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Don't Pooh-Pooh Populism
In 2006, journalist Christopher Hayes wrote a little-noticed article for In These Times magazine about a proposal in Oregon to crack down on predatory lending. The initiative had become so popular that conservative legislators supported it fearing that if it were put on the state's ballot, the resulting gusher of grass-roots support would not only ratify the measure, but depose the bank-allied Republican Party, too.
Hayes' piece was titled "Economic Populism Proves Popular," the headline a sarcastic middle finger flashed at a political and media Establishment that portrays policies "supporting the rights and power of the people" -- i.e., the dictionary definition of "populism" -- as somehow anathema to the people.
That depiction, of course, continues today. But now, populism isn't just popular in America; it is becoming the dominant paradigm, and that has the Establishment frightened.
For years, the country watched its populist desire for healthcare, tax, trade and financial reform run into the reality of elite politicians handing out trillions of dollars' worth of corporate welfare and bank bailouts as the economy collapsed. Not surprisingly, a new Rasmussen poll on attitudes toward government and corporations shows 75 percent of the country "can be classified on the populist or Mainstream side of the divide" while just 14 percent "side with the political class."
As if to confirm the chasm, this "political class" -- consultants, politicians, lobbyists and commentators -- has been denigrating populism as too overwrought to be taken seriously. Listen to a typical pundit defending AIG's bonuses or criticizing demands for a new trade policy, and you will inevitably hear the word "populist" accompanied by the word "rage" and/or "dangerous," followed by tributes to the status quo.
This elite propaganda, says Georgetown University's Michael Kazin, dismissively implies "that anger from ordinary people is emotional, coming from people who don't understand how the economy works and are just lashing out at their social betters."
The caricaturing cribs from Richard Nixon's playbook. Whereas the 36th president got himself reelected by steering the country's anger at the Vietnam War into anger at countercultural war protestors, today's political class portrays the public's outrage as the nation's biggest problem, rather than what the public is justifiably outraged at.
Today, though, Tricky Dick's tactics aren't working, and not just because 2009's economy is far worse than 1972's.
This is the era when "You" are Time magazine's person of the year -- an era whose information and interactivity revolution now has us looking to ourselves for direction, not officialdom's gatekeepers. Additionally, America has lately been taught to expect results from democracy. TV viewers get to decide "American Idol" winners, Facebookers get to change their site's bylaws, and voters get to autonomously use Obama campaign resources to win elections -- and we get to do all this from outside the press clubs and smoke-filled rooms.
This profound rewiring of instincts and expectations is why the vilification of "populist rage" has failed as a political barbiturate, why the country still seethes, and why both parties are suddenly listening to "the people" instead of the Establishment. This is why, for instance, Republicans are staging "Tea Party" protests against federal spending and why Democrats are pushing bills to expand healthcare, reregulate Wall Street and cap executive pay -- because they know the political class, however offended, can no longer stop a voter backlash.
Admittedly, contradiction is everywhere: Republican rallies bewail deficits the GOP manufactured, and Democrats lament deregulatory schemes they originally crafted. But no matter how hypocritical the response is, it is a response, and that represents change from decades of aloof government. It suggests a democratic renewal whereby populism -- i.e., advocating what the public wants -- isn't merely one popular brand of politics, but is politics itself.
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29 Comments so far
Show All"From the homicidal bitchin'/
that goes on in every kitchen/
to determine who will serve/
and who will eat...
Democracy is coming/
to the USA"
---Leonard Cohen
I do not see much positive return on the populism input.
No single payer
No peace
No jobs
No homes
No Constitution
No Treaties
Because we have no populist leaders. The US needs a Huey Long - or maybe even a Juan/Evita Peron.
We do have Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich, but they don't seem to ever catch fire. Not sure I would want a demagogue like Huey Long.
A Meditation on Our Monetary System: State of Permanent Siege
By Richard Cook
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13309
Global Research, April 22, 2009
showcase.bestcyrano.org/
THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together over a century ago by Cecil Rhodes and his friends, including British financier Nathan Rothschild, as documented by Professor Carroll Quigley.
During the 20th Century the power shifted to the U.S., with the Rockefellers playing the dominant role as they continue to do today. It is no accident that J.P. Morgan Chase—the Rockefeller family bank—dominates the U.S. derivatives market; nor that Exxon-Mobil, the Rockefellers' oil company, is the most profitable corporation in history.
The basic plan was to place all of mankind in a state of permanent mental and emotional siege so that in the end we would trade all our liberties to the controllers in return for protection; even freedom of thought would be traded for physical safety. That plan is well advanced. The sheeple have been prepared for the final shearing.
Meanwhile, every attempt at real reform has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity like those of Congressmen Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced. Starting in the 1970s, functionaries like Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Volcker carried out David Rockefeller's plan to outsource manufacturing to China and eliminate the U.S. as the world's greatest industrial democracy, replacing it with a financier oligarchy.
