Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiRalph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.
He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers' defective products. These policies would come with ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums and see most of the seriously ill left bankrupt and unable to afford medical care. Obama did nothing to halt the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference, after promising meaningful environmental reform, and has left us at the mercy of corporations such as ExxonMobil. He empowers Israel's brutal apartheid state. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where hundreds of civilians, including entire families, have been slaughtered by sophisticated weapons systems such as the Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of victims' lungs. And he is delivering war and death to Yemen, Somalia and perhaps Iran.
The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats. Liberals, unlike the right wing, are emotionally disabled. They appear not to feel. The tea party protesters, the myopic supporters of Sarah Palin, the veterans signing up for Oath Keepers and the myriad of armed patriot groups have swept into their ranks legions of disenfranchised workers, angry libertarians, John Birchers and many who, until now, were never politically active. They articulate a legitimate rage. Yet liberals continue to speak in the bloodless language of issues and policies, and leave emotion and anger to the protofascists. Take a look at the 3,000-word suicide note left by Joe Stack, who flew his Piper Cherokee last month into an IRS office in Austin, Texas, murdering an IRS worker and injuring dozens. He was not alone in his rage.
"Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?" Stack wrote. "Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country's leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political ‘representatives' (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the ‘terrible health care problem'. It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in."
The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats. It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative.
A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridicule-ask Nader or McKinney-is the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own. We have historical precedents to fall back upon.
"Here in the United States, at the beginning of the twentieth century, before there was a Soviet Union to spoil it, you see, socialism had a good name," the late historian and activist Howard Zinn said in a lecture a year ago at Binghamton University. "Millions of people in the United States read socialist newspapers. They elected socialist members of Congress and socialist members of state legislatures. You know, there were like fourteen socialist chapters in Oklahoma. Really. I mean, you know, socialism-who stood for socialism? Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Emma Goldman, Clarence Darrow, Jack London, Upton Sinclair. Yeah, socialism had a good name. It needs to be restored."
Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite. The longer socialism is identified with the corporatist policies of the Democratic Party, the longer we allow the right wing to tag Obama as a socialist, the more absurd and ineffectual we become. The right-wing mantra of "Obama the socialist," repeated a few days ago to a room full of Georgia Republicans, by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. speaker of the House, is discrediting socialism itself. Gingrich, who looks set to run for president, called Obama the "most radical president" the country had seen in decades. "By any standard of government control of the economy, he is a socialist," Gingrich said. If only the critique was true.
The hypocrisy and ineptitude of the Democrats become, in the eyes of the wider public, the hypocrisy and ineptitude of the liberal class. We can continue to tie our own hands and bind our own feet or we can break free, endure the inevitable opprobrium, and fight back. This means refusing to support the Democrats. It means undertaking the laborious work of building a viable socialist movement. It is the only alternative left to save our embattled open society. We can begin by sending a message to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader. Let them know they are no longer alone.
390 Comments so far
Show AllAwww, y'all got disappointed with Hopey Guy? Weren't you listening? Well, they're gonna allow us another fake election this November, and then another in 2012. Y'all get out there and work for your corporate whores now, heah? And, Mr. Hedges, if McKinney and Nader aren't alone, I'd like to know who is.
Better start dispersing anti-incumbant fever spores in water supplies and public spaces now.
A severe nationwide epidemic of anti-incumbant fever during 2010 elections will be the only way to turn things around.
No election will turn things around. Sorry. Not that simple.
Here we go again. Haven't we been through all this already? Move on!
What did s/he say that was untrue?
No election will turn things around sounds true to me. If you had the stamina to read the whole article, you'd have seen that it will take a social movement to turn things around, not the kabuki theater of a US election.
But no, modern Americans want social change at the flip of a switch.
Sigh...
The election of FDR and Ronald Reagan each turned things around rather significantly. The people's movement had its role but leadership did the trick in the end. When a president can go out of his way to keep the status quo and fail himself, he could also go out of his way to break the status quo and be a real leader of change instead of lying about it and then backstabbing us like that.
"The tea party protesters, the myopic supporters of Sarah Palin, the veterans signing up for Oath Keepers and the myriad of armed patriot groups have swept into their ranks legions of disenfranchised workers, angry libertarians, John Birchers and many who, until now, were never politically active. They articulate a legitimate rage."
What is their "legitimate rage"?
Do they know? Does Hedges know?
Would they have even formed if a black man was not president?
Of course not.
There are legitimate reasons for rage in this country, but if you think they are to be found in these teabagger groups, you are deluded.
Yes, I was thinking that the other day on my morning walk. You see I pass this house, which has a truck with a big billboard on it promoting the teabaggers, and I just know that if Clinton had been elected or any other white Dem, there wouldn't be a teabagger movement. When it comes to the teabaggers it is strictly black-man-in-the-White-House syndrome.
All the teabaggers are doing is muddying the waters of the legitimate rage. That's one of the reasons we might get this crappy HCR passed. Take Stack's missive. That paragraph Hedges quotes -- and I have read the entire thing -- I would say that's broad angst, regardless of what party you belong to. But the MSM did a good job with categorizing Stack, as they do with any other terrorist.
I think you are both way off here to dismiiss the Tea Party as a racist reaction to Obama. If you remember, there WAS a considerable and quite successful populist-right reaction against the so-called liberal Clinton too. Remember the Contract With America and the Gingritch cngressional sweep?
The rage is ligitimate, but absent a left narrative, their rage gets directed in exactly the direction corporate america wants it too.
Absolutely, pjd412.
Have you, waiguoren and samalabear, actually talked to a Tea Bagger? And if so, gotten beyond the ignorance and drool?
There is a legitimate rage behind all of this. It has to do with many things, as usual ... and yes, racism is in there somewhere. But there is so much more -- and as pjd412 writes, the left is absent in addressing it, save a guffaw or two.
These poor, dumb clucks were sold a bill of goods the same as the rest of us. The American Myth of Exceptionalism and the American Dream never existed in reality -- but now it's become obvious even to them. And the fascist right is there with the quick and easy answers.
Heed the Hedges or pay the Palin. This ain't going to be pretty.
You say it has to do 'with many things, as usual...'
But you don't name even one.
I would never use the word 'racism,' because it is meaningless.
I still maintain these dolts are mainly motivated by resentment over a black president.
I call them dolts because they have been turned around, and are looking in the exact wrong direction, and if you don't think they were easily turned away from their true enemies because there is a black man in the White House, then there you are then.
Yeah, he's half white, we all know that, but in this country, in these circumstances, that doesn't matter a whit.
Huh? I thought this comment pretty well summed it up:
"These poor, dumb clucks were sold a bill of goods the same as the rest of us. The American Myth of Exceptionalism and the American Dream never existed in reality -- but now it's become obvious even to them."
I'm not dissing your claim that reaction to a black man being President is part of this -- it's just not the whole reason for the rage; far from it. I'm sure you have, but just in case -- read all the Joe Bageant you can.
Joe Bageant, exactly! If the left would listen to him perhaps we could rebuild a strong working class based left movement and together we could save ourselves and th eplanet from the banksters and corporatists before it's too late. Indulging in easy dissing of the poor misled teabaggers OTOH only plays into the elites divide and conquer plans.
Well, actually, in their distress - with the help of the media, the Tea Party types are clinging to the myth of exceptionalism even more tightly.
And yes, most of my siblings are Tea Party.
And, something Hedges needed to point out is the reason liberals are so useless in tapping the working class discontent. Liberals, for the most part, are rich, and rather like the status quo. And aside from some tiny groups of anarchists and wooblies in a few large US cities in the NE and NW, there is NO leftist working class in the US - zero, zilch.
When I go to the heartland - places like Lexington, Kentucky, what passes for the "left" is a laughably stereotypical mix of rich people, the artists or actors who beg for their patronship for whom their politics begin and end with gay rights, and writers for the libertine-oriented free-weekly paper that sits outside of a few edgy cafes in what is supposed to pass as a viable downtown.
There is zero alternate news programming like Democracy Now or our local "Rustbelt Radio" in such places. An exhausted person working 60+ hour weeks week in and week out in not going to be seen in the public library looking up Marx or Chomsky either. The only world-view they hear is Rush Limbaugh on every radio at lunch, and the snarking from the liberal snobs in the free-weekly with the gay sex advice and call-girl ads in the back. In such an environment, to expect the worker to understand their actual class interests is to expect them to imagine a unicorn when they never have even described to them what one is.
And, no, I don't know what the answer is, because we are up against those who spend hundreds of billions of dollars controlling the conversation in a direction that serves their interests. But we better start at least defining it correctly.
True words have never spoken. Thank you for comment, it is the most enlightening thing I have read on this site.
On target.
Very similar here in rust belt Ypsilanti Michigan although being near Ann Arbor there are a few old school SDSers who are out there in the cold protesting U.S. empire and you can get Democracy Now! although I just listen to the podcast.
I also agree that the teabaggers who are being misled are *far* less our enemies than the actual powerful bankers, corporatists, and war mongering neo-cons who are doing the misleading. The establishment and MSM would very much like those of us on the anti authoritarian activist left to move our focus away from concentrated wealth and power and move our focus to the disenfranchised teabaggers who we ought to be talking with and supporting their rage against the bankers while strongly confronting any offered racism, sexism, homophobia, anti immigrant views, anti corporate regulation, anti single payer healthcare views etc. Some of the teabaggers *do* have intelligent things to says about the banks, the Federal Reserve, the burgeoning police state at home, especially the more intelligent Ron Paul branch of the teabaggers. Really the corporate Glenn Beck branch of the teabaggers are not only the nucleus of a perhaps proto facist movement but also bait to distract leftists into making easy white trash jokes that only in the long run very much backfire and increase support for the right. It used to bet the left kew how to reach out to the rural working class and "redneck" stood for the red socialist bandanas many miners who supported the IWW and socialist wore. Now that the left has stupidly embraced culture wars issues like gun control we have cut ourselves off from being able to communicate with the rural working class and armed urban poor, stupid, stupid, stupid. I bet if the left instead advocated peasant militias like Hugo Chavez does
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/5150
you might be surprised how many poor rural people and armed urban poor would join. Of course the elite New York Times writer pundit class wouldn't like would they? Too threatening to elite wealth and control...
