The World Liberal Opportunists Made
Monday 25 October 2010
by: Chris Hedges | Truthdig | Op-Ed
A Tea Party rally in Washington, DC in March 2010. (Photo: theqspeaks / Flickr)
The lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, which looks set to make sweeping gains in the midterm elections, is the direct result of a collapse of liberalism. It is the product of bankrupt liberal institutions, including the press, the church, universities, labor unions, the arts and the Democratic Party. The legitimate rage being expressed by disenfranchised workers toward the college-educated liberal elite, who abetted or did nothing to halt the corporate assault on the poor and the working class of the last 30 years, is not misplaced. The liberal class is guilty. The liberal class, which continues to speak in the prim and obsolete language of policies and issues, refused to act. It failed to defend traditional liberal values during the long night of corporate assault in exchange for its position of privilege and comfort in the corporate state. The virulent right-wing backlash we now experience is an expression of the liberal class’ flagrant betrayal of the citizenry.
The liberal class, which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible, functioned traditionally as a safety valve. During the Great Depression, with the collapse of capitalism, it made possible the New Deal. During the turmoil of the 1960s, it provided legitimate channels within the system to express the discontent of African-Americans and the anti-war movement. But the liberal class, in our age of neo-feudalism, is now powerless. It offers nothing but empty rhetoric. It refuses to concede that power has been wrested so efficiently from the hands of citizens by corporations that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty are irrelevant. It does not act to mitigate the suffering of tens of millions of Americans who now make up a growing and desperate permanent underclass. And the disparity between the rhetoric of liberal values and the rapacious system of inverted totalitarianism the liberal class serves makes liberal elites, including Barack Obama, a legitimate source of public ridicule. The liberal class, whether in universities, the press or the Democratic Party, insists on clinging to its privileges and comforts even if this forces it to serve as an apologist for the expanding cruelty and exploitation carried out by the corporate state.
Populations will endure repression from tyrants as long as these rulers continue to effectively manage and wield power. But human history has amply demonstrated that once those in positions of power become redundant and impotent, yet retain the trappings and privileges of power, they are swiftly and brutally discarded. Tocqueville observed that the French, on the eve of their revolution, hated the aristocrats about to lose their power far more than they had ever hated them before. The increased hatred directed at the aristocratic class occurred because as the aristocracy lost real power there was no decline in their fortunes. As long as the liberal class had even limited influence, whether through the press or the legislative process, liberals were tolerated and even respected. But once the liberal class lost all influence it became a class of parasites. The liberal class, like the déclassé French aristocracy, has no real function within the power elite. And the rising right-wing populists, correctly, ask why liberals should be tolerated when their rhetoric bears no relation to reality and their presence has no influence on power.
The death of the liberal class, however, is catastrophic for our democracy. It means there is no longer any check to a corporate apparatus designed to further enrich the power elite. It means we cannot halt the plundering of the nation by Wall Street speculators and corporations. An ineffectual liberal class, in short, means there is no hope, however remote, of a correction or a reversal through the political system and electoral politics. The liberals’ disintegration ensures that the frustration and anger among the working and the middle class will find expression in a rejection of traditional liberal institutions and the civilities of a liberal democracy. The very forces that co-opted the liberal class and are responsible for the impoverishment of the state will, ironically, reap benefits from the collapse. These corporate manipulators are busy channeling rage away from the corporate and military forces hollowing out the nation from the inside and are turning that anger toward the weak remnants of liberalism. It does not help our cause that liberals indeed turned their backs on the working and middle class.
The corporate state has failed to grasp the vital role the liberal class traditionally plays in sustaining a stable power system. The corporate state, by emasculating the liberal class, has opted for a closed system of polarization, gridlock and political theater in the name of governance. It has ensured a further destruction of state institutions so that government becomes even more ineffectual and despised. The collapse of the constitutional state, presaged by the death of the liberal class, has created a power vacuum that a new class of speculators, war profiteers, gangsters and killers, historically led by charismatic demagogues, will enthusiastically fill. It opens the door to overtly authoritarian and fascist movements. These movements rise to prominence by ridiculing and taunting the liberal class for its weakness, hypocrisy and uselessness. The promises of these proto-fascist movements are fantastic and unrealistic, but their critiques of the liberal class are grounded in truth.
