Rendell Speaks Truth to Power
Aug 24th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 8 Comments |
Evidently Ed Rendell said the media’s “coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing” in front of the big news hosts themselves.
And evidently he took on (MS)NBC specifically, essentially to Brokaw’s face.
The only time I’ve watched MSNBC was with the Grandparents during our recent “vacation.”
The entire “panel” of commentators that host David Gregory had on were progressives. The “token conservative panelist” was Gregory himself, reading quotations from conservatives.
In other words, in that context, conservative views were not being taken seriously.
(When a progressive like Gregory reads a quotation from a conservative, the sense it has is, “The person who is now speaking is not only not actually making these claims, but in fact disagrees with them.)
(So conservative viewpoints not only didn’t enter the arena [they were merely reported from a distance] but were presented as something no one present was taking seriously, and therefore as something no one present needed to take seriously.)
(Don’t tell me they don’t understand “group dynamics,” and therefore didn’t know exactly what they were doing, either.)
Which is cool, so long as you don’t claim to be balanced.
Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re all comment, no news.
And therein lies the crux of American political confusion: a lack of perspective. And I don’t mean inadequate representation of “different enough” points-of-view. I’m talking about throwing around signifiers and positions on political spectrums without any kind of consistent, absolute definition or context.
I qualify myself as left-wing; in Canada, everyone could guess - with reasonable accuracy - for whom I vote (the NDP) and where I stand on various issues. But in America, I was lumped in with whom I considered to be a bunch of spineless identity-politicos & apologists for occidental military-economic hegemony. But advertise yourself as a Marxist in the States, and people will confuse you with a Fascist and/or assume you never got out of your student slacktivist phase.
Similarly, people who could be prosecuted in other western nations for inciting violence (Limbaugh, Coulter, O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Zell Miller, etc.) are somehow considered to be part of the mainstream political conversation, instead of the reactionary xenophobes & pseudo-fascists they are.
I always try to be very careful about any ideological labels I use, sticking as close to dictionary, academic definitions as possible. Even “popular use” definitions carry some propagandistic taint (e.g. “liberal” in the ’90s, “neo-cons” in the ’00s). But because people insist on using loaded terms (while neither allowing people to self-define, nor with any reference to the term in an international context), confusion reigns supreme.
Calling David Gregory a “progressive” is a bit like calling Giuliani a “Trotskyist” - a few leagues too far to the left, not only in globally-relative terms but also with regard to the position of genuine American progressives. And saying that the conservative point of view isn’t taken seriously in the American media is a bit like saying white people are underrepresented in British parliament: they are so definitional of the very social reality that their representation is implicit. (Nevermind the respectful silence the MSM has maintained on the ever-growing list of ways McCain has embarrassed himself - which, in turn, is as much an embarrassment to the media as the messianic tone in which they refer to Obama.)
But advertise yourself as a Marxist in the States, and people will confuse you with a Fascist and/or assume you never got out of your student slacktivist phase.
This should hardly surprise you. Marxism in practice has always been fascist. In theory, Marxism has serious problems which nobody has been able to resolve. The labor theory of value is clearly false, undermining most of Marx’s theoretical concepts and nobody has made a serious reconstruction of Marxism using the marginal utility theory of value instead. (Oskar Lange tried, but what he came up with can scarcely be called Marxism any more.)
Moreover, Marxism’s predictions have all failed to come true. This was a problem even in the time of Lenin. Lenin tried to explain the failures of Marxism’s predictions through his “imperialism” theory. However, even a cursory glance at the empirical evidence shows this to be false. The imperialist countries had always invested most, not in the countries they were supposedly exploiting, but in each other. With the exception of India (which made a small profit), Britain’s colonies were net losers for Britain; colonialism is, usually, very expensive. I know of no major economist, in any country (including China), who remains Marxist in outlook though you could probably find me a Cuban.