Of course the Freedom Works/Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck supporters *are* hopeless and what we will do about them I have no idea. :(
Noam Chomsky admits that he occasionally listens to right wing talk shows - gasp! A smart man like Chomsky listens to meatheads?
He listens and says he hears credible complaints. Callers don't always have all the information they need - who does? - but they know there is suffering and that government and the filthy rich are a big part of the problem. They love their families, they want to live a meaningful life, they aren't really all that much different than you or me, they want a fair and equitable society to live in, not one where 2% runs the show.
The empire will continue to fuel animosity because it can only thrive on divisions. When we begin to make alliances with others who we typically malign, but who are also feeling the heat - watch out! The empire hates that!
Why not give the empire a run for it's money? Spoil its game plan.
Check out the polls. Most people are rather progressive. The majority wants out of the wars, they want a strong public option or single payer, they will pay more in taxes to protect the environment, etc.
We can capitalize on this. We the People are in the same boat. Unless we're rich and powerful, we are all to be used and thrown away.
RVRWALKER:
Thank you for pointing out to people that we need to listen carefully to the complaints of our fellow citizens and try to seek common ground where we can. Bravo! We have been manipulated for a long time by the old divide-and-conquer strategy, and this is one way to resist it.
Also, I have heard Noam Chomsky speak about his habit of checking in on right-wing radio shows, and his observations are very astute. Yes, you will hear a lot of crazy talk and outrageous claims, but it pays to consider the premises behind the assertions--there is indeed fertile territory here for reconciliation.
And a shout out to Noam: You are one of the most decent and humane individuals I have ever met in my life. You have enlightened so many of my students and colleagues over the years, and impressed them with your genuine humanitarianism. Your career has even given rise to a humorous aphorism around here: "To achieve wisdom, Noam thyself."
Thanks, Noam. Keep up the good work.
Prof. & walker, I also listen to the hard right radio for the same reasons; to understand the hosts 'talking orders' from their Empire bosses, and to hear real people who believe the right express their real problems (which would never really be solved by the hard right (proto-fascist) claimed policies.
The main thing I would agree whole-heartedly with both of you is the need to an empathetic Global People's Movement to confront this damn Global corporate/financial/militarist Empire.
Kevin Zeese and Dave Beito at VotersforPeace are forming a people's "Anti-Empire" movement --- which will hopefully be Global, since a high percent of people outside America realize even more than good, working-class average Americans that the impact of this damn Empire, temporarily headquartered in the US is really Global Control.
Yes, solidarity and empathy by all average (non-ruling-elite) people in a Global People's Movement against Global Empire is our only hope today.
Hell, maybe even Obama would join it once we get it rolling --- because he sure as hell isn't going to lead it --- so maybe he'll at least get out of the way. We could even save a spot for him when he gets tired of shilling for the EMPIRE, and they turn on him with 'extreme prejudice', when his 'plausible electivity' fails, and they can no longer claim 'Plausible deniability', as the Secret Team's CIA says.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
ALAN: From reading your other posts, I believe that you are one of the many perceptive citizens from the remarkable and progressive state of Maine. Thank you for your thoughtful contributions to this forum. I always read them.
Okay, I confess, I voted for Obama. Was it so bad that, for once, I wanted to see a black man as president? His election made a lot of minorities feel empowered. A lot of tears were shed the night of his election.
Will I vote for him again? No, of course not. We all treasured the hope that, though he had mostly been brought up around wealth (private schools, etc.), his marriage to Michelle might have forged a connection with the underclass. We were wrong. Sorry to all the Hedges and Naders of the world that our votes only perpetuated the folly of Bush II. It was worth a try.
I'm sorry to say it but, yes, it was "so bad" that so many wanted to see *that* oreo as president.
Unless there's something special about electing a Black *man* as president, I don't see why people wouldn't have felt just as empowered with Cynthia. Of course, when I asked (on leaving the polling place) only one of a group of 8-10 young Black people coming out just behind me had even *heard* of Cynthia. And even she voted for Obama.
I think the take-home is that anyone sold like a "new! improved!" detergent is going to have just about that much "new" and "improved". I.e., nothing.
With all respect to you (and I do indeed respect you!), it wasn't "worth a try" because it was already obvious in 2004 that he was just a different color bottle with the same old same-old inside.
Of course there was something special about electing a black man president.
Are you kidding me?
And because he is less than the savior of the world, the good 'progressives' lay more scorn on his head than they did even for the likes of Reagan and the Bushes.
You people are a joke!
What, there was something special about electing a *man*? That was my question.
And I hate to break it to you, but there's quite a large continuum between a "savior of the world" and what we got stuck with. It's not the dichotomy you imagine.
Yeah, your emphasis was on the word 'man' and it was preceded by the word Black, I guess referring to Cynthia, who had and has about as much chance of becoming president as I do.
So if 'savior of the world' is at the top of the continuum, what's at the bottom?
Destroyer of the world?
And President Obama's place on this wonderful continuum is not up to an acceptable level, is that it?
You flatter yourself if you think you've as much chance as Cynthia to become president.
---------------------------------
And President Obama's place on this wonderful continuum is not up to an acceptable level, is that it?
---------------------------------
Yes, that's exactly it.
Why Vegas odds on my becoming president would be that much different from C.M. I do not know. Do you?
Self-flattery is a wonderful thing, by the way. Must be, cause I see so much of it.
So Obama is not up to snuff for you; in fact you apparently see him as way below snuff.
And your choice would be...?
And your choice would be...?
---------------------------
Were it within my gift, I'd choose a functional co-presidency, with Dennis as the titular president handling internal affairs, because he comes from a socially privileged (White male) but economically-deprived background and has elected experience in executive, legislative, and staff roles, and Cynthia as the titular VP handling external affairs because she has a socially-deprived (Black female) but economically-secure background.
VERY GOOD CHOICES: WOULD THEY WERE POSSIBLE WINNERS!!
"referring to Cynthia, who had and has about as much chance of becoming president as I do."
You were on the ballot? Damn! I must've missed it. I would have voted for you over the corporate/MIC shill who won the election.
Waiguoren:
You are wrong. We are always, and always entitled, I might add, to pour more scorn on supposed representative of the party of FDR, JFK and LBJ than on representatives of the party of Coolidge, Reagan and Bush. We expect no better from the latter but we have every right to expect better from the representatives of the party of the New Deal and Great Society.
We lay scorn on his head because in many ways he is even worse than odious war criminal Bush. For example he has more troops on the ground than even Bush at the height of the surge.
http://www.alternet.org/world/144449/obama_far_outdoes_bush_in_escalating_war_--_the_numbers_will_surp...
He continued and expanded *Bush's* TARP bailout of elite banksters while millions of American were thrown out of their houses, legally defended *Bush's* domestic spying programs (read Gleen Greenwald to get up to speed there),
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
continues renditions, lied about a green jobs program. I am actually *less* able to protest against U.S. imperialist wars since Obama won as our local peace group (Michigan Peaceworks) was nothing but a shell group fro the Democrats and refuse to march against Obummer's escalations.
The sad thing is I voted for Obama after knowing better and having voted for Ralph Nader in 96 and Leonard Peltier in 2004. I am truly sorry for that decision and can only please believing Obama's lies about a green jobs program and confronting Hilary's war mongering. Mea Culp, sorry Cynthia McKinney. I shan't be voting for Dems ever again, good bye one term President, I will be voting Green from here on out. I will *never* listen to Dim party hack lesser of two evils rhetoric again so save your breath and keystokes Dim party hacks.
Yes, it was so bad. The color of a man's skin doesn't matter. Obama is just a slicker version of George Bush. Now we we have in the history books that the first black president was just a half-white house 'n---'/slave who just smiled nice and catered completely to massa; the banksters.
A black president? Sure that would be great! And there are many good black men that couold do the job. But not this one.
If you listened during the campaign, you would have known Obama/Clinton/McCain where all the same and all bad for the country. Yes, I worked for and voted for Nader.
But, on the bright side, your learning. :-) Hopefully many more will do so!
Remeber, your job is to vote for the best candidate, thats it, make up your mind and don't listen to the mainstream media and let them tell you who to vote for, because they are lying to you. Why did Nader 'have no chance'. Last I checked the candidate with the most electoral college votes won. Yes, the media convinced the cattle that only the republicons & demicons had a chance. How about for the next election we don't be cattle, and just vote for the best candidate, which will surely not be a republicon or demicon.
Am surprised you said "the color of a man's skin doesn't matter." Are you a resident of the United States? Ask any member of a racial minority in America if the skin color matters. It does. And Obama's election had meaning to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities. Wish politics was just about governing philosophy, but it is about so much more.
Why does everyone keep calling Obama a "black president". He is HALF-WHITE and that is the problem!
Wanda Sykes said that if Obama went off-track, she'd be saying 'What BLACK man You mean that mulatto?"
It doesn't matter what color or gender a president is. JFK was a hell of a lot better and maybe even LBJ and Carter too and all that despite being white but color isn't the problem. It's what each of them did or is doing as leader that will make or break them.
Yes, you have a point my "the color of a man's skin doesn't matter." sentence fragment was not the best I could have done. What I meant (hopefully explained better here) was that when you make a decision to vote for a man you should vote for the best man you can, regardless of his skin color. Sorry for my miscommunication. And yes, I certainly aknowlege the prejudice and racism that exists in some of the anti-Obama screeds, particularly on Fox.
Me too.
However, given a choice, I'd have preferred Desmond Tutu.
Perhaps it's true that we get what we deserve (punishment - for all the sins that Howard Zinn has chronicled).
