Chris Hedges: The Phantom Left

[marmar]

from truthdig:



The Phantom Left
Posted on Oct 31, 2010

By Chris Hedges


The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.

The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic. The left once harbored militant anarchist and communist labor unions, an independent, alternative press, social movements and politicians not tethered to corporate benefactors. But its disappearance, the result of long witch hunts for communists, post-industrialization and the silencing of those who did not sign on for the utopian vision of globalization, means that there is no counterforce to halt our slide into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality, however, is not palatable. So the corporations that control mass communications conjure up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom for our debacle. And they get us to speak in absurdities.

The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the left wing is crazy, the argument goes, then we moderates will be reasonable. We will be nice. Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory banks and the arms industry, may be ripping the guts out of the country, our rights—including habeas corpus—may have been revoked, but don’t get mad. Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the left.

“Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?” Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/

[Teaser]

1. *YAWN*

he obviously does not get Stewart or Colbert.

[ejpoeta]

2. that rally was to show that there are regular people who aren't left or right

but just regular people. wtf! the whole point was to show the people you never see because we are all busy living our lives and trying to take care of our families. it was purposely not about left or right.

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. I always find Chris Hedges disturbingly negative and even more disturbingly truthful and honest

Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury, the curtailing of our civil liberties, the millions of fraudulent foreclosures, the long-term unemployment, the bankruptcies from medical bills, the endless wars in the Middle East and the amassing of trillions in debt that can never be repaid are pushing us toward a Hobbesian world of internal collapse. Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words.

....

Politics in America has become spectacle. It is another form of show business. The crowd in Washington, well trained by television, was conditioned to play its role before the cameras. The signs —“The Rant is Too Damn High,” “Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion” or “I Masturbate and I Vote”—reflected the hollowness of current political discourse and television’s perverse epistemology. The rally spoke exclusively in the impoverished iconography and language of television. It was filled with meaningless political pieties, music and jokes. It was like any television variety program. Personalities were being sold, not political platforms. And this is what the society of spectacle is about.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/

The only point where I might take any issue with Mr. Hedges on is the said reality that no matter how pathetic today's Democratic Party is - within the system that actually exist in America today - they remain the only alternative to a political movement run by people who think exactly like the crazies on Fox News.

[bemildred]

6. Yep.

He annoys me, to be honest, but sometimes he is the one guy coherently pointing out that the emperor is naked.

[KoKo]

13. One of the Commenters on Hedge's article also makes a good point, though:

I understand what Hedges is saying in this article, but think the rally is more important than he does. Comedy and Satire has a strong place in bringing attention to issues that Politicians and Think Tanks often cannot communicate.

Anyway this commenter made some points that I thought were worthwhile to Chris:

---------

By SemiFrost, November 1 at 12:18 pm Link to this comment

*** CH said: “The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are IN THE SAME BUSINESS ... They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs.” ***

Nah, not even close. Right, both of those “celebrities from Comedy Central” are now fat cats. They and their families are set for life. Yet, while knowing they are beholden to their corporate masters, they still come out swinging about every show. Reaching an important demographic, they tell the truth, ridicule and satirize (often viciously) the deserving buffoons and anti-American degenerates masquerading as patriots now running the US / US media.

They do so four nights a week, and in ancillary appearances. Their vids are plastered all over the Internet, podcast and shared nearly instantly after each broadcast via peer file sharing around the world (so perhaps not all the world considers all of the US to be populated by ignorant, regressive, racist, authoritarian personality F-kheads).

In doing so they reach a substantial block of actual voters. (Many of whom now decide between ignorant, dysfunctional and regressive corporatist prostitutes, or a much less destructive option.)

Right, the *Rally* will not make a bit of difference. Now too late. But disparaging them for the effort to hit a mainstream note… Pal, if others did so and kept it up starting about a decade ago, the world would now be a different place.

Sure, hitting the streets: Step 1. But not gonna happen. At least, not until there is no longer any fear of police booking records - and resulting exclusion from future employment beyond minimum wage / non-background-check jobs, and automatic exclusion from varied other societal benefits—like keeping your kids in school.

Give it 10 years, yeah. Then we will be in the streets. Then there will be nothing left to lose—except your life and freedom. But what good is that when your kids are sick and hungry, and the Chinese and Saudis now running the show could not care less?

There is, after all, only so much these two “celebrities from Comedy Central” can do. Seems to me, they did their best.

For now… Brace for Depression Tuesday.


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20... /

[xchrom]

4. recommend -- the article is falling on deaf ears. mores the pity. nt

[marmar]

5. Agreed. People keep saying he's missing the point about the rally......

..... but they're missing his larger point about the point of the rally.

[snot]

11. Exactly!

[whathehell]

9. Yes. n/t

[whyverne]

7. The Democrats created the richest middle class the world has

ever seen through the redistribution of wealth, taking money from the top and pumping it back in at the bottom. Obama, like a good leftist, said he believed in that system. It caused such a firestorm that he never said it again.

Most Americans of both political parties say they do not believe in the redistribution of wealth. Thus taking away the Democrat's major economic weapon against the corporatocracy.

The rich, who keep getting richer even during this economic fiasco, have proven to themselves that they do not need the lower classes. The left did not fight hard enough against the deunionization of the American worker. As so many have said, The class war is over and we lost. Unfortunately, I'm sure we will see more results of that defeat on Wednesday morning. I don't think that Hedges is that far off.

[whathehell]

8. + 100

The wealth has decidedly "redistributed" -- Upwards to the point in which we have the smallest middle class in the developed world.

[vi5]

10. Really? Marxists? Subverting the constitution?

Like who? Who are they and what power do they have? What politicians are beholden to them and listen to them? What voice do these mythical Marxists have in anything even closely resembling mainstream media? Because as for the hateful racists and homophobes without even thinking for a second I can name at least 2 dozen people in positions of government power and in the media who without any hyperbole I can say fit that description. Just off the top of my head.

So really? Is that really an equivalence?

[Doctor_J]

16. Maybe Jon thinks Keith and Ed are Marxists?

:shrug:

[vi5]

18. I don't think he does, which is my point....

Our so called "angry loons" are relegated to the outermost fringes where nobody every hears or sees them, except when they show up at random marches and then have their signs shown on tv as an example of left wing looniness. Their angry loons are Senators and representatives and have tv and radio shows daily where they get to espouse their views unchallened.

If anyone actually thinks Keith or Ed or Rachel are our equivalent of Beck and O'Reilly then they are the ones certifiablyl insane.

[Doctor_J]

17. Maybe Jon thinks Keith and Ed are Marxists?

:shrug:

[snot]

12. K&R'd

Hedges' is the voice of truth in the wilderness.

[glitch]

14. I'll take Keith Olberman's fire over Jon Stewart's kumbaya any day of the week

But I'd prefer not to have to choose since I like them both and they both serve a purpose.

However, neither of them can hold a candle to Stephen Colbert or Rachel Maddow.
:hide:

Not that they all shouldn't keep on doing what they're doing.
:applause:

[Doctor_J]

15. This whole treatise is really cogent

Holy crap. We should have been listening to Hedges and Malloy for the last 10 years

[marmar]

19. Yep.