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The Elite Class Dysfunction of the US "left"

by rootless2 Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 08:47:28 AM EST

If the "progressive" blogs represented a functional American left wind power success would be being trumpeted as a massive victory.So one might expect a message like: Our efforts to put Obama in office saved 100,000 good jobs and helped America start becoming energy independent and rebuild manufacturing - we need 10 times more . Instead, the "progressives" are complaining that an anti-waste component of the Presidents state of the union "accepts framing" of the right. This exemplifies two characteristics of the US "progressive" movement: focus on elite governance tactics and focus on (pathetic) efforts to persuade elites as opposed to building popular movements.

For the first, the underlying objection to the "freeze" Obama proposes is that it sends the wrong message to the ignorant population. Strangely enough, the argument that there is not an important problem of government waste is coming from a group that has spent the last year whining incessantly about subsidies to banks from the government. But it's more interesting to look at the second issue: who is the intended audience for these complaints. The "progressive" movement is not attempting to convince the population at large that the progressive project will improve their lives. Anyone who imagines that jeremiads about "framing" will resonate with the general population is delusional. Instead, the message of the "progressives" is "give us jobs as high level managers" and "take our advice". That is, the "progressives" address the elite, demanding to be included, not the population, demanding popular power. This peculiarity is a product of the class basis of American "progressivism" - a movement of disaffected middle-managers who want their power points decks to be more respected more than a popular movement demanding more democracy and equality.

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The Elite Class Dysfunction of the US "left" | 59 comments (59 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
The Elite Class US "left" (none / 1)
Great analysis which we need to see more of.  It has always struck me how US progressives appear to come predominantly from privileged middle class, professional and state centric jobs like teaching and how "the working class" of predominantly blue collar workers are often hard right in their political alliances.  The very opposite of what Marx predicted and requiring a monstrous dose of "false consciousness" theory to square with his class analysis.

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 09:15:54 AM EST
Re: The Elite Class US "left" (4.00 / 4)
Liberal guilt is all most of these people have attaching them to the "left."  This is why they love the term "progressive" over anything else.  They don't relate or understand in any real way the concept of struggle.  They don't see themselves as lacking representation.  Theirs is a mild effort to move the bar toward helping the "victims" of their society.  Bourgeoisie all of them.

They are feckless believers in the process and are the last to notice that the system is broken down.  These are the same people who find offense at the idea of using intelligent and effective tactics to change the political reality.  They believe that "bipartisanship" and being "moderate" are real things.  They are the classic social liberals/fiscal conservatives who want progress in society (toward those for whom they feel sorry) but do not want to actually alter the fundamental framework of anything to accommodate it.

Think of them as the rebellious child at the dinner table.  

by paving on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:39:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class US "left" (4.00 / 2)
The liberal guilt meme is overblown.

I don't feel any guilt whatsoever. I am not responsible for the genocide committed in the Plains nor for slavery.

The main reasons that the term progressive has been resurrected are 1) Ronald Reagan transformed the word liberal into an epithet and 2) the term progressive has historical relevance and harkens back to the achievements of Theodore Roosevelt/Woodrow Wilson/Robert LaFollette.

I also disagree that we don't see the system as broken down. I certainly do and I am not alone. The Senate is a dysfunctional institution. It overrepresents rural conservative states and given its arcane rules a minority can hold the majority in check. It was designed for that purpose but the problem is that the Republican party is stuck on stupid.

In the US, when the Democrats lose an election, they head to the centre. But when the GOP loses an election, they head to the right more often than not. Hence a Nixon loss in 1960 begat a Goldwater nomination in 1964; a Ford loss in 1976 led to Ronald Reagan in 1980; a Dole defeat in 1996 produced GW Bush in 2000.

The GOP doesn't become introspective when it loses, instead it doubles down on stupidity. It's a broken record. Just listen to a Sarah Palin speech.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 07:42:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class US "left" (4.00 / 2)
Well that's because the Democratic Party abandoned its working class mantra after the loss of Walter Mondale in 1984. The party gravitated to the center and embraced neo-liberalism.