Desmond Tutu? Give me a break. J.J. Walker would have been a better president than the clown we have.
This apology took guts. You have shown me that there is hope.
Thanks.
What's PUMA for "I told you so"?
PUMA? Oh really now. Hillary Clinton would've been just as bad, if not worse. Her commitment to real people was amply demonstrated by her own health care "reform" failures -- and her relentless pushing of NAFTA. And don't even get me started on her neocon foreign policy -- which, wouldn't you know, we're getting anyway.
I doubt that Hillary would have won against Mccain since she was a long known Democrat and a lightening rod. I used to believe her health reform back when she tried to push hers. Now, I am starting to see its flaws. You would be surprised to find out how many of us Democrats equated her plan with single payer at that time.
Percentage of Americans involved in Tea Party Movement: 11
Number of mentions of “Tea Party” past month in Lexis radio and TV transcript search: 1042
Percentage of Americans who favor socialism: 20
Number of mentions of “socialism” past month in Lexis radio and tv transcript search: 69+
Source: Danny Schechter
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24805.htm
Exactly we need to keep hammering points like this home.
Hedges is correct that going third-party won't be a quick fix, but there is an issue in today's headlines that's begging for socialists get involved and call out our differences with the Obama administration: health care. The socialist approach would be single-payer, which is popular when explained, and simply makes so much more sense than the corporate Obama plan.
That's the immediate opportunity to draw the distinction between socialists and corporatists like Obama.
" It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative."
Chris Hedges is exactly right. No more voting for democrats. The party has lost its heart, its backbone, its brain (to be metaphorical about it).
Anyone who has listened to Nader knows how good he is.
Jim Shea
I'll continue to vote Democrat, not because they're a perfect party but simply because the only other option is so ridiculously insane. Voting third party only eliminates one more informed intelligent voter, giving the tea baggers a bigger vote come election time. I'll vote for a flawed party before I'll vote for one that is completely incompetent on every level.
May I suggest you ponder the good cop/ bad cop scam?
This is the logic that has brought us to this point: a series of "least-worst" choices still marches us toward what so few have the balls to point out: We plunge headlong into fascism, and Obama (which is better: Otoma or Obomba, it's tough to decide)has been a no less willing a handmaiden than Bush I, II, Reagan, Clinton--
"Democrats" who vote for illegal war and torture are no different from "Socialists" who do so, right?
Any clue who the last bunch was to support such abominations and call themselves "Socialists?"
Do you have a shred of evidence that Pelosi, Reid, Otoma, any of them, have cast a vote or filibustered anything lately? How in sweet jesus' baby blanket do you think we got Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court? And continued rendition and torture and no habeus corpus and the myriad of evils (*and they are aptly termed evil) outlined by Mr. Hedges in the article?
This is one of the few pieces I've seen in years that calls bullshit and draws the line.
But maybe you're young, and you just can't see it. But I'll try again:
Voting for Democrats produces precisely the same results as voting for Republicans. During W, Congress was controlled by a Repub. majority, and nothing was done, then they took the House and Senate, and still, the Reps. controlled, impeachment came off the table, the wars ground on, then BHO came, and suddenly, they still can't pass jack--
Don't count the "Healthcare" bill, as it criminalizes many, impoverishes many more, and cares for no one but the insurance companies.
So, again, pray tell, how are Democrats different?
Who is Otoma?
It could be another name for the famous phrase "Uncle Tom Obama".
Indeed.
As I pointed out, "Otoma" and "Obomba" vie for the most-accurate re-spelling.
Puffin, couldn't agree with you more.
JimmyStewart
I think that your belief was effectively eviscerated in the documentary An Unreasonable Man which chronicled the life of Ralph Nader. One would have thought that you would have finally recognized that voting for the lesser of two evils still does not do away with getting an evil which should not be a desirable result at all. The critics [and especially Democrats] of independents who dare to run for office is that it is just not the right time for someone like a Ralph Nader to run for office. As Phil Donahue inquires in the film, perhaps independent candidates should beg the Democrats with cup in hand as to when they believe, with their [alleged] infinite wisdom, that it might finally be time for someone who is neither a Democrat nor a Republican to finally run for office.
Perhaps the most telling observation of the Democrats came from investigative reporter James Ridgeway who noted in the film concerning the Democrats' efforts to block Nader from appearing on ballots across the country and keeping him out of debates against the Democrats and Republicans:
"The Democrats are the meanest bunch of motherfuckers that I have ever seen."
Certainly the Afghan and Pakistani families as well as the people of Yemen who have seen their relatives ripped to pieces by U.S. bombs or the 45,000 or so American families whose loved ones will have to die each year because they are unable to receive adequate health care in this country [i.e. universal health care] would, in all likelihood, have no trouble agreeing with Ridgeway's statement.
Can you articulate specifically policy wise how Dim are soooo much better than Repigs? The only difference I can see is the Dims are pro-choice and anti gun. Those differences are vanishingly small and nothing but a distraction when it comes to addressing the fact that the government has been captured by concentrated wealth of corporations and banksters that support endless war under *both* parties. Bill Clinton ended even any pretense that Dim were friends of the working class or environment.
Now articulate specific policies where where Obama is better than the odious Bush, not things he ha said, things he has done. You won't be able to because I have addressed this questions to Dim party apolagist fro months now and *never* gotten a straight answer.
Why not try to nominate good Democratic candidates during the primaries and when that fails vote third party? The hard work is in the primaries, the general election is just a run-off.
In my suburban/exurban, but still fairly working class, district of Republican Tim Murphy (PA-18th), the damocrats, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, pretty much hang any democratic challenger out to dry - aero funding, zero support -particularly so if any kind of economic-populist manages to win the primary.
You read the above right. To repeat, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO supported the incumbent Republican over the Democrat in my district in the last election.
In contrast, for some reason, in the suburban district to my north, the Democrats pour enormous resources and TV time to get and keep hard-right gen-x Democrat Jason Altmire in office.
bgcd
Your argument sounds similar to that of Democratic apologists Todd Gitlin and Eric Alterman who complained in the documentary An Unreasonable Man that Nader should have spent his time and energy working in the Democratic party instead of going out on his own. Perhaps you were not paying attention as to what occurred in 2006 when so many Democrats were swept into office. And what was the result of these Democratic victories? As Nader pointed out in the film, they continued to, among other things, fund the immoral disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq and, like today, made no substantial efforts to implement universal health care for the people of the United States.
Here is a novel thought. Why not attempt to convince Americans that they should vote for candidates who, unlike Obama, are indeed true agents of hope and change, such as Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney and any true socialist candidates who dare to run for public office in the United States. As should have been apparent by now, the Democrats have absolutely no real desire to change the status quo. Lance Selfa drives this point home quite effectively in his book The Democrats: A Critical History.
We have for profit medicine, hateful religions preaching selfishness, mercenaries fighting wars, socialism for the rich and the most ignorant population of any industrialized country. This is american culture.
You also have much that is to be admired. Much that is decent, and noble, still. It's not too late.
-Bill
Not long ago, on counterpunch.org, I read an article that listed the U.S at 65th in literacy -- in the world. To me, this should be an important issue. If a person isn't a good reader, he, or she, will probably NOT read, and even if the person does read, the person will not be able to absorb and process the information in a meaningful way. For a good reader, even math becomes easier.
The other night, when I watched Bill Maher -- Real Time, the panel had a very lively conversation about health care reform, and they talked about how so many people parrot the mantra about the U.S. -- "We have the best health care system in the world." The truth, though, is quite different -- we are rated at #37 in the world. Those same people also chant -- "U.S. is number ONE!" Nothing could be further from the truth -- sadly!
I am NOT nostalgic about our education system -- I grew up in southwest Iowa in a very conservative, very religious community during the 1960s. Some kids were encouraged, and many kids were NOT encouraged, despite having good minds. I won't go into any specific stories, but I can, if people want to know. I was among those who were NOT encouraged, and part of the reason was probably that I was a girl, and in a community where religion lies at the heart of the basic belief systems, religion, and in turn, Red Oak, IA, taught submission of girls and women. We were NOT supposed to speak up, or speak out. However, class was also a very big issue. And, I watched some boys, who were from the "other side of the tracks," so to speak, and one boy in particular who was very artistic, suffer greatly from the attitudes of prejudice from some of my teachers, Even as a child, I recognized the cruelty! When I was in high school, I read a book written by John O'Hara, 10 North Frederick, and I'll never be sure if Red Oak illuminated the book for me, or if the book illuminated Red Oak for me -- about class. There are thousands of communities like Red Oak scattered across this country.
Since I could not feed my brain at school, I spent much of my time at the library where I could read about anything I wanted, if the book/s were on the shelf. Ray Bradbury has often stated that "The library is the real brain of a community."
The other day, I began reading Steven Hill's book, Europe's Promise. The facts he includes in the book are startling, even though I know where the U.S. sits on the world scale of so-called "bests."
Kay, your post points up something very important. Many of us endured the same kind of repressive public school education in small, god-intoxicated communities during the 60s, and bear the scars to this day. I happen to be male, but I was from the other side of a small town's tracks, so I know exactly what you're saying. The enabling of the high muckety-mucks at that critical time in this nation's history, at the expense of the real talents whose care and feeding was ignored (and whose antlers were trimmed before they ever had a chance to step onto the world stage), has yielded a bitter harvest. So much potential thrown away.
Perhaps only a person from Red Oak - or from Red Lick Mountain in my case - can fully understand this.
maestromerwan: Red Lick Mountain, huh? I keep hearing people speak about the so-called "good old days," when education meant something. I agree that much potential has been, and is being thrown away. In 2003, I returned to Red Oak, Iowa to do some family research and the town seems the same to me -- except that the community no longer thrives. Most businesses located on the town square have shut down, and the factories that once operated are long gone. I was surprised that the 2000 census showed Red Oak to have a population of 6100 people, not too different than when I went to school there. Still, though, the public library thrives, and it was a kind of deja vu to be researching there in 2003, and to look back on my years in junior high and high school, having spent much of my time at the library. But, the church I attended, to which I no longer belong, or believe in, continues to teach submission of women and girls. It's a place that seems, literally, stuck in time.
