THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART FOUR

The ruling class doesn't fear any ideology, any alternative lifestyle choices, any theories. Elite clubs of intellectual snobs refining radical theories pose no threat to them, either. Intelligent people who have an inflated sense of their own self worth are very easy to buy off and neutralize.

Narcissistic Code Pink style antics and guerrilla theater are useful to the ruling class and are welcomed and encouraged by them. Speaking truth to power? You might as well throw marshmallows at a charging rhino. We need to speak truth about power to the powerless.

It is broad participation by the people in politics that the ruling class most fears and works hardest to prevent. That is why saying in essence to millions of people that "you aren't smart enough (or pure enough in the case of the New Agers) to join our elite club" is the kiss of death for any serious political movement that claims to be in any sort of opposition to the ruling class.

This is a chronic problem and blocks or cripples any attempts at mobilizing the working people. I believe that a relatively small group of people control all discussion and all power on what passes for the Left in this country, and that they would sooner surrender anything else - including selling all of us down the river - before they would let go of their sense of exceptionalism, superiority and entitlement.

"Liberal" has come to mean "a superior sort of individual," while "progressive" has come to mean "an individual traveling the path to enlightenment and transcending above their inferiors." No matter how many radical theories or what ideology or superior personal spiritual beliefs you set out as window dressing, the cult of the enhanced and actualized individual will always be contradictory to and destructive of efforts to build the working class solidarity that is essential to any serious political change.

Why are there so many arguments, so much bitter antagonism, such paralysis and confusion on much ballyhooed “Progressive-Liberal-Left”?

Because people fight for their positions as though their personal identity depended upon them, as though their existence depended upon their political position or theory. That is because their personal identity does depend upon their political positions. They are one and the same - "be the change you want to see." People actually mean "seek the change that suits who you are as an actualized individual" since it never involves self-sacrifice or focus on the needs of others, but always on individual personal choices and self-expression. In fact, their political positions are not political positions at all, but narcissistic expressions of their personalities.

Now I recognize that many people here define themselves as "independents" and therefore, may reject whatever came before... but it is still important to know what that was.

It is also true that "liberals" and "leftists" may find themselves allied on many issues or tactics and may well need each other under those circumstances.

Finally, it is true that "liberal" or "leftist" may refer to "political labels", applied by "the right", by others, or even by oneself, and have no particular relevance to the actual issues which divide "liberals" and "leftists".

Nonetheless... historically, liberals and leftists are not merely different points in a common spectrum but, in the end, they are implacable enemies. And the issue is precisely joined on the issue of class, as has been mentioned before but now seems to have disappeared from the general lexicon.

If the term "left" has any meaning other than a purely relative one, it is as that group of political ideas, parties, movements, and organizations which believes that politics is driven less by ideas than by interests and that those interests are based on economic class. Radical republicans (Civil War variety), revolutionary democrats, social democrats (including even a sizable chunk of the British Labor Party and the German SDs of today), socialists, utopian socialists, agrarian socialists, communists, anarchists, anarco-syndicalists, and nihilists - if these do not agree on anything else, they agree on the centrality of social classes even before they divide on what to do about them.

In contrast, "Liberals" explicitly reject the centrality of social classes. If such exist at all, they are assumed to be trumped by a common interest (national or otherwise) and any division is based only on transitory political opinion or policy. They are united with "Conservatives" in their agreement on the fundamental norms of society and on their long-term objectives (most importantly in the defense of private property and the projection of "national interest"). Indeed, for them, the current organization of society is the only one conceivable.


To the Liberals, the Left is a competitor for the same political constituency they claim to represent. The Left fosters "national division" and "class hatred" where moderation and "cooler heads" might otherwise prevail. They are often hand-cuffed by the "extreme demands" and "lack of reform mindedness" of the Left. If things come to a head, they can even justify arresting the Left... in the interest of "the greater good", of course (see Palmer, McCarthy, many more...).

The Left returns this attitude with interest... They regard the Liberals as the reform party of the ruling class. From this standpoint, the Liberals most assuredly need the Left. We are the monsters-beneath-the-bed that they invariably point to as a reason for the Conservatives to negotiate "reform"... "If you don't deal with us you may have to tackle the great unwashed". That is what "playing the class card" or "race card" means.

