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Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA | 67 comments (67 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 6)
There are two large leaps here that I personally have trouble following:

European Tribune - Comments - Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA

It's impossible to understand the destructive role of the "anger left" as represented by Taibbi, Rosenberg, Firedoglake, and others in American politics without applying some class analysis. First, consider the cohesive underlying political message of this group - which can be boiled down to
We, the people, have been betrayed by a weak, unqualified Obama who is under the control and inimical influence of a shadowy Rahm Emmanuel and too close to bankers like Ben Bernancke.

All you have to do is fill in the ethnicity of the characters, which everyone knows, and you've produced something from the traditional language of the far right.

I.e.:

  1. A major portion of criticism from the left boils down to accusations of conspiracy.
  2. Said criticism is next door to racist demagogy.

All I can really say right now is: [citation needed].

There are just grounds for disappointment Obama's decisions, even acknowledging that he himself is no progressive. The administration's inexplicable adherence to the Bush "security" doctrine is perhaps the most egregious example.

Secondly, from a European perspective, the criticisms of HCR do not even sound particularly "leftist". Indeed, only a very small slice of the European political spectrum - the Economist neolibs - would count the current senate HCR proposal as "decent reform of medical insurance".

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 07:03:20 AM EST
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 7)
It was an angry left - a very angry left - that created substantial movement in US politics a century or so ago.

If that left had been less angry and had limited themselves to intellectual deconstructions of power structures, it's a reasonable bet that the power structures would have remained in place.

In fact it's very much a leftist failing to believe that all you have to do is criticise something with enough mature rationality, and it will magically stop functioning, stunned into irrelevance by the power of a clever and insightful argument.

It doesn't seem to work like that in the real world.

As for the anti-semitism - what? Where?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 07:39:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (none / 0)
What are you talking about?
by rootless2 on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 03:52:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 2)
What are you talking about?

!!!!??? Ever hear of the Progressive Movement in the USA. Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, the Suffragette Movement, Henry George, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, etc. etc. etc.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 10:04:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (none / 0)
A century ago is 1909 - about 8 years before Wilson and Palmer destroyed the labor movement, split the Henry George movement, suckered the Deweyites, sent Emma and Sasha and Big Bill Haywood to Russia and instituted the War State. Is that the period of success we are discussing?
by rootless2 on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 10:40:38 PM EST
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Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 2)
Yes, though the movement went back well before 1900 and had continuing effect through the 30s. The Progressives moved from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party over this period.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 12:41:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (none / 0)
If you want to talk of a parallel, you might consider the CIO organizing drives of the 1930s in which they embraced the weak vacillating FDR as an ally and used the space he created to build the labor movement. If today's "left" had run the CIO, they would have blown off all that messy organizing crap to spend time demanding FDR fire Harold Ickes or something equally idiotic.
by rootless2 on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 09:08:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 3)
The difference this time is the absence of "The Spectre of CommunismTM. The collapse of the Soviet Union, unanticipated as it was, emboldened "neo-conservatives", using Neo-Classical Economics augmented by Hayek's libertarian individualism which was buttressed by Ayn Rand's novels, to press on with the roll-back of The New Deal after capturing the House in '94. So we had "the end of Welfare, as we know it" and the repeal of Glass-Steagall under Clinton and then just enough of the "sheaple" voted for "W" so that the five Republican Supreme Court Justices could award "W" the Presidency.

There is plenty of anger amongst the electorate, but in times of danger, people, and especially sheaple, tend to revert to craving a strong traditional leader, like moths to the flame. Real change involves breaking the hold of the financial elite over Washington, redistributing large portions of their ill-gotten gains to the sheaple they have fleeced and de-legitimating the noxious rhetoric that has, by now, been written into the brain structures of at least two generations of voters.

The best hope for accomplishing those goals is to mobilize and direct that anger and despair into a political movement that is capable of accomplishing that change. From a psychological point of view, anger is a road out of depression. The key lies in channeling that anger into constructive actions.

The danger is that violence perceived to originate from political opponents of the existing order plays into the hands of right wing leaders by alarming their followers and recruiting back into their fold loosely affiliated "independents".

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 11:44:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 3)
This FDR?

If Obama had done half as much during his first year as Roosevelt did in his first two months, nobody would be complaining.

Well, except the Teabaggers. But they're insane.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 10:51:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (none / 0)
Not necessarily conspiracy, but betrayal. Read Taibbi's article. "What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us." http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/6 Or Sirota As my column shows, this is what happened this week on health care - and it was ugly. Really ugly. We saw the president break a promise and go out of his way to stop legislation so as to protect the drug industry's profiteering price cartel. Or Sirota Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/reviewing-president-rahm_b_281559.html Or FDL Obama's Betrayal Of The Left Spells Problems For The Democratic Party http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/18450 etc.
by rootless2 on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 03:50:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (4.00 / 2)
So when we see betrayal, a blatant selling out of the interests of the taxpayers in the interests of a tiny elite, we should keep silent lest anyone might infer we're criticising Jews? That's a surefire way to enable financial treason if I ever saw one.

Now that's actually quite an interesting conspiracy theory, as in an entertaining one.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 06:33:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA (none / 0)
What a peculiar reading.
by rootless2 on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 09:13:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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