Chris Hedges is on a mission. That mission is to save the Occupy movement from anarchists who employ any tactic of which Hedges does not approve. Apparently he never read, or gave credence to, anthropologist, anarchist, and sometime black bloc participant, David Graeber’s respectful and urgent open letter written in response to Hedges’ by now infamous article “The Cancer in Occupy.” Despite Graeber’s patient explanation that black bloc is a tactic, not a movement, and that anarchists like himself were centrally involved in organizing the occupation of Zuccotti park, creating the General Assembly process, and originating the 99% slogan, Hedges continues to refer to black bloc as a group of people and to assert that their “cynicism” and “feral” acts of violence will destroy Occupy from within.
Nor does it seem to matter to Hedges that his pronouncements do not reflect the spirit of a movement he claims to value and hopes to “grow.” That spirit is epitomized by the General Assembly, a remarkably democratic institution, where all voices are allowed a chance to be heard. Instead, the Harvard educated master of divinity continues to pound the pulpit, fulminating against what he describes as “black bloc anarchists,” and calling for the expulsion from Occupy of those who do not adhere to his extreme version of nonviolence.
In a video posted at Truthdig last week, of a question and answer period following a panel discussion at the April 2nd Control the Corporation conference, a self-identified anarchist asks Hedges how much he actually knows about Occupy, noting that many of the movement’s processes were authored by anarchists. Hedges responds that he, too, is an anarchist, a Christian anarchist, and that in his article he was not criticizing anarchy, but instead “stupidity.” Consider for a moment how it must feel to have someone not only telling you how the movement you helped to create ought to be run, but also demanding your expulsion from that movement, and calling your tactics “stupid.” I marveled, watching the video, at the restraint of the anarchists questioning Hedges. There was shouting at the end that I couldn’t make out, so perhaps they did ultimately respond with insults, but by then, who could blame them?
Central to the dispute between Hedges and the anarchists who helped to found Occupy is the issue of violence versus nonviolence – and how those are defined. In general terms, anarchism refers to the absence of rulers (hence, the “leaderless” Occupy movement). The idea is not lawlessness or general chaos, but rather, freedom from hierarchical authority and ruling power enforced by violence. Anarchism has a long history in the United States and many anarchists were involved in the early labor movement. Then, as now, anarchists sought to push back against police brutality. One contemporary method for doing so is the black bloc.
The black bloc tactic originated in Germany in the 1980s in response to police brutality against peaceful protesters. Participants dress in black and cover their faces to avoid identification and more easily evade police. American anarchist David Graeber describes the attire as:
a gesture of anonymity, solidarity, and to indicate to others that they are prepared, if the situation calls for it, for militant action. The very nature of the tactic belies the accusation that they are trying to hijack a movement and endanger others. One of the ideas of having a Black Bloc is that everyone who comes to a protest should know where the people likely to engage in militant action are, and thus easily be able to avoid it if that’s what they wish to do.
Graeber also notes that anarchists are not the only activists who participate in black blocs.
Christian anarchism similarly rejects secular rulers, but embraces submission to god and the teachings of Jesus; in particular, the Sermon on the Mount. For the unchurched among us, these are the teachings that include the verses about the meek inheriting the earth, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and calling peacemakers blessed. Nonviolence and pacifism are central tenets of Christian anarchism.
In the video cited above, Hedges calls for “a rigid adherence to nonviolence,” including “linguistic violence.” The “violence” that motivated Hedges’ original impassioned denunciation of “black bloc anarchists” was an action in Oakland on January 28th, during which, Hedges writes, some protesters “thr[ew] rocks, carried homemade shields and rolled barricades.” When protesters in New York took to the streets in solidarity with their comrades in Oakland, Hedges continues, “a few demonstrators” threw “bottles at police and dump[ed] garbage on the street. They chanted ‘Fuck the police’ and ‘Racist, sexist, anti-gay / NYPD go away.’”
Only in America would we see such hand-wringing and condemnation for such petty and isolated infractions – especially considering the length of the Occupy activity in the fall, the number of groups involved around the country, and the violence inflicted on peaceful protesters by the police. Hedges invokes Tahrir Square as an example Occupy should follow, yet some Egyptian protesters threw rocks and still considered themselves nonviolent. On March 29th, Spain saw a hugely successful general strike, (despite the union leadership), with nearly 80% of workers participating, and concurrent rioting in Barcelona, to protest privatization and austerity measures there. What happened in Oakland was child’s play in comparison. Oddly enough, Hedges himself praised Greek rioters in a May 2010 article in Truthdig:
Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it. (Emphasis added.)
