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do i understand from your statement host that corruption and inequality are wrapped togethere like a DNA strand?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

do i understand from your statement host that corruption and inequality are wrapped togethere like a DNA strand?

That was the main point on the research I shared about John McCain's decision to change his life.....give up his 22 year Naval career.....trade it in for a "no show" VP job at his "mobbed up" father-in-law's beer distributorship. That decision was the foundation for McCain initiating his second career as a federal elected official. The VP "job" gave him the opportunity to meet all he needed to, in his new home in the state of Arizona. Father-in-law Hensley was the protege of the wealthiest man in the state, Kemper Marley, who also happened to be the most powerful political and organized crime figure. Hensley himself became the 12th wealthiest Arizonan.

After meeting everyone in Hensley's rolodex (Hensley was known as the lobbying "king"), McCain's campaigns were bankrolled by....Hensley. Today, McCain enjoys a net worth estimated between $50 and $100 million, all of that money originated with Hensley's initial stake.....his proceeds from organized crime activity of the 40s and 50s....

It's an example of "the American Dream", Cynthetiq....some "do it" from the bottom up, like Hensley....some from the "middle up", like McCain....and some do it from the top down....squeezing suppliers, threatening local zoning officials and usurping eminent domain power in order to expand, using enormous clout to influence minimum wage, workplace safety and welfare enforcement.....even locking workers in the building, overnight, like Walmart.

The Bush family war profiteering speaks for itself....just follow the money!

and what about inequality created by an honest worker like you and me? or is the implication that some how we are also corrupt in some fashion?

host, you can object, but there are plenty of honest rich people. And plenty of dishonest poor people. Inequality is not in lockstep with dishonesty.

All you have supplied to the contrary is some anecdotes. There are some dishonest people in every social class and every profession. However, your post does explain a lot of what is driving your positions. I think I understand better now where you are coming from.

Do you really believe it is not possible to be both well off and honest at the same time? And if it is, would you expect Democratic candidates to refuse campaign contributions from their rich supporters rather than taint themselves?

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

loquitur, do you remember "nannygate"...how it seemed impossible to find people to appoint to political positions who could pass a background check related to whether they complied with tax laws in their employment of domestic servants? The laws were intended to protect the employment compensation of the servants....ensuring that employer social security and unemployment insurance premiums were paid, taxes withheld and paid, workplace laws and insurance protection observed and afforded to servants, just like to any other worker.

Do you think anything has changed, since that illuminating little spectacle, 15 years ago? Do you think it was an isolated situation? Do you think any of the "back scratching" that goes on in your "world"....the "stuff" that I am not privy to....that only you can know about, is fair, equal....ethical?

To be clear....I'm not relating it to you personally....only asking you to consider what you are in a position to observe. Everytime anything happens for the benefit of someone who isn't clearly deserving....an appointment of less than the best possible choice for the job, in an open, level competition, a zoning variance that is "unusual", the offer of "I'll make a phone call".....don't you see that all of it culminates in the result?

There are only 4 black CEOs at the fortune 500 companies, as a result of all of it. There are 11 million undocumented "guest workers", as a result, too. Look at who the elected "leaders" are. Bush is "president", Bloomberg purchased your mayorlty slot.....

what I think loq is pointing out is the same for me.

what about the three of us, taken as context for this example, I state I'm an honest person. It appears that both you and loquiter are as well.

So where does that leave us in this picture you paint?

Perhaps what host is getting at, is that an individual's honesty is perfunctory when they are benefitting from a system that is corrupt.

maybe...

that could be, but that's someone who is "corrupt" in some fashion or "corruptable".

so here you are as well mix, where does that leave the 4 of us honest people? does that imply we're somewhat corrupt with some sort of Original Sin because of our parents who gave us something above and beyond the immagrant worker?

No, I don't think so.

I haven't really given it a lot of thought, though, just been following the conversation.

But I see truth in both sides.

Actually, host, corruption and prosperity tend to be inversely related. The US may not be the least corrupt country (IIRC it's Finland, but I'd need to dig that study out) but it's fairly low on the list. Truly corrupt countries tend also to have mass poverty and low levels of economic development. (Ah, here we go - it is indeed Finland. Myanmar and Somalia are the most corrupt. Or try this one, which is similar.)

