“The uncool subject is class,” author Bell Hooks once wrote. “It’s the subject that makes us all tense.” What an understatement, considering the two leading “change” candidates in the latest presidential polls. Barack Obama is contending for the Democratic nomination as a candidate who avoids focusing on economic class. He asks us to believe — nay, to “hope” — that… return to article
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Reader Comments (14)Page 1 of 1 pagesGiving him bonafides regarding his rhetoric is short sighted. It tricks a great many people into thinking that he is a populist. As you said his economic proposals are anything but. Years from now how many republicans who became politically conscious during this election will think that populism is compatible with the Fair Tax policy? Applying terms like ‘populist’ or ‘class warrior’ or anything like that to Huckabee robs the terms of their meaning. It streches the concept so far that nothing is left except to being a populist or working class advocate except appealing to the lower class for votes. On that notion the Southern Strategy is a populist one, when it was actually an attempt to split working class votes by appealing to southern racism.
The ‘populist’ label is a stretch for Edwards and is absurd when applied to Huckabee. There is a tendency to call Huckabee’s campaign populist, egalitarian, etc. and these are dangerous tendencies. The same dangerous tendency is at play when the anti-war movement welcomes Ron Paul as a champion. Ron Paul opposes the Iraq war because of political isolationism (which when combined with his positions on trade and the constitutional limits of federal regulatory authority make him the most pro-corporate candidate running. He believes in destroying every institution whereby the people can combat the rise of corporate power). That is not something the anti-war community should get behind. These are shortcuts that people take because they do not want to admit that we are years of hard work away from having a genuinely anti-war or working class movement in this country. Praising morally repugnant people like Paul and Huckabee does nothing but cost us credibility.
Posted by Poppolphil on Jan 11, 2008 at 3:08 PM The point is, ladies and gentleman, that class warfare—for lack of a better word—is good.
Class warfare is right.
Class warfare works.
Class warfare clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Class warfare, in all of its forms…has marked the upward surge of mankind.
Posted by mschlee on Jan 11, 2008 at 9:41 PM Huckabee’s a deluded fool.
I think Sirota just wants an easily beatable candidate to get the nomination.
Posted by Natalie on Jan 17, 2008 at 12:45 AM Orwellian aspects of our culture and its time, seemingly more apparent diurnally, intrigue informed readers. They positively infuriate we socialists. Nonetheless, critical thinking and its appreciation of the satirical can be productive. However, Huckabee as Bob Follett of progressivism fame is quite a stretch, if not beyond the pale. Perhaps, I’d like to believe, the author’s intent, given his experience with the Lamont challenge in my state’s rally against Leibermanism, is to prod the Democratic candidates with this implication that progressive thinking supportive of solialistic mindsets might somehow stem from so-called compassionate conservatism’s deferrence to biblical exhortations. For those of us inclined to socialism’s call to action and devoted to this publication as socialism’s periodical mainstay in the U.S., this report is more indicative of our nation’s repressed political discourse than cogent thought regarding capitalism’s continuing encrustation of political debate. It reminds me of The Mother Jones cover story not long ago that flattered Lou Dobbs for donning progressive bona fides. What could be more telling of the depths of our despair in the U.S., fellow socialists, than an ITT report suggesting an opportunistic resurrectionist like Huckabee taps his feet to the tune of The Internationale. Living in a subsidized public-housing tower in a small coastal Connecticut city, I observe the ravages of class warfare wherever I look, seeing, as usual, the lords of the manor trample the serfs as though the Bill of Rights is an advertising message and democracy a window-treatment for plutocracy. Maybe this author needs an assignment. I’ve recently read an AP report informing me that the Pentagon is soon to open a 10,000 person refugee camp at Guatanamo. What refugees? Are the Dubya Emirates preparing for Fidel’s death and a consequent rush to US by thousands of would-be socialists who’d give up their convictions for better creature comforts? Could be. Such a scenario would provide theatrics the likes of which our CIA could only dream of in its continuing destabilization of our hemisphere’s stalwart stand for socialism. So it goes.
Posted by Bud Wizer on Jan 17, 2008 at 10:43 AM “stalwart stand for socialism” ??
More like a stalwart stand for permanent personal power and wealth by a selected few.
