Wednesday, February 02, 2011
David Frum asks: (emp add) Why Aren’t The Unemployed Protesting Here?
Jon Stewart has some fun with Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck who worry that “we might become Egypt.” Yes silly obviously. But behind the silliness is a serious question: Isn’t the most remarkable thing about the US in 2011 precisely the absence of protest by the unemployed and foreclosed? Here we’ve gone through the most protracted economic crisis since World War II – in many ways the most severe crisis – a crisis directly attributable to terrible business decisions supported by government policies bought-and-paid-for by powerful financial interests – a crisis out of which so many of the authors have escaped unscathed (unlike say 1929-33) and indeed richer than before. And yet … the only populist movement the country has seen is a movement of the right, in defense of the existing rules and arrangements? I can think of many explanations, and yet at a deeper level I remain baffled. I expected otherwise. Good question. I have no idea. The bolded text (above) sounds pretty leftists. What's with Frum these days?
posted by Quiddity at 2/02/2011 08:22:00 PM
10 comments
My theory is that regular folks have been deprived of a class struggle sort of language for over 60 years, since the start of the Cold War.
Only intellectuals like Frum are even aware of it, and Frum has eyes and sees the cause of the economic wreckage in this nation.
The only way people express their anger is through the right wing. That is really sad, and it is dangerous for our commonweal.
People aren't out in the streets because they are too busy trying to hold what's left of their lives together and because they know the corporate media would never cover it even if they did shut down a city or two.
We had a mass protest on November 2nd.
The social safety net provided by unemployment insurance. It's not great money but it lessens the need to riot.
The left had the worst thing happen to them that could possibly happen -- they got everything they wanted. They made their bed on election day, and now they have to sleep in it. Obama led his followers into the promised land of progressivism, and it turns out that the promised land completely sucks ass. Surprise, surprise.
The Obama/Reed/Pelosi Congress was the most liberal/left/socialist government that the United States has seen in generations, and so far its legacy is grinding poverty, exploding debt, real unemployment in the 20% range for everyone, and much worse for young people, and a major ongoing legislative disaster with the health care bill, which is NOT growing more popular as people discover what's in it, and is virtually designed to drive the population into the hands of the Republicans in the 2012 election cycle as the various provisions start to kick in and people start losing their insurance left and right and start having kitchen table discussions about having to give up their home in order to pay for their Obamacare premiums, or even to pay the penalty for being uninsured, because they can't afford both. You may not see it, but having Obamacare struck down in its entirety right now is a huge gift to the Democrats in 2012.
What would the left achieve by protests? They have nowhere to go. The left reached a high water mark with the election of Obama, and is now ebbing. They know it. The left is losing elections. It lost 26 state legislative bodies in the midterms. It has lost the independent center, and the new generation of young Americans who voted for Obama are less than impressed with the results of their votes. They were promised that the bad old days of the Bush administration were over, and things would get better, but things have just gotten worse.
So what would be the point of protests? What would young people be protesting for? What would they want in place of Barack Obama, or more accurately, what could they possibly get? The Tea Partiers know exactly what they want, and they are willing to put Republican congressmen's feet to the fire to get it. The leftists who want to drive the country further left into card check, single-payer, and beyond are becoming fewer, farther between, and more marginalized, and independents aren't really down with those things. They aren't into unions, and they like their health insurance just the way it is.
The last two years of Democratic rule have created a new American Dream. The new American Dream is a steady job that pays the bills and reduces family debt. Americans take crappy jobs and work and work, because they want to protect their children from having to grow up in an impoverished, failed America that was the result of their indulgence in a socialist government that promised them the world for free, but, as always, delivered the usual unbroken record of poverty and failure.
It's hard to get people into the streets to protest for their dreams when their dreams have already come true, and lie in ruins by their own fault.
Well, even by the worst estimates, our unemployment rate is still less than half what it is in most of North Africa.
Plus we have air conditioning.
Oh and there's two feet of snow on the ground outside.
jms misspoke. He meant to write that conservatives have added nothing to what is great about this country. Nothing. This country was founded by liberals who hated the conservative British monarchy, and and who were skeptical of religious institutions. Everything that is great about this country is the product of liberalism. Everything. On the other hand, everything that sucks about this country is loved by conservatives. jms also meant to apologize for George Bush leading us to the brink of the second great depression while giving huge tax breaks to billionaires.
jms blithered,The Obama/Reed/Pelosi Congress was the most liberal/left/socialist government that the United States has seen in generations....
LOL. Obama and Reed are at best centrists, Pelosi center/left.
...and so far its legacy is grinding poverty, exploding debt, real unemployment in the 20% range for everyone, and much worse for young people...
Yeah, Obama caused the Great Crash.
Christ, you're an idiot.
he's canadian.
the irredeemably deluded crazies are homegrown.
maybe it's chauvinistic smugness. canada has a wonderful banking record. rated "world's soundest banking system."
why is that? because they believe in strong, common sense regulation. they're not infected with that "big government is evil" BS.
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