   Calling all tea parties...
This Country Needs a Few Good Communists by Chris Hedges, May 31, 2010Quote:The witch hunts against communists in the United States were used to silence socialists, anarchists, pacifists and all those who defied the abuses of capitalism. Those “anti-Red” actions were devastating blows to the political health of the country. The communists spoke the language of class war. They understood that Wall Street, along with corporations such as British Petroleum, is the enemy. They offered a broad social vision which allowed even the non-communist left to employ a vocabulary that made sense of the destructive impulses of capitalism. But once the Communist Party, along with other radical movements, was eradicated as a social and political force, once the liberal class took government-imposed loyalty oaths and collaborated in the witch hunts for phantom communist agents, we were robbed of the ability to make sense of our struggle. We became fearful, timid and ineffectual. We lost our voice and became part of the corporate structure we should have been dismantling.Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, loot the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship only money and power. And, as Marx knew, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. The nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect metaphor for the corporate state. It is the same nightmare seen in postindustrial pockets from the old mill towns in New England to the abandoned steel mills in Ohio. It is a nightmare that Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans, mourning their dead, live each day.Capitalism was once viewed in America as a system that had to be fought. But capitalism is no longer challenged. And so, even as Wall Street steals billions of taxpayer dollars and the Gulf of Mexico is turned into a toxic swamp, we do not know what to do or say. We decry the excesses of capitalism without demanding a dismantling of the corporate state. The liberal class has a misguided loyalty, illustrated by environmental groups that have refused to excoriate the Obama White House over the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Liberals bow before a Democratic Party that ignores them and does the bidding of corporations. The reflexive deference to the Democrats by the liberal class is the result of cowardice and fear. It is also the result of an infantile understanding of the mechanisms of power. The divide is not between Republican and Democrat. It is a divide between the corporate state and the citizen. It is a divide between capitalists and workers. And, for all the failings of the communists, they got it.Unions, organizations formerly steeped in the doctrine of class warfare and filled with those who sought broad social and political rights for the working class, have been transformed into domesticated partners of the capitalist class. They have been reduced to simple bartering tools. The social demands of unions early in the 20th century that gave the working class weekends off, the right to strike, the eight-hour day and Social Security have been abandoned. Universities, especially in political science and economics departments, parrot the discredited ideology of unregulated capitalism and have no new ideas. Artistic expression, along with most religious worship, is largely self-absorbed narcissism. The Democratic Party and the press have become corporate servants. The loss of radicals within the labor movement, the Democratic Party, the arts, the church and the universities has obliterated one of the most important counterweights to the corporate state. And the purging of those radicals has left us unable to make sense of what is happening to us.The fear of communism, like the fear of Islamic terrorism, has resulted in the steady suspension of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, habeas corpus and the right to organize, values the liberal class claims to support. It was the orchestration of fear that permitted the capitalist class to ram through the Taft-Hartley Act in 1948 in the name of anti-communism, the most destructive legislative blow to the working class until the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was fear that created the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, offshore penal colonies where we torture and the endless wars in the Middle East. And it was fear that was used to see us fleeced by Wall Street. If we do not stop being afraid and name our enemy we will continue toward a state of neofeudalism. The robber barons of the late 19th century used goons and thugs to beat up workers and retain control. The corporations, employing the science of public relations, have used actors, artists, writers, scholars and filmmakers to manipulate and shape public opinion. Corporations employ the college-educated, liberal elite to saturate the culture with lies. The liberal class should have defied the emasculation of radical organizations, including the Communist Party. Instead, it was lured into the corporate embrace. It became a class of collaborators. National cohesion, because our intellectual life has become so impoverished, revolves around the empty pursuits of mass culture, brands, consumption, status and the bland uniformity of opinions disseminated by corporate-friendly courtiers. We speak and think in the empty slogans and clichés we are given. And they are given to us by the liberal class....The liberal class prefers comfort to confrontation. It will not challenge the decaying structures of the corporate state. It is intolerant within its ranks of those who do. It clings pathetically to the carcass of the Obama presidency. It has been exposed as a dead force in American politics. We must find our way back to the old radicals, to the discredited Marxists, socialists and anarchists, including Dwight Macdonald and Dorothy Day. Language is our first step toward salvation. We cannot fight what we cannot describe. How's that for an attack on liberals? 
