Getting out in front of the issues

It's long mystified me why the remnant "left" in this country is constitutionally unable to get in front of issues small and large and lead into that new day dawning that used to be so important.

Instead, the "left" constantly reacts to rightist garbage, desperately trying to hang on to the shreds and tatters of a status quo the rightists are only too happy to yank out of their hands.

This has been going on for years and years, decades now, and it is really bewildering.

It's not for lack of ideas. Why just the other day, the New America Foundation came out with a neat little proposal to double Social Security payments to help get the economy "moving" again. Well, there's an idea. Gee. The only problem with it is that the deficit scolds have long since been banging the gong about cutting Social Security to the point where doing so is all but inevitable.

The idea of increasing Social Security payments should have been broached the instant the economy turned sour. I think I did at the time suggest that low-end Social Security payments be doubled or tripled for just that economic purpose. Not only that, but I thought the eligibility age should be reduced to 55 so as to free up jobs for younger workers. I also suggested that because households were drowning in debt, instead of paying off the banks' gambling debts (the Fed just held out the promise of another round of payouts to the banks), payments -- large payments ($80,000 was a figure I remember mentioning) -- should be made directly to households to clear debt or for the purchase of particularly important goods and services (like green-fitting homes and such) in order to goose the economy.

Robert Reich has been advocating a "payroll tax holiday" for quite a while, and the other day he added a nuance: cancel payroll taxes on the first $20,000 of income, and pay for it with an additional payroll tax on those making more than $250,000. This is good.

But we are years into this Endless Recession, and the policies out of Washington have been like Hoover's policies dealing with the Depression. They really haven't helped any but the banks and the upper one percent. They've been devastating for the middle and working class, by design.

Why the so-called "left" isn't out in front of economic issues is bewildering. In fact, Democratic Party economic policy is as Hooverite as that of the White House, and commentators on the so-called "left" are at best ambivalent about what to do -- typified by Paul Krugman's fretting about this and that.

Why aren't self-styled progressives out in front of the war issues? Not just saying "no" but saying what would be the better policy.

We could go on and on.

In the United States what passes for the "left" is reactionary, depending on the rightists for issues to respond to. The "left" is desperately clinging to shreds of the status quo for dear life, rather than coming up with a vibrant new vision for the future.

As I pointed out earlier regarding the mosque issue, the appropriate position on it is "No," not because it is Muslim, but because it is religious -- and we don't need more religion, there or anywhere else. Religion and religious fervor is part of the problem. But putting it that way is getting in front of the issue, and that would be... rude.

Let's be clear: our government is rightist through and through. One party is insane, the other is its enabler. Neither has any interest in serving the People. The People are passive in the face of these facts in part because they see no sign at all that anyone able to lead is interested in leading toward correct solutions. Many apparently thought Obama would be the one and have been sorely disappointed. But surely they know that putting the bloodthirsty plunderers back in charge for another round of looting and disaster is not a good idea.

But that's the political alternative to the disappointment so many feel. Madmen or their enablers.

If we on the "left" could actually get out in front of issues, present a coherent framework for positive change and follow through, what a wonderful world this would be. But no.

Can't do that.

Sad.

On the Leadership of Teh Left

This is funny.

Over the past few months, Jane and Glenn have been maneuvering to take over the leadership of the so-called Left by becoming outspoken TeeVee and radio personalities as well as big important bloggers, former entertainment moguls (in Jane's case) and best selling authors (in Glenn's) -- who are characterized as "lefties" by the TeeVee (and radio) bookers.

Markos and Arianna must be annoyed with them. If they aren't, they should be.

Of course none of these people -- Markos, Arianna, Jane or Glenn -- are "leftists" in any rational world. They do not speak for the Left and never have, they have little or no understanding of what "Leftist" means, and in Markos's and Arianna's cases, they were Republicans who got religion when they found they could make money (lots of it if they wanted) as Lefties rather than the Reagan Republicans they used to be.

All of them are entrepreneurs running businesses, and their products, in addition to their own sweet selves, are their "communities." These communities are sometimes left-leaning, but they are generally left-leaning in the sense of being libertarians with something of a social conscious. That's about as far as they will go.

Since the anti-Kagan hysteria started in the lefty blogs, Glenn's profile in the media has grown substantially. Jane became a media fixture during the Health Care donnybrook, whereas Markos (who always looks and sounds like he's 14) is an old hand at speaking for the "left," and Arianna has been around since dirt was new and was opining and commentating on the air just as often years ago when she was still a Republican.