I'll also note that Americans vote their values more than their class. That's unlikely to change.

Progressives are only a majority in very few locals: San Francisco, Boston, Santa Monica and a few others.

The US remains a very conservative country. This past week the religious right invaded San Francisco for anti-abortion march. They bussed in 40,000 people for a march in a downpour. The pro-choice counter demonstration perhaps had 1,000 people. In part, what I take away from this is our lack of zeal. We are tired of fighting this battle year after year. But for them, it's a crusade.

I'm not optimistic on the US. We have a dysfunctional government. The Senate is an18th century institution that is showing its age.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 07:28:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class US "left" (4.00 / 3)
I think you're wrong.  The US is not a largely right-wing country but that idea serves to make the fake-left feel better about their exceptionalism, finally they can be minorities!

30-35% of the US population is clearly right-wing ideologically and a significant percentage of that group are driven by Evangelical Christianity toward the right.  Everybody else is at least occasionally up for grabs.

The type of "progressives" you find in places like San Francisco, where I live, are not particularly useful.  Their desire to represent the US left is what keeps the majority of actually left-thinking people away from identifying as such.   Their politics are about personal identity and status within their social groups.  

by paving on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 02:52:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class US "left" (none / 1)
I think that the "progressives" in the US serve the same functional purpose as the Trots in the UK - to attack and make ridiculous any serious left political project.
by rootless2 on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:40:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 4)
The framing isn't specifically right-wing because President Obama is going after "waste". It's because he is only looking at a few places to do so (and excluding, notably, the military, where is where the real waste is probably found). Exclude the military from the scope, and add "entitlement" reform while we are at it (the commission he's also going to announce) and it isn't just framing, it is Clintonian centrism at best. But we'll see. He's still to talk.

You are probably spot on in your analysis of who many of the left-blogosphere's self-described progressives are. Your model of people powered movements certainly has its merits, and President Obama used it to not only get elected by establish large Democratic majorities. This being said, that the megaphones are pointed at the elites rather than the people is somewhat a function of how political power is structured in the US and a calculation of how best to effect change in a short period of time. After all, the pace of change hasn't been particularly fast, a problem that is causing electoral problems (rightly or wrongly) for Democrats. And, it isn't progressives at fault here, certainly not on the internet...they simply don't have much influence...and yet, the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans is huge right now, and not in Democratic favor. Most of the unenthused don't visit the blogs...People were expecting help. And, mostly, they're not getting it in sufficient doses, at least not directly. The banks are though, that's true, as are the bankers.

In any event, Marx would likely say, that revolutions tend to begin with the bourgeoisie, simply not fully being realized until the force of revolution is overtaken by the proletariat...in this sense, given America's rather limited level of social development, coupled with an increasing detachment (and consequent lack of accountablity) of the elites from the bourgeoisie, the current composition of the army of critics makes a lot of sense. It'll spread, I'm sure, at the rate things are going over there these days.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 10:20:09 AM EST
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 7)
The clever trick pulled by Marx wasn't any deep insight into working class psychology, but a very simple promise that removing the parasitical upper class would improve quality of life for everyone else. It's an entirely selfish and materialistic promise. A few of the more poetic and intellectual members of the working class actually believed in a quasi-religious proletarian utopia, but realistically, the promise was always jobs, housing, and food, with an option on consumer goods.

The cleverer trick pulled by the right in the US has been to co-opt that promise, so that it's the right that promises jobs, housing, food, consumer goods, and selfish materialism.

It doesn't need to deliver on any of these. It just needs to persuade blue collar voters that voting for democrats threatens these necessities. And so far it's been very successful - what 'socialism' and 'government' actually means to right wing Fox-watching voters is a direct threat to jobs, housing, etc. It's not seen as a complex ideology with a long history, but as a mugging.

Clearly there's an opening here, but the intellectual left in the US is unlikely to take it, because it doesn't understand how to dramatise the issue to make it comprehensible.

I think I mentioned I've been reading Arthur Miller's biography. In the 30s there was a strong radical left in the US - of sorts - with a tradition of push-back against finance and big business.

