Were Glen Beck just another lonely lunatic spouting inanities and insanities, he could and should be ignored. But he's not; he has a large, very devoted and very voting following. That sad fact begs the question:
How can so many follow a man so utterly and obviously lost himself?
Some blame the 24/7 news cycle and New Media, but Beck’s appeal is nothing new; demagogues always rise in times of great economic stress or great social upheaval – Father Coughlin in reaction to The Great Depression, Joe McCarthy in reaction to The Great Red Scare, George Wallace in reaction to The Great Society – and Glen Beck in reaction to The Great Change.
What is The Great Change? The demographic fact that WASPs, who have run this country since its founding, will soon be a minority. Beck and his followers rightly fear that with the loss of their numerical advantage will go the other advantages they have long and unfairly enjoyed through an accident of birth. That fear can be seen and heard in the signs and calls “to take back our country”.
• • •
Pity poor Barack Obama, who is the manifestation of that fear; he offends Beck’s followers merely by being a black man in the White House, offends them despite the fact he is more white than black, a Protestant, and a centrist compromiser in the mold of Gerald Ford.
That isn’t to say Beck’s followers don’t have legitimate complaints – there is much to complain about in 21st Century America. But most of those troubles are the result of the candidates Beck’s followers helped elect; politicians who claimed to abhor government – while running for government office; politicians who criticized big government – while making it even more immense, more indebted and more intrusive.
These people like to think of themselves as Conservatives, but they are not. They are Reactionaries, a word little used these days; but clearly, it more accurately reflects their agenda:
To some extent, reactionary impulses are understandable – change is welcomed by few, tolerated by some, and resisted by most. But for Reactionaries, all change is evil – and such people are much too likely to blindly follow a fool in the vain hope of going back to the future.
• • •
The reactionary impulse was never more obvious than in the election of 1968 in which openly racist George Wallace received nearly 10,000,000 votes, 13.5% of the total vote, mostly from white voters angered because blacks had at long last been truly enfranchised. Since less than 500,000 votes separated Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, the Wallace candidacy most likely changed history.
Wallace was the candidate of the American Independent Party, the forerunner in many ways of today’s Republican Party. Many of those who voted for him became so-called Reagan Democrats and voted for another politician who promised to take America back to the future.
Reagan didn’t, of course. His military spending took America deeply into debt; his embrace of deregulation and merger mania took capitalism into corporatism; and his union-busting took real wages into the cellar. In short, Reagan began the decline and fall of the very Middle-Class that helped elect him.
• • •
What’s the lesson? The same one taught in the biblical passage about Lot's wife, the same one taught by 20th Century philosophers Satchel Paige and Bob Dylan: Don't look back.
By trying to return to a past that shouldn’t have been, Wallace supporters cursed the future. By trying to return to a past that never was, Reagan supporters mortgaged the future.
Sad to say, Beck and his followers haven’t learned that lesson, and we may well see a third-party candidate in 2012. And since Beck and his followers and the bulk of today’s Baggers, Birthers and Birchers represent the same constituency that voted for George Wallace, and since they may well constitute 13.5 % or more of the electorate, that does not bode well for the future.
It may well be that we will all follow Beck to the future.
©2010 Tom Cordle
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Comments
You make a solid point here, especially about a third party disruption of the political process. But whom will such a disruption favour?
my question is, how much of his act does he believe? Whatever the answer, the fact that he attracts believers by the million is both a sad commentary on the present and a frightening portent of the near future
That remains to be seen -- Nader cost Gore the election, and I think we know what that cost the rest of us
Steve
And now we have the specter of Haley Barbour whitewashing racism in the South in the Sixties
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video should satisfy you much better than a mere quote. Here for you viewing displeasure (hopefully) is the best of Beck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3J_QLtYqlk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7-BvVDV10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcrM4HQQyg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka_UWyZ9xf4&feature=related
As I mentioned in my comments on your last post, what really concerns me now is the polarization in America now. How are we going to address that?
To me, it's pretty damned easy to see through Beck and his cohorts but obviously, millions don't. How to reach them is beyond me. Posting things here or on facebook that point out the absurdity of the whole situation only cause people to dig into deeper.
How do we reach those folks? That's the question we should be asking.
