago was a piece of fundamentalist christian fascist shit.
Just worth repeating.
My nerve never failed and I have never waivered. I suspect that is true of millions on the Left. But I do have two kids and a full time job and a stack of bills to pay. The Right especially the Christian Right has more than discipline. They have piles of money from billionaire oil men. They have radio and TV and the right wing harpy chorus. They benefit by a smug and complacent MSM which has completely adopted Right wing terms of debate. They are ignored or possibly supported by various sectors of the state security apparatus. In fact, Christian fanatic Eric Prince has created his own private state security apparatus - Blackwater. They have an unquestioning and uncurious rank and file who are happy to send 10% of personal income to religious/political causes. These people want to be told what to do and what to think. It's the core of their world view. And they have nerve.
The Left has essentially none of these things, which is a benefit and a cost to us. But all these things combined keep us from exerting much cirect influence on our society and our politics. Of course our indirect influence has been vast and historic. From abolition to women's suffrage to safer work places to the 8 hour work day to civil rights to the Freeze to the anti-apartheid movement, we have made our mark, though not without many painful setbacks and compromises.
Maybe Hedges is directing his remarks at Left leaders (he mentions Hayden and Gitlin). I don't know much about Gitlin except that when I met him at UC Berkeley years ago I thought he had a lot of integrity. Hayden does believe in working inside the Party but I have never heard him content himself with electing Democrats. For the rest of us, the rank and file Left, the question is where do you start? The streets, the media, the board meetings, the legislatures and all the institutions of power and places of assembly are to one extent or another controlled by (and/or ignored by) the apparatus of elite rule. OK, we need principled, disciplined long term resistance to existing power and support for a humane alternative outside the two party autocracy. But how?
People do not have to defeat every Republican to send a message. Work to defeat Nancy Pelosi and that will get their attention. Also, vote Green.
"...Throw the tired corrupt Vichy Democrats out on their useless butts...."
As Elizabeth I once said, "Be careful for what you wish for, since you might end up getting it..."
Put differently, best not throw the baby out with the bath water.. or better the devil you know than the bastard Repugs...Another 8 years of the same and America will become worse than a Banana Republic replete with a currency worth less than tiolet paper...
"If we, the left, need some solidarity towards a moral compass, we needn't look farther than the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."
Sorry to say, bhima, but these are rather flawed documents designed to preserve the power of propertied elites, which provide me with no moral compass I can discern.
"Belief in fairies might give someone moral direction, but it is up to our BRAINS to determine what moral direction is actually good."
Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Suharto, Kissinger, Cheny, Christophger Hitchens etc... All use their BRAINS too - they backed their actions and barbarous policy recommendation with impeccable logic - usually revolving around the notion that uneducated, superstitous, masses cannot possibly know what is good for them, only educated rich pepole are intellectually qualified to run the world. and the logic of such a argument is impeccable.
But thankfully, nmost o us don'te rely only on logic. we are guided by "something else". Democracy, compassion, the golden rule, are illogical that "something else". The something is faith - and it doesn't have to come from any belief in a god or wahtever. But without a belief in some kind of first principles behind reality, one is effectively descending into nihilism.
I find that the western secular-athiest tradition seems to harbor some terribly infantile notions about religion - a result of the admittedly infantile protestant-christian traditions most of them come from. Most genuinely religious people understand that their god or gods are purely human constructs - metaphors for another reality. Some, like Buddhism, have no god at all.
Nader, McKinney or even Paul.
Or: HRC, former Wal Mart board member;
Or: BO, who supports Faith Based Initiatives, an un-Constitutional "agency" the Decider himself "created" when Congress refused.
And both keep squawking about "bipartisanship," as if there were middle ground between "with us or against us" and reality.
The proof neither possess the leadership we need: they let ABC play games instead of standing up and telling them to either stick to the issues or go f**k themselves. A real leader would have chosen option B.
The so-called "left" lost its nerve 71 years ago when they agreed to overtax and then outlaw CANNABIS !
P.S.: Another Progressive infrastructure rockridgeinstitute.org BITES THE DUST !
Sorry, but I've given up on this country, I think. I went through this before, when Nixon won re-election by a landslide (D.C. & Mass. went (D)) even after the truth came out re:Cambodia and I said to myself, "Amerika gets the leadership it deserves." Well, it's only gotten worse. I'm starting to think about Cuba, or Demark, or the Seychelles.
Some thoughts. Almost 3 out of 10 people TODAY think Bush is doing a good job! I will vote for McKinney or Nader and I don't see it as wasting my vote. It sends a message. If enough people vote for 3d party candidates, that candidate may not win (this time) but given enough support qualifies NEXT TIME for federal funds and ballot inclusion and debate invites. But the system is rigged; both the (D) and (R) parties have made sure that their power is kept intact.