It is difficult to reconcile Hedges’ celebration of rioting in Greece with his angry screed against isolated incidents of rock and bottle throwing in response to police brutality in the United States. Hedges says his goal is to “grow the movement” and that the “violence” that occurred in Oakland alienates the mainstream. In other words, he wants middle-class Americans, including “parents with strollers,” to feel safe and comfortable in joining Occupy.
Who in their right mind would take a child in a stroller to places where police kettle, beat, and pepper spray peaceful protesters? That would be like taking a black child in a stroller to a lunch counter in Woolworths during the Civil Rights movement. Hedges himself says the Occupy strategy should follow that of the Civil Rights movement, of drawing out and exposing the violence that enforces an unjust system. By definition, that’s no place for a toddler – or for anyone expecting a risk-free day at the protest parade.
Then, as now, young people took the brunt of the violence. Certainly many people of all ages were involved in the Civil Rights movement and are participating in Occupy. But those at the forefront of the violence, at the lunch counters, on the Freedom rides, and at Occupy actions are primarily young people.
That’s why it’s so difficult to stomach Hedges’ arrogant attitude toward the anarchists and other young people who are the heart and soul of Occupy. At one point in the video, in response to a question from a young anarchist about diversity of tactics, Hedges reiterates that “nonviolence is the route” and asserts that “people in groups like Veterans for Peace or Code Pink, they’ve been doing this a really long time and we’d be very smart to listen to the lessons they’ve learned.”
Although Hedges did not speak harshly, in the context of the discussion, the comment reads as a sort of “sit down, shut up, and listen to your elders” type of response. Adding insult to injury, the moderator followed up by inviting Dorli Rainey, the 84 year old activist who was pepper sprayed in Seattle, onstage to voice probably the most ignorant opinion expressed in the video. “The anarchists are really not anarchists,” she declared. “They’re hoodlums!” The crowd of primarily white and middle to senior aged people gave her a standing ovation.
Hedges claims that “black bloc anarchism” is the “portal into the movement” by which agent provocateurs will undermine it; that “the goal is to sever the Occupy movement from the mainstream.” But black bloc or no black bloc, the movement has been and will be infiltrated – as have all social movements.
Hedges’ intransigent attitude and apparent unwillingness to engage in true dialogue with young activists at the center of the movement, whose views differ with his, constitutes a greater threat to the movement than any government infiltrator. Dismissing and alienating the brave and spirited young people who created Occupy will not “grow the movement” – though it may allow other entities to co-opt, and ultimately, kill it.
Hedges has written of the so-called “black bloc anarchists” that:
The Black Bloc movement bears the rigidity and dogmatism of all absolutism sects. Its adherents alone possess the truth. They alone understand. They alone arrogate the right, because they are enlightened and we are not, to dismiss and ignore competing points of view as infantile and irrelevant. They hear only their own voices. They heed only their own thoughts. They believe only their own clichés. And this makes them not only deeply intolerant but stupid.
Mr. Hedges, I respectfully suggest that you take a look in the mirror. Or, at the least, heed Matthew 7:5 and “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Related Post: Reconsidering Violence and Nonviolence in the Age of Occupy
Katherine M Acosta is freelance writer currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. Contact her at kacosta at undisciplinedphd dot com. Her blog is UndisciplinedPhD.
18 Comments.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The real danger for progress is not the right wing, or conservatives, or the rich, the 1% and so on. They are not the impediment to progress. The Chris Hedges are. The Kossacks. The Bob Cescas. The Whimsicals. THEY are the most serious impediment to progressive ideals, because THEY are the enablers. They enable every anti-progressive person, organization, politician, think tank, etc …. They enable those entities to keep things exactly the same. They believe progress comes in dribs and drabs. That progress must be achieved through constant negotiation whereby progressives ALWAYS end up with nothing, and then – embarrassingly – declare some sort of victory. Obamacare is a perfect example of that. Without re-hashing that debacle, it is a prime example of progressives screwing themselves over by clinging to pathetic and childish notions of how progress is achieved. And what did they get at the end of that particular campaign? Shit. Utter shit. In fact, utter shit that is actually on the verge of collapsing entirely and never even becoming implemented in full.
So who’s to blame for that? The enablers.
The Chris Hedges.
The Kossacks.
The Bob Cescas.
The Whimsicals.