Posted by Natalie on Jan 17, 2008 at 4:29 PM Perhaps, Natalie, what I meant was not clear. Such is not infrequently the case when I keyboard a stream of consciousness in response to reading material that stimulates me. I do, however, view the Cuban example, in the sense of its lay people and their gallantry during that troubled time when the Soviet Union collapsed and they had to demonstrate sufficient solidarity to keep the salivating capitalists at bay, as stalwart, under Spartan conditions. A Cuban whom I met several years ago during his first visit to the U.S. as part of a cultural exchange centered on his paintings, was evocative with respect to his and his fellow solcialistas commitment to being stalwart in standing for socialism as an example to Latin America independence. He made it clear to me that, as I suspected, Castro wasn’t holding a gun to his or others heads to keep them from fleeing to the U.S. He also concurred with my view that persons who love their country do not flee from the task of making it better, unless they have absolutely no other recourse. When I asked him whether he thought most of those Cubans fleeing to the U.S. were doing so to improve their creature comforts, not to demonstrate that capitalism and democracy are indentical, he emphasized that the situation was too complex for such a simple explanation and the human condition was too personally enervating for gross generalizations about why we do things. Lovely man. He was a sign painter for most of his life. Upon retirement he walked into his community’s gymnasium for art lessons. Soon his talent was evident and led to his exhibit and visit under the sponsorship of a friendship association based in St. Augustine. It is Cubans like Roel who continue to convince me that Cuban resitance to American hegomony and denunciation of our embargo represent, for this socialist at least, a valor in seeking an alternative to capitalism that, by example, might keep the torch burning. I remain unabashed in declaring my sympathy with socialistas and hope that the latest examples of Latin American socialistic resurgence might not suffer the fate of Dr. Allende’s vision for Chile. Cuba, I submit, reflects a stalwart stand for socialism. My country reflects, on ocassion, a glimmer of such vision, as The New Deal made evident to the world and, I hope, our future will do as well. Then again, what do I know. I’m, like Roel, a layman, not an academician. But as that old son informs us: you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Si?
Posted by Bud Wizer on Jan 17, 2008 at 5:44 PM “He made it clear to me that, as I suspected, Castro wasn’t holding a gun to his or others heads to keep them from fleeing to the U.S.”
I hardly think that’s an accurate portrayal of the historic or current stance of the Cuban government* regarding the freedom of its citizens to come and go.
*The right to leave a country is an essential ingredient of liberty. It allows individuals to escape repressive political systems. For many Cuban exiles, leaving the island appeared to be the only way to obtain basic political freedoms that they lacked in Cuba. Orestes Lorenzo Perez, for example, told Human Rights Watch that what drove him to attempt his daring escape was his sense that, in Cuba, “your fate is in the hands of an all-powerful person,” Fidel Castro. “You are not the protagonist in your own life .... You are not the owner of your destiny”.
The little weatherman in my head tells me that if there was to suddenly appear an elevated highway between Cuba and Florida, and there was no restriction on either side about who could get on the highway, the lane heading toward Florida would be bumper-to-bumper, bicycle to bicycle and shoulder to shoulder, and the other lane would be pretty much deserted, except maybe for busses going to pick people up.
Socialism may have limited value in a few specific circumstances, but if taken to its conclusion as in Cuba, its a huge failure. The tendency of people wanting to leave Cuba and not go there demonstrates that. So to does the need for the Cuban government to throttle and generally resist its citizens efforts to go elsewhere for a taste of a little individual freedom.
That’s the basic problem with socialism. It’s anti-freedom. It has to be to survive. People naturally wish to be free. Socialism is therefore counter to human nature.
Socialism squelches freedom. Capitalism is the result of freedom. One is a disease, and the other is an outgrowth of something good. They are not, therefore, directly comparable.
