What Happened to The Left

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE LEFT

I don't presume to be worthy of a seat at One Pissed Off Liberal's keyboard, damn ... I sometimes wish he hadn't beaten me to that handle, but I share his sense of being tired of being tired thanks to what has become of the liberal politics I used to love. Sometimes words do sound good when a pseudo progressive pretends to "feels your pain." Yet, behind the voices, we've learned to be wary of snake oil salespersons.

Nothing changes that might preempt the dysfunctional status quo.

Where has all the healthy political energy gone? Is it simply the case of a devil's deal with Wall Street or is there more to it than that? Has the last crossroads where we might choose a radical turn worthy of a Mother Jones come and gone? From Where I sit in Louisville, it sounds like ABC Radio National does a better job of exploring these questions than most of what pretends to be doing journalism here at home.

But once upon a time there were truth telling writers in America. Joe Bageant is a good example

What does it mean to be a leftie today? Do you and I have the same goals as the lefties of yesterday? Or has the old ideal of being left changed beyond recognition?

Spent Force?

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For decades we've focused on the right of American politics – George W. Bush and the rise of the Tea Party; Bill and Hilary Clinton, who represented the corporate side of the Democratic party; and Donald Trump. But is there something about the left side of US politics we’ve been missing? Trace the rise, fall and renewal of the left in US politics. {Continued below .. Toward a New Radical Left}

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Is there anything left wing about environmentalism? In recent times it is assumed that a leftie must also be a greenie, but is this a betrayal of the ideas and principles that were once associated with being left wing?

Environmentalism

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Freedom used to be important to the left but today it's almost a dirty word. Why? What's happened to governing your own life or determining your own destiny?

Freedom?

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Academic and author Shelby Steele says that the Left in America just can't let go off racism. As such American conservatives are becoming openly cynical towards the Left's moral muscling with racism and this has become a real problem for the Right in America. He argues that what terrifies the Left the most would be if there was no more racism ... because racism gives them power.

Racism and the American Left

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Donald Trump claims to be the face of the anti-elites, pro-workers voters. Who then does the progressive Left represent - and how did it lose its traditional electorate to populists and demagogues?

The rise of smug politics

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No matter how you look at it, it's clear that politics is changing in America — the word 'crisis' has become a go-to description for many commentators. Spectators have fixated on a war within the Republican Party, triggered by Donald Trump's presidency. But as we dwell on Mr Trump and the divided conservatives, a parallel war is being waged on the left — one with perhaps even more profound implications for the future of the nation.

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The failed presidential bid of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders exposed a rift in the left, and at stake is nothing less than the future direction of the Democratic Party. But history shows sitting at an existential turning point is a familiar position for the left: for two centuries a concoction of ideological and social currents has repeatedly led to its rise and fall.

The Socialist Left

Throughout the 19th century, progressive causes, like the anti-slavery movement that helped trigger the Civil War, were driven by Christian radicals within the Republican Party. In the post-Civil War period, the traditional left, inspired by the burgeoning socialist movements of Europe, and writers like Karl Marx and Robert Owen, was focused on the unity of the working class. This style of progressive politics was kept in perpetual infancy by the bloody conflicts between unions and industrialists, who were often in league with the US state.

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And now we have the story of the radical left in America, from the growth of the Socialists and Communists in the 1930s to a new breed of openly left-wing politicians ... represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Were do we go from here?

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Toward a New Radical Left {part two of Trace the rise, fall and renewal of the left in US politics}

The Latest U.S. Politics

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Bruce Shapiro [Columnist with The Nation magazine; Executive Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University] looks at this week's denuclearisation talks between the USA and North Korea, the House vote to nullify Trump's emergency declaration, Michael Cohen's testimony, the Democrats arguing about socialism, and Supreme Court developments

Elsewhere

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Last year Jacinda Ardern's election as New Zealand's Prime Minister was a rare win for the centre-left as hard right populist parties dominated elections elsewhere in the western world. So how can the left, particularly in Europe, combat the hard right and their anti immigration policies whilst engaging in anti-neoliberal policies?