Thanks for your reply and I'm so sorry that you were forced to live through similar treatment in Red Lick Mountain!
Never, ever vote for a candidate whose modus operandi is to give speeches promising to correct social ills without pledging to specific programs of action. Of course, the pledges candidate Obama did make have just about all been broken by president Obama. Mostly they (Bill Clinton, Obama) blather on about "hope" and "change" without taking the trouble to do the work of organizing support for effecting needed change. So it is just empty rhetoric for them, what I call "out-gassing". Whatever you may think about Lyndon Johnson and his role in foisting the Vietnam War on the world, at least he knew how to push the landmark civil rights and social legislation (Medicare, etc.) through Congress.
Barack Obama is a boot-licking lackey and marionette of the corporate oligarchy. He made a Faustian bargain with them that he would get to play "President" for four years if he didn't get in the way of their grabs for greater and greater ownership and control of resources and markets. His turd of a "healthcare" bill would be a fitting monument to his administration; too bad it will be supported by the blood and sweat of the poor and working people for the benefit of the oligarchs.
P.S. I voted for Cynthia McKinney.
"...he would get to play "President" for four years..."
Yep, 4 Years, that is about all he will have IF the Democratic Party will primary the lying AH.
Obama doesn't care though as he will have fulfilled his contract with Corporate America and he will be Set For Life.
Tax Free Foundation, Lifetime Pension, Lifetime Health Care and many corporate speaking events where he will get to extoll his wonderful service to America all for a fee which will make him very rich.
His little betrtayal will make sure another black candidate will not be elected President in at least 100 years. You the man Obama. LOL!!!
Mr. Hedges is right, as usual. I'm hoping his plea for more socialism won't be shouted down by the ignorant, the illiterate or the brainwashed mob.
The top ten countries in the world to live in, by whatever poll you want, based on quality of life ie. infant mortality rate, progressive taxation, controls on corporations, universal medical care, public services, official corruption, human rights, literacy, public safety, etc. are all- every one of them- social democratic-socialist- countries. My own included. The U.S. currently stands fourteenth.
Yes, we have problems. As do all countries. And we pay lots of taxes. For the common good. A philosophy you seem either to have forgotten or perhaps never really had.
A suggestion- get a passport and travel- spend some time in countries that are social democratic- or at least read about them. Find out why, while this raging debate over health care seems to be tearing you apart, the rest of the civilized world, long ago, recognized that some socialism was a good thing, and are watching incredulously. We've all moved on- why can't you? We've had universal health care, paid by public taxes, for almost fifty years here. Its far from perfect, and we too could learn from the Scandanavian countries- Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark- how to do it better.
There is much at stake here. We're all sincerely hoping you guys pull out of this freefall. Not only because you'll take us with you, but because so much of what is good , decent and even noble is at risk of being lost.
Bill in Canada
oh- by the way- we just won more Winter Olympic Gold medals than you guys or anyone else in the history of the games, Including kicking your butt in hockey, mens and womens. Not bad for a bunch of Socialists, eh?
I wouldn't call Canada socialist or even social democratic.
Regularly reading the Toronto Star, and the comments to their news stories, I have never read such rabid hostility toward labor unions, public transit, and the public sector in general. Toronto's mayor current Mayor David Miller (NDP) is derided in carracitured ways as a "socialist".
In Sudbury, the mine workers union is being busted with much public support.
The main reason there is so much antipathy to a national health care system in the U.S. (Ignoring the minority that is concerned about health freedom) is that the defense budget has broken the bank and to do health care would mean dismantling the Empire. The US gov't prefers to try to dismantle the social democracies--hence the EU, NATO Expansion. pjd below points out some of those efforts in Canada.
The same could be said of antipathy and opposition to cannabis. It is no coincidence that this is the same developed nation that not only stands out as lacking universal health care of any kind but also outlawing cannabis, the plant of peace that would put the breaks on the MIC.
Having been to some other nations recently, I would say that some people there have already decided to fight back but I think that they are taking uncertain approaches such as copying the aggressive and unethical western values thinking that they will get even instead of moving to the US. What pjd points out in Canada is yet another example of people thinking that they'll get even with the US by copying their moves. It may force the US to slow down and realize that they are no longer dominant but the global consequences could be scary.
Congratulations, Canada. You're not perfect, but you're further ahead than we are.
Oh, and you don't prosecute illegal and immoral wars, and you don't rape, torture and murder the innocent civilians of other countries. What a novel concept. Thanks for staying sane, next door to your insane neighbor.
A brilliant article, Mr. Hedges, written with the appropriate anger and disgust. However, like Ralph Nader, I would doubt that the Green Party is a suitable vehicle for reform. Being registered as a Green and having worked for the Green Party in Delaware in the 2000 (and voting Green in 1996), I found them to be concerned almost solely with environmental, vegetarian and NIMBY issues, with little interest in organizing among working folk or the unemployed and absolutely no interest in "socialism". Perhaps in other states it is different. Greens in other countries, especially Germany, have proven to be just one more bourgeous party. We have our own illustrious socialist past, one that has been put down the memory hole by the corporate media, let us remember Eugene Debs, Joe Hill, Bill Haywood, Walter Reuther, Vito Marcantonio and Michael Harrington. We have vestages of these parties that survive today and it is these that should be built upon. And, by the way, let us recognize that individual memebers of the Communist Pary USA were the most active, the spearhead, of the union movement that gave us the forty hour week and the rest of the "American Dream" that we are rapidly losing.
Tony Vodvarka
Hummmm.... Lemme see if I got this right. Since both parties are corporate whores, a statement I agree with completely, the truly Righteous among us are going to form a third party for all the lotus-breathed, commie-lovin', America-hatin; tree-hugging, dirt worshipers and in so doing sap the nuts, guts, and feathers out of the Democrats, the best of all possible whores on the block, sad though the situation may be, thus handing overwhelming control of both houses of congress and the Presidency to the worst whore on the block, the Repugs. I bet my fascist friends would gleefully belly up to the new party's donation table to help that happen. I think sometimes in a real world you just have to hold your nose and light a candle for tomorrow while voting for the least of all possible evils. I still remember Florida in 2000.
(Political) success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
Actually, no, you don't have it right at all. You're simply saying that you believe whole-heartedly in "Lesser-Evilism," a bankrupt system of illogic that's largely responsible for where we are, today.
People with more brains than you have dissected & thoroughly refuted the "logic" of Lesser-Evilism. There are numerous excellent books written on the subject -- you should read some of them.
It's interesting that you admit you have "fascist friends." I wonder what your conversations with them are like.
And furthermore .... you do NOT remember Florida in 2000. You remember what you've been fed as truth by MSM and Democratic Party apologists who still need a scapegoat for the fiasco that election was.
For the millionth time. Gore won Florida. He won the 2000 election. It was stolen, malrox, and Gore particapted in the theft by laying down like the beaten puppy he was. He "lost" that election all by his little ol' lonesome.
Nader had nothing to do with Gore's "loss". If you need someone to kick, find some of the 10% of Florida Democrats who voted for Bush that year.
The 100's of 1000's of chicken-shits who abandoned Nader put Gore over the top in New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin and made the vote close enough to steal in Florida ... and oh by the way, ended the last great chance we'll have for a progressive third party movement in my lifetime.
How are the Dims less evil though? Name *one* substantive policy Obama or Dim controlled Congress have worked for in the past several years. Stumped you didn't I? The lesser of two evil voodoo is wearing off, I will be voting Green myself this fall and 2012 but I would say even a vtoe for sincerely anti empire anti police state Libertarians is better than a vote for also corporate whore pro police state pro endless war Democrats. Hint the Dims just completely renewed the Patriot Act. Nice... :(
Sigh!
Notice the Dim party apologists can't even come up with *one* substantive policy based reason to support Obama. Telling idn't it? Any Green 2012.
Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results each time. Your ears should have perked up after Clinton, this Obama admin has left no doubt. Voting for corporate fascist candidate A versus corporate fascist candidate B will still result in corporate fascist government, regardless of which A or B you choose. Unfortunately, you'll pull the hammer out and smack yourself in the hand a third time. Good luck with that.
Hummmm.... Least-worstism? Isn't that what we've been doing these past couple decades, while things have gone right down the toilet? Isn't that how the Democratic and Republican Parties morphed into the two wings of the Corporatist Party?
Florida 2000? Can you say President Lieberman?
Liebermann would have been VP had Gore won in 2000. There have been interpretations that since Liebermann, more than Cheney or Bush, had pushed for the Iraq War in 2002, Gore would have also let it happen since Liebermann would have been in Cheney's position. The only thing that would have stopped this war or at least reduced its prolonging would have been cuts to defense spending. Clinton was sort of good at cutting war spending and he would respect the Pentagon's decision on not increasing spending unlike Bush. Gore was like Clinton but a little more conservative. Of course, being a neoliberal would have been more than enough to make Gore a one termer. I don't think Gore would have been a neocon like Joe Liebermann.
My point, in case you missed it, was that after Gore's term ended Joe Lieberman would have been the Democratic nominee for president. In other words, there's a good chance that we would now have President Liebermann.
We need to make common cause where we can find it, even if it's sometimes with tea-party types who drive us to distraction with their ignorance. (Considering the disinformation they get, it's hard to blame them sometimes!).
But...how to even GET a good representative into the power structure who isn't Dim or Repug!
I went through all the comments...not ONE person, even those lamenting the spoiler effect, ever mentioned IRV! (That's where you can vote for a third party as your FIRST choice, but you still have that all-important SECOND choice to fall back on so your vote no longer has to DEFAULT to your LAST choice!...giving the voter a REAL CHOICE instead of the Lesser-of-two-evils syndrome or the Spoiler effect).