I’ve said this before: These people MUST be dealt with. One way or another, they need to be removed from anything associated with the progressive movement. Until these types are removed from any influence whatsoever, they will continue to do tremendous damage. Deal with them, and you know what I mean.
Occupy is a failure, but if it were to succeed – to use an analogy – it would need to be like the strategic military attack on Dresden, which was a firestorm. Meaning, the distinct Occupy movements would each have to catch fire, burning with an intensity in each city that was undeniable. Then, they would coalesce into one big firestorm that would tear the existing corporate structures down, right to the fucking ground. Unstoppable. That is the only way Occupy succeed. Anything less will turn out EXACTLY like Obamacare: A decent idea that was co-opted until it turned into a complete pile of corporate shit that actually sets the stage for making things worse, not better.
Who are those that would pour water on the flames? The enablers.
Who would try to diffuse any coalescing of the flames? The enablers.
Stopping the enablers is the first order of business. It won’t be pretty and it won’t be perceived well, but anything less is setting the stage for complete and utter failure. Considering where Occupy is now (pretty much a failure), if they don’t get this right – they’re done for good.
Predictably, the right wing plant who is the problem calls for the removal of the only people that have a chance of implementing actual solutions.
It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
He’s half right about Occupy. It’s an irrelvancy, largely because it chooses to be. But if it ever caught fire in the way he describes it would be immediately put out and used as an excuse to finish the dismantling of the system and the imposition of a fasicst theocracy in its place. Which, (not that he’d admit it) is the real goal behind all his “revolutionary” ranting.
I’ll make two more points Occupy must embrace if there’s to be any chance of success.
1. After you deal with the enablers, you must obliterate the propagandists. The propagandists should be ripped limb-from-limb on national television, which will put them on notice: No more! We will no longer tolerate their expertly constructed lies, and the penalty for such crimes is severe. The corporate propaganda machine is #1 on this list, make no mistake about it. Their lies are legion and have caused so much damage it’s virtually impossible to calculate.
2. With respect to my previous post about the enablers: Step one in “dealing” with them, is ignoring their words. No matter the format, no matter the content, no matter the scenario – they are to be ignored. They need to become non-persons, they need to be dehumanized as part of step one. Engaging them only encourages them, allows them to continue their damage to any progress. Once they are dehumanized and neutered, it makes it much easier to carry out the next steps.
The US is a country where it is now the Law of the Land that the authorities may strip search anyone for any reason, or for no reason, and also where the President can legally order anyone, anywhere in the world, killed or imprisoned for life without a trial, again, for any reason, or for no reason. Some see this as a problem, and want to know what to do. The answer is not simple. (Nor, to give away the ending of this essay, do I have it.) The US government is the most powerful organisation that has ever existed in the history of the world. Those of us who read English have read of countries where the leadership feels so threatened that anyone who criticises the leadership is immediately ‘disappeared’. But in the US, Mr. Rall and Ms Acosta still have their websites, so the US government does not feel as threatened as the governments of the countries in such stories as e.g., 1984. But the US government retains the legal right to ‘disappear’ either or both of them, if it ever feels they are a threat.
Whimsical says Obama is as far to the left as we can possibly get, so anyone opposed to Obama is a right-wing Tea Party disruptor, trying to divert leftists from the only possibly path a true leftist could follow.
Mr Hedges says the only answer in the US is non-violence, given the near-omnipotence of the US government. He agrees that violence can work in Greece, but says those who hope to achieve anything in the US by violence are a ‘cancer’. His version of non-violence, he claims, can work, but only his version of non-violence, a claim for which he has no evidence.
As an example, consider the Raj. Violent protesters were shot, and the survivors hanged. Non-violent protesters were sometimes shot and hanged for treason, or, as in the case of Gandhi, merely imprisoned, and released when he went on hunger strike. But Gandhi was a graduate of University College London, and the UK decided that killing him would not be cost effective.
As WWI wound down, President Wilson demanded an end to the European mercantile empires that blocked American manufacturers from buying raw materials and selling finished products to their colonies. But Wilson had no support from the US Senate, and is now considered one of the worst presidents by Glen Beck (which raised Wilson’s status quite a bit in my estimation).
After WWII, Truman had much more power, and demanded that the Brits relinquish their empire, and, having no choice, they acquiesced. Neither violent nor non-violent indigenous South Asian proponents of independence had anything to do with the end of the Raj, only the victorious US and USSR, who could demand whatever they wanted of the losers. And those losers included Britain and France.
