Whatever Happened to the American Left?

[RedEarth]

By MICHAEL KAZIN
Published: September 24, 2011
Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown, a co-editor of Dissent and the author of “American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.”



SOMETIMES, attention should be paid to the absence of news. America’s economic miseries continue, with unemployment still high and home sales stagnant or dropping. The gap between the wealthiest Americans and their fellow citizens is wider than it has been since the 1920s.

And yet, except for the demonstrations and energetic recall campaigns that roiled Wisconsin this year, unionists and other stern critics of corporate power and government cutbacks have failed to organize a serious movement against the people and policies that bungled the United States into recession.

Instead, the Tea Party rebellion — led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires — has compelled politicians from both parties to slash federal spending and defeat proposals to tax the rich and hold financiers accountable for their misdeeds. Partly as a consequence, Barack Obama’s tenure is starting to look less like the second coming of F.D.R. and more like a re-run of Jimmy Carter — although last week the president did sound a bit Rooseveltian when he proposed that millionaires should “pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare.”

How do we account for the relative silence of the left? Perhaps what really matters about a movement’s strength is the years of building that came before it. In the 1930s, the growth of unions and the popularity of demands to share the wealth and establish “industrial democracy” were not simply responses to the economic debacle. In fact, unions bloomed only in the middle of the decade, when a modest recovery was under way. The liberal triumph of the 1930s was in fact rooted in decades of eloquent oratory and patient organizing by a variety of reformers and radicals against the evils of “monopoly” and “big money.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[fasttense]

1. Money from the corporate fascists bought them off. n/t

[patrice]

3. Money at some levels & jobs at other levels in an at-will employment environment in which you can

lose your job for no apparent reason whatsoever, no matter how good you are at what you do, nor how much you have given your employer gratis.

Fear buys silence.

[patrice]

2. K&R

[ThatPoetGuy]

4. It was the 2008 primaries that made me lose hope for the American left.

Seven candidates stood on the stage. Two of them were arguing: "I'M the most right-wing person on this stage!" "No, I'M the most right-wing person on this stage!"

And yet progressives in the audience, the vast majority of them, ignored what these candidates were telling us, and convinced themselves that these were TRUE liberals.

I have been wondering for years what hope we can have when millions of liberals ignored everything our candidates were saying.

[truedelphi]

5. Ah. Thanks for that. And it shows that poets are often the

better thinkers among us.

The poets and the political cartoonists seem to see what is happening before others do.

[slay]

6. Canaries in a coal mine

they tried to warn us - the poets, political cartoonists, deep thinkers, etc. our two-party system is a complete and total failure - both sides have been bought.

[certainot]

7. 1000 unchallenged radio stations make the difference. tea party is the limbaugh army out of the clos

closet.

the kochs gave them buss passes but they are essentially the same limbaugh hannity talk radio dittoheads, graduates of the limbaugh university, screaming the same shit over and over with 1000 ignored radio stations making it acceptable, shouting over anything the left does and pushing media and politicians around.

the republican media needs that coordinated RW messaging to do the groundwork and creation for what their owners want to do- but can't without talk radio getting a free speech free ride.

and they're only successful because the left is still waiting for internet in every pickup.

[creon]

8. There is no left

It is, basically, extinct.
There is a long list of leftist organizations that no longer exist.

[Citizen Worker]

9. The long, slow decline of the American Left began when Labor sold out to capital after WW II in what

is variously called by historians as the Labor/Capital Accord, The Treaty of Detroit and The Deal.

A short version: capital agreed to allow Labor to exist provided Labor agree to the following: Labor would no longer talk about forming an alternative political party, limits on profits, price controls, etc. In exchange capital agreed that Labor had a right to organize in the work place, would advocate for higher wages and benefits and from time to time would strike to achieve those gains.

The Deal was ripped apart when St. Ronnie Raygun summarily fired the air traffic controllers and the all out attack began on Labor and has not relented. Labor Union membership, often referred to as Union density, now stands at 11% if public sector workers are included. Without the public sector membership is around 7%. The post WW II peak of Union density was 35% in the mid-1950s.

Prior to WW II Union meetings would include guest speakers who would talk about an alternative political economy and ideas on how to reshape society for the benefit of all. Frequently meeting halls were overflowing with Union members eager to hear new ideas and to participate in the building of a better society. After The Deal meetings were limited to bland reports about the employment picture, how many members were "on the bench" and a financial report. At the end of the meeting there are a few minutes, damn few, devoted to "good of the order." And there are so few in attendance at most meetings they could be held in a phone booth. Hell, the Union I belong to doesn't even hold regular meetings!

During the '80s the AFL/CIO national offices were an instrument of US foreign policy receiving some $500,000 per year to fund AIFLD. National Union offices are staffed by people who previously worked as staffers for the democratic party. Labor is so closely tied to the democratic party we are stifled from engaging in meaningful social change.

The only working class institution with the requisite infrastructure and the experience at mass mobilization has been taken over by the democratic party. And what have working people gained from this relationship? A kick in the teeth!

[Juche]

10. No idea

But he is right, whatever remains of the left seems to either be corpratists (MSNBC) or to cater to middle class liberals and not the agenda of the working poor. There is no anti-poverty movement anymore. Which sucks since so many of us are either poor or working poor now.

[midnight]

11. The American Left has been told that they should be quiet least they need drug testing, and or that

they are interfering with "The Agenda" and that seems to be "Big Money".