Troubling times for the centre-left?

American Moses ... or Empty Suit?

Recent events have left Australians, and indeed the world, wondering what makes a truly good leader. In her latest Quarterly Essay, Follow the Leader, Laura Tingle examines 'leadership' in a new way and in doing so models the very thing she believes is the true hallmark of leadership - to take people where they don’t necessarily want to go, where they have not gone, and to explore other ideas that they may not have considered.

Laura Tingle on 'leadership'

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In chapter 5 of The Death of the Liberal Class [Politics as Spectacle],
Chris Hedges takes aim at the 1960's and 1970's counterculture movement ... arguing that they turned inward and did not fulfill the role of truly countering the status quo. He also explains that the New York Times let him go due to a speech he gave at Rockford University, in Illinois.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Centaurea's picture

There hasn't been much of an active radical left in the US for a very long time, probably not since before FDR. It briefly poked its head above ground during the '60s, but apparently saw a lot of shadows and went into hiding.

I don't consider Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a "radical leftist", or a radical anything. In today's political environment Richard Nixon would probably be considered "hard left", not to mention Dwight Eisenhower. (That may be hyperbole, but not by much.)

Today's Democratic establishment is in no way "left". They're not progressive. I hesitate to call them "right", because that would imply that they have some guiding political ideology, as actual right-wing folks seem to have. I don't think the Dems have a guiding ideology. They're just operating within a hollow shell that gobbles up money for money's sake, and will do and say anything toward that end. Nothing they say or do is real. Nothing, not even social justice, has any real meaning to them except insofar as they can use it. They're the ultimate cynics.

As for "Where has all the healthy political energy gone?", I'd say it started to die on Nov. 22, 1963, and got the knockout blow in Chicago in August, 1968. It's amazing how quickly and thoroughly the MIC and oligarchy were able to co-opt the American psyche.

I think the American psyche had already been damaged before that time, PTSD perhaps, which could account for the way we (collective "we") knuckled under and went to sleep somewhere around the year 1970.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

@Centaurea A lot of people think the Democrats moved to the right because the Republicans pulled everything farther right, but I think it was the other way around. The Democrats saw an opportunity to eat the Republican's lunch (and collect that doner cash) while coasting on the good will earned by (supposedly) being the party the cared about the little people, the oppressed, the minorities, the wronged, etc. This gave the Republicans cover to move farther right than they'd ever dared.

The Democrats also became more concerned with marketing than legislating. Recently, the only wrong the DNC would admit in Hillary's wipeout was that they needed "better branding", not that the candidate and her policies were losers. They don't even seem to really hold an ideology so much as a brand they need to sell.

It makes me think back to the marketing they did for HER husband. Me and a lot of my friends were first eligible to vote in that election and they pushed Bill hard at people my age. They did everything they could to make it seem like he was going to change the world for us. I guess you could say he did, but not in the ways we were sold.

I saw the same thing happen with Obama. Everyone I knew was Obama crazy in 2008. I cautioned them, having really paid attention during Clinton's terms and feeling a similar story was playing out. Again, they hit the marketing hard. Again, a stumble to the right. While I'm definitely the most cynical about Obama in my circle, it sure seems like people are less interested in talking about him these days.

And I know there are people who look to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be the latest "hope". I recognize that she's barely been on the scene long enough to do much of anything, but that's just it. All we have to go by now is the marketing and I gotta tell you, I'm getting that deja vu feeling again. I guess time will tell.

There a lot of talk in the media about left this and left that and is the Democratic party pulling too far to the left but I have to ask where is it? We're inching back maybe to the 70s, which weren't exactly a hotbed of radical leftist government. It all looks like putting on appearances to me. The Dems are trying to figure out a way to wrap themselves in branding of the left without actually being left.

