[Peace-discuss] Lou Dobbs is dangerous

[C. G. Estabrook]

WHY is Lou Dobbs dangerous?  I suggest it's because he threatens to expose -- by 
not buying into it -- the malign liberal bargain whereby a campaign for 
diversity  is substituted for a campaign for equality.

(For the full argument, see Walter Benn Michaels, "The Trouble with Diversity: 
How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality" [2006] -- accurately 
summarized as "reducing politics to etiquette.")

If that's not the reason that Dobbs so enrages liberals, some other explanation 
must be found, because Dobbs is no rightist: his politics are centrist, even 
left of center:

   --he says he's not a conservative but an "independent populist," a critic of 
the "excesses of capitalism," which he identifies as globalization, offshore 
outsourcing, illegal immigration, free trade deals, corporate/big business 
influence in government and the Bush administration's tax cuts.

   --he opposes long-run trade deficits and outsourcing to obtain cheap labor; 
he is particularly wary of outsourcing and off-shoring, especially with China.

   --he says that he has left the Republicans to become an unaffiliated 
independent populist and no longer openly supports any party; he described the 
Bush administration and the then Republican-controlled Congress as "disgraceful."

   --he argues that both parties are controlled by corporate interests; in 2004 
he faulted Democrat John Kerry for first criticizing outsourcing and then 
backing off.

   --he's "pro-choice," opposes gun control, and has been generally supportive 
of gay civil rights; in 2006, as the Senate debated the Federal Marriage 
Amendment, he asserted that traditional marriage was threatened more by 
financial crises owing to Bush administration economic policy than by gay marriage.

   --his stance on trade has earned plaudits from some trade union activists on 
the traditional political left; his book "War on the Middle Class" argues that 
both Democrats and Republicans are harming the middle class, that the Bush tax 
cuts favor the wealthy, and that the minimum wage should be raised.

   --he criticizes U.S. foreign policy as being disproportionately supportive of 
Israel.

   --he condemned both Republican and Democrat "Wall Street bailouts" as a way 
to help corporate interests rather than average Americans.

   --he's criticized by the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute as 
xenophobic; he points out his wife is Mexican-American.

   --he's called "racist" and "defamatory" by the Southern Poverty Law Center 
because he raises the question of Obama's citizenship; but some (including me) 
think SPLC is as gamy as AEI.

As a yellow-dog Chomskyan, I'd reject most of this and the horse it rode in on, 
but one can hardly deny that it's pretty typical of opinions within the Limits 
of Allowable Debate.  So why is Lou Dobbs any more dangerous than any of the 
other lap-dogs of the corporate media?  Perhaps because he's let the cat out of 
the bag?

(This analysis brought to you by the Musicians of Bremen...)