Ralph Nader
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Chris Hedges
March 2, 2010
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.
He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers’ defective products. These policies would come with ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums and see most of the seriously ill left bankrupt and unable to afford medical care. Obama did nothing to halt the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference, after promising meaningful environmental reform, and has left us at the mercy of corporations such as ExxonMobil. He empowers Israel’s brutal apartheid state. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where hundreds of civilians, including entire families, have been slaughtered by sophisticated weapons systems such as the Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of victims’ lungs. And he is delivering war and death to Yemen, Somalia and perhaps Iran.
The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats. Liberals, unlike the right wing, are emotionally disabled. They appear not to feel. The tea-party protesters, the myopic supporters of Sarah Palin, the veterans signing up for Oath Keepers and the myriad of armed patriot groups have swept into their ranks legions of disenfranchised workers, angry libertarians, John Birchers and many who, until now, were never politically active. They articulate a legitimate rage. Yet liberals continue to speak in the bloodless language of issues and policies, and leave emotion and anger to the protofascists. Take a look at the 3,000-word suicide note left by Joe Stack, who flew his Piper Cherokee last month into an IRS office in Austin, Texas, murdering an IRS worker and injuring dozens. He was not alone in his rage.
“Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?” Stack wrote. “Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political ‘representatives’ (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the ‘terrible health care problem’. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.”
The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats. It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea-party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative.
A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridicule—ask Nader or McKinney—is the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own. We have historical precedents to fall back upon.
“Here in the United States, at the beginning of the twentieth century, before there was a Soviet Union to spoil it, you see, socialism had a good name,” the late historian and activist Howard Zinn said in a lecture a year ago at Binghamton University. “Millions of people in the United States read socialist newspapers. They elected socialist members of Congress and socialist members of state legislatures. You know, there were like fourteen socialist chapters in Oklahoma. Really. I mean, you know, socialism—who stood for socialism? Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Emma Goldman, Clarence Darrow, Jack London, Upton Sinclair. Yeah, socialism had a good name. It needs to be restored.”
Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite. The longer socialism is identified with the corporatist policies of the Democratic Party, the longer we allow the right wing to tag Obama as a socialist, the more absurd and ineffectual we become. The right-wing mantra of “Obama the socialist,” repeated a few days ago to a room full of Georgia Republicans, by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. speaker of the House, is discrediting socialism itself. Gingrich, who looks set to run for president, called Obama the “most radical president” the country had seen in decades. “By any standard of government control of the economy, he is a socialist,” Gingrich said. If only the critique were true.
The hypocrisy and ineptitude of the Democrats become, in the eyes of the wider public, the hypocrisy and ineptitude of the liberal class. We can continue to tie our own hands and bind our own feet or we can break free, endure the inevitable opprobrium, and fight back. This means refusing to support the Democrats. It means undertaking the laborious work of building a viable socialist movement. It is the only alternative left to save our embattled open society. We can begin by sending a message to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader. Let them know they are no longer alone.
Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He served for eight years as the Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for coverage of terrorism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
The Hunger Site
March 4, 2010 at 11:29 am
The issue is not whether anyone is “right” or “wrong” about anyone else, rather the ability of anyone to organize to bring sufficient political power to bear to prevail at the ballot box.
Neither Nader nor the Greens are in a position to do that. There are no second prizes for “being right.” All you get is the right to brag “I told you so,” which might make you feel better but does nothing to change reality.
Fukayama was correct. We are at the end of history. Captialism US style is totalizing and malignant. Whenever confronted with a crisis, American style hypercapitalism identifies a way to profit on it and doubles down to keep the profitable crisis conditions going. There is no shame here, reason and suasion cannot counter the drive towards corruption and graft. Not all “advanced” industrial capitalist societies operate this way.
2009 will go down as the year when democracy finally gave up the ghost in the US, as there are no electoral options which can offer up different policies on “national security,” finance capital or military expenditures than the dominant consensus positions espoused by the two corporate parties.
The posture of Gavin Newsom towards democracy locally mirrors that of the Republican leadership nationally.
Each of us is a product of the economic and social conditions in which we grow up, and is further shaped by the economic and social conditions in which our parents grew up. Unless one can contextualize one’s own experience in the continuum of economic conditions over time, realizing that one’s perceptions are shaped by their experience that that those perceptions are not generalizable, one will continue to labor under assumptions that are no longer valid.