Barack Obama obviously works mainly for the financiers, as did Bill Clinton before him. The job of the Democrats is to keep the sheeple quiet by now and then implementing some “reforms”; the Republicans were a more blatant gang of looters.
During the 2008 election campaign, Ron Paul called for the end of the Federal Reserve, the bastion of financier control, but no one effectively organized the millions of people who responded to his call or had a viable plan to put in place. Barack Obama obviously works mainly for the financiers, as did Bill Clinton before him. The job of the Democrats is to keep the sheeple quiet by now and then implementing some “reforms”; the Republicans were a more blatant gang of looters.
With the financial crash of 2008-2009, the noose is tightening everywhere in the world. The International Monetary Fund is announcing, “The current global recession is likely to be ‘unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish.'” (BBC News, “IMF Sees Long and Severe Slowdown,” April 16, 2009.) In reality, as the IMF knows, it would be possible to put every nation in the world on the road to recovery by allowing them to prime the economic pump through sovereign control of their own monetary systems, with freedom to utilize their own natural resources.
The IMF announcement is in fact the start of a worldwide program of genocide similar to what was done to Russia in the 1990s, with crushing poverty, slashing of incomes, reduction of benefits for the poor and elderly, rising levels of disease and malnutrition, and reduction of life expectancy. We in the West will view the carnage with alarm from our own stripped-down economies but remain docile out of fear the same will be done to us.
Awareness of the hideous evil of the financiers' plans to destroy the soul of humanity is growing. This is being accomplished through the internet and the work of a number of writers who understand what is at stake. I doubt this channel of expression will be available indefinitely. Already alternative websites are being isolated and marginalized. But the fight must be waged.
The one organization that has a program which is comprehensive and free from outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which has drafted the American Monetary Act. If the Act is introduced in Congress, it will be imperative for it to be recognized and supported as the one chance to save our nation from the dark night that is threatening. But even progressive writers shrink from taking on the Monetary Power, with many of them putting forth the absurdity that all we need to do is reform the banking system.
The American Monetary Act has been in process since 2003. It may be found on the AMI website at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf. AMI will conduct a presentation on the Act on Capitol Hill, April 23, 2009, in Room 304 of the Cannon House Office Building. Presentations will take place at 10:00 AM and at 2:00 PM.
At the same time, groups of relatively conscious people can come together on their own to create refuges of sanity until the danger passes–over a period of years, decades, or even generations. And, to look at it from a spiritual perspective, we can hope that the Higher Powers who observe humanity's destiny refuse to allow our particular experiment in consciousness to be obliterated.
Destruction of human consciousness is the real goal of the financiers and their minions. It is lies above all that do this. The financiers' power is the biggest lie of all.
Richard C. Cook is a retired federal analyst who writes today on economic, political, and spiritual matters. His books and videos are available through his website at www.richardccook.com. He recently released his six-part video series: Credit as a Public Utility: the Solution to the Economic Crisis.
phasor has identified the root of the problem...that few US citizens have any interest or understanding of economics beyond the soundbites the propagandists feed them.
This shortcoming has been clearly demonstrated by the lack of consternation Americans have for Obama's pandering to the financial industry (which includes insurance companies).
The great American myth is that there is one set of rules that works best for everyone. Those who are knowledgable about political systems recognize this as complete nonsense, as the set of rules determines which interests are served, and every individual and every group has different interests. So the set of rules that will best serve wealthy elites is quite different from the set of rules that would best serve the non-wealthy. However, as wealthy elites have always controlled the US government, the set of rules that best serves the wealthy has generally been been the law of the land, and great effort has continuously been expended to perpetuate the great American myth, to convince the hoi polloi that this set of rules works for everyone, and that if this "fact" is not obvious, it is only because the little people do not have the education, sophistication, or intelligence to understand.
When alternative sets of rules are proposed that appear to better serve the non-wealthy, the elites and their sophists try to shoot them down with the charge of "populist," which carries with it pejorative connotations of "unsophisticated," poorly thought out," irrational," etc... The myth is employed to convince the common people of something like "Really smart people (like Mr. Summers) have thought a long time about the rules and the little people should not meddle as they do not know what they are doing and they will just ruin it for everyone. Your job as one of the little people is to trust the really smart people and let them do their jobs."
kivals,
I enjoyed reading your post, thank you. Yet, perhaps unwittingly, you've offered the primary evidence to why the masses cannot govern themselves well. In a large-scale, representative democracy, the masses will nearly always support the candidates that best tells them what they want to hear and believe about themselves. In 2008, Barack Hussein Obama, delivered that message best.
If you've not read it, you might want to check out Jose Ortega y Gasset's famous book, "The Revolt of the Masses". Excellent that.