  Here's when you know your screwed as citizen, politically. I could have replaced every instance of liberal with conservative and every instance of Democrats with Republican and that article still would have made just as much (if not more) sense.Stoking the flamebait aren't we? lol   ;Quote:Original post by LessBreadThis Country Needs a Few Good Communists by Chris Hedges, May 31, 2010How's that for an attack on liberals?Nice, but easily painted as "extremist propaganda" or just plain ignored by those who do not want to hear. IMHO what is needed is either strong leadership & backbone from politicians, or some sort of overwhelming grass-roots voter movement to convince them to act. Let me say that I do not live in the US, but I was pretty disappointed with the lack of willingness to reform in the wake of the global credit crisis. Unfortunately, we're all too comfortable with what we have or disillusioned with the political system to get involved. Fear is very effective, after all.I personally think that a powerful wiki-like tool that would provide the layperson with an objective understanding and audit of the actions and policies of their representatives would go a long way to achieving change. Of course, such a system would require a massive amount of work and would constantly be going through a firestorm of attacks from politicians who might resent the way their actions or policies were represented. The tool would provide wikipaedia-like information in order to provide a deeper understanding of the terms and devices used in politics, while also providing forums for discussion and allowing the politicians themselves to comment on the content.Okay, I've been ranting a bit and going OT, so I apologise. [grin]   ;  Although I'm happy to see at least some people passionate enough about their politics to take to the streets, I don't think there's any reason to be hopeful about seeing a change for the better in US politics. The tea party movement is more and more looking like a gathering of the very ideas in Ron Paul's platform that I didn't like. Bruce Bartlett examines a University of Washington poll about the tea party movementI'd like to see a counter movement from the left, and then finally one somewhere in the middle, a centrist non-authoritarian one, taking the good "extreme" ideas from both and discarding the bad ones.   ;Quote:Original post by LachlanLUnfortunately, we're all too comfortable with what we have or disillusioned with the political system to get involved.Apathy mostly I'd imagine. I for one never pay attention to politics as I've said in the past. I imagine some people might catch the news once or twice, but rarely put more than a second of thought into it. Some people tend to pretend they listen to the news or focus on key things they've overheard it seems (oil spill).I'd warrant that a vast vast majority (I won't make a guess) don't care (Or at least I don't, maybe others do). I'm still amazed LessBread finds this stuff interesting enough to write books in this forum.I assume if change is going to ever occur it has to be just a few select people with power.Also I found that whole article overly wordy. It's going to go over the head of most people, but I'd imagine it wasn't meant for average Americans.Quote:Original post by LachlanLFear is very effective, after all.Fear of what?   ;Quote:Original post by SirisianQuote:Original post by LachlanLFear is very effective, after all.Fear of what?Fear of changing the status quo. The fear in believing that the change you want may take away whatever (little) stability you have right now. Fear, however silly, that the other side is out to get you. So on and so forth.;Quote:Original post by SirisianQuote:Original post by LachlanLUnfortunately, we're all too comfortable with what we have or disillusioned with the political system to get involved.Apathy mostly I'd imagine. I for one never pay attention to politics as I've said in the past. I imagine some people might catch the news once or twice, but rarely put more than a second of thought into it. Some people tend to pretend they listen to the news or focus on key things they've overheard it seems (oil spill).I'd warrant that a vast vast majority (I won't make a guess) don't care (Or at least I don't, maybe others do). I'm still amazed LessBread finds this stuff interesting enough to write books in this forum.I assume if change is going to ever occur it has to be just a few select people with power.Also I found that whole article overly wordy. It's going to go over the head of most people, but I'd imagine it wasn't meant for average Americans.I'd agree that the majority of people don't care. But I would also say that most of the "players" are happy with it being that way. It is easier for politicians to spout catch-phrases and stir up base emotions in their constituents rather than actually working for progress. Progress takes hard work. Decrying the efforts of one's opponents with hyperbole is not. They are safe to act in this way because they know that the general population will not educate themselves on the issues at hand enough to see through the BS.Quote:Original post by SirisianQuote:Original post by LachlanLFear is very effective, after all.Fear of what?Fear of lots of things can be stirred up in order to get your way. For example, fear of terrorism can be used to get a free hand in dealing with individuals as you please. Fear of economic collapse can be employed to convince the public that economic reform is too risky. People have lots of fears and most of them can be used by politicians or private enterprises for some purpose. Fear of unemployment, fear of persecution, fear of inferiority, fear of social ostracism, etc. Here is Australia, such a tactic is currently being used to protest against the proposed imposition of a new tax on mining profits (I'm not going to comment on whether I think the claims have merit though).   ;Quote:Original post by Alpha_ProgDesQuote:Original post by SirisianQuote:Original post by LachlanLFear is very effective, after all.Fear of what?Fear of changing the status quo. The fear in believing that the change you want may take away whatever (little) stability you have right now. Fear, however silly, that the other side is out to get you. So on and so forth.And the more stable (or comfortable) you feel, the more vulnerable you are to those fears. It sometimes takes a lot of discomfort to get anything worthwhile done.   ;  On the subject of fear: Quote:...I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination- what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about....Walden/Chapter I: Economy;  I really like these quotes:Quote:As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.Quote:What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.