Just some random thought while I watch the snow falling. Wake me when 2020 is over.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Centaurea

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

weren't we either the exploiters or the exploited? What has right or left to do with it?
People felt exploited under Socialism, Capitalism or Communism. Now it is only Capitalism. And Capitalism is global. So, may be we find the left on 'mars' or on the moon?

If you are exploited, you never know which way the exploited will turn and the Capitalist doesn't care where you turn to. They are above it all and know it. They don't have to fear anything, but their own self-destruction by destroying the globe.

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phillybluesfan's picture

@mimi

THE SUN INTERVIEW
Hope Dies Last
Studs Terkel’s Enduring Conversation With America

In 2003 the irrepressible oral historian published Hope Dies Last371-6-beitler.jpg (New Press), in which he urges readers to “keep the faith in difficult times.” Mixed in among the interviews with ordinary Americans are a few conversations with well-known figures, including folk singers Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, and politicians Tom Hayden and Dennis Kucinich. Whether Terkel is interviewing laborers who weathered the Depression or left-wing activists who are fighting the Bush administration, the central theme of his work is hope.

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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

Lookout's picture

Seeing the world as left and right, black and white, liberal and conservative, is part of the problem.

Focus on issues not identity. Stop the wars, cease fossil fuel use and extraction, end for profit prisons and healthcare, and so on.

When you look at issues most citizens agree. Politics does the bidding of the 1% not the 99%, and MSM constantly reinforces the left right, D vs R, Red/blue narrative.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

mhagle's picture

Although a depressing topic. Solutions?

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

phillybluesfan's picture

@mhagle THE SUN INTERVIEW
Hope Dies Last
Studs Terkel’s Enduring Conversation With America

In 2003 the irrepressible oral historian published Hope Dies Last371-6-beitler.jpg (New Press), in which he urges readers to “keep the faith in difficult times.” Mixed in among the interviews with ordinary Americans are a few conversations with well-known figures, including folk singers Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, and politicians Tom Hayden and Dennis Kucinich. Whether Terkel is interviewing laborers who weathered the Depression or left-wing activists who are fighting the Bush administration, the central theme of his work is hope.

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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

If, say, the anti gay industry dried up and blew away...no more discrimination...that would free up gays to vote however they wanted to. These days, their vote would prob. go 50/50, with the more successful joining republicans.

Mostly, if you ever needed help, were unemployed, worried about paying bills to hospitals, not being able to provide for your kids the way you needed to you're on the left. If you never worried about that, just wait, your time will come. It always does. All this dancing around on who is lefty left and middle left and radical left and righty left and conservative left is just bullshit (no offense meant to anybody if you're that). The only thing I can go by is what's good for me. Because what's good for me is probably good for 88% or 91% or 99% of Americans. In America we exist for one reason. We're just capitalism's fodder.

To understand what we're up against there is a news article (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/health/fecal-transplants-fda-microbio...) about shit. Specifically, fecal transplants and the therapeutic value it has in countering many disease and conditions brought on by the use of antibiotics and chemicals. Investors are throwing tons of $ at startups. The FDA has ruled (temporarily) that shit be classified as a drug. Think about that. 12 year exclusive patents for shit. 3 -7 years for illegal trafficking in shit. Huge fines. Huge profits. I'm not joking.

When it comes down to it, really, what's good for you? Pick something, health care, education, it's probably good for your neighbor, your relative, the stranger across the country. There's no real safety net. There's no right to help. The only characteristic of citizenship shouldn't be your worth in tribute.

In the 60's and 70's the people had enough power to sway politicians to do what they wanted. Both republicans and democrats decided that had to stop. In the end the question is what can we do about it?

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abortion, and lots of fear mongering. SCOTUS!

Academic and author Shelby Steele says that the Left in America just can't let go off racism. As such American conservatives are becoming openly cynical towards the Left's moral muscling with racism and this has become a real problem for the Right in America. He argues that what terrifies the Left the most would be if there was no more racism ... because racism gives them power.

