Robert Reich: The hatred’s mutual

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/05/have_the_parties_ever_hated_each_other_more/

The hatred’s mutual
On the eve of the election, party vitriol has reached a fever pitch. Is this normal, or is America at civil war?
By Robert Reich



The vitriol is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarmy 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness.

snip//

But I think the degree of venom we’re experiencing has deeper roots.

The nation is becoming browner and blacker. Most children born in California are now minorities. In a few years America as a whole will be a majority of minorities. Meanwhile, women have been gaining economic power. Their median wage hasn’t yet caught up with men, but it’s getting close. And with more women getting college degrees than men, their pay will surely exceed male pay in a few years. At the same time, men without college degrees continue to lose economic ground. Adjusted for inflation, their median wage is lower than it was three decades ago.

In other words, white working-class men have been on the losing end of a huge demographic and economic shift. That’s made them a tinder-box of frustration and anger – eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other pedlars of petulance, including an increasing number of Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames.

That hate-mongering and attendant scapegoating – of immigrants, blacks, gays, women seeking abortions, our government itself – has legitimized some vitriol and scapegoating on the left as well. I detest what the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and Paul Ryan are doing, and I hate their politics. But in this heated environment I sometimes have to remind myself I don’t hate them personally.

snip//

So we come to the end of a bitter election feeling as if we’re two nations rather than one. The challenge – not only for our president and representatives in Washington but for all of us – is to rediscover the public good.

[ailsagirl]

1. AMEN, Professor Reich

[mrsadm]

4. Yes but the haters don't care about the public good!

Otherwise an excellent essay

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Posted to for later viewing.

[silverweb]

3. All too true.

[Charlotte Little]

5. Spot on...

We're in a shitload of trouble if, in fact, decency and a sense of community is not restored in this country. We haven't seen our darkest days yet if we keep sliding down into the muck. Sadly, young white males are suffering - but instead of teaching them tolerance, kindness (towards women & all races, for certain) and respect (for themselves, others and the country as a whole), they're being taught to hate, be suspicious and fear both government and diversity. The fanatics are but a small army with a loud, ugly voice, but they do exist and aren't going away anytime soon unless they are just eventually out bred - which is exactly what is happening. Until then - look out! Limbaugh, Levine, Trump, Coulter, etc. are leeches who are sucking them dry to make a profit all while inciting them to greater anger and possible violence.

In the famous words of Rodney King - "Can we all get along?"

[defacto7]

6. Here's to peace

understanding, tolerance, and the knowledge that we all live and breath on the same life giving planet.

and, that we're all naked under our clothes.

[pipoman]

7. Reich is a traitor to labor.

At the same time, men without college degrees continue to lose economic ground. Adjusted for inflation, their median wage is lower than it was three decades ago.

Thanks in HUGE part to the policies supported by Reich himself.

Despite his reputation as a liberal and a friend of working men and women, Reich knows how to walk both sides of the street. I recall that he rarely, if ever, mentioned unions during his four years as Secretary of Labor. He has no problem backing proposals that cheer business more than labor, like ending the corporate income tax. If you read his recent book, Supercapitalism, you would think Steve Forbes was the writer. But no, it's the former Secretary of Labor calling for eliminating a tax that helps keep down the tax burden on working men and women across this nation. Does Senator Obama support that Reich idea? Is eliminating the corporate income tax going to be part of the "change we can believe in"?

Reich says that corporate responsibility is counterproductive. He thinks it's a distraction. That's beautiful. Here we have a former Secretary of Labor, someone who should know better, taking the GOP line that corporations need to focus on making money and forget about everything else. The movement for social responsibility has promoted ethical decision-making in business, community development programs, day-care centers, HIV-AIDS training, family-friendly workplaces, and more. To suggest that those developments are a distraction from the responsibility of corporations to amass profits for shareholders, as Secretary Reich does in his book, is shameful.