The liberal class, despite becoming an object of public scorn, still prefers the choreographed charade. Liberals decry, for example, the refusal of the Democratic Party to restore habeas corpus or halt the looting of the U.S. Treasury on behalf of Wall Street speculators, but continue to support a president who cravenly serves the interests of the corporate state. As long as the charade of democratic participation is played, the liberal class does not have to act. It can maintain its privileged status. It can continue to live in a fictional world where democratic reform and responsible government exist. It can pretend it has a voice and influence in the corridors of power. But the uselessness of the liberal class is not lost on the tens of millions of Americans who suffer the awful indignities of the corporate state.
The death of the liberal class cuts citizens off from the mechanisms of power. Liberal institutions such as the church, the press, the university, the Democratic Party, the arts and labor unions once set the parameters for limited self-criticism and small, incremental reforms and offered hope for piecemeal justice and change. The liberal class could decry the excesses of the state, work to mitigate them and champion basic human rights. It posited itself as the conscience of the nation. It permitted the nation, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define itself as being composed of a virtuous and even noble people. The liberal class was permitted a place within a capitalist democracy because it also vigorously discredited radicals within American society who openly defied the excesses of corporate capitalism and who denounced a political system run by and on behalf of corporations. The real enemy of the liberal class has never been Glenn Beck, but Noam Chomsky.
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The purging and silencing of independent and radical thinkers as well as iconoclasts have robbed the liberal class of vitality. The liberal class has cut itself off from the roots of creative and bold thought, from those forces and thinkers who could have prevented the liberal class from merging completely with the power elite. Liberals exude a tepid idealism utterly divorced from daily life. And this is why every television clip of Barack Obama is so palpably pathetic.
Unions, organizations formerly steeped in the doctrine of class warfare and filled with those who sought broad social and political rights for the working class, have been transformed into domesticated junior partners of the capitalist class. Cars rolling out of the Ford and GM plants in Michigan were said to have been made by Ford-UAW. And where unions still exist, they have been reduced to simple bartering tools, if that. The social demands of unions early in the 20th century that gave the working class weekends off, the right to strike, the eight-hour workday and Social Security have been abandoned. Universities, especially in political science and economics departments, parrot the discredited ideology of unregulated capitalism and globalization. They have no new ideas. Artistic expression, along with most religious worship, is largely self-absorbed narcissism meant to entertain without offense. The Democratic Party and the press have become courtiers to the power elite and corporate servants.
Once the liberal class can no longer moderate the savage and greedy inclinations of the capitalist class, once, for example, labor unions are reduced to the role of bartering away wage increases and benefits, once public education is gutted and the press no longer gives a voice to the poor and the working class, liberals become as despised as the power elite they serve. The collapse of liberal institutions means those outside the circles of power are trapped, with no recourse, and this is why many Americans are turning in desperation toward idiotic right-wing populists who at least understand the power of hatred as a mobilizing force.
The liberal class no longer holds within its ranks those who have the moral autonomy or physical courage to defy the power elite. The rebels, from Chomsky to Sheldon Wolin to Ralph Nader, have been marginalized, shut out of the national debate and expelled from liberal institutions. The liberal class lacks members with the vision and fortitude to challenge dominant free market ideologies. It offers no ideological alternatives. It remains bound to a Democratic Party that has betrayed every basic liberal principle including universal healthcare, an end to our permanent war economy, a robust system of public education, a vigorous defense of civil liberties, job creation, the right to unionize and welfare for the poor.
“The left once dismissed the market as exploitative,” Russell Jacoby writes. “It now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers at them as elitist. The left once rejected pluralism as superficial; now it worships it as profound. We are witnessing not simply a defeat of the left, but its conversion and perhaps inversion.”
