Viola Said:

Why does the media not report dirty democrats?

We Answered:

If the "media" did not report this story, how did you find out about it?

Evelyn Said:

Why do people claim that Time Magazine isn't liberal-leaning?

We Answered:

Time magazine is liberal just like Newsweek.

Kathy Said:

Was The Nation right about Prohibition and the War on Poverty in 1900?

We Answered:

Joseph Kennedy thought so.

Marc Said:

Why are Liberals making excuses for Obama's CONSERVATIVE way of 'Health care reform'?

We Answered:

It's a class issue

Liberalism is in a sorry state for social, historical and moral reasons. Most of those who might once have protested are now wealthy, part of the establishment, more concerned about the health of the stock market than the state of democratic rights. Intellectual and spiritual decay have accompanied financial success. More generally, the demands of the capitalist market have proven incompatible, in the long run, with the program of social reformism, particularly as the latter has been diluted and its proponents drained of energy and determination both by the growth of social antagonisms in the US and the obligations imposed on the American ruling elite by its role as the pre-eminent imperialist power.

Contemporary liberal politicians and the like are for justice and equality for everyone and resolutely opposed to the ultra-right—as long as it doesn't require them to work up a sweat. In income, lifestyle and outlook they are much closer to Republicans than to working class and middle class voters.

In the final analysis, the liberal wing of the ruling elite fears the same social process as their conservative counterparts: the radicalization of wide layers of the population and their advancement of their own independent interests, above all, social equality. It fears this more than anything, including police-state dictatorship.

In The History of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky cited the comment of a Russian philosopher, who spoke more forthrightly than our present-day liberals—at least out loud: “Whatever we [liberals] stand for, we must not dream of uniting with the people—we must fear them more than all the persecutions of the government, and we must give thanks to the government which alone protects us with its prisons and bayonets from the ferocity of the people.” Voila!

Obama’s health care counterrevolution is of a piece with his entire domestic agenda. It parallels the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, the imposition of mass layoffs and wage and benefits cuts in the auto industry, and a stepped-up attack on public education and on teachers.

The economic crisis has been seized upon by the American financial aristocracy, with the Obama administration as its central instrument, to carry through a class-war agenda, long in preparation, that is directed against the vast majority of the American people. All that remains of the social reforms from the 1930s and 1960s, and the gains won by previous generations of workers in bitter struggle, is to be wiped out.

The immense growth of social inequality and the domination of society and the political system by a financial aristocracy are incompatible with institutions and programs that retain any vestige of a democratic and egalitarian impulse. Public education and health care must be reorganized more openly and directly along class lines.

This is the basic program of all factions of the ruling elite—liberal and conservative, Democratic and Republican.

Eduardo Said:

Why would an American magazine use international numbers to bash their own nation?

We Answered:

Well, Bethy... you have to consider what kind of American people it is that's doing the rating. Then you will have your answer.