Vote!
by: Rabbi Michael Lerner on November 1st, 2010 | 5 Comments »
We never endorse candidates or parties. But the debate on the Left about how to deal with Obama’s betrayal of his base has political implications that go far beyond who to vote for or what political party to support. We present, without endorsing, these two quite different perspectives. Stephen Zunes is a contributing editor to Tikkun Magazine. Chris Hedges has written for Tikkun. Both are smart and serious progressive voices. We at Tikkun urge and the Network of Spiritual Progressives urge you to vote on Tuesday!
My Support for Ralph Nader, Ten Years Later: Lessons Learned for 2010
by Stephen Zunes
Like many people who campaigned and voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, the upcoming tenth anniversary of that disastrous election and awareness of the tragic results continues to haunt me. While it was perhaps the most serious political misjudgment I have ever made, it is important to recognize why at the time it seemed to be a quite rational course of action. It is also important to recognize what both the Democratic Party as well as progressives who are tempted to support left alternatives to the Democrats can learn from it.
The Phantom Left
By Chris Hedges
The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power – masked, ruthless and unexamined – happily devour the state.
The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic. The left once harbored militant anarchist and communist labor unions, an independent, alternative press, social movements and politicians not tethered to corporate benefactors. But its disappearance, the result of long witch hunts for communists, post-industrialization and the silencing of those who did not sign on for the utopian vision of globalization, means that there is no counterforce to halt our slide into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality, however, is not palatable. So the corporations that control mass communications conjure up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom for our debacle. And they get us to speak in absurdities.
The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the left wing is crazy, the argument goes, then we moderates will be reasonable. We will be nice. Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory banks and the arms industry, may be ripping the guts out of the country, our rights – including habeas corpus – may have been revoked, but don’t get mad. Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the left.
“Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?” Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is – on the brink of catastrophe – torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here [in Washington] or on cable TV.”
The rally delivered a political message devoid of reality or content. The corruption of electoral politics by corporate funds and lobbyists, the naive belief that we can somehow vote ourselves back to democracy, was ignored for emotional catharsis. The right hates. The liberals laugh. And the country is taken hostage.
Read the rest of the article here.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous reply, I love Chris Hedges. I love him because, in my opinion, he is speaking in and with the prophetic voice, as so few others ever do, and I admire the immense measure of selfless courage it takes to do that. He’s not out to flatter you and thereby win your praise, his aim is to rub your nose in the truth no matter how harsh it is, and Sunday’s rally in Washington was a fine example of why what passes for the left in America badly needs it.
Thanks for telling it like it is, Chris.
Hedges’ closing comments about campaigns as entertainment have some merit. But the rest of his diatribe is pure rant. Well, he does have a new book to promote. So isn’t it interesting how his message of “I don’t like anybody very much” also entertains for the sake of salesmanship?
It isn’t just the radical left of America that has disappeared. The radical left around the world has disappeared–in Russia, in China, etc. So is it his phantom of “the liberal class” that has also caused those worldwide changes? Wow, aren’t we powerful? It is almost as good as the Devil is for true believers.
Maybe our problem is that we have too many “pox on all your houses” writers like Hedges.
Rex,
I think we should feel relieved that the likes of mao and Stalin are long gone from China and Russia
I agree with the last commenter, but will feel better when Obama is also long gone from the Presidency of the US. The misguided, at best, social policies of this administration, are hurting not only the US, but the world as well. The US is like it or not the stabilizing force in the world we know and when you destabilize the US, people start looking to China for direction, and that is not good for anyone.
You can’t wait until Obama is gone from the Presidency, Rich? And replaced with what? A good, old Republican, the party that is becoming more ideological and more right wing than any of us could have ever imagined? The party of crazies? They like to call themselves conservatives but they are not conservatives. They are ideologues posing as conservatives. They put before us five Supreme Court justices who gave us Citizens United. They hijacked U.S. foreign policy to steer America into Middle East wars. They ran up the biggest deficits in history. They imposed on us a trade policy that outsourced our future.
Not saying the Dems don’t serve the same masters and were not part of this but at least I see a conscience, now and then. The Republican Party is beyond saving. What are Obama’s social policies?