Capitalism, and especially corporate capitalism, was once viewed as a system to be fought. But capitalism is no longer challenged in public discourse. Capitalist bosses, men such as Warren Buffett, George Soros and Donald Trump, are treated bizarrely as sages and celebrities, as if greed and manipulation had become the highest moral good. As Wall Street steals billions of taxpayer dollars, as it perpetrates massive fraud to throw people out of their homes, as the ecosystem that sustains the planet is polluted and destroyed, we do not know what to do or say. We have been robbed of a vocabulary to describe reality. We decry the excesses of capitalism without demanding a dismantling of the corporate state. Our pathetic response is to be herded to political rallies by skillful publicists to shout inanities like “Yes we can!”
The liberal class is finished. Neither it nor its representatives will provide the leadership or resistance to halt our slide toward despotism. The liberal class prefers comfort and privilege to confrontation. It will not halt the corporate assault or thwart the ascendancy of the corporate state. It will remain intolerant within its ranks of those who do. The liberal class now honors an unwritten quid pro quo, one set in place by Bill Clinton, to cravenly serve corporate interests in exchange for money, access and admittance into the halls of power. The press, the universities, the labor movement, the arts, the church and the Democratic Party, fearful of irrelevance and desperate to retain their positions within the corporate state, will accelerate their purges of those who speak the unspeakable, those who name what cannot be named. It is the gutless and bankrupt liberal class, even more than the bizarre collection of moral and intellectual trolls now running for office, who are our most perfidious opponents.
Chris Hedges’ book “The Death of the Liberal Class” was released last week. He writes a column every Monday for Truthdig.
All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.
Comments
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So, the liberal class is
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 12:46 — Anonymous (not verified)So, the liberal class is guilty because it did not oppose the right wing, but the right wing is blameless despite the fact that it is the object that the liberal wing is supposed to oppose? OK, then.
Liberalism today operates
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 13:34 — Anonymous (not verified)Liberalism today operates exactly as it has always operated. The difference is that, within the United States, the socialist, anarchist, and communist influences that compelled the reforms of the Progressive era and the concessions of the New Deal no longer operate.
Without this force, liberalism is dragged back helplessly into reaction while the United States as a whole, far from recovering the (largely mythical) entrepreneurial and imperial vitality of the (non-existent) Free Market past, slumps earthward into metastasized incompetence and permanent decadence, rather like the Ottoman Empire during its last century or so.
Hedges seems to think that if his fellow Whole Foods Shoppers just got extra SPECIAL snippy, that would solve everything. But he is wrong.
The conservatives have a
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 14:18 — Anonymous (not verified)The conservatives have a long plan, a map to follow. Great gobs of money, people so resistant to change they pass belief from generation to generation. And they are the people who don't learn, ignore the lessons of history, You can say a lot of bad things about conservatives and you will never get it bad enough to compensate for the devastation that happens when they are in power. And you can blame people for letting it happen, or you can do something abut it. But - I have listened to liberals a lot of my life - and the people I hear are like Noam Chomsky who is anything but a prissy, mealy mouthed intellectual.
Chris says, "The liberal
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:11 — Anonymous (not verified)Chris says, "The liberal class is guilty. "
Well, I don't feel very guilty. I worked my ass off for 40 years to promote liberal candidates and ideas and conservatives won every time by lying and fraud.
This is brilliant.
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:23 — Dwight (not verified)This is brilliant.
Once again Chris Hedges
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:27 — Anonymous (not verified)Once again Chris Hedges beautifully articulates a brilliant politico-historical lesson, this one how the liberals were complicit in the class war that is leading inexorably to American-brand fascism.
I'm glad that someone understands that the Tea Party's anger at liberals is based on spite. That's why the more liberals pull their hair out in wonderment and frustration at the underclasses's backing of Palin & Beck (to their own detriment), the more they delight in it. Their anger is hard and deep, and clearly they are willing to bring themselves down just to see the liberals brought down with them. Until liberals really understand this, they don't have any chance of getting their message through to them. (Not until it's too late, that is.)
The conservatives were masterful at channeling that anger for their own nefarious ends.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for telling such a complex and difficult lesson so clearly that anyone who cares to understand what's going can do so.
