Why No Sustained Protests (Yet)? [View all]
Why No Sustained Protests (Yet)?
Sunday, 13 April 2014 00:00 By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed
May Day 2912 protests in Chicago.May Day 2912 protests in Chicago. The organized post-1945 destruction of the New Deal coalition - unionists, socialists and communists - and the failure to replace those organizations helps explain the muted reaction to the bailouts, austerity and other anti-democratic policies pursued by US governments at all levels.
The post-1945 destruction of the New Deal coalition - unionists, socialists and communists - keeps influencing Americans' lives. Today, its effects help explain why popular actions have been so muted against US economic changes since the 1970s and especially against the bailouts and austerity since the crash of 2008. Those effects also suggest what could reignite sustained protests and demands for change.
First to be destroyed after 1945 were the communists. Coordinated attacks came from business, conservatives, government and media. Most academics and liberals (including many who had supported the New Deal coalition) were complicit in that destruction. Once again we witnessed that old repressive tool: rebranding domestic social movements as mere agents of an evil foreign puppet-master. More important, demonizing the communists served to tar other social criticism that included the capitalist economic system with much the same brush.
Second went the socialists ...
More here: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/23026-why-no-sustained-protests-yet
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