Quote of the Day: John Cole

One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be destroyed. . . .

You have to understand the mindset--they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn’t enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. . . .

And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them. They’ve even created their own mythical ideology in which they are superhero Galtian overlords, and this lets a few rubes who babble ignorantly about the free market get to feel like they are playing along, when they are really just being played. It’s these guys versus all of us, yet half the people being rogered (Republicans and glibertarians and hell, half the Democrats) have been convinced the other side is a bigger threat to their well being than the people with all the power, money, and resources. (Source)

When John Cole, the moderate voice of reason, says it, then maybe this class-war narrative is really almost ready for prime time, even if not in the MSM. But will a movement arise to vigorously push back rather than just whine about it?  That's the question.

Comments

[John Ortbal]

Cole's comments are echoed by Barbara Ehrenreich in the January issue of In These Times magazine. The article is entitled, "5 Things Progressives Should Do--And Not Do."

On her last point she says,
"#5 Don’t talk about the need for a “narrative.” Outside of literary theory, that word has become synonymous with “lie.” We know what’s going on here, a no-holds-barred class war of the top 1 percent—augmented by what Tom Frank calls the snake-flag crowd—against the rest of us. That’s not a “story” or a clever new “framing.” It’s what’s happening. We either fight back or get pummeled into the dust."

Ouch! I think the emotion is there among many Americans but those feelings or convictions have not been translated or focused by any leaders into a voice that registers on the national radar. (And I'm talking progressives, not the Glen Beck crowd) Is a Tahrir Square uprising possible in lower Manhattan on Wall Street? A million men and women march on Washington DC? Seems the best we can do is a tepid Jon Stewart rally to "restore sanity." Seems like our only truth tellers are satirists---and they are paid to entertain, not lead.

Ehrenreich's full article can be found at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6841/5_things_progressives_should_do--and_not_do/

[Jack Whelan]

I like Ehrenreich's practical suggestions. I think she's on the money, especially about the wrongful conflation of progressives and Democrats.

You can't mobilize when every reason to is framed in air quotes, or if it's not framed in air quotes ought to be, like the kind of annoying 60s-style cliche sloganeering that defined the ethos of the demonstration I last participated in-- which was the 2003 March against the Invasion of Iraq. All I could think of then, was who put these people in charge?

It has to be something that when it hits the streets sane moderate types like Cole can say, "Those are my people."--or enough of them are to give make such a protest seem serious. The trick is to have demonstrations that have the serious ethos of MLK's civil rights marches--or even of the Cairo demonstrations. I'm not sure Americans are capable of it anymore.

[spark]

I've been waiting for that Tahrir square march on Wall Street for 3 years now. I'd be there in a second. I'm sure that millions of other people are thinking the same thing.

I did participate in the AFL-CIO march a year or so ago. There were 3 cops for every marcher. We were channeled between barriers, not allowed onto Wall Street proper, and the way was lined with guys in suits, just off work, laughing at us.

I was born in the late 60s and came of age during the Reagan Revolution. I associate "demonstration" with the types of no-hoper, far-left politics of that era" "AMERIKKKA", Noam Chomsky, anarchy signs, "Free Mumia", identity politics, etc. In other words, marginalisation and total futility.

[alyosha]

The overlords learned their lesson from the Great Depression, and aren't about to let a bit of socialism creep back into American life, this time. It took them a couple generations to roll back that mistake, while prepping the masses for fascism.

Money can afford to play the long term game.

[Jack Whelan]

BTW. I disagree with Ehrenreich about not talking about the need for a narrative. It might not be the word to use in mixed company, but the left has such a hard time mobilizing in large part because it has no alternative to the 60s narrative that I refer to above. Also a good piece about that today in truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/the-president-storyteller-chief67717

The right deploys cliche after cliche that captures the biases of the mushy middle because the left won't compete with it on that turf. Cliches work because they play to collective commonplaces--ideas in the collective consciousness that are assumed to be true without much analysis. Why is it that the welfare queen has played such a prominent role in our collective imagination?

A part of the problem, of course, that the idea of the predatory Wall Street tycoon has become too associated with 60s leftism and has been delegitimated for that reason. But in skillful hands it could be re-legitimated. It has to come from moderate types like Cole--people who have some cred with the moderates who know things stink but can't bring themselves to associate with the loony left.