We were struck by a recent column by Mr. Greider, “The End of New Deal Liberalism,”(link here):
The power shift did not start with Obama, but his tenure confirms and completes it. The corporates began their systematic drive to dismantle liberal governance back in the 1970s, and the Democratic Party was soon trying to appease them, its retreat whipped along by Ronald Reagan’s popular appeal and top-down tax cutting. So long as Democrats were out of power, they could continue to stand up for liberal objectives and assail the destructive behavior of business and finance (though their rhetoric was more consistent than their voting record). Once back in control of government, they lowered their voices and sued for peace. Beholden to corporate America for campaign contributions, the Democrats cut deals with banks and businesses and usually gave them what they demanded, so corporate interests would not veto progressive legislation.
He continues, saying that President Obama is complicit in the shady dealmaking.
Obama has been distinctively candid about this. He admires the “savvy businessmen” atop the pinnacle of corporate power. He seeks “partnership” with them. The old economic conflicts, like labor versus capital, are regarded as passé by the “new Democrats” now governing. The business of America is business. Government should act as steward and servant, not master.
Dylan had the opportunity to speak to Bill for this podcast.
“Well, I’ve been singing this song for some years, and I’m repeating it again. We were all born as citizens, and we have partly by our own negligence but mainly by design, we have been stripped of our role as citizens and turned into mere spectators who can bounce up and down on the couch and get mad at the right and wrong things. We don’t act like citizens — we can, but it’s not easy, it’s hard work, but I really do believe we will change this when people everywhere begin to take themselves seriously again and act like citizens,” says Bill.
Democrats, he says, are equally complicit in lacking the motivation to push for change that could improve where our country is.
“This is a longer story about the decay of the political institutions and the mediating institutions that, in my view, are too close to the democratic party, and often for good reasons. But that side is largely disorganized; organized labor, which was and remains a principal voice for the working class, has been decimated in the last thirty years. I’ve covered it as a reporter, it’s an incredible story of how – and often with government collaboration by democrats in power. That’s happened. Nevertheless, there are a few institutions that could help lead. I think it has to come, literally, from the grassroots up. I see some signs of that but that’s my church. That’s what I’m preaching,” says Bill.
So, how can we possibly incite change?
“The reason I have faith in this, corny as it sounds, is I think that’s the story of American history. And I think if you go back over our two hundred years plus, you will see that it was always people of rather humble and oppressed status rising up and trying to force this country to live by its ideals. And some of those struggles took not just a generation but several generations — civil rights and liberation of African-Americans in bondage is one of the most dramatic example, but there are others,” says Bill.
Bill says that his more than 35 years of reporting on politics in Washington gives him not only perspective, but hope.
“What I’m trying to convince people to think about is ‘where are we in this storyline?’ We are not triumphant. We are not exultant. We are not the most generous and loving country on earth. I’m not searching for comparisons, because we’re Americans and we’ll take care of America. I get excited because as a reporter over many years, I know this is in people. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people of very humble status — and they didn’t have any power at all — take themselves seriously as citizens. And then discover things within them that they didn’t even know were there,” says Bill. “This is a kind of universal possibility that I think democracy offers people. And that’s what I’m trying to teach,” says Bill.
“I can’t think of a more valuable lesson,” says Dylan. “We have been here before, this country has been through these kind of dynamics before, and there are solutions to these problems. They are not necessarily easy to do, but they are not necessarily complicated to do. The more collectively we can move ourselves up the educational curve to put the type of problems that we have today of concentrated power and wealth as this country has suffered in the past, and how someone like Teddy Roosevelt solved those problems in the past makes it seems more achievable that we can solve the problems of the present,” says Dylan.
William Greider is national affairs correspondent for The Nation. His book Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country describes the epic turning point in our nation’s history driven by financial crisis, economic deterioration and other fundamental adversities.