Leaving aside the economics, Marxism may be an interesting approach to history, but it seems rather limiting. Is it really the case that class struggle is the only lens by which we should view history? Various Marxist theories about history appear to be false (e.g. civil wars are not always caused by widening gaps between rich and poor and the disappearance of a middle class - most revolutions are led by the middle classes). And I think a great many chapters in history simply cannot be understood if “class struggle” is the only lens you have. This doesn’t falsify Marxism, because Marxism as a theory about history is unfalsifiable.
Marxism then, like Freudianism, is either unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific or falsifiable and falsified. I lean towards the latter, but I realize a great many student slacktivists lean towards the former.
Well, we’ve thoroughly hijacked this thread already, so why not continue?
I believe I mentioned this during our conversation RE: Reagan, but to be specific, I actually qualify myself as a lapsed Marxist, which is basically the same as being a lapsed Catholic: you go to church because you love the architecture and the lip-service to some universal solidarity, but suffer from the gnawing suspicion that it’s all hokum.
Many Marxists live in the nebulous hypothetical of If Only: if only there’d been greater solidarity amongst the striking UK shipbuilders in the late ’70s; if only the Soviets hadn’t run the tanks into Prague in ‘68; if only Stalin blah blah blah… There’s a never-ending supply of excuses for every instance that could be used to falsify the theory, I’ll agree.
But the gulf between theory & practice for the so-called “free market” is equally wide. Be it a corporate state (with “gov’t oversight”) divided by competing sects, or a democratically-mitigated feudalism, or a militarily-enforced Ponzi scheme on a national level - these embodiments of the Free Market are as compromised and centrally-governed as any of the totalitarian regimes masquerading as Communist states. Though the damage wrought by capitalist oligarchies has been far slower-burning and less spectacular than any Stalinist pogrom, there is absolutely as much blood (arguably more) on the hands of the “free market” as of Marxism. But to get into some trainspotters’ statistical grudge match over who is responsible for however many deaths is, I think, lowering our standard for “good government” a bit too much.
Interestingly, there were almost laboratory perfect experiments between the free market (as it is practiced in the West - as you point out, no country actually has a completely free market) and Marxism (as practiced by the Soviet/Chinese puppet regimes - we will again concede that neither model is perfect Marxism). Those experiments were East Germany/West Germany, North Korea/South Korea, and arguably Hong Kong/China. In each one of these experiments, the regimes in question started with similar resources and similar, if not identical, cultures. There was, of course, outside interference, but then the U.S./U.S.S.R. were fairly well-matched as well as any resource map would indicate. (The U.S. was simply better at exploiting its resources and building wealth with them.) I will leave the results of these experiments for you to interpret. (Hint: the Berlin Wall wasn’t built to keep the West Berliners out.)
Though the damage wrought by capitalist oligarchies has been far slower-burning and less spectacular than any Stalinist pogrom, there is absolutely as much blood (arguably more) on the hands of the “free market” as of Marxism.
This appears to be completely false, a mere assertion without evidence. Any “statistical grudge match” with any kind of intellectual honesty would be forced to conclude that Marxism caused vastly more premature deaths than capitalism ever has. I can only assume that your claim is going to be that capitalist countries cause life expectancies to fall somehow, since a mere body count won’t even get you close. I don’t see how even this can be sustained. The top life expectancies in the world are: Japan, Hong Kong, Iceland, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, Sweden, Israel, Macau, France, and Canada, all free market countries. Cuba, the Communist paradise, is tied with the United States (whose unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits are, indeed, arguably the result of capitalism), assuming we believe Castro’s statistics.
But to get into some trainspotters’ statistical grudge match over who is responsible for however many deaths is, I think, lowering our standard for “good government” a bit too much.
I disagree here, as well. Governments throughout history have been slaughtering people and have rarely done a whole lot of good for the common man. I think it is quite appropriate to measure how good a government is by how few people it gratuitously slaughters. Indeed, it seems like this is the most important measure. Otherwise, we’re left measuring it against some utopia that somebody made up in their head.
Response forthcoming and shall be linked to in due course, sir!
Just in case you missed it, Mr. Stevens, the response is up; it also incorporates the debate about the recession.
I had missed it. Thanks for mentioning it. I’m sure I can summon up a reply some time soon (but it is the working week, so it might take a bit).
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