(Plus, this is why any lefty or progressive who votes democrat is a fool.)
I resent the sweeping
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:34 — Anonymous (not verified)I resent the sweeping generalizations about liberals.
Thanks to some of you who made some intelligent rebuttals to this article.
There are many liberals who work 'in the trenches' attempting to make this a more just world.
"The promises of these
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:37 — Andrei Vyshinsky (not verified)"The promises of these proto-fascist movements are fantastic and unrealistic, but their critiques of the liberal class are grounded in truth."
And one of their most prominent critiques is of the "liberal class" as a hater of the religious sensibilities of many now being drawn toward these movements. A casual visit to this site is all the confirmation of this view one would ever require. Opposition to the corporate state can never be mounted on a platform that denigrates religion and the religious. The fact that there is no left-populism whatsoever today is explained in part by presence of this most illiberal of liberal hatreds. Many on the proto-fascist right quickly would agree with the general trajectory of Hedges arguments. Its just that they are put off by his all too obvious liberal class identity politics.
Oh Great! As if we didn't
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:42 — webfoot doug (not verified)Oh Great!
As if we didn't get enough bashing from the Right, now comes another self-righteous radical to bash us from the Left.
Reminds me of how the Left Radicals and anarchists helped destroy the liberal democracy of Kerensky's government in 1917 Russia, and the liberal democracy of Germany in 1933.
Divide and conquer, Karl Rove's policy---that's always the Right's strategy, and there's always Left radicals like Hedges to push it along.
In WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:56 — Skip Mendler (not verified)In WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING, Chris wrote forcefully about the addictive nature of war. It occurs to me that perhaps he is still addicted. This is not to say that his critique is invalid; I think he's right on. I just suspect that at some level, maybe even unconsciously, he may still believe in the redemptive power of violence, and looks forward to a violent revolution to set things right.
Interesting ideas, wrong
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 16:57 — SeenItAll (not verified)Interesting ideas, wrong target. Anonymous 21:11 is right: Liberals apparently have no recourse against 38+ years of systematic slander, libel, deceit and fraud except to adopt the "two wrongs make a right" theory. Hedges is only one more in a long line of woefully misguided souls who has drunk the Kool-Aid mixed by Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, et al. They love this article because it means that a few hundred thousand more Democrats won't bother to vote this November. Thanks a bunch, Chris.
WHAT ARE YOU, HEDGES, A
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 17:02 — Anonymous (not verified)WHAT ARE YOU, HEDGES, A REPUBLICAN????!!!
Your timing is impeccable!! Attacking liberals on the eve of the '02 midterm elections takes a brilliant instigator of mayhem just right to confuse people who may be on the cusp of indecisiveness.You know, the liberal party certainly has its foibles but for god's sake they are the LESSOR OF TWO EVILS!!! Why do you want to write a blatantly anti-liberal/pro republican, please help us, article in the hallowed halls of Truthout. Who's the traitor?! God Bless America!
Talk about hitting the nail
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 17:16 — Clay (not verified)Talk about hitting the nail on the head. This is the best thing I've read in years!
Sorry, but your book excerpt
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 17:47 — RoughAcres (not verified)Sorry, but your book excerpt isn't inspiring me to buy your tome. In fact, I will avoid it.
Today we find ourselves in a
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 17:51 — captain pneumo (not verified)Today we find ourselves in a climate of anger. Ever since "W", it's become fashionable to act like a spoiled child or an ignorant bully. And it's a lot easier to vote with your spleen instead of your brain. Everyone likes easy.
Admit it...they are fighting dirty! Does this mean we cannot do the same? Use their rage against THEM, as one does in judo or aikido?
"Well", to quote
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 19:07 — Vic Anderson (not verified)"Well", to quote precedential Despot RAYGUN; Left ARM!
So the corporate return to
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 19:31 — Anonymous (not verified)So the corporate return to the robber baron era
pouring their millions into this election to dupe the stupid into voting against their own interests because "If they are rich they must be smart and maybe we can be like them." All this is the fault of liberals? This article is a load of crap.