Anyway, while I oppose representative (mob) democracy, I strongly support small-scale, direct democracy. A pure democracy is far more accountable than a republican democracy, and thus, direct democracy is forced to be responsible to it's citizens. Accountability tends to create responsibility. Small is beautiful.
Have a great day!
"Anyway, while I oppose representative (mob) democracy, I strongly support small-scale, direct democracy. A pure democracy is far more accountable than a republican democracy, and thus, direct democracy is forced to be responsible to it's citizens. Accountability tends to create responsibility. Small is beautiful."
I pretty much agree with that. And I am fully aware of the arguments that the "masses cannot govern themselves well" (Mencken was quite entertaining on the subject almost a century ago), particularly with regard US representative democracy where the economic elites control the media and use that to get the mob to support the interests of such elites, against their own interests. I recently read that some yahoos in the militia movement want to have a million militia man march on Washington, where the marchers will be armed! And they are upset because Obama is spending some money (not by any means the majority of discretionary spending) and supporting some programs for the interests of non-elites, like themselves, rather than spending virtually all of it for the interests of super-elites, as Bush always tried to do.
The US political system never did work very well for the majority of the people, and now it is so completely broken and warped that it works for very few. It will almost certainly unravel in the coming decade, and along the way everyone will pull it one way or another to try to get it to serve their own interests, though I suspect that the US economic super-elites will only relinquish ultimate control over it when someone pries it from their "cold dead hands."
"Georgetown University's Michael Kazin, dismissively implies "that anger from ordinary people is emotional, coming from people who don't understand how the economy works and are just lashing out at their social betters"
Consider how arrogant this statement is. Social betters? Because someone hides away in cloistered halls and is never measured by what they produce. Because they use the same system to promote themselves and pay themselves that Corporate America uses.
Populism is a bit more than even Mr. Sirota alludes to. I believe there is a populism building that will surprise quite a few people on both sides of the aisle.
Who doesn't know how the economy works I wonder?
Peace.
Mr More, as a lurker here, I have more often than not agreed with and respected your perpectives and opinions on this pages.
In this instance, I am not sure whether I have read your comments accurately, but from what I understood from the article, I think you might have done Prof Michael Kazin a disservice in this case, because I don`t think the statement you quoted reflected the essence of what he meant. You quoted:
"Georgetown University's Michael Kazin, dismissively implies "that anger from ordinary people is emotional, coming from people who don't understand how the economy works and are just lashing out at their social betters".
Whereas the whole sentence as written was:
`This elite propaganda, says Georgetown University's Michael Kazin, dismissively implies "that anger from ordinary people is emotional, coming from people who don't understand how the economy works and are just lashing out at their social betters."`
I don`t mean to be rude, and I do understand and know that the Left (some, not all, as I have read and met really respectful and understanding `leftist`) has not always lived up to its ideals, particularly when it comes to `denigration of the masses` - but I felt compelled to clarify Prof Kazin`s remarks.
Or perhaps my understanding of his meaning was amiss?
Thank you.
Thank you Widhalm and kivals for making my day.
The best part of decentralized direct online democracy is that size doesn't matter.
Unfortunately, in some ways the "little people" as well as many the rest of us, big and little alike seem to have have some kind of hard wiring to "shut up and follow the leader when there is danger". The elites have structured things so no natural leaders can emerge on the national level.
This "Obama Legal Team Wants Defendants' Rights Limited" coupled with the implied consent of torture may some day make torture a permitted police interrogation technique.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/obama-legal-team-wants-de_n_190852.html
Only a few years ago, writing this would brand someone a wacko. Today, this is worth considering.
Looks like Mr. Obama is Bush III.
You might regret jumping to conclusions.
In the mean time - ecologically hopeful, emergency aid to mass transit systems is in need of grassroots support
http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/t/3224/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1438
The ability of millions of Americans to get where they need to go each day is threatened. Eleven million people may not get to work or school or to the doctor because their bus route stopped running or their subway car was overfilled. And thousands of transit workers are about to get laid off.
It's happening today in nearly 100 American cities and towns, as jobs are cut, services are suspended, and fares are hiked sky high.
The federal government can help – and Congressional leaders are already looking for ways to address the immediate problem, but they need to hear from you.
Send an urgent email to your representatives today. Ask them to help transit systems through this crisis.
Another little reminder to all: 'Representative democracy' is an oxymoron.
Another: Scale no longer matters; direct democracy on whatever scale you prefer has been feasible since 1964. The wheel is no longer our highest technology. Now we have, but refuse to use, something called the 'electron.'
Wish you would all get up to date.