What professes to be left is predictable and self-centered. They adopt the same politics and anyone who doesn't agree with them is a racist, sexist Putin puppet. They organize into the same fractured little groups, in the same veal pens of old, obeying the same political power structure in order to gain money and favor. Instead of working for income equality to benefit a majority and achieve critical mass, they're out there making reparations a trigger. Only by paying money to the fifth generation of the descendants of slaves will the lives of all African Americans improve. If a politician dares to disagree, they are then an obvious racist that will never get their vote. Maybe women who were of childbearing age before abortion was legal should get reparations.

Related to this, a question was asked on Twitter that I found interesting and would like answered. Where is Cornell West in the Bernie campaign? He had Shawn King at his Brooklyn rally, and Cornell West hasn't yet surfaced anywhere. My curiosity led me to wonder if Cornell West was too "Uncle Tom" for this current generation of black activists? They are going to fck up one of Bernie's strengths, which is his ability to appeal to a wide range of people.

Am I better off now than I was 5, 10, 20, 40 years ago? Financially yes, but responsibility weighs heavier than it used to. My BIL & SIL sold or gave away absolutely everything they owned and bought a new pickup truck and a fifth wheel. Footloose and fancy-free, the only the only things they have to worry about are their children, grandchildren, and the clothes on their back.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

The right responded to the great Society with and because of racism. The Great Society was or was believed to be targeted to black Americans specifically. And American "Liberal" politicians defended and implemented Great Society programs perfunctorily and half heartedly; for example, rather than build hospitals and schools and businesses in poor neighborhoods they increased (inadequately) welfare "benefits", accomplishing nothing while creating nothing but resentment. Quickly "liberal" do-gooders began to propose and defend programs by citing the needs of specific groups, without regard for the actual groups. (my personal experience was of taxi permit applicants claiming that their request for fleet expansion - that would create a proportionate decrease in driver income for their own enrichment - was necessary "for seniors and the handicapped". but once they got their permits they ordered their dispatchers to not dispatch them to seniors and the handicapped, because those calls were less profitable) Quickly those programs were seen - correctly - as costing the general public while benefiting no one but the agendas and the egos of their proponents. This became identity politics.
When Hillary Clinton said that breaking up the banks would not end racism she was not only misleading, she was wrong. Breaking up the banks was part of a general plan that is the only way to successfully end racism - and she knows it.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304

the "Great Society", Reagan Democrats were born and Bill Clinton sold the party to Wall Street and rebranded it in their image.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cassiodorus's picture

I think it's fair to ask when in natural history "man" became separate from "nature." Did it ever happen?

The idea of separating "man" and "nature," criticized as an abstract move, appears as a sort of refusal to ask what sort of "nature" can be ascribed to "man," as well as a disparagement of certain "men" who still appear (from the perspective of the European-origin conqueror) to reside in the category of "nature." This "man-and nature" move was of course initially done in the service of the European conquest of the world, and then later in the service of the US conquest of the world.

To be sure, the idea of "human nature" has been oft abused, to make people look simpler than they really are. Pseudo-sciences such as sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have sprung up to "explain" behavior without reference to cultural context; the "state of nature" was invoked in political science to justify the conquest of "primitive" peoples. The solution to the problem presented by such toxic ideologies of nature, however, is not to separate out "nature" from "man," therewith to refuse to understand human nature, but rather to think in terms of bundled human and non-human natures, which can be a starting-point for the criticism of the capitalist bundling of human and non-human natures. The writing of Jason W. Moore is helpful in unpacking such a concept.