What exactly do we need the Liberals for? If there turns out to have been a misunderstanding of biblical prophesy and all Liberals are suddenly captured by the Rapture and disappear from the face of the earth how much worse off would we be? Would Rove suddenly be "turned loose" ‘cause Joe Biden was no longer there to protect us?
A little political haiku:

They ask:
"Why can't we just get along?"
We ask:
"Which side are you on?"

It is rare to find anything that is not dominated by capitalism, it is the rare person for whom the system is working, the rare industry that is not being ravaged and destroyed by corporate power, the rare neighborhood that is not being destroyed, it is rare to find a public resource of any kind that is not at risk.

The United States is being transformed into a banana republic. A class of people is starting to form, apologizing for and defending the oligarchy in exchange for a certain amount of privilege and comfort, and beating down the peasants or anyone who speaks for them. Educated, mostly white, "liberal," they have infiltrated all through the Democratic party and liberal organizations. It is remarkable to me to hear them, since they sound exactly like the upper class mouthpieces in Latin America have sounded all these years and use almost precisely the same arguments. They are singing a bittersweet, syrupy, seductive song - the sing song lullaby of the oligarchy.

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART THREE

Is it a coincidence that liberalism has become dominated by the relatively well-off, and that simultaneously economics are no longer front and center for the Democratic party but are merely a minor side issue?



All of the liberal causes are important, once you already have a certain degree of economic freedom. None of the causes are very important to the rest of the population. This is the built in bias of the liberal community that leads to an inability to stand strong against the ruling class or to connect with the average person, and has now led to people who are supposed opponents to the right wing taking anti-immigration and pro-free trade and free market positions, and support the war on drugs and the war on terror. The Democratic party and liberal organizations have become the biggest supporters of the new aristocracy, while dominating all political discourse that is not overtly right wing and suppressing any true politics of opposition from emerging.

The rest of the people in the world suffer, in order to support the conditions that allow about 10% of our population to enjoy the luxury of living in the realm of political musing and theorizing. The lives and outlook of that 10% are seen as the standard, as the given, as the norm. It is not the norm even within any metropolitan area, unless you ignore minorities, ignore the elderly and infirm, ignore the working poor and single mothers, and ignore the millions of people working blue collar jobs.

All day long in the media, that 10% - white, upwardly mobile, educated, tolling around in new cars, climbing the corporate management ladder, buying expensive homes, having full access to health care, having access to excellent public education and municipal services, taking fun and exotic vacations, buying the latest gadgetry and trinkets - is presented as being representative of "us" - who we are as a people.

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“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me. And yet assure myself and others, that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his burden by all possible means. Except, by getting off his back.”

- Leo Tolstoy

Those of us on the Left have heard for decades now sentiments such as "what will ever make you happy?" and "you are a purist" and "no one agrees with you" and "that may be what YOU want, but you need to be practical" and "OK if you reject them, who do YOU think would be the right person? What is YOUR choice then?" and "it is easy to criticize, but do you have any positive suggestions or do you just like to whine and complain?" and other similar statements.

"Not revolution, but evolution" people said when Clinton was elected, and we were harangued to see Clinton as some sort of wonderful new direction from the Reagan years. “We” got NAFTA.

"Now “weeeeeeeeee” have control of the House, and you have to be patient." Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. We don't have jack. Nothing. Ashes. A big sick cruel joke is what we have, and the joke is on us.

But “We” have "Dennis" - finally a man who "matches my personal spiritual values so that I can vote my conscience."

WTF??? Are we picking a guy for a high school prom date???

Have “We” fucking lost our minds??

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - second only to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee meeeeeeeeeeeee a candidate for meeeeeeeeeeeeee and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.

I don't give a damned what any fucking liberal's personal little choice is, and I am sick of hearing about their latest knight in fucking shining armor. (e.g. Obama- The Audacity of Hype)

There are a number of implied assumptions behind this "not perfect enough for you" line of assault - and make no mistake, it is an assault, designed to silence people and terminate consideration and discussion. "Are you happy NOW??? Will you stop bothering us with your gloom and doom NOW???? Can we stop listening to you NOW????"

