You turn on the news. Let’s say it’s FOX. They accuse President Barack Obama of reckless spending and then flash to citizens rallying around republican presidential hopefuls –unsurprising to say the least. You change the channel to MSNBC to hear the other side of the story. They comment on the tea party members’ opposition to the American Jobs Act, talk about the death throes of the stock market and then tales of continued trouble in Afghanistan. Well that was weird. Where were the radical leftists?
Sure, the program may have had some pundit talking about the ludicrous behavior of the tea party. Possibly there was a segment claiming that the American Jobs Act was responsible spending. Nonetheless, it was pretty mild leftism at best. Where were the mobs of radical leftists to balance the mob of radical rightists receiving coverage on the news? In short, there aren’t many to cover in the United States.
Since the ‘60s, it seems that the far left has been slowly deflating to the point of no mention today. From the Cold War with the former Soviet Union to hyped-up fear of communist China, we find it hard to seriously consider the left as a viable political option. We have long since forgotten the importance of the muckrakers, the New Deal and the Great Society. The term “progressive” is a term that has been gobbled up by any politician with a mouth because of its positive connotations – but who among us can give the definition of a progressive?
For all intents and purposes, the left turned into the right when the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) got the axe with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Former President Bill Clinton “ended welfare as we knew it” (his own words) with this gesture. Some would view Obama as a member of the left, but I would suggest that this shows just how far right our nation has gone. Would a leftist president extend billions in tax cuts to the richest Americans further increasing economic inequality? Would a leftist president look to pass a universal health care bill weakened by attempts at bipartisanship? No. Our president is a moderate.
After 30 years of the moderate and the right, we sit in unimaginable debt, social inequality and war. We have had the stock market crash due to the deregulation of the housing market. We have instated food subsidies that have benefitted the powerful food interests over the weak food interests – which has in turn led to healthy, but high-priced foods. We have the rich pay taxes on a smaller percentage of their income than the poor.
Perhaps we recognize that the American “left” is really not the left at all. Perhaps it’s time for us to actually consider the ideas that we once cherished during the golden years of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. I think it’s time to hear from the left.