Also, you're collapsing a few different concepts together. As I read you, you're saying a few different things:

1. People who are rich got there through corruption or fraud. This one I think is demonstrably false as a gross statement. The Fortune 400 is not populated by the equivalent of mafia dons.

2. Being rich gives you good connections that help you get things done more easily than people who aren't rich. Partly true, but not exclusive to the rich. Union leaders, for example, or NGO leaders, also have good connections that they can call on, and sometimes they carry more weight than mere money. The NY state legislature is pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of one of the unions (Local 1199).

3. People who are already rich sometimes do dishonest things. Yup. People who aren't rich also sometimes do dishonest things. People, rich or not, often do things they shouldn't do if they think they can get away with them.

You realize, of course, that because people are different in their talents and abilities there will always be economic inequality even if everyone was scrupulously honest. I find it curious that you seem to dispute that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

Perhaps what host is getting at, is that an individual's honesty is perfunctory when they are benefitting from a system that is corrupt.

maybe...

I'm throwing the following out here for consideration.... inequity in the distribution of wealth and power (IMO, it's hard to differentiate between the two) is "accepted", and I don't think that the acceptance in the US is a natural condition. I suspect that it doesn't just happen to be that way, and it is intended that objection to the inequity....like mine, triggers a designed response that is not authored by those who express it. The response is designed to place the objector, "on the fringe"....a label for this is "oh!! he is on the "extreme left"!

Here goes....:

Quote:

http://www.caledonia.org.uk/hegemony.htm

Hegemony. This is the term used by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci to describe how the domination of one class over others is achieved by a combination of political and ideological means. Although political force - coercion - is always important, the role of ideology in winning the consent of dominated classes may be even more significant. The balance between coercion and consent will vary from society to society, the latter being more important in capitalist societies.

For Gramsci, the state was the chief instrument of coercive force, the winning of consent being achieved by the institutions of civil society eg the family, the Church and the Trade Unions. Hence the more prominent is civil society, the more likely it is that hegemony will be achieved by ideological means.

Hegemony is unlikely ever to be complete. In contemporary capitalist societies, for example, <h3>the working class has a dual consciousness</h3>, partly determined by the ideology of the capitalist class and partly revolutionary, determined by their experience of capitalist society. For capitalist society to be overthrown, workers must first establish their own ideological supremacy derived from their revolutionary consciousness.

[The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology (1988)]

["If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."
[Howard Zinn, historian and author]

....In political thought the term is now as often used in the sense given to it by Gramsci, in which <h3>it denotes the ascendancy of a class, not only in the economic sphere, but through all social, political and ideological spheres, and its ability thereby to persuade other classes to see the world in terms favorable to its own ascendancy.</h3>

Gramsci advocated the construction of a rival hegemony, through the infiltration and transformation of those small-scale institutions by which class ascendancy, once achieved, is sustained. ....

...Drawing on writers such as Machiavelli and Pareto, Gramsci argues that a politically dominant class maintains its position not simply by force, or the threat of force, but also by consent. That is achieved by making compromises with various other social and political forces which are welded together and consent to a certain social order under the intellectual and moral leadership of the dominant class. This hegemony is produced and reproduced through a network of institutions, social relations, and ideas which are outside the direct political sphere.

Gramsci especially emphasized the role of intellectuals in the creation of hegemony. The result is one of the most important, if elusive, concepts in contemporary social theory.....

The question....

Quote:

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=385
Spring 2004 »

Howard Zinn's History Lessons
By Michael Kazin

....But Zinn's big book is quite unworthy of such fame and influence. A People's History is bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions. Zinn reduces the past to a Manichean fable and makes no serious attempt to address the biggest question a leftist can ask about U.S. history: <h3>why have most Americans accepted the legitimacy</h3> of the capitalist republic in which they live?.....

...an answer:

Quote:

http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/06_zinn.html
The importance of Howard Zinn
March 29, 2004
Dale McCartney

....There is an irony in a professional association of historians inviting a speaker who has spent a significant portion of his career hectoring other professional historians for their failure to engage with politics in any meaningful manner. Regardless of the irony, the topic is a perfect choice for such a speaker.......