To say that the “latest-greatest” Obama (for example) is being rejected because he is not quite perfect is to imply that he is kinda sorta there, or “in the right direction” or presumed to be an ally. What is being pointed out here is not that Obama and The Dems fail some perfection test – an imaginary test that suggests that he/they are mostly OK but has a few flaws that only perfectionists would notice, and a test that the people being accused of using it are not using - but rather that these people are not at all, in any way, remotely, or vaguely aligned any of the working people and that the notion that they are aligned with us is all a carefully created and totally false illusion. What are presumed to be "flaws" – which a few of us are supposedly unwilling to overlook in our stubbornness and obtuseness – are actually accurate glimpses through the camouflage at the whole picture, not minor peripheral and insignificant flaws.

They aren't minor flaws in an otherwise perfect gem – they are indicators as to the true nature of this chunk of manure painted up to look like a gem so as to fool people. Looking through the holes in the fancy paint job at the interior of the object, and saying it is not a flawed diamond, it is a chunk of manure with a coat of paint hastily slopped on to make it look like a diamond is merely pointing out the hypocrisy and unreality of the liberal fetish.

On another level this assault is wrong-headed and destructive, and that is in the implied assumption that politics is a matter of personal taste - “well that is what YOU want but not very many people agree with you.” FUCK THAT. Politics is about the greatest good for the greatest number, not about “what I want.” The narcissistic belly button lint gazing is completely antithetical to working class solidarity, and is nothing more than an amusing little hobby for the pampered and spoiled and selfish latte' liberal.

Beyond the question of whether or not this particular person is perfect, I also reject the assumption that we are all looking for a person to begin with, and that looking for a person is the essence of politics.

Barack Obama is the enemy. Looking for a person is the problem, not the solution. Insulting, frustrating, and silencing the most perceptive among us is what is destroying the possibility of a strong Left emerging, and is the tawdry and amoral House Negro work that keeps the ruling class in place. THAT is the fucking problem, and that is a LONG way from the snide and demeaning accusations that critics of Obama and others are being a prissy little perfectionists, carping and fault finding for the sake of irritating people or being a party spoiler.

This “you are being a perfectionist” propaganda is infinitely more destructive to the Left than anything that ever comes from the right wingers, and is one of the most important bulwarks of ruling class power.

This is not nit-picking. It is not "being negative." It is not being a "purist."

This is the whole battle.

We have tried being polite, reasoning with people, documenting the truth, respecting and considering people's complaints that we are being too harsh, too radical, that we are making attacks, that we are alienating allies, that we are hurting "the cause."

None of that has worked.

The years slip by. Conditions grow worse and worse, The danger grows and grows. The ruling class gets stronger and stringer. Polite nicey-nice "can't we all get along children and play nice?" is bringing no positive returns and there is nothing to lose by speaking the truth as harshly as needs be to get the message across.

Maybe the bottom line is whether or not we all seek the same depth of changes in our society. There is no doubt in my mind that whether under the control of Democrats or the Republicans, the number one beneficiary of political decisions, be they foreign policy or domestic, will be large industries/the extremely wealthy - that is, the general protection of the status quo, and the continuation of a capital-before-people mentality, the right of the US to impose its will on nations for the benefit of its corporations.

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART TWO

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LIBERAL AND A LEFTIST

I offer this a starting point.

A Leftist says that the fundamental organization of our society is intolerable because it leads directly to war, poverty, oppression, and environmental destruction. The Leftist argues that a new and different framework is necessary.

A Liberal says that the basic organization of our society is reasonably good, and should therefore be accepted, and that any efforts at further improving society should come from working within the already-established framework. IOW, the liberal wants slight modifications to what already exists, believing that its basic structure is reasonably sound.

Liberal- will blithely be assimilated.

Leftist- will likely be assassinated.

Liberal- possesses a quaint notion that one can reform hierarchical power structures.

Leftist- desires to completely unravel and eliminate the functions and forms of hierarchy.

Liberal- wishes to reform The Bank into The People's Credit Union.

Leftist- sees the need to turn the tables of the moneychangers and smash the marketplace.

Liberal- says "Living Wage".

Leftist- says "Solidarity".

