AMONG liberals, it’s almost universally assumed that of the two major parties, it’s the Republicans who have become more extreme over the years. That’s a self-flattering but false narrative.
This is not to say the Republican Party hasn’t become a more conservative party. It has. But in the last two decades the Democratic Party has moved substantially further to the left than the Republican Party has shifted to the right.
Wehner then goes on to argue with what amount to mostly social policies (gay rights!) and a few other cherry picked issues, to argue that Obama is substantially to Clinton’s left. (Not on immigration, executive power, non-identity-based civil liberties, assassination, and a number of other issues.) He also conflates conservatism with running surpluses (not in living memory), and so on, and ignores Obama’s help in bailing out the rich in an unprecedentedly massive way.
Or look at this beauty:
Those who insist that the Democratic Party’s march to the left carries no political risks might consider the fate of the British Labour Party earlier this month. Ed Miliband, its leader, ran hard to the left.
Miliband, of course, did no such thing. The SNP ran hard to the left, and swept Scotland. Labour ran slightly to the left of the Conservative party, and did terribly. What Wehner is doing is “creating” facts, attempting to move the major parties rightward, and not leftward.
But I’m not particularly interested in in debunking his ridiculous column; I simply want to note that it exists. This is the creation of the circle of acceptability, which is so vastly important in determining what parties are willing to do when they take power.
Read my earlier article on the British election for a more detailed analysis of how right-wing framing works, and how it is, now, beginning to fail the neo-liberals.
Neo-liberalism is successful because it is the only alternative to itself; there is no other option but neo-liberalism. Of course, you can choose between flavors of neo-liberalism (“How fast should we do this project?”, “How cruel should we be to poor people?”, and “How quickly should we divest the public sector and the population of their income and wealth and give it to the rich?”), but all you’re choosing between is how quickly the neo-liberal project (which includes austerity as its logical late form) will proceed.
Other than the process of how actual material circumstances turn into ideology, which then turns into action, nothing is as important as controlling the acceptable matrix of options.
What the Guardian is doing here is attempting to make sure that in response to its loss, Labor becomes even more right-wing, even more dedicated to neo-liberalism. One can equally and easily make the case that Labor was not left wing enough, and that’s why Scotland went SNP (which was more left-wing than Labor); and that’s why left-wing voters didn’t turn out to vote. But that’s not what The Guardian has chosen to do. The Guardian chose to put, on their front page, the assertion that Labor lost because it was not right-wing enough.
Note that most people read only headlines and that the most important headline is the one on the front page. Yes, The Guardian has published articles suggesting that labor wasn’t right-wing, but most people will never read those articles. In “journalism,” as in real estate, the three most important things are location, location, and location.
Do not think that The Guardian’s editors do not know this, or do not understand the consequences of what they are doing. This is their business, and they are good at their business. The conclusion which should be drawn, absent strong evidence otherwise, is that if they are taking an action likely to push Labor right, they know they are doing it, and they want to do it or they wouldn’t do it. (Since, again, writing the opposite article would be easy enough.)
These are glimmers: sparks and little more. But they and the rise of other third parties, including ones I would argue are failing (like Syriza), indicate that the establishment is losing control of the democratic process; their framing is not sufficient.
Given an opportunity to vote for what appears to be a real alternative to the status quo (as opposed to a fake alternative like Labor under Millibrand), many people are starting to do so. This isn’t limited to the left-wing, mind you. UKIP, the anti-immigrant, essentially-fascist party in the UK got over 10 percent of the vote.
In Scotland’s independence referendum, the young voted for independence–it was the pensioner class that kept Scotland in the union.
The winds are shifting, and opportunities are arising. Many people in the core nations know that their lives are getting worse, and they are looking for political options to change that. Note that many of them aren’t that fussy–as in the 1930s, this doesn’t have to head towards anything good. A man on horseback who promises jobs and security and to stop bailing out bankers could easily take power in many countries.
Nor is the time quite here yet for major change, I think. Give it five to ten years, for simple demographic reasons. The new generations must rise, the old generations must get older, and in many cases, die, in order for change to be possible beyond the margins.
Nothing lasts forever: no regime, no form of government, no ideology. Neo-liberalism has gone from middle-aged to old, but still clings to power with an iron gauntlet. But concealed beneath that gauntlet is a shaky hand.
The time is soon. The young, even most of the middle-aged, will see it. Whether that time leads to a better world, or a worse one, is yet to be determined. Pick your sides.
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The New York Times is beloved by many liberals, but I despise them. Part of my reason is their role in making the Iraq war happen. I was following it in real time and I remember how they pushed administration lies; the headlines of their articles on Iraq were almost always alarmist and the lead paragraphs were as well. Often enough, the truth would be buried in the equivalent of paragraph twelve.