I wont become complacent, but we as a nation stand on the razor's edge. The difference between the current iteration of demagougery (a la Beck) and earlier versions is Citizens United. The Fascistic elements that have circled since they were put out in the '30s by a "Traitor to his Class" president now have access that comes with a welcome mat.
Beck is in my mind really a sock puppet for Rupert Murdock. Its not for naught that Murdock was willing to lose 10s of millions of dollars for years building the Fox brand. He tried out Hannity, then O'Reilly and finally found Glennis the Menace.
And, like you, I date the fall of the American Empire to the Rise of "Morning in America." F- - ing stupid man who could act and was in his turn a sock puppet for the California defense industry.
First of all, I alluded not to all whites, but to WASPs. But in any case, methinks you are engaging in a bit of wishful thinking. Here's an except from a fascinating article in The Atlantic:
The End of White America?
By Hua Hsu
The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?
_____
"Civilization’s going to pieces,” he remarks. He is in polite company, gathered with friends around a bottle of wine in the late-afternoon sun, chatting and gossiping. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard?” They hadn’t. “Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
______
He is Tom Buchanan, a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a book that nearly everyone who passes through the American education system is compelled to read at least once. Although Gatsby doesn’t gloss as a book on racial anxiety—it’s too busy exploring a different set of anxieties entirely—Buchanan was hardly alone in feeling besieged. The book by “this man Goddard” had a real-world analogue: Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, published in 1920, five years before Gatsby. Nine decades later, Stoddard’s polemic remains oddly engrossing. He refers to World War I as the “White Civil War” and laments the “cycle of ruin” that may result if the “white world” continues its infighting. The book features a series of foldout maps depicting the distribution of “color” throughout the world and warns, “Colored migration is a universal peril, menacing every part of the white world.”
For the rest of the story, go here
.
Honestly, I hate this impulse, but I am getting used to being in the minority (except here, of course ;-)
FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The Far Wrong seems to be saying we have nothing to offer but fear itself.
Dear Reader
I am not so much angry at Teabaggers as I am flabbergasted that they continue to believe in people who so obviously work against their interests. They deceived themselves by believing Ronald "Ham Actor" Reagan could make Ozzie and Harriet reality TV. They deceived themselves by believing George "Beer-Buddy" Bush was presidential material. The deceived themselves by believing Dick "Five-Deferment" Cheney was more interested in bringing democracy to Muslims than in bringing Muslims' oil to his friends the Have-Mores.
Now these folks are deceiving themselves by believing Glen "Bombastic" Beck and Dick "Asshole" Armey and Sarah "Simpleton" Palin are really interested in the problems of ordinary people. They aren't.
Belief is one thing, misplaced faith is quite another.
Like his tears, Beck is manufactured. He is a concoction equal parts buffoonery, bombast and of course, bathos. That so many otherwise intelligent people can't see through his thin disguise is frightening indeed.
Just speculating, but perhaps demographic trends offer a silver lining in this dark cloud. The 13.5% of voters who voted for Wallace in 1968 were a minority of white voters. If the "birthers, baggers and birchers" are indeed the same constituency, then they are a minority of what is a much smaller cohort today. They will make lots of noise, and persuade the Republican Party to run some real wingnuts, but will they actually win general elections?
Thanks, and it's good to back -- even with bad news.
Jack
True, indeed, about loosing the mob. I like to remind people most revolutions don't turn out like ours, most turn out like the French fiasco.
Good question. The easy answer is we reach them one at a time, but the truth is we don't reach most of them at all, as the examples I offered here prove rather plainly.
I think of Reagan's rain (not a typo) as Mourning in America.
Yeah. A picture is worth a thousand words. That's why intelligent adults get most of their information from comic books.
My reactions to your links:
1. A series of sound-bites don't make for very fruitful discussion. I'm sure a series of soundbites by Obama would not be a fair substitution for his views either.
2. The reaction of this talk show host to Beck "yelling" at the caller seems to be the right one: amusement. And how one interprets that segment from Beck's program could vary depending on the person. I see someone who is trying to reflect the reaction of his viewers: one of just being fed up with people (the woman calling) who refuse to accept personal responsibility for their own health care.