So what is the answer? Since neither violence nor non-violence seems to have much of a chance against the US government, Mr Hedges insistence that those opposed to the US government restrict themselves to non-violence is not compelling.
The Obama administration supported the law giving the US president the legal right to order anyone, anywhere killed or incarcerated for life without trial or parole, and is now using that law as a justification for re-election: most Americans agree that Obama has only ordered heinous criminals killed, so the Obama Re-election Campaign is trying to scare voters with the threat that anyone else would be likely to use the law against innocents by whom it felt threatened. And this is an argument that Whimsical re-iterates on this blog.
So, again, I ask: what is the answer?
I would very much like to replace a government that demands the right to strip search anyone at any time for any reason or for no reason, and that has given itself the legal right to kill anyone, anywhere in the world, or imprison them for life without parole without a trial, for any reason or for no reason.
But how? We’ve seen that, against an organisation as powerful as the US government, violent methods absolutely do not work. But, in spite of Hedges calling violent methods a ‘cancer’, we’ve also seen that non-violent methods do not work.
So what to do?
I think effective resistance can begin once we get over this conditioning so many seem to have that law enforcement agencies, through technology, manpower, or fearsomely generous budget allowances have some kind of virtually omnipotent ability to swiftly, competently, and ruthlessly crush any and all resistance without expending any effort. It’s simply untrue. To the extent that it may seem true, I’d say that’s largely thanks to movement leaders who insist on confining their actions and tactics to the same predictable routine.
What can be done? Test the system. Look for weaknesses. Just observe how things work for a while. For all I know, it’s happening already. Maybe the nonviolent Gandhi wannabees the police are all watching are providing a nice distraction for the casual passersby who are noting the numbers of officers on scene, who they are, where they’re coming from, by what routes reinforcements arrive, and areas where they seem to have backup presence, type and number of vehicles present, etc. Maybe the concurrent accidental fire alarm a couple precincts away, or the suspicious-looking package left a couple streets over aren’t entirely coincidences.
Maybe it’s all being watched, recorded, analyzed, and evaluated and compared to previous similar occasions by those who want to better understand how law enforcement prioritizes and adapts to different situations.
Then again, maybe it isn’t.
So pathetically predictable; as soon as the right wing plant’s agenda is exposed, he responds with calls for extreme violence. That sort of psychopathy gives him away every time, and is a sign he is not to be trusted, or, if you want to make progress, even listened to.
@Michael
Obama is as left as we can get FOR NOW, yes. The party can be pushed left, but not using the tactics the far fringe left is currently using. And all revolution will do is enable the setting up of a government so far right as to make Obama seem like a flaming liberal by comparison.
What to do?
The first step is to understand that we are in a battle that will take decades, if not generations to finish. It used to be a badge of pride for liberals that we were fighting for a better world for our children and grand children, and if we ourselves wound up seeing none of the benefits from our fight, that was a price we were willing to pay, and pay proudly.
Now, thanks to people like the right wing plant spreading their poison like acid among the progressives in order to undermine the movement, patience has become a dirty word. The attitude has become- “Fuck the children! if I’m not going to see any benefits, I’m not going to do the work! REVOLUTION! (and if it damages the US beyond repair, oh well).”. Patience needs to reclaim it’s place of pride among liberals if we are to have any hope of accomplishing the real work.
The next step is to understand that we are NOT going to get everything we want, right away, and that is NOT an excuse to empower our opposition by fighting among ourselves or giving them more power. Once again, there is a poisonous mindset among the far fringe left- “It can’t possibly be ME! I could NEVER have asked for too much, or the impossible! I asked for everything I want, and I deserve it immediately! It must be some sort of conspiracy by the man!”
We need people who are willing to fight every minute of every day with everything they have, and do so knowing full well that they will have to keep the fight up for their lifetimes without seeing any of the benefits- but to know in their hearts the benefits were coming.
Third, we need to have high ideals, but be realistic about their implementation. Realism demands acknowledgement that a revolution has so close to a zero chance of success as to be statistically insignificant, and concentrating our efforts on ways that actually stand a chance of achieving our goals- not necessarily for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.
The left were people like that once, but they made some bad choices and listened to the WRONG people (Here’s a clue- the minute someone suggests pulling people limb from limb, they have demonstrated they are not to be listened to). The right has infiltrated the progressive movement for decades, and have been scoring major victories since they persuaded Ted Kennedy not to accept Nixon’s health care plan. Each victory has made them bolder, and now they no longer feel the need to hide what psychopaths they are.
