I didn't read the entire book, but what I did read of Christopher Hedges The Death of the Liberal Class was a tedious disappointment. The author of the excellent War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning has a good idea: How the decay of liberal institutions such as the press and the Democratic party has opened the door to a corporate assault on the middle-class way of life. But the sections I read were just another tired left-wing assault on liberalism, the kind of thing I've been reading and hearing since high school.
Hedges can't understand, for example, why liberals detest Ralph Nader. Nader is a saint, after all. And his candidacy had nothing to do with Bush's win in 2000. Bush cheated, Gore ran a poor campaign, and anyway there is really was no difference between the two. Hedges doesn't consider why liberals found this claim wrong in 2000 and ludicrous by 2008. He merely shakes his head sorrowfully when Eric Alterman explodes at Nader in the film An Unreasonable Man.
The problem with liberalism, Hedges argues, is that it never heeds the left. But that's a two-way street: The left never listens, either. It issues policy pronouncements and then accuses liberals of selling out on imagined commitments that could have been met had they only believed more.
Progressive systemic change in this country has typically been driven by mass movements. Hedges' liberal establishment cannot by definition produce movements, but historically it has (eventually) heeded them. Despite a disappearing middle class, the left has failed -- if it's even tried -- to organize. What is needed is not yet another left wing critique of liberalism, but a left wing critique of the left...
Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is anathema to me. But I have to ask myself: If my choice is to extend the cuts and extend unemployment benefits or let the cuts expire at the price of the Republicans killing unemployment benefits, what do I do? Do I call their bluff? But what if it's not a bluff? Do I put people in danger of losing food and shelter when I can take on the tax cuts next year when when the economy may have improved?...
Watching this video of Neil Young's "Thrasher," I was struck by the differences in the iconic images of a man with a guitar and a woman with a guitar. Young's energy flows outward: He conveys a message by seducing the audience. The guitar is, if not an instrument of aggression, a second microphone that amplifies his intent to connect a personal vision. Compare Young's presence with Patty Griffin's as she sings "Be Careful":
The size of the guitar nearly overwhelms the petite Griffin, forming a protective barrier. She sings and plays with great maternal presence, drawing the audience toward her, attempting to elicit a personal empathy for the emotional vulnerability of young women...
A young friend of a young friend has cancer. The diagnosis isn't complete, but the docs have already discovered a tumor on his spine, which suggests bone lymphoma or bone cancer. He's undergoing emergency radiation treatments to halt the spread of the malignancy because he's in imminent danger of a collapsed spine, which would paralyze him for life even if the cancer goes into remission.
This Native-American family has already lost one son to the Iraq war. Another child -- because I can't help but think of someone I've known since the age of 14 as anything but a child -- recently joined the service.
They have no health insurance.
Hasn't this family given enough, sacrificed enough? Can anyone explain to me why they should have to pay a dime for treatment? Can anyone explain to me why they should have to go through the humiliating process of applying for assistance? Why a Gold Star Mother -- or any mother, for that matter -- should have to tell one paper pusher after another that she couldn't afford insurance, much less the cost of treatment, and can you please help? Why the family should be forced to rely in part on well-meaning fundraisers that won't make a dent in the costs?
Last November, I fell and broke my wrist. The combined pre-insurance charge of the ER, day surgery, follow-up appointments, and hand therapy exceeded $20,000.00. For a common childhood injury. Any guesses as to what a full-court press treatment of bone lymphoma will cost?
And yet there are people who will tell you that keeping the government out of health care is worth the cost this family is paying, that a young man's collapsed spine is a small price to pay for preventing a certain class of people from forming a dependency on the nanny state.
I'm going to guess that said people have never actually been faced with paying such a cost themselves. I'm going to guess that if they ever were, many would be bitter and angry. Which this family is not. They're stoic beyond imagination.
But, you see, there's a this huge danger to the country of families like this becoming dependent on...what? The country that they've already given one life to? The country that another family member has signed up to serve even though this person is all too aware of the sacrifice that may be asked? The country that they patriotically serve despite its -- to put it delicately -- problematic history with their forebears? You tell me, because I'm having a hard time seeing a danger here...