3. I'd have to read more about Beck's views on social justice, but it seems clear to me from this clip that the reporter and Christian leader don't understand the point Beck is trying to make which perhaps he didn't make very well (although only a portion of what he said is shown). There's no implication that Beck is saying "don't help the poor." What he appears to be warning about is people who in the name of social justice take power away from citizens in order to force their particular view of social justice onto them. So this is definitely an issue one could debate. Again, what is social justice to you may be just a form of social injustice to someone else. That's why it's better to give people the freedom to define for themselves the causes they want to support and the charities they want to give to.
4. My reaction to a series of photos showing racist signs at a rally is to remind you of the following: during Hitler's early rallies, in order to make it seem like he had greater support and a stronger following than he actually did, would have people with signs spread out over a crowd. The point being you can't draw the conclusion from a spattering of signs in a crowd what the leanings of the crowd are. How about all the signs that video omits -- or all the people who didn't carry a sign at all. If I told you one person in a group of ten held up a racist sign that is a stronger inditement than one person in a group of a hundred. Propaganda uses the tool of omission, and this video is no exception.
5. This clip has been linked several times on OS, and all I can gather from it is that the photographer or editors from that magazine wanted to photograph Beck appearing to cry. Other than that I can't really conclude much from it.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to link those videos, but unfortunately none of them clearly tell me what Beck's views are on any topic.
[/ultra sarcasm mode]
P.S. Good post, Tom. R
I'm trying to learn more about him and finding that a bit difficult to do here.
I understand completely, most of my life I have been a minority of one.
I wouldn't bet the farm on "a much smaller cohort today". Roughly 130 million voted in the last Presidential election, including by all accounts a lot of people who don't usually vote. That same 13.5% from the '68 election would yield more than 17 million Beckers, Baggers, Birthers and Birchers. I suspect they may constitute more than 20 million voters.
No one is expecting 130 million to turnout in November 2010, but most expect most of the Beckers, Baggers, Birthers and Birchers will. So even if Conservatives aren't able to gain control over either of both Houses, policies will surely be far more conservative for the forseeable future than they will need to be to undo some of the horrors left behind by the Bush administration.
Why am I not surprised at your response? I suggest you watch Beck himself, if he doesn't convince you he's a liar and and a charlatan -- and perhaps a nutcase to boot -- nothing I can say will.
I just got back from Michigan, where the people who live in in the Upper Peninsula above the Mackinac Bridge are called Yoopers (U.P.) People who live in the Lower Peninsula -- below the bridge -- are called trolls. Apparently not all trolls live in the Lower Peninsular, but they all live in the nether regions.
This is one of the first truly articulated observations of our zeitgeist to date. This is very good, and important, work here.
KNOW THY ENEMY!
Skipping my usual rant, let me share what the really top HR managers in the world all know, but won't tell anyone else:
10% of people are, simply put, selfish assholes.
This is who they are trying to find with all the trick 5th questions on personnel forms, and who they work with the legal department with to remove if they've slipped through.
Sadly, for every one of these assholes who is identified by one of the few things the Fortune 500 does pretty well, there are another 5 terrorizing their subordinates and co-workers is smaller institutions everywhere, with no legal team to help!
My subjective, but based on 6 decades of hate observation, opinion is the 13.5% represent the 10% of total assholes + the 3.5% of their spousal units who are, literally, beaten into such submission they can't even think for themselves solo in a closed booth.
The good news is 3.5% means there are still many significant others who vote their own damn conscience, in private, in this great country ... sadly, it does not equal 6.5% of other people as a great deal of total assholes, for obvious reasons, are single.
IMUA
Not sure I'm able to follow your math exactly, but your point is well-taken -- and thank your for the praise.
Thanks as well for confirming what I always suspected about HR people and question 5. Now, how am I supposed to answer the ever-popular why do you want to work for this company?
I mean besides the obvious answer -- I need to eat.
The demographic fact that WASPs, who have run this country since its founding, will soon be a minority.
I won't speculate about the "why", but Beck does seem to tap into that vein. Here are a few things Beck has said that make me think this:
When you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!
and
You have three people in the White House that are in love with eugenics or whatever it is you would call it today.
For Beck, it's us versus them, and "they" are out to get "us".
I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. ... And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.
Again, us versus them. Beck is talking to Keith Ellison, the first (!) Muslim representative in Congress.
This president I think has exposed himself over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture....I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.
