Forum Post: Broken Shards of My Heart: The US in Decline by David Michael Green
Posted 12 years ago on June 9, 2012, 12:01 p.m. EST by PeterKropotkin
(1050)
from Oakland, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I could tell you that my heart was broken by what happened in Wisconsin this week, but in truth that’s not quite accurate. The Corporate America Flag on the Lincoln Memorial (Image source: adbusters)
I grew into political awareness and maturity in the middle of the 1970s. For people my age, then, our entire adult lives have been one long witness to the dismantling of that which we grew up taking for granted as a foundation for any further progress that might come. We lived in the relatively egalitarian country of the New Deal and the Great Society, with its robust middle class and a measure of earnest compassion for the poor. Today, that seems like a foreign country, if not a remote planet.
Over the course of our adult lives:
We watched in shock and horror as the country turned to a Hollywood washout, who was literally a national joke candidate five years earlier, and made him president, following him down every path of joyful self-destruction and absurd deceit.
Our jaws dropped in the 1990s at the visage of New Gingrich, the most overtly petulant and destructive piece of self-loathing to ever occupy a human body, as he was elevated to the highest position in the United States Congress, and pioneered the basest politics and the shattering of our government that remains our inheritance today. As if that weren’t shameful enough, at the same time Gingrich’s buddy down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue was destroying the meaning of the Democratic Party, aping the Republican sell-out to corporate thieves and the abandonment of the public interest – especially the poor, the first to be thrown under the bus.
And, despite the fact Bill Clinton deserves to rot in hell for the damage he did in exchange for his personal joyride in the White House, we were nevertheless forced to watch in horror the relentless and destructive lunacy of the president’s impeachment for the high crime of lying about a blow-job.
We had to endure the travesty of Bush versus Gore, one of the most egregious tramplings of democratic practice imaginable, then watch the sickening product of that judicial rape: the swaggering wars based on lies, the torture, the doubling of the national debt, the environmental depredations, the economic melt-down, and the raison-d’etre for it all: the radical shifting of wealth from the 300 million of us to the one-tenth of one percent who own everything in sight.
Perhaps most emotionally devastating of all – Et tu, Brute? – we’ve suffered the betrayal these last years of another Democratic sell-out, a supposedly liberal-if-not-socialist president actually so conservative and so sold-out that he couldn’t even bear to pursue his own personal interest sufficiently to produce a successful presidency, but has rather continued and amplified the worst characteristics of the open sore that was the Bush presidency, even in the midst of crisis opportunities not seen since the 1930s.
Read the rest of this powerful article here. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/09
I doubt many want to read; they still want to cling to their corroded vision of America the beautiful completely ignoring the fascist nation in which they live.
I'm almost to the point were I think it will have to get a lot worse before it gets better. I hate to be that way because it will be worse for me and my family but that may be what has to happen. Either way I believe the unions in this country are about finished.
I live here, too. That's the bad part of watching this whole part of the American saga unfold.
The real question is with what will the American workers be left.
.
Sometimes I feel pretty nihilistic about it. Some times I don't even think the workers care what will be left of them.
They probably don't; have been too well indoctrinated. Gramsci was right. Cultural hegemony has most Americans believing this is exactly the way things should be.
I'm sure this is a silly question but are you familiar with Richard Wolff?
http://rdwolff.com/
Yes, I have heard of him and read a couple of his essays, but none of his books. Several of my friends tell me he is the American Marxian economist.
I'm not a close follower of Marx but I think its worth a look. I enjoy his podcasts. Check it out sometime
Thanks, I will. You may want to read a little Marx and Engels, though I wouldn't recommend Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto, unless you want to spend a long time reading and rereading. Find a few essays by both then some critiques and analyses.
Actually I've read both of those books but that was a long time ago. Marxism just seems very formulaic and ridged to me but I still feel like its worth studying every now and then.
If you've braved Pamplona once, let me suggest you run with the bulls again. Put less metaphorically, try Kapital a second time. You may see how accurate Marx's breakdown of the capitalist system really is.
