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| Michael Harrington (Wikipedia) |
He exposes the side of America that many Americans were unaware of - the poverty of the rural poor and that of the inner cities. The Other America states that there exists a culture of poverty that prevents those caught in its grip from being able to rise above their state. Harrington's analysis also shows that the poor are poor not because of any personal failure of their own but rather because this is what the general society produced. The programs instituted in 60's and 70's have helped significantly but poverty and hunger are still factors of life for tens of millions of Americans.
The Great Recession, the result of several decades of supply side economics and deregulation, has thrown millions of Americans into poverty. As of September 2011, there were 46.2 million poor - the greatest number in the 52 years these statistics have been kept.
The right have a tough time distinguishing cause from effect. To hear the arguments popular on the right, it is as though the victims of the culture of poverty are actually the perpetrators. Protect the wealth of the richest and attack those who would help those who need it most (e.g., "the food stamp President"). Insist on returning to the policies that led us into the current mess and ignore the Keynesian fiscal policies that kept us out of serious depression for many decades. Focus on the deficit when the real issue right now is jobs.
Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from those that will benefit most and egged-on by the "fear and loathing" of the right wing media echo-chamber, these extremists have hijacked the national conversation . The "Third Way" politics of the center has been an inadequate response to the challenge posed by the radical right and their wealthy corporate backers.
Michael Harrington died in 1989. Since then there have been precious few progressive voices that challenge the conventional wisdom of the center and precious few centrists that challenge the lunacy of the right. And, after yesterday's primaries, there is one less progressive voice on the national stage. Dennis Kucinich was gerrymandered out of his district by Ohio's Republican-held legislature. He ran against a long term Democratic incumbent in another district and lost. I am truly sorry to see him leave Congress. Dennis will be missed - especially in the midst of the Iran debate as we hear the war hawks spitting out their timeless stupidities and as we slowly drift towards what would be another terrible and disastrous war in the Middle East.
Links:
The Lost Decade (NYT)
The Poverty of An Idea (Isserman, NYT)
Rereading Michael Harrington's The Other America (Dissent, 2002)
Note: An earlier version of this post sent you to an out of date website for the Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Change.
Wow, what a shame about Dennis Kucinich. You could always count on him to cut through the maze of complications and speak directly to the issue in a fair-minded manner. Yes, the sabre rattling is more tribal-ego games at the grossest level of school yard tough guys too insecure to feel their commonality with the entire human family.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I think Obama goes beyond at heart but can't speak out about is all the rah-rah our tribe (America) over against the other tribes. You see it in the work some presidents due AFTER they get out of office and work as did Carter and Clinton across the borders of nations more directly. And Obama is of a different era and even being both white and black (which helps him see the oneness of all people in a way many of us cannot due to the blindness of emphasizing the minute genetic differences in the family of many colors that humanity is), such that I sometimes feel he constrains his more truly unifying impulses beyond our borders and our skin colors because of the good he is trying to do in this U.S. circumstance of our radically polarized and divided country with all its racial and as you mention economic disparity issues.
It's a tough one we are up against but one that cannot stand for long without dire consequences. We are all too close now in so many ways to not see we are all in the same boat and what one does on affects the other because we are really that connected. The boat is shrinking (resources and population eating them up and internet/media communications and fast travel putting us in touch)such that if we don't blow it up first because we hold onto the old model/separate positions, we actually have the seeds for what is truly beyond the tribal anachronism.
So we are at a serious climactic crisis point in this new turn of the century and 2012. We could all use some bottom line ongoing education about our prior unity (inherent, already so) so we can catch up to what is happening (even what is really already the case - reminds me of the clinging to Newtonian mechanics vs. Quantum mechanics) and the actual possibilities of a unified field as opposed to a cataclysmic collapse of earth systems and wars because we didn't open our eyes (and hearts) in time. The old way is already dead, something new must replace it.
Thanks for the insightful comments, Dennis. With the upcoming presidential elections and the decades-old fear of Democrats of being painted as not patriotic because of attacks by jingoists and war hawks, I'm afraid we will not see much Nobel Peace Prize leadership from Obama on foreign affairs (e.g., Palestinian-Israeli peace process thanks to AIPAC) or on other issues that have effects beyond our borders (e.g., climate change thanks to the deregulation frenzy churned up by Republicans). The focus is limited to November 2012. After that, if Obama wins a second term, there will be no excuse for him not to live up to the promise of his Peace Prize.
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