You know I agree with you 100%.
http://ni4d.us/
I'd never pooh-pooh populism, as that's my political religion. But I can recognize the dangers to populism from the faux-populist rage that's right now rampant in the country. The fine line between populism and demagoguery is easily passed when the lap-dogs of corporate power in the Congress and the White House rail indignant against executives of companies seeking bailout funds coming to hearings in their corporate jets; or when a President assembles the CEO's of the credit card companies to ream them new defecatory orifices--only to legislate in the end exactly as those corporate powers expect. What I'm saying is that populism is easily co-opted by the powers-that-be in so many ways that I don't have time at the moment to say. So let's TRUST our populist instincts, but be ever ready to VERIFY that they are not being manipulated by those very un-populist forces that are determined to rule us.
I wish Sirota had carried his argument a bit further. With the right essentially coopting populist rage, as in the "tea parties" of last week, the country is becoming poised for the kind of fascist resurgence that we all glimpsed during the Bush years. Witness the manufactured uproar of Janet Napolitano's warnings of the increased risks of a right wing terrorist attack ala Oklahoma City. Rather than facing this real domestic threat and starting to articulate a coherent and appealing program that addresses the real concerns of real people, many progressives simply pooh pooh the populist anger and fear that the tea parties represented. No wonder liberals are so easily painted as elitists while real elites continue to conduct business as usual.
As long as progressives sneer at the "astroturf" uprising of something like the Fox-concocted tea parties, they ignore the clear and dangerous fact that the right is coopting mass discontent. By offering simple answers aimed at exploiting fear and hatred, and by clearly defining enemies such as "Muslims," "illegals" or blacks, and by appealing to militant and virulent nationalism, the right has the upper hand. We saw this clearly enough over the last eight years. Now add in the economic crisis and I believe we are looking at some very bad times ahead.
Sioux Rose
JP: Apt and incisive observations.
Delusions keep the mass-right from mutiny against the elite-right. The crown jewel delusion is that leaving politics, economics and spirituality to the elite-right results in this "splendid society". Such delusions are severely flawed but those flaws are masked by the ritual flow of emotions over reason, promoted by the mass media.
The delusions may be extinguished through grass roots campaigns to enlighten the people. We first paint the picture of the mass-right/mass-left, and elite-right/elite-left, and illustrate the dynamics between them. The political, economic and spiritual delusions propagated by elites to confuse/enslave the people (especially on the right) is rather easy to see in this picture frame. The elite-left's "splendid society" is also a "perfect product" of elites, not to be mucked with by the masses.
The mass-right has to be weaned from the emotions inflamed by the elite-right's propaganda points, and conditioned to the reason encouraged by the far-left's populist points. Likewise for the mass-left, but somewhat easier. We have to unite the mass-left/right for successful defense against elite oppression. Get to work, people!
And how exactly do you cure arrogance and sanctimonious conceit? Obama outlined the Left's picture of the American working class in his faux pas in San Francisco. Thats what he and his class really think.
The Right wins so much because people see thru the elite Lefts charade of "caring" fairly easily.
Absolutely. The dismissiveness of the liberals and left plays right into the hands of the right wing coopters.
"Senator, Senator... The people are REVOLTING!"
"Yes I know."
It's an old joke but seems funnier every time I think about it.
Come on, we all know "populist" means very hard left radical anti-capitalist gay stem cell abortionists who hate God and Israel and torture and mostly live in San Fran!!!
It's about time both rights and lefts go out there on the street and started using their rage to catch their "social betters" in a pincher movement. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if there are suddenly trillions to give away to keep banksters in the style they have become accustomed to there always were millions available for alternate energy, medical care, public transport and social programs. No need for the two sides to polarize and fight each other, there is a common enemy at hand, far easier to get at than those ragged muslim terrorists flitting about in Afghanistan. Canada has about a hundred families of that sort also.
The problem I think lies in the underestimation of the proletariat and the underclass. Sadly, people on the Left often look down on them in a same way the Right does. The Right has their inner city black and brown bogeymen, The Left has their rural, Southern white, blue-collar, "hillbillies" and "rednecks." It even happens on these very forums. It's as if you're not allowed to have an opinion on anything unless you're a grad student at the very least.
The masses are dismissed and denigrated by the Left much of the time. The Right seduces, exploits, and then destroys them. Unfortunately, the poor and working class have thick skin. They're seeing through the BS and have been for a long time. The Right has nothing to offer the majority of Americans.
"...and why Democrats are pushing bills to expand healthcare, reregulate Wall Street and cap executive pay -- because they know the political class, however offended, can no longer stop a voter backlash."
If the Dems are truly trying to do all that, they're dropping the ball.
Nice post.
Fools often revert to stereotypes when they try to speak of our population, but it simply reveals them for what they are.
"If the Dems are truly trying to do all that, they're dropping the ball."
They left it on the 20 yard line. I think its beginning to become clear what their purpose really is.