Liberal- willingly shells out $4 for a glass of carrot juice.

Leftist- sees Root Vegetables as sustenance and metaphor.

Liberal- outside the coffee shop talks about the need for the Cappuccino Revolution but balks at acting out for fear this would endanger his/her daily cappuccino.

Leftist- reuses the same coffee filter, paper towels or odd socks when all other options have been exhausted in an attempt to squeeze one more cup from yesterday's grounds.

Liberal- wants to 'get out the vote'.

Leftist- recognizes voting as a nominal form of political activity meant to validate the Democratic State and convince the political consumer that they are a participant in governance.

Liberal- can often be seen mouthing the "education is the answer" mantra particularly in the rarified atmosphere of the Citadels of Expertise. Revels in being near theory or people 'doing theory' in the academy.

Leftist- sees education as social engineering and cultural imperialism. Education Academies seen as the proving grounds for the future ruling class.

Liberal- users of 'all natural' deodorant. The armpits are fresh particularly during commercial breaks.

Leftists- recognize deodorant as one of the essential pillars of Empire. Will often raise their armpits in tight quarters due to quixotic impulses.

Liberal- writes lengthy position papers on the plusses of developing more efficient killing machines (See Amory Lovins for more details).

Leftist- sees the Techno Warfare State as one of the great life destroying mechanisms in the history of Mankind and understands the relationship between war and oppression. The "Health of the State" being that which kills everything else.

Liberal- true believers in the New Economy and Seattle (the city) home of Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks.

Leftist- acknowledge a different Seattle (the Amerindian prophet)

Liberals- have recently been experiencing a population explosion which seems to have been caused by a grey form of technocratic inbreeding. Liberalism is now a major growth industry much like Cancer. Much of this exponential proliferation of this well-groomed disease seems to emanate directly from Academia.

Leftists- an endangered species. Said to be only 723 remaining in the contiguous 48 states of the United States of America. For years they have been scooped up and exiled to the Periphery. To date all efforts to exhume the spirit of Eugene Debs have fallen on deaf ears.

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Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socioeconomic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is a core cause of the suffering.

A liberal might get upset by militarism, but happily invests in Martin Marietta Corp, and rejoices when it increases its dividend. Liberals are also often susceptible to nationalist propaganda appeals, & thus can easily be persuaded to support wars like the NATO war in Kosovo, simply because it was cleverly marketed as a "humanitarian intervention." A socialist would never fall for this sort of ploy.

A liberal might be properly horrified by pollution, waste, hyper commercialism, and many of the ills of modern society, but pays little conscious attention to the underlying issue of corporate power that allows such things to dominate our lives. A liberal will vote for Democrats, despite the obvious fact that these contemptible worms are nothing but bought servants of corporate monopolies or oligopolies. The liberal sleeps easily, figuring, "Well, at least the Dems are better than Bush!" as though this really implies some sort of resistance to rampant corporatism.

Basically, the liberal tut-tuts disapprovingly at some of the blatantly horrible end-effects of policies, politicians, and economic philosophies that, for the most part, he accepts. A socialist, on the other hand, is conscious of where the roots of these disasters lie....

INTERMISSION:

Now is a good time to cue up some Phil Ochs:

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART ONE

NOTES ON TIDY WHITE OPPRESSION AND SUNDRY PRETENDERS

There is much pretending throughout the progressive and liberal community.

Success and the good life, credentials and status, position and privilege must be protected, at least for people like "us." At the same time, this position and privilege is dependent upon playing a certain role. As Liberals we must pretend that we are not defending privilege and position and must pretend that we are for the downtrodden. We must pretend that privilege and position is all earned, and that anyone could have anything that we have. We must defend the system of dog-eat-dog competition without allowing that to be too obvious. So we pretend that introducing "fairness" rules and regimens into our personal life nullifies all of the things we do to attain and preserve the spot we have clawed our way to in society.

Sometimes this balancing act is fairly easy, since there are so many people willing to help us keep up the facade and since reality doesn't intrude into our "reality based" fantasy world, but once in a while something arises and calls our bluff.

When our bluff is called, there is no amount of time and energy we will spare in internecine warfare arguing fine points of what a liberal is, or what our position should be on each and every minute issue and sub-issue and variations on every issue. These arguments can never be resolved, because there is no basis of consensus.