It is no more "human nature" for people to be good capitalists and to build capitalism than it is for people to drive pick-up trucks as opposed to station wagons or subcompacts. Rather, in building something other than capitalism we must use both human and extra-human nature as our guides. Most catastrophically, the capitalist bundling of nature has led to a vast simplification of non-human nature, and if we are unlucky it will eventually lead to our simplification out of existence as a species, probably with the advent of catastrophic climate change. (If you want we can go over the statistics behind this -- the disappearance of wild species, the planetary deforestation, human-caused climate change, and so on.) Certainly leftists can be forgiven for their concern about such things.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Pluto's Republic's picture

...What happened to the Left? — for a very long time. I looked at it anthropologically looking for patterns, and I looked at it politically. It was sort of there at various times, and then it wasn't. I looked for the Left philosophically, and I could see it as an idea but not a working doctrine. The Left does has a big psychological presence in the US, but it plays a negligible part in US politics.

I guess it depends what you mean when you say "left." Americans have a semantic problem over what "Left" means. For example, I don't consider "progressive" to be an ideology of the Left, and Liberals are plentiful but they are not doing the woek of the Left. There may be a semantic barrier here that prevents the Left from coalescing as a political force, and it may be hiding an important truth from us.

Who has noticed in the past two years that the meanings of all words that describe common political ideologies have been wildly shuffled? And new words pretending to be old words have been thrown into the mix? Liberal, left, and progressive have become babble words that mean very different things but they are used interchangeably. This obviously happened by design, and it isn't the first time our society was radically altered using that device.

Which brings me to the Chris Hedges Chapter Four video. That was an insanely great choice. If really get's your point across and perfectly defines the mystery. Can you tell me who the teacher is that analyzes it? All her playlists are magnificent, especially for boundary-less intellectuals who find political philosophy interesting. Anyway, toward the end, she hits on this idea that art c. 1970-1980 (when the NEA grants were flying) took on a new language that only a few could understand. There was a lot of talk but no communication. A Tower of Babble. It cut the connection between art and culture and divided the people from the mystical influences of creation. Not long after, the arts were killed in education and NEA and NEH Grants were assassinated. Let's see... that was when Reagan rode a Trojan Horse into DC filled with the NeoNazi embeds that we are still fighting from the State Department, the Pentagon, the DOJ, and throughout the Intelligence Agencies and Think Tanks. You know some of them. Their Deep State is well established.

A couple of years ago I ran across a visual artist who was doing independent research on another instance where this happened. It was in the early 1950s. His research tells him that a number of new "beat" writers like Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, and artists like Jackson Pollack were recruited by the CIA to write and paint and introduce social abstraction into realism, to turn art inward and make meanings subjective, dividing the people from what their culture was producing. To interrupt the discussion. Certain critics and reviewers were also recruited to introduce this babble as a new way of thinking about life. He, the artist I met, had interviewed a number of people from the arts at that period and had stacks of interesting research. Much later I realized I was looking at things through that filter he had introduced. I'm well read in that genre of literature, but it was something more that had given it the ring of truth.

To get back to the question at hand, I believe what I call the "Real Left" is a partitioned part of the mind of millions and millions of people. It's an instinct we are born with because the altruistic behaviors associated with the Real Left are the communal behaviors that protected our species from growing extinct for the past 100,000 years of evolution. The rugged Libertarians and WWJD born-agains and greedy Midas-elites of prehistoric times? With those identity-based instincts, they didn't live long. The elites couldn't emerge and survive until the communal and cooperative communist-types shared their resources and worked together to built crossroads, towns, and civilizations that would protect these Liberty-loving elites while they were pretending to be John Galt, taking care of their own.

The True Left will rise when the crowds part for a visionary leader. You saw it briefly in 2016. When the leader left, they suddenly melted away. It is widely recognized in Europe that the US has never had a viable "Left" Party in their political system. Not once. The US opted for slavery instead of communal action. But I believe the Left will rise — and soon. This time they will dig in and establish the missing vision and dedication to society and the future. They will also locate America's missing Moral Compass.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic visionary leader that you mention?

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dfarrah