Think Humanely

Chris Hedges recently wrote a piece entitled, “Liberals are Useless.” I certainly have issues with Hedges and believe that he is prone to some pretty irrational thinking (see, for example, this debate with Sam Harris), but this article describes the deterioration of the so-called Left very well. Below are some excerpts from his article :

They [liberals] talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them.
. . .
Anyone who says he or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now undergoing—and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It, too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and arms industry.

This is a relatively well-reasoned argument, yes? Hedges makes a series of claims (e.g., liberals support anti-working class agendas and capitulate to Wall Street) and supports them with specific evidence. Apparently such intellectually honest argumentation has riled the feathers of one notable blogger, Blue Texan over at Firedoglake. In a classic example of a red herring, Blue Texan ignores all of the substantive points that Hedges makes and instead singles out and argues against a small point that has little to nothing to do with Hedges overall argument. Near the beginning of Hedge’s article, he writes that he voted for Nader and would have considered voting for Cynthia McKinney, two individuals whose progressive bona fides are far more established and legitimate than Obama’s. In response, Blue Texan writes

The notion that voting for Ralph Nader or an even more ridiculous figure like Cynthia McKinney is an effective strategy to move the country in a more progressive direction was thoroughly discredited by the 2000 election. The idea that Gore and Bush were pretty much the same was a common meme in lefty circles, and it turned out to be deeply misguided, to say the least.
Does Hedges really believe the country would look no different today if the Supreme Court hadn’t appointed Bush in 2000? Because I think he’s wrong.

Similarly, does anyone think John McCain would have overturned the Bush policy on stem cells, acknowledged the seriousness of climate change, spent a huge amount of political capital trying to reform health care, reversed Bush’s policies on labor, on the environment, or endangered species? Does anyone think John McCain would’ve nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court or signed the stimulus bill?

This is not to suggest that Obama’s unwillingness to confront the Pentagon and Wall Street haven’t been a disappointment. They have.

Just don’t tell me that a vote for Nader in ‘08, which was a vote for Palin, was the way to get a more progressive country.

Where does one begin? I’ll largely ignore the fact that the writer apparently thinks that Nader and McKinney are “ridiculous figures” – despite offering no rational for the ad hominem – and focus instead on the straw man he sets up when he writes, “Does Hedges really believe the country would look no different today if the Supreme Court hadn’t appointed Bush in 2000?” Does Hedges ever make that claim? No. Hedges is arguing that liberals preach one thing, but support something that is diametrically opposed to their supposed values. The fact that Obama isn’t as bad as McCain or that Gore wouldn’t have been as bad as Bush has no bearing on what Hedges wrote. Yes, it is likely that the country is better served with Obama as President rather than McCain. It is also likely that the country would be better served if a genuine liberal was President rather than Obama.

Now let’s look at some of the “accomplishments” that Blue Texan ascribes to Obama, as if these examples also disprove Hedges’ thesis.

‘Obama has acknowledged the seriousness of climate change.’ Wow! He doesn’t claim that the vast majority of the world’s scientists are wrong. That’s so amazing!. . . What has Obama done about it? Nothing significant.

‘Obama has spent political capital trying to reform health care.’ Right, because neither Nader nor McKinney would have tried this. And let’s not forget that the so-called reform that has been crafted under Obama’s leadership and the Democratic control of Congress is largely a corrupt, watered down bill that doesn’t do nearly enough to help the citizens of this country. Is it better than nothing? Yes. But it’s also a cash-cow for private insurance companies at the expense of Americans. It makes it arguably impossible for women to receive abortions. See my posts here , here , and here for more information on why this “reform” is nothing to be proud of.

Blue Texan points to Obama reversing some of Bush’s policies on the environment, labor, and endangered species. These are all fair points; however, it still isn’t clear how this refutes anything that Hedges writes. Is the barometer for what is and is not progressive and liberal simply not being as horrible as one of the worst presidents in the history of this country? If so, then I think that Blue Texan just proved Hedges right.

In fact, Blue Texan appears to represent the very condition that Glenn Greenwald wrote about earlier today. In his “My Friend the President” post, Greenwald argues that

What’s most striking about these valiant defenses of Obama is how utterly devoid they are of any substantive points and how, instead, suffuse with weird, even inappropriate, emotional attachments they are. These objections are grounded almost exclusively in (a) a deep-seated conviction that President Obama is a good and just man who means well; (b) their own rather intense upset at seeing him criticized; and (c) a spitting ad hominem fury of the type long directed by Bush followers at any critics of their leader, and generally typical of authoritarian attacks on out-groups critics.

Liberalism, and by this I mean the liberalism that is represented by the Democratic party, President Obama, and a wide range of pundits and writers, deserves Hedges scorn, disillusionment, and much more. Deriding those who shun Democrats in favor of voting for someone, who both in speech and in action, more accurately reflects his political values, Hedges is doing what any good citizen should: honestly expressing his vote. If enough “liberals” were to do this, it’s reasonable to assume that genuine progressives would find themselves in power, and the Democratic establishment would realize that they can no longer get away with being Republican-lite. But I guess this is just “ridiculous” and we should all be grateful that slightly less shitty politicians are in power. Yay democracy.