But Miller, who spent time working in factories and ship yards, found that most blue collar workers were inherently racist and closer to fascism than any other political persuasion. Most weren't ideologically minded at all - they did what they did because that's what you did, whether you were working in a machine shop or fighting in the war. And if someone from outside, like a jew or a negro or a hispanic, threatened your job, you hated them for it.

So when Obama promised 'change' a lot of people heard 'jobs and consumer spending'. And if he hasn't delivered on that - which he hasn't, particularly - they're going to kick his arse and vote for the person they believe can make good on that promise.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:12:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 2)
"But Miller, who spent time working in factories and ship yards, found that most blue collar workers were inherently racist and closer to fascism than any other political persuasion."

Well, that's a rather self-serving line from miller. There is some truth to it, but it's not the whole story. Nonetheless, I think that critics of Marx early pointed out that the regimination and alienation of factory life was not particularly conducive to enlightened self-interest and certainly the collapse of European labor unions into jingoism at the start of WWI validated that argument.

I think the whole marxist story of the rise of the proletariat is not useful -it's got too many historical errors and too much wishful teleology in it.

by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:33:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 7)
I'm over-simplifying hugely, because it's the kind of subject that needs a book, never mind a diary.

But his experience was his experience. There was plenty of radical awareness on his college course, but he was baffled to find that it wasn't shared elsewhere.

And unlike a lot of 30s intellectuals, he wasn't theorising - he spent plenty of time doing blue collar work before he started earning money as a writer, so it was a personal experience for him.

It's still true today. The bulk of support for racist parties and policies comes from the working class who see immigrants as a threat to their welfare.

That's partly because immigrants are a threat to their welfare, and willing to work for starvation wages.

The middle classes find this terrible shocking, but it makes perfect sense in context.

What's missing is the ability to link exploitative rentier behaviour with job insecurity. And that's not included in the narrative because belief in country and self-apotheosis through earning power and projections of imaginary potency is a form of pride that the rentiers and the working classes can share equally, but the middle classes vacillate about.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:48:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (none / 0)
ThatBritGuy:
belief in country and self-apotheosis through earning power and projections of imaginary potency is a form of pride that the rentiers and the working classes can share equally, but the middle classes vacillate about.

great insight...

the middle class has the luxury to deal in abstracts and traffic in intellectuality, since they learned some history. the poor are too busy surviving and plotting how to become rich (modern forelock-tug), the rich are too busy with the very pragmatic challenge of not ever becoming poor.

so they really do sing from the same hymn sheet, tho'one reads the front, the other the back.

middle class want to travel abroad more too, the rich are already high on the hog out on the estate or slumming in belgravia, they are contentedly busy being fine thanks. the poor can't afford to go 'abroad' much, ergo both ends of a shared parochial nationalism.

less exposure to other cultural atmospheres, iow.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 07:12:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 2)
I dunno if that's true. Certainly I've encountered a lot of working class racism, but by no means is it limited or concentrated there. Maybe miller was just shocked at the ungenteel nature of proles.

BTW: a great counterpart to Miller's experience is the wonderful autobiography of (thanks God for google otherwise it would take 10 minutes for this to be retrieved from my on-strike brain retrieval system)
aha Langston Hughes.

http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Wander-Autobiographical-Journey-American/dp/0809015501/ref=pd_bxgy_b_im g_b

Just brilliant writing, and a view of the world from a less privileged place.

It's fascinating to see Hughes watching some show trial in Turkeminstan and thinking that the guys on trial remind him of southern sheriffs.

by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 07:55:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 4)
rootless2:
and certainly the collapse of European labor unions into jingoism at the start of WWI validated that argument.

I think that is a bit simplistic. It did take killing of one of the leaders to stop the labor unions attempt at french-german general strike.

Jean Jaurès - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jaurès was a committed antimilitarist who tried to use diplomatic means to prevent what became the First World War. He opposed Émile Driant's 1913 law which implemented a three-year draft period, and tried to promote an understanding between France and Germany. As conflict became imminent, he tried to organise general strikes in France and Germany in order to force the governments to back down and negotiate. This proved difficult, however, as many Frenchmen sought revenge (revanche) for their country's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the return of the lost Alsace-Lorraine territory.