Obama is NOT the reason so many people are participating in this election's primaries. Eight years of Bush/Cheney/Rice (and 12 years of (R) control of Congress) have energized people. But as bad as it is, what percentage of the eligible voters are coming out? Most people are more interested in American Idol or football than health care or the environment. If the occupation in Iraq was "going well" do you really think most Americans would be opposed to it? They'll talk all day on Monday about Sunday's NASCAR race or football or baseball game or NBA draft. Mention public policy that directly affects their lives, their paychecks, their safety, or their childrens' futures, and their eyes glaze and they walk away. American's are ignorant of what's going on around the world, and No Child Left Behind is making sure the next generations are even more stupid.
Obama will give the country more compromise with the right; Hillary will move the country to the right to keep her company. Voting for either, while not as bad as McBush, is still a vote for evil.
Grumpyoldlady said: Whoever the next president is, it is up to us to hold him or her accountable and remind all of our elected officials who it is they work for.
Yeah, right! That worked so well after the '06 election. As long as the left remains chained to the (D) party and as long as Air America and The Nation ridicule Nader/McKinney/Socialist voters and as long as "leftist" pundits with media access spout nonsense such as "I'll support whoever wins the (D) nomination", well, the (D) party will continue to take our support for granted, asking us: "Who else you gonna vote for?" And we end up with a ticket like Gore-Lieberman, or a candidate like Kerry, or Congressional leaders like Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Harry Reid.
If grumpyoldlady is really "encouraged by the enthusiasm being generated by this election cycle, and by the number of voters, from whatever party, who are taking an interest in politics," think what it'll be like in 2012 after 4 years of McBush!
Some of the books I've read in the last year have been important, and one of the most important is one I've picked up and put down several times since its 2004 publication: Jamin B. Raskin's Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. The American People.
Raskin is a professor of constitutional law at American University. I kept putting it down because, well, Bush v. Gore is so yesterday. But the book is about so much more than that one S.C. decision. Raskin sweeps up 3d party exclusion, school desegregation, campaign finance, etc. etc. into the discussion. I highly recommend it. Just two quotes:
"Indeed, it was the court's unprincipled endorsement of a two-party system that set the stage for America's dramatic collapse into a one-party system in Bush v. Gore. After all, if they do not conform electoral process to principles of strict neutrality, what will keep the justices from aligning their judicial analyses with their partisan sympathies? If the Court can uphold the suppression of all political parties but two, why not all but one?"
"In the continuing public dialogue that is democracy, an election is more than a mechanical contest over who will take office. It is democracy's way of promoting rippling concentric circles of political debate which offer up new priorities on the public agenda. Losing Socialist Party candidates for president and Congress in the early 1900s ran dynamic campaigns that led to the more-progressive income tax, woman suffrage, the forty-hour workweek and many of the progressive reforms of the last century."
Sorry this has been so disjointed. One last thing: well said, bhima! Enough with spirituality already!
My question for those of us deciding between Nader and McKinney: which one will help us more? Nader has the name recognition, but McKinney has the 3rd party I want to see grow. Nader has a better chance of getting more than 5%. This is my quandary. I wish Nader was running in a political party. I wish the Progressive party was in more states than just Vermont. (I'm trying mightily to get it started in Massachusetts - help!) (;
Support progressive media: t.v., radio, movies (everybody go and see "Body Of War"!, just to please me!), theatre, arts - this is how we really reach persuadables!!
Support better food choices, single payer health care, vote for 3rd party candidates in municipal and state elections where progressive candidates aren't in place allready (even if it feels like a thrown away vote). We have to juggle while we build. We have to be more commited and give up on saviors such as cult leader Barack Obama.
of all the responses to hedge's piece, i think eric j-d's 2nd posting most hit the mark. i find hedge's stuff intemperate and even shrill--hardly worth even reading.
(btw, eric j-d, i went to your blog and am still chuckling over the fact that u felt the need to tell us that u are a scorpio) ;)
Tom Hayden and Todd Gitlin haven't been on the left for 30 years. They're barely progressive Democrats, especially the reprehensible Gitlin. Using them as examples of "the left" is truly misleading and Hedges should know better.
But I agree with Hedges and Augustine that hope must be accompanied by anger and courage--good point. Yet, why does this anger and courage necessarily have to arise from "religious" values, per Thistlethwaite? Why does Hedges think there is no other way the left can regain coherence except to start going to church, or forge the style of Christianity he prefers?
