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Pauli's line is good, but yours isn't. You should at least suggest
what you think is wrong with David's accurate and informed analysis.
<br>
<br>
The liberalism condemned by Hedges and Green elides the difference
between liberalism and the left. The distinction as it became
common 40 years ago depends on the attitude to capitalism (= another
protean term, but standing now for the present economic
arrangement). In consistent usage, the Left opposes capitalism,
while Liberalism supports it, while saying that it wants to
ameliorate its more destructive effects. (That itself is probably
an inescapable contradiction.) The two positions can sometimes look
alike on specific practical issues but the fundamental contradiction
between them is what both authors point out.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 11/1/10 11:27 AM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:059E3C3B-21D6-4CF3-91E5-B0649DC517D6@illinois.edu"
type="cite"><base href="x-msg://904/">As Wolfgang Pauli once said:
This is not even wrong.
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On Nov 1, 2010, at 10:57 AM, David Green wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
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<div style="margin: 0px; font-family: 'times new
roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">This article will be posted
tomorrow on ZNet:</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"> </div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"> </div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;
margin: 0in 0in 10pt;" align="center"><b><font
face="Calibri">November 2nd: The End of
"Progressivism"?</font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;
margin: 0in 0in 10pt;" align="center"><font
face="Calibri">David Green</font></p>
<font face="Calibri">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Whatever
its hopes and illusions, the American left has
been (predictably, in my view) marginalized--in
fact, demonized--in the age of Obama. There are
sensible explanations in terms of the capitalist
moment, the media, and the cynical nature of the
Obama deception itself. Nevertheless, at some
fundamental level it wouldn’t hurt for serious
leftists to look in the mirror and address the
development of an informed leftist discourse and
terminology that makes some consistent sense in
terms of history, ideology, principles, enemies,
and proposals. Whatever the diverse and global
philosophical heritage of popular movements for
social justice, we could aspire to a discourse
specific to the American left, reflecting its
unique history and tribulations in relation to
the most ruthlessly capitalistic and
militaristic country in history, facilitated by
dis-organized and racialized labor, as well as
by the professional-managerial class. </p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">But
the conventional, pervasive, careless, and
mindless use of the label “progressive” to
describe those who claim to be to the left of
the Obama Administration and the Democratic
Party in no way contributes to such an effort,
and instead has for the past two years and
longer shaped a slippery, evasive, disingenuous,
self-serving, and faux-leftist discourse that
functions to avoid fundamental issues of class
struggle, war, and the incorrigibility of
two-party politics.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The
failure of “progressivism,” such as it currently
is, partly reflects confusion about the history
of the Progressive Era, ignorance of the
historiography about that era, and the putative
principles of the current movement in relation
to the largely sordid genealogy of the ideology.
It is remarkable that those who now claim to
represent the left seem to be unable or
unwilling to consider that the discourse of
“progress” has most often been employed by
elitist ideologues in order to promote
capitalist “creative destruction” and
technological innovation (government-funded or
otherwise) instead of social justice, obviously
to the long-term benefit of corporations and the
ownership class, and to the detriment and
ongoing immiseration of the working classes.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The
Progressive Era (1890-1920) included the
administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson. During that Era, regulatory
power was consolidated at the federal level,
mainly to the benefit of corporate power,
stability, and the accumulation of wealth. Thus
the 1960s revisionist historian James Weinstein
described an era of “corporate liberalism.” The
dominant ideology of this period was defined by
the founders of<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
New Republic</i>, including Herbert Croly and
Walter Lippmann; they were organic social
theorists, elitists, and technocrats who defined
“progress” in managerial, administrative, and
orderly terms, not in terms of social struggle
and social justice. They responded in some ways
to genuine popular movements, but they also
feared them and loathed them; the result was
most often the pacification and co-optation of
such movements, including the labor movement.
