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The
World Liberals Made
by Chris Hedges
The lunatic fringe of the
Republican Party, which looks set to make sweeping gains in the midterm
elections,
is the direct result of a collapse of liberalism. It is the product of
bankrupt liberal institutions, including the press,
the church, universities, labor unions, the arts and the Democratic
Party. The legitimate rage being expressed by
disenfranchised workers toward the college-educated liberal elite, who
abetted or did nothing to halt the corporate
assault on the poor and the working class of the last 30 years, is not
misplaced.
The liberal class is guilty. The
liberal class, which continues to speak in the prim and obsolete
language of policies
and issues, refused to act. It failed to defend traditional liberal
values during the long night of corporate assault in
exchange for its position of privilege and comfort in the corporate
state. The virulent right-wing backlash we now
experience is an expression of the liberal class’ flagrant betrayal of
the citizenry.
The liberal class, which once made piecemeal and incremental reform
possible, functioned traditionally as a safety valve.
During the Great Depression, with the collapse of capitalism, it made
possible the New Deal. During the turmoil of the
1960s, it provided legitimate channels within the system to express the
discontent of African-Americans and the
anti-war movement. But the liberal class, in our age of neo-feudalism,
is now powerless. It offers nothing but
empty rhetoric. It refuses to concede that power has been wrested so
efficiently from the hands of citizens by
corporations that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal
liberty are irrelevant. It does not act to mitigate
the suffering of tens of millions of Americans who now make up a
growing and desperate permanent underclass.
And the disparity between the
rhetoric of liberal values and the rapacious system of inverted
totalitarianism
the liberal class serves makes liberal elites, including Barack Obama,
a legitimate source of public ridicule.
The liberal class, whether in universities, the press or the Democratic
Party, insists on clinging to its privileges
and comforts even if this forces it to serve as an apologist for the
expanding cruelty and exploitation carried out
by the corporate state.
But wouldn't the Democratic Party be Problem Number One?
Today's Democrats are always helpless and powerless.
No matter who has the White House and no matter who controls congress,
Republican senators are the only ones using their power to stop the
other side.
When Bush was raping the
Constitution and getting 5,000 soldiers killed,
Democratic senators assured us
there was no way possible to stop him.
Yet Obama's hands are tied every
time he turns around.