It's really like banging your head against a wall, isn't it? Over the past 8 years I have never gotten a scrap of support for this, from any Democrat, either, because the two big parties know IRV would threaten their two-party stranglehold where they can get away with playing goodcop/badcop with us and point to any other party as the spoiler (which is indeed what happens in this lousy adolescent system).
Add to that the fact that in most states you can only vote in the all-important Primaries if you are registered Dim or Repug (...and that's the only reason I'm still registered as a Democrat) and you have your rigged system, GUARANTEED to bring you NO Change, and a "NO, WE CAN'T" mentality, like we've seen with Single-Payer.
If People can't get behind the necessity for basic changes in our electoral system, there will never BE a "Peoples' Party" and the slide down to Fascism won't even get its brakes adjusted! There won't even be tire marks to show where we left the road.
I'm with you Granny. IRV has made some headway in Minnesota. It's now in place in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Thanks for the "No, we can't" slogan regarding single-payer. I'm going to borrow that. It applies equally well to financial reform, green energy and ending "dumb" wars, doesn't it? Obama may become the poster boy for IRV before his term is finished.
Its interesting to read this column and then scroll down and read Frank Rich's column about Joseph Stack to see an example of how liberals treat anger and try to foist it all off onto the rabid right. Stacks act was the act of a man driven insane but if you read his suicide note you see that he is not a tea bagger and his anger is one that many on the left share. That the government should bail out the richest and those most to blame for financial failure and at the same time let hundreds of thousands die from lack of healthcare in the richest country in the world is something we must feel anger about or be feelingless.
Rich wants it to be about anger from the right and to distance liberalism from anything nasty. Its like the Dems voting so swiftly to condemn Acorn, when anyone with a brain could see this was a right wing set up. But acting like a schoolteacher chastising a naughty student comes natural to them most especially when there is no price to pay for their actions. Think of it, they voted to condemn Acorn but never to condemn and fire Blackwater for rapes and murder. Because condemning Blackwater might have cost them something. So they vote for contractors who loot the public purse and commit the worst kind of depravity but then turn around and get all righteous and bipartisany to go after a useful organization like Acorn. They're dying to prove they are patriots on the terms Repubs have set.
Only Laura Flanders, with Hedges, seems to have noticed that Stack's note contained an anger found on the left and his concern for others dying from lack of healthcare clearly separates him from the tea party's sociopathic lack of human empathy. So anxious are liberals like Rich to push away any anger that might involve them they have left all passion to the right and we have an anemic and unmoved and unmoving mass of liberals who are utterly ineffectual. And an anger directed righfully at the greedy is turned by the right to their continuing narrative about government as the sole source of our problems. In this way liberals like Rich and most of the Democratic Congress and the President help construct the narrative that will bring them down. And they can feel righteous about their good behavior in the face of bad and go to heaven, I guess, because they are useless on this earth at this time to do anything needed.
I don't condone what Stack did in anyway but I understand why he was driven mad by this system and it was about far more than taxes. But liberals and left are not the same. I've been an activist since the late 60's and I remember Phil Ochs "Love Me, Love Me, I'm a Liberal" which says it all. Obama is exactly that kind of liberal when he isn't strictly corporatist. We need radical leftists, radical ecologists, ecofeminists, the Green party. They will not be welcomed by the mainstream media but nothing less will do.
The Women's movement began with consciousness raising groups where women expressed their personal feelings of oppression as women and then saw that what they were dealing with was systemic and political and from there formed a politic and then formed institutions like Women Against Rape and women's shelters. Emotion is an activator, we need it. We ought to be furious about the banks stealing all our money and the Pentagon getting the lions share of the federal budget to fight endless war while the people are starved of productive work, healthcare and education. And we ought to learn to tell this story with the passion it deserves.
Frank Rich has written some excellent columns lately, but this one was, he lost me totally. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking but I've read Stack's manifesto and how could anybody who read that peg this guy as a lunatic right wingnut teabagger? Doesn't he speak about a neighbor who was eating cat food? He showed deep empathy for this person. Do teabaggers show empathy for anyone? As I said in my other comment the MSM decided to categorize this guy as a total right wingnut and it looks like Rich decided to support that little venture.
It seems that Stacks manifesto was broadly written as to have most people see it as supporting their own position, whatever that position is.
He certainly has some leftist-class conscious snippets in there, but mostly, it was about personal financial problems borne of an excessive desire to "get rich", from a person who was hardly poor.
And the tighter IRS rules on "Form-1099 independent contractors" - which Stack complained so much about has actually benefited the real working class greatly. The mis-classification of workers as "independent contractors" has been a big part of their screwing by the bosses.
REAL leftists don't KILL innocent people. Stack was mentally troubled. Let's not romanticize evil acts. Pressure Obama away from Emanuel, Sommers, Gaitner back to the left. A third party, at this point could put a tea bag repub in power. If so McCains "bomb,bomb Iran" may be realized. They would probably go back to privatizing social security.Palin might become secretary of state. She's an expert. After all she can see Russia from her house in Alaska.
I can't believe it; already the "lesser of two evils" ploy.
In case you haven't noticed, shach, Obama is pretty much on the same page with GW Bush. The "change we can believe in," which to my shame and regret I voted for, has turned out to be the same old crap. I don't see how McCain and Palin would have been much different. Now that I have seen the true nature of the sold-out Democrats, I fear the Republicans and the Democrats equally, because they are the same!
I will always deeply regret I didn't vote for Ralph Nader, a shining example of true integrity, honor, and good sense, and I'm not going to be conned again by the Democrats. Third party from now on, for me.
(It is laughable for you to suggest that we "pressure Obama away from Emanuel, Sommers, Gaitner back to the left." And that makes me wonder-- were your remarks intended as sarcasm?)
Pressure Obama away from the goons? How has that been working out for over a year now? Obama is already on his way towards privatizing Social Security through another possible bailout for the corporate goons. Who needs the Republicans when the Democrats are ready to work so hard to pander to the rightwing and defeat themselves. The Republicans may very well win Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012 at the rate Obama and the current Congress are working very hard to fail themselves.
Pressure Geithner who is closely tied to Goldman Sachs to the left, hahahahahahahahha....
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/161374/Tim-Geithner-Too-Close-to-Goldman-Sachs-to-Be-Trea...
That was the funniest thing I have read on the net all week, I am glad I wasn't drinking iced tea because I would have sprayed it all over my keyboard.
Reread my comments. I said pressure Obama to the left AWAY from Gaitner et al.
"Pressure Obama away from Emanuel, Sommers, Geitner, ect."?
Ha ha ha! Fat chance!
Mr. Hedges, I want to agree with you on many things and disagree about something I see as very important. You said the tea party movement is proto-fascist. I agree with this but I believe it is fair to call the govt. fascist. In this sense, America isn't ready to go fascist, it's there. I certainly agree that the progressive movement needs to articulate economic/social/political/climate justice, forcefully and immediately. It's our one hope of reversing fascism.
What I experienced during Obama's campaign was a systematic silencing from the left. Anyone who dared point out inconvenient truths about Obama's actions and voting record was immediately shouted down as a traitor, racist or disloyal to the Democratic party. I consider the silencing of dissent one of the worst qualities of the left wing. It's a very dangerous thing to do. There were times I didn't speak up because I was in a full room and the rage against anyone who didn't support Obama was palpable. When I did speak up, both before and after the election, I was called names worse than I was ever called for speaking out about Cheneybush.
So this time I'm asking people on the left to please listen to those of us who don't agree with you about Obama and the Democrats. You don't have to agree with us, but please check out what we are saying. When we present evidence, don't ignore it and don't start screaming it down, pay attention. Don't silence dissent, ever again. And most certainly, let's start working on social justice, peace, stopping the surveillance state, fixing the environment, etc. I'll work with just about anyone who wants to do even one of those things, even if I disagree with them about many other things.
Jill, you have my support and I have come to realize that listening to all sides more than getting fixed about who is winnable matters more than anything. I have read a lot of progressive sites and sources but this one stands out as one of the best in progressive thinking, firm and clear. I will have to confess that even now, despite what I have learned these past 6 months, I must first convince myself that I am truly ready to stand out there and not be afraid to vote with my heart and mind. I will also have to convince those neutral minds out there not to get suckered into settling for people just because of their party affiliation but for what they really stand for.
P.S.: You are not alone in the way those solid Obama supporters treated you. One of my relatives who begged me to consider Nader and Mckinney faced a lot of verbal and physical assaults herself from them and they were indeed worse than the Bush/Cheney supporters. Even more than Nader and Mckinney, I strongly feel that all of us who voted for Obama or Mccain and are dissatisfied with both parties owe a sincere apology to those who voted for Nader or Mckinney and their ears and eyes so that people who vote third party are no longer written off as irrelevant.
Stanley1979,
I appreciate what you said and thank you for your support. You do not sound like a person who would attack someone who thinks differently than you do. I am sorry this happened to your relative. I must say that being attacked by people who had worked along side me against Bush and Cheney's policies was quite a shock to my system. I thought opposition to the war and support for civil liberties was not dependent on party leader. Obama seemed like a cult to me. I later learned that Obama won Advertising Age brand of the year for 2008 and was considered a "cult brand".
IMO, our population was extremely vulnerable to a cult type leader (and still is). I think the left was looking for a strong man to come in and fix everything. That was understandable but a huge mistake. This took power away from ordinary people and put all power for "change" into the hands of one person. We have to recognize when we are stripping power from ourselves and handing it over to a cult-type leader. We have to recognize propaganda and we have to listen to each other.
Thanks again,
Jill
I wouldn't blame Obama alone even though he is the most deceptive politician to maintain the status quo with the strongest seduction of "change" I had ever seen since Reagan's 1980 campaigning. Congress is also the biggest obstructionist out there that needs complete house cleaning.