Weinstein’s analysis was consistent with the
seminal revisionist work of Gabriel Kolko and
many others; Kolko described the result of the
Progressive Era as the triumph of “political
capitalism.”</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The
Progressive Era featured a Progressive Party
that was co-opted by Theodore Roosevelt’s “Bull
Moose” party in the complicated election of
1912. Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, upstaged
by Roosevelt, later ran a much more
authentically populist and leftist campaign for
president in 1924, also under the banner of the
Progressive Party; his resounding defeat also
signaled the demise of that party at the
national level. The journal he founded in 1909,<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Progressive,<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>has
for over a century promoted views, including
those of Howard Zinn, that bear little relation
to the “progress” of the Progressive Era, which
of course also included Wilson’s entrance into
World War I.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Those
who currently describe themselves as
progressives, or those who routinely employ the
term in their description of ideological
differences between Obama and his “base,”
display little understanding of these historical
problems of the American left, and thus become
subject to similar pitfalls.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Thus
the term “progressive” is currently a
disingenuously “non-ideological” ideological
placeholder, a vague and posturing term of
connotation and convenience—ironically
appropriate in the Age of Obama. It shuns
socialist ideology for programmatic
instrumentalism, even if their programs (pubic
option, etc.) have never become so much as a
glimmer in the eye of Obama. For the past two
years, progressivism has consisted of a futile
programmatic agenda without either an
organization or a movement, and certainly
without consistent principles, especially in
relation to our wars.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">As
a result, current progressivism is increasingly
defined by what it claims—implicitly or
explicitly—not to be. It signifies not-radical
in its failure to clearly name and address class
struggle and warfare, not-socialist in its
technocratic, elitist reformism, and not-antiwar
in its willingness to place our imperial
adventures on the back burner. Most of all,
progressives are not-left in their dogged
support for Democratic Party candidates. That is
to say, progressives—like their worst historical
antecedents—are not serious about democracy, and
contemptuous of the people.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Not-left
progressives nevertheless try to appeal to those
“idealists” whom they perceive to be further to
their left, in terms of two-party pragmatism and
lesser-evilism. The “good Obama” is still
thought to have a potentially “progressive”
(i.e., liberal reformist) bone in his body, and
the Democratic Party is claimed to oppose those
who are assumed to be much worse than
corporatists and militarists: racist Tea
Partiers, religious fundamentalists, and
mindless critics of “big government.” There
seems to be no awareness of the historical
“irony” that the principled (and populist)
William Jennings Bryan resigned as Secretary of
State upon the U.S. entrance into World War I,
and later represented religious “creationists”
in Tennessee.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">When
progressives finish defining themselves in terms
of what they are not, it remains clear what they
are: creatures of the corporate, two-party
system. At their worst, progressives resort to
explaining the “failures” of the pro-corporate
Obama administration with words such as
“weakness,” “stupidity,” “cowardice,” and
“betrayal.” They claim, disingenuously, that
Obama is a stranger to them. At this point
progressivism becomes, if nothing else, an
ideology of calculated outrage and the
provocation of fear. The frequency of this
terminology and these tactics has increased
exponentially during the final weeks of the
current election campaign; the Democratic Party
will still be a major party, but progressivism
will be mercifully unraveled.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The
progressive movement, such as it is,
increasingly reflects the Tea Party, such as it
is, in defining itself in terms of what it is
opposed to, and what it is afraid of. But
interestingly, the Tea Party seems to more
genuinely reflect a rejection of the (rightfully
feared) two-corporate-party system, while
progressives come to sound more like Thomas
Friedman in their desperate and cynical efforts
to save the Congress from the Republican Party;
they revert to elitism, if in fact it can be
called a reversion.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">If
those who currently call themselves progressives
and take the term seriously have an alternative
framework with which to help me to understand
their behavior, I will gladly and seriously
consider it.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Barring
that, when the coming debacle is complete and
the bodies are buried, it is to be hoped that
one of them will be this habitual reliance on a
term that merely reveals that in this country,
many of those who claim to constitute the left
nevertheless lack either the clarity or the
courage of their convictions, and thus fail to
act on them in a serious manner.</p>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> <br
class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
</font><br>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; font-family: 'times new
roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
<div style="margin: 0px; font-family:
arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font
face="Tahoma" size="2">
<hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>C. G.