Learning to recognize the infiltrators and ignore their poison; hell, to do the exact opposite of what they suggest- is the first thing to do to restore the left,and by extension this country, to the greatness it once had, and could have again.
Cause here’s the thing- violence does work. It just works on a much longer timeframe. Once the left stops using an electoral strategy designed by right wing plants to sabotage them, we could have a highly progressive government in 4 full election cycles- 5 tops; i.e. 20 years or so.
If we try for revolution, we’ll enable a fascist theocracy that will rule for 100 or so years and then have to be overthrown, and then MAYBE we’ll get a progressive government.
I know which sounds better to me.
Q: How do you tell apart a lazy coward from a patient sage?
A: If you ask the guy they’re both afraid to confront, he’ll say “Who cares?”
@Whimsical
1) The problem with your solution is that we don’t HAVE decades, let alone generations, in which to fight with.
2) It is impossible to elect progressive candidates on a national level. They will be marginalized out of existence. Example: Dennis Kucinich.
3) Another reason why we can’t elect progressive candidates is because elections can be stolen. The compliant media refuse to report or acknowledge any of this as a problem.
So there you have it. The best thing for your own sanity is to realize these three facts mentioned above, and decide where you will go from there. If not, then you’ll end up in the nuthouse. For real.
Susan
1) The right WANTS you to think that, because that type of thinking leads to one of two responses- a) apathy and giving up or b)calls for revolution. Both these mindsets do nothing but further the goals of the right wing and aid in the inevitable slide of the country into a fascist theocracy.
The reality is we can push the party left, while at the same time preventing the right from doing any more damage then they’ve already done. I’m not claiming its going to be even remotely close to easy, but it both can and must be done.
2) Again, patience. Yes, it is impossible to elect progressive candidates on a national level NOW, but that’s in large part because the left has been using the wrong strategy, a strategy designed by the right wing to sabotage progressives electoral chances, for nearly 30 years. The good news is, with a proper strategy, it’ll only take about half that long to get progressives elected on a national level.
3) Yes, elections can be stolen- but only if they’re close. Ones progressives learn how the system actually works, and tailor their electoral strategy accordingly, an election that’s close enough to be stolen will be rare.
So, only one of the three things you claimed as fact actually is, and even that can be challenged. Sorry, but the other two are just opinions that you came to by listening to and believing the wrong people.
Believe we can keep the right from overthrowing this country. Believe we can get a progressive agenda implemented, just not necessarily in time for us to see any of the benefits. Believe in a better world for your children and grandchildren.
Realize the power of those beliefs. Internalize them, and THEN see where you go from there.
I think time constraints are far more perilous than even the pessimistic realize. “The Limits to Growth” was published in 1972 and made a point of NOT making any predictions. But it did analyze scenarios based on the utilization of finite resources.
The standard form for telling news consumers anything is to state the static reserve of a commodity: how long the supply would last under current consumption. So, a 100-year supply is presented as something that’s going to last 100 years.
If you have a 100-year supply of copper, steel, oil, whatever, and an increase in consumption of that commodity occurs (e.g., more people in the world means you need more oil each year). If you have a natural increase in commodity consumption of 2% a year, that 100 year supply is now going to last only 55 years. Yes, there are a lot of secondary issues to consider. If we use up all the gold, there are other materials that will serve — not as well, but they still will serve — for various industrial tasks.
But the whole thing is becoming more and more precarious. I just don’t think we have the luxury of decades and decades to continue to push this around on the plate or wait for incremental change as the pendulum swings the other way. The planet is heating up. We’re running out of oil (and copper, steel, donuts, etc.) A group comes forward to say, “Hey, even if we AREN’T warming up or running out of oil, we could do things to mitigate those events, and those things would NOT cause harm if it turns out, somehow, that all the scientists got it wrong. We could diversify the ways the U.S. gathers energy. We could use clean, renewable sources like wind and solar.” And the shrieks of outrage are deafening. Intellectualism, the use of the mind to solve problems and to critique ineffective techniques and policies, has been successfully rebranded as nonpatriotic.
Everyone should check out the documentary The Chicago 10. It’s the story of the protests and the subsequent trial following the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Whimsical, please note the year.
Everyone else, the Chicago 10 had to deal with the same milquetoast whiners in their movement. The lesson, let them tag along for the ride, but don’t let them try to take the lead. They’ll show their worth when the cameras show up looking for martyrs.