....Not only has Zinn established himself as a legend because of his activism among historians, he is the author of the bible of radical American history - A People's History of the United States . A People's History has occasioned considerable comment ever since its publication in 1980, and with his appearance in Boston this weekend, a new collection of critiques has appeared.

The most prominent of these recent reviews was published in the online winter 2004 edition of Dissent magazine (www.dissentmagazine.org). Michael Kazin, himself a prominent labour historian, lashes out at Zinn and his masterwork, deriding it as "bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions." Kazin reads Zinn's work as "better suited to a conspiracy-monger's website than a work of scholarship." His complaints come fast and furious, but they seem to boil down to one complaint formulated in two different ways. Kazin finds Zinn's work reductionist - that is, he complains that Zinn oversimplifies American history both politically and historically. <h3>A People's History , in Kazin's view, is a "painful narrative about ordinary folks who keep struggling to achieve equality, democracy and a tolerant society, yet somehow are always defeated by a tiny band of rulers whose wiles match their greed."</h3> For Kazin, this sort of narrative fails to account for the historical uniqueness of figures like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, and doesn't do justice to the differing motivations of activists and rebels of the past. <h3>Kazin's head-shaking goes so far that he laments the book's enormous sales, suggesting that it has contributed to keeping "the left just where it is: on the margins of American political life."</h3>

Kazin's review itself oversimplifies the issue, as a careful reading of Zinn's work reveals that he offers a considerably nuanced vision of his subjects. Importantly, and this is the reason for Zinn's success, his subjects are the "ordinary folks," and not the Washingtons and Jeffersons of American history. Zinn's work is not academic history, although Zinn clearly has the breadth of knowledge only possible through a life of study. Instead, the book is a chronicle of ordinary folks, for ordinary folks. Kazin is right to suggest that Zinn has written a political document, as well as an historical one - where he's wrong is in assuming that these are not compatible. Kazin calls the book a polemic, and it's an accurate description. Zinn is not neglecting a more objective perspective on American history; he's rejecting it in favor of an openly political stance that reclaims the history of oppressed peoples, regardless of race or gender. His popularity is testament to both the appeal of such a reading of American history, and the desperate thirst of working class people, people of colour, women and the many other victims of modern society's ravages for a history in which they are at the centre. I would go so far as to argue that not only has Kazin underestimated the importance of this role for Zinn's book, but that the academic tradition of objectivity (read: liberalism that favors white men) has played a key role in marginalizing oppressed peoples and derailing social movements. Zinn's work is an important corrective to this destructive tradition in historical writing.
....In my own experience, the film has been enormously successful. In two summers working at a military museum on Vancouver Island , I learned that the Great Escape was a historical marker for many of our visitors. When, in my first summer there, a prisoner in the camp who had worked on building the tunnels donated his illustrated diary from the time to the museum, it became clear to me how truly significant the film was. It stood in as the primary way in which many people 'remembered' the war. People who had long forgotten the significance of the names Dieppe and Juno remembered details from the escape. The film was a powerful tool for us at the museum, because it was a great way to make the history we were trying to present immediately accessible.

Some historians, undoubtedly Kazin included, would find the power of the film, and Zinn's book, coupled with their inaccurate or political recounting of history, troubling. History has a powerful role in shaping society, though, and is more than a hunt for truth. This is not to say that history based on lies is of any value - but there is power in constructing narratives that celebrate themes of heroism or rebellion, especially when these are constructed so as to privilege the perspectives of rebels, resistors and those traditionally oppressed. Contrary to Kazin's suggestion, this sort of engagement, which Howard Zinn's body of work unflinchingly embraces, <h3>will not marginalize the Left. Instead, it provides the Left with a history that can be used both to understand past resistance and inspire future activism.</h3>

To sum it up, the popularity of Zinn and his book owes itself to this, from Gramsci:

Quote:

...the working class has a dual consciousness...

