[Peace-discuss] Rich Class Resentment

[David Green]

Frank Rich, the NYT's bellwether (sp?) liberal, feels this morning that he must play the class card (that is, the accusation of right-wing populist class resentment along with the too-convenient accusation of hypocrisy) as well as the race card. For either, it is more about caricature than addressing serious issues. Whatever one thinks about libertarians and race--and I tend to agree with EWJ on this issue--there certainly is no serious liberal critique of institutionalized racism in our country, just as there is (cannot be) a serious critique of class:

"Still, it’s Paul’s brand of populism, not his views on Jim Crow or Iran, that are most germane to the Tea Party’s birth and its future — both within the G.O.P. and as a force that will buffet Obama and the Democrats. Paul most abundantly embodies the movement’s animus when he plays on classic American-style class resentment. His campaign loved to deploy the full name of his opponent, Charles Merwin Grayson III, a Harvard-educated banker’s son. In his victory speech Tuesday night, Paul said the voters’ message was to “get rid of the power people, the people who run the show, the people who think they’re above everybody else” — or, as he put it on an earlier occasion, the establishment who “from their high-rise penthouse” look down on and laugh at the “American rabble.” "
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23rich.html?ref=opinion
 
DG


      
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