I think the woman is a racist. ... I think the woman is not so bright. From what I have heard from people who have worked around her, worked with her ... she's not that bright, and she is a divisive individual.
Accusations of racism, of being not very smart, of being divisive... It would be sad, if it weren't kind of crazy. (Quotes from Media Matters.)
Ok, you don't like Beck, and you don't think that conservatives should "look back." So what, in your opinion, should conservatives do? To whom should they listen?
By saying "don't look back," it seems to me that in effect you are saying that conservatives shouldn't be conservatives. One of the conservative values is tradition. That doesn't mean that conservatives necessarily oppose change, but that they put the burden of proof on those who advocate change.
Conservatism by its very nature tends to be rooted in the past. To "not look back" implies that conservatives should hop on the progressive bandwagon, instantly approving every novelty and fad that comes with the "progressive" label.
I appreciate your excellent and telling selection of Quotations from Layman Beck -- do you think they will have any effect on those who requested them? No? I don't think so either.
There you go, taking me literally again. Don't look back is a figurative expression, and to complete the phrase as delivered by Satchel Paige "Don't look back, they might be gainin' on you." Anyone who's ever run track or played other sports knows eactly what it means.
But when it comes to politics, I'm a firm believer in looking back because I concur with the Santayana dictum that those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. But Beckers don't seem incapable of learning from the past -- which is why they want to return to the same "no tax, no govt" policies that got us into this current mess.
Or to put it more simply, Beckers don't want to visit the past, they want to live there. As far as I know they only way you can live in the past is if your dead.
Please advise me as to how many sources would convince you to change your mind, and I will gladly provide them.
What? You think Sarah doesn't expect to make large sums of money off the Presidency?
There you go, taking me literally again. Don't look back is a figurative expression, and to complete the phrase as delivered by Satchel Paige "Don't look back, they might be gainin' on you." Anyone who's ever run track or played other sports knows exactly what it means.
But when it comes to politics, I'm a firm believer in looking back because I agree with the Santayana dictum that those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. But Beckers don't seem capable of learning from the past -- which is why they want to return to the same "no tax, no govt" policies that got us into this current mess.
Or to put it more simply, Beckers don't want to visit the past, they want to live there. As far as I know they only way you can live in the past is if your dead.
Please advise me as to how many sources would be sufficient to convince you to change your mind, and I will gladly provide them.
What? You think Simple Sarah doesn't expect to make large sums of money off the Presidency?
Maybe *the* most important point of a post so many people should read. Thank you, Mr. Cordle.
You're welcome, Mr Now
"Aristotle recognizes that "tyranny grows out of the most immature type of democracy." An immature democracy is one in which demagogues and other politicians fail to recognize the direction "to which [democracy] tends." This is a critical point that Aristotle devotes much energy investigating.
Democracies, says Aristotle, tend to be pulled in one direction: toward a vilification of everything involving merit, hierarchy, inequality, proportion, and worth. For Aristotle, this type of democratic "energy" actually begins at birth: "People are prone to think that the fact of their all being equally free-born means that they are all absolutely equal."
The duty of a mature legislator and statesman, says Aristotle, is to spend much of his time pulling his country in the opposite direction from where the righteous wind tends to blow in a democracy. That means blocking legislation that undermines the ability of talented, qualified, and hardworking individuals to receive the benefit of their exertions in due proportion.
On the other hand, the easiest thing for a demagogue to do in a democracy is to sweep up the populace with rhetoric about what people are owed in life simply because they are equally born. For the demagogue, the easiest targets are those individuals who have achieved a higher and wealthier position in society through their own efforts. But the mature statesman must recognize this and refrain from igniting democratic energy with rhetoric about redistributing wealth"
I wish I'd written that...
If you're resorting to the appeal to authority, you chose well. And if Beck spoke like you, he might even suck in some thinking people. But he does not, he is the very demagogue Aristotle warned about, the kind that appeals to the inferior types that elitists like you despise but use to your advantage and then discard when they are no longer of any use. Why is that so many who deny Evolution are so fond of Economic Darwinism? Perhaps it's because they suffer from that other form of ED.
Since you like quotes about democracy, let me give you another from a wit and curmudgeon who is one of my favorites, H.L. Mencken:
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters...he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental -- men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, or self-respect, it is cruelly hard...