So is his support for NAFTA. Reich says unfair trade pacts bear no responsibility for the decline in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Two months ago, Reich wrote that "it's a shame the Democratic candidates for president feel they have to make trade - specifically NAFTA - the enemy of blue-collar workers and the putative cause of their difficulties. NAFTA is not to blame." He's wrong on NAFTA, just as Obama's chief economic advisor Professor Goolsbee was wrong on NAFTA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-mcentee/robert-reichs-endorsement_b_97450.html

Again, he is a traitor to US labor. The most repugnant thing about Robert Reich isn't that he hates working class people, not even that he took a shit on labor while acting as Labor Secretary, no, it's his repeated writings pretending he doesn't know the damage he, himself, has done to this country.

[Beowulf]

8. actually,

I hate them personally as well.

[forestpath]

9. I DO hate the Koch brothers, Rove, Norquist, Murdoch and Ryan personally -

and that's just for starters.

[LiberalElite]

14. So do I n/t

[JackN415]

10. I used to argue with other non-extremist conservatives...

that the problem with Republicans is that the party elites prey on and exploit the basest instinct of whites in the lower socio-economic strata. It is a marriage made in hell: one side gets to control power, to solidify their plutocracy, the other side gets to be pandered with their hatred and their sense of "take back our country", but get even more exploited economically without their knowledge, which feeds the cycle of frustration and hatred and extremism. This is how fascism is born. The Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and Paul Ryan are truly guilty with respect to democracy and human decency.

[Doctor_J]

11. Untrue, unfortunately

We're dealing with people who literally want us dead, and our response is to "GOTV" and "take the high road". We'll make some serious progress in getting our country back from them when we start to despise them as they despise us. They are terrorists, traitors, and fascists. If you don't hate the Cock brothers and Rove, you are part of the problem.

[LiberalElite]

15. I, for one, am not taking the high road - I'm not that evolved LOL Back atcha, right wing!

[Mojo2]

12. I wish I didn't hate

but the tactics and actions of the GOP and Tea Baggers over the past 10 years has cause hatred to rage inside my heart. I find people like Rush Limbaugh, Dickless Cheney, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, Koch Brothers, Steve King, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Newt Gingrich to all be sick and demented people that have no care or compassion for their fellow human being. These people have made me reevaluate my religious beliefs, as they have hid behind the bible in order to drive their dangerous agendas. Surely, the Jesus Christ that I learned about as a child, the one that had compassion for the poor and the weakest of all mankind, the one that threw out the money lenders from the market would not accept the values of the GOP, but it has been driven down my throat that they are the party of religion. These people have lied and cheated for the love of money and power, how many young men and women have been sent to their deaths in order to secure oilfields for Haliburtons profit, how many innocent children in Iraq and Afghan have been slaughtered in the name of greed. We are told that if we slam a President like George W. Bush then we are unpatriotic, but at the same time these people have uttered profane and hostile things about Obama, but they are not unpatriotic. Im tired of playing on a field that has ever changing rules that only benefit their agenda and we Liberals and Independents are suppose to suck it up and follow them. Asking me to forgive and forget all of their hatred is something that I am not willing to do. At this point, I have drawn a line and the sand and will not be allowed to be pushed around by these cowards, sometimes in life, you have to smack a bully in the teeth in order to stand your ground. I hope that Dem's have learned that we have to have a backbone in dealing with these people, or they will forever force their wills on us. While in a Utopian society, it would be wonderful to all get along, but it is impossible when dealing with the radical right.

[LiberalElite]

16. Didn't we use to kind of get along?

When there were Liberals and Moderates as well as Conservatives - and the Conservatives weren't all lunatics? It wasn't Utopia but it was better than now.

[chalky]

13. "That’s made them a tinder-box of frustration and anger -

eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other pedlars of petulance, including an increasing number of Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames. "

Hey, it worked for Hitler.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

17. +1 nt