@Alex
I actually think that things are far better than even the optomists suggest. Are you at all familiar with the works of Thomas Malthus? He was arguing that scarcity was going to be a problem 200+ years ago, and that we would quickly expand past the carrying capacity of the planet; suffering a mass die-off as a consequence. Technology has proved Malthusians wrong for over 200 years now, and I see no reason to bet against it contininuing to do so.
That’s always my problem with these arguments that try and predict the future. They inevitably fail to take technology into account.
I don’t deny the planet is getting warmer, or that certain materials are getting scarcer; but those are primarily science problems, and I have to believe that every day that goes by brings us a day closer to the day when science will solve them.
Now, how people react until those problems are solved- or whether or not the political structure in place when solutions are found will allow the solutions to be implemented are valid questions- but the basic scientific questions will be solved, of that I have no doubt.
Now, we can argue about the socio-political questions in the above paragraph,but whether we answer those questions violently or not, it will take decades, if not generations before they are answered. I
happen to believe that it will take a lot less time if we do it my way, within the system, rather than overthrowing the system. But there is simply no way around the fact it will take time.
I do not believe we are on the edge of a natural disaster. We may make a disaster out of our own impatience, or through listening to the wrong people, but the world will give us the TIME to solve our problems.
The WILL; however, is entirely up to us.
@dennyd
Please note for how long I claimed that right wing actvists have been infiltrating the left to sabotage them; in addition, please note the date I claim for their first victory: Persuading Kennedy not to accept Nixon’s health care plan.
@alex
Damn, almost forgot.
“A group comes forward to say, “Hey, even if we AREN’T warming up or running out of oil, we could do things to mitigate those events, and those things would NOT cause harm if it turns out, somehow, that all the scientists got it wrong. We could diversify the ways the U.S. gathers energy. We could use clean, renewable sources like wind and solar.” And the shrieks of outrage are deafening. Intellectualism, the use of the mind to solve problems and to critique ineffective techniques and policies, has been successfully rebranded as nonpatriotic.”
This can be fixed, but once again, it has to be understood that it will take time- a constant effort over a period of years. There simply is no other way.
The right worked for 40+ years to create the mess we have now- I do not understand those on the left who think we can clean up the mess they made overnight.
@whimsical
So someone predicted 200 years ago that the earth could not sustain a billion people and that didn’t prove true, and that informs you that there is no limit to the population earth’s resources can sustain?
Right, and the moral of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ was that there is no such thing as a wolf.
‘Science’ has become a religious term for the intellectually faithful. It figures that along with your blind faith in Obama you would have other faith-based opinions. I’m guessing you are certain that nuclear energy is the sound alternative solution as well – it’s de rigueur for the defenders of the allegedly-slightly-(and-ever-so-pragmatically)-left-of-satan.
The right has been killing us for 40 years and our democratic presidents along the way have proved more conservative then their republican predecessors when it comes to handing over power to corporate interests. Now we have a president who has far exceeded Bush in violating civil and human rights, and sacrificing the nation to the whims of the 1%, and you call that incremental progress?
You Obamabots are truly an Orwellian nightmare. The insanity, the audacity to call those espousing progressive ideas ‘right wing plants’ while calling yourselves true progressives because you embrace a corporate-fascist right wing plant of a president! What’s really most sad and frightening is you may actually believe this stuff.
I had dinner recently with someone who told me in their best kevin Drum body snatchers screech ‘I used to be anti-military, but now that Obama is president I’m pro-military!
To those not so deluded- what does anyone think is the answer? Clearly the ‘Delusionals’ of the world will stay tethered an arms’ length to the left of the looney right (and ever further right of the looney right of the past).
But Ted and exkiodexian’s revolutionary talk is even more unrealistic, though I emotionally agree with it.
The idea of a progressive revolution just seems so absurd it reminds me of Paths of Glory:
You found yourself in the middle of no-man’s-land alone with Private Meyer?
– Yes, sir.
Why didn’t you attack single-handed? Why didn’t you storm the Ant Hill alone?
-Just me and Meyer? You’re kidding, sir.
So you freely admit, Private Ferol, that you retreated?
-Yes, sir. Me and Meyer both. I knew we should have took Ant Hill, but we came on back.
I think real progressives are the 1%, and the reason we haven’t a chance is we are outnumbered and outgunned by the right wing fools, (who have a lot more weapons) and the arm chair spartans of the right, no i mean left, um, the left-right-left?