On 31 July 1914, Jaurès was assassinated in a Parisian café, Le Croissant, 146 rue Montmartre, by Raoul Villain, a 29 years old French nationalist. Jaurès had been due to attend a conference of the International on August 9, in an attempt to dissuade the belligerents from going ahead with the war.[3] Villain was tried after World War I and acquitted, but was killed by Spanish Republicans in 1936.



Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 07:55:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (none / 0)
Of course the murder of Jaures was a huge disaster, but Juares was battling the tide - and once he went, the organized laboring class marched off to war, just as they had been instructed.
by rootless2 on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 02:15:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 3)
One point to keep in mind is that the US was a far different country demographically in the 1930s. A radical left grew out of the large European immigration that arrived in the US between 1890 and 1920.

I'd also add that GOP assembles its electoral coalition out of groups that fear or hate government. The tradition of anti-Federalism runs deep.
And again Americans tend to vote on single issues more so than others. Abortion, gun rights, home schooling, anti-LGBT rights do intersect but you would be amazed by how often Americans point to social issues more than economic concerns when they pull a lever to vote.

And, of course, the GOP paints the Democrats as weak on defense.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 07:53:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 2)
Not exactly true.

There was an indigenous American Left of Mutualists, followers of Henry George, the Industrial Workers of the World, Lucifer, Progressives, Thorstein Veblen, and Populists (& so on) slowly growing when the whole Bolshevik thing came down, disrupted, froze it in time, and now it's mostly forgotten.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 02:15:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 2)
There was an agrarian populist left that was nativist. Folks like James Weaver. That's true. That movement was largely done by 1900 as its agenda was co-opted by the two main parties.  The NPL up in North Dakota did come later beginning in 1915. That's perhaps the most successful socialist movement in the US but rather than form a third party they chose to use the primary system to take over the Republican party and enact their programs that way. North Dakota began a state-owned bank in 1919 and built a state-owned mill and elevator in 1922, both of which are still in operation today. By the mid 1920s, they were a spent political force though. Today the NPL is part of the North Dakota Democratic Party.

While Veblen was born in Cato, Wisconsin he was born to recent Norwegian immigrant parents. He grew up speak Norwegian.

The impact of European immigration in the development of the American left post 1890 cannot be discounted. It played a large role especially in expanding a membership. For example German immigration to Wisconsin set the base for the Progressive movement that evolved there even if the LaFollette family was nativist.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:02:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (none / 0)
Well, Obama specifically excludes the jobs bill, the stimulus, and hcr.

US agribusiness subsidy is a huge target, for example.

But my fundamental critique of the US "progressives" is that their message doesn't seem to have any hopes of having a positive effect. I mean, telling the reformist government that it sucks may be therapeutic, but what is it supposed to accomplish?

by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:16:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I hope you are right about going after (4.00 / 3)
Agribusiness subsidies, though that will be very ugly, politically.

These "progressives" (a term which means not so much to me) may not be all that convinced that Obama is a reformer. Clearly that would seem to be both Krugman and Stiglitz case.

We'll see. Though, if Obama were really in the pocket of the interests he's'going after, it'd'be far easier for him to score a few victories...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:51:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Jesus H. Christ (none / 1)
Going after the US agribusiness subsidies?

Is he purposely trying to commit political suicide?


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 01:19:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Jesus H. Christ (none / 0)
they say he's going to ask congress for 'don't ask' to be dropped for the military.

following the clinton playbook, keep him away from cigars...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 07:16:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 2)
Well you know, we (progressives) are a pessimistic lot. We are trying to stave a looming disaster so quite often we come off as negative.

The right doesn't have that problem. Their vision of the future is endlessly sunny. Oil, we just need to drill, baby drill. Global warming, heck it is 30 below outside, Jobs, we just need to lower taxes.

Their arguments are infantile but they carry the day amongst a population that can only be described as delusional.