It needs to be brought out, even as the corporate media works against it's duality. The reception to Zinn's work indicates that that has not yet been accomplished. The resistance to my posted objection to inequity is stronger than I would expect, given the depth of the inequity, and so are the number of votes for republican candidates.

hegemony: ideology: control of worldviews through the ability to shape categories and the logics that are available to combine them.

once upon a time, in the olden days of private ownership of large-scale firms, the bourgeoisie was a tiny discrete social group and as over against them in marx were the folk who sold their labor power for a wage. back in those days, it made sense to imagine a small and shrinking cadre of the wealthy and powerful whose wealth enabled them political and personal freedom, whose abilities to be politically and personally free presupposed a vast system of wage slavery. there are those who get to flower as human beings and there are those who sell their labor power, become interchangeable as commodity-bearers (labor power is a commodity) dehumanized, etc.

once upon a time, during the transition away from craft production, there was still an argument to be made that atomizing work, deskilling, repetition were all dehumanizing, and that a system of production geared around that generated problematic human costs, even as standardized goods were cheaper than non-standardized goods--but once upon a time it was not obvious that there was any demand or need for standardized goods--such demand was produced--and so it follows that in capitalism, demand follows supply at the point where those who mediate that relation are able to tell those who demand what they want. it is like this, it is always like this in capitalism, that demand follows supply once demand is told by those who mediate that relation what it is that they want.

supply follows demand an partial, almost upside down view of the world that generates the illusion of power residing with those whose primary social function is to select from amongst a narrow range of officially sanctioned consumer options, to desire within circumscribed limits, to think in particular ways and not others. hegemony lay not only in the creation of desire the creation of demand but also in the image that one has of how demand fits into a larger picture, one that presupposes a separation of the economic from other spheres and a host of other bourgeois mental ticks besides.

once upon a time industrial production was concentrated inside of nation-states so that firms, by accepting the nation-state as a natural boundary within which primary economic activity was undertaken and understood, necessary found themselves involved with questions of the social reproduction of the labor force--to operate they needed a stream of minimally skilled but ultimately interchangeable bodies to be subordinates of the machinery on the factory floor.
once upon a time, this obligation to concern itself with the reproduction of the labor force meant that a number of brakes obtained on rates of exploitation. of course there was in the old school terminology always an industrial reserve army, but now the industrial reserve army is the size of the planet. anything goes. the most blinkered an short-sighted form of capitalism run the show. its natural, like the weather.

those days are largely gone: the is no working class to speak of in the united states at this point, not in the old sense of the term. there are working-class people in the sociologically descriptive sense, but not so many in terms of the political sense, that which marx isolated through the notion of the proletariat, the class in and for itself. and there is a relatively large social group which owns the instruments of production through the holding of stock and other instruments. there are varying degrees of class awareness amongst this population. class position being vague, of course, all types of populist or identity-politics ideologies are eaten in these neighborhoods many folk are of the lumpenbourgeoisie. i like that term and haven't used it for a while. the sack of potatos that carried political shit for the holders of power, those nice reliable petit bourgeois reactionaries who act against their own objective interests because they'd rather pretend they were wealthy than look the fuck around....and there is an ideological context in which this is all understood as natural and necessary like the weather. hegemony is the ability to convince people that any number of particular political and economic choices that adversely affect populations way beyond the limits of the firm or industrial sector just happen like the weather. powerless we all are. such inequality of power is natural--some get to decide others react--some decide your fate, you watch tv. it's natural. like the weather.

since the current socio-economic order, call it neoliberalism call it globalization it hardly matters, is natural like the weather--no matter that this assumption is a pure function of hegemony, a demonstration of it, a confirmation--the extent to which this neutralizes thinking about the material fact of the existing order AS a system is a good index of the effects of hegemony--so here: there is inequality and there is inequality. there, in aristotle, it is natural. here, because everything is naturalized because those nice men on tv say so those nice people who write for the papers say so those nice photographs i look at tell me so that nice tv footage i see shows me so, there is inequality there was natural inequality in aristotle there is inequality now where i am told everything that happens is like the weather, they are the same so q.e.d.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

.....there are working-class people in the sociologically descriptive sense, but not so many in terms of the political sense, that which marx isolated through the notion of the proletariat, the class in and for itself. and there is a relatively large social group which owns the instruments of production through the holding of stock and other instruments. there are varying degrees of class awareness amongst this population. class position being vague, of course, all types of populist or identity-politics ideologies are eaten in these neighborhoods many folk are of the lumpenbourgeoisie. i like that term and haven't used it for a while. the sack of potatos that carried political shit for the holders of power, those nice reliable petit bourgeois reactionaries who act against their own objective interests because they'd rather pretend they were wealthy than look the fuck around....and there is an ideological context in which this is all understood as natural and necessary like the weather......