Posted by Natalie on Jan 17, 2008 at 6:33 PM Your interest in and response to my contributory comments is what I have come to expect from those whose reactionary viewpoints reflect, as much as anything else, a lack of historical and contemporary perspective. Most of Europe’s industrialized democracies are, at least socially speaking, socialistic. Take any of the NATO members, for goodness sake. Also, your metaphoric 90-mile bridge between Miami and Havana traverses time and distance without mentioning the toll gates of our four-decades-old and incomprehensibly extant embargo against Cuba’s success. For what its worth for the sake of discussion, since you so obviously take exception to a socialist’s notion of intellectual integrity, I continue to believe with the same fervor that prompts you to state that socialism is a disease, which makes me think of FOX television’s purported objectivity in holding that liberalism is a mental illness, that the vast majority of Cubans are as proud of their resistance to the temptations of capitalistic material determinism as they are desirous of the amenities of capitalism’s pig sty of consumerist corruption. Visit Europe, Natalie. Try to avoid the places where the “Atlas Shrugged” crowd of Ayn Rand enthusiasts abound. See how many citizens of Europe will tell you that their socialism is “anti-freedom” and “counter to human nature.” As most learned and well-read Americans should know, socialism’s lack of widespread popular support in the U.S. is attributable to an information industry that is underwritten and utterly beholden to the capital derived from or “donated” by private enterprise. I’m 62 years of age and a former mainstream journalist. I have observed during the past four decades the utter corruption of public broadcasting by forces that long ago identified its advocacy as “pinko” and geared up, successfully it now appears, for the dilution of its credibility, in all too many cases, by dependence on the private sector because the public sector, largely at the behest of the neo-con movement’s antipathy for it beginning with the Nixon gang, has been strangled with reactionary political power. I reside in a public-housing high-rise built in 1972, when Liberalism was my nation’s political mainstay. Within this small, coastal New England city that 35 years ago pointed with pride to its public housing authority, it is not uncommon, even at the lowest of demographic profiles, to hear my fellow citizens conclude that public housing has failed because it is socialistic. In fact, I would argue and support with supporting data, neo-cons targeted public housing as competitive with the private market and succeeded in creating housing subsidies for the private market, which, in effect, emptied the till for public housing sustainability and expansion. I could go on, but I fear it would prove pointless. I accept that your opinion on socialism is identical to mine on capitalism. I’m certain neither of us will dissuade the other from our respective theoretical and philosophical adamancies. Thank you for your reaction. It has raised my heartbeat, which, at my age, is not a bad thing. I no longer, however, sweat the small stuff.
Posted by Bud Wizer on Jan 18, 2008 at 11:45 AM Natalie and Bud,
As a conservative in the purest sense, I often feel there is little left to conserve. The freedoms which were the cause and foundation of the United States have been gradually eroded until only the most extreme trampling seems to arouse objections.
Class division is, IMO, just beginning to be recognized as the primary division in the U.S.
Race, gender, religion sexual preference are really subdivisions beneath economic class headings. Just look at the variety of polling subject headings. (Such subdividing worked very well for Hitler.)
A couple years ago I reread, Huxley’s Brave New World. Perhaps he was able to see the handwriting on the wall because about a century ago Britain went down the same path we are now on.
Millions have been waking up to the realities of the decades long distillation of citizens into categories which can be managed en mass. In addition to those subdivisions above we have white collar/blue collar (NAFTA was sold abased on “Only the low-end, low-pay jobs will be lost.") Those on welfare —” single parent, unwed mothers, disabled (mental/physical)” —the list goes on and on.
The personal freedom which I hold among the rarest and most important features of our democrat republic is evaporating with increasing speed.
Globalization has exported both blue and white collar jobs (generally an economic classification) to the benefit of what has become our ruling class —”the Corporate/Political Royalty of the U.S.A.
Business management and Congress are in control in their respective kingdoms —” they set each others pay, benefits, working conditions and retirement packages. Anyone joining their ranks who is not a team player is quickly relegated to the bench were they can do little more than make an effective appearance of working for the populace.
Economics is a great method of control. Loss of income precedes loss of mobility, loss of purchasing choices, and many other things which were initially important to our founders.
One of the most creative illustrations of just how controllable we have become is described in an article:
A Modest Proposal
Friday, January 18, 2008Computerization further increases overall control and dehumanizing of the individual. (Only the addition of a bar code at birth would make our identity more vulnerable to manipulation.)
We are about to vote again —” using a system which is untrustworthy, non-verifiable and differs by state, and even in cities. A first year programmer could do magic under these conditions.
When I became eligible for Social Security I began getting a regular paycheck for the first time in 45 years. (I was self employed.) The check goes to my bank and I never see it. The Government decides how big it will be, when I will get it and takes out what they want for Medicare.