It's hard to sell sustainability. It's hard to tell people that US cities are unsustainable. Suburbs in the US will prove the costliest bet ever made in human history.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 08:00:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (4.00 / 4)
rootless2:
But my fundamental critique of the US "progressives" is that their message doesn't seem to have any hopes of having a positive effect. I mean, telling the reformist government that it sucks may be therapeutic, but what is it supposed to accomplish?

It would seem to me that you are treating a loose group of people as an organization. Individuals and organizations act, but a loose group of people do not act, they react.

I would say in general they are reacting to feeling let down by the promises of the campaign. Which in turn is predictable after a campaign that successfully held up empty words like "hope" and "change" and let the voters project their favourite policies on it. After winning on such terms it would have took great propaganda efforts - constant campaigning if you will - to keep the supporters to see their favourite policies as the long term result of the actual policies enacted.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 08:33:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Slight modification of terms. (none / 1)
they actually are organized in large parts. not in the sense of a popular movement, but in the sense of a funded and structured organization.
by rootless2 on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:42:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Image is Everything (4.00 / 6)
In this particular scenario, everyone's wrong.  Obama's pledge is almost completely hollow.  He's promising to cut $11bn in waste.

That's .3% of the federal budget.

This is roughly equivalent to me "cutting waste" from my personal budget by not buying my little tin of cashews at the grocery store every couple of weeks.

It's fucking stupid, and it's all about the appearance of doing something rather than actually doing something.  Fortunately, it's being called out everywhere as just that.

Except in the liberal blogosphere, where you'd think we were facing another goddamned Yucatan event or something.

The obsession with framing is a disease "progressives" really and truly must find a cure for someday.  These Sirotian fuckstick word games are gonna be the death of us.  These idiots are so obsessed with how something is portrayed according to some random bunch of asshats who may or may not have produced a mildly successful ad for a council campaign in some shithole village in Dipshittistan (or whatever) that they lose track of the fact that Joe Blow isn't going to give a rat's ass about this meaningless proposal or how it was talked about in 9 months, because he's still unemployed and doesn't have health care.

Not to say that framing doesn't have its place, of course, but god damn, I've seen heroin addicts who controlled themselves better than this.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:49:54 AM EST
Re: Image is Everything (none / 0)
I think it's a device to gain leverage over senators.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:56:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (none / 0)
Which part -- Obama's proposal?

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:57:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (none / 0)
Yes. Obama wants to be able to punish balky senators - that's my take.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:23:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (4.00 / 2)
God, I hope you're right.

If he actually does that, then I'm going to eat crow and ask you to pass the salt. Because party discipline is something the US Democrats have needed since before I was born.

On the subject of party discipline, why hasn't Lieberman been purged, disgraced and disowned? As of last week, his marginal value just went in the crapper, when he went from being the 60th senator to being just another traitor who needs to be taken out with the trash. Or am I missing something here? Is there an ideological chasm between the fist potential republican defector and the second one that's big enough to justify not making an example of Lieberman?

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:57:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (4.00 / 2)
there has been no upside to such a move as he would then vote 100% with the Republicans instead of 50%.

The US senate does not lend itself to such practices. If you want an example: the loathsome Daniel Patrick Moynihan sabotaged both Carter and Clinton with no repercussions.

by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:20:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (none / 0)
The counter example is the disgusting Shelby who reacted to the mild annoyance of the Clinton administration by switching to the Republican side. You have to be able to carry through on threats or it's not worth making them.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:22:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (4.00 / 2)
He's not a swing member anymore. So why care?

This tolerance for individual MPs who play both sides against the middle is completely alien to me. If Lieberman had pulled half the stunts he's been pulling in almost any European parliament, he'd have been out on his ass in less than three seconds, and hang the consequences.

But I guess I'll have to defer to the experience of people who actually live with the system Lieberman is gaming.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:38:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (4.00 / 4)
in a system where elections are via party list, party discipline is easier to enforce. Of course, this is not always good - consider the methods with which New Labour has tamed the unions and dissidents.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:51:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Image is Everything (none / 0)
By way of illustration, I had this same argument with Echidne http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html#4496815376070582335 and she's convinced that the framing of budget disputes is more important and interesting than the wind power industry. I'm dumbfounded.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:44:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 3)
The "Progressive" movement in the US is a inchoate and (un/dis)-organized mess.  