In short, the Reagan Youth who grew up since 1980 are going to have to realize that Reagan’s “free market” ideology is as applicable now as the 1930s New Deal was in 1980. As the hippies’ parents had to let go of the New Deal, so will the Reagan Youth need to let go of Reaganism.
-marc
March 3, 2010 at 12:01 am
PS…..
Traditional Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
American Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
French Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
Japanese Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce
twenty times the milk.
You then create cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.
German Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk
themselves.
Italian Capitalism:
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You break for lunch.
British Capitalism:
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
Russian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 12 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
Arkansas Capitalism:
You have two cows.
That one on the left is kinda cute…
Hindu Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You worship them.
Swiss Capitalism:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.
Canadian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
Let�s make a hockey team, eh?
Chinese Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who
reported the numbers.
Irish Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You feed them potatoes and wonder why they emigrate.
Israeli Capitalism:
So, there are these two Jewish cows, right?
They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights.
They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors.
So, who needs people?
Enron Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit
opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with
an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an
intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority
shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine
cows. No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public buys your bull.
Cuban Capitalism:
You have two cows.
They try to swim to Florida.
Politically Correct Capitalism:
You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallo
centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently – aged (but no less
valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
Disney Capitalism:
You have two cows.
They dance & sing.
Microsoft Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You patent them and sue anyone else who has them.
Hollywood Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You give them utter implants and also teach them to bullet-dodge, wall climb and
shoot milk out of their utters on command.
Clinton Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You deny any knowledge of them.
Bureaucratic Capitalism:
You have two cows.
They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers.
You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken
farmers.
The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should
need.
Gore Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You claim you invented them.
Real-World Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You share two cows with your neighbors.
You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the
most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop
dead of starvation.
Australian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You try to wrestle them.
Iraqi Capitalism:
You have two cows.
They are biochemical weapons.
Perestroika Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
Jewish Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You set them on fire and they burn for 8 days.
Cambodian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
The government takes both and shoots you.
Mormon Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You tell everyone that they should as well.
Military Capitalism:
You have two cows.
The government takes both and drafts you.
Texan Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You teach them to fire guns.
Totalitarian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
The government takes them and denies they ever existed.
Milk is banned.
Nevadan Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You charge lonely men from Arkansas to spend the night with them.
Jehovah�s Witness Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You go door to door telling people that you do.
Bureaucrat Capitalism:
You have two cows.
At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk
them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks
the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out
forms accounting for the missing cows.
Real Capitalism:
You don’t have any cows.
The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to
put up as collateral.
Environmental Capitalism:
You have two cows.
The government bans you from milking them.
Surreal Capitalism:
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
Californian Capitalism:
You have two cows.
They are happy.
Bush Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You think that cows and humans can coexist peacefully.
You give all of the milk to the upper class when they have cows of their own, and
the lower class needs milk.
Martha Stewart Capitalism:
You have two cows.
After decorating them, you sell them because a farmer told you the price of milk
might go down.
Ayn Rand Capitalism:
You have two cows.
You sell both so that you can invest in a new dairy company.
After it does well, you sell you stock and buy a cow farm.
After that does well, you take out a loan using cows as capitol and build a milk
manufacturing factory.
After making your milk the most sold, you sell the company and retire to Hawaii
with your millions of dollars.
March 2, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Capitalist freedom is the freedom of the strong to exploit the weak, that’s why I love America and that’s why Obama and other all so-called visionary politicians are either con-artists or disillusioned mofos who can ONLY fail. Look at our wonderful world, forget the climate change alarmist industry (hello UN), look at the (commie) Chinese – they’re coming with their unbridled 19th century version of capitalism. In the scramble for a play station and a zinger burger, they’re literally poisoning their own kids with baby milk formula and saturating their air with life depleting carcinogenic matter. The average Chinese person knows nothing else. It’s all progress, baby!! I have a Honduran cook/cleaner who I pay $5 an hour. It’s a win-win situation. I save money, she sends $$ home.
Now is the time for change …. yeah Windows 8 is coming soon…..and I’m switching to Miller lite, that Coors is raccoon urine.
March 2, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Stalin is to socialism what Hitler is to capitalism.