What a way to slam those of
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 20:09 — Anonymous (not verified)What a way to slam those of us who work hard, pay our taxes, obey the laws, vote our conscience, and fight for peace. We're liberals, too. Or are you so sucked in to the power of the "institution" that you — like so many politicians, journalists and corporatists — have forgotten the other half of the American electorate?
I agree with 21:23 —
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 20:10 — Lohmann (not verified)I agree with 21:23 — Dwight, 21:27 — Anonymous and 22:16 — Clay, this is brilliant, important and totally spot on.
Liberals fail to understand this at their (and everyone's) peril. Yes, the rightwing corporate shills are responsible for this mess; but the liberals (ie: democrats) are even more culpable for giving free rein to these vorocratic class war criminals when they could have done something about it. Just because the regressive repugs are driving the car doesn't mean the liberals had to keep filling it with gas (no less trying to take the keys away).
Was the point of this
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 20:15 — Anonymous (not verified)Was the point of this article to shame liberals into becoming effective? Otherwise it seems to be 'blame the victim.' Hard to follow the reasoning here.
It is unfortunate that
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 20:58 — Ryan Langemeyer (not verified)It is unfortunate that several people who have submitted comments here appear to not understand just how far the professional Democrats have sunk into compliance and complicity with the corporate order. The demeaning comments about Chris Hedges show how the magical thinking of some people will keep a well meaning person locked in a delusional belief system. Mr Hedges is one of the true heros of this era. If you read his work over time, it is one of the most coherent collections of analysis and opinion being presented by a true progressive. I applaud his work and hope that he will continue to do battle with the insanity we are living through.
O, thanks Chris. I get it.
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 21:25 — Anonymous (not verified)O, thanks Chris. I get it. Following your logic, I'll cancel my regular monthly support of an elitist (i.e. fact finding and honest) operation like Truthout or Lambda Legal and GLAAD or Act Blue, and certainly my NPR station (they're much too literate and investigative not to be elitist liberal). I shall of course altogether renounce the elitism of education and tell my students to burn their books and smash their computers. I can save on gas money by not driving students to their polling places next week. And I can cancel my pledge to my church, as it is progressive and inclusive and therefore ineffectual.
Since the failure of the French Revolution apparently entirely characterizes the 18t Century Enlightenment, I'll throw out Kant and Hume and Goethe, forget about Mozart and Haydn, and give ol' Tom Paine the boot and admit the final failure of the US Constitution (since the far right already lays claim to it, even if they haven't read it).
If your analysis is correct, there is nothing left to do in time to prevent the completion of the construction of a Fascist United States, so why bother with anything?
The fall of the Weimar Republic is a tidy comparison: the left squabbling amongst themselves and attacking the center; the right uniting in rage and unreason; and the ordinary citizen (elitist, mind you) dragged into the maelstrom from which there was no escape. Guess which part you play in that scenario?
What in hell is "the liberal
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 21:32 — Anonymous (not verified)What in hell is "the liberal class"?
Continuously repeated, it's supposed to mean something?
Some worthy ideas, but lots of gas.
I have been hunting all over
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 22:18 — Jean (not verified)I have been hunting all over Oklahoma to find someone who will talk about"Global Warming",who will say the words"global Warming"We have one liberal biweekly paper,The Oklahoma Observer.The original editor dropped Ralph Nader's column years bec he said he would loose most or his readers....No discussions about global warming except an article by an acquaintance of mine entitled " Global Warming is caused by Nuclear Plants"...This is the best Oklahoma Liberals can come up with for the planet.
If voting Democratic and
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 22:27 — Anonymous (not verified)If voting Democratic and resenting "radicals" like Hedges because of his sweeping indictments and generalizations solved anything, then the last two months wouldn't have seen the nation's highest foreclosure rates since 2008; the rich would not be getting richer; the health insurance companies would not still be permitted to pull the strings of Congress, and we sure as hell would not be digging further into the quicksand of Iraq and Afghanistan. Face it. Nothing changed. The system is broken. You people attacking Hedges are a bunch of pathetic little whiners. You ought to be declared mentally ill; here you are, clinging to your illusions that the DFL offers a viable solution to the cancer that is the corporate takeover of America. Are you still going to say that Obama isn't Superman? That he can't fix the world overnight? Well, it's been two years. He's got two left. When two more years pass and he still doesn't have a victory to his name, what will you say? Vote for him again and wait another four years. Gee whiz. I sense a cycle, here.
