GRITtv: Alexander Cockburn: Glenn Beck's Cynicism vs. the Left's Failings

Alexander Cockburn talks about anger with the banks, the left's failure to understand it, and Glenn Beck's ability to capitalize on it.
GRITtv with Laura Flanders brings participatory democracy onto your computer screen and into your living room, bridging the gap between audience and advocates. Watch any show, at any time: http://grittv.org

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• grittv
• grit tv
• laura flanders
• alexander cockburn
• CUNY
• glenn beck
• capitalism
• banks
• bailouts
• left
• anger

[FRTothus]

"Freedom" in the US is the freedom to starve to death, to be taken advantage of by huge, government-supported amoral (and often immoral) corporations, the "freedom" to be homeless, jobless, and destitute, and un-represented by the corporate whores called politicians. "Freedom" is to be ruled by laws that are cobwebs for the rich, and chains of steel for the poor.

[t0kt0k]

I agree completely

[nickvonmises]

I want to melt the walls that divide us. I want a solace from disparity. I was spinning until I discovered a new idea, maximize freedom. It's a formula we should perfect. Stay out of eachothers bedrooms, bathrooms and wallets. Make every bit of our society concentual. Who can be against this? Let's step into the future together with hands clasped. Leave our hate and judgments behind. Be one race again, be a family again.

[flimpkin4]

Cockburn is a god.

[28g34ajbsd]

@DaHonestAbe Yeah, but democracy at its best would've maybe produced some results, eh? :) The most cynical yet genius way Bush co-opted those was to say, "You see? We can disagree. That's the value of democracy. Now, Iraqis don't have that... and we're gonna bring it to them."

So now you can protest all you want in front of an East Baghdad checkpoint - "Give us back our water and electricity!" - and if the protest is a success your lot doesn't get massacred by soldiers. Democracy at its finest.

[DaHonestAbe]

@28g34ajbsd I remember watching the protests around the world against the war. And the crazy thing about it, most people in those countries had no real relation to Iraq. It was simply democracy at it's best. Berlusconi tried using some of his semi fascist thugs to beat up demonstrators. Not too surprising, I guess.

[28g34ajbsd]

@DaHonestAbe Yes, and was poorly covered. Specifically I'm referencing the million people protesting in Washington---got less coverage than some 100,000 Beck fans.

[DaHonestAbe]

@28g34ajbsd "Failing to report on the largest anti-war movement in history, they make amends by reporting the shit out of astro-turfed Tea Party rallies. "

Are you referencing the fact that the entire world actually protested against the war?



[28g34ajbsd]

@DaHonestAbe It has and is being studied, it's just that a book by Robert O. Paxton won't exactly make a cheerful 9am discussion on CNN, and American journalism has a built-in flaw of failing to follow and report on large-scale long-running social issues and movements--almost zero stories on racism in the press before the Civil Rights movement got feet. Failing to report on the largest anti-war movement in history, they make amends by reporting the shit out of astro-turfed Tea Party rallies.

[28g34ajbsd]

@colourmegone That will never happen, but it is not unprecedented in US political history. Some presidents - Democrat and Republican - did speak out saying, "These business assholes and the bought-and-paid-for Congress want me to enact pretty harsh anti-poor people stuff and I don't know what the fuck." There wouldn't be so much confusion as to why people feel betrayed by the health insurance 'reform' if he'd said, 'Yep, had to kill the public option, and don't get me started on single payer..."

[28g34ajbsd]

@FRTothus

Of course, totalitarian top-down state-controlled communist systems had an unsustainable economy, but at least there was food and education and public infrastructure and modernization. And this nitwit neoclassical market fundamentalist fictional-capital policy is the same corporatization, except by the private sector. So same extreme shit basically - an inverted totalitarianism - only this time nobody even pretends to give a fuck about the poor and the workers and the middle-class.

[28g34ajbsd]

@FRTothus

Well, in the States it's a bigger taboo to quote him than Goebbels, but that loaded abstraction of a word should always be complemented/countered by questions Lenin asked: Yes, but freedom for whom, to do what?

And his response (the freedom of the business tycoon to exploit workers) seems more relevant today than ever.