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically the most devious and mediocre -- the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
For me, that great and glorious day arrived with the election of George W. Bush. But apparently Bush wasn't moronic enough for some voters, who now misplace their faith in Beck and Palin, two (im)perfect examples of Mencken's charge that these folks are looking for "the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum".
Thanks, it wasn't easy compressing decades of folly into two sentences.
Patrick Frank
I may be marched off to a Beckstained future, but as my masthead and my posts make clear, I will not go quietly.
Good to see you around.
As I see it, MSNBC does slant the news, and I take that into account when watching. BUT -- there is a HUGE difference between slanting the news and making shit up -- as Fux News routinely does. As Daniel Moynihan succinctly put it "we're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts".
One of Fux News most vile offenses is to deliberately mislabel miscreant Rs as Ds on their photo IDs and their crawls. Don't believe it? Do a query on YouTube.
As for Olbermann, I'm a fan, despite the fact he, like Billo, is often too full of himself. But he redeems himself because he is witty, well-read and appears to be at least moderately well-educated -- none of which can be said about Billo the Bombastic or Rush the Rash or Beck the Buffoon -- all of whom make shit up if it to suit their tirades.
As for Morning Joe, in my view, it offers a fairly balanced -- as opposed to "fair and balanced" presentation of the news, tho it is obviously geared toward entertainment rather news. Joe appears to be trying to think for himself, instead of simply spouting Republican talking points.
One thing does annoy about him, tho; he exhibits an old-school Conservative attitude toward women. He is frequently condescending to Mika. She unwittingly invites some of that, tho, I suspect because she is the daughter of a VERY domineering daddy.
In general I would say that more closely describes the democratic party.
And for the record, H. L. Mencken was not exactly pro-democracy.
As I see it, MSNBC does slant the news, and I take that into account when watching. BUT -- there is a HUGE difference between slanting the news and making shit up -- as Fux News routinely does. As Daniel Moynihan succinctly put it "we're all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts".
One of Fux News most vile offenses is to deliberately mislabel miscreant Rs as Ds on their photo IDs and their crawls. Don't believe it? Do a query on YouTube.
As for Olbermann, I'm a fan, despite the fact he, like Billo, is often too full of himself. But he redeems himself because he is witty, well-read and appears to be at least moderately well-educated -- none of which can be said about Billo the Bombastic or Rush the Rash or Beck the Buffoon -- all of whom make shit up to suit their tirades.
As for Morning Joe, in my view, it offers a fairly balanced -- as opposed to "fair and balanced" presentation of the news, tho it is obviously geared toward entertainment rather news. Joe appears to be trying to think for himself, instead of simply spouting Republican talking points.
One thing does annoy me about Joe, tho; he exhibits an old-school Conservative attitude toward women. He is frequently condescending to Mika. She unwittingly invites some of that, tho, I suspect because she is the daughter of a VERY domineering daddy.
"And for the record, H. L. Mencken was not exactly pro-democracy."
Duh -- you may recall, I supplied the Mencken quote, and I certainly didn't construe it as lauding democracy. Nor do my posts lamenting Beckers, Baggers, Birthers and Birchers laud democracy. These people vote like a school of fish, but that's understandable since they're suckers.
They're suckers not because they're all necessarily dumb, but because they are incredibly ill-informed -- which renders them exceedingly gullible. They swallow slogans instead of solutions, they feed on the zombie flesh of putrid ideologies they can't begin to comprehend, they surrender their futures and their childrens' futures to politicians who employ Aynal Retentive brilliant idiots like Alan Greenspan -- a lifelong slave to a cruel, sophomoric economic philosophy devised by a third-rate hack writer who was as miserable a human being as ever walked this earth.
I suspect you are an acolyte of hers as well. My 22 yr-old son knows better. As he said, "Libertarianism is the Scientology of politics."
These suckers are still buying the fantasy that America is a Capitalist Democracy and that they way to economic nirvana is to give unfettered rein to the greediest bastards on the planet.
We do not have capitalism, we have corporatism, or as prefer to call it crapitalism. Capitalism began to rot away even before the turn of the 20th century, as even Republican Teddy Roosevelt recognized, and its last gasp came with the ruling in Citizens United.