Actually there is a consensus, but an important component of the consensus is that we never talk about it and we must pretend that it isn't there.

The consensus from which liberals and Democrats operate:

We are the better people. We are smarter, we are humane, we are more compassionate, we are better informed. We are better citizens, we are more cooperative and realistic. we are winners- not losers, and we deserve everything we get. We are spiritually superior. We are centered and balanced, calm and insightful. We are on the right side of history. We are building a better world.

The general public does not realize that we are the better people, and the ones who should be making the decisions. Of course the only logical reason for this public oversight is because- “Republicans are able to take advantage of the people's stupidity and ignorance and turn them against us.”

As Liberals we understand that most of the problems in the world are the result of stupid people running things. If “We the smart people” were in charge, all of the problems could be solved with science and technology and rational social planning.

Class analysis, and the struggles of working class people against tyranny have no place in modern society. They are obsolete and passé, and only something that we read about or see in movies. Romantic as those stories are, they are no substitute for hardheaded practical reality, whether we like it or not. This is a matter of being a mentally healthy, modern, well-adjusted adult in society. None of the lessons from history apply, because things are different now. Only strange maladjusted people are attracted to obsolete political ideas. They are all obviously losers, and are a great danger, almost as much of a danger as the Republicans are.

Since politics and economics in the traditional sense are dead, we embrace a new paradigm of self improvement and self-actualization. Anything that interferes with our focus on ourselves and our pursuit of creating ourselves as an actualized being is to be rejected. The way to achieve the perfect society is first to create a perfect self. Meanwhile, so long as the authorities do not interfere with our self-actualization, we must comply in all ways with that authority. This allows us perfect self-expression within perfect social conformity. Anyone who attacks our personal choices is the enemy, and anyone who attacks the social system based on personal choice is also the enemy.

As fully-realized liberal-progressives we understand that our enlightened self-interest is the ultimate engine of social progress.

Others, however, who do not share our values are not to be given personal choice, when and as we can prove that their personal choices are wrong, often with our righteous claims that their choice impacts us somehow. We support the police state and massive incarceration of people, so long as they are being harassed and imprisoned for the right reasons. Any variance from our idea as to how people should be is quite naturally the right reason, by definition.

We believe that we must “be the change we wish to see,” and the change we wish to see is more people like us: polite, talented, beautiful, intelligent, calm, successful, clever, enlightened.

So we merely need to be ourselves, focus on ourselves, and serve ourselves. Those who cannot or will not become like us need to back down and get out of the way.

We fully support aristocracy, capitalism, corporate domination, and consumerism, provided that they support our self-actualization and afford us the personal lifestyle choices we prefer.




When I was growing up, the term "liberal" fell somewhere into the spectrum between "moderate" and "opportunist liar" depending on whom you spoke to. It always carried with it an "establishment" veneer, however. People weren't "liberal"... political leaders and elected officials were.

Part of the reason was that it was clear that liberal politics was something different from the very real movements and forces in the society that were demanding something far greater. When the civil rights movement demanded racial equality, the liberals came up with affirmative action and measures against "racism". When the peace movement demanded an end to the war and "interventionism", the liberals advocated a merely “less adventurist" foreign policy. When there was an outcry against poverty in "the richest country in the world", the liberals proposed "job training programs" and food stamps. In a phrase, they not only served the ruling class by validating moderated reform but they also "de-classed" (some might say, "de-clawed") the demands that were being made by social-justice and antiwar movements.

Then came the backlash. While what the liberals legislated wasn't much, it was way over the top for the Right... and this Right was in no way the "populist" Right that we recognize today. This was the established Right... the so-called "Goldwater Republicans". And it came on with a tactic as American as apple pie: coalition politics.

Ask any 10th grade Civics class to list the 10 things that make America unique and you will get perhaps 20 discrete claims that together make up the American catechism. The Republicans figured out that you can build a political coalition out of "interest groups" which individually oppose ALL of them:

"Equality before the Law? ...We've always been against that!" (Nixon's Southern Strategy). "Purple Mountains Majesty? ... entire states are against that!" (Reagan's Western Strategy). "Freedom of the Press? ...that's what cooked our goose in Vietnam!". "Separation of Church and State? ...hell, there's a whole boatload of people against that!" "Nation of immigrants? ...almost everybody is against that!".... and so on.