An example is the Progressive Democrats of America - which has connections to and support to/from the Progressive Coalition in Congress.

Their "Priority" list includes Economic and Social Justice whose major thrust at the moment is [emphasis added]:

Below is a document worked up by PDAer Bill Barclay of Chicago and sent after a
request for those in the IOT to share ideas about our IOT getting focus ...

The PDA has been in existence since 2004.

(sigh)

I do not deny there is "Elite Class Dysfunction" in all of this.  I would like to submit the main problem is the inability of the US Left to organize anything larger than a hot dog stand.  


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 01:11:32 PM EST
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 8)
I would like to submit the main problem is the inability of the US Left to organize anything larger than a hot dog stand.

I would submit that the problem with the "US Left" is that there is not Left in the US, only liberals. I mean this in the most derogatory sense, because they can't seem to get that belonging to the cult of radical individualism that rejects any idea of social rules and order means that you aren't part of the Left.

The focus is on the particularities of ethnicity and gender, rather than integrating them into a social whole.  At least in the US, I would argue that the principal problem facing people across the board is class.  People of color represent a disproportionate  part of our economic underclass.  That's a legacy of historical racism, but it's only by tackling class issues that we are going to get somewhere.

The problem is that the reason that race and gender are on the agenda is to soak up a lot of issues that at their heart relate to economic and social class.

Liberals undermine the Left here.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:07:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 2)
I don't think that identity politics is really such a problem. One argument I often have with American Leftist/Liberals is about their weird idea that there is a normative "rule of law" for top officials that Obama is tragically failing to "restore" - as if any top official of the security/military has ever paid a serious penalty except for working for another power. Or consider the Taibbi level analysis of the financial crisis in which the role of the Federal Reserve Bank to subsidize profits of and guard the oligopoly status of top banks is discovered as a recent scandal rather than as the purpose of the institution.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:29:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 2)
True up to a point. I think very few people on the left realise that politics, especially geopolitics, is played by completely different moral rules than the rules that apply to friends, neighbours and co-workers.

Then again the rules happen to be entirely criminal and sociopathic, so it's not completely surprising that more sensitive people want to blank them out.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:51:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 4)
One argument I often have with American Leftist/Liberals is about their weird ideathat there is a normative "rule of law" for top officials that Obama is tragically failing to "restore" - as if any top official of the security/military has ever paid a serious penalty except for working for another power

If someone is talking about this they are not a leftist they are a liberal.  Liberals think that there are universal norms, e.g. "truth", that stands above and beyond any particular power structure.  Leftists realize that "truth" is constructed by the people in power to justify why they can, and should be able to, do what they do.

As Thucydides put it so long ago:

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Liberals are the type of people who express regret that there are those who are poor and exploited among us, and offer ways to deal with this after the fact.

Leftists ask why there are poor and exploited among us, and work to change what it is that makes this possible.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:35:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (none / 0)
Melian dialogues remain the best short introduction to bullshit detection in political disputes ever written.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:49:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (4.00 / 4)
I am a real fan of the British historian EH Carr.

He called lassiez faire a paradise for the powerful.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 04:07:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (none / 1)
I readThe Twenty Year Crisis, 1919-1939 around 1965 and it was one of the most influential books in my "education". In it Carr analyzes modern European History in terms the real and the ideal. A truly illuminating work and, in retrospect and in IMO, one of the foundational works in the development of a post-modern analysis of historical processes. E.H. Carr, E.P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawn were true leftists as described above. Those who gave us Neo-Classical Economics came more from the Classical Liberal position.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 10:16:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Too funny! (4.00 / 2)
You must know that the ones who play in the middle, like the folks in charge in America right now, are typically those who end up like the Melians, both literally (see Russia, October 1917 and thereafter, or France, summer of 1793 to 1794) and figuratively.