Why do these fools buy into these deceptions? Because they appeal to their own greed, to the delusion that they, too, can one day be in a position to exploit others. And all the while, they cloak their avarice in a corruption of a faith whose foremost challenge is to feed the poor. They better hope that all they believe is false, or there will be Hell to pay indeed come Judgment Day:
"For even as you have done unto the least of these, so also have you done unto me."
"And for the record, H. L. Mencken was not exactly pro-democracy."
Duh -- you may recall, I supplied the Mencken quote, and I certainly didn't construe it as lauding democracy. Nor do my posts lamenting Beckers, Baggers, Birthers and Birchers laud democracy. These people vote like a school of fish, but that's understandable since they're suckers.
They're suckers not because they're all necessarily dumb, but because they are incredibly ill-informed -- which renders them exceedingly gullible. They swallow slogans instead of solutions, they feed on the zombie flesh of putrid ideologies they can't begin to comprehend, they surrender their futures and their childrens' futures to politicians who employ Aynal Retentive brilliant idiots like Alan Greenspan -- a lifelong slave to a cruel, sophomoric economic philosophy devised by a third-rate hack writer who was as miserable a human being as ever walked this earth.
I suspect you are an acolyte of hers as well. My 22 yr-old son knows better. As he said, "Libertarianism is the Scientology of politics."
The suckers are still buying into the fantasy that America is a Capitalist Democracy and that the way to economic nirvana is to give unfettered rein to the greediest bastards on the planet. Why do they fall for such an obviously false notion? Because it appeals to their own greed, to the delusion that they, too, can one day be in a position to exploit others.
But we do not have capitalism, we have corporatism, or as I prefer to call it crapitalism. Capitalism began to rot away even before the beginning of the 20th century, as even Republican Teddy Roosevelt recognized, and its last gasp came with the ruling in Citizens United.
These things these denizens of darkness swallow, congratulating themselves on their “family values”, while embracing unmitigated greed. This they do while cloaking themselves in a corruption of a faith whose foremost challenge is to feed the poor. They better hope what they believe is false or there will be Hell to pay indeed come Judgment Day:
"For even as you have done unto the least of these, so also have you done unto me."
Did you read the NYT article on the show? Mika was doing something else and did a lead in to Joe's show. She was kind of snide about it. It intrigued him as her being someone with some spine, and that is how the two of them got together. I know of Barnicle from his time in Boston. He grew up in the town where my folks were born, etc. I also love it when they have varying folks of opposite ilk going at it. He flat out will NOT tolerate snippy stuff. I have seen him give strident folks second chances to temper the utterances and then he simply cuts them off and moves on.
But they let various folks delve into some detail on the topical stuff. And yeah, there's entertainment/infotainment in it as well, sure. Some of Willie's stuff is pretty amusing.
It's one of the fairer ones out there and keeps the ranting to a minimum. Kind of the pendulum swing to what the McGlaughlin Group spawned with the shout fests. I hate shout fests. Too reminiscent of dysfunctional communications from which I am almost extricated.
What exactly is capitalism doing to you that prevents you from doing what you want to do?
Apparently you enjoy blogging. Is Open Salon being financed through donations or a government program, or is it paid for by advertisers who are part of a capitalist system?
You've written a ton on OS, so I don't want to get into a war of words with you that will accomplish nothing other than wear me out, so I'll try and let you have the last word. But I'm really interested in how exactly you'd like the world to change for you, since you have been so greatly oppressed by greed.
At last, something we're in all but total agreement on -- whodathunkit?
This isn't about me, but I understand that for pseudo-enlightened, self-interested Randian Libertarians, it's ALL about the "You". So, I'll play your game for a bit.
I don't know what gave you the impression I thought I was more oppressed by capitalism than I would be by communism. I hold with the dictum that capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while communism is the opposite.
That said, do I prefer living under capitalism rather than communism? Yes, especially if we actually operated under a capitalist system. We don’t, and I laid that out above, so I won’t bother to repeat it here save to say that the perverted corruption we practice is so far removed from Adam Smith as to be unrecognizable -- thus I call it crapitalism.
Forgive the immodesty, but I'm fairly certain that had I chosen to take advantage of that corrupted system, I would have been richly rewarded -- at least monetarily. After all, I was born in the 20th Century, born white, male, with two caring parents, with good health, with passable looks and an excellent mind. I was also afforded a decent education – thanks to our highly socialistic educational system. But take away any one of these, and my life would have been dramatically different.