We kept waiting for the Liberals to fight back... not for our sake but for their own. "This is downright silly! The REPUBLICANs running against the (afterthought -> add "big") GOVERNMENT for chrisakes... gimme a break. They were in on ALL of it!". Instead, not a peep...

At the very best, you got a speech at a political convention from a tired Cuomo or Kennedy... and even then in nostalgic rather than fightin' words: "Ah, for the heady days when we came up with the absolute minimum concessions that we possibly could, claimed credit for all of it and then promised a new 'social contract' that would last 1000 years..."

The Right was actually scared shitless for the entire journey. They were dug in deeper than Saddam. They would pop up to whisper a "new idea": "Affirmative Action is quotas, you know...", and then pop down to survive the inevitable firestorm that never came.

Finally came the Reagan "landslide" that "changed everything". The Republicans were claiming (wrongly, it turns out) that they had cracked the code for appealing to Democratic working class constituencies OVER THE HEADS of the Liberals... "we appeal to them as racists or 'taxpayers' or christians, you see..". A friend of mine, listening to this, said at the time, "The idiot liberals have just eliminated their own jobs...". Turned out to be true.

The demonization of the "liberals" inevitably came next... and the revision of history. "Liberals" were guilty of everything that they had, falsely, claimed credit for. THEY had lost the war in Vietnam (wholesale desertions, mutinies, fraggings, war crimes and general deterioration to the point where entire Army Divisions were "deactivated" , notwithstanding). THEY had committed the "real" war crimes by not being nice to the Army and returning veterans (3 million dead notwithstanding). THEY had lied to various constituencies when they had told them that "government" was a "solution" to their "problems".

And not a "liberal" to be found... anywhere...

But then, a miracle happened. The "liberals" started to come back, "from below" (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Bumper stickers, disgruntled "activists", ordinary people... claiming the label without knowing anything about the baggage... becoming "liberal" because that was the worst thing the Right could call them and, if that was the worst, then that was them. They adopted the terms "proud liberal", etc. in the same way that we were proud to be "commie pinkos" when we were kids… without the slightest idea of what that meant (I am much more accurately one, now).

I kept my mouth shut... It will not do to annotate the symbols of resistance at the very moment when they are being displayed.

The problem, of course, was that the "real" liberals had never gone away. They had merely been in rehab… waiting for the Republicans to commit suicide. And, they were emerging to reclaim their birthright...

I heard this on the floor of the house one day in the midst of a debate on a Republican sponsored resolution on a "windfall profits" tax on the oil companies: "Finally... finally... finally... after years of pleading and effort, we have gotten the Republican leadership to see the benefits of our approach... we have many more proposals that we hope will eventually win bipartisan support."

Congratulations, Congresswoman! You have certainly shown the wisdom of moderate proposals and thankless, persistent, debate no matter how many decades it may take (ignore that gun pointed at your opponents head). But, let me ask you…. If it is shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that oil company profits are not “excessive”, a “windfall”, or “evidence of price-gouging” (it is a relative thing, after all), what then? Does nothing happen? Do you patiently explain to us, “how our system works”. Do we freeze next winter? Or do we win an election for you in 2008 or 2012 so that you have the power to “really” do something… maybe “oil stamps”?

But, let me not sound bitter… At least the job market for “Liberals” seems finally to be booming again. There is so much work now to do… it has to be explained to the Right what the people “really” want and what they will settle for. It has to be explained to us what is “prudent”, what is “practical”, and what is in the “common interest”. It is time to reformulate “policy” so that it represents “all” the people. Hell, maybe we can even have the old language again:

Port Security …for the benefit of the working class.

Lobbying Reform …for the benefit of the working class.

Co-Payments …for the benefit of the working class.

Yup, the Liberals are back
…for the benefit of the working class.

Jen Buys A Prius!

Is it a coincidence that liberalism has become dominated by the relatively well off, and that simultaneously economics are no longer front and center for the Democratic party but are merely a minor side issue?