Estabrook <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Peace-discuss
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@anti-war.net">peace-discuss@anti-war.net</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Mon,
November 1, 2010 10:47:55 AM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[Peace-discuss]
Chris Hedges rips Jon Stewart rally<br>
</font><br>
"The Rally to Restore Sanity ... ridiculed
followers of the tea<br>
party without acknowledging that the pain and
suffering expressed by<br>
many who support the movement are not only real
but legitimate. It made<br>
fun of the buffoons who are rising up out of moral
swamps to take over<br>
the Republican Party without accepting that their
supporters were sold<br>
out by a liberal class, and especially a
Democratic Party, which turned<br>
its back on the working class for corporate money.
Fox News’ Beck<br>
and his allies on the far right can use hatred as
a<br>
mobilizing force because there are tens of
millions of Americans who<br>
have very good reason to hate. They have been
betrayed by the elite who<br>
run the corporate state, by the two main political
parties and by the<br>
liberal apologists, including those given public
platforms on<br>
television, who keep counseling moderation as jobs
disappear, wages drop<br>
and unemployment insurance runs out. As long as
the liberal class speaks<br>
in the dead voice of moderation it will continue
to fuel the right-wing<br>
backlash. Only when it appropriates this rage as
its own, only when it<br>
stands up to established systems of power,
including the Democratic<br>
Party, will we have any hope of holding off the
lunatic fringe of the<br>
Republican Party."<br>
<br>
The Phantom Left<br>
Posted on Oct 31, 2010<br>
By Chris Hedges<br>
<br>
The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up
by the right wing to<br>
tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the
liberal class to justify<br>
its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention
from corporate power.<br>
It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system
that is influenced by the<br>
votes of citizens, political platforms and the
work of legislators. It<br>
keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a
right. The phantom left<br>
functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right
wing blames it for moral<br>
degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class
uses it to call for<br>
“moderation.” And while we waste our time talking
nonsense, the engines<br>
of corporate power—masked, ruthless and
unexamined—happily devour the state.<br>
<br>
The loss of a radical left in American politics
has been catastrophic.<br>
The left once harbored militant anarchist and
communist labor unions, an<br>
independent, alternative press, social movements
and politicians not<br>
tethered to corporate benefactors. But its
disappearance, the result of<br>
long witch hunts for communists,
post-industrialization and the<br>
silencing of those who did not sign on for the
utopian vision of<br>
globalization, means that there is no counterforce
to halt our slide<br>
into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality,
however, is not<br>
palatable. So the corporations that control mass
communications conjure<br>
up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom
for our debacle. And<br>
they get us to speak in absurdities.<br>
<br>
The phantom left took a central role on the mall
this weekend in<br>
Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn
Beck, who used it in<br>
his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger
and fear. And the<br>
phantom left proved equally useful for the comics
Jon Stewart and<br>
Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing
red-white-and-blue<br>
costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left,
as the liberal class<br>
always does, in defense of moderation, which might
better be described<br>
as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the
left wing is crazy, the<br>
argument goes, then we moderates will be
reasonable. We will be nice.<br>
Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory
banks and the arms<br>
industry, may be ripping the guts out of the
country, our<br>
rights—including habeas corpus—may have been
revoked, but don’t get mad.<br>
Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the
left.<br>
<br>
“Why would you work with Marxists actively
subverting our Constitution<br>
or racists and homophobes who see no one’s
humanity but their own?”<br>
Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how
fragile our country<br>
is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing
hate, and how it’s a<br>
shame that we can’t work together to get things
done. But the truth is<br>
we do. We work together to get things done every
damn day. The only<br>
place we don’t is here [in Washington] or on cable
TV.”<br>
<br>
The rally delivered a political message devoid of
reality or content.<br>
The corruption of electoral politics by corporate
funds and lobbyists,<br>
the naive belief that we can somehow vote
ourselves back to democracy,<br>
was ignored for emotional catharsis. The right
hates. The liberals<br>
laugh. And the country is taken hostage.<br>
<br>
The Rally to Restore Sanity, held in Washington’s
National Mall, was yet<br>
another sad footnote to the death of the liberal
class. It was as<br>