The system works just perfectly. It demonizes all those who would challenge it, and insures the discourse does not veer from the narrow parameters defined by what Glenn Greenwald calls ‘sensible people’. Kucinich, Nader, Grayson? Kooks! The Bachmans of their party, say the Whimsicals. Those who say otherwise are apparently right wing plants.
In the insane world… we can fight all we want about who is to blame but how can there even be a plausible solution when the vast majority range from extreme right to what 40 years ago would have been deemed extreme right? I only know a couple dozen republicans, of the rest of everyone I know there are about 5 progressives and hundreds of democrats, of which our obama-shilling Whimsical would actually be somewhere center or even center-left.
My biggest problem with the whole “slow and steady” is that we’re already seeing the results of 30 years of right-wing indoctrination. In a few more years, we will have a body of citizens who are so desensitized to being treated like criminals that it will be impossible to wake them up to how wrong everything is.
When I was a kid, people who worked did so for 8 hours a day (with a few realistic exceptions — a firefighter can’t just walk away from a blaze at 5 on the dot). They came home for dinner and work did not follow them. We didn’t have email in the 1970s, but we all had phones. The idea of your boss or a co-worker calling you at home to tell you to do more work was simply unheard of. A boss who did it would discover that people wouldn’t stick around in his company.
Now, people are scared to death at the idea of not being available 24/7. Why? Because they’re all in the mindset of “I can be replaced in a moment.” And yes, they can. We all can. Why? Because we no longer know how to work together to stick up for each other. I made the reference some number of posts back about the YouTube video where the TSA agent frisks a small child. And all the adults are bored and vexed. When I was a kid, if an adult — regardless of whether he had a uniform — did that to a kid, the adult would have found himself beaten to within an inch of his life by an angry mob of parents and general passers by. The questions would have gone something like this: “You think a four-year-old is carrying a bomb? Are you out of your fucking mind? What kind of an idiot frisks a fucking kid? You’re one sick puppy, mister.”
But now, what’s frisking a kid among freedom-loving friends? Or stopping thousands of black teenagers, just in case. Heck, if you have to shoot a couple of unarmed people just to make sure the criminal element gets the message, well, you can’t make a freedom omelet without breaking some Constitutional eggs. May I see your papers? Where are you going today? Can anyone confirm your story? Have you ever been arrested? Is that manner of dress really suitable for you? What? That’s for you to decide? Hey, Frank, listen to what the whore over here just said: Something about how she should decide what she should wear. Well you just earned yourself a trip downtown, missy. Resisting arrest. And if you give me any more lip, well, I guess I’m going to find some marijuana in your purse when I search it. …
@djd
So someone predicted 200 years ago that the earth could not sustain a billion people and that didn’t prove true”. No, it didn’t prove true every single day from the day it was predicted up until today. That’s an impressive track record.
Could GW be the problem technology can’t solve? Sure, just like a pitcher who won his last twenty games could suddenly lose the 21st- but it’s not the smart way to bet.
” Now we have a president who has far exceeded Bush in violating civil and human rights, and sacrificing the nation to the whims of the 1%, and you call that incremental progress?
You Obamabots are truly an Orwellian nightmare. The insanity, the audacity to call those espousing progressive ideas ‘right wing plants’ while calling yourselves true progressives because you embrace a corporate-fascist right wing plant of a president! What’s really most sad and frightening is you may actually believe this stuff.”
This is ridiculous on a number of levels. Let’s break it down:
1) Your claim that Obama has far exceeded Bush is so ridiculous on its face as to not warrant further comment.
2) The nicest thing I’ve EVER said about Obama is that he is better than the other guy; the claim that this means I’m an “Obamabot” or have “blind faith” in Obama is also ridiculous. If pointing out the facts about Obama makes someone guilty of “blind faith”, then I can only conclude your own blinders have forced you to set the bar for what an “Obamabot” is way too low. I suspect ODS.
Obama IS better than the Republican choice. Democrats are, in general, better than Republicans. That’s just fact; hell, even Ted has said so.
3) The only person I’ve named as a right wing plant espouses rending people limb from limb and slitting their throats. Those are NOT progressive values, and to claim they are is, once again, you guessed it, ridiculous.
“Kucinich, Nader, Grayson? Kooks! The Bachmans of their party, say the Whimsicals. Those who say otherwise are apparently right wing plants.”