It's a feeling that weighs on you...a resignation that you are "cursed" by an awareness that does not afflict many. It probably was past time to "get with the program", just after "the June days"....:

Quote:

"I noticed that the soldiers of the line were the least eager of our troops. Memories of February appeared to have weaken and paralyze them. . .. <h3>Without any doubt the keenest were those very Mobile Guardsmen whose fidelity we had questioned so seriously." (Traugott, 44)

Quote:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rsc...la/mobile.html
Established during the Revolution of 1848, the Mobile Guard consisted of lower working class men policing their own provinces. The Mobile Guard was intended to take the revolutionaries off the streets and use their "revolutionary tendencies" for the regime's benefit. In doing so, the workers who joined the Mobile Guard proved their adeptness at political and social organization but did so by repressing the rebellions they once helped stir up.

The Creation of the Mobile Guard

"The foundering of all organized forces only left one means of safety: <h3>to draw from the masses themselves the elements of order and discipline; to contain, direct, and govern the people with the people.</h3> . . . Audacious to the point of temerity, impulsive, flirting with destruction, running to rebellion as to a recreation, deprived of work, wandering through the streets hunger-stricken, the children of Paris were a new element of turmoil. <h3>To assemble them, group them, clothe them, give them shelter and bread, all the while transforming them into an intelligent and devoted force was to accomplish an act at once political and humanitarian."</h3>

--Garnier Page's assessment of the Provisional Government's motives for the Mobile Guard

(Traugott, 36)

The quote above is an excellent example of how the government and the upper class viewed the lower working class, as children who could not organize themselves,who are "impulsive" and run "to rebellion as to a recreation." <h3>It was for this reason that the Mobile Guard was created: to try and take rebellion out of the revolutionary workers.</h3>

However, during the Revolution of 1848, beginning in February, <h3>the government noticed that "the people of Paris spontaneously assumed responsibility for the maintenance and order in the city." It troubled the government that the revolutionary crowd saw to the protection of property and, more importantly, would "also intervene in their own official debates" (Traugott, 35).
The Mobile Guard tried to solve three of the Provincial Governments biggest problems:</h3>

# By employing as many as 25,000 jobless Parisians, it hoped to solve the economic crisis.
# It wanted to neutralize the most volatile of the street population, who were still excited from the February victory.
# Finally, transforming the workers into a reliable army would help them in war abroad...

....Doubts of Mobile Guard

Although the Guard was a competent form of government force, doubts about their loyalty continued to arise. The Provisional Government focused on recruiting members from the youthful revolutionaries who fought at the February barricades. <h3>The men who once manned the barricades were now being trained how to repress the popular insurrections that they played a part in.</h3> For the Guardsmen were "a rather broadly based fighting force that, both among industrial and nonindustrial sectors, was essentially indistinguishable from the insurgents themselves. This led many to doubt the loyalty of the members of the Mobile Guard.

However, the Mobile Guard never showed true reasons to be considered untrustworthy. Throughout the Revolutionary months of 1848, <h3>"in every one of its innumerable confrontations with workers, it had remained unswervingly loyal to the regime in power"</h3> (Traugott, ).