Sorry. The "liberal class"
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 22:46 — T Day (not verified)Sorry. The "liberal class" has been outspoken for 50 years. We just don't have the political buying power to stave off the corporate criminals who run this country. Don't worry, you won't have to kick us around much longer, though. All the smart liberals I know have moved to Canada or Europe, leaving the old ones (like me) to wait for the country to fail and turn fascist. Liberal education has collapsed into "communications" and navel studies, so there won't be any educated liberals in this country's future.
I have no idea why any liberal would risk life, liberty, security, or reputation to try to save this wingnut-bin. The reward is always to be followed by a Republican idiot who will undo every progressive reform and shove the country back several steps closer to stone age.
Some interesting points but
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 23:29 — Todd Eastman (not verified)Some interesting points but they were obscured by the sermon-like tone from a non-native observer.
Tally Ho
They have soap boxes in Hyde
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 01:12 — goobagooba (not verified)They have soap boxes in Hyde Park in London for this sort of rambling. And there are people who make it their business to appear on them weekly to spout whatever nonsense or sense and take on the crowds who come to hoot and hassle them.
"Liberal class" is just such a subject, and while Hitchens rants about it, he sounds more like a child whose favorite toy has been savaged by an older sibling. The point is that reason was sacked during the Reagan debates by his "There you go again" condescension. The smile and the charm were taken as wisdom and communication rather than the grimace of the lizard that he was.
The juggernaut of right wing
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 03:27 — Frances Griffin (not verified)The juggernaut of right wing lies rolls forward while those of us devoted to "left" ideas such as peace, justice, the environment and the constitution, work away as best we can in the spaces in between passes of the steamroller, so to speak. Since the 70's the whole national discourse has shifted so far to the right that one is nostalgic for a good old socialist like Dwight Eisenhower.
A lot of what Hedges says does in fact apply to my experience with "mainstream" Democrats, especially the part about buying into a business-centric view and the part about the fear of being irrelevant by being "politically correct" or a "conspiracy theorist." We don't have a lot of obvious censorship, but we do have serious stifling of discourse made possible by the consolidation of the media. And it costs so much to run for office that even good people kowtow to corporations.
There is a certain grim satisfaction in having one's perceptions validated, but this does not seem to be information one can exactly use to effect change.
Interestingly the one group that seems to have gotten a lot of traction despite the lies is the environmental movement. The big groups make a heck of a lot of compromises and "partnerships" but they have accomplished a lot and a lot of it has happened since the 70's while the rest of our society has more or less gone down the tubes.
Al Capone was once asked,
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 06:05 — Anonymous (not verified)Al Capone was once asked, "Why do you always rob banks?" His answer was, "Because that's where the money is."
Too many politicians from both parties would give the same answer if they really told why they went into politics.
Liberal and conservative are labels that don't really tell you what is in the politician.
I'm an elite, yahooooooooo!
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 06:54 — Anonymous (not verified)I'm an elite, yahooooooooo! I'm so happy that as a daughter of a union man who worked his life in factories and a mother who worked in a factory also is now suddenly an elite. Both of my parents were union, liberal, and working class. I know many more liberals than conservatives, and most are working class or in lower paying degreed positions, like being a social worker.
Though so-called liberal politicians do share in the blame for not fighting for the little guy, the conservative elite are equally, or in many ways, more culpable in the state of the union.
Liberalism risks failure in
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 07:21 — Anonymous (not verified)Liberalism risks failure in two ways:
1) It is dedicated to rendering socialism unthinkable.
2) It seeks alliances with conservatism at all costs.