Yeah it was pretty hard for me to absorb. I think I was 17 when I read it the first time I may give it another shot some time soon. My critisism or Marx isnt in his critisizim of capitalisim but in his prescription of what to do about it. I think that seizing the state is a mistake and leads to a new class structure of technocrats and everybody else.
Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, and others were heavily influenced by the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871. They blamed the failure on the anarchist reluctance to immediately form a central authority. In fact that was when anarchists and socialists split and traveled in different directions though they both had the same goal in sight. After that, Marxists gravitated toward establishing an immediate, strong central government at the moment of revolutionary success.
In Russia they followed that blueprint. If Lenin had lived, or Trotsky had succeeded Lenin, the USSR might have been established as a true socialist state. Unfortunately, as Trotsky lamented in exile, Stalin was a supreme bureaucrat and ruthless authoritarian.
As you noted, and has been proven historically, the establishment of a strong, central authority immediately leads to a new class division.
That may explain why I call myself an anarcho-communist or libertarian-communist. I assume the latter sounds less menacing than the former, but your namesake, Piotr, was my first heavy reading in anarcho-communism.
I didn't know that the paris commune influenced them in that way and I imagine it may have influenced me in that way as well without being aware of what the soviet union would become.
I started out with Marx when I was a kid and then went on to discover Chomsky which brought me to people like Kropotkin. To be honest I really havent read that much of Kropotkins stuff. The only thing I am familiar with is his writings on mutual aid in evolution. I just chose the handle because I lean towards that school of thought. What do you think the differences between liberatarian socialisim and anarcho communisim?
I don't imagine there is much difference, unless you insist on the fine line between socialism and communism, which Marx and Engels didn't really make. They believed the whole process was evolutionary once the proletariat revolted.
Yes it appears he was right. I'll have to look up Gramsci I'm not that familiar with his writings but I looked it up after you mentioned him and it looks pretty interesting thanks for the heads up.
Very well written. I agree mostly with what you said. Where I strongly diverge is blaming Obama for the mess, as if we don't realize the railing from the right ever since he became POTUS. The GOP has hog tied him at every turn and has effectively the rendered the congress useless. The minority controls the majority through their use of dirty indefensible tactics.
The problem is, those who elected Obama went back to sleep after the election, they did not put a strong wind at his back. Then we witnessed the Tea Party fiasco which you failed to mention what so ever. Don't they play a factor into this game of blaming? Didn't they screw us with their candidates who want to turn back progress in this country 50 years or more. They came in riding on a mountain of anger and vitriol in 2010. And of course, let's not blame the apathetic voting public who complain much but many don't even bother to vote.
There's a duality in there somewhere. But, I could ONLY wish that people would pay more attention and reject the lies. But, as reality haves it, most wouldn't the truth that doesn't fit their narrative even if it hit through the center of the eyes and killed them dead on the spot.
But, HEY, let's go on let's blame everyone but ourselves it certainly fits our human natures perfectly. Personally, I come from a space of understanding, my ego doesn't over run me as it would love to, and I try to be effective as possible in awakening people to the real world outside our window and not just in someone's head.
Good Luck, and, again, excellent post, you covered some good ground. We need to provide truth so people can see and decide for themselves. As I will always believe the truth stands on it's own. We need to recognize it by it's evidence and we never have to prop it. It does it's own magic when others see it. SO we just get it out there as much as possible. Your help is always needed, we're falling behind constantly.
The Puzzler
You obama supporters are straight hopless.
Alternate Link to the forum posted article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31540.htm .
"The public be suckered" is the basic shortfall. See here: http://homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/RHandRD.html
Gingrich understands the power of language. Several years ago people started throwing ideological words out there like hot potatoes; socialist, liberal, communist, etc.... That was all Gingrich's plan. Gingrich and many other's would rather talk about the meaning of these words than get anything done. Their plan is working.
GORDON GEKKO FOR PRESIDENT? What if we elected Mitt Romney for president? Interesting parallels here. Is there even a difference in D and R administration? Why are we fascinated by villains and their corrupting money? I saw a recent blog on Richvillains.com that suggests we may trade actually the current administration in for someone who has buckets of money and lots of friends in Wall street. Must read.