* One member of the "regular" army commented on the enthusiasm of the Mobile Guardsmen during the June Days of the Revolution:

"I noticed that the soldiers of the line were the least eager of our troops. Memories of February appeared to have weaken and paralyze them. . .. <h3>Without any doubt the keenest were those very Mobile Guardsmen whose fidelity we had questioned so seriously."</h3> (Traugott, 44)

As Daniel Stern described in his book, Histoire de la Revolution de 1848, the Guardsmen appeared to enjoy the battles and combat them with excitment:

"The sound of the gunshots, the whistling of the bullets seemed to them a new game which brought them joy. The smoke, the smell of powder excited them. They charged at a run, climbed over crumbling paving stones, clung to every scrap of cover with marvelous agility . . . <h3>If the Mobile Guard had passed over to the insurrection, as was feared, it is virtually certain that victory would have passed with it." (391)</h3>

After the Revolution, and the insurrection in June, the Mobile Guardsmen was praised for its performance throughout the Revolution of 1848, and especially during the June Days. The workers displayed that they were not simple children, used to rebellion as recreation. <h3>But they were capable of military intelligence and loyalty to the authorities that employed them: the regime.</h3>

Quote:

It's a feeling that weighs on you...a resignation that you are "cursed" by an awareness that does not afflict many.

at this particular moment in my 3-d life, you have no idea how true this is, and the number of directions it runs in. it is only matched by my recognition of parallel lacks in my awareness. it is difficult being in an unfamiliar world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

Perhaps an outing is overdue...may I suggest an afternoon trip to the zoo....just to take your mind of "things", however briefly?

<center><img src="http://www.eecs.tufts.edu/~mrisgin/sowa/HomoSapiens.jpg"></center>

A vacation?
Oy.
I'd settle for just a good night's sleep.

I don't think an afternoon off is a vacation, loquitur, but it sounds like you would benefit from an afternoon nap.

Zinn describes the challenge facing the majority of us:

["If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."
[Howard Zinn, historian and author]

Glenn Greenwald gives us examples. The inequality is obvious. Who has the means to "get this done"? Who owns the bully pulpit that is the corporate media? Is it a coincidence that the "Op"...the feminizing and "reduction to ridiculous" of almost every democratic candidate keeps happening, keeps being the major theme, in every campaign since Adlai Stevenson?

Clipped from the Greenwald opinion piece below:

Quote:

...Here, "Principle X" = the Right's notion that our elections should be decided based on petty personality-based themes -- euphemistically known as, justified and glorified as, "character issues." <h5>Decrying that principle while simultaneously subjecting the Right to it</h5> is not "hypocritical" or "contradictory" but, instead, is a means -- the only means -- for undermining it. ...

....By all rights, John McCain -- leading proponent of one of the most unpopular wars ever and tied at the hip to one of the most unpopular administrations in modern American history -- <h3>should be 20 points behind in the polls, at least. But he isn't. He is typically tied or even sometimes ahead. Why? Because the Cult of Personality constructed around him -- just as was true for George Bush -- remains largely unchallenged, while the right-wing/media monster demolishes the personality and character of the Democratic candidates. .....</h3>

Only in Media World could an individual who grew up in a poor and/or single-parent home with purely self-made accomplishments (Obama, John Edwards) be an out-of-touch "elitist" while individuals who live in extravagant wealth earned by others (George W. Bush, McCain) be Regular Folk in touch with heartland lifestyles and values. As Atrios noted today, even Howie Kurtz <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html/">understands the bizarre spectacle </a> of watching coddled media stars decree who is an "elitist" and who is in touch with Common Values:....

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...gah/index.html
Wednesday April 16, 2008 10:03 EDT

...We are a nation in or on the verge of an extreme recession, with growing economic insecurities, mired in an endless and savage occupation that is consuming our scarce resources and eroding almost completely every aspect of our national strength. We have been ruled for the last many years by a political faction that has embraced truly radical theories that have fundamentally transformed the type of government we have and the type of country we are.

But as we select the next President, what are the stories that are dominating our political discourse? The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza provided the answer just this week:

Critical mass has been reached. "Bitter" and "cling" will forever be tied to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the same way that "Tuzla" and "the laugh" will always evoke Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when a political junkie thinks of the 2008 Democratic race.
And the "bitter" drama merely replaced the "elitist-because-he-can't-bowl" storyline in the spotlight. As I noted the other day, this is just an exercise in reflexively filling in the gaps in the insipid personality-based script -- authored by the Right and amplified by their media partners -- that dominates every one of our elections, regardless of who the candidates are or what they do.