This is the Obama pattern, but it's also the Kennedy, Roosevelt, and Wilson pattern. I've been re-reading Howard Zinn's People's History, and this is a point that he makes irrefutably again and again.
Liberalism hasn't "sunk" into anything. It's the same as it always was.
What we need is more socialist revolutionaries. Narcissistic upper-middle-class self-dramatizers and moral posturers like Hedges are just defeatists.
Them we don't need.
Gee, the shoe seems to fit
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 07:30 — Anonymous (not verified)Gee, the shoe seems to fit very well this time judging from all the complaints. Hedges has been a little hysterical lately but this time he nailed it in one.
The right wing/Republican
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 08:31 — fahrender (not verified)The right wing/Republican class bought most of the media in the '70s. Liberal politicians, Democrat and Republican (there actually used to be some), were hounded to death or shot (the Kennedys, MLK Jr., etc) or run out of office, or, like Joe Lieberman, totally sold out. Hedges is totally right about these people - although they aren't Liberals as they gave up everything but the pretense of being. The revolution is over. The militarization of our governing class (call it liberal or right wing - doesn't matter) is fairly well complete. Certainly our once prized values and ideals have been degraded and thrown on the trash heap, and few Americans seem to care.
Our entire culture has been trivialized and poisoned by the corporate media class.
The meaning of the words liberal and conservative, as well, have been totally degraded. They are useless.
We, as a nation, are in serious peril. Things will never be the same. We will either completely destroy ourselves or some other power will come in and take over. It's only a matter of when, not if.
So many Democrats on this
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 08:36 — chip.mo (not verified)So many Democrats on this page seem afraid to share responsibility. Mr. Hedges is letting blame for the current state of the world fall squarely on the shoulders of unbridled capitalism.
However, lack of blame does not correlate to a lack of responsibility. True liberals need to realize that their identity is much closer to the mass of voters on the right than to the nepotistic political and corporate dynasties that rule on the left. In class warfare, it is essential that the soldiers of the left distinguish between the soldiers and the generals of the right.
Crap. This is 'Blame the
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 08:54 — opit (not verified)Crap. This is 'Blame the Victim' whitewash. Liberalism - Freedom - keeps the mob hoping for a chance to 'make a life. When the PTB again rein in the bit and curb access to necessities, imminent discomfort and death impel revolt. The Robber Barons by whatever name are a symptom and control enforcing limits to growth.
While I agree with Hedge's
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 10:51 — MR (not verified)While I agree with Hedge's assessment that liberal complacency is a huge culprit, I think we all must understand that a just-as-large reason the right is succeeding is because they can easily manipulate the poorly educated and ignorant in this country.
We all know that America's school systems are horrid. Horrid school systems, by their very nature, generate stupid people. Stupid people, in turn, are moldable clay for manipulators of all sorts. Because of the dearth of intellect in America, the right, pun intended, capitalizes on it and gets their way. Example, where are the worst school systems in America? The southeast. And where is right-wing extremism hubbed? The southeast. It's no coincidence, folks.
The left can mobilize and fight back all it wants, but until America begins educating and enlightening people, which will take generations, not a lot will change.
although poorly written, and
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 16:42 — Exile (not verified)although poorly written, and explained, Hedges has a point. The democrat party, has moved right. They've gone more, or less corporate. Consider it "conservative-lite" one third less billionaires per serving.
The marketing methodology that has been working so well for the ultra-conservative movement isn't new. It's roots go very far back. Look up "The American Liberty league" that was American's for Prosperity 1.0 (beta). They attempted a military overthrow of the federal government, in order to install a fascist dictator that better suited the interests of corporations.
One of their first, and most important weapons, is anti-intellectual propaganda. They fear people that "Think too much". they decry anyone that "Asks inconvenient questions". They believe schools are for wealthy kids only, and those of you that have to work, should have your children working there next to you. That is the goal of the tea-party movement.
@Exile, I champion your
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 17:00 — MR (not verified)@Exile, I champion your anti-intellectual statement. I think that the ignorance of the Right Wing shows when it comes to education. For instance, many right wingers, especially in the south, resent college educations because they perceive them not as institutions of higher learning but rather as bastions of liberal philosophy that indoctrinate young people.
