Re: Dude, Where's That Elite?

LOL, let me say from what I've seen of the tide in these parts DUCK, I
smell cordite in the air. Now where did I put that flak jacket?



On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 05:42:23 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous via the
Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer <nobody@cypherpunks.to> wrote:

~|>Dude, Where's That Elite?
~|>by Barbara Ehrenreich
~|>
~|>You can call Michael Moore all kinds of things â loudmouthed,
obnoxious
~|>and self-promoting, for example. The anorexic Ralph Nader, in what
must be
~|>an all-time low for left-wing invective, has even called him fat.
The one
~|>thing you cannot call him, though, is a member of the "liberal
elite."
~|>
~|>Sure, he's made a ton of money from his best sellers and
award-winning
~|>documentaries. But no one can miss the fact that he's a genuine son
of the
~|>U.S. working class â of a Flint autoworker, in fact â because it's
built
~|>right into his "branding," along with flannel shirts and baseball
caps.
~|>
~|>My point is not to defend Moore, who â with a platoon of bodyguards
and a
~|>legal team starring Mario Cuomo â hardly needs any muscle from me.
I just
~|>think it's time to retire the "liberal elite" label, which, for the
past
~|>25 years, has been deployed to denounce anyone to the left of Colin
~|>Powell. Thus, last winter, the ultra-elite right-wing Club for
Growth
~|>dismissed followers of Howard Dean as a "tax-hiking,
government-expanding,
~|>latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York
Times-reading,
~|>body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show." I've
experienced
~|>it myself: speak up for the downtrodden, and someone is sure to
accuse you
~|>of being a member of the class that's doing the trodding.
~|>
~|>The notion of a sinister, pseudocompassionate liberal elite has
been
~|>rebutted, most recently in Thomas Frank's brilliant new book,
"What's the
~|>Matter With Kansas?," which says the aim is "to cast the Democrats
as the
~|>party of a wealthy, pampered, arrogant elite that lives as far as
it can
~|>from real Americans, and to represent Republicanism as the faith of
the
~|>hard-working common people of the heartland, an expression of their
~|>unpretentious, all-American ways, just like country music and
Nascar."
~|>
~|>Like the notion of social class itself, the idea of a liberal elite
~|>originated on the left, among early 20th-century anarchists and
~|>Trotskyites who noted, correctly, that the Soviet Union was
spawning a
~|>"new class" of power-mad bureaucrats. The Trotskyites brought this
theory
~|>along with them when they mutated into neocons in the 60's, and it
was
~|>perhaps their most precious contribution to the emerging American
right.
~|>Backed up by the concept of a "liberal elite," right-wingers could
crony
~|>around with their corporate patrons in luxuriously appointed think
tanks
~|>and boardrooms â all the while purporting to represent the average
~|>overworked Joe.
~|>
~|>Beyond that, the idea of a liberal elite nourishes the right's
perpetual
~|>delusion that it is a tiny band of patriots bravely battling an
evil power
~|>structure. Note how richly the E-word embellishes the screeds of
Ann
~|>Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and their co-ideologues, as in books
subtitled
~|>"Rescuing American from the Media Elite," "How Elites from
Hollywood,
~|>Politics and the U.N. Are Subverting America," and so on.
Republican
~|>right-wingers may control the White House, both houses of Congress
and a
~|>good chunk of the Supreme Court, but they still enjoy portraying
~|>themselves as Davids up against a cosmopolitan-swilling,
corgi-owning
~|>Goliath.
~|>
~|>Yes, there are some genuinely rich folks on the left â Barbra
Streisand,
~|>Arianna Huffington, George Soros â and for all I know, some of them
are
~|>secret consumers of French chardonnays and loathers of televised
~|>wrestling. But the left I encounter on my treks across the nation
is heavy
~|>on hotel housekeepers, community college students, laid-off
steelworkers
~|>and underpaid schoolteachers. Even many liberal celebrities â like
Jesse
~|>Jackson and Gloria Steinem â hail from decidedly modest
circumstances.
~|>David Cobb, the Green Party's presidential candidate, is another
proud
~|>product of poverty.
~|>
~|>It's true that there are plenty of working-class people â though
far from
~|>a majority â who will vote for Bush and the white-tie crowd that he
has
~|>affectionately referred to as his "base." But it would be redundant
to
~|>speak of a "conservative elite" when the ranks of our corporate
rulers are
~|>packed tight with the kind of Republicans who routinely avoid the
~|>humiliating discomforts of first class for travel by private jet.
~|>
~|>So liberals can take comfort from the fact that our most visible
spokesman
~|>is, despite his considerable girth, an invulnerable target for the
~|>customary assault weapon of the right. I meant to comment on his
movie,
~|>too, but the lines at my local theater are still prohibitively
long.
~|>
~|>Barbara Ehrenreich will be a guest columnist for the New York Times
Op-Ed
~|>page through July.
~|>
~|>Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company



~~~Fortes Fortuna Juvat~~~
~~~~~Veritas Vincit~~~~~~~