With regards to Obama and the issues, even within the progressives who felt betrayed, most of them decided to hold their breath and hope that maybe Obama might open up a bit once he was in office. As a matter of fact, most of us liberals and progressives were so anxious to get Bush out of the way that we overlooked Obama's dark side even when the media itself questioned Obama's flip-flopping on the issues during the campaign. The consequences are now clearer than ever.
People who insulted you or anyone for that matter who tried to warn about Obama's deception not only hurt you but themselves and they are and will continue to pay dearly for this. The good news is that his support even within the hardcore loyalists is weakening but we still have to find some way to get the neutral and disaffected away from the two parties that they fall for every time. It may feel lonely at first when one votes for a progressive third party, but there is nothing to lose when all has already been lost. I am working on getting the hang of it and correcting my weakness on allowing liberalism to keep me in conformist thinking. That is the best way I can think of honoring the late Howard Zinn.
Hey Jill! You're not alone. Shortly before the last POTUS Election, my hairdresser (who's white, btw), had a little bit of a dispute about the upcoming Election. Our conversation went something like this:
My Hairdresser: (who's white, btw): Who are you voting for?
Me: I plan to do a write-in ticket; Bernie Sanders & Dennis Kucinich
My Hairdresser: You're throwing your vote away.
Me: I don't see it that way, and, besides I figure that no matter who gets elected POTUS, whether it be Obama or McCain, that we're going to get screwed--royally.
Hairdresser (who by now goes ballistic) (screaming): I don't believe that!
Me: (as calmly as possible) Well, I do.
Hairdresser: (still screaming) I don't know who YOU'VE been talking to, girl! I've campaigned on Obama's behalf for more than a year. I don't want the old man. (McCain)
Me: Obama lost my vote with his war votes, and his vote for the FISA Bill. I don't want McCain either, but I'm still doing a write-in vote as planned.
That was the end of the conversation.
When I went back to her in late September, for another appointment, I noticed that she had a markedly different attitude, and different tone of voice when she spoke to me. What that meant, I wasn't sure, but she didn't seem any too exuberant and happy. Whether it's because she herself decided that she wasn't happy with Obama, or that she was still somewhat ticked off at me for having taken a different stance and written in my own ticket instead of voting the Obama/Biden ticket wasn't clear, and I'll probably never know.
Jill, that was the liberals doing the shouting-down...we leftists were doing the pointing-out.
I thought leftists included both progressives and liberals. Regardless of who shouted down whom, enough of the blame game. We need to get everyone united and ready to turn a new leaf. The sooner this happens, the more we can credit ourselves and each other for real progress.
Historically, that's not so except by courtesy.
Far, far too many liberals are the kind Phil Ochs limned in "Love Me, I'm A Liberal". They're also the ones Alinsky was talking about when he spoke of "the Do-Nothings" who give unlimited amounts of lip-service to justice, equality, and opportunity for all, but who are opposed to any effective action to *produce* those states.
That is true and I have seen a lot of them in my place. The name-onlys are often mysterious in nature. I won't say that all of them are like that but a lot of them have been hooked to faithfulness for far too long to get it unless something happens to them or their closest kith of kin successfully convinces him or her to stop and think. I think I had my fears back when I voted for John Anderson in 1980 but if I am successful in erasing those fears, I hope I can share my ideas and experience with millions of liberals and progressives putting party before principle whether out of fear or just plain partisan politics.
Jill,
I wanted to say that I found much of the same thing. At the time I was a Democrat and I spoke out about Obama breaking his promise regarding FISA. I was speaking from my heart and questioning if I could believe anything else Obama said during his campaign if he would lie about FISA? What was my punishment for speaking my mind and asking the questions out loud? I was banned from a Democratic Progressive forum. I was silenced by my own party. That is when I knew that I had no place in the Democratic party because they were not ready for a true Progressive mind. I joined the Green Party and have not for one second regreted my choice.
How many of us Progressive Democrats received the same treatment? How many of us were told by words and actions that if we were not going to jump on board for Obama we were not welcome in the Democratic Party? I think the answer would open the eyes of many Progressives who have not given up on the Democratic Party because they are still tied emotionally to that party.
Jill, as someone who fights White Nationalism and right wing hate; I can tell you that there are many on the Left who have just as much hate in their hearts for anyone who is different than they are and doesn’t join in the chours of what is considered politically correct. They justify trying to stop free speech and free thought by branding and attacking anyone who dares to speak their mind or question what is going on. They label anyone as racist who dares speak the truth and points out that Obama is not someone that many true Progressives can support because he didn’t earn our vote or respect.
There is a double standard of they will speak out about the wrong doing of the Conservative Republican and other Right Wing people, but keep silent when so called Progressive Democrats and others on the left do the very same thing. Yet, when another Progressive tries to point this out we are attacked and as you say called a traitor, insane, a racist, or any such name. It is like people are afraid of the truth and so in order to keep playing the game they have to lie to themselves. That is how they are able to keep singing that Democratic chorus of Obama is a GREAT PRESIDENT who deserves to be given another term. We might be sinking by the head but come 2012 these same people who attacked us for speaking the truth will attack us again for daring to stand up and say the truth. The truth is that our President is wearing no clothes. All the other Democrats will pretend he is wearing clothes because that is what the President wants to hear. Yet, we Progressives must be like the child who stands up and says the truth; that OUR PRESIDENT IS WEARING NO CLOTHES AND I AM NOT VOTING FOR HIM AGAIN.
I think that we Progressives need to take an honest look and ask ourselves tough questions. Do we have the moral courage to stand up to the Democratic party and make them give an accounting for their actions? Or will we continue to use a double standard and excuse their behavior because they are DEMOCRAT?
Jill, I have not for one second regreted leaving the Democratic party and joining the Green Party. I think that we can build the Green Party into the true Progressive party. We have a good platform. It is simple and honest.
I hope that Progressives will not be fooled again.
Christine Cosser
Hey, Jill! Tell me about it! Many, if not most of my friends and neighbors are like that, and it sickens me no end. It feels as if my voice is a lone voice in the wilderness at times, but I won't go back on my principals.
You and me both, sister. (By the way, some of those Obamabots were Republicans in disguise—like Obama himself.)
I wrote to an official in the Democratic Party about the GAP between Obama's campaign promises and the President's actual accomplishments. Here's what he wrote back to me.
" ... no knowledgeable political observer or voter needs to be told about the "if I can" footnote. Other than a dictator, no political leader in a democracy can ever be expected to be able to do everything that he promises. In our system, the congress and the courts act as they were designed to act: as restraints on the executive. ... But that is what we have and one must judge a political leader's promises in that light. The real question is whether the leader is making a good faith effort to achieve the promised goal. In my view, Obama passes that test with flying colors."
So we should grade him not on his accomplishments but on how hard he tries to keep his promises?
And that Congress and those Courts and their designed-in "restraint of the executive"? What exactly were they doing during the Bush Cheney reign terror?
What galled me most was this line: "no knowledgeable political observer or voter needs to be told about the "if I can" footnote" Really? So when Obama campaigned on the theme "YES WE CAN" what he really meant was "IF I CAN"? I think in this marketing-driven campaign environment we need to demand better product labeling. If I'd known I might have made a different choice.
But of course the part of it that really got to me was the "no knowledgeable political observer or voter needs to be told" part. How delightfully patronizing of this person. Is this not exactly the kind of thing you'd hear from an elitist?
And they wonder why the Tea Bag movement has so much momentum.
There are parties we can and should organize around and work with: The Working Families Party backed by the unions in several states already. I have for 35 years described myself to and worked with progressive politicians as a Social Democrat in the European model and traditional sense of the word. It is ugly to watch the color leave the faces of people, especially the young, who thought Obama was a " change agent ". But there is where our strength lies. We should nudge these people to the truth about the Democrats and the failure of liberal politicians. The young today have travelled and studied in the countries we hold up as examples of a more perfect union. Many of them get it but see the apparatchiks of the status quo with a stranglehold on local and state party machinery. Insurgency by the rank and file will allow a true 3rd and 4th alternative to arise with enough power and organizational strength to become viable. The work is already begun and should maintain a low profile until the groundwork is done and we are prepared to strike hard and quickly. This is the lesson we should be learning from the tea partiers. They are changing their party by threatening to destroy it. We can still get to a place Mr. Hedges will recognize but it takes time, organizanation and some money. It always has and Mr. Zinn knew this,too.
We do not neeed any more Harvard men in the White House. No more of these elitist creeps. They remind me of those kids in school who'd say, "Teacher, you forgot to assign the homework." These Ivy League creeps display a dangerous mix of kowtowing to their corporate masters while possessing a sense of entitlement far beyond their actual accomplishments.
This applies to all so-called elite institutions. We need people who graduated from more egalitarian schools such as the State universities. I myself graduated from Whatsamatta U
with graduate work done at the University of Harde Knox.
By the way Mr. Hedges, I'm not entirely sure the Parties will have as much of an argument against independent candidates in the 2010 elections as they did in 2008. Third parties are handicapped in our winner-take-all national elections. It will take a very, very long time to change that dynamic.
But we already have independents in Congress. Senators and House members of alternate parties, or registered Independents can get elected and as soon as this November they can affect the dynamic of the Congress.
Please everyone get over Obama. He’s just the President. He’s a suit. If the past year has taught ALL of America anything it’s the importance and the power of the Congress. Fortunately for us, that's where the empty seats are in November.
Not much time left. But if you can find them support them.
If you can’t, become one.
Exactly.
And if you don't have the time or the organization now to get on the ballot (though it's easy on the Congressional level), then organize a write-in campaign. A write-in candidate in 2010 can help build a base for two years later.
So. Hedges, as usual, hit that nail square on the head and slammed it down -- hard. This is a piece that deserves reprinting and passing around. I'm immediately e-mailing it around.
I canna really find much if anything to criticize here -- it was brilliant. We definitely need to start voting for the better -- not the least worst -- candidates. Need a third party with some socialistic guts.
We need a FEW policies to get behind. I humbly submit the following:
~ Corporate Personhood and election corruption.