Citizen K. has refrained from commenting on the ongoing Israel-Palestine tragedy because he doesn't know enough about the convoluted history and politics of that dispute to support an inclination to believe in a two-state solution. In this lengthy but fascinating lecture -- which you can watch or read -- John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, explains that, while a two-state solution may be preferred, Israeli policy will produce exactly what it does not want: A single bi-national democracy dominated by Palestinians. Professor Mearsheimer projects that this will happen only after a period of Israeli policy drift to an official and obvious apartheid that will lose the crucial support of American Jews. In a fascinating aside, he predicts that the internet will play a positive role, and makes specific recommendations for Palestinians to accelerate the process. Highly recommended (thanks, Josh and Sarah)...
British Petroleum has yet to lay out a plan for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf, which should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, they didn't think that an explosion could possibly happen. Anyway, why would a $240 billion dollar company invest its scarce resources into a contingency plan for an environmental catastrophe? I mean, even the existence of such a plan might imply the possibility of a spill which could endanger plans for offshore drilling and...well...we wouldn't want that, would we? The legal cap on damages is $75 million, but a group of Democratic senators flatly disbelieve BP promises that it will pay the costs of cleanup want to raise the cap to $10 billion. I wonder what the Republican mantra opposing this and supporting a taxpayer bailout of BP will be? (Thanks once again to the New Orleans Ladder, which remains an amazingly current resource on the spill.)...
Watch Fox News promote the idea that the Federal Flood of NOLA was an act of God and that the oil spill may the result of an environmentalist conspiracy. How do these people say this stuff with a straight face? I suppose that we have to remember that they are actors reading a script...
He may have been born Neil Percival Kenneth Robert Ragland Young, but he'll always be "Neil" to me:
"Dissipation is actually much worse than cataclysm." -Tracy Lett, August: Osage County
Or, as Neil Young prophetically sang back in 1979, it's better to burn out than it is to rust. Christopher Hayes writes here that the policy failures of the Bush Administration nonetheless created an entrenched corporate state that left progressives on the horns of an exquisite dilemma. By working within the system to address the myriad problems facing it, progressives risk inadequate but still helpful solutions that at the same strengthen the power structure. But taking a long view and working to change the distribution of power could mean forgoing assistance for progressive constituencies that need help now, no matter how imperfect. It's the high risk-high reward approach in which failure consigns the progressive movement to irrelevance. But Hayes doubts that progessives have much choice, and points out that a movement's long-term goals doesn't preclude it from having a short-term impact. The problem that I see is that a redistribution of power does require a movement, and I don't see one. Most progressive grass-roots groups are so focused on the harm done to their constituencies during the Bush administration that they don't have the time or resources to focus on long-term collaborative movement building...
Hayes doesn't say how organizers and activists should respond to thuggish tactics like these. And you can be that these would be the tip of the iceberg in response to a serious challenge to power distribution...
I am not feeling optimistic about today's special election in Massachusetts. A loss means the end of health care reform for at least a generation, an increase in the number of retiring Democrats, and the possibility of a Republican landslide this fall. The Republican strategy of just-say-no and divide-and-conquer appears to be working: I read of one Brown voter who said that the country was more polarized than during the Vietnam war and then blamed Obama. And, of course, conservative calls for bipartisanship drip with typical hypocrisy. These are politicians who didn't think twice about politicizing a war...
Andrew Romano writes that if Martha Coakley loses, it will be because she took Massachusetts voters for granted. As someone who watched Christine Gregoire nearly lose the governor's race in Washington state for just that reason, I can attest firsthand that voters hate to be taken for granted. They're willing to bite of their nose to spite their face to send exactly that message, too...
At The Nation, Richard Kim writes that Haiti needs justice as much as charity, and that a good place to start is debt relief...
Don't miss the pictures from Haiti on Corve DaCosta's blog here...
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