Stanley Aronowitz - Left Turn: Forging a New Political Future

LEFT TURN

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Edited by Henry A. Giroux and Stanley Aronowitz

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LEFT TURN

Forging a New Political Future

STANLEY ARONOWITZ

First published 2006 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Aronowitz, Stanley.

Left Turn : forging a new political future / by Stanley Aronowitz.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-310-7 (hc)

ISBN-10: 1-59451-310-4 (hc)

ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-311-4 (pb)

ISBN-10: 1-59451-311-2 (pb)

1. LiberalismUnited States. 2. United StatesPolitics and government2001 3. Political planningUnited States. 4. United StatesSocial policy1993 5. DemocracyUnited States. I. Title.

JC574.2.U6A76 2006

320.51'30973dc22

2006015116

Designed and Typeset in ITC Bookman Light by Straight Creek Bookmakers.

ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-310-7 (hbk)

ISBN 13 : 978-1-59451-311-4 (pbk)

Contents

I write at a moment of danger and bewilderment. The elusive and secretive U.S. vice president accidentally shoots a supporter, some say while under the influence. The incident occurs in February 2006 on a 50,000acre Texas ranch that has been groomed for hunting and, as Bill Moyers laments, is just one instance of the wealthys squandering of wildlife, amid other environmental disasters created by their efforts to preserve their playgrounds. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle condemn President Bush for his unauthorized use of executive powers to spy on American citizens; but there seem to be no consequences for a president whose candidacy for impeachment is eminently plausibleexcept to members of his own party who value loyalty over principle, and to members of the other party who compulsively place the value of their political survival over that of the constitution. A year since the apocalyptic effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans remains bereft, with only 160,000 residents, mostly in the affluent French quarter; the rest of the population dwells uncomfortably in the diaspora, having been threatened by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with eviction from hotels and other temporary quarters. At the same time, almost unnoticed by the media, tens of thousands of people along the Gulf Coast have yet to recover from the effects of Hurricane Ritas assault on their homes and their lives. Meanwhile, Iraq teeters on the edge of civil war following the bombing of a sacred Shiite mosque, the publicized evidence of wholesale corruption by the newly elected government leaders, and the obdurate refusal of the Bush administration to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. Even as once-resolute hawks urge the administration to get out as soon as possible, Bush confidently declares that he can see the light at the end of the tunnel after more than three disastrous years of US and British military occupation.

We are witnessing the palpable disintegration of our national government, which seems unable to accomplish anything other than forcing through Congress the selection of two ultra-right-wing Supreme Court justices and a succession of huge military-laden budgets that starve the remnants of programs for the aged and the poor in America. The administration has also managed to accumulate unprecedented deficits resulting largely from humongous military expenditures and tax gifts to the richgifts that have secured the silence of many at the commanding heights of the economy who would otherwise be screaming about deficits and the unwarranted costs of an unadvisable war. Make no mistake: Bush is no conservative when it comes to federal intervention. His spending proposals would make any Democratic president since Roosevelt appear conservative by comparison. And with his record of meddling into the private lives of American citizens, he is the most authoritarian president since John Adams. In characteristic fashion the administration has misspent funds on disaster relief that seems to benefit only the White Houses corporate friends and the politically connected such as Mississippi governor and former Republican national committee chair Haley Barbour. All this at a time when the putative opposition, the Democratic Party (DP), remains deeply ambivalent about the provision of social welfare, divided on the need to end the war in Iraq, and in conflict about whether to offer more than a token of resistance to a runaway executives flagrant trampling of our civil liberties. For example, Senator Russell Feingold, long-time opponent of the Patriot Act, was able to round up only nine other votes against its reauthorization. For the remainder of the thirty-five Democrats in the Senate, digression was the better part of valor.

Of course the Democrats benefit from the widespread perception that, however callow their approaches to foreign policy and to domestic social and economic issues, their record and perspectives on race and religion are discernibly different from the GOP, which now seems joined at the hip with religious fundamentalism and has rigorously pursued racist policies. In addition, the administration has successfully sought draconian cuts in social programs that heavily benefit blacks and Latinos, and has adopted an education policy that, despite its announced intention to equalize opportunity, has widened the gap between rich and poor.

The Democrats were far less flagrant in their contempt for immigrants and Americas racial and ethnic minorities than the Republicans for whom racism is red meat. It is true that, in the wake of the mass black freedom movements confrontations, Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting and Civil Rights acts, a gesture that signed away his partys national future for forty years. Thereafter, only a cautious and conservative candidate from the South was able to win a national election. Jimmy Carter, the first Democrat to occupy the White House after Johnsons departure, was a former Georgia governor. While his post-presidential role in world politics has often been exemplary, he was arguably the first neoliberal president, and his domestic agenda may have been partially responsible for the current plight of millions of Americans who have experienced plunging living standards and economic insecurity. Bill Clinton, in turn, cultivated a warm relationship with the black church and the civil rights establishment; he regularly accepted invitations to speak at black institutions and felt the pain of the assembled, while adhering to a neoliberal agenda of cuts in social spending and a foreign policy that, in many ways, foreshadowed that of the Bush administration. To the extent that symbolic politics is important, Clinton had an almost flawless talent for the genre. Yet, remember that it was Bill Clinton who signed the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which restricted income support and forced millions to accept dead-end, below-poverty-level jobs in order to maintain their benefitsan outcome onerous to its white, black, and Latino victims. The Democrats do not enjoy the confidence of the fundamentalist Christian organizations because they are shamefacedly pro-abortion and, for the most part, do not oppose gay rights. But lest we forget, no Democratic president since Jimmy Carter has failed to proclaim that he is born again, to attend church regularly, and to agree that religion is the bedrock of American values.