While Markos may be just as happy to turn over his "Lefty" mantle to somebody else, cause he's got other things to do, and Arianna will probably be on the air until Doomsday, Jane and Glenn are still fairly fresh faces and voices on the shows, and their hostility toward Obama and the Dems is quite the tonic for the bookers compared to the heavy-footed-ness of the Dem and White House spinners.

Gee, who'd a thunk it? Teh Left doesn't like Obama any more than Teh Right does. Hm. Wonders never cease.

The only problem is that Jane and Glenn (let alone Markos and Arianna) are NOT LEFTISTS.


To the extent they are ideological at all, they are libertarians, in Glenn's case, an extreme civil libertarian (a badge he wears proudly). Socialism, social democracy, social justice -- all characteristics of the Left in any rational world -- are all but irrelevant to them. They have very narrow, and frankly from all appearances, a very self-interested, political stance, and the panoply of Leftist interests and causes, political scut work and the rest of it, doesn't interest them.

Yet they are coming to be hailed as the Voices of the Left, and they are nothing of the kind.

However, they saw a vacant space, "unclaimed territory" as it were, and being clever and bold, they moved in. Why not?

There has been a vacuum in the leadership of the Left in this country for many years.

Democrats have never really been a Leftist party, and given the way our political and governmental systems work, they can't ever be. Power (and money) in the United States is very highly concentrated, becoming more so all the time, and both of the political parties serve power (and money) first and foremost. Neither is truly ideological, but each serves as a home-place for different kinds of people who are skilled at or like to wield power. The Republican Party tends to be the home-place for predators. The Democratic Party tends to be the home-place for managers and technocrats.

Social justice only enters the picture of either party to the extent it is seen to smooth the paths of predator-Republicans or technocrat-Democrats.

From a libertarian point of view, social justice is an oxymoron. It simply can't exist. "Justice" isn't "social." It's formal. Following the law -- as written -- is perforce Justice by definition. Anything else is fraud and cant.

But somehow libertarianism and particularly civil libertarianism became conflated with Teh Left in the minds of the TeeVee and radio bookers, and the Progressive mantle fell by default on up and coming libertarians.

Of course given the fact that Democrats aren't themselves Leftists, and they are largely inarticulate as hell, bumbling and stumbling and falling all over the furniture in public appearances where they have to speak, the default to Glenn and Jane (who are both usually very articulate) as spokespeople (and putative Leaders) for Teh Left might make sense if their critiques and public policy positions (I won't say ideology because I don't think either one has an ideology) weren't frequently indistinguishable from those of Republicans.

This has been painfully apparent in the hysteria over Elena Kagan's appointment to the Supreme Court. There are plenty of issues that could be raised about her appointment, but the real issue isn't her, it's the institutional rot that made her appointment "inevitable." Rather than deal with the rot and corruption that is at the root of the problem, nearly all the hysterical antagonism toward Kagan (from Teh Left) is focused on her "inadequacy" for the job, and this focus is identical to -- though far more furious than -- that of the Republicans.

And the hostility from Glenn, who is absolutely obsessed with Kagan, looks for all the world like any Republican smear-job of any Democratic nominee over the last half century. He's toned it down somewhat in the last few days after being called on his obsessiveness, conflations, and falsehoods, and how Republican it all seemed, but still. The issue is not her. It is the institutional rot and corruption from top to bottom that made her appointment inevitable.

For Jane's part, she's been pretty much declared "nuts," and only her fiercest loyalists (of which there are quite a few, to be sure) have been able to accept her joining up with the TeaBaggers and Grover Norquist. She has crossed a bridge too far for many liberals and progressives to follow so she is routinely denounced and struggled against. Glenn is getting very close to the same point. Markos and Arianna haven't gone there, not quite, but much of their Lefty cred, such as it is, leaves aside the economic aspects of anything that can rationally be called Leftism.

It would of course be better for actual Leftists to have a higher profile than they do, but their problem is that they're not "new."

I posted part of a manifesto on the Greek mess from the International Committee of the Fourth International, and for all its correct economic and political insight and fulminating demands, it comes across as something highly anachronistic. It is Real Leftism, though, from the source -- or one of them -- and it's almost a wonder that anyone can still think that way. Few Americans ever did.

So the libertarians get the Leftist mantle by default, because the Real Left is too alien and obscure? Or is it something else?

I guess we're just lucky the LaRouchians weren't selected by the media to be the mouthpieces for Teh Left.

Whew! That was close.