No, those who call for throat slitting and rendering those with opposing views limb from limb are right wing plants. The rest of you are free to laud Kuchinich, et al, all you like. Though frankly, I wonder why- they talk a good game, but are not all that good at getting anything of substance accomplished. Give me someone who doesn’t talk all that pretty but actually accomplishes things every time. But I digress.
” I only know a couple dozen republicans, of the rest of everyone I know there are about 5 progressives and hundreds of democrats, of which our obama-shilling Whimsical would actually be somewhere center or even center-left.”
I’d like to relaim the word progressive to its original meaning; i.e. one who believes in “progress”. In that repesct, I do consider myself a progressive. But you’ve stated the problem fairly- progressives are outnumbered, and frankly, the more they alienate themselves from the general public with their tactics, the smaller those numbers are going to get.
The progressive movement has been using the wrong tactics for thirty years, and as a result, their numbers have dropped, and the Democratic party (and consequently the country) has drifted further and further right, to we have come to the edge of the cliff we are currently standing on.
The good news is, this is reversible. The bad news is its going to take a)time and b) the current batch of “progressives” to realize that their tactics are accomplishing the opposite of their stated goals, and a willingness to change said tactics.
We have a); b) sadly, not so much.
@Alex
I disagree- I believe most people understand completely how badly wrongs things are,and they will continue to do so but that the left’s continuing failed electoral strategy has convinced them that these problems cannto be solved at the ballot box. That is, of course, EXACTLY, the defeatist attitude the right wants them to have.
Once the left switches strategies, and gains some victories, I expect people to coming roaring back, when they understand that goverment both can and should be used for the good of the people. But that’s going to require the two ingredients I listed a couple of paragrpahs above.
I don’t argue that Obama is a better option than the current Republicans.
But he is worse than Bush. He has taken Bush’s police state to new heights.
Where Bush claimed the right to spy on anyone, Obama has claimed the right to kill anyone.
The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than anyone before.
Even the NY Times has had several articles about it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/politics/12leak.html?pagewanted=all
In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.
He made a weak effort to shutdown Gitmo, and then reversed that policy http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/07/AR2011030704871.html?hpid=topnews
The treatment of Bradley Manning is a horror. Democrats would be protesting in the streets if a republican was responsible. And he has prosecuted with a vengeance several others who have dared call the US military and spook brigade for torture, murder and coverups. The next big trial is underway, quietly… http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/feds_prep_whistleblower_trial/singleton/
Hell Greenwald is talking about this stuff almost daily. No doubt he has earned his way onto the no fly list.
The election was the first time I ever thought the worst candidate didn’t win the Democratic primary: I thought the 2nd worst one. Though I would tell people ‘I have hope – that Obama is not Clinton. But I doubt it.’ Its a worthless debate to discuss whether Hillary could have been any worse. But every election makes it more clear than ever that anyone with substantive ideas will be ridiculed, jmarginalized, and dismissed. and that’s by democrats! -As you just did all the most progressive members of congress. Yes who wants a handful of honest people of integrity who can’t get things done, when we can elect dishonest corporate suckups who’s excessive evil today looks good compared to the evils we project the Republicans will do tomorrow!
If he gets relected, he will see that Social Security benefits are whittled down. Just as it took a democrat to weaken welfare, only a democrat could get away with bringing down Social Security.
His healthcare act is a joke. It’s a known fact he made a deal with the hospital lobby to insure there would be no public option. It’s just another handout to the wealthy elite.
An Obama fact sheet, to counter the one from Rachel Maddow (another military humping dem booster) http://stpeteforpeace.org/obama.html
This site is full of links to articles about his all out class warfare. I’d rather fight the obvious enemy than the backstabbing charmer.
You are probably right though about ex, sounds like a provocateur to me. There are 1000s who post on daily kos and huffpo, maybe a dozen who post here. small crowd on Michael Moore’s sight.
Do socialists and progressives even make up 5% of the population? 1%? Probably 50% or more would agree with the majority of their values, but only a few are ‘crazy’ enough to cut their umbilical cord to the status quo.
Democrats and Republicans alike remind me of pro wrestling fans.
For 30 years the Democrats are ‘wimps, bad negotiators, preemptively conciliatory … but they are the smart ones!
These ivy league lawyers of good intention and superior intellect can’t overcome the billionaires and their idiot minions? Give me a break. The script is always the same, and the longer it goes on, the angrier the dems get – at ….. the left!!!! It’s mind boggling. Yes if only the leftys would go away things will move left. When I think about the insane hubris of your logic, it makes me as angry as exkiodexian.
My apologies for not editing typos.