I must TRUST they will be accurate. Difficult to do since they lost track of my individual retirement plan report (Form 5500EZ) three years out of the last five. They questioned my not earning enough to need to fine income tax in 2005. To prove I didn’t need to file, I had to do the return and send it in. I was right, but no apology so far.
Come the revolution. (I guess I was born 200 years too late. :-)
Posted by whattheheck on Jan 19, 2008 at 9:00 AM I guess that’s the beauty of this country, Bud. You are free to embrace and even benefit from socialistic policies, such as public housing. Such is not the case in reverse in say, Cuba.
But what makes possible those policies at all is capitalism and free markets—operated by people who are constantly competing and innovating to please their fellow man—for profit. Who benefits? Everyone, not just the one making the profit.
Are they greedy? Yes, but in a good way. Their greed ends up being an engine that powers a free and ever-improving society, where EVERYONE is free to, and has incentive to, move up and work in that engine room. And of course, they’re free not to.
But when it comes to socialism, greed works in the opposite way. People naturally take all they can get for free, forever demanding more, especially if they sense they aren’t really hurting anyone, only some huge nameless faceless bottomless pit government money pile. Efficiency and frugalness are lost concepts, and the pressure on the budget builds to the point of unsustainability. That’s when things like rationing, mandates and finally brutal control become necessary.
This is not nor was it founded to be a socialist country, even though it may at times have been swayed by socialism’s temporary allure. Sooner or later the bill must be paid, as evidenced by the trillions of unfunded entitlement liabilities we have. Too bad we went so hard and fast down that “Great Society” avenue.
As for European socialist democracies, I believe many of them are waking up to the impossibility of continuing in that fashion. Some may be doing fine, and some may prefer that system, but then again lots of people are happy living in mud huts in the bush. Personally, I reject mud huts.
So if not for a bunch of greedy capitalist pigs fooling the country into thinking they needed a bunch of worthless junk, we’d all be perfectly happy socialists?
No, actually I think that capitalists (millions of individual Americans making up businesses, companies and corporations) are simply responding to what people want and need, and since here people are FREE to express and demand what they want, and also have power as individual consumers and voters, unlike in places like Cuba and Mudville, they get it.
You’re trying to put things in the wrong order. Capitalism and corporations and consumerism are simply the results of having the freedom to envision, create and sell your goods and/or services to your fellow man in whatever way you see fit, within the law of course. They’re not a conspiracy to quash socialism, which continues to get its chances and continues to generally disappoint.
A former mainstream journalist? That explains a lot. Was yours a pervasive attitude among your profession? If so, that would explain a whole lot more.
It’s quaint that you and a lot of Europeans are happy living in public housing. However, I don’t think it’s really fair for you to (in effect) advocate that for the rest of us. How controlling, and dare I say un-American of you! Most of us have come to expect a whole lot more in life, and have developed quite a jones for owning, maintaining, improving, controlling and passing on to our kids our own little piece of ground on this lonely outpost in the vast Universe, a concept the founders of the country coincidentally also held dear and deemed vital. Turns out it’s actually a better way.
Posted by Natalie on Jan 19, 2008 at 12:32 PM As incomprehensible as it, I’m sure, must be to you, Natalie, living gracefully in poverty has a certain appeal to the secular humanist whose interest is minimizing his footprint on this globe of fire hurtling through the ether of the unknown. We are polar opposites, plain and simple. It would, therefore, prove tedious, tiresome and tormenting to others for us to socialize herein. Best wishes for success as you see it. I’ll presume that you would wish me likewise. In fare thee well context, I would challenge you to accept that for every virtue of private enterprise that you can muster there is, consequentally and organically, a contretemps of ill-will, ulterior motive, self-interest, inhumanity, desocialization and, in general, behavior that profits not the human quest for the higher ground. The scenario in the so-called Free World is beocming as monlithic as big-box store locations at major intersections: the privileged few living along the ridgetops look down on the masses in the mud, convincing themselves that their wealth is the best hope for all, the high ground of morality. Capitalism, as Karl surmised during countless hours in the London library, might devour itself. Time will tell whether free enterprise has outpaced religion as the opiate of the people. In the meantime, it’s a safe bet that the ravages of capitalism might despoil our spaceship’s ecology long before we thinkers and critics figure out which of our respective political economies should be universally adopted. Being first a writer, secondly a knower-for-certain, I lift my cup to toast the dialetic for the tantalizing treats it lays on the table of ideas and ideologies on which I so enjoy feasting. Speaking of feast and table, here’s one for you: a man whom I met while touring New Mexican Anasazzi ruins some years ago told me there is an expression among his people that translates as “crumbs off the table.” He explained that the expression is common to the intelligensia of the poor, who use it to mock the noblisse oblige by which the wealthy condescend and patronize those whom, they positively insist, should be treated like grateful children who need looking after. I prefer solidarity to self-interest as a defining mantra. Until then, I submit, the chronic cancer of consumerism condemns civility to cages for the crass. My three kids, each independently successful young adults, aren’t chips off this old block; but they do, I’m so very proud to say, concur that capitalism leaves lots of room for improvement. I’m banking on their upbringing as a solid investment in their charitableness, at the very least.