For those not in the business, here’s the rule: Most people only read the headlines and you lose half of those actually reading past the headline incrementally per paragraph. Maybe the Times numbers are slightly better than that (probably because their headlines are truly atrocious and uninformative), but the rule is broadly true and few people are able to write long-form without losing their readers.
The Times is essentially reactionary. A look at their columnists and who they have chosen to be new columnists makes the point: Ross Douthat, the reactionary Catholic? David Brooks, master of the inane right wing observation?
I was reminded of this in the last few days by two articles listed at the very top of their daily newsletters:
… Israeli analysts are now suggesting that Mr. Obama and his aides might be overplaying their hand, inviting a backlash of sympathy for Mr. Netanyahu, and that they may not have clearly defined what they expected to gain diplomatically by continuing to pressure the Israeli leader.
Reading this sort of hagiography of evil men and nations is like taking a swig of sour milk: It induces a gag reflex.
A lot of people think the Times is in some way left wing because they have a lot of excellent long form arts and culture coverage, but they are also the newspaper which knew the US, under Bush II, was spying on its own citizens in a widespread way and buried the story because it might influence the election.
Journalists without any preference for right or left wing, might think that information about what the government is actually doing should influence the election. They might even think it was their job to reveal such information. Not the editors at the Times, however.
I suppose I’m slightly unfair to single out the Times; almost all American media is right wing and supine before power. But the NYT is the most important newspaper in the world–a newspaper with reach, power, and influence. A paper with clout enough to make other choices.
Instead it chooses to kneel before power, to be a courtier to power. In so doing, the Times implies to other journalists that their policies reflect actual journalism.
Enjoy the Times long form cultural pieces, by all means. But remember that they are past masters of propaganda, willing to spew out half-truths that conceal fundamental truths, such as the fact that ISIS is the spawn of Saudi Arabia and operates under a very similar a justice system. They’re also willing to spew outright lies like the idea that King Abdullah is some sort of reformer.
The Times makes the world a more dangerous place by lying. It’s just that simple. Every time journalists lie to millions about the actual state of the world, they degrade those people’s ability to make good decisions about the world, especially good political decisions about voting. Democracy, which puts power in ordinary people’s hands, requires an informed populace, which requires a media that does not knowingly distort facts or conceal unfortunate truths.
The American media, lead by the New York Times, has failed in that task, grossly, for decades. The blood of millions stains their hands and when the blame is apportioned for America’s decline, they shall have plenty for which to answer.
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During Operation Cast Lead, the last time Israel decided to concentrate a large number of war crimes into a short period by kicking the shit out of Gazans despite the fact that Palestinians offer exactly zero real military threat to Israel I wrote a lot about it, and received the strongest pushback of my writing life: rich donors don’t like it when you say bad things about Israel.
Simply put, for most news organizations, when Israel goes on a rampage, inflicting massively disproportionate collective punishment (a war crime), you have to make your bones. Ideally you should cover for Israel: make excuses or slant coverage. Of course the Post mentions that many more Palestinians are being killed by Israel than vice-versa; and of course the Washington Post will get around to mentioning the number of children killed
But the Washington Post editors know what all news editors know: about half the audience only reads the headlines. Half of the remaining audience reads only the first paragraph. If you don’t get around to mentioning inconvenient facts until later, most people will never read them. You can feel virtuous “we covered that”, while being a propaganda outlet at the same time.
As with a lot of topics, writing about Israeli war crimes endangers your career. The publishers and editors don’t want to hear; powerful politicians don’t want to read it. Those who wrote against the Iraq war tended to get demoted or lose their jobs. It’s not so bad for Israel and Palestine, of course: if you’re the sort of person who might write such articles, you’ll never make it to a position to write those articles.
Oh, to be sure, there are exceptions, and there are more in Britain than in the US. But they are exceptions.
Writing about Israel and just noting the facts even handedly (starting with the higher casualty numbers, say), if you’re career minded, or just want to be able to feed your family, is a bad move. It’s just not worth it.
According to 59% of the respondents, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis died as a result of the war.
This is similar to the fact that on the eve of the Iraq war, 70% of Americans thought that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
The information problem, that people believe what they hear repeated, and the way it interacts with our media system is another problem we’re going to have to tackle if we want a long cycle of prosperity after this cycle ends.
Newspapers don’t make much money any more (though in the 90s they made returns in the teens regularly.) What they do still have, though, is influence and power. Even though newspapers don’t have the reach television does, they determine the stories of the day—they control the news cycle more than any other part of the media. More than that, newspapers are intelligence bureaus. Rupert Murdoch, no fool, would spend hours on the phone with beat reporters, picking their brains.
Power leads to money. Amazon is under what Bezos must consider attack (as in making Amazon pay sales taxes), and he needs influence, power and intelligence in DC. The Washington Post, at 250 million, is an absolute steal, even if it loses money every day.
Sound is much better on this one than the last one, and speech from me is clear though there are some issues with the sound from the interviewer. I think this one is definitely worth a listen.
