Death of the Liberal Class Paperback – 15 Dec 2011

The term "must read" is admittedly overused and abused. Not so with this recommendation because this is a book that will advance the debate we are having as a country about who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going. Additionally, in the interest of complete disclosure - I am a huge fan of Chris Hedges' work - even though I do not agree all of the time with his points of view - his work is always well written, well researched, and very well presented. No difference here.

His fundamental premise is compelling and enlightening. He argues that the "real division in America today is not between Democrats and Republicans, but between average citizens and the corporate and financial elite...." If you are like me, you have been dismayed at the breakdown in our political rhetoric over the last 20 years; you have been depressed by the hostility and vitriol that marks the "debate" about politics; you despair at the prospect that the logical conclusion is that there is no "solution" at the end of the road. For my team to win this game - your side must lose. The old saying that "politics is the art of compromise" seems to have gone right out the window.

Although I have not finished the book I have read enough to understand what Hedges is doing and (I think) where he is going. His argument resonates with me because although I voted for Obama I am one of those who have been very disappointed with the gulf between what he promised and what he is doing. His campaign rhetoric energized me (and perhaps millions of others) with the promise that "change" was coming but he lied - giving proof to the sad truth that there is not really a "dimes worth of difference" between the political parties.

Hedges gives us an answer to why this is happening. Our leaders our serving their masters - the problem is that those masters are not the people of this country - they are the corporate interests who now are the ones who get what they need and want from the government. When Hedges writes about the economic collapse and the ensuing "relief" bestowed on wall st. and various corporations while people get slammed I am outraged - again. His "promise" that wall st. bail-outs and reform would unlock lending to kick start the economic engine that is the American people - he flat out lied. The bail-out happened. The lending did not. Obama does not seem to care about it. The Dems don't care about it. The R's don't care about it. And Americans are increasingly and justifiably outraged at the abuse.

You can imagine that the rage behind the tea-party is really only the beginning of what is to come as a result of our discovery that "the emperor has no clothes." The R's are naive to believe that the tea-party is a good thing for them. As Hedges eloquently observes - this is not about D's and R's. It is about something much more fundamental.

Read this book. Learn this perspective. You will be a better citizen for the effort. Ultimately we will be a better country as a result.

I have read most of Hedges' books, and he is easily my favorite political/cultural writer. But this book is also his darkest to date. I've given it five stars, mostly because I still believe that what Hedges has to say is worth reading, now more than ever.

That said, the book comes off rather as a hissy fit against the now-impotent liberal class which, in Hedges' opinion, has utterly failed to live up to its moral principles. And he's right. Since the world's ruling uber-class is interested only in acquiring more and more wealth and power, Hedges believes that all we have to look forward to at this point in human history is eventual economic and environmental devastation. To allay the inevitable sense of utter hopelessness, however, Hedges leaves us one redeeming moral act: civil disobedience and resistance. While admitting that this path will almost certainly lead to self-destruction of those who choose it, Hedges implies that it would at least give us the satisfaction that we will have done our moral duty. Shades of Immanuel Kant, indeed.

Chris Hedges, who left seminary and social work to become a war correspondent and political writer, is a truly moral and compassionate man, perhaps the only one of his kind left on the political scene. My advice, however, is that you read the last chapter of this book first, "Rebellion." If you can stomach that without feeling totally hopeless, then go back and read the rest of the book to see why Hedges has come to the worldview that he now feels compelled to unveil to us. It's pretty bleak, and I can only wonder if this will be his last book, as I cannot for the life of me think of what else he has left to say about the probable fate of our world.

Chris Hedges is a regular contributor to the Truth Dig blog and I have always enjoyed his commentaries, so I just finished reading Death of the Liberal Class. As a progressive/liberal I found this book to be very depressing, because Hedges makes us confront the obvious: the corporatists have won. Our real enemies are no longer Fox News or any other conservative outlet. The enemy is ourselves or to be more correct, what passes for liberal leadership in the United States. Basically the liberal class has sold out. They no longer represent the downtrodden. They represent the elite viewpoints of those who have progressive values but who could care less about helping others to the degree that was done in the 1930's. Liberals today identify as much with the wealthy as do the conservatives. At least that is what Chris Hedges thinks and he has built a strong case in his book. He doesn't think very highly of Bill Clinton who identified very heavily with corporate interests. Barack Obama is preoccupied with his own power and prestige. When the President was asked who he admired in the business world he cited Fred Smith the CEO of FedEx who was a notorious union buster and a key contributor to the Republican party. Your could argue with the pessimissm of Mr. Hedges but you would have a hard time marshalling the facts to counteract his assertions. Because if we take an honest look at the progressive movement in this country, it has been going down hill for at least the last three decades. And Mr. Hedges claims it is only going to get worse as we ignore the dangers of climate change and as the gap between haves and have not's widens. We are in for more wars as the rich try to protect their gains and getting the lower classes to fight their wars for them. Hedges seems to think at some point we will need to man the ramparts to fight against the corporate tyranny or we will die a slow death anyway. The belief that science will come to our rescue and save us from climate change will be our ultimate undoing. As it dawns on the corporatists that there is nothing left to grab off to add to their bank accounts they will hit the panic button and try to save themselves. It has the potential to be a very gloomy future and there will be none of the traditional progressive institutions to come to our rescue. This is a very depressing book but worth reading.