No lie, a right-wing nutjob here at work (who's never been to college at all, mind you) said that universities are still just as populated with the same America-hating liberal professors as they were back in the '60s. When I pointedly asked him if he went to college, he replied "No, thank god."
That, my friends, is what comprises the right wing. Ignorance, extremism, hate. The foundation for your typical skinhead of Neo-Nazi.
So where are the socialists,
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 20:36 — Anonymous (not verified)So where are the socialists, communists, anarchists and neowhatists whose existence and growing popularity would tip action back leftward? Is the problem the collapse of the so-called liberal class, as Hedges states, or the relative non-existence of anything further left?
Hedges opening line: "The
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 20:38 — Anonymous (not verified)Hedges opening line: "The lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, which looks set to make sweeping gains in the midterm elections, is the direct result of a collapse of liberalism."
Direct result? At best it's indirect, since the liberal class, however feckless, is not whose funding and supporting the nutjobs.
Some of you seem to be a
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 21:37 — NoOneYouKnow (not verified)Some of you seem to be a little hard-of-reading. Hedges is excoriating the "liberal class," not liberals or liberalism. Establishment liberalism; polite liberalism. The same folks who are convinced that voting for the Dems just. one. more. time. will do the trick, and it's the patriotic thing to do.
Many of you also failed to note another Hedges point: the establishment left has sold out; they've been assimilated. There's obviously millions of really pissed-off lefties who want to fight back--but where are the leaders? What happened to the organizations of the left?
By all means, contribute to organizations that you think work for you, but look at them carefully--how many are only gently lefty. I understand NPR used to employ Fox News commentator Juan Williams; is that inclusiveness or selling out?
One final, sad point. Many of the left's greatest thinkers and leaders have been Jews, and many have sold themselves to the Right in exchange for support for unquestioning support for Israel.
"Well, I don't feel very
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 21:41 — NoOneYouKnow (not verified)"Well, I don't feel very guilty. I worked my ass off for 40 years to promote liberal candidates and ideas and conservatives won every time by lying and fraud."
I don't think you should feel guilty; you should feel suckered, because you have been. You've worked hard to elect people who have sold you out, over and over.
So how do you feel?
More intellectual hogwash
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 23:21 — Paul (not verified)More intellectual hogwash from Chris Hedges
Watching, as I do, from my
Wed, 10/27/2010 - 09:30 — ChrisJohn (not verified)Watching, as I do, from my side of the Pond, the rise of fascism and the disarray of liberalism in the USA, I see parallels here. Our Liberals have joined a Conservative coalition and we have a rise of wingnuts too; the British National Party and the English Defence League, who are opposed to immigrants. And we think it's you Americans who don't get irony! (the English were German immigrants into Britannia.)
The Right thrive on ignorance and the Left become institutionalised by the corporate capitalist world they are elected to serve in.
Obviously there are as many
Thu, 10/28/2010 - 10:07 — Anonymous (not verified)Obviously there are as many points of view as there are individuals, and samsara rolls on.
Blaming the victim? Seems to
Thu, 10/28/2010 - 16:38 — Clay (not verified)Blaming the victim? Seems to me Hedges identified the accomplice.
So, it turns out Chris
Sat, 11/06/2010 - 18:23 — Frances in California (not verified)So, it turns out Chris Hedges has a price after all. No, Chris, you can't wiggle out of this one. You aimed significant wit and ire at the very people who honor you . . . or we used to honor you. Now we hold our noses and put you out in the potting shed with Hitchenses and Cockburns and other flamers. As an impoverished artist, I speak for myself and anyone else who cherishes both da Vinci and the Constitution: you meant to say "Neo-Liberal", as in the Friedmanites promoting NAFTA; you were apparently in such a hurry to get book-royalties, you didn't bother - YOU DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER - to proof your terminology. It's HARD to lose a lefty like me, but you managed.
shooter
Sun, 02/12/2012 - 02:05 — shooter (not verified)Excellent job writing this article. I would like to read more on this matter.
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