March 2, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Capitalism is working fine for me, Luke. That’s not to say it doesn’t have problems and that’s why we have a democratic system to work out solutions.
I only connected the Soviet system after the author had already done so. As the author points out, there were many prominent American Socialists, most of them in the 20’s and 30’s. The majority became disillusioned after the truth of Stalin’s oppression became known. Those are just the facts whether anyone likes them or not.
March 2, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Sad huh?
The word went out during the campaign that: “This guy can be rolled.”. That’s the worst thing you can say about a leader. Doesn’t say ‘persuaded’ which is a good thing. It means he lacks backbone and can be intimidated and overwhelmed.
It’s proven to be true. He has no balls. Harry Truman walked into the Oval Office the day after he was elected in his own right in 1948 and eliminated (on paper at least) racial discrimination in the military with an executive order. Obama could have done the same thing for gays in the military with a stop-loss order.
Now Obama is for off-shore drilling (he rolled). For building more nuclear plants (he rolled) …
on and on,
h.
March 2, 2010 at 1:41 pm
“What’s to be afraid of?”
The problem is that socialism has never worked anywhere. Obama has ended torture, is trying to close Guantanamo, is pulling out of Iraq, and is trying to reform our medical system. Habeus Corpus is dead? News to me. His stimulus program has in fact created/saved about 2 million jobs. Why is the insurance industry opposing his health care reform if it’s such a big giveaway? Lefties like Hedges never thought we had the right to defend ourselves against the Islamic fanatics in the first place, so his opinion on Afghanistan—where the 9/11 terrorists were trained and Osama bin Psycho was based—is anti-American drivel. Yemen is now a victim of US aggression? And poor Iran is a potential victim, too? Boo hoo, poor little Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists and wants to destroy Israel, which lefties like Hedges would like to see. The Green Party and Cynthia McKinney are going to save us? Ha! The left in the US is becoming an ever smaller lunatic fringe movement, which, fortunately, doesn’t have a chance of ever taking power.
March 2, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Why does the word “socialism” cause fear and trembling to many Americans?
I bet most of these Americans could not explain what they mean by socialism. To me it basically means a redistribution of wealth or publicly-funded programs that capitalism would not pay for. We already have many so-called socialistic programs in the U.S. such as our progressive tax system, social security, public housing, unemployment insurance, medicare, schools, libraries, etc. I like to think that many of these programs provide social safety nets for the have-nots in our society who otherwise would fall through the cracks when unregulated capitalism goes awry. You know the kind of capitalism that got us into our present financial mess. Looked at this way, socialism equals compassion for the less fortunate in our society. What’s to be afraid of?
March 2, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I’m proud to say that I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, 2004, and 2008. However, I think that one of the problems of his campaign (and the sweeping rhetoric of Hedges’ article) is that it didn’t really offer concrete descriptions (let alone results) of getting from point A to point B. He was about getting from point A immediately to point Z. To a large extent Ralph Nader seemed to be running for Ralph Nader.
In addition, for all intents and purposes, the Green Party is dead and buried for the very reasons that Hedges’ complains about, which demonstrates Hedges’ ignorance of the problem. What’s more, socialism can be just as abused and used from the left as from the right. Take a look at the Socialist Party of France. It’s the French equivalent of the Democrats. When Hedges’ gives some detailed steps to get us out of this mess, I’ll be more inclined to take him seriously.
March 2, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Ralph and Gonzalez did their own independent research, they did not take Barack Obama on face value, or the created hype that was surrounding him.. If more folks would spend the time and do their own independent research instead of reading or listening to what others say and then seeing what they want to see. Life could be better!
As Howard Zinn once said, “Let’s talk about socialism. I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.”
David Sloane
March 2, 2010 at 11:13 am
Stalin was a paranoid dictator, as are most dictators. To associate socialism with Stalin’s paranoia is a desperate attempt to disparage a system that benefits the many over the few.
Socialism may not be perfect, no political system is, but I’ll take socialism, or at the minimum a mixed economy, over unfettered capitalism any day.
How’s US capitalism working out for you, El Greco?
March 2, 2010 at 10:45 am
“before there was a Soviet Union to spoil it, you see, socialism had a good name”
Funny how millions dead in Joe Stalin’s gulags could spoil the good name of socialism. I’m sure he was just trying to make a better socialist state for everyone, don’t you think?