~ End the wars and cut the war budget.
~ Restore right to privacy and habeas corpus.
~ Medicare for all.
~ Regulate the banks and Wall Street.
~ Green jobs and subsidies.
And that's probably too many.
We need to work the system and motivate the people just like the Republicans have done so, but for policies that HELP people, not hurt them. We need to speak to people's emotions, their disgust with the status quo, their anger at Washington's failure to implement meaningful change.
We cannot intellectualize. Speak down. Throw stats. Be wonks. But act like "normal" folks.
We need some of Joe Six-packs so we need to frame the arguments into a convincing narrative.
We need to do a lot. And fast. Elections are coming up.
Gary
PS BTW I am suggesting the name "The People" ("The People Party") for a new unity party to bring together the dozen or so "third-parties" that better represent the actual positions of the American people than the present duopoly. Imagine campaigning for "The People."
"Vote for The People!"
"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."
-- Bruce Barton
While I am in agreement with your prescriptions, the government will simply lie and break the law again. Remember too that they have reserved the right to murder U.S. citizens without trial and I read recently that the military is trying to devise a way to de-citizenize Americans. It's going to get much worse I'm afraid....
Here are the first four results by entering this search in Google:
define: socialism
• a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
• an economic system based on state ownership of capital
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis is a book by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises, first published in German by Gustav Fischer Verlag in Jena in 1922 under the title Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchungen über den Sozialismus. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_(book)
• Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"Socialism" also means "social democracy" more generally such as policies in Sweden and Denmark.
Thus the term is confusing at best.
Interesting that the third entry in Google search on "socialism" is actually a reference to the anti-socialist and obscure-in-the-rest-of-the-world libertarian crank Von Mises. What is it about dot-com industry and "libertarianism?"
Hedges is of course correct about McKinney and Nader being right about President Obama and his agenda. Obama is a defender of the corporate regime, and wants it to seem more progressive-like under his administration. Obama thus is a corporate Democrat. And so are many Democrats in Congress and at the state level.
Diagnosis is one thing, and treatment is another.
To support the Green Party of the United States is good. I believe in that and I do that.
To advocate "socialism" by name is problematic, for too many definitions of "socialism" say it is the system of government whereby the government owns the means of production and the delivery of services. This is not what progressive platforms advocate in the US.
A better term would be to advocate progressivism. For that we have a platform. I was on the Green Party Platform Committee as a guest, and I wrote part of it in 2008. The 2004 and 2008 Green Party Platform is a fine set of policies to advocate, and to represent progressive policies. So is the Nader platform. And the Kucinich platform. And the policies recommended by the 19 state progressive caucuses in the Democratic Parties at the state level. And also the policies of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which lists the state progressive caucuses under their section of links.
We need more sophisticated strategy than abandoning the Democrats in the context of a two-party system.
In a true multi-party system (such as MMP like Germany or New Zealand) that makes sense. To do what Hedges advocates in our two-party system with his silly, simplistic either/or suggestion would be a gift to the more corporate, more fascist, more militaristic, more stupid of the two parties.
There is a both/and solution that is simple and obvious in contrast to Hedges' flawed logic. That is to BOTH fully support the Green Party AND to oppose any and all corporate Democrats. And to BOTH fully support true-progressive Democrats in primary races, AND to develop a growing movement to support progressive Democrats AND the Green Party (our one national progressive party).
The most important long-term issues for determining whether a given person, candidate or activist is a true progressive Democrat is the key bridge issue: progressive electoral policies to create a multi-party system which is free of corruption through bribery. That means true progressive Democrats advocate for legislation and constitutional revisions that will transform our system and our Constitution into a modern democratic system. Any so called "progressive Democrat" who does not advocate for such a transformation of our system is not only a false progressive and an adversary of the Green Party, such people either need to be educated or directly opposed and exposed as frauds who are attempting to co-opt "progressive" as a name.
This bridge issue (as opposed to a "wedge issue") of electoral reform is found, in great detail, in each of the progressive frameworks I mentioned above.
Hedges has good progressive intentions. And offers both very good and very bad strategy.
Are you supporting the Green Party, AND building progressive caucuses at the state level? Are you pushing for progressive legislation AND pushing for a constitutional convention or amendments to fix the antiquated constitutional machinery that causes our system to be broken? And much, much more . . . ? I hope so.
New Zealand transformed their system from a two-party system to a true multi-party system in the 1990s. We can learn much from our progressive Kiwi allies.
"There is a both/and solution that is simple and obvious in contrast to Hedges' flawed logic. That is to BOTH fully support the Green Party AND to oppose any and all corporate Democrats. And to BOTH fully support true-progressive Democrats in primary races, AND to develop a growing movement to support progressive Democrats AND the Green Party (our one national progressive party)."
Yes indeed! We ought to support progressives like Wiener and Pelosi who are now capitulating to pass a health care bill void a public option. The problem with your optimism is that it avoids reality while kicking the can down the road to some imagined utopia waiting just around the bend in the corner of the road. What is galactic stupidity is trusting that people who identify themselves as progressive are going to stand up and be counted when push comes to shove. Who in the progressive movement already in congress has attempted to obstruct funding of the Afghanistan war? Who has held true to a Single Payer system? Who has mounted a counter movement to revoke TARP and FISA? Who has spoken against Obama's corporate insiders of SUmmers, Geithner, Volker, or the generals who own the man?
Those who stand on their Ivory Tower and then bring down the seminal word on the passive body of the congregation are the least likely to understand historic movements.
Just ignore this blowhard.
Kucinich, for one.
And if you don't like the proposed strategy, what is your alternative?
Yes, Kucinich is one: and because of it, he is marginalized and ignored in his own party as nothing more than a crack-pot.
My alternative is existential: i.e., walk your talk. I work for the Greens to build the party. I shop local and boycott corporate Amerika. I don't own a car, and use public transportation and my mountain bike. I shop at used/second hand clothing stores stores. I don't eat meat. I grow 80% of my own food. I live off grid using solar. I shit in an outhouse. I recycle 100% of my waste.
Think global, act local.
Most of your ideas I believe can be done by most people except for the part on transportation and using solar. In the rural areas, there is no means of public transportation so people have to depend on cars to travel. I am lucky to live in a good home and allow solar and wind to substitute some for fossil fuels but I do not think that most people share yours or my luck on that. In big cities, unless you can afford a home of your own and I'm not talking condos or townhouses, people there do not have the means or even the right to set up their own solar panels and are forced to depend on fossil fuel provided energy.
In big cities, unless you can afford a home of your own and I'm not talking condos or townhouses...
------------------------------------
Thanks for calling this out. Too many people seem unaware of how much privilege they have.
Each of those lifestyle choices, to me, are fabulous and represent major steps towards individual sustainability. I do many of those things as well. Bravo.
This post is proof of the failures of the "progresive" concept, not its likely success.
If "progressive" can include both Dems and Greens, than it is too broad a concept to be the centerpiece for any transformitive strategy.
I think a better strategy is to drop ideals and complicated platforms and DIRECTLY advocate for the process that would best ensure such real reforms as ridding us of the de facto two-party system -the Constitutional Convention.
But beyond this, wishy-washy, limp-wristed "support" for BOTH "progressive Democrats" and Greens is exactly what has lead the Green Party from the edge of national minority-party-status out into the depths of the political wilderness over the last ten years.
I'm involved in reviving the Greens in Washington State, and the failure of many of the long-timers to realize or accept that such strategies have run their course and need to be abandoned is a definite hurdle.
The way to grow a small party with the "help" of a big party is NOT to support those candidates of the big party that mesh best with your overly articulated list of "values" while simulaneously trying to support and build your own candidates and party. The way to do it is to support your own candidates and build your own party by WITHOLDING your support from anyone else until they are desperate enough for your help that they will compromise and bend a little to your will. Then do this again, and again, and again, until you are big enough to survive on your own and they become on-again, off-again "coalition partners" with you.
Every Repub victory is another turn of the screw that will bring the Dems to the table with the humility to do more than dictate terms.
If people are not courageous enough to endure having a disliked Party hold the (temporary) power, then they simply don't have what it takes to form a political electoral party and they should try to do so.
-matti.
I have never voted for a Rebublican and I have not voted Dem since 1972. Hedges prophetic voice gets it right every time. Stop listening to the Dem apologetic like the one below. Empower yourselves by saying 'No' to the right of center apologists who accuse those to the Left of the Democratic Party. The Green Party is relatively young by historic standards; Obama and the Dems - like Bush and the neo conservatives - are nothing more than a passing cloud in the grand sweep of history.
I am wondering if Mr. Nader and Ms. McKinney could see fit to run together?
If you want a corporate slaying knight, you got it in Nader. If you only want a black person, you got it in McKinney.
This article is an excellent guide for us newbies and neutral minded voters out there who need to be enlightened as to what it takes to move the country in the right direction. We can do more than apologize. We can show them that we have indeed learned our lessons and are ready to correct our mistakes. So far, I think I am ready but I still have some figuring out to do on those neutral minded voters who settle for one of the two major parties. There are people who voted for Obama now ready to vote Republican because they are poorly informed and are unaware of Nader and Green Party and what they really stand for in this country. It will be interesting to find out whether we can pull something even better than a Perot '92 by 2012. Once again, I apologize to Hedges, Nader, Mckinney, and everyone who supported Nader/Mckinney and am ready to reform what I now realize was my foolish behavior of falling for the "winnable" candidate at the expense of derailing those who pay full attention to all candidates before making the call.
Edit: I forgot to add that the only thing I disagree with Hedges on is where he says that liberals are playing cover for Obama. There are also progressives who are still doing this too and there are liberals ready to leave the Democratic Party peacefully. I have also come across articles that suggest that progressives, not liberals, are pro status quo. I strongly disagree with either notion that progressives or liberals support the status quo and I would strongly suggest that we stop this Liberal vs Progressive divide. We cannot pull the neutral minded voters to our side if we continue to allow the Liberal vs Progressive divide to keep us irrelevant.