The problem with the left in the US is mainly that it is utterly fragmented and basically exists only theoretically. There is no organized left of any kind and hasn't been for 35 years. Mainly, it's an internet phenomenon, a whole of lot typing and no effective actual anything. How many of us have "signed" about 8,000 online petitions for impeachment, or to stop further war funding, or call for a hundred different types of investigations into Bush-Cheney criminality, over the past 7 years? I know I have, and I know how much good it's done. I've been to marches and demonstrations in Washington, too, and they've sure put a stop to all the Bushite crimes and chicanery.
What little left there is has been thoroughly neutralized by corporate media. We all know this. But Hedges seems to think that if we would only start praying to a tolerant, liberal, progressive God, we'd miraculously come together and overthrow the Business Party and its lapdog media. But what if there's a lot of atheists and agnostics among the fragmented left? What must they do, convert to Hedges' ultra-liberal Christianity or slink off to some obscure perdition? If we all have to either become Unitarians, or witness the country being entirely taken over by Bush/McCain fascists, I'm afraid the latter will be our fate.
We don't need revolution; we need secession. The time is long overdue to break up and Empire and to ditch liberal statism in favor of decentralization.
Democracy does not scale.
Only with small scale – including slow speed – will we achieve healthy communities living in harmony with natural limits. Until people grok the importance of scale, our politics will continue to be mostly irrelevant.
You cannot survive in a vacuum. The left of the US is no left. The people would not allow a true left. There is no support for the left so it cannot exist. The US left is center anywhere else.
We are behind 126 to zero in the fourth quarter with two minutes left, with fourth down and 35 to go from our one yard line. All we need to do is find courage and come up with a good strategy and we will win. Woohoo!
There is so much wrong with the left in the US, much that has been mentioned here and much that has not. A few of the problems include:
(1) The right controls the mainstream corporate media and spews disinformation 24/7.
(2) Americans have been encouraged to "cling" to religion and guns, and naturally do as their fears mount and insecurity grows in a rapidly changing world, and associate the left with the threat to take these sources of security and comfort away.
(3) Identity politics introduces distractions and confusion that leads to non-fascists supporting fascists.
(4) Most Americans have been convinced that the failure of the Soviet Union amounted to a scientific experiment that "proved" the left was always and always will be "wrong."
(5) The power of labor unions has been waning under assault from the right and the global marketplace puts workers even more at a disadvantage.
(6) Significant numbers of workers have been sucked into the Military-Industrial Complex and depend on the MIC to earn their daily bread.
(7) Republicans are not above rigging elections and the corporate media is not above letting them get away with it.
(8) The conservative courts over the years have warped the constitution to the point it only serves to protect corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
(9) Bogeymen are easy for the corporate media to manufacture and to enlarge when necessary to frighten the public.
(10) Hierarchical organizations have certain advantages and the hierarchical right can maintain discipline and consistency much better than a group of arguing intellectuals on the left (the latter only care whether they are "right" while the latter only care whether they "win").
And on and on... The best the left can do at this stage is to try as it might to reduce the probability that the USA, particulary as it thrashes about as a dying and self-absorbed giant, creates conditions leading to human extinction, which does not seem all that unlikely at this point.
Knappster: You've got the right idea. The federal system is so royally screwed up and corrupted here that the only real solution is to break the giant behemoth up into several manageable and less dangerous states. If there were sanity and intelligence in the United States this is the sort of thing that would be widely discussed. Instead its a quaint fringe phenomenon in Vermont and a few other places. I can imagine New England becoming one mini-nation, the pacific northwest another. Of course there is the likelihood that conflict would break out between the warlike, fundamentalist south and mountain states and the peaceable coasts and Great Lake states. Anyway the most important thing is to knock the US off its imperialist pedestal before we bring on a nuclear world war.
zgoobadooba,
Thanks for stopping by the blog. If I had a counter it would now read: 000,000,001 visits! :)
As for the Scorpio thing, I thought it was funny too! With blogger you input your birthdate and your profile immediately translates it into your zodiacal sign.
I found it so amusing I thought I'd keep it--for me it conjures up some weird image of a '70s guy with a white-guy fro, hairy chest and italian horn necklace. What could be more appropriate!?!
I'm curious about the use of the label "left." These are good ideas, but what makes them leftist, or progressive? Would a progressive idea be as appealing to the left (or less repugnant to a conservative) if it were adopted by a centrist? If you had to choose between, for instance, getting single payer health care passed by a democratic president or not getting it passed by a left wing president, which would you choose?
I like your values. But your values are not universally accepted. They do not work for many Americans. And since this is a republic, it makes more sense, and it is more sustainable, to have a representational government that represents all elements of the polity, in balance. It seems to me that the best person to lead this group, in balance, would be someone who is neither a leftist liberal nor a right wing republican, who can bring progress (as defined by the majority)through slow, sustainable growth.
I'm 100% with you, Chris Hedges. If progressives had 'bitten the bullet' back in 2000 instead of caving in to the threats of the DNC/DLC doomsayers, we wouldn't have gotten stuck with another ineffectual DNC/DLC triangulator in 2004.