All of the liberal causes are important, once you already have a certain degree of economic freedom. None of the causes are very important to the rest of the population. This is the built in bias of the liberal community that leads to an inability to stand strong against the ruling class or to connect with the average person, and has now led to people who are supposed opponents to the right wing taking anti-immigration and pro-free trade and free market positions, and support the war on drugs and the war on terror. The Democratic party and liberal organizations have become the biggest supporters of the new aristocracy, while dominating all political discourse that is not overtly right wing and suppressing any true politics of opposition from emerging.

The rest of the people in the world suffer, in order to support the conditions that allow about 10% of our population to enjoy the luxury of living in the realm of political musing and theorizing. The lives and outlook of that 10% are seen as the standard, as the given, as the norm. It is not the norm even within any metropolitan area, unless you ignore minorities, ignore the elderly and infirm, ignore the working poor and single mothers, and ignore the millions of people working blue collar jobs.

All day long in the media, that 10% - white, upwardly mobile, educated, tolling around in new cars, climbing the corporate management ladder, buying expensive homes, having full access to health care, having access to excellent public education and municipal services, taking fun and exotic vacations, buying the latest gadgetry and trinkets - is presented as being representative of "us" - who we are as a people.

A Story About A Leading Democratic Party Liberal: The Year 1917

Most everyone has heard of the Palmer Raids which occurred immediately after WWI. They were directed specifically against immigrants, radicals, and union types and together made up one of the greatest wholesale suspensions of "the Rule of Law" in American history.

The raids started at the behest of the great liberal and Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who warned as early as 1915 of, "hyphenated Americans who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out."

As the labor movement, draft resistance, and opposition to the war deepened with U.S. entry into WWI, Wilson ordered Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer to "put a stop to it". Palmer, in turn, raised the little tyrant J. Edgar Hoover from obscurity to lead the effort. What follows is a short excerpt of a mostly reactionary Wikipedia write-up on the subject:

Palmer Raids

Pressure to take action intensified after anarchists, communists and other radical groups called on draft-age males to refuse conscription and/or registration for the army, and for troops already serving to desert the armed forces. President Wilson ordered Attorney General Palmer to take action...

...Attorney General Palmer requested and promptly received a massive supplementary increase in Congressional appropriations in order to put a stop to the violence. Palmer then ordered the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Investigation to prepare for what would become known as the Palmer Raids, with the aim of collecting evidence on violent radical groups and arresting those in violation of federal criminal codes.

In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding database. Using the database information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using various controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including harsh interrogation methods, informers, and wiretaps...

...In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 radicals of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 radicals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.

The public reaction to these raids was favorable, and, in fact, may have forestalled reactionary violence by the public in the form of vigilantes. A group of young men in Centralia, Washington, lynched Wesley Everest, an IWW member, from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the man "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes."

The related outrages were endless and extended well beyond the legal lynching of Sacco and Vanzetti. A Connecticut clothing salesmen was sentenced to sixth months in jail simply for saying Lenin was smart. The Washington Post noted with approval how in Chicago, a sailor shot another man merely for failing to rise during the national anthem. The stories are endless.

All this is pretty well known, but one question remains: Who was Alexander Mitchell Palmer?



























The answer is that Palmer was a leading Democratic Party liberal, a leader of the Progressive wing of the party, a Quaker, and a pacifist. In 1917, he had turned down the offer of appointment as Secretary of War because of his pacifism. It was then that he was appointed attorney general. His nickname, "The Fighting Quaker", was "earned" for arresting people in the middle of the night. For his labors, Palmer almost became the Democratic nominee for President in 1920... only a hung convention because of a minor candidate prevented it.

Palmer himself justified his change of heart by commenting that "communism was eating its way into the homes of the American workman... "

In other words, "they hate our freedoms".

Palmer wrote:

In this brief review of the work which the Department of Justice has undertaken, to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories, I desire not merely to explain what the real menace of communism is, but also to tell how we have been compelled to clean up the country almost unaided by any virile legislation. Though I have not been embarrassed by political opposition, I have been materially delayed because the present sweeping processes of arrests and deportation of seditious aliens should have been vigorously pushed by Congress last spring. The failure of this is a matter of record in the Congressional files.