Progress tends to happen in great leaps forward, rippling in waves concentrically outward. But, sure, you can try to sell a people-powered centrist reform effort. It's been tried before.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 05:39:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Too funny! (none / 1)
The melian problem was not a flaw in their ideology, it was the standard problem of being in the way of the bulldozer.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 07:58:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I get it...sorry, reading comp not so good last (none / 0)
night...with this and Santiago's post below, I understand.

It hadn't been obvious to me who were the athenians and who were the melians in your schema. Really, it still isn't, though time will tell, and I would love to be wrong.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:22:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (none / 0)
http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 02:24:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction (none / 0)
thanks for the link.

sent it out to a couple of people On My List.  ;-)


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:13:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction of (4.00 / 3)
In my dealings with the typical US "leftist" I notice many disappointing things.

  1. Massive ignorance - Most of the US liberals are college-educated and view themselves as intelligent, educated people.  This allows them to feel good about themselves and maintain a social status without ever becoming actually informed.  At best they will listen to NPR, never realizing that it is a compromised voice.  Meanwhile the truly powerful educators that should be stars in the left world are largely ignored by them.

  2. Comfort - Most of the US liberal establishment is comfortable.  The system that they are "opposing" is one that provides for them relatively well.  Their "opposition" is in sympathy for the perceived victims of that system.  They themselves cannot actually relate which is evident in all of their communication and outreach efforts.

  3. Softness - Sadly the US left is obsessed on a personal level with being gentle and kind and soft.  They are often the people who cannot really deal with life and thus empathize with people who have struggles that they personally could not handle.  They also can't handle dealing with people who are strong, forceful and brave.  They tend to prefer their leaders to exhibit these characteristics and shun the ones who demonstrate any real strength, hence their losing streak.  

If you were to theorize an opposition party that consisted of deliberately weak, comfortable ignorant people you would get exactly the US Democratic Party.
by paving on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 03:55:08 PM EST
Especially the third one. (none / 0)
That's how Obama got elected, in fact. He was that guy.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill
by r------ on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 05:23:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Especially the third one. (none / 1)
Not really. Obama got elected by being in the right place at the right time.  He was a "fresh face" which is always good after a period of turmoil.  He had a grasp of the issues and could sound convincing when talking.  

The truth is that nearly anybody who could manage to string together a sentence could have won the 2008 election had the Democrats run them.  Any talk of "coalitions" or a proper constituency that Obama represents are a fallacy.  He's the guy you voted for if you wanted something new (change) instead of more of the same (the GOP).

I don't think he ever had a very strong vision and he seems to see himself more as an inspirational administrator than a movement leader.

That said he is only now getting his footing, the US Government is not a ship one takes control of overnight.  He's talking tough again (see the Volcker press earlier this week) but it remains to be seen if he's willing to use the bully pulpit and flex the power of the Executive.  

I'm starting to suspect that the health care gambit was more clever and cynical than is typically observed.  Obama was a Senator and surely knew just how corrupt the body was.  He probably also heard for four years, every time he asked about why health care wasn't passed, that it was because all these guys are bought and paid for by the health care industry. Obama is from Chicago and they don't mess around so he knows how to pull a dirty political stunt.  Looking back the end result of the health care push in his first year is to leave the entire country with one impression:  that the Senators of the US are hopelessly corrupt.  This has the effect of reducing their credibility in opposition as people roll their eyes and imagine whose payroll they are representing at any moment.  This reality has never been so publicly visible as during the health care debates and may explain why Obama handed it off to Congress and then went back to his day job.  He didn't expect anything good to come of it in fact he fully expected the disaster that it is.

I'll be watching over the next months to see if he moves against Congress using this angle.  He seems to have done the exact same move with the banks, giving them everything they wanted and then shaming them for being greedy while everybody was watching.  Then pow, hit 'em with a windfall tax and strong regulation.

The talk is tough but I have yet to see his legislative success.  That is something we will have to judge over the next two years.  

by paving on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 05:36:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Especially the third one. (none / 1)
What the right wing talk machine said about Obama during the campaign -- the Ayers and Reverend right stuff, and the connection to Saul Alinsky -- was all basically true.  He IS tough, not gentle, and he's willing to cut deals with the devil to get his way.