Posted by Bud Wizer on Jan 20, 2008 at 10:20 AM Bud, if everyone was like you, socialism would work just fine. Unfortunately, that’s not reality.
Your kids are right, capitalism is certainly no utopia either. But I see a much brighter light coming from the direction of using our power as individuals or even groups of consumers and citizens to demand moral and responsible behavior from the business/corporate world, than I do from handing over that power to the state, and expecting them to do miracles, or even be competent. They’ve never demonstrated such capability.
I’ve never felt threatened by the likes of Microsoft, Dell or Apple, which are very, very interested in what I think about their offerings and vigorously compete to address my wants and concerns. I’ve never felt unimportant going to my supermarket, which works hard 24/7 to provide me with an incredible variety of food choices. I demanded less preservatives, additives, sugar and fat, and there appeared a huge health food section.
However, the indifference, arrogance and sluggishness of state/federal agencies not only threatens my very well-being, but leaves me with a cold helpless feeling. I shudder every time they are granted more power, and I cheer on the rare occasions when the purpose and spirit of the Constitution is honored, and that power is taken from them and given back to me, its righteous owner.
Take care, Bud, but don’t forget to appreciate your freedom to live a spartan and admirably un-materialistic, unselfish life. That’s what you choose, and perhaps at some point I may choose a similar lifestyle. Might I urge you to think twice before promoting, defending and romanticizing systems of government or economics that exclude or make difficult such choice, by either totally denying or constantly chipping away at an individual’s ability to control his/her own destiny.
Posted by Natalie on Jan 20, 2008 at 3:26 PM My appreciation of my freedom never falters, Natalile, nor does my rancor for manifestations of human bondage. Thank you for the kind and civil closure to our tete a tete-a-tete herein. If I may suggest a threesome among my favorites in American literature whose writings reflect the socialist’s distrust of personal wealth’s power to corrupt commonwealth, please accept these three as worthwhile: John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, and E.L. Doctorow. The stories they told and tell, evoke that ineffable sense that breaking bread at humanity’s table requires manners that suggest saying grace is far less important than divving things up fairly. The grapes of wrath and a blessing for Mr. Rosewater are ragtime tunes that MOVE us. Adeiu!
Posted by Bud Wizer on Jan 21, 2008 at 10:11 AM Class is always a topic in America, regardless of its taboo status in public discussion.
No candidates have mentioned it, however, except Huckabee, and it was a welcome addition to political discussion as a reminder of how important it still is - when he said that there are many who “measure a candidate” by his or her image as the person they work with, not the person who laid them off.
Those sentiments are missing in most of the campaigns at this point in February 2008, and do not look like they will be reappearing, but form the underlying current and theme of most of what is on the minds of voters for 2008 given the state of the economy.
Promises are floated by all, but most voters are smart enough to know that if help is to be delivered, it will be by the person most able to relate to the voters in that situation, not by someone insulated from the problem. That is what is making 2008 a more difficult election for voters in that all candidates except Huckabee appear to be insulated from the problem - to which voters rightfully recognize that there will be no help regardless of who is elected. That bottom line is one that affects only voters, not candidates.
Posted by pbr90 on Feb 18, 2008 at 8:45 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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