Keep in mind, I had nothing to do with any of those things; they were all mere accidents of birth. But sad to say, too many people of the type you seem to represent seem to think their success is all their own doing, as though these accidents of birth had nothing to do with it.
It is said that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. I say the self-made man has a fool for a creator.
But whatever the outcome of the hypothetical might have been, for the most part, I chose not to become part of the system. You many call it cowardice if you like, but I chose not to engage in the dog-eat-dog grind because I didn't wish to go to the dogs. Daddy always warned me that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
My experience with the system confirms that those who profit from it, especially those who profit most from it, are all too often flea-bitten, by that I mean heartless and soulless. Far too many of them treat people as objects, as disposables like any other commodity or material necessary to production. In a system that values only profit, that is understandable, but that does not make it acceptable -- at least not to me.
Your experience may be different, but mine tells me that capitalism – and most assuredly crapitalism, is not healthy for individuals or society. It leaves entirely too much collateral damage, damage that can be seen in infant mortality rates and the astronomically high rates of incarceration for minorities.
But there is also much collateral damage even among the so-called benefactors of the system -- divorce rates, dropout rates, suicide rates, alcohol and drug addiction and countless other negative measures. Ironically, that seems to as true for many of those at the very top as it is for most of those on the very bottom.
Granted, crapitalism has up until this century provided many in this country with a rising standard of living that is the envy of much of the rest of the world -- tho ironically that is the cause of much of our troubles in the rest of the world (see George F. Kennan circa 1948 for details).
But that is clearly changing, as evidended by the fact that our middle-class is now declining in size and worth, declining both in their own net worth and in worth to the system, a system that no longer even views them as workers, but merely as consumers. But consumers cannot remain consumers without good paying jobs.
That self-evident truth seems lost on today's crapitalists, but it was something even as ardent a capitalist as Henry Ford understood. At the dawn of the 20th Century, he doubled the going wage for workers in his factory. The robber barons of his day declared him a traitor to his class, and he shot back "Who the hell do you think is going to buy my cars?"
During the Great Depression, the capitalist robber barons you so much admire called FDR a traitor to his class for daring to suggest we ought not let old people starve to death. Today's robber barons continue to undo what little safety net actually exists in the wealthiest nation on earth.
The system you defend has consistently treated a substantial portion of the population as at best a nuisance, and at worst, human refuse. You may say, as Sharon Angle, Jim Bunning and many other "conservatives" do, that it's all their fault. But such attitudes, when not born simply of greed, are born of stupidity or insensitivity or willful blindness -- or likely, all of the above.
Do you read all your Greek philosophy online in little bites? Or have you studied it, read it from cover to cover? Why focus on tiny ancient democracy experiments, then try and apply them to a modern nation of 300+ million? And, the obvious, why talk about democracy at all, why aren't you reading The Republic? Or, have you?
actually there's probably a lot we agree on, only instead of blaming capitalism for everything like you (or I guess, more accurately, greed), I would see the problem as "following false Gods." This includes money, certainly, but just as pernicious are false Gods like fame, power, pretty much anything in excess can be a false "god." Even health. So to me you are someone who decided not to follow the false god of money and I think you're to be commended for that. If, however, that's caused you to follow the false god of hate or anger that's not necessarily much better.
If our society decided tomorrow that angry bloggers from Tennessee were all the rage, you could find yourself with a Buffet Jr. size amount of capital. In the capitalist system, that money could afford you even more freedom than you already have to push your political agenda even further. You could rail against all the "crapitalists" that you want, start the anti-crapitalist party, and hopefully turn us all into the little angels that you want us to be, and if you accomplished that you'd have capitalism to thank for it -- and your wise use of it.
Personally, I've been educated in public schools and private, grew up in the South with some of the wealthiest oil families this nation has, and I've also spent time penniless where I discovered, much to my surprise, that there really is a safety-net and thank God for it: it's called the goodness and generosity of people, not the government. I'm not saying the government shouldn't also provide a safety net, but it can never do so as well as one single caring private citizen you might meet. And that's the point. A caring government can never substitute for caring people. Government, by it's nature, doesn't see shades of grays but only rules and regulations. It creates change not by rewarding or loving people but by punishment and fines. That's how loving governments the world over operate.