Unfortunately for him, the Democratic base, which is his base now too, is exactly how you've described it, so there's a limit to how far he can go with the Alinsky, Chicago- style stuff before you lose them.

As an organizer and trainer for the hard-core Gamaliel group that sponsored his work in Chicago, he would have given numerous "week-long" trainings to union organizers and community leaders. (Such trainings are the equivalent of Wharton MBA courses for labor organizers in the US.) And those trainings usually started with something called "the Melian Dialogue" where the participants divide up into groups and role play as either Athenians or Melians.  (I've been to one.) One purpose of the exercise (there are several purposes) is to start purging the "justice junky" out of potential community leaders and encourage them instead to be comfortable as Athenians -- practical, ruthless, and the "bad" guys of the classic story of realpolitik.

by santiago on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:02:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Elite Class Dysfunction of (4.00 / 3)
These ideas translate to equivalent middle classes anywhere on the planet. Points two and three in particular line up with what melo and TBG referred to earlier in the thread with the rich and poor knowing how the game is played whereas the middle class can go and invent its own myths and narratives with no danger to itself. Both points emerge out of long term affluence. I think unless a person faced physical abuse as a child or something equivalent, members of the middle class can't imagine what sociopathy and power for its own sake look and feel like. It's too far down another narrative tunnel.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 02:20:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The bla bla (4.00 / 4)
I think you have completely missed the point of the progressive blogosphere in the US. Its there so its readers and writers (predominantly highly educated and middle class) can feel they are doing their little part in speaking to power. Thats why they do campaign contributions, not grassroots organizing.

(Unlike ACORN, which has quietly built up a grassroots movement over decades, only to be squashed as soon as they got visible on the Washington radar. As has happened to all other leftist grassroots movements in the US since, well, forever.)

Which is probably also why the progressive blogosphere are pissed off at the moment. They paid good money for their candidates and they got ripped off.

But to be honest, if they had actually managed to take down Lieberman, they wouldn't been treated like punching bags by democratic moderates.

To complain that most of them aren't really leftist from a Marxist perspective is both true and completely irrelevant.

by Trond Ove on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 06:13:45 PM EST
Re: The bla bla (none / 0)
I'm not complaining about their un-leftism, I'm complaining about the delusional quality of their analysis.
by rootless2 on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 07:57:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The bla bla (none / 0)
I have to say it takes balls to attack someone as elitist from above.
by Trond Ove on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 04:21:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The bla bla (none / 0)
spot on
by paving on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 09:01:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the US "left" (none / 1)
Plenty of opportunities for unjustified America-bashing here, eh?!

Please convince me that socialist parties in other places are run by downtrodden masses, and that skinhead and other reactionary parties are run by the elite classes...

by asdf on Wed Jan 27th, 2010 at 11:12:30 PM EST
Dysfunction of the US "left" (none / 1)
Interesting to get this perspective. I suspect that we are dysfunctional.

As a front-page blogger for MyDD, I am at this point rather tired of US politics and frankly tired of the US. I am actively looking to emigrate.

I am not quite sure what to make of the US progressive movement at this time. It's fractured, honestly the movement has always lacked a coherence but it seems to be stressed after what has been a very difficult year.

The problem as I see with your proposition is that you hold that President Obama is a liberal. He's really a centrist and moreover his style of government is that of habitual compromiser.

After a year in power, I am still not quite sure what his core convictions are nor has he articulated an overarching vision for the country. It's as if this Administration is treading water.

by Charles Lemos on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 07:17:48 AM EST
It isn't as hard as you might think. (none / 0)
Dual citizenship helps though...and speaking French and having professional qualifications will pretty much guarantee a residence permit in Canada...

Do not underestimate cost though. A transatlantic move can definitely set you back a bit, if you're planning on keeping most of your stuff...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Thu Jan 28th, 2010 at 10:30:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The Elite Class Dysfunction of the US "left" | 59 comments (59 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)


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