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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKavenaugh and the Bullying Class (Robert Reich)
Thank Goodness we still have voices like Robert Reich. It gives me reason to continue hope.
Kavenaugh and the Bullying Class
As a kid I was always a head shorter than other boys, which meant I was bulliedmocked, threatened, sometimes assaulted.
America has become a culture of bullyingthe wealthier over the poorer, those with privilege and pedigree over those without, the whiter over the browner and blacker.
Sometimes the bullying involves physical violence. More often it entails intimidation, displays of dominance, demands for submission, or arbitrary decisions over the lives of those who feel they have no choice but to accept them.
The question is whether those who are bullied will fight back. (I did, finally, and it made all the difference.)
The drama that took place in the Kavanaugh-Ford hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27 was a window into our bullying culture.
The stakes on one side were the power of men who harass or abuse women and get away with it, of privileged white men to entrench their power even more on the Supreme Court, and of men vested with official power to take away a womans right to choose what she does with her body.
The stakes on the other were the power of women with the courage to tell what has happened to them, to demand an end to white male privilege, and to preserve and enlarge their constitutional rights.
Dr. Ford was poised, articulate, clear and convincing. No one who witnessed her testimony and her responses could fail to conclude that she told the truth. More than that: She radiated self-assured power.
Brett Kavanaugh, by contrast, showed himself to be a vicious partisana Trump-like figure who feels entitled to do and say whatever he wants, who suspects left-wing plots against him, who seems to refuse to take responsibility for his actions, and who appears to use emotional bullying and intimidation to get his way.
Whatever happens to Kavanaugh, a large share of the American public will never trust him to be impartial. Many will never believe his denials of sexual assault. Most will continue to see him as the privileged, arrogant, self-righteous person he revealed himself to be.
Which brings us to the coming midterm election. It is not really about Democrats or Republicans, left or right, socialism or capitalism.
It is about the power of people who are rich, white, privileged, or maleor all of the aboveto bully those who arent. And the courage of the bullied to fight back.
Donald Trump is Americas bully-in-chief. He exemplifies those who use their wealth to gain power and celebrity, harass or abuse women and get away with it, lie without consequence, violate the law with impunity, and rage against anyone who calls them on their bullying.
Trump became president by exploiting the anger of millions of white working class Americans who have been bullied for decades by CEOs and Wall Street.
Even as corporate profits have ballooned and executive pay has gone into the stratosphere, these workers have been hammered. Their pay has gone nowhere, their benefits have shrunk, their jobs are less secure.
Trump has used their anger to build his political base, channeling their frustrations and anxieties into racism and nativismencouraging Americans who have been bullied to feel more powerful by bullying people with even less power: poor black people, Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, families seeking asylum.
This con game has been played before in history, by self-described strongmen who pretend to be tribunes of the oppressed by scapegoating the truly powerless.
Trump is no tribune of the people. He and his enablers in the Republican Party are working for the moneyed interests that fund themthe Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, Steve Wynn, big corporations and Wall Streetdispensing tax cuts, slashing regulations, and creating more opportunities for them to profit off public lands, coastal waters, and public spending.
Make no mistake. The moneyed interests are Americas real bullying class. They have enlarged their wealth by repressing wages (or pushing the companies they invest in to do so), and enlarged their political power through gerrymandering and suppressing votes (or pushing their political lackeys to do so).
Their capacity to bully has grown as the nations wealth has become concentrated in fewer hands, the economy more monopolized, and American politics more engulfed in big money.
It is time to fight the real bullies. It is time for the disempowered and dispossessed to reclaim the economic and political power that is rightfully theirs.
It all begins with the midterm elections, November 6.
https://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-kavanaugh-and-bullying-class-opinion-1145894
BigmanPigman
(51,611 posts)Really, just the tone of his voice makes anything easier to understand and he has so much experience. I heard him speak several years ago. He is a good man!
Arkansas Granny
(31,519 posts)renate
(13,776 posts)I miss seeing him on TV. Its been a long time... it was always a pleasure to listen to him.
lindysalsagal
(20,692 posts)LAS14
(13,783 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,011 posts)It will be corrected peacefully through elections (higher taxes on the rich) or not.
ZeroSomeBrains
(638 posts)It is often connected to a toxic white male culture and a sense of entitlement. Heavy drinking is added to the mix and excuses are made for those who go too far. As long as you stick together then nothing you do matters. Thankfully I got out of this type of culture. Hopefully we all as a country can move on and learn from this one day.
misanthrope
(7,418 posts)America was founded as a place where only white men above a certain line of socio-economic demarcation were full citizens. All others had to fight like hell for whatever slight crumbs were brushed to them from the table where the privileged gorged. We practiced genocide. We deprived non-whites of recognition as full human beings. Women were treated as chattel. Children were disposable labor. The huddled masses were welcomed because they made good grist for the mills of capitalism.
The few liberties that have been gained by those outsiders are under assault as we speak. I respect your hope, Mr. Reich but America is graduating back to the mean.
2naSalit
(86,650 posts)PatrickforO
(14,578 posts)He was a great Secretary of Labor and he is a great economist.
And he's damned right about the elections in November.