innocuous as a Boy Scout jamboree. It ridiculed
followers of the tea<br>
party without acknowledging that the pain and
suffering expressed by<br>
many who support the movement are not only real
but legitimate. It made<br>
fun of the buffoons who are rising up out of moral
swamps to take over<br>
the Republican Party without accepting that their
supporters were sold<br>
out by a liberal class, and especially a
Democratic Party, which turned<br>
its back on the working class for corporate money.<br>
<br>
Fox News’ Beck and his allies on the far right can
use hatred as a<br>
mobilizing force because there are tens of
millions of Americans who<br>
have very good reason to hate. They have been
betrayed by the elite who<br>
run the corporate state, by the two main political
parties and by the<br>
liberal apologists, including those given public
platforms on<br>
television, who keep counseling moderation as jobs
disappear, wages drop<br>
and unemployment insurance runs out. As long as
the liberal class speaks<br>
in the dead voice of moderation it will continue
to fuel the right-wing<br>
backlash. Only when it appropriates this rage as
its own, only when it<br>
stands up to established systems of power,
including the Democratic<br>
Party, will we have any hope of holding off the
lunatic fringe of the<br>
Republican Party.<br>
<br>
Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury, the
curtailing of our civil<br>
liberties, the millions of fraudulent
foreclosures, the long-term<br>
unemployment, the bankruptcies from medical bills,
the endless wars in<br>
the Middle East and the amassing of trillions in
debt that can never be<br>
repaid are pushing us toward a Hobbesian world of
internal collapse.<br>
Being nice and moderate will not help. These are
corporate forces that<br>
are intent on reconfiguring the United States into
a system of<br>
neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be
halted by funny signs,<br>
comics dressed up like Captain America or nice
words.<br>
<br>
The liberal class wants to inhabit a political
center to remain morally<br>
and politically disengaged. As long as there is a
phantom left, one that<br>
is as ridiculous and stunted as the right wing,
the liberal class can<br>
remain uncommitted. If the liberal class concedes
that power has been<br>
wrested from us it will be forced, if it wants to
act, to build<br>
movements outside the political system. This would
require the liberal<br>
class to demand acts of resistance, including
civil disobedience, to<br>
attempt to salvage what is left of our anemic
democratic state. But this<br>
type of political activity, as costly as it is
difficult, is too<br>
unpalatable to a bankrupt liberal establishment
that has sold its soul<br>
to corporate interests. And so the phantom left
will be with us for a<br>
long time.<br>
<br>
Politics in America has become spectacle. It is
another form of show<br>
business. The crowd in Washington, well trained by
television, was<br>
conditioned to play its role before the cameras.
The signs —“The Rant is<br>
Too Damn High,” “Real Patriots Can Handle a
Difference of Opinion” or “I<br>
Masturbate and I Vote”—reflected the hollowness of
current political<br>
discourse and television’s perverse epistemology.
The rally spoke<br>
exclusively in the impoverished iconography and
language of television.<br>
It was filled with meaningless political pieties,
music and jokes. It<br>
was like any television variety program.
Personalities were being sold,<br>
not political platforms. And this is what the
society of spectacle is about.<br>
<br>
The modern spectacle, as the theorist Guy Debord
pointed out, is a<br>
potent tool for pacification and depoliticization.
It is a “permanent<br>
opium war” which stupefies its viewers and
disconnects them from the<br>
forces that control their lives. The spectacle
diverts anger toward<br>
phantoms and away from the perpetrators of
exploitation and injustice.<br>
It manufactures feelings of euphoria. It allows
participants to confuse<br>
the spectacle itself with political action.<br>
<br>
The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash
talk show hosts on Fox<br>
are in the same business. They are entertainers.
They provide the empty,<br>
emotionally laden material that propels endless
chatter back and forth<br>
on supposed left- and right-wing television
programs. It is a national<br>
Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is
not politics. It is<br>
entertainment. It is spectacle. All national
debate on the airwaves is<br>
driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd
trivia, the same<br>
celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous
posturing. It is presented<br>
with a different spin. But none of it is about
ideas or truth. None of<br>
it is about being informed. It caters to emotions.
It makes us confuse<br>
how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the
end, for those who<br>
serve up this drivel, the game is about money in
the form of ratings and<br>
advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve
the same masters. And<br>
it is not us.<br>
<br>
Chris Hedges, who writes every Monday for
Truthdig, is the author of the<br>
new book “Death of the Liberal Class.”<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/"
target="_blank">http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/</a><br>
<br>
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