We are told during EVERY election cycle that THIS is THE MOST IMPORTANT election in the history of our Republic; "wait 'til some other time to rebel against the sacred Democratic Party. If you don't vote for whatever a**hole we nominate, the sky will fall and the world will end."
Well, the sky hasn't quite fallen. All those faint-hearted chumps who ended up holding their noses and voting for the mediocre Democratic nominee might just as well have voted for Ralph Nader as it turned out. If they HAD voted their Hopes rather than their Fears, they wouldn't now be facing the grim prospect of a Hillary (who would, no doubt, continue to behave like a Republican) or an Obama (who, after you scrape away the rhetorical veneer looks very much like another John Kerry) as another in a long line of "Lesser Evils".
If the Democratic Party is to be reformed, it will only be in response to a well-publicized desertion by us on the progressive wing. I doubt that the Democratic Party CAN be reformed now that they have developed a taste for eating out of the same corporate trough as the Republicans.
As long as progressives remain loyal,hoping against hope that the Democrats might take them seriously, we're going to end up with a steady parade of candidates who will forever be bending over backwards to appeal to Republican voters...while chumping us into voting for a "Lesser Evil" every 4 years. Even if one of these Lesser Evil Democrats does win an election, progressives will STILL lose.
You've hit the nail on the head, Chris Hedges; if we on the Left don't "cowboy up" and resolve to vote for progressive candidates, in spite of all the self-serving threats the Dems throw at us, our future will be looking VERY bleak as the Plutocracy will reign unchallenged.
Vote your Hopes, people! It might, indeed, mean a McCain victory this time around; but if we don't tough it out we'll be doomed to a string of Republican presidents, and/or "Democrats" of the Lieberman ilk.
About time we hear the truth. The Clintons
should be removed and vanished into hell, and take along all their worshipers who are feeding
at the public trough. We simply do not have any
people of integrity and dedication. Anyone that speaks up is quickly demonized. The result has been the destruction of the base of the Democratic party, the working classes.
The Tobacco settlement for instance.
Thank you aybayb!
You are the first person who has been willing to acknowledge that voting third party this time around might mean a McCain victory but that it still ought to be done.
I'm not sure I agree with you but I applaud your honesty and willingness to say this.
Once you admit the possibility of McCain winning if progressives and leftists vote third party, then the issue arises as to what the goal of such an action is and what results it is likely to produce.
You seem to view this as a necessary but perhaps last-ditch effort at reforming the DP, correct? The idea is that voting third-party progressive en masse will send the Dems the message, "No more Republican-lite candidates or else expect to face a string of losses!"
Is that a fair interpretation of your position?
If so, I think that there are some issues that one would want to clarify along the way to being convinced to take this action, but I'd be interested in hearing more from you first.
This failure, regrettably, is perfectly embodied in Nancy Pelosi, one of the most worthless Speakers of the House we've ever had. She has failed to drive a movement toward impeachment of the two most obviously unconstitutional Presidents and VP's in our history. She has failed to drive the eternally calculating superdelegates like Rendell, et al., toward ratifying Obama, to the point where any Democratic Presidential nominee will very likely have a Pyrrhic victory at best. And I understand she is now sponsoring a bill to allocate an additional 100+ billion dollars to continuing our idiotic Iraq occupation. How can a person like her think the world is in any way profiting from her being born? Thank God, I've been a teacher, and I have the knowledge that in some small way I'ved bettered the lives of some of my charges. I can't see any redeeming feature in her "career."
The left sold out...it is almost the left wing of the Repub party.
Nancy Pelosis is a joke as are many of the so-called Dems up there.
Oh to have a real Dem party.
As to the oneview person who said "Out of those ashes will rise a corporately-funded political machine that will gather the resources of the mightily rich, and that will devour everything in its path to complete domination."
Sorry that is already happening, and will continue unabated until some regulations are back in place...both parties appear to guilty of that at the moment.
The government has become a business...where the rich reap the benefits and the rest of pay for it.
I agree, the Left has no spine anymore...that or they are being blackmailed...why can't these people keep their noses clean and their morals intact...and keep what is best for America in mind, rather than the special interests and themselves.
Oh to have a Congress who wasn't worried about greed and the next election.
You people need to recognize Chris Hedges for what he is, he is not your friend he is your enemy. He is the son of a minister who is clealy running a campaign to divide and disrupt both progressives and democrats with this secular fundamentalism and 'it's all the democrats and progressives fault' crap.
From Wiki :
Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years.
Hedges was part of The New York Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
What the fuck is this shit? Wake up people.
Chris Hedges is an asshole and a fraud.
… what are you, new to the planet or something ?