Here, one of my favorite authors, and commentators argues that in a traditional democracy, the liberal class serves as a safety value for slowly releasing the tensions that build up from the pressures of maintaining the status quo of the power elite. In point of fact, as he contends, it is liberals that actually give legitimacy to the power elite. However today, the relentless assault by the corporate state on the democratic values of our democracy has all but rendered our democratic process irrelevant: We have all become pawns and serfs in a game of pseudo democracy rigged by the corporate state: All thanks to weak kneed and limp-wristed liberals, who are the corporate class' most recent victim.

With their heads forever in the sand, liberals continue to live in the nether-nether world of passe democratic rhetoric and reveling in hollow acts of "democratic political theater." But more than this, all our political institutions are now being either overrun by, or co-opted by the dictates of the corporate and national security state. As but one example, today, we have begun to take globalization as an article of faith -- with only whimpering critiques. But more importantly, all values, liberal or otherwise, have begun to fall by the wayside when the time comes to stand up to mean-spirited, shallow and always greedy corporate dictates. Today it is the corporate narrative that has usurped religious, patriotic as well as moral messages, values and language. We now live in a Corporatocracy, and only the liberals stand between complete corporate rule and an awaking America to the living danger of a Fascist take over of the nation. And now the liberals have been completely co-opted.

Recent democrats, such as both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are rightly taken to task by the author. Bill Clinton is lambasted, for instance, for having consciously sold out the working class for corporate money: He passed NAFTA, and destroyed welfare, both of which, arguably, betrayed the working and poorer classes. And even more importantly, he along with the help of key conservative Republicans, ripped down the firewalls between commercial and investment banks. An act that effectively turned the banking system over to Wall Street speculators and led to the financial mess that the U.S. has today and from which it may never completely recover from.

Similarly, Barack Obama raised more than $600 million to run for president (the most ever raised in U.S. history by a single candidate running for a U.S. office), most of it from the very corporations engaged in the recent financial meltdown. Like the Cheney/Bush administration before him, Obama too has run interference for the continued looting of the U.S. Treasury by corporations. He has done this at the same time that he made a conscious calculation not to help the millions of Americans who have lost their homes because of bank repossessions or foreclosures. Not only has Obama failed to address the misery of our permanent class of unemployed, he has thumbed his nose at blacks too and especially those in the inner city underclass of his own tribe - the one group that just coincidentally voted for him at the rate of 93%. The only difference between a liberal and a conservative, is that a conservative has values worth fighting for.

In short, the author argues rather persuasively that the liberal class has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power. I could not agree with him more. Easily five Stars

Hedges's basic thesis is solid enough: it's that those we think of as liberals have checked their advocacy at the door, in order to gain prosperity, credit, acclaim etc. And his examples of the phenomena are accurate.

But his survey of the history of better liberals goes on for far longer than it needs to (you get his point long before he's finished -- for example, long transcripts of theater productions). And after that he slips into redundancy, and tacked on screeds about other issues (a late section on global warming seems to come from nowhere; the discussion seems worthwhile, but its placement makes the book seem disorganized).

He supports the thesis with transcripts of interviews he's conducted - - and they all support his points. But each interview is treated separately, segregated from the others. IMHO it would have been better if the salient points of the interviews were re-collated around their relevant points. But this might not be possible, I haven't attempted it - - I did wish, however, that chapters including these interviews were simply retitled as something like "So and So Chimes In."

I have a lot of respect for the points Hedges has made here. The points are solid. But I think he'd have done better with re-arranging his outline before writing (or adhering to his outline?) And even with that, the core of his points don't deserve a full book treatment.

The immediacy of the need for a book containing his points argues against an anthology containing an assortment of discussions like this. In the 18th Century, they had these things called "pamphlets." Too bad that format is gone.