The author seems a bit late to the party. I already felt this way over 6 months ago. I thought most progressives did.
I made a firm decision back then not to support the Dems again, and in fact, I may actively work against them just for spite. I wish I had voted for Nader. I don't know if Ralph will run again or even be around to run again. I sure hope so. How did we ever fall for the fiction of Obama being a liberal? I feel like a sap for ever having believed that. Politically speaking, I have never felt so utterly misled. How could I have been so naive? I have descended so quickly from ecstasy over Obama's win to now despising him.
For months I have had a bumper sticker on my car which reads:
WORMTONGUE LIVES!
-In the White House
Here in Santa Fe where "Progressives" abound someone kicked a dent next to the sticker. I was brought to mind of that surreal image of "the wrath of the lamb". What is a "progressive" anyway? It seems to include anyone to the left of Joe Liebermann. Noam Chomsky, Nancy Pelosi and of course our brand-going-out-of-fashion fast -- Mr. Obama himself. These "progressives" are allowing the right-wing public relations manipulation machine to associate this administration's totally corporate policies with "The Left"-- thus discrediting it in the Public Mind now, and in the future. By remaining attached to Nat Clean Coal they assure populist outrage is handed to the Orcs once again and are actually doing the right-wing's bidding. They seem to feel they have no choice but to sleepwalk their way to their own upcoming irrelevance. Should they brand the con for what he is and always has been--they could perhaps begin the work of building a genuine leftist alternative. It would garner the support mistakenly handed to the corporate product they were duped with the last time around. If it doesn't happen soon George W. may come to be perceived as "progressive" compared to What Beast Is Slouching Toward Washington.
This commentary by Hedges correctly captures how many of us find our worst opponents to be those who are addicted to voting for the Democratic Party all the time. On the local level these 'liberals' are usually total obstructionists to getting anything in real Movement building done because it never jives with their 'lobbying' efforts. They're always 'talking truth to power', as they love to put it.
In other words, they are always sucking up to the local officials with DP credentials and shafting those who would actually pressure these hacks in a more militant manner. These progressives' (as they see themselves) run away from real issues in favor of merely echoing Democratic Party talking points and aiding and abetting the DP play posturing against the Republicans that is always a constant. They make noise but never move anything forward. They stagnate the entire ability to ever build a Movement that would move forward real demands against the powers that be, which include their beloved slime lipped DP politician hack crowd they help vote into power.
We have to struggle not just against the Republican Right, but against the inactivists tied to the Democratic Party power structure, many of these being DP sycophants that latch onto all the paid staffing positions they can find funded. They then run these 'community' organizations in a totally undemocratic manner centered on their own paid positions.
Thanks, Chris, for highlighting the problem of the abuse of people like Ralph and Cynthia by others calling themselves 'progressives' and 'liberals'. The problem of this abuse runs very deep.
Local elections don't get much attention as opposed to the big national ones. There has been some advice and recommendation on changing that. Stupid me for not paying attention to local elections. The governor's election occurs during every presidential election year in my state and that's as close to local as I have gotten to paying attention. I wonder what would happen if turnout were improved. Possibilities include third parties gaining seats and relevancy and perhaps the Democrats and Republicans finding themselves forced to pay attention to the voters for a change at least on the local levels.
Democrats. Liberals, unlike the right wing, are emotionally disabled.
It is not that they are emotionally disabled, they are totally corrupt. Power, and therefore money, are their sole concerns. Democrats and Republicans know, above everything else, that the USA electorate will not get rid of them. No matter how bad things become, no alternative parties will ever displace them from power. So they do what they do. Stop supporting the Democrats! If the electorate wants to bring back the Republicans for another round of Bushdeath, so be it.
Well, it is true that Democratic Party voting liberals and 'progressives' are often enough emotionally disabled. I cannot count the number of times that I have been lectured by these liberal church types about not shouting at demos and protests since it sends the wrong message from their POV that I might be angry about something. They , on the other hand, seem always to find quite corners where nobody really goes to do their silent 'witnesses', oftentimes with candles, etc.
They seem to specialize in doing 'witnesses' off in far away corners, too, without any public to see them doing it. Remote cow pastures far from the cities especially seem to attract the DP voting nun and monk types. YES, they are emotionally disabled and the common American folk can readily can see that. That's is if they can even find this crowd out at 'witness'? A big IF?
You painted an all-too-true stereotype of so-many white liberals.
A year ago, I attended a protest against the savagery of Isreal in Gaza. But, what were we all asked to do through the march? Walk quietly, as in a funeral procession, and not say a word, while a toll was beat on a drum. People with signs containing any strident slogans were asked to put their sign away.
What for crying out loud, do these liberal expect such a milquetoast thing to accomplish??? A whole people were being slaughtered in our name by what is basically our 51st state. We are supposed to be ANGRY!
I think the answer is that bourgois liberals tend to be rather self absorbed and narcissistic, and internalize and personalize these outrages, and view protest as something purely personal. Their new-age pop-psychology books tell them that anger and passion are bad, so for them the protests are purely inward-looking personal affairs - not events that are expected to threaten those in power in any way.
If I hear of another "candlelight vigil" in my town I'm going to puke!
Yeah, the candle lit prayer vigil make me want to throw up. too, PJd. It epitomizes this passive, dead end approach to politics from the Middle Class 'liberal' religious crowd that can only pray and vote Democratic Party come election time. They only become like lions when challenged to do more, otherwise they stay timid little blind church mice instead of being real human beings. No wonder so much of the population has contempt for what they see as The Left.
Like a protest in my town a few years ago in which people marched backwards with tape over their mouths apparently to indicate things were going backwards in the US. Not sure about the tape over the mouth (perhaps to have an excuse for having nothing to say). Always march forward, fist in the air, loudly denouncing the oppressors and the ruling class.
I totally agree with this!
"Stop supporting the Democrats! If the electorate wants to bring back the Republicans for another round of Bushdeath, so be it."
In fact, let's actively work against the Dems, while simultaneously identifying ourselves as true progressives on the left. We must let the Dems know that they're paying a huge price on the left and that they can no longer count on us to choose them as the lesser of two evils. I'm beginning to wonder if they really are the lesser of two evils. At least the GOP lets us know up front what a bunch of A-holes they are. I'm going to start voting 3rd party candidates or none at all. I wish Kucinich would quit the Dems and run on his own. He is far too principled to be a Dem.
This is a good article, BUT too little, too late. I have been voting for Nader for more than 20 years. I would never allow a Party - any Political Party to hold me captive. Casting a write-in vote is not that hard. All you have to do is hold a pen and write "N A D E R".
It is time for the voters to 'man up' and start thinking for themselves. That won't happen. I bet you that more than 90% will vote for dem/repubs in the next election. Any takers out there?
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for making it perfectly clear that both the Repugs and the Dems are enemies of the majority of the citizenry and that voting does not bring about the changes we desperately need in this land.
Well said, Oikos!! Bravo!
*Comment deleted by site administrators for violating our Comment Policy*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
Huh? The right for women to have access to birth control/ aborion in this country is pretty fundamental for you to be just calling it 'identity-politics' in a demeaning manner, Scott. I doubt that Nader himself would ever much agree with your comment.
Every election cycle the same creepy people - e.g., Katha Pollitt - use issues like abortion to try to convince people to vote "for the lesser of two evils." And every election cycle, a sizable chunk of the electorate falls for it.
It would be so refreshing if people would care far more about single-payer healthcare, ending wars, terminating aid to Israel, and cutting the bloated military budget, and a little less about abortion, gay marriage, the number of women in Congress and on TV, and the like. The former set of issues towers over the latter, and more of us need to realize that.
What makes you think they're not the same issues at bottom?
Read Walter Benn Micheal's and he will explain how these identity politics issues, along with abortion are completely consistent with the elites Neoliberal agenda. Furthermore they mask the fundamental issue of class in society.
Too many people - especially in these "post-modern" days, it seems - do shallow, reductionistic analyses. Especially where it's not their ox being gored. It makes (imo) much better sense to look for the ways in which things are connected. Because they are indeed connected, at bottom, and the same dynamic drives them all.
That some people focus on the effects rather than the underlying cause just exposes how limited they are personally at that moment.
As Ben Micheals points out the underlying cause, you speak of, is class, and anything which obfuscates this reality is serving the neoliberal agenda.
I'd disagree with what (I think) you're saying. If mere class membership were the culprit, we'd never find working-class people signing up for the elite agenda, nor renegade elites who work for fairness for all. That we do find such people is good evidence that the cause is local to the individual--their unique *response* to their class membership, perhaps, but not their class membership as such.
"What makes you think they're not the same issues at bottom?"
Because one is a set of issues for the legal structures of a nation-STATE and the other is a set of issues within the culture of a nation, full stop?
What's the "at bottom" here, that both sets involve people, not calcite chrystals?
The problem with "identity" or "social issues" politics is the framing of the issue and the framing of the debate about the issue.
Recast "abortions" as one small part of "medical privacy rights for all" and you've got yourself an issue of the structures of the State.
Same with "gay marriage" and "gay rights", recast these as "equal legal and economic rights for all" and you've got it (why not Amend State constitutions to end "marriage" licenses and give "civil union" or "domestic partnership" licenses out to cohabitating adults of all kinds and mixes?).
Under the current framing, there is so much focus on the specific right to abortions that the "pro-choicers" look ghoulish, and "gay rights" can extend to being "happy" that people can be openly gay in the Imperial Military fighting illegal wars!
-matti.
I think that if you look a bit more closely, you'll see that, at bottom, everything reduces to the same issue: who gets to decide? Who gets to decide what I do with my womb? Who gets to decide whom I can marry? Who gets to decide what recreational substances I use? Who gets to decide whether I can get the healthcare I need? Et endless cetera.
"Who gets to decide?" is the sole general issue. Everything else is more or less a distraction.
At bottom, the only question is "who gets to decide?".