John Kerry's defining trait was that he windsurfed in effete tights. Al Gore's was that he invented the Internet, claimed credit for Love Story, and wore earth colors because Naomi Wolf told him to. Michael Dukakis' was that he looked like a geeky loser in a helmet and didn't seem to show enough manly rage when asked in a debate about a hypothetical case where his wife was raped and killed.

One of the prime propagators of this cliched and petty chatter, Maureen Dowd, wrote yet another column today re-hashing these same themes:.....

<h5>Behind closed doors in San Francisco, elitism’s epicenter, Barack Obama showed his elitism....</h5>

So Barack Obama now takes his place on the ignoble path tread by every other Democratic candidate before him: as an effete, elitist, out-of-touch loser -- just like Mike Dukakis and John Kerry, and just like Al Gore and (when she was leading in the polls) Hillary Clinton. Conversely, the GOP leaders are stalwart and amiable though heroic Men of the People.

Given that dynamic, Democrats have two choices and only two choices: (1) allow the Right to wield these themes unchallenged, in a one-sided manner, or (2) engage them just as aggressively and directly in order to neutralize the advantage they confer. The point is that having our elections decided primarily on substantive issues isn't an option, precisely because the Right and the shallow, slothful media ensure that petty personality controversies predominate. The only choice is to engage them or to ignore them, thereby allowing them to rage unchallenged....

...UPDATE: Oddly, a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/16/elitism/index.html">CNN article today</a> actually summarizes these matters quite accurately:

Sen. Barack Obama is saddled with a potentially toxic image problem -- that he has an elitist attitude. . . .Branding a rival elitist is not new in politics. <h5>Republicans for years have successfully labeled Democratic presidential candidates as the liberal elite.</h5> Portraying their rivals as latte-sipping, sushi-eating insiders, Republicans have connected with some voters by arguing they understand the values important to the everyday person. .....

<h5>It's a small irony of this "out of touch" debate that upper-echelon journalists with wardrobe allowances or kids in fancy private schools get to pose as the folks who are in touch with the great American working class.</h5>
But that's how these themes work and what makes them so toxic. Aside from being painfully petty, they bear no relation to reality. After all, <h5>George Bush and Dick Cheney were the swaggering, strong, courageous, protective warriors and Vietnam-volunteering John Kerry and Al Gore were the weak-kneed, subversive, soft, effete, Chamberlain-like appeasers.</h5> The right-wing script is deployed regardless of the candidates and their true attributes.

Loquitur, do you see anything that Greenwald gets wrong, in your opinon? Can you defend or feel any confidence in a "system" that has resorted to maintaining the status quo....keeping the political power, the best that money can buy, as close to where it currently is, as is possible?

Can you see how someone with a skeptical and rejectionist view, can be as critical of it as some of us here are? What is it? Why do you defend this pathetic maipulation that results in a "self controlling" society making such absurd election choices, with so little REAL media coverage, or individual discussion of the issues that matter?

Can you consider that the repression is a psy-ops affair, one that only concentration of wealth and power, of the level we in the US "enjoy", can pull off? Are we hobbled by. or blessed with a media extravaganza that reliably makes one side look ridiculous to ensure that there is no actual examination of the "manly men" endorsed and promoted by that same media?

Can you consider that the whole "schtick" about "liberal media bias" is a smokescreen? Who does the media make out as ridiculous and "girly"? Who does it anoint with a swagger...a "leadership" image?

Reagan and George W. Bush are the most telling products of these psy-ops, and they are also the evidence of how fragile and shallow, what you and so many others so stalwartly defend really is....a political-economic system that is ridiculous!

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

This is one of your best laid out responses. I don't agree with most of your general conclusions regarding inequality, media bias and elitism, but I do agree with the notion of the preservation and possible manipulation of the status quo.

Perhaps to better understand your position, how would you suggest correcting problem? What needs to change?

actually, the net is a pretty good democratizer. It has opened up opportunities for a lot of people who otherwise would not have come to public attention.

Take Glenn Greenwald, for example. I actually litigated against him, as it happens (years ago). If not for the net he might still have his small law firm, doing decently, taking on the occasional high profile case. He probably wouldn't be a best selling author; I think that happened because he gained a following as a result of his blog and then his Salon gig.