The anxiety of that period in our responsibility when Congress, ignoring the seriousness of these vast organizations that were plotting to overthrow the Government, failed to act, has passed. The time came when it was obviously hopeless to expect the hearty cooperation of Congress in the only way to stamp out these seditious societies in their open defiance of law by various forms of propaganda.

Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of the American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society.

Robbery, not war, is the ideal of communism. This has been demonstrated in Russia, Germany, and in America. As a foe, the anarchist is fearless of his own life, for his creed is a fanaticism that admits no respect of any other creed. Obviously it is the creed of any criminal mind, which reasons always from motives impossible to clean thought. Crime is the degenerate factor in society.

Upon these two basic certainties, first that the "Reds" were criminal aliens and secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. An assassin may have brilliant intellectuality, he may be able to excuse his murder or robbery with fine oratory, but any theory which excuses crime is not wanted in America. This is no place for the criminal to flourish, nor will he do so so long as the rights of common citizenship can be exerted to prevent him.

OUR GOVERNMENT IN JEOPARDY

It has always been plain to me that when American citizens unite upon any national issue they are generally right, but it is sometimes difficult to make the issue clear to them. If the Department of Justice could succeed in attracting the attention of our optimistic citizens to the issue of internal revolution in this country, we felt sure there would be no revolution. The Government was in jeopardy; our private information of what was being done by the organization known as the Communist Party of America, with headquarters in Chicago, of what was being done by the Communist Internationale under their manifesto planned at Moscow last March by Trotzky, Lenin and others addressed "To the Proletariats of All Countries," of what strides the Communist Labor Party was making, removed all doubt. In this conclusion we did not ignore the definite standards of personal liberty, of free speech, which is the very temperament and heart of the people. The evidence was examined with the utmost care, with a personal leaning toward freedom of thought and word on all questions.

The whole mass of evidence, accumulated from all parts of the country, was scrupulously scanned, not merely for the written or spoken differences of viewpoint as to the Government of the United States, but, in spite of these things, to see if the hostile declarations might not be sincere in their announced motive to improve our social order. There was no hope of such a thing.

Radicals seek to take our property, therefore radicalism is the simple crime of theft. Freedom of "thought and word" extends only to those ideas which "improve our social order".
















Liberals, Democrats, Progressives, Pacifists?

Those are the people who want to arrest us, aren't they?

Let any "leftist" of any persuasion who wants to engage in the 2008 elections explain why they think that "Al", or "Hil", or "Barack" or "John" are not capable of exactly the same transformation as is recorded above... and at precisely this moment in time, sitting on the three legged stool of "terrorism", "immigration", and craven opportunism.

Unwarranted Assumptions

Example:

Unwarranted assumption: Bush/FEMA really WANTED to deliver water, food and emergency supplies to the Katrina victims.

You perhaps make this assumption because (a) it was their official and moral duty to do so, and (b) any sane human being would have tried their best to do so. But none of this means that Bush and FEMA actually set out to do things you think they should have done. The assumption is unwarranted, because you are extrapolating from yourself, and the general population of sane human beings, to Bush and his cronies.

The exact same assumptions are made left and right about Iraq: that Bush, in his heart of hearts, wanted to bring US-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, only he failed. That Bush wanted to keep the price of oil down to ensure the continuation of the American Way of Life(tm), only he failed. The facts suggest the precise reverse: that the chaos, the bloodshed, the skyrocketing oil prices are not unfortunate side-effects of a botched (but well-intentioned) job, but rather, that they have always been the goal. Until this simple point is well understood, there will be no effective opposition to what this administration has done, and no holding them to account.

Another example: the FISA law debacle and Bush's fight for telecom immunity. It is mistaken to argue that hey, Mr President, you don't really need this to fight terrorism effectively, since the FISA law already gives you all you need to eavesdrop now and get it OK'ed later. As if he didn't know that! As if Bush really, honestly, was just doing his best to "fight terrorism" effectively.

See the real purpose behind what Bush is doing, and you will see that he and his people have in fact been amazingly competent. Almost eight years, and they nearly ALWAYS get what they want, most often with a little help from the Democratic party.

Getting exactly what you want every time all the time is NOT incompetence.