So if compassion for people is what you are pushing, you might try a little harder at being compassionate for those you feel no compassion for. After all, there's usually a very good reason why people are the way they are. We all follow false gods at different times in our lives for a reason: it's the only way we can eventually learn they are, indeed, false.
Since you offered me the last word, this will be my last. I don't hate capitalism; it is only tool, but like any tool it's only as good as the person using it. But alas, these days it has been made far too easy for men of low degree to misuse that tool.
What I hate are the abusers of the tool, the "capitalists" who aren't the least bit interested in capitalism, but merely in winning at all costs and regardless of how many suffer to insure that victory. Sad to say, for the last three decades, govt has served too often as an agent of corporatists -- rather than protecting the powerless from the excesses of corporatism.
But even if we enjoyed real competition, and in far too many major industries we don't -- I think there's something inherently wrong with a system that rewards a low-life like Beck with millions of dollars in income for preying upon the ignorant and gullible. Again, most die-hard free-marketers I know would say they deserve to be fleeced and more power to Beck if he can fleece 'em.
You may say Beck deserves his $32 million in a year for his ability to bullshit people, and John Paulsen deserves his $3.7 billion in a year for scamming the system, I don't. You may say that's the price we pay in order to live under this wonderful system, I say that price is too heavy, and this "wonderful" system is in dire need of change.
You may pose the hypothetical that I can become rich myself by being an angry blogger in backwoods Tennessee, but I think we both know how ridiculous that straw man is -- I have more chance of walking on the moon.
Let me close this too long exchange with the words of a dear friend who once excused his behavior with this: "I don't make the rules, I just take advantage of them."
Sounds good, and sounds like you'd probably agree. Problem is, it isn't just the rules that get taken advantage of -- it's people that get taken advantage of, too -- just as Beck is taking advantage of people's ignorance to enrich himself undeservedly.
Beck is far from alone, of course -- Bernie Madoff, John Thain, Richard Fuld, Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Jimmy Cayne, Joseph Cassano, Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart -- I could go on naming names for the rest of my days and not be able to include them all. They would all say they don't make the rules, they're just taking advantage of them. You may see these people didn't play by the rules -- fair enough. But if playing by the rules allows you to to accumulate untold wealth by taking advantage of others, there's something wrong with the rules themselves.
You may find that a desirable ethic and this a desirable system, but I do not.
Eloquently said, I couldn't agree more. Thanks for the post.
Thank you for visiting
In both cases, tax hikes weaken the economy and reduce the amount of income earned by American families."
This is pure horseshit: tax hikes never stopped an economy from growing, and tax cuts never prevented a recession. If you doubt me, look at where our economy is now -- after EIGHT YEARS of Republican tax cuts.
When Retalbo and others of that strain, who know or should know better, claim tax cuts increase revenues, they are is engaging in a post ipso facto fallacy -- or worse.Many sSo-called conservatives continue to spout that nonsense knowing full well it's bullshit.
Yes, during the Kennedy administration, revenues increased after taxes were reduced from confiscatory levels during the Fifties. But whether there was a causal relationship is widely debated, and in any case that was a one-off aberration.
It is at best disingenuous and at worst morally criminal for Conservatives to argue that tax cuts increase revenues. That Big Lie has been thoroughly discredited during the Reagan and Bush the Lesser administrations.
As I mentioned previously, during the Kennedy administration, revenues did increase after taxes were reduced from confiscatory levels during the Fifties. But to assert categorically there was a causal relationship is to be guilty of post ipso facto fallacy -- at least. The causal relationship is still widely debated, but in any case that was a one-off aberration.
The Big Lie that tax cuts increase revenues was thoroughly discredited during the administrations of Reagan and Bush the Lesser. So-called fiscal conservative who make such claims in the middle of a war or in the middle of our present economic woes are not simply disingenuous -- they are corrupt, cowardly and reprehensible.
Differences between the parties could be about more grey areas that are more difficult to answer and worth more discussion, but everyone is caught up having to fight over truths that should be self-evident (or at least easily resolved).
If humans lived an average of 20 months like my species, it would be more understandable (slightly) to not bother with such things. Seeing as they don't, I pray you humans can find a way to make information even MORE readily available. This is your world, afterall.
Cliff the Lemming.
You are wise beyond your years -- and your species